Chapter 28 Rosie #3
He shakes his head, his face going somehow softer.
“You know that’s not true. You frazzled me.
You struck me speechless with your beauty, which left me feeling annoyed.
I’ve spent a good bit of my life building up barriers, trying to hide my discomfort from people, trying to be a normal fucking person, but every time you’re near, all of that work flies out the window.
So yes, that was annoying to me, and it was frustrating that you were everything I’m not: kind, happy, open, and talkative.
I didn’t know how to handle you. You drove me a little mad with your constant mishaps that always resulted in my things being messed up, but maybe that was the universe at work too.
Trying to get me to notice you, to fall for you.
And I didn’t know what to do, Rosie, because you keep reminding me that once this curse is gone, every past relationship won’t matter to you, or it’ll be forgotten.
I don’t want that. I know to my soul, even if it erased my memory of you, I’d feel that aching hole in my chest until the day I die. And I think you would too.”
I shake my head, unable to believe what he’s saying.
“What about your grandfather?” I ask of the ghost, normally haunting my place, that has been abnormally quiet today.
I look around for the telltale whisps of him, but see nothing.
“The deal was that he’ll break the curse when I help him pass.
That’s what those flowers are for. You were just going to, what?
Sacrifice that for him?” He shakes his head, running a frustrated hand through his thick hair, the messy look seeming to be an embodiment of how he feels in the moment.
“I just wanted to buy some time. We could still do it, just ask him not to break the curse.”
My heart cracks. “I need this curse broken, Jack. I can’t live like this, heartbroken nonstop. I want to find my true love. I want a love like in the books I read, just as I help others find theirs. I need this curse broken.”
“Why about us?”
“With this curse, there is no us!”
“There is! Right now, Rosie! There’s an us! Are you so fucking blind that you can’t see it?”
He doesn’t get it, and now I’m realizing he probably never will. We’ll never hit a point where we agree on this, not with the kiss bond overpowering his common sense.
That’s all this is. The book probably didn’t even have my magic in it, he’s just seeing things to connect dots that don’t exist, and I need to do or say something, anything, to make him see reason.
“We’re fucking,” I say, crossing my arms on my chest. “That’s it.” I almost watch the knife twist in his chest a bit, but I don’t care, not really. Not with the way he’s plunged his own into my chest with this betrayal.
“No, we’re not, and you know that. You helped me with my event.
You get vicious if you see another woman flirting with me.
We spend every waking moment where we’re not working together.
Hell, we spend every night together. Like it or not, we’re together.
You’re so desperate to break this curse, but we’ve got something good here.
” My eyes start to water, then a single tear drops, and his eyes track it, sadness taking over his face as it does. I give him a soft shake of my head.
“You don’t get it, Jack. You don’t get it. It always goes well until it doesn’t. Then it ends, and I’m left trying to put the pieces back together. It happens every damn time.”
“Have you considered that’s just life? That’s how it goes for everyone.
They meet someone, date, fall in love, and it ends once it no longer serves them.
Until it doesn’t. Until they find the person they’re ready to spend forever with.
” He’s so sure of himself, but he doesn’t realize it’s not that easy.
Not for me. Not for my family. “This time could be different.” I look at him with sad eyes.
“I can’t risk that, Jack. I won’t.” I whisper my truth.
Especially not if I already feel my heart breaking into two and I haven’t even said I love you.
Not when I know if I let myself get in deep, it would hurt more than ever when it eventually fell apart, not when I’d have to see him every single day, to be reminded of my hurt and heartbreak.
I can’t risk it.
“We can find another way, Rosie. A way to get my grandfather to the other side without erasing this, without the curse being touched.” When I look at him, he’s so hopeful. He wants that, to find another way, to leave the curse in place, to…
“No,” I whisper. His jaw goes firm.
“What if it’s me, Rosie? What if I’m your person? What happens when you get the curse broken? We just pretend there’s nothing between us. I lo—”
“Don’t say it,” I plead, knowing the words he’s about to say.
He steps closer and grabs my hands, my eyes watering.
“Don’t say that, Jack. I’m cursed.” His hands take mine, grabbing and holding them as he looks into my eyes, so earnest and clearly full of love that it breaks something in me I don’t know if I’ll ever heal.
In my gut, I know what this is: the long-term effect of the kiss bond.
If it goes on for some time, I’ve read that it can occasionally deepen feelings, leading the nonmagical person to fall in love.
Once it wears off, there’s a good chance he won’t even like me.
I thought we’d be okay, since it hadn’t been that long, but I guess I was wrong.
“I don’t care about your curse. I’m not cursed, after all. And whether I tell you this now or in a week when we break this thing, that won’t change.”
“Jack—” My throat aches with the single word, but he leans in and gently presses his lips to mine, silencing my words.
“I love you, Rosemary Mayfield,” he says so soft, I almost don’t hear it. God, I wish I hadn’t heard it. Because when I do, my chest fills and swells with joy and sweetness, and my head fills with doom and gloom.
I realize belatedly that whispering it aloud in the bathroom may have been the catalyst, may have set things in motion. This heartbreak is my own fault.
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” I whisper, and it breaks something in me to say it out loud.
Even more when I see hurt flash across his face, with the realization that his confession doesn’t change anything.
“I can’t do this, Jack. I have to break the curse.
It’s not just me who’s cursed. It’s my sisters too.
They deserve to find love, to be loved. To be free. ”
He steps away then, seeing some kind of determination in me that he didn’t before. I feel the distance like a deep loss, feel his warmth leave me, and wish desperately that he wouldn’t even if it’s for the best.
“Okay,” he whispers, low and sad, and something about it breaks me further.
“Okay?”
“Okay. I’ll go.” He turns then to the garbage, throwing the flowers tied in Poppy’s ribbon into my trash before turning back to me. “I won’t get in your way.” I don’t know what to say, instead continuing to stare at him unblinking for long moments.
“Jack—” I start, but he shakes his head.
“You’re right. My feelings about you shouldn’t override what you want. I, uhm…” He runs a hand over his head, his hair tousling in a way I want to touch, to fix the strands, but I don’t think I can, not anymore. “I’ll head out.”
“Next week is the full moon,” I say in a whisper as he walks past me toward the door, my body turning and moving to follow his exit. “We have a curse to break.” He looks at me over his shoulder, and something in my face breaks at the look and the following shrug of his shoulders.
“You were the only one actually doing anything, Rosie, and we both know it. You’ve got it under control.” He turns back toward the door, and without realizing it, I follow him silently, Percy trailing me like a little funeral procession for the relationship we had.
He finally reaches the door, turns the knob, and glances one last time over his shoulder at me with a sad look.
“I’m sorry, Rosie. Really. I am.” And then he’s gone.
And just like it has happened a million times before, my heart breaks into a million little pieces.