“Nothing beats it,” she grinned as we each picked up one. Rosie bumped mine to hers with a small laugh. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” I muttered as I bit into it. Fuck, it was good. The pastry melted in my mouth as the sugary, chocolaty taste overwhelmed my senses. It was fucking delicious.
“Was that a moan?” she teased me, taking a small bite from her own and laughed, when I moaned again, this time on purpose. “I may not have had a real orgasm, but I sure as hell know how to give a foodgasm.”
The amazing pastry suffocated me from her words, and I coughed. My mind was assaulted by images of her baking for me as I recovered, and I had to admit she was great at it. For sure knew how to give a foodgasm.
“Not arguing with that,” I muttered while she laughed.
It was a sound I could have gotten used to hearing. I didn't realize how much I missed it until just now.
“You never told me what happened over the summer,” I asked in a sly way, trying to get some information out of her.
Rosie glanced at me, an unreadable expression on her face, before she sighed. “I re-injured myself. I had this plan that I'll take classes, join the dance team or audition, I only lost one year, I could still do it. But then, in mid-July, I pushed it too far. One day, when I was messing around in the studio, I heard my hip give a snap, and I knew I fucked it all up. It wasn’t the ‘my hip is tight, and I need to crack it’ snap; it was a painful one. I could barely walk for days. It got all bruised and swollen. After that, I kind of had to put all my hopes and dreams to rest and realize that this was my reality. My body could never handle professional life.”
My chest tightened. “Why didn't you tell me?”
She ducked her head, suddenly fascinated by her pain au chocolat. “I don't know. I guess... You were doing so well with your recovery. Getting stronger every day. And I was breakingdown again. I didn't want to be the broken one while you were putting yourself back together.”
“Thorn…”
“I know, I know. That's not how friendship works.” She finally looked up, and I saw the guilt swimming in her blue eyes. “I'm sorry I went radio silent. I just... I couldn't face anyone. Especially you.”
“Especially me?” The words stung more than they should have.
“Not like that.” She reached across the table, her fingers brushing mine. “You understood me in a way no one else did. And that made it scarier. Because if I told you I'd failed again, if I admitted I'd re-injured myself through my own stupidity... I thought you'd see me the way I saw myself. Weak. Careless. Broken.”
“I would never think that about you.”
“I know that now.” Her smile was sad but genuine. “But in July, when I couldn't walk without limping, and I was hiding it from my family… I had to accept that professional dance really was over... I wasn't thinking straight. I just shut down.”
“And shut me out.”
“Yeah.” She squeezed my hand. “I'm sorry.”
I squeezed back. “I missed you, you know. Your terrible baking updates and your check-ins and just... you.”
“I missed you, too,” she admitted quietly. “Every day.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through this alone, Thorn.”
“That’s okay, I thought it was going to be easier,” she smiled at me sadly. “But if you ever need someone to talk to, you can always come to me just like before. I'm not sure you'll always find me in a good mood, but I'm working on that. It’s just that this new wound is way too fresh. I was okay before because I had hope… now… I have no hope.”
“It's something we can work on together,” I offered, squeezing her hand.
Rosie returned my smile, and I felt something slowly shift between us. “We can add it to our list of things to work on.”
“Guess, you're not getting rid of me,” I winked, and she laughed.
“We are stuck with each other.”
But somehow neither of us seemed to mind it.
Rosalie stayed with me for another hour, and we talked about non-sense. None of us wanted to bring on the heavy conversations anymore, and she seemed grateful for the normalcy.
The only strange thing was that she didn't move away from me. Her legs kept brushing my arm as she fidgeted on the armrest, trying to come up with a comfortable seating position, while her smell surrounded me wherever she moved. Her closeness mixed with the decaf coffee and the pastry got me out of my head, and all I could think about was her.
Time and time again, everything came back to her. She was great and kind, and it was becoming hard to deny that I loved spending time with her.
