I feel I must reiterate a few things for some people who seem to think that I'm using Breaking Points as a how-to textbook for real life relationships. This is a story about very broken, fairly monstrous people who do terrible things to those they love and can never escape the consequences because they're immortal. I adore Rosalie and Edward, I do...but I wholly acknowledge that they're not decent, normal people. By no stretch of anyone's imagination do I think this behavior is admirable or good or anything that should ever be attempted or emulated. These people are monsters; both literally and figuratively.
It's incredible that I have to even put this, but seriously...the people who have prompted this disclaimer never leave actual reviews. Just to be clear, this is not aimed at ANYONE who left a review of any kind, it's for the people who have sent me incredibly angry, vile private messages and one particularly memorable death threat. So I am hoping this puts any problems to rest, but ultimately I doubt it. It feels like there's a determination with this hatred to do with the fact that I've committed a great atrocity in the world of pairings. I enjoy writing angst, misery and tragedy. I'm not a Happy Little Elves kind of girl, so at the risk of sounding rude – if you don't like it, then don't read it. I wouldn't know from experience, but there has to be a mass of Schmoopy OTP Bella/Edward fic out there, right?
Enormous thanks and love to those wonderful people who offered me support against a rather unexpected wave of hatred and criticism, but more about that at the end of this chapter.
All that being said, I am to break hearts and I'm a crack shot, so enjoy if you dare!
-Chapter Two: Everything Breaks, Eventually-
'Spotlight, bad baby, you've got a flair,
For the violentest kind of love anywhere out there.
Mon amour, sweet child of mine,
You're divine.
Didn't anyone ever tell you
It's OK to shine?
Roses, Bel Air, take me there,
I've been waiting to meet you.
Palm trees in the light,
I can sleep late at night.
Darling, I'm waiting to greet you,
Come to me, baby.'
-Lana Del Rey
-Rosalie-
1934
He was angry, that much was obvious. It was written all over his beautiful face, tightly drawn lines of resentment and barely veiled frustration. Even angry, he was mesmerising. Though I had little sympathy for the societal constraints of being a man, this was one of the few occasions I felt he would benefit from being granted some freedom of expression. His emotions were always so controlled and in check. It must have been difficult, but then as I said, I had bore witness to one such occasion of a different man freeing himself of his gentlemanly obligations. Not to mention his general obligations to the human race; and I had not been impressed over all with that experience.
I looked down slightly, hating myself for how flippantly I was able to recall it at times. It caught me off guard, this incredibly sarcastic, acidic nature shaping walls and defenses from the inside, out. I had never been pleasant like Esme but I had never been like this, either. I hoped I would grow out of it.
He was still angry, but now he was reading my thoughts and he was distracted. He hated when I thought of it; enduring my recollection of it like he was reliving it.
"Please don't," he said, softer than before. "You know I can't bear to think of it."
Nastily, I wanted to say that it was I who'd suffered through it, let alone having to think of it. But that would be needlessly cruel and go a long way towards cementing this new, formulating persona. Edward, hearing the thought, didn't comment any how. It must have counted for something that I didn't say it.
"I'm sorry," I said tucking my hair behind my ear; something to do with my treacherous hands, that could never be still or obedient. "And I am sorry also for...the other thing."
He sighed and some of the anger returning, but dampened by something I recognised as pity. I despised when he pitied me. I could taste it in the back of my throat, something saccharinely poisonous. It made me want to lash out, make things painful in the present instead of the past.
"You know where my hesitation lays, Rosalie," he continued, obviously ignoring my other thoughts. "As well as I know why you're doing all you can to ignore it."
"What a surprise," I laughed bitterly, a dazzling smile appearing nonetheless. "Edward Cullen does know everything!"
"Don't be facetious," he warned. "It doesn't suit you."
"Maybe you should write a book of instructions for me, then I could remember all the little Do's and Don'ts when it comes to being Rosalie Hale."
"For God's sake, it is such a bad thing that I don't want to do it yet? I would have thought you might be relieved!"
He had spit his response thoughtlessly and I saw the regret the minute he'd finished saying it. Regret that he had been honest. Was I already so bad he was afraid of telling me a truth I didn't want to hear? I would definitely work to avoid becoming this person, I really would.
With effort, I replied calmly, "I can see why you'd think that, but it's not true. We keep building up to it and then stopping short of actually doing it. I want to do it, I do; but I think maybe you don't."
I was carefully referring to the issue as 'It' because when I'd actually said 'sex' he had gotten angry. Such a gentleman,. Edward was; too much of one really. He was embarrassed, uncomfortable talking to me about it so directly. Societal constraints still applying to the undead, it was almost funny.
"That's not..." he paused, shaking his head. "I do want to, but it feels rushed."
I laughed, unable to stop myself. "Why? Because we're not married?" He didn't answer; instead he stared at me defiantly. "Oh, Edward! You really cling to such ideals? We are not even human!"
"Some ideals are worth clinging to," he said defended quietly. "Not all, but some."
"You crave a lavish wedding...to me?" The idea seemed almost ludicrous.
Still staring at me he replied, "Yes."
It was impossible to laugh when he was being so solemn. "You cannot be serious, Edward. This is what it is."
He shifted, clearly uncomfortable again. "Just...just sex?"
I knelt before him, placing my hands on either side of his face. "What we have will never be 'just sex'. If we ever actually have sex, that is," I added, trying for levity. He didn't quite smile, but his eyes lightened. "I know we've only been together a few months but I can already tell you that it is more than anything I've ever felt. It's just that I don't want to get married, really. I wore a wedding dress once and that was enough. I can't be tied to someone by law and a gold band, Edward. I am bound to you of my own free will, without constraint or obliga-."
He crushed his lips to mine, hand curling around the back of my neck and pulling me deeper into the kiss. When we parted, I was almost breathless with desire for him. My Edward, mine. God I wanted him to be mine, always mine. Part of me knew he would become mine by whatever means necessary. I would possess him entirely until no matter what, he would be mine before he belonged to himself. If it was wrong to do that, I didn't care.
Without prompting, he whispered, "Always yours." His nose rubbed against mine, hands tangled in my hair. "Yours in every way you will have me. Always."
I smiled and said, "I'll hold you to that, Edward Cullen."
-Emmett-
Now
It hadn't been intentional to arrive on the day they were due to leave. In fact, it was like the universe had been against me even getting there at all, let alone on time. I'd fully intended to arrive the day after they had, to surprise Rosalie and make it up to her for the argument we'd had before she left. Strangely, everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. From losing my ID's (all three of them) to the rental companies having a shortage of cars. There was even a strange moment when Esme half begged me not to go, insisting that she had things she needed my help with but then couldn't name any of them when I asked.
I'd considered giving up at one point, Rosalie would have been back sooner than I could get there at that rate, but I knew how happy it would have made her to see me and I had a horrible feeling from the unresolved argument. I drove for a full day and half to see her, not stopping once along the way for anything but gas. I didn't call ahead because I wanted it to be a surprise.
The first thing I realised once I arrived in New York was that I had no idea where the place was. I knew the general location, but didn't have the address. I still didn't want to call Rosalie lest it ruin the surprise, so I called Jasper instead.
That should have been my first warning, right there. His silence, when I asked where they were. Then the odd questions.
"You're here?" he'd asked, sounding utterly shocked. So unlike the Jasper I knew. "Why didn't you call ahead? Why didn't you let us know?"
"It's a surprise," I'd told him, mildly offended. "So don't say anything to Rose."
"Where are you now?" he'd asked, or more accurately demanded. It got my back up a little, but not anywhere near what it should have in retrospect.
"Lincoln Avenue, are you guys nearby?"
More silence, to the point that I wondered if the connection had been lost, but then he spoke.
"You're about five minutes away. We'll come to you."
"No," I insisted. "Do you know the meaning of the word surprise, Jasper?"
"All right, we're uh...just about finished anyway."
He gave me the address and then got off the phone without saying goodbye. I made my way to the place, a very abandoned looking building in the middle of a quiet and obviously not frequented street. It seemed strange that they would still be there in the place, if indeed this was the scene of the many crimes. Perhaps this was where they had disposed of the bodies, but that didn't make sense either and besides, there was no scent of blood.
Still, I could detect the faint smell of my wife within the building so I proceeded inwards. The door didn't lock, but it was wedged very tightly shut. I made short work of it, all the while staying deadly silent in the hopes of maintaining the surprise. There were sounds upstairs, talking and moving so I knew they were still there and I was not too late.
