Post by lillydove on Jan 21, 2019 6:56:16 GMT -5
TITLE: What Happened to Rosa
AUTHOR: lillydove
SUMMARY: Liz reflects on her sister as she journeys back to Roswell.
COUPLES: M/L, CC
RATING: MATURE (for themes)
DISCLAIMER: The characters of Roswell, New Mexico belong to Carina Adly Mackenzie, Melinda Metz, and the CW. No infringement is intended with the posting of this story.
My mom left us when I was 12.
I know that sounds like a tragedy, but it wasn’t. At least not for me.
My papa, I think, was more overwhelmed than anything. It had been a slow, painful burn to reach the end of their fourteen years together. A dragging out of the inevitable. A prolonged breaking of our hearts and minds.
Those are just some fancy ways to say she treated us like shit.
Still, he was now a single father, running a business and raising two almost-teenaged daughters alone, and even though it was a less-toxic environment, that had to be scary. Even though he had essentially been doing those things alone for the last ten years anyway, he had to be worried.
Especially when his wife finally decided to leave on the day of her oldest daughter’s fourteenth birthday.
We all knew that one would leave a mark.
For me, I had watched her disappear for so long, that by the time she did it for good, I felt more relief than anything. Even at ten years old, I noticed that all my memories of this woman involved her leaving or not being there at all. I noticed that every time she came back around, it wasn’t long before she was gone again.
I watched my papa work all day at the diner. I watched him make sure we were cleaned, fed, taken care of, and loved every night before bed. I overheard the strain in their voices every time they talked, I recognized the pleading in his voice that eventually resigned itself to the truth, and I remember when he finally stopped asking her to stay.
So for me, her leaving wasn’t a tragedy. For me, her leaving was a catalyst for better things.
But for Rosa, it was different.
Maybe a small part of her remembered what it was like to have a loving mother, and maybe that small part of her couldn’t forget. Maybe there were moments they had shared before I was old enough to remember, and maybe she couldn’t stop waiting for that mother to come back. Or maybe it was the idea she held onto, of the mother she was supposed to have. Maybe she’d been holding onto empty hope so long, she forgot that she’d never been given a reason to have any.
At the end of the day, I’ll never know the reason Rosa couldn’t let her go. I’ll never understand the reason she mourned that loss with drinking and drugs and boys. I’ll never understand the reason she died from that broken heart, because she never had the chance to find her way out of that grief and heal.
Instead, she numbed herself so deeply that one night she got behind the wheel. She numbed herself so deeply that one night she fell asleep, driving off the road and killing two innocent girls.
One night. One accident. One broken girl who changed everything.
The town was justifiably outraged, and my papa's heart was finally shattered.
So, I ran to escape all of it.
We were completely devastated, and then I left him too.
And Rosa?
I guess you could say, she finally turned our story into the tragedy it was meant to be.
End.
AUTHOR: lillydove
SUMMARY: Liz reflects on her sister as she journeys back to Roswell.
COUPLES: M/L, CC
RATING: MATURE (for themes)
DISCLAIMER: The characters of Roswell, New Mexico belong to Carina Adly Mackenzie, Melinda Metz, and the CW. No infringement is intended with the posting of this story.
Somewhere outside Roswell, New Mexico - January, 2019
My mom left us when I was 12.
I know that sounds like a tragedy, but it wasn’t. At least not for me.
My papa, I think, was more overwhelmed than anything. It had been a slow, painful burn to reach the end of their fourteen years together. A dragging out of the inevitable. A prolonged breaking of our hearts and minds.
Those are just some fancy ways to say she treated us like shit.
Still, he was now a single father, running a business and raising two almost-teenaged daughters alone, and even though it was a less-toxic environment, that had to be scary. Even though he had essentially been doing those things alone for the last ten years anyway, he had to be worried.
Especially when his wife finally decided to leave on the day of her oldest daughter’s fourteenth birthday.
We all knew that one would leave a mark.
For me, I had watched her disappear for so long, that by the time she did it for good, I felt more relief than anything. Even at ten years old, I noticed that all my memories of this woman involved her leaving or not being there at all. I noticed that every time she came back around, it wasn’t long before she was gone again.
I watched my papa work all day at the diner. I watched him make sure we were cleaned, fed, taken care of, and loved every night before bed. I overheard the strain in their voices every time they talked, I recognized the pleading in his voice that eventually resigned itself to the truth, and I remember when he finally stopped asking her to stay.
So for me, her leaving wasn’t a tragedy. For me, her leaving was a catalyst for better things.
But for Rosa, it was different.
Maybe a small part of her remembered what it was like to have a loving mother, and maybe that small part of her couldn’t forget. Maybe there were moments they had shared before I was old enough to remember, and maybe she couldn’t stop waiting for that mother to come back. Or maybe it was the idea she held onto, of the mother she was supposed to have. Maybe she’d been holding onto empty hope so long, she forgot that she’d never been given a reason to have any.
At the end of the day, I’ll never know the reason Rosa couldn’t let her go. I’ll never understand the reason she mourned that loss with drinking and drugs and boys. I’ll never understand the reason she died from that broken heart, because she never had the chance to find her way out of that grief and heal.
Instead, she numbed herself so deeply that one night she got behind the wheel. She numbed herself so deeply that one night she fell asleep, driving off the road and killing two innocent girls.
One night. One accident. One broken girl who changed everything.
The town was justifiably outraged, and my papa's heart was finally shattered.
So, I ran to escape all of it.
We were completely devastated, and then I left him too.
And Rosa?
I guess you could say, she finally turned our story into the tragedy it was meant to be.
End.