Chapter 10

Rosalie reverses onto the driveway with such ease I’m jealous. I haven’t taken my driving test yet; I’m scheduled to take it in the spring just before my exams.

Treating me like the princess that I absolutely am not, she runs around the front of the car and opens my door before I have even gotten the chance to unbuckle my seatbelt.

I thank her and head to the door.

From the outside, her house is completely the opposite to mine. Unlike mine the paint isn’t chipping, the guttering isn’t overflowing, the door doesn’t look like it’s going to fall off its hinges if I shut it too hard. It’s immaculate.

We’re not lazy, we have been meaning to do the jobs around the house, but time feels like it has gone in a blink of an eye and we’ve all been busy with work or school. I make a note to myself to help out and do some of the jobs when I’m next free. Maybe I can drag Lacey in as well. Who am I kidding I’ll be doing all the work.

“Are you coming?” Rosalie calls from the doorway.

I seriously need to stop zoning out when I’m around people. “Yup, just admiring the view.”

She chuckles at that. People always laugh when I say stuff and I can never tell if they are laughing with me or at me. Hopefully this is a with me laugh.

“I’m so funny.” I joke as I reach the top step to the doorway. I’m sure I didn’t pack bricks, but it sure feels like I did. Rosa must’ve noticed as she reaches out and takes my bags.

She laughs again. “Absolutely, babe. But let’s not have you collapse before you even reached the stairs.”

I open my mouth in mock disbelief although I truly couldn’t care less when she just called me babe. It sounds so perfect coming from her lips that I wonder if this is all a dream. A dream I definitely don’t want to wake up from.

I shut the door behind me and follow her up the stairs. She leads me into her smallish room, one I’d I had only seen it on FaceTime previously. That has a single bed, with baby pink sheets, in front of you as you enter with a white vanity/desk next to it, littered with nail polishes and textbooks, and shelves above her bed with swimming medals and photos.

Instead of cute or love it I blurt “Pinch me.”

Rosalie turns around with a smirk across her face knowing exactly what I just said. “What?”

“Pinch me.” Clearly unable to say any other two words I repeat myself.

She puts down my bags and steps towards me. Closing the already small gap between us until we’re chest to chest.

“I can do that or how about this.” And before I can I ask her what that is her lips, once again, crash into mine.

And once more I’m back in that feverish, all-consuming, chaotic world that I had been secretly hoping to return to ever since my last visit. God, I sound cheesy. But then, I guess, love is cheesy, right?

Is it normal to be thinking this much while kissing someone? Probably not.

She pulls me backward, towards her bed, and for a few moments we’re just limbs and lips. In a moment that I have only witnessed in movies that I shouldn’t be watching through the crack of the door. Finally, I feel I understand what all the fuss is about.

As though they’re grumpy gods that deciding my fate, my phone starts blaring the alarm that I had set to get ready. I hated it the last time this ended and this time it’s no different.

“Ughhhhh.” I mumble against her lips.

In her sweet voice that could make me commit murder for her she whispers “We.” Kiss. “Could.” Kiss. “Just.” Kiss. “Stay.” Kiss. “Here.” Kiss.

She’s making it incredibly hard to say no but we have a dance to go to. But even that’s not convincing enough for me but then I remember the price tag on my dress and masquerade mask that I spent a good chunk of my savings on and decide I will have to return to this world later.

“To be continued?” I ask, trying to keep the hopefulness out of my voice.

She answers so fast that I barely hear her words. “Not even a question, my love.” But I don’t miss that. I’m going to melt into a puddle before the night has even started.

An hour later I was struggling to tie the strings on the back of my mask without ruining my perfect makeup. Even though I had told Rosalie it was pointless doing my makeup when most of my face would be covered by the mask, but she insisted otherwise as “my face would not match the beauty of my dress” I couldn’t tell whether to be offended or grateful for her offer and I hoped was a compliment on how pretty my dress was. I chose to interpret it as the latter.

