AN: It has been a while, hasn't it? I've been very busy with school work, unfortunately. The only plus side is that you now have an entire chapter to read! :) Since I wrote the last chapter, I've been hearing Pachelbel's Canon absolutely everywhere.
Hopefully this will be to your liking!
Chapter Four: Good Craftsmanship
If there was a time when I was more upset at my father, I couldn't remember it. Maybe upset wasn't the right word, but it was profuse disappointment that was colouring my attitude towards him now.
The things I suspected of him—things I didn't think him capable of—were completely true.
It was an exaggeration, though I didn't see it as that way. He was completely wrong. Wrong on so many levels. And I didn't even think he was wrong because I was being overly defensive.
I finally wasn't just hearing thoughts, I was listening. Every single word or murmur in Carlisle's mind did not escape me, now. I knew exactly what everything meant, too, right or wrong. He was a being of intense moral, and there had to be reasoning behind this atrocity. I felt diseased thinking what he had thought.
It was all in best interest for me—that's what I told myself, anyhow. He wanted what was best, and nothing more. He thought I needed this, and really, was that not the truth? As I saw him with the one person that truly made him happy, and thought of his life before her...it was unquestionable. Love was precisely what I needed.
And yet, was it his business to interfere like this? If I loved Rosalie—really loved her—I would have done something about it by now, without his assistance. Carlisle thought I was like a child who needed his father's hand to guide him across the street. But that wasn't true at all. Physically I may be barely more than a boy, but I still knew what I wanted without his help. It was not Rosalie I needed.
"Please, say something," Carlisle whispered. The tone was unfamiliar. I had to turn to make sure that it was him speaking to me, and not a ghost. He sounded worn and tired, like he'd been doing a lot of thinking. Which he had.
"I'd rather pace a hole in the floor, thanks."
"I should have been more careful," he began again.
I turned to face him for the second time, pivoting on my heel. The dark circles under his eyes were more striking, and I remembered that tonight was supposed to be his and Esme's night to hunt. He had stayed back to talk to me. For some reason it didn't bother me that he should waste his time like that.
"Been more careful with what?" I asked, not really impatient. Impatient was hours ago.
He didn't speak at first. Tilting his head downwards so that his eyes were overcast by shadow. I couldn't see the bright sparkle that sometimes brimmed them like a human tear. And then he thought the words, Been careful with my thoughts.
Everything, absolutely everything, fit perfectly. For one split fraction of a second I thought I understood. And then, as things do for me, logic took the place of the realization. I didn't care that he had been considerate, moderating what he thought so as not to offend me.
"It doesn't offend me that you think I belong with her. It offends me that you've been thinking there was something between us when there obviously wasn't." Obvious didn't even cover it. Rosalie and I had barely even formed a truce. We now held a very tight relationship where we only said what was absolutely necessary to each other and kept out of the other's business.
He raised an eyebrow. Obvious?
"Yes, Carlisle, obvious. From the start you knew that Rosalie and I far from liked each other." We never even spoke to each other before recently, and we still didn't always have kind things to say. A lot of the rude banter back and forth he wouldn't know because it was Rosalie thinking it.
This time he did speak aloud. He raised his chin, and I could see that I was right about the sparkle in his eyes. With the contrast between it and the circle under his eyes, he looked quite frightening.
"You misunderstand. Love sometimes begins as the strongest hate," He said slowly. "I see now that it is not like that for you, and I completely empathize. But maybe you should reconsider the strength of your distaste towards her—at least in front of her—because it is truly affecting her behaviour. Esme told me that Rosalie doesn't feel like she belongs with us any more."
She never had belonged with us.
"I have told you this before," I half-shouted, "but I do not mind saying it again! I think that she has no regard for anyone but herself. While it may not be her fault that she was spoiled, she has no worth for anything other than possessions. The reason why I do not like Rosalie Hale is not one reason, but many. And that shall not change."
Edward! Esme scolded me from downstairs. Don't you remember the last time? You can't afford another fight like this! She will not forgive you if this continues to happen.
Forgiveness had not come up in my mind. I didn't want her to forgive me. I didn't even want her around. Both of them thought that there had been some sort of unconventional connection between us, and they were both utterly wrong.
Esme walked to stand before me at the top of the stairs. She reached up to put a gentle hand on my shoulder. I saw her face, Edward. When she heard you play piano for the first time. It was like a look of admiration, as if you had redeemed yourself in her eyes. That girl comes from a place where admiration was cast in her direction and not the other way around. Even if it was only for a moment, she admired you for being able to show the feelings in music that she kept hidden. Do you think she can do that the way you can? No. And you've lost all the respect she had for you again.
