#rosenali

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Trailing not too far behind, Rosé reaches out to take gentle hold of Denali’s hips, spinning her around. She pulls her in close, nuzzles her cheek against the blonde’s and nosing the space where her hair hits just above her ear.  A spark hits her limbs when Denali’s contented sighing brushes against her skin, the sensation enough to have her pushing the blonde back against the bed. She hits the mattress and stumbles backward, taking Rosé with her. Her hands are tight around her neck and she pulls her in, craving the intimacy they’d been teasing at all night. They’d been playing their usual cat-and-mouse game; Rosé’s hand sliding down her waist, Denali kissing her wrist as they waited to get drinks, their bodies linked from head to toe on the dance floor. 

The dance floor-where their friends had left their circle one by one, forming their own space or trailing back to the bar. She hadn’t noticed in the moment, had been too wrapped up in the feeling of her body held tight against Rosé’s front. But Lagoona had winked at her before they’d left, Mik had all but pushed them out the door. Olivia fielded someone who’d been trying to talk to Rosé by gesturing between them with this look on her face as if the girl was stupid, as if she should have known that Rosé’s hand on Denali’s thigh meant they were exclusive even though she hadn’t exactly tried to stop her.

Which is another thing. They’d talked and danced and teased each other all night, but she hadn’t outright denied the other girl’s flirtatious comments. They’d never talked about their exclusivity, sure, but what else was she supposed to expect when every night out turned into this exact scenario? 

What’s she supposed to expect when her body waits in anticipation for the moment their lips connect? Or this-Rosé pulling her hair, kissing her neck, making her writhe eagerly under her touch. She arches up to help Rosé find access to the zip of her dress with eager fingers, sighs under the ghosting of her fingers over her bare skin until she tenses under her touch.

What are they doing here again?

“Wait, stop.” Denali pushes Rosé  away, and the redhead sits on her knees, straddling her with her hands firmly planted on her own thighs. Clarity hits Denali hard and fast, their dance floor teasing and friendly banter sitting like a rock in her stomach. She can hear them all; Olivia, Jan, Lagoona, Mik…they circle the subject like everyone else does, like she does, and there’s never a definitive answer. The only thing that’s evident here is that they’ll end up together at the end of the night. They’re best friends, they’re co-workers, they’re whatever else the narrative decides to throw Denali into other than the truth. 

She’s desperately in love with Rosé , and everyone treats what they have like it’s a fucking joke.

She’s tired of being a joke.

“I love you.” 

Well, shit. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that, with the zipper of her dress half down and her face flushed scarlet from the heat in the room. She’d had a plan, she’d been so eager to sit Rosé  down and talk with her with absolute clarity and some sort of outline of what she wanted to say. She bites at her bottom lip but refuses to look away from the redhead, who stares back at her in awe. She waits, lets the admission sink in a bit, but Rosé  is silent. She’s waiting for something, maybe, but Denali can’t read through eyes that refuse to meet her own. 

“I just kind of realized like….what the fuck are we doing?” She sits up, runs a hand through her hair from where Rosé  had just tousled it, bringing her back to herself a bit.  “What the fuck am I doing? I just need to say it all right now; I want a future. I want kids and a wife and everything that comes with a family. And I want it with you, I’m not going to lie about that. But I’m tired of playing games and I’m really exhausted with not knowing what we are or where I stand with you. I mean, am I the only person you’ve been seeing? And like. We never talk about any of this. I want you in every way possible but I’m also not going to wait around for some shift in the universe. I’m all in with you and I’d like to know if you feel something more for me than just friendship and good sex.”

“Nali, I..it’s…”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” 

Rosé  stares back at her, lips just slightly parted; not quiet open, just on the crest of being ready to say something else. Denali can just barely make out the slight quiver in her stance, the way her fingers tense and release, as if looking to catch hold of her.

Do it. Every one of her senses begs, pleading for a leap of faith on the other girl’s end. Catch me…I’m here, I’m yours.

