I'M SORRY I HAD TO!
This is one of the first chapters I wrote of the entire story, so it's been a long time coming!
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Notes on future chapters: I have a looooot mapped out - pretty much I'm just working on a way to wrap this whole thing up but it won't be any time soon no worries! Currently, I'm writing a scene between Rosalie and Pilar that I'm really excited about too. I'm writing a scene about how Peter and Carmen meet and how that affects Emmett and Maria and their relationship. I'm also exploring a scene from Bangladesh of Emmett and Rosalie's relationship foundation and the first thing she really learns about his past. I'm also looking at a scene for Elizabeth and Rosalie that I think is going to be very important.
Love Like This - Kodaline
Running through the heat heart beat
You shine like silver in the sunlight
You light up my whole heart
It feels like in the sun, the sun
We're running around and around
Like nothing else could matter in our life
But wait, but wait, but wait
The sun will stop shining soon
And you'll be gone from my life
Yeah, you'll be gone, it's as simple as a change of heart
But I'm not gonna think about the future
A love like this won't last forever
Rosalie
The Hospital
My head was swimming and all the white noise of the hospital hallway seemed increasingly loud.
I put my hands on the sides of my head, my knees feeling weak.
"Ms. Hale, I'm Doctor Foster. I…" A doctor put his hand on my shoulder, redirecting my focus.
"Don't touch me." I shook off his hand, my own arms going limp by my side.
He clenched his squared jaw and shot the doctors next to him a glance.
My eyes couldn't focus, and they seemed to take in everything at once.
This wasn't happening. This was a bad dream.
I found myself irrationally focused on the bright pink of a woman's scarf as she sat in the waiting room on the telephone. It was so bright against the stale white.
"Ms. Hale… As you were told by the police, your husband was involved in a car accident this afternoon." The doctor started and the room started to spin.
I noticed there were two other doctors standing next to me with clipboards and white coats as they waited for me to calm down.
But, what made my heart race was the presence of the chaplain…
The chaplain was here to make sure Emmett was right with God before…
He couldn't.
I prayed I would die myself before he could. I wouldn't spend a second on this earth without him. I couldn't…
I swore I wouldn't.
I wondered if the windows opened… It was exceptionally cold for the beginning of November.
It'd be a perfectly long fall.
"Where is he?" I asked wildly, but my voice didn't sound like my own.
They didn't understand.
I noticed I was being held back by a pair of arms I recognized as my mother's, as my heels dug into the tile and I tried to push forward to find him.
"Rosalie, calm down and listen to the doctors, okay?" She said in a coddling tone I never knew she could possess.
"I have to get to him!" I finally screamed aloud, but my own voice sounded miles away. "He needs me. Everything will be all right. Everything will…"
"Rosalie!" My mother said sharply, shaking my shoulders.
I had to get to him. They didn't understand. I had to get to him.
It would all be better. I had to get to him.
"We just have to discuss some things… some very difficult things about your husband's medical care." The doctor said in an even tone, the kind of even tone that scared me and shook me to my core.
"What did you do wrong?!" I lunged forward, only to be yanked backward again.
I couldn't focus.
The world was moving in slow motion.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.
Every cell that grew in my body was on fire.
"Ms. Hale, I have arguably the best neurosurgeons in the state." He said defensively.
"That isn't good enough." I growled. "Call whoever you have to in. I can pay."
"I'm sure you can, but you won't have to. I promise, your husband is in great, very capable hands." The doctor said sourly, but tried to remain compassionate.
He didn't understand. This was a part of my soul. I was missing a part of my soul.
My core was aching, and every second throbbed like blood behind a bruise.
I couldn't breathe.
"He's in surgery and they're working diligently. It should only be a couple more hours now, but… we really need to talk about some things for you to be prepared for."
I couldn't swallow the lump in my throat when I caught a terrifying distinction. Neurosurgery.