Carlisle's thoughts continued where hers left off. It was astounding how they did that. Do you seriously think that she's alright with you turning a blind eye to her, Edward? She was adored. You were probably the first person she's ever known who doesn't love looking at her. And you don't think she's gorgeous? She's one of the prettiest women I've ever seen. I can't believe that you would turn her away like this, when she's clearly meant for—
"Please, can you both just stop! Don't think another word until I finish!" Both of them looked directly in my eyes, and I didn't know who deserved the accusation I would soon present. Carlisle. Yes, he was the one who thought he knew what was meant for me. "If either of you could hear Rosalie's thoughts, you would know the reason why I do not love her. It's much more simple than you think. In fact, I think you are delving into my emotions far more than 'parents' should."
They both said nothing, still sticking to the original rule that they could not speak.
"She has a very shallow mind," I admitted. "To be in a relationship with someone and love them, you need to have conversations you wouldn't immediately predict and expect. In her head, there isn't much there to begin with, and even less for me to discover."
Carlisle broke the rule. "That is unfortunate, son. It is quite unfortunate that you think she is unworthy of your time and affection. Love is also patience."
Esme clicked her tongue at him, frowning enough to put pressure in her smooth forehead. "Carlisle, I would appreciate it if you didn't pressure the boy. He is grown enough to know that he doesn't love her. And he has had much patience with her." She turned to me. "Not that I'm taking your side, either. You have been very harsh to Rosalie. Especially since she tried very hard to accept your apology."
For once, Esme's motherly instinct annoyed me strongly. I was older than her, and did not need her input on what I was doing correctly and incorrectly. She was right to say that Carlisle wasn't trusting my judgement enough, but not right saying that Rosalie had tried hard to accept my apology. Rosalie had decided that she hated me since the moment she realized I didn't worship her. And there was no more than that going on in her mind at any moment. She thought about it constantly, even more chagrined knowing that I could hear her thinking it.
And Carlisle's sage wisdom was perhaps even more aggravating. He thought he knew it all, from a few simple inferences. Under the simple assumption that Rosalie was the only one who could break me from my reverie, he then thought that we were in love. She broke me from my reverie, my quiet place, my peaceful place. How did that make her my love?
"The boy's getting emotional!" Rosalie laughed from behind Esme. "Look at him! What upsets him so? Do I know her?" She laughed again, but it was mirthless and forced. It, coupled with her thoughts, showed me that perhaps she was more upset than I was.
"Yes," I retorted, "you do know her. She has the tendency to act like a child stuck in an adult body. She screams more than any newborn baby and is far more violent than any serial murderer."
"Esme? Really? I didn't think she killed anyone as of late..." Rosalie shook her head back and forth as she chuckled.
Carlisle pursed his lips, mirroring her head shaking action. "I think both of you act more like children than adults. You have responsibilities to the family as much as Esme and I. Figure out how to solve your issues, or simply ignore each other."
Esme's eyes widened as she touched Carlisle's arm. "I will not having my children act like they are not members of the same family," she protested.
I'm hoping they sort it out before things come to that, Carlisle thought. He was looking at her as if she had my ability. At the moment, they weren't thinking about the character of Rosalie and I at all. We both had the identical ability to ignore each other for many hours if the need presented itself.
Rosalie laughed. "Really, it shouldn't be hard for me to ignore him." that was the truth. She had gone so far as to ignore me a few times since she was turned. I had done my best to ignore her since the moment we met.
"I agree," I said to her, remembering that I should never speak to her again in order to preserve my own sanity. I was already standing in front of my piano, then sitting on the bench, playing a melody I had heard just now on the inside of my head.
It was long and drawn out, low and somehow still quick in the underlying melody. It was flitting, fleeting, and flushed underneath a calm, cool, composed line an octave higher. I realized that it wasn't an original, it was a companion piece. Companion to the Esme song I had written. The two songs perfectly balanced each other. And if I switched back and forth, the song was playing for both of them. Carlisle and Esme. The same song, the same melody...harmony.
I had done wrong. I had been angry with them both for seeing something I had not seen. It was so wrong what I had done, judging them like this, when I knew I was just the same. There were many times I chose to make the same assumptions about them that they did of me.
