White Roses Fade to Black

Another day passed, and Lucie still didn’t tell anyone about Mike visiting her. Was it a trick? Was she just imagining things that night? Or was it just the strain of the bullying and the amount of coursework the year eleven’s had to endure getting to her?

“Lucie?”

She returned to the real world and looked down at her English essay. Three words were written there: come… back… Mike.

“Lucie, are you okay?”

Lucie looked round to see Ms. Ward looking at her apprehensively, trying to figure out what may be wrong. Lucie smiled a fake, but bright smile, to let her teacher know that she was okay.

“I’m fine, miss, just got distracted.”

Ms. Ward nodded and continued walking round the classroom; making sure people were getting on with their essays. Lucie used the last fifteen minutes to turn her essay – which was meant to be a story, with a topic of their choice – into something that would hopefully get her the target A that everyone hoped for.

*
Tears of crimson, tears of blood
You came back to haunt me
I knew you would

Smiles now faded, smiles now dead
You said you’d stay here
That’s what you said

This cave I call my chest
This rock I call my heart
Bolted up with iron gates

So I stand and wait
Wait for your return
But somehow, deep down
I know you’re never coming back
Never coming home

Love once blossomed; love now lost
You left all the pain behind
But this is what it cost

Death once so far away; so close
You’re not with us anymore
You’re just a ghost!

This cave I call my chest
This rock I call my heart
Bolted up with iron gates

So I stand and wait
Wait for your return
But somehow, deep down
I know you’re never coming back
Never coming home

They can’t hurt you anymore
They can’t touch you anymore
They can’t hurt you anymore
You’re safe now
You’re safe now
Never coming home!

This cave I call my chest
This rock I call my heart
Bolted up with iron gates

So I stand and wait
Wait for your return
But somehow, deep down
I know you’re never coming back
Never coming home

*
Lesley sat in the corner of the schoolyard, where all the outcasts go. Her journal was perched open on her cross-legged knees, as she wrote about everything that had happened and was happening. Lucie walked over to her and peered over her shoulder. Lesley jumped, but realized it was Lucie and smiled weakly.

“What you doing?” Lucie asked, handing her best friend the pasta king she asked her to buy.

Lesley shrugged. She was about to tell Lucie what she was writing in her journal, when Katherine walked over.

“Hey guys. I heard about Mike and just wanted to say-“ Katherine started.

But she was cut off by Lesley standing up and stalking off to the library. Yes, Katherine had been a really good friend to Lesley and Lucie, even to Mike. But she didn’t know what Lesley was going through; what any of them were going through.

“How can you come over to me and try to say you know how I’m feeling? How dare you even try to understand what me, and the rest of his friends are going through? You weren’t there when he was hurting! You never gave a damn about Mike. You only started hanging with us when you found out we knew Calum,” Lesley spat, turning round abruptly to yell this at Katherine.

Katherine looked deeply hurt by Lesley’s spite. All she’d wanted to do was apologise for their loss, and say she wished she’d spent more time with them, rather than with her popular friends. Lesley ran off, changing her course to the toilets instead, where Lucie knew she’d do something stupid.

“Look, Kath, she’s just hurting. Give her a few weeks, or, uh, years, and she’ll be okay. She didn’t mean any of that, really. It’s not true, any of it. You were a really good friend to us and Mike. Lesley just doesn’t want anyone else round her,” Lucie said.

She hugged Katherine and gave her an apologetic look, then ran off to find Lesley.