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The whole ordeal starts at Summer in the City. Rose has been living in Unity’s manor with Jed, Lyta and Daniel for going on four years. Jed is settled in at school, making new friends, playing soccer-- er, football. Dream stops by once in a while, usually around the winter holidays or in the summertime. He seems to have a soft spot for Jed, and always encourages Rose’s ambitions of becoming a writer. Lyta is still mad at Dream for threatening to take her baby away, so Rose lets her know when Dream is in town so Lyta can avoid her son’s ‘godfather’. Jed was the one who came up with the title, it’s not so inaccurate after all.
Rose, to her credit, has enrolled in university. Her grades were fine, not great, but one of the fancy schools agreed to take her as a ‘diversity’ admission-- they literally said that. Not because she’s Black, of course, because she’s American and has custody of her little brother because their parents are dead. She’ll make one great alumni success story, and the fact that she somehow stumbled into generational wealth does come in to play. She hasn’t been living in the UK that long, she doesn’t qualify for the free college that citizens enjoy (wait, really? You guys don’t pay anything for tuition??). Her university is an hour or so’s train ride from Unity's house, so Rose opts to move into the dorms for her first year, to get the full experience. It’s here that she connects with the three friends she goes to SitC with in the summer they get their exam results back-- and they all pass!
If you got Rose and the other members of the SitC squad together, looking at them, you’d never guess which is the Rich Bitch. You’d probably guess Shan. The bubbly blonde Irish fashionista is the picture of how Rose had wished she looked when she was a kid. But Shan works, she’s been on a cleaning crew, worked retail, run packages, all while going to school full time. Yes, tuition is free, but you still need living expenses, especially when you party as hard as Shan does. Shan is the friendliest, nicest person Rose may have ever known, but what she likes most is how the girl can keep surprising her. She often wears designer, but when Rose asked how she can afford to spend so much, Shan winked and said ‘a girl has her ways’. Her ways were not, as Rose had assumed, shoplifting, but rather intricate knowledge of where people sell and discard the expensive things they don’t want anymore. Apparently, Shan used to make a good amount of money dumpster diving in rich neighborhoods and re-selling their shit. Now though, she just has a lot of google alerts and bids on luxury Depop sales. In yet another subversion of expectations, Shan is a history major. She has to read a text several times, but once she puts the events in her own words like she’s gossiping about someone, it never leaves her. With Shan as her tutor, Rose can actually remember events and timelines like she never could in high school.
It was Shan who introduced Rose to Nic, the definition of ‘mean girl to nursing student pipeline’. Nicola-- who will glare at you if you call her Nic before she invites you to do so-- is a half-Iranian girl whose confidence and attitude Rose found at the same time frightening and aspirational. She’d sheepishly asked Nic the first time they were alone in a room, how Rose might be more like her when she grows up. Nic didn’t flinch, just said ‘take no shit and fight anyone who fucks with you’. Rose had demurred, no way can she ever start a physical fight with someone (ending fights and fighting back in self-defense is another thing). Nic rolled her eyes. tossed hair over her shoulder and said ‘you don’t have to actually fight them, just pretend, act like you might fuck them up if they cross you, nine times out of ten, they’ll leave you alone’. Rose had tried it the next time a group of lads called something at her, and while they got huffy and called her a bitch, they backed off . It was like some kind of superpower! She almost felt more powerful than when she had had an actual superpower that almost ended the world!
Lastly was Faiza, whose name Rose misread as ‘Faze’ for a week before realizing, mortified, that there is an I in her name. “I am so sorry, it’s a beautiful name--” she had started to apologize but Faiza just shook her head and held up her hand. “Don’t even worry about it, hon, people have been getting my name wrong all my life.” When Rose asked, Faiza explained her name meant ‘successful’ in Arabic, ‘as if being Black Muslim immigrants in England wasn't enough pressure’. Rose and Faze got along for being the Quiet Types, who hear everything and talk shit with no one suspecting. They also go light on the booze, which turns out to be rare in this country where everyone drinks like it’s New Years all the time. Rose has maybe seen Faze drunk once or twice, and all she did was giggle hysterically and pee herself, as opposed to her other friends, who pick fights and fall in love on the dance floor on a regular basis (if you were to guess who does what, you’d be wrong).
Rose likes her friend group for the balance-- Shan and Nicola to keep things interesting, herself and Faze to stay grounded and safe. There are other people who come and go, but the four of them are the consistent ones. So it’s the four of them who celebrate the end of uni by getting trashed at a music festival.
