Map: Part XI
“Rosie! Are you alright?” Aaron rushed forward, thought about embracing her, then decided against it. His hands hovered awkwardly, outstretched in hesitation, before he placed them lightly on her arms.
She immediately shrugged him off.
“Ow. Hey, don’t bleed on me.” Her head tipped as her gaze followed his hands to his sides, and her hair swept forward to block her face.
“Sorry,” Aaron replied stiffly. When would she learn to talk to him? She had completely ignored his question.
Drawing himself up, Aaron took a breath and said, “So... we, um, can’t find the treasure. It’s over.”
Rosie looked up at him then, eyes searching his. “What do you mean?” She stepped forward into the large room to take it in. Aaron, however, didn’t step back, and she stood strangely close but looked right past him.
Isn’t that how it always was?
A knot formed in his gut and Aaron swept her hair away from her face with his uncut hand. It was soft and smooth and nothing like her.
Her eyes jolted to lock with his, and she tilted away from him, but didn’t step back.
“I had to choose between you and the treasure,” he said softly. “There was no decision at all.” He chuckled a little, trying to read her dark, wide eyes.
“Stop it.” Barely above a whisper, Aaron felt the words like thin blades. Slice, slice.
He looked down at her, dropping his hand from her face. A fire burned within him, but a drill of ice was being twisted through his heart. “I just--I--” He could barely say words.
“Whatever you’re going to say, don’t,” Rosie warned, and finally stepped back. Or would have.
He caught her arm and held her in place. “I know you don’t want to hear this,” he began earnestly, “but I’m sorry.”
“You opened the door, it was nothing.” She was furrowing her eyebrows at him.
“Not that, everything else.” Aaron cocked his head. “Well, that too. I mean all these years we’ve been, like, not talking, not friends, I regret it. I don’t even know how hard it is with your dad, and I wish I did. I can’t change it, but I just… I wish I’d been there. But instead of helping, I hid.”
Aaron took a deep breath, waiting for her to be angry. To glare at him, to storm off and never speak to him again.
Instead, Rosie ducked her head in defeat, curling into her hoodie until she was just a mass of black fabric and dark hair. “No, you weren’t hiding. I was.” She pushed hair out of her face, and she looked confused. Not angry, not sad. “You made new friends, and I refused to. It would’ve been wrong of you to stay friends with me.”
“No,” Aaron touched her hand, and she squared her shoulders and studied him. “I should’ve held onto you. I like you, Rosie.”
This only made her frown. “So, you… want to be friends again.”
He stepped back. Laughed. It sounded kind of awkward and tinny, but he suddenly felt ridiculous. “Yeah, if we make it out of here.” He saw the smallest of smiles play on her lips. “Unless you want to be more than that.” He grinned coyly in a moment of bravery.
Somewhere deep in his brain horrified alarm bells rang.
She stalked past him, flashing him a smile he hadn’t seen in years, and replied, “In your dreams, Aaron. Let’s wait until after we get out with the treasure.”
“I told you, we can’t actually get it now,” he said through a big, stupid smile. Which was strange because he was genuinely sad about it. But something inside him was squiggly and happy.
Rosie had walked over to the right door, had been inspecting it. “What if I told you I found this?” She turned to him and pulled a wooden carving out of her hoodie pocket. It was shaped like a diamond.
Read part I: https://theprose.com/post/243841/map