Page 84 of Saving Graces
“Your mama,” Rosalie whispered to him from over Savannah’s shoulder, “your mama is a fucking gladiator.”
Clutching her child tight to her sweaty chest, Savannah lifted her gaze to Rosalie.
“I’m going to divorce him,” she said. And then she wept.
It took another three months, Savannah lost in a haze of sleep deprivation and the shock of new motherhood, Cole back out of rehab, another damn photo in the press, this one perfectly unmistakable - a kiss on the mouth, a hand on a breast - but finally, Savannah kicked him out.
It was only then, Rosalie and Savannah bunkered down while the press frenzied outside, that the rest of it came tumbling out. The lies, the gaslighting, the emotional abuse, the jealousy, obsessive control. Savannah was incandescent with fury and Rosalie lived for it. Gone were the denials, the pretty smile plastering over the cracks. Instead, a white hot rage burned as Savannah reclaimed herself amongst all that she’d lost.
And in the midst of it all was Tucker. Savannah was exhausted. She was wrung out. She was sore. She was breaking into a million little pieces. But now she was a goddamned mother. Rosalie watched her glow with ferocious love and a frayed kind of strength. She’d stayed with Cole so her child could have a father, but she’d left him so Tucker could have a whole mother. Everything superfluous fell away– the celebrity friendships, the perfume campaigns, the awards shows, the perfect outfit for the paparazzi on her way to the store– it all fell into ashes. And out of it rose Savannah Grace, as the strong protective mother she’d never had herself.
“You knew the whole time,” Savannah said one dark night. “Even though I tried to hide it.”
Rosalie nodded.
“You can lie to yourself,” she said softly, “but you can’t lie to your best friend. That bitch is paying attention.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ping!
Rosalie’s hand jerked out to grab her phone the second the sound registered, her mouth already twitching with a smile in anticipation. It was a pavlovian response she had now to the chime of a message coming through. Kinsey, on the road.
Most of her texts were just photos, sent without comment. Kinsey’s beautiful long fingers (ostensibly a shot of her new black shiny manicure); a selfie of her and Coral pulling sexy duckfaces ; a picture of a giant roadside potato statue as they passed through Idaho.
Then, after nightfall, whenever they both were alone, Kinsey would call and they would talk. Sometimes just for a stolen minute, but sometimes for half an hour, then an hour, then a couple of hours, long into the night, Rosalie pale and tired the next morning like a teenager who couldn’t get off the phone.
They talked about almost everything. The meals they’d eaten; the kids at the center; the racist micro-aggressions Kinsey experienced from state to state; Cassidy’s propensity for falling dead asleep in weird places; Kinsey’s mom’s true crime obsession; Rosalie’s parents now running their local PFLAG group as they tried desperately to atone; the time Kinsey broke her wrist as a seven-year-old, trying to kick start her cousin’s motorbike.
What they didn’t talk about was what they were doing. This wasn’t sex. It also wasn’t dating. Kinsey had made it clear she didn’t want a halfway relationship and yet, still she called. And Rosalie? Rosalie lived for the moments in her day she heard from Kinsey, for the sound of her voice and a glimpse into her life.
Kinsey on her end seemed to live to tease her. Her suggestive photos were rare but extremely effective, her subtle but intoxicating dirty talk leaving Rosalie constantly strung along, wanting more but never quite getting it.
Which was why she was almost shocked when one night, lying in bed talking as the night turned to early morning, her voice starting to crack from overuse, when Kinsey spoke up out of nowhere.
“I want to hear you come right now.”
Rosalie’s breath caught.
“Right now?” she asked, in an almost squeak.
“Yeah,” Kinsey said. “Take your pants off.”
“That’s… a blunt way to try to seduce someone,” Rosalie said, though she did what she was told.
“I’m not trying to seduce you,” Kinsey denied. “Your pants are just in the way of what I want right now, which is you, touching yourself, while I listen to you.”
“Um,” Rosalie managed.
“Quit stalling,” Kinsey said. “I want to hear your breath get short.”
Rosalie did what she was told.
“Mm-” she gasped after a minute.
“Yeah?” Kinsey said softly.
“Aren’t you going to help?” Rosalie whispered. “Talk dirty to me?”