The girls hung out with these guys in a band starting halfway through the festival until they left to go back home. Shan was the one who’d started talking to their frontman, and waved the rest of their little gang over when she decided the frontman was cool. Rose barely remembers the name of the drummer she hooked up with, let alone the frontman, but he had seemed like a Jerry or a Geoff. He was tall and lean and kinda greasy-looking; Rose rarely understands the appeal of the guys Shan goes for, and Geoff/Jerry was no exception. He was hanging out with his bandmates near some picnic tables outside a pub because they were getting ready for a gig nearby. He and Cam/Calum were alone there at first, but eventually they were joined by two other members, a hijabi keyboard player, and some other guy Rose hadn’t cared to notice much.
Cam/Calum had broad, muscular shoulders with tattoos wrapping down down to his wrists, curving up his neck and onto his back. His eyes were a grayish green and his head was almost completely shaved; what hair he had was dark brown, almost black. He hadn’t spoken much at first, but when he did, Rose noted the scratch and timbre in his voice, which Did Something for her. Already having had a drink or two, Rose had enough courage to ask him about his tattoos, hanging on to every word that bounced out in his lilting accent. Turns out he was from Kent, like the keyboardist, and he and the keyboardist had obviously had a thing in the past, based on the tension between them when she showed up. For reasons Rose would rather not examine, this tension drew her more towards Cam/Calum, scooting closer to him as if to stake a claim on him. Nicola clearly saw and rolled her eyes, but left Rose alone, instead chatting with Faze and keyboardist. The time came for the band to go in and start setting up, so the girls offered to come in and help, and listen to a set or two. They ended up staying for the whole set, the musicians getting more attractive as the night went on. To her knowledge, none of them hooked up that first night, she felt too drunk to have sex, but she definitely made out with Cam/Calum and Shan got handsy with the frontman. Nic said it was time to go back to the hotel and after much whining, Geoff/Jerry said where to find the band the following day. Rose was very much looking forward to spending more time with Cam/Calum.
The sun shone through the clouds the next day, still pitiful in comparison to summers Rose grew up with in Florida, or even New Jersey. Cam/Calum had wanted to know what growing up Stateside and in the land of sunshine had been like, and she didn’t miss how his eyes kept flicking to her lips. She drank less that day, maybe had two or three over the course of the afternoon/evening, but when someone brought out weed, she did smoke it just fine. She was a little out of practice and coughed a bit, which Cam/Calum had called ‘endearing’. Shan’s usual picks never would have casually pulled out the word ‘endearing’. More making out, some petting, over the clothes action, but once the proper dry humping had started, the couples were lovingly shooed away to ‘get a room’, which they did. Rose and Cam/Calum and Nic and Geoff/Jerry paired off to the guys’ rental, as theirs was closer. Rose noticed that it was Nic, not Shan, who ended up going home with Geoff/Jerry, and planned to ask more about that later, but forgot. For once, she had a life of her own.
Ultimately, she thinks they spent more time rutting and getting each other's clothes off than actually having sex, and she didn’t finish, but she never has with a partner anyway, so it was no great tragedy. To be kissed, caressed, wanted, desired, and to desire in return, to give pleasure to her partner in the moment, was enough for her. They went two rounds (maybe three?) before Shan and Faze were banging on the door to collect Rose because it was time to pack up and get on the train home.
When Rose notices she hasn’t had to mark her calendar the third week of the month as usual, she knows she is very possibly fucked. Her cycle is regular, she’s been basically celibate since moving to the UK, and its not like her romantic life was all that exciting in the states either. She’d had a boyfriend in high school and had started seeing girls too, a welcome distraction when her mom had gotten Really Sick. Then, her whole life had been dedicated to Finding Jed and reconnecting their family. That came with Unity and the Vortex nonsense, and she’s been too busy to date, so it had been kind of a relief to just be able to have casual sex at a music festival with someone she’d never date or see again. Unfortunately, they had been too casual. They’d all been drinking, not that heavily, and also weed was shared, among other things she didn’t partake in. She remembers hooking up with Calum… Cam… Craig? She remembers giggling and kissing and fooling around and she knows his stuff had been leaking out of her for days afterward, so they almost definitely didn’t use a condom… and it had been a week and a half after her last period. So, fuck. Fuck fuck fucking shitfuck.
