A.N.: The final instalment.


Rose Amongst Thorns

Chapter Thirty-Four

Gone with the Wind


She was desperate now. Desperate for a kind word, a familiar smile, the bear-hug of her best-friend. She left the basement, silently crying, and closed her bedroom door behind her. She turned on her laptop, went on to the Southwest Airlines website and booked a 'Wanna Get Away' ticket to Raleigh/Durham Airport for 5:30 p.m. departure later this afternoon and printed it out, packed some clothes into a small carry-on bag and found her box of pretty stationery.

She cried as she wrote a long letter to Finn, telling him exactly how she felt about him, and what she thought of his brothers, and why she couldn't stand to be here with them any longer, watching them taking everything they had for granted; she closed the letter; 'If I could have only one wish, I would ask to hug my sister again. That's it.'

She deliberated for a few minutes where to leave the letter for him; she decided it was safest to leave it in the shed, and slipped downstairs without meeting any of the boys.

Finn wasn't in the shed, for which she was grateful. She didn't know if she'd have the nerve to act on impulse if she saw his soulful blue-grey eyes one last time. She crept into the shed and looked around, wondering where would be the most conspicuous place to leave her letter. In Finn's shed, any place but the canvas was overlooked when Finn was on a creative splurge. She went to the easel and paused.

What he had been working on so secretly the last few days became instantly clear.

Her.

It was a portrait. It was a portrait unlike any Rose had ever seen. It wasn't just a picture of her, a direct mirror-image of her in paint. Somehow Finn had managed to capture her shyness, her sweetness, and her tenacity with paint; he had captured tiny, secret kisses at the corners of her slightly-smiling mouth, with glittered with the same shade of lip-gloss that was her favourite; her eyes were painted of at least a dozen shades of blue, glittering with knowledge, secrets, laughter, and sadness, a few flecks of the most delicate silver striated throughout. Her skin glowed like crushed pearls kissed with sunlight, and her hair was the colour of spun-gold. Memory swirled in the painting, caressing her blonde hair, the curve of her cheekbones, the tip of her little nose: Sadness and longing and heartbrokenness enveloped her in a warm embrace. Even though her eyes were so sad and serious, her mouth was smiling, a juxtaposition and mystery.

Rose had never thought herself beautiful; she had eyes, a nose and mouth the same as everyone else. But now she saw herself through someone else's eyes—through Finn's eyes. She looked…stunning.

She reached out and touched the edge of the canvas; the paint was completely dry. He had finished a portrait. He had finished a portrait, of her.

Go, she told herself.

She picked up her bag, slung her purse over her shoulder, and closed the shed door behind her. She walked over to her truck, climbed in, and drove away from the McGowan home.

Rose had cried the whole drive to Boston Logan airport. The entire way; she had parked up in the long-stay parking-lot opposite the terminal and walked in, found the Southwest Airlines counter and handed over her printed ticket confirmation. She was given her boarding-pass and advised which gate to go and wait by. The woman behind the counter had stared at Rose, concern and unease flickering over her face, clearly debating whether it was advisable to let a sixteen-year-old girl so obviously distraught run away.

Because Rose was running away. She was going to Raleigh/Durham airport in North Carolina, five minutes away from her house, from Pogue.

She sat curled up in a seat by the designated gate, curled up into a tight ball with the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack playing on her iPod and not really seeing the pages of the book open in her hands, silently crying her eyes out again.

If people saw her crying, they didn't come over. They didn't ask her what was wrong, or if she needed any help. They didn't do anything. The bag of gumdrops she had bought to eat on the plane had disappeared in minutes. The same with the Kleenex; she had gone through the pack half an hour ago.

She got the life scared out of her when someone gripped her arm, and jumped and stared through tears-blinded eyes. She blinked a few times, silently choking on her cries, and pushed the cuffs of her father's Bobcats sweatshirt into her eyes to clear them.

There he was, standing over her, looking fierce and betrayed and a little hopeless, sweating from having run through the airport to find her.

Doug.

"Where the hell do you think you're going, yo?"