That was when I sensed something was wrong. Were they arguing again? They hadn't done that in a long time and I would be disappointed if they had started that up again. I stood very still and listened carefully to the sounds coming from two floors above.
"We can endure," Edward was saying. "You and I can withstand anything."
I frowned, unsure of what context that had been in. Surely a reference to our family, the Cullens and our ability to go through tough times and come out the other side. I felt a little stupid suddenly, having come so far for such a pointless exercise. They were obviously going through something seriously bad and I'd come to make a stupid, happy surprise of it.
Caught in my own uncertainty of my actions, I might have left until the argument was over, were it not for the next thing I heard.
Rosalie sounded utterly wrecked. She'd said, "We have time. Time enough for a last time."
The silence that followed was all wrong. Not the silence of awkward, upset siblings but a silence that was not really silence at all. Silent only because I was not seeing what was really happening. Like knowing people were whispering, but not being close enough to determine what was being said.
There were movements, definite sounds of the both of them moving and doing something I could not define. Packing their things? Moving...furniture? No, it wasn't that.
An old suspicion struck me for the first time in a long time, like lightning through a tree trunk. The sounds, the noises they were making...it wasn't from moving things. They were creating those sounds together. It couldn't be, of course it couldn't be that but it sounded like it. Had Rosalie left and Edward was somehow cheating on Bella with someone else? That was so unlike him that the thought seemed ridiculous to me.
Whoever it was, they were having sex. There was absolutely no mistaking the sounds now. It had to be that Edward was somehow cheating on Bella and Rosalie had been stating her objection to it. That was all that made sense, all that could make any sense.
I was right on the verge of leaving there and then, to seek sanity outside the derelict walls of that place when what I heard next sent the world to a grinding halt.
"Stay inside me," Rosalie cried out. "Never leave me, so empty when you're not inside me!"
I just froze, utterly froze in every way possible. Mind, body, soul. The realisation that Rosalie was having sex with Edward hit me harder than any other object or creature ever had, including the bear that rent me apart so long ago. It should have been impossible to reconcile, utterly inconceivable...but it wasn't. Once I heard her speak, I knew it was the both of them. I believed it. I couldn't feel anything but my own fatal acceptance of the truth.
"Nothing outside of you," Edward had replied to her, to my wife and the thing I loved most in all the world. "You are everything."
I could do nothing but listen to what was happening above me. It began to feel as though I had slipped into a dream. I heard a cell phone vibrating above me, but they obviously didn't hear or notice it. They were too...busy.
Rosalie and Edward. Edward and Rosalie. My brother who was my best friend. My wife, the source of all my happiness and love.
I was moving before I even knew what was happening. I had turned and was making my way up the rickety stairs, feeling as though I was flying somehow without legs. The room they were in was less than seven yards from where I stood at the top of the stairs.
Worse than the sounds, now I could smell them. The undeniable evidence of what they had done and what they had been doing for the entire time I had been stupidly fretting about flights and surprise visits. I felt vaguely as though I was going to be sick, but that was impossible. I moved towards the doorway, unable to prepare myself in any way for what I was about to see.
The love of my whole life was on my brother's lap, naked in places but clothed in others. Edward had only moved his jeans and boxers down enough so that he could...enough that...
They were kissing deeply, shaking and gasping in the obvious aftermath of what they had done, what I had heard them do. I could just see Rosalie's face, flushed and...my God, I didn't even know what it was. I had never seen her look like that. I had never made her look like that. If there was pain, I couldn't really feel it yet. The truth made me numb to everything but nausea.
Edward whispered something to her. "Not time, love or..."
At long last, he seemed to sense something of my presence. His sentence went unfinished and his relaxed posture vanished, back stiffening as undeniable instinct took over. I stood my ground, unable to do anything else.
It was then that Rosalie's eyes flickered in my direction and she finally saw me. That was when the numbness vanished and real, absolute pain set in for the first time.
-Edward-
I saw it through the mindscape of her thoughts, but still did not quite believe it. It couldn't be believed because it was impossible. Utterly impracticable and inconceivable. There was no way and yet...I had sensed his presence only a moment before that. Rosalie had frozen completely, some strange rigor mortis having taken over her whole body and even her mind.
It was him; I knew it and yet could not accept it. No God would ever be that cruel, no deity or guardian of this world could do such a thing.
But it was him, he was standing there…and he knew.
Without even having turned to see him yet, the true horror of the situation was only just making itself known to me. The position we were in was unimaginable and we had yet to move. Rosalie had turned to stone and so it fell to me to move us both. Carefully, with hands that had never trembled so much, I lifted her gently off of me and placed her on the floor. This seemed to make her somewhat more aware of the fact that she had to move, had to re-dress herself in places. She did so slowly, with numb appendages and slow blinking eyes.
I quickly pulled my boxers and jeans up, fumbling at my belt with some difficulty as my hands seemed to have turned to jello. Once it was done, there was nothing to do but turn and face him. I would have cut my own arm off to avoid it.
He stood in the doorway, unmoving as a statue and with a face unlike anything I had ever seen on him. It wasn't anger, pain or sadness, but a terrible overdose of all three. Too much for him to express. His mind...I couldn't even attempt to do anything but avoid it as one strives to avoid a tornado.
He was looking mainly at Rosalie, but when his eyes finally slid onto me I felt as though I too had been frozen. I had to speak, I had to. "Emmett..." I trailed off, expecting him to interrupt me violently, but when he didn't I realised I had nothing to say.
It took a while for him to move, let alone speak and when he did speak it was in a voice I had never heard him use.
"I don't...understand. How is this happening?"
I realised quickly that he was going to want answers. Every imaginable, conceivable and likely scenario had passed through my mind at some point over the years. The sheer risk of what we attempted each time always made me consider the consequences, albeit in a very far off unlikely manner. I'd thought of Emmett finally finding out. Of our family coming to know of our century-long indiscretion . . . of it all falling down around our ears. Yet even with having imagined this scene a million times in a million different ways, it didn't remotely measure up to what I had anticipated. This real situation, this very real situation we now found ourselves in was so much worse. Far beyond anything I had ever been able to imagine or comprehend.
There was nothing I could say, aside from more truth and there was no way in hell that was a good idea. It had to be minimised, if indeed it could be. I swallowed down the urge to crumple forwards and simply be sick. One of us had to be strong enough to try and contain this as best we could. Rosalie couldn't do up her buttons; it was going to be me.
When he spoke again, there was a new undercurrent to it, the beginning of something ruthless and demanding. "How long?"
I closed my eyes against the barrage of his thoughts, willing any defense I had ever learned to come forth and protect me. "It's not that simple," I said, stalling for time. He knew it, because he knew me.
"Since when, then?" he asked, changing tack fast.
I looked to Rosalie for some small fraction of guidance, but her mind had gone utterly blank. This was it. I had always been a good liar, self taught and instinctive. Lies protected and shielded what truth could not. Who was I to argue with what was so deeply ingrained in me?
I said, "Today was the first time."
He didn't believe me. "Oh really?"
"Yes," I told him, doing everything I could to control my voice from shaking. "This trip it was - difficult and we were arguing. It just happened."
He looked around the room and I wanted to do something to stop him, but I could do nothing except think of the next lie I might be able to tell.
After he had looked all around the room, he brought his stare back to me; the first signs of disgust emerging from the shock. "I know you think I'm dumb, but even I'm not that dumb. You've been here the whole time. Doing this. Doing only this."
"No, that's not true," I lied straight faced. "I know it looks like it, but this was the first time."
He laughed bitterly at that; it sent a cold shiver down my spine. "You think you're such a brilliant liar, don't you? But you're making rookie mistakes, brother." I waited, unable to take a breath. "I heard you, downstairs. I heard what you both said."
Jesus Christ, he'd been downstairs while we were still talking. I shook my head erratically, disbelievingly. "What did you hear?"
He moved a little inside the room and I flinched at the movement, half expecting him to lunge forward and rip me apart. When he didn't, part of me was disappointed. Masochistic to the end, I supposed.
"I heard Rosalie say..." he paused, looking genuinely in agony at having to say what he was about to say. "She said she was empty when you weren't inside her."
No, that couldn't be. No, no, no. "No she didn't, you didn't hear that." Lie, lie more, lie better; it was all I knew to do in that moment.
"And then you said," he pressed on relentlessly, gritting his teeth. "That there was nothing outside of her. That she was everything."