There is a sexual health clinic within walking distance of the university, and they do a day of open walk-ins twice a month or so. Nic had done a rotation there a few months back and it’s where Shan went to get a rash looked at (it was crabs). She’s a little concerned she might run into someone she knows there, but maybe if she wears a headscarf or a bonnet and also a face mask, it would be okay. Fuck.
She can’t sleep for shit in the week leading up to appointment day. When she does doze off, her nightmares are ghoulish and they involve her running through the high school gym naked while a crowd of people stare and laugh. One where she’s delivering a year-end presentation but she’s only wearing an oversize hoodie and no pants or underwear; or in a room full of people trying to talk but can’t make any noise; or the one where she tries to talk and her teeth start falling out and she has to try and find them all to bring to the dentist but they keep going missing. The worst so far is one where she’s running for a bus and ends up kicking a dog so it gets tossed into the street and hit by oncoming traffic (holy fucking shit, Morpheus! She has half a mind to summon him just to demand why the fuck that scenario exists ).
Nobody wants to hear about other people’s dreams, but she is wide the fuck awake after that one and tells the groupchat because she’s so rattled: wtf im too traumatized from my own subconsious to feel okay going back to sleep what do, fam? .
Only Nic is awake, home at two am after a long nursing shift. Yikes wtf subconscious, she writes. Good thing dream analysis is bullshit bc i would be scared to know what that one means. Whiskey’ll do the trick for that tho. Does most things.
Rose goes to the kitchen and turns on the electric kettle, grabbing half a lemon and whiskey from the fridge. She might feel bad about drinking alcohol right now if she had any reservations about walking into that clinic and asking for a termination. As it stands, Rose might want kids someday, but absolutely not now, but the emptiness of the night presses in. Shouldn’t you feel bad about being so quick to choose abortion? She sips her hot toddy. Guilt and shame eat away at her very core, but she knows she’s making the right choice. Shan already cyber-stalked what’s-his-face and confirmed he’s not boyfriend material, let alone baby-daddy material. Even if he was just a swell, wholesome guy, Rose’s choice would be the same. The guy is irrelevant: she doesn’t want this, and that’s all that matters… right? It’s what she’d say if it was anybody else in her situation but…
She finishes her drink, refills her water cup, washes her face and turns on the audiobook for Martin Chuzzlewit . Charles Dickens' overwrought flowery prose lulls her into a moderately restful half-sleep. Hopefully she’ll be a little more settled tomorrow, after her appointment.
Being her mother’s daughter, and having been raised that ‘on time means early, on time is late, and late is unacceptable’ Rose is ready in her most nondescript street clothes, headwrap, glasses and mask, outside the clinic fifteen minutes before it opens. Is it a little over the top? Yes. Maybe problematic? Yes. Does she care? No. There’s some other people casually milling around too, not many, so she’s one of the first who gets to put her name on the list and she doesn’t have to wait more than forty-five minutes. Good thing, that, since she doesn’t leave the clinic until noon.
First is the nurse, who asks about her periods (regular until now), allergies (dairy), birth control method (unnecessary until now), interest in signing up for birth control for the future (fuck no, not fucking a man again ever), and interest in an STI screening (now that you mention it yes please). The lady takes some of her blood (not much), asks her to undress and leaves her for the OB/GYN to take care of. This bit of the waiting takes much longer. Rose is actually half asleep in the chair when the door opens and the doctor comes in.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” says the doctor in one of the many accents Rose hasn’t yet learned to place.
She tries to soothe her startled heart rate. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to doze off, I just, haven’t been sleeping well recently.”
“Stress?” The doctor asks, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. “I understand you’re already asking for a termination?”
“Yes.” Rose leaves no room for discussion in her tone.
“Very well, then.” The doctor does the swabs. “If your dates are correct, we should have no trouble getting you a medicated termination. It’s very safe, but there are things to watch out for: lasting fever, nausea, lightheadedness, soaking through more than two pads in an hour-- we’ll send you home with this information. And I like to schedule a follow-up in six weeks to make sure everything goes as it should. People often cancel that follow-up because they feel back to normal and their cycle has returned, but I like to have it scheduled just in case.”
Rose likes how this doctor engages, looking up at her and checking to make sure she’s hearing.
“What questions do you have for me?”
Rose thinks for a minute, and the doctor doesn’t rush her, which is good. The only question Rose can come up with is the same one she’d asked Dream right before she thought she was gonna die. “Is it gonna hurt?”
