Page 116 of My Rose

I glanced at the speck of ash and flicked it off. “No. That part isn’t your concern.”

“Let me know when it is, then.” Jim clucked his tongue, our attention falling back to the sobbing rat in the chair. “I was kind of looking forward to never seeing this one’s face again. Always tearing up my parking spots with his glass and shit.” He spit near August’s foot. “His fucking friends, too. They all need a rude awakening.”

My eyes slid over to Jim. “Maybe put the comics down for a change and run the store like you’re supposed to.”

Jim shrugged with one shoulder. “I get bored.” He jerked his chin toward August. “I understood the others, but why’re you keeping him alive? I could just—” Jim drew a line across his throat. “You know, like some of the others.”

August whimpered like a lost puppy as his blueberry eyes darted between Jim and me.

“I refuse to lie to Rose, and if I kill him, I’ll have to tell her.” I turned and started for the door. “She doesn’t deserve to have his death weighing on her mind for the rest of our happy lives.” August’s body lost its jerky vigor as he took in the words I was saying. I wasn’t going to kill him, and I knew that I wasn’t going to when I stepped foot in this room. The marks he now had on his body, however, were going to haunt him for the rest of his life. I glared at August. “I’m not going to bother threatening you to stay away from her because I believe you finally might get it now. Here’s your plan—move. Get as far away from the state of New York as you fucking can and never return. And every night before you go to sleep, I want you to thank my future wife, Rose, for your life. Every. Single. Day. You will go on about your miserable existence, knowing that she alone is the reason you still breathe. She alone is the reason you will never cover those cuts along your skin. She alone is the reason you get more chances than you should have ever had.”

Just as I pulled the handle, August’s ragged breathing paused long enough for him to ask, “I didn’t believe it, but you really love her, don’t you?”

I didn’t bother answering and let the door swing shut behind me. Actions always spoke louder than words, and my next action was going to end it all.

Chapter 42

Rose

“Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.” ? Horace

The amount of blinking one could do while staring at the same person, wondering when they were going to shift into someone else, was apparently limitless. Seconds passed like minutes as my mind failed to connect who was undoubtedly in front of me, who had brought her here, and mostlywhyshe thought shecould just walk into our home and start a conversation with me like it was all okay.

Something on my face must’ve twisted because she cleared her throat and angled her head, a look that reminded me of her son, the one I was madly in love with. The son she abandoned.

“You left him.” Those were the words I settled on. A heaviness settled in my chest as I thought about Briggs as a young boy, waking up one day to find his mother gone. Realizing days later, maybe even weeks later, that she was never coming back.

Yet, here she was.

Her brows pinched together. “Yes,” she answered with such a finite tone it caused my fist to clench under the table.

“You. Left. Him,” I repeated, like maybe she didn’t understand what I was saying. Her eyes darted toward the lake, a finger lacking any jewelry wiping beneath her eyelid. “Why are you here?”

The edge of her lip twitched. “I want to help.”

I picked my mug back up and glared at her. “We don’t need you.” I wasn’t even sure if that was true or not. All that mattered was the white-hot anger that boiled inside me at the audacity she had to just show back up in his life.Ourlives.

“Dean told me you might.”

I rolled my eyes over the black rim of my mug. “Oh, right. Sure. So because you think you’re needed now, you magically feel justified to show up. What about when your son died? Where were you then?” She winced, the soft pink paint on her lips cracking with her frown. “You can’t just walk out of his life and come back in it like nothing happened. Like some kind of fucking hero.” My words came outclipped, my breaths between each word fewer and far between as I stared her down. “He was eight years old! How could you just—”

“I never wanted to leave,” she whispered, wiping more tears before they could fall to her thin cheeks. “He made me leave. He said if I didn’t, he would burn our house down with me and the b-boys in it. And when Beckett—” She sniffled and began taking deep breaths until she was recomposed. “When Beckett died, I came back. I came back, and Ben found me before I could go to his funeral. He warned me to stay away and said if I didn’t, he’d kill Briggs. I didn’t know he was going—”

“Youdidknow. You told your friend that much.”

She shook her head as her lips trembled, then seemed to surrender as she nodded faintly. “Alright. You’re right. I did. But if you were in my shoes, you would have done what you could to protect your children. Wouldn’t you?”

I set my coffee down and wrapped the blanket around me a little more. “I would have taken my children with me.”

“And what if you were found?”

My eyes narrowed. “Briggs wouldn’t hunt me down and threaten to kill meorour kids.”

“Good.” Something seemed to shift in her eyes, most likely because she didn’t know what her own son was like.

I softened a fraction. “He’s a good man. He’s not like him. But if he were—if I’d been in your shoes as you asked—I would have taken my kids and run for as long as I could with them. I would have loved them and let them know I was never going to leave them, no matter what.”

Her smile returned. “You’re better than me.” I wanted to retort that it wasn’t hard to do better than what she did. What she did was unforgivable. “Dean said my son loves you.”

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