Chapter 3
Patterns swirled beneath Alice's hand as she continued to move the pencil, filling in the lines she had drawn before with a darker, deeper stroke. As president of the art club she was also the designated designer for the LGBTQA club, and was currently working on their first poster of the year. Her eyes fell sensitively across the page, making these had always felt delicate, even before she had found a torn in half poster that she had made on the ground of the school hallway.
"Alice?" Her father was standing in the doorway, holding up their house phone. "Your mom wants to speak to you."
Alice sighed and rolled her eyes. "She still doesn't have my number?"
"I think she lost it...again," Charlie mumbled, passing her the phone.
Alice held the phone between her cheek and shoulder and continued to draw as they exchanged the usual greetings.
"How was school?"
"Fine."
"Any boys bothering you?"
"Mom. No."
"Any girls bothering you?"
Alice paused her drawing. For a second, Bella's face came into her mind, and she swallowed, remembering her leaving the Cafeteria. She wasn't sure weather she felt more concerned or offended by Bella's odd behavior. "No," she said with a little laugh.
"Tell your brother to check his phone more often, I get worried when he takes so long to text back."
Alice smiled a little at the irony. "Okay, I'll tell him."
Alice wondered where Bella was. It was a silly question, a silly thing to think about. Maybe Bella had changed schedules, her brother hadn't seen her either, and he used to have Biology with her. Maybe she had changed schools. Even so, she couldn't shake the unmistakably narcissistic feeling that she was somehow related to Bella's absence.
"How's art club? Charlie tells me you're the president now."
Alice started describing their first project, which they were going to have to take a break from as soon as the school musical needed its sets painted.
Alice set the phone down on the table after she had wrapped up the conversation.
She started shading in the purple on the "L" frowning because, she was thinking of Bella again.
~B~B~
Rosalie held onto my arm as I hunted, ready to shoot pain into my body like an electric shock, whenever she sensed that I wasn't thinking of that "someone". She was amazingly accurate too.
Rosalie let go of my arm and gave a harsh sigh. "You're not even trying."
"That's not true!"
"Come on Bella, focus. You can do this if you try hard enough. You don't like to kill do you? Well, if you keep this up, every deer in the forest will be dead before you succeed."
I studied Rosalie's eyes. The familiar suspicion that Rosalie's powers did more than just cause pain, was rising in me again. I knew that if I looked at her eyes too long, she would find some way to get revenge for it. I remembered to look away.
"I want you to tell me who this person is. Until you do, this isn't going to work."
I gave a long sigh.
There was no sense in lying to Rosalie, it never worked. I had put this off thus far, sensing the danger in it. "Why does it matter?" I tried lamely.
"If there's something you're hiding from me, it's ruining your concentration. If you have nothing to hide, then tell me the truth."
Typical Rosalie logic.
She reached down and brushed my cheek, gently, but I got the threatening gleam in her eyes, revealing the true meaning behind the gesture. "Don't make me-"
"Alright! Alright!" I pulled back from her touch. "Alice. Her name's Alice."
Rosalie smiled. "Good girl."
As if I was a fucking werewolf dog instead of a vampire.
~B~B~
My hands were trembling but my pulse beat harder, pounding against my brain like a boxer in the final round. As I touched the soft fur, I was tapping out of the fight, giving into the fact that my hunger was stronger than my morals. As I pressed my teeth around, then into the vein, my lips were closing around the cup for the loser's water after the match.
Rosalie stood beside me, stroking my shoulder as I sucked the blood out of my first kill. I was a failure, but maybe anyone who wanted to live forever was. I kidded myself that since a vampire can't die of natural causes, I could go without blood for a very long time, if only I had the self-control.
"There you go, baby. Take your time," Rosalie soothed.
Finally, the vein ran dry and began to shrivel. I let it lose from my teeth, and straightened my shoulders out of my hunched over, crouched position.
There was triumph in her eyes, but as the euphoria of the drink began to fade, I noticed something else, and my stomach turned hard, as if it were freezing over, liquid to ice.
"Bella, there's something I need to tell you...I wanted to wait until you had your first feed, to make sure you would be able to take care of yourself."
What do you mean? Won't we always be taking care of each other? For the rest of eternity, forever, right?, I thought. I refrained from repeating all of our promises and instead hid them all in my head, not wanting to shove them back into the air like a desperate anxious moron.
"Okay," I said aloud, feeling as if the word had been stuck in my throat like a small stone that I needed to dislodge. I swallowed. "Is there anything wrong?"
Rosalie shook her head, sadness briefly in her eyes, before it began to morph into laughter. "I love it when they are so naïve." She said with glee, as if she were talking to someone beside me, who was an expert on "they".
"You really had no idea, did you?"
"I um-" I started to speak without having any intention of where the sentence would go.
"I've lived for a century, and you honestly believed that I would choose to settle down for one person? You, no less? It's just too easy Bella, it almost isn't any fun anymore!"
Her laughter cut dark, and deep into me, like a blade already coated in another's blood, many other's blood, stabbing me to my core. "Why did you bother to turn me if you don't...How can you not want me if...how, why, if you don't..."
"If I don't love you? Well, what do you think I've been doing for a century? It's a game, Bella. Eternity gets pretty boring."
"No. No I don't. You're just...you can't be...!" Already, the weight of the truth was pressing down on me, causing me to desperately spurt unfinished lies, like a heart being crushed by a rock, spurting blood of the already dead. "I know you...me, I've seen it, I've felt..."
"I never wanted to live forever. When Carlisle turned me, it was the worst curse imaginable. By law, we are not allowed to create any vampires, unless the person is dying, or unless they give permission. It's been something of a hobby for me, to turn as many vampires as I can...after I get their permission of course. God, I've done so many, I could start an army if I got them all together."
Her words were weighing into my brain, pressing out all other thoughts, all other words, so that I could form nothing to say.
"Go home Bella. Don't think you have any reason to fear me? Fine. I'll make arrangements for you to be moved, within the week. I don't want to see you again. And stop making that sad face, you're boring me. As if you weren't boring enough before."
I stormed home through the forest, the tears like rain on my face making up for the empty sky. I used my vampire strength to get away from Rosalie at high speeds, but miles away from her, and still miles away from home, I discarded it, and tromped through the forest like a human toddler. Lost and afraid.
The next day I was arrested, for the possession of heroin on a school campus, it was found in my locker. I got put in a group home in Florida for a couple of weeks. Then they moved me to Forks.
Just like that, I was damned to an eternity that I thought I had chosen. Now, it would be an eternity of loneliness...
Author's Note: Reviews are highly appreciated! :)
