Chapter 6 Rosie
ROSIE
Isat at my kitchen table, aware that time was moving, and aware that if I didn’t leave soon, I was going to be late.
A few weeks had passed since I’d become a part of the book club, and my plan to distance myself was going well.
While I had until March for tax deadlines, many businesses were scrambling to get me exactly what I needed to get the books right.
It happened every year, so luckily, me becoming a hermit had worked out.
I wasn’t even getting too many text messages from anyone about my whereabouts since it was par for the course.
Although Megan had started to be a little bit more pushy, and that was only causing me to create even more distance and bury myself in my work even more.
I’d spent years perfecting my facade, just happy to be included, content to have people who wanted to be present in a moment with me.
I used to ask myself why I didn’t just tell him, why I didn’t just ask him if he ever saw me as something other than a friend, but every time I thought about summoning the words, every time I wondered, I was faced with the reality that he probably didn’t feel the same way.
I would lose him either way, and that wasn’t a reality I wanted.
Now, as I sat there, working up the courage to leave.
I regretted every choice that had led me there.
I was meeting Wesley’s future, and all the memories, all the what ifs, all the maybe somedays, never felt more like a dream.
And I was finally awake. So I built my mask in the absence of what we used to be, of what I was letting go, of the possibility.
I replaced the memories that coated my skin with a fresh layer until there was nothing left—just fresh skin. New, untouchable, impenetrable.
An alarm sounded from next to me, and without looking, I reached over to silence it on my phone, knowing another one would sound off soon. Five—I had set five, knowing it would take me all five to finally leave. To finally get up and go. And that was the first one. Just the first one.
I sat with our first meeting, running it over like a film, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t let him sit with me. Where would I be now? Would I have gotten serious with one of my boyfriends after college?
My alarm sounded again, and once again, without looking, I reached over to silence it.
I retreated back into my memories, one where I had the flu, and Wesley decided that he could make chicken soup from scratch and that it would be good.
It wasn’t. He gave himself food poisoning, and thankfully for me, I had been too sick to eat it.
What If I told him then? Would he have taken pity on me, let me down easy, and we could have stayed friends? Would that have been better than this?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t think I ever would.
The third alarm went off, and my heartbeat started to falter. I was more than halfway through with the alarms, and I had to get up and leave. I knew what I had to do. Even if I didn’t want to do it, I needed to. I needed to move on.
What if I had told him?
It wouldn’t have changed anything—not for him, anyway—but maybe it would have for me. Maybe I would have been sewed back together by now and ready to move on, instead of in my thirties, faced with the fact that I pressed pause so I could live in a fantasy world of my own making.
The fourth alarm sounded, and I slowly rose to grab my keys and jacket, pausing briefly to take in my reflection in the hallway mirror.
A smaller mirror, but delicate, intricate, and gold, perfectly placed.
I looked the same. Perfectly…perfect. My glasses sat on the ridge of my nose, which I always thought was a little crooked.
They hid my eyes, hues of brown with flecks of green and yellow.
Hazel, if you looked close enough. And if you really looked, you could see the red-rimmed bottoms, but no one ever looked that close.
My honey-colored hair was twisted up in a clip, messy, yet not a single hair seemed out of place.
Jeans and a graphic tee with my Converse because if I was going to get my heart stomped on, I at least wanted to be comfy when it happened.
I briefly wondered how many times I glanced at my reflection in this mirror.
How many times I studied myself without a second thought.
How many times I just stopped and asked myself what I was doing.
None. I avoided, fell into a routine, avoided, and ignored, and now, I felt like I was screaming and breaking into a void of my own making.
The fifth alarm sounded, and I stepped away from the mirror and toward the next chapter I hadn’t planned on—one that someone else was writing.
I was just a secondary character along for the ride, and unable to do a single damn thing about the fact that my heart was breaking in tandem with its beats.