Rain trickled from the roof and ran in rivulets down the windowpane of Rosalie Mason's hospital room. She had her head turned to the side so her cheek pressed into the white, fluffy pillows and her eyes tracked a ribbon of water descending past the glass. The fog outside the window felt as cold as she could imagine, but right now, she was bundled up under a blanket in the stiff, regulated warmth of the hospital.
The door to her room creaked open. She turned, careful to keep her bandages off of the pillows. That entire side of her face was numb and she felt as though it was padded with a several-inch-thick layer of cotton that warmed her right cheek.
She swallowed thickly, tasting iron on her tongue as she met a familiar set of eyes she didn't expect to find still in Seattle.
"Lennie—" she started, voice muffled by the swab tucked between her molars and cheek.
She tried to sit up a bit further as Lennie closed the door. She could have sworn it was Monday—the day after they were all supposed to leave Seattle. Of all of the people to stick around, Lennie never crossed her mind.
He came to sit beside her bed. An armchair was still pulled up, but he forewent the cushion and claimed the armrest, a sneaker propped up on the wooden leg. He leant over and pushed the button that sent a whir through Rosalie's bed and pushed the pillows up. Slowly, she rose into a sitting position.
"Thanks," she said. She shook her head a little, eyes closed. "Why're you still here? Not that—I mean—"
"Ray said she'd kick my ass if I left yesterday," he said.
Rosalie smiled a little, crooked and only visible on the unharmed side of her face. It didn't hurt as much to smile as it did to frown, and she attributed it to the muscles that were damaged by the cut through her cheek.
Her chest ached at the thought of Ray all the way on the East Coast. More than anything, she wanted to look Ray in the eye and ask, "How bad is it?" and get the brutal answer of, "It looks like you got into a knife fight and the knife won." Ray would tell it like it is, unlike the passive-aggressive way Lennie said:
"You... look tired," he said.
Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Courteous as always. So Ray knows now?"
"Yeah, and I'm sure she's delivered the news to the rest of the team. Be thankful you aren't in the group chat right now," Lennie said. He leant back, an arm across the back of the chair as the sensation in Rosalie's chest soured.
She already knew several of her friends weren't fond of Joanna. Juliana's constant skepticism kept Rosalie on her toes; Luanna's concerned nature told her to keep her distance; and Sami was never exactly Joanna's #1 fan—far from it, actually. To top it off, Rosalie figured one of two things would become of Alyssa: She would either swear vengeance or duck out of the soccer group entirely if it meant avoiding a manicured thumbnail to the cheek.
Rosalie swallowed again. Her saliva was about as dense as the clutter in her scrambled brain. She hadn't considered the chance that Ray would be on their side. She could feel it, though—the division between her team spawned from all of their doubt in Joanna Spencer from day one.
Joanna.
Her heartbeat jumped to her throat.
"I shouldn't have mentioned it," Lennie said, slowly.
Rosalie shook her head. "It's fine." She turned away to look at the damp windowpane and sighed. "Did Drew leave?"
She knew the answer before Lennie said anything. "Yeah, they left last night. Joanna almost gave them a black eye—the Lieutenant practically tackled her," he said.
"It wasn't Drew's fault," Rosalie said.
"I know. But she's still pissed." She looked back at him. He had his head down, his free hand rubbing at the white seam on the side of his Armory sweatpants. His brow tightened over his dark eyes as he said, "I'm still pissed. I can't tell if you're thinking rationally about any of this, Rosalie."
"I'm lucid."
"You don't know that," he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. He looked up at her with those wide, doe eyes that reminded her of why she ever had a crush on him in the first place. She rolled her eyes away and resisted the overwhelming urge to groan at him. His stubborn attitude reminded her of why she couldn't even fathom being in a conversation with him for more than a minute.
"I rested my case yesterday. I stand by it," she said, words slurred over by the cotton in her cheek. "And maybe I was a bit high on Vicodin, but I'm lucid now and I meant what I said."
"If you were more coherent I'd get Ray on the phone right now," he said.
"Get her on the phone then—"
"You and I both know she'll bitch you out in person as soon as they clear you for the flight," he said.
