Hi everyone,

I am SO sorry for the incredibly long wait, I was working on this story when all of a sudden my uncle passed away. It was unexpected and heartbreaking and much too young, and my mom and I had to fly over to the US to take care of things.

I hope you have all had as good of a 2021 as possible and I wish for a better 2022 for us all.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year loves.

xx

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

Rosie was walking through the hallways of ACG Parnell College with her books held tightly against her body. Her hair was in the usual French braid and her black rimmed glasses were placed securely on her nose. She had tried using contacts for a few months last year, but she could never get used to them so she went back to her glasses.

She was heading in the direction of her locker when a large group of cheerleaders rounded the corner and walked towards her. She instinctively took a step towards the lockers so she wouldn't be in the way and waited patiently for the most popular girls in Auckland to walk past her. Rosie didn't hate them; she just didn't exactly love them either. She tolerated them. She had no plans of ever joining them and she had absolutely no aspiration to becoming their friend, unlike the rest of the school. They never bothered her and she never bothered them, she liked it like that. It could have been much worse to be honest.

As they passed her the head of the cheerleaders, and Auckland Royalty, Jennie Kim turned and smiled at Rosie before she continued her stride down the hallway and turned the corner. Rosie shook it off as nothing and hurried towards her locker so she wouldn't be late for class. Rosie was never late for class and she was never absent. That wasn't exactly true though, in her freshman year she had been gone for almost two weeks because of her appendix almost exploding, but she tried not to count that. She had still been able to keep up with her schoolwork and aced a test the day she returned to school.

Yeah, she was pretty smart.

That was also not exactly true, she was basically a genius, but since she didn't want to seem too weird she kept her brilliance under wraps and instead of skipping several grades and graduating early she was slightly bored at school. It wasn't too bad to be honest, she quite liked all the A's she was getting. Rosie didn't really engage in too many after school activities, she preferred spending her time at home doing homework. She had played the piano for many years though and she enjoyed running. The reason she hadn't joined the track team or any other running activity at school was because she liked running when she wanted to, not when someone told her to.

Rosie was about 168 cm tall and her body was quite athletic. She was slim, but strong. Not that any of her peers would know that though, she didn't exactly like showing it off. She would usually wear jeans or a loose skirt with a loose fitting top, nothing too tight. That was what she felt the most comfortable in.

"Hey Rosie, could you help me with our homework before class starts?" Rosie was just about to enter her AP European History class when Haley joined her. Haley was the closest thing Rosie had to a best friend. They would often sit together in class and eat lunch together, but rarely spent time together after school. Rosie wasn't the type of person who needed a best friend, for now she was quite happy without one.

"Of course Hales, we have some time now since Mr. Holmes is always late." They sat down in the middle of the almost empty classroom and Rosie started helping Haley. Rosie honestly didn't mind it though; she could do this stuff in her sleep.

"Thank you so much Rosie, you're a lifesaver."

"It's honestly no problem Haley, I like having you in my class, it would if you failed and had to take a regular history class. To be honest I'm being quite selfish here." Rosie smiled, making Haley laugh. "So true! Typical Rosie, always the selfish one." She was about to ask Rosie something when Mr. Holmes came rushing into the classroom and started the lecture.

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

Jennie was ridiculously bored in her calculus class, but she tried really hard to pay attention. She was surrounded by fellow cheerleaders and Claire, who was currently sitting next to her, would not stop talking. Jennie was too polite to tell her to shut the up so she nodded her head every now and then and pretended to pay attention. She only had one more class for the day, French, and then she could go home and get some much needed sleep. She had been up really late for the last week to come up with the perfect performance for their national cheerleading competition, but no matter what she suggested their coach hated it. She was going to give it one last shot before giving up. She put her head on her desk and before she knew it she had dozed off.

She didn't wake up until the bell went off and when she stood up to leave the classroom her teacher smiled shyly at her. Another one of the perks of being the captain of the cheerleaders. Hardly any of her teachers cared if she fell asleep in class, probably because they were too intimidated to say anything. Not that Jennie was intimidating, but if Coach Williams found out that any of them had said anything to her star cheerleader they would all feel her wrath. And no one wanted that. They didn't really have any reason to complain either, Jennie was smart and she had absolutely no problem passing all of her classes.

"J, you coming to the party at Henry's house tonight?" Jennie was standing by her locker and looked to the side to find her best friend, Fiona, standing there. It was Friday and since there was no match that day the star Rugby player was throwing a huge party. Not that they didn't party after matches too, but now they could start the party way earlier.

"I can't, I have to nail this whole nationals performance. Williams is really getting on my back, she'll probably kick me off the squad if I don't come up with something soon."

Fiona rolled her eyes.

"Let's be honest here J, you're Coach's favorite captain ever. She would never ever kick you off and those routines that you've showed her are probably ridiculously good, but she knows that you can do better so she pretends that they ."

Jennie shut her locker after she'd retrieved her French books and leaned against it. "That sounds pretty nice, but it's Coach Williams we're talking about here, we'll never know."

Fiona laughed and started twisting her finger around her high pony. "True. I've gotta head to Spanish class, see ya later J."

Jennie said bye and hurried down the hallway towards her French class. She sat down in her regular seat, next to one of the not-so-bright cheerleaders, and started talking to her until their teacher walked in.

"Bonjour tout le monde."

"Bonjour Mme. Chan." The whole class responded in a monotone voice.

"Quel enthousiasme! Today I am going to run through irregular verbs, so take notes." Half of the class groaned and the rest of the class was either A. not paying attention or B. named Jennie or Rosie. The two loved French and would happily pay attention any day. Very few people had any idea that Jennie was completely fluent in the language, and she liked keeping it that way. It wasn't