"What's wrong with him?" I gained the courage to ask, then immediately wanted to take it back.
Everything was muffled and far away and my head was pounding…
"He… He hit his head pretty hard, and with the glass from the window… Ms. Hale, your husband's a very lucky man that the impact alone didn't kill him."
"Don't!" I gasped, crushing my hands to the side of my head at the word, just the word…
I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear to hear it. I couldn't bear to think of it.
"He's going to be okay. He's going to be okay!" I raved.
"Shhh, Rosalie… Rosalie listen." My mom grabbed me and I ducked my head into her chest as she stroked the back of my hair in a shockingly maternal gesture.
I felt like I was just going to slip right out of her arms and slide down to a puddle on the floor.
I couldn't stand.
"He's not… He can't be… He…" I stuttered, hyperventilating over my words.
"Ms. Hale, your husband is doing very well in surgery. He's a fighter, and he's not letting go. He's pretty banged up, but we're confident he'll survive."
Somehow, this didn't comfort me as he'd intended, and I felt my chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to explain to me the extent of his injuries, but I could barely hear him.
My ears were ringing.
It was burning up. I was so hot I could scream.
"But, with a traumatic brain injury like this, you need to be prepared for some… impairment." The doctor said.
"Like what?!" I shrieked.
"A brain injury is unpredictable and we won't know the extent of the trauma until he wakes up, and at this point we don't even know when that will be, but we'll need to be prepared for anything - memory loss, aphasia, relearning to walk and talk…"
The words after that all ran together and I felt like I was under water and everyone was trying to talk to me from the surface.
I didn't know how to be strong. I couldn't.
I clawed at my jacket, ripping it off my shoulders throwing it to the floor.
"I can't breathe." I started to panic, and I pulled at the neck of my shirt as I tried to calm the rapidness of my inhale and exhale.
It was no use.
He was my lungs. He was my oxygen. There was no breathing without him.
"I can't breathe!" I cried, ripping the chain of my necklace and stretching the neck of my shirt as far as I could allow.
I wanted to rip out of my skin.
I probably could've.
"Rosalie, you have to do this for him. You have to pull it together." My mom said strongly, grabbing my wrists and fighting to keep my hands from ripping at my throat.
My eyes started to fade to black.
"Rosalie…" I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see Alice and my heart could've burst at the strength in her eyes.
Nothing could make this okay, but she was here and she wasn't going to let me drown.
I exhaled, a sigh of short-lived and shallow relief as she wound her arms around my shoulders.
I wished this safe feeling could last.
"This isn't real." I shut my eyes tight and I felt a lump in my throat.
I didn't know why she was here, but she was.
"I'm here for you." She said, power in her voice. "Jasper is too…"
My eyes danced to Jasper standing by, his eyes down on the floor. My stomach dropped, knowing the seriousness of the situation by the look in Jasper's eyes.
Jasper'd been crying.
My tears couldn't come.
I was in shock.
"I've already called your dad and if you give me your phone, I'll call Emmett's family…" Alice encouraged, her voice even.
I fumbled, my hands not agile enough to grab my phone so I handed her my whole purse.
"It's okay." She said softly, her eyes careful and trusting as I trembled and began to trip over my breathing patterns.
I felt my heart start to race and my throat constricted so I could barely breathe.
She hugged me, but it wasn't intrusive or suffocating. It was supportive.
"I can't." I swallowed, staring blankly over her shoulder as she tried to soothe me by petting my hair.
"Rosalie, we're here for you. Whatever you need." Alice comforted, going through my phone to find Emmett's parents.
Carmen… Peter… Maria….
They would be inconsolable… I couldn't be strong enough for myself, let alone for them.
"Alice, I can't do this." My hands shook as I held them up near my chest.
"You can do anything." Alice said with a little encouraging smile that had no trace of humor or happiness in it. "You're Rosalie Hale."
"I can't, Alice. I really can't."
