Chapter 2 Shadows We Don't Remember

The first thing I noticed was the quiet. Not the kind that comforts or soothes you back to sleep. This quiet was loud, sharp, and ringing and alive in my ears like it had claws.

The ceiling above me was old and stained. The fan wobbled slightly as it spun, and my body ached from lying in the same position for too long. The motel blanket scratched against my skin, and my wedding dress, what was left of it, lay discarded at the foot of the bed, looking as broken as I felt.

I pulled myself up slowly. Everything inside me felt bruised. My hands, my heart, even my thoughts.

I left her.

Rosa.

God.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. My voice cracked like it didn't belong to me. "I'm so sorry, Rosa."

The last time I saw her was at the altar. Her wide, innocent eyes locked on mine. She looked so happy for me, so proud. And I ran. I didn't even say goodbye.

Cassian promised to get her home. He always came through for me, especially when it came to Rosa. Still, the guilt churned in my stomach like poison.

I stood and walked to the tiny bathroom. My reflection startled me. I looked haunted. My red hair was tangled, my makeup smudged, and my eyes looked like they belonged to someone who had seen a ghost.

Maybe I had.

I pulled the pins from my hair one by one, letting them clink into the porcelain sink. My scalp throbbed, a dull reminder of everything I had tried to be for a man I never loved. I wasn't supposed to run. But I did. I had to. Because marrying Lionel would've meant erasing myself.

But it still didn't make me feel better.

I remembered the day the system took us in. I was nine. Rosa had just turned six. We didn't know where we were or how we got there. The blood on our clothes wasn't ours, but it told a story no one could explain. They said we were found wandering, quiet and cold. No IDs, no family, no names we remembered. Just the two of us. Lost.

I still have flashes sometimes, a scream, the smell of something burning, the feeling of someone's hand gripping mine so tight it hurt. I don't know whose hand that belonged to. Maybe Rosa. Maybe someone else.

They said it was trauma. That we buried it.

I wish I could say it felt like a dream. But it never felt like anything at all. That's what scared me the most.

We bounced around foster homes. Some were decent. Most weren't. I learned early how to be quiet, how to protect Rosa without asking for anything in return. I remember stealing extra bread rolls at night. Hiding under Rosa's bed when the foster dad had too much to drink. Teaching her how to keep a secret with just our eyes.

And then, one day, Rosa got sick.

At first, it was just fevers and dizziness. Then she started losing weight. The coughing wouldn't stop. I remember sitting beside her hospital bed, holding her hand so tightly my knuckles turned white. The doctors threw words at us like chronic and progressive, and long-term care.

We didn't have anyone.

I dropped out of college and worked anywhere I could. Fast food, cleaning offices, and stacking shelves. I didn't care. I just needed the money. Rosa deserved more than the system ever gave her. She was always smiling through it, though. Always telling me to breathe, even when it was she who couldn't.

That motel room smelled like bleach and sadness. I opened the window slightly and let the cold air sting my face. The streets below were empty. I didn't even know what city I was in. Cassian had made sure of that.

He didn't want anyone tracking me. Not Lionel. Not his people.

I looked down at my arm, where a bruise was starting to bloom. One of Lionel's bodyguards had grabbed me too hard at the rehearsal dinner when I stepped away to get air. I never told Rosa. She already had enough to carry.

The duffel bag Cassian packed for me sat by the tiny table. I unzipped it and pulled out a photograph, the one of me and Rosa at the county fair, laughing like we didn't know the world could be cruel. She had cotton candy on her nose. I had freckles all over my cheeks from the sun.

We looked like girls with a family, with roots, with something solid beneath our feet.

I pressed the photo to my chest.

"I'll come back for you, Rosie," I whispered. "I just need time."

I should've known Cassian wouldn't let me fall without a net.

"Just in case," he'd whispered the night before the wedding, slipping a folded piece of paper into my hand when no one was looking. I hadn't even opened it until I was halfway down the street in that suffocating dress, my heart pounding like war drums. It had an address. A key taped to the back. Nothing else. But it told me everything.

He knew me.

He knew I'd run.

I don't know how long I stood there, just breathing and remembering. Eventually, I moved to the chair by the window, curling up like I used to in the group homes when the nights got too loud inside my head. I closed my eyes, and I saw her face.

The first time she collapsed at school. The way her tiny fingers clung to mine in the ambulance. The taste of bile when they told me I couldn't be her legal guardian because I was too young. Too unstable.

So I worked harder. I smiled bigger. I agreed to a date with Lionel Crest.

He was handsome, charming, and well-connected. He didn't know our past. And more importantly, he didn't ask. He wanted someone polished. I could pretend to be polished. I could wear white and lie like the best of them.

He offered me stability. Money. A future Rosa could count on. So I said yes.

Even though something in me screamed no.

Even though the night before the wedding, I stared at the ceiling for hours, unable to sleep.

Even though Cassian begged me to think it through.

Even though I hated him.

He never touched me with love. Only with ownership. He was used to getting what he wanted, and I was just another thing he wanted.

I said yes anyway.

Because I thought it was what Rosa needed.

Now I was here, in a borrowed motel, dressed in nothing but guilt and sweat, wondering what came next.

I didn't cry. Not yet.

I couldn't afford to cry until I was safe.

Until I had a plan.

The rain started sometime in the afternoon. I opened the window a little more and let it fall on my arm. It felt real. Cold and grounding.

I whispered again, not even sure who I was talking to.

"I'll come back for you. I promise."

And this time, I meant it.