Caught in the first wave of panic, I turned to Rosalie who was surprisingly looking at me with a similarly confused, if very distant, expression. She was still trying to do up her buttons, but simply couldn't. I couldn't bear to see her still so exposed in front of Emmett. I had to help her, despite the consequences.
'Did we say that out loud?' I asked her and slowly, carefully reached to do up the lowest button of her open shirt. My fingers weren't of much more use than hers, but I managed to get them done up one by one. As I reached the last one, her eyes seemed to lock onto mine and through the cloudy tears and confusion, I felt her mind stir within my own.
'We...must have, oh God...why is he here, Edward? I can't...'
It was quite something to be doing up Rosalie's buttons and then to hear and feel Emmett's slow, wretched understanding of the existence of something more between us. His pain took a turn, morphing into a new kind of feeling that had no accurate articulation or name besides sheer torment. He was frozen, thunderstruck by his unwanted understanding of the unintentionally tender moment between his wife and myself.
Perhaps it was the fact that he had never seen me act towards Rosalie in any way other than hostile that really cemented this understanding. Whatever he had thought before, betrayal and lust driven affairs...this made it different, and he knew it.
'I'm so sorry,' I told her, because what else was there to say? What else would there ever be to say to anyone ever again?
"Are you...? You are, aren't you? I knew it," Emmett said very quietly, voice trembling just a fraction. "I knew you could do that."
I shook myself to bring my consciousness back to the hell I was standing in. "Do what?"
Face oddly blank, he said, "I knew you two could talk to each other like that, telepathically or whatever. I've had suspicions about it for years."
I was in the midst of denying that along with everything else when Rosalie finally stood up, coming out of her initial shock a little more. "It was accidental," she said in a lifeless voice. "It happened years ago. In Ithaca, when Edward had that incident in the bathtub."
"What?"
"I couldn't let him die," she said shakily, her voice was a hollow shell of its usual self. "I was trying to bring him back and we accidentally forged some kind of...connection."
He swallowed and nodded, looking ill. "And this has been happening since then?"
"No," I insisted, voice cracking. "This was the first time!"
"I don't believe you," he insisted quietly. "I don't believe a word you've said!"
"You have to believe me!" I said, on the verge of falling to my knees and begging. And then I said something incredibly stupid. "I'm your brother!"
His hand closed around my neck before I even really saw him move towards me and then there was a loud bang. I realised as the impact happened, it was me, going through a wall. When I opened my eyes, he was holding me up by the throat. We were both covered in wall debris. His eye were blazing.
"Brother?" he echoed, voice barely controlled. "Brother? You think you're my brother? You were my brother! Brothers look out for one another, they have each other's back! Tell me how you're my brother, Edward?"
I tried to speak, but it was impossible. His hand was closed so tightly around my throat that if I had been human, it would have collapsed like a paper cup. My feet dangled uselessly. I could have fought, but Emmett was still incredibly strong and it was pointless.
"Emmett," Rosalie said, following us through the hole in the wall. "Let him down."
"Why?" he growled. "You afraid I'll damage him?"
"Please," she begged. "Don't."
He dropped me unceremoniously and I fell like a boneless doll, landing on my knees. "Don't tell me what to do," he warned her. "Ever again."
And as if things weren't already irreversibly bad, Jasper came flying up the stairs three at a time.
"Hey guys," he called out, forcibly cheerful, from the stairs. "Sorry I'm late, I was finishing up at docks. Double checking for any mistakes. Hey...uh, Emmett."
Jasper had obviously been unsure of what was happening and then realised that his absence was probably adding to any suspicions Emmett might have had if he hadn't quite known everything. It wasn't Jasper's fault and he had meant well but it was the seal on our tomb and both Rosalie and I felt it.
He looked around at the situation and felt it himself. He closed his eyes and half looked away, cursing his own stupidity.
"Jasper," Emmett said, frowning. "You're here."
Jasper looked to me for guidance but I could give him none. All I could now offer Jasper was protection from the inevitable fallout. I shook my head infinitesimally, just once to each side, hoping he knew what I was saying.
'I'm so sorry,' he told me in his mind. I could see what he was about to say, how shocked and horrified he would be about what Rosalie and I were doing. He would be safe from the fallout, at least.
"Did you know about this?" Emmett asked, only a mere whisper. "Did you?"
Jasper looked to Rosalie and I saw her pain reflected in his eyes. ''Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't stop it.'
Rosalie could already hear it, but before I could relay that to him, he was speaking aloud again. "Yes, I knew. I knew everything. I'm so sorry."
Emmett looked like he'd been physically struck. He turned away, putting a hand to his mouth as if trying to stop himself from being sick. "No."
"He d-didn't know!" Rosalie stuttered suddenly. "He's lying, Emmett! He had no idea, we've been lying to everyone, including him!"
"Been lying?" he echoed. "So maybe not the first time, huh?"
I managed to stand up from the dusty floor. The instinct to shield her was insanely strong and it was taking everything I had to repress it. She moved towards him, only a step but it still got my back up. It was insane, but deeply instinctual.
"Please, please believe that he has nothing to do with this!" she begged.
There was a long pause while Emmett seemed to be considering what she'd said, but then he just laughed with dead eyes. It was impressively chilling.
"Like I said, honey, I'm not that dumb."
"But it's true," she insisted. "He would never condone something like this, let alone be involved in it!"
"And how do I know that?" Emmett yelled suddenly, making us all flinch. Emmett could shout extremely loud, he did it so rarely that it was easy to forget. "How the fuck do you expect me to believe a single word that comes out of your mouth ever again?"
"Rosalie," Jasper said quietly urgent. "Stop. We have to be honest now."
"We? What does that mean?" Emmett demanded, voice trembling on the last word. "What exactly does that collective entail? Just how involved are you three?"
"It's nothing like that," I said, and fatally, Rosalie said the exact same thing at the exact same moment, bringing our joint statement out in perfect unison.
Emmett stared at us both, jaw clenched and nostrils flaring as he breathed like he had been punched. Something had just fallen into place for him, further confirmation that this had not just been sex and as much as that would have been an unforgivable treachery unto itself, the alternative was massively worse.
He swallowed hard before saying, "I swear to God, I will leave this place and never see any of you again unless you start telling me the truth!"
The silence seemed unyielding, stifling; Rosalie was mentally begging me not to implicate Jasper no matter what. Meanwhile Jasper was insisting that I tell the whole truth of the matter. Emmett seemed to sense my conflict because his gaze was drawn back to mine. Such darkness in those usually warm, friendly eyes. The eyes of my brother, my best friend who I had been systematically betraying for close to ninety seven years. It had never really seemed real until just then.
"Well?" he asked me bitterly. "What's it to be?"
"I'll tell you anything you want," I told him, helplessly. "Anything you want."
Rosalie shook her head. "No, no, no! Emmett, he's lying! Jasper has nothing to do with us! Leave him and Alice alone, please!"
Something in Emmett finally seemed to snap enough that the numbness towards his wife abated. He stormed to Rosalie and grabbed her by the upper arms, yanking her close to his face. "So concerned for everyone but me, aren't you?" he demanded, voice unstable. "So fucking worried about Jasper and Alice and Edward but not a morsel of compassion for the idiot who's stood by your all these years? The asshole who has taken all your fucking abuse and manic depression? NOTHING FOR ME?"
"No, it's not like that, it's not, it's not!" she was insisting between sobs. "Please, please, please!"
He was shaking her too hard, too much. I knew it wasn't hurting her, not anywhere near the way it would hurt a human and yet I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Emmett, let her go!"
More shock, this time fairly furious shock that I had the audacity to even speak his name, let alone give him an order. He let go of her immediately and turned to me, eyes low-lidded with absolute fury.
"What did you just say?"
Rosalie was openly sobbing. "Stop, please! Edward, Jasper just go! Please, Emmett - leave them out of it! It was my fault, all of it is my fault!"
I was shamefully reminded of another time, seemingly so long ago, when she had taken the blame for something which had been both of our faults; when she had selflessly taken the blame for my attempted suicide. It was ironic how history repeated itself, even among vampires. Or perhaps it repeated itself for our benefit, a cruel punishment to accompany immortality.
Emmett closed his eyes and shook his head. "Your fault? Really?"
"Yes," she insisted, verging on hysterical. "Yes, it was! Edward didn't want to do anything, I...I tricked him into it and Jasper didn't have a clue! I said that I couldn't bear to be around so much blood and Edward w-wanted to stay with Jasper, but I asked him to come back with me." I wanted to scream at her not to lie anymore, that Emmett wasn't going to believe it, but I couldn't. "I was mad at you! I just was so mad at you and I seduced him to get back at you! It was all me, I did it and he didn't want to and it's my doing!"
