Chapter summary: A complete enigma. One moment, she's clinging desperately to my shirt, begging me to kill her first before I leave her, and the next she's storming off into the forest — not in socks this time, but in bare feet — to scream bloody murder at the trees. I have to keep my distance for her own safety and stability; getting too close to her just hurts her too much.
I woke confused, buffeted by a host of images from my dreams of last night. Well, I hoped they were all dreams! They seemed so real. The right side of my face rested on something hard and cold, but that helped my head. The headache was gone, but my head still felt very tender. I blinked my eyes open, but my view was obstructed, I tilted my head back and looked up to see a pair of yellow-golden eyes watching me. Rose! ... no, Rosalie. I was in the crook of her arm. I looked at my blanket: it was a patchwork of scraps of clothes. They weren't dreams. Shame knifed through me as I remembered what I had done on our outhouse trip. I turned away from her quickly, covering my face in my hands. The cold left my right cheek to be flooded by the heat of my blush.
I missed that cold. I missed it so much.
"Oh, my God. Oh, Rosalie!" Well, at least I did one thing right: at least I said her name — her name — without confusing it with the name of my dreams. "I am so sorry! I am really ..."*
I felt her arm disappear from under me and felt her body leave the bed. She couldn't stand me. That was understandable. I couldn't stand me. I drew my knees up and hugged myself, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head out of my wallowing embrace. Rosalie was standing by the bed, fully clothed. She lightly rested her hand on my hip and then pointed out the door, raising her eyebrow.
I guess I had better pull myself together if I was going to go. And I did need to go.
I guess I had just better pull myself together.
"Um, could I have a drink of water first?" I coughed. Oh, yes: be careful with the throat, I reminded myself. My throat was dry; a drink of water would help.
Rosalie frowned and left my side. Sometimes when Rosalie frowned, really interesting things happened. Things like flames shooting out of the stove because of her spit. I turned my body and sat up in the bed, watching her. At least I could: she wasn't blurring all over the place like she's done before. She walked beyond the stove, which had the pot boiling on it, toward the sink. The stove obstructed my view. I heard the sound of liquid being poured from a bottle, and she came back to where I could see her, putting a cup on the table. She took the other cup, filled it with the liquid from the pot, and went outside with it.
I burned with curiosity. What had she poured from behind the stove? I was resolved to find out, but before I could move, she was back inside, grabbing the other cup from the table and was then standing in front of me.
She handed one of the cups to me. I took it and raised it to my mouth, sniffing it first.
Honey. The smell of honey came almost visibly off the liquid. A smell very much like how Rosalie smelled. I lowered the cup from my lips and glared at her.
"What is this?" I just had to know.
She shrugged. "Medizin." she responded off-handedly ... off-handedly through clenched teeth. She lifted the cup back up to my lips.
Yeah, right. Medicine. That was entirely believable.
I took a pull from the cup, but intentionally took too much, letting a drop fall out the side of my mouth. The liquid stung my tongue again then slipped down my throat, coating and relaxing it. Whatever it was, it did work.
I wiped my chin with my finger and looked, but I couldn't tell anything about it. It wasn't exactly syrupy, and I couldn't distinguish its color from my skin color. It was darker, maybe? Rosalie was pulling the cup from my hands.
Act. Now.
I pretended to be caught by surprise, and jerked back. She got the cup, but a more substantial bit of it splashed out.
"Oh! Whoops!" I exclaimed, watching with eagle eyes the liquid fly out of the cup onto my leg.
The sunlight streaming through the window caught it as it fell. The rays refracted through the liquid in a dark golden color. My mouth dropped open in shock, and the breath caught in my throat. I looked from my leg to her brighter golden eyes framed by her straw colored hair ... her straw colored hair with streaks of lighter and darker shades of gold cascading in a wave down around her perfect face.
"It...it...it really is your voice, isn't it?" I whispered to those eyes in an awed tone.
Those eyes rolled as she handed me a cup. I took it with numb fingers, and drank from it in a daze, my eyes not leaving hers. Thankfully it was water this time, or I might have burned my throat again, like last night ... like last night? Oh, no!