The doctor’s voice softens, and she answers with direct, sustained eye contact that makes Rose a little uncomfortable. “Everyone is different, but you should expect pretty heavy cramping that first day. I recommend having a hot water bottle on hand, and whatever over-the-counter or folk remedy you have to deal with your normal amount of menstrual cramping. Go easy on yourself the day you take the second tablet.” She hesitates, full eyebrows furrowing as if considering whether or not to say something. She must come out on the side of saying it, as she leaves Rose with the following wisdom: “Don’t be too hard on yourself in general. It doesn’t help the process, and tends to get in the way of good rest, which you will need.”
Rose swallows and nods stiffly, wishing the lady had kept it to herself. She’s right of course but Rose doesn’t want to hear it.
40 hours later, Rose Walker is living through hell. She has slept a cumulative seven hours. She looks like absolute shit. All she’s eaten is crackers, toast, and mint chocolate chip ice cream. She keeps drinking water which means she keeps having to pee, which means she has to keep looking into her underwear at what she tells her friends is the Period From Hell. She’s taken hot baths, refilled her hot water bottle, tried the yoga poses, and all of it put together makes the pain semi-manageable. But now, she’s out of Midol. And she thinks she might just die while sitting on a towel on the floor in front of the twelfth hour of Love Island reruns.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK” she half-groans-half-screams. No one is going to come running, she has the house to herself. Not for much longer though, she remembers. An idea strikes her and she lights up with hope. Grabbing at her phone, she checks Jed’s location -- he’s still at the football grounds. Good, they should be wrapping up practice soon. She fires off a text for him to check when practice is done. Jeddie, would you be the bestest brother ever and run to the shop on your way home and pick up some Midol for me? She adds a picture of the box for good measure. If you don’t have enough money just call me and I’ll give them my card info. Thanks!Xoxo
Rose hits send and falls back against the couch — not ON the couch, as she’s too afraid of staining the fancy upholstery. If anything happens, she could just pay to get it fixed or cleaned, but she’d rather not run the risk at all. Plus, she’s still not used to just… having money. To not needing to sweat spending on necessary things. She can just… pay for things, with the money she has, that Unity left for her and Jed. But even with the literal manor, the vintage and expensive things in it, Rose’s brain is still working off of the assumption that money is scarce, and that she needs to be frugal to survive. But she doesn’t anymore, not really. She just can’t process it. Certainly not when it’s also processing the pain of a mini-childbirth and the stupidity of aggressively heterosexual reality TV.
Jed, meanwhile, now fifteen years old and free to travel around the greater London area by himself, scours shelves he’s never looked at before in their preferred corner shop. He has about fifteen pounds on him and thinks about picking up the chocolate almonds his sister likes if he has enough left from the medicine. His gaze flickers from his phone screen to the shelf-- hemorrhoid cream, itch cream, foot cream… headache medication, allergy medication, sleep medication… Jed bites his lip and checks the photo again. Nothing here looks like what Rose wants… is he going to have to go to a different shop?
Down the aisle, a couple of hijabi girls giggle, and Jed tries to remember if he’s allowed to talk to them or not, if he’s not crossing some kind of line. Anxiety kicks him into motion. He hunches his shoulders, making himself small and uses his friendliest voice. “Excuse me, ladies?” he says, raising a hand in greeting. One of the girls notices him and bends around her friend to see him properly. “Sorry, I don’t want to bother you, but my sister needs this medicine, Midol? I don’t see it here, but I figured I’d ask if there’s something like it I just don’t know about or…?”
The girls — sisters, as it turns out — come up next to him and take no time in guiding him to something else they say works just as well. One says she’s studying to be a chemist and pulls up an app on her phone that shows the generic version and chemical makeup of different medicines. “That’s so cool,” he says. “You have to be pretty smart to understand what you’re looking at though.”
The girl’s brown face goes a shade darker and she squirms, smiling at his compliment but not knowing how to respond. She clears her throat and explains that if Rose takes Midol, that drug is mostly something called naproxen sodium with caffeine, and that the drug Aleve is also made of the same stuff and it should work the same. Jed picks it up off the shelf. He should definitely be able to throw in those chocolate covered almonds.
“Oh my god, you’re like the sweetest brother ever,” says the chemist’s sister.
“Seriously” says the chemist. “Can you imagine our brother running to the shop for us? To buy period stuff?”
Jed does a version of what the chemist did earlier, face getting warmer and shifting uncomfortably at their praise. “She’s my big sister and well, it’s just the two of us, so we gotta look out for each other, you know.”
