Chapter 33
Rosa
I sat cross-legged on the edge of Hazel’s Airbnb couch, my laptop resting on my knees as the glowing “Confirm Purchase” button dared me to press it. One click, and I’d be gone. Not forever. Just… gone enough to breathe. Gone enough to heal. Gone enough to stop hurting.
Hazel paced behind me while Reid leaned in the bathroom doorway, arms crossed, watching carefully, like I might snap in half if anyone said the wrong thing.
“It’s not forever,” I said, even though the words tasted like lies. “I just… I need to get away. Before this mess buries him. Before it buries me.”
Hazel stopped pacing. “You don’t have to run, Ro. You two love each other. Anyone can see that.”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well, apparently not. That’s kind of the problem.”
“So… you don’t love him?” Reid asked carefully from the doorway.
I eyed him for a brief moment before answering.
I needed to tread carefully. Hazel might be my best friend, but Reid was Noah’s.
Whatever I said could potentially get back to him.
And I couldn’t have that. Not with so much riding on this.
Noah needed to believe I didn’t love him otherwise he’d never stop pursuing me.
My eyes swung to where Hazel stared at me, awaiting my answer and I gulped.
Because as much as I wanted to, I also couldn’t lie to them. To either of them.
“I don’t love him enough ,” I said, settling on a half-truth.
Reid’s eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. Only a fraction of an inch. But I still noticed it.
“You don’t love him enough? What does that mean?” Hazel crossed her arms and dropped onto the bed beside me. “You love him. He loves you. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
I shook my head. It wasn’t surprising that she didn’t understand.
Hazel was always the dreamer out of the two of us.
Cynical at times, sure, but still somehow managed to always have her head in the clouds.
It wasn’t a shock that she couldn’t see how loving Noah right now meant letting him go.
The best thing I could do for him was to walk away.
Fans had already plastered my face and Noah’s face side by side in collages that were all over social media.
Memes were circulating of my face as a demon and Noah as a heartbroken angel.
Instagram reels were speculating how long I had been planning this. And Reddit? Well… I couldn’t even look.
And the worst part was… I still wanted to go back to him.
Even after everything, even with the internet’s claws already hooked into my skin, I wanted to curl up in Noah’s arms and pretend none of it mattered.
I wanted him. The way he held me like I was made of glass and granite at the same time.
The way he looked at me like he already knew all the broken pieces and still thought I was worth choosing.
But wanting him wasn’t the same as protecting him.
I was doing this for him. Even if he never knew it.
“That’s not all that matters,” I said quietly. “You know that. And Noah knows it… even if he can’t admit it yet.”
Reid stepped farther into the room, his expression gentle but skeptical. “Are you sure this isn’t just panic talking? Some cold feet or whatever?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Hazel leaned closer. “You think disappearing is going to make things better? Rosa, they’re already talking. You leaving him now just gives them a story to chase.”
I swallowed hard. “And staying gives them a target.”
“So what?” Reid said. “You love each other. Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t that mean more than a headline? Hazel and I have both been in the papers for less than favorable things. They pass. And they pass easier because we have each other.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the laptop. I didn’t answer. I just stared at the screen. The cursor blinked inside the credit card field, like it was tapping out a countdown. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Reid’s snort drew my eyes back to him. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t love him enough to stay. In which case, he deserves someone who will.” His voice was surprisingly cold.
“Reid!” Hazel gasped, then turned swiftly to look back at me. “He didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, he did,” I managed to choke out. “But you’re wrong, Reid. I do love Noah. He means everything to me. And it’s because of that, that I can’t be the reason his career tanks. I can’t be the woman he looks back on in five years and thinks, She ruined everything. ”
Hazel’s voice softened and she reached out to grip my hand. “Do you really think he could ever see you that way?”
“I don’t know.” I met her eyes. “But I’d never forgive myself if I stayed and watched it all fall apart around him. Because of me.”
They went quiet then, the room heavy with the kind of silence that only came after too much truth had been spoken. When I looked back at Reid, his eyes had softened and he gave me one single knowing nod.
He understood. Finally.
I glanced back at the screen, at that glowing “Confirm Purchase” button, and wondered how I was supposed to let go of the only man I’d ever wanted to keep.
My phone buzzed with a text message and when I glanced down, I had to read it three times to make sure it wasn’t a prank. Lilly was texting me. Confirming our appointment for Monday.
