Claire plopped down onto the curb, breathing heavily from the multiple miles she just ran. She knew she had to return home, but the thought of being subjected to her nagging mother and uncaring father filled her with dread. She hung her blond head down, wrapping her tan arms around her knees.
A battered, compact car pulled up beside her and Claire kept her eyes averted, hoping whoever it was wouldn’t bother her.
“Hey, you good?” A husky, female voice called from the car.
Claire looks up into the face of a girl about her age of sixteen. The girl’s similarly blond hair was cropped to her jaw, streaked with multiple bright colors, offsetting her dark blue eyes. A heart shaped face gave her a delicacy counteracting her feline eyes, staring at Claire frigidly.
“Well?” She called again, startling Claire into realizing she was staring.
“O-oh, I’m fine thanks,” Claire stammered timidly, fairly frightened by the girl in front of her.
She stared at Claire a moment longer with her near black eyes. “‘Kay, whatever.” The girl’s words and the condescending way she stared at Claire was confusing combined with the fact that she had seemed to care enough to pull over and offer to help Claire. The girl slammed into drive and sped away with a squeal of burning rubber.
Claire stared after the car in puzzlement until her eyes crossed and decided it was time to get up and go home.
The next day, when Claire pulled into the school parking lot she noticed a familiar, battered up car. She started to feel guilty not being able to remember the interesting girl from yesterday ever being at her school. Throughout the dragging day, Claire kept a lookout for the girl, but had given up by the time the bell ending the school day had rung. Claire shut her locker, the ragged edge of the door catching on her finger for about the millionth time drawing a small drop of red to the surface of her skin. The cut absorbed Claire’s attention as she wiped it away and tried to staunch the small, but seemingly unending flow. She glanced up to see the punk girl from yesterday staring at her with a lack of smile or any light in her eyes. For a second, Claire thought the girl didn’t recognize her at all until she got a small nod of acknowledgement before the dark eyes turned away.
A few days of these nods followed. Claire finally learned the girl’s name (Ros) and became increasingly intrigued. Claire was obviously a part of the straight-A, do-gooder group while Ros wasn’t. Ros’s friends were as intimidating as Ros herself and gave off that goth feeling without the cliché of dressing all in black
  So, although Ros and her friends terrified Claire a fair amount, Claire found herself--surprisingly--walking over to Claire when she was alone one day. Claire wasn’t outgoing in any sense of the word, and even if she wasn’t lacking in friends, Ros seemed like such a contradiction that she couldn’t stop herself. Claire was usually kept in a certain box by, well, everybody and she wanted to befriend someone who would be completely new to her.
As she walked up, Ros turned from getting her drink out of the vending machine, and, seeing Claire walking towards her, c***ed her head in a bird-like way.
Claire stopped in front of her, “Hi, I’m Claire.”
Ros’s bemused look didn’t fade as she returned, “I know, I’m Ros.”
“I know,” Claire smiled and saw Ros’s lips turn up at the corners, almost looking against her will. Ros started walking and Claire was unsure whether she was to follow or not, but when Ros glanced back at her with a raised brow, she decided the answer was to follow.
The two walked together out to Ros’s car, not talking about much of anything--Ros didn’t seem like one to small talk. Once they reached the sad, old car Ros turned to Claire. “You don’t seem too bad--surprisingly. See you tomorrow, Claire,” the girl stated and then got into her car without waiting for Claire’s response, so Claire started walking across the parking lot, surprisingly happy that she had passed Ros’s inspection, feeling like it meant more for Ros to like her than any other.
The less than normal encounter left Claire feeling excited that maybe she could find someone who didn’t bore her to death to fill some of her time with.
The next following days, Claire found herself in a new routine with Ros. After school each day the girls walked together, speaking or not. Ros didn’t appreciate the mindless babble that Claire was accustomed to having with her other friends, so she only said the important things. She brought her annoyances from home or school, to which Ros usually replied with an amused glance when she knew Claire just wanted to whine about something. Claire told Ros the things that no one else really knew or understood about her. That her parents were slowly crushing her, that she didn’t want to follow her brother into law school, that she actually disliked a good deal of her “friends”. It felt so nice to have Ros to talk to about the many things constantly weighing down on her. She was definitely lacking in the real friends department, and her mother had never been one she could ever take any of her problems to.
By the next Friday of the girls’ new camaraderie, the two were lounging on a bench in the courtyard in place of walking out into the packed parking lot. One of the boys Claire had seen with Ros a  fair number of times walked up to the bench. His black hair gleamed in the sunlight and Claire knew he was sweating up a storm underneath that black long sleeve and black cargo pants. He stopped in front of Ros after giving Claire a cursory glance, of which she was very used to from Ros’s friends.
“‘Sup R, you coming to that party tonight at Micha’s?” He asked Ros.
Ros gave a quick glance at Claire and seemed to consider the question for a very small amount of time before answering. “Yeah, sure,” she said indifferently.
The boy gave Claire a glance as well with a c***ed brow. Claire had noticed that Ros wasn’t one to ask what her eyebrow could convey, and Claire guessed that skill was passed throughout her group of friends.
“Uh . . . okay,” Claire said in response to the unasked question. She saw Ros give her another look, and Claire knew that she was surprised. Claire was just as surprised herself. She didn’t do much outside of school, sports, and work and Ros knew that fact as well as anyone else acquainted with Claire. So, the boy nodded and strolled away with his hands in his pockets and Claire’s stomach already started to twist in nerves and regret.
