"So... how'd you wanna start?"
I'm a little unsure of how this kind of thing is supposed to go. I've never really had to discuss my feelings with anyone before because they've never been this strong. Shit, I've never been in love before, and I've never had to really think about my words to make sure I don't come out of this situation with a broken heart.
"Um," Rosé wets her lips and shifts in her seat, tucking her leg beneath her and resting her hands on her lap. "I guess, we should clear the air first."
Not what I was expecting, I cock my head to the side, confused.
"Clear the air?" I repeat, feeling a little lost.
"Yeah," she confirms with a nod of her head. "We need to get the anger and resent out before we can move forward."
"I'm not angry or resentful."
Rosé's face falls and disappointment flashes behind her eyes. It makes my stomach sink.
"You can't say that, Lisa," she says and looks away quickly. "You can't tell me you weren't pissed and hurt that I left." She glances back at me, her lips sucked into her mouth. "I know you were."
I think back to March, back to when I went from being clinically depressed to irrationally angry at Rosé's departure. I think about how I was angry at everything; how I would lash out at inanimate objects, throw lamps and other items about and scream at myself in the dead of night because I just couldn't sleep. I remember how I would actually snarl at people who gave me funny looks, scare away customers at work and yell at strangers who accidentally brushed past me on the street.
I remember how I even went as far as putting my fist through my bathroom mirror, breaking a knuckle and scarring my skin, and I can't deny that I wasn't angry. I was livid.
Still, I don't want Rosé to know that. I was in a bad place, I was hurting, I was scared, I was broken.
I don't want her to know that I have the potential to do that, to become a monster, that I became a monster, but I can't lie to her.
So I just admit it.
"Okay," I let out through a breath and raise my eyes to hers. "I was angry," I lift a shoulder. "I was pissed off, I was hurt, I was lonely, and I was broken." I swallow and chew on my lip for a second. "I hated you for what you did to me," I choke out and I see her flinch at my words, but I don't take them back. This is sorting it out. "I hated that you didn't warn me, I hated that you didn't even try and talk to me," I find myself shaking my head and sucking in my lips, heat prickling at my eyes. "But most of all..." I take in a deep, shaky breath and prepare myself. "I hated that you could just leave like that. So easily."
Rosé's eyebrows knit together, her face contorts with pain and I hate that I'm about to cry. I hate that I feel so fucking vulnerable and I don't want to open up like this because the last time I did, it only brought me hurt. But I know if I want to get Rosé, if I want to make her mine, I'm going to have to push past it. Getting what I want has never been easy, in any situation, and usually the things I have to fight for are the things that are worth it, that are the best, in the end.
"It wasn't easy, Lisa," Rosé finally says and I square my jaw, my lips trembling and eyes dropping.
She reaches over and takes my hand, squeezing it until I'm glancing back up at her and when she speaks, her voice is serious and low in a way I'm not privy, too. Rosé's usually sunshine, rainbows and smiles, and it's strange to see her like this, but I know that she's only like this when she's one hundred percent serious about something and it makes my heart clench because I know she's serious about me.
About making me and her an 'us'.
"You have to believe me," she reinforces and tugs my hand into her lap, squeezing a little harder as her eyes fill with tears. "Lisa, the thought of not seeing you everyday made me not want to go," she chokes out through a sob, a single tear falling down her cheek. "I didn't want to have to live without you."
"Then why did you go?" I squeak, my brow furrowing. She opens her mouth to answer, her lips move but no words come out and I shake my head from side to side, my eyes falling shut. "Rosie, I didn't want to live without you either, and I know that you had to go because it was the best thing to do," I shrug because I already know that, but it still hurts to say. "But you could've called me," my eyes drift to the ceiling as I take in a deep breath, a tear trailing down my cheek. "For an entire year-a whole year, Rosie-my heart broke every single day because you didn't call. You didn't even try to talk to me." My eyes drift back down to meet hers and my voice breaks when I ask, "Wh-Why?"
"Because I-" Rosé gulps and now it's her turn to look away, biting her lip. "I couldn't."
My eyes narrow, jaw hardening. "Why?"
"I..." Rosé releases one of my hands to wipe at the tears pooling in the corner of her eye. "I thought you hated me," she finally replies, lifting both shoulders.
It's the same thing she said when I was lying in bed together yesterday, but it still doesn't explain it.
"I already told you I didn't hate you," I counter, my voice a whisper. "I hated what you did to me, but not you. I couldn't ever hate you, Rosie."
"I know, but," Rosé chokes up, her sentence halting. She squeezes her eyes shut, lowers her head and shakes it, muttering something beneath her own breath. I can't help it when I reach up with one hand and cup her cheek. It's like gravity, and she looks back to me with blood-shot eyes and whimpers. "I left, Lisa." She pauses, her lower lip trembling. "I left, went to London for an entire year, and I left only days after I told you I was going," she says with desperation in her tone, her eyes pleading with me. "I just up and left you and I truly believed you hated me. I never thought you'd want to talk to me again."
