Author's Note: Here is the second chapter of Rosalie's story. It took me forever to finally start this, but hey, better late than never, right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Channie and I originally planned to be doing Carlisle's and Emmett's story after we finished Rosalie's and Esme's, but we changed our minds.. because, well, I have no idea what I'm going to do for Emmett's. So after this one and the one she's working on right now, you can expect the stories of Victoria and James, alright?

ATTENTION: Really long chapter. Wh00t.

Review mine and Channie's story.

Disclaimer: Stephenie offered me the rights to Twilight, but I just couldn't accept.

CHAPTER 2

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

I glanced away from the black and white TV screen, casting my gaze towards Carlisle's old grandfather clock that he had possisioned in the living room beside the couch. I looked back at th old '50s movie playing across the large screen of our television. A flimsy, dark-haired young woman was in the arms of a light-haired young man, and they were both displaying that dramatic climax scene where they kiss infamously.

An uneasy feeling settled in me, and I turned off the movie before the couple kissed. I had been feeling off since early in the morning before the sun had even come up.

Maybe that's what it is, I easily lied to myself, now throwing my gaze through the glass window and out into the blazing daybreak. Carlisle said that this was the clearest, brightest day that Forks had seen in almost three and a half decades. Needless to say, we had all stayed home with the exception of Edward.

He was gone, and had been all day. He had been gone before my uneasy feeling even occured, though oddly enough, I felt like blaming him for it. Because that's just how I was. And as if giving me said bad feeling wasn't bad enough, he had gone to spend the day with Bella, who was skipping school at his request. I didn't want him in the sun, especially not with a human. She could ruin everything. She would ruin everything.

I dropped my thoughts to notice a loud but unbothersome rustling coming from the attic. I moved up from the couch in a graceful stride and walked out of the room, over the platform that carried the piano, and started up the stairs. Jasper gave me a smirk when he saw me on his way coming down the stairs. He caught me by the wrist, turning me towards him after passing me downwards by only one of the steps.

"Edward wanted me to tell you something," he said.

"And what might that be?"

Jasper shrugged indirectly. "It must not have been that important - I wasn't paying attention, and he didn't seem to feel the need to repeat it twice."

My voice came out light and breezy, the opposite of what I felt. "Well, if it wasn't that important, I'll just ask him for myself when he comes back." I turned from my brother and started to go back up the steps, but he stopped me a second time by this time catching the loop of my jeans. Twisting my body around so that his grip slipped, I whirled and gave him a haughty look.

He looked at me nonchalantly. "Edward said he wasn't going to be coming home tonight."

"What?" My breezy town had slipped as I faultered, slightly taken aback. "Why wouldn't he come back tonight - he isn't really going to spend the night at Bella's house while her dad is gone, is he?"

"He spends the night at her house all the time." Jasper paused. "Rosalie, you can't really expect him to do anything with Bella. He's too much of a gentleman to try and do something. You know that, don't you?"

I glanced off in a vulnerable way. "Yes, but it's not Edward that I don't trust."

He gave me the same haughty look I had given him. He opened his mouth to say something, but Carlisle called his name from the garage before he managed to snap at me, which I could tell was exactly what he was going to do. He glanced back at me and sent pleasent waves towards me before hurrying down the stairs, although I neither accepted it, nor rejected it.

Whirling back around just as I started up the stairs again, I looked back at him. "Jasper," I called out in a sweet tone. He looked back at me expectantly. "Do you know where Emmett went?"

"No, Rosalie, I don't," replied Jasper.

My shoulders dropped a centimeter from their hopeful stance. I turned and ran up the rest of the staircase without saying anything else to him. The hallway lights were turned off, but I could still see perfectly in the dimmed area. I walked all the way down the hall and then moved into the half-empty room of the west side of our upstairs. We had never had an exact meaning for the room, and so the walls were painted a dull white and boxes were scattered here and there against the walls. I moved a few boxes out of my way, tugging on the cord that moved the entrance to the attic downwards. The folding staircase came tumbling out until I rested it on the floor, then began to the climb up to see where the loudening rustle was coming from.

