WOW! I don't deserve your kind words, but I appreciate your encouragement and love! Here's a new extended chapter! Thank you so much for your reviews! I LOVE hearing your thoughts and appreciate your time sharing them with me. It makes my day to see what you've written.
This chapter is in Rosalies POV again and I loved writing a conversation between she and Carlisle that I imagined was necessary given the circumstances.
This chapter also deals with one of the biggest things I was curious about in the Twilight series: Edward spent time away from Esme and Carlisle hunting exactly the kinds of men that would end up killing Rosalie... I can't imagine this conversation never came up between them, and I can't imagine Rosalie wasn't invested in some way in the thought that if it had been a different place or a different time, Edward would've killed Royce and those men... Edward hunted murderers and rapists and lowlives, but found absolute morality right before it would've changed everything for Rosalie...
Thank you so much for reading! Enjoy!
Blinding
Seems that I have been held, in some dreaming state
A tourist in the waking world, never quite awake
No kiss, no gentle word could wake me from this slumber
Until I realize that it was you who held me under
Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs
No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone
No more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden
No more dreaming like a girl so in love, so in love
Rosalie - Timing is Everything
For two weeks I scrubbed my skin again and again and again, fixating on the idea that I could scrub him off of me.
If I could cry, I would've figured it out by now, but currently I was tearless and silent as the cold water ran down my back under my millionth shower in two weeks.
Again, I scrubbed my skin until I imagined I'd start a fire with the friction.
I hadn't known how to process or react to Emmett blindsiding me like that, so I retreated into myself to try and come up with a plan. I couldn't be caught without my defenses up. I wouldn't let myself be taken by surprise with him ever again.
I hadn't expected him reveling in such darkness after his first human kills, then when he put his arms around me, it was solidified that… I really didn't know him.
And this terrified me.
Emmett was a stranger that I had naively recognized as familiar, but now it became evident the distance between us that he had stupidly tried to bridge at the most inopportune time.
I expected him to know better, but honestly… Maybe he didn't.
Well, I couldn't forget that easily.
However, I hadn't made him suffer.
It wasn't me.
That was Carlisle. He and Edward had tortured Emmett so I didn't even have to.
Carlisle had thought it was a good idea to let Emmett get thirsty after his last human kills and "clean" his system…. He had a theory so naturally, he'd been testing it by letting Emmett get ravenously thirsty, and I couldn't stand to see him like this so I didn't even open my door.
There was no privacy in this godforsaken hell, so in my own suffering upstairs in the fortress of my tower, I was a distant witness to Emmett's suffering too.
Carlisle and Edward had gone back to square one retraining Emmett to hunt only animals. After what happened, it was intensely difficult to rein Emmett back in, and Carlisle had insisted on more time…
He and Edward had tried unsuccessfully to get me to open my door and help them with Emmett, but Edward knew my thoughts enough to know this wasn't going to happen.
It wasn't that I'd left him to suffer without me for his own punishment, though I did think he deserved it because I hated him for his unsolicited advances.
It was mostly that Emmett was too dangerous for me to be around when he was that thirsty. Emmett was impossibly thirstier because he knew what he was missing now. He wanted blood so badly it transformed him into exactly what I'd feared he was at his change.
He was a monster.
He was starving so he'd gotten wilder and more unpredictable…
He was absolutely out of control.
I couldn't watch them starve him, but even under my constant stream of water, I still heard his misery. In an odd way, I reveled in my own suffering because I couldn't bear to hear him suffering alone so I got thirstier myself, not even leaving my room to hunt.
However much my throat burned though sent me further and further into moping depression at how much I hated this life.
I felt my own thirst and got drearily melancholic.
I could control the smoldering oven of my throat and masochistically push myself, but Emmett couldn't. He was desperate, begging, and pleading with Carlisle and Edward and Esme.
It was heart wrenching to hear him beg like that…
Then, within the next breath he was horrifying, monstrous and threatening to kill them.
He was like an addict in withdrawal, vibrating with energy and despair for the one thing he wanted more than anything.
Then finally, Emmett broke.
It was like bending a pencil over and over and over, pushing until the wood finally split. It was a clean quick snap, nothing showy or dramatic. Just a final, immediate change.
"Please." Emmett's raspy, tired voice was full of hopelessness, but this time it was cognizant real desperation in his tone that suggested he was presently in his mind and asking instead of the monster within.
Then, they were gone, and they'd stayed gone for over a week.
I presently sat down under the water stream again, bringing my knees to my chest.
I wondered how many gallons of water I'd let pour over me these past two weeks. How many showers and baths had I taken?
Impossibly, Emmett's scent still lingered on my skin, or at least my imagination put it there and I was overwhelmed.
It was uninvited and looming.
He wouldn't get out of my head.
My breath caught in my throat, and I ducked my head between my knees as if this could shake him, closing my eyes as the water beat down on the back of my neck.
