Present
In a daze, Lannan walked around their room. His main objective was to make sure she truly was gone and that this wasn't just a cruel prank.
He opened her jewelry box, noting that that all of her jewelry except for her custom Cartier rose charm was gone.
He slid the drawers of her vanity open hoping to still see her makeup sitting there, but it was all gone. All of it. It even seemed as though she had wiped the drawers clean, all traces of her essence gone.
On the dresser, she had left the framed picture of the two of them at PAX that a fan had snapped and tagged them in. It was a quiet moment, behind the scenes of a crazy day in which they had barely been able to talk.
His hand rested on the curve of her waist, while her head was tilted up to look at him. They were laughing about the stupidest joke his friend Elliot had told them earlier.
In the moment, they had looked so in love. When Rose had seen the picture in her tagged, she had immediately dmed the fan and asked for the original version so she could get it printed.
Past
"BABE, BABE, BABE!!!!!!" Rose jumped up and down, "IT'S HERE!!!!!"
Lannan bounded down the stairs, "What's here??"
"The PAX picture!!! I got it custom framed!" She pulled Lannan back up the stairs he had just come down.
"Where are we going?" He chuckled.
"To put it on the dresser, duh!" She swung the bedroom door open, Lannan wincing when it hit the wall.
As he watched, she carefully placed it at just the right angle on the dresser. Lannan couldn't help but admire the way she bit her lip to concentrate on getting it perfect.
"Now when I'm not here, you can look at that and remember how fun I am to be around," She winked at him.
"Like I could ever forget how much I love being around you."
Present
Lannan snagged the picture off the dresser and threw it against the wall.
The glass shattered and he stared at it, making no move to clean it up.
He started drinking shortly after that.
It wouldn't be cleaned up for three days, until Elliot and Tannar came to find out why none of their texts to either Lannan or Rose had been answered.
After pounding on the door and eventually using a spare key, they found Lannan drunk and staring at a wall, still holding Rose's note in his hand.
"Lannan?" Tannar gently set her hand on his shoulder. "What's going on?"
"She fucking left me."
Elliot sat down next to him, gently prying the beer bottle out of his left hand. "When was the last time you slept?"
"Who fucking knows?" He let his head drop into his hands, "She's fucking gone, Elliot. How am I supposed to tell people I let her go? I didn't even know she was gone until it was too late to get her back."
Tannar walked upstairs into the bedroom and immediately saw the glass scattered across the floor. Her eyes taking over the rest of the room, she noticed the messy bed, the empty closet and the empty vanity. "Lannan?"
"What." He said flatly.
"I'm going to clean up this glass and then you're going to need to tell us what the fuck happened."
Past
It was a rainy day when Lannan introduced Rose to his sister and the rest of his family. She had been nervous all day in the car on the drive to the Central Coast from Sydney.
It was hard to not be nervous when she felt like their whole relationship depended on them liking her.
"Breathe," Lannan reminded her as they walked up to the door. He linked their hands together and knocked on the door.
The door swung open and Rose felt herself being swept into a warm embrace.
"I'm so glad to finally meet you! Lannan won't stop talking about you!" An older woman, Rose assumed was his mother, stepped back after the hug. "Well, aren't you gorgeous?"
"I'm Tannar, the better Eacott sibling!" A blonde peeked her head around the corner, smiling.
"Thank you," Rose smiled at his mom, "Nice to meet you, Tannar."
The visit went smoothly and by the end of it, Tannar had roped Rose into shopping and lunch plans.
The whole family loved her from that first visit, especially after Lannan's mom learned that Rose's mom had died when she was 11. She took it upon herself to become another mom for Rose, always including her in family group texts and all the holiday invitations.
Waving goodbye as they dashed towards the car in the rain, Lannan had stopped Rose before she got into the car. Standing there in the rain, he had kissed her deeply, "I told you they'd love you!"
"Yeah, yeah, you were right, Lan." She couldn't hide her beaming smile. "You realize we're getting all wet, right? Also I think your family is watching."
The curtains on the front window moved when Lannan turned to look at the house. He grinned and waved, "They just know how in love I am."
"Thank you, baby." Rose smiled as he opened the door for her.
"Let's go home and watch netflix," he winked at her.
"Oh I'm sure we'll really be paying attention to the TV."
He lightly smacked her butt as she got in.
"LANNAN," she giggled, "Not in front of your family!"
Present
Tannar finished vacuuming up the glass and set the picture inside an empty vanity drawer.
Downstairs, Elliot had gotten Lannan to drink some water and eat a bag of crisps he had found in the mostly empty cupboard.
Tannar joined them in the living room, "So what exactly happened?"
"She came to say goodnight and I was frustrated because it was like 4am and I'd been playing for 12 hours. I should've known when she shut the door so hard that she was mad. I didn't think she was going to leave. I didn't even notice she was gone until I woke up that afternoon. She left me. The best person I've ever had in my life. Just left me."
"She left a note?" Tannar inquired and Lannan nodded at the note in Elliot's hand.
"He has it."
Tannar held out her hand and Elliot handed it her. She quickly skimmed it and then folded it up. "So if she left a note, I guess we shouldn't call in a police report on a missing person."
"Maybe we should anyways," Elliot interjected. "She's not really a flaky person, this really doesn't make any sense."
"No. I know where she is."
"Why don't you go get her, if you know where she is?"
"She obviously needs space and I'm going to respect that. Besides, Ireland is too far to surprise someone who doesn't want to see you." Lannan shook his head. "I appreciate you guys coming, but I'd really like to be alone now."
a/n For updates on when new chapters are posted, exclusive blurbs during the writing process, and a whole lot of random stuff, you can find me on twitter @/icalusfalls
Thank you so much for reading!