The girls awww at him. He thanks them profusely and makes his way to the counter, where he is a few cents short. Before he turns over his backpack to scour for loose change, the teller, a middle-aged lady with red hair and a face full of freckles, waves him off. “Don’t even worry about it, son.” Again, Jed thanks the stranger profusely before leaving the store in the direction of home.
When he gets through the front door, he calls out his arrival to the echoey halls. He used to have nightmares when they first moved in. A house this big would feel haunted even if it’s new. When Rose let him sleep in her room for a few nights, with her little white noise machine set to sound like a city, the ghosts seemed to go away. They stayed away when she hooked up a pair of bluetooth speakers to her machine, one in his room, one in hers.
From the living room, he hears a ghostly moan. “I brought you medicine! They didn’t have the brand you like but this girl explained this is supposed to be the same thing. I hope it works okay. Plus, I got chocolate almonds!”
Rose pokes her head around the corner. “Chocolate almonds?”
Jed holds up the bag.
Rose speed-walks over, ripping the bag open and pulling the wrapper off one of the sweets before popping it into her mouth. Her eyes close and her shoulders relax. She moans -- this time in satisfaction-- and pulls her brother into a crushing embrace. “Bestest brother ever,” she says around bites of chocolate.
He chomps down on one too. “People keep telling me that,” he smiles toothily.
Rose tucks the bag under her arm like precious cargo and is about to slink away back into what has become her den. Towels, blankets, pillows and the like are scattered among antique priceless Edwardian furniture. The wall-mounted TV shows brightly colored images of attractive people in swimsuits. Jed notes his sister is having a Reality TV period, as opposed to the True Crime Documentary periods she sometimes has. He’s tried to figure out if what she’s watching is connected to how bad she feels, but so far can’t tell if it means anything.
“Bestest brothers should get to play videogames on the big TV on fridays, don’t you think?”
Rose only half-turns to look at him. “Deal,” she says. “You get dinner going, I’ll clean up in here and the room is yours until midnight.” She holds up her palm for a high-five. Jed’s palm meets hers gently, and he twines their fingers together for a moment. Then he lets go and heads to the kitchen to figure out what to do for dinner.
As it turns out, real food, even if it’s just Top Ramen and grilled veggies, makes Rose feel much better. Her skin doesn’t feel so gross, her limbs ache less, and she has the attention span to listen to how Jed’s soccer football practice went. She takes the Aleve with dinner, and after another shower and change of clothes, all the hours of lost sleep catch up with her. She lays down on the same towel she’d ‘slept’ on last night, and doesn’t even have enough time to turn on her white noise machine before sleep claims her with urging hands.
“Hello, Rose.”
Rose jumps, startled by the inky black form in the dining room. “God, Jesus, Dream, we gotta put a bell on you or something,” Rose says with a hand pressed against her sternum, heart racing beneath.
“I apologize if I startled you,” Dream says.
Rose huffs, resting her hands on one of the chairs facing Dream. “You don’t sound sorry.”
Something in the set of his mouth twitches. “Would it make a difference if I mustered some contrition?”
Rose shrugs, pulling out the chair to sit across from her great(-great?) uncle. She knows somehow now, but didn’t a minute ago, that this is a dream. “Why not come see us in person?” she asks. “Lyta’s out of town, and Jed would love to see you.”
Dream’s scary galaxy eyes come out and primal fear hits the small of her back. Rose pushes it down; she’s had enough nightmares recently.
“Your unrelenting nightmares are precisely the reason I’ve come to call.”
Rose sits back in alarm, before Dream tiredly explains that like any other dreamer, when visiting her dreams, her inner monologue might as well be spoken aloud.
“Thought you might be mad at me for some reason,” Rose says.
Dream leans forward, spreading his arms in front of him. Open, but not demanding. “You have spent less time in my realm than usual as of late. No doubt the frequency and severity of your recent nightmares is connected,” he explains.
Rose’s stomach drops, emotional flashbacks to being brought before the teacher or principal, in trouble for something she didn’t know or remember.
“As a rule I do not pry into the content of an individual’s dreams,” he adds, reassuring. “Their aim is to teach dreamers to face their fears, inspire personal growth. Have you an idea as to what their cause might be?”
Not telling you, that’s for sure, she thinks. Remembering he hears all, Rose quickly looks up. “I’m sorry, don’t go, I--” She covers her eyes, hiding a frustrated scream in her arms.
“Of course, you do not have to tell me anything,” he says. “I would not have come if not for the fact you are my niece, and I care for your well-being. I simply wish you to know I am here if you have need of me.”