I tilt my head to the side, my face screwing up and wetness coating my cheeks. "But that doesn't explain why you didn't even call me, Rosé."
She clutches at my hands like they're a life raft, and her eyes bore into mine. "I tried to," she gets out. "I tried to but I couldn't... because I couldn't handle it if you'd hung up on me," she gulps and you shake your head, trying to tell her without words I would never have done that but then she continues. "I thought you hated me, Lisa, so I couldn't call you and run that risk, but... in November..." She takes in a deep breath, her eyes dropping and closing. "In November I just couldn't take it anymore." She gnaws on her bottom lip swallows thickly. "I wanted to talk to you, I wanted to hear your voice... but I didn't want you to reject me," her voice cracks at the end and she winces. "I couldn't handle it, I was a mess already, but I had to get to you somehow. I had to tell you how I felt, I had to tell you how much I missed you and so..." Her eyes meet yours and she sucks in her lips. "I sent something."
My eyebrows raise but then scrunch together as confusion sets in. I look at her, my head tilted to the side and I'm just about ready to argue with her, but then my mind takes me back to November and it hits me.
***
Tzuyu's standing on the other side of the door, holding a package in her hand, one covered with brown paper and a thin string tied around the middle.
"It was left for you," is the first thing she says and I narrow my eyes because I was sure I checked my mailbox two hours ago, but whatever.
"Oh," I say and take the package from her. "Thanks."
***
"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.
(Later on, I'll realize how ridiculous I was being considering she'd already told me she was staying and that she loved me.)
(But still, I'll only realize that later.)
Apparently I must show my sudden burst of fear because a hand cups my cheek and my vision's being shifted until I'm staring into deep, brown eyes.
"The only reason I didn't want to come back was because I didn't want to come back to you hating me," Rosé elaborates, pouring understanding into her tone. "I know I didn't know if you did for sure, but suspecting was completely different from knowing." My face twists in confusion at her words. "I mean..."
She shakes her head, her face etching with frustration and so I act impulsively and grab her hand off my face, sliding my fingers through hers and clutching onto it tightly on top of the journal still on my lap. I know sometimes she has trouble getting out the words she means and so I just hold on, sit still and wait patiently. After all, I want to know what she has to say, too.
"I didn't know if you hated me, or if you didn't want to see me, or talk to me again," she starts again, gulping and looking in my eyes through glossy blue ones. "But suspecting all of that was better than knowing it." She squints at me. "Do you get what I mean?"
I move my head a little up and down to show that I do, but there's still a little confused part inside of me and she must see it because with her free hand, she rakes through her hair, lets out a quick exhale and starts again.
"If you had hated me... and I came back and found that out... I would've died, Lisa," she says, squeezing my hand intermittently. "If it had turned out that all my fears were true, that you really didn't want me in your life anymore... then I wouldn't have been able to live with myself. I-It hurt not knowing... but at the same time, it was better to just wonder whether you hated me rather than knowing for sure that you did."
This time I get it, and I let out a long breath, but that explanation doesn't cover everything.
"So why did you travel then?" I question, shaking my head to show I'm already not understanding. "Why didn't you just come back to the US and stay away from me?"
"I traveled to try to distract myself, Lisa... but even doing it there was almost impossible," she explains, her tone croaky and weak. "If I'd come back here, there would've been no way I could've stayed away from you." She shrugs and wets her lips, more tears forming in her eyes. "I tried everything I could, but you were there in my head and I couldn't get you out. I pushed myself to manage two months, but even that was so hard, Lisa. So hard," she tugs on my hand to emphasize her words. "But when that two month mark came... I just had to come back. I just couldn't stay away anymore."
My brow furrows at her words, and I glance down to the journal on my lap and remember how this package was delivered in November. "So why did you stop writing to me?" I lift my head to look her in the eye. "Why send this to me after your internship finished?"
She stays silent for a long moment, and when she speaks, her eyes drop to the sleeve of my shirt where her fingers are playing with it nervously. "Honestly? Because I wasn't sure if I was going to come back at all," she whispers and my heart stops at the thought that I may have never seen her again. "But I had to let you know how I felt about you," she continues and lifts her head to meet my gaze. "I spent ten months writing in this journal at least once a day. Sometimes even twice, or three times on the days where I didn't even want to get out of bed because I missed you so much," she admits with a sheepish half-smile. "I wrote down everything I did," her lip quivers and I get this sudden tightness in my stomach at it. "Everything I felt, and everything I wanted to do but couldn't because you weren't there."
A breathy sigh escapes my lips as I think back to all the times I wished she was there. I almost wish I'd written everything down, like how I felt and what I did, in the time when I was separated from her because I feel like she should know how I felt as I'm about to find out with her. But I'm too interested, too intrigued, too worried to know what's inside this journal to really think about that.
