"And, oddly enough, he needs me, too. That part worked out better than I could have hoped." - Rosalie, Eclipse, p. 165 (Stephenie Meyer)
Quick note: I got a little indulgent in this chapter. It's an extended length, just because I just love you all so much and want to thank you for your support! I also just loved writing this chapter hehehe! It's also very cerebral and emotional like the last chapter, but I put it in Emmett's newborn perspective.
I found that when I was exploring his character development and study, I wanted to touch on 'disjointedness' or that feeling of being 'off.' He is in a grand transition in so many ways, and I think it would wear on him and his identity, particularly following his first big move away from the home he'd known and invested in for the bigger part of his life. I felt an identity struggle was inevitable in Emmett's current situation with the death of his father, his tension with Carlisle as a father figure, his pining for Rosalie, his infatuation with Kate (representative of his other relationships with women), his lifestyle change, his recent kills, etc. While he is lighthearted and seen as unburdened in the Twilight series, I don't know if I believe this liberation didn't come without struggle and obstacles early on. I went from a first person to a third person to illustrate this sort of "identity crisis" Emmett is having as he is detaching from his Tennessee country home and his sense of self that was wrapped up in his family and the natural heritage of his land.
I also really loved this sentence from Eclipse and wanted to explore why Emmett would 'NEED' Rosalie. I think his background of being a 'nobody' and being constantly told he is worthless is an interesting contrast to Rosalie's background of adoration and worship, but both are inherently damaging because both of them just need to feel seen. He needs Rosalie particularly in this quest for 'self' and identity within his newborn stage, but also I think he could need her to make him believe he's full of worth and purpose after a life of abuse.
An overarching build in this chapter is around not only Emmett's relationship with himself, Rosalie, and Carlisle, but also Emmett's relationship to the moral 'right' or 'correct' in his own conviction rather than reliance on structures like religious morality or Carlisle's guidance.
Prepare yourselves for some Denali clan shenanigans as promised in this chapter, and a little bit of ExR development as well! 3 eeep finally
Please consider leaving a review. Every word means the world to me! Thank you immensely for your words thus far.
TW/CW: Abuse
What Kind of Man
I was on a heavy tip
Try'na cross a canyon with a broken limb
You were on the other side, like always
Wondering what to do with life
I'd already had a sip
So I'd reasoned I was drunk enough to deal with it
You were on the other side, like always
You could never make you mine
You're a holy fool, all coloured blue
Red feet upon the floor
You do such damage, how do you manage?
Trying to crawl in back for more
And with one kiss
You inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years
What kind of man loves like this?
1928
"John, stop it. Please." Helen McCarty begged, her voice shaking with real terror.
It had never been like this before.
Her gangly, thirteen year old son pushed up to his hands and knees from the floor, spitting out one of his molars in a fountain of blood. His concussed head spun as he wobbled to his feet, the world whirring around him, but he stood strong. He had to.
"But, I aint learnt no lesson." Her stubborn boy coughed a little laugh, bright red blood dripping from his crazed smile.
"He's had enough." Helen whispered, her son stumbling backward and knocking into the door frame. "Emmett, tell him you've had enough. Come on, darling."
She pleaded, but it was no use trying to reason with either of the men in her life in times like these.
It had never been this bad before though…
Emmett willed every saint in heaven to make sure he didn't pass out and give his father that satisfaction. He held himself up at the threshold of the door and took a deep, shaking breath to feel a sharp pain at his ribs on his right side.
But, Emmett couldn't think about anything like that right now. He left his body in moments like this, and lately moments like this had been getting more frequent in perfect proportion with the increase in his juvenile delinquency and outright rebellion at the threshold of his teenage years.
"I'll say when he's had enough." John growled, throwing the back of his hand so it landed with a pop on the face that reminded him of his lost youth and innocence.
When his son's face was bloody and broken, that's when he really recognized himself because there was something broken in John that'd never get fixed. That's when he really saw that his son looked like him, but it only scared him even more and John was a man that didn't admit to fear because that sort of thing was for weak men. He was just a kid when he was shipped off to fight in a war he didn't understand; it was a war that was supposed to end all wars…
But, he'd been fighting every day since.
"Your hands'll break 'fore I've had enough, and you know it." Emmett stood taller with a challenge, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
He woozily swayed on his feet, but his eyes were sharply focused as he puffed out his chest and stood taller to look up at his father.
The gap between their eyes was closing as Emmett grew taller and taller with each passing day.
"Emmett, honey, tell your father you're sorry." Helen stepped forward, putting her hand on her son's chest.
In this moment of contact, she felt the rapid beating of his heart and he leaned into her hand.
His dark eyes were dilated into black holes as she looked into them. Bruises were already swelling up around them and a deep, bleeding gash at his cheekbone would have to be stitched up later.
His ragged breath slowed and he blinked a long blink that signaled he was fading. He was stubborn though, and he'd make sure he didn't fade before his father wore himself out.
When Helen stepped in, she knew it was no use, but she still tried sometimes.
It was tangled in her mind whether or not she was trying to free her son from a beating she wasn't sure he deserved or to prove herself to her husband that had charmed her all those years ago at a winter dance at a country club. She had figured he would push her, hit her, or be rough with her when she didn't live up to her wifely duties. After all, her father smacked her mother around when she upset him too. That was normal. That was accepted.
Even in the beginning, when he'd pop one of their daughters in the mouth for being smart, or push Emmett around to 'toughen him up' she hadn't batted an eye. She thought that you got the beating you deserved.
So, Helen McCarty tried to never mess up. She lived not to mess up and get on the wrong side of her husband's anger, but Emmett messed up all the time - most of the time on purpose just for the hell of it or to take the focus of the beatings off of one of his sisters.
Sometimes Helen McCarty felt guilty that when she saw Emmett getting the shit beat out of him, she was glad it wasn't her. She thought herself a cruel, heartless woman, watching as her children collected colorful bruises and broken bones, but she was more afraid and more used to the routine of it all than anything.
And she was glad it wasn't her.
Now, as her son turned to face his father again defiantly, she wasn't sure it had ever been this bad. The truth was, it hadn't, but it had been a slow decline into the hellishness that now ensued as the most intense punishment her husband could thing of.
"You know, I look in your eyes and I see Satan himself." John McCarty spat, pushing on his son's chest so he fell back and his head hit against the wall where there was already a hole in the plaster from a bout like this a couple weeks back.
"Get out of my sight." He snarled as Emmett scrambled back up to his feet only to be shoved back down again and be told to stay down with a swift kick to his gut.