Alice was the source of the all the rustling, of course. She was sitting on her knees in the farthest side of the attic. Her hands were fumbling with something in the most gracious way, and I quickly saw that she was fumbling with newspaper, the more precise location of the rustling.

"What are you doing?" I asked with a smile while I calmly moved through the entrance to the attic, slipping my slender and pale body completely out before standing. I closed the entrance quietly before approaching her.

She looked up at me with a sparkle in her eye. "It's a present."

Moving closer towards her and peering over her shoulder, I could see that she was using the newspaper as a makeshift wrapping. She picked up the tape beside my foot and held the paper over whatever she was wrapping, then put piece after piece of tape. After this, she took up more newspaper and started the same notion.

I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrows, glancing at her face. "Just how long have you been doing this, Alice?"

She grabbed another part of the newspaper. "I'm not sure, actually," she replied, her voice high and song-like. "But it was somewhere between the time that Edward leaving, and then Emmett leaving."

"Emmett left?" This was news to me.

"Yes, he came up here before he left looking for you." Alice looked up at me. "But you weren't here and I hadn't seen you all morning, so I told him that I didn't know. And then he just left."

Biting into the side of my cheek, I looked off towards the large square window on the wall beside the two of us. I was slightly irritated that Emmett hadn't told me he was leaving, especially without me on such a dull day, and a bit depressed that I didn't have him to kiss. He could just lay there on the couch with his head on my lap and I was completely satisfied. But without him around, I was vulnerable and bored.

"Did he go hunting?" My voice was breezy and almost lifeless.

"Not unless it's a very fast hunting trip," she murmured in reply, obviously having trouble with the fourth layer of newspaper I had watched her put on. "He told me he would be back later tonight." She paused again. "Or something."

I remembered Jasper mentioning that Edward wanting to tell me something. "Maybe he meant to say Emmett, and the name slipped." It was my turn to pause. "Or maybe I heard him incorrectly."

Alice looked up at me. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity," she said with a smile.

Laughing softly, I leaned back on my hands against the old vanity dresser. "The undead don't have to worry about sanity and insanity, Alice."

Her smile broadened. "Everyone has to worry about it. Dead, undead, and living."

"Dead?" I raised a light, perfectly plucked eyebrow.

"Dead," Alice confirmed easily, still smiling. She went back to her taping for a few seconds before stopping to look up at me. I examined the package and saw that it had thickened so much that it might double in size by the time she were to finish. She re-caught my attention, and I looked back at her petite form in the dim lighting across the room. "Did you say you had talked to Jasper?"

Nodding, but not really listening, I used my arm strength to pull me up so that I was sitting on the old vanity dresser I had been leaning against. The old dresser shook lightly under my body weight - which was mostly bone, muscle, and dead flesh - but I knew that it wouldn't snap under me. And even if it did, I wouldn't be hurt by it. I would be off and away from it before the wood of the dresser could actually break apart.

I lifted my face, light shedding onto it, and looked at Alice. "You said something?" Her words had been a blurr to me because I had been dazing off. I thought it had been something about Jasper, and I was right.

She didn't seem to care that I hadn't been paying complete attention. "Did you say you had talked to Jasper?" she repeated, not looking at me. She was too wrapped up in her present-wrapping. Her insane present-wrapping.

"Oh, yes, I passed him on the staircase."

"When you go back downstairs, could you ask him if he would come back up here?"

"Possibly, but I wasn't planning on going back downstairs."

Alice secured the tape to her eleventh piece of newspaper on the present and then sat down the tape in one quick motion. She leaned back on her heels, meeting my eyes with an unremovable smile on her perfectly set lips and small-featured face.

"Where were you planning on going then?" Alice asked.

I pursed my lips, then opened my mouth to reply, but there was a small problem in replying to my sister's question. I pressed my lips back together and tilted my head. "Nowhere," I murmured somewhat matter-of-factly to her.

She was already smiling wider in her knowing. "That's what I thought," replied the petite girl sitting on her knees infront of me before returning to her work. She leaned forward again on the hard-wood floor and lifted the present to sit her twelfth piece of newspaper under the present. Then, she proceeded to fold it around the present.

