Page 91 of Saving Graces
“I feel so stupid.” Kinsey slowly got to her feet, her cheeks flaming. “I thought that something was growing here,” she gestured between the two of them, “but now I can see that it never will because you won’t let it.”
There were tears sparkling in her eyes. Rosalie sat frozen on the couch as Kinsey stalked around, grabbing her things, shoving her feet into her shoes, and shrugging on her jacket.
“Please, can we talk about this?” Rosalie’s voice sounded weak. This was happening too fast. She wasn’t even sure how it was happening or what to say to make it stop.
“Oh, Rosalie,” Kinsey looked heartbroken. “Talking isn’t going to fix this problem. If I thought it would, I’d talk all night.” She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip to stop the quiver. “You know, I would have taken this as slow as you wanted,” she said. “But I already know we would have been fucking great together. It’s going to be one of the greatest disappointments of my life that you couldn’t see that.”
“Listen-” Rosalie rose from the couch. Her words faltered. She felt overwhelmed, unsure where to start.
“No.” Kinsey held up her hand. “I need you to understand. This one is going to fucking hurt.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “I can’t keep seeing you. I can’t keep on talking to you. I need to get some self-control here. I’m going to have to just… block your number, and say goodbye properly.”
“Kinsey-” Rosalie took a step towards her. This couldn’t happen like this. She reached for her but Kinsey moved out of her grasp. She shook her head, firmly. Her eyes were miserable.
“Goodbye, Rosalie.” Her voice was so quiet Rosalie almost missed it.
Rosalie watched as Kinsey walked out the door and left her, this time for good.
On Monday morning Rosalie called in sick from work. She hadn’t done that more than twice in thirteen years. Once when she’d tested positive for covid, once for a flu so bad she’d laid bedridden for a week. Both of those days felt like highlights compared with today.
At just after 10AM, a ferocious banging rattled her front door. Rosalie winced. This was not the day for some overzealous courier or annoyed neighbor to get some bee in their bonnet. She pulled the covers over her head and willed them away. A couple of minutes later she heard a key in the lock and pushed back the covers in alarm.
“Rosalie Carlson, I swear to god!” Savannah’s voice echoed up the stairs, her heels clicking angrily down the hall toward her.
“What the hell, Savannah?” Rosalie sat bolt upright in bed as her best friend stormed into her bedroom. “Did you literally just raid my garden for the emergency key?”
“Oh, is this not an emergency?” Savannah shot her a solid glare before walking over and snapping open her blinds, making her blink uncomfortably as the brilliant sunlight spilled in. “I just said goodbye to Cassie, at the tour bus,” she said sharply, her blond hair haloed in the light, “along with her best friend. Who last I saw was on her way to your door to celebrate her record deal with the woman she’s clearly wild about, and yet this morning she looked like she’d been thoroughly chewed up and spat out.”
Savannah plonked down on Rosalie’s bed, narrowly missing her legs. “What. Happened?”
“Savannah,” she sighed. “I don’t want to talk-”
“Oh, we’re talking about it,” Savannah said fiercely. “We are fucking talking about this and then we’re fixing it.”
Rosalie’s head spun. Savannah’s solid belief that this could be fixed seemed impressively delusional. And yet, a tiny flare of warmth arose in her chest. There was still one person in the world then, who didn’t share Rosalie’s belief that she was irrevocably fucked up.
“Can I have a coffee first?” Her voice came out small.
An hour later, sitting side by side on the couch - Savannah in a four-thousand-dollar dress and Rosalie in flannel pajamas - they sighed in unison.
“Well,” said Savannah, shifting to face her, “it’s officially happening. I am going to force you into therapy at gunpoint if I have to.”
Rosalie shook her head, wearily.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Savannah’s eyes went wide. “You’re not going to make me wrestle you for it? Or have my security literally pick you up and carry you there?”
“No,” Rosalie said quietly. “I want to.”
Savannah gaped.
“Two decades of me busting my ass and some twenty-six-year-old swans in, bats her eyelashes, and makes you want to go to therapy?”
Rosalie snorted a small laugh. Savannah looked genuinely offended.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “I guess so.”
Before
