Quick note: Thank you endlessly for your reviews and encouragement! It makes me SO HAPPY to see your responses! Thank you for investing in me and this story! In this uncertain time, I hope this story provides you some sort of escape or comfort. I'm sending all my love to you all. ALSO, HOW EXCITING FOR A MIDNIGHT SUN RELEASE!
These next few chapters are from Rosalie's perspective and the next few chapters have taken shape as perhaps the most important parts of this entire work and why I wanted to write this in the first place. There's a definite need for discussion on healing after trauma and the secondary victims of sexual assault in particular: the partners of survivors. I have so much love and respect for the couple SMeyer gave us with Emmett and Rosalie, and I think they had to navigate through incredibly difficult things together even before contemporary social developments that began to equip us for these difficult conversations, but that are unfortunately so real for too many people.
One exchange in particular beyond when Rosalie tells Bella that Emmett is exactly the kind of person someone like her needed is actually in the few chapters Stephenie Meyer released from Midnight Sun long ago in an exchange between Emmett and Edward. Edward mentions to Emmett or thinks it, I can't remember and she's taken it down today so I can't check for the exact quote, but Edward tells Emmett Rosalie's more work than a pretty face is worth. This REALLY triggered me and while it may not have been inherently meant this way, I couldn't help but think it was in reference to her trauma because while she is much more than what happened to her, there's a lot to sift through and detach from her identity in the process of being more than her trauma. I know you guys are FULLY aware of how much I love Rosalie and Emmett, but this is sort of hit the pinnacle for me. The two of them represent a whole lot more to me than I felt was written from Bella and Edward's limited perspectives, and they truly exhibit qualities of deep understanding of their partner.
I also find it incredibly interesting to note they live apart from the rest of the Cullen family habitually, and Edward even mentions this to Bella. This was in reference to Emmett and Rosalie's sexual relationship and how the others can't stand being around them, but I believe it's interesting to imagine they had a disconnection from the others that was more deeply rooted in how they understood one another and all the private dealings they had to navigate together apart from outsiders.
- ! I want to emphasize that in order to write Rosalie into her time period of 1935, and specifically her society life and manners, there's some reference to her beliefs on sex and physical intimacy that are incredibly warped and dated - particularly in regards to purity culture.
After the last few chapters focused on Dorothy's loneliness and limited understanding of the supernatural dealings happening around her, and the frustration she's beginning to feel for Rosalie's cryptic nature because of these misunderstandings, I felt this chapter had to return to the core of the work, but also set things up for Emmett's loyalties to be tested in later chapters in a far more realistic and conflicting way. This is to come. ;) And to help set up a little more clearly, the exchange between Dorothy and Rosalie that is coming up after this. I wanted Rosalie to be in a vulnerable place, an emotionally exhausted, low place when she goes to meet Dorothy - a new rock bottom.
Side note: PLEASE BE STAYING HEALTHY AND TAKING CARE OF YOURSELVES!
Please pleeaaaaaase consider leaving a review! Every word means the world to me! Thank you immensely for your words thus far.
TW/CW: sexual assault, ptsd, purity culture
Also just FYI, a little lemon zest in this chapter to lighten things up before they get dark... YOU WERE WARNED
Between Two Lungs
And my running feet could fly
Each breath screaming: "We are all too young to die!"
Between two lungs it was released
The breath that passed from you to me
It flew between us as we slept
That slipped from your mouth into mine
Gone are the days of begging
The days of theft
No more gasping for a breath
The air has filled me head to toe
And I can see the ground far below
I have this breath and I hold it tight
And I keep it in my chest with all my might
I pray to god this breath will last
As it pushes past my lips
As I...
Gasp
Rosalie
I caressed the cello, sitting on the back terrace surrounded by flowers in their colorless winter slumber, their shriveled leaves made heavy by the falling snow. The world was dead around me, but I… I felt alive for the first time in a very long time.
There was a poetry in the air, a beauty in the stillness of winter here.
In my solitude, I could think, and I could process.
In my introverted world, I could recharge and reemerge.
I'd been drained by the emotional turmoil of my last altercation with Emmett and the absolute hell we faced when we returned.
I'd expected nothing less of course. Esme was sympathetic, Carlisle was forgiving, and Edward was bitter.