But I rolled my eyes and shook my head, hopping gracefully off the vanity and re-approaching her while she continued her process with the gift. "Alice, who is that gift for?"

That was really all it took. Her unremoveable smile left her beautiful face, and she stopped the notion of re-wrapping the present. She slowly leaned back and cocked her head before gazing up at me, almost cautious to say what she had to say.

"It's a present, Rose," she said.

"You already told me that, Alice," I murmured.

She looked off and nodded thoughtfully, but she didn't speak. I watched her expectantly for several passing minutes. The time may have seemed a long time to wait, but to vampires with a possible eternity to live out, it was closer to half a second.

"Who is the gift for?" I repeated steadily.

"Bella," she said, her body going limp as she looked up at me again. Her eyes emitted a helpless expression within them while she gazed up at me again.

I shifted uncomfortably, pressing my lips together and clenching my jaw. The look in her eyes made it nearly impossible to get upset. Nearly. I turned in a quick movement and walked back to the vanity, lifting myself back up to sit on it with a vicious look in my own eyes.

There was no point in not asking my questions. "Why are you giving her a gift?"

Alice looked thoughtful, fighting the smile on her face. "Monday is the anniversary of the first day Edward and Bella officially met, when he first talked to her. I'm giving her somewhat of an anniversary gift." She acknowledged all the newspaper. "The newspaper is for laughs, and to taunt her a little bit," she went on with an abrupt giggle afterwards.

Obviously, I was not giggling at all. "Really, I don't see why you would be giving her a gift when it's for hers and Edward's anniverary."

She dropped her grin lightly then, but gazed up at me reluctantly with a dazed smile on her face, a smile I remembered but couldn't recognize, or maybe vise versa. Her eyes hinted with something almost as powerful as that look she got in her eyes whenever Jasper said he loved her. And it was recognizing what that gaze reminded me of that got me lost in what she said next.

"Because that's just what best friends do," she said.

I tilted my head to the side. My lips spread in another vicious look, but I found myself just sitting there looking provacative instead of lashing out at her like I wanted to. But there was another something that made me stop from choking out my bitter words at Alice, besides the fact that I just couldn't. It was the feeling that over-came me aside from the irritation and vulnerability and anger. I quickly realized that it was the need to cry.

Just sitting there, trying to figure out what to say seemed like a waste of time. I struggled with the words that would leave her cringing, leave her breaking. When I couldn't figure them out, I finally choked out the thing I knew would leave her speechless to the point.

"You know, Alice," I murmured with a jagged and angry sob in my voice, "There was a time when I was your best friend. And I can still remember that time."

Alice removed herself from her daze - or rather yet, my words removed her. She stared up at me, the sun having shifted in the sky so that the light streamed onto her truely speechless and utterly broken expression of suprise and hurt.

But instead of waiting for her newly dazed reaction, I bounced off the vanity dresser and strutted towards the attic door. I pulled it open and quickly went down the steps with a bounce in my step, passing a large window in the upstairs hall while I headed for the staircase. Looking out into the brightly sunshing sky and much too green setting, I scowled.

-

The front door opened and closed downstairs, followed by someone coming up the stairs very quickly, as though they were anxious. I could hear this all from mine and Emmett's bedroom, where I lay on the emerald and gold colored sheets of our bed.

I opened my eyes and sat up, gazing straight ahead at the off-white walls for several passing seconds before I moved up and away from the bed. The sound of footsteps had faded lightly, causing me to think it was Edward coming home, although he had said that he wouldn't be home tonight because of Bella.

My pale bottom lip twitched at the thought of her name, but I shook her memory from me and looked solemnly out the window. In our driveway, I had expected to see Edward's silver Volvo parked close to the garage where he was parked his cars, but it wasn't there. Instead I saw Emmett's yellow Jeep beside my red convertible.

A feeling of anxiety rushed over me when I realized Emmett was finally home, although it was placed by confusion as to the dissappearence of whoever's footsteps I had just heard. They must have gone down the hallway, and why would Emmett go down the hallway when -

There was no time for me to finish my thoughts. I had opened the door while pondering this, and there was Emmett, standing in the doorway with a mischivious grin on his face. Just as I opened my smooth lips to say something, Emmett was pushing hard against me. His lips were on mine, and his icey hands were around my waist.

