Page 151 of PS: I Hate You

Then she freezes.

I don’t react, continuing to work on the corner I’ve claimed.

“Is…” She doesn’t finish the question, letting her voice trail off with a quiver. After a prolonged pause she reaches for another piece with fingers that shake.

Another half hour, and we have the entire puzzle done. Sprawled across Rosaline’s coffee table is a clear picture of a couple standing on the glacier in Denali, both in puffy jackets with their arms wrapped around each other. The woman smiles at the camera. The man gazes down at his companion with so much love on his face, it’s hard to look at for long.

My brother left me a picture of himself.

And Rosaline.

“Tell me about your time with Josh,” I say.

One important thing I’ve learned on these many trips with Dom is that I only know a portion of my brother. We were close, but there were pieces we kept to ourselves, or gave to others. Josh gave parts of himself to his best friend.

And he gave others to the woman he loved.

I want all of him I can have, even if the pieces are secondhand.

“We…” She clears her throat. “We loved each other.”

I nod, not wanting to interrupt.

“N-nothing happened for years. Not while Dom and I were together. I never would have. Josh wouldn’t have. It wasn’t until we separated.”

My heart hurts when the timeline clarifies in my mind.

“After Josh’s diagnosis, then,” I say. “You were together for a year. Less.”

Rosaline reaches out, her finger tracing Josh’s face on the puzzle. “Yes. A year.” Her smile is small and sad. “It seems both longer than that, and much shorter. I was the one who went to him. Showed upat his place, stared him in the eyes, and told him the rest of his days were mine.” She chuckles. “Then I lost my nerve, apologized, and asked if he still loved me.” Rosaline presses her fingers against her lips, appearing lost in a memory. “He told me he did. That he never stopped.”

“Never stopped?” I ask.

Her face flushes a rosy color. “When we were twenty-one—the summer after we graduated college. Dom and I broke up. I had an internship in New York, same as Josh. And we just…clicked. Two months in love. Then…” She pauses again, and I realize this must be hard for her to talk about. To speak of the romance now that he’s gone. “I found out I was pregnant. And timing-wise, it had to be Dom’s. I was too far along. But the thing is, I also didn’t want it to be Josh’s.”

“Why not?”

She traces the indents of the puzzle’s pieces. “Because I was scared.”

“Scared of what?” I press because I’m desperate and pushy.

Rosaline, still wearing her sad smile, keeps talking.

“Scared of how free your brother was. With life. With everything. He wanted to travel the world. I knew he loved me. But I was scared if I told him about the pregnancy, that it was Dom’s, he’d leave. Or that he’d set aside all his dreams and stay. And I wondered, if he did stay, could he handle the responsibility? Every angle I studied it, I couldn’t picture a way forward with Josh. And, well, you may remember my parents. How they raised me…Not having the baby didn’t register as an option. So, I ended things with Josh. I came home. And I told Dom. About the pregnancy, not about your brother.” She sends a pained grimace toward the doorway, as if she can see her ex-husband in the next room. “I panicked. And I knew Dom would keep me steady. That he was safe.” She sighs, combing a rough hand through her hair. “I wish I had slowed down. That I had taken more time to think. That summer. It changed everything.”

Yeah. For all of us.

“So, you loved Josh then,” I say. “But that was years ago. You knew his chances of survival were low. How could you put yourself through loving someone, knowing you’d likely lose them so soon?”

Rosaline stares at her hands, turning a silver ring on her middle finger.

“One day,” she says.

“One day, you’ll what?”

“No. I’m saying if I’d had one day—only one—it would’ve been worth it. To be with Josh, loving him like I’d always wanted, a single day would have been a gift. And I got a year.” She smiles wide, her eyes full of tears that slowly overflow and spill down her cheeks. “Yeah, I wish I’d had a lifetime. And yeah, it hurts more than I can describe. Two years, six months, three days, and I still miss him every day. But it would’ve been worse if I’d never had him at all.”

One day.