The wedding was a blur.
After it was over Rose would hardly be able to remember a single concrete detail about any of it. In her memory it was just a whirl of color. People. People congratulating her, people holding her hand, people embracing her, people talking to her about topics that were of no interest to her whatsoever. Dozens of them. Hundreds.
Whatever she said, she said automatically. She wasn't sure whether she had kept a fake smile plastered on her face or whether she had been subdued and let Cal conduct her.
She was, however, quite conscious of Cal, chatting mindlessly to everyone around him, flashing his pretentious million-dollar smile, pretending that this was an occasion to celebrate.
She knew it was a front. Cal understood just as well as she did that this was a marriage of convenience that would never bring either of them happiness.
Had Cal's public persona always been a front? Was it possible that he had ever been genuine, or had his real self faded to nothing after years spent learning to play the socialite?
She couldn't tell.
*****
Hours after it was over, after everyone had gone home, Rose's mother hung back. She seemed hesitant to leave. As though she wanted to absorb as much of it as she could. As though she were afraid Rose might try to wrench herself free again.
"I'm very tired, Mother." Rose sighed, slumping against her chair.
"I've hardly had a chance to see you since…you returned. Sit up straight, Rose—"
"Perhaps it's time we all retired for the night," Cal said from the doorway.
He was looking at Ruth.
She left shortly after.
Rose went to her room to prepare for bed. The house felt chilly despite the summer heat.
She looked down at her empty bed and shivered.
This was nothing like any wedding night she had ever imagined.
Sleeping by herself, in her own room, her own bed, no one to kiss her, hold her, touch her, tell her how beautiful and precious she was—
Rose shut her eyes and a series of remembered images clicked off quickly and violently in her mind, blurring and overlapping each other so she could hardly make sense of them.
But she knew the water was rushing up toward her again.
Rushing up fast.
She didn't breathe.
"Rose?"
She opened her eyes. Inhaled. Her heart beat against her ribcage.
"Come in," she told Cal, her voice shaking.
He stepped in the room and shut the door behind him. "Everything all right?" he asked, raising an eyebrow when he saw the look on her face.
She took another deep breath. "I'm fine. Did you want something?"
"I was hoping we could talk for a moment. Unless you're tired."
Rose looked at him in surprise. He had never approached her like this; for as long as she'd known him it would always be "Rose, I have to talk to you" or "Rose, come here now".
"I'm not tired," she said.
Cal pulled a chair up to her bed. "I won't say much about tonight," he said. "But I'm afraid your performance fell flat."
"I wasn't putting on a performance."
"You should have been. I can't count the number of people who asked me about you—"
"Perhaps you can help me brush up on my acting skills then," Rose interrupted. "You pretend to be me and I'll pretend to be you, and I'll tell you how dear you are to me and then slap you for theatrical effect."
Cal started to shoot back at her, and then seemed to think better of it. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm very much aware that you don't want to be here with me," he said. "But I do hope that we can perhaps…learn to cooperate."
What was he getting at? Some kind of sexual proposition?
"As I said before," he went on, "your misery doesn't give me pleasure."
She stared at him.
"I don't want to be your antagonist, Rose."
Rose couldn't think of a thing to say.
"Rose?"
She broke eye contact. They sat in silence.
For some reason her heart was racing.
Did she dare open up to him? Would he try to listen or just mock her and discount her feelings as frivolity?
"I'm lonely tonight," she said at last.
He didn't respond.
"I just can't help feeling that this was never what should have happened."
Where are you going? To him?
"I promised…"
Her voice cracked. Her eyes flickered shut for only a second—
"…promised Jack that I would…that I would fall in love someday and have babies and live a long, accomplished life…"
She saw Cal's jaw tighten.
"And I've broken that promise. I feel almost…as though I've betrayed him."
"You're such an idiot, Rose."
Rose's jaw dropped. "Pardon me?"
"You're oblivious to yourself. You think you can do whatever you want and then you play the victim when there are consequences. But this is all of your own volition—you chose to go off cavorting with Dawson, and you chose to seek out my help when you suddenly found it convenient. You are an ungrateful whore, darling."
"How dare you—"
He stood up. "And now you want to tell me all about how lonely you are—"
"Don't!" Rose cried, shrinking back against the wall, afraid he was going to strike her.
"—and how you pray to the soul of a man who gave you nothing and almost led you to your death—"
"I loved Jack!" she screamed. Furious tears streaked down her face. "He saved me every moment I was with him. He taught me so much about myself…he showed me that I had hope and that I could take control of my life. How dare you claim that he never gave me anything. He gave more to me in two days than you ever could have in a lifetime!"
"There is nothing I wouldn't have given you. You could have had everything. Goddamn it, Rose—I bought you everything you asked for, I gave you presents that cost a fortune, I took you on expensive vacations—I agreed to marry you even though I had nothing to gain from it because your name was ruined—"
Rose stared at him in shock. She had always been under the impression that the DeWitt Bukaters' impending destitution was something her mother had kept deliberately hidden from Cal so that by the time he learned the truth, they'd be married and it would be too late to back out.
"I didn't need money," she choked out, her throat dry. "I needed kindness…affection…excitement…understanding…none of which you ever offered me."
"I was never unkind to you."
"You hit me, Cal! You shot at me with a gun!"
A hint of a condescending smile flickered across his face.
"How can you reconcile that? I found happiness and when I went after it you tried to kill me! You would rather I died than be able to live the life I wanted!"
"You weren't the one I was aiming at."
Rose stopped mid-thought.
"I wanted to destroy him. When I watched you embrace after you jumped from the lifeboat I wanted to see him lying broken on the floor with blood trickling from his mouth."
She tried to speak. Nothing came. She couldn't tear her eyes away, couldn't even blink.
"You're sick," she finally managed to choke out. "How—"
"The idea of you with him made me ill. I spent months trying to earn your respect and never got so much as a thank you, while he won everything effortlessly—your affection, your body, the promise of your life—after two days—"
"Cal—"
"I couldn't control it and it drove me insane—"
"Cal," she whispered. "Stop."
He didn't say anything else. Instead he shot her one last look that she would have liked to forget and then stormed from the room, letting the door slam shut.
Rose sank back onto the bed and began to sob.