Never Knew I Needed (Chaelisa)

Chapter 28

#ElevenYearsWithROSÉ
#11YearsWithChaelisa
HAPPY CHAELISA DAY 💙💜
🐿️🐣

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My entire body floods with disbelief, my blood runs cold and I try to regulate my breathing, I try to get my lungs to work again, my brain functioning normally, but it just doesn't happen.

She's here. She's really here, right in front of my very eyes and she's staring at me like she doesn't know whether I'm going to snap or whether I'm going to run and hide.

To be honest, I don't know either.

Silence drags between us, but my eyes speak volumes as they meet hers and I want to say something, I'm trying to say something but it feels like all words and coherency has just shot straight out the window. It feels like someone's just stolen my breath, my ability to freaking speak, and it seems the only thing I can do is drink her in, take in the sight of the thing that's been missing from my life for an entire year.

So I do that.

I take in the soft lines of her face, the slight dullness that's eased into her eyes and the darkness of her hair. It's not the bright blonde it used to be, and I know it's only been twelve months but somehow she looks older. She looks more worn, more lived in, but she's still excruciatingly beautiful and when she moves for the first time in a few minutes, only shifting to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, I gasp because it's another reminder that she's real. That she's actually here.

Rosé's back.

She's back.

"Hi," is the first word traded between us two, and it's said through a breath from Rosé, but her tone is shaky, is quivering and weak, and I know she's terrified.

I can tell by the way two unsure hands are trembling, by the way they're clutching to the hem of Rosé's hoodie like she's holding back from reaching out and grabbing me; and I'm terrified, too, for different reasons obviously, but I'm still terrified and I don't really know why I do it, but I take the smallest step forward, my head tilting to the side as my eyes continue to roam over her face. Mu hand yearns to reach out to touch her, to see if she's real, to make sure this isn't just some horrible nightmare I'll wake up to in the morning to, on my couch with tear-stained pillows and bloodshot eyes, but I don't know if I can.

It just feels too good to be true, to have her here after so long.

It just feels too good to be true, to know that I survived twelve months without her and that now it feels like I'm complete because she's back.

It just feels too God damn good to be true to know that the first thing she did after getting off that plane... was come to me.

Because no matter how fucking incredible it feels to have her here, I find myself unable to avoid the fact that she left. That she still left me for an entire year, with no contact or anything.

"Lisa," Rosé whispers, and I don't know whether it's hearing my name spoken through her lips for the first time in twelve months, or the way she looks at ms with an intensity that I saw over a year ago, but it causes an instinctive reaction inside of me. I don't know why it didn't happen the second I laid eyes on her, or why I've been standing here for exactly three minutes and thirty-eight seconds with my mouth wide open but I gasp in disbelief, overcome with this sudden feeling of being reunited with her over so long, too long.

Then before I'm making the conscious decision to, I'm zoning in on Rosé, so focused that an apocalypse could occur and I wouldn't notice, and I'm dropping the milk carton I'd forgotten I was grasping to the floor with a small clunk and reaching for her, one hand curling around her hip as the other cups the back of her neck. Next, my body's pushing forward, pressing flush against Rosé's and the breath is hitching in the blonde's throat at the same time I tip her head down and bring our mouths together.