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+------- Thread: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian (/showthread.php?tid=524)
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Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-25-2025
Trigger Warning
This Thread Contains Themes of Drug Abuse & Self-Harm.
This Thread Contains Themes of Drug Abuse & Self-Harm.
Friday, January 14, 1921
4:00 PM
♫
4:00 PM
♫
He was back.
For two weeks Rosalie had made peace with the idea that he wasn't ever returning, and he wasn't going to so much as write and tell her. The silence had become a familiar companion, not one she had welcomed readily, but one she had learned to find contentment in. In some ways, summer had prepared her for this, and before then, most of her childhood where she'd been left to her own company.
For the longest time, Rosalie had been her own best friend, and the girl knew well how to be alone. Over the past two years, she'd broken out of that mindset, finding herself surrounded by friends and a boy who loved her. She hadn't needed to be so buried within herself, warming her own soul with the poems and songs that kept her sane. She'd found what it meant to belong somewhere, to be a piece of something bigger than herself and it had begun to feel like home.
It had been an illusion. She had known better, really. She had just let herself get caught up in the idea that life offered more happiness and warmth than it actually did.
When Rosalie returned to school the first week of January, she had prepared herself to do what she felt was her only recourse. Cassian was sick, and no matter what Benji said, Rosalie had convinced herself that a lot of the blame rested on her shoulders. Cassian didn't trust her - with his thoughts, with his feelings, with his secrets. It was all shallow.
She had tried. Sans clinging to the boy and screaming at him to let her love him, she had done everything in her power to prove to him that she was worthy of him and his faith. It was an awful feeling, trying to fix someone and breaking herself in the process. She was a fool. No matter how many times he pushed her away, she came back like a sad puppy begging for more.
She was worried sick for him, of course. Her heart ached for him, knowing now that he was harming himself, that he'd almost killed himself doing it. She wanted to hold him through it and tell him she loved him.
Rosie was beginning to realize that love wasn't enough, and maybe she and Cassian were never meant to be. That maybe they had read the stars all wrong, and their families had been right all along.
Now that he was back, she was faced once again with having to make a decision. She wasn't ready. She didn't want to. She wanted to remain in this limbo where everything hurt, but at least he was still hers. Where their love still existed, and she didn't have to snuff out its light.
She'd done well avoiding him. When she'd caught his eye at lunch, she'd been quick to remove herself from the Great Hall before he could approach her, and had stayed away from all their usual places since then.
The girl sat by the shores of the Black Lake, letting the cold penetrate through her robes, as she pulled her knees to her chest. She hugged her knees, resting her cheek on top of them, letting the ache course through her. If she could feel it now, all of it, then maybe it wouldn't be as bad when she actually had to talk to him.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-25-2025
He didn't want to be back.
His mother had insisted he wasn't ready and had argued herself blue in the face for the last week trying to convince his father of the same. She thought it was too soon, that he hadn't had enough time to recover and process what had happened...everything that had happened. He knew she wasn't wrong. Deep down, where his father's words about being strong and getting back up couldn't penetrate, Cassian Thomas was aware that the world had become a darker place, and he wasn't ready to shove himself back into it.
The light he carried barely flickered, fighting as it was to regain its place.
He wanted to be ready for his father, who'd patted him firmly on the shoulder and told him it was enough lying around the house. He wanted to be better, to show them they didn't have anything to worry about...that he wasn't trying to accomplish the unthinkable. It had taken a week to convince his mother of the unintentional nature of his actions. She'd convinced herself that he really meant to die--that he'd sought the sweet solace of nothingness and was only barely clinging on to this side.
He'd just wanted everything quiet. That was all.
Now, he could no longer hide in the silence. He was expected to be a man, not a girl sitting around her mother's skirts being fawned over. He was meant to have grit and resilience, not a constitution so weak that he'd have to be missing out on so much of his education. So there he was, walking the corridors of the castle, trying to remember who he was meant to be and what strength felt like for the sake of an image he was no longer sure was worth keeping.
Eventually, it would be all right. He had to believe so. Otherwise...well...he didn't know.
As much as he agreed with his mother, and as much as he'd have welcomed another week hiding in his room, the boy saw the clear merits in what his father had said. He couldn't wallow forever. If he stayed down, he stayed down alone. The rest of the world wouldn't stop spinning while he tried to figure it out. Life would continue, the earth would keep spinning, and no one else's life would be put on hold.
No one's.
Cassian had seen Rosie when he got to lunch, having arrived at the castle a little late. It had been poor timing that she was already on her way out. Poor timing turned into something more gut-wrenching when their afternoon classes perpetuated the silence he'd had for the past three weeks, the one that was no longer comfortable. The boy had wanted to write when he could, but a deep search of the house, even with his mother's help, had turned up not a single piece of parchment, quill, or inkwell. Logically speaking, the house had to have contained some--every wizarding household did--but the man had been thorough.
With the imposed non-communication, Cassian had been eager...and...a little anxious to see her again. He'd have to find a way to explain the absence and the lack of writing, but he'd figured he'd cross that bridge when he got there. All that mattered was that he could see her again and remind himself the world hadn't shattered nearly as greatly as he'd begun to believe.
But she hadn't been in their classes.
She hadn't been anywhere after the lunch sighting.
On the word of one of his housemates, Cassian struck out across the grounds to the lake. From what he'd heard, his girlfriend hadn't been herself since the return from the break. That worried him. Without being able to talk with her, he had no way of knowing whether something had happened after he left. Guilt began twisting inside him immediately at the thought that following him back to the village had caused her trouble. He didn't know what he'd do if that was the case.
"Word around the castle's you've gotten harder to find than the Book of Merlin." He sank down next to her on the shoreline, looking out at the dark waters rather than at her.
For a moment, he didn't know what to say. The silence he dreaded returned, lodging itself in the base of his throat so that he had to fight to find words.
"Everything alright with your family...?"
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-26-2025
The soft thud of footsteps approaching did nothing to draw her attention from the dark waters of the lake. In truth, she hadn't even heard them or noticed the figure of the tall boy coming up alongside her. So lost in her own thoughts was the girl, that her entire world had shrunken down to the tiny patch of sand she was sat on and the gentle slosh of the lake ahead of her.
