Chapter 31
Dear Rosie,
I don’t know how to write this without hating myself. I woke up this morning choking on your name. That’s the first truth.
The second is worse. Far worse.
I need you to understand something before I say it, even if you’re not here to answer me. I need you to know that I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t go looking for it. I didn’t sit down and decide I was ready to feel anything for anyone else.
It just… happened.
And I don’t know what that says about me.
It started the way they always do—soft, familiar, almost cruel in how real it feels. You were in my arms. I could smell your shampoo. Feel your breath against my neck. The softness of your skin beneath my palms. I kissed you the way I used to. It was like I was coming home.
It felt real. God, Rosie, it felt real.
And then it wasn’t you anymore. Somewhere in the middle of it, the woman beneath my hands changed.
You were Teagan… And I didn’t stop. That’s the part gnawing at me. I know it was a dream, but I didn’t pull away. I didn’t shove off her like I should have. I kissed her. I touched her. I wanted her. It feels like I cheated on you in the one place that was still sacred.
Even writing this makes my chest feel like it’s being crushed. I feel so ashamed, dreamer, because I would have never done that to you. The man I was when you were alive would have never allowed another woman into his head like that. Not in dreams. Not in fantasies. Not anywhere.
You were it for me. You were my beginning and my end. And now I don’t even know who I am.
I keep telling myself it was just a dream. I’m weak and lonely. Some part of me is starving for connection, and my mind decided to feed it the only way it knows how. Dreams don’t mean anything. This isn’t meaningless.
But I know it’s a lie. This goes deeper than that.
When Teagan laughs, I smile. When she looks at me across the pasture, I feel seen in a way I haven’t since you.
It scares me, dreamer.
You’re gone. I know that. I know you’re not coming back and that the world is going to keep moving, whether I want it to or not. But loving you was the last solid thing about me. If I’m capable of wanting someone else, then what does that make my love for you? Was it smaller than I thought?
I keep replaying the dream, hating myself for the parts of it that felt good. Hating my body for responding. Hating the way my mind blurred the line between you and her, like you were interchangeable. You are not interchangeable. No one could ever be you. That’s another truth.
But Teagan isn’t trying to be you, and I don’t want her to be.
When I’m around her, I feel something other than grief. And I don’t know if I’m allowed to want that. I don’t know if I deserve it. I don’t know if I’m healing or just failing you.
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, and if I take one step forward, I lose you all over again. Because if I let myself care about her, even a little, then I have to admit that I’m still alive. And being alive without you has felt like a betrayal from the start.
If there’s a version of you somewhere that can hear me now, I hope you know I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.
If loving you meant anything—and it did, it still does—then I hope you can forgive me for being this lost.
You were my whole story. You still are, because I don’t know who I am without you. And I don’t know who I’m becoming, but I’m growing tired of being a ghost in my own body.
I woke up divided. Half of me is still reaching for you, and the other, standing too close to a wildfire, knowing if I step any nearer, I could lose everything again.