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Connor’s company is… good. Uneasily welcomed. He budges himself into conversations with full, toothy grins bright enough to eclipse Riya’s presence behind him. When he isn't near, she's worlds away with her head in her phone swept up in her agent’s frantic texts.
She has no words for anyone. Nothing beyond a half-hearted congratulations that James had accepted with aloof gratitude. She meant it, really, but he didn't have to believe so.
Occasionally, more often now that the night was growing old and her phone was near drained of its battery, she sits in her own company and zones out. Reflecting for a while. She had regrets and was heavy with them, her nerves frayed from days, weeks of fruitless effort.
But it shouldn’t matter, when in the end- she thinks of the call, and mute excitement flickered in her chest- there were rewards to reap anyway. She couldn’t look anyone in the eye right now, but all was well, it had to be.
It was weird, being the only anomaly in an atmosphere so light. Hunter was weaving some story to a circle of everyone who was there to listen, save for Tess and Ally occupied by a game.
Maggy interjected with something, which seemed hysterically funny to Aiden, Lake at his side giggling along to whatever had just tickled him. Which meant, naturally…
Riya has regrets. Some heavier than others. She couldn’t miss Rosa María’s star-shining smile if she tried– which she had tried, all night– and she risked a lingering look.
She wasn’t discreet enough. They lock eyes for what couldn’t have been longer than two seconds, her heart doing a sickly flip, before James draws Rosa’s attention towards something on his phone. Her grin returned as quick as it faltered.
It was near midnight; At this point, the celebration was waning into staying awake long enough to catch the bus. In the quiet, Riya slipped away from the camp and in the recluse of a wooded area, not too far away. She wanted solitude, or maybe just relief from the constant reminders around her of her failure, if only for a moment.
Before she’s alone with her thoughts long enough for them to turn bitter, she startles at the snap of a twig, the silhouette appearing shortly after familiar but no less unsettling. “You came for me?”
Rosa plucked a leaf out of her hair. “Are you surprised?”
The sight of an old fallen log was much easier on the eyes, all of a sudden. “Suppose I’m not. Ah. Why are you here?”
“Why are you here.”
“Just wanted my space… you seemed to want it, too.”
“From you, yes I did.” Rosa said, and Riya stifled a wince. “But I don’t like seeing you wallow,”
“What?”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you looking sorry all night.”
Riya wrung her hands. “I wasn’t wallowing.”
“No?” Rosa challenged. “You can't even look at me.”
Riya bristled. “Why are you really here?”
Rosa barked out a frustrated laugh. “I don’t even know. Closure? Your– your honesty? I knew you wouldn’t bite the bullet, so I had to.”
“I’m not dense, Rosa– why would I do that to you, smile in your face after all of that like everything was okay?”
Rosa’s silent for a moment, and in the dark Riya swears she sees her mouth quiver. “Yeah. Why would you?”
They both know what she means by that. Riya pries her eyes away from the ground. “...You didn’t have to save me.”
“I was setting an example.” She said matter-of-factly, then worried her face in an angry, hurt frown. “And I cared, even if you didn’t.”
“What?” Riya croaked. “I didn't do what I did just because, if I knew it would hurt you so much I wouldn't have–”
“That’s a relief, then.” She retorted. “Was that before or after you decided I was disposable to you?”
“Rosa—”
“No. I’m not going to do this if you’re just going to dance around everything.”
Rosa rounded on her, and only now does Riya notice that she’d been taking paces of her own, as if getting closer would make them hear each other. It gives her less room to hide, cornered and pinned under the probing, exasperated look on Rosa’s face.
“A sorry didn't seem like enough, so, I— I didn't…” She trails off forlornly, and crosses her arms tight to her chest. There's no excuse good enough; she merely couldn't face her.
“We were friends.” She says after several beats.
Rosa’s voice thickened. “Were we?”
“We were.” Riya insisted, her words ground out through her teeth. “Always. I never stopped caring— I just,” She trailed off again. Her mind kept hitting dead ends, and no thoughts were eloquent enough.
“No excuses.” She reminded herself, squeezing her eyes shut. “I hurt you, I hurt you, and I hate it.”
Silently, she's grateful for the darkness. Shadows towered dark and deep over the clearing, and the unshed tears simmering in her eyes were kept unseen as she fought a losing battle against them. The ego crush wasn't any easier a second time: at her core she was this terrified, desperate thing clinging to the first hand within her reach— and now, Rosa knew it.
Just as she’d begun thinking Rosa would simply give up and leave her in the heart of the forest, she feels hands clasp onto both of hers. “You’re shaking.” she comments, and whatever response Riya has dies at her tongue. “Riya, look at me.”
Their hands slotted in between each other, as easily as all the times they had before, palms calloused from the labor of Tipiskaw. It feels familiar, homely, almost. How they did before she… she broke everything.
Her fingers wound firmly around her wrists, and Riya so deeply craved the proximity as much as she knew it shouldn't ever belong to her, but it was just so warm she couldn't pry away– what was wrong with her?
“I still don't know how much of that you really mean.” Rosa murmured. The whole forest had held its breath. “Like, it looked so easy for you to lie.”
Riya feels her heartbeat in her throat. “Like I said, think what you will of me. I know I can't fix anything.”
Rosa doesn't respond, not with words. Instead her hands squeeze tighter. Neither of them find their voices for a while, gazing idly at their own hands, oblivious to one another’s thoughts.
“Do you want me to let go?” She muttered, peering up at Riya through her eyelashes.
Riya’s lip wobbled: all she could do was shake her head. They inch to where their torsos meet in an odd half-hug (in some cruel twist of irony, when mere hours ago Rosa couldn't bear the sight of her).
