AUTHORS NOTE:
It's long. It's Renesme. But believe me when I say there is method to my madness.
Xx~xx~xX
THE GREATEST GIFT: part one
Xx~xx~xX
RENESME
Xx~xx~xX
When was it ever so simple...? It was about blood and power, and it was going to turn hopelessly fatal. Charles was in danger and it had nothing to do with his instability, failing to connect all three sides of his being. It had nothing to do with Leah, or Edward or even me at this stage.
It had everything to do with Nahuel. Charles every free second of peace was dependent on Nahuel's own haste when it came to returning to Joham.
"You really think he would return to Joham and not remain with Huilen?" Papa asked softly "Carlisle and Emmett are taking him straight to Huilen, Nessie. He would want that, wouldn't he? To be away from Joham's grip"
"South America... under Joham and Raul's terror, is not the safest of places for vampires" I said automatically. Nahuel knows his return to South America will not be unnoticed for long, and although he was selfish and reckless in his subconscious need to have the family he never had-this need lead him countless times to Joham, he loved Huilen with an affection he would have had had his mother been alive. It was nothing perfect and never shown this love for Huilen, but he wouldn't put her at risk-and staying with her would be doing just that.
"...And it all doesn't really matter; he wouldn't stay long with her because I doubt Huilen would be very forgiving towards Nahuel" I said, my throat dry. "I doubt that very much, she is a very... obdurate woman when it comes to offences"
"He may not say a thing" Edward said sternly but I didn't need to have his gift to hear the doubt turning in his mind. "He may not say anything about us, about what transpired. He be with Huilen and ask her forgiveness without mentioning us"
"He will do what I feared for so long" I whispered, ignoring Papa's wishful statement "He will tell Joham how far from bland and boring my son is. He will tell Joham about how Charles turned into a wolf and finally, and this will seal the deal-he will tell Joham about Charles blood and how it tasted, what it did to him"
"Don't think about it" Papa sighed "Nessie, maybe a little optimism..."
"Optimism?!" I growled. "Alice always tells me to feel both sides of the future lest I comprehend it all wrong!"
"But you are feeling only one side!"
"Because it out weighs everything else!"
"Okay, then" he looked at me sternly, his golden eyes beseeching me. I was almost afraid to allow his love for me to drench my cold self loathing, self loathing for putting them all through this, and that love Edward had for me seemed to make me think it would all somehow be okay "Fret and worry, you are a mother and maybe sometimes I forget that. But as your father, I must insist that you fret at a later day-maybe tomorrow. Today, we are as good a family as any other, human or otherwise and you are going to go and help Angela shop and maybe cook?"
"Always I have to be her babysitter!" I frowned. "Leah should do it"
"Leah and Charles probably have a lot to discuss" Edward frowned "Or at least, Leah is trying to move mountains to get Charles to talk to her about everything"
"Jacob..." my voice cracked just the tiniest bit on his name.
"He is in a foul mood" Edward said grimly "And I wouldn't do that to Angela, put her in the vicinity of a teenage angsty Shapeshifter currently not in control of his emotions"
"Is it about Leah?" I asked him and Edward shook his head. His silly telepathic honour, never discussing other peoples intimate thoughts with me. "I know it is about her" I said anyway, but he made no reaction.
"You better get going" Edward said smiling a little "And do behave, Renesme. Be a little more human this Christmas?"
"I am exactly half a human more than you, Papa" I laughed softly.
Xx~xx~xX
Papa's directness with every issue was alarmingly firm ever since he lost his limbs. One would think this would have been the logical reaction after Isabella left him but no! Back then, he had frozen and stopped tuning his piano in favour of being a garden ornament.
"You are very quiet today" Angela says. I preferred her when she wasn't so used to the supernatural and thought I was about to eat her.
"I have a lot on my mind" I tell her.
"What's that like?" she continues, her hand twirling in the air and gaze staring absently out to the passing world. She isn't complaining about my speed anymore, she isn't frowning so much either and I don't really care if it is because she hates me a little less.
I try hard not to care. I didn't want to feel like all of Bella's sins were hanging over my head, and Angela had a habit of bringing that out of me. This need to fall on my knees and beg for her forgiveness, for her to understand no harm was meant in torturing her. It was a little intimidating, to think that this one human endured where I couldn't. It left me with little to stand on when it came to self pity, and by God, self pity was everywhere.
I had lost so much, I had forfeited everything and there was no recovering it. I had to hold on to Charles... I couldn't let him drift from me. I didn't want to know what not having a purpose felt like. I didn't want to drown in the feeling of being nothing...
"You want to know what having thoughts feels like?" I ask her, deciding to leave out how idiotic that question was, I had promised to behave to some measure "I don't understand what type of answer you are searching for in that question?"
