Twelve of Roses

“When did you figure it out?” he asked me, breaking the first block of ice.

“I’ve had my suspicions for a while…certain things about you are unforgettable.”

It didn’t matter what he changed on the outside— what I felt for him went far beyond the physical.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” He pondered the million-dollar question.

I wasn’t sure the answer would make sense to anyone other than me. Max and Con were the same person, but Max was the better side of him. The sweet, romantic, charming side. And I thought that’s what I wanted.

And then, I wanted to save that side of him from me. He was so good, and I wanted everything that was opposite of that. I wanted the dirty, the bad, the ugly. I wanted Constantine. I told him all of this, staring out the window so he couldn’t see my face.

“You hate me, but you love me too. It’s the same way I feel about you,” he stated, processing all I’d just told him out loud.

“Why did you do change the way you look?” I finally asked him.

“Because you wouldn’t have accepted me as I was.” He shrugged.

“Whose house was that?” I changed the subject. He had no fucking idea how wrong he was. I think he was starting to get the picture now, though.

“They’re both mine. I had Molly suggest Black Pine to you and set it all up,” he admitted.

I nodded my head, gnawing on my bottom lip. True friends really stabbed you in the front. I went through hell for that girl, and none of it was necessary. I angrily blinked tears from my eyes, looking out the window so Con couldn’t see them.

“Your sister?” I checked, curling my lip.

“Half-sister,” he corrected.

“Why didn’t anyone talk about that?” Everyone knew who the Burrows were, and a redheaded child was never mentioned.

“Molly’s different. It was better for no one to know. It would have made things harder for her in school.”

“This is unbelievable,” I droned with a humorless laugh, closing my eyes and willing this whole thing to be over.

It was a farm.

A meticulously well-maintained one at that. The large house was lit up, a welcoming sight after spending hours in a suffocating truck.

“Who lives here?” I asked him, stretching my aching limbs.

“We do,” he grunted, opening his door, and then coming around to open mine. I looked away from his new face that held a pair of beautiful familiar eyes, refusing to let my idiotic heart lead me back into his dark paradise.

“I was going to play it all out like a movie,” he started to explain. “You were supposed to fall in love with the good guy and remarry me in a pretty white dress. A real wedding like you always wanted. Guess we both fucked that all up,” he mused. “Come on. Lauren’s inside.” He took my hand and led me towards the front of the house, giving me a sidelong look when I didn’t pull away.

I kept my eyes trained ahead of us. The second he really looked in them, he would see I was up to something. It was damn laughable that he thought he could convince me he was someone else when we knew one another inside out.

You can do this, Rose.

“Where are we?” I asked as a distraction.

“Ponty-Poole.”

“Ponty-Poole,” I repeated.

“I think it should end where it all began,” he divulged, leading me up the porch stairs.

Before we even walked through the screen door, I heard the high-pitched laughter and knew I wasn’t going to find anything I was expecting. But I still wasn’t prepared to come across Lauren sitting on Justin’s lap.

The laughing immediately ceased.

Molly, who was supposed to have been away for a work opportunity, was sitting Indian style in a La-Z-Boy. Justin and Lauren were cuddled together on a sofa.

“Rose—” Lauren started.

“So, this is your Joshua? I mean, I have to give you credit, because that’s pretty fucking unoriginal and I fell for it,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear anything this girl had to say. Did she care about him so much that she let her own mom be used as a cadaver? Or did she hate her mother enough not to care?

Did the answer even fucking matter?

They were all bat-shit crazy.

All these people decided to turn my life into their personal puppet show. They each toyed with me in their own way and got kicks out of it. They stripped me of privacy and freedom.

I glanced at the digital cable box and saw it was only seven-fifteen. I had no idea how long I needed to wait before I could do anything, but sitting around and acting like the best of friends with these people wasn’t on my agenda.

“Rose, we—”

“Can I lie down somewhere?” I cut Molly off, looking to Con. He eyed me for a minute before nodding his head slightly.