"And it's all written in here?" I ask, absently tracing my finger over the journal.
Rosé nods, her eyes lowering and my stomach flutters with nerves as I read the expression on her face. I can't pick out what it is completely, but I have a feeling there's something in this journal I'm not going to like. God, I really don't need any more surprises.
"I'm not gonna find out that you're like, pregnant and engaged or anything am I?" I try to make it a joke by saying the words through a chuckle, but Rosé looks at me with a blank expression, her head shaking.
"I couldn't give myself to someone else like that," she replies, her voice almost flat it's so serious. She lifts a shoulder and strokes her thumb over the back of my hand. "Not when my heart belongs to you."
I swallow thickly against the sudden lump in my throat and feel the tears form in my eyes. I don't know when I stopped crying, but now I'm starting all over again and I look at her, affection gripping my chest because she's staring at me with nothing but love and adoration, and combined with those words it just gets too much for me to handle. So much so that I don't even bother trying to fight the urge to kiss her when it strikes me, and I grab the journal, set it down on the couch cushion behind me and then reach for her face, my hands framing her jaw and pulling her forward until my mouth is covering hers.
She gasps against the kiss, not expecting it but I just hold still until she kisses me back, her hands stroking up the side of my thighs to my hips, tugging me a little closer until I'm throwing a leg over hers and pressing against her. Her nose nudges my cheek, shifting the kiss until she's sucking in my bottom lip and running her tongue along it, and this time it's my turn to gasp because I'm sure my insides just melted into a puddle.
Because it doesn't feel like a kiss that's leading to slow, sweaty sex on the sofa - it feels like a kiss that's leading to a relationship, to something stronger and something I've wanted more than I've ever wanted anything else before.
Honestly, it feels like love.
"God, I love you," I pant against her mouth as I pull back for breath, but she doesn't let me say anything more, and doesn't say anything herself before she leans in again and brings our mouths back together, pressing her lips hard against mine and clutching at my neck now, her thumbs stroking circles on my skin.
Though after a few long minutes of kissing and reacquainting myself with the way Rosé tastes, the way she kisses me and how it feels like I could explode just from her touch, she pulls away and I follow her, hanging my head a little as I pant. She manages to steal my breath just by looking at me, so kissing me is a whole other ball game, and she must know that because she doesn't try to tilt my head up, just presses her lips against my forehead and breathes heavily against my skin, letting my lungs fill with oxygen again.
Except after I manage to do that, after I pick up my head and look at her, craving to kiss her again, she smiles softly and pushes my hands away onto my lap before standing. I watch her with confusion, with the fear that she's going to leave again, and I know just by the way she's shifting her weight from one leg to the other that she's actually going to.
"You're leaving?" I squeak.
Her smile somehow softens further. "You need to read the journal," she say, nodding her head toward the book lain forgotten on the sofa. "Then we'll talk more."
I feel my eyebrows push together and the crease between them deepen because I don't know what she means by that. What's inside this journal that she needs me to read? What happened to her in London? What did she do? Oh God. I don't know what this little book contains, what (possibly gruesome) details it may hold, but I'm not sure I want to know. What's in the past is in the past...
Though I know she wants me to read it. I can see it in her eyes.
"Stop worrying," she coos, stroking the backs of her fingers over my temple to push back some fallen hair. "I just want you to read it."
I am worrying-I tend to do that a lot-but it's not like her saying I shouldn't will magically correct my mood, yet I nod and she smiles at me and holds out her hands. I take them and let her pull me up, and I stand close, our bodies almost completely pressed together and eyes boring into each other for a few seconds before she bends down to kiss me.
It lasts for about three seconds, but I still feel my heart pound against my rib cage and my breath catch in my throat, and when she pulls away, I keep my eyes close and hum as I suck my lips into my mouth, savoring the feel of her kissing me.
Hands cup my cheeks and I slowly open my eyes to look into hers. "After you've read this, no matter what time, or what day - whenever you're ready," Rosé says softly, her fingertips running over my temple. "Call me and we'll figure us out."
There's so much left to say, so much I want to tell her, but when my eyes flicker to the journal still lying on the couch, I choose to hold everything back. I don't know what her travels to London held, and it's making me feel all kinds of nervous that she wants me to read it. I know it can't be that bad because she would've told me, but I still don't know what it is and I've never been a big fan of surprises anyway so this isn't something I'm looking forward to.
But I don't say any of that; instead I choose to keep it in and wait because I don't want to ruin something beautiful before it's even begun.
And after leading Rosé to the front door, embracing her goodbye and watching her walk down the hallway and disappearing into the elevator, I turn around, head back to the sofa, take a seat and bring the journal into my lap.
Guess it's time to find out about Rosé's trip to London.