"You sound like a robot"
"Your voice is slightly nasal" I tell her reflexively. She will never understand that this version of 'Renesme' is infinitesimally more of an improvement from the pre-Edward losing his limbs one. They worry about my humanity simply because I am not prone to crying at the drop of a tissue and have taken charge of my son's health with steely force, it frightens them that I am not so weaned from human blood like I ought to be (and in an inconvenient predicament of the hospital noticing their depleting blood bags, I had to force myself to enjoy some of Angela's cooking)
"Touché!" she grins and my lips jerk into a brief smile. "I whish I could do that, drive without looking at the road"
"Of all the things you could want from a vampiric nature..." I smile gently "It's the art of multitasking"
"I don't get how not looking at the road is multitasking"
"I suppose it isn't" I sigh "We have very set memories. Well, a full vampire does. I have to go through a route a couple of times before I know the turns and arches per half a mile. I have learnt this route though, let me show you"
I close my eyes and the image of the twirling highway immediately comes to the forefront of my mind. I can hear her heart beating quickly and I smile, one slight jerk of the car left to a white mailbox should give that pumping muscle a lovely jolt...
"Renesme!" she shrieks and I fail to hold in a series of awkward giggles. "That isn't funny... I am at a very delicate age!"
"All human's are at a delicate age!" I state and she frowns, unamused. "You wouldn't be so terrified if you thought of a tree as but a feeble stalk of grass!"
"But I don't!" she said sternly "A tree is but a fucking tree!"
"Swearing doesn't suit you" I say.
"Why, because you think I am old enough to be your great grandmother?" she asks wryly and I frown at her, she is back to hating me very fast-too fast indeed, even though I was trying against my pride to understand her. Nahuel always thought of humans as having feeble emotions, changing and altering so drastically whereas immortals needed trauma or decades to go from melancholy to mild sulking. Angela took offence from everything-as though being mortal was all serious business, and unfortunately Papa agreed with everything Angela considered an insult, (and pointing out facts fell into the insult category too, apparently).
"You are in your early forties" I tell her "You are currently only old enough to be my mother. Maybe in another twenty years, you can claim grandmother?"
"Charming thoughts to muse over later" she keeps up her dreadful subtle derision and I give up, turning the car into the shopping centre without another word to Angela's sulking self.
Xx~xx~xX
We arrive just as the store opens and Angela's mood brightens.
"This will give us enough time to cook an adequate Christmas meal" she chirps, already popping things into the trolley without reading the nutrition table. She may not live to look like my grandmother after all, with her slack eating habits.
I walk quietly beside her as she manages pushing the trolley and piling food into it alone. She keeps sending me irritated looks, which I ignore-I am silently rebelling against Edward's bossing and letting her multitask. She did express an interest in it...
"Who is 'us'?" I ask her and she freezes.
"Erm, I will need help with the cooking...? Jacob is in a mood and Leah and Charles are doing some weird dancing around each other and can't notice the world turning"
"So Alice is helping you?" I ask her.
"Alice says she hates cooking"
"What makes you think I like cooking?"
"You like cooking...! It's so obvious!" she pauses and grins slyly "You like cooking, it's just that you don't know how to cook"
"I am a vampire hybrid" I snap "I know how to do anything if I set my mind to it!"
"Set your mind to being human, then"
"Are you and my Papa having secret parleys?" I ask her, boring into her eyes. She blinks rapidly and her heart stutters and I want nothing more than to squeeze the gooey muscle. I lean away from her short form and frown "I apologise. I haven't fed in a few days"
"Yes, your eyes are a darker brown!" she chuckles nervously, struggling to push her trolley straight. I grab the front and tug it easily and she lets go, stretching her back. I hear a distinct click from her spine but she smoothes out of her stretch easily, not paralysed or broken.
"And I am paler, that's how you can tell with me" I tell her, watching her curiously, she squirms under my gaze "Not that my skin tone will be very perceptible to you, but I don't blush as freely. It's important to tell these things, if you associating with vampires"
"So next time you and Alice are cranky, I'll put it down to vampire pmsing?"
"Thirst" I say slowly "Call it Thirst, not vampire pmsing; you will offend a lot with that little phrase. With regards to me, there is not nearly enough game in these parts and I don't feel comfortable going further when I am alone. Half vampires fair much better than vampires when it comes to thirst though, so I can do with a few more days before my crankiness becomes unbearable..."
"Why don't you go with Alice?"
"I am not very close with Alice" I tell her deciding that there was no need to add that I wasn't close to anyone either than Papa at the moment. I picked up a brightly coloured box of choc chip cookies and made a show of reading the table downplaying the unhealthy treat, hoping she would find an interest and do the same with her food choices.
"I don't think she will mind, even if you aren't that close" she says innocently.
"Hunting is a... bonding experience" I tell her. "We are at our most primal then, and having slight discomfort or tension with someone can be trebled radically when you surrender to your instincts"
"What happens when Charles feeds from you?"
"I don't know" I say quickly, a strange anger and irritation erupting in me at her mention of that. I throw the box in the trolley with concentrated effort, lest my emotions send it crashing through her tins and packets. She immediately takes it out. I watch her closely and try and explain the sensation of having Charles feed from me without being swallowed up by shame and discomfort "I just think of it as nursing him, but it is inappropriate. It was a simple necessity, at the time"
"Right" Angela breathes, taking out the second box of biscuits I throw in the trolley.
"What is your problem?!" I demand, placing a random box inside angrily and crushing it in the process.
