Well, any louder—she was Rosie.
Luckily she wasn’t focused on me, she was placing three plastic bags on my kitchen counter.
“I got all sorts of treats for us, I’m getting good at knowing what to buy post-kidnapping.” She gave me a look that was carefully structured to look jaunty, easy, light-hearted. “Of course, every woman is different, just because I crave tater tots in the month after I’ve been taken captive does not mean you will.” She pulled out a bag. “But I got them just in case. And also, I feel like tater tots. Plus, a plethora of other things, and don’t worry,” she made a face, “they’re all vegetarian.”
She began to pull items out at random.
“I do have one sure fire thing that every woman I’ve encountered post-kidnapping—that being all of my best friends and sister-in-law—has been in agreeance helps.” She yanked up a bottle of tequila, frowning at it. “I would drink it with you, but they frown on drinking while pregnant.”
I smiled, then focused on the bags. “Plastic, Rosie?”
She paused with the tequila still cradled in her arms. “Oh, no, here we go,” she muttered.
“I got you reusable bags,” I chastised.
“Yes, but I forgot them,” she moaned.
I narrowed my eyes. “They sell them at the store.”
“Yes, but they charge like five bucks for them,” she replied defensively. “That’s simply exorbitant.”
“How much was your purse, Rosie?” I asked sweetly, eyeing the distinct double C on the leather.
She scowled at me and stroked the aforementioned purse. “It’s the principle of the matter. And what is this, the Spanish Inquisition? Here I am trying to do something nice for you and all you’ve got is negativity. That’s not the Polly I know and love.”
The words were light, full of joking and love.
But they hit me. With darkness and pain.
“I’m not that Polly, Rosie,” I said, the words slipping out before I had the chance to catch them, stop them from causing the pain that I knew they would inflict.
The truth hurt, after all.
Hence me lying to everyone in my life for a month.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
She froze, her smile slipping right off her face, evidence of the fact it was a mask, just like my own.
“I always knew I’d get a story sometime,” I whispered my words falling out like blood from a wound. “Even with the marriage, the ensuing divorce.” I waved my hand. “And all the other stuff. I had a little hope I’d get a story. After all, you got your story and it only took two decades.”
I smirked, it was fake, but it suited the moment.
Rosie smirked back. It was fake too.
“I didn’t know it would be this hard,” I continued. “But I accepted it, you know? All the best heroines go through trials. Pain. It’s spiritually building. Through pain comes growth. And I’ve known that. But I just didn’t think there would be so much pain,” I whispered. “I just didn’t think my story would be this dark.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I don’t think I was meant to grow this much. I don’t know if I can handle it, Rosie.”
She had gathered me into her arms the second my voice broke.
It was awkward with her belly, but she managed it and I burrowed into her chest, she clutched my head and pressed her lips into it.
I expected myself to start sobbing. I felt like I was cracking, breaking apart, and it hurt. It was agony, actually. But I didn’t. That one tear that was dried on my cheek was all that left my eyes. I just stayed there, smelled Rosie’s perfume, felt the presence of her strength. The comfort in the moment.
“No one was designed to handle this,” she whispered. “Not you, most of all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t handle it.” She pulled back so I could see her eyes. “I know you can handle this, because you are handling it, my beautiful Polly. You still smile. Even if it’s only because you want to try and hold us together. You’re somehow still you, even though the holes that fucker put in you should’ve made your spirit leak out onto the ground. I’ve seen it. I know it. One of my best friends is forever scarred from it. But she wasn’t exactly light and sunshine and rainbows before.” She grinned through tears and I knew she was talking about Lucky’s wife, Bex. “But now there’s no chance of light or sunshine, she’s just found a home in the darkness, and it suits her soul, the way it was before. But yours, you don’t have a soul designed for darkness.”
I didn’t have a soul designed for darkness. But darkness didn’t mind the design of a soul. It just destroyed it.
I didn’t say this of course.
“I like to think everything happens for a reason,” I whispered. “There is a plan for everyone. And maybe some kind of deity made it up, I don’t know. But this world is far too weird and wonderful to not have a plan for people, you know?”
I sucked in a breath.
“But I guess I just don’t really know what the plan was here.”
Rosie kissed my hair. “I don’t know either, Pol. I really fucking don’t. Maybe to show us that the strongest of us all has the softest and most beautiful heart?”
I didn’t say anything because Rosie was grasping at straws more than anything.
Plus my heart wasn’t soft or beautiful. It was hardened. Calcified. Ugly.
But she didn’t need to know that.
No one needed to know that.
I was waiting for Heath when he got back.
He had a key, I didn’t ask him how he got one since I hadn’t given him one.
Then again, I’d never locked my apartment before.
Nor did I have the three separate locks on it before either.
But that was before my ex had waltzed right up and kidnapped me.
But he was gone now.
And now I had all those new locks. As if someone else might waltz up and do the same thing all over again.
I didn’t think that was the case. But Heath was looking for something he could control, looking to put some order in this, so I didn’t say anything about the extra locks, the key, the fact I always had a babysitter.
“Hey,” I said, letting myself exhale with whatever small safety his presence offered.
There was pain in it, in his gaze. The way he braced when his eyes met mine. Jolted a little with both relief, presumably that I hadn’t been kidnapped again, and something hard and agonizing to look at.
Love.
That was it.
He frowned at me.
Or more accurately what I was doing.
He was in front of me in less than a second, mostly to do with the short distance between the front door and the stove, but also because he was Heath. He didn’t hesitate to cross the distance between us after a long absence.
Or what had become a long absence in this past month—a handful of hours.
When before all of this, we’d gone years.
“Baby,” he murmured, hand at my neck, searching my eyes.
I counted to five for the sickness from his touch to go away. It did. He chased it away. It was nice now. I just had to get through the horrific five seconds when it wasn’t him touching me.
He didn’t speak for a beat, his eyes running up and down me. I was used to this by now since it happened every time he saw me. He needed a moment. To touch me. To see me. As if he needed to make sure this was real.