Page 120 of Wait for Him

When I open them again, Rose's smile has faltered and I can feel my heart getting ripped out of my ribcage.

At first she only looks confused, her eyes shifting from me to the man I'm holding in front of me while something behind them starts working. I can almost see the recognition moving through her, reaching backward through years she has spent trying not to revisit, digging through memory for something her body found before her mind did.

Her face changes slowly, and that's the worst part. The smile disappears first. Then her brows pull together, the color drains from her face, and her eyes go wide as that voice finally finds the memory attached to it.

Wesley feels my grip tighten on his shoulders and starts to turn.

Fuck.

I try to stop him, but I'm what feels like a million miles too late.

Rose sees him.

And I know the exact moment everything clicks into place.

Her phone slips from her hand and hits the marble hard enough that the crack echoes through the lobby. Her bag follows, everything spilling across the floor, but she doesn't even look down. One hand goes flat to her stomach while the other presses over her heart, like her body is trying to hold itself together at the two places he broke fourteen years ago.

"Rose."

I shove Wesley out of my way and run to her.

Rose

That face. The forearm tattoo.

The silver at his temples is new. The glasses are different. But the face is the same face, and it's looking at me, polite and expectant, a stranger's face, like he has never seen me before in his life.

My eyes dart between Jackson and his father.

His father. His…father. How could I have not…

Wesley is Jackson’s father.

My breath catches and won't come back.

Be a good girl and don't scream.

No.

No, no, no.

"Rose?" Jackson reaches for me. His fingers barely graze my arm, and it's a bomb going off in my nervous system.

"Don't touch me." It comes out as barely a whisper as I wrench my arm away so hard that I stumble into a lobby table behind me. A drink sloshes. A spoon clatters against marble. Somewhere, a baby starts crying.

I can't breathe. My eyes go everywhere at once; the doors, the security counter, the windows, the phones pointed at me, recording, recording, and suddenly the marble beneath my shoes feels wrong. Too hard. Too bright.

Hold still. You’ll enjoy it, I promise.

"Rosalie. Baby. Let me get you out of here. Give me your hand, baby.”

You bit my hand, you little bitch.

The lobby flashes back to me. It’s like I can’t stay in this reality. I claw at my throat and beat a fist against my own chest like I can restart my lungs by force. Air won't come. The lobby keeps slipping in and out around me; daylight through the glass, stale beer, security radios, whiskey on his breath, somebody asking if I'm okay, blinds drawn.

No.

God, the weight.