The Short Human Life of Rosalie Hale

Chapter 10: You Are Not Alone

A/N: I love the feedback I'm getting on this story! Your reviews encourage faster updates… I read them every time I get stuck and the rest of the chapter starts coming!

If you haven't reviewed yet (and I know that there is a lot of you according to my hits/visitors page) I strongly encourage you to review! PLEASE? Anonymous reviews are accepted!

So anyways… I'm dedicating this chapter to EsmeAliceRose because she gave me ideas for this chapter. I hope it lives up to your expectations!

REVIEW!

Things do not change; we change.

~Henry David Thoreau

The sky had darkened to a deep navy blue. Nighttime was quickly approaching, but the dimming light had no affect on my eyes. My vampire eyes.

I had stayed where I was. I had no desire to get up and try to find the Cullen house, I would probably just end up getting lost anyways.

I continued to sit in the mud and moss beside the body of the deer. Every once in a while I would glance over at it, and my heart would break again. The deer was dead because of me, because I was a vampire. I needed to kill to survive. What kind of cruel world was this?

I had never done anything to deserve this fate; had I?

Never once had I committed a crime, I was always a respectful law-abiding citizen. I gave money to the poor and homeless on the side of the street, even though father frowned upon my actions. Father said that all those people had brought their troubles on themselves. I couldn't believe that, why would anyone want to live on the streets? I was modest and obeyed my parents, seeking only to please them, happy that my mother was proud of me and my father like to buy me pretty dresses. Sure, I loved compliments on my beauty; I loved it when my girlfriends would touch my hair and sigh with envy. It delighted me that men's eyes watched me everywhere I went since the year I turned twelve. Yes, I had wanted things out of life, was that a crime? Everyone wanted things, it was simply human nature. So what had I done? Why me?

I pulled my knees close to my body and rested my head on them. My blonde curls fell over my shoulder down to the ground in long waves.

Everything had changed so drastically in the past few days.

I had gone from being the fiancée of the most eligible bachelor in town to a lonely vampire full of self pity sitting in the woods covered in mud and blood.

What was going to happen to me now?

I could just live out the rest of this disdainful existence... surely vampires didn't live that long, did they?

Or I could try to reverse this... was there anyway to stop being a vampire? Could I ever go back to my normal human life?

But what if that wasn't possible? What if I was stuck like this forever, or at least until I die? What would I do then?

The answer was simple. I would not go one living this so called life.

What kind of life was this? Killing others so you could continue to live, that was hardly a decent life; if it was even a life at all.

The sound of rustling leaves disrupted my train of thought. I looked up and saw a woman emerge from the ferns, her caramel colored hair blocking her face from my view.

She pushed her hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

I immediately recognized her as Esme.

After recognizing the comforting face, I relaxed the rigid pose I didn't even know I had been holding.

"Oh, Rosalie,"Esme breathed.

"Esme," I murmured in reply. I wiped a blood covered hand across my cheek, forgetting there weren't any tear tracks to wipe away.

Esme knelt down beside me on the ground, wrapping her arms around me in a comforting hug. She laid her cheek against the top of my head as she combed her fingers through my messy hair.

We stayed like that for quite some time, basking in each other's company.

After a while, I decided it was time to break the silence.

"Why did you come?" I asked. I hoped that I didn't sound rude, but I needed to know.

"Rosalie, I came because I'm here for you. I remember when I first woke to this life, it was a hard thing to accept; I don't want you to have to go through this alone, so remember I will be here for you, always."

To say I was shocked was an understatement. I thought back to my human life, remembering how I hated the Cullen family because the were more attractive than me. I realized how shallow my actions were, they were actually the nicest, most caring people I had ever met.

"Thank you, Esme. So much." I said, full of regret for hating the Cullens before.

I hugged her back with as much strength as I could manage, trying to show her how much I appreciated her.

In response to my hug, Esme tensed and shifted uncomfortably. What was she doing that for? It was only a hug...

Esme shifted again, making a slight grunting sound, like she was in pain. "Um, Rosalie, that hurts," she said softly.

Hurt? It was a hug, hugs aren't supposed to hurt...

I let go of her, giving her a confused look, hoping she would explain.

"I guess we never got around to telling you the details of vampires before Carlisle took you off to hunt," Esme explained.

"Oh," I said, understanding that this must be one of my new vampire abilities.

"Vampires," Esme began, "have extra abilities. You could say that your body is more enhanced than what you are used to. Remember what you saw in the mirror?"

I nodded, recalling how my appearance had changed. Seeing how the lines of my body were more defined, perfect.

"Well, every characteristic of your body is like that, better. You are stronger and faster than ever, especially as a new vampire. New vampires, or newborns, are even faster and stronger than older vampires. You see, your human blood is still in your system. Human blood gives us the optimal amount of energy, it's also the reason your eyes are red." She explained.

I nodded as I processed the information. Then something came up in my mind, something she had said earlier.

"Esme, earlier you said you remember how difficult it was when you woke up to this life... I was wondering what happened to you? I hope I don't seem too forward... I just..." I didn't know how to finish the sentence. I hoped she would understand. I remembered when I first woke up, Edward had said a third person Dr. Cullen had changed without their consent. I was curious, had her situation been something similar to mine?

"Rosalie, I am probably the one in this family who most understands what you are going through. Carlisle and Edward are men, even though they were both changed against their will, The change affects men differently, I think.