"We are going to make our own cookies and treats!" she says quickly, looking genuinely afraid, her scent sweetening with the little surge of adrenalin.
"I haven't said I am cooking with you!" I snap.
"Do you want to cook with me?" she smiled carefully and it is near impossible not to agree. Angela may be human, but she has a disposition that struggles against lying or fake sincerity-the down side being her inability to hide dislike or unease. She was those rare specimens of a really good person.
"You cook to cope with being around all this weirdness" I tell her and her eyes widen. "It reminds you of a time when you were happy. I am thinking in your childhood or teen years? Did you do a lot of looking after people then?"
"A robot and a psychologist?" she laughs tensely "Maybe you can counsel yourself?"
"A doctor can't perform his own surgery" I sigh. "And I do have a Masters in Psychology"
"Now isn't that ironic!" she says sardonically, pushing the trolley against my steady hand holding the front. I give her an indicative look and she sighs and rolls her eyes "Do you mind, Renesme? We are working against time, here"
"Where too?" I ask her and she releases the handle of the trolley and shoves her hands dejectedly into her pockets.
"Frozen food section" she mutters. "And I did have a good childhood, even if my mother died"
"Your mother died and you had to care for your siblings" I say thoughtfully. "You have two siblings?"
"I didn't say anything about siblings to you" she states coolly, surveying a packet of frozen chicken pieces. She is radiating discomfort, her mouth pursed and breathing stiff. She doesn't like that I know this and that actually bothers me.
She doesn't trust me.
There are some humans in the store now, ambling through the aisles and gawking at me while Angela processes something in her strange mind.
"Oh, Papa must have said" I say softly.
"He must have said?" she frowns at me "I thought your memory was titanium?"
"I tune out some of Edward's babble about your teenage wonderful self" I sigh, ignoring her curious gaze at the mention of 'Edward'. She looks past me to the right and frowns. I hear feeble steps over the linoleum and a weak heart beat.
"It's Nana Snow Hair" Angela mumbles, busying herself with a row of marinades. Picking them up but so obviously not reading anything and in a contradicting instruction to her bumbling form she says "Act natural, maybe her Alzheimer's will kick in and she wont remember us"
"You shouldn't joke about Alzheimer's" I tell her sternly "You may have it soon, too"
She drops the bottle and glares at me, offended so easily.
"You are lucky that was a plastic bottle" I tell her and there is a soft tutting from behind me.
Nana Snow Hair.
"Oh, isn't this lovely" Nana croaks and I groan internally. Humans were at their most irritating when they were either too young or too old. Comprehension was a useful tool... "Mother and daughter shopping! Are you going to cook a meal? You are awfully late, you know, to be preparing today! You are lucky Bobby keeps the store open till noon otherwise... it would be a sad Christmas!"
"Uh huh" Angela plasters a grin on her face and blinks stupidly at the old woman. "This is... Ren... Ca... rile"
"Argh, still a strange pair" the old woman tuts, shuffling away from us "Have a merry Christmas!
The moment the old woman makes her way to what can only be her nephew, Angela releases a sigh of relief.
"What is your fear of the old?" I ask her.
"Fear...?"
"You are terrified of Mary, and intimidated by Lucy" I tell her.
"You really should learn to be respectful" she side tracked, moving from the fridges in a storm "R.E.S.P.E.C.T, find out what you mean to me!"
"You say I am strange!" I sigh, shaking my head and Angela laughs.
Xx~xx~xX
"Did you ever celebrate Christmas when you were younger?" Angela asks. She looks at me quickly, smiling a little while chopping the carrots. I can hear the television in the attic-Papa is watching something, a movie I suppose, and the sound of it merging with Angela's normal heart and everyday activities is too sweet.
"Of course" I say and I see her lip pinch just the tiniest bit at my curtness "I mean, yes... I did. It's just you assume my being half vampire means the notion of ever having happiness in my life is unfeasible"
"Well, it isn't!" Angela snorted, shaking her head. "Not from what I have seen"
"What have you seen?" I asked her, peeling the tomatoes carefully. I had soon discovered that cooking required a lot of human slow procedures. Three of my tomatoes hadn't faired well when I attempted to rid them of skin in seconds, and they were currently sitting gloomily at the edge of Angela's soup ingredients.
"I don't know" she shrugged her shoulders and looked at me with humour in her brown eyes-a far away look gracing her features "Vampires flying around, my blood gushing out all over the place and an emaciated half-wolf and half-bat boy incapable of moving... hardly the sight to suggest normal Christmas once a year?"
"Don't call my son half-bat" I threatened and she shrugged her shoulders again. "I did have normal Christmases, well... normalish. A tree, presents..."
"Right" Angela breathed, pushing butternut over to my work station and handing me a peeler.
"Jacob gave me the most normal Christmas once, but Leah ruined it naturally. She was quite mean to me before Charles" I said, peeling the butternut in seconds and placing it at the edge of my board, satisfied that it faired well with my strength and speed.
"You know, I have been meaning to ask you..." she begun and I smiled knowingly.
