Page 57 of The Contractor's Rose
She finally exhaled, sharp and uneven, but she didn’t look at me.
“What happened back at the station …” I shook my head. “That wasn’t just about us. That was ten years of something else—something bigger. I saw it.”
She turned her face, just barely, her expression unreadable. “You don’t know anything.”
The way she said it—quiet, almost disappointed—landed harder than any yell would have.
“Then tell me,” I snapped, pain bleeding into the edge of my voice. “Tell me what I missed. Tell me what I’m still missing. Because I swear to God, Teagan, I am trying. Since the day your mom died, I’ve been doing everything I can not to drown. And maybe I dragged you under with me. I don’tknow. But I can’t keep guessing what I did wrong. I need you to tell me.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and for a second, I thought she was going to look away again. But then, just like that, she broke. The tears fell—like the flood had been waiting just beneath the surface. “I miss Mom,” she choked, voice cracking straight down the middle.
It gutted me. Ripped through whatever walls I’d built to survive the last decade. My chest seized and I turned away, swallowing the lump rising in my throat. “Yeah,” I confided. “Me too.”
“She would’ve known what to do with me,” she said, swiping at her face like she was angry with her own tears. “She would’ve pulled me out of this. She wouldn’t have let me spiral like this. Or feel this fucking alone all the time.”
“You’re not alone,” I said instantly, the guilt hitting me harder than ever.
“Yes, I am,” she snapped, finally turning toward me. “You threw yourself into work. Into that house. Into pretending we should be okay.”
“Teagan. I tried to bring you out of it but never expected us to be okay. The house was for you. For us to try to escape all the reminders. For us to build and decorate together.” I didn’t know what to say. Because maybe she wasn’t wrong. I could see how it may have all come across as me trying to run away and cover up the loss of Vanessa.
“I’m twenty-seven,” she continued, her voice bitter as she looked back out the windshield. “I’ve got no job that sticks, no relationships that work out. And after last night, I almost got a mugshot. Now I have the reputation as the angry girl who can’t let go of high school drama. I have nothing to show for my life except grief I can’t outrun and a father whodoesn’t know how to talk to me unless we’re standing in front of blueprints or paint swatches.” She looked up at me with watery eyes and a red nose, reminding me of the little girl who would run to me with scraped knees and papercuts. “I am a disaster.”
Her words were a punch straight to my gut, and I took it. Every word. “You’re not a disaster,” I declared. “You’re hurting. That’s different. And that’s allowed. But you can’t keep hurting people who love and care about you. We want you to be happy just as much as you want it for yourself … maybe even more sometimes.”
I glanced sideways at her, and for the first time, she didn’t look away. Her face was blotchy, cheeks damp, eyes swollen—but there was life there. Angry. Raw. Real. It was the most she’d said to me in years.
We fell into silence again. But this time, it felt different. Heavier, yes—but also earned. Like maybe it was okay not to fill every space with words when we’d finally started saying the ones that matter.
By the time we pulled into the driveway, the tension hadn’t left—but it was less thick. I killed the engine, but neither of us moved. The only sound was the faint tick of the engine cooling and the wind shifting through the trees outside. The porch light flickered to life, sensing our presence. We just sat there.
Teagan stared down at her lap, then inhaled slowly. Her voice was quieter now, but sharp as ever. “Are you fucking Rose?”
“Jesus Christ, Teagan.” I blinked, stunned, then let out a breath that was more of a grunt. “You make it sound so goddamn juvenile,” I muttered, rubbing the side of my face, elbow resting on the window frame. I scratched my chin,exhaled hard. “But yes.” I turned my head toward her. “I’m seeing Rose.”
She didn’t nod. Didn’t respond. Just stared ahead into the dark, mouth pressed into a firm line. I didn’t try to fill the silence with explanations or reasonings. Because somehow, no matter how quiet, uncomfortable, and painfully honest this moment felt … this was the most progress we’d made in a decade.
THIRTY
ROSEMARIE
A week had passed.After Gavin dropped Elodie and I off at my apartment, she’d barely said goodbye. Just grabbed her bag, mumbled something about needing to be alone, and left.
I tried to ask her—more than once—what the hell happened at the station. Why Teagan had lashed out the way she did, and why Elodie looked like she’d aged five years by the time we got home. But every time I brought it up, she shut down. Said it was nothing. That she needed to deal with “some things.” I knew she was keeping something from me. I also knew that pushing her wouldn’t help. Elodie was the kind of person who told you the truth when she was ready, and not a minute sooner. So I’d been giving her space.
In the meantime, I’ve been holed up between my apartment and my bookstore downstairs, doing my best to keep moving forward with getting the shop ready to reopen … eventually. As Gavin’s team had promised, we were only about two weeks away from having the shop feel likeitselfagain. Or as close toitselfas it could, after gallons of water had decided to rain down on my life.
The last few days, Gavin’s crew had been busting their asses. Drywall touch-ups. Trim replacement. A fresh coat of paint. They were installing new floorboards, recaulking the front windows that had never been fully sealed in the first place, rewiring the checkout desk corner, and replacing the ruined ceiling tiles. One of the guys had even brought me coffee yesterday because, in his words, I looked like I was “five seconds from sobbing and they didn’t want any more water damage to fix.”
He hadn’t been wrong.
While they’d been rebuilding my store, I’d been sorting through invoices and box after box of replacement inventory. I’d gotten into an argument on the phone with a supplier two towns over after they’d shipped me the wrong color bookshelves for the second time. Again.
Apparently “warm oak” and “espresso black” werebasically the same thingin their world.
They weren’t.
And on top of all that, I’d been avoiding running into my parents.
