Page 4 of Saving Graces

So it felt all-round pretty nice to be self-sufficient. No one walked around the place looking disappointed in her all the time and she didn’t have to walk on eggshells. She could put on a record at seven o’clock in the morning and dance alone in her kitchen while she made her first coffee of the day. She could lie in the bath for an hour to decompress, eat toast for dinner or cook an elaborate feast. She could stretch out wide and sleep in her big comfortable bed like a starfish, or have long one-sided conversations with Lemonade about the state of the world.

“I know,” she said to him now, as she slipped out of her shoes and tossed her keys on the bench, “I’m a bad, selfish person. I should be going to Cassidy’s gig tonight; I promised Savannah. But I literally can’t think of anything worse right now than being packed in with sweaty strangers at a loud bar full of drunks. And I’m pretty sure Savannah already knew I’d bail on her before she even invited me.”

Savannah was the one person she felt comfortable letting down. They owed each other so much that they both knew the debt could never be repaid; the small things didn’t even register between them.

“Cassidy will hardly notice,” she consoled herself against the slight tinge of guilt as she refilled the cat’s kibble bowl. She straightened up to peer into her fridge, pulling out a bottle of wine and thought of the last time she’d seen Savannah’s younger sister, about a month ago. The whole family had come over to Rosalie’s for dinner. Since Savannah and Brynn’s daughter Emmeline had been born, just over three months ago, they’d struggled to return to any kind of normal, though Savannah had thankfully lost the haunted look in her eyes as she’d come out the other side of a hard bout of postnatal depression.

For someone of Savannah’s level of fame to head out to a restaurant also meant more fuss and exposure than anyone wanted to deal with, so Rosalie had suggested a low-key meal at her place. When it was on her own terms, Rosalie loved to entertain and she’d spent a joyous afternoon cooking up a storm before their arrival. She could have served up Lemonade’s kibble for all Cassidy noticed though.

She and Lane could barely drag their burning eyes off each other, always low-key touching like being even a foot apart would be agony. Long after they’d left, the ghost of new lust seemed to flutter about Rosalie’s living room, making her smile as she remembered feeling that same restless energy in her own veins.

Even though she knew it was wrong to have favorites, Lane was still, hands down, her favorite of all the kids who’d come through the center. She’d watched them grow from a traumatized fourteen-year-old, through to a thriving, if socially anxious older teen, always with a blunt irreverent sense of humor and frequently lacking a filter. At twenty-two she’d paired them with Savannah - her friend in need of a nanny and her ex-client in need of guidance - and over the next few years had seen them blossom under her care, from a cute lavender-haired punk kid, through to accessing hormones and top surgery and blooming into the classically handsome heartbreaker they’d become.

More than just Cassidy had swooned in their wake, but in all the years of counseling Lane she’d never seen them anything more than slightly diverted by a pretty face. Secretly, Rosalie had related. Despite one or two notable exceptions, she too had worked hard at keeping her sexual and romantic entanglements light. It had unnerved her to see Lane so twisted up in knots over another human being, but she found herself utterly delighted to see it happen. Rosalie loved her own life; she found though, that she didn’t want it for Lane.

That night as she lay in the bath, gazing at her own toes, even Lemonade done with her company, she found herself thinking of her younger self. It was the only thing that ever gave her any kind of pause about her quiet, peaceful life. Teenage Rosalie would be pissed at her.

Before

Savannah emerged from the shower wearing one of Rosalie’s own t-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts. They were about the same height - Rosalie perhaps a little taller - but she liked all her clothes baggy. Her shirt drowned Savannah, the soft fabric like a sheet thrown over her thin white limbs. She was clean though, her fingers combing the knots out of her long wet hair as she entered the bedroom.

“Thanks,” Savannah said, looking warily around the room. She took an awkward seat on Rosalie’s desk chair.

She looked down at the messy pile of school books and notebooks and without asking, began to flick through Rosalie’s history text. At first Rosalie thought Savannah was just doing it to avoid talking to her, but as Rosalie watched her eyelashes she realized she was actually reading it.

“Where do you go to school?” Rosalie asked.

Savannah’s eyes seemed to flicker. She glanced sideways at Rosalie, perched on the side of her bed, waiting. For a second it seemed like Savannah was going to ignore the question altogether.

“I don’t,” she said eventually. Her face said quite clearly that the subject was closed and she turned back to the textbook.

“Since when?” Rosalie wasn’t great at shutting down her curiosity. The strange girl in her bedroom gave her a dirty look.

“Since about a year ago,” she said shortly. Her accent was drawling, definite backcountry.

Rosalie inched forward on the bed. “How old are you?”

Savannah barely held back a sigh and stifled a yawn. “I’m seventeen. What are you, like fourteen?”

“I’m sixteen,” Rosalie protested. “We’re basically the same age.”

Savannah looked at her flatly.

“No,” she said.“We’re not.”

Rachel returned, having crept along the passage to her own room after showering the scent of party from her skin and hair. She was dressed in neat, white, cotton summer pajamas despite the coolness of the season. She smirked when she saw Savannah.

“Suits you,” she mocked and Savannah rolled her eyes. Rosalie was miffed. There was nothing wrong with the pajamas she’d offered.

“Can we talk?” she asked her sister. Savannah looked down at the textbook. Rachel huffed.

“Excuse us,” she said, shooting Savannah an apologetic look, as if between grownups. Rosalie’s hands balled into fists, her face burning. They ducked outside the bedroom door and she closed it behind her, glaring at her sister.

“Where did you find her?” she asked, her voice low.

“At the party tonight,” Rachel whispered. “It was at this crazy abandoned warehouse that Daria had found. She came too,” she gestured with her head back toward the bedroom, “and we got to talking. She’s living on the fucking street, Ros. She’s got no one.”

Rosalie thought about that for a second. “What are you thinking? That mom and dad will let her just live here?”

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