It was several days before Rose got the courage to confront Daffodil with what she thought she had seen. Deep inside, she knew that she was right about the way she had seen Daffodil looking at her—however hard her friend tried to hide it—but she wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with the idea. She had seen and done many things that she never would have thought of before in the time since she had set out on her own, but the idea that another woman might take an interest in her had never occurred to her. It wasn’t a new concept, of course—she had heard of and occasionally witnessed such things before, and she had lived with Jim and Angel too long not to be familiar with same-sex partnerships—but she had never thought that anyone would look at her in that way, not even her best friend. As fond as Rose was of Daffodil, she wasn’t sure if she was comfortable with this new facet to their relationship.
Finally, about four days after it had occurred to Rose that Daffodil might have more than a friendly interest in her, she mustered the courage to ask her about it. As they were sitting down to eat dinner across the campfire from each other, she looked up and caught Daffodil’s eye. Taking a deep breath, she set her fork down.
"Daffodil, I have a question for you."
Daffodil looked a little startled, but quickly set her fork down and looked at Rose. "Ask away."
"Daffodil, I…a few nights ago, I saw you watching me…uh…well…like…like…" She saw that Daffodil was turning red, so she hurried to finish her statement. "…like Tim used to."
Daffodil tried to skirt around the question. "You mean, like I was hoping that you didn’t know about whatever indiscretion I’d committed this time?"
Rose was distracted for a moment. "What did you do this time that I need to worry about?" She stopped. "Wait. You couldn’t have done anything illegal or even questionable. There’s nothing to do out here."
"Well, then…"
"Stop trying to distract me." Rose looked at her crossly. It had taken her a long time to get enough courage to confront her best friend, and she didn’t like having her questions made light of. "You know very well what I’m talking about." She almost hoped that she was wrong—it would make things so much easier, at least once they had smoothed over the awkwardness of this moment.
Daffodil ducked her head, her blush becoming more pronounced. "I hoped you wouldn’t notice."
"It took me a long time to figure out," Rose admitted.
"When did you figure out what that look meant?"
"About four days ago. It’s taken me this long to find the courage to ask you about it."
"I’m sorry, Rose. I never meant to make you uncomfortable. I just…believe it or not, this is new to me. I’ve never looked at another woman this way before."
"Me, neither," Rose told her, then blushed. It sounded almost as if she shared Daffodil’s interest. "How…why do I catch your interest, and not anyone else?"
"I don’t know. I always liked men—at least those who had some manners—but there’s something about you that…well…just caught my interest."
"So…there’s something special about me?" Rose couldn’t help but feel flattered.
"Yeah…you could say that. Look, Rose, if you’re not interested, I understand completely. If you had started looking at me this way, I would have been uncomfortable, too, even though…it’s hard to explain."
"I know. But the thing is, I’m not sure how I feel. At the moment, I’m still leery of men—Tim put me off in a big way—but I can’t say that it makes me want to try a relationship with a woman. You’re my best friend, but…"
"I would be leery of men, too, if someone had done to me what Tim did to you. He could have killed you!"
"He wasn’t the first to betray my trust, or to hurt me. My first boyfriend and I, in high school, parted on friendly terms—he moved away—and I’ll always love Jack, even though he’s dead. But the others, Cal and Tim, were almost enough to make me swear off men forever."
"I know about Tim, but what about Cal? Wasn’t he your ex-fiancé? What did he do?"
"What didn’t he do?" Rose picked up her fork, poking absently at her dinner before looking at Daffodil again. "Plenty."
"Like what? Did he cheat on you?"
"I wish. If he’d been cheating, he might have left me alone." She put a forkful of food in mouth and chewed slowly for a moment, wondering if she should talk about Cal. She had promised never to tell anyone about the fact that he had killed Jack, but as to everything else…
"He was abusive," she finally said. She put the plate on the grass beside her, her appetite gone. "My mother forced me into the engagement by threatening to throw me out on the streets if I didn’t agree to it. I wasn’t ready to marry anyone, let alone a man like Cal. I had just graduated from high school when he proposed—and after my mother’s ultimatum, I felt like I had no choice in the matter."
"And irony of ironies, here you are now—homeless by choice for more than a year."
"Yeah." Rose half-smiled. "Who would have thought it? But I kept hoping that things would get better with Cal—I liked him, even though I didn’t love him. But they didn’t. A month into the engagement, he started slapping me around and trying to control me. Actually, he had tried to control me before that, but it wasn’t so blatant as it became later. I made the mistake of telling him what Mom had done—and then he really became a control freak. I could never predict what kind of mood he’d be in—but after he’d slapped me around, he was always contrite, always promised that it wouldn’t happen again. It got so that I sometimes wished that he would just hit me and get it over with—because after that he was usually in a better mood. I would try to think of what I’d done to deserve being hit, and he always had an excuse."
