CHAPTER 28

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“Do you want to talk about it?” Rosé finally asked after contemplating whether to ask or let Wendy be for a while after noticing her downcast mood since she get home this evening, she hasn’t eaten anything and just went to her room. Something serious obviously happen, in usual days Rosé would let her be and just wait for her whether she wants to talk about it or not but she also knew that Wendy isn’t someone who just talks about when something is bothering her, she tends to sleep it off and walk the next morning pretending to be okay, pretending that the problem has been solve when in reality all she does is bottled it up inside. That attributes of her has its own upside and downside and right now the downside is getting the best of her and sooner or later she would explode again just like how she exploded with Irene and that’s scares Rosé, so with her judgment, she went inside her room and asked.

“I don’t know.” Wendy answered weakly.

“Why don’t we take a walk?” Rosé suggested “The weather’s good tonight.”

“Its fine, I’m okay. Don’t worry too much.” Wendy assures Rosé with her not so convincing words.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Rosé asked as she walk towards Wendy’s drawer and took a hoodie from it and throws it at Wendy “Let’s take a walk, it helps you clear your mind.”

“I’m fi—“

“No, you’re not.” Rosé stated and they both know she’s right “I’ll wait outside.” She says leaving Wendy with no room for discussion.

Wendy and Rosé walks in silence with no real destination in mind, just letting the cold night wash their worries away making their heart feel at peace, at least for a moment.

They found themselves at the bench of the nearest park and just sitting beside each other in silence.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” Wendy breaks the deafening silence

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“You were trying to help and I tried to shut you out.” Wendy said “I’m sorry for that. I’m just…” She paused and sighed “There’s so much going on and I don’t know what to think or what to do anymore.”

“You know one of the upside of having a best friend is that you can come to me when you don’t know what to do anymore.” Rosé told her

“I know… it’s just, I feel like I already used up all that upside and I’m burdening you too much.”

“Wan I’m your best friend you’ll never be a burden to me. I hate that you think of that.”

“Can you blame me when you did something wrong because of me?”

“I did that on my own accord that’s on me, not you.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that it’s still because of me.” Wendy told her guiltily “It’s still because of me.”

“Is that why you won’t tell me things now? You think that I might do the same thing again?” Rosé asked tone laced with pain “I’ve learned my lesson Wan.”

“No, it’s not that. I know you won’t do something like that again.” Wendy told her “It’s just…” she trails, then letting out a sigh

“It’s okay…” Rosé says, rubbing a hand on Wendy’s back “It’s okay, I’m right here… whenever you’re ready.”

“Am I a hypocrite?” Wendy asked all of a sudden

“What?” Rosé looked at her in confusion

“I am, aren’t I?” Wendy asked dryly “I told Joohyun that we have to move on and that we should go to another chapter of our life and yet… and yet after everything that’s been said and done I still find myself wanting to come back to her.”

“As long as you love her, as long as your heart screams her name the wants and needs to come back to her are always going to be there. The heart wants what it wants and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. That’s not being a hypocrite, that’s just you being in love with her.”

“I know it’s not going to be easy being around her while I’m trying to move on, I know it’s not going to be easy to forget her when I’m seeing her every day, I know it’s not going to be easy to look at her and not think about our past, I know it’s not going to be easy to not run towards her when I know deep inside that all I want is to come back to her. I know it’s not going to be easy to act and pretend that I don’t love her anymore when in truth I never stop… I know it’s not going to be easy, but I didn’t know it’ll be this hard. I’m barely holding myself back, I can barely hold myself back” Wendy confessed tearing up “And as if Joohyun standing in front of me isn’t hard enough, Suho had to make things worse for me. He had to come up to me and make things ing harder!”

“He had to come up to me and tell me that Joohyun ended things with him because she loves me…” Wendy said as tears starts falling down her face “He said… he said that Joohyun loves me so much that’s why she ended it.”

“God knows how much I love her. I love her with my everything.”

“She told me the same thing.” Rosé told her “She told me loves you with her everything and I believe her Wan. I saw it in her eyes and eyes don’t lie.”

“No, it doesn’t but words and actions are completely different things.” Wendy said wiping her tears “I trusted her words once and look where it got us. I hold on to her words far longer than I can take and look where it got me.”

“I’m not going to tell you to give her a second chance but don’t you think you owe to give that to each other?”

“For every reason that she gave me to let go, I always look for that one reason to stay and hold on more… isn’t that me giving me her chances already? For all those times that instead of letting go I hold on tighter, isn’t that me giving us another chances?”

Rosé could not answer.

Sometimes we think we were never given a second chance because all we know is that when we finally asked for that second chance all we remember was the ‘no.’ that followed after not realizing that the person were asking it for already gave us those second, third, fourth and so on chances without us even asking, without us realizing.