Thoughtless mind reader, I accused myself, repeating Rosalie's favourite thing to call me. It was hard to ignore her when I had no one else to really speak to. Carlisle and Esme were, as expected, together. And I felt too horrible to utter a word to either of them, anyway.
I flipped through some old books, stopping each time I realized I had read it before. The only new material was in Carlisle's study. There were some other language books that I hadn't read, though. Mandarin Chinese I was only half finished studying, but I only had another few hundred pages of Italian to cover. It was a decent enough distraction.
Rosalie was silently standing outside of my door, pretending just to pass it.
"Qué usted necesitan, Rosalie?" I was asking her what she needed. In Italian, of course, just to be difficult. She didn't answer me, obviously, sniffing and completing the walk to her room. So she was ignoring me.
I had begun to think she was decent. Sensible, even. Just a few hours before I had thought she was someone who listened to me, capable of intellect and appreciation. How wrong I had been. She was nothing but the shallow child I had thought her to be, and it would not change.
"I do not know Italian," she stated, all the while grating her teeth. She hated admitting she was wrong, and it made her more frustrated to know she had admitted it to me. Flitting down the stairs, I could hear her lift the cover to my piano. The ultimate revenge was running through her mind, and I had mere moments to stop it.
But I did. Her hands were away from it as soon as she'd glanced me on my way down the stairs. Still, in my moment of hesitation to stop her she could have already crushed the instrument.
It was too much of a waste with such good craftsmanship, she admitted, stroking the smooth black sides. And I must play him again, though not right now.
"Him?" I asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.
The corner of her mouth twitched, and then righted itself, much too quickly. I could not be sure the movement occurred. Well it looks perfect on the outside, but not so perfect on the inside. The appearance of perfection, just like you. It must be a him. I have both the appearance and inner workings of perfection.
"And modesty," I added, chucking silently. She could not get any more vain than she already was. One moment speaking to me, and then next looking at her reflection in the polished frame of my love.
Of course, there is another reason, she continued. You don't love women, otherwise you would have loved me straight away. So since you're so in love with this thing, it must be male. Theoretically, anyway. She smirked.
"Theoretically you are completely full, to the brim, with yourself. Your reasoning has no base in reality. Just because I don't find your vain thoughts attractive doesn't mean I won't find someone someday who is a slightly deeper thinker. And probably quieter so I can have a moment's peace."
I laughed wryly at the prospect. As if I would ever find someone silent enough to keep from annoying me. The person would have to be deep, but exceptionally unobservant if they would be able to keep from pointing things out mentally and infringe on my thoughts. The impossibility was now laying out before me in a large heap.
None of this bothered Rosalie, of course. You also resisted Tanya. That can't be normal of anyone. I've even seen young women stumble at her beauty. Maybe you were changed too young. No time for the hormones to kick in. Her eyes twinkled as she laughed at her own joke. It wasn't too often that she laughed, so it made sense she would only be laughing at her own brilliance.
I shrugged. "You're not the first to think of that. Esme and Carlisle have been discussing that very matter when they thought me out of mental reach." I shook my head. "It doesn't really bother me, though. I can admire beauty. What I do not admire is both your shallow mind and Tanya's thick, rich, carefully planned plots for seduction. If you were human I'd be worried about you striking your skull on a mirror and bleeding to death."
Her perfectly double-curved lips curved over her perfectly sharp teeth. A snarl that sounded perfectly horrible ripped through her lungs. Perfectly awful thoughts of my demise and how she was about to orchestrate it were running through her, but I ignored them. I had to avoid a fight this time, to avoid my one true love being smashed into pieces. My piano, that is. Rosalie was disposable.
That was the true reason why Rosalie was not attractive to me. Others could see the outside of her, and even I could not doubt she was a flawless beauty. But to see the inside was to ruin the outside. When you heard her selfish, unheeding, vain thoughts, it ruined her appearance completely.
Her fist hovered over the piano, but didn't come crashing down. Even if I could have won the fight against her, it would not have saved my music. Her hand was shaking, mid-air, like she hadn't decided yet. And then it fell almost limply to her side.
"What's the matter?" I taunted, somewhat amused.
I remembered playing it, she thought. It was so calming, contrary to most of my feelings in this body. It was like therapy, in a way. The loosening of emotions, and the fleeing of ties to the earth. I think that while I played it, I may have even enjoyed being a vampire. I felt a reason to continue existing, and I knew why you loved it. You were right to love your compositions, Edward. I...was wrong.
