Page 45 of Roses & Ruin

Hayden lets go of me. “This is the first time we’re having it. You’ve never known about your past lives before. And maybe…” His brow furrows. “Maybe that might help too.”

We fall into a long, despairing silence. I wipe my eyes. This is why I like thunderstorms. Feels like the earth’s crying with me.

“What are you saying, then?” I whisper shakily.

“Rose, this is the only way I can make sure you’re safe. You understand? This has to be goodbye. I mean it this time. After today, you won’t see me again. I’ll always watch over you, I promise, but we can’t be together.”

“No, Hayden—” I’m crying again, and Hayden wrenches his eyes shut.

“God, I hate making you cry. I hate it. But if the alternative is losing you—” He shakes his head.

I finally have the answers I’ve been looking for. All of them. The mystery, the distance, the longing, the way Hayden has always felt just out of reach. I finally understand him—see him—in a way I never have before.

But then the cruelty of all this hits me at once. The moment I’ve gotten Hayden, finally gotten him, I’ve also lost him forever.

“It’s not fair,” I say, pressing my fists to my thighs. “It’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“Hayden,” I rush out, “I know we…we just met, but I—”

“Don’t say it,” Hayden grates out. “Please don’t; it’s already unbearable.” He opens his mouth, then clamps it shut. “But of course I do too, Rose. Forever. For always.”

Chapter 16

Outside the train window, the sun’s just now starting to show its sleepy pink face in the sky. I couldn’t sleep last night—how could I?—and on a mad whim, I hopped on a six thirty a.m. train to Boston. I feel numb. Hollow. I look down at my palms, searching for some clue, some sign that these hands existed two hundred years ago. There is none. They just look like my hands. At least that palm reading makes sense now.

You have no idea what danger you are in.

Now I do. Does it matter that it’s because of Hayden? Because of some curse that’s doomed me to die over and over again?

I let my eyes fall hazy, watching the small brick buildings and clusters of small houses of suburban Massachusetts rush by. The fall foliage is looking more bare now. Less brown and red. More naked branches. I pull my scarf tighter around my face.

Every falling leaf brings me closer to my nineteenth birthday.

I shudder. This is why I’m going to Boston: I need to be anonymous. At least for a day. I need to go back to being that quiet, insignificant Rose. The one who wasn’t even special enough to sit beside in the school cafeteria. Just…Rose.

But…was I ever her?

A faint mist hugs the large window. I rest my cheek on the icy glass, fogging it with my long exhale.

At least a lot of things are making sense now. Why those nightmares were the realest thing about me at times. I think of my mom and dad. No wonder they’re so different, why I always sensed a slight disconnect with them. Can they even be called my parents? If I’m the exact same Rose from the 1800s, then aren’t they just two poor souls who were randomly assigned mine?

I scrub my red, swollen eyes. Delia was still at her very-late-night study session when I went back up to our room last night. I look at the text she sent me.

Delia:

Hey! Wrapping up here soon thank fucking god, these overachievers are gonna kill me. I know it’s late, but I figured you’re probably up, little miss insomnia. Wanna do a late night nosh sesh at the dining hall? Haven’t seen you all day and I miss your face

I felt heartsick reading it. This whole time, I thought I’d made my first real friend. I’d felt so lucky, thought it was a reward from the universe for eighteen long, lonely years.

But Delia’s just been doing a favor for Hayden. Her sob-story background, sixteen school cafeterias over four years, that lone wolf crap: Is there even a kernel of truth there? She said she loved me, and I said it back, meant it. It’s so humiliating. This gorgeous, ethereal vampire pretending to connect with me, a pathetic, milk-sucking mortal. How she must be laughing…

I scrub angrily at my leaking eyes.

I never replied to her text. I just pocketed my phone, changed into my warmest clothes, grabbed my bag, and headed to the library on west campus where I bumped into Hayden on the silent floor.

That wasn’t random, was it? None of this was.