To say it hurt Rosa to leave on the day of the Valentine's Day dance was an understatement. Rather, she felt as if a searing pain lay just beside her heart. It was close enough that it would burn but not enough that she could do anything to solve it. Instead it just burned as she kept moving and moving and moving.

She couldn't look back. Not for Neville, not for Jasmine, not even for Helena. No one could keep her in Cloisterham.

After careful and inward deliberation, she made the decision to run away without a trace. It was precisely a week after the incident with Mr. Jasper, which happened to coincide with the Valentine's Day dance. But if she stayed any longer she felt as if she might drown within her fears.

She continued to walk, a chill rolling across her spine. It felt too late in the year for it to still be winter, and yet they were only two months in. Rosa missed the spring time. She didn't feel endangered in every moment by the air itself in the springtime.

But it was the chills from gusts that helped to propel her forward, further and further away from Cloisterham.

She'd rehearsed how she'd speak to people about why she needed to leave over phone and text and by tumblr post. She saved draft after draft after draft of each speech. But now that she'd left, she couldn't bear to think about contacting anyone in Cloisterham. It would hurt her far too much.

All Rosa left behind was a single note for Helena. Helena was the lone soul at Cloisterham Academy who was fully trustworthy, at least in Rosa's eyes. She wrote down what had occurred, the reasons why she had run...but not that she was running. Helena would have to remain the sole keeper of her secrets.

Rosa recalled writing the note with a trembling hand clutching her pencil, her tears staining the thin paper.

Helena,

I write to tell you of such events which I cannot bear to speak out loud. The other Friday, the day on which I first became ill, as you know, I was with Mr. Jasper. He invited me to the sundial, and I did not dare tell a soul beside you in fear that he would discover that I'd divulged our meeting and become infuriated with me.

I know you would not have released such secrets as I am about to tell you, but I felt silenced.

I went to see him at the sundial, knowing that I would not have any sort of a pleasant experience but feeling as if I would discover something to aid in my quest to find Elly's fate. I came to him expecting to leave upset but triumphant. I left him feeling as if I had sold my soul to a demon and could no longer breathe.

We spoke for several minutes, and it became clear he was never going to loosen his grasp on me. He confessed his love for me. I did not know what to do, so I just gave in to my instincts. Thus, I kissed him. I kissed him, and of course he kissed me back. He desired much more than kissing, as I am certain you are aware of.

I nearly succumbed to it all - I found myself in a haze, weakened by my emotional state and my thoughts which refused to comply with me. I didn't know what I was doing, only that I had to do it.

But he spoke to me when it came to a lull, acting as if he had not experienced any of it. He seemed to be confused, perplexed to how he ended up in such a position. I took this new weakened state of his to force him away and run. I didn't go far before I ended up fainting. It seems only natural, given how distressed I was over the matter.

I then awoke to find Mr. Jasper's hand, stroking my hair. I didn't waste a moment after I came back into consciousness. Despite my rather fragile state of health, I continued to run. I ran all the way into our dormitory room and have hardly left since.

He silenced me in the manner that only he can. I apologize for not telling you of this incident sooner. I did not know how to say it, and even as I jot down this letter I feel as if I have not spoken in the manner most necessary.

I cannot apologize enough.

Rosa

She refused to give Helena any information to find her or even say she was leaving. She would not answer any phone calls or texts or emails. Aside from the letter, Rosa disappeared entirely.

Rosa realized she'd been fading away from the moment she returned to her dormitory after the incident. However, not that many people had noticed. They would certainly notice now that she was no longer present.

Rosa spent approximately a week in her dorm after the incident, weeping in self-pity most of the time and remaining still and silent the other half. But all the while she allowed herself to get lost in planning, for she decided that she was no longer safe at Cloisterham Academy. If Mr. Jasper knew where she was, she could not be safe.

Though Rosa knew she could trust Helena, she could not bear to tell her she was leaving. Rosa required a complete restart of her life so that no one could locate her. Perhaps her "new" life would be dreadful, but at least Mr. Jasper's pursuit would be nothing but a distant memory.

She used all of her silent moments alone in the dorm room to gather what little she was taking with her. Most of what she carried with her was new. She knew that she could make her disappearance seem to be something other than running away.

Perhaps Helena would believe Mr. Jasper had abducted her and alert officials on the matter. Perhaps he would have to face the law for her disappearance, confess what he had done to her for the past four years. It didn't matter if he was more or less innocent in the matter of her disappearance - he would face justice for something.

Maybe if she left without a trace then people might think she'd died like Elly. She wouldn't mind being dead in their eyes. Not if that meant that she no longer had to worry about Jon Jasper pursuing her. If people took such words as truth, he would have pursued her to death. Such words had already spilled from his mouth. Rosa wouldn't expect anything different from a man such as him.

