JENNIE
After we have lunch at a little nondescript strip mall, we head back toward Rosé's place. As we pass the campus, I finally have the courage to ask her the question I've always wanted to ask.
"Rosé, what do you think would've happened if you had won?"
She's clearly caught by surprise, but she recovers after looking at her hands for a minute. "I don't know. I've thought about that a lot."
"You have?" I look at her, and her caramel eyes meet mine. "Of course I have."
"What did you come up with?" I tuck my hair behind my ear, waiting for her answer.
"Well . . . I know I would've told you about it before I let it get that far. I always wanted to tell you. Every time I saw the two of you together, I wanted you to know." She gulps. "You have to know that."
"I do know it," I barely whisper, and she continues.
"I like to think that you could've forgiven me since I would have told you before anything happened, and we'd have gone out on dates, proper dates. Like the movies or something, and we would have had fun. You would have smiled and laughed, and I wouldn't have taken advantage of you. And I like to think that you'd eventually have fallen for me, the way you did for her, and when it was right we would have . . . and I wouldn't have told anyone. I wouldn't have given anyone a single detail about it. Hell, I wouldn't have even hung around any of them anymore because I'd have wanted to spend every second with you, making you giggle the way you do when you think something is really funny . . . it's different from your regular laugh. That's how I know when I'm really entertaining you or you're faking it to be polite." She smiles, and my heart begins to race.
"And I would have appreciated you and not lied to you. I wouldn't have mocked you behind your back or called you names. I wouldn't have cared about my reputation and . . . and . . . I think we could have been happy. You could have been happy, all the time, not just sometimes. I'd like to think—" I cut her off by grabbing the collar of her jacket and bringing my lips to her.