Page 24 of Saving Graces
His forehead furrowed. He looked adorable tonight, with his curly mop of sandy hair and his big brown eyes, above his older brother’s suit.
“No,” he said. “I mean you’re fucking beautiful.” He dipped his head and kissed her. She was so surprised that she let him, his mouth warm, his freshly shaved skin still kind of scratchy. His tongue tried to enter her mouth and she jerked back.
“Travis.” She was flabbergasted. “What the fuck?” She clapped her hand against her forehead.
“Shit!” he said, dropping his hands from her waist. “I’m sorry. I’ve wanted to do that for ages.” He ran his hand through his hair, agitated. “In my head you were going to kiss me back though.”
Snickers rippled out around them. Ellie Franklin elbowed Brett Garrett, people starting to turn and stare. Rosalie glared at them, then took Travis’s hand and towed him off the dance floor and out into the fresh air.
They sat side by side on the wide concrete steps to the auditorium under the moonlit sky. Behind them the music thudded dully behind the walls as Rosalie’s thoughts chased themselves in loops.
“I don’t feel that way about you,” she said after a while. “But I love you. You’re my best friend.”
“Fuck Rosalie,” Travis groaned. “I love you too. But I think I actually love you.”
“No,” she said calmly, though her insides felt hot and panicky. “I’m sure you don’t. It’s just like, hormones or whatever. We’ll be fine.”
“It’s not hormones,” Travis jerked his chin up. “We’ve known each other pretty much our whole lives. I’ve loved you forever, you know, as a friend. And then,” he hesitated, “then you went and got hot.”
Rosalie glared at him.
“I got boobs Travis,” she snapped. “Let's call it what it is. I grew boobs and you suddenly stopped seeing me as your friend and started seeing me as a girl.”
“You are a girl though? It’s not just that, fuck. Half this school has b… breasts,” he stuttered over the word, his eyes skittering over her body, proving her fucking point. “You got hot, and I didn’t, and now we’re fucked.”
“We’re not fucked. And you are hot,” she argued, but by his huff she wasn’t convincing. But it was true. There were definitely girls around who liked him, she knew that. “You’re a good-looking guy.”
“Not hot enough for you though, huh?” he sounded defeated.
“Not the right kind of hot,” she corrected. Behind them, a pop song finished and a slow song started. She tried to imagine what right kind of hot he’d have to be for her to want to have her friend’s tongue in her mouth and she came up short.
“I know it’s like, prom, or whatever,” he said eventually. “But I’m going to have to go. Want me to drop you home?”
“Yes please,” she said, wanting nothing more than to be out of there, out of this weirdness, out of this problematic dress.
They drove home in the kind of silence that not even the radio could cover. When they arrived outside her house, he stopped the truck, but didn’t turn off the engine.
“I’ll see you at school on Monday?” she asked.
“I don’t know Rosalie,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
“You don’t know if you can be my friend?” Her voice cracked. “After being friends our whole lives.”
“I can’t help it that I want more.” He swallowed, his throat working hard. “I’m always going to look at you, and I’m going to want more.”
Rosalie felt a hot jolt of rage, her eyes burning with tears. She got out of his familiar old truck and slammed the door behind her. Throwing away an entire lifetime together just because he wanted to make out with her?
She stalked across the street towards her house. She was also, in a weird way, mad at herself. If she could just like him back it would solve a whole bunch of problems she wasn’t sure she wanted to face. His truck roared away down the street and her tears spilled down her cheeks.
At the steps to her house, she suddenly froze. Her dad’s voice roared through the wall and window, shaking the panes. Oh fuck. Rosalie sprinted up the stairs into the house.
“That’s enough!” The yells echoed from the far end of the house. Her first thought was Savannah, but as she rounded the corridor, it was Rachel’s door splayed open, light spilling out into the hallway, the sound of something crashing to the floor.
“That’s more than enough–” Rachel’s dead name ricocheted through the house, hitting Rosalie’s like the screech before a car crash. Her father yelled it again, his voice raw with fury. “I’m drawing a line. You’re too old now to keep playing make believe, like this.”
Rosalie shoved herself past her father who was taking up the whole door frame.
“Don’t call her that!” she yelled and squeezed by her mother sitting on Rachel’s bed, sobbing like this was all about her. Rachel cowered against the wall, white and shaking, tears soaking into the neckline of her party dress, clearly about to sneak out. Her makeup bag was upended on the floor, lipsticks and eyeliners everywhere, a broken concealer bottle leaking into the rug.