But, something was different with Emmett. Something had changed as he took his sentence of thirst and control without protest or complaint. He knew his punishment must fit his crime, or maybe he was just realizing it was pointless to resist.
Beyond that though, there was an odd calmness to him, a carefulness that hadn't been there before and I didn't know if I liked it.
Of course I remembered how vulgar I found his wildness at one point, but I… I missed it now.
After two weeks of starving, he'd been gone for days, hunting with Carlisle and training his focus. The last time we'd been alone had been a combination of my wildest dream and my deepest nightmare. I was made confident and secure in him, while also feeling more skittish and embarrassed than I'd ever been.
Since, Emmett hadn't touched me in two weeks.
Even as I tried to brush by him, he shrunk away from me. I irrationally imagined he didn't want me, though that was preposterous and I knew it. He had to want me.
And, we hadn't dared to utter the words that we'd let slip the last time we'd been together.
I still meant them though…
I loved him.
But, I worried he didn't love me in his rational mind. I was positive that to me, these words hadn't slipped in an emotional high, but with him I wasn't so sure.
He smiled at me boyishly, but almost reservedly, each time we encountered one another.
I didn't understand.
But, I was mortified.
It was past embarrassment.
As relieved as I was that he didn't take me up on my offer, my vanity and feminine ego was greatly bruised.
Why didn't he make love to me?
I had asked him to, yet he still refused.
It made me sick to acknowledge that he didn't seem the type of guy to refuse any girl's advances, and I knew he had to have received countless propositions.
After reflection, I assumed he refused me not out of uncertainty, but out of experience…
Experience with women enough to know the look in my eyes betrayed me…
I wasn't ready.
I didn't understand him.
Why did it matter to him if I wasn't ready?
In preparation for my wedding, my mother had a conversation with me that women weren't supposed to enjoy it. The function of sex was just to please the men we were with.
If this was the case, and it would please him, then why did he refuse me?
My fingers danced along the neck of my instrument in a melancholy, lonely tune.
I thought of Emmett's fingers along the lace of my underwear and my legs tingled, open around the body of the cello.
Something was wrong with me.
Esme tried to address it in her own roundabout way, but it hadn't resonated that it was perfectly acceptable for me to have desire…
While I had grown out of the shame I felt about wanting Emmett in a physical way, it had shifted into an odd feeling of curiosity and confusion.
I felt there was something essential I was missing that everyone else possessed, and it frustrated me.
It angered me that he seemed to know what he was doing, but it also comforted me and made me feel safe and taken care of.
I thought of what Esme said about intimacy being more than sex.
A thought I would barely entertain intruded my mind then.
The Denali sisters spoke of pleasure…
They giggled and talked about things they did in the dark that I...
I shivered.
I didn't understand, and I felt like there was something everyone else knew about sex and physical intimacy that I didn't. I felt out of the loop and positively childish. It made me fill with an irrational anger.
I was only promised it would hurt, but I didn't imagine quite the level of pain to what Royce and his friends did to me…
In a light breeze, Emmett was conjured to my senses. Tobacco and thyme.
But, it was strong enough I knew I wasn't just imagining it this time.
I was taken from my tangling dark thoughts as he wiped them away and absent-mindedly, I smiled over my dancing fingers.
I would've been embarrassed of all of my thoughts, my wonderings about pleasure….
But he gave me no room for shame now. I was excited to have him back.
"Well?" I began, coy and not turning over my shoulder to look at him.
He was close enough to touch me; I felt it.
"Tell me you missed me." He requested, but he still didn't touch me.
His velvet voice was a preemptive caress, and I felt it smoothing over my skin.
"Well, you already boldly assume this to be true, so how about you show me you missed me." I told him boldly, having mustered up courage over this stretch of time being without him.
He laughed heartily, and I was insulted, immediately thrust into the depths of my insecurity.
I clenched my jaw bitterly, but still avoided his eyes.
"Rosalie Hale…" He exhaled my name in a sort of awe.
"You're a funny girl." Then, he did touch me, his fingers light as they traced the pattern around the diamond earrings I wore, dangling down my neck.
"I don't recall telling any jokes." I teased back flirtatiously, but my voice was breathless.
Emmett picked up on it.
His fingers left a trail of fire on my skin, and I tried my best not to shiver, but it was no use.