"Um, I didn't say anything ... um ... like ..." I think I did. I think I recall mentioning that I would find a vampire boyfriend for her. I think I had her lie down in bed with me, too. In fact, I know I did. That is, unless she decided that last night would be a good night to start sharing the one bed. Didn't she mention she didn't sleep?
And I think I was rubbing her legs with my feet, and after I had touched her smile with my fingers, I think I touched her ...
It was an accident! I blushed, and tried to look away, but her eyes penetrated mine, reading much more than what I wanted to be known. Which was funny, in a way, because my mind was in a total haze: I didn't know what I was thinking to know what to hide from her.
The cup in my hand was floating halfway between the bed and my mouth. I was frozen in her gaze and my embarrassment. I don't know how long this went on, but eventually Rosalie looked down at the cup between us. Breaking the eye contact seemed to break a spell. Oh, I was supposed to be drinking this water. I quickly lifted the cup back up to my mouth and tilted it back. Too far. Water spilled out of the cup off my chin and onto my tee.
Rosalie shook her head. That's a great impression I was making with her: Bella the drooling idiot. The babbling drooling idiot. She ripped a small piece of the patchwork blanket she had made and wiped my chin, then grabbed the bottom of the front of my tee and wiped it ... I couldn't help but notice that she was wiping the same area on me where I had accidently brushed against on her. Her wiping was rather harsh, however, and I felt rather glum for it. With the now wet rag, she wiped away the now sticky splash on my leg, too.
I watched her do all this, like I was a little child that couldn't take care of herself. That's what her face was telling me as she concentrated on cleaning me up. She took the cup of water from me and handed back the cup of "medicine". There was hardly any left — I guess the spill nearly emptied the cup — so I finished that. This morning I had hardly drunk as much as I did last night, but numbness still began to invade my cheeks. I decided, however, that a repeat of last night's comedy show was not in order, and kept my hands on my lap after she took the cup from me. She handed me the cup of water, and I finished it with exaggerated care. She took that cup from me, looked at my bedraggled self and smirked.
Yeah, I was quite the sight.
Then she did start blurring about. She left the cabin and came back seconds later with the pail. She filled it with embers, but, before she disappeared again, she retrieve a new tee from the nearly non-existent pile of clothes and tossed it to me. I didn't catch it, but the bed did. That's me, coordinated, too! My limbs did feel a little funny ...
Rosalie was gone again. I had better get on the new tee before ... Rosalie was back again, standing in front of me, arms crossed.
I sighed, waiting for the rending of clothes to commence, but she just stood there. I looked at her in confusion, the she waved toward me and the tee. I guess I was supposed to change myself now.
Rosalie kept looking at me, and suddenly I felt very shy with her eyes on me. I turned in my seated position so that I was facing away from her, lifted the wet tee over my head, tossed it aside, and put on the fresh tee as quickly as I could. When I turned back around, I saw Rosalie putting my wet tee into the stove, and the fire hissed angrily as it consumed it.
What? Vampires didn't believe in washing clothes?
She came back to me with a pair of socks which she handed to me.
Somehow, I felt a loss: she wasn't dressing me anymore. Did she trust that I could do it now? Did she have more patience to allow me to do it at my speed? Did she get tired of babying me?
I didn't know the answers to any of these questions, and I didn't see any in her face or in her posture ... but I felt that she wasn't really trusting me more. No, she was distancing herself from me.
I didn't know, either, that putting on socks could be such an emotionally loaded activity. But I could do it; I did do it. I'm a grown-up now, see? I can take care of myself ... all by myself. I don't need any stinking vampire to get me dressed. I didn't need any vampire to take care of me, either.
No. I refused to cry. I felt my jaw tighten as I gritted my teeth and concentrated hard on pulling up the socks without tearing them.
When I had pulled up the second sock, I found myself wrapped in my "blanket" flying through the forest in Rosalie's arms. I looked at her face the whole time, but she didn't look at me, she kept looking straight ahead, not meeting my gaze.