"Well, if that's all you want from me, I'll be halfway to New York City 'fore sunrise." Emmett spit up blood against the brunt of the blow, shakily trying to make it to all fours. "I didn't do nothin' wrong!"
His mother thought of the day he was born then. The heavy rain had cooled the summer air and the breeze came in through the open window at the top floor of her beautiful white castle that was the plantation she grew up on. She was tired, and the stress of delivering twins at the young age of seventeen had left her head feeling light and her limbs feeling heavy when she reached her arms out for the both of them. She'd proudly looked at those darling dimples in his cheeks and imagined what all she'd do just to make sure he had millions of reasons to smile.
"You ungrateful bastard." John changed his mind then and whirled around. "You know damn good and well the shit you've gotten yourself into."
According to John McCarty, his son was dragging his family's name through the mud being associated with people like Bonnie and Sam Sanders. He thought of the way his son's white, sun tanned hand wrapped around Bonnie Sanders's fingers that were black as night. He thought of the names they called his son - none of which had bothered Emmett, but it had gotten people talking…
Even though his knuckles were bleeding and the pain of some shattered fingers begged him to let it go, John McCarty was unable to bear the thought of being alone with his thoughts so he grabbed his son by the collar and ripped him to his feet.
"After all I've given you. A roof over your goddamn head. Food to fill your goddamn belly." His dark eyes looked black as he fixed them on the son that had disappointed him and embarrassed him yet again.
"All you ever gave me was the back'a your hand." Emmett shot back, not truly meaning what he said, but he knew it would hit his father where it hurt if he did.
John McCarty reared back to land one last punch, hoping it'd knock some sense into his wayward teen.
It landed and finally broke Emmett's nose.
"God fucking damn it." Emmett gasped, his hands coming up to the fresh blood and pain.
"Watch your mouth in front of your mother." John snapped. "Get up, you worthless piece of trash."
Emmett dropped his hands from his nose that poured with blood, not even bothering to guard his face anymore.
"You can hit harder than that." Emmett spat at his feet, smiling smugly up at him.
John McCarty's eyes were crazed at the challenge, and for a moment he thought he could kill Emmett.
The look in Emmett's eyes made it almost seem he wanted him to - put him out of his misery.
Seeing what her husband had made of her son broke Helen McCarty's heart. But it was more than the bruises and blood that disheartened her.
It was the look in his eyes. He was the prey, but he was stubborn. He was the hunted, but he was fighting back. He was always on edge, wondering when the next punch would land. He was always on guard. He didn't sleep soundly. He didn't rest.
But, he defiantly refused to live in fear so he lived in distrust.
"Emmett, for the last time… stop it!" Helen begged him because she wouldn't dare beg her husband.
John panted heavy breaths over his defiant son, lunging for Emmett and grabbing his collar, holding him up on his toes.
After that damn war, John McCarty had plenty of friends - the ones that lived anyway - that had fancy doctors telling them that they had wounded minds. Usually, shell shock was reserved for the weak and attributed to the failings of a coward.
John McCarty wasn't a coward, and he didn't go see any of those hoity-toity city doctors. He didn't need to.
He'd prove he wasn't weak.
He was nineteen years old when we was shipped out. He left a wife and two kids at home. One was on the way that he hoped was another boy. His pride and joy was his son, even though there was a shred of him that imagined if it was a girl he'd never have to worry about her getting shipped off to some foreign country and dying millions of miles from home.
This was the war to end all wars though, and when that dull explosion hit and the poison gas crept in strangling the men beside him, he thought about the sacrifice he was making so that little boy'd never have to know any of this.
In the present, his son coughed on some blood, and it spilled down the front of his shirt.
The red of it pulled John's focus.
John McCarty felt his son's body getting heavier and heavier in his hands as he started to slip away. Emmett's dark eyes were having trouble focusing, but his father's mirrored eyes found the depths of them.
John's ears rang with the sound of bullets, and he held together all the displaced parts of Robby Graziano, a thirteen year old boy that had snuck into the war and around the age barrier at the recruitment offices because he'd been a healthy and tall enough boy that they let him pass for sixteen.
Emmett was thirteen now…
Robby Graziano had been blown to pieces.
At thirteen.
"Stand up." John ordered urgently, yanking his boy back to his feet.
He needed to see Emmett wasn't in pieces.
John saw his boy was in one piece and he exhaled, frowning as he transported back and forth between the past and the present.
Emmett smiled smugly up at him.
John released his grip on Emmett's collar and Emmett sunk back and away from him.
Emmett turned over his shoulder and watched his father walk out the front door without a word, slamming it behind him. Emmett didn't know where he went when he ran off outside, but he'd stay gone for a little while.
He always did.
"Are you okay?" Helen asked, finally without worry of pride, Emmett slumped in an exhale.
Helen reached out to catch him under his arms to steady him, but Emmett couldn't get his feet under him again no matter how hard he tried.
"I didn't do nothin wrong, Mama." Emmett said, blood bubbling in his mouth. "Honest."
"Emmett." She scolded, her eyes full of fear.
She hadn't known what this was about, but she didn't want to. It made it easier that way.
She assumed Emmett really had done something wrong, even though she knew nothing he could've ever done would've warranted being subjected to something so violent.
Even though Emmett didn't act like it in many ways, he was still a child.
He was just a child…
John McCarty would accidentally kill him one of these days because Emmett'd sooner be killed than admit he did something wrong when he didn't believe it.
Why couldn't he just take it and keep his mouth shut? It'd be over faster that way.
Of all the lessons, she hoped he'd learn.
"Mama, I swear." Emmett's big brown eyes darted over her face in some sort of pleading.
"Don't swear. It's immoral." She worried nervously as he ducked his forehead back down to her shoulder.
She felt his weight as he exhaled.
"You said God sees ev'rythin. And He saw them yellow bellied bullies pickin' on Bonnie Sanders. She's just a lil girl, littler than Molly." He breathed shakily, getting weaker by the second, but he found it necessary to make sure his mother saw the sincerity in his eyes. "Her mama'd made her a new coat and they popped the buttons off it and ripped it off 'er…"
Emmett got a chill down to his bone, hatred making the blood in his mouth taste sweet as honeysuckle.
"Emmett." She clenched her jaw, feeling his shaky breath as she practically held him up on his feet.
She knew where this was going.
"I was standin' right there… God saw n' he didn't do nothin so I… I thought…" Emmett went on.
She got a good look at the way Emmett looked at her with a frown, knowing it came from his anger at God… His anger at his father… His anger at her.
