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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.