"You know, there wasn't much you could have done to make this worse," he whispered. "But you had to outdo yourself. I just wanted the truth. I think if nothing else, I deserved the truth."
He was going to leave. Oh God, he was just going to leave and it would be the worst thing we'd ever done. Let alone betraying him, let alone all the lying and cheating and utter deception. He would have to leave a scene such as this without even being given the chance to demand answers.
I couldn't let it happen.
"1933," I blurted out. "That's when it started, between us."
He paused, midway towards the stairs but didn't turn around.
"It's been happening on and off ever since."
"No, no it hasn't...Edward please..."
"Rosalie, stop!" I shouted. "You have to stop now. There is nothing we can do anymore. No solution, or clever lie. No deception, no nothing. It's happened and we have to be honest."
She couldn't even look at me, she just turned her face away and kept her hand over her mouth.
"You're going to be honest?" Emmett asked, quietly from the doorway.
"Yes," I said, voice trembling. "I swear it."
"Jasper," he said shortly. "Go."
"But," Jasper equivocated, looking from Emmett to Rosalie. "I don't think I should."
Emmett just nodded. "You should."
Jasper and Rosalie shared such a long look that I momentarily wondered if they were speaking to each other telepathically. They weren't of course, but that didn't mean they weren't having a little conversation of their own.
I don't want to leave you, he seemed to say.
You have to go. I can't bear to see your life ruined as well.
I'm afraid for you.
Don't be. This has to happen.
I love you, sister.
And I you, brother.
Jasper left the building quickly and only when he was truly gone did Emmett turn back to us, eyes stony and cold.
"I have to know," he told us. "I have to have answers, because I don't understand."
"We owe you that," I agreed, nodding frantically. "We owe you answers."
"Don't patronise me," he warned. "And at the first sign of a lie, I walk."
Rosalie looked around, clearly trying to calm herself down. "I won't lie," she promised.
There was a horrible bout of silence as Emmett considered what he wanted to know most. "So this...this has been happening since you met?"
"Yes," I said. "Not right away, but soon after."
Emmett was staring determinedly at the floor. "How?" he asked in a would-be casual tone.
"Sorry?"
Rosalie stepped forward. "He means, how did it happen?"
"It wasn't that simple, that straightforward," I said haltingly. Emmett let out a low hiss.
"Then make it simple."
"It just...started," I explained lamely. "We initially didn't get along at all. I thought she was stupid and shallow, she thought I was pretentious and arrogant. Simply put, we were...very alone and it really did just happen."
"Why?" he asked.
"What do you mean, why?" Rosalie demanded, her tone dangerously close to annoyed.
"I mean," Emmett snapped. "Why is this still happening? What is it between you? Is it...is it just an affair, some kind of attraction?" He said it in such a way, like he was desperate for us to say that it was and prove wrong what he already suspected.
I looked at Rosalie very quickly and away again. This was doubtlessly the point where we should've lied, but he already knew the answer and would walk away if we did. He deserved more than that.
"No, it's not just an attraction," I told him very quietly.
He nodded, still staring anywhere but at us. "Then, tell me what it is?" We both fell short of anything to say. "Do you...are you in love?" he asked when we said nothing.
Rosalie was starting to hyperventilate a little. "It's...not like that."
"THEN TELL ME WHAT IT'S LIKE!" he screamed all of a sudden. "JUST TELL ME WHAT THIS IS!"
"It's like love," I said in a rush. "It's not just an affair or lust or anything like that. It's like love, but it's not quite...love."
Emmett fixed me with a hateful stare. "Not quite love?"
"I love her, of course I do but it's...it's not only love." Everything was coming out all wrong, so incredibly wrong! Why hadn't we just lied?
He was actually trembling with rage. "Then what is it? Tell me, brother; what it is you feel for my wife?"
"She's - she's the other half of me," the words simply tumbled, pulled from me without consent. "She's everything."
Emmett actually gasped, like he was winded. "Jesus," he gasped breathlessly. "Jesus Christ. This can't be happening...it just can't. You two, you hate each other! You argue about everything!"
"It was so people didn't get suspicious," Rosalie explained.
His attention fell back to her and away from me. I wished it hadn't. "And you feel the same about him? Is he the...the other half of you?"
She closed her eyes, trying vaguely to maintain a modicum of sanity. "Yes."
Her confirmation seemed to do something irreversible to Emmett. The last of anything resembling the brother I loved was shuttered away behind a dark, cold face with dead eyes. "Yes," he echoed, deadly flat. "Yes, Edward is the other half of who you are. Yes, Edward is everything to you."
Rosalie didn't answer, she didn't need to. He knew.
"And what was I, then?" he demanded in the same lifeless tone. "Where did I fit into this tragic romance saga?"
"I fell in love with you!" she told him, hysterics fading only to be replaced with something else; something that I felt wasn't in any way good. "You made me so happy, I felt normal with you."
"How could you love me and feel for him what you felt?"
"It..." she faltered, swallowing. "It's not the same. I honestly love you. But Edward...Edward is simply different. He's always been different."
A genuine sneer of disgust twisted his usually kind features. "You treacherous whore."
It took everything I had to stop myself from saying or doing something stupid. Rosalie didn't even look hurt, simply acknowledging what he had said as truth. "I know," she agreed softly. It was difficult not to react, when everything inside of me wanted to defend her and insist that wasn't true.
"Do you have any idea of how many lives you've ruined? Not even only mine. You just can't be happy, can you? You have to destroy everything. You have now destroyed this family. I know that Jasper was in on this as well. Alice will know. Do you think she'll forgive him?"
At the mention of Jasper, Alice and our family, something seemed to shift inside Rosalie. I could feel the shape of it from her thoughts.
"You don't have to do that," Rosalie implored almost silently. "Please, do whatever you want to me...please just leave Jasper and Edward alone. You're absolutely right, I am a treacherous whore and I deserve whatever you want to dish out, but leave them alone!"
He bared his teeth a little, snarling, "Leave Edward alone? My God, you've lost your mind!"
"Why?" she shouted, suddenly stronger and louder than was advisable. This was her shift; fear always galvanised Rosalie, made her mutinous and unnaturally strong. "You're so desperate to make this all Edward's fault? Oh, poor delicate little Rosalie can't be to blame for all this on her own? Well you know what? I'm the one who went behind your back for all these years, forced you fall in love with me and still betrayed you over and over again!"
"Rosalie, stop!" I croaked, helplessly. "Stop!" It was all so familiar.
But she had started and I could now see with a sickening horror how far she was prepared to go. Her thoughts were clear; she wanted to protect me as best as she could; if there was a chance to do so...she was going to take it, utterly disregarding the consequences for herself.
History repeating itself, rang hollowly in the recesses of my mind.
"Edward used to beg me to tell you, couldn't bear to betray you! But me? I loved it! I loved knowing I had you there like a puppet on a string - my little puppy dog so trusting and dumb!"
"Shut your mouth," he warned her, fingers flexing and twitching. "Shut up!"
"No I won't shut up, you wanted the truth? Here it is...the undiluted truth! The only way I've managed to live through this dull, miserable sham of a marriage is by FUCKING YOUR BROTHER EVERY CHANCE I GOT!"
He grabbed her before I could even react, to protect her. I was certain, as she was, that he was going to hit her, maybe worse. He held her wrists tightly in his, yanking her close to his face.
"You twisted little bitch," he hissed, words shaking all over the place. "You think you can trick me into hitting you? Because that's what he'd do, isn't it?" She didn't answer. "You'd push and push and he'd snap! You're so fucked up that you can only cope with things by making it physical. Well bad luck, princess. I'm not fucked up; I'll scream and shout and grab you, but I don't hit women! I would never do that, no matter what revolting bullshit you come out with."
The shock of his inaction was written all over her beautiful face, and I felt like a hole had been punched through me. He let go of her and moved away, as though she was poisonous.
"You two," he gestured. "You're sick." It sounded hollow, wooden. "Whatever this relationship is, it's not natural. You've spent the last ninety years living as brother and sister, becoming something more inhuman than anything we've ever encountered. I don't even know who you are anymore."
"She was trying to protect me," I tried to explain, but it was difficult to speak. "She didn't mean any of it."