"You're going to have to." She said strongly.
"He needs you now, Rosalie." Alice said with intensity in her emerald eyes.
The minutes passed in awful, agonizing spurts and I paced a thousand miles, awaiting any news.
I remained stoic as my father, Carmen, Peter, and Maria rushed in, tossing their arms around me and crying plenty of tears of their own.
I watched Maria put her head on Peter's shoulder, curling up in the waiting room chair next to him as she cried inconsolably. Carmen paced in the corner, a rosary around her wrist.
My fingers blankly traced over my wrist where mine would be… I couldn't even think to pray.
I tried, but all I could say to Him was help.
My mom missed her flight.
She sat next to my father for the first time in so long it seemed foreign enough to shock me out of the limbo world parallel to this one I felt I was existing in.
That wasn't comforting to me though- it was alarming. Nothing was enough for them to put aside their hatred for one another before… Nothing.
It was obvious that I hadn't registered the depth of tragedy yet, but it was big enough for my combative parents to lay their weapons down…
Alice and Jasper watched me, though they were pretending they weren't as they stood next to the vending machine talking in hushed voices.
I walked in circles, stopping every so often to cross my arms over my chest and stare at the door where a surgeon was supposed to come out with any news.
It felt like days, but it was four hours and forty seven minutes.
It wasn't supposed to take this long.
They'd said only a couple hours…
Something was wrong. I felt so out of the loop and in the dark.
There was something they still weren't telling me, though I'd asked the doctor to repeat the same painstaking words to me over and over and over until I was numb to them.
He was never going to be the same.
"Ms. Hale?" I heard my name from the surgeon at the door as I was pulled back to the grim reality at hand.
"How is he?!" Carmen gasped.
The woman looked around at the gathering we'd made, all of us on edge and hanging desperately on her words.
"Surgery went well. He's recovering, but all we can do is wait. We have him under observation, and we'll keep you updated on how things go."
"I want to see him." I said, standing tall, but not as tall as the doctor as she looked down on me from a few inches.
I was ravenous and craving just the sheer knowledge of his existence. I wanted to see him and touch him to remind myself he was real.
"Of course." She said. "Follow me."
"Rosalie, you're going to be fine." My mom stood, assuring me.
I furrowed my brow, trying to process the change in her eyes.
I couldn't focus on it long enough to think clearly about how I felt about it.
My father stood with her, but they couldn't follow.
Carmen could though, and she reached for my hand wordlessly.
I looked down as her fingers laced through mine for the very first time. Her skin was the same olive as Emmett's and it made my stomach feel empty.
My gaze went back up to find her eyes, but she wasn't looking at me. She kept her round jaw clenched tightly, and her strong, deep eyes focused straight ahead.
I saw strength in her that I wished to siphon.
I could use it.
Something about Carmen's grip on my hand though made it seem that it was the opposite for her - she was siphoning my strength, or at least the appearance of it.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as I made the longest trek of my life down this hallway that seemed to stretch out like a funhouse mirror.
The doctor pushed open a door, pausing in the threshold and giving me a supportive glance.
I rounded the corner, desperate to find him, to see him and know everything was going to be okay.
This would all just be a bad dream. I'd see him and it would all fade to a terrible memory.
I could barely see him through all the wires and tubes and machines, but I could see him. That was him, and this was real.
It wasn't a bad dream.
The world around me went black and the last thing I remember, I was falling.
Edward
2 days later
"She hasn't moved since he got out of surgery." One of the nurses was telling the other.
"They just let her stay in there like that?" The other crouched over the nurse's station, trying to whisper but not doing a good job of it.
The first nurse, a round, plump woman of middle age craned her neck to look into the room where I assumed Rosalie and Emmett would be.
"I mean… no one's going to make her get up." She said. "The poor thing…"
"Oh, I know." The other woman responded. "I heard the doctors saying at lunch when they actually tell the truth that they don't know why he isn't waking up… Something's wrong."