What had she been thinking when she kissed him? She knew she hadn't consented to a thing, no. Still, those sorts of boundaries didn't appear for Mr. Jasper. He took the slightest vestige of a yes and turned into permission to do anything he wanted. In those moments she had sealed her fate. It was absolute torture, but yet there was worse.

The truest torture had been sitting within her room, all alone. She loathed that she was forced to spend time even remotely near him after what had occurred. But Rosa knew that she couldn't let on what she was planning, and thus she needed to remain lonely. If she was to disappear, she couldn't do it so soon after the incident. She would only end up coming into further harm if he knew why she'd left.

Mr. Jasper seemed to sense where she was whenever she was in Cloisterham. If she was wandering the halls of one building during lunch in an attempt to have time to herself, he would often appear before her. She avoided eye contact at all costs, but she knew he could not avoid his eyes which always settled upon her.

That was how she knew she needed to go.

Rosa's problem wasn't that she wanted to go somewhere, it was just that she needed to go. She couldn't stay in Cloisterham, or her problems would increase by tenfold. What had occurred with Mr. Jasper was something she could not bear to deal with. She no longer felt safe within any part of Cloisterham. If he had even an inkling of where she was, then she was not safe?

Thus Rosa decided to leave without a trace, planning to slowly build up her life anew. That was the point she had gotten to. She left without a trace. She escaped.

She glazed over her relief of escaping with a veil of tears. As much as she'd toiled to gather her things and go, she hadn't thought about her plan. She was seventeen, still a minor. Not too young to get a job, of course, but she'd never had a job in her life. She'd never needed one. She might be able to contact someone, but that was beside the point.

No, she would just have to forge a new path within her life. With a more positive outlook, Rosa might be able to see this occurrence as a welcome rebirth. No longer was she clutched within the walls of Cloisterham. Now she could embrace the rest of the world.

Rosa knew she could never return to Cloisterham Academy. She couldn't go back to anyone or anything there. Indeed, she had left quite a lot of her things behind - it made more sense that way. Rosa had left Rosa behind, and she didn't know what to do with herself.

But as she thought back it seemed more and more clear that she hadn't left herself behind upon leaving, but she'd been rickling away over the past week. She remembered a conversation she had with Helena just as she was planning to leave.

"Rosa, I hope you realize that everyone is asking what's happened to you," Helena said.

"Of course everyone is," Rosa mumbled. "I...I do not think...I do not think they would ignore me now."

"Rosa. They're all asking me what happened to you."

"You are my roommate."

"Exactly," Helena continued. "They all think that I somehow have the answers to it all. But I don't know what's happening to you, no more than anyone else out there. I tell them that I don't know anything."

"They will not believe such words," Rosa replied.

"It doesn't matter. People keep asking, and I keep telling the same answer - I don't know. I don't know what has happened to Rosa, she hasn't told me, she hasn't said anything. It's the truth, and nothing more."

"And if you did know, what would you divulge?" Rosa asked, avoiding Helena's gaze and instead fixing her eyes down to the bedsheets covering her and picking at it, again and again and again. "Would you divulge any matters I dared to share with you?"

"I would tell them the same thing that I'm telling them now, that I don't know anything. Unless, of course, you wanted me to tell people. Rosa, I'll keep any secrets you tell me. I promise - you can trust me with anything, and it will not escape from my mouth."

"It is of no matter," Rosa replied, now turning her gaze to the wall. Her voice, already all too soft, was nearly imperceptible. "I shall not divulge what is in my mind."

"What could be in your mind that could be so bad that you can't tell anyone?" Helena said. In an attempt to get Rosa to open up again, she sat on the edge of Rosa's bed. Rosa just scooted closer to the wall, trying to curl herself into a ball and shield herself from the world.

"I...I cannot express...I cannot say..." Rosa mumbled out. She didn't know how she could explain what happened, not even to Helena. Besides, it didn't matter how trustworthy Helena was - she simply could not know of what happened.

"Rosa, please," Helena said. "Rosa, tell me something. Anything, really. You can trust me no matter what."

Rosa pursed her lips, pondering whether or not she should divulge the truth to Helena at that moment. As her hands wandered to the collar of her shirt and her fingers began to pluck, however, Rosa realized the truth. It wasn't whether she should tell Helena what had happened, but whether she could. It wouldn't be too difficult to decide that she should tell, but the stitches she'd sewn across her lips were drawn tight.

She would have to say something else, something true. Helena said Rosa could tell her something, anything. Rosa would speak, even if was not on the matter whe initially planned to speak about.

"I require care from other people, Helena," Rosa said. "Pure, undiluted and utter care."

Helena took a breath before forming her reply.

"It's not that simple, Rosa."

"All of it, it should all be so simple! There are no intricacies to what I wish for most of all," Rosa cried. "It may be grandiose, hard to fathom, but...it's all that I want."