All I saw was him… With those awful red eyes. I felt him everywhere and it was stifling.
The water though felt warm on my skin, even though I'd now turned it to scald. Steam rose off my cold skin at the reaction and I watched it in disgust.
My fingers reached for the drain plug, letting the bathtub fill around me.
I closed my eyes and submerged, loving the sound of the water churning around my ears.
It quieted my senses to almost normal.
I could stay under this heavy water forever.
Then, I heard a light knock at my door but didn't bring my head out from under the water.
Esme would get tired of trying to reach me eventually.
I inhaled all the water I could to try to drown myself, but it didn't work of course. The venom processed the water so my lungs didn't.
There was truly no solace in this life.
The knock gave way to a voice calling for me.
How long had I been under water? Behind my closed eyes, it was now light pink so I knew sunlight now shone through the window. It wasn't night anymore.
It had been at least six hours.
"Rosalie?" Carlisle's voice was calm, collected and even as it always was on the other side of the door.
Now though, it held a tinge of stress.
I sat up from under the water but didn't answer.
"Rosalie." Carlisle repeated my name. "Come downstairs. Now that we're back and things have settled we'd like to discuss something as a family."
A family. I snorted.
He heard me of course and sighed.
I wrapped a towel around myself, my cursed, beautiful body.
"As a coven." He corrected for my sake. "As a group."
"I'm unfit to entertain company." I responded evenly and annoyed.
My thirst made me more irritable, but my depression kept me in check and unable to leave my room even to hunt.
"We'll wait." Carlisle assured.
"Can I speak with you alone first though?" He asked after a moment.
I knew his intentions were nothing but pure and golden and as perfect as he was, but he was still a man and I still distrusted him.
I didn't rush to respond, or to dress myself.
"Rosalie, it's very important." Still he waited at the door.
With my hair still wet, but a cotton house dress on now, I finally opened my door for the very first time in two weeks.
No one had seen me so undone, but I was depressed, Carlisle's presence was looming, and I was anticipating his conversation so I let him in before I'd even fixed my hair or make up.
I heard Emmett stirring downstairs.
He stayed.
Something about this almost bubbled up some happiness, but it quickly flickered out.
Carlisle met my eyes, but I didn't allow him a very long look at me. I floated to sit in front of the mirror, brushing through my perfect golden blonde hair and staring into my eyes to present a distant disinterest in whatever he had to say.
He left the door open, though it was unnecessary. Everyone could hear anyway if they wanted to.
"It's about Emmett." Carlisle began.
I figured as much. I tried not to look interested.
Without a response, Carlisle went on.
"We haven't… discussed his change."
I would've played dumb and asked what there was to discuss, but that seemed ignorant and excessive. Instead, I chose another route.
"We have not." I said, over-pronouncing my words.
"This… Well, changing Emmett was difficult for me." He took a deep breath, and it made me nervous.
Was he trying to make me feel bad?
I continued the brush through my hair again and again focusing on keeping the strokes even. I hoped he wasn't telling me he regretted it.
"Emmett… Well, he was the first one of you that I changed for something other than companionship or…. like with you I passed my own judgement for what I believed was mercy… The brutality of… It was… too…"
I felt my stomach drop to my knees and my throat tightened so I thought it was going to explode.
Carlisle cleared his own taut throat, seeming to retract where he was going with that.
"Rosalie, I changed Emmett for you." Carlisle began again, worry and ancient pain that looked to old for his young, immortal face.
"I didn't ask any questions." He expanded.
I clenched my jaw, looking down at the refractions of light on my bottles of my perfume.
He waited, standing behind me in my view of the mirror. He wanted me to thank him, but the words wouldn't leave the bottom of my throat. I couldn't do it.
"I went back on a vow I made to myself after… after you. I vowed I'd never again do this to anyone…" Carlisle spoke slowly and it was making me nervous. "But, I would do it again and again for you, if that secured you any happiness."
He was trying to prove himself to me. Men did that.
I exhaled.
"With all that said though Rosalie, I changed him without any expectations of you." Carlisle's voice was annoyingly soothing.
My stomach churned, but I just nodded.
"I trusted your intuition and your decision making when I changed Emmett." Carlisle expanded. "Now that he's changed and time's moving, I want to remind you of that."
I stopped brushing my hair for a moment.
"I trust you, Rosalie. I know you aren't impulsive. You're very calculated and meticulous, so I know that you have a very good reason for stepping in at his death. I trust whatever that reasoning was, and I don't ever expect you to explain anything to me."
I hated these interventions Carlisle and Esme were always insistent upon.
It was suffocating.
I took a deep breath.
"Very well." I responded the only way I knew - distance.
"I'm here for you if you want to talk, about any of it. I remember when I turned Esme…"
This was different. This was different and he should know that.