I missed his hands on me.
It was a shiver of anticipation as I wished for more.
I didn't slow my playing, and my sad lonely lamentation shifted into something more sultry.
He responded to this shift, by ducking from where he stood behind my chair to kiss my neck, tracing his lips down the vines of my bloodless veins.
"You're in a better mood." I commented.
He chuckled against my skin.
"What are you talking about? I'm always in a good mood." He didn't understand my reference.
I took my position of power, to pull away from him ever so slightly.
I intended him to follow me, but he didn't and I cursed the risk that I took.
All the courage and power I'd mustered up was gone now with the simple touch of his lips to my skin, and I hated that I was melted and powerless against him now.
"It's been a while since you touched me." I suggested, wishing I sounded more confident.
Then, with abruptness I didn't expect, he reached around my waist and between my legs, navigating with confidence up under my skirt.
I gasped at the feeling of his fingers and the note I was playing fell flat, my knees twitching inward.
"Keep playing." He ordered me, with a new level of lowness to his voice, and I would've done anything he asked then.
He sat on the ledge behind me, his lips on my neck and his fingers…
As much as my visceral reaction was for my legs to twitch closed, they were forced open on either side of the cello and he took advantage of this position.
I swallowed, doing what I was told even though it took every bit of focus I possessed.
He dove past the barrier of my underwear with dismissive ease, and I was trembling in a combination of nervousness and desire.
His touch was soft, yet incredibly assured and I melted into him, a sound coming out of my mouth that had never come out of it before.
I sighed with pleasure, sensations in my body that I'd never felt before overwhelming my senses.
"That's my girl." He said, obviously pleased with my sound.
Just the sound of the phrase and the way he sounded so satisfied with me, left me filled with desire for him, pooling between my legs.
His free hand braided into my hair, pulling my head backward lightly so my neck was more exposed to him as he kissed down the length of it.
"Slower." He told me, and I realized I was still disconnectedly playing the cello at a swift pace that mirrored my inner desperation.
I intently tried to do what I was told, and it was one of the hardest things I'd ever done.
I closed my eyes as he traced a lazy circle into me. My body took over my mind then, and everything was visceral and instinctual.
Pleasure…
He knew what he was doing, and intuitively he knew how to please me.
He listened to the cues of my body that I didn't even know existed.
He translated a language I didn't even know I was speaking.
I was wrapped up in pleasure, transported all at once to a space more in tune with my physical self and a space transcending it.
The rhythm of it synced into a symphony my body played that he knew perfectly as if he had composed it himself.
"Oh. God." I sang.
I dropped the bow, and I couldn't stop the sound that escaped from me as something in my body felt like… like an arrow being pulled back in a bow then shot off and vibrating a resonation through the entirety of my core.
Like… like an explosion.
Like a release….
Like… heaven.
I took a deep gasping inhale and I felt him smile against my neck, but he didn't stop, letting this bright, velvet radiation taper off in my body before he pulled his hand out from under my skirt.
My legs were shaking.
I dreamily looked up at him then in a bewilderment and odd mental limbo.
I saw him for the first time in this encounter then, something about that feeling naughty and inappropriate.
All of it felt inappropriate.
But, I… I wanted to do it again.
He finally kissed my lips, a victorious smile on his mouth making him taste sweet.
I was breathless, still in a state of euphoria.
"Do you believe me now?" He asked, his voice low and perfect and sultry.
I couldn't think. I had left my body.
Nothing on earth had ever felt like that before.
My legs and arms felt heavy and I felt… like I'd drunk too much champagne.
What was that?
His smug smile made his dimples deep in his cheeks.
I steadied my breath in this odd headspace I was in.
Was I floating away from my body?
It was sweltering hot.
"What?" I breathed shakily, my voice trembling in my chest.
"That I missed you." He suggested, barely kissing my lips as he hovered over them to make me shiver.
I was too distracted thinking about what sort magic his fingers knew, those divine patterns.
He was focused on my lips though, then he pulled away and smiled that same accomplished, smug smile. It was like my pleasure was his own.
I didn't understand.
I irrationally worried about his expectations, but as I examined his eyes there were none, only that I was… made happy.
Then, the oddest emotional spectrum shift I'd ever experienced wracked through my body.
I was malfunctioning.
