Textbook Romance [Closed] - Printable Version

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Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-05-2017

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-05-2017

All things considered, being a vampire wasn’t...that bad.

Which was not entirely accurate. Keiavan just had it really easy when it came down to it. Everything was always easier when your mother was a sitting monarch. That was to say, it was easier now, than it had been in the beginning. Keiavan had the means to walk out in the sunlight, courtesy of an enchanted ring fashioned by his mother and his sorceress aunt. He had a legal supply of blood to keep him fed and safe to his fellow classmates.

A vampire in college. It sounded like the beginnings of a really bad romance novel. Dropping out had seemed like an option two years ago when he’d first been assaulted and turned against his will. It had happened at a party, most of the details were fuzzy. But having to witness the horror show that was an ongoing trial and error sort of solution-finding with the university and the local law enforcement, Kei had only found himself more eager to earn his law degree.

Which is why it really annoyed him that his phone was buzzing ceaselessly in his pocket from notifications, while he was trying to pay attention in his Contracts and Torts class. He shifted in his seat and tried to ignore it, until the lesson was finally drawn to a close. Upon his dismissal, he immediately pulled the device from his pocket. His screen was filled, and still filling further, with tag notifications from Twitter. Nearly everyone he knew had found a post the assumed would be of particular interest to him, sub-tweeted him and added some form of laughing emojis.

Tapping one of what seemed like a million notifications, his Twitter app popped open and he was greeted with a very interesting tweet from the night before.


He read it once. Looked up for a moment, face screwing up in confusion. He looked down and read it again while he distractedly packed up his belongings and slung the bag over his shoulder. Did everyone think this was about him? He squinted at the picture in the corner, attempting to recognize a girl from the theatre rehearsal he had attended the night before.

Rose Rivers.

Wasn’t that? No, it couldn’t be… could it?

Stopping on the sidewalk, Keiavan retweeted the message and added his own comment, if only for the sake of reassuring his friends he had seen it.

Thanks everyone, he typed, hoping that his sarcasm would be palpable. Message received.

Between two more classes and a the beginning of a ten-page paper, Keiavan had forgotten all about the Tweet when he arrived at the theatre later, cello in hand. He was early, so he milled around with a few of his orchestra buddies, laughing and shooting the shit while they waited.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-06-2017

The tweet in question may have been ill advised. In her defense, Rose was an over-eager freshman college student who had not yet learned that a dirty tweet could easily make the rounds to be seen by the subject of said dirty tweet. Suffice it to say, she was learning.

She was in a vocal lesson when Keiavan’s friends tagged him on her tweet. She was still in that same vocal lesson by the time Kei had viewed it and replied himself to confirm as such.

Had Rose caught the shitstorm early enough, she would have, perhaps, deleted the tweet, or set its privacy settings such that only she would be able to continue seeing it.

Welp, too late!

Shitstorm is possibly too strong a word for this arguably minuscule situation in the grand scheme of things, but for Rose that’s exactly how it felt. Like a shitstorm.

She was mortified and embarrassed. This boy from her childhood, who she had not talked to in years, nor seen, was now aware of the fellatio joke she’d made about him. What could be worse? Well, she hadn’t found out yet that both her parents would also be viewing the tweet as well. Somehow, she still didn’t have the foresight to shore up any potential further drama and delete or control the viewership of the tweet.

Besides, she didn’t have much time to fiddle around with her twitter settings anyhow, as she had to basically half jog to cross the campus to arrive in time for their second rehearsal.

Where he would be.

She made a concerted effort to avoid him. That is to say, if one can avoid another person in an open room where both of them would know the other was there. It would take a doubly committed effort to avoid the other. She went straight to her group of friends, fellow actresses, and peered around as they made conversation.

Rose being wholly lacking in subtlety found herself spying Keiavan across the theatre near where the pit would set up.

Oh shit.

She made eye contact. She froze when she’d accidentally caught his gaze and felt heat rising to her cheeks. Rose reached up to brush at her hair, almost pulling it towards her face as if she could hide behind her brunette mane.

Her friends caught wind of her discomfort and followed the line of her gaze to the man in question. The group of girls immediately started giggling and gossiping about the scandalous tweet and the vampire boy.

