Page 8 of Dear Rosie

The concrete under my shoes is cracked, and dandelions stick up in the grass.

The front of the house is normal. Plain. With paint peeling in places.

But I don’t care what her house looks like.

One step leads up to her front door, so I step up onto it and ring the doorbell.

This close to the house, I can hear the TV playing inside.

It’s so loud I don’t know if they’ll hear the bell.

I press the doorbell again.

A second later, the door swings open.

The movement is so sudden that I stumble back off the step.

“What do you want?” the man filling the doorway snaps.

He’s standing on the high ground, two steps between me and him, so I know he looks bigger from this angle. But from here, he looks huge.

And angry.

There’s none of Rosie in his features.

She’s girly and soft and all pretty eyes and thick hair.

This man is square jawed and narrowed eyes and a greasy comb-over.

And I know—I justknow—it would be a bad idea to ask for Rosie.

Does he hurt you?

Not like that.

I force my mouth into a big smile. “Hi. I’m fundraising for?—”

I don’t even have to finish the lie.

The door slams in my face.

Unease crawls over my skin, thinking about Rosie being stuck in a house with that man.

Backing away, I look up at the windows on the second story, but I don’t see any movement behind the curtains.

No sign of Rosie.

The woods are empty and dark enough now that I’d need a flashlight if I hadn’t walked this path a hundred times before.

But as I reach our spot, it’s easy to tell it’s empty.

Something in my chest pleads with me to go back to Rosie’s house, hoping she’ll be the one to answer the door.

But I don’t do that.

I lift the bag of marshmallows that’s still sitting on the log from before.

Rosie rolled it shut, but she didn’t take it.

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