He read the displeasure in my expression, and cut himself off.
"I know it's very different, but in many ways it's the same. Esme truly struggled in the beginning too. It absolutely broke my soul to see her lapse, and I saw how hard her journey toward self-control was, and often still is. Emmett is struggling with our lifestyle, and he very well may always struggle, but he's very lucky to have our family to guide and support him in this. He will be able to do this."
"I know." I swallowed.
"But Rosalie, I know he disappointed you." Carlisle directed.
I just nodded wordlessly. Carlisle would ultimately misinterpret my reasoning, but Emmett did disappoint me. Thank God Emmett wasn't Edward, but I did wish before he'd… reached for me like he did, that he'd been able to read my mind. I didn't just dislike it… I hated it.
I think…
All I knew was that I had a pit in my stomach ever since.
I felt different now. I felt certainly unsafe around him.
"I know what you're going through." Carlisle tried.
Immediately, I was filled with defensiveness and rage. I was alert and acutely aware of Carlisle now and I felt intruded upon.
He didn't know what I was going through. He had no idea. No one knew. I didn't like people imagining they knew me and all that I experienced. He didn't know me. He knew his idea of me.
Still though, I maintained an icy coolness as I put mascara on my already impossibly black and long eyelashes. I fixated my thoughts on my beauty and maintenance of it as something I could control.
"On top of all of Esme's own struggles in transformation, I was struggling too." Carlisle told me confidentially.
"It was difficult wanting to connect with Esme but feeling like there was this… separation between me and the person Esme was underneath the blood lust." He tried opening up to me in hopes it would make me trust him more. "We were at intensely different spots in our journey. I wanted to know her, to laugh with her, to hear her stories, to tell her mine… But, it took a while for her to be ready for that. I had to be selfless in a way I'd never been before, and extremely patient. But, it was well worth it. "
I was angry Carlisle was making comparisons. Carlisle knew Esme. He already loved her. This with Emmett… Who knew if I could fall in love with him? Maybe he couldn't even fall in love with me.
Is love even what I wanted?
He waited so I knew I had to respond.
"I understand." I breathed.
No doubt he wanted me to open up more, but I couldn't.
I felt like I was being lectured again. But while Edward was self-righteous, Carlisle really was a saint.
"I noticed Emmett tried to connect with you." Carlisle spoke clinically like he was diagnosing an illness.
My hairbrush snapped in my hands. God.
His eyes searched my face seeming to look for my response and reaction to it. He noticed the stress that caused me to forget to wrangle in my cursed vampiric strength.
"That's immense progress for so early in his transformation." Carlisle acknowledged, still trying to read me. "Truly. He wants to know you very badly then. Through all of what his first newborn year entails, he wants to know you. He's trying, Rosalie."
"Yes." I furrowed my brow, keeping my eyes from him, twisting my hair up and back away from my face although I desired only to hide behind it.
In an unconscious way, I knew there was something about wearing my hair off my neck that made me look exceptionally exquisite, and there was the promise of seeing Emmett again.
In this moment though I couldn't acknowledge that unconscious thought. Carlisle made me feel like one of his patients under observation. His eyes were heavy and inquisitive.
If vampires could blush, he would've seen me turn scarlet.
I put on lipstick so I wouldn't have to talk any more, because as distant as I am in most subjects, I am truly unapproachable when it comes to my emotions and my experience of them.
"I trust you and your decisions." He repeated, wanting to make sure I heard this. "And, I changed him for you without stipulation. Obviously, I want you to find… love like Esme and I have, and I have to tell you honestly that I hoped when I changed him that he could be that to you…"
If I could blush, I would have, but I also got intensely angry and defensive. Carlisle read this in my eyes.
"But, if he isn't, I could never be upset with you for changing your mind because I changed him and I made that call. He will live this life with us or apart from us, but I don't expect anything from you, Rosalie. I take responsibility for changing him."
He kept repeating the phrase so I would hear it.
I just nodded.
"Well, once you're ready, I'd love if you would join us downstairs." Carlisle smiled pleasantly at me. "I think you'll be happy to know that Emmett's a lot more coherent today. He's doing a lot better with our diet and lifestyle choices and he's going to stay and keep trying."
"I'll walk with you." I said as I stood from my vanity and reached for a pair of t-strap heels.
"You look lovely." Carlisle complimented, seeming to think I needed reminding.
I knew.
His compliment filled what otherwise would've been silence, and seemed to appease me. He thought that this would calm the nerves he sensed in me. He complimented me because he felt it was due.
It wasn't really about me.
"Thank you." I responded, all the same as I put on my white gloves and followed him downstairs.
I heard Emmett's anticipatory inhale when he heard my shoes on the stairs. It made my legs feel like a baby giraffe's - awkward and unstable.
I hadn't really seen him in a little over two weeks, since that fateful day.