She scowled at him, and she knew it from the twinge on the left side of her face where the numbness couldn't disguise how painful it was to frown. She scowled anyway just to make her point abundantly clear. She wouldn't be on a plane for, at the very least, another week, and even that was pushing it. Eventually, her mother would be here and Lennie would leave his post and Jenn Mason would tell the Spencers that it was time to go.
Lennie leant forward. Rosalie leant away a little. "If you won't think about yourself, think about Joanna. I'm not going to push again."
"What, are you going to shove next?" she remarked, unable to keep the acid out of her voice.
"I'm not doing this with you. You're being ridiculous," he said, getting to his feet. She didn't blame him—she felt like being a real bitch right then and there, and his constant depreciation of her resolve, quite frankly, pissed her off. "Your mom gets in around noon. I'm leaving at two."
"Good," she said.
She could tell Lennie wanted to comment on that, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he shut it with a shake of his head. He turned away, shoving his phone into his pocket as he went for the door. She watched him go, her cheek just barely hovering over the pillow to keep the pressure off of the bandages. Lennie glanced back at her before leaving, and it took everything in her power to stop herself from flipping him off.
Joanna really is rubbing off on me, she thought, her eyes then straying down the length of windows beside the room door. The blinds were half-shut, so she could see nurses as they passed and visitors as they approached—not that there were many of those. The Lieutenant stopped by several times from what she could remember, and Drew sat with her for several hours before their flight. Lennie was a reluctant but frequent visitor until that time.
As for Joanna...
Rosalie eyes traveled down the length of the bench posted against the opposite side of the corridor. Just in view of the windows, partially obscured by the wall, Rosalie found Joanna sitting there, arms crossed, staring at her through the blinds. When their eyes met, Joanna turned away and put a hand to her hair like she wished she had a hood to cover her face with.
Rosalie watched until Lennie was gone, but that wasn't for another minute as he stopped to talk to Joanna for a long, painful moment. Joanna's chin was turned up to face Lennie with a dark, yet stoic expression. At last, Lennie was gone, and Rosalie took that moment to toss her blankets aside and unclip the sensor on the end of her finger.
It was the first time she felt fully lucid in the past day and a half, and it was the first time she felt capable of talking to Joanna. Rosalie sat up from the bed, the stale hospital air suddenly so much colder than the comfort of her bed. She kept her eyes on Joanna so she could see the exact moment Joanna realized what she was doing.
Rosalie padded, barefoot, to the door. She hugged a hand to her stomach, fist clenched in the folds of her hospital gown. She made it to the door where she opened it. For the split second she didn't have a visual on Joanna, Joanna was on her feet and already several paces down the hall—away from Rosalie.
They stood at opposite ends of the hallway—Joanna at the cusp of an intersection and Rosalie stuck within proximity to her room door. Her bare feet tingled against the chilled tiled flooring. She clenched her fist at her side, still clutching at her gown with her other hand.
Joanna glanced back at her just as a nurse came around the corner and spied Rosalie out of her room and without the sensor. Rosalie instinctively straightened up with an excuse on the tip of her tongue, but she was cut short by the nurse saying, "How are you feeling? Is the numbing medication wearing off?"
Joanna took that chance to rush off and out of view.
Rosalie dug her heels into the ground, her bare feet sticking to the tiles. She frowned at the intersection where Joanna ran off before looking to the nurse. The nurse tipped her head to the side, and for a moment, Rosalie wondered if she was just seeing things. She wondered if she had actually just seen Joanna there, or if Joanna was all just a pipe dream.
She swallowed hard, throat impossibly dry.
"Just a little thirsty. Is my water bottle here?" she asked, and the nurse guided her back to the room where her duffle from the hotel sat idly on the windowsill, collected speckled shadows from the rain.
The nurse gave her a straw to drink with, which required abandoning her water bottle cap. She stared out through the window, beyond the reflection of her and the nurse on the windowpane. Lightning flickered overhead and was promptly followed by a crackled, clap of thunder.
The nurse gasped a little, whispering, "Thunderstorms are wonderful, wouldn't you say?"
Rosalie knew that it was just meant to strike a conversation, but she felt more bored by the weather now that she was on her feet. "I don't really have a preference anymore," she confessed and promptly walked away from the windowsill with her water bottle in hand.