"I gotta sit," Doug wheezed, collapsing into the nearest vacant chair. Rose blinked a few times, uncertain if he was real… But why would you have imagined up Doug to come and find you? Rose thought. Doug was chasing her down?

"What're you doing here?" Rose whimpered softly, passing her sleeves roughly over her face. She glanced around, dazed and confused, but saw only Doug. "How did you get through security?"

"I had ta buy a ticket, you belee d'at?" Doug said, pulling out a little Southwest Airlines folder. "I can go to New York City now if I want."

"What're you doing here?" Rose repeated, sniffing. She wiped her eyes again. "If you came to apologise, you're too late."

"You wanna bounce, that's your business," Doug said, shoving the crumpled ticket into the back pocket of his doodle-strewn jeans. "But hear me out first."

Rose's lip trembled, and tears splashed down her cheeks; she choked out a hoarse, "Why?" Doug stood and switched to the seat next to hers; her crying had cleared a wide berth around her.

"Look," Doug said heavily. "When Finn found that letter, he read out parts of it to us. I've never seen him so pissed. Me and Evan, we talked for the first time since all this crap went down, and I can't speak for him, ya know? But me? I realised I been kind of a jerk lately."

Rose stared dully at him. And blinked.

"Kind of?" she said dryly, sniffing, and suppressing a great sigh.

Let me finish, woman!" Doug said. Rose suppressed another sigh; crying was exhausting, which was why she didn't do it very often. She wiped her cheeks, understanding what an effort it was taking for Doug to talk to her at all. She waited.

"I was just pissed at you from jump 'cuz you snaked my room. I know it wasn't your fault you came to live with us, but…ya know? But I thought on it and I figured out why you irritate me so much," Doug said.

"I'm glad," Rose said heavily. Doug sighed irritably. "Why do I irritate you?"

"Well, 'cuz you came in there and you did all this stuff, you know? Like stuff no one else can do," Doug said. For the first time ever since Rose had met him, Doug was looking at her and his guard was down. He wasn't sneering or being obnoxious; he was just there, talking to her. "Like you got Miller talking about stuff that's not baseball. And Ian's afraid of you—and Caleb loves you; he'd do anything for you. You've been helping him out at school. Sean, like, occasionally comes out of the garage now. And my mom? She's a different person since you been there. She's, y'know, calmer or something. It's like…having another woman around has chilled her out of something, seriously. She's only whacked me upside the head like once since you got here."

Rose sniffed and thumbed the pages of her book. "You probably deserved it."

"Probably," Doug agreed. "And, I mean…you've done all this stuff around the house, like, we never realised how much Mom and Dad do around the house, keeping everything clean and cooking for us, y'know. You made us all realise how much we take advantage of with Mom. And…plus, what you did for me… That was pretty cool too. I still don't know why you did it."

"You're supposed to protect your family," Rose said softly. Doug nodded.

"Thanks," he said, and Rose managed a smile. Just that tiny word… It was only one teeny tiny little word, but Rose felt that he meant it.

"You're welcome," she said hoarsely.

"So, look, you can't leave,2 Doug said, sitting up straight. "If you do, Miller's gonna revert and he's never gonna tap that Aimee chick. And Caleb's gonna be heartbroken over losing you; I mean, I guess he'll eventually get over you. Ian's gonna ride roughshod and Sean'll go back to being the Ghost Brother, and Evan will just keep being Hailey Farmer's bitch. And Finn…"

Rose's lip trembled and she clenched her eyes, dropping her head into her hand. Finn. "What about Finn?" she squeaked. Doug was a lot closer than she had thought when he next spoke.

"Finn will be completely destroyed," Doug said, and he rubbed Rose's arm. "You got that dude all up in a twist, you know that, right?" Rose let a few tears leak out as she clenched her eyes.

"I don't even know what that means," she choked.

"All's I know is, he finished telling us about that letter and locked himself in the shed and barricaded the door. No one's seen him since," Doug said. "When I bolted, Sean and Evan were trying to boost Caleb up onto the roof so he could look through the skylight and make sure the kid hadn't slit his wrists like van Gogh or something."

