Rose's POV:
After my plane landed and I emerged, weighed down by my characteristically heavy luggage, I immediately spotted the one person I could always rely on in a dire situation—a ride from the airport.
Aria, my best friend.
We didn't have much time to catch up, chat, or take a plethora of selfies like we always did whenever she visited me at my aunt's.
She had someplace to be and quickly drove off after dropping me outside the lane where I was supposed to be staying.
Her behavior struck me as a little odd.
Although this town has changed a lot in the past ten years I've been away, I could always remember this lane, even in my wildest dreams.
This was not the lane where I was supposed to be staying. No, because this lane leads to a house that burned down to ashes ten years ago, with three people inside.
My old home. My family perished in it.
For some inexplicable reason, I started walking in its direction.
Just a little look at the desolation of my past won't hurt anyone, right? Besides it has hurt me plenty already, it can't do much damage anymore anyway.
What I saw next stopped me in my tracks.
This house looked exactly like my old home, but how?
That shock was nothing compared to what awaited me when I mustered the courage to walk up to the door, knock, and wait to see who would answer.
"What?"
No, this can't be happening to me right now. I just managed to swallow the harsh reality that I had to spend my entire college time in a place I never wanted to return to, and now this?
How is Jake—my dead uncle Jake—alive?
Stunned into silence, my mind races with disbelief.
How could my dead uncle Jake be standing before me, alive and well? Memories flood my mind like a torrential storm, fragments of a past I thought I had buried long ago.
Yet here he stands, his presence a haunting reminder of secrets untold and mysteries unresolved.
"Wait just a moment, Rose. Please, let's remain calm and composed. Allow me the opportunity to offer you some clarity," He raised his hands as if I was a wild beast being tamed by a gentle city shepherd.
I interrupted him mid-speech, glaring at him with such intensity that he fell silent.
Or maybe it was the fact that I was standing just an arm's length away from a very heavy-looking dumbbell on the rack in the living room.
If he thinks I'm going to throw a dumbbell at him out of anger and betrayal for letting me endure all the tragedies alone, he's got another thing coming. I'm going to do something much worse, and by God, he deserves it.
"Explain? Explain what? That you're supposed to be dead, buried six feet under, and now you're standing here in my living room like some sort of ghost?" My voice trembled against my wish with a mixture of disbelief and anger as I was struggling to process the impossible sight before me.
"You're supposed to be deceased, laid to rest, and yet here you stand in my living quarters, defying all logic," I managed to articulate. My hands automatically raised to lace through my brunette tresses and grip at my scalp painfully.
Yet, this pain was nothing by superficial, in fact it was welcoming, if anything.
Uncle Jake held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, his expression earnest. "Rose, please, just hear me out. I know this must be a shock, but there's so much you don't understand. Things are not as they seem."
There were tears threatening to spring up to my eyes and only managed to stay back because I willed them with the I could muster.
I'm truly hurt, betrayed, feeling like my whole life spent mourning my family's loss was just the expected conclusion of a well-planned prank.
As if any moment now, my parents are going to jump out from behind the curtains and tell me they've got me! Yay! now the pranks over, let's go back to being a family again!
Can I endure that?
A part of me clings to that idea, almost desperately expecting it -wanting it to be true, but the rest of me knows it's a stretch I shouldn't hold onto if I want to keep my remaining sanity intact.
Which is already half-way to crumbling like stale bread under the harsh blows of reality such as this one.
"You don't get to waltz back into my life after all these years and expect me to just accept it. I watched them lower your coffin into the ground, Jake. I mourned you. And now you stand here, acting like everything's fine?"
I shook my head side to side.
"...but lo and behold, you're not only alive but also claiming to have been residing here all this time without even bothering to inform your unsuspecting niece of your miraculous survival?!" The bitterness in my voice laced each word with a sharp sting.
If it hurts him then good, he should know how I feel right now.
"Rose, I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I returned, but I was advised against it." For a moment Jake fell silent. Maybe to allow his words to settle in.
Either that or he was carefully thinking of how to put his words together and avoid having a dumbbell hurled at him by his pissed and awfully wounded looking poor niece.
"They said it had been too long, that you had already endured a level of loss no ten-year-old should ever face. They believed you were finally finding your footing again, settling back into life and feared my return would disrupt your progress and have a detrimental impact on your emotional well-being." He continued to explain, his expression fraught with anticipation.
Clearly he was expecting a response from me as he gauged for my reaction.
Any reaction, good or bad, huge or slight, would suffice, but I wasn't going to put him out of his misery just yet.
I had spent years in misery with the loss I alone suffered, so what are a few minutes of misery for him?