In the outhouse, she deposited me in front of the toilet, and I had to take down my panties. My pad was less full. Day three of Bella's Period. I wondered if eternity felt like this to her, because it sure felt like my period had gone on forever. I removed the pad, and laid it on top of the urinal flap. Rosalie took it right away and tore off another piece of the blanket. She left the outhouse and was back right away. When the door opened at her return, sending in an unwelcome blast of cold air, I saw that the outhouse was surprisingly clean. Immaculate. It was if what happened last night, all of it, was just a really crazy dream. But the patchwork blanket told me otherwise.
She did wash me. Thank God! Another piece of evidence: I just felt so dirty and was grateful for her care in this matter. I don't think I could have managed to lift the warm pail of water without some mishap. As usual.
She did the usual routine. She put the pail down, handed me a fresh pad, and stood me up. She made me put in the pad on my old panties — we were completely out of panties for me — and then handed me a tin full of lime for me to spread.
I started to become concerned. Was she making me do all these things by myself to teach me how to live on my own in the middle of nowhere? Was she going to abandon me soon? Was that how I was to die? So ordinary! A girl out on the frontier who thought she could make it on her own was simply overcome by the harsh demands of the country. I remembered the dream of the forest calling to me, and I shuddered. I hope she would give me some warning before she left me, so I could beg for a quick death from her hands, rather than that endless cold embrace.
I held the tin in my hands, looking at her. She waved toward the toilet, but I didn't move.
"Rosalie, you aren't going to leave me here, are you?"
She gave me a quizzical look, held up one finger, and waved again toward the toilet. It took everything I had to turn from her to my task, but then I was nearly overcome by anguish when I felt the door open and then shut.
She was gone.
I fell to my knees in front of the toilet, holding the tin in a death grip, my elbows resting on the toilet seat, holding me up.
She wouldn't just leave me here. She wouldn't! She had just rescued me around here in the snow. She knew I would die on my own. If she knew that, she wouldn't leave me, like she just did. Or if she was planning on leaving me here to die, she wouldn't have rescued me yesterday. She wasn't going to leave me here; it just didn't make sense. She had held up one finger, I could give her a minute before I panicked.
Before I panicked more, that is.
One minute. I could wait that long. I looked at the tin, opened the seat and poured in the lime.
One eternity. I put the tin back in the drum.
Two eternities. I sat down on the toilet seat. The outhouse was starting to cool down noticeably.
Three eternities. ...
Oh, God! She was really ...
The door opened, and Rosalie stepped in. I didn't know whether I wanted to kill her or to kiss her, so I just concentrated on keeping my breath even and shallow. She looked at me and smiled, but her eyes were careful.
She put the candle out, bundled me up, and we raced off into the forest.
"Just promise me, Rosalie: just promise me you'll kill me, okay? Just don't abandon me here, please? Kill me first before you go." I whispered these words to her as the cabin came into sight. She didn't look at me, but somehow I could see my words touching her. Touching her, then falling away from her. I wanted to force her to stay with me. I saw in myself a weak, needy, clingy little girl. And I saw Rosalie pushing me away: making me do things by myself, separating herself from me with her hardened expression. I knew how this would turn out: I would cling to her more, and she would distance herself from me more. My very desire to make her stay would push her away.
I couldn't allow this. I had to be strong, as she was strong, as I had always been strong up to now. But I just didn't know how to be strong anymore. Had I died too many times? Had she overwhelmed me with her power? Did I learn to lean on her so much that I couldn't even put on my panties anymore?
I had to be strong now. If I was weak, she would leave me, and I would die here alone. If I was strong, she would stay. And she would kill me.
So, what was the point of being strong again?
The point was I couldn't stand what she thought of me now. I couldn't stand looking at that look in her eyes. The point was I wouldn't die alone. The point was I could look myself in the mirror and not be ashamed. I would respect myself. She would respect me.
That was the point. That was worth living for now. That was worth dying for later.
That was worth being strong for.