"Word around the castle's you've gotten harder to find than the Book of Merlin."
His voice was like a dagger to her chest. Normally the one she listened for, the voice that could break her out in fits of laughter at one of his jokes or slow her heart down with his sultrier words, now it just cut. Tiny lacerations, little by little.
She didn't answer. What was there to say? Rosalie didn't have a speck of humor left in her. Christmas and the last two weeks had beaten any that she had retained over the summer right out of her. His sudden presence felt strange, knowing what she did. Every other reunion of theirs had been joyful, excited, wrapped up in arms, unable to tear their eyes from each other. Now, she couldn't even look at him. Not because she was angry or didn't want to see him, but because she knew if she looked at the boy with the beautiful deep brown eyes and the freckles tracing his nose and cheeks, she would crumble.
Rosie had cried enough. Over the past two weeks. Over Christmas. All of September. Sometimes during the summer. At the beginning of last year. September, October, November and December of 1919. She had cried so much, for so long, that she was convinced there was no possible way she could produce more tears. Certainly she had cried enough over the last year and a half to last her a lifetime, and it didn't seem fair she'd ever have to shed more.
So she stared, unmoving at the lake that served as a grounding force to everything inside her that felt like floating away.
"Everything alright with your family...?"
It seemed such an odd thing to ask. Not an apology for his silence or for worrying her. Not an explanation for where he'd been for two weeks. Not an attempt to tell her what she already knew. Her family. The last people that she wanted to think about or discuss. For a long time, she'd been open about them with him, when she knew she wasn't supposed to be. The Laurences didn't discuss the family outside of the walls of the castle, and certainly not with anyone who wasn't a member of their tiny inner circle.
In September, when she'd thought she was pregnant, she had realized that pulling part of herself back was necessary. The way Cassian had yelled and shook her confirmed that she had been too much, had let her emotions get too far out of control. And she had reeled it in quickly. When he'd come to see her the night of his overdose, she hadn't pressed him to talk or stay, choosing instead to remain quiet and just offer her physical comfort.
Now, she was realizing, she needed to start pulling back on her family as well. They had always been the main source of stress in Rosalie's relationship with Cassian. Again, it had been too much, too revealing. She knew how to handle her family, how to behave and appear to be obedient to stay tolerated if not on their good side.
Cassian didn't know how to maneuver through any of it. How could he? How could she had ever expected him to?
"Fine," she said quietly, her shoulders raising in a slight shrug. She didn't want to jump right into the conversation she was dreading, but otherwise they'd be sitting in silence. She lifted her head from her knees, but continued staring forward, watching as a pair of birds over the water swooped and screeched at each other over something one had caught.
"Are you feeling better?" The question was soft, barely above a whisper, but one that was rooted in the genuine concern she felt for him.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-26-2025
It didn't take any great amount of deduction for him to confirm what several others had suggested. She wasn't fine. Whatever had happened over the break--maybe after the break while he was gone--it still gnawed away at her, robbing her of the usual shine that followed her. He'd seen this Rosie before and could already feel the gears in his head shifting as they tried to figure out how to fix it.
"You sure...?" he asked carefully. "No trouble when you'd gotten back to the castle? No one noticed?" He hadn't had possession of his notebook--still didn't, actually--so would've missed anything she might have been able to sneak to him after.
What if her father had seen her? What if one of the guards reported her? What if--
"Are you feeling better?"
Cassian froze for a fraction of a second, and in that time, his mind raced. Was he feeling better? His first instinct was to panic, to assume she'd somehow found out about what happened before he'd had a chance to explain and that that was the cause of her poor mood. Cassian dreaded that it had gotten out, that he hadn't been able to get ahead of it before remembering...he hadn't returned to school.
Of course.
Any rational person would assume he was ill. That...yes. There was no need for him to give himself away with suspicious behaviour over something that was likely nothing. It did get him thinking, though. Relieved as he would've been to keep what happened to himself for a while longer, life had its own way of just...happening and not always the way he wanted. All it would take was a slip-up--or worse, her outright asking--and he would find himself in the predicament anyway. Hiding it now, after being gone as long as he had, would only make it worse.
Whether he liked it or not...he...probably had to tell her, at least some of it.
"I'm fine," he started, wanting to get that out of the way. No worry. No fears. He was fine. Healthy. Had gotten a full medical clearance to return to school.
That made him fine, didn't it?
He sighed deeply, forcing himself to build into what he knew he would have to do. "Sorry, I never wrote." He ran his fingers through his curls, trying to dispel some of the rising adrenaline. Nearly everything in him screamed not to, insisting he let it die and never bring it up again, but he'd had several conversations--with both parents--and he knew it wasn't...that wasn't what the person he wanted to be would do.
"You're probably wondering where I've been, huh?"
Cassian knew what he had to do. He was just...preparing.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-26-2025
She didn't want to sit here and do this. The small talk, the 'check-ins'. All of it felt so routine and normal, when every inch of her skin was crawling with the uncomfortable reality she was now living in. Even if she'd been caught - which she hadn't - what difference would it make now? It'd be long over, consequences already doled out. She didn't see the point in hashing this out, especially since he'd never made it a point to reach out in almost a month.
"No trouble when you'd gotten back to the castle? No one noticed?"
She shook her head slightly. "I told you it was fine," she said, and it was. There was nothing to talk about or discuss when it came to that night, other than what had happened when he got back home. She didn't bristle, her words weren't sharp, only firm to indicate she wouldn't be going down a rabbit hole of her family mechanisms and what would have happened had she been caught.
"I'm fine. Sorry, I never wrote."
She pressed her lips together, dropping her gaze down to the sand at her feet. It had been one of the hardest parts of getting through these past three weeks. The overt loneliness that came from the unknowing, and while Rosalie had accepted the silence eventually, and made it her security rather than her enemy, it had still hurt. It reiterated to her that she wasn't a priority when it came to the knowledge of his well-being.
Freddie had cared enough, more than anyone else had, to make sure she was aware and not left in the dark. She knew what he knew at least, and she had written back to him to tell him how much she appreciated him.
