The Roses Academy- the Entire Collection Read online

  “Uh-uhh—n-no—probably not coming but thanks for the invite.” All I needed was a cardigan, a blouse, and a cup of tea.

  “Please.” His blue eyes dazzled me.

  “Can’t.” I turned away, running as fast as I could. There needed to be space between him and me.

  My mind and heart wrestled over reactions.

  Part of me wished I’d grown a pair and just grabbed his face and did what I’d always dreamed of. I would put my hands up into his hair and pull his soft lips down on mine. Like he said, it was senior year and I was leaving. As my moron sister always said, YOLO!

  But the other part of me, the dominant part, refused to believe it would be reciprocated. Ever. He was being nice and I was reading too much into it.

  My crimson cheeks glowed in the mirrors of the girls’ bathroom. Being around him had grown harder in the past month. He was always there. Chatting and teasing and laughing.

  He wanted to be friends and I was having a hard time not staring at him.

  Why did he want me to come to his party?

  I never went to parties, mostly because I never got invited. But now that I was invited I realized I didn’t want to go.

  It would be depressing and gross to witness Shane and my sister there together.

  Especially since I was so obviously obsessed—unhealthily obsessed—with him.

  In the mirror of the cold bathroom I forced myself to peer into my eyes. They weren’t hollow the way they had been. In fact, they looked a bit like they did before.

  Shane was melting the ice around my heart.

  I pushed the thought away and went to my next class.

  After school I avoided my mom’s spot and took the bus home. I didn’t want Mom to see me crushing on my sister’s boyfriend, even though she would have understood. She knew I had loved him since I was old enough to recognize boys and girls were a different species altogether.

  When I got home my dad was closed up tight in his office. He had become a hermit. I wasn’t certain how vacation and bereavement leave worked in the real world, but eight months of not even trying to show up to work had to be bad. Not that I could judge him.

  I’d also spent eight months not really showing up.

  I grabbed a yogurt and went to my room to study but fell asleep instead.

  Fog covered my eyes, but I could hear the people around me panicking. I put my hands out, trying to reach them. My throat hurt from screaming as I tried to find everyone.

  But no one took my hand.

  When the fog cleared there were faces of people I didn’t know. They were calling for me. They were crying out. A guy with black eyes stood in the mist. He didn't help. He just stared until the scene changed and he was gone.

  Disaster had struck the city I was in, and I had a terrible suspicion it was my fault. Someone called my name—no, screamed it.

  “AIMEEEEEEE!”

  I gazed around the city filled with debris and again he was there—his dark eyes.

  I cried out just as he became Shane. Recognizing him made me try harder to get him to take my hand, but he pulled away, horrified for some reason. I shouted his name repeatedly, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Wake up, Aimee,” a soft voice whispered. It was my mom’s. I sighed and woke, softly at first and then I was startled.

  I struggled against my own embrace through the beads of sweat soaking me.

  “Mom?” The name slipped from my lips innocently. Realizing she wouldn't come I blinked and tried to get my bearings.

  I’d fallen asleep in my clothes again. Sitting up for a moment before I pulled my sweater off, I contemplated the dream. It was familiar or the same, maybe.

  The night air brushed against me, making me shiver from my sweat.

  I looked around expecting to see someone, certain that voices had woken me.

  It was her.

  Maybe she was trying to talk to me.

  Instead of thinking about it, I rolled on my back and slipped off my jeans and pulled the blankets around me. The enveloping darkness was a warm comfort inside my bed.

  I fell back to sleep and dreamed of him again, the guy with the black eyes. In the new dream I floated, staring at him with my parents and my sister. I was unable to drift down to touch the ground or control my movements at all. I floated in limbo, watching them.

  Chapter 2

  CTs and daydreams

  The next morning the breakfast table was grim as I contemplated my dreams. As usual, I remembered very little. I didn’t have garden-variety teenage-girl dreams anymore. Nothing about my life in eight months had been garden-variety.

  Tragedy had struck.

  There was no other way to say it.

  We were stricken.

  I got lost for an eternity for just a second.

  My mom had died.

  The day she died flitted about in my thoughts.

  I’d walked home from school the long way.

  A warm wind hit me.

  It was a cool day.

  I eyed the swaying trees and branches and briefly pondered it being the Santa Ana winds from California coming up the coast.

  I shivered at the exact moment my cell phone rang.

  Everything slowed when I answered.

  My sister screamed into the phone.

  My legs ceased to exist.

  My body crumpled on the side of the road.

  My soul literally made an attempt at leaving me.

  My chest felt as though it had ripped into a million tiny shards.

  Actual physical pain paralyzed me.

  For the first time in my life, I knew my heart’s exact location in my body.

  Her death took my breath and my sanity, simultaneously.

  I sat on the cold concrete and rocked back and forth in an attempt to block myself from the truth.

  Hope was taken from my world, snatched.

  A chunk of my heart had broken off and wilted on the ground in front of me.

  I didn’t know just how large of a piece it was.

  But I did know I would never recover.

