She spent her Sunday counting down the ticks of her clock like a fool. Jules could feel it, feel that she was teetering on the precipice of some great big cataclysmic event in her life, the adrenaline of anticipation pumping in her veins. She did not wish to admit it, but she could feel the way it had began to cloud her judgement.
She hadn't got much of her work done. She'd had a hard time sleeping since Friday, tossing and turning, the deep lull of dreams eluding her overactive mind. She could've sworn she had jumped bolt upright on a few occasions with goosebumps erupting all over her skin- but there was never anything lurking in the shadows beyond her vision, never any glowing eyes staring at her through the curtains like she envisioned in her nightmares. This was why she had slept until noon on Saturday, and why she had repeated the same routine on Sunday.
Had it not been for her alarm waking her up quite rudely on Monday morning with the blaring snares of Eye of the Tiger, Jules probably would've slept in once more. Instead she glared slits at her ceiling as the loud song continued to bang on somewhere behind her head from the radio clock. Fuck off.
Jules was lucky her alarm clock flew out of the shelf and got yanked back by it's own cable- Charlie would not have appreciated her smashing something he had scavenged just for her. Her hand drops from where she had aimed it in the general direction of the clock, the image of it flying out of it's shelf fading in her mind as a familiar face replaced it instead, the abrupt end to the song bringing her attention to the sound of rain slamming harshly against her window.
Rosalie would be coming as promised, then.
It wasn't a difficult prediction to make, rain in Forks, but something about the way things fell so perfectly into place unnerved her. Not for the first time, Jules felt as if there was something she was missing, just out of reach from her understanding. Pieces in a puzzle she could not make out the final picture of.
An hour later, exactly as she had promised in her warning text, Jules found a now familiar red BMW parked out on the curb, using an umbrella to get to it as quickly as she was able as the rain sloshed down hard. The weather was the kind she loved to sleep to, the promise of rolling thunder in the far distance an assurance that this was going to last quite some time. The perfect weather to lie in bed and never emerge. Instead, she rushed to get into the passenger seat of the car as swiftly as possible, trying in vain to keep the rain out and keep from getting the expensive Napa leather seats wet.
Rosalie looked lovely as ever, a strange look of relief on her face as Jules struggled to shrink down the telescopic handle of her compact black umbrella. It was as if she had been worried that some strange tragic fate might have befallen her on her journey from her front door to the car. "Good morning to you too."
"Why does everyone always greet me like that?" Jules was trying to be cordial, but the lack of sleep had brought forth her usual morning demeanour, a scowl set on her pretty features as she set the umbrella on the floor of the car, between her boots. Rosalie chuckled, shifting her car into drive and pulling off from the curb as Jules sighed and leaned back in relief, sipping her coffee with one hand while bringing the seatbelt around her with the other. "Good weekend?"
"It was…enlightening." Rosalie takes a moment to settle on the right word. Jules raised an eyebrow at her over her steaming coffee. "How about you? Get any work done?"
"Do you actually care?"
"Yes." Rosalie's eyebrows knot together, and Jules feels the guilt ebb away at her.
Shit. "I'm sorry- I'm not a morning person."
"I gathered as much." Rosalie's tone is flat, but the amusement is back in her eyes. Jules grumbles under her breath, but she swears she can see Rosalie's lips twitch upward. "I have a question."
"You're an exceptionally curious creature, aren't you?" Jules regards her, recalling how oddly intrusive and commanding the blonde had been the last time they had spoke. Rosalie's lips twitch upward again this time, only into a wicked smirk that Jules is grateful she can only see half of because it's enough to knock the breath out of her lungs.
"Why don't you let your friends drive you to school?" Rosalie directs at her.
"My friends don't go to my school." Jules answers, used to this topic from her arguments with Ella who had offered for her to carpool with her and her friends repeatedly after this summer, when she had finally gotten her car and license.
"The tall girl from the volleyball team?" Rosalie frowned.
Jules squints at her. "You've been watching me?"
"You sat alone in the cafeteria. I was curious." She shuts down quickly, and Jules hates how prepared the blonde always seemed to be, armed and ready in their every conversation. She could never throw her off.
"Her name is Ella, her mother is the school nurse." Jules supplies, in case Rosalie might ever end up there. Inevitably, everyone in school did at least once. If nothing else then because of the cafeteria food. Jules turns with a sigh, eyes on the way the car's speed made the rain fly by like stars in lightspeed in a Star Wars movie. "If I accepted a ride with her I would also have to ride with Stacy- avoid Stacy at all costs."
"Yes ma'am." Rosalie's soft voice was filled with amusement at her dry warning. "So…you're not friends with Ella?"
Jules shrugs, letting out a soft non-committal noise as she took another sip of coffee before reluctantly putting the cup down, knowing she would need to save it for her first few periods. "You don't enjoy spending time with her."
"She's kind." Jules argues. "We share the same humour perhaps, kindred spirits, but we do not share the same interests. She has her friends, I have mine. Mais alors, we do pair up on group projects when we get the opportunity, I suppose."
"School friends." Rosalie deduces, and Jules nods. "Your real friends?"
"They live on the Quileute Reservation."
Rosalie's jaw clenches, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. Jules is too busy staring out the window wistfully to notice. "I don't spend as much time with them as I used to. I think we've begun to drift apart."
"You're lonely." Rosalie's tone finally draws her back into the car, into the present, realizing she had just bared her soul as easily as discussing the weather to a near perfect stranger. Rosalie's eyes were glued to the road ahead of her, but Jules could see the heartbreak swimming within them. How strange.