"You have been meaning to ask me or you were waiting for an opportunity to ask me this thing?" I asked her and she pressed her lips and puckered them out, an odd gesture she did.
"A little of both" she explained "I was waiting for you to shed some of your frozen Barbie image"
"You mean a break in my humanity?"
"Whatever you want to call it" she said a little impatiently, she wanted to get to her question first.
"You say I am too much like a vampire" I said, ignoring her badly concealed impatience on that particular subject "But I say I am guarded-and its something that has helped me, saved me even... countless times"
"I agree, you turn to your vampirism to protect your humanity because it's probably more fragile than even my own!" she said hurriedly, twirling her hand for us to move over that topic. I stared at her bemused, not because her words were accurate but because I had never thought of a reason that could be summed up as that.
"Anyway!" Angela sighed, placing her knife on the counter top and leaning back, arms folded over her chest and face all business like "I want to know about... you know... you and Jacob"
"Me and Jacob?" I asked her, caught between a frown and a smile-I had been about to make fun of her, something to do with the frown line between her eyes that had popped up when she had been scowling.
"Yes" she said looking at me indicatively and twirling her hand again, insinuating I was being mentally slow about her question "You two were together once"
"You are interested in my love life?" I asked her.
"It can hardly be called that!" Angela laughed "Seeing as how it was in the past and Jacob says he doesn't know you"
My expression settled immediately into a vicious scowl, the suddenness of my anger and misery crashing over me so that I momentarily stopped breathing, blood pounding in my ears. She stared at me confused and then comprehension hit her, eyes wide and apologetic on my face, unable to hide the fear in them or the quivering in her voice "I mean..." Angela spluttered, swallowing a little. Her many pauses gave me enough time to push away the image of my Jacob smiling at me and promising to love me forever, to push that dreadfully precious image somewhere far back in my mind so that I too, could pretend to have amnesia.
"You mean exactly that" I said stonily and she flinched. "He doesn't know me and it is in the past. There is no love life to speak of, so there is no need to ask me anything on that"
"It's just a bit of history" Angela squeaked "If you don't want to talk about it, I will apologise for mentioning it"
"You had better, because it meant..." I said, stuck on the word 'nothing'. I tried again, willing the indifference to spill out "What was between Jacob and I meant..." again, I was incapable of saying it.
"It's okay" Angela whispered and I was suddenly angry at her for producing this weakness in me. I frowned at her, determined to say it out loud and taking in a breath, I stood tall and firm.
"What happened between Jacob and I meant absolutely..." my mouth hung open and my eyes were covered in a hot red blanket of pain. They stung, but I failed to register the meaning of the ache and continued to repeat the whole sentence save for the ending word.
"It meant..." I spluttered and the tears fell, Angela looking up at me in concern, her hand hovering unsure between us. "It wasn't..."
"Nessie, I am sorry. We don't have to talk about that, you don't have to explain anything to me... here, let me show you how to make cookies"
I pushed her lightly away and she went crashing into the sturdy marble island but was unhurt. "I will say it!" I hissed, wiping my face viciously and glaring at her. She didn't look scared although she should be, and I thought so suddenly that Edward had been worried about the unstable wolf, forgetting his unstable daughter...
"Don't you see?!" I asked her and she shook her head left and right stiffly, the fear still devoid from her face and this irked me because a soft warm pity crept into her eyes instead "If he can say it then I have to say it! If he can feel..." it was just a silly word, a word that meant zilch, nonentity... but it was worse than any cuss word so suddenly, I was sure if I uttered it I would be swallowed by hell "If he can't feel anything..." I said instead "Then I too, should be the same!"
"You love him?" she asked and I looked away from her, face hot and I was sure red, my heart squeezing painfully. I didn't answer her; I didn't answer my self and I finally said with soft conviction that burned my insides up into tar.
"I mean nothing to him" I said to her "I am nothing"
There was a moment of silence, the television in Edward's room humming too softly for her to ever hear and I realised I didn't care that he was listening. He would have put two and two together from my thoughts by now.
"What you want to know is about the past, our history... but the man you want to know this about doesn't exist anymore. I hope you understand that. I would be telling you about a Jacob I once knew, who died and was replaced by this impostor"
"I don't think you believe that the Jacob who exists now is an impostor" she said quietly, the way people talk as though they are not in the same room as you, as though you are not having a conversation but a simple monologue, were their voice sounded like your conscious.
"You want to know about Jacob and I because of Leah and Charles?" I asked her and she controlled her expression. "I am only at liberty to tell you my story and not theirs. And actually, I don't think I want to tell it"
"I think you do want to tell it" Angela said "I think you know, as only a psychologist does... that telling me would release you from this fear, this realisation that you are nothing to Jacob and only then could you ever find another way to be attached to him, or to break away. Whichever one you choose... but as long as the past Jacob is the only Jacob you know, this one will always seem to be the impostor. Don't you see, you have to know this Jacob first... because he was the one that existed first"
Her saying this hurt, of course but it was nothing to cause anger because she was being entirely objective and that was something that was so rare in my life. No one ever looked at me and decided to either love me or hate me because of facts... it was all a corrupted system. They were either forced to love me for being my family, of forced to hate me because of my nature. Loved for being a Cullen, hated for being Bella's... no one ever just loved me... but how could they when I wasn't anything without the words 'Cullen', 'Bella', 'Jacob's Imprint' or 'Half Vampire' attached to me.