I went from a wild euphoria to desperate loneliness being disconnected from him.
I replaced the cello, to prop against the chair standing unbridled in front of him.
Whew, my legs felt wobbly, but I tossed my arms around his shoulders, ducking my head into him and taking deep inhales of his skin. I closed my eyes, shaking as I imagined him absorbing me into his own body. I never wanted him closer more than I did right now.
Even this close, I wanted him closer.
It wasn't enough.
"What is it?" He asked, in a humored concern, his hand floating up to my back.
I clutched my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, loneliness pulsing through every cell of my body like a bruise.
I wondered if this was a byproduct of the euphoria, this connection to him that I couldn't explain and had no hopes of rationally processing. I felt him like stardust against me, something mystical filling my lungs as I inhaled him.
"Come on Rose, what's going on in your head?" He asked, kissing my cheek.
I shook my head.
"I… don't know." I answered the only way I knew how.
My attachment was disintegrating my loneliness, but also intensifying it with desperation.
This pain… It was tearing me apart.
I didn't know how to express it.
Loving him hurt… so… damn… much…
I was heartsick and dizzy, but the moment he took my face in his hands and kissed me nose, I grinned with unimaginably light playfulness.
A giggle escaped my throat as I was painfully severed from my sadness.
Like I said, my emotional spectrum was malfunctioning.
I was lightheaded.
"Was that all right?" He asked, genuine concern for my reaction evident as his gaze traced over my face.
I exhaled, unable to stop myself from smiling.
"More than all right." I nodded, and he grinned, dimples deep in his cheeks.
I wish I had words to articulate the experience, but I couldn't do it.
"I want to please you." He told me dotingly, kissing my lips ever so lightly.
I almost bent under the weight of his admiration, but I drank it in thirstily wanting every last drop of it.
He snaked an arm around my waist, pulling me forward so I stood in between his open knees where he sat.
His eyes floated over my body, but not in a menacing way, in an appreciative, reverent way.
It was a worshipful experience, and I reveled in it.
Then, as if he saw something in my face, he smiled wide.
"It's hard for me to believe if you don't say it out loud." He said, kissing my lips now before he pulled away, his eyes searching over my face in this perfect, awful, blissful moment.
"What?" I asked softly, my gaze also searching his.
"That look in your eyes." He said, his own eyes responding to my search as they switched from iris to iris.
"What do you see in them?" I pressed, feeling more confident as he kissed me again.
The weight of his lips miraculously made my limbs feel lighter and it was just his hands on my face that kept me from floating away into the wintery sky.
"You're in love with me." He said in a low, velvety voice that sent shivers down my spine.
"That's an awfully bold accusation." I said formally, demure as I turned my cheek.
"I've been known to be bold, darling." He said just as informally and settled on kissing my neck, leaving a trail of fire down to my collarbone. "But I'm right, aren't I? Tell me."
His breath on my skin made my nerve-endings electric and I bit my lip, unable to fight a smile spreading on my lips as he looked back up at me. He feigned innocence before a celebratory smile spread on his face, revealing the dimples on his cheeks I could die for.
"Have you ever been in love?" I asked him finally gaining the courage to do so.
"No. Not like this." He said stroking my hair back and ducking his head to kiss my forehead.
I shivered at the thought that he was in love with me. He'd called this being in love and I reveled in it.
"What was it like then?" I asked, closing my eyes and loving the feeling of his hands in my hair.
"It was childish." He responded shortly, kissing my lips in a way that suggested he couldn't bear not to.
"Then, who was your childhood sweetheart?" I wasn't leaving the subject.
"Edie Green." He responded without hesitation, a smile in his eyes as I looked up at him. "Mmm, what a doll."
I raised an eyebrow and he went on to playfully torture me with my irrational and frivolous jealousy over the object of his childhood regards.
"That smile… Oh, she always smiled especially big when she lost a baby tooth 'cause she was so proud of losing 'em – when she lost the two in the front – wow, now that made her look especially radiant."
He laughed in his reverie of innocence and mischievousness and I nudged his arm in pseudo-jealousy of a little girl with missing baby teeth that had won his childhood affections in so many years past.
He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me tight as I tittered.
"What was she like? What made you sweet on her?" I also wanted to know why he was twenty years old and not promised to anyone as well as the extent of his romantic history, but this was a sidestep into these subjects.
