She recalled reading a newly published book in 1969, written by a Swiss-American psychiatrist called Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She hadn't particularly cared for the sciences then, nor indeed reading- but the title of the plain book had caught her eye. On Death and Dying. As someone afflicted with the unique disposition of chronic death, Rosalie Hale could only see the book as a self-help guide rather than a bereavement theorist's study of the proposed stages of grief.
The first stage was Denial. Rosalie had assumed Jules would not want to talk about her impending death, and yet she discussed it as casually as if she were bringing up the weather. This confused her, at first, until Rosalie realized Jules had skipped straight to the final stage- acceptance.
Which brought her to feel all the stages for her human best friend instead.
Lately, however, she seemed to linger on a singular emotion that encompassed all else. Her eyes burned with the bitter feeling, fists clenched so tight beneath the table that the whites of her knuckles actually looked paler than her porcelain skin. She was not glaring directly at Edward- pretending to be lost in thought with furrowed brows gazing outside the window- but she didn't have to glare at him for him to hear exactly how she felt about him within the confines of her mind. Or the boy would have- if he weren't so distracted by her friend.
They had grown closer over the past few weeks, noticeably enough that the students of Forks High had begun to whisper about a potential new couple. They would make for a pretty pair, even Rosalie had to admit, but the burning jealousy within her would never allow it. It was Rosalie's shoulder Jules was supposed to lean on for support, Rosalie's arms she was supposed to seek for comfort. It was supposed to be her job to take care of her, to watch her, to guide her into their new life. Rosalie hadn't had a true friend since she was human, one that accepted her for all that she was—and now Edward was stealing her away. Taking up valuable time of Jules' human months from her. Ruining her.
And the worst part was that Rosalie could not even tell if there was something more. It felt like it. It felt like the two shared secrets no one could understand, Jules' eyes lit up with roguish amusement, dancing with mischief as she stared directly into his with her jaw cupped by a hand, her elbow on the table next to her meal. Occasionally, she would eat something off her plate- too distracted with whatever she was thinking of to do it properly. Rosalie would watch as her fingers toyed with a green grape, raising it to her lips and not biting until she finally remembered its presence, sucking the juices as she went in vain as they slicked the tips of her fingers. In the micro-clarity of vampire sight, the subconscious act seemed on purpose. And maybe it was. Rosalie had never seen Jules flirt before, and perhaps she was the only one to bear witness to it from where she stared out the window beyond Jules' shoulder.
If it was, then she certainly was not the only one to be affected by it, she theorized irately. Edward's lips were stretched in a crooked, sly grin, eyes dancing with rare mirth. Gone was the morose boy she was least fond of out of her family. The brooding, sullen Cullen she had known all her immortal life was replaced by a charming, delighted boy—and she had never seen him express such prolonged happiness in the time she had known him. She felt insulted by his joy. Although Rosalie herself had never been attracted to the beautiful boy, she had always been offended that he shared in her mutual dislike. Rosalie had come to reason that her brother couldn't be attracted to anyone if he wasn't attracted to her or any of the Denali sisters. And now she could see this was not true with her own two eyes, and she could not help but blame Edward for it- because how could she blame Jules?
Jules was the sun. She exposed her, left her bare, and yet embraced her with such warmth and such genuine love- how could anyone not care for her? How could anyone not find delight in such a creature as her? No, she could not blame Jules, not even if she was flirting with her brother right in front of her- but she could yell at Edward in her mind all she liked.
Unfortunately for her, Edward could not hear her.
It had started out as a little game. On the Monday soon after The Great Revelation, Jules had found herself bored and restless, wondering why she even bothered with school at all if she was never going to live to see her own graduation. She had decided she needed more answers. She wanted to visit Carlisle again after school, having finely combed through the questions she had in her mind and written them down in the back of her physics notebook. By lunch her knee was bouncing, and she could not wait for the clock to tick down so she could go to the Cullen House after-school like Rosalie had promised she would drive her to.
The idea had come to her then. She didn't warn Edward, she wanted to see if he was listening anyway, peeking into her mind. He had said her thoughts were usually more visual, she wondered how visual. And so she fluttered her eyes shut and focused.
She was on the streets of Montmartre, skating on the cobblestone. She could feel every dipped groove of every brick beneath her, feel the warmth of the summer sun upon her skin. The buildings were not accurate, she couldn't remember the finer details, but occasionally she would skate past a café she visited with her friends, a vibrant image amongst the undefined buildings. Feeling Edward's eyes on her, she smiled, adding more to her careful curated mental movie. It took all of her focus to maintain the view she had when she skated through the streets, turning off on Rue du Cardinal Dubois. The Basilica's white domes were caught in the stark sunlight, the clear blue sky behind it the perfect backdrop as she rolled past. In her ears, she began to hear the perfect song.
