Page 6 of Look What You Made Me Do

The neon may have been bright enough to induce epilepsy but it barely threw the light of a firefly. Ella winced at the slick, shiny surface of the metallic booth table, cold beneath her elbows. An equally metallic song with a heavy bass beat and no discernible lyrics throbbed around the room.

“This is horrible,” Ella bitched.

“Yup,” Rosie agreed, handing Ella a glass of white wine. “I think we’re gonna have to find a new TGIF watering hole, babe. This is more Holy Shit it’s Friday.”

“But I liked it here,” Ella whined then hated herself for whining when it was the epitome of a first world problem. Still, today was going from bad to worse. “And it’s ten minutes from home.”

Rosie quirked an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

Ella took a sip of her drink. “The letter came today.” They’d only just started the new school year for crying out loud. Way to take the shine off.

“Bastards!”

“Uh huh.”

“Pen pushing, bureaucratic, assholes.”

Ella nodded, her friend’s insults music to her ears. Real music, not the techno-crap that was currently vibrating around them. “What you said.”

“That lot couldn’t organize a fuck in a brothel. Screw them. Screw them all.”

Ella smiled despite the heaviness that had settled around her since opening the ominous yellow envelope at 8a.m.

Her bestie’s colorful language was the perfect counterbalance to Ella’s more judicious use of profanity. Growing up around the quirk and color of the midway had well and truly rubbed off and Rosie’s unique way with words was just one of the things Ella loved about her.

Combine that with dramatically dyed black hair, chunky combat-style boots, blood-red lips and eyebrow piercings, and Gypsy-Rose Forsythe was a sight to behold.

Raising her glass, Ella clinked it against Rosie’s. It was good to have such an ardent supporter in her corner. “Amen.”

Ella’s self-appointed champion since the age of seventeen, Rosie had been exactly what tightly wound Ella had needed. People who knew them often wondered what two women of such complete opposites had in common. But Ella didn’t – she knew she owed Rosie everything.

That fateful day when the carnival had driven in to Trently had been a major turning point in her life and she thanked her lucky stars for it, for Rosie, every day.

Two misfits against the world.

“How long have district given you?”

“Till the end of the year,” Ella said gloomily. “If my enrollments haven’t picked up and my truancy record improved, they’re going to shut us down.”

“What?” Rosie shook her head in disgust. “Fuckwits.”

Ella swirled the contents of her glass gloomily. “I never wanted this damn job. I never wanted to be principal.”

“I know.”

She threw a desperate look at Rosie. “I’m a math teacher.”

Rosie squeezed Ella’s hand. “And a damn good one.”

Ella gave her friend a lopsided smile. “How were any of us to know that Kelvin was going to crack under the pressure? This position was only meant to be temporary.”

“It’s not your fault no one wants to work there.”

Ella sighed. “They’re not bad kids. Not most of them. They’re just living really tough lives.” Something that had been further exacerbated by the current cost of living crisis.

“I know,” Rosie murmured again.

And she did know. They both knew how rough it was to grow up standing on the outside, looking in.

---