My stomach felt like it was tingling with soda bubbles. Every single one of my nerve endings was jolting with electricity, and I was drawn, in a trance like desire to find his eyes.
After what seemed like a century, but was really only a second, my wanting eyes got their desire.
I think I hated him now, but he stood as I entered the room, a true gentleman.
"Rosalie." He nodded toward me, having stood from where Edward was teaching him to play chess.
Though his eyes were still a burnt crimson, I was still terrifyingly addicted to having his gaze.
Emmett was unusually chipper, a shocking lightness to him even after all had transpired.
He'd moved on. He was living presently.
He didn't dwell. He didn't mourn. He didn't mope. He didn't brood.
Edward had cornered the market on brooding.
Edward raised his gaze to look at me with narrowed eyes after hearing this thought.
I didn't allow him the pleasure of my attention, especially when my eyes were still captive in Emmett's.
"Wow. You're sure a sight." He complimented for the world to hear.
Without shame or apprehension, he openly displayed the inner workings of his mind.
What a way to live.
His smile was unwaveringly confident because he told me this not because he relied on my response.
He didn't have a selfish reason for his compliment. He told me I was beautiful so I would hear it. He told me I was beautiful because it was an important thought that had to be shared, and under his worshipping gaze, I felt… gorgeous even standing here in a cotton dress with my hair loosely braided off of my neck.
"Thank you." I breathed, still half hating him.
I mindlessly ran my hand along my neck nervously, watching his eyes follow my fingers before they found my eyes again.
"How's your game going?" I asked, wondering why in God's name I had settled on this lame arrangement of words after so long since I'd seen him.
I could kick myself.
Edward snickered.
"Not so good." Emmett responded easily, exhaling and shrugging his broad shoulders. "But, I'm playing with a mind reader so don't hold it against me."
His competitive nature was evident in the annoyance in his voice.
"I suppose you and I would be more evenly matched." He spoke with challenge, but with a flicker of boyish flirtation in his eyes that still hadn't left mine.
He looked at me in this moment like I was the most intelligent, clever, and competent person he'd ever laid eyes on.
At the slightest twitch at the corner of my mouth, Emmett smiled a beaming smile that seemed to stretch impossibly from ear to ear.
"Come on to the dining room." Carlisle encouraged. "We have something to discuss, then there's plenty of time for Rosalie to beat you at chess."
This discussion seemed ominous, and I half resented him for interrupting the eye contact Emmett and I had maintained for a record amount of time.
Emmett's eyes left mine only to laugh at Carlisle's attempt at a joke. Emmett's uninhibited laugh bubbled up from the depths of his core and overflowed into the room, seeming to make the entire room a little bit brighter.
I still hated him. I was pretty sure.
Maybe it was just my pressing thirst that I maintained as a way to wallow in my melancholy. I hated that my eyes were black. In vanity, they were so much more beautiful golden and I hated Emmett saw me like this.
It was my own damn fault for starving myself in self-pity and sabotage.
"After you." Emmett returned his attention to me.
I realized in the second it left me just how much I craved it.
Now though, I'd have to turn away from his eyes once again.
With my back to him as I walked down the hall, I felt like I was going to jump out of my skin. It made me nervous to have him out of my gaze and his presence was so heavy that it weighed my shoulders down as I made my way to the dining room that now acted as a sort of conference meeting room.
If I had to spend one more second with my back to him, I was going to scream, so I was glad when the threshold opened to the dining room and he appeared by my side.
Now, it was the sight of him that made me nervous.
Esme already sat at the round mahogany table we used only as a prop and for serious discussions such as this one and gave us a little, pleasant smile as she saw us.
Edward sat on one side of her, and Carlisle sat on the other so that Emmett and I would take the remaining seats next to one another.
I opted to sit next to Edward just so I wouldn't feel his eyes so heavily on me across the table.
At this, Edward turned his head to look at me. I narrowed my eyes, but couldn't focus on this too hard when Emmett sat down on my left.
The very aura radiating off of him scalded my entire left side.
I tried not to inhale because his scent would turn my brain to mush.
Cinnamon. Leather. Thyme. Cedar. Tobacco.
All of it. All at once.
It reminded me of being close to him.
My skin felt a strange ghost ache like the blood behind a bruise, and I crossed my arms over my chest.
"A lot has changed in the past couple months." Carlisle said, beginning the state of the union speech and recap as he always did.
This was special though, and it'd been a while since something changed…
"Rosalie, you came back and… you brought a new addition to our family."
Emmett moved and I was acutely aware of it.
He put his arm on the back of my chair, easily, and I felt his eyes on me as he smiled in my direction.
I was using my very best posture so my back wouldn't rest against the back of my chair or more accurately be in close proximity to his arm. I was stifled and angry he was intruding.
Esme's attention was focused on me even though her eyes weren't directly on me.
Emmett was physically bold in a way I wasn't used to, any of us really.
