Disclaimer: I do not, and will not own any of these characters. My idea is slightly unoriginal, too. It comes from a motley of inspiration.
Title: Cancer for the Soul
Rating: T for some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.
Chapters: Seven
Summary: I will think and dream of everything and nothing, but I will think most of all, of golden hair. AH/OOC
R IS FOR ROSALIE, CONSUMED BY A FIRE
When my mother was younger, and livelier; she would cradle a ribbon in her hand, and tie it around my finger. Whispering the words, "Don't forget."
When my father was younger, he would hold a giant book of macabre stories, and show me the letters, asking me with his bright blue eyes twinkling, "Can you see the colors?" My father never knew that the book was written in black and white.
When Jasper was just a little baby boy, he would look at me with his sea-green eyes, mamma's eyes, and his tinny voice would carry above the trains going by, "Do you love me Rosalie?" I would nod and smile the famous Hale smile.
When Bella was younger, and wispy, and less cavalier; she would pull her hair back, and cut it off in one fell swoop, hold it up to my cranium and say "You look beautiful."
They are not younger anymore, and I am no longer standing up all the time. My family is in the other room, as I sit here, fiddling with my hairbrush. I have been sent away from the dinner table, I was too rude to Aunty Renee, her murky brown eyes and pudgy fingers pushing at me. "Eat, Rosalie, eat, eat, eat!" I do not want to eat.
I hear a knocking at my door, a thin body appears. It is my brother, Jasper. Even though he has grown older and wiser, he is still only ten years old. His eyes glow brightly in the dim light, and he seems to be asking for permission to enter this human's dwelling place, like those vampires I read about. "A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs," I whisper in a sing-song voice to him. It says, I love you, it says, come in, it says, talk to me. It says all that I cannot say.
"B is for Basil, assaulted by bears," Jasper's voice carries in my room, and he is at my side in seconds, his small feet travel too quickly for him. Or that's what Grandpop'd say.
"Grandpop! Grandpop!" Jasper was screaming, Bella was running, and we all were laughing. Grandpop was ahead of us by a couple yards, running with his fake arm in his real hand, his old creaky laugh heard for miles around. My hair was long back then, long enough to sit on. Bella's hair was longer, down to her ankles, it was.
"Grandpop!" I cried, as I quickly stopped, to pick up a pine cone, running forward once again, I threw it.
"C is for Clara, who wasted away!"
I smiled faintly at the memory, my lips stretching across my face, but then I spied my room, back into the purple box of guilt, I stopped. Plum walked in, and meow'uffed her way to Jasper. "My cantaloupe friend, let us make some wooden shoes," Jasper sang smiling, as he picked up Plum. He looked at me, his sea-green eyes tinged with an indefinable emotion, and he walked away. "I'm going to play with Alice in the backyard, try to come out today?" His hopeful voice rings out once he's in the hallway. But he knows the answer.
Later in the night, I realize that it smells like nostalgia in my house. Which smells like Grandpop's pine carvings, "Made with love and care," inscribed upon the bottom. It smells like Grandmom's Christmas dinners, rhubarb pie and Father making a spectacle with the goose. It smells like Momma's happiness. The house is dark and dismal at night, the only time of day when I can creep around like a kitten. I step blindly out into the hallway, light coming in from cracks in the ceiling, cracks that get sealed and resealed, but are opened again.
I am immersed into a memory, a memory of Jasper's birth. Bella and I are at his cradle, singing him Momma's favorite lullaby, rocking him this way and that. His eyes were too old for him, he looked at us and it seemed as if he were saying "I have seen it all." He was innocent, and quietly "mature" as Grandpop'd say.
I feel a creak muffled by my foot, the old wooden floorboards giving way to me. I silently move about, feeling my way with the very tips of my fingers, arms stretched out. I finally reach the backyard door, and out I am, Plum following behind me—but I do not know this until later.
I hear my momma's old whispered mantra, and feel the ghost feeling of her tying that ribbon around my finger. "Don't forget," I chant, now my own mantra. I slip around the backyard, sticking to the shadowy area, slipping past the old oak tree, my fingertips grazing the carved words "We welcome all of the fae! Do treat us with kindliness, clean your area! RH, JH, & IH." It feels like we did that years ago, but it was only just last summer; when Jasper had yet to turn ten, and Bella had yet to gain an attitude, and I had yet to be confined to the indoors.
But most can see that I have not followed the indoor confinement laws. The dictatorship that is Aunty Renee and Uncle Charlie has yet to "go through my thick skull". I shiver a bit, as I feel a slight tickle against my ankle, just grass, I think to myself, but yet I feel myself quicken in pace, aching to get to that one special place. I must get there.
"E is for Emmett, who choked on a peach!" I cry out as loudly as I can, but I slightly cough at the end, my voice not used to the loudness. I sit upon the log next to the small waterhole, and I laugh as a big oaf surfaces from the water, spraying it into my face.