Just a perfect day, drink absinthe in the park. And then later, when it gets dark, we go home. Just a perfect day. Feed animals in the zoo, then later, a movie, too, and then home. Oh, it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you. Oh, such a perfect day. You just keep me hanging on! You just keep me hanging on!
Edward had been ready to cry at the realization he could enter Jules' mind and not hear anyone else's.
They spent every lunch vacationing together in her mind. Edward had theorized that her gift of control allowed her to focus her thoughts so singularly that she could block out everything else, but Jules had cared less at the new information as she had the bombshell of what the first year of vampirism was like. The excruciating pain, the loss of one's self, the reduction to little more than a carnal animal, a monster- it was a tough pill for the girl to swallow. The moment she died, that would be the end of it. She would never be allowed to see Charlie again, it would be too dangerous. Her friends would assume she had gone missing, or they would stage her death. Or both. And so she had begun to spend even more time with Charlie than she had before, confusing the poor old grump she had for an Uncle. And at lunch, when Rosalie coveted the time they spent together, Jules would instead provide a once-daily respite for the boy forced to listen to over a hundred voices in his head all at once, and they would have fun doing it.
On this particular Wednesday afternoon, Jules and Edward were sat on an empty beach in broad daylight. She was having a cone of pistachio ice cream, her favourite, topped with a scoop of chocolate. While the scene around them was simple, Jules was focusing on the flavours as she licked. Edward had died amidst the first World War- he had never tasted the more unusual flavours of ice cream that existed now, and could only ever recall his mother buying him a vanilla cone when he did well at school. Through Jules' memory and powerful mind, he could taste the bursts of flavour mixing together on her tongue. The two had not noticed it yet, but through the process of their secret little mental vacations, they had begun to share a more intimate bond. One that his sister, amongst many others, mistook for more.
As if she could feel the attention of her blonde best friend upon her, Jules' thoughts shifted. The sound of waves crashing gently against the shore shifted. She was standing in the shallows of the water now, focusing on the feeling of the sand between her wiggling toes and the coolness of the sea pulling forward and pushing back against her bared calves. Her ice cream had vanished, the taste entirely gone as she began to wade further. The scene was unnatural, in a way. The beach was vast, but there were no people there. No driftwood, no rocks, nothing. The trees behind her shifted and flickered like a ripple on the surface of water, unclear and unfocused and undefined. There was nothing but fine sand beneath the water, no coral, no rock, no sense of life at all unless she, the goddess of her own world within her mind, chose to create it. To will it into existence. Edward was a mere voyeur, seeing through her eyes rather than next to her. In her mind's eye, she takes a deep breathe, the salt air settling upon her tongue as her face tilts like a sunflower toward the sun. Her eyes flutter shut, and then there is darkness.
I think I've begun to care quite deeply for your sister.
They are back in the cafeteria now. Edward expects to hear the barrage of thought from all others back again, to have to mute it out forcibly, to focus on a brick in the wall or a crack in the floor. Instead they are in the cafeteria, and he hears nothing but Jules and what she hears with her own ears. The conversations surrounding them are muffled, her attention and her eyes solely upon his own. He can see himself in her mind as if seeing in a mirror. It is a jarring experience, especially as she waits in total blank silence for his own reply.
"Mhmm." It's enough of an answer, he knows.
Ah. Yes or no questions, hmm? Flick your eyes just up if it's a yes, flick your eyes just down if it's a no.
He glances up to her eyebrows before bouncing back down to her technicolour eyes. A ring of dark blue made way for light, and then mint green before spikes of light brown broke out around her pupil. It seemed so mundane to call them hazel, when he could see the entire world in her eyes. Through her eyes.
You've seen what I think of her.
Again, his gaze goes up, and then down.
Do you think she knows?
This time, his gaze drops to her chin, and then back up, lips quirking crookedly with amusement. Rosalie was quite unaware of her little crush on the human they had chosen to protect, but Edward knew better. He had not seen Rosalie so vulnerable in quite some time. It was as if her entire life revolved around Jules savouring her own. Edward believed Rosalie wished to live through the girl at first, that their rescue mission had begun with a mere nagging guilt that the girl had no choice in her death much as the choice was stolen from Rosalie herself— but now he knew better. He knew the little spark had grown into a little flame. He found it humorously ironic how someone so self-involved could be so lacking in self-awareness.
Good. She cannot know.
This time, his smile falters. His eyebrow rises, a silent question he hopes she will understand.
Please? You've been so kind to keep so many of my secrets, mon ami. Just keep this one more.
