Chapter 12- Us and Them…and Me.

"Will asked you to Homecoming?" Bailey grins at me as the two of sit in the violin section of orchestra. "That's awesome! You'll have a great time." She smiles a little wistfully. "You've only been here two days and you've already got a guy to ask you out…you'll have to let me know your secrets. Not that I suppose you've ever had trouble getting a date."

"What do you mean?" I am honestly curious how these humans see me.

"Well, look at you!" Bailey seems half embarrassed. "You're gorgeous Ren, you're smart and funny and there's just something about you…haven't you noticed the way everyone wants to talk to you and be your friend? That's not exactly usual you know."

I stroke the satin smooth wood of my violin thoughtfully. Maybe it's not normal, I don't know. I think about Carlisle telling me about the gifts a vampire has that lure and seduce the human prey- their inhuman beauty and charisma and scent…everything designed to appeal to humans and draw them in even as their instincts might scream of danger. I wonder how much my vampire side is responsible for the human response to me.

"Thank you for the compliment," I say at last. "I'm not really sure how I must seem to you sometimes. Growing up with my family lends a somewhat skewed perspective to what is normal."

It's true, I think to myself, picturing them in my head. I have always measured myself against them, and when my standard of beautiful is Rosalie I will never measure up. I have always measured everything against them, my intelligence and strength and skills and have always seen myself as the less able, less magical little sister and daughter…maybe I need to start looking at myself without standing in their shadow.

"Your sister Rosalie is stunning," Bailey says enviously. "I'm not surprised you'd have a complex, growing up with her around! I bet she never got fat or had an awkward stage or braces or anything."

I laugh. "No." Rosalie has been the same exquisite, perfect self since the first time I saw her, clothes stained with my mother's blood from the chaos of my birth. "Rosalie is never awkward."

"Violins please!" Ms Martinez calls, and Bailey and I hastily pay attention, raising our instruments and beginning to play through the new song we are learning. I am note perfect from the first try and once Ms Martinez finishes with us and moves over to the flute section Bailey looks at me enviously.

"You're really good," she says with a sigh. "I wish I was better!"

"You're doing fine," I say in surprise, because although she is not playing like I do she is making fewer mistakes than the other students around us and her technique is excellent.

"I need to be more than fine," Bailey says matter-of-factly, tapping her bow thoughtfully on her chin. "I need to be good enough to win a music scholarship, or else there will be no college for me." She shrugs and looks around the music room, her face tense as I can see her mentally assessing the other students as her competition.

"If you would like to we could work on it together sometime," I offer hesitantly. "If you think it might help?"

Bailey smiles widely. "Ren, that would be great! Maybe after school sometime soon?"

I nod happily. "Sure."

I'm feeling buoyed up by this developing friendship as the school day ends and I gather the books I'll need for homework. I'm thinking about Bailey and Will and wondering if we'll all go to the football game before the dance and I'm so caught up in my own head that I barely notice the frosty silence in the car as I slide in beside Bella. It is only as Rosalie accelerates out of the parking lots with a squeal of tires that I look up and realise that no one is talking, and no one looks very happy.

"What?" I say apprehensively.

Emmett opens his mouth, catches Edward's eye in the rear view mirror and subsides silently. His eyes meet mine with a gleam of amusement and he raises one eyebrow at me challengingly.

"We'll talk at home," Edward says shortly.

"I didn't do anything!" I say defensively.

"At home, Renesmee," Bella says quietly, touching my hand.

I snatch my hand away, already fuming. It's a school dance, that's all…it's not like I've gone and spilled the family secrets or snacked on another student. But I bite my tongue and say nothing as Rosalie speeds us home, then fling myself out of the car and bolt for my room.

I wait until I hear Jasper and Alice in the living room before venturing out. Taking a bottle of milk out of the fridge I walk silently in to join them, finding Jasper and Emmett setting out their chess boards and Alice talking animatedly to Rosalie, both of them tucked up on the sofa.

"Do you know where Bella and Edward are?" I ask.

Emmett grins at me. "They're out hunting. You've got a reprieve, Monster."

Alice looks up. "What have you been up to?" A brief frown flashes across her face. "I really don't like not being able to see you in my visions now that you're away from home for hours each day!"

I drink half the bottle of milk before replying. "I haven't done anything. Someone asked me to go to the Homecoming dance with him, that's all."

Alice shrieks and claps her hands gleefully. "Ren, that's wonderful! Please, please, please tell me you're going to wear a dress," she adds desperately. "Darling girl, I bite my tongue – sometimes – about the endless t-shirts and the boots. I have given up on the sleepwear and you can wear Emmett's old band t-shirts to bed for the rest of your life and I promise I won't say a word if you'll only let me help you find a dress to wear to this dance!" She clutches my hands, nearly spilling the milk, and looks at me imploringly. "Please!"

I can't help laughing as I disentangle my hands and drink the rest of my milk. "Okay," I say as I swallow the last drops. "I'll wear a dress and you can pick it out."

"If you're allowed to go," Emmett interjects, looking up with an impish grin. "I can't say that Edward was best pleased to overhear your plans at lunch time today."

Alice puts her hands on her hips and looks at Emmett indignantly. "What can Edward have against Homecoming?"

Rosalie snorts. "I don't think it's Homecoming, so much as some human boy eyeing off Edward's little miracle."