"I was a kid, Rosalie. I have no idea." He laughed, sighing and looking like he didn't really want to talk about this and just wanted to kiss me.
"So superficially, you just liked her for her baby teeth?" I raised an eyebrow.
He found this hilarious, and I smiled at myself – never knowing myself to crack jokes like this. I surprised myself at this new layer of my personality, taking a moment to let it sink in.
"She was headstrong." He nodded, then traced his hands over my hips and down my thighs. "Like you."
I rolled my eyes.
"Headstrong? Edward usually just calls it pigheadedness." I wasn't sure now if Emmett meant that as a compliment.
"Edward doesn't see you like I do." Emmett responded swiftly. "Thank God."
I wrinkled my nose at the thought.
"Guess, I've just always liked strong women." Emmett kissed the end of my nose in a sweet, mindless gesture. "That intimidates some folks, but not me. No sir. It's no threat to my masculinity. It's not that fragile."
I rolled my eyes. He didn't think before he spoke. It was charming most times.
"Tell me something about her." I said.
"Like what?" He seemed almost exasperated at my fixation, but remained open.
"How did you know her?"
"We grew up together." Emmett said shortly.
"I figured that much," I pressed, seeing his reticence as something suspicious because he was never withholding.
That was my job.
"Well that's just how you meet people in Tennessee, Rose." He laughed dismissively.
"And what about when you grew up? Any girlfriends to speak of?" I tried to sound smooth but there was no point.
I was positively desperate.
"Uh-uh, no. Not until I find out who swept you off your dainty little feet as a girl." He teased and kissed my forehead.
"Hmm… Roosevelt Warner." I giggled after searching my mind for a moment, the innocence of child's play flooding the present air and mimicking the days gone by playing in my front yard with a boy from school that picked daisies for me out of Mrs. Willard's garden.
"Oh, my, sounds like one fancy cat." Emmett raised an eyebrow. "I'll bet I don't hold a candle to the gentleman!"
"He was such a romantic, carving R + R in the tree behind our school." I winked. "He was actually my first kiss. I was fifteen and he asked me to the winter dance… He had blonde hair and interesting green eyes and…"
"I get the picture." Emmett teased, but I recognized that fire of jealousy in his eyes and it made me irrationally filled with desire.
It pleased me.
"But, my parents never approved." I sighed at the little tragedy.
"And why is that?" Emmett played along with his fake concern.
"His mother was a flapper and his father was a writer." I recalled because I clung to human memories. "Rumor was they were communists. Quite the radical bunch."
Emmett laughed, but his focus turned to trace a finger down the center of my chest and down to my naval, over the fabric of my dress.
"And what would your parents have thought of me?" He lowered his chin, showering my neck and jaw with kisses in a positively suggestive way.
I attempted to collect my thoughts as he kissed me this way.
Then, he pulled back, anticipating an answer to his question though he knew and just seemed to masochistically want to hear me say it.
"They wouldn't have liked you one bit." I bit my lip in a not so innocent manner.
"Why?" He chuckled, but something told me he already knew, but was playing into the joke.
"They'd say you were beneath me." I said, climbing on top of him where he sat to illustrate my point and kiss him a little more wildly.
He pushed me away a little though, a displeased look on his face.
He knew what I was going to say yet still…
I was confused.
"Doesn't that matter to you?" He was actually seriously concerned.
"Not at all." I dismissed, trying to kiss him again, but he nudged me off his lap and I stood, shocked and disconnected in front of him.
"I just… I know didn't have the same upbringing as you. I didn't go to fancy schools and learn fancy manners, or how to read fancy books, or have a fancy afternoon drive in a fancy car." He droned on. "I can't talk to you about stuff like that because I don't know anything about it. I can't… give you that."
"It sounds like that matters to you, not me." I raised an eyebrow, testing.
I recalled the way his father and his sisters had looked at me, obviously knowing I was out of place, and passing judgments about me just because of the way I was dressed.
Like I had money and this meant something about me.
"No, it doesn't." He said strongly. "I just know we don't change that much when we turn into a vampire and I'm no Roosevelt Warner."
I was glad because a Roosevelt Warner could grow up to be a Royce King II.
I clenched my jaw, positively angry now.