I poke my head around her bedroom door and call down the stairs “Rosalie can you come and help me with my mask?”

“Of course. Give me two second just feeding Willow before putting my dress on.”

Willow is the most beautiful cat I have ever met. She’s a ragdoll and has the silkiest fur and these striking blue eyes. I may be a dog person, but I make an exception for her she can’t help that she’s not a dog.

“Meow.” I look down to see Willow snaking between my legs.

“She ignored her favourite – tuna – for you.”

“Awe. Do you like me that much?” I ask Willow as I scratch the spot behind her ears.

“She likes you more than me and I live with her.” Well that definitely didn’t come out of Willow’s mouth.

“Uh…um…uh” I stammer. “How’s your family doing?” Smooth topic change, Serena. Smooth.

“FINE!” She snaps.

I flinch. I’m about to snap back and then remember our conversation at the beginning of the summer, when we first met, about how her parents aren’t accepting of her being pansexual. They said it was just a phase and wouldn’t even bother meeting her girlfriend at the time. Ever since, they’ve been trying to get her to go on a date with a family friend’s son whose going into law school. I’ve luckily never had to go through that as by the time I came out to my parents as well as Lacey when I was about fourteen as bi, they laughed and said that they already knew and glad I had finally caught up.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Rosalie interrupts me. “Don’t apologise. Let’s get that mask tied.”

I don’t know what else to say so I just let her tie up my mask. After she’s done, she steps back and her eyes rove over my body in such a way that makes me shiver.

She opens her mouth then shuts it and then opens it again. Her clear loss of words makes me blush with a swell of pride alongside it.

Finally, she regains the ability to speak, “You look breathtaking and that’s not even an adequate enough word for how you look.”

Now I truly don’t know what to say I manage to mumble out a feeble thank you and that’s it; Rosalie laughs.

“Shoo shoo.” I wave my hand. “I need to see you in your dress now.”

She grabs a couple of bits from the room before shuffling to the bathroom with her dress laying over her arm in a dry cleaner bag.

A few moments later she steps out and it’s my turn to be speechless. Rosalie stands in front of me looking like a flamingo. As hilarious as that sounds it’s true. She’s wearing a strapless pink feathered dress that has a V-cut along with a bedazzled mask that’s the same shade of pink.

She’s simply stunning.

“Putting a lot of faith in that dress, aren’t you?” I tease.

“Body glue.” She says triumphantly.

We both burst out laughing.

Then suddenly were inches apart.

She looks at me like I’m the only girl in the world. And before I can stop myself the words tumble out of my mouth. “I love you.”

Rosalie grins, the biggest grin ever.

“I know, I love you too.”

Oh. My. God.

She loves me.

We kiss and it’s nothing like before not hungry or rushed or chaotic. It’s just pure love.

Then, obviously, another alarm goes off.

“I hate alarms so much.” I grunt through clenched teeth.

“Agreed but let’s go before we’re beyond fashionably late.”

Rosalie snags the last parking spot in the school car park and, once again, insists she on opening the door for me even after I argued that I’m not a damsel in distress.

We make our way to the assembly hall where the party is being held. There are all different coloured suits and dresses. I spot a group of girls dressed up as the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, not exactly on theme but they look awesome. 

In what seems like barely a minute we stand outside the assembly doors and nervous butterflies flutter around in my stomach.

It sinks in that this is my first dance since London without Ella or Kelsey by my side. I feel my hand being squeezed and look down at my hand to see that Rosalie has intertwined hers in mine.

“Together.” She whispers.

“Together.”

Author note:
I was reading Two Weeks to Fall in Love by Katfeatherly and loved the timestamp headphone images, so I decided to take inspiration from them and design my own sunshine timestamps. I hope you like them because it took me a very long time to figure out how to add them… and now I have to go back and do it for the rest of the parts. TvT

Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed this part and the previous ones. If you have, please comment and like, as it means the world to me.

— I.B