Helen McCarty had been caught between two worlds for years. She'd had babies one after the other after the other for over a decade, and she was worn out. The women in town talked about her with pity, whispering behind her back and behind her children's backs. People always said there was one baby on her and one baby in her, but that wasn't even the hard part. The hard part was watching her children die one after the other after the other.
She'd been having babies, but she'd been grieving for over a decade, having buried so many of them… Her depression made her stay still for long periods of time, sitting on the front porch but never feeling the sun on her face.
And now, she had a child, living and breathing in front of her that needed her, but his voice sounded like she was hearing it from underwater.
"I didn't do nothin' wrong, Mama." Emmett repeated and this time, it was a choked whisper.
It seemed important to him to absolve himself to her.
"I know, baby." Helen McCarty finally agreed, knowing exactly what this was about now. She didn't need to hear anymore.
She sighed, bending down to kiss his messy black hair to hide some of her tears in it.
"Well, Daddy don't." Emmett's voice cracked an octave.
"It's all right." Helen nodded, nervous to be crossing her husband, but something deep in her soul softened at the sound of her baby boy's voice cracking. "He don't know the Lord like you do."
He was becoming a man without any idea how to, but he was doing just fine. He'd be all right. He knew what it was like to believe in something… to fight for something.
Emmett had the strongest sense of self Helen McCarty had ever seen. She wondered how at such a young age, he knew exactly who he was and who he wanted to be. He knew exactly what he believed, and he did so with the deepest conviction. Helen had to turn away from him then or she'd get scared.
She was always scared to love and lose…
It happened too often and she couldn't bear to lose Emmett, so she tried her hardest not to love him.
But it was impossible. He was so easy to love…
"I've got it, Mama." Dorothy came in as she always did with a bucket of water and a wash cloth, avoiding looking at Emmett directly.
She wasn't squeamish. She couldn't afford to be in this family.
But, she had hidden throughout the duration of it, trying to keep the other girls from crying and carrying on. They worried for him, for themselves… Dorothy felt guilty as she heard what she could only imagine as the worst beating Emmett had ever gotten, she was glad it wasn't her.
They all did.
Dorothy wondered why Emmett let it go on. She wondered why he always stood back up. Why couldn't he just say he learnt his lesson and let it finish after a couple good hits?
It wasn't even any of his business what those boys were doing picking on Bonnie Sanders like that. Why'd he have to step in and start that fight in the first place? Why'd he have to punch a cop's son square in the face? Why'd he have to walk her home?
"Let's get you cleaned up." Helen mumbled, winding Emmett's arm around her shoulder to guide him into the kitchen and to provide support for him to be able to walk.
"I can stitch up his face." Dorothy offered, producing a sewing needle from her pocket and readying her stomach for this.
There was a deep running gash along his cheek bone where he'd hit the side of the table.
Dorothy was always prepared for the aftermath of one of her father and Emmett's bouts. She'd learned to be.
The worst the girls had ever gotten was a busted lip, but Emmett was always in pieces afterward and needed to be sewn back together like one of their hand me down dresses.
Everybody wondered why Emmett didn't fight back. They knew he could. Dorothy and Elizabeth'd seen him fight in town a few times. He wasn't angry or bitter and he didn't pick any fights. He just finished them. He was a good fighter. With their father, sometimes Emmett guarded his face or dodged, but most of the time he just took the hit with a smug smile.
Helen didn't say a word as she sat Emmett at the kitchen table, but she saw his bad ear was bleeding.
"How's your trick ear, Em?" Dorothy asked him for her as Helen handed him a wash rag.
He'd lost most of his hearing in his right ear from an infection in 1926. He wouldn't have gotten that infection if he hadn't fallen in that frozen creek trying to rescue Molly's damn cat out of that old tree. He was a sucker for little Molly and those big blue eyes.
He'd do anything for her, so when she wanted that cat down out of that tree, why of course Emmett climbed up for it.
Helen stepped back and removed herself by pretending she was busy in the kitchen.
"How's that?" Emmett narrowed his eyes, but his dimples showed so Dorothy knew he was joking and she sighed.
"Drink." Dorothy commanded, handing the last of the whiskey to Emmett knowing one of them would get a black eye for it later when their father found it was missing if they didn't convince him he'd drunk it himself.
But right now, Emmett needed it for the pain.
Emmett wouldn't dare wince at the open gashes in his mouth as the alcohol burned through his jaw. The taste of blood was prominent though and he spat out a river of it into a nearby empty can.
"How do I look?" He smiled at Dorothy, blood still staining his teeth.
None of the important ones had been knocked out. Thank God.
"Well, you're no uglier than usual." Dorothy teased.
"We're twins, Dotty." Emmett laughed, but regretted it at the pain in his side.
He coughed again, a gasping cough and Dorothy tried not to be worried.
Helen McCarty kept her hands busy preparing some soup, but she looked back at her two firstborns with tired wistfulness and a tinge of fear before she lowered her hands to cradle her newly rounded center once again…
All these children…
"Damn, you got me there." Dorothy rolled her eyes, sitting in the chair beside him and scooting the lantern forward so she could get a good look at that gash on his cheek. "Emmett, I'm…"
Emmett smiled, completely forgetting about all that had transpired. Dorothy didn't have to finish her sentence, but they both knew she was going to say she was sorry.
For a second they stared at each other as only twins stare at each other.
As Dorothy cleaned the gash on his cheek and the other cuts and scrapes littering his skin, Emmett leaned in to the dramatics, giving her a hard time on the merits of her doctoring.
"Would you stop it?!" Dorothy's eyes widened, thinking that in his joking he was actually in pain. "I keep thinking I'm hurtin' you."
"Nothin' hurts me." He snickered.
"Obviously you don't remember the last time I stitched you up." Dorothy sighed. "'Cause this is gonna hurt like a bitch."
"Dorothy Mary McCarty!" Helen scolded, her eyes growing wide as she regarded her daughter's foul mouth.
On her son, she could stomach it, but on her daughter…
She still hoped Dorothy could marry well. She was blossoming into a beautiful young woman, and with each passing day, the possibility thrilled Helen to pieces.
"You're gonna want to drink the rest of that whiskey." Dorothy ignored her mother and winked in Emmett's direction, trying to look confident as she threaded the needle that'd sew his face back together.
"This is gonna leave one hell of a scar."
"Good." He nodded.
And he'd wear it proudly the rest of his life for the world to see as a symbol.
—-
Emmett: Temet Nosce
Present
I heard my name in that angel's voice and looked up from where I'd caught my reflection in the glass table.
We were playing this new game…
Monopoly.
