Chapter Text
June 13th, 2022
“This will be good for you, don’t you think?” Her mom said, glancing at her in the rear view mirror.
Roselle Sydney Brown wholeheartedly disagreed. She sincerely disagreed. She couldn’t think of any more synonyms, but you get the point. She didn’t care how much her mom insisted that ‘this will be so fun, Roselle!’ or, ‘Rose, you know this will be good for you!’
Her mom didn’t know shit about fun.
She’d be stuck in a stupid tiny town for about three months. Three. How many days would that be? Roselle didn’t even want to try and figure that out right now.
Nobody even bothered to tell the fourteen year old the name of said stupid tiny town. She never even found one of those ‘Welcome to [insert town name]’ signs. Roselle mentally let out a long, tired sigh.
Which her mom apparently heard, because a few seconds after, Roselle heard a sigh come from her, too. “I know you don’t want to be here, and I know that you’re upset abou—“
That was when Roselle tuned out her mom. She didn’t care if that talk could’ve had the potential to change Roselle’s mind about this summer.
(It most definitely wouldn’t have changed her mind.)
Maybe she’d go insane, and then her mom would have to throw her in a mental hospital or something.
Well, maybe not. Robin said that it wasn’t very great to be in there. Her exact words were, ‘the service is shit, I can barely use my phone, and the food is fucking ass.’
Roselle sighed, again.
Her eyes flickered to the window, which showed…
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Kind of.
Saying ‘absolutely nothing’ was a partial lie. Like, there were a few cars here and there. None in front of the car Roselle sat in, though. It seemed as if everyone who entered this godforsaken town wanted to leave.
Jesus, everyone who entered this town probably didn’t even want to enter it. This place wasn’t even on the maps!
How did she know this?
Well, it was kind of obvious, with the way her mom was driving around aimlessly with no GPS.
Roselle, yet again, let out a long, long sigh. She glanced up to the front seat. She wasn’t really looking forward to spending a whole summer in the middle of nowhere. Three. Whole. Months. In this stupid fucking place. Buttfuck nowhere.
She looked towards the front window and saw a couple dozen squished bugs. She glanced worriedly towards her mom, but she seemed unbothered. Roselle rolled her eyes.
Suddenly, there was a vibration on her thigh from her phone. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, fully expecting it to be—-
—inmate 0704: hi roselle ☺️☺️
Robin.
Roselle had to hold back a groan. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure on why she was still friends with Robin. The age difference was odd, so when the two were in public they always got odd glances. A fourteen year old and an almost seventeen year old.
They made for an eccentric duo, that’s for sure.
—YOU: what
—inmate 0704: wdym “what”???
—YOU: you only ever text me when you want soemhring
—YOU: soemtnig
—YOU: semrhing
—inmate 0704: you can do it
—YOU: somethigb
—YOU: SOMETHING
—inmate 0704: aren’t you supposed to be a genius 🧐
—YOU: 🖕
—YOU: KILL
—YOU: YOUR
—inmate 0704: where are you going for summer break
—YOU: oh yk already 😞
—inmate 0704: did you learn the mame
—YOU: no
—YOU: is that it
—inmate 0704: . . .
Roselle shut off her phone, putting it back in her pocket. She felt another vibration, but she decided she’d look at it later.
Glancing up to the front seat again, she almost jumped out of her skin when she noticed her mom was looking at her. Roselle was sure she had made a face when she saw her mom ‘cause she raised an eyebrow.
After a couple seconds of silence, her mom asked, “Who were you texting?”
Roselle shrugged, moving her eyes to the window, “Just Robin.”
Her mom let out a long, pissed off sigh through her nose. Her eyes were still steady on the road. “This girl seems like a terrible influence on you. Wasn’t she in a mental hospital?”
She sighed, glancing at Roselle in the rear view mirror— not too different from how she did earlier. Roselle didn’t look back at her.
“I’m just trying to help you, Rose. I know that it doesn’t really—“
Like many times before, she blocked out whatever her mom started saying. She knew exactly how the conversation would go. ‘I know that it doesn’t seem like it, but I just want the best for you.’ After that, there’d be something about how she knows she and dad aren’t home much, but it’s okay! It’s for the best.
Roselle stared out the window again, trying to observe everything about the surroundings. There were…
A lot of palm trees.
She sighed, letting her breath fog up the window in a small, unevenly shaped circle.
It can’t be that bad. She really should not be dreading going to some tiny ass town for the summer. Really, all in all, it’s just a change in scenery. She didn’t exactly go to school anyway. Tutoring worked for her.
But, that meant that she didn’t really have any.. friends, her age. She can’t really remember how she became friends with Robin. It had only been a year since they had become friends. They met when Robin was fifteen, and Roselle was thirteen.
Roselle remembered something about underage drinking. The night they met was all very hazy, to say the least. All she knew was that she woke up in bed with someone’s phone number scrawled on a paper.
Looking out the car window at just the right time, she saw a sign that said ‘Welcome to Watervalley!’ with an unreadable population count on it. Well, Roselle apparently didn’t miss the sign.
She wondered if this was some sort of punishment.
For what? She had no idea.
But, if this was a punishment, it was a really shitty one. Roselle could probably think of a better one. On the spot, too.
There was a vibration in her pocket. She bit back a sigh and opened her text messages.
—inmate 0704: rose are you sure your ok after what happened
—inmate 0704: hello???
—inmate 0704: im sorry rose
—inmate 0704: rooooooose
JUST NOW:
—inmate 0704: why tf are you in the middle of nowhere
—inmate 0704: it doesn’t even show a town???