“Rosa.” She starts, their noses hovering just shy of each other. The latter peers up at her through the drape of her bangs with eyes full and sincere. She doesn't know what she means to say, but it hardly matters because she was leaning closer and closer still— until they bridged what remained of the space between them, and Riya had jettisoned all better judgement; suddenly her mind was flushed of all thought and wrapped in the velvet of a close-mouthed kiss.
It's innocent, chaste little pecks they part from for barely a heartbeat and dive back into before second-guessing— or they snap out of whatever spell that made them forget they'd been arguing— until she's pulled from her height by the sides of her face, prompting a low, longing noise out of her; any sluggish embarrassment she could've felt about it was cast beneath the feeling of teeth grazing her lip.
Throwaway acting gigs and tepid crushes from when she was younger came with some experience, but an adept kisser she is not (The height difference didn’t help; A very ill-timed image of Rosa on the tip of her toes struggling to secure a kiss appears in Riya’s mind and surprises a laugh out of her). This time was unlike any other, and it made her tentative, but it was sweet and feverish and she couldn’t withdraw from the feeling.
Rosa’s momentum rattled Riya to keep up, and she finds she hasn't completely shed her competitive spirit overnight. Her hands brace either sides of Rosa’s shoulders, in a silent plea to stay, please, stay, that within her right mind would remain unsaid. In lieu of an answer, fingers wrap around her neck in a steadfast grip, soft and warm.
It reminds her of being interlocked in those reassuring hugs, with her chin in Rosa’s hair and murmuring out her appreciation.
How much of those words had she ever meant, with how easy she’d once thought it was to just leave her?
(She doesn’t want to think about it; she wants to drown in this kiss and never come up for air. Selfish, still, even in the face of her loss.)
There's a hand gliding tender threads through Riya’s hair while the other tethered her body close, feeling awful like forgiveness yet so sickeningly far from it. Her lips hummed with sweet pain as Rosa nipped at them again, making her groan out in turn. Through the soft sighs, the dizzying contact, she let herself pretend for a moment that she was just mumbling sorry, I'm sorry, over and over again.
She can’t fix it, and by God is letting Rosa kiss her making everything worse and it aches but she can’t stop,
Because Rosa’s heart was of gold and all she did was take–
She pressed away with a sharp gasp, the air jagged in her lungs. The dual, uneven drumming of their hearts was near indistinguishable, if not for the pressure against her chest with every stolen breath. In the silence they spend gathering their wits again, she wonders if it's guilt or repulsion swimming in Rosa’s thoughts, but her lidded eyes give nothing away.
She's selfish. She has to know.
"Do you hate me?" Riya breathed out against her lips, like a curse conjured into existence. It punched the air out of her.
“What?”
"I want your honesty. Like how you did with, with Lake," She wheezed. "I don't care if it hurts."
“Tsk,” Rosa blinked the lucidity back into her eyes, and smiled joylessly. “It's always about what you want.”
Riya heaved a bitter laugh of her own. The buzz of adrenaline was draining from her body and left dull hurt in its place she couldn't put a name to. It hurts more when Rosa leans away with all but her hands, keeping them steady behind Riya’s shoulders: some constant means of connection. She finds a patch of ground to stare at, falling silent and furrowing her eyes as if uncharacteristically uncertain to say what she thought.
“I don't think I could— ever hate you.” She says, after a long, pensive silence. When she starts smoothing circles on Riya's back with her thumb, she shudders and chokes uselessly on her own words.
“No. Not this you.” Rosa mused, blinking slowly. “The parts you don’t seem to like showing.”
Riya doesn’t need to ask if she means it. Seized by an icy feeling, it dawns on her that she doesn’t share that sentiment.
“I’m still sorry, for all of it.” Riya said.
“It’s…” Rosa gave a half-smile, “well, it’s not fine,”
“But don’t let it torture you.” Rosa sweeps the unruly strands of hair out of Riya’s face; she wills herself not to lean towards the movement of her palm like a sad stray animal. It feels nice, the cool reprieve of freshwater after a drought.
But she hardly trusts herself to latch onto the feeling again and do good with it.
Her evidence is staring her earnestly in the face, dark and glassy yet still boring into her being. Rosa sees her, she always does, and it's hollowing. She only knew how to simultaneously care and be careless, always losing someone as easy as it was to breathe.
Everyone she holds dear can stay bound to Earth, watching her leap towards the stars and she wouldn't spare a second just to look back down again; or she could sit and soak in this warmth forever, never free from the regret that came with it. Either way, there is something to sacrifice.
The latter feels worse, Riya decides. She pulls away. “You should go.”
“...I should.” Rosa slowly agreed, and winced like it hurt to say. They hear Maggy call her name from beyond the woodland and she’s halfway through the glade before Riya hoarsely calls out to her.
“Um. I meant it, when I said you deserved the money. I mean– you deserve everything.”
Rosa smiles, beside herself, one that between the two of them reaches her eyes for the first time tonight. “When did you say that?”
Riya’s face feels warm. “I only said it to Connor. I didn’t think I’d… ever get to say it to your face.”
The last she hears of her is a thanks barely above the sound of rustling bushes, as she slips past them to where the contestants gathered.
Riya doesn't follow.
She's unsure how long she remains, leaning against a tree and listening to the droning of her own thoughts and evening crickets.
She laughs off Connor’s fretting when she's found, and boards the bus beside him.
Riya finds no words for him, nor for Tipiskaw as she watches it disappear behind the rain-sheened window. She thinks she may have left her heart there.