Chapter 18-Rosalind
Forty-eight hours can feel like a lifetime.
I never truly understood that until now.
Two days.
Two sunrises I didn’t watch.
Two nights I didn’t sleep.
Two whole rotations of the earth where I was nothing, but pain and shame stitched into human skin.
I barely make it through the doors of Furry Smiles before my phone buzzes again in my pocket.
I ignore it.
What could possibly make this day better?
Hope’s been texting me off and on.
Updates. Check-ins.
Hope
Rosalind? Just wanted you to know he’s back. Safe. Sound. With Miles.
And that’s good.
But all these sweet and sharp little pings of guilt keep filling me and I can’t bring myself to answer.
I feel terrible—I mean, we were pretending to be friends, and for a minute I let myself believe maybe we were friends, like for real.
But what kind of friend bites her friend’s brother?
What kind of person marks someone without permission?
What kind of idiot falls in love with a man whose entire identity cracked in half the second she touched him?
Me. That’s who.
Oh my God, I love him.
Well, of course, I do. Because I’m a complete idiot, apparently. And when I fall, I fall.
Pain squeezes my chest, and I close my eyes and try to breathe through it.
“Hey there—oof. Girl, you look rough,” Timmy calls from behind the reception desk.
I don’t even pretend to smile.
I just grunt.
“I’m just here to drop off the intake paperwork for that big rescue shipment coming Thursday,” I mutter, holding out the folder.
A van load of pups from down south was supposed to come in the week after next—but flooding changed everything.
I was working on getting Orson Outdoors to build the new dog runs before this whole Honor situation blew everything to hell.
Now? Now, I can’t even look at the emails without seeing his face.
That wounded, betrayed expression.
The fire in his eyes when he told me to stay back.
My Bear hasn’t shown herself since.
And I can’t blame her.
She’s in mourning.
Same as me.
The phone rings behind the desk, and Timmy answers in his usual chipper tone.
I tune it out until I hear his voice through the receiver.
I freeze.
Every instinct in me sharpens, claws poised, nostrils flaring like maybe I could smell him through the landline.
My heart hurts so damn bad.
He’s probably calling to tell me how much he hates me.
How angry he is about what I did to him.
For turning him into something other.
He has every right. I don’t even blame him.
But I’m too much of a coward to answer right now.
“Rosalind? It’s for you,” Timmy says gently, holding the phone out toward me like it might bite.
I don’t take it. I just shake my head, my arms wrapped around myself like that can somehow hold me together.
My breath hitches.
My chest squeezes so tight I swear it might crack clean down the middle. But I’m not brave enough to face him. Not yet.
Because rejection from your fated mate?
That’s not the kind of thing you bounce back from.
That kind of thing can shatter a Shifter.
And it’s already breaking me.
Because even though it was only one time, one magical, horrible night—well, that’s all it took for Honor D’Amato to crawl inside my soul.
One night where everything felt so right, so fated, so damn real—until he looked at me like I’d tricked him.
Like I was the monster.
Maybe I am.
Then, he turned his back. Walked away. Like I was nothing. Like what we shared was just nothing.
How can the best night and the worst night of your life be the same exact night?
I don’t know.
But it was. It still is.
Timmy raises an eyebrow, still holding out the phone like I might change my mind.
“He’s insisting he speak with you.”
“Tell him I’m not here,” I whisper, forcing the words past the lump in my throat.
I turn away. Can’t even look Timmy in the eye.
He doesn’t push. Just sighs quietly and offers some vague excuse as he hangs up the call.
“Hey,” he says a moment later, softer this time, like he knows I’m dangling over the edge of something fragile. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No, thank you,” I murmur, my voice tight. Controlled.
The kind of control that costs everything to maintain.
He nods, kind and careful, and I do what I always do—I retreat.
Into my office.
Into the paperwork.
Into the one place where I still know who I am.
I scan the files. Finalize transport records. Email the vet paperwork for the next delivery of rescue pups like my heart isn’t in pieces inside my chest.
Like I didn’t spend the past forty-eight hours waiting for a phone call that came too late.
The outer office phone rings again.
I hear Timmy answer it. I don’t turn. Don’t react.
I just keep working, even as fresh tears streak down my face, hot and humiliating.
God, this is hard.
To love someone—instinctively, uncontrollably—and be met with rejection, silence, and suspicion?
It undoes you.
“Rosalind?” Timmy calls again, and there’s a new note in his voice—something unsure, maybe even surprised. “You got another call.”
I go still.
Shit.
I can’t do this.
“Is it him again?” I ask, the panic slipping out before I can stop it.
My heart pounds. My stomach twists.
Because no, I definitely can’t do this.
I can’t let Honor rip me open in front of my coworkers. Not here.
Timmy glances at the phone. Then shakes his head.
“It’s a woman this time.”
That throws me.
Curiosity stirs—barely, but it’s there.
I wipe my cheeks quickly with the sleeve of my hoodie and reach for the phone, bracing myself for whatever this is.
“This is Rosalind,” I say, voice rough.
“Damn it, Rosie!”
Hope’s voice blasts through the receiver, fierce and furious and familiar.
“How are you gonna call yourself my friend and not pick up your damn phone? I’ve been calling you for two days!”
I gasp.
Shock. Relief. Warmth.
It crashes into me like a wave. My chest cracks open.
“Hope?” I whisper, so stunned I almost forget to breathe.
“Damn girl, you sound bad,” she says, and the blunt honesty in her voice nearly knocks me over.
A laugh slips out of me, broken and wet and real, and I snort through the tears that won’t stop falling.
And just like that, the numbness I’ve been drowning in?
It starts to melt.
Because someone still sees me.
Still cares.
And for the first time in two days, I don’t feel completely alone.