Carlisle even looked over, momentarily distracted before he continued.
"Esme and I have decided, though we of course want your input, that it might be best to move on from this area. With the threat of people recognizing Emmett, and Rosalie, your unexplained appearance, we think it's risky to stay here for much longer."
I knew this was coming.
But to be fair, anyone that recognized Emmett at least wouldn't live to tell about it with the state of his blood lust.
It wasn't that I didn't have any faith in his control… I just really didn't have any faith in his control.
"Edward?" Carlisle turned to him first, expectation in his eyes and a yearning for approval.
Edward was in many ways a younger version of Carlisle. He had been the first Carlisle turned, and took on the role of his right hand man.
Edward was someone Carlisle longed not to disappoint, and would remind Carlisle often of his need for connection, humanity, compassion, and love.
Edward reminded Carlisle that we could be something more than a monster. For different reasons, Edward and Carlisle both pursued a moral betterment to our existence.
They searched for a counter to the curse and thought that their actions could somehow make up for the atrocity that the majority of others of our kind indulged in.
Edward and Carlisle were in a way accountability partners, and Edward inspired Carlisle to continue his moral fight for a better way to exist as we did.
My limbs felt heavy and my eyes dropped down when I realized we all represented something to Carlisle, and while Edward was all that and Esme represented love, I just represented the dark parts of immortality.
I represented the chains and shackles that we're bound by when death won't find us. To Carlisle, I represented the curse of our existence to no longer grow or change to experience life.
I represented the duplicity of what Carlisle did when he thought he was saving us. I represented the punishing captivity, suffocation, internment, oppression, perpetuity, damnation…
I represented Carlisle's own darkness…
I was yanked from my reverie when I felt a hand, heavy on my shoulder.
"Rosalie, what do you think?" Emmett asked, his eyes slightly narrowed so I knew he was also asking me what I was lost in thought about.
"Yes." I agreed, his hand feeling heavier and heavier on my shoulder the more time that passed.
I could focus on nothing else and my eyes went down to his fingers, willing them off of me.
I stared at his fingers with enough distaste and remained so tense that he finally got the hint.
But when he unwound his arm from my shoulders and back into his own personal space, I felt a sharp tingling on my skin where he'd left.
I furrowed my brow slightly, still filled with a hollow melancholy over my revelation about Carlisle.
I was beautiful and perfect and I would always be. Though this sounds like a fairytale, it's more like a tragedy.
I would always be.
I didn't hear much of what else was said while I wallowed in my despairing thoughts, always so quickly consumed by them, especially when I thirsted. But then, something was said that again pulled me from my own mind and into the present.
"It's overcast most of the year, so I thought… Edward, Rosalie, you might be ready to spend more time around humans, have some normalcy?"
"And it would definitely be helpful to have you start in high school so that we might settle for a little longer and no one would ask any questions about our age." Carlisle added.
My eyes widened and I almost smiled.
"Really?" I asked, feeling like a prisoner being given a set of keys.
If I had a heart, it would've been racing.
"If… you feel ready, and this is something you find suitable?" Carlisle asked.
I'd get to go back to school, to be admired and doted on and worshipped and… But more than that, I'd get to watch other girls grow and change and fall in love and be filled with the promises of husbands and babies and houses with blue shutters.
My heart ached in catharsis.
I just nodded.
I felt Emmett's eyes heavy on me, watching me, observing my reaction so I tried to censor it.
"We're going to stop first in Denali for a bit first to finish off the rest of the summer. There's a coven of vampires like us, that abide in our similar lifestyle and diet. We think meeting them and spending some time there hunting and learning from them would be good for your transition, Emmett. If that is still what you desire."
"Yeah, that's fine." Emmett nodded, still not entirely enthused by rules.
I'd never met this other coven either, though Edward and Esme seemed to know who Carlisle was talking about. It was going to be nice to have a change in scenery again, and I'd never seen Alaska.
The cold wouldn't bother me now.
"Tanya is happy to host us, and said she's looking forward to meeting you both." Carlisle nodded toward Emmett and I.
Edward's face twitched only slightly so I imagined there was something to know about this coven. I half wished I hadn't made him hate me so he'd give me information.
Edward looked up at this thought, smug.
I rolled my eyes slowly so no one else would know we'd communicated.
"It's settled then. I'll get things settled at the hospitals then we'll leave for Denali in a week."
"Ah, this was a beautiful little house." Esme sighed dreamily, looking around as she stood from the table.
I watched Emmett's face turn whiter than I'd ever seen as he looked down at his lap, something stirring in his thoughts because it made his thick brow furrow pensively.
Edward was already bolting toward the piano and Esme and Carlisle beginning to strategize our move as they assumed we'd trail behind.
I had planned on it as well, but Emmett wasn't following and my legs weren't working seeing him like this. I couldn't leave.
