49. Rose
49
ROSE
“You’re still here,” I whisper in a croaky voice when I feel Zander near me. If it weren’t for the cold tiled floor of my room against my forehead and cheek, I wouldn’t even know where I am. His warm presence is the only thing keeping this room alive; otherwise, everything around me feels dead.
“How are you?” he asks as I try to sit up, supporting my back against the wall.
I peer up at him as he sits on his haunches in front of me, still not close. He continues to stare at me without so much as touching me or making a sound.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Hearing my words, he shakes his head. His eyes are bloodshot; I’m guessing due to lack of sleep. I’m sure he didn’t shut his eyes for a minute the whole night. His hair is ruffled, and he looks years older than he did yesterday. Overall, he looks tired.
Tired of me.
“How are you still here?” I ask again, my parched throat making it difficult to speak.
Zander picks up a glass of water from the table and passes it to me. I follow his movements, trying to understand what he’s still doing here.
“Where else would I be?” His eyes are filled with so much sorrow that I can’t even bear to look at him for long.
My mind says, anywhere but here in reply to his question.
I return the empty glass, and he places it back on the table, being careful not to touch me.
“You don’t want to touch me?” I ask as he observes me with those sorrowful eyes from a distance.
“Rose, I’m afraid to do anything at this moment.”
I nod. I understand. My chest, stomach, limbs, and most of all my heart, all ache knowing that it’s over now. He won’t be able to stay. But then he surprises me.
“I would do anything to hold you in my arms, to take away the pain, the…fear. But more than that, I don’t want you to go back to whatever dark place you visited yesterday.”
My eyes itch as fresh tears start flowing from them. I cry for myself, but also for him. How much pain have I caused him?
“You’re killing me, baby.” He looks up at the ceiling, and a single tear rolls down the corner of his eyes.
Oh my God! What did I do to him?
The pressed anguish bursts in my chest, and I forget to breathe. I jump into Zander’s arms, and my action catches him off guard. It takes him a second to find his balance again.
He crushes me against his chest, as if this was something he’s wanted to do for hours.
“I thought you’d leave,” I say in between hiccups, my throat thickening every second.
“And go where?” he asks again, as if there’s nowhere else in this world he’d rather be.
“Somewhere far. Someplace where I don’t exist.”
“That’s the problem, couch girl. You’re everywhere. In my every breath, in my every heartbeat. I’m never away from you, even when you’re not around.” When I sneeze in his arms, he says, “I knew you would catch a cold in those wet clothes, but I also didn’t know what to do.”
My heart cracks at hearing him so helpless. Zander likes to be in control. I can’t imagine how he survived last night.
“Would it be okay to change now?” he asks.
I nod, and he gets up from the floor, bringing me with him. He places me gently on the bed as if I’m a breakable china doll and hands me my nightshirt.
“Why don’t you change, and I’ll make you some tea?”
I don’t know if he really wants to make me tea or if he thinks I need some privacy. Before he can leave, I whisper, “I can change with you in the room.”
Hearing my words, a weak smile pulls on his lips, which doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m very glad to hear that, couch girl. But I still want you to drink some tea. You were cold the whole night and your voice sounds croaky. I don’t want you sick.”
As I’m settling back on the bed, Zander walks into the room carrying a tray with a cup of coffee and a glass of hot water, along with a bag of lemon tea and honey. He places it on the nightstand, and I notice the time on the digital clock. It’s already nine.
“Office?”
He shakes his head. “I called Oscar and let him know you’re not well and we’re taking a day off.”
I don’t complain. I’m in no shape to go, anyway. My head hurts so badly; it feels like a thousand hammers are banging it.
Zander slips my phone on the nightstand and says, “Kristy called earlier.”
My hand, which was going for the cup of tea, halts and trembles.
He grabs and holds my cold hands in his warm ones. “No, Rose. Don’t go there. Stay with me. I’m here, with you.”
I look up at his warm eyes and try to calm my breathing. I focus on his gentle hands, rubbing my palms softly before circling my wrists.
“What happened, couch girl?”
“Kristy is pregnant,” I whisper, my mind running wild. We’ll have to keep it a secret, even from the walls of my room. Don’t they say walls have ears or something?
“You’re not happy?” Zander asks, totally oblivious to the looming threat.
Happy? How can I be happy?
“She’s in danger.”
“Who, Kristy?” Zander grabs my shoulders, and I meet his surprised gaze.
“The girl…the baby.” As I force the words out of my dry mouth, I can feel my insides crumbling.
He looks at me with a mix of worry and confusion. “Which baby, Rose? Kristy’s?”
I nod. “There’s a ninety-eight percent chance th-that the girl will inherit Kristy’s eye color.” My voice quivers with fear. My heartbeat races so fast that my chest hurts.
“Rose, what are you saying? Kristy doesn’t even know if she’s having a girl.”
“But w-what if it’s a girl?” I hug my knees and unconsciously rock back and forth. I don’t even realize it until Zander grabs my shoulders, halting my movements.
“Look at me, Rose. What is it?” he asks slowly, but I just shake my head. “What if the baby is born with blue eyes, Rose?”
“They’ll take her. They’ll take her…away. We’ll never find her,” I say between hiccups as fresh, painful tears wet my cheeks, mouth, and neck.
He hugs me tight, hiding me in his broad chest, hiding me from this bad world.
“Like they took you? You remember something from your past?”
I don’t need to reply .
He knows.
He knows I do.
“Something you haven’t told anyone.” He’s talking to himself now, not questioning me, but his painful voice breaks my heart.
How much will I hurt this man with my baggage?
I have no idea how much time has passed since I’ve been bundled in Zander’s arms. At some point, he pulled a blanket over me to stop my shaking, covering us both. But it did nothing to calm my chilling insides.