Rose, humiliated and beet red, lifted her nose, stiffened her back, made tight fists of her hands and marched herself over to Keiavan. “I can explain.” She said glancing at his friends, unconcerned that they would be listening to whatever she had to say. “I was just a joke. I mean not that I don’t think you’re - I mean, I do, I just - it was just a joke, Kei. So, you know, it wasn't like a proposition. Oh god.”

A breath escaped her and she looked in need of rescuing. She had no idea what she was doing or even what drama she thought was mitigating. Now that she was confronting him about this really non-issue it all seemed so silly.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-07-2017

Shit.

Rose had caught him looking at her. He hadn’t meant to, but he had heard her friends laughing across the theatre and it had caught his attention. The Tweet immediately came to mind as she pulled her hair over his face, in a gesture he wouldn’t admit was sort of adorable. He turned around and stared hard at a violinist standing in front of him, doing his best to seem engrossed in whatever they were talking about. At some point he had lost the thread of conversation, they’d been discussing a movement in the second act and now they were talking about a party later that night. Keiavan wasn’t interested in parties.

He zoned out again until the conversation stopped and everyone was staring at something behind his back.

“I can explain.”

The vampire whipped around to find the young woman he had been trying to avoid. Even though his method of doing so had only been to pretend she didn’t exist. His brows darted towards his hairline and he stared down at her. “Uh…” He was distracted by her face. It was a pretty face, certainly, she had grown up quite a lot since the last time he’d seen her. But that wasn’t his concern. She was bright red with an embarrassed flush and he could smell the blood. Her nervous and racing heartbeat was pounding in his ears. Keiavan almost couldn’t hear what she was saying over the sound like a bass drum.

Which was interesting. And concerning. He’d never reacted like this to anyone before. He solved the problem by not breathing.

“Yeah…” he agreed at some length. He shifted on his feet and looked down at his shoes, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I didn’t think it was.” His friends were snickering behind his back, amused at the way this freshman was terrifying him. “Don’t worry about it. It was funny, everyone had a good laugh.” Were currently continuing to have a good laugh. “Forget it.”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-07-2017

He stared down. She stared up and through mascara darkened lashes. It took him too long to respond with any substance. He was trapped somewhere between Uh and Yeah when she swallowed a lump forming in her throat. Now was not the time to cry.

The sound of laughter coming from behind him didn’t help any.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid. Was the word she repeated in her mind to abuse herself. Her hand reached up to retrieve a delicate gold chain necklace that had been hidden under her sweater. She brought it up to her mouth, placing the chain between her lips stained in matte red lipstick. A rose charm dangled from the chain and decorated her bottom lip.

“Yeah…” She agreed as she worried at the gold chain. She pouted at the cellist with something like blame and helplessness in her eyes. As if he’d gotten her into this situation and she somehow expected him to bail her out. The blame was really for how impossibly curly and voluminous his hair was. How dare. She complained with distressed hazel eyes.

She realized that she had put something in her mouth in front of the boy she’d recently made a blowjob joke about and in horror let the necklace fall from her lips back to her chest.

“Anyway,” she said with a tiny frustrated stomp of her foot, raising her voice for the benefit of the boys snickering behind him. “I thought I would clear it up, so we can all focus at rehearsal today.” She glared at the other orchestral members and raised her eyebrows pointedly before gazing back at Keiavan.

“It was good -” for some reason her hand was patting him on the arm.

Why why why was it doing that? She screamed in her mind. She pulled her hand slowly away from him and balled it into a fist at her side willing it to behave itself around the handsome vampire boy from her past.

“- to see you again Kei.”

She turned on her heel and made a straight line for the double doors that led out to the lobby area of the theatre. She needed to breathe. When she thought she was alone, Rose groaned loudly at nobody and clawed her fingers through her hair, flipping one side dramatically over her part.

>omg moooom. I need to call you after rehearsal

She sent the text to a contact in her phone titled Mommy with red heart emojis on either side.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-08-2017

She stomped her foot and Keiavan suddenly felt like he was ten years old again. He remembered how often she would do that as a child when she was annoyed or frustrated. Or most especially when she wasn’t getting enough attention. It pulled a smile from him, shy and accidental. He immediately felt bad for it, didn’t want to seem like he was amused by her for the wrong reasons so he smothered it. “It’s crystal clear, Rose,” he reassured, in a mumble. The string quartet behind him wasn’t at all put off by her glare. They traded glances, nudging elbows. Made faces that were clearly indicative of an inside joke.

