Predator (DWT x OC)

34

The world sometimes falls silent. Sometimes it's too loud. Nikki just wraps her arms around me while I focus on the scrapes of the walls, until everything goes back to normal. It was her idea for both of us to move into the old safe house that Tommy and Tubbo built, close enough to everyone to not be isolated, but far enough in the woods to be alone.

Nikki has become one of my dearest friends. We talk for hours, when I need a distraction, and then sometimes not at all, when everything is too much, and too loud and I need space. I teach her how to garden, and we spend our days fixing the house, tending to the crops and flowers, and baking and cooking in the kitchen. My cake is the best, but her bread beats mine every time. 

George helps me start my own garden, giving me seeds and tools and showing me what to do. He comes over every now and then, and we sit in the sun, or under the overcast skies in the comfortable silence we're both still used too. We miss each other a lot, but that doesn't mean we always have something to say.

Sapnap and Eret come over all the time, constantly giving us food and clothes. I know they worry about me, and that having extra game from hunting is just an excuse, but I don't mention it. I'm grateful for their company, their bright smiles and warm hugs. Nikki likes them too, and she always sends them back with armfuls of cakes and freshly baked bread. 

Tommy and Tubbo practically live here half the time, rooms already bagged, their clothes strewn in the cupboards, posters on the walls. They slink out the back door when Sapnap, Eret and George are here, but the frostiness is slowly melting, and we've even managed to have a lunch together that didn't involve threats of graphic violence. 

I visit l'manburg sometimes, when everyone is out, and curl up in the old cots, remembering a time when everything was so much simpler. Wilbur sometimes sees me, but he just lets me wander aimlessly through the trees, and sit silently in the van. He hugs me on the way out, and it keeps me from shattering apart at the awful memories. 

Dream visits too, shy quiet knocks on our door as he awkwardly shuffles in. It's painful, and gut wrenching and almost always far too much for my heart to handle. He makes sure we have weapons, and armour, and frets in his worrying overprotective ways. I don't even roll my eyes anymore, because I know it's the only thing he has to hold onto.

"I don't hate you for not choosing me princess." He had said quietly, back turned to me, on his way out.

"I've realised that the one thing I could've done to make up for the shit I did to you was set you free. But I was too weak for that. So I'm happy Rosie, I'm really happy you were able to do that for yourself." He had smiled, as he looked over his shoulder. I smiled back.

I find myself sitting in my bedroom, curled into my couch that looks out over the beautifully wild wilderness. I envy the freedom of the forest, but the safety of home, and of my friends, means so much too. 

I stare at myself in the mirror, a porcelain doll, shattered into a million pieces, painstakingly put back together with squeezing embraces from my friends, glued with the golden paint of trees, and rivers and hope.

I trace the invisible lines that splinter through my cheek bone, through my throat, through the bridge of my nose, through my tense muscles of my stomach. I am whole again, but not the same. Never the same. The Rosie everyone knew is fading away. Rosemary is all that will be left.

She is strong, and beautiful, and so breathtakingly broken all in the same. She will struggle, in the nights when nothing can stop the ache in her chest, and in the moments of horrific silence, when nothing can drown out the noisiness of her memories. But she will smile again, and laugh again, and love again. And I will love her, as she will love me, because it is not our fault that these things happened to us, it is not our fault we were destroyed and rebuilt into the wrong people, and it will never be our fault that we are so badly hurt.

She will have her family, and her home, and she will survive. She will live. And I will fade away, happily, as she starts replacing the horrors of the past with the promises of the future. I will love her for that. She will love me for the nights I held on, and refused to let go. She will love me for the decisions I didn't make. She will love me for the pain I suffered and the life I refused to stop living. When I finally go, it will not be with the sting of sadness, and of grief, it will be with the finality of goodbye, the sweet rush of relief and the beautiful golden glow of hope. When I go, she will become who she should be.

And we will get better. 

- Fin Book One -