Rose
My phone ringing wakes me. More accurately, it scares the shit out of me, and I jolt upright out of a dead sleep with my heart slamming before my eyes are even open.
I fell asleep scrolling James's social media again. He's sprouted up even taller this past year, all elbows and knees now, that gray-eyed grin taking over his whole face in every picture. He even has scruff.
Scruff on his little face.
God.
A year.
I haven't seen or spoken to anyone in over a year. A handful of text messages, brief and few and far between, and otherwise radio silence in both directions. They've respected my space with a discipline I didn't expect and probably didn't deserve.
Which is why a ringing phone is alarming.
The phone calls go one way. Always one way.
I grab it off the nightstand, and the name on the screen sends ice straight through me.
Blaire.
"Blaire. Oh God, what's wrong? Is it Michael?" I answer already halfway into panic mode.
"Rose, no. No, he's fine. I'm so sorry, I should have had Jade text you first, but I needed to reach you quickly."
I press my palm flat against my chest and try to take a few calming breaths. It doesn't work.
What the fuck am I even doing yoga for?
"What's happened?"
Her voice shakes when she answers. "I have to give your brother some pretty big news today.
And I've asked everyone to be here for him tonight.
He's going to want his family around him.
Please, I don't know how close you are, or if you can even make it at all.
But he'll need to see you, Rose. Even if it's just for one evening. Please."
News.
My brain immediately starts doing what it does best and provides a complete catalog of catastrophes.
She's sick. Michael's in trouble. The company. Something with the trial. Something with...
"Blaire. Is anyone dying or sick?"
"No, it's not bad news. I swear it. But I wouldn't have called if it wasn't important for you to be here." She pauses, and I hear her take a breath. "Please come for a visit, Rose. Tonight. Please. Dinner is at seven. Or sooner if you don't want him to hog all the tacos."
She laughs, and I finally manage to pull a full breath into my lungs.
"Of course."
"I won't tell anyone you're coming. If you change your mind, I understand. But I hope you can make it."
She hangs up before I can respond, and I'm left sitting there with the phone pressed to my ear.
Well.
I'm going home, then.
I get out of bed and stand there in the middle of the room, an ocean away from everyone I love, phone still in my hand and my body already trying to convince me this is an emergency.
It isn't.
I close my eyes and go through the techniques I've spent the last year learning. Breathe from the diaphragm. Air in through my nose. Hold. Let my lungs expand. Slow breath out through my mouth.
Again.
Again.
Eventually my heart stops trying to escape through my throat.
I've felt this coming for a while now. The time to go home has been getting closer, and I've known it even while finding reasons not to put an actual date on it. I just didn't expect the date to arrive by phone before breakfast.
Or to feel this nervous about introducing myself again to people who don’t know me anymore.
***
"You're panicking."
"I am not panicking."
I don't even believe me.
"Rosalie, you just put Nespresso pods in your overnight bag." Macy reaches in and pulls out the entire box. "Do you think you'll need an entire box of Nespresso pods, love? Will there be a Nespresso machine where you're staying? Will they not have their own Nespresso pods there if there is?"
I snatch the box out of her hand. "You know what, Mace? I don't need your commentary. I invited you over for support, not ridicule."
She laughs while I put my hands on my hips and face her.
"I am not panicking."
Macy just stares at me, a smirk sitting on those beautiful damn lips.
"Fine." The word catapults out of me. "But it's been a year, Mace. I'm not even the same person who left. And I've built a life here, and... ugh, I don't know."
I flop backward onto the bed and pull a pillow over my face. This is where a year of intensive therapy has brought us.
The mattress dips beside me, and then slender arms are pulling me in, pillow and all.
"Do you think they won't accept this new person?" Her voice is gentle above me. "What are you most worried about?"
I toss the pillow aside and let her tuck my head beneath her chin, her arms wrapping around me. Macy became one of my favorite people so quickly that sometimes I forget there was ever a version of my life where I didn't know her.
"That I'll walk in and turn right back into the old one." I pick at a loose thread on her shirt. "That the year won't hold."
She pulls back enough to brush a strand of hair behind my ear.
"You're stronger than that, and you know it.
I haven't known you nearly as long as your other friends and family, but even I can see that.
And you can't stay hidden until you're healed because it's not a destination, love.
It's an ongoing affair, one you'll have to actively pursue for the rest of your life.
" She holds my eyes. "The year will hold. "
I don't realize I'm crying until her thumb wipes a tear from my cheek.
"Thanks, Mace." I bite my bottom lip before it can start doing anything embarrassing.
"I'll always be here when you decide to come back. And I'll come visit you. You're supposed to be introducing me to this Jade person, anyway."
I laugh. "Jade is going to kill me. I'm always trying to set her up with people.”
"Maybe stop treating your friends like a dating inventory."
"No."
Macy laughs and presses a soft kiss to my temple. "Let's get you packed. Properly this time. And I'll walk you down to the ferry."
"You're one of my favorite people, you know."
I look up at her, and there it is. The disappointment she tries very hard not to let me see.
I see it every time.
Macy has never pushed me. Never asked for more, never made her feelings my responsibility, and that somehow makes it harder.
I love her. I do. Just not in the way she wants me to, and she's too important to me to offer her half of something because I feel guilty that I can't give her the whole thing.
My heart is still rooted somewhere else.
"I know, love." She smiles, even if it doesn't quite reach where it usually does. "You know I love you with my whole ass chest."
I wrap my arms around her neck and hold her.
If only...