“You sure, Claire? I know you aren’t into that stuff, you don’t have to go just because of me.” Ros said.
“I know. I want to go, I’d end up going to one at some point in my life so I might as well try one out now.” Claire smiled at Ros to try and ease the skepticism she still saw on her friend’s face.
When the girls arrived, Claire was just about shaking in her boots. Ros had repeatedly asked if Claire had wanted to go, noticing the nerves Claire had about doing something so new tonight, but Claire had affirmed that she wanted to be there. Claire didn’t really want to be there, though, she just wanted to see Ros’s world, experience the recklessness that she knew Ros filled her weekends with. So she went, and was already regretting it when she heard the booming music in the small, rundown home, and the multiple people loitering outside.
Claire was overwhelmed, when she entered the house with the smells, the heat, and the people that Ros was used to, but Claire was most definitely not. After an hour, maybe two, of Claire keeping close to Ros, trying to talk to whoever wanted to but noticing that many were judging her from afar, she decided she was ready to go. The question to her friend of whether they were going to leave soon, did not have the desired answer.
“Seriously, Claire? We just got here. You can go, but I’m having fun,” When Claire heard the slight slur in her friend’s voice she cringed. She really wanted to leave, and knew Ros could take care of herself, but how could she just leave her here.
Ros must have seen the indecision on her face. “Please go, Claire. You following me around for the next couple hours doesn’t sound particularly entertaining anyways.”
As the hurt passed over Claire’s face, Ros turned turned and sauntered away.
Claire didn’t see Ros until the next Monday at school. When Ros first saw Claire walking up to her that morning she cringed and Claire almost thought it was being directed at Claire, but then Ros walked up to her with a guilty look on her face.
“I’m sorry for Friday, Claire. I should’ve known you wouldn’t have fun and been ready to leave with you.” Ros’s face was completely open as she said this, which was something Claire wasn’t all that accustomed of from her friend. “I didn’t mean what I said either.”
Claire smiled, “I know, it’s okay.”
Ros looked way too relieved for such a small thing and Claire wondered if being forgiven was more new to her than not.
The week passed slowly by and Claire stuck by her friend, inviting Ros to dinner (she denied that offer after hearing all about Claire’s parents) and just to hang out at other more warm places in town (Ros accepted those). When Friday again rolled around, Ros had mentioned that there weren’t any parties she wanted to go to that night, so Claire was contemplating whether she wanted them to hang out again. As the day passed, however, Ros was drawn inside herself, barely speaking to Claire let alone any of her other friends. School got out and Claire asked her friend if she wanted to go see a movie, but Ros barely glanced at her with a no before quickly getting into her car and speeding away.
That night, Claire became restless as she sat at home. Ros was unpredictable and Claire--through her short friendship with Ros--had learned that she did things without thinking and that when she was in a mood she was most definitely about to do something she probably shouldn’t. So, Claire called out to her parents that she was going out, and, without waiting for the blasé response she knew was coming, slipped out the door.
On her way to Ros’s, Claire started to regret the spontaneous decision. It was fairly late at night, what if Ros wasn’t home? What if Ros turned her away or got even more annoyed at the girl? The thoughts tumbled through her mind, but Claire didn’t turn around the car. For once she wanted a confrontation, she wanted to knock on her friends door and make sure that she was there and okay, she wanted Ros to know that she could take anything to Claire. Claire drove through the neighborhood with its general air of menace, amplified in the cold, darkness.
When Claire pulled up to the house, she first noticed its lack of lighting, then the emptiness of the driveway hit her. Ros wasn’t home, of course. She parked her car and got out anyway. Claire had met Ros’s single mother only once and the woman had been cordial, hopefully she was home and wouldn’t mind Claire’s intrusion.
As her hand was raising to the wood of the door to knock, it swung open. Ros’s mother’s frantic face peered at Claire and she seemed to slump in defeat when she saw the girl in front of her.
“Claire. Have you seen Ros?” The voice was also frantic, but resigned.
“No, not since school got out,” was Claire’s answer watching the woman’s face very closely.
The mother before her dragged a hand over her face, a lifetime of worry glowing through in
that one movement. “She never came home. She hasn’t called and she always calls. I don’t understand where she would be.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s just with some friends.”
“No, she would have called. She knows that I need her to tell me if she’s going to be gone long and she always respects that.”
Claire started to worry watching Ros’s mother. She pulled out her phone and sent Ros a quick text although the other girl wasn’t one to be on her phone much.
“Why don’t you come in, we’ll wait for her together.” The woman sounded skeptical that her daughter would be home anytime soon, but Claire still stepped over the threshold into the quaintly small home.
Claire and Ros’s mother sat together for a time. The worry that came through in the woman’s every small move started to seep into Claire’s bones. They didn’t talk much, the TV was playing but neither were paying much attention. Claire’s phone sat silent in her lap and the mother’s was clutched in her hands, neither buzzing or ringing. Multiple calls went out to Ros but the phones did not make a sound. The multiple texts they sent, not only to Ros, but to her other friends that Claire and Ros’s mother had the numbers to remained unhelpful. No one seemed to know where the girl went and finally as the night bled to dawn, the woman called the police and although they couldn’t help much since Ros hadn’t even been missing a day, they still searched alongside that mother and friend and found nothing of the one they sought.