She was wrong. Rosalie Hale just said she was wrong. My lips twisted into a smirk, staying there for a moment. Then I fought the feeling of triumph, the smile falling and staying lowered this time. "You weren't wrong, Rosalie. You didn't know any better. Esme and Carlisle know me, and understand why I am this way, why I act this way... But you don't. And, just the same, I have harshly judged you as well. I do not know you, either, so I shouldn't have pretended to." It was so difficult to say this when I was admitting defeat. More difficult than turning Tanya down, and more difficult than first thinking I would need to exist by Rosalie's side.
Her eyes were closed, as she sometimes did, her fists clenched and her teeth gritted. Yet as one moment changed into the rest, her tense appearance subsided, revealing something that resembled a girl underneath. It was in that instant that I realized just how much she had given up for this life, and why she had a right to be upset.
"It would be a lie to say you weren't behaving like a child," she said, opening her eyes on the word 'child'. "You were. But for once I am not going to put the blame on you when I deserve it, because that is a waste of time. Perhaps we need time to let things happen—figure things out. Maybe, someday..." Her voice trailed into a whisper, but her thoughts were completed in my mind. Her hopes for the things she had given up lingered in the air between us, sour as vinegar. I did not want the same things she did.
We both knew she had said a lie, too. Even as she said it, she was thinking the opposite. There was no way we could be together any day, when we conducted ourselves like children. Carlisle and Esme had put the thoughts into our heads, and now she was thinking there was some stock behind it all, or that I might actually feel that way.
"Rosalie... I really do know everything. I know about how you gave love to a fiancé who pretended to return it, but was looking for his own advantage in the situation. I know about his friends, and what they did to you. It was a horrible crime." More horrible than even I'd committed, though I'd done some horrible things. "And I know that even though all of this happened to you, you want to live again so much that it is destroying you. There is nothing I can do about that."
She shook her head, pretending to ignore me. Despite it all, she was listening though.
"But look at Esme," I continued, as though without a pause. "She lost her child, and she keeps moving and existing despite what she's been through. Esme has had to deal with much the same as you, so she at least understands. The child that you want so badly... that is an impossibility."
How dare you! She fumed silently, all the while glaring at me. Are my thoughts no longer my own? You are no better than any other man when you do that! Things I have never said aloud you have no right to speak of as if you understand.
I was a little bit shamefaced now. "But that child... he was your own, was he not? A baby you lost. Royce's, perhaps, or another love..." I let my voice echo in the large room, and then silence drifted and consumed me.
Her eyes were wide now, as I recognized my own mistake without a word to correct it. He wasn't my child, She thought cautiously, He was Vera's child. The only thing I ever wanted was a beautiful child, but now it is, as you claim 'an impossibility'.
"I'm sorry," I began to explain. "I...I didn't know."
That's fine, Edward. Pretend you think it's absolutely dreadful that my life has panned out this way. It's what you find funny to laugh at, right? The perfect girl who gets everything she ever wanted, before falling on her face? I never even got the choice to fall!
We stared at each other, face to face, waiting as minutes passed on. Neither of us moved... Neither of us breathed or even blinked. The clock ticked. She thought pointless thoughts, and I thought mine.
And then her lips twitched, quivering into a repressed smile. She was fighting laughter harder than I was fighting it.
I smirked, and then chuckled quietly.
"What are you laughing at?" She demanded. And then she started to laugh, too. We both laughed, together, filling up the space between now and a second from now. We were laughing louder than the tick of the clock. I liked the way it sounded, too, laughter from an underused portion of my body. My body shook with the effort not to laugh even louder.
"The thought of you as a mother." I half-laughed as I spoke the words.
She smiled very slightly. So slightly that I could not even be certain it was a smile at all. "I already have a brother, why not a few sons?"
I placed my hand in hers, and shook. "Brother and sister. For real this time."
Her grin matched my own.
-o--o--o-o--o-
AN: It was my birthday, on the twentieth! I am now officially fifteen years old..hahaa. For a belated gift, I would love you to review. Or not, it's your choice. But please let me know what you liked and didn't like about the chapter.
I won't be able to update as often as I like, because I'm preoccupied with school work. But I'll try my hardest. Thanks for staying with the story—I appreciate you reading it very much :)
PS: If I got the Italian wrong in the earlier part of the chapter, I would adore it if someone would correct me. I don't study Italian, so I used a translator. Roughly translated it means "What do you need, Rosalie?". And sorry if I got it wrong!