"You have to pay rent." Rosalie said in a soft, tender tone.
Her beautiful, perfect golden eyes darted over my face, and she gave me a little half-smile, but her gaze held concern.
"What?" I ran my hand over my left cheek then through my hair as I tried to focus.
It was so hard to focus these days. I felt my energy slipping out of my fingertips…
They were making me get thirsty again to push my control and it had been a little over a week of the torture now.
Everyone else though just assumed I was easily distracted and unreliable.
"The game. You have to pay rent." Rosalie spoke softly from where she sat on my right.
My fingers absent-mindedly went to my right ear before I realized I could hear her perfectly, more than perfectly.
No trick ear.
I got a sour, awful taste in my mouth as I looked down at these stupid smooth clothes Carlisle had gotten for me that were nicer than anything I'd ever had when I was myself.
My fingers pulled at the starched collar of my shirt, all of a sudden feeling like my tie was too tight. It felt wrong because it was all wrong. This wasn't me. These clothes… These shoes… The way my hair'd been combed.
I ran my hands through it, ruffling it intentionally.
The outdoors called my name and I imagined flying out the door and into the Alaskan snow… Sinking my teeth into the veins of Alaskan animals… A stray hiker.
I tried to dig deep into who I was under all these instincts…
But, it was getting harder and harder instead of easier. They told me it would get easier. It was a lie. Every day it was harder to remember anything about myself as Emmett McCarty because I was too filled with who I was as a vampire - a killer, a predator…
I shook my head to shake the thoughts but it was no use.
My mind was a tangle of confusion between all the new information I was taking in, my instincts, and blurry human memories that reminded me I had a life before all this.
I was Emmett McCarty before all this.
I had lived and learned before all this.
I had experiences and real tangible reactions to them before all this.
Right?
I felt disjointed, like a bunch of misfit pieces.
"Oh gee, sorry. How much do I owe ya?" I asked her trying to gain some time to collect my thoughts.
"Two thousand dollars." Rosalie gave me a little, perfect smile of amusement.
She was good at this game. Incredibly strategic and smart as a whip.
"Come on, have a heart! Just gimme more time to pay will ya?! I have a family! I been savin' up for an operation in this rotten Depression! Have some mercy!" I tried to joke lightheartedly as I handed her the steep fake bills, but the mood wasn't right.
I didn't feel like joking around. It wasn't sitting well.
Still, Tanya and Kate found it entertaining, and their harmonic laughter mixed in with Edward's snort of amusement.
I felt Rosalie's eyes on me, and self-consciously ran my hand over my face again.
I was unsettled, like a lit fuse ready to blow.
My eyes darted east.
The door opened on the other side of the house as I'd sensed. Carlisle and Esme were back from hunting.
The fresh air awakened my deadened senses and I turned at my fastest speed, standing up from the table.
"Emmett! For Christ's sake! Sit down! It's your turn." Tanya called after me with a laugh, but she sounded a million miles away.
The snow outside masked the smell of blood.
Blood.
More Blood.
The faint smell of it on their clothes was enough to drive me wild.
"This game is never going to end." Irina sighed exasperatedly, this not being the first time I had been too distracted to play a game.
"Emmett, come on." Edward called, his voice firm and direct. "Sit back down."
I shook my head to shake the thoughts and caught the glorious smell of roses and honey…
Rosalie exhaled as I sat back down next to her.
And lavender…
"You dropped this." Rosalie said quietly, handing me a tiny green house game piece.
I stared at it for a long moment, the way it looked on her snowy fingertips, a house.
A home.
"Thanks." I opened my hand, palm toward the ceiling, and as she placed the piece in it, her fingertips lingered on mine in a way that transcended normalcy. She spread her dainty hand atop mine, the only thing between our two palms being that tiny green house.
Our palms domed around it so as not to crush it, but we were touching and electricity coursed through my body, my missing energy immediately being refilled. She slid her hand just slightly to the left over mine and ever so slightly bent her fingers as if they'd thread through mine.
I might've just imagined it, but I knew I hadn't when I looked up into her eyes.
It was the faintest look in her eyes that hoped…
That finally opened the gates and gave me permission…
The simple contact between us was enough to tether my attention, and I began to bend my fingers around hers too.
She'd asked me to with her eyes. I was certain of it, now.
"You are the worst to play games with." Irina complained. "Roll the dice will you?"
Rosalie retracted her hand and returned it to her lap so quickly that I thought I'd hallucinated the whole thing. The only way I knew I hadn't was the tingling, burning sensation on my skin and the tiny green house left over in my palm.
"Oh, gee, sorry." I reached for the dice.
Rosalie kept her eyes down and away from me, but there was the lightest of smiles on her perfect, beautiful lips.
She looked exceptionally pretty this afternoon. She wore a violet purple dress with gold buttons that only hoped to be half as golden as her hair. Her hair was pulled up off her gorgeous swan's neck and twisted up in a way that made her amber eyes sparkle.
My eyes lingered on Rosalie's neck, the long, slender shape of it, her porcelain skin, the velvet way she'd feel under my lips.
I thought of the human veins there that I'd sunk my teeth into. The pulsing, hot…
"Emmett?" Rosalie pulled me from my reverie.
I rolled the dice.
It was becoming blatantly obvious to everyone that I had no hope of productively playing this game anymore.
I was too far gone.
Carlisle's footsteps were getting louder and louder.
"I think we should call it." Edward suggested, realizing my thought was right. "We've been playing for hours and we're not getting anywhere."
"You're just saying that because you aren't winning." Tanya winked at him in teasing.
Edward grinned.
"Rosalie comes by it honest." Edward said in apparent teasing.
She frowned then, deeply.
"What do you mean?" Kate asked, leaning forward on her elbows as she sat across from me.
She was charismatic and easy in conversation, asking with honest curiosity.
"My father was… well, he worked, works in investments and…"
"Money." I finished her sentence, thinking about her fancy life in New York and how her father would've thought I was nothing but a common crumb unworthy of his little girl.
1926
"Kids, get your asses in that field if y'all wanna eat this winter. We got horn worms." John McCarty called in a booming shout.
"But what about school?" Elizabeth McCarty panicked, looking over at her father with pleading wide eyes. "Miss Walton said she might put my story in a contest!"
Emmett already had been up in the field working for hours before they'd gotten up. It could be seen in the sheen of sweat on his tanned skin and the tired look in his eyes that looked misplaced for youth. Emmett'd gotten pulled out of school last fall to work the field. Dorothy'd opted to stay home too and help their Mama with keeping the house.