"The classic domestic abuse cycle. It probably would have gotten worse if you’d married him."
"I’m sure of it, although at that time I kept trying to convince myself that things would get better. He got even worse after I met Jack, always assuming that something was going on between us."
"Wasn’t there?"
"Not while I was involved with Cal. Jack and I were just friends, and I made sure that it stayed that way until I finally decided to end things with Cal. But Cal never believed that. It finally came to a head one morning in April, just a couple of weeks before the earthquake…" She stopped, taking a deep breath. "I’m going to tell you something that I’ve only told one other person, and I don’t want you ever to repeat it. Promise me that you won’t."
"I promise, Rose. Your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you. Anyway…well…I had been out late the night before at a wedding, rather than on the usual date with Cal. I hadn’t seen him that night, but it turned out that he had been spying on me and had seen me dancing with Jack. The next morning, he openly accused me of sleeping with Jack, and when I denied it, he punched me in the face. I was so shocked that I just stood there for a minute, but when I realized what else he had in mind, I ran.
"Unfortunately, he was faster than me. He grabbed me and started beating me, then threw me on the floor, knocking my head against the table in the process. I was so stunned that I couldn’t move for a moment, and by the time I could, he was tearing at my clothes. I struggled and begged and fought, but he still succeeded in raping me."
Daffodil gasped, her eyes wide. "Oh, Rose, how awful! Men who do that should have their raping equipment removed."
Rose shuddered. "I thought that it was my fault, that I had done something to make him rape me. I thought that maybe if I slept with him more often, he wouldn’t resort to rape, or if I avoided Jack he wouldn’t get so angry and jealous. I wound up in the hospital that afternoon—I’d gotten a concussion from hitting my head on the table, which I blamed on a fall down the stairs—and he brought me flowers and a fancy necklace and told me that it would never happen again. I was getting to the point where I didn’t believe him anymore—but I still tried to talk myself into believing what he said. And he was very nice to me—for about two weeks. Then he got mad at me for disagreeing with him about something and slammed my wrist against a doorframe.
"That afternoon, I thought about everything that had happened. I was feeling suffocated—not just by Cal and his abuse and demands, but by my whole world. I went out for a drive, and finally ended up in Jack’s neighborhood. I went to find him—I had decided to end things with Cal by then—and we spent a wonderful afternoon and evening together. He’s the only other person I’ve told all this to."
"What did he say when you told him about Cal raping you?"
"He was very sympathetic—he held me while I cried, told me that it wasn’t my fault…and succeeded in convincing me."
Daffodil had come around the fire and put her arms around Rose, hugging her as she stared into the fire, lost in her memories.
"And then what happened?" she asked Rose, drawing her back to the present.
"And then I jumped into bed with Jack." Rose gave a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "Crazy, isn’t it? I was so upset about the way that one man touched me that I jumped into bed with another. But it didn’t seem crazy. It felt like the right thing to do, and I’ve never regretted it. But I don’t think I’ll do the same thing this time—no offense." She looked at Daffodil.
"None taken." Daffodil rocked her gently as Rose laid her head against her shoulder. "Was that the night of the earthquake?"
Rose was silent for a moment. "Yes. We had only a few hours together before his death. I finally told him that I loved him, just before he died. He said that he loved me, too, and gripped my hand with all his strength. Those were the last words he ever spoke to me. And after I was rescued, and recovered from my injuries, I decided that it was time to set out on my own, to make my own life. I left, and I’ve never been back." Rose was silent for a moment, staring into the dying flames of the fire. "Daffodil…about your feelings toward me…"
"Yes?"
"I don’t know what I feel. You’re my best friend, one of the best friends that I’ve ever had…but I don’t know how far I can go. It’ll take time for me to decide…what I feel."
"I understand." Daffodil stood, reaching to pick up the dishes from beside the fire. "It’s up to you, Rose, whatever happens. But whatever you decide, I won’t hold it against you. You’re my best friend, too, and I value that more than anything."
Rose nodded, getting to her feet and leaning over to bank the fire. "Thank you for understanding."
"It’s not a problem. I wasn’t sure how you would feel. That’s why I tried to hide it."
"I know."
They finished cleaning up in silence, each lost in her own thoughts. It wasn’t until they were crawling into their sleeping bags that Daffodil turned to Rose, asking a question that had been on her mind since their conversation had taken place.
"Rose?"
"Hmm?"
"Did Cal kill Jack?"
Rose was silent for a moment, hoping that Daffodil hadn’t guessed the truth.
"No. No, he didn’t. The earthquake killed him."
Daffodil frowned, remembering that Rose had said that Jack had been shot, but didn’t press the issue. There was obviously a reason why Rose didn’t want to talk about it, and after all that had already been said that night, she wasn’t going to push her.