"I was also changed by Carlisle, but what happened to me started a long time before that. The first thing I remember of my human life was a day when I was sixteen. I remember I had broken my arm and my father took me to the doctor. Dr. Cullen was the best Doctor in town, all the nurses were quite infatuated with him," she smirked at me, " I thought it was only natural that I would have feelings for him, they would dissolve quickly enough.

"Dr. Cullen left town two weeks later; he claimed to have gotten a better offer elsewhere. I was so depressed when he left, I didn't know why. I tried to convince myself that he was much too old for me, roughly ten years my senior, that he had no interest in me whatsoever; I was just another patient to him.

Years went by, and he never returned. I never forgot about him. I always held onto that hope the he would come back. He never did.

"Eventually I gave up. I lost all hope; I convinced myself I was waiting for something that would never happen. Nine years later, I married the most eligible bachelor in town. Charles seemed like the perfect man, wealthy, chivalrous, and handsome. Yet, he never filled that empty spot that Dr. Cullen occupied."

I couldn't help but think about my relationship with Royce as she spoke. I realized how loveless our relationship really was. Would this have still happened to me if I had married him? Would I have been turned into a vampire eventually anyway? My mind filled with 'what if's'...

Esme looked so sad, sitting on the forest floor. She sat with her legs crossed, looking at her hands in her lap. She looked up at me as she continued.

"Every time we consummated our marriage, there was no love; something was always missing. But I sat that aside, I should have been happy with what I had. I was being unrealistic, greedy for some kind of fantasy love I would never have.

"A few months after I married Charles I was pregnant. It was a boy. When he was born, he didn't even cry. He was such a tiny thing, so weak. He died just five hours after he was born, there was nothing else the doctors could do. I only got to hold him once.

"My grief was so intense over my lost baby boy that I decided there was no more purpose in living. Charles and I weren't in love. My marriage was a wreck, and I had lost my baby. Life was over. So why shouldn't I end it?

"I jumped from a cliff. Surprisingly, it did not kill me. I was at the brink of death when someone saw me. They thought I was dead. I was brought straight to the morgue."

I couldn't understand why a smile crept to her face at such a depressing point in the story. Esme looked at me, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.

"Carlisle was working at the morgue that night. He heard my pulse that no human could hear. At that moment, he changed me. He didn't know why at first, but later on we both discovered it. It was love. He loved me and he didn't know it.

"We married after that. Even though he couldn't give me a child, I was happier than I ever was. In a way I got my son. Carlisle had already changed Edward eleven years before. When I first met Carlisle, Edward was posing as Carlisle's nephew, when in reality he was Carlisle's adopted son. Now he is my son too. He makes up for my infertility.

"Rosalie, you are welcome to stay with us too," she said.

A thousand questions zoomed into my head at once.

"I'm sorry, but I expect my parents must be worried. I should go back..." My sentence trailed off at the look on Esme's face.

"I'm so sorry, Rosalie, I truly am, but you can't return to your family. You are a vampire now, even though you would mean to, you would kill your family. Your blood lust would be too strong around humans. It takes years to build up such resistance."

I couldn't return to my family? Now that Esme explained it, it made perfect since. A vampire could not live with humans. I was a vampire and my family was till human.

"Your family thinks your dead, as does the rest of Rochester. We need to keep it that way." She said sadly.

If I couldn't go back to my family if I was a vampire. So the answer was simple, I would stop being a vampire.

"Esme, is it possible that a vampire can turn back into a human?" I asked, my voice full of hope.

Esme looked down, her face consumed with pain.

"I'm afraid that the change is irreversible."

My hope was shot down. At that moment, I was enveloped with sobs. I sobbed into my hands as Esme comforted me once again. Her hand rubbed soothing patterns on my back.

When my sobs died down, I wiped my hand across my cheek, forgetting that there would be no tear traps to wipe away.

"Esme," I asked, my voice cracking, " why are there no tears when I cry anymore?" Was it another one of those vampire characteristics?

"Another thing about being a vampire is that we do not change. When we cry, tears do not run down our face. We do not sleep. The way your body is right now is the way it will stay for all eternity. We live forever. The only way to kill us is by another vampire, they rip us apart and burn the pieces. Otherwise, we are virtually indestructible. Also, since our bodies do not change, we cannot bear children; which is why I think the change is so much harder on women than men." She said quietly, pain evident in her voice.

I was in shock. Everything I ever wanted in life was ripped violently out of my grasp. A husband, children, everything. Gone.

"I need time. By myself." My voice sounded dejected. But what I said was true, I needed this time alone to understand, to come to terms with this new reality.

"Follow my scent back to the house. The room on the second floor at the end of the hall on your left is yours." She replied, her voice full of understanding and pity.

I rose from the ground, and ran all in one fluid movement. I followed what was unmistakably Esme's scent. I followed the smell of vanilla and cinnamon all the way back to the house.

I ran up the stairs to the last room on the right, like Esme said. I didn't even take time to look at what I was sure was a beautiful room. I went immediately to the chair by the window, and sat down.

As looked up into the night sky through the window pane and wondered where my life was headed now.

A/N: I hope you all liked it! Please leave a review!

**If you want a certain scene in this story, please either review of PM me. I'll try to fit it in there!**

- Elizabeth :D