“Uh, it’s good to see you, too,” he managed to stutter out and also sound sincere. He watched her walk off with a kicked puppy sort of expression, left feeling like he had done something wrong. He twisted the ring around his thumb, agitated. He turned to his friends and frowned at them, which only caused a roar of laughter from them. They bickered back and forth for a while, and they asked probing questions about his relationship with the girl, which he answered mostly unwillingly.

I knew her when I was younger.

Our parents are friends.

I haven’t seen her in years.

It was a coincidence. A dumb joke. We barely recognized each other.

Ruffling his hair again, he knocked his friends hands away as the tried to jostle him and make crude suggestions. Sighing he broke away from the group and followed Rose out into the lobby. He found her standing in the hall and staring at her phone. He approached her cautiously. “Hey,” he said to announce himself. “Are you alright? Those guys are just jerks, you know? Ignore them.”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-08-2017

Rose was turned away engaged in furiously texting whoever would indulge her a rant at the moment. She startled and a yelp of surprise sounded in the back of her throat. Like a little yip from a tiny dog. She whirled around and was faced with Keiavan checking on her.

Her faced flushed red anew and she raked her fingers through her hair flipping it again over her part. It would slide and fall back into place and she would flip it again. A thing she did when she was nervous. “What? Yeah, totally. I’m fine, Kei, really.” Her voice climbed in pitch until she was almost squeaking out her claim to ‘fine-ness.’ Her cadence of speech, being much too fast, also signified otherwise.

Her fingers flew over her phone, typing rapidly to update her friend that cello boy had come to talk to her. The message was sent and she let the phone slap down against her thigh. She gazed at her childhood friend. A familiar face in a sea of strangers. She’d acted like a idiot sending that Tweet and here he was checking on her emotional status.

Well, he asked for it, right?

“Actually. I’m not that fine. I’m just,” her hands waved erratically. The one was still clutching her phone and if she didn’t have a firm grip it would go flying out of her hand. “- stressed, you know? I just - the dorms are miserable. I hate my roommate. I’m flunking out of French, which is really bad because I have to have a foreign language. I keep getting these really scary sexual assault fliers and I’m afraid to walk to the library alone at night. And like, the community shower situation is just...gross. I don’t know how these girls end up getting foundation smeared all over the mirrors. It’s just beyond comprehension. I don’t mean to sound like a brat, but, you know hygiene and cleanliness is not so much to ask for. Oh my God, I sound like my dad.”

She covered her mouth and spoke at him from behind it. “Okay, I’ll stop. It just all started coming out because you’re looking at me all sympathetic and beardy like and I - don’t know - That’s why I didn’t recognize you. It was all the hair. When did you grow so much hair? When did you like -” her hands flailed gesturing vertically at him, “grow?”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-12-2017

Keiavan was not at all prepared for the onslaught of information that Rose immediately dumped on him at the slightest prompting. He tried to keep his expression neutral, this isn’t what he’d been asking, but he didn’t want to dissuade her from venting if she needed someone to talk to. Rose sounded like she had a lot going on, but they also sounded like typical freshman problems, most of which were lost on him because they sounded like feminine things.

He couldn’t help but chuckle when she exasperated about sounding like her dad. “Can’t say for sure,” he joked when she asked about his growth. “It just sort of happened over time I guess.” A smile curled at one corner of his mouth, because her words sort of sounded like compliments. At least, he would choose to take them that way.

Without thinking, Keiavan moved closer. Close enough to wrap an arm around her shoulders and bring her against him in a one-armed hug. Mostly to keep her from flailing anymore, because he could only imagine the drama that would ensue if that phone flew out of her hands. He squished her against him briefly, smiling down at her and using the new position to walk her back in the direction of the theater. He was trying to be nice to her, because she was frazzled, and a friend and because he wanted her to know that the Twitter thing was all in the past.