Otherwise, she had been left in the dark to deal with it herself. No parents to lean on, no siblings to confide in. Benji wasn't someone she'd wanted to burden once they returned to school. He had his own girlfriend to focus on, and considering she'd told Julia about what he'd been up to, he wasn't exactly scrambling to hang out with her.
It was fine. She was tired of being surrounded by people who thought so little of her as to keep so many secrets from her.
"You're probably wondering where I've been, huh?"
No.
She'd known exactly where he'd been, or at least a fairly good idea. He'd been in the hospital and then likely at home with his father. There was a part of her that thought to rip off the bandage and tell him she already knew, but Rosalie was of the mind to let him tell her. She wanted to know if he would, or if he'd just feed her some bullshit story.
She dropped a hand to the sand, drawing little shapes and figures with her finger. She didn't know what to say, or what she could even say at this point. There was a part of her that felt she'd done enough of the talking in their relationship.
The spotlight was all his.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-26-2025
This might not have been the right time. The longer Cassian sat there, the more convinced he became that something was going on with her. It seemed a bad time for him to be trying to push his stuff onto her when she was clearly going through something of her own. At the same time, Rosie was doing everything she could to make it clear she didn't want to talk about it.
He went quiet again.
This was going to be harder than he thought, and now he had the added worry of trying to decipher whatever was going on with his girlfriend. A few days ago, Cassian had made up his mind to tell her. Between his mother and his father, he'd gotten several talks on responsibility and how one couldn't expect to move forward if they chose to continue digging deeper holes to bury things. It had already happened; there was no changing that. Not talking about it wouldn't undo his actions; it would only cause them to continue festering.
He knew that. Rather, it had been drilled into him enough that even he couldn't ignore it. In his mind, he'd had it all planned out, but reality was throwing a heavy wrench into things. When he'd determined to tell the truth, he hadn't figured she would be in a mood like this. In his mind, he would run into her, they'd hug, and he'd tell her how much he missed her. Maybe she'd tell him a little about how the holidays had been for her to distract him from what he'd have to do. After that, he would find the courage to bare his soul and...and...then...
Well, admittedly, he hadn't thought that far ahead--with good reason. The boy had run several scenarios through his head, and none of them looked good for him. That had been reason enough for him to decide it was better to keep quiet. There was no need to rock the boat.
Except...this boat was already rocked. More than rocked. It was tilting violently from side to side, threatening to capsize at a moment's notice for reasons still unknown.
He didn't want to make it worse, especially when she wasn't giving him much to work with.
"...Okay..." he said, turning his gaze to her for the first time since he'd sat. She'd said she was fine and that her family was fine, but she hadn't bothered to respond to his question. Another version of himself would've taken it as a sign to clam up and change the subject, but...he wasn't trying to be that Cassian anymore.
This was fucking hard.
And she wasn't saying anything.
When it was clear she had no intention of breaking the silence, the boy cast his gaze back out to the lake. He sucked in a deep breath, one that physically lifted and lowered his shoulders. It was like his first performance on a real stage. His heart was pumping, and the words he knew he needed to say were hiding behind lips that had caught stage fright. It was a feeling he'd learned, with time, to push past. He had to do it now. While his muscles seized and his stomach churned, Cassian sought the words he wasn't meant to keep to himself, no matter how much he wanted to.
"I would've written," he said, stalling as hard as he reasonably could. "but...I ended up in the hospital for a few days." Cass paused, hoping she would take over, maybe ask a question or two, force him to get to the important parts so he wouldn't flounder unnecessarily and end up in places, giving confessions he had no business giving. She wouldn't bite. In the new silence that dangled between them, Rosie maintained her stony stance.
He was on his own with this. The girl had no intention of biting.
Cassian dragged his hand along his face, wondering for the millionth time why this was so difficult. "...Over...overdose," he continued quietly, his voice picking up in volume a moment later as he tried to bury the word beneath more information. "Healer says I'm fine. Mum would've had me home longer, but Dad insisted. He...took my notebook, so...you know..." His voice faded again with uncertainty.
Something? Anything?
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-26-2025
"...Okay..."
She could feel his eyes on her, but she refused to return his gaze, not wanting her resolve to break. She knew if she looked at him, her heart would melt and she was fighting every instinct within her to hold strong.
She could feel her heart thudding away behind her sternum, steady but heavy, sending blood thundering in her ears. Would he say it? She didn't want to have to confront the idea that her boyfriend, her best friend would continue to keep something so grave and important from her. If he could, it said more about their relationship than she could bear to consider, and it would only solidify the ending that would have to come.
Because what was love without trust? Without honesty or accountability? These weren't things her parents had taught her. These weren't ideas she'd had lectured into her morality. These were things Cassian himself had taught her. He had been the one to teach her that love's safety net was integrity and openness. It was what saved love when the rest of the world tried to tear it apart.
"I would've written...but...I ended up in the hospital for a few days."
Inhale.
The thudding of her heart ricocheted through her vision, strange slight vibrations against the images she brushed through the sand.
"...Over...overdose,"
Exhale.
He said it. Rosie felt the falling of her chest with the expulsion of air as she closed her eyes in unadulterated relief. The lake rushed at her in that moment, drowning her in its figurative dark waters as she searched her mind for what came next. She hadn't prepared herself for this scenario. She'd thought, in the three weeks she'd had to consider everything, that he would do what he normally did. Deflect, pretend it hadn't happened, and she'd have to try and pull it out of him.
He was still talking, something about the notebook, and being fine, but all she could focus on was that he'd said it. She finally lifted her gaze to look at him and take him in. Her handsome boy. The one she loved more than anything else. The one she compared to all others. Her heart lurched, torn between what she wanted to do and what she knew was the right thing to do.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him, hold him, and reassure him that everything would be alright. That they'd figure this out together. He'd been honest and for her, that erased the dishonesty and shutting her out. But...there was still everything else she needed to reconcile.
"I know," she said softly, reaching out for his hand to lace her fingers with his. "Freddie wrote to me." There was no need to expand. He'd understand. She steadied herself, swallowing hard before looking back out at the lake. "I'm not angry with you, Cassian. I just wish you would have told me that you were..." she trailed off a little, feeling the defeat return.