"Emmett, if you must know…" I narrowed my eyes impatiently. "My parents were malicious social climbers that used me as a tool and…. That's what got me killed… And I haven't forgiven them for that. So no, it doesn't matter to me what the hell they would've thought of you or that we came from opposite ends of the class system in our far away human lives, but if it matters to you so much..."
I said all of this in one venomously swooping breath, before I turned my back to him.
"Rosalie, stop." He reached out, grabbing onto my left arm so I couldn't walk away.
He dropped his hand and I turned to face him, crossing my arms over my chest.
"I'm sorry." He said, his hands sliding up the sides of my legs, making the fabric of my dress seem insignificant as his hands made their way to my hips, his thumb making circles on the bones.
"I was being a crumb, just talking nonsense." He looked up at me with brilliant, pleading eyes and I couldn't resist his unspoken request for me to join him again. "Forgive me, angel."
After I tortured him enough with my silence, I elegantly lowered to sit beside him, and he smiled a brilliant smile in triumph.
He kissed me, his lips tasting sweet as cinnamon. It was impossible to stay angry with him, but I didn't reveal this information to him.
"That was the first time you've talked about how you died to me." His eyes darted over my face, knowing it was significant to me.
Seriousness in his tone made me shiver and I didn't like it. I didn't like the possibility of having to tell him.
So I took a card out of his book and tried to play it off with humor.
"Now as promised, about your girlfriends?" I pried.
"Oh my God." He chuckled, but retained some of his seriousness.
He knew that was all I could say right now though and he didn't dare press for more information on my death. He knew I couldn't give it to him.
"Well, there was Edie when I was a kid if that counts…" He started, a special fondness for her evident in his eyes. "And… a few… well some other girls once I got older. A girl named Dolly."
I narrowed my eyes, something significant about this girl Dolly enough that he said her name, and I couldn't help but notice he edited himself from few to some.
"Nothing ever really serious." He tried to dismiss again.
Again, I narrowed my eyes.
"So Edie's family lived right down the hill and around the old church. I'd always stop in front of her house and insist we walk to town together when our parents would send us on errands." Emmett explained how he grew to care for her, knowing the details would satisfy me. "I'd always steal a peach for her from the market, and we did that every week at least for a few years."
"That's sweet." I confirmed, picturing him as a gangly kid, trying to impress a pretty girl that made him blush a beautifully human shade of scarlet. "And you loved her?"
It only made me love him more, but a streak of irrational jealousy made me possessive and prying.
"I mean, I was just barely a kid, Rosalie. I thought she was a great girl because she wasn't afraid to pick up a frog down by the creek and she had a flashy red bicycle." Emmett shrugged, laughing humorlessly. "As a kid, I thought that was love."
"Did you ever get the guts to kiss her?" I asked, the words tasting sour coming out of my mouth when I realized I didn't want to know. "Or did she have to make the moves like I did?"
"Rosalie, that's private information!" He teased in a chuckle, lighthearted again. "And… hey, I have plenty of guts! I was going for respectful gentleman with you, thank you."
I rolled my eyes as we laughed together, a moment of innocent bliss.
"I know." I appreciated that I made the first move.
"And let's not tell anyone about that. I wanna say I kissed you first." Emmett winked at me.
"I thought your masculinity could handle it?" I raised an eyebrow.
The lightness of the moment was almost too much to handle as we teased each other.
"All right Rose. I'll give you this one." He laughed, a full, world changing laugh filled to the brim with liveliness. "It's 1935, progressive ideas all over the place."
I kissed him again, unable to stay away, but also to prove my point.
"Was she beautiful?" I asked, vanity tainting my tone as I shifted back into the conversation at hand.
"Well, I certainly thought so." Emmett made a face that didn't go with his humor-filled tone. "But, when I told her that, she laughed at me."
I too laughed at the innocence, picturing the exchange perfectly.
"Then, she kissed me." Emmett revealed with a rascally grin.
"And you didn't marry her?" I raised an eyebrow halfway in judgment.
"No. I didn't." Emmett nodded, matter-of-factly. "I was ten. She was eight. It was hardly appropriate."
"I meant when you got old enough." I clarified with a light chuckle.
"She died a year later. I think when she died it just about killed me too." Emmett told me evenly. "I was young enough it left an impression, but old enough to be properly depressed and to properly grieve."