“I can’t do much about the dorms or the showers, or foundation on the mirrors,” he started, squeezing her shoulder. “But I can tutor you in French? Since, you know, I’m fluent?” He was teasing her now, just like he had when they were children. He would often taunt in her French to get her really riled up with they were feeling feisty. “And I can’t even walk you to the library sometimes.” Keiavan stopped walking just outside the double doors and turned her around to face him.

“I didn’t even know you were going to school here,” he explained. “Or I would have tried to get in touch with you.”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-12-2017

Easily maneuverable, Rose found herself under Kei’s arm and gazing up at him. She narrowed her eyes at him. It was more for comic effect than anything because she could tell he was sort of amused by her problems. Probably laughing in his head about her dad commentary and her French problems.

Always the French.

She crossed her arms under her breasts and rolled her eyes when he bragged about being fluent, “I know Kei-a-van.” She overemphasized each break in his name to taunt him. “Put it on your Tindr profile why don’t you. Maybe you’ll find someone who cares.” She mocked and nudged him with the elbow of her still crossed arm.

The teasing turned more serious when he offered to escort her to the library and admitted he would have contacted her had he known… her stomach flipped over. They were face to face but she stared down at her pointy black flats. When she looked back up at him her eyes were shining, she blinked back tears, her cheeks flushed with the emotion.

“I knew you were in the law program here…. I heard what happened to you. I remember my parents were shook up about it." She pulled the sleeve of her sweater down over her hands protectively. "Your parents were too, they'd come over and have these long talks with mom and dad. And...anyways, and, I was afraid that you’d be different, somehow?” She admitted. She’d made it through the hard part of the confession and the the tears that had threatened to fall were gone. She reached for his hand, letting her fingers brush his in a way that was meant to be comforting. His skin felt unsurprisingly cold. "I was really scared for you, Kei."

“But you’re just the same smug French speaking, cello playing, stupid genius, it seems.” A smile broke out and she crossed her arms again and popped her hip out. “You better tutor me, or I’m going to tell your parents about all the times you spun me on the merry-go-round until I puked.” She may have been remembering the events wrong. It might not have even been Keiavan who did that. Even if it was true, it was a really bad threat.

But she didn't care.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-15-2017

“It is on my Tinder profile,” he joked in return, gazing down at where she was nestled snugly under his arm. He liked the way she fit there next to him. Almost as if she belonged there. Made for him. He looked away, befuddled by such a strange thought. She was closer now, and the smell of her was stronger. Not just her perfume, but something else beneath that fresh and floral scent. It wasn’t blood, his senses weren’t that strong. There was just something else about her that made her smell...delicious. Her nudge against his ribs brought his focus back to her, and he eased away from her, putting her at arm’s length.

Which worked out for him, as the conversation switched to his...predicament as it were. He was suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of having had her so close when she knew about it condition. Honestly, everyone knew about his condition. It wasn’t everyday a sitting monarch’s son was assaulted and turned into a vampire against his will.

The resulting scandal had been a nightmare. Keiavan frowned as he recalled some of the details. “Long talks... “ he repeated her words and looked down at his shoes as he shoved his hands into his pockets. He had a feeling he knew what those longs talks had been about. Him. What to do with him, what to do about him. Making unsure promises that he wasn’t dangerous. That they shouldn’t worry. “Scared for me?” he asked, looking up, and for a brief moment there was something angry behind his blue eyes. “Or scared of me?”

His expression smoothed as he realized that Rose wasn’t the one he was angry at. He didn’t know if he was angry at all, just defensive. She was smiling at him, she was sassing him. She was the same as he remembered. Save for the...obvious differences. Her height being one of them. Yes. Her height. Strictly that. “You think I’m a genius do you?” He probed her for more compliments, his father’s smug and signature smirk making a an appearance at the corner of his mouth. The gesture revealed the white tip of a fang. He laughed, scratching the back of his neck, as if embarrassed when she mentioned the merry-go-round. “Of course, I’ll tutor you.” Kei smiled and reached out as if he would ruffle her hair, but somewhere in the middle of the gesture he remembered she wasn’t seven anymore, so the trajectory of his hand changed and he ended up tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “You’ll be passing French in no time,” he guaranteed as his hand returned to his pocket. “Just don’t tell on me.”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-16-2017

Rose forgot for a moment that they were joking about the Tinder profile and narrowed her eyes at him. “Ew.” Her lip curled in disgust at the thought of the app and what it was for. Or was she disgusted at the thought of him on the app matching with rando girls? Not as if she had any room to be jealous; obviously, she was also on Tinder matching with randos. She made a mental note to see if she could find him on there somehow. To creep. Just to creep.

