Never Knew I Needed (Chaelisa)

Chapter 32

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"The package Tzuyu dropped off," I breathe, my eyes now focused somewhere else in the room and my voice a distant whisper.

I don't even let Rosé respond before I'm climbing up from the sofa, leaving Rosé behind and half-sprinting into my bedroom. My head snaps from side to side as I look around my room for it, but when I come up blank I squeeze my eyes shut, clench my fists and force myself to think back to what happened to it. The last time I saw it, it was on my bed, but then I ran out and so I must have-

"Knocked it off the bed," I finish my thoughts out loud and drop to my knees, crawling to my bed and flinging an arm out to swipe blindly underneath it.

When my fingertips touch something and cause a crackle of paper, I gasp and snatch it out from beneath the bed, clambering to my feet and heading back out to the living room with it clutched to my chest. Rosé's staring at me when I get back, and I gulp as I walk back to the sofa, gingerly perching on it, her eyes following me the entire way, but I don't open it just yet, instead run my fingertips over the dust-covered paper.

"You didn't open it?" Is the first thing she asks, and my heart stops as I ponder her question.

I end up shaking my head. "No," I answer through an exhale. "I never even gave it a second thought," I admit and poke my tongue out, running it across my lips, my eyes still locked onto the package. I so desperately want to know what's inside it but now I'm scared. "I mean... Tzuyu dropped it off, and I was a bit suspicious but... I didn't-I never would've thought it was from you."

Rosé scoots closer until her thigh is pressed against mine and we're sitting side by side. "Open it," she whispers and I suck in a deep, shaky breath as my fingers reach for the string.

I slowly untie it, unraveling it like I'm unraveling a knot inside my chest and I get this sudden fear that what's inside could've possibly changed my past. I don't know what it is, what this package contains, but what if it could've made Rosé come back sooner? What if she'd sent this to Tzuyu to give to me, hoping that I'd send something back? What if whatever is in here, might have shortened my heartache and brought Rosé back?

Shit. What if I fucked up by not opening it?

"Stop over thinking," Rosé murmurs and her hands wedge between her clamped knees, keeping them from bobbing up and down.

I let out an unamused laugh. "I'm trying," I tell her, trying to stop myself from shaking but I can't. I'm just so damn nervous.

Finally, after too long and too many moments of quivering and wanting to just run away from this, I pinch each side of the brown wrapping and peel it apart. I'm not expecting to find what I do inside, and so I furrow my brow, pushing the paper down at the sides and staring down at the item in front of me, my fingers playing with the string tied around the bundle which is-

"A journal?" I ask, my tone increasing in pitch and eyes sliding to my right to the girl beside me.

Rosé sucks in her lips and nods, and I go back to looking at the journal. I slowly untie the string around it, revealing the slightly battered and old journal. My fingertips map over the front, feeling the smooth-roughness of the suede cover, and trace down the sides to feel the crinkled paper from what I'm assuming Rosé has written on.

"I finished my internship ten months after I got to London," she suddenly and my heart stops, twisting and clenching painfully as I realize that she could've come back two months earlier but didn't. "And so I decided to travel the UK because I didn't want to come back."

I physically wince at the information, lifting my shoulder and ducking my head as if it'll stop me from feeling the pain but there's no point; the pain's not physical, after all. So my first instinct after not being able to shield myself from the pain is to run, to just get out of here because it really fucking hurts to know that she didn't want to come back. She didn't want to see me, she didn't contact me and maybe this is her way of letting me down easily. Maybe she's trying to tell me she found someone else and isn't staying in New York for long.