What would she have done if he'd died that night? His father would have never told her. She would have heard it from Freddie. And she'd never be allowed to attend a memorial to say any sort of goodbye to him. She'd be left to reconcile everything alone. That he used drugs and potions to soothe himself, that he'd kept secrets. That they had been his undoing.
But it hadn't happened that way, and it wouldn't do anyone good for her to catastrophize over things that hadn't happened. Instead, she needed to focus on what had happened, and where they went from here.
"I'm proud of you, for telling me." She was, so incredibly proud of him, especially knowing how easy it would have been for him not to. She paused a moment, thinking about how to pivot into what she needed to say and what had been on her mind.
"I hate that you've been in so much pain, and I haven't been able to help you." She squeezed his hand a little. "How long, Cassian?" She needed to know, so she could begin to reconcile how long she had had her head buried in the sand.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-26-2025
"....Fucking Freddie," he muttered, more to himself than her.
Cassian exhaled deeply, trying to steady the sudden spinning in his head while he recalibrated. She knew. That meant she'd known the whole time. From the moment he'd sat down and asked about her holidays, all the silence, the curt responses...she already knew. He felt sick. The boy had thought--hoped--that he'd come into the conversation on neutral terms and would be able to ease them both through it at a pace that wouldn't make him feel like he was suddenly hurtling down a spiralling abyss.
No luck with that now.
She knew.
She knew he overdosed, and she wasn't happy about it--obviously. Of course, she wouldn't be. None of the scenarios he'd run through ended with a Rosalie Laurence that was thrilled to find out her boyfriend had nearly offed himself in a moment so utterly stupid that he was still suffering the ramifications of it. The headaches still came and went, and the withdrawals had been the stuff of nightmares. The boy still had phantom pangs of nausea and sometimes his stomach hurt for no reason other than the muscle memory of how badly they'd cramped.
Even more, he'd hurt a few people. His mother had been beside herself. His father, stoic as he'd tried to be, looked like a man who'd finally been forced to accept that he'd been an entire and utter failure. He'd heard them when they thought he'd been asleep. The man had been so broken, apologising for the way he'd run their family into the ground.
It was an added stab of guilt for the boy who'd already been drowning. His father got on his nerves a lot sometimes, but he knew he'd always been trying his hardest. There wasn't a time when Cassian--angry as he often was about how much he worked--thought he wasn't giving his all for the only kid he had left. He forced failure onto the man and didn't know how to remove it.
Cassian looked down at their hands, at the way their fingers entwined. The action that should've brought him comfort only filled him with dread. He squeezed her hand, bracing while she explained she wasn't mad. Maybe not. It wasn't anger that he heard in her voice but something the boy considered even more dangerous. Resignation.
He'd rather she were mad. If Rosie yelled and screamed, he would have a better idea of where it was all going. This was scarier, and her hand holding his was the only thing keeping him steady.
"I'm proud of you, for telling me."
Was she? Because he felt like shit. Every time he had to talk about it, every time someone reminded him, the Ravenclaw just wanted to find a hole deep enough to bury himself in. He had to do this. This was part of being a man, and it was a part he found he didn't particularly care for.
"How long, Cassian?"
He looked at her again.
"How long?" he repeated dumbly. With all the thoughts now swirling through his mind, it was hard to pick out the information Rosie needed. How long was he under punishment? How long had he been in the hospital?
How long?
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-26-2025
"Don't be mad at Freddie," she said with a slight shake of her head, "No one else would have told me. He was just doing what he thought was right." And that she could keep an eye on Cassian while they were at school. She didn't know how, if he was as good at hiding it as he had been. She hadn't had the first clue that Cassian was using. She hadn't a clue about a lot of things, it seemed.
She could feel him tensing up as the realization washed over him that she hadn't been in the dark after all. It certainly changed things, at least for him. For Rosie, it had been this way for three weeks. Knowing something so horrible had happened to the person she loved and being helpless and powerless to do anything about it. Even just talk to him.
And yes, there was resignation in her voice. It was a culmination of two years of fighting for something that maybe had never been hers at all. Her circumstances had always dictated her life and her life's path. She knew it well when she started at Hogwarts, having even told one of her housemates on her first night of school that she wasn't entitled to her own life. That she knew love would never be hers to keep; not while she was this young at least.
And yet, she had let herself fall for a boy who she knew she couldn't have. A boy whose life had been threatened, who had sacrificed so much for her. Who taken the weight of her world on his shoulders and was crumbling beneath it. It was probably the most selfish, most unfair thing she could have done to him.
And now they were here.
"How long?"
Blue oceans met what once felt like their shores, now cracking apart in a silent tide. She didn't know if he was purposefully avoiding the question or genuinely didn't understand, but she'd give him the benefit of the doubt. "How long have you been using?" She needed to know. She needed to understand how much of their relationship had been real, and how much of it had been influenced by his potions and drugs.
"Were you high...for all of it?" her voice cracked as she fought to keep her composure. "On our birthdays last summer? Or when you asked me to be your girlfriend?"
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-26-2025
"How long have you been using?"
"...Oh." That.
Cassian didn't have the bandwidth to consider Rosie's request about Freddie, not when the spiral had worsened to a dizzying speed he could barely think through. It went without saying that he was annoyed at his friend for sharing something that wasn't his to share. He knew the boy meant well and had likely only been trying to make sure he was taken care of. He knew someone would've needed to tell Rosie. He knew Freddie would've been devastated had he actually died. He knew. He just...knew. Frankly, he didn't think he had the anger to truly be angry over it either. It had only been another natural consequence of his actions.
As were these questions now. They were the sort you had to expect when a secret like this came out. There had been similar ones asked by his parents, his father especially. He'd wanted to know how long, too, and had wanted to know if it had had anything to do with his recent rebellion.
It didn't.
The blonde girl with the hypnotising blue eyes sat at the centre of Cassian's latest rash decisions. He'd been perfectly sober each time save for the intoxication of the love he felt for her.
"First year, maybe, I don't remember," he said, his shoulders rising in a helpless shrug. It was something he'd kept to himself for so long, something he thought he'd take to his grave beyond the casualness of his friends knowing it was something he did. He'd never said when, or even how. Why. Where. None of it. There had never been a reason to dive that deep. It had simply been a thing that was.
