Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

A Rose Among Thorns

My father always used to tell me to live up to the man whom I wanted to be. "Picture him," he said while kicking a soccer ball toward me, "and never lose sight of him."
I never really did, even those few years of high school when I didn't know what I wanted to become. The man inside my mind was confident, he was passionate, and he was patient. Those three qualities were things I deemed essential for coexistence. The first time I was proved wrong was when I met her.
Her name was Rose, and I don't think I have ever met someone as demanding as that girl. The first time she talked to me, she asked me if I would let her copy my French homework. I will be the first to admit that "Candide, ou l'optimisme" isn't the easiest to read, but if she was taking French V, she should know at least the gist of the story. The questions were not that difficult. With a dictionary, the book, and prior knowledge of the French language, one could finish the questions in thirty minutes. I had finished mine in twenty! That was why when she held out her hand, I looked at it in disbelief and shook my head.
"No!" I exclaimed. "You can't!"
The second thing she ever said to me was an expletive, and that was only after I refused to let her use a dictionary for a test in our French class. My argument that she took four years of French and that she should know the basic words which composed the free-response questions was upheld by our teacher Ms. Brine, but after fifteen minutes of Rose throwing a fit, I finally agreed to let her use a dictionary.
The third time was the charm. In the whole first semester of our fifth year in French (we were the only two in the French V class), we had not talked but those two times. However, in the second semester, she suddenly became such a sweet girl that I failed to recognize her as I went in the room the first day of class. There was something about her that radiated like perfume and perforated my nostrils, jackhammering my senses, but at the same time soothing my tension. I was not looking forward to seeing her, but for the first time I saw her as a changed person. All it took was the sight of her bright yellow top and a whiff of her rose petal lotion to drive me nuts. When she spoke, my ears rang red with heat, and the third thing she ever said to me was "I never realized how hard you worked in this class. Let's work together from now on."
After months of providing her with calendars for our six-week grading periods and major grade projects that I had created, she finally understood how much effort I put into the language which I admired and adored. Nothing meant more for me than those words, and that third time she ever spoke to me is forever imprinted in my mind. I remember the light blue spaghetti-strap top she wore with a simple, white skirt which reached halfway down her thigh. She wore her auburn hair with her natural curls, and the sunlight which filtered through it cast a cherry-colored shade on the table in which we sat. Of course, her rose petal lotion was ever-so present.
What I learned later on would not only prove that my love for her was destined and everlasting, but that hers was not for me.

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