Fuck, Rose’s eyes burn. She wants to scream. She feels so alone, all by her own doing, and now here’s someone genuinely trying to reach out and she’s torn between telling him to fuck off like everyone else, and breaking down to tell him everything.
“Actually?” her voice is strained. Her brain is hard at work. Dream waits for her to find words, though he can probably anticipate what she wants and do it before she needs to ask. “You’re an endless being, right? And the man I see in the chair is just an illusion you can change at will?”
Dream nods.
Rose can’t look at him when she asks this, but she asks it nonetheless. “Can you… can you be a lady for a minute?”
“Of course.”
When Rose looks back, Morpheus is still himself, just rounder-- cheekbones less pronounced, shoulders smaller, jawline softened. Morphea wears the same coat, but beneath the deep neckline, there are curves. Her eyes are the same blue they are in the Waking; obviously she sensed Rose’s need for her to look a little more human. Dream reaches across the table, hand outstretched in offering.
Taking Morphea’s hand, something in Rose unclenches. And she tells her, in some roundabout way, with many tangents and half-phrases, all of the things she can’t tell anyone else. About SitC, the guy whose name she maybe never knew, the no condom, the clinic, the pain-- everything. Dream never interrupts, only listening with the same contemplative expression, barring the occasional furrow of her brow or pursing of pink lips. When Rose runs out of things to say, silence passes between them, Dream brushing her thumb over the back of Rose’s hand. Rose doesn’t get the sense Dream is judging her, just putting all the puzzle pieces together, as she hadn’t done a great job telling the story in order.
When Dream speaks, she only ever looks at their joined hands. “This boy… do you feel used or taken advantage of by him in any way?”
Rose passionately shakes her head. “Oh no, no. Not at all.” God, Dream would give poor whats-his-nuts the worst insomnia ever if Rose would let him. “No, we were having fun, I was just stupid.”
Dream tilts her head. “If you were both having fun and neither of you thought of prophylactics, why then do you feel you alone are at fault?”
Rose scoffs. Because I’m the girl, but that’s sexist and reductive, so instead she says, “Because I’m the responsible one. It’s my job to think ahead and plan for things. I’m not the one supposed to be having the unplanned pregnancy.”
Now Dream actually looks her in the eye. “Because you are too responsible, too wise, to make an irresponsible, unwise decision?”
“Yeah?” Rose shrugs, though it feels like the wrong answer.
“I wonder if you believe a foolish person incapable of ever making a wise decision.”
Okay, good point . “Of course not, I mean, a broken clock is right twice a day and all that.”
“Why then, is it impossible or somehow amoral for an otherwise intelligent person to make a foolish one?” Dream’s expression is frustratingly placid, her voice all even and philosophical, completely lacking any judgemental or disappointed tone.
Rose grunts in frustration. “Because I’m supposed to be better than that! My mom was a nurse. I bring band-aids and condoms every time we go out, I’m the mom friend, I’m the responsible one--”
For the first time, Dream interrupts by way of finishing her sentence for her. “You are the one who is depended upon, and are unaccustomed to needing the help you so freely give others.”
That halts Rose in her tracks. Her throat feels tight. “I…”
“Leads me to question the quality of your friends,” Dream muses. “The people you regularly take care of could not take care of you when you needed it.”
“That’s not true,” she protests. “I told them when I was leaving, what hotel we were at, the room number. They woke me up to make sure I was okay. Picked me up in their car when we went back to our hotel… congratulated me on finally getting some.” She shakes her head. “Never dating a guy again. Don’t know what got into me.”
Dream doesn’t comment on that last, thinking a moment before noting, “You are quick to defend your companions, yet you have not shared this burden with them.”
Rose sits back, not giving her the thoughts the dignity of speaking them aloud. I don’t want them to be disappointed in me.
“Do you think they would be?”
She shrugs. “They might. I dunno.”
Dream tilts her head again, the opposite way now. “If one of them were in your predicament, would you be disappointed in them?”
No. “Depends on which friend,” Rose deflects.
“Would you judge any of your friends as harshly as you do yourself?” Dream rephrases, eyes boring into Rose’s head.
“No…” She presses her knees together.
Dream smooths a stray tuft of baby hair near Rose’s temple, her touch a barely-there pressure. Silence passes. Rose doesn’t feel so pent-up and ashamed anymore, she just feels sad, and alone. A tear slips down her face and Morphea wipes it away. Rose meets her kind gaze.