I responded to her asking if she was sure she still wanted to keep our appointment.
Clearly, she hadn’t seen the blind item yet and it was only a matter of time.
Her text came back quickly with a smiley face.
Lilly:
Of course! You’re the best therapist I’ve ever had. And now you know exactly what Jason and I go through on a daily basis. It’s a rite of passage to have a filthy blind item about yourself out there.
Tears filled my eyes as I looked at her text. I was being given a chance. Lilly and Jason weren’t jumping ship. Maybe, just maybe, some of my other clients wouldn’t either.
A knock at the hotel room door echoed through the room, breaking the silence that had settled like a thick blanket. My whole body tensed. The sound was sharp, sudden—like a spark in a room full of gas. I snapped my head up, heart pounding so hard it throbbed in my throat.
Hazel’s eyes went wide. “Do you think?—?”
“No,” I said quickly, but my voice wavered. “No, he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t come here.”
But maybe he would.
Oh God, what if he had?
My stomach twisted at the thought. Of Noah standing on the other side of that door, ready to fight for me. To beg me to stay. To tell me I was worth the risk, the backlash, the headlines. That he still wanted me. That he loved me enough to weather the storm that followed.
Part of me wanted it to be him so badly I could hardly breathe.
And the other part? The part that was trying to keep it together?
It knew that if I saw his face, I’d never go through with leaving.
I’d crumble. I’d stay. I’d ruin everything.
It took everything I had to walk out on him and Birdie once. I didn’t think I could do it again.
Reid stepped toward the door, turning back to me with a raised brow. “You want me to check?”
I hesitated, then gave a shaky nod.
As he cracked the door open, Hazel craned her neck, trying to peek around his shoulder.
The door opened wider.
And instead of Noah—tall and tousled and devastating—there stood my father.
We all blinked.
A weird mix of relief and disappointment passed through the room like a breeze. Hazel audibly exhaled. Reid stepped back to allow my father to enter.
Apa stood there, wearing the same tailored navy suit he had on at the rehearsal dinner, looking stiff and formal and entirely out of place in Reid and Hazel’s too crowded airbnb. His gaze shifted from Hazel to Reid, then landed on me, softening.
“Well,” he said, voice dry, “judging by the faces in here, I can’t tell if I just saved the day or ruined the mood.”
Despite myself, I let out a small, startled laugh. My father didn’t crack jokes often, but it always warmed my heart when he did.
Hazel stood up, clearing her throat. “We’ll, uh… we’ll give you two some privacy.”
Reid grabbed his keys from the table. “Yeah. We were just going to get… something.”
“Yep,” Hazel confirmed with a nod. “Some… ice cream.”
I arched my brow at my bestie. “Ice cream? In Maple Grove at eleven p.m.?”
She shot me a look. “Yes. From that late night food truck.”
She gave me a final scathing look before slipping out quickly, shutting the door behind them.
And just like that, I was alone with my father. Something that used to feel suffocating.
Now? It just felt quiet.
He stepped farther into the room, pausing by the edge of the sofa like he wasn’t sure he was invited to sit.
“May I?” he asked.
I nodded, and he lowered himself onto the couch beside me, studying me with that careful gaze he used in press interviews. Except this time, it didn’t feel rehearsed. It felt… sad. Real.
“Your mother showed me what’s being said online,” he said finally. “The blind item.”
“Of course she did,” I muttered.
“Is it true?”
“It’s all over the internet, so it must be true, right?” My joke fell flat, tinged with the bitterness I felt.
“I wanted to hear it from you, Rosa.”
I sighed and snapped the laptop shut, the unbought ticket still waiting behind the screen. “What you read is pretty much all true. We got drunk in Atlantic City and woke up married. We hadn’t even had a date prior to that night.” I shrugged and let my hands fall, defeated to my sides.
“Okay…” my father said slowly.
“And then… we didn’t annul it. We both saw that we could benefit from staying married. Me, building my practice and getting his wealthy celebrity friends to sign on as clients. And for him, it meant producers and casting directors would see him in more serious roles.”
Apa lifted his brows, silently urging me to continue. “And?”
“And what?”
He shrugs. “That doesn’t sound like the end of the story.”
“Well, it is. We got caught. And now it’s over.”