Helium
"I'm trying but I keep falling down
I cry out but nothing comes now
I'm giving my all and I know peace will come
I never wanted to need someone
Yeah, I wanted to play tough, thought I could do all this on my own
But even Superwoman sometimes needed Superman's soul
Help me out of this hell" – Helium, Sia
Emmett couldn´t believe what he saw. In front of him Rosalie, his beloved Rose, the most amazing, beautiful and over all a goddess alike woman he knew just broke down.
After chasing her all his college years, walking after her just like all the other guys besotted with Rosalie Hale, the woman of every boys, Emmett wasn´t able to believe his luck, when Rosalie suddenly showed interest in his advances. It was like a dream come true. Her, the Queen of the Campus Psychology-major and him, everybody´s nice guy Emmett McCarty, who was just a bit too nerdy to be known as cool. They studied together, drank coffee together and talked, talked, talked together for a few weeks now and Emmett thought it just couldn´t be possible to be more in love.
So when he asked Rosalie out yesterday and she actually said yes he expected a pretty embarrassing evening due to his nervousness but definitely not this. Because he knew the city pretty well he took a shorter route to the restaurant where he wanted to spend his evening with the woman he desired. And after a quite uneventful drive through the woods Emmett sensed that something wasn´t right with Rosalie. Briefly glancing to his side he was immediately disturbed by the look of utter dread on Rosalie´s face.
So he asked "Rose?" in questioning not sure what he could have happened that had put her in such a state, every muscle tensed, her eyes wide open, those beautiful dark blue eyes filled with unimaginable terror.
"Are you alright?"
Because she again did not answer he quickly pulled over the car and gently reached for her hand. At that Rosalie let out a short scream, its intensity pulling at his heartstrings. She looked at him so scared, he didn´t know what to do, as it was obvious that she didn´t want to be touched by him.
"Rose, hey, it´s just me. What is it? Please tell me what is wrong?" At that Rosalie slowly came out of her frightful state, seemingly just now realizing that it was indeed Emmett and not someone else. She let out a short insecure (which was by itself extremely out of character) laugh and said: " Oh sorry, I … I don´t know what hit me, could you maybe drive me home, I am not feeling so well."
The plea inside her voice surprised him and he immediately complied her wish by turning the car on. "Of course, are you sure you are alright? Do you want to drink something?"
"No, could you just please drive me home, I don´t want to be here, I don´t want to be alone with you here."
Surprised at that, Emmett couldn´t help himself and asked. "Rose, what is it? It´s just the woods you know. Nothing ever happens here…"
That upset her in ways he couldn´t fathom, as she opened the door of the already slowly driving car and stumbled away from the it. He stopped the car, jumped around it to where she was walking and carefully touched her arm again. At that Rosalie began to run, extracting her arm forcefully from his hand, that looked huge in comparison to her thin arm. "Hey Rose, come back in the car. I will drive you home, I swear!"
He ran after her becoming more and more confused and bewildered by her behaviour. When he reached for her again - obviously way faster than her considering how long his legs were - he realized that she was crying in a heartbreaking way and desperately trying to get away from him.
"Rose, should I call someone, should I call Alice or your parents, I really do not mean to hurt you, if you´d just come back inside the car, you can use my phone and everything will be alright soon I swear!"
When she again did not answer, he stepped forward grabbed her around her waist and pulled her into him, shushing her words of protest. When he heard her mutter "Please, don´t touch me, please, please, I will do anything…", it dawned on him what put her in such distress and he felt such empathy with her, it pained him inside and out.
After a few minutes he eventually succeeded in calming her down. Rosalie took deep breaths and was surprised at how secure she felt in his arms. In silence he walked her back to the car, not wanting to push her into talking but also dedicated to make her feel better.
"I am so sorry Em for ruining the evening like this, it´s just that, that…", she quietly muttered.
"Rose, please, I don´t mean to intrude but would you please tell me what happened?"
It was obvious that she fought an eternal inner battle whether to open up to him or to keep everything inside, but looking up into Emmett´s big whisky-coloured eyes, she just started talking:
"Do you know Royce King?"
Of course he did. Royce King Jr. was a renowned law professor at their University.
"Yes?!" That seemed to upset her even more, as she said:
"Yeah I know, he is such a charismatic man, right – full of integrity and kindness. Well ,you probably won´t even believe me this, but I took classes by him, because I was still unsure whether Psychology or Law was what interested me more. And his lessons were really great, he even encouraged me personally to decide on law and was really, really nice to me – looking back way too nice… And well this one afternoon he asked me to drink a coffee with him and I, naive as I was, couldn´t possibly deny a professor, especially not one as nice as him, his offer, so we drank a coffee at Toby´s and afterwards he offered to drive me home, which was very comfortable for me, as I don´t live nearby the campus. So I got into his car…" she gulped "and he drove me here and God I was so terribly dumb, I didn´t realise what he was up to until it was much too late and he already had his hands all over me and and…" Emmett took her into his arms, shocked at what he heard and he slowly felt an anger creeping up his body with, an anger he had felt before.
"He´ll pay." He said in a clear voice and Rosalie just closed her eyes. "He´ll pay."
Two days later Royce King Jr. was found dead in the woods – strangled to death by someone with his bare hands – and Emmett McCarty and Rosalie, his beloved Rose, the most amazing, beautiful and over all a goddess alike woman he knew, clinged glasses to that on their first real date.