Without looking to me, he said, "I trusted you so much, you know. Of everyone, I trusted you implicitly. I loved you more than you ever knew. When things were bad, I would come and ask for your advice. Were you just laughing at me?"
"No," I said instantly. "Never! I know it means nothing now and is probably worthless, but it was never like that! And no matter what she says, it wasn't like that for Rosalie, either!"
He waited quietly, so I went on. "You're right, we're both fucked up. We were right from the start and maybe if we hadn't been so badly messed up, Rosalie and I would've fallen in love normally. But we didn't. It got twisted and distorted beyond anything we could cope with. When Rosalie met you, we both knew we had screwed everything up. She loved you but we were still caught up in each other. The more we tried not to be, the worse it got."
"Why didn't you just break it off with me?" he demanded quietly of her. "Why let it go on?"
She couldn't respond to that, I felt it. I tried to answer in her stead. "I insisted that it did," I told him, voice cracking. "You...you made things stable. You made us more stable."
He laughed bitterly. "I'm so glad I helped. And Bella?"
I winced. "Bella was...similar. You both made us balanced. Normal."
He shook his head. "You have a child with her."
"We know," Rosalie said in a similarly hollow voice. "We tried to stop it for a long time after that, ten years actually. But it was too hard."
"I'll bet it was, really difficult."
There was nothing else to say on that. More silence followed as he pondered his next question.
"Who else knows?"
"Only Jasper," I reassured, knowing Rosalie was going to lie if I hadn't. "No one else."
"Why does Jasper cover for you?"
"That's not...not for us to say," I stammered.
"It's going to come out anyway," he stated blandly. "Tell me why."
Rosalie answered, "Because we - in turn - cover for him."
Emmett frowned, confused. "He's cheating on Alice?"
"No," she said quickly denied. "He'd never do that. He can't live without human blood. Every now and then he has to kill a couple of humans. He kills bad people. We cover for him while he covers for us."
"How has Alice never seen anything?"
"We're not sure," I took over. "Jasper helped us there too. He said she only sees something if it changes the status quo. Because we've always...been like this, technically it's not change. The same with Jasper."
"Well, I think that loophole is out."
He was right, of course. Everyone would know by now. Alice would have seen everything.
"You don't have to tell Alice about Jasper," Rosalie stated. "She might not have seen that. You don't have to ruin his life too."
Wrong words, Rosalie, I wanted to shout.
He turned slowly to face her. "You think I want to ruin his life? Anyone's life? The only life well and truly ruined here is mine, however much you might deny it. It doesn't matter what happens from now on, my life is destroyed. Everything I've ever known or believed was a lie! People I've loved have spent the better part of a century betraying me with one another!"
"What do you want me to say, Emmett?" she asked, resigned. "There isn't a single thing either of us can say to make it better. No amount of apologies will help."
"Are you even sorry? Beyond getting caught?" He shook his head, seemingly answering his own question. "I bet I never see either of you ever again. You'll just run off together, right? I guess this revelation could even be a blessing in disguise for you, really. Now you can finally be together; be the other half of each other without having to concern yourselves with all the secrecy."
"It's not like that," I insisted wildly. "We are sorry. More so than you'd believe possible."
"Yeah?" he asked, looking only at me. "Then you know what you'll do?" He continued without pause. "You'll come back and tell Bella to her face, your daughter too. You'll take whatever Bella and Nessie have to say and then you'll do whatever you're going to do. You owe them that much at least."
"You want us to go back?" Rosalie asked in a small voice, looking at Emmett for the first time since he'd let go of her wrists.
"Oh, not you," he told her, looking her right in the eye. "I don't care what you do. I won't make the mistake of expecting anything decent from you. Besides, no one will need an in depth explanation of your treachery. I think it'll sink in pretty quick."
He turned to leave, once and for all, when Rosalie spoke, "Are you going to tell Alice about Jasper?"
Without turning back he replied, "Of course I am."
-Jasper-
I hadn't gone very far, unwilling as I was to leave at all, but far away enough that I saw Emmett as he left the building. He couldn't sense me as he burst out of the door, sent it flying and made it twenty feet before his knees gave out. He dropped to the ground, dry-heaving like he was being sick. It was broad daylight and people could see, but no one stopped or asked if he was OK. I wanted to go to him and help, but I couldn't. I knew that much. I would wait until he left before going to Rosalie and Edward.
It couldn't be helped. My automatic allegiance was to them, Rosalie especially. She was my sister in every way that mattered and we were bound by our mutual transgressions. I adored Alice, my beautiful Alice...the still point of a turning world, but I knew perfectly well where her loyalties and more importantly where her anger would lie. There was craven self preservation in that decision too, given that it was likely I would be lynched up with Rosalie and Edward for my own crimes. She wasn't going to forgive me anyway, right?
Withdrawing from my thoughts, I watched Emmett pull himself together, long enough to stand. I watched as he walked, much slower than usual, away from the building, pain etched into every sluggish movement. I waited an extra five minutes before returning, just to ensure he didn't have a change of heart. God, it was still a day's drive before he would return home, and I couldn't imagine the agony of that for him.
My phone was ringing again, the eighth time in ten minutes. I glanced at the screen and saw it was Alice again. I ignored it along with the crushing fear and guilt. There were also numerous messages that I didn't dare read.
I couldn't believe it had actually happened. Part of me genuinely believed that they would never be found out, that it would continue forever the way it always had. In so many ways, our lives were built on the foundation of a deception, which had existed before I'd even known them. A hundred years of tangled lies and truths...unraveled for all to see. It meant imminent change, the death of our old lives.
Even from several blocks away, Rosalie's pain was unavoidable. I felt it like it was my own, carving out a residence in my bones and turning all sound to a high pitched whistle. It increased as I drew closer to her. Then I felt Edward's numb, desensitised version of it. It felt as though he didn't quite understand the whole of it, like he couldn't process it beyond a certain point. I wished that Rosalie had a similar problem, but she didn't. Her pain was unbearable to even sense second hand thus causing me to construct a makeshift wall to keep myself remotely sane.
"Guys," I called out from the mangled front door. "Can I come up?"
Rosalie's shift in emotions was startling. Hearing my voice swiveled her soul splintering agony to something else that left a horrible aftertaste of guilt in my mouth. I heard her whisper my name before they came down the stairs. For the sake of people staring, I went inside.
"Jasper," she said again, rushing down the stairs dangerously fast. "Has he gone?"
I nodded, trying mightily not to flinch at the look of utter despair on her face or at the sheer volume of feeling she was enduring. "Yeah, I saw him leave."
Edward was behind, looking at Rosalie as he spoke to me. "Do they know?"
"They know," I affirmed grimly. As if to solidify the point, my phone buzzed again. Rosalie and Edward stared at it in my pocket, both feeling the same emotion. Terror. A small part of me wanted to ask why they couldn't have heard a phone buzzing earlier, during one of the dozens of times I'd called their cells. Maybe they knew it, too, because they were both staring with dead eyes at the source of the buzzing, inconsolably desolate.
"Carlisle," Rosalie whispered, shaking her head. "Alice, Esme - Renesme."
"Don't," Edward said, sounding strangled. "Not yet."
The moment became truly painful, moments of awkward silence that I could bear no more; prompting me to ask, "What are we going to do?"
"Do?" Edward repeated, shaking himself as though from a trance.
"Do we go home or not," Rosalie explained in a dead voice. "Face them or run?"
Each option had its merits, but one was obviously the righteous path while the other was...not so much. I knew what gluttons for punishment they were, knew they would return and face what everyone had to thrown at them. Admittedly, I hated them a little for it; would they never just be happy? Even with all my understanding of them, would I ever truly understand them?
If they heard my thought, neither made mention of it. "We should go," Rosalie said. "We should go now."
As I watched my sister, the concern I felt for her went up a few thousand notches. The pain she was experiencing was astounding, yet she maintained an almost normal-looking facade that was fooling no one who knew her well. Her voice was flat, yet full of self loathing and defeat. Ironically enough, even in the middle of such a catastrophe, I couldn't shake the feeling that something worse was coming.
Edward faltered a little. "Rose, I don't think I can."
"We have to," she said utterly without inflection. "We owe them that."
He shook his head. "No, this isn't some minor transgression that requires an explanation and time to heal. They will never forgive us. They won't understand and if they do they'll see that we've been lying to them for as long as we've known them!"
She ground her teeth together and avoided looking at him. "All of which we deserve."
"I can't see their faces, hear their thoughts...no. No, they won't understand!"
