only held by gravity, faded with uncertainty, no longer young and not that pretty

[forthsofar]

The plan had always been for all of them to stay the night at Nick's, movies and dinner and all of them either piling close or pairing off, then spending the next day together at least through the afternoon. It made it easier, once the three of them realized how very wrong everything had gone, for Rosie to avoid even the thought of telling anyone else. Of telling Neil.

He didn't need to know. Didn't need to hear it from a text message or over the phone, especially not all these months after his own pair of losses, and even less time since the agony of that bizarre videotape they'd watched together. And if Caleb had stayed, they both needed her sadness even less, something crashing in over all that happiness. It was better, easier, to leave her phone in her bag; to cling to Charlie and Sabrina, all three of them huddled close in Nick's bed, at Nick's apartment--and was any of it even Nick's any longer? She didn't know--none of them sleeping very much as the night went on. They stayed together through the next day, until Sabrina decided to go home to Marcus and Dan, to start the process of sharing their loss with the other people who matter. Charlie drives her back, then drops Rosie outside Candlewood, helping her unload the few things she claimed from Nick's apartment from the trunk.

It's nothing special, just the gift she'd bought him for Christmas and a few of his shirts and sweaters. She doesn't think about how small a remembrance it seems, taken all together.

Unlocking the door, she nudges it open with her foot, then kicks it closed once she's inside. It makes a louder sound than she'd anticipated in the closing, and she winces, aware it's going to pull Neil's attention if he's even here at all.

"Sorry," she calls, her voice sounding awfully small in just that single word.

Comments

[shadows_have_offended]

"Good," Neil says, a little squeak of a word when Rosie asks that and then pins him with that faint smile. A flush works over his cheeks, quick and sudden and telling.

"Um, things are going really good, yup."

[forthsofar]

Up until now, the idea of laughing at anything felt impossible. Nick was gone, the pall that had already come over her that night on the beach only grown stronger as a result of it; Sabrina pale and quiet in a way that only suggested there was an explosion of grief waiting to happen, and Charlie trying to hold together all the fractured pieces of what they used to be. None of it should allow her to laugh, but then Neil blushes hard and stutters out his answer, and Rosie giggles despite herself.

"I didn't even mean anything sordid," she says, watching the spreading pink on his cheeks. "But, you know, good for you. Both of you."

[shadows_have_offended]

"I don't know if it was sordid," Neil says. Certainly it wasn't quite the same sort of things that would have evoked sound cancelling headphones and teasing commentary in the morning. But it's still enough to keep him blushing.

He's quiet a moment, like he feels guilty to keep talking about it. When he speaks, it's tender and private, like speaking the weight of it might hurt one or the both of them.

"I really like him a lot," he says. "But liking me is a lot for someone that can't tell I'm feeling all the time. So I doubt it'll last very long at all before he gets tired of trying to navigate that."

[forthsofar]

"Well, good, because I would still like to look Caleb in the face." Neil keeps blushing, and for a moment everything feels a little easier. Not normal, because nothing had ever been--not for a long time, anyway--but simpler than the last day or so had been.

Neil gets quiet, then confessional, and Rosie understands the gravity of what he says. "I don't think it's like that at all," she says, equally careful and hushed. "Or it shouldn't be. It's different, even being friends with him is different when you know what he can do, but that doesn't mean he'll get tired of you. He just...understands more than someone else might. For good and bad."

[shadows_have_offended]

"It probably never should be," Neil says. But he's spent so much time worrying about that, even before things got very bad. And yes, now that he's seen that dumb video, he knows that his friends missed him and were upset--but that doesn't mean he doesn't still worry about being a burden on his friends here.

He smiles a little and shrugs, in the end. Probably it's just silly worry, and Rosie's right about that. He's perfectly happy to have this mutually knowledgeable relationship with Rosie, open and understanding and communicative.

He leans over and kisses her forehead.