Gossip was familiar on their lips, and I took a deep breath, preparing myself for the worst as I approached the threshold.
I tapped my knuckles on the open door lightly.
"Rosalie?" I called softly.
I saw her blonde hair spilling over the rail of the hospital bed as she curled up next to Emmett, her head on his chest.
I entered the room tentatively, afraid she was asleep, but something in me knew she wasn't.
The room was bright with autumn sunlight pouring in the tall windows, all the curtains drawn and every windowsill decorated with plants and flowers.
But, the scene was far from idyllic.
It was hellish.
Cacophonous beeping sounds and whirring machinery filled the air with oppressive dissonance.
Emmett looked out of place and tragically wrong lying connected to all these machines. There was an obvious and gaping hole in the air where his energy and life was supposed to be.
He naturally filled every room he was in. Yes, he was a big guy physically, but he was larger than life in spirit.
That was what was missing, and the room was a cavernous abyss of where he was supposed to be.
There was something wrong.
And more wrong than just the obvious.
He wasn't here.
I thought about what the nurses had said, then decided I couldn't think about it any more.
"Rosalie, I brought macaroons." I suggested, holding up the bag in my hand as I rounded the corner so I caught a glimpse of her lifeless eyes open and staring straight ahead.
I shivered at the sight.
"I'm not hungry." She said in a haunted tone, not budging.
"Okay." I said.
"Can I still sit in here with you, though?" I asked, coming toward an armchair in the corner.
"Yes." She said softly.
I didn't know what to say, and my heart started to race in panic. I wished I could fix things.
I couldn't look at them.
"Why isn't he waking up, Edward?" Rosalie finally asked in a desperate, heartbreaking tone. "It was supposed to be a few hours… Just a few hours… It's been decades."
She asked me like I was supposed to know, and supposed to fix everything. She had so much faith in me.
It was like she was a child again, asking her new older know-it-all stepbrother about all the deepest questions of the universe. Most of the time he could pretend he knew an answer and come up with something to satisfy her curiosity.
Today though, I couldn't think of a single word…
"Rosalie, why don't you eat something and go home take a shower? I'll be here with him." I finally suggested.
"No! I'm not leaving him." Rosalie said, but now she at least sat up to look at me. "I'm staying."
"Rosalie…" I exhaled. "He'd want you to take care of yourself…"
"You have no idea what he wants." She half-growled, her eyes fierce on mine.
There were dark purple circles under her violet eyes and she looked pale and sickly.
"You're right." I said plainly. "I'm sorry."
The words were easy to say because it was true.
I was so, so sorry.
She sat up now though and looked away from my eyes and back to his face.
There were bumps and bruises that she avoided as she stroked his cheek and talked to him, low enough only he could hear her.
It made my stomach hurt to watch her.
His raven black hair was interrupted by a white winding bandage around his head and down the back of his neck.
Robert had told me it was bad - it was really bad, but I hadn't been prepared for it to be this bad.
"Knock, knock." There was a man at the door with brown hair, grey eyes, and an authoritative presence.
He smiled a tight smile.
Rosalie didn't even look up.
Robert told me the doctors were optimistic at first, then slowly started to get more and more realistic with their news, but they still didn't know what to tell Rosalie…
They'd told Robert privately that if Emmett woke up, he most likely wouldn't know his own name let alone be able to recognize Rosalie or remember how to walk and talk. They told Robert they could get a psych consult for Rosalie and some people to talk to her and help her prepare, but Robert denied.
He hadn't even told her…
I didn't know what the right thing to do was. Rosalie had hope in her eyes - no matter how tired and desperate they were - there was still a sliver of hope, and who could be the one to crush it?
No one wanted to be that person.
Could she survive it?
"You're in a much more polite posture for company." The doctor remarked that she was sitting up now.
