The Trapped

20

- T -

11.09.16 // 7:02 a.m.

"You are my Rose. My only Rose."

She lays sprawled out, cold and unconscious on the dirty cement floor. Her curls drape over her shoulders, hiding her beautiful face.

"You make me happy when skies are grey."

Her back is torn, slashed with red marks that painted across her delicate skin like an artist would do to a blank canvas.

"You'll never know dear, how much I love you."

Her eyes are closed, she is barely breathing. Her petals are falling off one by one, her stem is shriveling up.

"So please don't take my Rose away."

Her breathing stops.

25

- S U T T E R -

11.09.16 // 1:53 p.m.

A HEAVY SILENCE settles over Victoria and me, thicker than the uneasy tension in the atmosphere. Her unsettled brown eyes glance unceremoniously around us as she avoids looking at me.

Blaire is dead.

She shifts uncomfortably in the hard metal chair that sits on my patio and grasps her nervous hands under the table, shuffling her feet against the cobbles on the ground.

I love her. Well, loved her.

My legs are crossed as I tap my blue ray bans against the table, stretching the silence out between us that is about to snap like a rubber band.

She's gone.

"Damn it, Victoria, can you just tell me what's wrong?" I ask and the sound of my voice must have startled her because she jumps up in her seat.

     "Nothing's wrong," she shrugs, picking up the coffee mug and sipping from it.

      "You don't show up at my house to just sit here quietly and drink my coffee. Can you just tell me what's wrong, we are friends right?" I ask and she nods sheepishly. "Then tell me."

Your best friend just died.

Vicky stalls more, stirring the cold coffee in her cup for the fourth time that morning. She takes a quick glance at her phone that sits untouched on the table before gulping nervously.

     "What if I told you that I did something really bad?" She asks me, raising a dark eyebrow. I give her a quizzical look.

     "It depends on what you did," I answer back, shrugging nonchalantly. She nods and takes a sip of her coffee, offering no ongoing conversation, so I talk again. "Did you do something bad?"

Do you know what happened to Blaire?

Her eyes flicker up to mine and she stares at me for a moment, having a silent debate with herself before flicking a hand over her shoulder.

     "It doesn't matter, just forget about it," Vicky says and my heart sinks at her cold tone.

     "You know you can trust me right?" I ask and she c***s her head to the side, offering a small smile with her thin pink lips.

     "I trust you," she says, but the doubt in her voice tells me she doesn't trust me, at all.

I don't believe she is dead. And if Victoria was a real friend, she would think Blaire isn't dead too.