Don’t say relieved. Don’t even think it, douche.

Fuck it. But I was.

Charlene LeBlanc answered the door. She didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was waiting on my sorry ass to show up on her porch at seven in the morning on a Sunday. Or that she had been crying for hours, by the look of it.

“Can I see your daughter?” I asked. Subconsciously, I didn’t refer to her by name because I wanted to leave it to fate. Aside from seeing Rosie here and there at school, swaying her ass in a short denim skirt and lecturing people about the British history of punk rock, I hadn’t seen her properly in months. Millie, I’d seen all the time. Not that she saw me. Apparently, she never really saw me at all.

“She’s gone.” Her mom dabbed her nose in a piece of tissue that should’ve been replaced two blows ago. “Been screening my calls all night. What happened? Did you two have a fight?”

I shook my head. Last time I spoke to Millie, we were making plans to go watch a movie. We hadn’t had sex since that first time when we celebrated her eighteenth birthday. I think we both weren’t feeling it, but admitting it out loud was unnecessary. I was headed to Harvard in a few weeks.

“No, ma’am. I’m as surprised as you are.”

She invited me in, and I recited every single encounter I’d had with Millie over the last month, leaving out the part where I deflowered her for the safety of my neck. Charlene looked distraught, right on the verge of a heart attack, then her husband joined us from their bedroom and asked more questions, trying to milk from me a confession I didn’t owe anyone.

Finally, after thirty minutes, Rosie emerged from her bedroom. She was the one I wanted to speak to. If someone had answers, or even clues, it’d be her.

“Can I borrow you for a second?” I asked, getting up from my chair. She still had sleep in her eyes and was wearing nothing but a huge New York Dolls tank top that left her long, tan legs bare and beautiful. I tried to ignore them, looking away to make sure the eighteen-year-old dick that was attached to my body wouldn’t accidentally salute her in front of her parents. “Meet me by the pool?”

She nodded, too startled and sleepy to protest. A few minutes later, she came out to the pool, still wearing nothing but her top and flip-flops. I loved her devotion to flip-flops, even though every time they smacked the floor, I wanted to burn them down. I got up from a sun lounger and paced, lacing my fingers behind my neck.

“Where is she?” I asked. Rosie looked down, but didn’t answer.

“Okay, fine. You don’t have to tell me. But do you know?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “She texted me earlier.”

“Is she safe?” My voice was strangled. I was worried about Millie, but I was also worried about Rosie. She was extremely attached to her older sister. Me, I knew I’d get over my ex-girlfriend in no time. It was my ego that needed a stroke.

“She’s safe,” Rosie confirmed, smoothing her bed hair with her fingers.

“Do you know why she did it?”

“I have an idea.”

“Are you waiting for a special invitation before you share it?”

She shook her head, ignoring the general assholeness that was me. “I’m sorry, Dean. I know it puts you in a horrible spot, but I can’t. You know where my loyalty lies.”

There was a brief moment of silence before our arms found each other and we clasped one another in a deadly hug. I say deadly not because I squeezed her and she squeezed me like we were trying to bleed the truth and the lies and everything in-between away from our bodies, but also because it felt fatal.

I don’t want you to die.

I don’t want to stop seeing you now that I’ve graduated.

I’ve been in love with your snarky ass ever since you opened the door for me, and now I’m hurting like you ran over me, and I have no idea how to fix this shit for us.

Minutes have passed before we disconnected. When I looked down at her, tears were running freely on her cheeks, and I knew it was a rare sight. In school, she was that fierce bitch no one dared to mess with.

“Thank you,” I said, for the hug. Maybe even for the tears.

She smoothed a hand over my chest. “You deserve someone who is yours. Just yours. No one else’s.”

“Rosie,” I called out for her when she started making her way back to the servants’ house. It felt like goodbye, and I didn’t want it to be. I had to put a spin on that encounter. She turned her head to look at me.