Final chapter! I hope you all enjoyed this sequel. To everyone who reviewed, thank you so so much! I appreciate it more than you know.
Disclaimer: I do not own the song "All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift. All parts that are in parenthesis are parts of her song I changed to fit the story a little bit better. The other words belong to T. Swift.
Rosa had good days and bad days. She'd have frequent nightmares where she would basically relive the conversation she had with Javi. When she'd wake up from them, she'd immediately start crying and would go climb into bed with her parents. Sometimes, even when she didn't have nightmares, but couldn't go to sleep or turn her brain off, she'd still climb into bed with them. She was doing that almost nightly after the trip, but a month later, she was only getting into their bed every 3-4 nights. Max and Mirabel truly did not mind one bit and were happy to be able to comfort her in that way.
Rosa still got very sad when she thought about what happened with her biological dad and spent a lot of time crying over it, but it was becoming a normal feeling. She'd probably feel sad about it her entire life. When she'd feel too sad, she would just think about her Papa and how lucky she was to have him and everyone else in her family.
One afternoon, Mirabel asked Rosa to go to her and Max's bedroom and get something off the top shelf of the closet. She said she would and went looking for it. As she was looking through different boxes, a bunch of papers came falling down. Rosa groaned, looking at the mess, and bent down to pick them all up.
One of the papers caught her eye. It had a lot of words on it, front and back. She started to read it.
I walked through the door with you
The air was cold
But something about it felt like home somehow
And I left my scarf there at your sister's house
And you've still got it in your drawer even now
Rosa gasped. This must have been something her mom wrote after Javi broke up with her. She knew about the scarf. Mirabel told her about it when she was asking all those questions at 10 years old. Rosa sat on the floor as she continued to read it.
Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze
We're singing (on our walk), getting lost (around town)
Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place
And I can picture it after all these days
And I know it's long gone and that magic's not here no more
And I might be okay, but I'm not fine at all
Cause there we are again on that little town street
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well
(Your parents come for a visit), your cheeks were turning red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin sized bed
And your mother's telling stories about you (and your sister)
You told me about your past (and life when you were kids)
We were always (walking around town)
And I was thinking, any time now, he's gonna say it's love
You never called it what it was
Rosa knew her mom was in love with him, but she didn't know that he wasn't in love with her. Her heart broke for her mom. She kept on reading.
Till we were dead and gone and buried
Check the pulse and come back swearing
It's the same, after (4) months in the grave
And then you wondered where it went to as I reached for you
But all I felt was shame
And you held my lifeless frame
And I know it's long gone and there was nothing else I could do
And I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to
Rosa's eyes filled with tears.
Cause there we are again in the middle of the night
We're dancing around the kitchen, in the (moon) light
Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well
And there we are again when nobody had to know
You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath
Sacred prayer and we'd swear to remember it all well
Well, maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece till you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well
And you (come) here again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I'm a crumpled-up piece of paper lying here cause I remember it all, all, all
Rosa covered her mouth as the tears rolled down her cheeks and she started sobbing.
They say all's well that ends well, but I'm in a new hell every time
You double cross my mind
You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine
And that made me want to die
Rosa knew about the age difference, but not about that comment. She put her hand over her chest, just feeling the heartbreak coming off the page. She still had tears rolling down her cheeks. She wanted to hug her mom so bad.
The idea you had of me, who was she?
A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel whose shine reflects on you
Not weeping in the (alley)
Some (child) asking me what happened
You, that's what happened, you
You who charmed my dad with self-effacing jokes
Sipping coffee like (you've known each other for years)
But then he watched me watch the front door all night, willing you to come
And he said, "it's supposed to be fun turning twenty-one."
Rosa had to pause, because she was crying so hard. She took a moment to compose herself, took a few deep breathes, and she finished reading.
Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it
I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own
Now you (give me) back my things and I walk home alone
But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can't get rid of it, cause you remember it all too well
Cause there we are again, when I loved you so
Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it all
Down the stairs, you were there, you remember it all
It was rare, you were there, I remember it all too well
And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punchline goes
I'll get older, but your lovers stay my age
I'm a soldier who's returning half her weight
Did the twin flames bruise paint you blue?
Just between us, did the love affair maim you too?
I remember it all too well
Wind in my air, I was there, I remember it all, all, all
All too well
Rosa could not believe it. She knew he had broken her mom's heart, but she didn't realize just how much his leaving truly affected her. Everything suddenly made sense. Now, she knew why her mom didn't tell her about him until she was 10 years old. She understood why she didn't want her to go find him. She should have trusted her mom and listened.