"I knew Jacob since I was born" I told her "He knew me since then too"
"You didn't grow up together" she said shakily, like she was afraid to offend someone about something "What I mean is, he was already... he was an adult, more or less"
"Exactly" I said, finally looking at her. I perched on the table top and she did the same opposite me, crossing her full legs over each other before pushing her glasses up warily, her mind working over time with each release of information.
"How could you have ever hoped to be normal" she whispered, thinking I wouldn't hear her, I supposed because her tone had changed so drastically into something demurely raw, her pity not so offensive but distracting-I felt like I hadn't known her at all. Like I had not understood her in all our time, in this moment as she stared at her twitching legs and shook her head, working up to the next question.
"Maybe that was why he got amnesia" she said suddenly, looking at me with large distressed brown eyes. I realised she was beautiful, as tired and human as she was, she had something distinctly exotic about her. Her face wasn't delicate, her features bold on the canvass and her body always hidden behind something loose and too large-she was beauty, she had compassion and it didn't need to be thrown into the air ostentatiously. It needed to be found, by the deserving...
I wondered if Papa had found it, after over looking all those years ago in favour of something thrown and flung his way with ostentatious intentions... I bet he had. I wasn't so lost in my worry for Charles not to notice it.
"He got the amnesia to forget" she said, nodding her head. "It wasn't normal and he knew it. It wasn't normal..." she paused and she said with such uncustomary violence, her hand slamming down hard on the table "It wasn't normal! You were a baby and he was really a kid then, even if he was in a man's body!"
"You have misunderstood" I said hurriedly but she was so lost in her rage, looking remarkably dangerous in her righteous indignation at her misunderstanding of the imprint as some paedophilic inducing drug.
"You were a kid!" she said "Nessie, you were a kid!"
I looked at her confused, suddenly wanting to let her believe this because her emotions were like a brightly coloured rainbow, and there she was opposite me; angry and upset, wanting to protect me almost...
But I couldn't.
"He didn't see me that way" I said and then added timidly "At first"
"At first!" she spat, her hair waving as her head snapped left and right, as though looking for someone to witness with her the incredulity of it all. And it did sound incredulous.
"The wolves find their soul mates through this thing" I told her softly, gently-stupidly trying to save Jacob's deference "It's called imprinting. They see her, their soul mate, and she becomes everything they need in this tangible world. She anchors them, she... she is their everything. They will be anyone for her, be it brother or friend... or lover. Whatever she needs"
She stared at me blankly, like I had just announced that everyone else was mad and the world was really flat after all, and we would all either fall of its edge or be cut by its sharpness. "You are serious?" she asked me "Imprinting... like baby ducks do?"
"Erm, yes" I whispered.
"Well" Angela breathed, still looking at me dubiously "That changes everything then doesn't it?"
"It shouldn't" I told her softly and she frowned further, confused and seemingly to decide that after my being a 'robot', I was also delusional and living in my own mind. "I could show you, Angela"
"Show me?"
"With my gift..." I told her, smiling a little and praying she would see that she could trust me like she already did Leah-who she had only met twice in comparison to me. I waved my hand in the air indicatively "I could show you some of my memories, my past... the old Jacob, the one you have never met"
"Hmm" she stared at my hand distrustfully but jumped off the table top clumsily, and taking a tentative step towards me, she said... "Nothing is more dangerous than the past, I think"
"How right you are" I whispered holding her warm calloused hand in my own gently before wrapping my fingers around her wrist "But I... I realise, that I don't want my past to hurt anyone. To hurt you, Angela. And I think... I would be willing to make sure it doesn't ever come to such a conclusion if it did come to that"
She smiled at me a little and this time my lips twitched instinctively into a smile that was so old and forgotten, it managed to throw me into an uncustomary shyness.
"Let me tell you about my imprinter, the man who used to challenge me to swimming competitions across large lakes..."
Xx~xx~xX
I let a string of memories slide over each other at first, ignoring her gasp at having her mind taking over by the images and emotions, before I slowed them down to specifics. Nothing too drastic, we were going for subtlety-she had to put it all together herself.
Xx~xx~xX
There was once a time when Jacob Black had refused to go hunting with me. Remember what I told you hunting was like for vampires? How raw our every emotion became...? I had been physically sixteen at the time, hopelessly infatuated with Jacob and dealing with a mother who at one turn encouraged that emotion and then another turn asked me if I didn't want to go visit my friends of the Amazon... to visit another like me, Nahuel.
The imprint makes it difficult to see your other half miserable, to see them in any negative emotion. It is easily manipulated but only by the imprint... the imprinter is too pure for such sin, for such wretched devices. It's like the imprinter is your Jesus and you go against them for a taste of temptation, willingly submitting because you know at every turn they will forgive you. They have to, because surely that's why they exist? To Forgive you and wash away your sin...