"Were you high...for all of it? On our birthdays last summer? Or when you asked me to be your girlfriend?"
He sighed heavily, fearing he would run out of air at some point. Cassian didn't care for the implied accusations, but he understood why they were being levied. This, too, was the work of his hands. He'd caused Rosie to doubt every moment they'd ever shared and didn't have the right to feel the dull agitation that tried to climb into his chest at being cornered and made to explain himself. He hated that it had come to this. Equally, he knew it would be better to explain than to let her carry on with such destructive thoughts.
There would be no coming back from those.
"Of course, not," he said. "I wasn't living off them night and day. They were only really for fun, at first. Something to do every now and then. Made me feel like I belonged with those older blokes. Then it helped to take the edge off. Even then...I didn't need them very often and never took them when I planned to see you." If nothing else, he'd been very careful about that.
His shoulders that had risen sagged again. "Just...just felt good."
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-26-2025
First year.
The sheer absurdity of it all vibrated through her, echoing over and over. It was no wonder then, by the time she met him that she’d not noticed a single thing. By then, he was used to it, able to hide it easily, she assumed. Eleven years old. Benji said he’d started drinking at ten. It was such a stark difference from the world Rosalie grew up in; so incredibly sheltered and protected from the influences that the boys in her life had fallen so easily to.
She nodded, not wanting to push him further.
"Of course, not,"
He said, as though she should just know. Was it really a ridiculous question, all things considered?
She listened quietly, trying to absorb each word so that her mind could make sense of everything and try to find some way of understanding. Maybe she wasn’t meant to, but she wanted to. She wanted to be able to understand so she could empathize with him and maybe somehow be able to move forward. He never took them before seeing her.
That was good, right? It was what she wanted to hear. It meant that maybe this wasn’t - overdose aside - the worst thing she could possibly imagine. If he wasn’t high when he was around her, that meant that all of it had been real.
It also meant he was calculated in keeping it hidden from her, and it wasn’t just a coincidence she’d never noticed.
“Okay,” she said quietly, deciding to accept his explanation as it was. She waited a moment letting the words sink into her skin, willing them to offer her any sort of relief from this ache that coursed through her. “I just want you to be okay.”
A long silence passed between them while Rosie went back and forth with herself in her head. His explanations were…adequate enough to at least appease the voice that had cried over perceived falsehoods and narratives. But there was still the other that insisted had it not been for her and everything they’d gone through, maybe his mother would have just been another straw and not the final one. Maybe he wouldn’t have needed to taken as much as had.
Because the fact still stood that Cassian had harmed himself, and in doing so, he’d harmed everyone who loved him. His father already blamed her for much of the trouble Cassian had gotten himself into.
Maybe he was right.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said, her stomach turning over on itself, willing her not to continue, “and…I don’t want to be the reason that your life is difficult or hard for you to face.” Her chest heaved shakily as she felt tears sting the inner corners of her eyes. She squeezed his hand a little tighter.
“You said you could handle all of it, but I don’t think it’s fair anymore to ask you to try.”
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-26-2025
Okay? Okay, what? Okay, she believed him? Okay, he hadn't told her anything new? Okay...for the sake of being okay? It was a simple word, but it had managed to leave him filled with even more dread. There was an ominous foreboding in such a non-commital response, one that continued to rob him of any clarity he might have had on the matter otherwise.
Cassian didn't like this business of not knowing. It rattled his insides despite his outward composure. It was a wonder he wasn't shaking, though perhaps that was the numbness that had crept in, trying to soothe the panic he was suddenly staring in the face. Cass tried to ignore the sharp ache in his chest, wanting to believe that this was just another hard conversation they needed to have.
This...it would be fine.
“I just want you to be okay.”
"And I am," he insisted, tugging on her hand so she might look at him. "I am, really. At least, I'm going to be."
Things weren't the best at the moment, and he hadn't been making the soundest of choices, but the boy had never felt so determined not to repeat his mistakes. He wanted to be better; he wanted to be the boy whose skin he was comfortable walking around in. Not another act, but the real thing, a part of him he'd never had enough faith to allow out into the light of day before. The boy knew he could be better--there was always room for improvement, wasn't there?--and he knew he still had a long way to go, but he wasn't the same boy who'd stumbled into his house despondent and disillusioned with the world, and he felt ready to prove that, somehow. Any way he could. He just needed--
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
His heart dropped. It was yet another innocuous sentence, one that truly could've meant anything. Yet, in that moment, nothing could've filled him with more dread. When her eyes met his, Cassian tried searching hers, hoping he could find a glimmer of hope that might assure him this wasn't where he thought that things were going, but as she continued, things only seemed to grow heavier.
"You're not the reason." Her family...they had tried to get in the way at every turn, but he wasn't blaming Rosie for how difficult they were determined to make their lives. It wasn't her fault they didn't think much of their relationship, and she wasn't the one trying to drag him out into a meadow some d--
“You said you could handle all of it, but I don’t think it’s fair anymore to ask you to try.”
He squeezed harder at her hand, wanting her to hear his words clearly. "You haven't asked me to try anything. This has been my choice. I'm the one who decided not to give up. I already decided this was worth fighting for, not because you want me to, but because I believe in us and think we're worth the fight."
He shifted tto face her. "So what if things get hard? There's always going to be something. It's got nothing to do with fair." That wasn't the lens through which he saw their relationship.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-27-2025
"And I am. I am, really. At least, I'm going to be."
Rosie couldn’t help the sad smile that crept across her lips as he tugged on her hand. “I know you will,” she said genuinely, “You’re the strongest person I know, whether you want to believe you are or not.” The boy had stood up for her, planned an escape and ran away with her, protected her with his life, even as his own drained out of him, and got back up every time life tried to kick him down. This wasn’t going to define him. It was hard and it was huge, but it wasn’t who he was.
She wasn’t wrong when she’d told Benji that he didn’t know Cassian the way she did.
There were a lot of conflicting emotions within the girl, but now that the doubts and existential questions had all been handled, it only left her now with the ultimate concern. One she’d grappled with since the day they’d met.
Was she too much? Did the strife she bring to his life outweigh any good? Was she only detrimental to his well-being as his girlfriend, when she could be a powerhouse for him as his friend?