He did not care for that. There might have been a time when Edward would have balked at the thought of two women together, but he had seen Jules in Rosalie's mind as much as he had seen Rosalie in Jules'. The way they saw each other, the amount they so selflessly cared for one another so soon…Edward did not think Rosalie would ever meet someone who tried so hard to understand her as much as Jules did. And yet, he felt as if he owed this one promise to her. To keep their secrets, to be her confidante as she was his own in some strange way. Jules soothed his loneliness, the ache in his heart that longed to feel the total acceptance only the human could provide for them all.
Like a protective brother, he bows his head gently in her direction, and it is worth it to see her relieved smile. He wondered how long she had been hiding this from him. Wondered how worried she had been, and what she was worried the fallout of her secret would be. It was not Edward's place to tell her Rosalie felt the same way, not when his sister was so utterly in denial about her own feelings. Instead he twitches an eyebrow up at her, a silent question.
He's sucked into her mind again. The sea is gone, and in its place is his sister, sat by her side in the familiar trees beyond his own home. A memory, he realizes, one she's dwelled on often from the clarity of the image.
"…Actually saw me behind all of this, and I…I felt human around you Jules…"
"I didn't want to lose the first real friend I've ever had since the day I died. I don't want you to die."
"…it makes me feel alive too."
He can tell she's keeping things from him from the way the words drift in and out of the scene while Rosalie's soft pink lips continue to move, a knot in her perfectly arched dark golden brows. Rosalie wasn't looking at Jules in that moment, his sister's focus far away, but something about the humble confession was enough to steal Edward's breath out of his lungs. Through Jules' eyes, Rosalie Hale was unbearably wonderful, both inside and out. It was as if she glowed from within, a soft golden light seeming to bask over her even though it didn't actually exist. There was this warm feeling that seemed to wrap around the scene like a thick, wool blanket- the memory treasured within. Was this how Jules always saw her?
How could I ever take that from her? How could I be the one to betray her like that? No, mon ami. She can never know that I am a fraud- a mere mortal caught under her spell the same as everyone else.
Jules turns away from his eyes toward Rosalie, the mere blink of her lashes enough to break the connection between them. The voices come flooding back, but Edward cannot hear any of them over Rosalie's screamed stream of consciousness.
"Rose?" Her soft voice is enough to jar the blonde, because she had never heard the nickname come from her lips before. Jules' eyebrows are furrowed with slight concern, eyes tired as if she had just woken from a dream. Or just tugged herself out of being lost in Edward's dreamy eyes. Rosalie could not help her internal eye roll as she felt the brunette slip a warm hand over her forearm under the table. "Hey, where did you go?"
"Just daydreaming." Rosalie lies, but she's certain only her family can tell. Alice is deep in a conversation with Emmett and Jasper to distract the latter, but the little smile on her lips makes her sister paranoid that the seer knows more. Edward is shooting her an affronted scowl, clearly unappreciative of her colourful vocabulary and threats.
"Do you want to go for a drive after school?" Jules offers with a smile. "We can go to Port Angeles, see a movie maybe."
"Mm-mm." Rosalie shakes her head, a little smile coming to settle on her face as she remembers what day today was. "We have plans this afternoon."
"Oh we do, do we?" Jules raised both her eyebrows up with a grin. "You know I dislike surprises."
"Only because you don't like someone else being in charge." Rosalie rolled her eyes. "I really should try to rid you of that terrible habit."
"I'd like to see you try." Jules laughs, and Rosalie realizes her hand is still on her forearm. The warmth and the weight feels nice, seeping through the sleeve of her jacket. "How long are our plans for?"
"It's not for too long, you'll be home before dinner." Rosalie promises her. Jules had planned to make Coq au Vin Blanc for dinner for Charlie and her, and Rosalie had spent most of last night mastering the dish in the kitchen with Esme and Jasper after Alice had a vision of her cooking it for them both in the Swan kitchen. They were going to be late getting home, Jules was going to rush up to take a shower and Rosalie was going to surprise her with dinner. She would never admit to being nervous about the afternoon ahead of her, not even to herself, but she could feel the flutter in her unbeating heart. "Charlie will be home late, around seven. He'll call you while we're out."
"Ah. Cool." Jules deflate a little, thinking her plans for a special dinner were ruined. Her attempt at a rustic white bread the day before had been a success, much to her glee, and she had been looking forward to dipping it into the dish her Mamie Éloise had taught her. A taste of home, how she yearned for it.
"You sound disappointed, sweetheart. Are you not looking forward to an afternoon with me?" Rosalie feigns hurt to garner her attention again.
"Well." Jules sighs dramatically. "Since I have nothing better to do-"
She receives a sharp smack to the shoulder for it, the entire table breaking into laughter at Rosalie's deep scowl.