Rosalie wasn't amused, and I saw the anger bubbling in her eyes as she looked over to him, though she was too exhausted to express it.
I noticed one of the male nurses obviously checking Rosalie out, and I thought maybe this would wake Emmett up if anything would.
He'd not allow that in front of him.
I cleared my throat.
"I'm Edward Masen." I introduced myself, extending my hand. "Rosalie's brother."
Rosalie's eyes danced over me and I thought I saw a little smile as I shook the doctor's hand.
"Pleasure." The doctor said, as nurses and other doctors buzzed around the room checking machines and writing things down on clipboards.
I noticed that they'd brought a chaplain because Rosalie's eyes darted to him and her face lost the little color it had left. She knew that wasn't a good sign.
I knew too… They were going to give her some bad news.
I swallowed, making my way to stand next to Rosalie as the doctor changed to use slow, condescending language to try and ease in to whatever he was going to tell her.
The suspense was agonizing.
"She's perfectly capable of understanding you, you know?" I narrowed my eyes, feeling a protective instinct over Rosalie.
Rosalie smiled smugly, but without humor.
"Rosalie…" The doctor used her first name familiarly. "We understand that it's all happening very quickly, but you have some difficult decisions to make regarding your husband's medical care moving forward… We're here to help."
Rosalie clenched her jaw, knowing by the way the information was being presented that it was far from good news.
"There has been no improvement or sign of meaningful brain activity to date. There are life sustaining measures in place that…"
"No. No. No, you're not having this talk with me! I'm not letting you." Rosalie gasped, her breath taken by what they were suggesting.
It all came as a shock to me too, hitting me like a train. I hadn't been ready for this bad of news…
Who could be?
I reached out for Rosalie, but she shook me off.
"We have some papers for you to look at when you're ready. We can have someone come talk to you? Help you through it?" The doctor suggested.
The chaplain and everyone else in the room had their eyes down.
For some odd reason, the natural reaction I had was sheer anger.
Why did this happen? How?
"Help me decide to kill my husband?!" Rosalie choked on the words but tears still didn't come to her violent violet eyes.
"Ms. Hale…" The doctor exhaled, trying to reason with her as I assumed he'd reasoned with thousands of people before her.
But, those people weren't Rosalie and they weren't this in love with Emmett.
She redirected her focus.
"Emmett…" Rosalie whispered, calling him and only him, panic rising in her voice.
"Emmett, you can hear me…" She called again, her hand shaking as she touched his face. "I know it."
Her eyes were glassy and desperate.
"Em?…" She cried. "Please… I need you. Wake up… Please…"
I had to turn my back and clench my eyes shut. My breath caught in my throat and I gritted my teeth together to try to keep from breaking down, when Rosalie needed me to be strong.
"Emmett…" Rosalie went on like this for a while.
"Ms. Hale, we're concerned that there's been no improvement… We don't know if he'll ever regain consciousness, and if in the very slim chance that he does open his eyes, he'll never…" The doctor pressed.
I blinked away the fog that rose in my eyes.
"Stop." Rosalie whispered, closing her eyes, and holding her shaking hands over her face.
"We'll give you all the time you need, we just want you to consider…" The doctor pressed on.
"She said no!" I finally snapped.
"Edward, I can't." She sobbed, and her eyes went crazed and wild as she crouched protectively by Emmett's side again.
"Rosalie…" I tried to say through my tight, airless throat.
Rosalie wailed, absolutely inconsolable and crying harder than I'd ever seen anyone cry. I didn't imagine she was even able to breathe, and I did all I knew to do.
I scooped her up in my arms, and she let me.
I peeled her off of him, tucking my arm under her knees and behind her back as she eventually turned to sob into my chest.
Then, over her cries, I heard something.
The monitors.
They were different, and they kept changing slowly. Everyone in the room froze to look at him.
"Oh my God." One of the nurses inhaled, absolutely dumbfounded.