"Um, hello?" I wave. "Still right here? You can talk TO me, not about me you know." I'm more hurt by Rosalie's careless, biting words than I let on. I know she can be a bitch, she is hard and determined and it is not in her personality to coddle people's feelings, but she has never been anything but loving to me.

"So who is the brave boy who would dare to ask out Ren Cullen?" Alice asks cheekily. "Goodness, I like him already…he has seen your supposed older brother Emmett, right?"

I can't help but grin at her. "His name is Will. He's one of the people I eat lunch with, and it's really not that big a deal Alice, honestly."

"I'm not sure that Edward agrees with that," Jasper murmurs. "There's some painful emotional turmoil going on in his head." He cocks his head to the side. "And here they come."

I turn my back on Emmett's grin and smile warily at Edward and Bella as they enter the room. Bella smiles at me but Edward's eyes flick around the room and I know he is reading the situation out of everyone's heads before he speaks.

"Alice," he says reprovingly. "There's more to this than dressing Renesmee up in something pretty." He looks over at me. "It's a date with a human…how safe do you think that is?"

"Safe enough," I mutter. "He's got a broken leg for goodness' sake- I'm not as fast as you but I can probably outrun someone on crutches."

Emmett and Jasper both laugh, and Edward whips his head around and glares at them. "It's not a joke! Renesmee, you need to take this seriously!"

"What?" I ask in frustration. "I don't understand your objections! What are you afraid I'm going to do…eat him or sleep with him?"

"Either! Both!" Edward runs his hands through his hair, rumpling it in his agitation.

"Well, I'm glad to know you have such a high opinion of my ability to control myself," I say. I'm angry and mean to sound sarcastic, but the slight tremble in my voice and the tears in my eyes give away how much he's hurt me.

"What's going on?" Carlisle and Esme come into the room. They must have been out in the garden because they're both wearing old clothes with grass stained knees and dirt on their hands. Carlisle's brows furrow as he looks from Edward's tense face to mine.

"Ren's been asked out on a date," Rosalie says blandly. "Edward doesn't seem to approve."

"And you do?" Edward scowls at her. "You're usually the last one to advocate for any of us getting any closer to the humans than we have to!"

Rosalie examined a fingernail with a bored look. "Ren's not really a vampire, so she's not really one of us."

Shocked beyond words I convulsively squeeze the milk bottle still in my hands until it shatters in my hands. "Shit!"

"Don't worry about it," Esme grabs the dustbuster and vacuums up the shards of glass on the chair while I collect the bigger pieces, taking my time throwing them in the kitchen trash so I have a moment to clear my head. Not really one of us? Reluctantly I head back to the living room.

For a long moment no one says anything, and then I clear my throat and say softly to Edward and Bella. "I'd like to go to the dance. I've never been to one, and I think it might be fun. Will is nice, that's all. I'm not going to kill him- you know I don't have the thirst that you all do. And I'm not going to…do anything else either."

Please. As if there was ever a better advertisement for abstinence than my parents…have sex, get pregnant with freak baby who nearly kills you during gestation, then be forced into vampirism to save your life. Yeah, that's going to make me want to rush into a physical relationship.

"We know that," Bella says in reply, her voice gentle. "But there's more to it than that. You're a lot stronger than a human you know, you could hurt him accidently."

"That didn't stop you and Dad. You became friends when you were a human."

"Edward had been controlling himself a lot longer than you have," Bella counters. "And in hindsight, that really wasn't very smart of us."

"What if you let something slip?" Edward adds. "What if he realises that you're different? You know that the Volturi will not ignore any further transgressions from us. We're trying to be reasonable here Renesmee, but we also have to be careful."

"What if any of us slip up?" I say, hating the quiver in my voice that betrays my emotions. "What if any of us do something that makes people suspicious? Like, I don't know…save someone from a van crushing them to death?"

Behind Edward, I can see Emmett giving me the thumbs up. Rosalie is flipping through a magazine, but there is a tiny smirk on her face and I think she probably likes me flinging Edward's past in his face. The thing is though, I'm not doing it to be petty, or to get a rise out of him…I'm doing it because it's true that it could be any of us, at any time, who reveal our lives for the ruse they are.

"I go to school with humans all day," I go on quietly. "I'm as careful as anyone in the family about secrecy. Don't forget that I was there when the Volturi came. I touched Aro and felt his power…I know what the risks are! But I'm not a child who needs to be protected and guided and kept from any possible mistakes anymore. You've taught me well, and now it's time you let me put it in to practise by doing what I think is right for me. And I do think this will be fine. It's just a dance, Will's just a friend, and I'm sure I can handle it."

I sit back in the armchair, folding my arms over my chest. I've said what I can and all I can do is hope that they heard me.

Edward and Bella look at each other for a long moment, and then Edward's mouth quirks up in a smile and he shrugs.

"You've made your point, Ren. I won't lie and say I'm in favour of your plan, but you've promised to be careful and that's all that we can ask of you." He hesitates and then adds sombrely. "Be careful though. Not just careful of your strength and mindful of the secrecy needed but please be careful with your heart, baby. Another reason that we don't get too involved in the human world is that humans grow and change and die, and we don't. Immortality is a long time to grieve a friend, or a family…" His voice fades away.

I nod. I can see that what he's said has touched the others too. Apart from my mother they all had families and friends in their human lives once upon a time and for years they have all been gone. In the end it is why this family matters to them, this family of choice they have created and protected and fought for…because it is in their shared immortality that they have found the antidote to loneliness and endless loss.