Eric smiled at her with a nod and she returned his smile. Since Jace left he had been her new friend. He did not like hanging around with Anna, Wayne and Debby but he stayed with her in class.
From what she knew he was nice and was an art student despite how hard his father who was a professor in mathematics and his mother who was also a professor but in a medicine field tried to stop him.
He was intelligent and since they both shared the same area of interest, she felt it was cool to hang out with him. He was willing to learn certain things from her and she was also willing to learn from him.
Anna had warned her that the guy had feelings for her but she refused to believe because she could not see the signs. She felt the guy was only being a nice friend to her and nothing more.
"Relax. The competition is for every body there is no need to feel guilty," he advised her sincerely after their work for that day.
"I know, thanks," she appreciated. "How are you preparing for the competition?" she asked.
"You are the only potential threat so I don't have much to worry about. I will just focus on doing better than you," he replied straightforwardly.
She smiled shaking her head. "Goodluck with that," she replied. "I could give you a ride. My sister have gone home. What about stopping for cake on the way. I bet you need it to do better than me," she teased him.
"Sure. I could use a little bit of talisman from you," he replied.
She loved his plain straightforwardness. Last year, a girl got close to the two of them and they welcomed her well as a friend but she had her hatred hidden deep in her heart. She stole Rose's design for a workshop but got exposed.
Rose tried to believe that everyone was good until proven otherwise. Being around people like Anna, Wayne and Debby who seemed to be nice without wanting anything but friendship and closeness in return, made her try to see the best in people.
She was not particularly close to the girl unlike how close she was with Eric but she liked the gentle looking petite girl who she could easily recognize had great potentials until the girl showed her the bad side of her. She girl claimed she stole her design where as it was the other way round.
When she saw the girl fighting over one of her simplest designs that she did not put too much effort into, she felt pity towards the girl since the girl appeared pathetic and decided to ignore the whole thing.
The girl proved herself to be more pathetic by spreading rumors around the school that she tried stealing her work. One of the things she was trying hard not to do was to have her reputation smeared. It reminded her of her innocent mother and that made her plan to expose the girl.
It was okay that her work was stolen after all it was not something very important that might make history or even appear on a magazine but the girl added more to her crime and she spoke to the head teacher when she heard the rumor.
The head teacher told her to prove that the design was hers but she did not have anything to proof it with and it made her more angry. She found herself stuck but she used the commonly used method to get the girl's confession.
The girl felt really agitated when Rose lied to her that she had no future in the fashion world although Rose could see the girl had talent. Rose further pushed her by telling her to keep the trash.
The girl would have been unaffected since she did not have any other method and she was not very good at fighting verbal wars but the girl fell into the trap through a more effective method. The girl must have really hated the fact that Rose was better than her and had a little dirty secret she did not know about.
"I have a future here!" the girl had replied clearly agitated.
"By stealing other people's work? Everybody knows you stole my work. They are only waiting for the right time to embarrass you. They all know you can't make anything that good," Rose had tried to push the girl towards confession despite how tired she was from trying over and over with no progress.
She had never expected the commonly used method to be so hard. She read of it in novels, watched it on TV but it was harder for her than it seemed. Sighing she had considered giving up or simply beating the girl up until she confessed.
"Rose don't bother talking to her. I found something really interesting about her and I will post it on the school's website," Anna said entering the locker room where she chose to get the confession since most students were in class.
Rose was shocked and looked at Anna confused she had not spoken to Anna about this.
Anna gave the girl her smartphone with a video playing on it showing the girl and a teacher entangled in sexual pleasure. The girl gasped covering her mouth in a way Rose found dramatic. She wanted to stop her sister from blackmailing the girl but the girl's reaction to the video made her stop.
"If you don't confess on the school's website before midnight today, I will post the video and you will be the talk of the school. You are messed up really. Don't you know the teacher is married?" Anna asked in disgust.
Rose was too surprised by how effective this method was compared to her method. She immediately thought of her vengeance and the idea popped up on her mind.
She began really considering using that method although at this point she could not find anything she could use against the Queen.
"Where did you get that from?" Rose asked Anna afterwards.
"I got it from Wayne. He got it from her phone. I think she did it to blackmail the teacher," Anna replied happily.
"Thank you," Rose appreciated sincerely. She might have remained with the bad reputation.
Parking her pink sport car in a café known for their amazing cakes, she got down from her car along with Eric. She liked Eric because he considered her as threat to being the best but he never used a underhand method to do better than her.
There were times he showed her his sketchbook and asked for advice. She liked his transparency and he helped her improve in designing male clothes which she was not good at.
"Wow, I always wanted to come here with my girlfriend," Eric said smiling excitedly.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" she asked curiously. He should have one since he was just too goodlooking.