Rose removed her make-up with precision, taking care to remove all traces of the now smudged dark eyeliner that she had ringed her eyes with so expertly the night before. She picked up her slinky black dress from the floor where it had somehow become a little scrunched up during last night's activities and pulled it on, smiling to herself at how well it hugged her hourglass figure and the way wearing it made her feel just a little more powerful. Finally, she picked up a small bag holding nothing but a spare lipstick and her wand, and blinked at her reflection in the mirror, shaking off the thought that it wasn't she who gazed back at her and then left the flat, leaving nothing of herself but the memories of her that were likely to haunt the still sleeping Muggle man for at least a little while.

Running a hot bath for herself, Rose once again removed her dress and replaced it with a fluffy pink dressing gown. She took a book from a shelf in her bedroom and climbed into the still-running bath, immediately turning bright pink from the almost scalding bathwater. Rose immersed herself fully in the water, smiling to herself as the steam fogged everything up. She closed her eyes, enjoying the way that the heat made her almost dizzy and fogged up on the inside as well. Instead of picking up her book, Rose simply lay back in the water and tried to stop her mind from spinning.

Unfortunately, once the spinning had stopped, her thoughts returned. Rose was a firm believer in the prevention of conscious thought; when the thoughts became unavoidable she generally chose to reflect upon the things she generally did in order to allow herself not to think at all. Because of this, Rose found herself thinking about the night before. It had been fairly restrained, she had simply met up with a few of the other girls from work in a bar in Diagon Alley and a few of them had later gone onto a Muggle nightclub, where she had met a reasonably attractive man and went home with him for the night. It had been peaceful, mindless almost. She supposed that most people would find it odd that 'peace' for her was so often found in loud, crowded anonymous places filled with alcohol and strangers. She found the sex peaceful too, never mind-blowing or especially exciting, just a somewhat absorbing activity that helped her forget herself for a while.

Sighing, Rose picked up the book she had brought in with her. She had just picked it up at random, feeling the need to immerse herself in words along with the water. Without really registering the front cover, Rose flipped straight to the front page without expecting the sudden pang that occurred in her chest the moment she read the handwritten note:

Happy Birthday Rosie!
I know you have checked this out of the library about a billion times already, but I just wanted you to have your own special copy to make your own messy, beautiful notes and thoughts in! Anyway, have a beautiful day and remember that you are my best friend and I am incredibly happy to have you in my life!
Love you!
Scorp x

Rose took a few deep breaths and tried to stop herself from crying. He had given her that book for her seventeenth birthday, when everything was still simple and easy between them. She missed him, she missed him so much. Usually she could immerse herself in her mind-numbing activities and it would be okay, her thoughts of him being easier to keep at bay while she read her books and wrote her articles and drank her alcohol and smoked her cigarettes and danced in clubs and wrote her stories and lay under strange men and imagined a less empty future for herself. Unfortunately, that reminder of him, that piece of evidence that the two had been so close, that he had known her so well and they had mattered so much to each other had thrown her off, so right now, remembering the scent of the Muggle man from the night before was not enough to keep her shut up in her little world of denial where everything was okay provided she was busy and distracted.

After she'd forced herself out of the past and out of her self reflection, Rose got out of the bath and went out onto her balcony for a cigarette. She stared intently at how the smoke looked in the late morning sunlight, half hoping that she, like the smoke, could somehow disappear into the atmosphere so easily and effortlessly, leaving nothing but wisps of what she once was behind. They had started smoking together, she and Scorp, he had wanted to experience it and continued because he liked the sensation of filling himself with smoke and then exhaling it gently, he had found it calming. She, on the other hand had maintained the habit because she knew it was bad for her.

Still unable to shake the thoughts of Scorpius from her mind, that night Rose went over to her wardrobe and opened the box full of unopened letters addressed to her from Scorp. He had sent them to her every now and then over the last year, but had stopped about six months ago when she'd made it clear that she wasn't going to reply. Holding her breath, Rose opened the first envelope she saw, which was incidentally his last letter to her:

Rose,
I get the message, okay? I get that you don't want to reply or have anything to do with me any more and, as much as that breaks my heart, I am going to finally give in and get out of your life.
Before I seal this letter and send it to you, though, let me just say that I love you. Yes, Rose, present tense. You have broken my heart in so many ways and I have done a whole lot of things I probably shouldn't have done, but I love you. I love you as my best friend and I love you as Rose Helena Weasley, the girl I have been slightly infatuated by since we got talking on the train on the way to Hogwarts. You made me so completely happy Rose and I would give anything to go back to that, to go back to the days of our constant and beautiful friendship.
If you do, for whatever reason, decide to actually read this last letter, just know that a part of me will always be waiting for your reply.
I miss you.

Scorp x

Rose folded the letter and placed it back into its envelope, wiping away the silent tears that were already dripping down her cheeks. She put the envelope back into the box and put the lid on top, before putting it back in the bottom of her wardrobe. Rose then ventured over to her mirror and told her reflection to pull herself together, standing there until the tears stopped and her breathing was regular. Finally, on a fresh sheet of parchment, Rose wrote: "I miss you too", before whispering a gentle 'incendio' and subsequently burning the parchment to a crisp, leaving no trace of the most honest words she had produced in the last year.