For a second, I almost called out to Wyatt.He would have run in, held my hair, rubbed my back, and gotten me water…
I pushed from the floor, needing to take care of myself.I flipped the light switch on, opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed the bottle of antacids, and popped two into my mouth.
I closed the cabinet, the mirror on the door forcing me to look at myself.Mascara ran down my face.Tear tracks cut through my makeup.Shit.I didn’t do my nightly routine.
Oh well.
My eyes widened, locked on my reflection before I ran out of the bathroom.I grabbed my bag and fished out my birth control.I never took it last night.This was the fourth time this month I had missed a pill.
I should have set an alarm like Wyatt told me to.When he was with me, he reminded me, but I’d had a lot of nights out with my sisters this month, and I forgot.
Oh God.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been nauseous this month.I passed it off as stress.Realization slammed into me, but I shook my head.That was ridiculous.
There was no way I was pregnant.
The sun filtered in through the curtains we’d spent hours picking out.I cracked an eye open, hoping to wake up from the worst nightmare I’d ever had, but as the room became clearer, and the sleep in my gaze dissipated, my mind remembered.
I jumped from the couch, the half-drunk bottle of wine left uncorked.I tripped on the blanket I had no recollection of pulling on me during the night and headed straight for our bedroom.
We were both in the heat of the moment yesterday.If there was one thing I knew, it was that Rose and I could weather any storm.We could get through anything the universe threw at us.Or at least, that’s what I’d always believed… right until the universe called my bluff.I came to a skidding halt outside the open bedroom door, and my eyes landed on the perfectly made bed.
I glanced at the clock on the nightstand; it was only seven am.Where the hell was Rose?I turned toward the bathroom, expecting to hear the shower, but all I was met with was silence.
“No.”My heart twisted, stomach dropped, and any sliver of hope I had left snapped when I ran into the closet and stared at the space where her overnight bag usually was.
The floor was bare except for one of her shoes kicked to the side, as if she’d meant to come back for it.
My legs weakened, and I caught myself on the wall, leaning against the cold plaster as my body gave out.Without Rose, I didn’t know who I was.For eleven years, we were a package deal.Our names blended together on the tongues of the town, Wyrose.And now that inside joke of a nickname hurt more than anything else because…Why, Rose?Why?
I swiped at a tear that escaped and forced myself off the floor.
She left me.
With each step, each realization Rose was nowhere in our home, my world spun off its axis, tilting into a reality I didn’t recognize.The faint scent of her coconut shampoo lingered in the air like a ghost, cruelly taunting me.The mug she used every morning sat in the sink, lipstick smudge still on the rim, proof that she’d been here… and that she’d chosen to go.
“Rose?”My voice cracked the silence, bouncing off the walls, desperate for an answer I knew I wouldn’t get.
I grabbed my phone from the counter, hoping for a text, but nothing.Scrolling through our messages, I reread the last one she’d sent me.See you soon.Simple.Normal.Nothing warned me that by morning she’d be gone.
My chest caved in.The surrounding air was too thin, like the house itself were rejecting me.
I made it to the front door before stopping, palm pressed against the frame.The sun was rising, bleeding gold over the yard, touching everything but me.She could be anywhere.At her parents’, at her sisters’ or brothers’, at Meadow’s… hell, maybe halfway to another state by now.Since the day I’d met her, I’d always known what was going on in that head of hers.Now, I had no fucking clue what was going on in that head of hers.
All I knew was that she wasn’t here.Not with me.
I took a step like I was going to follow her, then froze, because I didn’t even know which direction to go.
I sank onto the porch steps, elbows on my knees, gripping my hair until the pressure behind my eyes burned.
I thought we were unbreakable.That after everything, college, loss, laughter, the million little fights we’d survived and laughed about, that this was just another storm we’d ride out.
But the truth hit me harder than any fight ever could.
Rose didn’t just leave the house.She leftus.
And for the first time in eleven years, I didn’t know how to find my way back to her.