Emmett was heavy laden, and I guessed it had something to do with leaving his family behind.
Emmett put his elbows on the table running his hands through his hair and twisting pieces of it while he bounced his knees nervously.
I should've asked him if he was all right.
I lingered for a second longer, concerned, before he spoke.
"We're going, really?"
"Yes." I nodded.
"I just… worry about my family when we get too far away." Emmett admitted to me after a deep breath, darkness in his eyes and voice, but a determined optimism to his demeanor.
"I know." I gulped, trying to muster any empathy I had deep down in my blackened, icy soul. "But, they'll be okay, Emmett."
I didn't know this. I just said it in hopes that it would return his lightness and those dimples I was addicted to.
"No. They won't." He said definitely.
"Without me, there's no way they'll survive." Emmett tried to suggest, passion and worry heating up his voice. "We… didn't have much money…"
I tried to assure him I would listen as I sat back down in the chair beside him.
He turned his knees so we were closer and he shifted his weight in his elbow.
"I was the only boy, and they relied on me to provide for them and…" Emmett fixated. "Now, that's not to say my mama and my sisters aren't strong. They are, but… the land… that's back breaking work and they can't… They can't do that. They can't hunt or…"
I saw in his eyes that it was beyond can't. He didn't even want them to have to.
"What about your father?" I asked, half out of curiosity and half just out of impulse.
"He's…" Emmett exhaled through his nose. "Not reliable about that sort of thing."
He chose his words carefully, not wanting to say anything too damaging but his eyes were open books. There was no love there.
"I took care of them." He clarified. "I was responsible for them."
I swallowed, hating the pain I saw on his face.
"And my sister… my sister, Dorothy…" He was tortured by the new thought of her helplessness without him. "She wasn't well when I left…"
This pain seemed to be worse than the pain of transformation because I couldn't see what was the answer on the other side. I couldn't see why it was worth it.
"I'm sorry, Emmett." I said honestly, wishing there was a magic word I could say to make it all right.
But, there wasn't.
"Was it hard for you?" He asked. "To leave your family, all of it?"
My chest felt tight.
"Not really." I could only think of the burning resentment I still held for my parents.
It was irrational and undeserving resentment. I mean, I would've probably pursued Royce King's attention even without their push toward him.
He was the most eligible bachelor in town and I wanted to be Queen. It wasn't my parents' fault what happened to me, but it was a lot easier to blame them than blame myself.
Emmett stood with a nod of finality as I paused, then gave me a little smile as he put on a brave face.
"Now, about that game." Emmett suggested as he stood.
Again, he didn't fixate or brood. It could've been due to his easily distracted mind as a newborn or it could've been just a staple of his true personality.
Either way, he didn't fixate on things he couldn't change.
"Of course." I stood after him, following to appease his competitive challenge.
"Now, don't take it easy on me just because I'm still pretty new at this." He raised an eyebrow with a rascally smile, sitting on one side of the board while I sat across from him on the other.
"I wouldn't dream of it." I returned his smile lightly, but I was still wary and careful after what happened with his unsolicited advances.
He set the board incorrectly, and I bit my lip, amused until he figured it out.
"Well damn, if this is any clue as to how I'm 'bout to play." Emmett laughed freely and unbridled.
I couldn't help but smile a little.
"Shit…. I mean… Sorry. Sorry, I really didn't mean to curse in front of you." He made a face.
"Can we just play?" I rolled my eyes with the threat of a giggle in my throat.
"Yes, yes we can. Sorry, I'm focused now." He gazed down at the board, calculating his first move.
"But, you are still quite distracting." He playfully accused me with a grin as he finally decided on strategy.
I was flattered and I hid behind my eyelashes.
Esme and Carlisle had both become an audience to our game, but it just made me more nervous especially the way they looked at me when he flirted with me.
I was mortified, so I got quiet.
Emmett lost the first game which made him insist on two out of three, but when he lost three games in a row, he insisted he needed a break to rethink strategy.
"I think you are just bad at chess." Edward suggested, teasing him.
Emmett shot up to his feet and opened his mouth to say something, then rethought it.
"You know what… You're probably right." He nodded with a little laugh, deciding on not tackling Edward and ruining Esme's furniture.
"Good decision." Edward chuckled at him, confirming exactly what I'd read to be true. He had planned on tackling Edward. "See, the newborn vampire's making progress."
"Oh shut your trap." Emmett narrowed his eyes, undoubtedly wanting to rethink that tackle.
I would've.
Instead, Emmett gave Edward's shoulders a tight squeeze at the piano before he reached over him and played a slow, awkward portion of Ave Maria.
Edward turned toward Emmett with an anticipatory smile, letting him have the reach for the piano to encourage him to continue, but it was obvious Emmett didn't know any more than that.
"Where did you learn that?" Esme asked, charmed.