"All that you want," Helena echoed.

"Yes! I've been so isolated for the entirety of my life. Yes, I've had people there, all sorts of people, but they always leave. My parents, my nanny...Mr. Greggs was hardly ever present. Everyone I've ever known who has graduated, whether they be my roommate or my acquintance. And Elly has been ripped away from me. Don't you see, Helena? I have no one."

"Rosa, you know that's true. So many people adore you! You have plenty of friends!"

"Plenty of friends, yes!" Rosa said. "But so many friends who all have far better friends! Aside from Elly, there was no one who would turn to me first. I...I have become little more to most than unattainable. Unapproachable. And so I'm stuck desperately trying to get people to care, all when people do not wish to do such a thing."

"Rosa..." Helena sighed. "Just because you aren't everyone's best friend doesn't mean that people don't care about you."

Rosa, at this point, was crossed between fuming anger and the verge of tears. "Oh, how easy for you to claim!" she exclaimed. "You've been beside your brother since birth! You and Neville find solace in one another more than I could ever dream of having with anyone I know!"

"We're twins," Helena said. "We've been through hell and back together, Rosa."

"But I've been through hell and back too!" Rosa cried out. "All I want is for someone, even if it's just a singular person, to adore me! To think of me when their eyes first flutter open at dawn and to have my name resting on their lips when sleep overtakes them! I want them to adore me and think of me first, to make me the single most vital factor of their lives, to care for me always."

"Rosa, what you're talking about is obsession."

"Then perhaps obsession is what I require."

"That is the unhealthiest thing you could ever bring upon yourself, Rosa," Helena said, shaking her head. "Think, Rosa. There already is someone who thinks of you like that."

"What, the anon?" Rosa said, letting out a snort from how absurd the thought was. It was so much simpler to play at adoration beneath the cover of "anonymous," of course.

"Mr. Jasper, Rosa. You tell me all the time how much he is always trying to get to you. We both know that he's in love with you and it's driving everything he does. You haven't told me what happened at the sundial, but I know it must have something to do with his obsession. He-"

"Stop!" Rosa cried out. "Helena, please!"

"I'm only trying to tell you the truth," Helena replied. "If you want someone to adore you without boundaries, then go ahead. Mr. Jasper is waiting for you to come to him, I know he is."

"You're wrong!" Rosa exclaimed. "You must be!"

"If I'm so wrong, why are you so upset?" Helena replied. "You have a solid head on your shoulders, you would usually be...well, not okay with this, but you know what I mean. You're getting upset because you know that I am correct."

"But you can't be," moaned Rosa in response. "You can't be speaking the truth. Mr. Jasper isn't...he isn't what I want, there is no feasible way he can be!"

"You're looking at it from a different perspective, but it's the same thing. He is exactly what you described just a few minutes ago."

"Please don't," Rosa cried out, a new batch of hot tears coming to her eyes and dripping down her face. "Please don't tell me that."

"Rosa..." Helena said, letting a sigh pass through her lips. "I'm not trying to upset you. I know you've shed too many tears already, and I don't want to add to that. But I want to keep you safe. I want you to know that what you think you want is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for both you and whoever is obsessed with you."

"You said..."

"I said that Mr. Jasper is obsessed with you in the way that you were describing. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but...I'm not trying to give you what you think you want. I'm trying to give you what you need."

As Rosa curled herself into a ball, quivering from the tears which continued to leap from her eyes, the conversation descrescendoed. Each word Helena spoke was entirely true. Rosa wished she could just block it out. She realized that this was one of the last conversations they would have, but that didn't change her perspective. She didn't want to hear that she desired Mr. Jasper for his adoration of her.

The two girls remained in near silence, neither one speaking another word to the other. Thee was simply too much negativity hanging within the air. Rosa could feel just how insidious it was. She didn't need anything more in her system, not after everything she'd been through. But she remained silent.

Finally, Helena decided she needed to speak up.

"I don't want to see you hurt, Rosa. I can only guess what happened to you to silence you for these past few days, but I see that it's hurt you. I want to help you avoid that, and if you want someone to be devoted to you...well, you need to move on. You can achieve something great without having someone obsessed with you."

Rosa stayed silent.

"Rosa, please tell me what happened at the sundial."

Rosa didn't respond, and thus Rosa spoke her last words to Helena in the scalding heat of a fight.

The most terrifying thing to Rosa was how right Helena was. Of course. Of course the one thing Rosa desired was the singular thing she feared the most. It only made sense that she would be so blind to the obvious because she would not wish to believe such a thing was true.

Perhaps if Helena had known about what Mr. Jasper had done, she would not have said such a thing. Then again, she might have pushed it forward even more. But now Rosa would never know how Helena responded to finding out about the incident with Mr. Jasper. With her final words already uttered to Helena, there was no turning back.

