The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [124]
And why couldn’t this be a moment, Rose? Why couldn’t this be your moment, like Cordy taking the road home instead of the one that led away, or Bean closing the door on Edward?
Why can’t you let it go?
What if there was no what if?
In the darkness, she climbed, the stone walls cool and damp around her, shutting out the bright heat of the day. Her heart pounded, her feet echoed against the emptiness—the students had spilled out, shrieking and joyous, before she had summoned the courage to enter—and her thighs shook with the effort. She pressed on, breathing deeply, counting the steps in sets of three as she breathed in and out.
And then, joyful, elated, exhausted, she burst out into the open air, the sounds of the street below filtering up to her, the breeze blowing stronger, and she spun around, the door laid open behind her. She climbed up the wide steps to the highest riser and looked out on her domain. Below, cars and buses hummed on the same busy streets, pedestrians strode, meandered, bicyclists spun by. In the distance, the spires of the colleges, the peaked stone roofs, the gentle slope of faraway hills, green as memory. She caught her breath, her throat rubbed raw, and laughed.
Oh, if we had only been there with her, only been able to see the smile on her face, watch her look out over what she had conquered, see the pure pleasure gracing her body, her arms sprinkled with sweat. But had we been with her, it would have spoiled the moment. She would have gone only because we had made her. Or to look out for us. Or she might have stayed behind while we ran off and did something foolish, our tether to the ground. We had not realized, until that moment, how much Rose gave up for us, and it was up to her to reach down to the ground and untie herself in order to float free into the sky.
The afternoon spilled blue and cloudless over the city. Rose came down from the tower, slightly misted with sweat, and darted into a pub, where she ordered a Coronation Chicken sandwich and a half-pint of hard cider and watched the people going by. When she finished, she admired the tiny half-pint glass, its perfect miniature proportions. She couldn’t have explained why she was so charmed by, why she was so drawn to it, and she certainly couldn’t have explained what she did. Lifting the glass to her lips, Rose drained the last drops and then slipped the tiny thing into her bag. As she left the pub, her backpack cradled in her arms like a baby, protecting her booty, her heart pounded madly. But this was not the same wild heartbeat of fear—this was a strange feeling of exaltation, the thrill of a roller coaster, and as she hustled away from the pub, the glass shaking gently in her bag, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud, sending her unexpected happiness out into the wild air.
Crunching down a path of gravel, she saw a collection of people standing on the impossibly green grass, moving slowly, pulling their limbs as if through honey. Rose recognized it as a tai chi class, and it brought back the delicate feelings of peace she had felt when she had first started yoga. The instructor was dressed in white, the loose legs of her pants fluttering in the breeze as she stepped wide with a calculated movement, bringing