Hardwicke, Hardwicke high school.

August 15, 2004

"Hey Rose! Rose, wait up!" I rolled my eyes as I heard Samuel calling my name from down the street, we typically walked to school together but he hadn't been waiting so I had continued walking on without him. School was only around the corner and down two blocks so it was an easy walk in a small town.

Turning, I laughed when my eyes focused on Samuel. He had one show on, the other was dangling in a hand while his other hand held a piece of toast but the toast wasn't making its way anywhere near his mouth because his bag was weighing his arm down. I stopped, feeling sorry for my friend who looked like he could do with a hand before we reached school.

"Here, let me hold your bag for a little bit while you put your other shoe on and eat your toast. Seriously, why did you sleep in this morning? It's not like you to be sleeping in!" It was true, today was the first day of our junior year and Samuel was always the excited one about our first days back at school. He was the one often knocking on my parents front door to see if I was ready and often I was the one running around, though I don't think I would be caught dead running down the street looking so unorganized.

"Oh thanks, here." Samuel handed me his bag, I almost dropped it as soon as he let go of the other strap. What was in his bag? It felt like a whole pile of bricks but was more likely books, which was stupid because we hadn't even had our first day of classes.

"Wait..are these all your overdue library books? You know you're going to have a huge bill waiting for you at the library, right?" Samuel groaned and gave me a look I knew well, it told me to shut up and that he knew all at the same time but because his mouth was full he couldn't say either thing right then.

When Samuel had put his show on, tucked his singlet into his pants and righted the rest of his clothes he took back his bag and chowed down the rest of his toast. It didn't look that nice, I don't even think it had butter on it.

"I worked this summer, remember? Or were you too busy drooling over Terrin Dawkins?" I went red, it was obvious by the sudden heat in my cheeks and the burst of laughter from Samuel.

"Shut up, it's not funny. At least I'm not slaving away so that Beth Ward might even look my way." That really hit a sensitive spot for Samuel and the smile was wiped clear from his face, I kind of knew that I had overstepped the mark there but I never had a filter when Samuel picked on me.

"I'm sorry Sam, I didn't mean it. This years is the year...right?" I asked, trying to pick his spirits up a little. Luckily for me Samuel was the most outgoing, happy person that I knew of and his smile was back on his face within moments.

"You've got burnt toast on your teeth, might want to run a finger over them before we get to school." Samuel and I were like that with each other, if I looked like I'd had a rough day he would tell me, if he had a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe I'd tell him. We were each others best friends, had been since we knew what people were I think.

"Thanks and yeah, here's hoping. Do you think I've got enough of a tan going on? I've saved all summer too so I don't see why not." I had already told Samuel that money wasn't the way to get his dream girl, but he assured me that it helped along the way. 

See, Bethany Ward was beautiful and even that is an understatement. You know how you have one girl in your high school who is just better than the rest? Well Beth is that, she's pretty, athletic and super friendly to everyone else around. I don't think there is a bad bone in her body, she volunteers at the local animal shelter with me too.

It was so weird walking in on my volunteer day and seeing her there looking so normal, before that day I had been too scared to approach her. She just seemed like this perfect being that could be easily tainted by anyone else around but she had made me feel welcome and while we weren't best friends we were pretty good friends. 

Samuel had been crushing on Beth for a few years now, she had transferred in our freshman year and had made a lot of friends really fast. All the boys wanted to get her attention but she had made it pretty clear that she wasn't interested in dating yet, but by the end of our sophomore year she had begun dating Drake Andrews.

He was a bit of a meat head, liked sports, hunting and big trucks. I don't know what Beth had seen in him but word had spread pretty quickly when the two had split three weeks into our summer break, you would think it would have made the main news of the evening but it hadn't.

"You know, if a guy said to me. I have money, let me take you out. I'd seriously think there was something wrong with him, I don't see how Beth is any different. And don't tell me it's because she's shallow, she isn't." That was one of the theories as to why no one was good enough for Beth, I don't know what her reasoning were for turning down half junior and senior male population at Hardwicke high but she had without an explanation.

"I wasn't even thinking that Rose! I already know from you that saying something like that to a girl would earn me a slap across the face, even thinking that would get me a slap. Don't worry, I've got it all pinned down to my amazing personality and my unavoidable charismatic smile. See? It's working on you, isn't it?" I laughed as Samuel turned his smile my way. 

"Come on doofus, at least you cleaned the toast out of your teeth." We had reached school, in that short time of talking and thinking...and walking. Time always did fly by so quickly whenever Samuel and I were together, it was a blink and the day was gone sort of moment.

We walked through the front doors of the school, waved to several people and a few other friends as we walked by them. Everyone looked so excited for school, except maybe me. I always dreaded that first day, I don't know why but Samuel called it a 'Rose thing'  because I apparently was the only one that ever felt that way.

"Hey Rose, hey Samuel. Did you both enjoy your summer break?" I turned, surprised to see that Beth was standing right next to Samuel. He didn't look so cool or calm on the outside, which meant his insides were probably in meltdown mode right now.

"Hey Beth, yeah it was pretty good. How was yours?" I decided to save Samuel from humiliation by steering the conversation away from him.

"Oh you know, just the usual. I spent it here in Hardwicke, I think I saw you a few times. Did you volunteer at the shelter this summer? Someone told me that they had too many volunteers so I didn't sign up, I figured I'd just wait until the mad rush was over and then I'd go back in." Samuel still hadn't said anything and his eyes were as big as saucers, I wondered if he had registered yet that Beth and I were not looking at him directly.

"No, I had been told the same thing but was going to go and register later on this week. Want to go together? Sam can't volunteer, he has an allergy to cat hair or something." Well it was either cat or dog hair that Samuel was allergic to, I remember showing up at his front door right after volunteering and he went bright red and a few welts popped up here and there.

"Oh no Sammy, that's too bad! It would have been fun if more students could volunteer, ya know?" Oh no, nicknames? Beth had only ever called me Rose but had barely spoken to Samuel and she was already giving him a nickname. I was sure Sam would tell her he hated that nickname because his mom and grandma called him that religiously but he only giggle like an idiot.

"I have money...will you go out with me?" I hid my face in my hands, that was the one thing I had made sure Sam had understood.

"Uh...Rose, is your friend okay? He's looking a little weird." Just when Beth finished asking her question I looked up to see Samuel heave my way, a split second later I was standing, covered in his vomit. 

A few students around us laughed but Beth shut them up with a glare, I could only stare at Samuel. My eye began twitching a little, what was this? In what universe was I vomited on by my best friend on the very first day of school? In front of a crowd of people? This was some sort of nightmare and I was ready to wake up now.

"Samuel!" I screeched when I realized and registered what had happened, Beth was already leading me down to the head office to see if anything could be done. At least Sam hadn't eaten much for breakfast, at least that I was thankful for.

"Does he do that a lot? Vomit I mean, not the whole asking girls out on dates and stuff. He's kinda cute, but really he's not my type...do you think?" The last thing I wanted to talk about was Beth and Sam dating, I wanted to be clean and in clean clothes. The smell of vomit was so gross, I was going to kill Samuel when we went home later in the day.

Twenty minutes later and I had a fresh set of clothes, my mom had driven down to the school, laughed at my predicament and then handed over the goods before going home again. Beth had been great and had missed home room to make sure I was fine, then again we shared the same home room so the excuse for her was easy.

"Thanks for helping Beth, I appreciate it." Beth and I went straight to our first period classes, which happened to be art. 

I wouldn't see Samuel until fourth period by which time I hoped he had an epic apology planned, because it was going to take a monumental amount of control on my part not to kill him.