She opened the door to the cabin and sat me at the table. What I saw there turned my determined thoughts into surprised ones. What was this?
Before me was a cereal bowl filled with oatmeal with a small puddle of milk on top, a spoon beside it. I gasped. But that wasn't all: Rosalie reached into a box under the sink and pulled out a Ball jar and placed it beside the bowl; it was canned peaches.
"Oh, my God!" I shouted. I stood up so fast the chair fell backwards. I ran to the rather large box and bent over to examine its contents. More canned peaches, canned beats?, in a rather large jar there were eggs floating in a saline solution, a squat brown bottle, the medicine?, lots of jars of honey, a box with "Earl Grey" written on its side — tea? well, I would have preferred coffee, but I wasn't complaining — canned cukes, canned baby corn, canned tomatoes, quaker's oats, raisins, flour, corn meal, oil, orange marmalade ... peanut butter. Peanut butter.
I stopped looking in the box and grabbed that jar and sat down hard on the floor. I didn't even ask for peanut butter.
Some time later I felt a tap on my shoulder, I looked up to see Rosalie smiling down at me. My cheeks were wet. She pointed to the table. I nodded and got up, reluctantly replacing the peanut butter into the box. It will still be there later, I tried to reassure myself.
As I was sitting down, wiping away the tears, checking the box to make sure it didn't disappear, I asked stupidly, "Where did you get the milk?"
She looked at me quizzically and then looked over at the sink. Sitting on the counter beside it was a full case of cans of Carnation evaporated milk. I counted six across and then I counted four back: twenty-four cans. How could I have missed them? But ... how could I open them when she was away? Would I just have to wait?
"But ..." I began, but she took a can from the case, and poured a bit more milk into my bowl. It had the two tell-tale triangles punctured into its top. My mouth dropped open. She replaced it and took the can-opener from behind the case and placed it on top of one of the cans. She looked smug, so proud of herself.
My chair slammed back on the floor as I leapt at her, she backed away slightly looking shocked, but I ignored that and grabbed her in a bear hug.
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!" I whispered fervently into her shoulder.
She began to relax slightly in my embrace, but I was already outside, shouting into the woods.
"See? SEE! Do you see what she did?" I shouted this toward the forest with triumph.
Then shock absolutely froze me, and it wasn't from the cold of the snow knifing through my socks. Rosalie held me the entire night after my terrible dream; I was a heavy sleeper, but I think I would have felt her leave me, like I did this morning. I felt her pull her arm from under me and leave the bed, I felt that on the bed, and I felt her withdrawal in my heart. I felt that this morning, and I would have felt that last night in my sleep if she did leave me. But she didn't. She stayed with me after rescuing me from me strangling myself. I realized then that the only time Rosalie could have brought those supplies into the cabin was when that voice was whispering those awful words to me. So it knew. It knew.
"You LIED!" I was still shouting, but now I was furious. "YOU LIED TO ME! YOU KNEW, AND YOU LIED TO ME!" I stormed toward those trees where I had been, intending violence. But then Rosalie was in front of me, appearing in a blur, and unceremoniously scooping me up in the same embrace she had held me last night where I had soiled everything, including, in that embrace, her PJs. This time I was beyond thinking about my savior, being so furious at my tormentor. I wrapped my arms around her neck, and my legs around her back and gave a death glare toward that implacable forest as she marched me back to the cabin.
"I swear," I whispered toward whatever it was, careful of Rosalie's sensitive ears, "if I ever hear you again, I will kill you. Don't ever show up in my dreams again. Ever."
I knew the combination to the armory at the court house. I would go right back to Ekalaka, and take a shotgun and every single shell that I could find, and I would shoot every single tree here if I had to, I will kill every single animal, I would blow apart every single flake of snow. Hm. There were probably not enough shells for that. Gasoline. That would do it. I would go to one of those Petrol Stations; they must have one in Butte, I was pretty sure. I would dump out all the lime in the outhouse and fill that drum with gasoline, and I would come back here and burn this forest down to the ground, melting every single snowflake in the process.