  Lying to myself, I convinced my poor broken heart I would be fine as long as I didn’t leave that spot on the road—the spot where I’d felt the warm wind. No doubt it had been my mom brushing against me. It was her last time to tell me how much I was loved.

  Of this I was certain.

  I, a child of science and reason, believed this without a moment of hesitation.

  My father was the first to come to me.

  He wrapped himself around me and we shook together, not that I felt him or the pain in my body from sitting on the concrete.

  If I acknowledged one pain, I would have to face the others.

  He tried to get me to come to the truck—his truck in the middle of the road with the headlights shining into the darkness.

  But I couldn't leave. Nothing was special about that place on the side of the road where my mom had touched me last.

  “Earth to Aimee! How does this look?”

  I shivered at the memories and gazed down at my mushy cereal and then up to see my twin sister frowning at me. She posed like a peacock, modeling a pair of black leggings with huge gray boots and a silver sweater that hung off her left shoulder.

  We might have been fairly identical if not for the different colored hair and eyes and her intense fashion sense. That made it easy to tell us apart.

  “What?” I scoffed at yet another piece of silver clothing. I wondered where she got them all. I had a terrible hunch she was stealing them.

  Alise, not Alice, had always been stunning. She had been beautiful at birth. Which sucked because we were born at the same time.

  Twins but opposites.

  Where she had jet-black hair and silver eyes like our mom, I had blonde and blue. My eyes weren’t even an attractive blue—more like gray. It was as if they had tried to become silver like my sister’s, but quit partway.

  We shared every other feature which seemed to work on her.


  On me it was uneven and plain.

  We were both five feet seven inches, one hundred and thirty-three pounds.

  She was hot and I was smart.

  Classifying and objectifying us was simple. Classic opposites.

  “How do I look?”

  “Fine.” I sighed with a hint of disapproval—well, maybe not a hint. My disapproval of everything she did was rarely hinted.

  Alise rolled her eyes and grabbed a banana. “Oh my God, Aimee. What is your problem today?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Are you moping, still?”

  “No.”

  She folded her arms. “Bad dreams again?”

  “No.” I wasn't going to let her in. It led to dark places where she mocked me openly and I cried inwardly.

  “You know Mom wants us to be happy, right?”

  “Whatever.” I flinched at her saying the “Mom” word as if she were giving me motherly advice.

  She tilted her head and continued in a less harsh tone. It was more patronizing, to everyone who wasn't three years old. “She’s watching us from Heaven, and she’s going to worry about you if you don’t snap out of it. You’re going to disappoint her by not living, not the opposite.”

  “Thanks.” I gave her my best blank stare.

  “Oh my God, whatever. Be a loser. I don't care.” She turned on a heel and stormed out the door to her car.

  Alise’s words stung.

  Not only did the constant double negatives bother me, but I hated that she was right. Even though I knew I should, I couldn’t force myself to move past what had occurred eight months prior.

  Thinking about it made the walls close in around me and the air become heavy.

  I bolted for the stairs to my room and dove onto the carpet beside my bed. The carpet rubbed against my elbows.

  In a panic, I fished out the secret envelope from under the bed.

  Once the treasure was in my hands, I opened it slowly and methodically.

  I didn’t want to tear the plastic bag within the manila envelope. As always I was careful. I paused, letting it release its contents into the air. I held the plastic bag under my nose as the fragrance filled my nostrils, the sweet smell that became the air around me.

  The walls started to come down a little. The scent of my mom made all the bad feelings small again.

  “You existed, you loved me, you existed, you loved me,” I chanted.

  I was grateful the perfume had maintained its strength—thanks to the protective plastic bag. My heart was beating out of my chest, but I forced the world to stop. I needed to feel her. Even if it was only for a short time, she was there.

  On the way back downstairs I decided I would visit my mom after school and see if I could just get a small feel of her again. Sometimes being at the side of the road was like a hug sent in a letter; even though it wasn’t real, the intent made you feel warm just the same.

  Impatient as always, Alise honked the car horn at me. It warmed my frosty heart to see my sister’s glare through the windshield. She shouted but I ignored her. Instead, I took an extra long unnecessary moment to lock the house. Small victories like that got me through the day.

  I never spoke to my sister about our mom.

  I wanted to.

  I wanted to tell her that being a little sad wouldn’t kill her.

  Or acting like it had in fact impacted her life wouldn’t make her appear weak. If anything, it would make her seem more human.

  I hated how she had cruised past it all like nothing had happened. She’d cried a modest amount at the funeral on Saturday and shopped with friends on Monday. I had stayed in bed for weeks until my father threatened to commit me.

  I resented his need to be the only one suffering.

  Eight months later you wouldn’t have even known Alise’s mother was dead.

  Slumping into the seat of her car and turning away from her, I watched the road blur by the window like an impressionist painting left out in the rain. Alise talked in a steady and unyielding stream on her Bluetooth. The whole ride was a series of OMG and seriously and I can’t even, on both their parts. I often wondered if it was a modern-day Morse code.

  Where I was shy, Alise had always been outgoing.

