Rose.
She looked different. Thinner than the last time I’d seen her, sharper in the face. She was wearing jeans and a jacket I didn’trecognize and her hair was down, and she stopped ten feet from the door and just looked at me.
I looked back.
Neither of us moved.
She was so beautiful it physically hurt. Not the polished, composed beauty she wore like armor at the ranch. Rawer. She looked like a woman who’d been through a war and was still standing, and the fact that she was standing here, in this hallway, for me, was the most extraordinary thing I’d ever witnessed.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“You forgot to shave.”
“I forgot socks, too.”
Her mouth trembled. Not quite a smile. “That’s very on-brand for you.”
“Aye.” I stepped back from the door. “Come in.”
She walked past me into the room. I closed the door and we stood there, three feet apart, the whole ocean I’d just crossed compressed into the space between us.
“I don’t know how to start,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
“I practiced on the subway. I had this whole speech, everything I wanted to say, in order, organized.” She pressed her hands together. “And now you’re here and I can’t remember any of it.”
“Then don’t make a speech.” I sat on the edge of the bed because my legs weren’t reliable. “Just talk to me.”
She sat in the chair across from me. Pulled her knees up, looking like she’d had in Cassiopeia’s stall the night of the storm, the night she told me about her parents.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For calling you a distraction. I knew it was the cruelest word I could have chosen, and I chose it anyway because cruelty was easier than admitting I was terrified.” Her voice shook. “And then you took that word and made a video out of it. Turned it into a confession for fifty million people. And I had to watch you burn for it.”
“Rose—”
“Let me finish.” Her eyes were bright. “I made it sound rational, but it wasn’t. It was cowardice. And you deserved better.”
I leaned forward. “My turn?”
She nodded.
“I lied to you from day one. And then I lied again in that video. Different kind of lie, but still a lie.” I held her eyes. “I’m done lying to you.”
“Good.” She wiped her eyes. “Because, I’m done running from you.”
Rose uncurled from the chair. Slowly, the way she moved around nervous horses, careful, giving me time to see her coming.
She crossed the three feet between us and stood in front of me.
I looked up at her.
“I’m done being afraid,” she said.
“Me too.”
“I’m probably going to be afraid again tomorrow.”
