- Chapter Three: Flaw -
Was she completely insane? Following me out here with her blatant attempts to distract me sufficiently from my aim? It would never work, I could see her coming a mile away and she knew it.
Out politeness more than anything else, I stopped by the lake and waited for her.
"What is this really about, Edward?"
I listened. 'Damned stupid arrogant bastard, I refuse to live like this anymore.'
"I believe your resentment stems from the fact that 'this' is not about you," I replied, sounding supremely unconcerned. I could smell her very palpably now. The scent of her skin, her hair, her being; it was distracting.
"I know you hate me," she said. 'Oh yes, you hate me, so selfish, so cruel…' "But this is stupid. We cannot live like this."
"How do you propose we live then?"
"We can be civil." 'But you do not think so, perhaps I do not even think it is possible.' "We could try."
I could see where this was headed. "Save yourself the trouble, I will not disturb them tonight. Go back to your own little world."
That riled her. I could feel the anger coming off of her in waves. Her thoughts were a flurry now, a stream of anger and something else, barely suppressed. For the first time, I was actually curious about something revolving around Rosalie Hale.
She folded her arms and something in her shifted again. A new idea.
'When I was young,' she said, speaking in her mind. 'A friend of mine lost her father to diphtheria. When her mother remarried, her husband had a son. The boy was a spoilt little thing, used to getting his own way. He hated his step-sister so much, and all because he couldn't bear the idea of sharing his father, or any of his family for that matter. He made her life a complete misery, every single day.'
I grinned, already seeing where it was headed. "I suppose I'm the little boy?"
"Or I am. Perhaps you see me as a spiteful little child, here to ruin everything."
"Why does it matter? So long as we can be civil in front of Carlisle and Esme, it is irrelevant."
"Yes, because that will not become grating after an eternity."
I closed my eyes. An eternity with Rosalie Hale. Dear God.
"I know what you think of me, Edward. I'm sure an eternity with me is as daunting as an eternity in hell, but this is not hell Edward and we should not make things more difficult merely for the sake of it."
"You are preaching to me that this is not hell? I listen to your self involved thoughts every minute of my time in your presence and all I hear is whining, moaning complaints about the hell in which you are cast! Do not speak to me of hell, little girl - you know nothing of it!"
She was furious at my outburst. "And I suppose that poor little Edward Cullen has his own brochure of the nine layers, does he?"
And then she was unspeakably cruel, allowing her mind to fully revisit that night in Rochester, and I was forced to partake of it. Months of sleepless bloodlust and existentialism had done nothing to mar the clarity of her memories; they were as sharp and clear as if we had gone back in time to stand by her as the whole horrifying scene unfolded before us. I closed my eyes, uselessly trying to block it out - cursing my perceptiveness that had followed me through death and become a gift. I could see, hear and feel everything as if it were happening to me.
"Stop it, Rosalie!" I warned, stepping backward. I used her name to distract her. She hated that I never used it, she wrongly assumed that I avoided it owing to disdain. Behind us, the water of the lake lapped gently at the smooth stones and pebbles, the sounds were almost soothing.
"Why should I stop?" she sneered, but her mind had ceased the re-run nonetheless. "You care nothing for me, why should it trouble you to know of my petty tribulations? You wish I had died on that street, cold, dead and defiled!"
"You are confusing your own desires with mine," I spat, losing all patience with this mercurial creature; the embodiment of beauty, before me. "It is you who wished to be left alone to die on that street!"
There was no need to read her mind, she was saying everything that came into it - regardless of how candid it might be.
"You revolting swine! I despise the very sight of you!"
Even furious, she was heartbreakingly lovely. Her anger, so genuine and raw, was not enraging me as it ought to have been. I could feel myself warming to her, and I knew then that I must genuinely have a very dark, masochistic side to my persona. I must have been insane.
"You despise that you cannot hide beneath your beauty, that your name cannot shield you from me. You despise me because I can see all the way through you and you cannot make your insides as beautiful as your outsides."
I was going too far, it would be so easy now to apologise and leave. But I didn't want to - that wasn't even a possibility now, leaving. When had that happened?
'Supercilious, egotistical, detestable, hate him so much….damned smile, damned eyes…mouth…oh god shut UP!'
I froze then, not knowing if I had heard correctly. She was still glaring at me with fierce eyes, her newborn hands itching for blood and violence. She needed to feed, I could see it in her eyes. I suddenly felt the urge to be there when it happened.
"Rosalie," I experimented. It was jarring to actually feel the resonance of her spine tingling as I said her name. "You need to feed."
It was the wrong thing to say. The sneer intensified. "As always Edward," she growled. "To you I am an animal requiring maintenance. Feed it, keep it quiet."
"Oh do shut up, you pretentious little brat!"
"Your benevolent denial is SO reassuring," she crooned sarcastically. I could never recall being spoken to like this in all my years of life. I had never met anyone who hated me this much. "Well this pretentious little brat will not shut up, will not be quiet and does not need you to feed her like a dog! I will not become a liability to Carlisle and Esme. I am, much unlike you Edward Cullen - pure."
I was actually so involved in the exchanges, that I couldn't see the mistake coming a mile away. By pure, she meant the monster inside - pure of blood on her hands, pure of drinking human blood; and I knew her thoughts of murdering Royce King and his friends, so I did something gravely wrong. I snorted with disbelieving laughter.
But it came across wrong.
The look on her face, the wordless assumption that flashed through her mind told me that she had wrongly interpreted my doubtful snigger, challenging her 'purity' in a way not involving bloodlust.
She had said she was pure and I had laughed at her. I, with all my insight into the minds of everyone I knew, made a fatal error.