  Our father, like myself, mourned alone in the quiet of his mind. He preferred to withdraw to his office where he pretended to work.

  We knew he sat there surrounded by a million reminders of her. I tried not to judge him too harshly. I too had my own reminders of my mom, such as the stolen nightgown and a few other key items. They were sealed away in Ziploc bags and I smelled them like a serial killer. For eight months I had kept them under my bed without anyone seeing. I tried not to think about how creepy it was.

  Alise blathered on with her friend Giselle. “Okay, girl. Peace out.” She turned to me as she clicked the phone off. “Can you believe that? Jaime’s going to freak when she hears that shit. That Angela chick was with her boyfriend and now she’s not coming to school.”

  “I don’t like wasting brain cells on Giselle or Jaime.” I was clueless about what she was talking about.

  “Dude!” Alise groaned as we pulled into the school parking lot. “If you don’t try to be normal again—well, your nerdy normal way—they’re going to lock you away for depression. You’ll be in one of those places where the girls don’t shower and all become lesbians.”

  I stifled a laugh as she ranted like a scary bigot.

  “Like a week ago I heard Ms. Sinclair talking to the guidance counselor about you. She said some crap about how they are noticing your inability to find happiness again or something like that. No one said you have to forget Mom, but try to still be alive. Besides, it’s embarrassing having the emo-angst queen as my sister.”

  I ignored her usual speech, and instead focused on the asylums full of unkempt lesbians around the country. It made me smile, even if it was completely wrong to do so. She was so insane.

  She nattered on and on about the fact I would never leave Dad’s house. She called it “Dad’s” like Mom didn't still own half. Little things like that made me want to strangle her.

  When we finally got to the parking lot, I leapt from the car and raced to my locker. It was better than murdering her in front of everyone.

  Alise’s greatest fear was not being prom queen.

  Mine was forgetting about my mom and accidentally falling into being a happy person again. Some days when I didn’t fight it hard enough, I caught myself resurfacing. It was happening more and more.

  The end of my depression was coming, more likely sooner than later.

  I wasn’t naturally depressed. It was an irregular state for my body.

  Coasting through classes and doodling had been my thing for some time but today I couldn't stop thinking about my dream. It had been a repeat, I swear it. I remembered seeing that expression on my father’s face—it was fear.

  He was obviously worried about me, but who was he to be pointing fingers. Alise swore she had caught him sitting in his walk-in closet under Mom’s dresses and clothes. He was crying softly while touching the bottoms of them, running his fingers gently along the hems. And he didn’t come out of his office much, except to ground Alise every other day. And he always went back in straightaway.

  The bell rang for lunch before I even realized I’d gone to my second class. Lost for a moment, I glanced down at the homework assignment I had written, amazed it was in coherent sentences. I picked up my books and slipped from the class, not making eye contact with anyone.

  “Aimes, wait up,” a voice rose above the sounds of the other kids, perking up my ears. The voice warmed my heart.

  Blake winced when he saw me. His reaction was my daily awareness check. Clearly, I was failing today.

  He was the only person who saw past my sadness, maybe the only one who really remembered me from before.

  I stifled a laugh as he stumbled up the stairs near my locker. Blake was massive, not fat, but tall like a giant. His body was something he
and everyone around him were still getting used to.

  “Hey, Blake.”

  “Wow!” He smiled at me, barely glancing up from his iPhone. “You look special today, Aimes. Enough with the black already, huh?” He was the only person who could be mean to me and still make a smile cross my lips.

  “I like black.” I tried to be serious as I closed my locker and we started to walk.

  “No.” His head came up from his phone, blinking like he had just woken up. “No, you don’t, and you’re starting to remind me of the Goths. It’s hard to hang in the nerd crowd when you scare them. We scare easily.” He walked forward and opened the door to the cafeteria for me.

  “We aren’t exactly the nerd crowd. It’s just you and me. And I’m still in mourning. According to tradition it’s a full year before we wear colors again.”

  “That’s for widows in the 1800s and Gone with the Wind spinsters. I miss you in spring colors and shorts. I miss you having color in your skin. I miss your eyes and how they used to sparkle. Now they’re dull, like fish eyes. When that Aimee comes back, I think we should have a party.”

  He missed me in colors and wanted to have a party?

  He was the only boy in the world I could actually imagine myself with.

  We matched.

  The idea of it made me wonder. Wondering made me forget how sad I was. It was a vicious cycle. He was a problem.

  “A party, huh?” I walked through the door, almost laughing. “Who will come?”

  “The chess club, mathletes, obviously us science geeks, and I like the kids at the newspaper. They’re not as smart as we are, but they know politics and a lot of them believe the CTs, Aimes. I have to respect that.”

  That made me laugh, out loud. My laughing muscles had grown soft and weak over the past winter.

  But it was impossible not to laugh at Blake. He was a genius who believed in CTs—Conspiracy Theories. He believed nothing the media said. Well, unless college students or someone working for some low-budget paper wrote it. The kind that relied on a mailing list as opposed to general publication for the masses. He was the smartest dummy I’d ever known.