Anyway, I went hunting with Jacob and my meal wasn't enough because Jacob had been there. I was thirsty for all sorts of things as only a vampire can be... and Jacob turned into the one embodiment of all these things-the blood, the love, the sex...
And he let me bite him and take a little drink, or maybe I seduced him to do it... it doesn't matter once more because that Jacob let me do that. And this Jacob would sooner cut his wrist and bleed out than let anyone take a little sip...
I am putting it together all wrong, I am aware but there are things I have to keep to my self. I'll tell you about how being loved by a wolf feels like and what it did to me. Jacob was perfection-yes, Jesus-and I was imperfection, just like you... a mere human. And lust, thirst, and a variety of other emotions felt so wicked to have for him but I had them anyway. He was my brother, he was my friend... he was the only one who knew me as the person I was, the person that I don't even think my mother knows about... Papa, barely saw a glimpse of that girl. Leah, oh, she was always too perceptive and that's why she is my oldest friend. My only friend... and even then, I am imperfect with her because I have all these other wicked emotions for her but that's another story for another time... maybe.
Angela, I once was a girl inside of this vampiric body-a girl who was shy, a girl who didn't like to be stared at and a girl who liked to hide in comfortable nooks and warm corners. I hated the curls in my hair, I hated that I looked so beautiful and would never tan but most of all... I hated that the boy I loved was my brother, the boy I loved was my friend and by the time he lay with me, I hated him almost as equally as I loved him and when she told me he had loved her first...
Oh, what else could I have done but throw that fucked up little girl who was scared of everything and anyone, who liked to hide in corners and pretend she didn't exist even if her mother and aunts put her in the middle of the world-what else could I do but burn that pathetic virgin bitch to ashes?
Xx~xx~xX
Angela pulled away, and I realised she had been tugging desperately for a few seconds. I released her and she stumbled backwards. She stared at me with something odd, an intensity of numerous emotions, her eyes red and mouth dry.
"Do you want me to continue?" I asked and she nodded automatically, waving the hand I had been holding and I saw a slight bruise on it.
"It's... your emotions in me..." she said parched, smiling slightly feverishly but more through despair and pity for me than anything else. "That... I can't hold that in me, Renesme. I am sorry for being weak"
"You are strong to want to know" I told her "No one has ever wanted to know"
"Not your mother?" she asked, licking her lips. She looked up and raised an eyebrow. Not Edward, she seemed to ask and I was about to remind her that he was a telepath when I heard a soft 'No', from him.
"Not anyone" I repeated then. "Not even Leah. Shall I continue then?"
"You seem to speak of three people, when you speak of yourself" Angela said softly, rubbing her bruised wrist. I wanted to apologise for harming her but my heart was thudding with excitement from reliving a few of those many dangerous moments in my short life as an immortal-the dangerous points were always the emotional ones.
"I speak of two" I said "The shy girl they never knew about and me"
"No, there are three" she repeated vehemently "You are correct about the two 'you's. The one you know of, the Renesme is really the old you-and I think I would be correct in saying that it was the old you from before Jacob Black broke from the imprint. You know, the girl who wanted the attention, the girl who could be so cruel and selfish?"
I nodded for her to continue.
"And then the other girl, the shy girl who was behind the vampire Renesme. The one who no one knew of save for the long lost Jacob Black and the one Leah suspected lived inside the beauty and brown eyes. The inhibited girl, the introvert and shadow. But Nessie, you surely don't thin you are standing here today after everything that has happened unaltered? You surely don't think you could ever be the same? Sure, you think you burnt the shy girl to ashes when Isabella told you of Jacob's love for her, but maybe you just scared her into hiding. And she isn't nearly strong enough to ever resurface but when the veil of your mother was lifted... I think she attached herself to the vampire. I think you are both of them. A third-a combination"
I looked at her in confusion, trying to process her words but I left it in the air. We would return to it at one point-it sounded too much like Edward's grumbling about my humanity being somewhere other than my vampiric side.
"Your gift is amazing!" Angela laughed nervously "To feel what you feel when you speak of thirst, to feel that love and hate you had for Jacob, to see someone look at you like that! The way he looked at you..." she trailed off, lost in her mind or in the memory of the 'revealing beauty of the soul' look of an imprint.
"I think it was inevitable" I scoffed at the memory, tarnishing it for my own sanity-it felt like I had possessed a diamond without knowing it, and tossed it into the trash after thinking it was a rock for so long "I was heading that way since I was born. Since he looked at me, he should never have looked at me... he should have either killed me or ran!"
"So it's his fault?" Angela asked, back to being a psychiatrist.
"Fault?" I asked. "I wouldn't say that... we were all tied together in some way, tied together to destroy each other"
"I don't think so" Angela said smiling again. She seemed like she was about to ask me to show her something else, mesmerised by my gift as she was. She looked up at me, still smiling softly and said so gently and tenderly I felt my self weep inside and grow a warm strong emotion for her that set hold in my heart and attached her to me "I think we are tied to together in fate, to save each other. Don't you see...? The destruction has already passed us, Nessie, and here we stand!"
"I never took you to be a romantic" I said but the humour failed me and it came out derisive instead of playful.