She’s always known what her choice would be, since the second she knew she was pregnant. But there's an insecurity, a question of philosophy and faith at the heart of this that has nothing to do with how disappointed she is in herself. If there's anyone who can give a non-religious answer, it’s Dream. “What if I’m fucking with destiny or some grand plan?”
Holding Rose’s cheek, Morphea says, “There is no great destiny pre-written in the stars. My brother’s book is in a constant state of revision. The overarching events, things which must happen, will happen regardless of any one person’s choices. Fretting over the bigger picture will only serve to compound your own suffering. I do not presume to tell you what to do now. Your life and decisions are your own, you are the one who must live with them. Do you understand?”
Rose nods, throat too tight to speak. The table has disappeared, as things are wont to do in dreams. Rose lets her head fall the short distance to rest against Dream’s shoulder. Her own hand holds Morphea’s to her cheek. “One last thing, before you go?” Rose whispers.
Dream nods, loosening her hold. Rose looks up at her. “I just…” her voice fails, air choked off by a sob. “I really want my mom.”
Dream’s form shifts again, and when Rose can see again through tears, there she is. She’s not real, its a dream, its an illusion, she knows that, but when she throws her arms around the woman, and hears her voice again, and smells her neck, it’s enough— more than enough.
“Mom,” Rose weeps. “Mom, I’m sorry.”
“Now, now,” coos the memory of her mother. “My daughter has nothing to be sorry about. The way I see it, you messed up— we all do — and the minute you realized what happened, you knew what you had to do. That’s the girl I raised, proactive! Not waiting around for your problems to solve themselves, no ma’am. As soon as you saw something broke, you jump to fixing it. Far from disappointed, I’m proud of you, Rose. You are so strong, stronger than you ever should have had to be. And I’m sorry for that.”
Rose shakes her head and cries harder.
“I’m sorry if I ever taught you it’s a sin to fail, to mess up, to make a mistake. I held you to a high standard because I believe in you. I still do. But when you mess up— like I said, we all do — that doesn’t erase any of your accomplishments. You tracked down Jed, moved countries, enrolled in college, earned a degree— all while raising your brother and writing a novel!”
Rose snorts. She hasn’t shown anyone yet. Jed knows she writes, so do her friends, but she’s still too scared to share her writing with anyone. Its too personal, exposing the soft tissue of her soul. But of course Dream knows. She’s about to ask him to get her a finished copy of it from his magical library so she can see how it ends, when Dream-as-her-mom pulls back. She tilts Rose’s chin up to look into her face —healthy, round, years before illness turned her into a husk of her former self. “Now you listen, I’ll be right here while you sleep tonight. Any bad dreams come knocking, I’ll send them away. My daughter needs her rest.”
Her uncle-as-her-mother seals the spell with a forehead kiss, and Rose sleeps longer and more deeply than she has in weeks.
When she finally wakes around ten a.m., eyes crusted with sand and her bed looking like a crime scene, she groans. “Fuck, no saving these sheets… worth it though.”
When she does tell someone, months later, Shan is the first to know. She’d been hooking up with this guy, not a good guy, but they’d worked together and he was hot.
“I thought you had the implant,” says Rose, pointing to where it would be on her own arm.
Shan pushes up her sleeve to show the healing site where they’d taken it out. “I have an appointment to get a copper coil put in, but that's two weeks from now.” Shan bounces her leg anxiously. “Fuck, what am I gonna do?”
Rose checks her phone timer. “Uh, wait twenty more seconds, for starters.” She wraps an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “If you are, there’s still options.”
“Fuck, think I’m gonna be sick, or faint, or both,” Shan whines.
“Not a great sign if you do.” Rose pulls her lip to the side.
“Not helping, Rose!”
“Okay, okay.” Lacking anything better to say, Rose watches the clock and counts down. Twelve, eleven, ten…
Shan takes Rose’s hand in hers and squeezes. Rose takes Shan’s other hand too, squeezing back. Seven, six, five…
“I don’t want a kid,” says Shan.
“Me neither,” says Rose.
Three, two, one.
“You tell me.” Shan’s eyes are screwed shut. “I can’t look.”
Rose does. All three test strips are the same: one red line each. “You’re good,” Rose sighs in relief.
“No shit, really?” Shan stands up to look for herself, still holding Rose’s hands, albeit less tightly. Seeing, she lets out a squeal of glee. “Ha-ha! Oh thank Fuck.”
