🩷🎪💄The spiraling polka-dotted path of a clown: Chapters 1-2 🩷🎪💄

*This story is underneath my folder titled “Bone Boy.” Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=116005&start=1155. I hope you enjoy these first two chapters!*

Chapter One-First time for everything

It was the year 2019, in a fairly quiet suburban neighborhood.

Well, quiet in appearance. In one of the houses, there was a sixteen year old girl named Rosemary Rosina Rosalind packing all that she needed to bring with her in a gigantic pink bag, her duffel bag.

It was Saturday night. She had spent the whole day doing nothing but wait for it to get dark enough to leave. Rosemary had never been invited to one before, only watching her peers go to them, but finally, finally, she was going to a sleepover.

It would be at her friend Julieta’s house, a house that was not really a house, but a manor that was fixed up to look less haunted, less like a place no one would want to stay. Julieta had told Rosemary that her family wasn’t wealthy and that they had gotten the manor for a low price, but still, the fact that they lived there at all amazed her.

Rosemary had told her parents about the sleepover and the both of them, being eager to send her off to “hang out with friends”, had no problem with it.

So, she zipped her bag off with confidence as she headed out for a night she’d never forget.

Chapter Two-It’s always good to see friends again

Rosemary didn’t know how to drive a car yet. Her friends Allan and Harper knew. Shirley and Julieta were fifteen years old, but they both wanted to learn as soon as they turned sixteen.

Sixteen. Sixteen years old and Rosemary still could not drive a car. It was May and she still could not find a summer job. In two years, she would be eighteen. In two years, her whole life would change forever.

She tried to stay positive. To not let the negative thoughts win. Of course she was worth it. Of course she would be okay. But sometimes, a nagging, knife-sharp feeling of guilt tugged at the corners of her brain. Why hadn’t she done the things that girls her age had? Why hadn’t she gone out more? Was she doing something wrong? Was there something missing? Was-

No. She was walking to Julieta’s manor. It was quiet. Some of the houses had their porch lights on, leaving a soft, glowing haze in the blue-black huskiness that was night. The air was balmy against her dark skin, but not too hot. Soon, it would be hot enough for families to come out of their houses and go on walks together, hot enough to hear the spraying sprinklers mixed with children’s laughter and then, Rosemary would feel connected.

The sidewalk she had to walk on to get to Julieta curved up into a hill. It would be steep, but she walked up there before. Ran up there before. It’d be fine.

Rosemary clung tight to her bag as she made her way up.

………………………………………………………………………………………

After a very long trek, Rosemary finally made it up to the top of the hill. Across from her was the white manor with dim, slightly blue-tinted windows. The walls were cracked a bit, but paint helped cover it up.

Julieta’s manor.

Holding tight to her pink bag, Rosemary walked up to Julieta’s manor and stopped in front of the black door, pressing the doorbell button once she made it.

The windows always had a blue tint on them. It had been there ever since she was little. Julieta’s parents wanted to get rid of the blue tint, but Rosemary liked it. It made looking out of them seem more magical, more dreamy. She liked staring out of them when Julieta was busy, especially when it was the top window, where the tree branches would hit the glass, tapping as if it was a friend wanting to play, beckoning her to come outside and-

“Rosemary! You’re here. Come upstairs, we’re watching a movie!”

Rosemary turned her head away from the tall, twisting tree next to the windows and faced Julieta, who was wearing a murky green dress, a faded color that was different from the more bold green-striped sock Rosemary wore. No, her socks were not matching. The other sock had pink stripes and was shorter. Julieta was smiling at her, her brown eyes full of warmth, the promise of a night with meaningless, joyful movies, soft stuffed animals and tenderly tied friendships in her grin. It made Rosemary’s heart melt to see Julieta be filled with so much happiness at seeing her, but…but…

“Who else is here?”

“Oh, just Harper and Shirley! They’re in my room. Allan is coming too, with his girlfriend, Valentina.”

“Valentina? I-Allan has a girlfriend?”

“Um…yeah. He’s been with her since October. You didn’t know? She was at the school Halloween-oh! You didn’t go.”

Rosemary bristled. She didn’t expect to learn that her friends were keeping things from her. Hmm…well, perhaps not. It wasn’t like it was a big secret or anything. She just didn’t know. She didn’t feel like going to the school Halloween dance, it was just that…it was weird that nobody else talked about Valentina. That she heard to learn about her in May.

“Well, don’t worry about it! She’s really nice, you’ll like her.” Julieta said.

She extended her hand out for Rosemary to take, as if she hadn’t just told her that somebody she didn’t know would be at the sleepover. Rosemary thought that it would just be the two of them, but it was alright that her other friends were coming.

What she didn’t like was that Valentina was coming over. She had never seen Valentina before and she did not know if she would like her. Rosemary knew that Julieta wasn’t trying to be mean, but it felt a little mean to let a stranger come to their sleepover and then brush it off with the claim that said stranger was “nice”. She didn’t care if Valentina was “nice”, she didn’t want her there at all. She was somebody else, a faceless shadow who would be in Rosemary’s space, who would not care.

But that would be too rude to say out loud. And Julieta was her friend. How could she not take her hand?

Rosemary shoved down her discomfort and grabbed Julieta’s hand, focusing on the sound of her feet as she walked on the creaking floorboards, the lilting whines in the wood like a lulling melody.

Maybe she was just too paranoid. More uncomfortable things were supposed to happen as she got older. Maybe she just had to be quiet and deal with it.

Maybe it would still be fun.