Now, Dorothy untied her apron and grabbed a bucket.
Elizabeth clutched her school book to her chest. She knew she was next to get pulled out.
She really didn't want to be.
Emmett hadn't really liked school. He had trouble with getting his letters jumbled up when he was reading, but more than that, he had trouble sitting still to learn. Because of this, it hadn't been too bad when they'd pulled him out of school to work outside. His eyes lingered as his friends waved when they passed by on their walks to and from school while he worked himself to the bone, but overall he wasn't bitter about it.
Dorothy stayed home because Helen McCarty was having so many babies and she needed Dorothy to be a mama too. Dorothy liked being a mama.
On the other hand, Elizabeth loved school. She swore she was going to go to college just like Miss Walton. She had to.
She had to get out of here.
"You think you're too good for us?" John McCarty narrowed his eyes, challenging her.
"No, Daddy." Elizabeth breathed, her knobby knees shaking in her hole-filled boots as she put her book down on the front porch and picked up a bucket.
"You think yer so special." He went on. "But ye aint too special to starve this winter when these bugs eat up all our money."
"I'll do double if she can go do her readin' today." Emmett said, keeping his head down as he proposed this to his father, wondering if he was just going to get popped in the mouth for being defiant. "An' I won't take no supper."
John McCarty hated to be undermined, but Elizabeth's eyes were already welling up with tears and her bottom lip trembled in wanting.
He snorted, dismissing his daughter with the wave of his hand before he started over to Emmett and smacked him in the mouth with a quick slap of the back of his hand just as Emmett had expected he would.
He had time to brace himself.
"Don't question me, boy." John McCarty threatened, grabbing his son's face harshly to look into the mirror image of his own eyes.
"Yes sir." Emmett just nodded then and shot a little smile over to Elizabeth as she traded her bucket for her book once again.
I had to make something of myself before I'd ever be able to stand next to someone like Rosalie.
My hand absently ran over my cheek.
It was easy to be distant from her when I was too insane with thirst. Too wild… But when it all faded, as I'd been promised it would, what would keep her from me?
Then, it would just be me… I would be to blame. Who I am… Even who I could be couldn't depart that much from who I was…
Poor, uneducated, worthless trash.
"Money." Rosalie emphasized in what sounded like shame.
The way her lips curled around the word made me think she resented it.
I grew up thinking if I had a dollar, all my problems would be solved. I looked deep into Rosalie's face, wondering what was going on in her mind and what always went through it.
I wanted to know everything.
"So where are you from, Rosalie?" Tanya asked her.
"New York." Rosalie answered with a nod, signaling that she didn't want to talk about herself anymore.
"And what about you, Emmett?" Kate propped her chin in her hands. "You've got an accent."
"The middle of nowhere, Tennessee." I snorted realizing in context just how contrasting the two of us truly were. "So I come by my accent and Southern charm honest."
Kate snickered.
"And y'all? You got a little accent yourself." I raised an eyebrow, my hand coming to my newly perfect right ear that heard every detail of those accents.
The three of them looked at one another.
"Well, it was before there were modern national borders, so somewhere near Slovakia, Hungary, area." Irina answered with a shrug.
"Uh, where?" I chuckled.
"Eastern Europe." Kate answered easily. "We were all born around the 11th century so things were a bit different back then."
"And I thought Carlisle was old." I teased her and she kicked my shin under the table as she made a face and laughed.
"How's it going in here?" Carlisle began, standing behind us now as he returned from his hunt. "I heard my name."
He put a hand on my shoulder and I slowly shrugged him off.
His breath smelled like blood and it enraged me so I tensed up.
His smile was pleasant, but it flickered as I turned to look at him.
Apparently the look on my face was half as ravenous as I felt.
"Emmett was just calling you old." Tanya joked around easily with Carlisle, drawing away from the awkward.
"Well, you're even older." Carlisle teased back and I didn't know he'd had it in him.
I snickered lightly.
Carlisle tried to give me a smile, but avoided looking directly at me.
Carlisle had avoided my eyes for this entire trip, and kept conversation with me at the surface. I had disappointed my father enough times to know I'd disappointed Carlisle.
But, this was different somehow.
Carlisle wasn't angry with me…
In fact, I wondered if Carlisle had ever been angry about anything.
Something dark in me longed to push him just because I could, just because I wanted to see how far I could push him before he'd crack and prove he was just the same…
Another, bigger part just wanted to hunt and to do that, I'd have to get past him…
"How did you all come to be together?" Rosalie asked as if she knew I needed distracting as Carlisle turned back toward a conversation with Esme, Carmen, and Eleazar.
"The same as you I suppose - chance, right place - right time." Kate shrugged.
Rosalie's eyes darted down. I knew she thought the opposite.
Wrong place - wrong time…
I saw it in her eyes.
I wondered if I could do anything to stop those thoughts.
I wanted to reach out and touch her perfect face.
"Or in my case, wrong time." Kate narrowed her eyes at Tanya and stuck out her tongue like my little sisters did in harmless teasing. "Tanya attacked my people one night. See, I was a… well, I guess you'd call it a body guard, for a highborn in our Slavic tribe. We were at war then, so I wasn't surprised by the screaming, until I saw it was Tanya feeding. Then, I was really surprised. I had no idea what she was, or what I would become. I was changed that night because I was too stupid to know I couldn't fight her and win."
"You still couldn't fight me and win." Tanya smiled affectionately, draping her arm around Kate's shoulder and kissing her on her snowy, perfect cheek. "I was impressed with your loyalty. I knew you'd be a good sister."
Kate must've given her a little zap because she started giggling as Tanya flinched away lightly.
"We found Irina on a farm, and thought she looked like us so we got her too." Tanya shrugged, not imagining needing more reason than that.
"And why'd y'all stop hunting humans?" I fixated on that detail from the story, venom pooling in my mouth just thinking about it.
Again, the sisters giggled and exchanged a look.
I didn't understand.
Edward kept his eyes lowered and his face was whiter than usual.
"It's a bit of a story." Kate winked.
I imagined there was a lot to this story, and not just a bit.
"Have you heard of the legend of the succubus?" Tanya asked evenly.
"The who?" I swore they didn't speak English sometimes.
Irina sighed, rolling her eyes, but not at me.
"A female demon that lures men into her bed to kill them." Kate said, confidently staring right in my eyes as she said it.
I wasn't sure I'd heard her right, but I knew I didn't make that up. I wasn't that creative.
"Can't say I've heard that one before." I snorted.