Rosé  drops her hand to her side, closes her eyes briefly.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s all Denali needs to hear before she’s wiggling out from underneath Rosé , a softness that reads almost like pity on the tip of her tongue. Her stomach whirls, and then tenses. She can barely calm her fingers long enough to zip her dress back up. Rosé  comes up behind her, a gentle hand on her shoulder while the other finds the zipper. Denali hits her hand away, backing up with her big doe eyes alight with a low, crackling flame.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Nali…baby, we’re drunk.”

“I’m not anymore.” They’re standing face to face, Rosé  searching her with this unreadable depth that says that maybe she’s sobered up a little bit too. 

“And even if we are drunk, you didn’t say anything.” Denali continues. “You just…stood there. You’re stillstanding there.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!” She wipes a hand over her face, emitting the noise of a groan and a growl blended together. Rosé ’s still standing near the bed; not sitting, not moving along with her. She’s a statue, watching while Denali wears paths into the floor with her pacing.

“That’s not very helpful.” She quips. Denali freezes, whirls around with a sudden onslaught of anger. Everything feels familiar; this argument, this consuming need to curl up under a blanket and hide. The only difference is that here, she has no friends to hide with. Here, the people she’s gotten closest to are Rosé’s chosen family. She should’ve listened to herself, trusted her gut over her heart. 

She attempts to breathe through it but her next words come out as more of a growl. Maybe it’s the anger. She’s sure she can feel the wall Rosé  had torn down with her charming smile and sweet words being built back up brick by brick.

“You know what’s not helpful? You. This.” She gestures wildly between them, then begins flying around the apartment again. She’s gathering things in her arms; a hoodie, some shoes, a collection of bracelets and her toothbrush from the bathroom sink. As the pile grows they fall from her arms onto the floor, where she picks them up with a huff.

“Baby,”

“-Don’t call me that.”

“Denali, listen to me.”

“I’ve done enough listening for the day, I think. Actually, I’ve done enough for my whole life.” She’s not even trying to hold back her tears, letting her body take control as she slams the bedroom closet door shut soundly behind her, having kicked it with her heel-clad foot. 

Good. Let her see me cry. 

“Can we talk about this in the morning?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything worth talking about anymore, to be honest with you. I need to take care of myself now.” There it is; the hollow of her voice, the sigh that brushes alongside her words, carries them until they fall from her lips with the air of defeat. She’s given up.

“At least let me call you an Uber or something.”

“I’ll stay with someone. You live close enough, I can walk.”

“Then let me walk with you.”

“Can’t you just listen to me? Just for a second! I want-I need to go, and it can’t be with you tagging along and charming your way back into my pants.”

“Denali.” A wounded expression crosses Rosé’s eyes before she blinks it away, the comment echoing in her head. She reaches out for her, brushes her fingers on the blonde’s shoulders with something that would be described as love in any other life. Denali knows better than to label the gesture.

“I should’ve listened and stayed the fuck away from you.” She seethes, wriggling in Rosé’s grasp. Her teeth are gritted, her voice sharp and spitting. 

            “Listened? To who?”

            “Everyone. Your friends? Yeah, they made jokes about hoping that I’d be someone that stuck around for a little while. That doesn’t feel great.”

            “Ok, they like to joke.”

            “Stop. Stop being like that. This isn’t something we can brush under the rug right now. You can’t just…” She groans, ripping herself away from Rosé’s grip. She fumbles her way over to the bathroom, turns on the sink and lets it run for a minute. She’s staring at the water, her chest heaving. She needs air, she needs space, she needs anything but the sound of Rosé’s bare feet on the tile floor behind her. 

            Their eyes meet in the mirror; bloodshot, apprehensive. Denali shakes the water from her hands, Rosé shuffling out of her way while she dries them. The air between them is strained, almost suffocating as they wordlessly maneuver their way from the bathroom in silence.

