Chapter 33 Rosanna
Chapter thirty-three
Rosanna
Luna's apartment is the opposite of a penthouse—small, cluttered, lived-in. There are event planning portfolios stacked on the coffee table, takeout menus on the fridge, a collection of throw pillows that don't match but somehow work together.
It's chaotic and colorful and completely, blessedly free of Seamus O'Malley's careful control.
She doesn't ask questions when I arrive with my hastily packed suitcase and red-rimmed eyes.
She just pulls me into a hug that smells like her signature jasmine perfume and says, "Guest room is yours for as long as you need it. I cleared out the closet and put fresh sheets on the bed. Wine is already breathing."
I follow her to the small second bedroom that usually serves as her office-slash-storage space. She's moved boxes to make room for my suitcase and even put a vase of fresh flowers on the nightstand.
It's such a Luna thing to do.
"Thank you," I manage, and my voice cracks on the words. "I'm sorry to just show up like this—"
"Stop." Luna puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me with an intensity that makes it impossible to look away.
"You don't apologize for leaving a situation that was hurting you.
You don't apologize for choosing yourself.
And you definitely don't apologize to me for needing a safe place to land. That's what friends are for."
I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and she pulls me into another hug.
This time I let myself cry.
Luna doesn’t try to fix it. She doesn’t offer platitudes.
She just holds me while the sun sets and my phone stays mercifully silent.
***
The next morning, I wake up disoriented.
The guest room is dim, curtains still drawn, and for a moment I let myself pretend that yesterday didn't happen.
That I'm still in the penthouse, that Seamus will knock on the studio door any minute with perfectly made coffee, that the biggest problem in my life is finishing Chapter Eight's illustrations on deadline.
Then I open my eyes. My suitcase lies open on the floor, clothes spilling out where I abandoned them last night, and reality crashes back in.
I check my phone.
Three missed calls from Seamus. Two texts.
One email with the subject line "Please read this."
I swipe the notifications away without opening any of them. I'm not ready to hear his explanations or apologies.
I don’t know what he could say that would make this easier to hear.
Luna is already up, making breakfast in her tiny kitchen. The smell of coffee and something sweet baking makes my stomach turn, but I force myself to sit at her small table and accept the mug she slides across to me.
"You don't have to talk about it if you're not ready," she says, pulling muffins from the oven. "But I'm here when you are ready. For talking, or for plotting revenge, or for whatever you need."
So I tell her. About the storefront. About finding out Seamus was Shay. About the fight.
"I don't want revenge," I say quietly. "I just want... I don't know what I want. To not hurt like this. To go back to before I knew the truth and could still believe that what we had was real."
"It was real." Luna sits across from me, and her voice is gentle but firm. "Your feelings were real, Rosie."
She holds my gaze.
"But that doesn't mean you handled it perfectly."
I blink.
"Excuse me?"
"You found out something huge. You panicked. He panicked. You both did what scared people do — you protected yourselves."
She shrugs. "That doesn't make you evil. It makes you human."
I nod.
But something in my chest tightens. Because loving him wasn’t the mistake. Leaving might have been.
***
Later that morning, I force myself to check the city planning portal.
The demolition permits are in process. Expedited review.
Timeline showing approval in three weeks, maybe less.
By the end of the month, the building could be scheduled for demolition.
Everything I've been fighting for, reduced to rubble to make way for another gleaming development that will erase the character of the neighborhood in the name of progress.
I should be devastated.
But I can't seem to make myself care the way I did a week ago.
The storefront still matters. It just feels distant compared to the immediate, visceral pain of losing Seamus.
Luna finds me staring at my laptop, and she reads the screen over my shoulder. "Those jerks," she mutters. "That bid is designed to crush any competition. They're not even trying to be subtle about it."
"They don't need to be subtle." I close the laptop because looking at the numbers just makes everything worse. "They have the resources and the timeline and the political connections to make this happen. My little preservation effort was never going to be enough to stop them."
"The permitting is still in limbo," Luna says, and there's a determined edge to her voice that I recognize from her event planning mode—the tone she uses when a vendor cancels last-minute or a venue double-books and she has to fix it through sheer force of will.
"The historical designation application is still pending. The community coalition is still mobilizing support. This isn't over yet, Rosie. Not until the wrecking ball actually hits the building."
I want to believe her.
My laptop sits closed on Luna's coffee table.
When I finally open it again, there are seven new emails from Shay—from Seamus. I can't think of them as the same person yet.
