Page 70 of Downfall

So instead of following the rest of my family back after the announcement I sneak off. I know enough about her routine to predict what she’ll do. What she seems to always do in moments of stress when she thinks she needs to ground herself.

I wait patiently, concealed in the trees. It feels like I’m always concealed where Rose is concerned. First when we were young, and now, while we’re circling each other, trying to find our footing.

Only she doesn’t know she’s doing it yet. She’s still so oblivious to what’s been going on but I’m about to open her eyes.

I see the dog before I see her. It’s running ahead, sniffing at the ground, clearly enjoying the coolness beneath the lime trees. She follows close behind. The lead dangling from around her neck. Her hair loose and floating in the wind. She looks distracted. She looks like she’s somewhere else entirely and for that I can’t blame her.

If she’d shown up in Atlanta would I have felt the same? Would I have needed space to process? I shake my head because the two are not comparable. She didn’t leave. She didn’t try to find me. She stayed and lived her life here like I didn’t exist. Like what we had was nothing.

“Rose.” I murmur her name. I’ve said it so many times. In joy. In despair. In hate too.

She doesn’t hear me. She’s too focused on her damn dog.

I’ve waited so long for this moment. This particular piece of justice. To hear her excuses. To witness her, on her knees begging for forgiveness. She thought she could just continue on, she thought she could marry someone else, that she could forget me? Today she’s going to learn otherwise. Today she’s going to truly understand what her actions have caused. What six years of pain and suffering, six years of exile can do to a man.

I step out, a twig snaps underfoot and she turns her eyes widening in horror and she gulps.

“No.” She whispers.

“Hello Trouble.” The old adage slips out before I realise I’ve said it.

“No.” She says again louder. “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to even speak to me.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. She looks frightened. She looks like she might just bolt. Her body is trembling. She’s shaking. Retribution is a bitch isn’t it love?

She glances around but there’s no one else here. It’s just us. After all these weeks of watching, it’s finally just us.

“You haven’t changed a bit.” I murmur. I don’t mean to. I’m just stunned by her, by her presence, by her beauty. How she can even look me in the face right now.

She narrows her eyes. “Neither have you apparently.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Like you don’t know.” She says before glancing around, checking where her dog is, though it’s right there, by her feet.

“I never stopped thinking about you.” I state. “Even after everything you did.”

“Really?” She replies. Her eyes flashing from fear to anger.

“I…”

“No.” She says cutting across my words. “You made it abundantly clear six years ago.”

“What are you talking about?” I snap.

“You.” She says. Her voice ragged now. Her finger shaking as she points it right at me. “You made it clear what this was. What I was to you. You walked away. Youbetrayedme. Don’t act like that never happened.”

I frown taking a step nearer and she reacts like a wild beast that’s been suddenly cornered. She lashes out, her hands pushing against my chest so violently I stumble for a nanosecond.

“Say something.” She screams. Suddenly she’s feral. All that pent up energy inside her seems to go off like an explosion and it hits me full force. “Go on. Try and justify it.”

But I can’t. All my anger, all those bitter twisted words I’d saved for this moment are lost. I expected pathetic pleas. I expected her to try to beg her way out of this. To justify her actions with pitiful excuses and lies.

But there’s none on that.

Just raw, seething anger matching the same in my own soul. It’s like I’m the one in the wrong. Like I’m the one who hurt her.

“Rose…” I murmur but she’s shaking now her rage has turned to something deadly.

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