Even though I didn't need to breathe, I still gasped for breath when he pulled his lips from mine. He leaned his forehead against mine and grinned wickedly at me again. I tilted my head back slightly, enjoying the feeling of his rangled, own unneeded breath clashing with mine.

"What was that-"

He cut me off again, and almost seemed to enjoy doing so. I let out a muffled mmpmh as his lips were roughly pushed against mine for the second time, my remaining words being shoved back down my throat. But I wasn't annoyed by him doing that. I couldn't be upset when I loved this so much, loved him. And so I kissed back furiously for a couple of minutes until he pushed me back onto our bed, grinning.

I tilted my head back and started to laugh. "Can I ask my question now?"

Emmett chuckled. "Of course."

"What was with the Hollywood-styled kiss?"

"It was because I missed you, that's all," he murmured and gave me another peck on the lips before kissing towards my neck.

I responded by smiling and closing my eyes. "Where did you go?"

He kissed along my jawline. "Seattle," he murmured against the hollow of my icey throat. His kisses moved closer and closer until they were on the faded bitemarks from when Carlisle had changed me years and years ago.

"Why didn't you take me with you?" I tried to whimper it, but I was too much into my love and infatuation that all I could do was sort of sigh while the words slipped out.

"Because I couldn't find you." He moved up and kissed me on the lips again, hard, and I was in much too deep to try and argue that I had been in the living room all the time. He had pushed me so far in that I couldn't try and say anything.

His hands slipped up my signature red tank top and snaked them around to the small of my back. I lifted lightly and let him pull me up the rest of the way. The top slipped over my head, and my long blonde hair tossled over my shoulders as he pushed me back sweetly onto the bed. His hands found their way to my jeans after kissing me for a few minutes. He had them unbottoned and unzipped in half a second, and then he was gently yanking them off of my viviacious pale legs.

The shirt's coming off. I smiled wickedly against the kiss before drawing back, only to quickly pull Emmett's shirt. He grinned, mumbling that he loved me, and pushing his lips against mine once more before he would let me reply.

My lips spread when he broke the same kiss himself. A faint squeel escaped my lips, meaning to be the I in I love you, but a sound coming from outside bothered my thoughts. I immediately knew that it was the sound of a car door shutting in our driveway.

Emmett gave me a vulnerable look when I sat up on our bed, causing him to lean back from his possision on top of me. "Rose, what's wrong?" he asked impatiently. His voice hinted lust, but of course there was love in there as well.

"Someone is here."

"Of course someone is here, Rose. Six people live in this house."

I rolled my eyes at his cold humor and lightly pushed him off me, moving quickly towards our window to peer out into the dimly lighted area of our driveway. Emmett was murmuring my name from behind me, asking me to come back to bed. Practically begging me, actually. He also informed me that I was just in a black bra and underwear. Whoever was standing outside would have been clearly able to see my figure if they so much as glanced up, but I didn't care that much.

The car door that had just shut belonged to Edward's Volvo. He was walking around to the passenger's seat, a dazed and nearly stupid - but still charming - grin on his moonlit face as he moved to open the door. I cursed under my breath, knowing too well who was in the car.

And I was right. Bella stepped out of the silver car, glancing up meekly at Edward while she moved towards him to let him shut the door. She turned to follow him into the house, but stumbled like she always did and nearly hit the hard ground. But Edward caught her quickly and easily before her pale and untoned form could hit the cement. I scowled at the lucious smile he gave her when she blushed scarlet.

Blushing. That was just the blood rushing to her cheeks, the blood that Edward wanted. I bit into my lip angrily, and turned slowly. Leaning against the windowsill, I mumbled a few choice curse words. How could she be so stupid as to let all that blood into her face while with a vampire?

Emmett was suddenly pressing his body against mine. He titled my chin up and attempted to look into my golden eyes, though I had averted them in hatred toward the human, and in thought. His voice was low and beautiful when he spoke.

"What's wrong, love?"

I didn't say anything in reply, though let him lean towards my neck to lay kisses there and on my jawline once more. But instead he glanced up just in time to see Edward and Bella entertaining the house while exchanging small talk. He growled loudly and jerked away from me.