In my head, they're still separate: Shay, my trusted friend who I thought understood me, and Seamus, my husband who I fell in love with and then he betrayed that trust.
I don't open the emails. Just seeing them in my inbox makes my chest tighten with a complicated mix of anger and grief and something that feels dangerously close to longing.
Because despite everything, despite the lies and the manipulation and the systematic deception, part of me still misses him.
Both versions of him.
I miss the way Seamus looked at me over morning coffee. I miss his rare, rusty laugh and the way he absently reached for my hand while we watched people play chess in the park.
And I miss Shay—the version of Seamus who could be vulnerable and honest and real in ways that the CEO persona never allowed.
The friend who listened without judgment, who offered insight without trying to control outcomes, who made me feel seen and understood in ways I'd never experienced before.
Except it was all a lie.
Or not a lie exactly.
Shay was real. Seamus was real.
And when I realized they were the same person, I didn’t know what to do with that.
And in a way, I was doing the exact same thing. Writing as Anna and living as Rosanna.
Luna catches me staring at my inbox that evening.
She gives me a look and I close my laptop.
My hand lingers on the laptop, and I wonder what he's saying in those emails. Whether he's apologizing or explaining or begging me to come back. Whether any of it would make a difference if I let myself read it.
"He signed the retainer," Luna says, and I look up sharply. "For the advocacy group. My contact at the city planning office said the funds came through yesterday. Full amount you requested, no strings attached."
Luna watches my face carefully.
"That doesn't sound like a man trying to control you, Rosie."
I look away.
The retainer should feel like a victory. It should feel like proof that Seamus is trying, that he's willing to support my fight even after I left. But all I feel is a hollow ache in my chest and the terrible certainty that it's too late.
Too late for the building, probably—even with legal intervention, the timeline is too aggressive and O'MalleyMart has too many advantages.
Too late for us, definitely. Because signing a check doesn't undo months of lies.
It doesn't prove he's capable of the kind of trust and vulnerability that real love requires.
It proves he listened.
Even after I walked out.
"I broke it," I say to Luna one night when we're sitting on her couch with wine and takeout containers. "Whatever we had—whatever we could have had—I broke it when I left."
Luna studies me for a long moment.
"You want the honest version?"
I nod.
"He should have told you sooner. Absolutely."
Luna’s voice stays steady.
"But he was scared of what would happen when you found out… and you did what you always do when you’re hurt."
She meets my eyes.
"You ran."
She softens.
"You loved him as Shay because it was safe. You loved him as Seamus because it was worth the risk. The moment those two versions merged, it got real. And real is terrifying."
She leans back against the couch.
"That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you scared. Just like him."
But I can't quite believe that.
Because the truth is, I didn’t stay long enough to hear him finish a sentence.
I demanded honesty — and then I left before he could give it to me.
I saw everything he’d done as control. As swallowing me. As management.
And maybe some of it was.
But maybe some of it was fear.
The same fear that had me packing a suitcase instead of sitting down.
***
That night, after Luna goes to bed, I pull out my sketchbook.
The Seamus Project.
I haven’t touched it since I left.
I flip past the red curls and fencing whites. Past the museum kiss, the color bleeding across the page.
Tonight, I draw him as I saw him that morning.
Seated behind his desk. Perfect tie. Perfect posture. Documents fanned across polished wood.
But I make the desk too large.
The office too dark.
I deepen the shadows beneath his eyes. I layer graphite thick around him until the room feels like it’s pressing inward.
He’s centered. Composed. In control.
And carrying more than I ever let myself see.
I don’t add color.
Not this time.
I shade his hands last — fingers curled slightly, like he’s bracing against something no one else can see.
When I sit back, I don’t feel angry.
I feel confused.
I was scared then, and if I'm being honest, I'm still scared now.
Scared that if I go back and try to work through this, I'll discover that the man I fell in love with—both versions of him—was never real.
That Seamus O’Malley is exactly who I thought he was the first time I met him.
And I'm even more scared of the opposite possibility: that he is capable of change, that his feelings were real, that we could have had something beautiful if only I'd been brave enough to stay and fight for it instead of running the moment things got hard.
Maybe we were just two scared people who didn’t know how to stay.
And now I'm lying on Luna's guest bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'll ever get the chance to fix it.
Or if I've already made my choice by leaving, and now I just have to live with the consequences.
And I don’t know if I left because he couldn’t love me —
or because loving him meant letting go of my own fear.