AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My throat tightens. I don’t want kids. But, shit, I’d have a hundred with Rach right now if it meant I get to spend the rest of my life with her.
“You don’t even want them anyway,” I mumble. I don’t mean to be rude, but my stomach is too twisted, and my chest too heavy to talk more clearly.
“Yeah, so what? I might change my mind. And there are four of us now to consider. We have time to have this kind of discussion, though I’d appreciate it if you count yourself in when it comes to it.”
Somehow, it reassures me that they’ll have each other. “Sunshine, if I wasn’t here,” I have to scratch my throat. “You’d still be with the guys, right? This is…this is big now. Yeah? More than just about me.”
I just want to hear she won’t be alone once I’m gone.
“I don’t like when you talk like that, and you know it,” she admonishes me. She stays a safe distance from me, afraid to break me if she moves. “Rose, you’re not thinking of…please tell me because we can do something about it now. I can’t go through it again. Finding you unconscious. Bringing you to the bath and making you be sick. Showering you, hoping…hoping the pills didn’t…” The rest of her sentence is barely audible. “Take you away.” Her wet eyes dart to the side.
“I’m not thinking of killing myself,” I admit in a rather deadpan voice.
“Because I can call Sam and Lik, and they’ll do something and—”
“I’m fine,” I insist.
She lets out a sigh of relief before rounding the table and sitting on my lap. “Come on,” she pouts. She puts strands of my hair away. “What’s upset you today? Is it because Sam’s been giving no news? Is it something I did?”
My stomach tightens. How could it be something she did when I’m the one who’s a traitor?
I hate myself more and more every day. Always an accomplice in my misery through lies and deception. Never able to admit I hurt the ones I love because I’m too focused on getting myself out of trouble.
“Sunshine,” I sigh, burying myself against her neck. “How could you upset me? You can do no wrong in my eyes.”
“Right,” she snorts. “Tell that to the moody bitch who wakes me up at night because I ‘steal all the covers.’” She quotes with her fingers as she gets up again. I already miss her warmth. When’s the next time I’ll be able to feel it? How long will Viktor keep me locked up before he can trust I’ll come back to him if he gives me freedom?
I look down at my phone again, despair clogging my throat.
I don’t want to live without her. I don’t want to live without Sam and Lik.
“Ro-ose,” she singsongs playfully as she shakes something from the other side of the table. “Look what I got you.”
I manage to laugh at the satisfied smile on her face. She’s been bothering me to ‘leave something of hers’ on me for weeks. I told her she already had a tattoo, but she likes to mark her territory.
So she wants to dye a lock of my pitch-black hair blonde. Just so it looks like hers on me.
I’ve ignored how psychopathic this sounds and gave in today. Because the reality has come crashing down on me that I might never see her again.
She shakes the box of hair bleach at me some more and smiles widely. She looks like a possessed girl in horror movies. So perfect and beautiful, with that tinge of madness in her eyes.
I love her.
“Alright,” I huff. “But I swear if I end up with some orange bits in my hair, you will regret it.”
“I know what I’m doing. I’ve bleached my hair myself for two years.”
“You’re blonde. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t too hard.”
An hour later, I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror with the front right of my hair a copper color. It looks like I had some face-framing highlights done in orange but only on one side.
“Alright,” I say simply. “I guess today is the day I kill you, then.”
“Nooo!” she giggles. “Don’t worry, we just have to do it again. That’s what happens with dark hair.”
Somehow she’s managed to make me have fun during a dark moment in my life. Only Rachel Harris can do that. Only she can make me forget. Keep my mind busy and fill me with love until the fear becomes a dull ache in my stomach. I must consciously think about it to remember why I feel so horrible today.
Another hour later, I’ve stopped jumping at the slightest noises and am giggling with Rachel in the living room. She’s forced us into matching fluffy pink pajamas and I’m not even complaining. These things are much more comfortable than Sam’s hoodies. Only thing is they don’t smell like him. I’m sitting on the rug on the floor, and she’s tying my hair into two French braids while on the sofa. She’s made us hot chocolates while her lasagna is in the oven, and I’m drinking mine while she asks me if she should leave the bleach strands out or include them in the braid.