"The way you show his love for you..." she murmured absently, mesmerised by the magic of the imprint she had felt through me "The love you had... how that could end, impossible! I understand what you implied, that he would forgive you even after you had sinned... like he was your Jesus even though he thought you were his very God! He never knew the power he had over you..."
"No" I said. "He was too blinded by the hurt I managed to bring him"
"But that's all you knew!" she said "That was what you were taught"
"What, if I was taught to bring about love instead of hurt?" I asked her "By whom? And to what purpose, he would never have truly chosen me"
"You can only be taught to bring about pain" Angela said and then so sombrely her expression changed and the lovely flush of emotion turned blotchy and sour "But love, Nessie... you can't be taught about love. It happens upon you, and the imprint can force it into existence but it is an entity on its own and it will fight against all of that to remain free. Love is wild, love is gratis, love is untameable"
"I tamed it" I told her evilly "I tamed it through the imprint"
"And what did it bring to you?" she asked "Pain?"
"Charles" I ended smiling "And I can't be even a little sorry for doing it"
"Imprint" she said thoughtfully and I could tell she understood more than she ought to, but wouldn't let me know this. "But it seemed so... permanent and powerful"
"It is" I told her "That is why I have to be the witch, to the Quileutes. That is why I am the witch, which is why that little innocent girl can't exist in me anymore if I am so evil... such a power kills when broken! When a wolf's imprint dies, do you know what happens to the wolf?"
"What?" Angela asked spooked.
"He follows her soon after!" I laughed wickedly, slapping my thigh. "Renesme Cullen, oh she is such a witch to love another man and pull Jacob through the burning fires..."
"But you didn't have a choice" Angela said "When she told you about how she was his true choice to love... how could you ever return to him?"
"Because he was imprinted to me!" I shouted too loudly, my vampire voice wobbling the glass of the kitchen windows slightly. Angela seemed to be shocked into remembrance of every activity she had been doing before my tale was a quarter spun out and rushed over to her pot, taking a spoon and stirring the contents before sending me a look to continue. "I wasn't allowed to feel betrayed! And how I dared to even feel that way, she said to me... my mother, when she thought she didn't really need Jacob anymore after all! How dare I, Isabella said to me... how dare I even be angry at poor Jacob for something he wouldn't have known, he would never have known I would come to exist!"
"But there is truth in that..." Angela said and then I raised a finger to stop her.
"And then, my mother the full vampire suddenly contracted amnesia!" I laughed. "Oh, Jacob! He was suddenly explicitly hated, how dare Jacob feel pity for himself! How dare he not give me freedom to love as I choose!"
"So you loved Nahuel?"
"I loved him..." I took in a breath, bitterly admitting "Eventually. Sometimes, you fall in love through the most ugly situations"
"I don't think you fell in love with Nahuel" Angela said and then paused, thoughtfully "I don't think you even know what falling in love is! So to clarify, you love Nahuel-but you were never in love with him. Because love... its indecisive and severe, as it chooses-fickle or irrevocable"
"Because it is free" I said absently. "Love is free, it does as it chooses... like the wind, blowing as it would but with preconceived purpose while we remained thinking it was but an intoxicated spirit"
"Hmm" she smiled, visibly confused. "Exactly what I was thinking"
"So Jacob and I..." I said, watching her go about the kitchen casting me curious absorbed gazes "We were the worst imprint match imaginable"
"I don't understand one thing?" she asked "I mean, it is permanent. I felt that... its so... real and full, and immovable. Even when you were talking about Nahuel, it was like... Jacob was behind everything"
"He was" I said "Being with Nahuel was being with Jacob-he was secretly my Jacob. The Jacob that wasn't imprinted to me but loved me of his own will"
"Right" Angela nodded "But still, it is permanent-the imprint?"
"What do you mean?"
"Jacob doesn't love you," she said "If it is permanent, it shouldn't matter about him having amnesia surely, because it transcends everything"
"He has amnesia because of it" I said "Well, at least I think, it isn't there anymore so why should he have to remember anything to do with it"
"To love him that way and have him never know that love" Angela said thoughtfully "The cruelty of karma"
"Karma, she is, quite cruel" I agreed "But... I have to say, I have to admit... even though he hates me, this Jacob. It is the most rewarding pain I have ever had, to see him free and young, and not brooding and tormented; wondering about his dulled love for Bella due to the imprint and then his intense addictive obsessive love for me, the girl he raised"
"So there is no imprint?" Angela asked.
"Not for him" I whispered. "And I take my punishment without a complaint; I deserve the pain"
"What would you know!" Angela laughed and I frowned at her in confusion, she sighed and quickly elaborated her mirth "I mean, you only know pain. Of course you would submit to it with not a single fight against it!"
"Oh, come now Renesme" a ringing voice pulled my attention from Angela as she continued to speak, Edward hissing violently from above us "I bore you from love"
"...and I think that sort of connection can't just die and erase itself from a person; there are lingering things from the imprint in Jacob..." Angela was saying but I had moved two tentative steps towards the window, fear welling inside me and churning my stomach nauseatingly. I touched the gauze, my whole body thrumming with adrenaline and dread.
