Dear Rosie, (Love Letters #2)

And when our gazes catch, she grins.

Needing another moment of connection, I bend down and seal my mouth over hers.

With her taste on my tongue and my taste on hers, I feel closer to her than I’ve ever felt to another person.

ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

ROSALYN

Charles bumps his head against the corner of my laptop.

“I don’t know either,” I huff.

The cat looks at me. I look at the cat. Then I focus my attention back on the computer screen.

Yesterday, while we were eating my deviled egg salad sandwiches in Nathan’s office, he asked me if I’d ever thought of writing a cookbook.

He said it between giant mouthfuls, just casually throwing it out there, as though the suggestion itself wasn’t the most encouraging thing anyone had ever said to me.

And while I sat, stunned, he kept going. Suggesting that I could design it with handwriting in the margins, like the old cookbooks I liked to buy. Telling me it would feel more personal and that I could put a foreword, or an afterword, explaining about that first cookbook I found and how it started it all.

He might have picked up on my emotional reaction, but he just kept going. Talking about how I could have a whole section about marshmallows. And a section on the best way to make food for large parties.

It’s not like I’ve never thought about it. Like I never dreamedabout seeing my name on a cookbook cover. But that’s all it’s ever been.

A dream.

I look at the screen in front of me.

Realistically, I know it’s still a dream. And the chances of me ever actually getting one published are as slim as slim can be.

But hearing Nathan talk about it with such excitement made me want to try.

Charles meows once, then jumps off the table.

I turn to watch him, wondering if there would be a way to incorporate a cat into the photos that would eventually need to be taken for the cookbook when he stops.

“What’s wrong?”

Charles arches his back and lowers his head, and with a sound I can feel in my bones, he throws up.

“Oh my god!” My stomach rolls, even as worry grips my throat.

Charles makes a terrifying hacking sound, then pukes a second time.

“No, no, no, no. You can’t be sick!” I plead with the cat that’s already proven to be sick.

I push out of the dining chair. Crutches forgotten.

Standing, I dart my eyes around the condo.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, but then something catches my eye, and I freeze.

Raw chicken.

I left a package of raw ground chicken on the counter to thaw because I was planning to use it for dinner tonight. But I’m so used to living all fucking alone that I didn’t even think about Charles trying to eat it.

I shuffle toward the island and can see that the corner of the package is chewed, but I can’t tell if Charles actually ate any.