Page 132 of Shadows of Stardust

She’s wearing my shirt, the hem of it just brushing the swell of her thighs, and she’s a delicious, rumpled mess. My mess. A mess I’d like to tumble back into bed and keep there all day.

In a flash, I see a thousand mornings just like this one. A different house, a different bathroom, a thousand different versions of Ros over the years. Maybe with a few more laugh lines around her eyes or a few strands of gray in her hair, confident and happy, with the glow of a life well-lived.

But she’d still be looking at me just like that. Eyes soft, mouth tilted up at the corners, wearing my rumpled shirt.

In that moment, all those mornings feel so achingly real that they steal my breath away.

When she realizes she’s been caught staring, Ros laughs softly and drops her gaze.

“Is everything alright?” I turn to face her, and when she looks back up at me the softness in her eyes is gone. It’s replaced by turbulence, uncertainty, and I curse myself for ruining the moment, for chasing away those dreams.

She hesitates before she speaks, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she considers what she wants to say.

“Would there ever be… Is there any kind of future where the two of us could…”

Ros’s words trail off, and my mind fills in the blank she leaves with a hundred different possibilities.

A future where we could both stop fighting.

A future where we could find peace.

A future filled with slow contentment and the two of us together, forget the rest of the universe and anything it might want from us.

But though my mind might be filled with the hazy, wonderful, achingly impossible wish of those thoughts, the only thing that comes out of me is silence. Enough of it that Ros shakes her head and covers all that vulnerability with a crooked, forced smile.

“Sorry,” she says, and I hear everything the word costs her in the deep shaking breath she takes. “I know that’s not how this ends.”

“Ros—”

“I’ll see you at the Choosing?”

There are a hundred things I could say. Apologies, maybe, or hollow promises. Pretty words to soothe her.

But the facts are still the facts.

I am who I am.

The work needs to be done.

And the woman standing in front of me is an impossibility I can’t even begin to understand.

Would breaking my own heart, and hers, by drawing this out any longer be worth it? Would it lead us to anything but more pain?

I nod.

Another smile, one that wobbles at the corner. “Let’s give them one hell of a show.”

40

Roslyn

Mate Match Transcript: S24 E13 INTERVIEW 5

Contestant: Roslyn|Producer: Sella

S: This is it, Roslyn. The big day. How are you feeling?

R: I’m feeling good. Ready to get this over with.

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