___
Rosalie Mason really didn't care about her appearance. At least, that was what she thought Before. Before Arden Dodge. Now, she couldn't believe she spent the start to her senior year worrying over the size of her calves or the shape of her thighs. It really didn't matter whether or not she could fit into a pair of jeans. So what if she grew out of everything she owned?
She had bigger things to worry about, like the state of her face in the mirror.
Like the state of the guest bedroom when she returned home.
Rosalie scratched her fingernail against the edge of the bandage on her cheek. The skin came up raw underneath as she gently peeled it away, laying her fingers gently over the pink flesh underneath. Her skin was clammy and the bandage was peeling off anyway, so it didn't take much to pluck it off and toss it in the bin. When she looked up from the gauze, her eyes fell on the puckered, pink scar that curved down from the left corner of her mouth and along her jaw. It tapered off where the stitches ended, obvious and dark against her skin. There were fourteen of them.
She could feel the prickly sensation of the tight skin on her cheek, and the dull throbbing from the stitches as she padded out of the restroom and down the hall. The guest bedroom door was open, just a crack, and she studied it for a moment. In that time, she picked up on the sound of her mother's voice downstairs, muffled over the distance and the closed office door.
"—Is that too much to ask? Unbelievable—"
Rosalie put her hand to the door and pushed it open. The bed was made, and the air felt stiff in her lungs. She swallowed it down as she came to stand in the middle of the unoccupied room and waited for as long as it took for her brain to catch up to her. It didn't make sense to stand waiting when Joanna wasn't even there to ask what the Hell she was doing.
She reached into the pocket of her sweatpants. She rubbed her fingers over the stitching of the embroidered logo on her hip as she sifted through the notifications on her lock screen.
Joanna's name wasn't among them.
Rosalie didn't expect anything less than this, especially after she last saw Joanna in Seattle, leaving her alone in the hallway. That was the last time she saw Joanna, and that was nearly a week ago. Rosalie was confident that they'd see each other again, but it didn't stop the nagging sensation in her chest that Joanna would run if she could. She'd run as far as possible in the opposite direction and abandon the team at Regionals.
She studied a message from Brynn Fox on their group chat, accompanied with an entire string of evergreen tree emojis. Merry Christmas everybody! Except Rosalie, in which case, Happy Hanukkah or whatever, hope you're feeling better hehe! It was accompanied by Ray saying, She's not THAT religious, you nerd. Rosalie put a finger to her lips to keep from smiling at Alyssa's response. Are any of us REALLY? I've only eaten one of those wafer things. The others pitched in, and she could hear their voices in her head pulling her away from the spiral of thoughts surrounding Joanna.
Rosalie left the guest bedroom and went to sit in her room, her back to the edge of her bed, and her eyes facing the windows. A light white powder had taken over the deck railing and the floorboards, and soft, fluffy snowflakes melted on the windowpane.
It is Christmas, isn't it? she realized. The timestamps on the group chat said today.
It felt vaguely like she had slept through half of the year and that anything to do with Joanna Spencer was just a dream she had. She checked her phone to make sure that it was not, in fact, a dream. She found Joanna's contact number still there, and their previous messages still dating back to Before.
She brought up the keypad and her fingers hesitated over the letters because what could she say?
ROSALIE: I don't blame you for any of it. Please don't run away from me.
A few moments later, Joanna read the messages, and Rosalie waited for a response. She held her breath as Joanna started typing, backtracked, and tried again. She brought her knees up, heart pounding in her chest. She couldn't imagine any of it—what Joanna must be feeling, what she must be thinking, how scared she had been in front of that hotel when The Lieutenant found Rosalie and Drew out front.
And then, she was reading Joanna's message.
JOANNA: What makes you think I'm running, coward.
I'm just eating mac and cheese with The Lieutenant.
ROSALIE: The ultimate comfort food
I'm glad you're all right
JOANNA: I didn't say that
Once upon a time I thought you were smart. I didn't expect you to lose your damn mind so soon.
ROSALIE: What makes you think I've lost my mind?
JOANNA: Take a wild guess, idiot
Talk to me when you're sober
ROSALIE: I'm not even on Vicodin anymore
What do you mean by that?
Joanna?