"You're this upset just because she's here?"

"He shouldn't bring her here," I rejected coldly. "Doesn't she get that we could kill her?"

"I'm sure she gets you want to kill her." He folded his arms across his chest, obviously angered by the way Bella could make me act so immature and vicious. That's how he thought I acted, at least, but actually, I was acting sensible.

My eyes faultered towards his face slowly. "No, Emmett. Don't give me that look."

Emmett clenched his jaw in place. "Why not, Rosalie? You get so upset around her. Why? I don't understand it, honestly. You're so much better than her - so much more beautiful, so what does she have that you want so badly?"

"She has humanity," I murmured absently, glancing behind me through the window. I could sense that they were sitting on the porch swing on the far right of the porch.

"Yes, and you have eternity," he replied quickly. "With me." He said the last words quietly and lovingly before moving towards me and touching my cheek to make me look at him. He almost looked sad that I was so upset about this, about her, or that I was upset at all. "I love you, Rosalie, and if you hadn't been changed, you never would have found me."

I couldn't help but glance up weakly at him. My lips pursed, and I tried to keep still. But I still moved closer to him despite all of my will-power, the look in my eyes surely enough to make him know just how much Edward not being with Bella meant to me. The one person I hated in the one place I hated. Awful.

"Why does Edward want her?" I couldn't help but ask the question helplessly, even when Emmett sighed in surrender and leaned away slightly from me. "I could understand if he wanted to ruin all of this for some drop dead gorgeous female, but she is nothing."

He looked at me quickly. A new emotion filled his eyes, clashing with the irritation and the anger from all of this. It was jealousy, and I quickly figured out what that jealousy was for.

"Edward loves the girl, Rosalie! We've all learned to accept it, and I don't understand why you can't just get your head around that one, single fact!" He paused. "Why do you care so much?"

I could feel my voice was getting colder. "Because it could ruin everything."

Emmett shook his head, then turned quickly and walked towards our bed. He grabbed his shirt in one quick movement before pulling it over his head to put it on. He was eerily silent while he moved around our bed to our closet. When he opened the closet door, pulled out his bag, and started grabbing close, I felt my world shatter.

"Please, please, don't say you're leaving." My voice was suddenly weak and full of restrained sobs while I nearly begged him not to even tell me that he was leaving, if he really were.

He shook his head again and zipped the bag up. "Sometimes I wonder if you care so much about him wanting this girl because maybe you are the one that wants him," he mumbled.

My body went numb. "Emmett," I choked out. "Please, you can't really be serious about that."

His eyes blackened, and he looked up at me while throwing the bag over his shoulders and making the same trip around the bed, and towards the door. "I'm serious, Rose." He had a broken voice.

I moved forward and caught him by the forearm, giving him a desperately loving look. "No, Emmett. No. I love you, and not Edward. How could you even think that? My hate for Bella has nothing to do with those kinds of feelings towards Edward!" My voice broke, now, too.

And he stood there, staring at me with that bittersweet love in his eyes. He looked just as desperate as I felt at that moment, and he looked like he were really considering if he should leave, or stay here with me. He chose the worst of the two.

"Rosalie, I'm sorry," Emmett said quietly before leaning closer to give me a kiss on the cheek. He seemed as though he wanted more than anything to kiss me like he had earlier, but he wouldn't let himself. I tried to kiss him myself in hope that could make him say, but he turned and walked quickly down the hall before I could even speak.

I felt sick realizing he had actually left. He had left, and I couldn't help but worry that he might not come back for much too long. I let out a strained, almost broken sob. My dead heart was only breaking harder because I couldn't do anything about it. I just wouldn't be able to reach him in time, meaning I couldn't make him come back. The only thing that could was how much he loved me and would miss me. Knowing he loved me and would miss me too much to be away for too along should have eased my heart break, but it didn't.

Bella. Maybe she had finally ruined everything, or maybe it was me who had ruined it.

I feel like walking the world
Like walking the world
You can hear she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
She fills up every corner like she's born in black and white
Makes you feel warmer when you're trying to remember
What you heard
She likes to leave you hanging on a wire