I didn't know what made me angrier. I don't recall being lied to. But about Rosalie? The scary thing was that it wove its tale using truths and half-truths and lies: a tale that I almost believed. I think that's what made me angry, too. Not only had I lost my belief that everything was good and filled with the best of intentions, but I had almost listened to those evil lies about Rosalie.
I swore this, too: if anything said anything bad about Rosalie, I would rip its lying tongue right out of its mouth and put it back in the right way. Any bad talk about Rosalie had to be just plain backward. I wouldn't stand for it, idly listening to such nonsense, it was simply wrong, and I would fix it, but good.
We were back in the cabin, and Rosalie sat me on the bed and removed the snow-encrusted socks, wet now from the small amount of heat from my feet melting the snow into the wool. Rosalie turned, I guess to get another pair of sock to put on me, but I was already out the door again.
I had just had an epiphany.
"You know what, though," I shouted conversationally toward the forest, stalking toward it. "I can't kill you. Know why? You're just a dream!" The 'conversationally' had left the tone in my shout, and now I was screaming bloody murder: "You're not real! You don't exist!" Boy, was I giving that no-thing what-for.
"But Rosalie isn't a dream." Well, Rosalie was a dream, but she wasn't a nightmare. I wasn't in the mood to argue semantics at this time, however, as I was on a roll. "Rosalie exists. Rosalie is real. ROSALIE IS GOOD! ROSALIE TAKES CARE OF ME! ROSALIE..." was tapping me on the shoulder.
I looked over at her impassive stance, her closed-off face, her crossed arms. "Oh!" My breath left me in a huff.
She did one of her languid and elegant, but also imperious, waves toward the cabin, waiting. I guess she was going to let me walk back by myself. Maybe 'let' wasn't the word: I guess she was going to make me walk back to the cabin. I didn't notice the snow when I stormed out of the cabin in my rage, but my anger was gone now — air escaped from a deflated balloon — and the snow wasn't. As I walked back, crunching through the snow with my bare feet, each footfall that broke through the crust reminded me of the lancing pain I had felt on my foolhardy trek yesterday around this time toward the outhouse. I tried to hold it in, but by the time Rosalie opened the cabin door for me, little whimpers escaped past my compressed lips. So much for being the tough girl.
So, we were back in the cabin. Rosalie closed the door behind us and leaned against it, going for the casual look. Nothing about her was casual, however: her eyes were hard as they watched me, and her arms were crossed against her chest. I decided that now was a good time to be placating. As my feet began sucking in the heat of the cabin, I sat down in front of the oatmeal and stirred in the milk that was floating on top.
"Thank you for breakfast," I said pleasantly.
There was not one hint of a response from Rosalie: she continued to watch me with hard, unforgiving eyes.
Well, okay: clinging to her made her pull away from me, but I guess I went over the top on coming out too strong — it wasn't like I was doing that on purpose; I was really, really furious! — and that made her act like this. This was just so hard: if I were too weak or too strong, she distanced herself from me. I had to learn to walk that middle ground. I had to stop thinking only of my own misery or concerns, or she would just up and leave me here to die on my own.
I took a few bites of oatmeal. After the unvarying diet of antelope soup — which was good when you were hungry — the oatmeal had a shocking grainy, almost nutty, flavor, very pleasant in its familiarity. Rosalie still leaned against the door, staring at me.
"It's okay, Rosalie. See, I'm eating breakfast. Nothing to worry about anymore, I got it out of my system; I'm fine now." I tried reassuring her.
She shifted slightly, not moving an inch from leaning against the door, however. She uncrossed her arms and dropped her eyes, examining her cuticles critically. The anger, however, did not leave her eyes, but spread through her face, making her jawline and cheeks hard. She was distant and remote: unforgiving.
I turned back to the oatmeal and took another bite. It wasn't sweetened, but I didn't think now was the time for special requests. Why? Why was she still angry? I thought to myself. So what if I ran outside and shouted at the forest; what was the big deal?