—YOU: this place isn’t even on the maps
—inmate 0704: the fuck???
—YOU: yeah
—YOU: it’s wtvr. i learned the name
—inmate 0704: do tell
—YOU: watervalley
—inmate 0704: i mean. it kinda makes sense
Roselle shut off her phone, leaving Robin on read.
As her mom slowly drove through the downtown area, making comments on basically everything, Roselle wondered how her mom even found this place. Or, better question, why her mom wanted to stay here. They were very— well off, to say the least.
“Maybe you’ll make some friends here!” Her mom said enthusiastically.
“Some that are.. your age,” she added passive aggressively, glancing at Roselle in the rear view mirror.
Roselle’s eye twitched, “…Yeah.”
Yeah right, to finish her own sentence mentally. The population of Watervalley looked like it ranged from young adult to middle aged. There was no way she would manage to find friends here.
She would’ve never predicted that, yes, she would find a girl her age. She didn’t know that said girl would leave a permanent mark on Roselle.
-
Somewhere in a small beach town by the name of Watervalley, a teenage girl stood on her room, glaring at her cello. The same teenage girl was about to go find a hammer and throw it at said cello.
At the ripe age of fifteen, Eleanor Rose Heart believes she would grow gray hairs.
Like, seriously— she was supposed to be fucking good at cello! She even has lessons! Expensive ones, at that. But, for some damn reason, whatever kind of god or heaven above that exists, will not let her play this one, single, fucking, no—
Her eye twitched when she heard a certain orange-haired cat scratch at her closed door. Eleanor marched to her closet and pulled out a shoe and threw it at the door.
“Whoever’s out there, stop holding the damn cat hostage! He knows to not scratch when the door is closed! Might I mention, my door is fucking locked! Locked! L-O-C-K-E-D!” Eleanor yelled, throwing random things in her room at the door for extra effect. ‘Random things’ included: the other shoe, a beat up sandal, a half-filled journal, and an already-broken perfume bottle.
“Can you unlock the door, at least?” A deep voice asked from the other side of the door. Loud, nonstop knocking was paired with the question.
Biting back a groan, Eleanor walked to the door and unlocked it. She opened the door and was met with a familiar head of blonde hair, similar to her own.
“Elliot. Did you need something?”
Her older brother grinned. “Yeah, actually. Mom said she saw a car driving in.”
Rolling her eyes, Eleanor had the urge to slam the door in his face. “So? What does that have to do with me?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know. She just told me to tell you.”
“Okay. Bye,” without waiting for a response, she slammed the door and went to her bed. She sat down.
Honestly, Eleanor couldn’t give two shits about some people, or a car. They were probably just driving through, or something. Nobody really wanted to go to Watervalley.
Eleanor had lived in Watervalley for her basically whole life. Sort of. Well, not really, but she always considered Watervalley a second home.
When she was younger, she went to Watervalley for summer break, when school ended. But, after her dad passed away when she was in sixth grade, her mom made the decision to move there permanently.
It was kind of a shitty decision, but grief is a weird thing. Eleanor didn’t really have much of a problem with the move, anyway. She was used to Watervalley and the people there.
The thing with Watervalley is that the town is so small that everyone knew everyone. Everybody knew everybody’s mother and aunt and uncle and brother and hairdresser and-
The list goes on.
It was a weird thing to think about.
-
Eleanor stumbled out of her broken window. Why was it broken? Eleanor can’t remember, but it’s better than nothing.
The sun was setting, turning the once-blue sky into vibrant orange and red hues.
Eleanor fell out of her window and onto the ground with a thump. She was glad that her house was close enough to the beach that it was surrounded by sand, so her fall was cushioned.
She walked to the other side of her house, wincing when sand got in her converse.
Gross.
When she got to the other side, the thing she was looking for was nowhere to be seen. Her bike was gone. The thing is, as upset as Eleanor was, she knew exactly who took it. She bit back a groan, kicking the wall.
Looking up to the sky, she noticed that it was dark. In Watervalley, it got dark awfully quick, which is why most people didn’t stay outside after sunset.
She looked to her left and there was suddenly a bright flash of light, and the source was a flashlight. Eleanor groaned and covered her eyes.
“Jesus, Elliot!”
“What? I just wanted to know why you were gonna go out this late!” He said. “No one would ever be out here, you know,” Elliot added.
“I just wanted to go on a bike ride downtown,” Eleanor said, uncovering her eyes but covering them with her arm directly after. “My god— can you turn off the flashlight?”
“Shit, my bad,” he shrugged, turning it off.
“Where’d you even find that,” Eleanor mumbled under her breath.
She knows Elliot heard her, but he ignored it. “Mom said that she thinks there was a girl your age in the car, you know.”
“What?”
He sighed. “In the car that was driving through earlier, the one I told you about?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure. I remember,” Eleanor kicked a rock, “she probably didn’t even see a girl there.”
Elliot rolled his eyes, “If you say so.”
She kicked another rock, watching it. It didn’t go that far. The only sound outside other than their breathing were bugs in the distance. Elliot sighed.
“Just go back to bed, Eleanor,” he said, giving her another glance before walking to the front door.
Eleanor stood there for a while, looking at the sky.
Even if there was some girl who looked to be around her age in that stupid car, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because the car was no where in Watervalley, and even if it was somewhere, nobody would wanna be friends with Eleanor, anyway.
She gave one last glance to the clear, clear sky and climbed back upstairs.
-