A Rose on the Grave

Chapter Three- Just Fine

Desmond Murry was on his side, curled up like a fetus on the top bunk in the room that he shared with Jesse. He wasn't sleeping. His ice blue eyes were open, but looked glazed and unseeing. He didn't want to see anything.

The twelve year old shivered convulsively, though it was warm in the bedroom and the rich blue and black patterned comforter was wrapped tightly around his body. Des didn't understand it. He didn't understand why his parents had to die that day, why they had left them behind to suffer.

It had to be a fucked up world if God let two good people die for no good reason, he thought savagely, thrusting the bed covers off him suddenly.

Desmond had always been the most unreachable in the family. Whereas the rest of the Murrys were pretty outgoing in their own different ways, Des was taciturn and silent. He didn't like to talk any more than he had to, and he never wanted to show weaknesses. In fact, he only ever opened up to people he had known his whole life, which could be problematic at times. Even at thirteen, girls kind of considered him to be a hot, mysterious type, and Des fit the image. You could just see him wearing a dark leather jacket, spike necklace, his almost black hair already had that rebellious look.

He had loved his parents dearly. Patrick Murry had understood that sometimes the boy needed his space. He had understood that Des was different from most people, and he had never called him a "sissy" or something like that for preferring to draw than to play basketball. And of course Mom had been fully supportive of Des too.

What was worse was that Desmond felt that he hadn't been good to them lately. He had been just getting into puberty, started to argue with them constantly over nothing, wiped off his mother's kisses with humiliation in his heart. Basically hadn't appreciated them enough. And now they were gone.

Gone.

Des would have given anything he owned if only his mother could humiliate him in public again.

He closed his eyes, and felt the salty tears sting his cheeks.

-----------------------------

Small towns could be vicious. Arlen had known that of course, and even thought amusedly of it sometimes. Mostly it was harmless gossip that traveled through the lanes, gossip that wouldn't hurt people. Maybe embarrass them a little, put a blush on their face and maybe get their dander up. But this was different.

"So there she was, bold as anything, making out with Jake Lowery like a shameless whore. On the day of her parents' burial!" Shelley Roman had passed on to Jenny Spencer, and before too long, all of Graham High School knew what had happened. Arlen had found out by lunchtime, as she had been sitting in the cafeteria, munching viciously on a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich. Her best friend, Mackenzie, had stormed into the lunchroom, the door banging shut behind her. It caused a few more stares than Arlen had already been generating as the petite girl ran up to her.

"Arlen, why weren't you at your parent's burial?" Mackenzie asked in a low whisper, her huge brown eyes worried.

Arlen shrugged half-heartedly. "Zi, I'm sorry. I knew you were there. I just... couldn't," she finished lamely, looking down at the sandwich on the plate.

Mackenzie sighed. "Look, I don't blame you, Arlie. God, who could? Unless you're that vicious bitch Shelley," the girl hissed angrily, shaking her shiny blond head. "She's got it out for you, Arlen, and the gossip's been spreading the first thing since first period Chem at Mr. Tsu's."

"What gossip?" Arlen said, only a tiny bit curious. It wasn't as if she had done anything horrible. Shelley Roman had hated her since she had moved into Graham from New York in the third grade, and there was just nothing Arlen could do about it. She had tried to be civil to her, but Shelley had consistently acted badly towards Arlen for years. After a while, Arlen just stopped trying. She knew Shelley was jealous that Jake and his friends actually talked to her, whereas they totally ignored Shelley's attempts at seducing them or whatever.

"She's saying that you are a cold-hearted bitch!"

Arlen laughed. This was just too funny. "Zi, she probably says worse about me every other day. It's not a big deal."

"Well, that's not all, obviously. She's saying that she saw you and Jake Lowery hugging tightly in the rain, and making out like... like a shameless slut! And on the day that your parents were... well, you know." Mackenzie said sadly. Mackenzie saw the laughter die from her friend's eyes, leaving her face blank and cool. Still, she knew Arlen well enough that it mean her friend was angry.

