Endlessly [h.s.]

fourteen

A single day. It had only been a single day since he'd been gone and she was already a mess. At night she couldn't sleep and in the mornings she didn't want to get out of bed. Her world felt gray and colourless without him and she hadn't found a way to cope with that yet.

"You're back! Oh my...Rose are you okay?"

She'd probably noticed her hair first, of all the things wrong with her, that's probably the first thing Mary noticed when she'd stepped into the break room. Rosemary had never been so unkempt in her entire life than the state she was in now.

Her hair was frizzy and out of place in a very poorly done bun and her outfit was engulfed in wrinkles and creases, not to mention how dark the bags under her eyes were already. No doubt from crying all night instead of sleeping.

When she answered, her tone was flat, dull, and lacking it's usual vibrancy, "No."

Rosemary didn't even bother to look up from her tea, the steam rising from it more interesting than the conversation that was about to begin. She didn't want to talk about what was wrong but Mary would inevitably wriggle her way in regardless of what Rosemary wanted.

Mary took her usual seat across the table from Rosemary, a frown now on her painted lips, "What's wrong?"

Rosemary sighed and swirled her spoon around in her tea although it was doing absolutely nothing other than moving the hot liquid around. Everything was wrong because Harry wasn't there anymore.

Rather than her usually cheery tone, her voice was flat and deflated, certainly not how she faked it on the air only minutes ago, "If I say everything will you leave it alone?"

Mary's frown deepened, "No, I won't."

Rosemary sighed again only to fight back the tsunami of tears seconds later, her eyes watering and her lips quivering as she tried to keep it together. She didn't know how to be okay with the new reality and it was eating her alive.

Mary was up and hugging her soon after, her hand rubbing her back soothingly as she fell apart right in front of her, "Shh it's okay, you're okay Rose."

Rosemary lost it, she was definitely not okay and there was no point in telling her that anything was okay, "No! It's not okay! I'm not okay! Nothing is okay! He's gone and I can't do anything about it."

Her elbows rested on the counter and her hands covered her face as she continued to cry.

Mary didn't know what to say or do and so she kept rubbing Rosemary's back as her body shook from how hard she was crying,she didn't understand what was happening, "Who's gone Rose?"

That only made it worse, "Harry, Harry's gone. They bloody took him to fight in the goddamned war against Germany the fucking bastards." A slight twinge of anger bubbled up but soon dissipated the longer she thought about Harry and his heart stopping smile.

"What!? Rose I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

Rosemary snapped again and pushed Mary off of her, she was pissed that Mary didn't even notice she was out of work for days, she didn't even call and she was supposed to be her friend, "Maybe if you were my friend outside of work you'd have known. Christ you could have called! I missed three entire days!"

Mary went to say something and stopped, Rosemary was right despite her fragile state and now she felt terrible, "You're right, I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say.

Rosemary sighed and rubbed her temples, it was wrong of her to snap at Mary like that, "No, don't be. I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. I just-I shouldn't be here but I can't take any more time off for a while."