The girls jump and sing like little kids, bouncing away the nervous energy. “This is so much better than doing it alone at a doctor’s office,” says Rose.
“What?”
Rose cringes. Their celebration slows. If there’s ever a time to tell… “Yeah, so, after SitC… yeah.”
Shan’s mind struggles to catch up. “Wait, you had a scare after SitC? I don’t remember that. Am I a shitty friend?”
“You wouldn’t. I didn’t tell anyone,” says Rose. “And it… wasn’t just a scare.”
Shan leads Rose back onto the bench. Theyre at Unity Manor, as Rose and her friends had dubbed it, in the downstairs bathroom. It’s spacious, all one room, with a shower-bath, toilet, bidet, and row of sinks all on the walls, leaving an empty space in the center, where Lyta had stuck a low bench. It’s where you put your clothes and towels while in the bath, and where you sit with your friends in a time of crisis.
“I was so certain I was pregnant, I completely forgot home tests exist,” Rose admits. “When I got there, the doctor was like ‘have you taken a test?’ And I was like ‘Uh, no but I’m pretty sure’. They had me take one anyway and, yep. So then we moved on to the math, but I knew when it happened ‘cause I’d only had sex with that guy that one time. So, they agreed to give me the pills and I took them, one day apart like it said to, and that’s when I had The Period from Hell.”
Recognition flashes across Shan’s face. “Holy shit.” Looking back at her, Shan hits Rose’s arm with the back of her hand. “Rose! I’m your friend, why am I only hearing about this now?!”
Rose pulls her feet onto the bench and hugs her knees. “I. Was. So ashamed,” she says.
“Really?”
“ So ashamed,” Rose stresses. “It was like I killed a man, I berated myself so hard over it. How could I let this happen? How could I be so irresponsible? I was convinced if I told you guys, you’d all make fun of me and tell me how much of a dumb bitch I really am, because I believed I deserved to suffer.”
Shan’s face bears heartbreak for her friend, her eyes glistening. “Okay,” she says. “For the record, I would never make fun of you for being in a difficult situation. I don’t see Nic or Faiza doing that either.”
“I know.” Rose nods. “I knew that then, too. And I think I didn’t tell you because if you didn’t reject me, that would have gotten in the way of my self-hate spiral,” Rose says, matter-of-factly.
“Okay,” Shan says, big blue eyes wide and sympathetic. “I’m gonna hug you now.”
They hug, with Shan squeezing Rose until her back pops. When she tries to apologize, Rose shakes her head. “No, feels great, do it again,” she chuckles. They hold each other and rock together, relieved and grieved, brought closer by shared experience.
The next time all four of them hang out, Rose tells her friends the truth. Nic twirls her pin-straight hair around her finger as she takes in the news. Faize wrings her hands under her chin. Nobody says anything until Rose is done. When they do, their reactions are nearly identical to Shan’s.
“Like I respect you’re gonna process how you need to,” Faze says. “But Rosie, you could have told us!”
“Yeah, we woulda had your back,” Nic affirms. “I only would have cyber-bullied him a little bit.”
The sob that had been building in Rose’s throat comes out as a laugh. “I didn’t want you to contact him at all. Plus, found out later, he also gave me chlamydia, so. Made a burner Instagram account to tell him, so he knows, and I’m never contacting him again.”
Shan gasps and holds out a hand toward Rose. “Did the medicine they gave you make you shit yourself? Because mine made me shit myself.”
It surprises her that it surprises her, her friends unquestioningly backing her up with overwhelming support. No judgy side-eyes, no passive aggressive remarks. The usual teasing is still present, but her decision and her situation were never the butt of the joke. Of course, when Rose starts crying, they only get worse.
“Holy shit,” Nic says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry before. Shan?”
The Irish girl shakes her head. “Not until recently, no.”
“Aww, I thought you were as unemotional as me,” says Nic.
“Tough talk for the weepy drunk,” quips Faze.
Nic play-shoves Faiza, who tosses herself onto the floor, pretending injury like a dramatic cat. Nic stands over her in mock aggression. “Drunk crying doesn’t count-- everyone knows that!”
Rose chimes in, feeling weightless. “Aww, Nicola doesn’t want anyone to know she has fee-fees.” She pouts her lip and gets tackled for good measure. She holds Nicola in an embrace in the floor as she tries to stop crying. When her friends realize what's happening, they dogpile her with love and acceptance, unrelenting until Rose calls 'uncle' and they roll off laughing.