Rosalie's eyes were wide as saucers and she didn't look away from Kate, but Edward looked like he was going to be sick as he kept his gaze down at his knees.
Poor old sport.
"Well, eventually, that got old. The killing part that is." Kate wanted to make sure I fully understood her innuendo. "So we decided we'd rather hunt animals than men - as food that is."
She kept her double meanings parallel and witty.
"We imagined that we could avoid slaughtering these men we had begun to fancy if we were well-fed on animal blood. Plus, it makes the fun part more fun when they aren't a corpse you have to dispose of afterward." Irina added with a giggle.
I couldn't believe my own ears.
They were breakable and flimsy and… blood.
"You… neck… with humans?" I was incredulous. "How?!"
"Surely you know how." Kate leaned forward on her elbows and she lowered her eyes and her voice in a way I was mighty familiar with.
That wasn't at all what I meant, but gosh darn did she cleverly turn it around on me so that I felt an amused smile widen on my cheeks.
"But, you haven't had centuries of practice so…" She sighed a breathy sigh out of her heart shaped lips.
I let out an unbridled laugh, responding to her challenge with amusement because my head was spinning in circles and I couldn't think to do anything else.
Kate was dangerously flirtatious, but I didn't take it personally. She was a chronically flirtatious dame. It wasn't directed at me in particular, just my maleness.
Nonetheless, I played into it.
Rosalie pushed away from the table then, her chair scraping against the ground cacophonously.
"Excuse me." Rosalie murmured breathlessly and nervously.
My eyes followed her, and Edward stood up to follow her into the other room, his eyes staying low. His wish to be invisible was heard loud and clear, but Rosalie could never be invisible.
She was too beautiful.
I took a long, lingering look at Rosalie's back, trying to keep my thoughts pure, but it was pretty damn hard. And, I was already distracted.
"American girls are so uptight about sex." Kate winked in my direction, obviously referencing how Rosalie couldn't stomach the conversation.
Kate spoke this too loudly for it to have been intended as a secret. Rosalie heard what she said.
I immediately regretted speaking so crudely in front of her. She was a lady, the real lady type with manners and standards and… I didn't really think these things through.
"American girls… and Edward." Irina added with a giggle.
This I would've normally laughed my ass off at, but I couldn't find it in me.
"Do you think she's all right?" I asked, my dead heart feeling like it was thumping in my chest.
I didn't realize I'd risen from the table until I was already on my feet.
"I'm sure her pristine standards for ladylike and appropriate conversation are left in tact." Kate suggested with a shrug, alluding to Rosalie's perceived pretentiousness. "She's fine."
I frowned, darting my eyes toward where she and Edward had disappeared. For how much I gathered they annoyed the hell out of one another, they certainly seemed more evenly matched than she and I.
1923
"My name's Edie." Edith Greene preferred to be called Edie because she felt it suited her better. "Nicetomeetcha."
She was full of spunk and personality which left her mother worried she'd never grow up proper. There wasn't much hope for that in a town this poor anyway.
Emmett McCarty's grin lit up his face like late summer lightning bugs.
An image of Edie Greene popped in my head to remind me of the first gal I'd ever fancied. We were just kids at nine and seven. I'd dropped out of school that year to work the land, but she'd still walk by and wave to me on her way to town. She wore that pretty blue dress with the flowers and her long red hair pulled into braids with her grandmother's ribbon. Edie was smart and told me all sorts of things they'd learn in school. I taught her how to catch a frog at the creek and climb a tree.
My mind couldn't precisely conjure the freckles on her nose, or the name of her little brother, but more than all the details, I'd completely forgotten how I felt it in my gut when I kissed her.
I forgot how it all felt.
"Let's play Charades now since it's even teams and there are no mind readers in the room." Irina suggested.
I didn't have to be a genius to know that the reason we were playing so many games was everyone was trying to help distract me from wanting to hunt.
Blood.
It came to the forefront of my mind again, ripping through my thoughts like a steam train.
I knew it couldn't happen now that I was a vampire, but I imagined it was getting hotter and hotter to an unbearable degree as I sat down.
"All right! That sounds swell." Tanya grinned.
I focused on Kate's face to keep from being distracted by blood and Rosalie and Edward and a rampant identity crisis, but it was a very difficult feat even considering Kate's impossible beauty.
I let my eyes trace over the bow of her bottom lip, focusing on the details of her features to avoid thinking about…. blood.
But even amidst my instinctual distraction, Rosalie infiltrated my thoughts.
Her presence in my thoughts was scalding hot, and when I heard her musical laughter from the other room at something clever Edward had said, I could've screamed. I tried unsuccessfully to focus on the charades, noticing I'd angrily gripped the side of the table too tightly so the glass cracked.
1934
Dolly Reed exhaled out of the high, her fingers curling into Emmett McCarty's black hair as she pulled his face down to kiss her.
He smiled against her mouth, having a special liking for the softness of women in a world as hard as his.
Emmett was thirteen and a half years old when he first experienced the magic of a woman. He thought it magic because he couldn't believe that women, being as strong as they are, were also so… so tender.
Now, at nineteen, he was still taken aback by the unbelievable secret softness of a woman. However, now they were older it came with more expectations, and Dolly Reed, a preacher's daughter would be expecting marriage from him.
He sat back against the headboard, lighting up a cigarette for his nerves.
"It's raining." Dolly said with a smile, lying her head on his chest and feeling so safe in his arms.
The sound on the tin roof was enough to quiet even her busy mind.
He nodded, running his fingers through her honey colored hair that was long enough she sat on it in between hymns at church.
"I been prayin' for rain for ya, Em." She kissed his neck, knowing he was weighted by the drought this summer that'd left the top leaves scorched and the crops suffering. "I ask God every day to…"
"You know I hate you talkin bout bible beatin' in bed." Emmett said in a cloud of smoke.
His voice was even and removed because he didn't care enough to argue with her about it, honestly.
But the drought wasn't all that weighted him. His sister Elizabeth was supposed to get married today, but instead… it had been her funeral.
Beth'd taken ill and it hit her fast. The fever burned through her and left her ice cold within three days. The man that would've been her husband, Jack Griffin, cried like Dolly'd never heard a man cry today as Emmett and Sam Sanders lowered her coffin into the ground.
Dolly'd stood there next to her father, hearing him say all those comforting words he always said at funerals.
But, she watched Emmett.
He had a black eye and busted lip as he always seemed to , and something about that had always drawn her to him since they were just kids. Emmett McCarty wasn't a rightful subject for pity by any means, but he'd been beaten and battered for as long as Dolly could remember. She thought she could take care of him.