Rose being fairly naive of what the condition of vampirism entailed had no idea that her scent would affect him any differently than it did any other boy. He’d either like her perfume or not. She folded easily and familiarly against her old friend without any thoughts otherwise. When they separated again she thought nothing of it. Just the casual ebb and flow of physical contact between friends. Except that maybe she had liked it in more than a friendly kind of way.

Which was weird, because it was Kei.

For a moment, the conversation turned hard. Her eyes flickered down to her shoes away from the icy gaze he set on her. She fiddled with the hem of her sweater. The truth was kind of both. She was scared for him; and scared of him. But now she had reason to believe she had nothing to fear of him. That it had all been prejudice that caused the pangs of fear that kept her from looking him up when she got accepted to the same university he had been attending.

The awkwardness was gone in a flash and they were back to joking. She rolled her eyes dramatically at his fishing for compliments, “You’re a huge ...” she was distracted for a second by that flash of perfect white fang. Though she willed them not to, she could feel her eyes staring at that dangerously sharp tooth. That was new. A beard and fangs. Definitely would make a good Tinder profile picture. “...nerd.” She finally got the word out and was able to look back into his eyes when the fang went back behind his lips where it belonged.

Then he was reaching for her and she froze while he touched her hair. Weird. For some reason her insides turned to absolute mush and she felt her face turning red again. Just don’t tell on me. Was that some kind of dirty joke? Was he hitting on her?

Rose giggled nervously and managed a shaking: “Okay, great. Sounds like a plan there.” She was making really stupid finger guns at him as she took a step backwards away from the reach of his arm and the trance he’d put her in for a second. “We should, uh, get in there?” Her voice sounded a little bit shrill to her ears.

She really needed to talk to her mom.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-21-2017

Keiavan scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “Nerd? Ouch. Tell me how you really feel why don’t you.” He was looking down at her, and she was bright red and he couldn’t figure out why. He needed to figure out why and quickly, because he didn’t want to think that the rosy hue on the apples of her cheeks made her look appetizing, but it was certainly the first description that came to mind.

“Well, this nerd is going to help you pass French, so you should be nicer to him,” he suggested in a joking tone. He was going for light and playful, even as she seemed to dissolve in front of him. He was misunderstanding the cause of her nervousness. He just assumed that her prolonged and singular exposure to a known vampire was starting to get to her. He nodded his head in agreement, turning to open one of the heavy theater doors and hold it for her.

Following behind her, he let it swing closed and noticed that the orchestra was already beginning to set up. “I’ll see you around, Rose.” He gently touched her shoulder, before stepping around her and half-jogging off to grab his instrument and join the his friends and the rest of the orchestra in the pit. It didn’t take long for the same buddies that had been prodding him earlier to start up again as soon as he sat down with his cello.

Meanwhile, back home in Winter Heights, Aphrodite was sending supportive texts to her spazz of a daughter, and insisting that she call after rehearsal.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-23-2017

“Yes, yeah.” Rose squeaked out the words and laughed nervously when he touched her. God, why was she panicking? It was just Kei.

She definitely picked up on the vibes coming from the pit as she made her way to the stage. The teasing and no doubt locker room talk about her. The embarrassment and indignant anger that accompanied the emotion bubbled up inside her erasing her previous giddiness.

Rose did her best to stay focused during the rehearsal. But, she kept finding her gaze peeping towards the pit. And towards the cello section. And towards a certain beardy vampire boy. At one point it had caused her to completely misstep and collide with the actress dancing next to her. She cringed when the accident happened and forced herself to keep her eyes off Keiavan. The entire number had to be stopped and restarted because of her mistake.

After the rehearsal, Rose immediately took to her phone to dial her mother. It rang as she made her escape from the theatre like a frightened rodent running along the baseboards until it found its hidey hole. She pulled her hair towards the side of her face that would be visible to Keiavan as she walked out. A curtain of brunette to hide her shame.

