What You Are
Chapter 26: My Yonside
"I hate you," Rosalie said, feeling hot tears fall from her face. Lifting what was left of her fingers, she realized her body was warm too. Warmth, something she'd never had after becoming a monster, a vampire, was now hers once more. "I hate you! I bloody fucking hate you!"
Bella just smiled, shook her head, turning to see the distance…the forest in front of her. She wondered if Rosalie saw the same thing, but she was afraid to ask. Instead, she turned to the woman, her murderer, and murmured a very simple phrase. "I love you."
"Why…" Rosalie could hear her voice shaking, biting her lip so hard she could feel her own mind trying to keep her from doing that. If she were alive, it would be an instinct of countering pain. "Why would you even think for a second that this… No, just...no. Don't come near me, you twisted bitch."
"Why wouldn't I?" Bella asked.
"You'd be insane if you did!" Rosalie shouted. "Don't you get it?! I'm nothing, I will never be anything. Not to anyone, most of all not to you. I don't want to be anything anymore."
"You already left your mark," Bella said quietly, "there is nothing else you can do but accept that I have become the symbol of your burdens. We're here together right now, aren't we?"
"That's awfully trite, coming from a woman like you." Feet rooted to the ground, she could no longer deny the soft gaze Bella gave her. It was infuriating. "You asked for this, you know that… I never…" No, she wouldn't say it. She wouldn't give Bella that kind of satisfaction.
"Bad things happen to good people, Rosalie."
"It's the terrible people who do it though," Rosalie shot back, gritting her teeth. "I never asked for things to turn out the way they did."
"You're human, Rosalie. That's what you are...what we are."
"No," Rosalie shook her head. "I'm a monster, I'm a vampire, I'm a god-damned rapist, now I'm even dead…but no matter what I am, I'm not human."
"You are so caught up in the things you can't face, you don't even see the things you can. So much power, and you're afraid to use it. You hold yourself back, but isn't part of being human too? Being afraid, seeing your own weaknesses, knowing you can't always beat the system? Wasn't that humanity too, for someone like you? Mortality...all of it. Wasn't that what being human is about?"
"Even so," Rosalie felt disgusted by it. "Even if you twist it like that…"
"Why wouldn't I love that about you? Those are uniquely human traits, things a monster could never have."
Rosalie didn't know where to begin. "Because that logic is so, so, so very flawed. Don't you get it? Think about how screwed up that kind of thing really is?" Rosalie wanted to dispute it, to crumple up that little admission and throw it away. "If you call that humanity… What I did to you humanity… That's beyond sick. That's not being human."
"Humans can be sick too, it doesn't change how I feel."
"We're dead, it doesn't matter how you feel, idiot." Rosalie sighed. "Why did I kill someone so worthless…"
"Why didn't I live for someone more worthwhile?" Bella retorted, still smiling. "You're right that it doesn't matter. I could just walk away and find wherever I'm meant to be, but I'd rather be standing on our ashes with you."
Rosalie licked her lips. "Stay, and I'll only break you…"
"That's fine," Bella said quietly. "I'll only love you all the more if you do."
"See, this is why you're dead!" Rosalie shouted, her hand reaching out to slap the other girl, the sensation a strange one. Not quite tangible, but entirely there all the same. "Get out of here, while you still can." Yet, those bruised lips were on hers, and Rosalie didn't want to fight it anymore. Still, she pushed the woman away from her. "Sew your neck up or something first, Jesus. What's wrong with you!"
"You'll stay with me?" Bella asked.
Rosalie just nodded quietly. "I'm not going to waste my time with a mangled corpse. I sure as hell won't ever love one, either… But, if you want me to stay, I have nothing better to do."