Rosa stood up. "I need a drink for that." She went to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of wine. "Do you want one?"
Billy shook her head. "No, I'm all good."
Rosa poured the wine, put the bottle back, and turned.
Glass in one hand, her other arm wrapped around her middle, she leant back against the countertop and brought the glass to her lips but didn't take a sip.
"I'm finding it difficult to put things into words," she said, finally looking back at Billy.
"It's okay…you can take your time, or just say it however you have it and we can unpack it—"
"See, that..." Rosa pushed off from the counter, her arm unwrapping to point a finger at Billy. "All this therapy jargon…it makes me feel…" She inhaled and then blew it out. "I just want to be angry at you."
Billy nodded and remained silent.
"I just want to be angry and hurt you the way you hurt me, and I can't…I can't, and that makes me angry atme."
"I'm sorry."
Rosa rolled her eyes. "I'm sick of hearing ‘sorry’," she said, moving back to the couch. She placed the glass down onto the table next to the mug. "Ineededyou. I needed you and you weren't there, and there was never a time when that changed…when I stopped needing you, and that pisses me off. It pisses me off that you still have that hold on me." She looked at Billy, eyes wet with tears that wouldn't fall. "You could have come back at any time, and I'd have let you, and that…that makes me angry with me."
She picked up the glass and swallowed it down in one.
"So you don't get to sit there and tell me you still love me, and that you never stopped loving me, when you could have been loving me and you chose not to."
Finally, they fell—one by one, until it was a trickle of tears pouring down her cheeks. Tears she'd not shed for so long, that when they started, her entire body shook. The glass slipped from her fingers and hit the rug with a soft thud.
"I've spent all these years thinking I was so terrible…such an awful wife, that you'd choose to be away from me to heal, and now…now I hear your words, your truth, and I feel horrible for being so selfish…so self-absorbed that I didn't see it. I didn't see your pain."
"Stop." Billy's voice cracked. She was beside Rosa in an instant, kneeling in front of her, hands hovering, uncertain. "You weren't selfish. You were drowning too."
She took Rosa's hands, cupping them between her own.
"There's no blame here. We both did, and felt, and assumed a lot of things that in the moment were all we had to go on. It's too simplistic with hindsight to say either of us shoulda, woulda, coulda done anything differently. And neither of us are those people anymore. We grew, became more than we were, and that's okay." She bent lower and tilted her head to look into Rosa's downturned eyes, her voice low and soft as she spoke. "Ilove you. Whether you feel anything for me or not, it's okay, but I needed you to know—"
Before she could finish the sentence, lips were on hers—soft, yielding, and salty. Lips that instantly felt like she knew they would: unexpected, buthome.
Chapter nineteen
Billy froze for barely a heartbeat, then melted into it. Rosa's hands slipped from hers, moving to cup Billy's face.
The kiss deepened, tentative at first, then urgent. Years of longing, anger, grief, all of it poured into the press of mouths, the catch of breath. Rosa's fingers threaded into Billy's hair, pulling her closer, and Billy's hands found Rosa's waist, steadying herself, anchoring them both.
When they finally broke the kiss, foreheads still pressed together, both breathing hard, neither moved.
"Rosa…" Billy whispered.
Rosa's eyes opened, still wet, still red. "Don't. Don't say anything. Just…stay."
Billy nodded. "I'm not going anywhere. Except…maybe onto the couch. My knees are not happy."
Rosa laughed, as Billy pushed up and sat in the space between the arm of the sofa and Rosa. "We're not that young anymore."
"Hey, I'm not old… Maybe it was just an excuse to sit closer to you." Billy smiled as she threaded her arm behind Rosa and pulled her close.
Rosa shifted closer, but she pressed a palm against Billy's chest, face turned towards her, their eyes holding. "Let's not use excuses for what we want anymore."
"That's a fair request."