“I don’t know what to do, moooom.” She whined as the double doors leading into the lobby and ticketing area closed behind her. “I’m so embarrassed. Mortified. I didn’t think he would see it. Or his friends.” She knew she didn’t even need to explain what was happening. Her mom already knew about the dirty Tweet and some of the fallout from her frantic text messages. “Maybe I could quit school this semester and come home.” She was being over-dramatic, something she’d probably never learned not to be given her mother’s proclivity for talking people down. It was perfectly fine to be emotional in the Rivers’ household. Anything less would be strange.

“I can’t look at his face all semester. And, oh my god, I agreed to let him tutor me in French. I should cancel right? Like tell him I’m super good at French now? Like I downloaded a bunch of MP3s of French lessons and learned it in my sleep. Is that even a thing?” She was talking a mile a minute, something she picked up from her father when he was having one of his fits. Though hers were quite different and definitely self-inflicted.

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - megs - 05-25-2017

Keiavan watched Rose as she fled from the theater at the end of the rehearsal. He could understand her need to escape, having been the center of attention, because of her Tweet and now because of a prolonged rehearsal due to her mistake. He lingered around with his orchestra friends, carefully packing away his cello and his sheet music, not wanting appear over-eager to chase after his childhood friend. He was actually eager to get back to his apartment so he could call his mother. He needed someone to vent to about the Tweet and reconnecting with Rose and college in general and his mom was always a good outlet for that.

Once situated in his car, with his cello safely in the backseat, Kei dialed Jules. She answered on the first ring, with her usually warm and pleasant greeting.

“Hello, love. How ware you?”

Kei sighed and smiled a little. It was nice to know some things didn’t change.

Aphrodite laughed light on the other end of the line. “You’re not quitting the semester,” she replied. Her tone was gentle, but her words were firm. An unmovable opinion. Besides, she would never hear the end of it from Holland if she unilaterally agreed to let Rose mosey on home with her tail between her legs over a Tweet.

She spoke to Rose with the same melodic and modulated tone that she used whenever husband or daughter were feeling particularly emotional. Comforting without being condescending. Not too soft or too loud. It was a practiced voice that she only used on them, and it worked more often than not. She listened intently and didn’t interrupt to catch every detail of Rose’s dramatic rant.

“From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like he was upset? Clearly just a silly joke he took in stride.”

Dite laughed, again. Amused, but not teasing.

“I wouldn’t cancel a free French tutor. Your father will absolutely lose it if you fail. Everything will be fine. You’d be surprised at how quickly this will all blow over. Besides, you don’t have any classes with him, and you’re really that embarrassed you can just avoid him at rehearsal.”

Aphrodite paused and there was a moment of silence between.

“You and Kei were very close as children. I think you’ll be fine, love. Just give it time.”

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RE: Textbook Romance [Closed] - saronym - 05-28-2017

Rose was easily talked down by her mother. It wasn’t like she really intended to quit school and run home. She only wanted to say such things and then hear her mother comfort her. It was just a process. Her way of processing things.

Things did blow over, just like Aphrodite predicted it would. Rose quickly forgot about the Tweet amidst her other daily concerns. It helped that she also made a concerted and obvious effort to go about avoiding the Hart boy at several subsequent rehearsals. Rose had formulated an iron-clad plan that kept her from seeing him. She arrived to rehearsal just barely in time for the start which avoided any pre-rehearsal talking or looking or acknowledging of each other’s presence. At the end of rehearsal, she would sneak out various exits in the theatre while Keiavan was stuck packing away his cello. She never used the same exit twice - so far, she was now running out of doors to use - and had successfully avoided any post-rehearsal talk with him.

Never mind that her obvious efforts to avoid him would definitely be noticed. Rose didn’t expect him to ever confront her about it, though. She sort of expected them to just exist near one another in rehearsal this semester and then go about their lives forever. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Because now she was staring at a big, fat, ugly red D minus on her latest French test. The written test was scribbled all over with the instructor's corrections to her idiotic mistakes. She had decided she could risk self-study in French but constantly found herself drifting toward Netflix and literally any other thing she could to avoid it. And that had paid off royally.

Why this.

Now it was almost worse that she’d avoided Kei because here she was gonna send him a Snapchat picture of her holding up her D minus and frowning. The words will you help me? were added to the picture before she sent it off.

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