and sometimes family are the ones you'd choose

[forthsofar]

It isn't anybody's fault, not really. Not Neil's or Caleb's for being so happy in one another, or Nick's for having left, or Sabrina and Charlie's for having stayed. Not even her own, though at times that's a harder thing to believe. It's all of it, and none of it, and even though she's aware of a kind of coming out of the dark at last, it doesn't take much to sink her once again.

When everything was still raw and fresh, Nick gone a matter of hours rather than a long and still terrible stretch of days, Newt had invited her to come stay. To be with him and Kav and Charlie and the cats, to let herself be cared for. To accept, she thought then, made it feel real; a confirmation that something vital had broken and couldn't be repaired again. It had stayed on her mind anyway, something about it warm and glowing and kind in a way she knew she needed. When she said as much to Charlie a few days ago, the response had been immediate, instantaneous: It's not an invitation that expires, you know? Come stay.

She packed a bag and found a way to explain it to Neil, trying not to look for any kind of hurt or question in his eyes. It wasn't forever, and it wasn't his fault. It was just something she needed to do.

Today, she's spent much like the last few days; quiet and brittle, floating from one room to another. Sometimes alone, sometimes picking up the thread of an easy conversation, sometimes saying nothing as she just shares space with whoever's there. She'd fallen asleep on the couch, drifting off in the middle of a show she and Charlie had put on mostly for the noise and distraction of it, and wakes a short time later to the scent of someone cooking something in the next room. While she slept, one of the cats had curled up with her, a solid weight on the blanket by her legs, and as she gets up she's careful not to disturb him.

Dressed in leggings and a t-shirt she'd borrowed from Charlie, she pads into the kitchen to see who else is around.

Comments

[thebloodyglue]

"So that's what you need to tell her," says Newt, setting down his empty mug. "It sounds like you know exactly what you need to say, love. You just need to get it done."

[forthsofar]

"I think you're right," she says. "No, I know you're right, and once it's done, it's done and we can...work on the things that happen next, whatever they are." Rosie looks up at him as he sets his mug down, her hands still wrapped around her own, holding onto it more for the sake of having the weight of something in her hands. It all sounds so much simpler, hearing it from him.

"I just don't want Sabrina to blame herself for the things that need to change. Or the reasons why. That I felt secondary, or thought saying no to something made me ordinary, or didn't know if I wanted her as more than just a friend. It's not that I hated what we used to have, but I can't...have it any longer."

[thebloodyglue]

"The things that we want change, love," he says, with a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "And that's okay. That's allowed. Kavinsky is a different person that he was when I met him. We've...grown into each other. I think that's normal."

[forthsofar]

Rosie nods. "I know I'm not the same person now as I'd been back home. Or when I first arrived here." She laughs, a small, bright sound that comes so easily after everything that she's momentarily surprised. "When I met you, and I was in that ridiculous dress, and look at us now."

Back home, she had always wanted to be different--more exciting, or off doing interesting things, or at the least making plans to when she was a little older. It had never struck her as easy, but it she'd never anticipated it being quite this hard. But the only thing to do was keep going.