But, he'd rather die than let her do that.
"Emmett, you have to guess." Kate sighed exasperatedly, standing in the center of the room where she'd been acting and I had yet to guess a word. "That's how charades work."
"Sorry." I ran a hand through my hair, then absent-mindedly over my right ear.
Tanya, Kate, and Irina watched me and waited.
It had been hours and hours of this, but it felt more like drawn out centuries.
"It's never going to be easy, but it'll get easier." Tanya said, her tone shifting to talk to me interpersonally.
"You'll be able to control it so much that sometimes you don't even have to think about it." Kate added with a nod.
"You'll always want blood, but living on animal blood does allow us to… experience life more like a human too." Irina added. "We can feel more human."
"And that's a good thing?" I mumbled, not entirely convinced.
Humanity meant pain. Humanity meant hunger. Humanity meant vulnerability.
But, I couldn't remember anything about who I was all of a sudden. All I could think of was ripping those men apart piece by piece.
"Well, we certainly think so. On our diet, we can… find family and feel a part of something, like we belong. The further you get from humanity, the more centuries that pass by hunting humans - you start to forget." Irina tilted her head to the side.
"You start to forget to value human emotions and experiences like family, or New Year's Eve, or… I don't know… playing games and laughing with people, because all you live for is the hunt. You start to forget what it's like to live with purpose beyond survival… There's a real distinction between instinct… and human emotion." Kate added onto her sister.
"Emotions? That's why I shouldn't hunt humans?" I tried to be serious but I couldn't, and I laughed.
"You don't understand, but you will." Kate rolled her eyes.
I snorted.
Even though it was philosophical and far fetched, it made sense.
How could I connect with anyone else if I couldn't even connect with myself? I had no tangible connection point between who I was or who I am now. Who was Emmett McCarty at all? Did he even exist? My mind and body were on separate radio frequencies, and I felt so disjointed I doubted my own name.
Again my fingers traced over where the scar on my face would've been. The skin was perfectly smooth and it was like that day had never truly happened.
Neither had twenty years of other days like that…
I had to hunt. Even animal blood would do at this point.
I jolted to my feet to go find Carlisle.
The sound of the piano got louder and louder as I finally stood on the outskirts of the room where Carlisle and Esme were sitting and enjoying Rosalie playing some fancy classical piano song. Edward sat next to her on the bench and he watched her play.
"Watch the crescendo to the high D." Edward instructed with foresight, then her fingers knotted on the keys and fell in a crash of sound.
She growled angrily, something I'd never seen her do and she pushed away from the piano.
She didn't know I was watching her.
"Rosalie, you can finish the movement." Edward suggested lightly. "Try again."
"No, I quit." Rosalie remained strong against his convincing.
"I want to be perfect…or nothing." Rosalie murmured almost inaudibly as she ripped her fingers off the piano keys like they were scalding hot.
1922
"All right, Emmett let's get this over with." Miss Walton sighed, absolutely at her wit's end with the McCarty children, and only two of them were old enough for school.
By the way the town talked about Helen and John McCarty, there were going to be another dozen or so of those ragamuffin kids that Miss Walton'd have to teach.
Emmett grinned apologetically to her, three of his teeth newly missing at age seven. He didn't much like school or Miss Walton for that matter, but he did feel bad that he misbehaved and he admitted he deserved the wrath of her ruler.
"Hold out your hands." She instructed him, but as he did so and Miss Walton got a good look at the burns on his palms and the bruises on his fingers and wrists, she paused.
She couldn't bear to strike him.
"Why don't you run along and play?" Miss Walton suggested in a deep swallow of dread.
"But Miss Walton, I called Lee Trent a yellow bellied sour pickle." Emmett confessed.
"You won't do it again, will you?" Miss Walton still had a knot in her stomach, but gave him a little smile.
"I don't know 'bout that." He responded in utter honesty.
"Well, could you at least try to be better?" Miss Walton couldn't help but giggle a little.
"I'll try." Emmett agreed with a nod.
"Join us." Edward offered, not turning around, but I knew he was talking to me.
Rosalie's shoulders tensed and she didn't turn around either as I entered the room then.
"That was beautiful." I tried to awkwardly compliment.
I think I meant her piano playing, but I think I also meant her anger, the way she fumed.
The way she didn't think…
"No, it wasn't." She argued, turning now to cross her arms over her chest, but she kept her eyes away from me.
"Well, I don't know much 'bout piano, but I liked it." I tried again with a little smile, but her iciness didn't melt.
"Precisely. You don't know." Rosalie's words cracked like a whip and the sharpness of them reminded me why I was here in the first place.
1935
"You ain't worth a damn you know that?" John McCarty growled in time with the thunder, grabbing Emmett's collar. He could smell the alcohol on his son's breath and see its cloud in his eyes.
"I know. I know." Emmett slurred, stumbling out of his father's grip on his collar and swiping his hand to swat him away.
"You think you're so tough…" John slapped his son's cheek not near as hard as he really wanted to, but Emmett's reaction time was slow and he just tumbled down to the mud.
Emmett drunkenly tried to scramble to his feet.
Right when he got his bearings, he slipped once again with a plop.
This amused him, and he laughed a throaty laugh, lying flat on his back now in the mud.
"Get up you goddamned drunk!" John screamed, half worried Emmett'd drown in the rain.
John grabbed Emmett's arm, yanking him to his feet.
Emmett's head was spinning but it was hard to tell if it was from years of improperly healed concussions, his current drunkenness, or the fact he'd just buried his eight year old sister's body.
"I'm ashamed'a you." John snarled once they were again eye to eye.
"I know." Emmett exhaled with a long blink then put his hand on his father's shoulder with a little smile. "I know."
"Rosalie…" Esme tried to push her to soften.
I needed her to, but not right now.
My focus darted to Carlisle.
Edward stood slowly, reading my thoughts.
"Can I hunt?" I asked him.
The room fell silent.
"Please." I mumbled at his righteousness.
Carlisle took a deep breath.
My throat burned sorely as I swallowed.
"No." He stood his ground and it angered me. "Not yet. Four more days will make two weeks. I'll reevaluate then."
He rose from his seat but I was towering over him so I looked down into his golden eyes with a challenge.
I could stand my ground too.
"We all had to thirst to get control, Emmett." Esme tried to add in comfort. She stood next to Carlisle. "It's awful now, but you'll be better for it."
I clenched my jaw, my body vibrating with want.
With need.
Everything in my mind was chaotic. I thought hunting would calm it. It had to.