The chaplain made the sign of the cross and Rosalie scrambled down from my arms, taking a gasping inhale but daring not to breathe another breath as she stood by him.
She hoped to give all her oxygen to him, every bit he needed to come back from whatever 'other side' he'd been frequenting in his absence.
My heart raced out of my chest.
"Don't crowd him." The main doctor mumbled, though he stepped forward, his brow furrowed in apparent befuddlement.
Emmett's brow furrowed ever so slightly, and he inhaled.
Rosalie exhaled, and I kept my hand on her shoulder to make sure she wouldn't fall.
But, she was steady and strong as she stood by his side.
After what seemed like an eternity, his eyes drowsily opened.
I felt Rosalie trembling, but her expression was like iron.
My breath caught in my chest in anticipation.
After a moment, of trying to focus, confusion filled his brown eyes.
"Emmett, you're all right. You're in the hospital and you're being taken care of. You were in a car accident." The nurse started.
This seemed to register, and his eyes found the nurse who spoke, showing that he could focus and understand. I found this as a success.
"You've hit your head pretty hard, broken a dozen bones, and we've got all patched up, but you're going to be okay." The nurse finished with a little smile.
He swallowed, seeming to find that his throat was sore, before he tried to lift his hand then stopped, his gaze finding the wires and fluids connected to him.
Rosalie was going to pass out with anticipation.
My heart raced.
He dropped his hand and grimaced a colorful curse word in a hoarse, raspy voice. He was slurring his speech as he closed his eyes again, this time registering the pain his body was in.
Rosalie lunged forward protectively.
I laughed a relieved and nervous laugh. He was in there.
"I feel like I got hit by a truck." He said, opening his eyes again slowly, still frowning as he processed and came back in to a body full of pain.
I couldn't help but laugh. He would be fine.
Rosalie shot her gaze back to the nurse.
"Well, you were hit by a truck." The doctor chuckled.
"My head…" He blinked slowly a couple of times before he furrowed his brow to concentrate.
"I'll bet your head hurts. We'll get your something for that."
Then, a light seemed to turn on in Emmett's eyes.
His gaze found Rosalie like he'd known all along he'd been searching for her.
Had he? Did he know?
Time stopped.
I held my breath.
Then, dimples appeared on his cheeks slowly and drowsily, but they were there.
"Hey Rose." He said, and I watched her smile the biggest and most glorious smile I'd ever seen.
"Hey." She exhaled happily, tears starting to pool in her eyes.
Relief washed over us in waves.
He looked over her now with open, receptive eyes as she sat down on the bed to take his hand.
"You kept me waiting." She said as she kissed his lips.
He smiled, tired, but he was there.
"I'm sorry I stood you up at dinner." He said, full of humor.
"Don't do it again." Rosalie said, deep seriousness in her voice as tears started to race down her cheek.
"Hey, don't cry." He begged, tragedy in his exhausted eyes as he groggily and uncoordinatedly lifted his hand to her face.
"You scared me, Emmett." Rosalie said, leaning into his touch and closing her eyes as she held his hand up to her cheek.
Then, as if she couldn't stand not to anymore, she kissed him again.
"I had the wildest dream…" He started, his eyes darting over her face and sparkling as he looked at her in a way only he could. "It was so real…"
"You'll have to tell me all about it." Rosalie sighed, relief still evident in her face.
"You're going to think I'm crazy, but I think you…"
Then, like a vacuum had been turned on, his expression changed to one of absolute emptiness, like he'd forgotten what he was saying and all the words had been sucked out of him.
"Em?" Rosalie panicked, and slowly dropped his hand.
"Something's wrong." The doctor said as he lunged forward, moving quickly as the monitor started beeping rapidly and Emmett's eyes rolled back in his head.
I picked up Rosalie by the waist and pulled her back as he started seizing.
I couldn't help but close my eyes, but I knew Rosalie didn't.
She saw it all.
