Rose-Ann "Rosie" Mae Connolly is freshly emancipated and finally returning to her home in the OBX after 3 months away. 16-years-old and living alone, she's ready to have the summer of a lifetime with her friends-since-middle-school pogue crew. But w...
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Rosie was a procrastinator in all aspects of life: school, work, errands, you name it. She'd push things off until the very last minute; until the anxiety ate her alive and she just had to complete whatever task it may have been. One of the worst feelings in the world was that nagging, anxiety-ridden one in her gut she got from ignoring whatever it was she had to do.
Today, however, Rosie was getting rid of that knot in her stomach.
She stood in the doorway of her mother's old room, staring at the work she had to do. Despite her reluctance, she forced herself into the room and stood next to the bed. Rosie ran her fingers along the freshly-washed bedding (thanks to JJ). With a long sigh and shake of her head, she ripped off the covers and set to work.
Goosebumps erupted all over her skin as she slowly stripped down the bed. Rosie created a neat pile in the corner of the folded sheets and covers. She worked until a bare mattress stared back at her. Next came the closet. She worked meticulously, taking clothing off the hangers one by one. Rosie would fold them and place them into one of two piles: keep or give away.
Normally when Rosie cleaned or worked around the house, she liked to play a CD in her boombox. Today, however, she was content in the silence.
Rosie smiled as her fingers brushed along the silky, smooth fabric of the long, red dress her mom had worn to a Midsummer's when she was just a baby. She folded it even more carefully than the others into the keep pile. The give away pile was rapidly growing, while thekeep one remained small.
She wasn't sure how long she stood sorting through the seemingly endless rack of material. It had to have been an hour, at least. But Rosie was in no rush.
Rosie, John B, JJ, Pope, and Kie were all waiting for good weather to go out and search for the sunken ship with the drone. Until then, there wasn't much else to do, so Rosie decided to spend the day clearing out her mother's things; something she'd been putting off for months now.
She pulled out the last item in the closet: a UNC sweatshirt that had belonged to her dad. Rosie began to fold it and place it in the keep pile, but paused. She stripped off the t-shirt she was currently wearing and pulled on the oversized sweatshirt instead. It felt odd wearing it. Rosie could remember her mom wearing it nearly every Sunday and her dad wearing it on boating trips before that. While it felt weird, it also felt right; like it belonged on her body.
Enveloped in the memories of both of her parents, Rosie moved the stack of give away clothes into a large cardboard box she'd pulled out. She then loaded the stack of bedding into an identical box. Rosie's ears perked up as she heard a car pulling into her gravel driveway.
Right on time, she thought to herself.
Rosie hauled the box of clothes out of the room and to the front door of her house. She kicked it open just as Kiara hopped out of her car.
