One of the ones who didn’t make it.But I have no interest in spoiling our morning with that kind of talk, so I pepper kisses along her wrist and up to her elbow. “She’s not around anymore, which is why Gus has time to flirt with the book club ladies. You wanna go out to dinner with me tonight?”
She jolts and blinks, her eyes flickering back to mine. “Like, a date?”
“Mmm. We have dinner together every night, I know. But we haven’t done it in public before. Or maybe we could cook together here and watch a movie on the couch. Except, now I don’t have to sit there and pretend I don’t wanna touch you.”
Her lips curl teasingly high on one side. “Interesting. How many nights,exactly, have you sat there wanting to touch, Doctor Darling?”
“All of ‘em.” I eat quicker, shoveling oatmeal into my mouth and pushing it down to fill my belly. Then I look up in search of coffee—a necessity after only two hours of sleep.
Reading my mind, Rose detangles her hand from mine and slides off her stool, crossing to the cabinets and taking down two cups.
She fills them both with smooth efficiency, her processing memory completely intact after her run-in with Bitchy Barbara and her Pontiac. Dropping a little cream into each mug, she tosses the carton back into the fridge.
“Here, Darling.” She places a mug down by my bowl and presses a smiling kiss to my forehead. “Your surname is so cute, by the way. You didn’t have a chance: youhadto be a romantic.”
“Who says I’m a romantic?” I drag her stool closer and thrill in the way she sits, one leg on either side of mine, so my shirt rides up and exposes her thighs. “I fucked you like a mongrel dog and left teeth marks in your thighs last night. Not verydarlingof me.”
“You fuck like an animal,” she agrees, trembling. “But you play Uno to help me exercise my brain. You bring me Sudoku books and crosswords to help me remember, and demand I hammer a nail into your deck to prove I exist.” She picks a chunk of oatmeal off the upper lip of her bowl and places it on her tongue. “You put my interests ahead of yours in every single scenario ever presented.” She smiles around the tip of her finger, her eyes alight with the kind of beauty that takes my breath away. “You’re kinda perfect, Oliver Darling. And though I could let that intimidate me, knowing there’s no way I could measure up or truly deserve it, I’d rather sit here, eat my breakfast, and stare at you a little longer. You have to leave soon.” Her smile drops into a soft, sweet pout. “Twelve hours is a long time to be without you. But I’ll be right here when you’re done. Waiting.”
“Forever?”
Her lips twitch and her eyes dance. But fuck yeah, she nods.
“Forever.”
ROUND THIRTY-THREE
ROSE
I’m not sure of the rules and what Ollie expects of me while he’s gone, and now that I think about it, I don’t have keys to his house—to lock up while I’m out, or to let myself back in when I return—but the sun is out today,ish, and the snow is starting to melt, so I wrap myself in my maroon coat and find a beanie hanging on a hook in the laundry. Pulling on the boots he gave me that first time in the hospital, I step onto his porch and turn back to face the door. I tug itmostof the way closed… hesitating. Sweating. If I close it, I’m locked out for the rest of the day. I won’t be able to get back in, and dammit, what if the stupid snow starts falling from the sky again?
Stop being a wuss, Rose!
I hold my breath and slam the door, the boom of solid wood against the frame a ringing finality to announce my decision. Then I spin on my heels and move to the edge of the porch, pausing before I transition to the top step, all so I can look out at… well, trees. And more trees. A road, not even wide enough to warrant the painted lines down the middle.
This is the first time I’m venturing into the world…ever, according to the memories I currently possess. I have no money. No purse. No ID. I have no way of knowing where to go or how to get back, but I have determination in spades, and a need to get out of that house before its four walls send me insane, so I move down the steps and skip from stone to stone, and when I reach the end of the driveway, I look left… and right.
Digging my hands into my pockets, I drop my head to spite the cold breeze, then I start my trek and wonder, is this how it all started for me a month ago? Did I close my front door and simply decide to go for a walk?
“Ominous.” Snickering to myself, I pass the house directly next door to Ollie’s—Mrs. Gunderson’s—and spy just one wall of the massive greenhouse over her back fence. A gentle longing overtakes me, a desire to cut my walk short and turn into her driveway. To knock on her front door and beg for a peek out back. But that would be wholly inappropriate, so I bring my focus back to the road and continue toward town, passing the time with a song on my breath. A tune I don’t recall ever learning, but enjoying every bar anyway. Every chorus and verse. The song speaks of good women becoming the villain in their own story. Tales of betrayal and love. The good kind and the bad. Every few minutes, a car putters by, slowing to move around me—to look at me, I think—and then continuing on, because they don’t know me. They don’t care to know.
It takes about twenty minutes to wander from a snowy residential wonderland to something a little more built up. I recognize the police station—but I don’t stop—and I pass a park with a massive, ivy-covered gazebo taking up the middle of the block.
A swing set sits, unused and squeaking in the breeze, and twenty feet from that, a twelve-foot-tall slide, the kind with no safety rails, no plastic, and no soft-fall section at the bottom. It’s a slide fromtimes gone by, before town planners thought to keep children safe or save them from the discomfort of melting their backsides to the sizzling steel in the middle of summer.
For just a beat, I stand here and see, in my mind, children playing. Toddlers squawking. A little girl racing up the ladder, swinging her legs forward and throwing her arms high, then squealing on her way down again. But is it a memory? Or is my brain filling in the blanks of what I know this sceneshouldlook like?
I don’t know. And the not knowing is frustrating.
I release a breathy sigh, white fog bursting ahead of me, then I turn and keep going, weaving my way toward what can only be Main Street, where cars park with their noses to the curb, and the scent of fresh coffee and baking pastries fills the air.
Every now and then, I glance back and attempt to stamp my way home into memory.
Worst-case scenario, I could ask someone for directions to the hospital, and knowing I have that safety net in place, I let go of the anxiety curling in my stomach.
My heart beats a consistent pace, quick enough to keep me warm, even when the wind picks up and tosses my hair around my neck and face. I meander across the street with no traffic, then up on the other side, until I catch my own reflection in the mirrored glass of the drug store.
Who is she?Who is Rose, the woman with no surname besides Doe?The one with long black hair and shadows under her eyes. Who was she before Plainview? And is my easy acceptance of this new life nothing more than a confession that I did, in fact, hurt Liam?