"I… I know it's stupid, but… But I always went on after that thinking I was cursed." Emmett told me evenly. "Everyone that was ever close to me… died, so I didn't really get attached to anyone in any real way. I was always afraid of losin' em."
I saw his soul then - his honest, beautiful, loving, innocent soul and I inhaled at the sight of it. I hugged to him, pressing my cheek to his chest, and swearing I could hear the beat of his frozen heart.
"I can't lose you." He told me in a way that suggested a thousand connotations.
I just nodded, for only this one instance thankful for my immortality because of the look in his eyes.
I stiffened, tightening my arms around his waist
"I'm so sorry." I swallowed, unable to imagine such atrocity in my shallow, sheltered mind.
"It was a long time ago." Emmett said, not very good at delicate conversation.
"What about Dolly?" I asked, again not wanting to know, but also wanting to know.
He clenched his jaw.
"No." This struck a chord I didn't understand.
"Why?"
"She and I wanted very different things." He tried to dismiss but this annoyed me more than almost anything he'd ever said.
It was so cryptic.
"What did she want?" I asked, thinking this was the easier question of the two.
I don't think he knew what he wanted.
"She… Well… She wanted marriage and a family… and… and children and…" He spoke of the things I would give everything up for with disdain, and even though it was irrational for me to want, it still made me sad he didn't want these things too…
It felt like something important for us to be compatible in even if it was impossible, but yet again we were at odds.
It broke my heart to think he didn't share my deepest dream, and I thought I'd never felt heavier in my heart.
"You didn't… want that?" I asked, my heartbreak very obvious in my voice.
"Well, eventually maybe I don't know. It didn't cross my mind really."
"It was more than all that… Dolly… wanted to fix me. She'd always wanted that. I just didn't see it at first because she was too good at hiding it." He gritted his teeth at the end of his sentence, betrayal in his eyes for a brief moment. "She was constantly makin' me aware of all the ways I fell short and I was addicted to the toxicity of it. She reminded me I was nothing, and I stuck around because I believed it…"
"She was the town preacher's daughter." I watched his face change then into something unimaginably dark, something I hadn't seen since…
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"I recognized him that night… The night I killed all those goddamned bastards back in Tennessee… He was one of 'em…" He could barely say it. "He…"
I tried to keep my expression even as I watched his descend into darkness, but that was unimaginable horror.
Someone your community was supposed to trust…
"That's awful… I'm sorry." I exhaled, hating that.
"Almost wish I coulda told him what I'd done with his perfect Christian daughter, the things she did, and that might've killed him more painfully." Emmett said unthinkingly and venomously as the monster he was in the memory. "Made him suffer."
I flinched.
It hurt more than I expected it would.
"Shit. Sorry." Emmett apologized, snapping back into the present. "That was… very inappropriate for me to say."
"It's fine." I could barely say this lie out loud. It hurt.
"No, it's not. I…"
"I'd rather know." I settled on, and I actually meant it.
Even if it hurt, something in me wanted to know.
I wanted to know everything.
"Did you?…." I started to ask, but I couldn't even form the words. "I mean… I know that's personal to ask, but… With her?… I…"
"Yeah, we did." He looked away from me to answer.
"How many others?" I asked the real question.
"Rosalie…" He protested a little, and he kept his gaze away.
"Emmett?" I pressed, venomous annoyance at his reticence pooling in my mouth.
"I… I don't know." He answered, but this wasn't dismissive.
He honestly didn't know.
"Guess." I commanded.
"A lot." He told me evenly, still looking out to the horizon and away from my eyes.
I groaned exasperatedly, something in my stomach feeling sick.
I held my head in my hands not really knowing how I was feeling in this moment.
"Oh, Rosalie. None of those girls could hold a candle to you. I was just a stupid guy without any real direction and… and you're the only one that's ever mattered to me..." He reached out, squeezing my cold shoulders. "I love you. Please believe me. You have to believe me. None of that matters at all now."
"Gimme a second." I breathed deeply, shrugging him off..
After a long, excruciating moment, I decided.
"Tell me everything." I pressed with a nervous tremble to my voice.
"Rose…" He protested, obviously not wanting to hurt me with this information.
I decided I'd rather know because if I didn't it would eat me alive for eternity.