Rosalie was becoming frustrated, incredible that she was even capable of it with everything else she was feeling. Not everyone was like her when facing difficulty, though. In the midst of a tidal wave of adversity, she could withstand the crushing water. She had always been the strong one; regardless, of her weakness (for lack of a better word) for Edward. Her one vice.
"Understand? Understand like Jasper did? No, of course they won't! They'll condemn us forever, disown and despise us for the betrayals we've committed. And it's all deserved because that's it's we've done! Running will make it harder for everyone, ourselves included!"
Edward looked at me for the briefest of moments then back to her. "Then I'll go, alone. You go with Jasper, stay away until I come to find you."
She simply shook her head, swinging her bag over her shoulder. It was oddly contrasting to see such a nice handbag on the shoulder of such a disheveled nineteen year old, covered in dust and tear tracks. "No."
"Just no?"
"No. No more trying to protect each other. We're due this, Edward. We've let it go on this long knowing the risks. We have lied to them all, betrayed Emmett and Bella in the worst ways imaginable. We deserve this and that's all there is to it."
"Jasper," Edward said, slightly desperate, trying to appeal to me. "Please, take her away with-"
She whirled on him all of a sudden. "NO! You don't get to be the big hero, not with this, all right? It was Emmett that walked in on us, not Bella. Emmett, my Emmett and he just left here! I have to speak to him again, even if it's the last time. There are other things I didn't get to tell him."
"They're going to hate us," he said, gripping her forearm. "Carlisle is going to hate us."
I couldn't contain the flinch that time, such was her pain. "They're entitled to. We had a century of taking stupid, reckless risks and never being found out. This is our penance, the start of our punishment! You can't protect me from it any more than I could protect you up there! No more brilliant lies, no more last minute deceptions! It's over and done with, time to face the music."
He looked down, hand leaving her arm slowly. He was talking to her using their weird connection, I felt it vibrate. Whatever he said, she couldn't deal with it because she slammed the connection shut and shook her head.
"I don't...I can't right now. We have to go," she said. "We just have to go."
Edward went out first leaving the two of us behind for just a moment. I wanted to say something, anything reassuring but there was nothing, of course. So I took her hand in mine and squeezed it for a second before letting it go. She looked at her hand, dazed and so incredibly young looking. Like she had forgotten she even had a hand.
"Thanks," she whispered. "Stay close?"
I nodded, lump in my throat. "Always."
So began the slow, hellish journey back to a place we could no longer call home.
-Esme-
All my poor children, so sad and distraught. Such a terrible thing for any mother, by any definition, to see the family being torn apart and not be able to stop it. These thoughts churned restlessly through my system.
I knew I should have tried harder to stop Emmett from going, but he was so determined. Part of me was trying to argue that perhaps it was for the best, in the grand scheme of things. After all, how long could such a monumental secret stay hidden? Yet arguments fell flat when looking at Emmett, having just returned and almost immediately falling into Carlisle's arms. He looked utterly wrecked in every way; bereaved and destroyed.
Carlisle and I had been waiting for him. At my insistence, Alice and Bella were not there with us waiting. Emmett had only called once to say that he was returning and such was the despair in his voice that I couldn't bear for him to be confronted so immediately upon his return. Alice was utterly beside herself as it was and Bella was off the charts; it made sense to stagger the arrivals as best we could. There would be more arrivals soon enough. I knew my eldest two well enough to know they would return, allowing everyone to have their say.
"Oh my darling," I whispered, wrapping my arms around him. Carlisle and I held him close in an incredibly uncharacteristic display of parental love for our son. He needed it. "We're so sorry."
He wept in our arms for a few minutes before seeming to calm enough to stand on his own. He wiped his eyes. I had never seen him cry, not even when he had killed that young girl from so long ago.
"I still can't believe it," he said shaking his head, eyes downcast. "I feel like I've dreamed the whole thing, somehow."
Carlisle gripped his shoulder. "Alice saw it," he told him quietly. "We can't believe it either."
Emmett looked hesitant, yet still broken. "What exactly did Alice see?"
I looked at Carlisle briefly, knowing he was referring to Alice's knowledge of Jasper's involvement. "She saw you come upon Rosalie and Edward...together," Carlisle explained carefully. "She saw parts of the argument, but not much else. She's very confused."
He nodded. "I'll bet."
"She really wants to see you," I told him gently. "As does Bella."
His face crumpled even more so. "God...Bella and Nessie."
"What did they say?" Carlisle asked quietly. "Rosalie and Edward?"
Emmett just shook his head. "I can't go through it all again without speaking to Bella first," he said. "He should be back soon, at least I think he will. He can explain everything to you himself, if that's OK?"
"Of course," I soothed. "Whatever you want, darling."
"Thanks Mom," he said sounding too young. The devastation of this would be far reaching and long lasting, perhaps irreversibly so. It affected each of us, Emmett and Bella in particular and yet I had no real anger towards my eldest two, who I had always intended and purposefully left to their own devices. The conflict of everyone else would be sufficient without me adding to it and I had no real motive to do so anyway. I loved my family, regardless of their actions. Perhaps that was my real flaw, perhaps a real mother would be furious and angry but I could not be.
While lost in my thoughts, Emmett left to go in search of the girls. I watched him go, heartbroken for all my beautiful but deeply troubled children.
-Emmett-
The house had never seemed so empty and silent, almost foreboding. I felt like a ghost, my movements so quiet and muffled by the ringing in my ears. Each step took me closer to the last place I wanted to be, yet I would answer the obligation felt within me. Someone owed Bella the truth, and I would relay it to her. As best as I could, anyway. Knowing it was wrong, I selfishly wanted her to at least partake in the burden which was the branded knowledge and – even worse – images of the two people I (we) loved most in the world, sickeningly intertwined and utterly lost in each other.
But equally, I wanted to protect her from it. I wanted to protect everyone from it, really. Several times on the way home I'd almost gone crazy from trying to figure out ways to tell everyone that it wasn't true, that someone had forced them to do it by threat of death. That really it was the Volturi interfering with them. Or magic, or anything, anything but the truth happened, so that I could contain it; make it imaginary for a while longer. Rosalie would be oh so sorry; Edward would do anything to make it right. I knew that if I asked, they would do literally anything. If I asked, Edward would leave. Rosalie would stay with me, such was their guilt.
If. If. If. Everything subjective.
It was all irrelevant, anyway. Everyone knew . . . well I wasn't sure if Nessie and Jake knew. But mostly everyone knew. There was no containment, no chance of lying or repairing anything that was so utterly broken. I would never have asked anyway. There was no if, not really. The simple memory of Edward tenderly redressing Rosalie, looking at her with such concern and protectiveness was enough to turn my stomach.
Too soon, I arrived at Alice's door. I wasn't ready. What was I going to say? What would I reveal and what wouldn't I? There were some things she didn't have to know, right? Details I had seen and would certainly never be able to forget, but that weren't essential to the whole picture.
"Emmett?" Alice called through the door, her voice strained. "Come in, please."
I opened the door and entered the room. Bella and Alice were on the floor which was jarring unto itself. We never needed to sit or rest. Sadly, they lay where Bella had fallen – or collapsed (more likely) – while crying.
Bella looked almost as heartbroken as I felt, and she didn't even know the full story yet. Alice was stroking her hair soothingly, but her face was tight, her eyes hard like flint. Betrayal, deception, anger. Her emotions looked so straightforward and simple, I envied her.
"Is it true?" Bella mumbled quietly, choking on a small sob. For the first time (in a long time), she looked every bit as fragile as she had when we first knew her in Forks. She managed to stand up, shakily. "Emmett, please tell me the truth. Tell me what happened?"
Alice held onto her. They both waited.
This dire situation was not my fault or my doing, but I felt the burden of having to be honest with Bella. A burden that should have been placed squarely at Edward's feet, yet here I stood, having to explain to his wife how he had been cheating on her. Where was the fairness in any of this? What the fuck had I ever done to anyone to deserve this?
"I walked in on them." Better forgotten images and sounds hit me, making me disoriented. "They were having sex."
Bella let out another sob, louder this time. She doubled-over, as if punched. "No, no! I don't understand, Em!" she wailed. "Please, why would they do this?"
I had no answer. 'They're each other's half . . . they loved each other but not quite . . .' All of their excuses seemed flimsy and sickeningly romantic.
With everything I had tried to stay calm. "They saw me and stopped and then I..." I what? Why wasn't there a way to describe what had happened without making me feel like I wanted to die? "They've been having an affair for a very long time," I settled on.