”You're not the reason."
She wanted to believe him. So badly. But she’d seen him that night in September, spiraling harder than she’d ever seen him before, cracking under the pressure and weight of it all. She remembered how scared she’d felt the night before Christmas Eve, holding him tightly in her arms, feeling him slipping away from her, even as she tried to keep him hanging on.
It broke her heart.
"You haven't asked me to try anything. This has been my choice. I'm the one who decided not to give up. I already decided this was worth fighting for, not because you want me to, but because I believe in us and think we're worth the fight."
As hard as she fought to hold them back, she felt the tears break the dam of her eyelashes, stinging the delicate skin of her lids where they’d been made raw from crying. There had been so many times over the past few weeks that she’d felt her heart shattering, but sitting here in front of him, saying what she was, listening to him argue that no, they were worth it, was gutting her.
How could they be worth it when it caused him so much stress and pain? He didn’t need her. He could find some other girl. Some girl whose family wouldn’t put him through this shit. He could go on with his life and become the director he was meant to be and make a dozen babies with a perfectly normal theatre girl.
He could be happy.
"So what if things get hard? There's always going to be something. It's got nothing to do with fair."
There would always be something. Always. That’s what she was afraid of. “I love you so much,” she said, her voice breaking as she buried her face in her free hand, the other clinging to his tighter than she ever had before. She didn’t know what else to say.
There were the words that she knew she needed to get out, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them.
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-27-2025
The tears were the final straw for the respectful distance he'd sought to maintain. No matter where the conversation went, no matter what else they had to say, Cassian had never been able to ignore the pain inside her. Her hurt was his hurt, and this time, the boy could see that he'd caused a hurt so massive...one she'd been keeping in but no longer could. It didn't matter to him anymore that they'd resolved nothing. He didn't care whether they would still require an hour or a week, or a month out of the lake to feel better. A more pressing need had arisen, and it wasn't one he was willing to turn a blind eye to.
“I love you so much.”
The words cried out to him, squeezing around his heart until it hurt for him to breathe. He pushed through the feeling, releasing her hand in favour of pulling her close. She hadn't asked him to, and there was every chance she'd push him away. A part of him expected she would, but...he couldn't...not try.
It wasn't who he was.
Cass tugged her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "I love you, too. You know that, right?" In the middle of everything else, with all the other problems, that was the one thing he hoped she never doubted. When she asked if any of it had been real and whether he'd been high in all their important moments, it had cut deep. She doubted, if only for a while, that what they'd had was genuine and that hadn't sat well with him.
It wasn't her fault, of course. He'd planted those seeds of doubt himself. He could hardly be surprised when those seeds actually grew into the tree that now blocked his way.
"You said I'm the strongest person you know." He wasn't sure he could agree, especially not after what had happened. But she thought so. "Keep believing that. Strong people fall, too, you know? They mess up, and they don't always get things right. They still make a ton of mistakes, and they struggle but...strong people keep fighting. They want to keep fighting. I want to keep fighting."
He didn't think the road ahead would be easy. On the contrary, he'd already been told he wasn't likely to live long after graduating unless he could figure something out.
Was it scary? Terrifying. Did it make him want her any less? No. No, it only made him more determined to make it work. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to lose her. All that meant was that the boy had to think harder. He was prepared to do just that.
"I'm sorry, gorgeous. I wasn't trying to put you through all this." He'd had it under control for the longest while until he...snapped.
"I'll do better, I will."
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-27-2025
Before she knew it was happening, he was pulling her into his lap. She hadn't noticed until her legs were already wrapping around his waist. This wasn't where this conversation was supposed to go. She was supposed to be stronger, unmoving and firm in what she had already decided.
"I love you, too. You know that, right?"
Why did it have to hurt so much? Words that were supposed to warm her heart, steady her in his presence and make her feel safe, now sliced her open as easily as they would have had they been words of hate. When his arms wrapped around her, hers automatically fell around his neck, pulling him closer to her until their chests were flush and bodies molded to one another. The dichotomy of it was one Rosalie pushed away in favor of the comfort of his warmth searing into hers.
Sorrow and resignation swam within her blue oceans, even as she nodded. She knew he loved her. That was the center of all of this, wasn't it? If he didn't love her, they wouldn't be here now, grasping at straws and for anything that justified they continue this dance they'd been faltering at for so long now. She couldn't reconcile the pain that coursed through her veins with the tenderness that sparked in her heart at the look in his eyes.
How was it possible for love to hurt so badly?
"You said I'm the strongest person you know. Keep believing that. Strong people fall, too, you know? They mess up, and they don't always get things right. They still make a ton of mistakes, and they struggle but...strong people keep fighting. They want to keep fighting. I want to keep fighting."
She wanted to keep fighting too. She didn't want to give up on him, on them. She couldn't imagine that her life would ever be better without him in it. Love wasn't the fairytale she'd thought it was. It was hard, and heartbreaking. It tore her apart and stitched her back together again in the same breath. It made her want to scream with rage and then...she'd look into his eyes and want to melt into them.
He wanted this too. He didn't want to be released from this, even knowing what laid ahead for them and what they'd had to fight through. He still wanted to choose her. That...meant something right? It was more important than all the demons in her head telling her otherwise.
"You are strong," she said, running a hand across his cheek, the tips of her fingers brushing through the curls that hung around his eyes. "I know you can do this." She needed him to hear her, to see the faith she had in him, even as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
He apologized, promising he would do better - imploring her even, to believe that he would. She took a deep breath. It was now or never. This was the moment when she'd have to say it, if she was going to. The decision she'd been going back and forth on for nearly a month now would have to be made and laid plainly for both of them.
She gathered her courage, or what little she had left of it and turned blue orbs to brown. Those beautiful eyes that peered right into her soul, that she'd seen her entire future in. The eyes that she'd thought her babies would have one day. The eyes that read her like a love letter and made her feel invincible.
How was she going to turn away from them?
"If you love me, and I love you, then we have to fight together." It was the only way they would survive. "I'll hold you up and you hold me down. We meet each other half way. And we have to start over. We have to go back to the beginning." It was her concession, to let this go and move past all the hurt. To choose each other again. To decide they were bigger than their demons.