Rosa stayed on the floor with the paper in her hands until Mirabel walked in. She saw Rosa sitting on the floor. She chuckled at the mess on the floor and said, "Did you make a little mess?" Her smile faded when she saw her daughter's face. She still had tears on her cheeks. "Honey, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
Rosa jumped up and ran to her mom, hugging her tight. Mirabel hugged her tight as well, still not having any clue as to why her daughter was upset. Rosa said, "Mama, I'm so sorry. I had no idea."
Mirabel was a little confused. "What are you talking about?"
They pulled apart and Rosa showed Mirabel the paper. She took it from her. One look at it and Mirabel gasped. She put her hand over her mouth as she scanned over the words. She looked up at Rosa. "I'm guessing…you read all of this?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to pry. It fell down with all this stuff and I picked it up. I started reading it and…I'm just so sorry, Mama. He really hurt you, didn't he?"
Mirabel took a deep, shaky breath. "Very much so," She turned and walked to her bed, sitting down and leaned back against the pillows. She looked up at Rosa. "I know he really hurt you, too. I'm so sorry, Rosa. I wish I could take that pain away. I wish I could make him want to be a father to you."
Rosa went to sit next to her mom. She just sighed and said, "I know."
Mirabel looked down at the paper for a few moments and then up at Rosa. "We only dated for 4 months, but I wanted marry him. I loved him." Her eyes filled with tears and she closed them. She had to take deep breathes to stay calm. "When he broke up with me, he told me…that he never saw us as a serious relationship. It was just fun, but nothing else. And, like you read, he told me that maybe it could have worked out if we were closer in age."
"What did you mean by 'I'll get older but your lovers stay my age?'"
"It was just my way of saying he continued to date women that were my age or younger, even after he told me I was too young for him." Mirabel shrugged. "The first woman he dated right after me broke up with him, because I was pregnant and she refused to be in a relationship with someone who didn't want anything to do with his child."
"Wow, that's pretty cool." said Rosa with a smile.
"Yeah, I really appreciated it." Mirabel took a deep breath. "You know…I wasn't going to tell you this, but I can't lie to you. When I first told him I was pregnant, he told me he never wanted to have kids, because he saw how much his sister struggled with his niece when she was a baby. So, when Antonio told me he had kids, I was shocked. I honestly never imagined him getting married and having kids with someone else."
Rosa wasn't even shocked to hear that. Still, it hurt. "Wow. Can't say I'm too surprised. He told me he…isn't proud of that part of his life. He said no one there knows he abandoned me and no one was going to find out. That's why he wanted me to leave. He was ashamed of me."
Mirabel put her arm around Rosa's shoulders. "It sounds more like he's ashamed of what he did. I'm sure he knows he did wrong, but he feels it's too late to do anything about it. I wish there was something we could do to change it, but, unfortunately, we can't. All we can is do our best to move on. Which, as you can see in what I wrote, was very hard to do."
Rosa was silent for a moment before saying, "When did you write this?"
"It was when I was pregnant with you." She smiled at her. "I was around 7, maybe 8 months along. I was feeling very sad one evening about how things ended with him and I just wrote all my feelings down on paper. I've never shown this to anyone. I wrote down exactly what was going through my mind and the way it made me feel. I wrote that whole thing in less than 30 minutes. When I finished, I was crying so hard."
"I was sobbing halfway through it, so I can only imagine." She shook her head. "How did you ever…trust someone again?"
Mirabel giggled. "It was not easy. You can ask Papa. It took me over a week to even admit to myself that I liked him. He was so kind to me from the very beginning. Then…I was mean to him, because I wanted him to stop talking to me. I just couldn't go through that again." She paused. "I knew not all men were like that, but in my head, I just couldn't imagine ever being with someone again. You were still a baby and you were my main focus." She paused, again, thinking back to that time. "I finally agreed to a date with him. It went amazing. The next day, he came over for family dinner and everyone loved him. He met you that night and you instantly loved him." Rosa smiled at this. "Watching him with you just melted my heart. I kissed him for the first time that night."
"Aww, I love that." said Rosa smiling.
"We agreed to take things slow, but just a few months later on your 1st birthday, I told him I loved him. He walked up to you as you were playing with and eating your smash cake. You put a big bite of cake in his mouth, getting some of it in his mouth, but most of it got all over his face."
Rosa laughed. "Oh, man, of course I did."