At least she knew she could trust Helena not to spread any of the matter around. She wouldn't feel comfortable telling Neville or Jasmine about it, just as she didn't know if they would keep it completely silent.

"I'm going to miss them all," Rosa whimpered to herself. "And I'm going to miss having a future."

Rosa knew she was still within the first few miles outside of Cloisterham and that if someone searched for her there was an alarmingly high chance they would find her, but her hope was that people would not realize she'd vanished until after she was far away. After all, she was going completely by foot. She would make what she was doing obvious if she took her car.

She wouldn't be obvious. She wouldn't be caught. She wouldn't look back.

But then she heard a voice which made her stop dead in her tracks.

"Rosa? Rosa, what are you doing here?" a voice called out from behind her.

"Mr. Greggs?" Rosa replied, whipping around. "What are...what are you doing here?"

"I think I just asked you that same question," Mr. Greggs said. "Because unless they've started giving school holidays for Valentine's Day, you are supposed to be in class at Cloisterham Academy!"

"You would be correct, I am supposed to be in classes. But...I cannot say it here, not now! There are too many people around...I..."

"Rosa, you should come with me," Mr. Greggs replied. "You shouldn't just wander around aimlessly."

"I'm not wandering aimlessly," Rosa protested. "I...I need to go."

"Just come with me," Mr. Greggs said.

"I...I...I don't know if I can," she replied. "I am frightened to do so. I fear I will be found if I stay with you in your household. If anyone searches for me, that will be where they look."

"Searches for you?" he echoed. "Why would anyone be searching for you?"

"I ran away. I ran away from Cloisterham, and I can never return. I must restart my life, I...I cannot ever bring myself back to Cloisterham Academy. I am not safe there."

Mr. Greggs scrunched his eyebrows together before he said, "What do you mean, not safe at Cloisterham Academy? It must be one of the safest places I know, in general...I mean, you have Mr. Jasper there-"

Rosa allowed tears to leap to her eyes as she knew she could not hide back the truth.

"Mr. Jasper is the precise reason why I fear harm may befall me at Cloisterham," Rosa admitted.

Seeing the overwhelming fear within Rosa's eyes, Mr. Greggs knew this was no simple and easy way to figure this out. But he would pursue her happiness no matter what.

"Come back with me. We can discuss this in the car."

Rosa did not say another word until she was in the car. But as soon as the door was closed and the car was in motion, Rosa spoke without any warning.

"Mr. Jasper is in love with me," Rosa said.

Mr. Greggs did not respond at first as he was letting it sink in. When it finally hit him, he jumped as if something had popped out and scared him.

"Wait, what? In love with you?"

"Yes, Mr. Greggs. He has confessed his love for me and threatened me and everyone I adore to force me to reciprocate such feelings."

"And that's why you left," Mr. Greggs said, releasing a sigh. If his hands weren't attached to the steering wheel, he would've cracked his knuckles as well. He knew Mr. Jasper, and he had thought he knew him rather well as their lives had intersected quite a few times as Elliot and Rosa grew up.

"I couldn't stay," Rosa said, wringing her wrists. "There was no possible way I could stay with such insidious terror flowing through me. What Mr. Jasper needs to understand is there is a vast difference between being willing to die for me and being will to kill for me."

"You think he would do either one of those?" he asked, shocked by such a suggestion.

"I am certain he would be willing to do both, but the latter...the latter is more likely. Why would he want to give up his own life when he could have me so near?"

"Rosa, I...I'm sorry you feel that way. I wish I had known sooner so that you wouldn't have had to run away from Cloisterham, but..."

"It would not be so terrifying if Mr. Jasper and his lust for me were not present at Cloisterham. But no matter, as I fear that Death is in love with me most of all," Rosa said.

"And why would you say that?"

"The evidence surrounds me, threatens to drown me. Death took my mother, my father, and now Elly. So close to me...but not close enough, quite yet. It must be love. I see no other way to describe such infatuation, such relentlessness...how long until that love consumes all, bringing Death straight to...straight to me?"

"Rosa, don't say that," Mr. Gregg said, drumming his fingers across the steering wheel. "You...you know that can't be true. You're going to be fine. You're going to be safe here with me at the very least. Well...not here, not on the road. But once we get back to the beach you'll be fine. I'll keep you safe. Somehow. I will."

"I just...I just pray I can escape such horrid circumstances," Rosa said. "I thought that deserting Cloisterham would have far more of a profound effect on my life but thus far..."

"I'm sure it will," Mr. Greggs said. "But that's not what you should focus on right now. You should...you should..."

"What should I do, Mr. Greggs?"

"I...I don't know, Rosa."

"Well, I must admit that for once in my life I do not know what to do either. But at least I've stopped running."