She listened, nodded, and shifted.
My words felt like knives, cutting me first and then her.
The world slept and soon, we caught up with it. Slowly, she unraveled. Her body loosened from exhaustion, from everything I’d just put her through. She turned towards me, her face flushed from the fire, and put her hand on my leg. I stalled, scared I’d frighten her, when all I wanted was to press her to me and never, ever let go. Then all her angles and sharpness melted as she crawled into my lap, pulling my arm over her like a blanket and laying her head in arms. I felt her tiny weight, draped across my legs, her hair waving over my arm and tickling my skin, and absorbed every detail I could. She glanced at me briefly, a look of love behind confusion, and closed her eyes.
I flipped my head to the sky. I wouldn’t sleep tonight. If this was all she was going to give me, I wasn’t going to miss one second.
I stroked her dyed hair and wondered what they did to her. And stopped. One thing at a time. “You were in the sky. Now you’re in my arms.” I sighed like I might perish. She was in my arms.
Her lips fell open as she dozed off. My fingers burned to touch them, but I didn’t.
I fed the fire.
I wasn’t sure I even blinked for fear she’d disappear.
Her eyes opened slowly to the dawn. She coughed, and I tightened my grip on her. She moaned, snuggled closer, and my chest started to open. I smiled, my face feeling waxy and dry from the fire. She smiled back quickly, a flash across her face.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” I said, in agony from all the words I wanted to say, and all the parts of her I couldn’t reach.
She stretched out her limbs, and I cracked my stiff neck. I’d hunched over her like a shelter all night, and my body felt like stone.
“Morning,” she yawned. And then, as if she suddenly remembered, her face creased and she started to wiggle out of my arms.
“Rosa.” She froze, scowled, and stayed half in my lap and half out.
She picked up the last of the wood and threw it on the fire. “Why did you tell me? You could have lied. Kept it to yourself,” she asked, pinning me with her midnight blue and sunlit warm eyes.
I swallowed my dread and answered. “I don’t know. It was selfish, I guess. Do you wish I hadn’t?” I risked a hand to her hair and shuddered with relief when she didn’t jerk away from me again.
She was quiet for a long minute. I listened to her breathing, heard her thinking in the silence that only Rosa could sustain.
“No and yes,” she said, finitely, straightening her back. “It’s a weird kind of feeling. I wish you hadn’t, but I’m glad you did. It would have come out eventually. And lies grow like cancer, don’t they?”
I nodded. “They do.”
Her voice was low, sad, punctuated by my actions. “It would have poisoned us.”
I leaned towards her desperately, forgetting myself. “Rosa, I promise it will never happen…”
She leaned back from my intensity and put her hand up to my face, her fingers grazing my open mouth. “Don’t. I don’t need you to. I know it won’t.”
I sat up straight and clasped my hands together, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t deserve to touch her. I didn’t deserve… her.
She narrowed her eyes, and I prepared for venom. “Joseph. Stop looking at me like that.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Like what?”
“Like you think I will disappear. Like you think it’s over.”
My heart started beating so fast I must have been running towards that hope like it would save me. It would save me.
“It’s never over.” Slowly, she brought her hands to my face, wincing when she touched me. How could a touch feel like guilt and redemption at the same time? Her eyes fell to my lips, and I sensed the pain, the reluctance. “I still love you.”
My stupid face, my stupid eyes, started crying. A tear ran down my cheek and over her finger. She stared at it curiously. I wanted to say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry until the words had lost their meaning, but I knew she didn’t want to hear it anymore.
My voice cracked all over the place as I said, “You’re it for me. Don’t doubt it. That never changed. The only thing that changed was how much I hated myself.”
She dropped her hand and bowed her head, playing with the sleeves of my shirt, which hung so far over her little fingers. The milky light of the morning filtered through the trees and lit her face, shining over her eyelashes and making it hard for me to breathe normally.
“Okay,” she mumbled, her toes touching, her knees pressed together. She was so small and so strong.
I want to kiss her. Though I know I have to wait until she comes to me. It has to be her decision. I pray it won’t be long, but I’ll wait a year if I have to.
I. Will. Do. Anything. She. Wants.
Funny thing was that I knew she wouldn’t want much. She wasn’t the kind of girl to make demands.
It was one of the many reasons I loved her so damn much.
ROSA
I needed time to let the images settle at the bottom of my brain. It was too fresh and it kept snapping at me, begging to be viewed. I needed her blonde, freckled face and light green eyes to become a transparent memory.
Joseph scooped me up and stood with me still cradled in his arms. Gently, reluctantly, he allowed me to fall to my feet. The ground felt firmer, still a little shaky, but not crumbling away.
I let him take my hand. It was a strange feeling, stinging for a second before it melted into what it was before. I hoped that would change.
We smothered the fire and walked back to the chopper.
ROSA
We trudged through the clearing, and Deshi shot up from where he was squatting over a gas burner and saucepan. A plume of steam and the tinny smell of canned food heating welcomed me. He glanced from my face to Joseph’s, down to our joined hands, and rushed us both, throwing his arms around our necks and knocking our heads together.
“Okay, okay…” He panted breathlessly. “Well, she didn’t kill you. That’s a start.” Joseph managed a weak laugh in response.
I broke away from Joseph, his fingers gripping my hand until the last second, and let them talk. Everything was packed and ready to go. I wandered up to Denis, who was perched on the edge of the chopper cabin, poking food around his small, metal bowl. I threw the pack in the back of the craft.
“You’ll get used to it,” I said. Rosa-May’s shadow stepped forward from within, the light hitting her frowning face. It was amazing how much she looked like me, especially when she was angry. Paulo was completely absent in her. A good thing. I bowed my head in thanks that she never knew him. She held out her hands for me. In only two days, she’d come to trust me.
“I doubt I’ll ever get used to this,” Denis replied smoothly, reaching for his headphones that were no longer there.
“We have music too. I’m sure Gwen could help you with that when we get back.” My chipper voice was more like soggy bark chips, dull and unconvincing. Besides, I didn’t really care whether he was comfortable or not. It was never a concern he had for me. I was about to add that maybe he shouldn’t ask Gwen for anything, considering he’d abandoned her to die. But I left it, feeling a prickle of evil satisfaction at the fact that she’d probably tear him apart if he did ask her for something. My smile was dipped in acid sugar and he gave me a peculiar look, as if he knew there was a nasty thought lurking behind it. I shrugged, picked Rosa-May up, and squeezed her middle. “I’m sorry I was away for so long.” She nodded, her roundish chin touching her chest. Still no words.