High School Sweethearts (wlw)

~ Chapter 18 ~

(Rose POV)

No more carefree laughter
Silence ever after
Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes
Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

I looked back at the city behind me.

I had grown to love it, but now it was time to leave it behind.

Surely not forever, but for now, all I needed was a break.

"Are you coming, Rose?" Alex's mum asked me.

I turned back to face the bus in front of me.

I breathed in and took a step forward.

—[•~]—

"Hello, this is Rose. Please leave a message after the signal."

"Rose. Please call me back. All of us are worried sick. We've looked every possible place and you're just... gone. Emily is crying, Maggie is crying, I'm... not far off. Grace is trying not to cry. And Jeffrey has tried to call you too, trying to apologize. Please just try to call us back as soon as possible." Lucy said and pressed the red button.

She sighed and walked back to the group of people standing behind her.

"Still nothing?" Alex asked.

Lucy shook her head.

That caused Maggie to cry out. "This is all my fault!"

"Maggie, I was the one who tried to force her to tell me what happened to you. If anything it's my fault." Jeffrey told his daughter.

"No. You don't get this. I could have avoided this. If I hadn't taken drugs."

"Wait, you took drugs?" Jeffrey yelled.

"Now it makes sense. Rose is still very sensitive on that topic, because her father used to heavily abuse drugs." Lucy said.

Emily stopped crying. "Lucy, what would you rate the chance that Rose has gone back to her father?"

"Zero out of ten. She doesn't know where he lives. And besides, if she was traumatised about drugs, why would she attempt to go back to him?"

"She told me she misses him a while ago. And he gave her a note with an address when you left him, and he promised her to get better. So the chance to find her there are pretty high."

"But how would she get to Utah? She has no money."

"Her father lives in Utah?" Alex said, surprised.

"Yeah, why?" Lucy asked.

"My mother is going there to find a place to say. Maybe we could call her and see if she's seen Rose."

Lucy sighed. "I'll take anything that'll possibly get me closer to my daughter."

—[•~]—

"Yeah, the cheese crisps taste good. But what about the salt ones?" I asked.

"I don't know, pretty basic to me." Alex's mum answered.

"You sound like the person to call vanilla basic."

That made Alex's mum laugh. "Vanilla is a godly flavour. I would never disrespect it. But salt crisps are very basic."

I was about to throw something back at her, but then Alex's mum's phone rang.

She picked it up. "It's Alex."

"Shit. Ok, if anyone asks, you're alone. Okay?" I whispered.

"Sure. No biggie." She smiled and answered the phone.

"Alex, baby! How are you doing?"

"Mum, I can't chit chat right now. Have you seen Rose?"

Alex's mum sighed. "I feel like you never want to talk with me any more, Alex."

"We have no time for this. Have you seen Rose or haven't you?"

"No, I haven't seen her. But how are you doing? And why are you even looking for her?"

"Oh, we're just looking for her because she's right here with all of us. Mum, she's missing. Seriously."

"Alex, I really don't like that tone. Why don't you calm down- and he hung up."

Alex's mum put down her phone and sighed. "Ever since his dad and I started arguing, he seemed to hate me. I just wish I could tell him I have nothing to do with it."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sure that he still loves you deep down." I tried to reassure her.

She just nodded and looked out of the window.

"What's your name? I never asked." I suddenly said.

She turned back towards me.

"Donna."

"Donna? Like woman in italian? Or like the Donna from Mamma Mia?"

Donna smiled. "Just like that."

I smiled back at her and leaned on the window.

Houses were slowly passing.

Then the houses turned into trees, and then the trees turned into a highway.

My eyes started drooping, and after a while I fell asleep.

It was the most peaceful sleep I'd had in a while.

In my head, the image of me laying in Emily's arms replayed over and over.

—[•~]—

"Where is the picture? In her box?" Lucy said and shuffled into Rose's room.

"Yeah. And if you just open it up like that-" Emily tried to open the picture frame.

Glass shattered, and she was holding two pieces in her hands.

They tried to gather up the pieces. Surely the note had to be somewhere, right?

"Give that to me, darling." Lucy said and took the frame off Emily.

She opened both halves up.

And there they found a bright blue note.

An empty bright blue note.

"What?" Emily was startled. "Where did she put it?"

"She took it with her." Vera said from the door.

Everyone turned around.

"What was that, Vera?" Lucy asked.

"I said she took it with her. I mean, why would she leave it here if she was going to dad?"

Lucy sighed. "Fucking course she would. Why does she always outsmart us? Ok, Emily, can you remember any details?"

"I think it was in Provo... yeah. And the street was Lakeford Lane."

Lucy sighed once again. "It's not much, but it'll do. At this point I'll do anything to find my daughter."

—[•~]—

"Rose, wake up. We're there. We made it! Salt Lake City is right before us, baby!"

I smiled. It made me happy to see how glad Donna was.

"So what do we wanna do? We still have the whole day ahead of us. And it's not exactly like dad is awaiting us..."

"We should prioritise getting you to your father. I really think we should."

"Come on! You just escaped that hellhole. Have some fun. Do what you wanna do. I'll tag along and say supportive stuff."

Donna laughed. "Fine, offer accepted. But after that we're catching the next train to Provo."

—[•~]—