rose.
-
“Suppose,” the word dropped from her lips like an anvil, heavy and almost desolate as it landed within the space between them. How a person could suppose—assume and not know a feeling, one as simple as how they were, was beyond the younger woman. Rose was not naïve enough to believe that anyone answered such a question truthfully. No—society knew how to play the game. That people didn’t truly care ‘how’ a person was doing but rather felt obligated to ask. To voice concern where there could be none. One would ask, and the other was expected to say fine. To never speak to the contrary—save but with someone you knew. Someone that could be considered close and could call you out on your presumed ‘shit’. The fact that Maia ‘supposed’ sat uncomfortably for the brunette, for it begged for an additional question. A follow up the younger was not willing to give. It was a fact she failed to point out beyond the echoing of that solitary word. Dark eyes drifting to her phone as she continued to thumb through those emails.
“I’m well,” she told the other, fulfilling her side of the usual bargain even if Maia had not. Her want to fall into that usual silence thwarted by the next question. A silent breath fell from her lips, a near sigh. “Work is fine, busy but that is to be expected of a charity nearing the holiday season,” she failed to look up as she said such words. Thumb pausing in its progress as she opened and read, lips partying out of the expectation that she too should ask a similarly tedious question. “And you—how is the,” she paused unable to remember what the other did for a living, “Work you do?”
Maia realized even the careless slip of saying how she really was would have required too much humanity from Rose the second Rose spoke. She should have just kept it to ‘fine’ and been done with it. Why did she always have to talk so much?? Her eyebrows rose in disbelief at the single word Rose repeated and Maia turned to face forward, clearly dismissed at this point as Rose went back to her phone, trying to breathe her frustration away. She knew the reputation the Holder’s held in this town. But Dean was so far from it, that part of Maia imagined that maybe, like most rumors, this one was unfounded. But every time she let herself wonder if that was the case, Rose proved it wasn’t. Why did Maia even bother at this point?
She grabbed her water bottle, taking a long sip but quickly swallowing when Rose broke the silence. She had wondered - hoped - for a second if her question would go unanswered. “I can imagine.” she responded, trying her best to sound sincere. Truthfully, Maia was interested in the work Rose did and would have liked to ask more, but given the youngest Holder’s frosty response to, well, everything Maia said, she refrained. She stifled a short laugh at Rose’s question. Sure, the two had never been friends. But they’d known each other long enough - Maia had attended enough Holder events with Dean - that she knew for a fact she had told Rose what she did for work several times. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm herself before speaking again. “Oh, you know, everyone’s always busy around the holidays, aren’t they?” she replied, refusing to stupidly attempt at providing any sort of real information about her life again.