"I don't know what it was…seeing you with him and seeing how much he loved you, just…it made me emotional and I had to tell him I loved him. Three months later, we got engaged and a year later, we got married. And the rest is history."
Rosa smiled and then stopped to think about something. Her biological dad was awful to her mom. She had never thought about it before, but she realized in that moment that she was an everyday reminder for Mirabel of that relationship with that guy that shattered her heart into a million pieces. Rosa's heart broke at the fact that her mom probably thought of him every single time she looked at her. "Mama…I'm so sorry to be a reminder of that relationship. I bet you think of him every time you look at me." Her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, my sweet girl." Mirabel pulled Rosa in for a hug. When they pulled apart, she said, "I can honestly say that I don't think of him every day. I rarely think of him when I look at you. Yes, sometimes…he does cross my mind when I'm with you. You don't look identical to him, but…you know, sometimes you do something that reminds me of him or make a face that looks like his. But do you want to know something?" Rosa nodded. "When I look at you everyday, I see my beautiful, my kind, and my smart daughter. That's who you've always been to me. As horrible as he was, he gave me you and I love you. From the moment you were born, I have loved you with all of my heart."
Rosa smiled and then turned her head away, remembering something else her mom endured. "Yeah, until my very existence made you depressed." Mirabel told Rosa about her postpartum depression with her when she was 10 and asking all those questions. She gave her a brief rundown of it, but not the full story.
"Rosa, we've talked about this. Hey, look at me." Rosa slowly turned to look at Mirabel. "It wasn't you that made me depressed. It was a mix of the emotions, the hormones, and probably the exhaustion, but it was not your fault. My mind was messing with me, telling me to do things I didn't want to do. The only reason I asked for help was to keep you safe."
"What do you mean keep me safe? What kind of thoughts were you having?"
Mirabel sighed shakily. She had never told Rosa about this and was very nervous how she'd react to it. "It was a particularly rough night. You were a month old and just…crying nonstop that night. Nothing I did was helping. I shouldn't have done it, but I yelled at you to stop crying. When you obviously didn't…I had a thought go through my mind. This thought…was irrational and…not something I wanted to do. But it was still there. It told me to throw you across the room."
Rosa gasped. "Oh, Mama. Please tell me you didn't do that."
"Oh, no, mija. Of course not. I knew it was wrong. I didn't understand why my mind kept telling me to do it. That was the exact moment I knew I couldn't handle it alone anymore and I got help. It was the scariest thing in the world to ask for help, but…I knew I had to do it." She looked at the ground in front of her. She was looking at the exact spot she had the intrusive thought, the same spot she handed Rosa to Dolores, and where she was curled up in a ball on the floor. "I had to do it, because I was a mother and I couldn't be selfish anymore. I had to do everything in my power to keep you safe." She took a deep breath. "I had some of those same sad feelings after your brothers were born, but it only lasted a few days and wasn't near as bad as it was after having you. Then, with Elena, thankfully, I didn't experience the sadness at all."
Rosa grabbed her mom's hand and squeezed it. "I guess I never understood how much you've truly been through."
Mirabel smiled at her. "This life hasn't always been easy, but it's always been worth it. I couldn't imagine my life without you, Papa, Isaiah, Ivan, and Elena. I love you all so much."
Rosa gave her mom another hug. She wrapped her arms around her waist and laid her head against her mom's chest, not ever wanting to let go. Mirabel put her arms around her daughter, rested her cheek on top of her head, and they ever so slightly rocked back and forth. Mirabel thought back to when Rosa was around 3 years old and would give her random hugs. She remembered thinking she wouldn't always want the random hugs and she wanted to soak it in.
There were a million other things Mirabel could be doing.
There were a million other things Rosa could be doing.
Instead, they chose to stay there, in each other's arms. Mirabel truly did love all of her children equally, but somehow, there was a very special bond she had with Rosa that she didn't have with her other children. Despite the awful postpartum issues Mirabel had after Rosa was born, Rosa brought so much happiness to Mirabel in the lowest point of her life. She would not be the person she was without her sweet Rosa. She hated Javi for breaking their daughter's heart, so Mirabel would spend the rest of her life making sure her baby girl knew how loved and how wanted she truly was.
Mirabel kissed Rosa on top of her head and whispered, "Thank you for always being my light in the darkness."
I just love this chapter, because it gives Rosa a better understanding of the choices Mirabel made. All Too Well is the thing that initially inspired me to write this story series, so I wanted to include it!
Thanks for reading! :)