But not in the way they were now. She touched her forehead to his. If they were going back to the beginning...
"We need to start over as friends.” She felt her heart shattering as she clung to him, not wanting to say the next words, but seeing no way around them. “We need to take a break from us.”
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-27-2025
All his muscles began to relax when she didn't pull away. The gesture, while small, assured him that all wasn't lost. They could still find comfort in each other and somehow...some way, the rest would figure itself out. Rosie would still let him hold her. They still had them. To say he was relieved would've been a gross understatement and wouldn't do justice to the feelings that swirled inside of him. For the boy who'd convinced himself he might lose everything, there couldn't have been a better outcome.
Cassian rested his forehead against hers, soaking in the warmth of her affection. They hadn't fixed things, not yet, and not really, but he managed to take comfort in the way her fingers brushed against his skin. The Ravenclaw knew he would have a lot of rebuilding to do, both internally and externally. Knowing this wasn't one of the things that would fill him with dread took some of that pressure off. Still having Rosie to remind him he was strong, he felt like the mountain he was staring at wouldn't be so hard to climb.
"If you love me, and I love you, then we have to fight together. I'll hold you up and you hold me down. We meet each other half way. And we have to start over.
Hm?
His brows creased as he pulled away to look at her.
We have to go back to the beginning."
The...beginning? Cassian Thomas was by no means an unintelligent boy. Largely, from years of people watching and sinking into the skin of the many faces he played on stage, he had become good at picking up things if he focused on them long enough. With his friends, he was usually able to pick up when something was off. That was doubly true when it came to Rosie. He had taken the time to know her, to learn what each quirk of her brow meant, what the different silences represented, and what even her most careful words revealed.
Today, she was an enigma. She was still speaking English. Individually, he knew what each word meant, but all at once, it felt like he was learning the language all over again.
"What does that mean?"
"We need to start over as friends. We need to take a break from us.”
His blood went cold. A break? Friends? Them? The love of his life, just another girl walking the corridors of Hogwarts? The only person he could imagine a future with...just a casual hangout if they both had time...?
Break? Like...like a breakup...like she didn't want this anymore and instead of making it a clean cut, offered up 'friends for now' so it could naturally fade on its own?
His head hurt. Uncomfortable tingles ran along his skin, prickling at him while he felt the blood drain from his face. The boy's mouth went dry while his lips parted, trying and failing to find words. A crushing blow had struck him, disorienting him worse than when he'd first awoken in the hospital.
"I don't want to be friends," he managed despite the feeling he'd lost in his lips. Cassian shook his head emphatically. "I know we have a lot to work out, but this...Rosie...don't do this."
He knew he didn't have the right to ask. He'd done enough, and she was allowed to decide that he wasn't the sort of boy she wanted to be with anymore. He'd fucked up, he knew and...and he knew he had consequences to face--wasn't nearly done facing them--but not this. The boy could've stood to lose everything else...but...not this.
Not her.
It was a selfish argument, thinking he wouldn't survive this, and that that was reason enough for them to keep going. If this was what she needed, he should've been willing to let her go, so why were his hands tightening around her?
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-27-2025
"I don't want to be friends."
She felt his arms tightening around her, as her shoulders began to sink in defeat. While her heart screamed at her, cursing her for the unnecessary pain she was apparently prepared to put it through, her mind raced with the intrusive thoughts that insisted this was for the best. He...he needed to get better. How was he going to get better if he was stressed over her and her family? How would that help anything?
"I don't either," her voice was raw now with the lump that had solidified in her throat. Watching the blood drain from his face, the devastation slowly creeping over his features clawed violently at her resolve. She didn't want to be Cassian's friend. She wanted to be his girlfriend, his lover, all of the things that had always filled her with so much pride.
She couldn't imagine him with anyone else, or anyone else's hands on her. The thoughts made her sick, sending a tremble through her, her skin revolting with goosebumps at the idea. "I only want you. I want to be with you. But..."
"I know we have a lot to work out, but this...Rosie...don't do this."
A sob escaped her, as her face crumbled, the weight of everything finally crashing down on her. She didn't know what else to do. She didn't know how to fix this without a reset. She didn't know how to help him if she was also the cause of his pain. He could say it, over and over, that she wasn't the reason, but she knew better. Everyone knew better.
Everyone.
"I'm not good for you," she managed, her voice strained and weak, "I know what you said, but I can't help that I think this is my fault. At least most of it. You weren't...you weren't..."
Being stabbed on docks? Having overdoses? Fallouts with his father?
"...before me." She wanted so badly to be able to believe that somehow they could push through all of this, but how, without taking a break and giving him some breathing room. If they were meant to be, they'd find their way back to each other.
Wouldn't they?
"I don't want this," she said emphatically, cupping his face so he had to read the truth in her eyes. "But I don't know what else to do, Cassian."
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-27-2025
"I don't either."
"Then why are you doing this?" he begged, genuinely trying to understand. His dark eyes searched hers, trying to make sense out of the nonsense that had hijacked what he thought had been a good conversation. They were on the mend, they were talking about healing, and somewhere along the lines, Cassian thought they would offer tentative smiles and move forward. On the long road that stretched ahead of him, he saw himself holding Rosie's hand, clinging to what they had in the hours when everything grew dark again.
He realised, in the moment, what a crutch she'd become in that sense, but it wasn't his rational mind that stepped forward to greet that realisation. It was panic.
What would he do without her? Did he know how to not be her boyfriend anymore? Was there a 'from the start' with them? Even as friends, they'd always stolen kisses, held hands, and cuddled. Had they ever truly just been friends? Was there ever a time? What would that look like now? With her as hurt as she was, where were the new lines?
"I'm not good for you. I know what you said, but I can't help that I think this is my fault. At least most of it. You weren't...you weren't..."
"Why do you get to decide what's good for me?"
She continued on, hinting at her role in his suffering. Before her? Before her what? Until he met Rosie, Cassian hadn't been comfortable in his own skin. He'd turned himself into someone he wasn't, thinking that who he really was wasn't good enough to be presented to the general public. He'd been invisible while standing dead centre stage. All the applause, all the standing ovations, and not a soul who'd seen...him.
Until her.