"How long?" Alice demanded.
Before you, Bells," I told Edward's wife. "Before even me. Almost a hundred years."
Neither Alice nor Bella seemed to know how to respond. 'Welcome to the club,' I wanted to say. So predictable was the next question, yet I still flinched when asked, knowing I would have to answer it. I felt obligated to answer Bella truthfully.
"Why?" Bella whispered. "Why?" Why Indeed, I concurred.
Yet when it came time to answer, I couldn't. I couldn't validate her question by saying, 'they were in love; so in love that they had forced a telepathic connection where one did not naturally belong; so involved in one another that they were almost the same person.' I wouldn't say it.
"I don't know," I lied straight-faced. Did that make me the same as them, lying too? Did it make me some sort of twisted accomplice to their betrayal? "But I'm sure they'll say its love or something like it."
"Love?" Alice scoffed bitterly. "They can't love, they're incapable of it."
Damn, how I wanted onto her bandwagon. To be at a point where I could scathe and hate openly, bitch and moan and despise them. I wasn't anywhere near there, though Alice was the only one remotely capable of being able to do so thus far.
"I just can't believe it," Bella muttered, two more tears rolling down her cheeks. Her disbelief mirrored my own, despite having seen very concrete proof. We were the same, cast aside and deceived by two such masterful liars.
Before realising my own actions, I pulled her into a fierce hug. She returned it, crying into my shoulder. "I know," I said, stroking her hair. "I know."
Bella may not have been my absolute favourite person in the world, but she was my sister in many respects and certainly not someone I would ever wish this kind of pain on. I felt protective of her, wanting to comfort her best I could even though I knew there was no real way to do so.
She drew back, causing me to, also. "Are they coming back?" Her voice was small, muted.
"Edward might. I don't think she will. I told Edward he should come back, explain himself to both you and Nessie at least, but who knows?"
"They're both coming," Alice inserted. A string of panic plucked in my chest. "Soon."
"Both?" I echoed, never thinking she'd dare return. She was crazier than I thought. "Really?"
Grimly, she nodded. "In the next half-hour, I think. It's difficult to know for sure. Jasper's with them."
I shut my eyes briefly. Jasper. Another sharp betrayal.
"I'm not going to ask about Jasper," Alice told me. "Don't worry about anything having to do with that."
"I don't know much." I purposefully evasive.
"It's fine, I'll ask him myself."
I just nodded awkwardly. "Thank you for telling me," Bella said after a moment. "I appreciate it and I'm sorry you had to go through everything in New York alone."
Her voice had become detached and steady, way too fast. Possibly, she was in some kind of shock. I decided to stay close for as long as she needed, keep an eye on her.
"What do you want to do?" I asked Bella. "When they come back?"
She blinked slowly. Definitely shock. "I have no idea," she admitted. "What do you think I should do?"
It wasn't my decision, yet I could see Bella needed someone to make the hard choices for her at this point.
"Maybe let Edward explain some things, if you want. If not, then I'll make sure he doesn't come anywhere near you."
She nodded. "No, it's OK. I'd like to see him, hear what he has to say about...things."
I looked to Alice, noticing she clearly saw Bella's state, too. She gave a small nod letting me know she too would stay with her, watching.
There was nothing left to say, really. The real answers had to come from those at fault. The only thing left to do was wait now our significant others to arrive. And as it turned out, the wait wasn't very long.
-Rosalie-
I believed all life was made up of moments. Single, individual moments that expired as they're born. I knew this, truly I did. It was something I told myself often, when something bad happened. All life is singular moments and shall all pass. Everything passes. If one moment was bad, one need only hold on because the next one might not be. I'd thought I had a good understanding of it, good enough to see me through some seriously bad times, anyway.
Yet time often makes a mockery of learned things and as such, I was proved wrong. Life might have been made of individual moments, but what happened when said single moment coloured every one thereafter? When one bad moment infected all others from thence? That one moment – Emmett seeing us together. Watching Emmett watching us, I had witnessed something inside of him die at the sight. That moment would affect every moment in my existence from now on. I concluded, (from that one moment) there would never be good moments ever again. There could never be hope for them, not even the desire to hope for a good moment. The punishment was deserved; I knew it in every fiber of my being. From the very inception of Edward and I.
How stupid it seemed now, thinking we would never be found out. Such arrogance and confidence in our deceptive abilities; and even to an extent, the blindness of those we loved. The lies all felt so incredibly unnecessary, hindsight making it patently clear what had always been unknowable to us. Shouldn't have lied. Should have been honest. Shouldn't have involved others. Still, no point in retrospect just for the sake of it, was there?
There were more important matters at hand.
Like the door before me.
It was a really nice door: dark-green painted wood, the number 24 on it. I noticed all the minutia, which I had never taken the time to observe and catalogue before. With everything surmountable in front of me, it seemed appropriate to study a door I had entered in and out of hundreds of times. And now behind it, more singular moments were about to arise, so painful that my mind was grappling for anything that could distract.
My family was behind the door, or what used to be my family, anyway.
No good moment would ever happen again, all would bear the taint of the first bad one – Emmett watching us. Such was my collection of thoughts that swirled chaotically. Still, anything was better than thinking about what Edward had said to me in our minds, back in New York. It took everything I had to shut him out and keep him from seeing the answer to his questions.
Later, I told myself. Later.
My hesitation was almost matched by Edward and Jasper's. They stood near to me, watching the door the same as I did, wondering what to do next. We had keys of course, but should we knock? Acknowledgment of the fact we undoubtedly no longer belonged here? Should we simply let ourselves in? Inconsequential moments that never really mattered before, now seemed unanswerable.
The wonderfully distracting decision was taken from our hands when the door opened slowly and just enough that I could see a familiar face. Esme.
My heart broke even more, or what was left of it anyway. Esme, our Mom who loved us so much, who had helped us through such awful times.
She looked incredibly sad, and all I could do was wait, unable to prepare myself for what she had to say.
She opened the door fully and I saw to my cowardly relief that she appeared to be alone for the moment. No Carlisle, which was odd.
"I'm so sorry," she said so quietly I could have (and probably did) imagine it. "I wish I could do something."
I blinked slowly; it was difficult to understand anything anymore. Edward gasped a little before saying, "You knew?" She nodded once, again so minutely it might not have happened at all. "No," he said, shocked. "There's no way, I would have known."
She smiled sadly. "Oh my poor darlings, there's a lot you don't know, I'm afraid."
Esme had known, possibly for some time. Did that mean...? Did she not hate us as much as I thought she might? Why wouldn't my mind work anymore? I couldn't even process the smallest of basic thoughts.
Taking a deep breath she said, "I love you all and I'm terribly sorry this had to happen." I could see the truth of her statement written on her face. "Everyone is here except Nessie and Jacob. They don't know yet; no-one has called them, anyway."
Edward nodded shakily, sickly relieved that his daughter did not yet know what his wife and all our family did. His relief was short-lived, I sensed Carlisle's approach behind Esme.
Without really taking it in, I followed Jasper inside, sensing perhaps that if he didn't, we wouldn't be able to enter at all.
The house smelled of home, of all the people and things I loved most in the world. I had destroyed it all with lies and betrayal. Emmett was there, I could smell him, too. This couldn't be happening, and yet it was, my mind screamed while scrabbling again for purchase of any kind.
Carlisle (my creator, my friend, my Father) appeared grim, hurt and distant in a way I had never seen. It aged him greatly, made him look almost gray. That could have been me seeing things in black and white, of course.
"Emmett and the others are upstairs," he spoke, utterly without inflection. "He said you would explain to us."
Edward was shaking. He had loved Carlisle so much and for so long; and to see that look in our creator's eyes was killing him.
Esme closed the door behind us, and I took the opportunity to clear my throat to speak. Everything seemed stuck.
"We've been together for a long time," I started but immediately wished I hadn't. It was the wrong thing to say, of course it was. What would be the right way to begin such a conversation? We're so sorry? We never meant it to happen? It was futile and insulting, not to mention lies. Still, I regretted saying it all the same. "Since before Emmett. We lied to everyone and kept it a secret." There, the truth in all its tainted glory.
"This entire time? All those years, Rosalie . . . Edward?" he breathed, looking like he simply couldn't believe it. "How?"