"... he is a boy, he is a kid" Angela was oblivious to the ghosting movements heading our way, or the low string of murmurs translating to prayer that Edward was emitting. "And you are too. Don't you see, once again? We have saved each other... you saved Jacob, Renesme. When you defied that love, that addictive emotion from the imprint... you freed both of you, and through the pain..."
"How right you are" Isabella entered through the small kitchen door casually, draped in black and mahogany hair pulled tightly above her head "Ever so wise, Angela. Through pain, there can be freedom. Like any little rebellion, eh? Pain, struggle and then freedom?"
She stood before us, poised and marble with her head tilted to the side in an inquisitive manner and her small hands clutched elegantly in her front. I registered Angela's stuttering heart beat and scent filling the air dangerously with the sweetener of adrenaline laced blood, I heard Papa saying something in a mixture of fury and terror but it all didn't matter because behind Isabella... Jane walked in.
I was vaguely aware that I had repositioned myself in front of a terrified Angela-her eyes so wide and skin so pale, she may as well have stopped breathing and thrown her heart on the floor already.
"And what was that bit about love being free?" Jane asked, tone bored. She placed a finger on her chin and looked at Isabella "So she has gone through the pain to set them both free from something that wasn't of their choosing...?"
"Exactly..." Mother nodded, smiling sweetly at me.
"So they have rebelled" Jane continued.
"No, Jane... Renesme has rebelled" Mother said quickly, reproaching Jane mildly "Jacob never stood a chance"
"She rebelled and never realised how much she needed the tyranny of this... the imprint, you say... and only after the dog didn't give a damn did comprehension hit her hard, but it was too late?" Jane murmured and mother nodded. "How fascinating"
"But Angela is giving her hope, aren't you Angela?" Mother said Angela's name with such disgust, I immediately knew that Angela was in grave danger. Red eyes gleamed past me to the human with a terrified heart beat, but Jane's remained looking at me before swivelling curiously up... to Papa.
"Where is Alice" I asked suddenly, call it intuition but I knew they had the answer.
"I told her Jasper was waiting for her in Italy" Mother said casually, as though she were relaying but a feeble inconsequential message. "And Alec was just the sweetest, wasn't he Jane, offering to escort her as he did?"
"That's my brother" Jane appeared to smile but just as suddenly, her expression resumed its bored disposition that I was sure had been carried through for centuries. "So sweet..."
"He could rot your teeth" Mother spat. "Like your father and his never ending masochistic crap, seems you inherited it too. Pining for a dog that has moved on to a bitch"
"What have you done with Alice?" I asked again-Charles was with Leah, and I prayed Jacob was there too.
"I told you , Ness" Mother sighed irritably "She is off to Italy to Jasper"
"Jasper isn't in Italy" I murmured.
"Well, he most certainly isn't here!" she laughed, looking over to Jane. They knew most of the family wasn't here, but they didn't know about South America or what had transpired otherwise their arrival would have been much more... intense. Isabella wasn't in contact with Joham, or maybe Joham didn't know about Nahuel and I leaving with the Cullen's. How one sided had I been about the future, forgetting all about Aro and Caius. I waited for her to let something slip while she did the same with me but it was Jane who broke the silence.
"Where is your father" Jane asked "I thought he would be either sucking his thumb in a corner or on his knees begging for his wife to return"
"Where is Edward" Mother asked and I begged father to remain silent "I heard him professing his love for me not a second ago-lambs and lions and the such?"
I remained silent. Jane was watching me closely, before scowling at the back of mother's head.
"Don't" Mother murmured to Jane, never looking at me but surveying the trays of food on the island. "But I have no qualms about the human"
"Angela" Edward murmured and Mother's eyes shot up to the ceiling, and as I was torn between my father and Angela-I remained frozen.
Isabella moved like light out of the kitchen, and Angela choked on pain behind me, her heart shuddering and throbbing sultrily. I tried in vane to cover her from Jane's sights, willing the pain to come to me but Isabella had, like she had said countless times, sacrificed too much to just allow me to throw my life to ruin without her permission.
Shielding Angela with my body didn't help, and Jane soon grew tired of her games and attacked us both as a high cruel cackle came from the attic. I was flung off Angela easily, and sent crashing through the island and into the wall, watching Jane latch on to Angela's throat all while keeping her cruel gift charging up Angela's mind and marinating her blood with adrenaline from the imagined pain and the sound of breaking bones filled the air... I made a silent prayer.
Angela thought we were all connected to save each other, and as useless as I knew I would be in saving both her and my father, I made a silent prayer to my God, and prayed he would answer me.
Behind me I heard heavy paws punishing the earth and I released a breath and smiled-I wasn't forgiven but I was allowed to atone forever. Two sets of four, and there was no wrath greater than God's and here come two Gods.
I rose stiffly from the rubble and before I rushed through the kitchen and flew up the stairs to my mother and father, I startled Jane. She stopped her feeding, watching me closely and perceived me to be indifferent to the most precious human I had ever come across-and it was only this indifference that made the small powerful girl drop Angela to the ground while her heart still remained beating.