She saw Arlen stand up swiftly, pick up her lunch tray, throw it out. Then Arlen walked directly to where Shelley and her best friends Lila Cohen, Wendy McAfree, and Gretchen Wildsey sat. That was the cheerleaders and basically very very bitchy girls section, not exactly where Arlen Murry chose to sat. But she walked up there with her chin set straight and her blue eyes blazing hard.

Mackenzie just could not miss this so she ran up as fast as her little legs could run, just in time to hear Arlen speak to Shelley, a deceptively friendly smile on her face. "I heard you were telling some interesting stories around here. Why have you left me out?"

Shelley's face reddened. "You really have no shame, do you?" she said loudly at Arlen, tossing her brassy blond hair back from her tomato-complexioned face.

"No I guess not, but you don't either," Arlen said quietly. The cafeteria had quieted to a low din, and that was made up of people whispering at each other to shut up so they could hear the showdown between Shelley and Arlen.

"Is that the best you can do?" Shelley laughed outright, smirking. Glancing at her pristine, glossy cherry-red nails, she said, "Stop wasting my time." Her friends tittered annoyingly, shooting superior looks at Arlen.

"How much more shameless can it be to tell blatantly hurtful lies about someone who's never said a word against you?" Mackenzie yelled, unable to hold back her anger at these rude bitches.

"Oh, I don' t know... let me think. Maybe it's just a tad more shameless when a girl goes around acting like a whore when her dead parents are getting buried," Shelley said in a sickly sweet voice, looking maliciously at Arlen. Her satisfaction dwindled at Arlen's look of contemptuous pity.

"I didn't know you were so jealous of me, Shelley. Jake and I are nothing more than friends. You never understood that, and you have acted hateful to me because you can't see past your jealousy. All Jake was doing was supporting a friend who needed it. And if you and everyone else can't understand that, well then that's your problem. Just don't be so gossipy, it's a little trashy," said Arlen mock-helpfully, eliciting laughs from the crowd. She turned to walk away, Mackenzie smiling triumphantly beside her, when she felt cold milk dripping down her head. Silence again in the cafeteria.

Arlen turned back, her face immobile. "Well, that was catty of you, wasn't it?" she said philosophically to Shelley, who looked piss-mad and about to burst into a temper tantrum.

Arlen on the other hand, didn't let her anger show, though she felt a hell of a lot of it. What right did this girl have to add insult to injury? What had she ever done to her?

"You slutty bitch! You cold hearted bitch..." Shelley was visibly trembling with anger. Arlen shook her head pityingly, feeling the drops of milk slide down on her neck, and turned to leave.

"Arlie, can't we beat her up just this once?" Mackenzie pleaded, her tiny fists clenched.

"It would only demean us, Zi."

That set off Shelley. She ran at Arlen, grabbing her hair, screaming, "You always have been unfeeling. You don't feel any emotions. You're probably glad your parents are dead because it gives you attention!" Nails scraped across Arlen's face.

"Whoo! Cat fight," someone yelled out.

Glad...? Arlen's thinly reined temper snapped and her eyes blurred, red filling her vision.

"You want me to be glad?" she shouted, and punched the smugness out of Shelley's face. "Here you go!" She punched her in the stomach, her head screaming with pain as Shelley clung to it, her face stinging.

Then, Arlen felt strong arms wrap around her and pull her off. "Leave me alone!" she hissed, as the tears slid down her scratched cheeks. She tried to wriggle her way out of the arms, but only managed to turn to look into the face of her trapper. Jake Lowery.

"You don't need to save me all the time," Arlen said angrily, as he finally let her go.

"Fine, if that's the thanks I get," Jake retorted. "I just wanted to save the rest of the hair on your head." Then, he looked at her concernedly. Arlen was looking a bit shaky. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," she said in a low voice, trying to block out the sound of people talking loudly, the loud insistent wailing that she knew was Shelley's. "Just fine."

She wished it was true.


-----------

Thanks for reading!