O' LADY MOON, rosalie hale

CHAPTER NINE

Rosalie was quiet, cautious of making herself so little she wouldn't take more space than she was given and they could both fit inside the storage room comfortably enough to not have their knees pressed together, yet close enough to feel each other breathing and doubting, feeling how the thoughts formed and drifted and morphed into something they couldn't decipher as they let it dissolve on the tip of their tongues. The forest was still tangled in their hair just like the silence of the woodland was in their eyes, in Genevieve's bottom lip quivering and Rosalie's gaze, watchful of every movement she had taken since they had left the trees outside and the door creaked to block the wind that threatened to push it back open.

The leakage had found a temporary home dripping melodically inside a bucket, the light blinked a couple of times, and the steaming tea drew spirals between their hands, but Genevieve still couldn't decide where to start. If she had to inhale before the words rushed out of her mouth or if she had to exhale and work her way along the right phonemes to allow herself to breathe in again; if she had to speak first or after Rosalie kissed her mug; if she had to tug the towels she had grabbed from the living room one bit tighter around her body or clear her throat twice or rise the green blanket that had fallen from Rosalie's shoulders, pooling behind her back and over her forearms.

Their eyes met. Genevieve's head ached. Or maybe it was her heart, how could she know?.

"They found a body," her voice, cold yet warm, punched the air out of her lungs, the same way she had felt it leaving its cage the first time she had heard those words, "And bare human footprints down by Queets River, it seemed like whoever that was headed east, so Kitsap County sheriff is gonna take over from there." Rosalie seemed to be expecting something from her, a reaction, a twitch on her face. But Genevieve wasn't quite there, sitting in front of her, head slightly tilted downward and fingertips submerging onto her untouched tea, burning flesh to stop thinking.

It was curious she still remembered the earliest question she had asked her father the day after Sirena Cohen was presumed legally dead; how she had looked up at him, his policeman uniform clean and important and without a single dot of dirt on the sleeves; how she had let the idea inaugurate an empty space in her chest for four straight days until she tasted it out loud, low so her mother wouldn't hear her from the kitchen and comprehensive like a knock on the door so he could. Can the dead return?, she said, confiding him her intentions on his hand to hold softer than the way he did with the television's remote; she trusted he would not repeat it to others, that he would answer her with equal sincerity, saying yes or no and not question the meaning that could be read between the lines that she couldn't put in words, because she knew the dead couldn't return even if she wished it as deeply and passionately as she was able to.

"You shouldn't go out alone like that again." She said.

Genevieve nodded, for a minute unsure if it was her mom's heartbreaking mumble muffled in the memory her hair carried. It wasn't. It was Rosalie. It was Rosalie Hale, the prettiest girl in a town she had only ever looked back at the trees and the moon behind leaves, whose fingers had reached to rest on her knee and whose pale skin was covered by her borrowed clothes; whose gaze had never felt so blinding as in that moment and whose silence was patient and understanding. And because it was her, she let it all slip through the hole in her shield, down into her hands and poisoning her tea.

"Best friend," Genevieve whispered, without looking at her, "The photo on my wallet, she was my best friend." She attempted swallowing the lump in her throat, she gave up after the third unsuccessful try, "I didn't mean to be rude that day, when you handed it back to me, I was just scared." Her voice shattered.

Scared of losing the only thing that helped her to not forget: the eternal lines that were marked on the corner of Sirena's eyes, the crooked canine teeth that peeked out her closed smile, the way her brown hair shone bright as if reflected by a halo on top of her head, the immense love her arms exhibited in the form they had held Genevieve close to her. There were times, when she was too tired to keep herself awake, she wasn't capable of putting Sirena a face, blurring the space where her nose would wrinkle in disgust as she saw Genevieve bury her hand and feet and soul in the earth or where her lips would part and release a loud giggle as she ran away from her and the worms she pulled out of the dirt and chased after her so she could see she had nothing to be afraid of, and her heart spiked and her gut tightened in a sudden wave of panic she couldn't breathe out of her throat or mouth or chest.

"I'm sorry." Rosalie whispered back, so quiet Genevieve felt like crying, like the haunting of death was shared and engraved in both of their necks.

"You haven't touched your mug." Genevieve pointed out, trying to make herself into something she could stand to look at in the few seconds five words could give her.

The light blinked and she tapped it gently. Rosalie watched her wounded arm wrapped in gauzes.

"If I'm being brutally honest, I'm not a fan of tea," She moved slightly, leading Genevieve's eyes up towards her face, where the golden brown of her gaze awaited her full of expectations, "I thought you fancied coffee, the smell is all over the room." All over you, Genevieve understood.

"Can't beat the café's favorite drink." She smiled shyly before adding, "I'll try to offer you something else next time, then."

Rosalie grinned too, but Genevieve could still feel the way she was studying her, wondering and answering herself in the sacred silence the night provided so as long she was there to help her clear her own mind, without a single hint more than her lips tugging upwards and her head tilting sideways.