we keep this love in a photograph

Chapter 39

Jennie woke first, sitting in bed, knees drawn to her chest as she sustained herself off too little sleep, raw-eyed and slumped but harbouring a kernel of fear in her chest. She'd gotten a mere handful of hours, the sky still lingering in the shadows of a slow dawn when she roused herself, sitting up and silently keeping watch as Rosie slept. She looked peaceful, completely unaware of her girlfriend sitting beside her, worried and exhausted from a sleepless night.

She didn't so much as move until Rosie woke up, a smile splitting her face as she spread her arms, stretching, and blearily blinked. Jennie let out a pent up breath, a spasm of a conflicted smile running across her face as her heart twinged and her stomach tied itself further into knots.

"Morning," Rosie mumbled, rubbing at her face, indented with the seams of the pillow case.

Jennie was slow in replying, and perhaps it was all written on her face, but Rosie pushed herself up, blinking owlishly as she pushed her tangled hair out of her face. "What's wrong?"

Jennie choked on a laugh, pinching the bridge of her nose as she ducked her head down, forehead almost touching her drawn up knees. "You don't remember," Jennie murmured, "how can you not remember?"

"Remember what?" Rosie asked, her voice slow and cautious and thick with sleep.

"There were fireworks," Jennie hoarsely said, a pained tremor in her voice, "last night. You- I don't even know if you were awake or ... you just- you covered my mouth. You- ..."

"Did I hurt you?" Rosie asked, shoving aside the blankets as she moved towards Jennie, paling as her lips parted and horror washed over her.

Taking Rosie's hand in her own, Jennie smiled unevenly as she fiddled with her fingers, lightly tracing the threading veins and bumps of fine bones and lines, shaking her head. "No, you didn't hurt me; you scared me."

"I'm sorry," Rosie whispered, cupping the back of Jennie's neck as she leaned her forehead against her temple. "I'm sorry; I must have been dreaming. I didn't-"

"It's fine," Jennie stressed, "you don't have to apologise, I just- I didn't know how to wake you up. How to help you. You were just ... stuck in your head. It scared me."

"It's- I'm fine, it was just- it doesn't happen often," Rosie unconvincingly reassured her, a desperate edge to the words. "The dreams, the nightmares ... they're usually just for the first week. You saw for yourself - I didn't have one the other night. It was just the fireworks; they must have-"

With a frustrated scoff, Jennie rubbed at the sore spot above her eye, a headache from a lack of sleep already building. "I know what they did. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm also not an idiot, Rosie."

"It's not-"

"Shall I get Ashley in here? See what she thinks?"

Rosie made a low sound of irritation at the back of her throat, her gentle face furrowing into a frown as she clenched her teeth and jutted her jaw forward stubbornly. "Just leave it alone," she softly pleaded, an undercurrent of a warning in her words, "I'll be gone in a week anyway; it won't matter."

Jennie couldn't mask the flinch at the flippant way Rosie brought up her leaving, as if it was some mild inconvenience, as if it was nothing. She didn't want to be confronted with losing her, and it made her temper spike for Rosie to dismiss it as nothing, as if leaving would fix it instead of exacerbating the problem. Scowling, Jennie pulled back the blankets and climbed out of bed, pulling a sweater on over her t-shirt as two splotches of red touched her pale cheeks.

"Well, if it won't matter then ..." Jennie sarcastically replied, jerking down the hem of the sweater.

Stalking towards the door, Jennie heard Rosie sigh behind her, "well ... where are you going?"