Sometimes we think we were never given a second chance to make things right not realizing that the person gave us chances far more than we deserve.

Sometimes there were chances given to us and we just failed to see it.

Sometimes there were chances given to us and we just didn’t appreciate it.

“Wasn’t those chances enough?” Wendy asked “How much more do I need to give?”

“If you can’t give her any chance anymore, then give it to yourself.” Rosé told her softly “You deserve that chance. I know you’re scared, I know you’re in a lot of pain but I also know how much you love her.”

“Is love enough?”

Rosé shook her head lightly “No, it’s not enough. Love alone will never be enough. But it’s where you start, right? That’s where you start to build trust.”

“And that’s the hardest part Rosé.” Wendy said tearing up “Loving her easy like it was the easiest on earth but trusting her, trusting her again is the hardest and scariest part.”

“Admitting and telling her I love her after everything is easy I can do it without missing a beat what’s hard is, is taking a step towards her and putting myself out there trusting her again. What’s hard is trusting and putting my heart on her hand again knowing that she could drop it anytime. It scares me to trust her again because she dropped it once, she can do it again.”

“All that’s left of me is a piece of my shattered heart after what happen between us, only a piece left. That one piece is all I have, how am I supposed to trust her with that one piece when she’s the one who broke it in the first place?”

“I know it’s hard, I know you’re scared but what if this time she holds that piece of your heart like it’s her own?” Rosé asked, looking at her softly “What if this time, she hold your heart to her hand keep it safe and make it whole again?”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“What if I’m right?”

“I’m not strong enough to bet that piece of my heart again.” Wendy said looking down “I’m not strong enough to take that risk.”

“But by not risking it, you’re throwing your chance to be happy with her.”

“We had our chance.”

Rosé leaned back on the bench and looked at the stars. “We’ve had our chance too, once. And I throw that chance away when you ask me to be your girlfriend and I choose to be your friend. I wanted you more than you could ever know but I’m not strong enough to take that risk because I can lose you. If something goes wrong I’m not only going lose you, I’m going to lose my best friend and my favorite person too, I can lose all of that If I lose you. I have wanted you more than you could ever know but what I want is not worth losing you over.”

“Have you ever regretted it?”

Rosé looked at her then smile “As soon as I said no. I cried my eyes out for years.”

“Me too.” Wendy smiles at the memory “You’re my first heartbreak, my best friend being my first heart break.”

“You are mine too.” Rosé said smiling “I slipped my chance to be showered by love of the most amazing people that ever existed on earth, how I can not regret it? There were days that I’d looked at you and the what if’s would just come, what if I had taken the risk with you and made it, we could’ve been happier. What if I had trusted our love to each other back then and choose to risk everything we have and it was all worth it in the end, we could’ve been so much happier.”

“We could’ve.” Wendy says

“Yes, we could’ve.” Rosé said, her voice with faint of regret “What if, what if, what if… two words that wouldn’t leave my thoughts and haunted me for years, but whenever I look at us now, especially now, they would all disappear and I know in my heart that I have made the right decision that moment, that without regret I can tell myself that not choosing what I want that moment is worth it because even if we didn’t became lovers we became a family.” Rosé said with a sincere and warm smile “We didn’t become lovers but we became a family Wan.”

“Yes we did and you breaking my poor little innocent heart are worth it in the end.” Wendy said returning the warm smile “And though it was not easy to accept from the start to settle as your big sister and best friend because I was in love you, still... you’re right, it was worth it. What would I do without you?”

“I don’t know, probably in some dump somewhere from drinking too much or having with a stranger or both.”

Wendy looked at her in distaste. “That’s gross.”

“I could be doing the same thing too if I don’t have you too, you know… so thank you for being with me all these years, thank you for staying.”

“I was so hurt I almost runaway from you but I’m glad I stayed.” Wendy says smiling “I thought you were my soul mate back then. Maybe we were not just meant to be together as lovers, after all.”

“Soul mates are not made only for love but for friendship too and I guess that’s what we are meant to.” Rosé smiles at her “No regrets.”

Wendy nodded smiling “No regrets.”

“And I wanted that for you too. I want to look at your eyes years from now without ounce of regret and hear you say with a smile and without hesitation that you have made the right decision. I want you to choose the decision where you wouldn’t have to live with ‘what ifs’ and that whatever you decided to choose at this very moment are all worth it in the end.”

“How do I know what decision is that?”

Rosé took a coin in her pocket and then looked at her “Not everyone gets to be lucky with a decision like mine. Some ends up living with regret, some ends up living with what ifs and some ends up living but not living at all…” Rosé trails putting the coin on Wendy’s hand “You’re always one risk away from a different kind of life. It’s up to you if what risk is worth taking.”

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