"What if I don't want to be better for it?" The words fell out of my mouth like clanging pots and pans. "I just want to be… normal."
I felt like a sorry, stupid crumb now, but the words were already out there and I couldn't regret them.
"You will." Carlisle nodded, his golden eyes burning into mine.
"When?" I gasped, my throat feeling like a hot branding iron was being stuck down it.
Rosalie looked away now, like I'd become too pathetic for her to even look at.
The easiest response to everything was anger.
"Soon." Carlisle promised even though he couldn't really say.
I don't know why this empty promise angered me so much, and I could've ripped his skull off his spine in this moment. Edward stood next to Carlisle in solidarity then, reading every rampant thought in my wild, messed up head.
I shook my head, not really wanting that, but I was thirsty…
So thirsty…
"Edward, stand down." Carlisle warned him, his eyes darting to him for a fleeting moment so I knew they had a mental conversation.
"We're not trying to challenge you, Emmett." Carlisle's voice was even and calm.
It certainly felt like it. And my instincts told me they were.
"Then, let me hunt." I growled.
"You need control." Carlisle said.
"You have to know there are great consequences to a life without control. That is a path none of us could follow you down. We will all forgive you your transgressions, but don't take advantage of this grace." He spoke the words like he'd been waiting to say them for a while and this fact sent me to a point I didn't know if I could come back from.
I felt stripped down to my skeleton and I hated feeling this way. I got immediately angry and exploded.
"What would you have had me do?" I snarled, immediately feeling like he was just talking about what I'd done to those monsters. "Those people deserved to die."
"Carlisle." Rosalie's eyes darted to me and back to him rapidly as if in caution.
"That they did, but that's not what I'm talking about specifically. Loss of a moral consciousness is the greatest threat to our kind, but the second greatest threat is exposure." Carlisle said calmly as if to justify his righteous concern.
"Unconscious killing on such a large scale can provoke the Volturi, and I cannot allow anyone to jeopardize this family with their actions…"
"Family?" I snorted.
"Yes, Emmett. This is a family, and we want to be a family worth protecting." Carlisle pushed. "And you are a part of this family. I hope you see that I'm protecting you by teaching you control."
Immediately it triggered a learned behavior deep inside of me from my human days. The things I wanted to remember… The things that made me me, were still long hidden away, but I found my response to father figures with ease.
"You're not my father." I snarled not sure if I was convincing him, or myself.
My hands came to either side of my head trying to hold my brain together as the words tumbled out my mouth pathetically.
I felt drunk, totally out of control of my actions, my words, my thoughts…
"I know." Carlisle added in a whisper. "But I do care about you a great deal and want what's best for you."
"You just got lonely and changed a bunch of misfits into vampires. You think this makes us a family?!" I raved. "It doesn't."
The air was sucked from the room then. I couldn't control any of what was happening in me.
"You get off playing God, thinking you're all righteous with all your rules and your fake family and your authority over us. Brain washing us." I narrowed my eyes. "Why do we even listen to you?!"
I could see I'd hurt Carlisle, but I couldn't care yet. Like a wild animal, I continued ripping him to pieces.
"Emmett…" Carlisle reached out with an open palm.
"Spare me the father routine. I don't buy it." I went on. "And I don't need it. Especially not from you. You can't protect me, and…"
"Emmett… That was mean." Rosalie interrupted and looked at me with wide eyes, apparently incredulous at just how awful I could be.
But, she didn't even know the half of it. An awful sour taste lingered in my mouth off those words.
"What? You've cornered the market on meanness?"
As I shot back at her for the first time, I couldn't even find it in me to regret it.
She gasped in her throat.
"Carlisle didn't deserve that." Rosalie stood up to me, which threw me for a loop. "And neither did I."
"I won't feel bad for what I did, Rosalie.…" I groaned, feeling like she'd betrayed me after what she'd said about not trusting him herself.
"No one's asking you to do that." Rosalie spoke tightly through her teeth, her eyes burning into mine as she stepped forward, standing right under my punishing glare.
"You're still asking too much of me." I growled at her, closing the gap with a step forward in her direction.
She didn't step back under the blaze of my rage, and I saw in her eyes then that she wasn't retreating.
My stomach dropped in anticipation.
"Is it asking too much of your hunting lifestyle, or is it asking too much to expect you to be who I think you are?" Rosalie said something that wounded me to my core in one swift blow.
Her eyes saw down to my depths, reaching in and pulling something out I had thought was dead. I'd been jolted back into myself with a strike of electricity.
Lightning was coursing through my veins until it stopped and left my body with an emptiness like it had never known.
I melted into a puddle in front of her then. Like nothing had ever affected me before, Rosalie did, and I dropped to my knees in front of her like all the bones and structure in my body had been ripped out.
I felt boneless, brainless, bodiless, soulless…
Only then did I remember my name and remember what all that meant.
"Emmett…" Carlisle began treading softly, and I knew by the look in his eyes that I'd hurt him.
I'd hurt them all. I couldn't care yet.
His words sounded thousands of miles away as I knelt in front of Rosalie, my head bowed.
My head was pounding and I tried to focus on anything, but the world was spinning too fast.
"Walk with me." Rosalie breathed from where she stood over me.
I didn't immediately move or even look up to meet her eyes.
"Emmett." She said my name with extreme command of it, her golden eyes burning into mine as my gaze rose to see she'd extended her hand to me. "Walk. with. me."
My eyes locked on her perfect, porcelain fingers and the fact they were extended to me.
She knelt down to my level, eye to eye, and took my hand then.
Electricity coursed through my veins. Then, with the greatest serenity I had ever felt, she claimed my fingers by lacing hers through them.
Her skin felt like fine silk, and I immediately thought of what Carlisle had said… Emmett, she deserves the best of you, wouldn't you agree?
I hadn't known what that meant. I looked at her angel's face, seeing nothing but icy removal in her eyes as I stood to my feet on shaky knees.
I couldn't find any of the good parts of myself and I wondered if there ever had been any. I'd been told I was lousy, worthless, and no good so many times I thought maybe that's all I really was.
No one expected anything from me in my human life because all I did was mess up.
But the way Rosalie looked at me right now made me know she saw something.
Something I didn't see in myself. Something no one else saw in me.
Rosalie thought I could be something more than I was.
A worthless nobody.
And I was proving her wrong.
But, as I looked into her deep golden eyes now even after how much I'd hurt her, there was something new in them.
My skin tingled to the top of my skull, reminding me I existed.
"Who do you think I am?" I exhaled, almost begging her for the answers.
Maybe that's who I could be now that I wasn't Emmett McCarty.