Rose
Please don't follow me. Just let me go.
"Rosalie."
Footsteps gather behind me as I head for the elevators.
Michael and Jackson reach me before the doors even open, and they follow me inside.
The car fills up with their concern, their questions, their need for me to be okay.
To say more than I can muster. To smile, take charge, fix the tone of the room and become the version of me they've both spent years relying on.
I have nothing left.
"What is going on, Rose? I get that you couldn't legally tell me about the board seat, but when has that ever stopped us?"
"Rose. Please, talk to us. Don't leave."
The doors open on my floor and I walk out. They follow.
"I need time away from everything. I couldn't leave the board seat vacant without knowing how long I'd be gone. I'm done here. You both need to accept that."
"So you've been planning this for weeks and not saying a thing?"
That does it.
I stop so fast Michael nearly walks into me and turn on him.
"Yes! Yes, Michael, that's exactly what I've been doing.
You know what else I've been doing? Running to New York to save Meridian.
Helping Blaire salvage her life and get her settlement.
Running point on every press release that mentioned your cock.
Emotionally bleeding from scars you will never understand because I would never allow you to. "
My voice is bouncing off the hallway walls now, louder than I intended and getting louder by the second, but I don't have enough left in me to care who hears. At least there’s some anger. It’s more emotion than I’ve felt in weeks.
"I have carried this family on my back for years without setting it down once.
Every disaster. Every headline. Every bad decision.
Every time something went wrong, I fixed it because that's what I do and because somewhere along the way everybody got very comfortable with the idea that I always would. "
Michael's face changes.
Maybe he finally hears me.
"I need a fucking minute."
Doors are starting to open farther down the hall, neighbors drawn out by the yelling, so I turn and keep walking toward my apartment. Michael and Jackson follow, but at least now they're quiet.
I unlock the door and step inside.
I hear the gasp behind me almost immediately.
The movers took the bed this morning, the last of it.
The apartment is stripped bare now. No couch.
No television. No dishes. No books stacked on the coffee table, no stupid throw blanket Michael bought me because he said the old one made the place look like a dentist's office.
Nothing that suggests a woman lived a whole life here.
Just clean floors, bare walls and my luggage waiting beside the door like the punchline to a joke nobody's laughing at.
Michael and Jackson stop just inside.
They take it in slowly.
The empty room.
The bags.
Me.
Then each other.
I watch them do the math on how long this has been in motion, how thoroughly I've planned it, how far past the point of talking me out of it they've arrived.
Michael recovers first.
He crosses the empty room and pulls me into his arms, and he holds on longer than he has since we were kids.
"I'm sorry. You're right." His voice is thick against my hair. "Do whatever you need. And you call me, day or night, I don't care where you are or what time zone. You call me."
I wish I could feel this.
I know it's love. I can identify it the way you identify a landmark through fog. I know exactly what it is. I just can't reach it from where I am.
He lets me go, and his eyes are glassy when he steps back.
Jackson steps into me next.
One hand cradles the back of my head while the other wraps around my waist, and his hold is tight. Tight like memorizing. Tight like a man taking one last inventory of something he's lost the deed to.
"I love you, Rose," he whispers into my hair. "Take care of yourself."
"You too, Marcus."
His breath catches quick.
And I know exactly why.
He hears everything I put into the name. The distance. The boundary. The return of that one careful foot of space I used to put between us before we blew every wall apart.
He lets me go anyway. Because that's the one thing he's never failed at. Releasing me when I ask.
"I'll be in touch," I tell them both.
I take the handles of my luggage and walk toward the elevators.
Neither of them follows me this time.
The doors close on Michael and Jackson standing together in the middle of my empty apartment, surrounded by all the space where my life used to be.
I feel nothing at all.
For now, I let that carry me down.
"Listen. I know what it looks like, and while I can't commit to a date, I promise I'll be back."
Jade and Lukas exchange a worried glance.
I've just handed them my life. Access to the accounts, the businesses, power of attorney over everything I've spent two decades building. I know exactly why I'm saying the words out loud. I'm trying to stop them from worrying.
The problem is, I don't actually know if they're true.
I don't know if I'll be back. I don't know when. I don't know what shape I'll be in if I do.
"It's just that..." Lukas clasps his hands together, choosing his words in a way he almost never has to. "This feels a lot like you getting your affairs in order, boss."
For such a large man, I've never seen him look so small. So boyish.
I can feel the edges of my emotions pulling at the sight of him, faint but there.
Yay. Not completely dead inside, then.
I try to keep the coldness out of my voice because it isn't for them. It's the only thing holding my seams together right now.
"In a way, I am. But that's just the responsible thing to do before a hiatus." I should probably smile with that. I force one, but fuck, I think I went too toothy.
"I'm not disappearing forever."
It doesn't land, I can see that immediately.
Jade's eyes have gone glassy, and Lukas drops his gaze to the desk like the grain has suddenly become fascinating.
But they love me enough not to push, and I love them enough to let them pretend they believe me, and that's the arrangement we sign along with the paperwork.
Jade has agreed to be my proxy of sorts. I'll call her once a month to check in on the firm, the businesses and James. She'll handle anything that genuinely requires me and filter out everything that doesn't. My phone doesn’t ring.
Everyone has semi-agreed to give me space.
I'm not putting much faith in the semi, but it's a start.
By the time I arrive at the apartment I rented in Catalina sight unseen, I'm exhausted enough that my standards have dropped to four walls, running water and no visible murder stains.
I'm pleasantly surprised.
It's not a shithole.
Two bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a large balcony off the bedroom overlooking the water. The furniture is bland in that expensive rental way, all creams and pale wood and absolutely nothing that suggests another human being has ever had an emotional experience here.
Perfect.
I set my bags inside the bedroom and walk out onto the balcony.
The ocean stretches out in front of me, loud enough to fill the silence without asking anything in return.
It's not lost on me that I've chosen to disappear somewhere still within a few hours of everything I supposedly need a break from.
I guess that was by design.
Far enough away to feel secluded.
Close enough to get back if anyone truly needs me.
I grip the balcony rail and look out over the water.
Old habits really do die hard.