RaePear

Teenage girl Rose Pierce just lost her mother in what seems to be an unfortunate car accident. The one thing she can remember her mother saying to her was that society is a social construct, meant to destroy people's lives.
As Rose moves to a new school completely out of the area, she starts to realize why her mother treated it as if it were a poison and hated it so much.

Pretty Poison

It has been three weeks since my mother's funeral and all I can think about is what she would want me to do right now, and I am dreading the answer that I already know. My mother would want me to go back to school and slowly act like nothing happened. I haven't been in school for a month. 


    "Rose, it's time to wake up!" My father said to me from the other side of my bedroom door.


    Sometimes, I wonder why my father doesn't just open the door and let himself in. This is his house, too.


    "Cmon, Rose. Get ready! You have school in an hour." My father screamed through the door, which launched me out of bed, bolting to my closet.


    I grabbed my mother's swim hoodie and sighed. It had a dolphin in the center of the back with the name 'Janessa Sorenson' on top in bold italicized letters. Without hesitation, I put my mother's hoodie on and a pair of jeans. The shoes I am placing on are shoes of my mother's. Blue converse with flames on the sides.


    My mother was always the greatest painter. It was her job actually. She was an artist. She painted shoes, paper, phone cases, you name it. She made a lot of money off of doing it. Everyone loved her work and I admired that my mother was doing what she dreamt of doing when she was a kid. Shockingly, not many kids can dream like that and keep it consistent.


    "ROSE!" My dad shouted and I opened my door aggressively, looking at him as though he was interrupting my morning ritual.


    "Ready." I said and my dad raised his eyebrow largely at me, but I didn't care for what he was going to say next.


    I already know that he is going to tell me to put it back and to act like nothing happened, but that isn't easy to do. It's been five weeks since my mother died and all I can think about is what she would do if she were in my shoes. She would act like everything's fine, but I am not as strong as my mother in that section of life.


    I wasn't expecting that. He is actually going to let me wear the hoodie and I feel content with myself in these few minutes.


    My father walks outside, holding Arianna and he unlocks the car doors. I hop in the front and he is snapping my sister into the buckles of her orange car seat. Orange was my mother's favorite color.


    "So, Rose, are you excited for school?" My dad asked me and I shook my head, sighing.


    "Father, I'm never going to be ready." I said.


    I sat in the car, drowning my thoughts into the music playing in the headphones. I am listening to Panic At The Disco because my mother and I loved Brandon Urie. We would obsess over how cute he was and how good his voice is for a man in the music industry.


    Just before I know it, the car is put to a stop.


    "We're here." My father said, getting out of the car and grabbing my baby sister.


    I got out of the car very slowly, looking at the school campus. I let out a big sign of paranoia and I walked onto the campus for the first time in a month. 


    I walked to the building in the front, which was their office building. My father went with me because I asked him to. He brought Arianna with him, of course. 


    "The Pierce family. Hello!" The principal said to us and I honestly just wanted to be at home in my bed with my stuffed animals and washed up dreams of my mother still being alive.


4: ROSE