Sorry if this is too lit majorey of me, but I had fun. :3
...
"I don't care how many times you've read it, you're wrong!"
"Stop being stubborn just this once. I know what I'm talking about."
"And I don't? Really?"
"You're refusing to see the point."
"Nuh uh! You're refusing to see the point."
"Truly? What a comeback."
Alice stopped in front of the bickering pair at their normal lunch table and put her hands behind her back. "And just what are you two arguing about?"
Emmett had joined her side upon hearing the passive aggressive voices, towering over her. "The dream team's arguing? Really?"
Alia blushed at the attention and scowled down at her sandwich while Edward crossed his arms. "We are not arguing." he said coolly.
"We are too arguing." Alia argued.
Edward scoffed and Emmett chuckled. "I gotta know. C'mon."
"Romeo and Juliet." Alia muttered quietly enough that only vampires would be able to hear. Luckily for her, the three surrounding her happened to be of undead nature.
Alice giggled. "Really?"
Emmett was nowhere near as demure as he let out a bear laugh. He clapped a flustered Alia on the shoulder. "Ladies are always right, Edward."
"Not in this case."
"Hmph." Alia slammed shut her textbook and moved to get up, but Edward quickly snatched her book from her hands.
"Don't act childish Alia." He snapped. "Finish your lunch."
Emmett and Alice both winced visibly as Alia reddened further and stalked off, abandoning her textbook with Edward. "That was a little too far, Edward." Alice said gingerly.
Edward seemed to realise this as he looked after her with regret in his dark eyes. He sighed and got up swiftly with bag and book in hand. Alice and Emmett watched as he began to walk after her.
"Wait, they're seriously arguing about Shakespeare?" Emmett blinked in confusion.
They were indeed. Normally Edward like hearing Alia's point of view when it came to literature, but this particular opinion grated on his nerves. He couldn't even agree to disagree this time. Still, it was no reason for him to have talked to her so. Nor was the fact that he hadn't hunted in a few weeks and was growing all the more irritable.
He reached her where she was standing, shoulders stiff by her locker. He coughed to let her know he was there and she pointedly ignored him. "Do you want this back?" he asked softly.
Wordlessly, she took the book, looking anywhere but at him. She was hurt, that was clear. He didn't even have to read her thoughts to know. "Alia…"
"What?" she said, voice still carrying the anger he felt in her thoughts.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that."
Alia sighed and finally looked at him. "I was being a bitch too." Edward mentally recoiled, still not used to her new habit of swearing. He hoped she'd grow out of it but knew human adolescents only got more crass as they grew. It was still a shock to hear such words in her sweet voice.
"What can we do to make it better?" Edward asked.
Edward smiled before she even said it. "Get Duval to settle it for us?"
He laughed when the words were out. "I won't bear witness to you murdering him."
"Like you wouldn't do it first." Alia grinned. Hm, she was more right than she knew.
But with that, their spat was resolved for the day as they went to science class. It was the next day during their homework session at the Cullens' that it came up again, arguably in a more civil manner.
"In the time he was writing, he wouldn't have thought of it like that." Edward said as calmly as possible.
"Shakespeare's dead, Edward. He doesn't get a say."
"The author doesn't get a say?"
"Okay fine, he gets a say. Anyway," she waved off his triumphant smirk, "I don't think you're giving him enough credit. The story becomes so much smarter this way and actually means something!"
"I'm sorry the most well known love story of all time doesn't mean anything on its own." Edward shook his head.
"You know what I mean."
"May I know what you mean?"
Edward had heard Esme coming into the room all the way from the bottom floor with a tray of food as an excuse. He could hear everyone around them subtly listening in from around the house, even Carlisle in his study. Edward had refused to tell them what the argument was about when prodded, not really wanting to give Alia the chance of being right. But here was his mother, taking things into her own hands. Really dear, this has gone on long enough.
Edward muttered something that only Esme had a chance of hearing, but she was undeterred.
Alia looked shyly at Esme. "It's not that important."
"I'd say it is." Esme put down a tray of snacks: perfectly sliced veggies and hummus. "Edward has been pouting for two days."
Alia giggled and Edward gave both her and Esme a sour look. "A difference in interpretation." he said in ways of explanation.
"An irreconcilable difference?" Esme prodded. Carlisle paused in his study with the book he was pretending to read.
"Kind of." Alia said.
Oh come on, just tell us! Alice thought impatiently from outside the room.
"Romeo and Juliet is primarily about love. Love between the titular characters." Edward said finally, getting annoyed. "Shakespeare is writing about love and the tragedy that can destroy it."
Alia rolled her eyes. "Finish your thoughts, Edward."
If he could blush, he was sure he would have. Still, he raised his chin indignantly. "Romeo is the one that destroys that love through his carelessness and foolish behaviour. It's his fault Juliet dies."
"Because Juliet has no agency, of course."
"That's not what I said."
"Edward. Let Alia finish."
"Thank you, Esme." Alia smiled, revealing dimples, making Esme coo in her head. "I think the love story is too shallow to be Shakespeare's main point. What's more important are the family bonds. Romeo and Juliet are children who are like torn apart by a cruel world. They're not in love, really. They don't know any better. The love story is just a way to comment on the violence done by their families. If we're going to talk about fault, Romeo and Juliet are both equally innocent. "
"And there you have it." Edward snapped, listening to the minds around him race.
"You know what I think?" Alia leaned forward, dark brown eyes glittering.
"I have no idea." Edward said sarcastically. "Please, enlighten me."
"I think you have some weird need to relate to Romeo and that's clouding your judgement." He stiffened and she continued. "That's why it has to be all about how terrible Romeo is and about how he destroys everything."
"She's got a point, son." Carlisle muttered apologetically, heard by all but Alia. Even Rosalie let out a low whistle.
"So you're going to psychoanalyse me now?" Edward said coldly, not just to her.
"No!" Her eyes widened and she shook her head, some of that anxiety back. Her mind was beginning to suspect that she had offended him for good. "No. I just— I mean— I get the sense this story is important to you from the way you talk about it and that's why you hate my opinion so much."
From behind Alia, Esme was giving him a look that would have been clear enough even without her thoughts.
"If we can't agree…" he said slowly. "Then let's just accept our differences and move on."
That wasn't satisfying to her, nor was it for him, but there was no other alternative, so she nodded. He knew she'd move on from the topic eventually as soon as their essays on the play were sent in.
But she was right in ways she couldn't understand, so he couldn't move on. The play was important to him as was Romeo, a foolish boy who destroyed everything in his path and hurt those that mattered most. He did see himself in Romeo. He despised Romeo, which made the tragedy of poor Juliet all the worse.
If he were crueler, he would have responded to her observation about him and Romeo with her own fixations on certain characters in literature such as Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey, and Lucy Snowe: soft, reflective heroines that navigated the world othered and alone. But he didn't want to intentionally hurt her.
Your Juliet's coming. Alice grinned the next week as Alia approached the Cullen house in an oversized raincoat.
"Not Juliet." Edward ignored the teasing that had only been building since the true nature of their disagreement was revealed and stared at the small figure through the window ponderingly. He smiled sadly.
"She's my Mercutio."
