ch21.page

I told him my secrets in a dream
He never heard
Some soft whispers reached his ears
He pushed them away,
Not believing
In my heart
I replay the kiss we never shared
I can see our lips touch
So lightly
There's fireworks, like none I've seen before
And he deepens it
Because he loves me
Even if he never says it
Even if he doesn't know it
In my dream,
I kissed him
And he pushed all my whispers away

"Am I ever going to be able to see this secret journal?" Brian asked Rose the next day. He was seated on her bed, and she sat across from him, scribbling furiously in the notebook she'd been writing in the day he met her.

Rose smiled, and shook her head. She made a big production of hiding the book under her pillow, then placing herself on it. Brian laughed. "You know, you're not heavy enough to keep me from getting to that."

"I am right now. You're barely strong enough to make the trip from your room to mine, there's no way you'll be picking me up off this pillow." She taunted.

"Wanna bet?" Brian asked, lunging for her.

"Stay away!" Rose screeched, pushing him away. "You'll wear yourself out again!"

Brian shrunk back, and stuck out his lower lip. "Pweese, Wose?" He asked, and Rose hid her face in her hands.

"Don't do that to me! Please don't! Don't make me look at you when you're all sad like that!" She heard Brian laugh, and she looked up at him.

"Don't worry." He said, resignedly, "I won't look at your coveted writings."

She smiled at him. "I didn't say you couldn't see them. Just not right now. And anyway, you write, too, and you've never showed me any of your stuff."

"That's different." Brian said, smiling sweetly at her. "Mine's private."

Rose whacked him lightly on the arm with the back of her hand. "Oh, and mine's not?" Brian shrugged innocently.

"You know," He said, turning serious suddenly, "I never did apologize to you for what happened at the dance."

Rose shook her head. "No way, Brian. You don't have anything to apologize for. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn't have pressured you into talking about what was going to happen when you left. And I shouldn't have snapped at you. And, most of all, I shouldn't have told you to stay away from me." She looked down at her hands. "I don't want you to stay away from me. Ever."

Brian scooted closer to her. He slipped his arm around her shoulder. "I don't want to be away from you, Rose." He said. Her face was slightly pink, and she didn't meet his gaze. "Rose." He said again, but she still didn't look. Brian put his hand under her chin, and lifted her face closer to his. "I care about you, Rose. I've never met anyone like you before. I can't even tell you how awful I felt that night when I thought that I couldn't see you anymore."

"I'm sorry-" She started again, but Brian quieted her.

"Nothing's changed. I still leave in less than a week, and in two weeks, I'm out on tour again, in Europe." Rose's eyes filled slowly with tears, but she took a deep breath, and blinked them back.

"I'll miss you, Brian." She told him. "But I'll live." She laughed, without any humor. "Atleast, for a little while, until this fucking disease decides that it's ready to kill me."

Brian's eyes widened. He'd never heard Rose swear before, or say anything like that. Plus, just the mere mention of something killing her struck his heart like a knife. "Don't say that, Rose!" He pulled her closer to him. "Listen, I'm not trying to say goodbye to you. I have something to ask you." Some of the cynicalness fell from Rose's face. "There's a lot of cancer patients who're worse off than you who don't live in a hospital. My aunt Carla died of cancer, and she stayed at home with her family while she died."

Rose's chin trembled a little. "I'm not as lucky as her, Brian." She said, softly. "I don't have a family to go home to. There's no reason for me to live here, except that I don't have any other place in the world to go. The doctors think that a job would be too stressful for me, so I don't have any way to earn money to live anywhere but here. The orphanage I lived in all my life is paying the hospital bills, but as soon as I leave, they're done supporting me. That's why I'm staying here."

"Rose," Brian said, using all the strength he had left to pick her up and pull her into his lap, "I can barely breathe when I think of being without you. I'd rather stay here all my life with you than go back home without you, and I hate hospitals." He took a deep breath. "Rose, when I leave, when I go back home, I want you to come with me."