SMACK! She hit me so hard, I actually felt my teeth rattle. The slap didn't exactly hurt, but it reverberated through my skull and over my eyes. It would have taken a human's head completely off.
Before I could even open my mouth to release to torrent of apologies and reassurances that my dubious laugh had nothing to with what she thought, she hit me again - this time it was not a slap. She swung her arm into an arch in a twentieth of a second and slammed her fist into my face. It actually hurt. It had been a long time since I felt pain and whether or not it was the guilt making me feel it, was irrelevant.
I let her do it, I let her hit me as hard as she wanted. I wanted her to, it would make her feel better and God knows I deserved it.
Shouldn't I - above all other people - know how she felt? How she blamed herself for the disgrace she felt was an everlasting mark on her purity and soul, how she hated her beauty, how she blamed that and her vanity and stupidity for all that she had endured - I knew all of it and I provoked her. As she hit me again, harder now - I willed her to break something in me that would serve as full payment of the debt I realised I owed her.
She stopped me from running to Carlisle with my pathetic indiscretion, she saved me from myself.
Something twisted in my chest, where once a human heart had beat, and I realised something was happening.
Her face crumpled up as she hit me one last time, and if she had been able to cry tears - I have no doubt they would be free flowing. She fell to her knees, seemingly broken.
I had done that, broken her. Oh yes Edward, bravo. Such a brave, strong hero you are! Taunt the girl who was brutally raped and murderer by her fiancé, tease her about her humiliation - make her life a little more unbearable. Honourable man that you are.
Shuddering gasps wracked over her body and she wrapped her arms around herself, as if cold or physically falling apart. I stood for a moment, frozen in shock and guilt. Her mind was a stream of unbearable thoughts, every one of them pierced my heart, knowing I had stirred up the already potent ocean of horror in her mind.
I knelt down beside her and put my hands on her hair, stroking it gently. I expected her to flinch away from the contact and then launch at me, tearing out my eyes or something else more irreplaceable, I would have deserved it certainly. But she didn't, instead she moved forward into my arms and I held her there.
She shifted a little, so that she was completely on my lap now and she was weightless to me. I held her fast and strong, breathing in her scent which was utterly delicious, if not laced with the urgency of blood. I could feel her movements through my clothes, I could feel her eyelashes against the cloth of my shirt on my chest.
True, she was not crying but it slowed down nevertheless. She breathed slower, even though it was unnecessary to do so at all, and her body ceased to shudder and tremble. I still held her, looking out across the lake - wondering how this had come about.
"Edward," she mumbled against my chest. "You have to forgive me."
Her mind was singing a song in French. What was she hiding? "For what?"
There was an exquisitely painful moment, hovering between two worlds, a moment before something was about to happen and it was like someone slowing down time, painfully. I felt it too, I was sure she knew that. Her eyes were locked with mine, tearless and heartbreaking. It was ready to cascade, it was ready to rush into my heart…I was waiting for it, even though I didn't know what in hell or heaven it would be. I waited…
And absolutely nothing happened, except that she pulled away from me suddenly looking furious with herself and I couldn't have read her mind if it had been a child's ABC book.
She stood fully up, her hand over her mouth and even despite the forced silence, I could feel the torrent of bitter emotions in her soul. I knew for one shining moment that the soul was absolutely real, and that Rosalie and I were not soulless creatures because I could feel her soul. Like déjà vu, the moment passed and with it all my certainty. The moon hid behind the clouds, it was darker again - heavily symbolic.
"I'm sorry Edward," she said, almost formally. I hated to hear that neat, reserved tone wrapped around my name, especially after whatever the hell had just happened (or not happened, to be exact).
I completely ignored that, and when I spoke I realised that somehow I was out of breath.
"Forgive you for what?"
She bristled and turned her ridiculously beautiful face away from me a fraction. "Don't," she whispered.
I could feel the anger now, the frustration - something had been about to happen and she had known exactly what it was before she had stopped it. I hated not knowing, it was a bad expectation in life to want to know everything, to expect to know everything - but it was impossible to suppress.
"Damn it Rose! Forgive you for what?"
She clamped her hand over her mouth harder, as if about to be sick and closed her eyes tightly. Suddenly there were cracks in her tightly shut off mind and I could catch snippets of thoughts, translated barely into words as my gift heard them.
'…never work, never believe, never see…stupid, stupid, stupid…never trust, never feel, promised yourself…!'
She was furious, broken. Not even furious with me for reasons beyond my comprehension, she was furious with herself. I genuinely didn't know why, but I desperately wanted to.
I moved forwards, for the first time in the history of existence I wanted to be in close proximity to Rosalie Hale. To my surprise, she moved away from and completely turned her back to me. I could hear nothing, not the waves of the lake gently lapping a few feet from us, not the endless sounds of night and certainly not her mind. She was the first person I had even encountered who could shut me out or even attempt to screen the thoughts.
I frowned, confused and betrayed by my own feelings. I spoke softly, hoping her mind would relax and open up so I could see and know everything. "Rosalie, please."
"Stay out Edward," she warned, and now her voice indicated that I might be a common criminal on the street, about to mug her. I hated myself for even thinking of such a analogy the moment it passed through my mind.
I had no idea what to do. I, Edward Cullen, was at a loss for how to handle the situation. It was sheer madness, and I was caught in the very epicentre of it all.
So I did all that I could manage to do.
I left.
A/N: I loved writing this chapter, sigh. Edward/Rosalie is always lovely, for me anyway. So please review if you liked it, I'd really love to hear what y'all think. x x x x
