Rose sat cross-legged on her bed after dinner, the small lamp on her nightstand casting a warm circle of light across the quilt.
The apartment was quiet now—Ethan in his room with headphones on, her mother already asleep after a long shift.
The window was cracked open just enough to let in the faint night sounds of the city: distant traffic, a neighbor's television murmuring through the wall, the occasional chirp of crickets that had begun appearing with the warmer evenings.
She wore her favourite dress tonight—an old, soft lavender cotton sundress she had kept since middle school.
It was faded at the hem from too many washes, but the colour still felt like a hug against her skin.
Lavender had always been her favourite—not bright or loud, just gentle, like early morning light through fog.
She liked how it made her feel calm, invisible in the best way.
Dinner had been simple: grilled chicken, steamed broccoli, and a side of mashed potatoes her mother had made with a little too much butter.
Rose preferred mild, comforting flavours—nothing too spicy or sharp.
She liked the way familiar tastes could settle her nerves after a long day, the way mashed potatoes melted on the tongue like quiet reassurance.
Tonight she had eaten slowly, thinking of the chocolate chip cookies they had baked with Jade last weekend, the way the kitchen had smelled of sugar and laughter.
She pulled her sketchbook onto her lap.
The page was already half-filled—a rough outline of the sparrow that visited the small garden patch every morning, wings half-spread as though deciding whether to stay or fly.
She picked up a pencil and began shading the feathers, light strokes, careful not to press too hard.
Her thoughts drifted, as they often did lately, to Jade.
In this new city—still unfamiliar after all these months—Rose had expected loneliness.
She had braced for it the way one braces for cold wind: shoulders hunched, arms folded tight.
The move had come so suddenly, the apartment so small compared to the house in Florida, the school so full of faces that already knew each other.
She had told herself it was fine to be alone.
She was used to it.
And then Jade had appeared—quiet, steady, never pushing, never demanding more than Rose was ready to give.
They had started with shared silence in the library, then small words in the music room, then longer conversations that felt like breathing room.
Jade listened without filling every pause.
She noticed things—paint on Rose's cheek, the way she flinched at loud noises in dodgeball—and stepped in without making a show of it.
She made Rose feel seen without making her feel exposed.
Rose paused her shading, pencil hovering.
She was happy—truly happy—that she had found this friend in a place that had once felt so foreign.
Jade was safe , was easy.
Jade made the days feel less like something to endure and more like something to look forward to.
But then she remembered the watercolour afternoon.
The juniors crowding around Jade, eyes bright, voices eager.
The way they had leaned in, asking for songs, for stories, for pieces of her.
Rose had looked up from her painting and felt something sharp twist inside her chest—small, sudden, gone almost as quickly as it came.
She had told herself it was nothing.
Just surprise at how many people knew Jade's voice, how naturally she drew them in.
But the feeling had lingered, faint and nagging, like a bruise she hadn't noticed until she pressed it.
Why had it bothered her?
Rose set the pencil down and leaned back against her pillows.
She stared at the ceiling, tracing cracks that looked like faint rivers.
Maybe it was fear.
Fear of losing the one person who made this city feel less empty.
Jade was her first real friend here—
someone who stayed, who chose to sit beside her in the library, who chased her down the corridor with paint on her fingers and laughter in her voice.
If Jade's attention turned elsewhere—if the juniors, or anyone else, claimed more of her time—Rose would be left with the quiet she had once accepted so easily.
But now the quiet felt different , it felt lonely.
She closed her eyes.
The memory of Jade's hands on her waist flashed behind her lids—steady, warm, catching her before she could fall.
The way time had slowed for a heartbeat, the juniors' soft cheers fading into background noise.
Rose had felt her pulse in her throat, heat in her cheeks, something unsteady blooming low in her stomach.
She had told herself it was just embarrassment.
Just the surprise of being held so suddenly.
But the feeling had stayed with her—quiet, persistent, refusing to be named.
Rose opened her eyes again.
She picked up the pencil, returned to the sparrow.
She added a tiny detail—a single bright eye looking straight out of the page.
She was happy to have Jade as a friend.
More than happy.
Grateful, in a way that felt almost too big to hold.
And if there were moments when her heart stumbled—when Jade's smile lingered too long, when their shoulders brushed and neither moved away—Rose decided she didn't need to examine them too closely.
Not yet.
She had a friend. A good one , in a city that had once felt so strange.
That was enough.
She finished the sparrow's wing with a final soft stroke, then closed the sketchbook.
Tomorrow was another school day.
Jade would be there—waiting near the lockers, or in the courtyard, or outside the art room with paint still on her sleeve.
Rose turned off the lamp.
The room darkened, but the warmth lingered.
She pulled the quilt higher and closed her eyes, already looking forward to morning.