THESE CELESTIAL BODIES (Demetre)

FIVE MONTHS AGO

Rose slid the cup of tea back towards Mr. Vaughn. "Please give him my apologies."

The old man pulled a sullen face, but still, he took the cup. "You only love once," he smiled, and hobbled off. She did love once, and it broke her in two.

"I take it you don't like mint?"
That voice, sweet as honey yet deathly cold. It slid across the table like slime, tickling her neck as though he had breathed right down it. When Rose lifted her eyes, she faced the same brown-haired man. He looked at her, his skin like alabaster and his eyes the wildest shade of honey. His shirt was a crumpled mess, and in the shaft of light streaking through the café, he looked...unearthly. Rose's throat almost closed up.
"Oh she loves mint," Ryan grumbled.
The stranger's gaze washed over Ryan with an easy smile before settling back on Rose. "Coffee, then?"

"Thank you for buying me the tea but..."
"But you're not one for strangers," again he smiled. How easy that smile came, how soft and alluring.
A spark of butterflies ignited in her stomach as she shuffled in her seat, feeling hot under his gaze. "No," she said truthfully.
The stranger seemed to linger at the table as if he were waiting for her to say something more, as if he wanted to say something himself. There was an odd sense of...expectation, but it soon faded like the dying rays of sunlight. Squashed into something almost but not.

"Well," he shrugged, stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black skinny jeans. Again, that heart stopping smile graced his beautiful face. "See you around, milady," he said and walked away. He passed an entering customer as he left, the sheer charm of him made the customer do a double take. Commuters on the street swept him up like a tide, swallowing him whole until he was nothing but a fold and a memory away.
Rose couldn't help but feel like the man's gaze was still upon her, watching her like he never left. Those eyes, she thought. She had never seen such curiosity in those eyes, curiosity for her. An intrigue, a dare.

"Who was that?"
"Rose's future husband."
"Shut up, Ry," Rose snapped, suddenly remembering where she was. She found a boy towering over her, a frown on his face. She swallowed. "No one," she said. But Josh wasn't so sure. Joshua Bennett slid into the booth beside Rose, a little too close, as usual, but Rose never had the heart to lean away. Of course no other man had been interested in her, but she sure as hell had one who was head over heels.

Josh clasped his hands over the table, his thumbs toying with each other. A gesture she'd come to acknowledge as his nervous fidget. He'd make up excuses for touching her, simple hand brushes, helping her down the stairs like she hadn't her own goddamn arms and legs. Leaning too close into her, staring at her like she would never notice. She did. She always did. But she never told him. Because to tell him would be to acknowledge and to acknowledge would be opening a door she wished to keep shut.

"Lunch?" Josh glanced at her, briefly, but his eyes wished to linger more. Search every inch of her face, from the bright red of her hair, the strange amber of her eyes that looked like embers. The crack in her once full lips.
"Why don't you ever offer me lunch you awful piece of shit," Ryan clipped.
"Aren't you on a diet?"
Ryan splayed her hands. "Again with that fucking diet. We all know I suck at diets."
"Well, would you both like lunch?"
Ryan grumbled under her breath, something that sounded like a yes and a fuck you. Rose, beside herself, laughed. What a rare occurrence, the sound was so foreign to her ears, and her friends, that both of them turned to hear her laugh. When was the last time she laughed? Really laughed? She couldn't remember.

"I'd love to go for lunch, J, but I have to go and see Mrs. Morris."
Ryan's arrogant little smile faltered, Josh's own falling with her. "You're seeing Mrs. Morris again?" Josh asked.
A shrug. "My meds aren't working."

Whatever Ryan was thinking, her face did not give it away. Not like it ever did. She could go through hell and no one would know, and Rose admired that. Rose's curse, aside from seeing things no human could see, was that her emotions showed on every part of her face. Her sadness smudged beneath her eyes, her fear gleamed in her irises, her inescapable loneliness seeded itself between her breast.

"Want us to tag along?" Ryan cocked her head to the side, she tossed it out there, a rope in her dark, churning sea.
Ryan was there months ago when Rose's loneliness got the better of her. The endless well of nothing that opened up before her and took her captive. She saw no end to that darkness inside her, the bleakness that followed her. And she knew, deep down, why Ryan kept her on the phone at that bridge. Asking her stupid questions about what she wants to wear to the leavers ball and what kind of flat they want to get when they graduate and move to London together, what pet they'd own.
She knew Ryan was speeding to get to the bridge, tears running through the light cheer in her voice so not to scare her. She was still here because of them, because she couldn't leave them with the same loneliness that ate away at her. She couldn't gift them the same grief she had been feeling since she was eight.

And so she stayed. Fought.

"My aunt's coming with me," Rose said. Her aunt hadn't gone with her to anything.
"Let me come and pick you up after, yeah? We can have a girls night in at mine. Study some more?"
"Can I come?"
"Girls only, dipshit."
An exasperated sigh escaped Josh's lips. "You're the bane of my damn life, Ryan."

She gave a bitter smile. "It's a joy to cause you pain. Anyway, what do you say, Hunter?"
If it means she didn't have to be at home with her godforsaken aunt and uncle then great.

"Sure," she said. Anything would be better than being home tonight.