And then the oatmeal in my mouth turned to ash, and I swallowed it reflexively in a big lump, almost choking on it.
She had read my mind again. She had read my mind outside. When I was shouting at the forest, she stopped me just before I could say the words.
'Rosalie loves me.'
She stopped me, because it wasn't true. She was just filling the order, that was all: taking care of the human, for whatever reason she had, but she didn't do this out of any personal feeling on her part.
She didn't love me.
She didn't love me. Of course she didn't love me! What was to love? A crazy girl shouting incoherently at a bunch of trees, pissing on her hand, or crying all the time, when she wasn't being killed by something.
Besides the obvious fact that she was girl, and I was girl. Girls don't love girls. Normal girls don't love girls, and here I was, a crazy girl, totally out of hormonal control, pining for her captor. Lovely. She had stopped me as a kindness to me. She saw my dignity was in shreds already, but she wanted me to keep just that one last shred, to hold on to that one last thing, so that when she was talking again, she wouldn't have to crush me: she wouldn't need to correct my bald-faced proclamation to the whole world. Yeah, about all that shouting, she would say to me, sorry to let you down there, but you're really not my type, you know? And anyway, I like guys, okay? Maybe you should give that a go? You're not pretty, or anything, but guys aren't all that discriminating either, and I'm sure there's someone desperate enough to give you a try ...
I pushed the oatmeal in front of me away and whispered down into the table, "Um, I've had enough, thanks." I couldn't dream of swallowing past the lump in my throat, anyway.
Rosalie did look up at that. She saw the bowl three-quarters full. She probably saw me, the stupid girl who ran into the snow shouting crazy things, refusing to eat the breakfast that she had so painstakingly foraged for and prepared.
She didn't look pleased. She crossed the cabin to sit next to me at the table. She opened the jar of peaches, took out one with the spoon, ladled it on the oatmeal and chopped it into bite-sized pieces with a few, swift, efficient strokes. I watched out of the corner of my eye, so I saw her scoop a spoonful of oatmeal and a cube of peach and bring the spoon to my lips.
It reminded me of what Pa did when I was a little girl when I was petulant and refused to eat my meal. He would make a silly game of it, as only he could: he would pretend the spoon was an airplane, and it was flying through the air, but ran out of fuel an had to land in a mountainside cave. He would wave the spoon through the air and make propeller noises — brrrrooum! brrooum! — enchanting me into giggling to an opened-mouth landing strip.
I opened my mouth for Rosalie now, as I had opened my mouth for Pa when I was a little girl ... I wasn't giggling this time, though, still overcome by my realization. The oatmeal and peach went in. It should have tasted sweet. It didn't. I knew exactly what it tasted like: it tasted exactly like what it looked like. The oatmeal looked like vomit; the peach kind of looked like a horse turd. Manure and vomit; that's what it tasted like. Exactly like what Rosalie ate every day, because of me. No, not because of me: instead of me. She chose to eat the way she did because it was her choice. I had nothing to do with her decision.
She scooped out another bite from the bowl, and I sighed. If she could eat the way she did every day, well, then, so could I. I didn't even have to. After all, it was oatmeal flavored with evaporated milk and peaches. I would have killed yesterday for such a banquet I had before me today. Buck up, Bella: do at least something right by Rosalie today.
"Rosalie," I stopped her with a look, "you're going to make me finish that bowl, aren't you?"
She nodded, so I told her my story: "You know, when I was a little girl ..." and relayed the happy memory I had of Pa feeding me. She listened to my story with interest, the hardness leaving her face, her hands folded, the spoon resting in the bowl.
"The point is," I finished my story, "I'm not a little girl any more, am I? I'm a big girl now, and I can feed myself. Thank you for breakfast: I'll show you my thanks by finishing it." I pulled the bowl back in front of me, away from her, and recommenced eating. Somehow, the food tasted a little more palatable now that I had determined to eat it. I couldn't help but notice the slightest trace of sadness cross Rosalie's face. Was she enjoying playing mommy to this irascible girl, and I had taken away her fun?
