Rose –
Hanging up the phone after a fight is not nearly as satisfying as lifetime movies have made it out to be. There is nothing gratifying about abandoning a conversation out of anger or frustration. Dimitri deserves better than a spiteful girlfriend who hangs up on him because she's hurting. I have never felt more like a child than I do right now, including when I had been an actual child.
But I don't know how to handle this kind of hurt. How do you keep yourself from feeling utterly alone despite the fact that you are surrounded by people? Sure, there are people I could go to, people who know about Victor and Robert and they would try to help me figure out what to do. Even if I could admit that I have absolutely no clue what to do about Robert, what good would it do me, how would anyone be able to help me? Hans and Mynor would probably toss me in jail, Lissa's the queen, and Dimitri was thousands of miles away.
After my phone call with Dimitri, I decided to lie down on the floor of my living room and stare at the ceiling. My suitcase looked like it had thrown up all over my bed and I was too lazy to put any of my clothes away. I watched the blades of my ceiling fan spin, and the longer I stared, the faster they moved. I eventually had to close my eyes to keep from getting dizzy, but they immediately snapped back open at the sound of someone knocking at my door.
I debated whether or not it would be worth it to peel myself off the floor and walk all the way to the front door to answer it. If it was an emergency someone would have called me and Lissa had a key. I thought about the last time I had answered a knock at my door. It had been my mother.
I shivered as I recalled the agonizing dinner that she had insisted I attend with her and my father. To say that the experience had been awkward would be an understatement. She had initially told me that it was because they had something important to tell me, but instead of dropping some life changing truth bomb on me, they had asked me a million questions about Lehigh and Dimitri.
The knock came again, louder and more persistent this time. I returned my attention to the ceiling fan.
"Rose," the all too familiar voice yelled from behind the door. "I know you're in there! I'm perfectly qualified to kick down a door."
I let out a groan and rolled myself into a sitting position. "Not today, Janine," I yelled back.
"You have until the count of three!" She said, sounding deadly serious.
A part of me wanted to laugh, but the other more violent part of me wanted to punch a hole through the door. I took a deep breath and then stood up as slowly as I could manage.
"One!"
I decided that I could use a little break, and so I took a moment to stretch my arms above my head.
"Two!"
I strolled casually over to the door and reached for the knob.
"Three!"
I yanked it open, not really sure what I would find. Maybe my mom crouched in some offensive maneuver, preparing to deliver a swift round house kick to my door? Instead I found her leaning against the side of the frame, looking bored.
"What?" I asked, careful to keep my tone perfectly neutral.
"What were you doing in there?" she demands, sounding suspicious.
"Lying on my floor," I tell her with a sarcastic grin.
She studies me carefully, probably trying to figure out if I was making a joke, albeit a very bad one. "Something is wrong," she said sternly, folding her arms across her chest.
I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her. "Usually people ask if something is wrong."
My mother furrowed her brows, and for a fleeting moment, she looked like one of those exasperated T.V. moms. "Fine," she conceded. "What's wrong?"
I shrugged, "Nothing."
"I'm a trained guardian, Rose," she said, straightening up in the doorway. "I can tell when you're lying."
"As if I could forget," I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes for the second time, and instead I stepped aside to let her into my apartment. She strode past me and stopped in the middle of the living room, wrinkling her nose in disapproval the way she always did whenever she came over. Now that I don't have Dimitri's tidy habits to contend with, I have let the dishes pile up in the sink and I haven't done any laundry in what feels like ten years.
"Now," said my mother, whirling around to face me. "Tell me what's been bothering you. You've been on edge all week. You aren't eating, there are bags under your eyes, and your hair looks dirty."
I shot her a withering look. "My hair isn't dirty," I snapped. "I'm fine. And if I'm on edge it's because you and Abe are here! You show up a week ago, unannounced, and you haven't done anything but nag me since!"
She pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "We're just trying to get to know you."
"Both of you are about, oh, I don't know," I glance down at my bare wrist even though I'm not wearing a watch and then glare back at her. "Eighteen years too late."
"Rose," my mother said, sounding uneasy. "This is uncharted territory for me. I know as much about being a mother as you do about being a daughter."
"Hey," I said, trying to sound offended. "Don't drag me down with you! I'm a model child!"
She raised an eyebrow at me. "I don't think busting out of prison and getting your teenage friend elected queen falls under the definition of 'model child'." She said, making air quotes to emphasize her point.
I brushed past her and flopped down onto the couch, snatching a random book off the coffee table. "You should be proud of me," I told her casually, fanning through the pages of All the Pretty Horses. "I'm a household name."
She wondered over to where I sat and gingerly lowered herself onto the couch next to me, though she was careful not to touch me. "I am proud," she said. Her voice was strained, but I could tell that she meant it.
A heavy silence hung in the air. I did my best to ignore the situation and my mother by staring into the pages of the novel. "Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real." I made a mental note to remind myself to tell Dimitri that his weird western novel had ripped off a Papa Roach song.
"What are you reading?"
I had almost forgotten that my mom was still in the room with me. I closed the book and held up the cover for her.
She looked confused when she read the title. "I didn't realize you were such an avid reader, or a fan of the Old West for that matter."
"I'm not," I said glumly, tossing the book back onto the table. It landed near a pile of other worn out novels. "Dimitri is."
Even saying his name made my chest hurt.
"How is…" she paused, and seemed to be gathering her courage. "How is your relationship with Guardian Belikov?"
"Dear God," I muttered under my breath. "His name is Dimitri, and we're just peachy."
"Ah," she said knowingly. "So you're having boy troubles?"
I stared at a spot on the wall, "How perceptive of you," I said deadpan. "All this time I thought you had the emotional intelligence of a rock."
"Rosemarie," she said, letting out a breath. "You don't have to tell me what's going on between you and Guardian Beli – Dimitri, not if you don't want to." I opened my mouth to tell her that I most certainly did not want to, but she held up a hand to silence me. "But it might surprise you to learn that there is more to me than my title and my reputation."
"Is it your modestly?" I ask, batting my eyelashes innocently.
I was actually pretty impressed that she didn't snap at me, instead she just pretended that I hadn't even spoken. "I meant that I was your age once. I know what it's like to be in love." For a moment, she sounded far away, like her mind had left her body completely. "I also know what it's like to sacrifice that love in the name of duty," she said bitterly, snapping back to the present.
I sat there stunned, unable to come up with a single thing to say to her. I had never really considered what my mother had been like at my age, never considered that she might have loved the way I have loved, lost the way I have lost.
"Dimitri might not be here with you right now, but he'll come back. The good ones always find a way to come back to you," she said, smiling wistfully.
"Did you love him?" I asked, careful not to meet her gaze. "Abe, I mean."
Her fledgling smile bloomed and it transformed her normally impassive face into something that was alive. "Yes, I did. I still do."
"Uh," I said, rolling my head around to stare at her. "What?"
"That's what we wanted to talk to you about. We meant to tell you on that first night, but you seemed so upset and your father was worried you wouldn't take it well."
"Take what well?" I inquired, even though I don't think I actually wanted to know the answer.
She sucked in a breath and slid her face behind her guardian mask. "We're getting married."
This was kind of a filler chapter, but I wanted to show what was happening back at Court, all the important stuff is happening in Palm Springs. Now that I've finished Pulse (please excuse my shameless plug, but if you haven't read it please check it out) I'm going to switch gears and focus more on this story.