"Van Gogh cut his earlobe off," Rose murmured, sniffling. She heaved a sigh and wiped her eyes.

For a few minutes, Rose and Doug sat in their plastic chairs. Rose slowly turned everything over in her head. She had thought she had just messed everything up when she moved in with the McGowans. Was it possible she had actually changed the McGowans' lives like Doug had said?

"We always thought it was cool that my mom only had boys, you know?" Doug said, for the first time dropping his gangster accent. "Who knew we actually needed a sister."

Rose licked her lips and closed her eyes, pushing her hand into her hair. "You don't want a sister."

"Well, yeah, that's true," Doug said. "You know what I mean, though. We needed a chick around here. We needed someone who wasn't Mom telling us what to do. And I'm pretty sure Finn would be down with being kissing-cousins." Rose's lip trembled and she hid her face again.

"Does everybody know?" she whispered, squeezing more tears out.

"Know? That you and him lost your V-plates together? Oh, yeah, that's old news by now," Doug shrugged. Rose hid her face, tucking her knees close to her chest. "Come on," Doug said softly, rubbing her arm. "It was bound to happen sooner or later, right? I mean…Mills says Finn's in love with you, and he says you're in love with Finn, and I kinda believe Miller about stuff like that. He's real observant, you know? I mean…if it hadn't happened after the party, well…you'd have just had a whole bunch more sexual tension to deal with till you did do it."

"That makes me feel much better," Rose said hoarsely.

"Well, you should; at least now you know whether he's worth dating," Doug said, shrugging, and Rose actually laughed. Only a little bit, but she did. The smile slid off her face as soon as it appeared, though. "Hey, at least you didn't sleep with your brother's girlfriend, like I did," Doug said, and he actually sounded repentant. "I mean, can't screw up any more than that."

"You could've knocked her up," Rose murmured; Doug's eyes widened.

"Thanks," he said, looking nauseated. "Great, man, now I'm gonna be paranoid! So, what, are you gonna come back or not?"

Rose looked down at the floor. Everything he had said…it had been nice, gratifying, to learn that she had helped touch their lives…but it wasn't enough. She was going by Miss Smith's advice and she was learning to be a little bit selfish. If she was going to live with the McGowan family, she needed assurance that she wasn't just Rosalie Meade, "who lives with us." She had to have more certainty than that; she was an orphaned girl bereaved of her much-adored little sister, taken away from the only place she had known as home, and had been shattered by more personal tragedy than was fair; she needed to know she wouldn't just be tolerated but loved, and cherished. She needed to know she could be part of their family. She needed to know no matter what happened, she would always be welcome back in their home.

"Come on, Rose," Doug cajoled quietly. "We need you at home. We need you to tell us what the hell we're doing wrong and make us fix it. We need you to help us all be a family. And we'll help try make you happy again. No matter what it takes."

Rose looked Doug right in the eye.

"Will you stop calling me Rosie C-Cups behind my back?" she asked quietly; Doug gulped, and his eyes widened.

"I…Yeah," he said, grinning. She looked down at her knees and licked her lips.

"Then I might be able to come back," she said. "But from now on, no more secret meetings, no freeze-outs; you'll stop calling each other names and start treating each other like you love each other; you'll help your mom around the house and stop giving your dad so much attitude. You'll treat each other with respect and be considerate of each other, and remember that family comes first."

Doug nodded, and a slow smile reached the corners of his lips. She had never noticed before, but he was just as good-looking as Miller. "We know," he said. "We'll count on you to be the enforcer."

"Do I get a cattle-prod to zap you whenever you mouth off?" Rose asked.

"It'd need enough electricity to jump-start Vegas," Doug said dryly. He sighed, and stood up, offering his hands. "Well, are you coming?" Rose looked from Doug's face, to his hands, and back.

She cast a longing look at the boarding-gate, saying a silent goodbye to what she was leaving behind, familiarity, Pogue, and gathered her things, unfolded from her seat, and stood up.

"Yeah," she said softly.


A.N.: The End.