"We were careful," I said again. Edward seemed unable to speak at all, so I would speak for him. It was something small I could do for him, like how he had done up my buttons when I couldn't. I didn't know what was keeping him from collapsing to the floor and crying, but something was and it prevented him from say a word. "We told very elaborate lies and created opportunities to be together, without anyone knowing."
Carlisle was silent a long time before replying, "In time I might understand that, but I will never understand why you brought other people into it. All the lies and dishonesty aside, how can there be forgiveness for involving Bella and Emmett?"
Edward was about to respond, incredibly; but the words became stuck in his throat. I knew he felt what I had. Emmett's presence, once again. But not alone, oh no. Alice and Bella were with him. Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at us.
And for all my great bravery, I couldn't look. I couldn't see their faces, I just couldn't.
"I can't believe you came back!" Emmett's disgusted and furious voice broke through my fear. There was no need to ask who he was addressing. "How dare you come back?"
My voice was nowhere to be found. Graciously Jasper spoke for us, "We'll face whatever you have to say, answer any questions you might have." It sounded so simple and straightforward that I inappropriately wanted to laugh. My emotions were everywhere and nowhere, certainly not anywhere stable. It would have been a very bad idea; and besides the situation was anything but simple.
"We have a lot of questions," Alice spoke first; her voice tight. "About everything." I still didn't have the courage to look up, but I could hear as she came down the stairs, leaving Bella and Emmett standing there.
Before I could make heads or tails of the situation, she came straight at me, ignoring everyone but me.
Everything happened too quickly for me to even comprehend. She went to slap me directly across the face. I saw it peripherally; her hand swinging back, palm flattened. I was going to let her, of course. Part of me genuinely welcomed it. But then a hand reached out to stop her and I was too late to stop it from happening, though I should have known. The sound of skin on skin resounded too loudly in my ears, spinning my mind in every direction. His hand catching her wrist.
Words and emotions caught in my throat as he spoke, "Don't, Alice."
I couldn't breathe, struck dumb by the action that I knew was reflexive to him but was utterly damning to us in every way. Everyone was frozen, staring at what had just happened.
Edward dropped her wrist and moved to stand ever so slightly in front of me. I wanted to stop him, but what was the point? How could anything be any worse, anyway? His actions concerning me were unstoppable as mine were when it came to him. His protectiveness even in the face of our family and our blatant transgressions...it made what had to happen later all the harder to stomach.
I finally dared to look up and into the face I wanted to avoid the most. Startling realisation and confusion broke over Bella's face. She looked exactly like Emmett when he had first realised that what Edward and I had spanned deeper than sex. It went to the very core of who we were. Edward instinctively protected me and it was clear as day, now.
Bella, and everyone else for that matter, could see us exactly as we were, raw and undisguised.
The pain radiating from only her eyes was too much. I couldn't stand to see her face, see the slow and unstoppable understanding of his action. She looked at Edward then and I realised he was still standing in front of me, protecting me from everyone. I had to make him stop.
'Edward, stop. She's entitled to hit me if she wants.'
'No, she's not. No-one is.'
'You have to move. Please.'
I grit my teeth, acknowledging that he wasn't going to listen. Eyes cast downward, I very gently placed me hand on his side and pushed him just a fraction back, stepping forward so we were side by side. The small touch reassured him perfectly, as I knew it would and he seemed to snap out of his protective stance for the time being, at least.
Everyone stared at us utterly shocked, except Emmett. He looked sickened if resigned, but then he had seen that little show before, hadn't he?
"You disgust me," Alice spoke, again the first one to voice what she felt. Not that her face didn't do a good enough job already. "Both of you disgust me!"
I couldn't look at her, so I just waited to see if she would hit me again. When she didn't, I took a breath for the first time in minutes. I could still feel how tense Edward was, even though I was working hard to limit and control our connection. His mind had gone to a place of basic simplicity, for the sake of not collapsing perhaps. He was thinking slowly and controlled, avoiding dangerous areas like Carlisle or Bella. I wanted to stay with him, make sure he could cope but it was useless. This was something we both had to do alone.
"Emmett," I whispered, "Can I please talk to you; just for five minutes?"
He laughed at that. "No, you really can't."
I knew he was reeling from having to witness the intimate interaction between Edward and myself. His voice sure gave credence to that notice. I nodded in understanding, accepting his denial. I knew there were things Edward still had to do: like speak to Bella.
So before my mind and soul literally imploded (from the inside out), I decided to go and get my things, and then wait outside to see if Emmett would come. I was pretty certain he would, but there was no way to trust my instincts at that point.
Silently and in a daze, I made my way past them all, feeling their eyes watching my retreat to the room Emmett and I shared – or used to. No one said anything.
Without taking much time to allow memories to bombard me or slow my progress, I ignored most things, going only for that which I needed: like clothes and legal documents. Voices filtered upstairs but I couldn't process anything besides the ringing in my ears.
When I realised I had packed everything needed, I was at a loss for what to do next. There were hundreds of objects I could have taken, but almost all of them reminded me of Emmett. Plus, there was no room in the two bags I had. Most likely he would destroy the rest, or so I supposed.
The thing which gave me the most pause to leave, came into my view; my desk, so many names carved into it. Such sadness etched into its every surface. That, too, would most likely be destroyed along with everything else that had to do with the last century of my existence. Nothing I could do to stop it, of course.
I touched it one last time, tracing over everything I had craved. This brought me close to my very breaking point.
More screams could be heard and I couldn't withstand that, too, selfish as I was.
Maybe I was a coward or selfish. I wasn't mentally disputing the fact. But possibly, possibly, I was simply tired. As vampires we couldn't tire too much physically, but my emotional limitations had been reached. Even the strongest of the strong have their emotional and mental breaking points . . . and I was close to reaching mine. So whether it be cowardly or emotional fatigue, I reached the limit. It wasn't for me to decide any longer. Too many more important things were calling for my attention.
With little hesitation, I grabbed my bags and went to the window. I opened it and threw the bags out, before climbing out myself.
.
It was a beautiful night; cold and clear: crisp. The sky was a soothing inky colour peppered with stars, and lit in one corner by a crescent moon. The darkness was soothing, as though I could melt away into it and become invisible. It called to my aching soul so beautifully, whispering so enticingly.
My bags and I went to the garage. I unlocked my car and stored everything away. When everything I had left in the world was stowed away, I drove the car out of the garage and onto the drive-way, parking it close by.
Leaving the car and heading back toward the house, I stood in the yard and decided that I would wait outside. like the absolute fucking coward that I was. I thought of going back inside but couldn't. I simply couldn't.
After twenty-six minutes of waiting and before I could give up completely, I started to walk away. My plan that I had been trying to hide from Edward ever since New York didn't include leaving with anyone. He had been trying to reassure me that no matter what, we would be together when this was all over and I'd had to shut him out before he saw the truth. It always fell to me to make the hard decisions for us both and he wasn't ready for it yet. Just the thought of it made me want to be sick, but I held myself together somehow.
Emmett wasn't coming; I didn't know why I was remotely surprised. He didn't owe me anything and I still expected him to act like he did. I knew I should just wait for Edward so I could explain things to him, but I was desperate to avoid it. Maybe I could exceed even my own expectations of how much of a coward I was and leave there and then.
Gripping my car keys hard and caught in the midst of a difficult decision, I saw Emmett coming out of the back door. Towards me. My breath caught in my chest, unsure of what to expect.
He said, "Five minutes, then."
Authors Note: So, there it is. No words can be begin to describe how difficult this was or how sorry I am about how long it took. I literally had the first half of this chapter all done and I was really happy with it about two days after I posted the first chapter and then this barrage of hate and nastiness came out of nowhere and I just totally lost my confidence. It was only through the amazing help, beta-ing and co-writing of SunnyOrange that this chapter a) even got finished and b) is so well put together. She is incredible.
I really hope that this did justice to something that I know a lot of people have been waiting for. If there was something missing or something you wanted to see but didn't, please let me know. I'm totally open to requests or ideas. There are going to be a further two chapters after this, four in total. I will warn ahead (not that anyone really needs it) but it's going to be heartbreaking and very, very angsty. But if you know me then bear with me and trust me. I would never do wrong by you, my lovely people ;)
So enormous thanks to my Beta (co-writer – that scene with the slap and the buttons, that was all her) SunnyOrange. To the brilliant, lovely Twiolic, gosspigirl111, sexysiren1981 and everyone else who reviewed with their kindness and support. Thank you so, so much!
The next chapter, barring more death threats, will be up much sooner than the last.
All my love,
Bex
x x x