No. I shouldn't delude myself. This was just the hormones talking. Tomorrow, as my period loosened its grip on me, things would start to make sense again.
A traitorous voice whispered in my mind: Just because you feel something during your period doesn't make it any less real.
I told myself to shut the hell up. I was sick and tired of voices inside and outside my head making my life a complete misery. I should just get back on the game plan. Take things one day at a time, look for an escape, and quit inventing fantasy worlds with romantic, magical, amazing, beautiful vampires who loved me. Because such a fantasy world did not exist.
Rosalie remained seated beside me and watched me finish the bowl, and, even though this wasn't a fantasy world, her company was a comfort to me.
Just a comfort, nothing more than that. But it was still a comfort, and she was still a magical, amazing and beautiful vampire. Who didn't love me.
And that was fine. One day at a time, I reminded myself.
She took the bowl and rinsed it in the sink ... I should have done that. And then she motioned me over to where she was. Did she wish me to dry the bowl? I went over to her, and she placed in my hand two items. I opened my hand and looked down at it. A tooth brush and a tin of tooth powder; she reached under the sink and pulled out a large bottle from the box. I read the label: Listerine.
A magical, amazing and beautiful vampire that remembered my oral care.
I was reeling. She was just taking care of me; that's all. She was just taking care of me, I chanted ... remember to say thank you! I think I got the words out of my mouth correctly, but it was hard to hear what I said, because my head was so full of confusing and conflicted thoughts.
I think I also managed to brush my teeth. No, I know I managed to brush my teeth, because the feeling I felt afterward was heavenly. You ever go a few days without brushing your teeth? ... then you know that feeling: God! It feels so_good to have my mouth clean again!
After I had rinsed with the Listerine, I felt a tug on my tee. Rosalie waved at me up and down, and then tugged on her own shirt and pointed to the door.
"You're going to get me some clothes?" I clarified.
She nodded.
"You'll be gone for a few hours?" Again, the nod.
"Well, first, could I drink some water, I'm a little thirsty, and then be brought to the outhouse?"
We did do that routine, and the oatmeal did its job ... it, you know, kept me ... um, regular ... you know? This is just so embarrassing: I went number two, okay? Rosalie still held me by my arms the whole time: she didn't look once at me, and I didn't look once at her.
Okay, maybe I cheated with a few glances, but I was just making sure she wasn't cheating. She wasn't.
When we returned, she checked and stoked the fire. I watched through everything: the trip out to and back from the outhouse, her washing me on my front side and back, the tending to the fire. Her face was impassive. It wasn't unfriendly toward me, but it didn't show any feelings for me either. She was the detached vampire kidnapper. Very professional. Nice of her, too, actually, to take care of the crazy girl.
She sat me at the table and held out her hand, palm facing me, pointing first with he other hand to herself, and then to the door.
"Okay," I said casually, "see you later then, I guess."
She disappeared out the door. I got up from the chair: I was going to explore the cabin for more treasures she had brought. But, suddenly, she was back.
"Do me a favfor," she spoke around gritted teeth, her musical voice a shock to me from its absence from this morning.
"Okay..." I responded, looking at her expectantly.
"Try not to get yourself kill'd whall I'm gone, okay?"
That Rosalie. What a crack up.
I rolled my eyes, but she waited. It seemed she was serious in her request — given our recent history together, I guess I could understand why she made this demand — so I responded, "Okay, I'll try." I finished my sentence talking to the air where she had been.
She could work on her patience a bit, too.
I would have added that to her "to-do" list, but I think I should hold off managing her life for a while: I needed to get a grasp on managing mine first. I sat back down at the table. Exploring the cabin could come later: I needed this alone time now to think.
* A/N: The companion piece "Rose by a Lemon Tree" (RLT) on my profile page relays the events from Rosalie's point of view of what happened during the night up to the point where Bella awakens here. RLT answers some of the questions I have fielded from my readers, so it may interest you, but it comes recommended with strong caveats. Please read the first chapter of that piece, its apologia, before diving into that story.