"My Ma played all the time. Her piano was the only thing she brought with her when we moved. She always tried to make me be civilized and sit still and learn, but I obviously didn't." Emmett laughed, but I saw darkness enter his eyes at the mention of his mother. "I just… remembered that was her favorite."
He was saddened immediately.
"You could learn if you wanted." Edward slid to the side, offering the bench.
"I couldn't sit still human. I especially can't sit still now." Emmett laughed.
"But you learn faster now." Edward seemed to protest, his hands seeming to itch to finish the song as he danced through a couple more notes to finish the phrase of music Emmett had .
"I wouldn't even learn for my own mother, Edward." Emmett chuckled.
"I'll leave the music business to y'all." Emmett waved his hand over Edward and I. "I prefer listenin' anyways."
He was heavier now, thinking about his family and it was felt by everyone in the room.
It weighed on my own chest so much I began to feel suffocated. I oddly longed to ease his pain, but only time and distance from human memories could do that.
"We've got lots of time to learn new things." Carlisle encouraged as a redirection.
There seemed to be something unspoken between the three men as they exchanged a glance. No doubt something brewing in their bond on those many hunting trips.
"I mean, you've been around for three hundred years. I'm sure you've got to know everything by now." Emmett's eyes went wide, changing his focus to Carlisle's many tales of adventures.
Carlisle laughed.
"I still learn something new every day." Carlisle shrugged. "Because the world's changing every day."
Change. I was reminded of the stifling stagnation of my existence again and again, but Emmett was enchanted and distracted by Carlisle's stories though, so he immediately asked about another of Carlisle's unbelievable tales.
Emmett fixated on the strangest details and asked such childishly curious but observant and intentional questions.
It amused us all.
"When Edward left shortly after I changed Esme I…" Carlisle said
"Wait, Edward left?" I was the one asking the questions now, interrupting Carlisle's story.
This was too interesting not to note. Perfect Edward had left this family too.
Edward frowned.
"Aren't you thirsty?" Edward asked, and just the acknowledgement made my throat's furnace roar to fiery life.
My sheer force of will is the only thing that allowed me to shake my head.
Emmett looked over at me, his own eyes seeming to get a shade darker as he regarded mine's black onyx color.
I was thirsty…
But, I was even more stubborn in the face of Edward's story.
"It was only for a short while and for what seemed good reason at the time." Edward responded, telling me that of course I had misunderstood. "From 1927 to 31."
It was longer than I'd been gone though.
"What made you go out on the open road all on your own?" Emmett asked him, seeming to think that Edward might be able to connect with his own struggles on wanting another diet choice…
I hoped Edward's story wouldn't be encouraging to Emmett and cause him to leave and digress.
Edward ignored my thought and continued.
"Well, Carlisle and Esme had found each other and… were so happy, and I was… struggling with the point of this lifestyle a bit at the time." Edward explained, seeming to want Emmett to know he wasn't alone in his fight against blood lust so he gave him a little supported smile.
I was laser focused, unable to believe that good, moral, perfect Edward had ever lapsed.
He caught my eyes now, seeming to challenge what I thought about his flimsy morality.
"I hunted humans, but I only hunted the worst kinds. Since I could read thoughts, I carried out a sort of vigilante justice with my hunt. I only fed on murderers, thieves, domestic abusers, rapists…."
My stomach dropped.
"How noble of you." I sneered at him.
Edward's eyes met mine.
Where were you then? I thought loudly at him, clenching my jaw and remaining icy.
"Rosalie, you don't understand." We fought about something unsaid in front of Emmett and the rest.
I couldn't understand because it was beyond comprehension. I was hurt, and my venom boiled in my veins in defensive rage.
I wanted to kill something…
Emmett, Esme, and Carlisle were unaware of my true investment in this fight, but Edward knew where my anger at him truly resided.
How could you, Edward? I growled in my head. You were so self-righteous you couldn't hunt them even though you knew what they'd do to me.
"I didn't know." He mumbled, his eyes locked in mine. "I swear it."
I still didn't look away, but I was afraid of Emmett catching anything from our exchange so I willed Edward's silence further.
Convenient that you decided to stop hunting murderers when there were so many down the street from you in Rochester.
He didn't answer me aloud now, but his eyes held a heavy sadness as he saw where I was going with my rage. I couldn't respond to his sadness. I only had rage.
You let me die. That's as good as killing me yourself, and you know it.
"Rosalie, you see he's back now, and he's really committed to making this lifestyle work. He saw that ultimately, our best counteraction to the monstrosity of others of our kind is to maintain a total abstinence from human blood." Carlisle tried to correct my thoughts, but he was far off as to why I was angry.
"Just like you." Esme nodded, seeming to compliment my control like I needed it.
I didn't.
My record was almost as clean as Carlisle's. I'd never tasted human blood, and I prided myself on this fact. I knew Edward thought I was self-righteous, but it wasn't his lapse that bothered me.
