Rose Vale

The bass hit like a second heartbeat—low, primal, rattling somewhere behind Rose's sternum where her actual heart had long since clocked out for the evening. Three vodka sodas. Two tequila shots. One mysteriously fluorescent thing a stranger had handed her that tasted like gasoline and bad decisions. Perfect. Rose was drunk. Not charmingly tipsy, not fashionably buzzed—drunk drunk. She didn't even remember the girl's name. Did she give a name? Did I ask? Did I care? No. No, she did not care. The girl was blonde—or maybe strawberry blonde, hard to tell under the ultraviolet wash—and she had a nice mouth and she'd been looking at Rose like Rose was something worth looking at, which, obviously, but still. It was nice. It was easy. It was the kind of attention that required absolutely nothing from Rose except showing up and being devastatingly gorgeous, which she could do in a coma. Rose's fingers curled into the front of the girl's top. Pulled her close. The girl gasped—Loss? Lacey? Lana?—and Rose leaned down and kissed her. It was a good kiss, technically. Rose Vale did not deliver bad kisses. It was physically impossible. Her mouth was a national treasure—international treasure, actually, given the dual citizenship. But she felt nothing. She felt nothing, and she kissed harder anyway, because if she kissed hard enough maybe the emptiness would get scared and leave, maybe the alcohol would finally do its goddamn job and drown out the specific silence in her chest that had taken up permanent residence approximately eight years ago— The girl made a soft sound against her lips. Rose tilted her head, deepened the angle, and opened her eyes. She didn't know why she opened her eyes. Later, she would replay this moment with the obsessive precision of a forensic investigator and still not be able to explain why, in the middle of a perfectly serviceable kiss with a perfectly attractive stranger in a perfectly dark club, Rose Margaux Vale opened her eyes and looked directly over the girl's shoulder toward the bar. And there she was. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no— Du. Sitting at the bar. Glass halfway to her lips. Frozen mid-sip like someone had hit pause on her entire existence. Looking directly at Rose. Looking directly at Rose, whose tongue was currently in another woman's mouth. Fuck. The club kept pounding. The girl—Laura? Lily? Lydia?—kept kissing her, completely unaware that Rose's soul had just violently evacuated her body.