Rosie had seen him. She'd peeled back all the layers, wanting to take a look where no one else had wanted to.
"All you see is the bad..." There was a strain in his voice, a disquietening that distorted it. "How come...how come you never think about the good things you've done? Why's it got to be all doom and gloom?"
His shoulders sagged with the defeat he'd been trying to fight off. "Is that the only lens you look through?" Did she only see the bad he'd done in her life, too? Was that the focus of her fixation? It was no wonder she didn't see another way out, not when there was a perpetual dark cloud hanging over her, reminding her only of how awful things were.
She didn't want this, he didn't want this...so why was it happening?
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Rosalie McCormick - 09-27-2025
"Then why are you doing this?"
She didn't know how to answer better than she already had. In the three weeks that had transpired where she hadn't heard a word from him and had to grapple with the reality of secrets that had been withheld from her, Rosalie had had nothing else to do but think. And when she thought, all that she had been able to think about was him in a hospital bed and how he'd gotten there.
For days on end, she went back through every moment they'd had together, trying to find any speck of a sign she'd missed. Without his reassurance and explanations, she'd been left to come up with her own. Without any understanding of what vices were and how they came about, she'd had to fill in the blanks for herself. Benji had helped some, but his experiences weren't the same as Cassian's, which did little to bridge the gap.
Her mind had been that bridge, and all signs pointed to the words she was speaking now.
It didn't mean she wanted it. It didn't mean that it didn't tear her apart.
"Why do you get to decide what's good for me?"
"I'm not trying to decide for you," she said, "I'm just telling you how I feel." Something she'd been trying to do for over a year now. She'd been laying her heart bare for Cassian, over and over, begging him to meet her where she was so that she didn't feel so alone, so that she didn't feel like she had to shoulder all of it quietly. He had never been able to, not once, which led her to believe that she was the problem. That she was too much for him.
"All you see is the bad..."
....What?
"How come...how come you never think about the good things you've done? Why's it got to be all doom and gloom?"
It was insulting. Rosie dropped her hands from him, taken aback by the words he'd just slung at her. Is that what he really thought? That she was a walking raincloud who saw the world on a pessimistic plane? That she was that jaded? She didn't think it was all doom and gloom, in fact she was normally the one trying to encourage him, trying to...
"Is that the only lens you look through?"
"Do you really want to know the lens I look through?" she asked, her words sharper than they had been moments before, her eyebrows coming together at the fresh hurt she felt rising in her chest. She pulled herself out of his grasp, moving off of his lap to put distance between them again.
"When I look at you, I see someone who has the potential for greatness. I see someone who could change the world if he stopped trying to stand in his own way. I see someone who makes people laugh when they want to cry, and who carries other people’s pain like it’s his own even when he’s drowning in his." Her heart raced with fury at the implication that all she ever saw was darkness, when she constantly tried to dance in the light. When she consistently tried to help him find his way there too.
"Every Quidditch match, I'm there, encouraging you, telling you that can do it. Every time we've worked on your plays, I'm there cheering you on, because I see you. I defend you, I defend us from everyone, because I know your heart, and I know me. I've never been all doom and gloom, especially not about us." She couldn't stop, the pain of the last month tumbling out of her now with his careless words.
Never think about the good things...bullshit.
"You keep shutting me out, as if I’m too fragile to handle the truth, when the only thing I’ve ever wanted is to share it with you. To not be left in the dark, feeling alone." She wiped furiously at her tears, "So how else am I supposed to think? You told me once that I was never too much, but every time you spiral when I try to share how I feel, every time you change the subject...when you yelled at me in that broom closet," she grimaced slightly at the memory, "It says otherwise."
RE: Sad Beautiful Tragic | Rossian - Cassian McCormick - 09-27-2025
It was a lot of saying nothing.
Cassian sat and listened to Rosie pour her heart out. Everything she'd done, every time she'd encouraged him, she saw it. The way she'd been trying to build him up when--as she'd said--he was standing firmly in his own way hadn't escaped him. He knew she'd done all those things, was acutely aware, actually. Most days, he didn't think he deserved it. Cassian wasn't an idiot. He'd known a long time ago that he didn't deserve her or the way she always managed to brighten his day. Who was he to hold her the way he did? Who did he think he was?
Sometimes, the boy could even empathise with her parents. They'd raised a gem. A rare form of beauty with a soul so pure and giving, so full of love and so full of everything good he could think of, and he thought...he could just...
He was full of shit.
Truly.
Cassian Thomas McCormick with a girl like Rosalie Laurence. She'd done so much for him, at every turn, and she threw it back at him now over a point he wasn't trying to make. He let her talk, thinking it was important for her to get it all out. It was what she'd been thinking, which made it important for him to hear.
Was he surprised they were here? No, not really. A part of him always figured she'd pull away. He didn't know when or what would be the nail in the coffin, but if anything would do it, he supposed an overdose would.
"You keep shutting me out, as if I’m too fragile to handle the truth, when the only thing I’ve ever wanted is to share it with you. To not be left in the dark, feeling alone."
Because you act like you are." If they were being honest. His arms fell away from her, shooting behind him to prop him up while he pulled back to look at her. "Every time something goes wrong, you start thinking you're too much." This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation, and it wasn't the first time he'd told her it wasn't true.
"You're doing it now. Here. When I asked if the bad was all you saw, I meant about you. I know you see the best in me, and I know you've cheered louder than anyone else. I know you think I'll conquer the world someday, but what about you? Why don't you see what you do? You keep saying it's all too much, and it's how you feel, and I get that, but how come you never talk about how you let me discover me again and how you gave my soul a place to call home? It's always that your family is awful and you're too much. You see me collapse, and it makes you collapse. What am I supposed to think?"
He sucked in a deep breath, not wanting to get himself worked up.
"I do spiral. I've spiralled for years, even before you. You see me spiral, and you think it had to be you. You don't think 'he came back to school and wants to keep trying because of me'," which was a far more accurate assessment of where he was. "You think, he nearly killed himself, and it's my fault. It's not."
So yeah, he knew she was a well of sunshine and goodwill. He couldn't understand why she never extended it to herself.
"If you saw you the way I see you, gorgeous, you'd never think you were too much again." But only if she let herself.