She was gone, long gone.

Who: Rose
Where: NMU
When: Morning

School was painful today as much as it had been the day before and Rose had adopted a new style of walking, one that was speedy - more stalking than anything - head down and arms folded tightly around the books against her chest. The memorial pictures were all still up, so many of them, kids her age smiling from large glossy photographs that rested on altars of flowers and letters. So many, it wasn't normal. As if there had been an earthquake or some other disaster but there hadn't been. Just animal attacks. It wasn't normal. This place wasn't normal at all.

Was it going to be like that everywhere she went? People disappearing, people dying. Was she cursed or something?

At least with all the madness going on, nobody had bothered her yet and it kind of surprised her. She'd been all ready to argue, having great epic fights in her head with imaginary people giving her a hard time about her being crazy, but everyone was just being nice if a little distant. Then again she wasn't giving people a whole lot of a chance to do talk to her in the first place so that probably helped. And everyone was just a little bit busy mourning the dead students and fearfully whispering between themselves about what had happened.

The only ones Rose really gave the time of day were the other girls on the swim and track team. They weren't potential friends but there was a certain team spirit and they were nice enough. Still, she couldn't talk to them about her personal life. It was beginning to feel like everything she was bottling up was starting to push at the walls she kept around her and they were beginning to crack.

She was answering the texts she got from the people she knew politely but that seemed to be all she could do. Polite. Especially since it wasn't face to face. In class she just wanted to throw stuff at people. The girls who wouldn't stop talking in front of her, the teacher when he said something she didn't agree with, the guy grinning at her from the other side of the roomsuper. She wanted to hit them all over the head with her laptop and she couldn't understand why she was so angry. When she thought about it, it made her sad and she'd end up in the bathroom, crying.

She had an appointment with a guidance counselor, a quiet woman with a box of tissues on her desk. Rose wondered how many of those she'd gone through in those two days worth of interviews.

"I need some time away," Rose told her when she had sat down and carefully weaved her way through the woman's questions and suggestions. She had to go home. Have some sort of a closure where she did something. Burned photographs? Burned the God damned town down? Where did those thoughts come from? She was bawling again at the thought of her house burning and the woman helpfully pushed the box of tissues closer to her.

She left with permission for a ten days leave, a number for a good grief counselor and the guidance counselor's e-mail and of course she had to talk to her teachers to find out if there was anything very important to do before she got back. She didn't really worry about it. A small part of her had somewhat resigned to the fact that once she went home, she might not come back.