"I must be." Jules muses with a hum, having considered it before. "To overshare with a stranger on the way to school- that's pretty pathetic even by my standards. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." Rosalie shakes her head. "I…I find myself…curious, about you."
Jules frowns, opening her mouth to question that revelation, but Rosalie is quick to cut her off.
"Besides, we're not real strangers, are we? I like to think we're friends." Her smile is dazzling, enough so that Jules is momentarily distracted, staring like a deer caught in headlights.
"I don't think we should be friends."
And there it was. The decision had flitted in and out of her thoughts repeatedly over the weekend, over the implication of Rosalie Hale spending time regularly in her house, in her near proximity. There were a great multitude of reasons why Jules thought it was a bad idea, and each one had solidified her decision in her mind. The first was her inhuman attraction to the girl- she could not wrap her head around her feelings, could not comprehend the depth to them, the very intoxication of her mere presence that had left her so befuddled for twenty four hours afterwards. Jules had never felt emotions so strong about a stranger, and something deep in her gut told her that these feelings were off. That there was something else at play here, something she was not yet privy to.
On the other hand, she could not bear the thought of being around the subject of her affections for extended periods of time and being mere friends. The two sides to her attraction warred wildly against each other, fighting for a course of action that she did not under any circumstances want to take. The blonde was a goddess, but a great percentage of her logical mind was certain she was straighter than a Roman road. She would not dare impose her own feelings on someone who could not reciprocate. It was not Rosalie's fault, and she would not subject her to the doomed end result should they continue to interact.
The second reason to her desire to cut ties with the blonde was more her head than her heart. She didn't know what it was, but there was something off about the Cullens, and by now she was certain she did not wish to unearth any secrets they held. It was not in her nature to chase danger when she could so clearly sense it. Her self-preservation had always been one of her strong suits, and if it made her a coward, then so be it.
"Have I offended you?" Rosalie sounded hurt, and Jules feels the bitter twist of a knife in her heart at the knowledge that she had caused that hurt.
"No…I just don't think it's a good idea." Jules tries to make her understand, but her usual clever words fail her now. "I think you should drop me off at school today and we should go our separate ways."
"I wouldn't enjoy that." Rosalie argues, tone still unbearably soft. Gods, why do you sound so soothing? "Do I not get a say in whether or not I get to be your friend?"
"You're more than welcome to." Jules chuckles bitterly. Do you have to make this so hard? "I just don't recommend it. Trust me. I'm not worth it."
"On the contrary, I find you to be the only technicolour teenager in all of pleasantville."
She hates that. She hates that Rosalie Hale is cultured enough to reference a movie most kids their age didn't even know existed. Hated that she was able to capture her own feelings for the people of Forks in a mere sentence so perfectly. Hated that she could seemingly see inside her very soul and read the pages within as if they were a book she had read a thousand times. Why do you have to be so perfect? Fuck you.
Rosalie mistook her silence for confusion. "It's a movie about-"
"I know." Jules answers, soft. Rosalie smirks smugly, turning back to the road as she turned the corner into the parking lot. She could hear the resignation in Jules' tone, the surrender in her voice. "Are you sitting with me in class today?"
"Do you want me to?" Rosalie asks. Jules shrugs, reaching down to prepare her umbrella. "Emmett and I could use a buffer. We spend too much time together as it is."
Oh. "Right. You're together."
Ella had texted her all the gossip over the weekend, filling her in on all she had missed in the week she lost to the flu. Rosalie's bright peal of laughter surprises her, raising an eyebrow at the blonde.
"What, me and Emmett? Don't be silly doll, he's my brother." Rosalie pulls up into the parking spot next to the silver wrangler, graciously unoccupied at the moment. In fact, no one was lingering the parking lot as students often did, the weather would not allow for it. Jules knew the corridors were going to be busier than ever that morning, and she prepared herself mentally for the warpath she would have to carve out to get to her locker in time. A part of her tingled still, oddly relieved in the confirmation that Rosalie was not with the gorgeous, large behemoth of a boy, but even more so flustered that she had slipped and called her doll. "What about you? Any boys tickle your fancy?"
This sounded like a weighted question. There was an odd airy quality to Rosalie's tone, as if she were putting on a show where she hadn't before. Jules squinted at it, waiting for the blonde to reach into her console, fishing out a neatly put away compact umbrella of her own- cherry red, just like her car.
"Not lately." Jules decides to be vague. She feels the need to reassure the blonde as they open the doors together, popping open their umbrellas and stepping out swiftly to save the seats once more. "I've decided not to date until university."
Rosalie's mood seems to drop at once, and Jules catches the shift, curious once more as she crosses around the car to join the blonde, her backpack still over her shoulders, her coffee tumbler still in her free hand. Their umbrellas bump into each other as they fall into step together, but Rosalie adjusts hers to be lower than Jules'. "Why wait?"
"Boys my age are unbearably disappointing." Jules glowers, taking a sip of coffee as the rain spatters against her shoes. "Why waste my time?"
"An authentic high school experience involves a boyfriend, doesn't it? A prom date, someone to carry your books to class. Someone to drive you home." Rosalie offers.
"I don't need a boy to make me feel complete." Jules rolls her eyes, dismissing the mere notion. Her lips twitch upward ruefully. "Besides, I seem to have met a very persistent blonde who insists on driving me everywhere. So that's sorted."
Rosalie smirks, a soft huff of air escaping her lips as they walk up the concrete steps, putting away their umbrellas from the shade of the tin roof cover. "You forgot to add gorgeous to that list of adjectives."
Jules can't help but laugh.
