Earth

Rose was focused on the lines. The perfectly unperfected lines of her sketch, the pencil strokes smudged just correctly. The stem of the flower she drew darker and harder, the petals of the rose softer looking, smooth. It had to be right, just right. Then a knock came at her door and Rosaria jumped, leading one of the lines astray. Letting out an upset huff of air, she called “Come in!” in which led her mother, Charlotte, to crack open her door and peek her head in. “Hey, What do you want for lunch?” Asked the petite woman who really did look an awful lot like Rose. Rosaria smiled and stood up, “Actually I’m going to go get Chris, going to a coffee shop.” She spoke, looking down at her phone, checking the time which read 1:15. Her eyes widened a bit and she began rushing around the room, shoving money and her sketch book in her bag, and then trying frantically to find her jacket. “What’s wrong?” Her mother laughed, now fully stepping into the room. Rose laughed triumphantly as she came across her black jacket under a pile of blankets on her floor, raising it up into the air with a small thrust, before slipping it on in which completed her outfit, and racing out of her room. “I was supposed to be at his place fifteen minutes ago.” She said to her mom, as she trailed after her to the front door of the tiny loft. Rose grabbed the keys off the small hook and put them into her bag, opening up the door. “Bye mom!” She said quickly, making it out the door. She just barley heard her mom yell back at her “Be home as quick as you can, ok?” In her always concerned voice.

Rushing down the small steps that led out the door of her two apartment complex, she opened the oak, stain glass windowed door and stepped onto the busy sidewalk of New York. Cars rushed by on the streets, many of them that awful yellow color that told her they where taxis. She began walking down the dirt covered cement crack sidewalks down a couple of blocks. Christopher, her best friend, really her only friend, lived only a few blocks down from her. Not a long walk, maybe fifteen or so minutes. Her mom would always try and convince her to take a taxi as she was always worried. Probably had to do with the fact she was a single parent, but whatever. Rose never wanted to pay that much money for a taxi, and would never let her mom pay either as it seemed ridiculous. She also didn’t have enough money to buy her own car; therefore, the only proper decision in her head was to walk.

The time was 1:30 before she finally arrived at her destination, Christopher’s building. Walking up to his doorway, she knocked three times, and waited. She learned that there was never a rush here for someone to answer the door, and would often hear grunts from the inside from one of the boys to the other saying, “You go get it.”, then the predictable retort, "No, you go get it." so on and so forth.

It was about two minutes before the door finally opened. “He’s in his room,” said Chris’ dad, stepping aside to let the familiar girl in. “Thanks.” She smiled, before making her way over to her friend’s open door. “Sorry I’m late, drawing.” She said, grabbing his wrist, and leading him out of his door. “Bye, Mr. Lahey!” She called over, as she gently pulled the boy out of his house. She heard a grunt of his father in good bye.

Letting go of his wrist, she lowered her speed to a walk, and turned around, walking backwards facing the taller boy as they made their way down the sidewalk. “Java Joes is ok, right?” Rose asked him, continuing her walk backwards, before bumping into someone. Turning around, she said kind of flustered to the unusual guy behind her “Oh, I’m sorry!” The turquoise haired, pierced guy just stared down at her, a furious look on his face. Rose felt way smaller under his gaze then she was. “God damn Sage’s. Always so easy to find.” He finally said through gritted teeth. Rose gave a small confused glance back at Chris. The man had just used her last name, in a way that seemed too familiar. “Let’s go.”She said firmly, circling around the guy, Chris behind her. It seemed like a pretty good idea just to ignore it and walk away, up until the odd man shoved her to the hard cement, causing her to smack her head. He then pulled out a strange looking knife. She was unsure though if it was just strange as her eye sight was a bit blurry. Pushing herself up to the best of her abilities, she stumbled a bit before moving back a bit, giving Chris a glance that to anyone would mean, “Hey you should get out of here. Like now.” The man grabbed her by the arm and shoved her towards him, holding the weapon at her neck, saying through the same gritted teeth, “You look a lot like your mom, kid.” Her eyes widened, and really at the point she didn’t give a single damn about the knife at her neck. “What about my mother?” She snapped, glaring at him.