I turn to my side and notice our tea and coffee have gone cold. My tears have stopped, but my headache has increased tenfold now.
“I want to sleep.” Maybe when I get up, things will be back to normal.
He nods but whispers, “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”
All my childhood and teenage life, I’ve trained my brain to suppress those haunted years. On my sixteenth birthday—the day that Kindred Hearts picked as my birthday—Sophia asked if I remembered anything, and I simply said no.
By that time, I’d repeated the same lie to my face every morning.
I was lost. No one knew where I was, and I don’t remember anything.
Maybe the first two things weren’t so much of a lie.
I even repeated the same answer to Zander when he first asked about my past. But how could I lie to him now?
We’re going to start a new life together. I need to tell him why I can’t give him the two-and-a-half-kids-white-picket-fence life.
I just can’t bring a baby into this world, even if there is only a minuscule chance that it’ll be a girl with my eyes.
Just thinking about another baby, alone and lost —
“Rose. Rose, stay with me.” Zander pulls me back from his chest. “You’re safe,” he whispers as I clutch his cotton T-shirt, balling it in between my hands.
I lean in and smell his woodsy vanilla scent, which I now know is his Coach cologne in a steel flask. I think about the image of the horse carriage carved on the bottle. Any other thought to keep me grounded, to keep me in this moment.
“I know it’s hard, but you need to tell me.”
“I told you when I was found… I didn’t speak for a very long time.”
I feel him nod, his chin resting over my head.
“I was at the hospital and underwent grafting surgeries. During that time, police and social workers came in daily, blasting thousands of questions at me. When I gave no response, they all assumed I was mute. By the time I started speaking, everybody had forgotten. Like so many others, I was all but a case file gathering dust. No one cared enough to ask again.” I feel nothing but a sense of emptiness remembering that time.
“I’m asking, Rose. I’m begging you to tell me everything, everything you remember.” He stops rocking me just enough to say those words.
“Why? What’s the point now?” My pulse goes wild, imagining those words finally coming out of my mouth.
“Because I fucking care. Because you’re everything to me. Because it fucking matters to me.”
I hold his face between my hands, and his smoldering gaze lands on me. His livid face softens, and he whispers, “Do this for me, sweetheart. Please.”
I nod. I would do anything for him—walk on a bed of hot coals or relive the horrors that haunt me.
“I remember bits and pieces. I think if I didn’t have a photographic memory, I might not even remember these instances. That’s why I always curse this gift .”
I take a deep breath before I break the promise I made to my small self years ago. Before I open those bolted, chained doors that hide my worst fears and memories.
“I was heavily sedated most of the time. The doctors also confirmed huge amounts of drugs in my blood. But sometimes, in between, I remember”—I swallow hard—“a woman…and a man. The woman didn’t hurt me. In fact, she’d apply something like a balm on my wounds. It felt cold, numbing, and nice. But the man…he’d put s-something hot on my back. I think I must’ve cried in the beginning, but when he increased the pain and burn, I—I became silent.”
My back feels hot now, and the cotton of my T-shirt itches my skin. When I shift and twist, trying to get free, Zander’s hands crawl inside under my T-shirt. He runs them all over my back, assuring me there is nothing there and it’s just in my head.
“Anything else?” he asks gruffly, continuing the motion of his hands. When I don’t reply immediately, Zander presses on my shoulders, his hands still buried under my T-shirt. “Tell me.”
“He covered my face—most of it—with some fabric like cotton. It was breathable enough.” I inhale deep, taking in clean air.
“But?”
“My eyes. They were open. He would sometimes force me to open my eyes when I was sleeping,” I say. Zander’s heart beats rapidly as my head rests against it. “That’s all.”
My chest feels tight and light at the same time. I fall back against Zander’s arms and as always, he catches me.
I never imagined how this moment would be, when I’d finally let everything out in the open, giving it life. I never realized it’d feel so cathartic.
I don’t remember when I closed my eyes .
But when I wake up, half a day has flown by. I get up groggily to find Zander sitting beside me, his face serious as he stares at the wall. I shift and his gaze falls on me.
“Got some sleep?” He kisses my forehead. When I nod, he adds, “We got company.”
My body freezes at his words.
“Hey, Rose. It’s okay. It’s not Kristy. It’s Zach.” He caresses my hair. “Why don’t you clean up and I’ll get you something to eat?”
I nod and get up from the bed. Only after I’ve turned the water on, do I hear Zander’s footsteps leaving the room outside the closed bathroom door.
I wash my face and pee before joining Zach and Zander in the living room. There’s a takeout bag from Giovanni’s in front of them.
Zach notices me and gets up from the couch. “Can we eat now?” He marches toward Zander, who is stirring my coffee mug next to the can of my new favorite chai latte. Zach shakes his head in annoyance. “You ask me to bring lunch, and then you don’t let me eat it. You know I can’t stay hungry.”
His irritation pulls a surprise smile to my lips. Zander also notices it, and his lips curl up when he drags over a barstool for me and hands me my mug.
After placing a kiss on my lips, he grabs the cardboard takeout boxes and puts them in the microwave.
“It’ll be a minute.” Zander bats Zach’s hand away when the younger Teager brother starts to open the microwave door almost immediately. When the food is done, Zander pulls it out of the microwave carefully and then puts the food into bowls.
“There, sweetheart.” He places my favorite fettuccine before me.
Even though I’m melancholy, the warm pasta feels good against my sore throat .
We eat amid Zach’s continuous bickering about how the restaurant didn’t have his favorite calzone and he had to settle for lasagna instead. After we’ve finished, Zander removes the dishes from the table, and I notice he’s dressed in one of his suits.
“Are you going somewhere?”
He nods. “I have to talk to Beast about something. Is it okay if I go? Zach will stay with you until I come back.”