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“Can we come closer? You need to let us know what you’re comfortable with. We won’t do anything you don’t want us to. So you need to use your words,” I say evenly. I don’t want to push her, but I desperately need to hear her confirmation.

“O-okay.” She nods, then shivers start to wrack her body.

“Are you⁠—”

Nate darts in around Moshi before I can finish. He grabs Rosy around the waist and tugs her into his lap.

I stiffen at the speed, ready to pull him away if she panics, because in doing that, he satisfied his need without thinking about hers. We all want to hold her, to reassure ourselves that she’s here, safe. However, we can’t do what we want without considering how it’ll make her feel.

But as she relaxes into him instantly, some of the tension eases from me too.

Then she lets out a choked sob.

With one fist twisted into Nate’s T-shirt and the other hanging limply for Moshi to keep butting up against, she turns her face into his chest. We all glance between each other, and it’s obvious we’re unsure how to approach this. We slowly crawl closer.

My hand settles on her back, rubbing circles. Bry covers her knee with his palm, keeping it still to help ground her back to us, while Max…watches her, looking broken and lost.

We stay there with her long enough that my legs turn stiff and numb, but finally she falls back to sleep with Nate still holding her. I’m not sure if she’ll be able to sleep through the night, or for how long. Either way, we’re not leaving her alone.

We communicate silently, working together to get Rosy moved back into Nate’s bed. She looks tiny and frail, curled up in the middle.

I gesture for Bry to join her, and Nate crawls in on her other side. Max crawls back into his makeshift bed on the floor, and I get into the one Bry had been sleeping in.

The light stays on, and we all lie in silence, listening to Rosy’s occasional sniffing.

It makes for a heartbreaking sound to drift off to.

NINETEEN

ROSY

Waking up this morning was difficult. My mind and body felt heavy and lethargic. The nightmares last night were vivid, and it was hard to decipher what was real.

The times I remembered waking up, I was never alone. I’m sure I spent more time awake than I did asleep, and it feels so long since I last managed to rest fully. When I was there, I’d not been able to safely sleep, always drifting and panicking, anticipating his return.

When Nate had squeezed the arm around my waist, my body froze, which meant he did too. The rush of guilt over my reaction was substantial; I hate that I can’t just enjoy the embrace.

My head knows it’s only him, but my body can’t seem to catch up to the reality that I’m no longer there, that I’m safe.

I apologised, and he had too. But neither of us should’ve had to.

It’s been tempting to stay in bed, and a part of me itches to crawl back under there. Another is craving normality, the familiarity of being back in their home. Perhaps then I can try to think of everything that happened to me as just a dream and trick my mind into going back to the way things were before.

I watch Bry move around the kitchen, making me waffles and berries, and I can almost believe it. I try to ignore all the sore parts of my body and the way Bry’s eyes keep flicking to me, the heavy weight of silence between us.

Argh.

Everything aches, and my mind feels suffocated under the pressure of a tension headache.

“Morning, Rosy,” Noah greets as he walks into the kitchen. I watch him open a cupboard and pull out a mug, then the teabags. “Did you want one?”

“Bry already made me one, but thank you.”

He nods and offers me a smile.

It feels tainted.

Or perhaps that’s my assumptions, thinking everyone’s watching me, not wanting to put up with me, readying for the fragile person to break.