It was that he'd decided to be moral right when I needed him not to be. He didn't bother protecting me. He didn't bother stopping it.
Edward looked over, trying to communicate mentally with me.
"Edward knows now that he wants to make this life a life worth living and this can be done by preserving the essence of who we are with no exceptions." Carlisle went on.
I saw he said this part for Emmett's benefit, but I couldn't even care. I was still so angry.
If Edward had heard Royce's thoughts… or John's… or any of those awful men, and hunted them before they took everything from me…
I would still be alive. More than that, those… monsters would've never been able to… do what they did to my body…
"Rosalie, I had no idea." Edward tried to remind me.
Did you think I deserved it? Is that why you let it happen? Don't think I don't remember how you sneered my name at the sight of me when Carlisle brought me back.
"No. I could never." Edward argued vehemently with my thoughts.
Carlisle and Esme seemed to catch on a little that I wasn't mad about Edward's diet choices and so they stopped interrupting…
The rest of the room wasn't let on to my side of our dialogue, but still. I was livid Edward had the audacity to answer me aloud.
I willed his silence more than I'd willed anything except to be human again or to die.
He was already on my bad side, and he'd just dug his grave deeper and deeper.
I thought about the life that I'd lost, the dignity that I lost.
Edward had the power to stop it, and if I'd been anyone else from 1927 to 1931, he probably would have. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time yet again.
I glared at Edward, not letting up in my anger. Nothing, no shred of the atonement in his eyes could move me.
"I didn't hear anything leading me to believe it was premeditated…" Edward said in a soft, careful tone, but it did nothing to calm me.
"Edward! If you value your life at all, you'll shut your mouth." I snarled at him in a panic. "I could kill you right now."
I couldn't seem to grapple with the fact that they were just… drunk and unable to control themselves, and I was just an unlucky passerby. It almost forgave their behavior! How could Edward even think that?!
They were monsters, and it was in their nature to do something terrible to me. I couldn't believe that it was a group of good people that did something horribly bad because they were out of their minds.
I had to believe they were bad all along. Because… I had to think that no one else could be capable of that sort of atrocity. I had to believe they weren't just caught up in a moment.
It wasn't that I was just unlucky and caught good people at a bad moment… Because if that was the case then who else could be capable of doing that sort of thing in a 'bad' moment… Emmett?
A dark chill racked through my whole body and I shivered in a disgusting terror I couldn't shake.
I wasn't here anymore. I was in a flashback, and I was trapped.
"Rosalie, that is not what I'm saying." Edward spoke again softly, and it sent me into a frenzy so I lunged for him.
I'd been tangled up in a web of darkness, and my skin crawled when I felt a phantom pain at those monsters's hands on me… Their….
"Rosalie?!" Emmett's fingers found my elbow in an effort to draw my attention and hold me back from Edward.
"Don't touch me!" I shrieked as I ripped my arm out of his reach, reacting wildly inappropriately because I'd been fixated and transported back into my nightmarish memories.
Emmett was confused and taken aback at how I'd yelled at him. He had his hand up in a sort of surrender.
His crimson eyes were terrifying and wide as he looked at me patiently, but I still panicked.
My eyes began blacking out and I started to disassociate so I knew all I'd see now was that night in Rochester.
I was so angry. I couldn't believe Edward's perfect timing on deciding to deal in moral absolutes…
Carlisle and Esme looked over at Edward for answers, but Emmett just looked at me.
His brow was furrowed in confusion, and his eyes darted over me in meticulous observation as if he could see clues toward my behavior. He was trying to figure something out that he never could.
"Rosalie, darling, let's go for a hunt and get some fresh air." Esme spoke up, stepping slowly and tentatively closer to me.
Esme's gaze was full of motherly concern, her voice shaking a little as she tried to remain calm.
With this, I was immediately brought back and thrown into present mortification. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. I'd lost control.
I'd become something I was ashamed of. Emmett had seen me as a monster for the very first time. In my desperate thirst and provocation, I'd gotten overdramatic.
This is why I didn't push myself.
I regained composure, tugging on the wrists of my pristine white gloves, adjusting them on my hands. I cleared my burning, tight throat lightly.
"I'd like to be alone. Thank you." I breathed in a pleasantly even tone.
Emmett's eyes were still heavy on me and it was oppressive. Damn that he'd remember this moment perfectly with his vampiric retention.
He looked at me like a scolded puppy, his eyes wide and round as he took a deep swallow. He didn't understand what he'd done, but he was full of remorse and regret all the same.
He looked at me like I wished he'd never look at me. Like he saw for the very first time that I was broken.
Like an old doll missing an arm or a leg, I was broken, and now he could toss me aside…
That's when I realized I really, truly, complexly cared about him.
So I fled out to the woods. It was easier to leave than to be left.