"R is for Rosalie, consumed by a fire!" He laughs his raucous laugh, deep from his lower belly, cascading from his throat, washing me in a golden light. Emmett hurried to me from the waterhole, his only stitch of clothing being his shorts. I open my arms, fully expecting him to pick me up and twirl me around.
He stopped short of hugging me, and stared intently into my eyes. "It's back, isn't it?" He whispered; he always did know when something was wrong.
"Of course not, Emmett," I have to lie straight into his face, into his trusting eyes, pale yellow like a sunflower just waiting to bloom. I feel a tear trying to budge its way through my eye, but I refuse. I've done enough crying these past years. And it is at this moment I realize Plum followed me, because she is feeling at my feet, trying to comfort me. Plum was always the one who knew when I needed comfort.
Emmett has a look on his face, like he doesn't believe me. But instead of trying to deny what I said, he settles for dropping the barest hints of a kiss onto my lips. I try to pull him back, but it seems as if he has something to say, something important, something large. "Rosie, baby..."
But I silence his words with a kiss, a kiss that I had to jut my neck upwards for, a kiss that leaves me breathless with its bracing simplicity. Emmett inhales sharply, as if astonished. I smile slowly, quietly, as if my smiles are secrets, and I am to hoard them. I giggle softly at his moronic expression, and I lift my hand slowly, brushing a lock of his away from his head—it had drooped downwards, as if it wanted to caress his large and expansive forehead.
I look at his beautiful eyes—yellow and blooming like a sunflower, small darker golden flecks spot it like a beautiful painting. "My Picasso," I sigh, all the love I have never told him, evident in my voice. Emmett will help me through this—through the hospital visits, through the outdoors. He will help. "Emmett, dear," I pretend to act, in my perfectly imitating voice—I sound like his grand-aunt Millie.
Emmett understands that I do not wish to be serious tonight. He quickly straightens and his eyes glitter—I never knew eyes could glitter—and he dimples his sweet smile, brushing his breath onto my forehead, his sweet fingertips dancing with mine. "Yes, auntie?"
"Do help me into the water, Emmett, dear," I try my hardest to seem as if I am a royal person, as if I am the Queen of England, looking down at the peasantry with a displeased look upon my face. I think I succeeded, from the way Emmett smiled.
Later, when I look back on this memory, I do so wish I had not interrupted Emmett, and that I had told him I loved him the moment I saw him, and that we just sat there and held each other in a deliciously loving silence. But that is not what happened, what happened was practically the opposite. Emmett and I kidded around, we acted as if we were children on a playground, we swam, we danced, we picked flowers, and we went stargazing and petted Plum, at the end of the night, he kissed my cheek tenderly and sent me off with a wave.
When I am back inside the house, my concave stomach growls softly, sending vibrations and my stomach feels like a scrambled egg. But I ignore the sound and the feelings, for I know if I eat now, in eight hours, it will all be thrown up. I look towards the kitchen oven, and the clock above it, glinting in what light is showing through the window. It seems to be ominously ticking, it's only three in the morning.
I walk slowly to my bedroom, and slip underneath the covers. My sleep shall be blissful and sweet, and I will think of nothing but warmth, and life, and golden hair, and my mother, and my father, and life, and love, and golden hair. I will think and dream of everything and nothing, but I will think most of all, of golden hair.
--
I wake up to the scratchy sounds of the AM radio, it is eight o' clock, and I have slept five hours. Three hours more than usual. I can't help but feel a small acidic burn on the tip of my tongue, and the bile pre-taste is in my throat. I hear footsteps, and I feel them too, my mattress sitting now upon the floor, I had taken it off the bed frame during the middle of the night—I had gotten scared.
"Ahem, Rosalie, do get dressed please, Rosalie," Aunty Renee has the annoying habit of saying my name more than once when addressing me. I sigh softly, and brush my hand across my eyes, being sure to scrape any unwanted things off.
Hour later, I am in the hospital. Calmly sitting down after the appointment, and I gasp, and heave, and gag, and wheeze, but nothing comes out. Throwing up air is almost worse than throwing up food, but I won't eat, I will not waste a morsel of food that is given to me. I sit there for what seems an eternity, what surely is an eternity and no one around helps me.
I am on my side, clutching my stomach with my right hand, my left hand is underneath my body as my stomach spasms violently, so violently that my left arm tingles and shakes, my head rocks back, my legs straighten out, but nothing relieves me of this horrific pain. I cough suddenly, my mouth now dry as cotton, and I sigh thankfully.
"Water," I whisper, right before I succumb to a slight and drifting peace upon my limbs, and I slacken sideways to lie down—but I have not fainted. I never have.
Author's Note: I am sure I shouldn't be putting one immediately after the first chapter, but this is my baby. I do so wish I have enough stamina and imagination to continue this story, but I have a feeling it will see to the end of the seven chapters, maybe even an epilogue, or two. Haha, I wish.