Rosé  pulls out a bag from the closet by her door, holds it open to Denali. She tosses in the things that will fit and slings it over her shoulders, only a hoodie left draped over her arm. 

Their entire relationship fit in one big canvas tote. It feels symbolic, but she won’t let herself linger on that thought long enough to make it into something that will put any more significance into the time she’s spent hurting herself over this. She has a bag full of artifacts and eyes brimming with tears and Rosé  can barely muster up the courage to look at her. 

“Text me when you get there?”

“Sure.” It’s not exactly brisk but the clip of Denali’s voice hits Rosé  hard, her heart hammering through her chest, traveling up to the thrumming of her eardrums. She’s learned all the tells of the blonde that lingers in her doorway. The stoic line of her lips, the absence of dimples, the well-trained posture…regret pools in her gut.

She can’t think of the right words to say, so she says nothing. 

Denali walks out the door.

Rosé  stands there, wondering if she should go after her-if she even has the right to go after her.

She doesn’t.

She picks up the remnants of the night; two empty glasses on the coffee table, the rumpled up sheets and discarded blanket on the bedroom floor. She wipes down the counters, throws things into the hamper with the promise of taking them to the laundry room in the morning. She cleans until her legs give out, and then she just sits. Her phone had gone off a while ago, but it had only been Mik. Now, it blings again, and she figures she shouldn’t ignore her friend.

Mik 1:43 am

            D asked me to let you know that she’s with me and she’s safe.

Mik 1:50 am

            What happened???

Rosie 1:50 am

            Good

            Nothing

            Everything

Rosie 1:57 am

            I think I really fucked up.

Rosie 2:00 am

            Call me tomorrow?

Standing dutifully by Denali’s side, Mik rolls his eyes at the string of texts that comes through. He considers not answering, if only to make Rosé  sit in the consequences of her actions a little bit longer. Denali had called him with this quiet, shortened version of her own voice, and by the time she arrived she was adamant on keeping a bit of her silence.

“I think I’m just an idiot.” She’d thrown her bag on the floor by the door and tossed her competition hoodie on top of it, flopping down onto the couch. “Can you text Rosie and let her know that I’m here? I guess she cares about that.”

He met her quiet with a push to the shower and then to his bed, where he’d covered her with blankets and kissed the top of her head. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face swollen with grief. He hadn’t said anything to her except goodnight and I love you before she drifted off. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he decides that maybe pushing a vibrant, silly, delight of a human like Denali into soft spoken words and a heavy heart isn’t a behavior he wants to stand behind; not this time. Not her.

He settles on petty vengeance, lets the messages sit with his read receipts on. Then, he resolves to call her tomorrow morning for a full explanation. But it doesn’t feel like enough; not for the way his friend’s voice had sounded on the phone, or for the way it seems as though he’s continually picking up the pieces of Rosé’s life, giving advice that’s asked for but never quite taken. And this isn’t just some club hookup. This is someone everyone had come to adore. 

So if petty vengeance leads him to sending one last text, he reminds himself that tough love might just be the medicine that’s needed here.

Rosé’s phone hums while she’s on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. She grabs for it with greedy hands, paying no attention to the way suds collect on the case while she wipes her other hand on her leg, ridding herself of just enough of the water to be able to use the screen.

The first thing Rosé  sees is a photo of Denali, eyes shut and lips turned down, snuggled deep into the covers of Mik’s bed. Her hair is splayed in a messy blonde halo around her head, her hands holding the blankets close to her chin. 

Mik 1:43 am

She’s asleep. Will call tomorrow. 

            It’s vague and limited and Mik knows that Rosé  hates when people use a period like that because it makes everything sound mad. Then again, she supposes that that’s the point of it all. Because really, why should she deserve the right to explain herself when there truly isn’t much to explain? Why should she be granted any form of decency when she’s dug herself back into a hole she’s never fully covered? She’s the bad guy; she always has been.