71. Choosing Sides

Rose's POV:

When Monday arrived with the weight of last week's chaos still hanging in the air, I held my head high, walking through the college halls like I owned the damn place. 

I refused to let the whispers, the stolen glances, or the smug, judgmental faces faze me.

Apparently, my argument with him had spread like wildfire across campus, igniting a frenzy of drama-hungry students eager to take sides.

It was almost comical—how quickly people divided into teams as if this were some grand battle of the ages. The bimbo brigade, naturally, flocked to his side, while the girls who had once been burned by him and the guys who were either jealous or simply sensible enough to see through his bullshit, rallied behind me.

To me? It wasn't a competition.

It wasn't a war.

It wasn't anything.

I had no intention of engaging in some petty campus rivalry over a guy who, as far as I was concerned, didn't exist. He could have his little fan club; I wasn't about to waste my energy proving a point.

So, I walked through those halls unfazed, flipping my hair at the dirty looks thrown my way and meeting sneers with the kind of confidence that made people question if they had really picked the right side.

By the time three or four days had passed, the gossip had begun to fizzle out, replaced by some other scandal or meaningless drama. And thank God for that.

But even as the world around me moved on, my mind remained elsewhere.

Because I hadn't told a single soul about what truly haunted me.

Something that paled in comparison to what happened that night at the party. Something that happened afterwards.

The next night. The rose. The feeling of something unseen lurking beyond the edges of reason. It was this what haunts my nights.

The moment my eyes landed on that blood-red bloom resting on my porch, a shiver had crept down my spine, an overwhelming sensation slithering over my skin—as if unseen eyes were pressing into me, watching, waiting.

It unsettled me so deeply that I had slammed the door shut, heart hammering against my ribs like a caged beast. And yet, like a fool, I had carried the rose inside with me.

I don't know what compelled me to do it.

Maybe it was curiosity.

Maybe it was something else.

But the moment I realized what I had done, panic surged through me, and I tossed the damned thing into the trash where it must still lay, shriveled and forgotten.

But I hadn't forgotten.

That night, I had barely slept, my mind trapped in a loop of unease. I was so deeply rattled I stayed up all night. 

When Jake came back and made sure to check up on me this time, I had a half mind of jumping out the bed and tell him everything. The other half of my mind wanted to do the same thing but with the police.

I suppressed both sides.

Because what was I supposed to say to them?

That I slept in the forest and now I am afraid I brought something back with me? It left me a rose with thorns, and now I feel like I'm being watched.

Yeah, like that would go over well. They'd have me in a psych ward before I could even say 'haunting'.

And Jake?

Jake had already done so much for me. I didn't want to pile more onto his plate, make him feel like he had to fix me. Or that now that I am a part of his life, he had to make me a focal point of it.

So I spared him the worry.

But who was going to spare me?

Ever since that night, almost a week had passed, and not once had I even dared to glance at the woods much less going back there. It was as if I feared that if I looked, something would look back.