"I want to know. I deserve to know." I explained. "Tell me from the beginning."
He sighed, looking away from me.
"I don't think…" He started.
"Tell me!" I said strongly, my voice raising enough it could shatter the icy winter air.
"The first time I was thirteen or so… My mother had been friends with her. I'd grown up with her kids… Her name was Sarah. She was a widow. My mama didn't want her to starve…. So she sent me every so often with food from our fields and to just do some work around her house since she didn't have anyone else. Her husband had died a couple months before, and the town knew she'd gone kinda crazy after… But, she was just real lonely… And, I was… young and naive." He started. "And… well… I didn't know…"
Young? My God he was thirteen years old… He was a child, and a woman that could've been his mother took advantage of him. My eyes widened and I knew my expression had betrayed me when he caught my eyes.
"You wanted to know." He reminded me.
I just nodded.
I still had to know.
"Then, a girl I'd grown up with, Francie Tidwell a few months later. And then…"
"No, tell me about her." I insisted on knowing, wishing I knew everything about her, about everyone.
"She had red hair." Emmett recalled, this seeming to be the only detail he could recall.
I just chewed on my bottom lip wondering if he wished I had red hair.
"Then… a girl named June Pritchett. She made moonshine that'd knock you flat on your back." Emmett snorted humorlessly, obviously still not wanting to talk to me about this.
He imagined himself vulnerable sharing this information, but it was me that was vulnerable.
"A girl named Violet… She was visiting town for the day and I carried her bags to her car from the train station."
"Baby... I mean Ira Sanders..." He actually seemed to be made heavier by this confession. "She was... my best pal Sam's sister so it shouldn'ta happened. We lied to him and... snuck behind his back, and... we both agreed it was a mistake."
"Then, Laura... Something? She was… I don't remember how I met her."
"Nancy Jones... I... I saw her in town a few times."
"Hannah… No… Her sister… Um…"
I didn't know how many girls's names I could hear, but the names he didn't remember hurt just as much.
"And Felicity Brown." He went on, giving up on remember that other girl's name. "She worked at the school."
"I think that's enough." Emmett turned away from me, stopping at what I'd imagine wasn't even scratching the surface.
It just turned the dagger in my heart deeper though as I imagined how he knew this information hurt me and my mind ran wild imagining all the names he didn't say.
"When you're finished." I said, trying to stay strong and assured.
He sighed.
"No… Rosalie…" He protested. "This is pointless, and I hate this. I hate hurting you with things that had nothing to do with you. I hate this look in your eyes…"
"It will hurt me more if I don't know, and it does have something to do with me now." I said, my voice wobbly and unsure.
"No. It really doesn't. You knowing about something I did when I was seventeen years old doesn't serve any function to our relationship with each other now or in the future. It isn't relevant at all." He tried to say.
I clenched my jaw, not sure of what I was really wanting to say…
"But it will affect me…" I breathed
"How? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I just don't see it. I wanna see what you see. How is it going to affect you?"
I was too prideful to admit even the tiniest of reasons it affected me in my jealousy.
"Well… I don't know…" I mumbled, turning away.
"You do. Talk to me." He pushed lightly, trying to find my eyes.
I knew, based on his assuredness and frankly, the way his fingers made my body sing that he knew what he was doing. I knew he'd been with someone else, so it wasn't a surprise or even a disappointment. I assumed he was sexually experienced even before I really even knew.
It was just an accepted fact with no true weight until I got more involved with him...
My mind ran away with it because it was getting more and more personal to me.
Could I tell him all that was swimming through my head?
Thinking about him with other women….
It terrified me.
It was more than retrospective jealousy.
I felt like his past was something threatening our current, budding relationship and my anxiety was on high.
What kind of expectations would he have for me?
Would he think about them when he was with me?
Will he want someone else and reject me?
Were they better than me?
The uncertainty was almost too much for me to bear.
I was anxious… sad… angry…. out of control….
Maybe that's why I was insisting on torturing myself with this.
"What are you really trying to communicate through making me tell you all that?" He asked intuitively. "How was that helping us in your mind?"
I paused, waiting on my thoughts to catch up in my rampant mind.
"Well, I don't think it's an outlandish expectation to know about your past when we're… doing whatever it is we're doing." I lashed out, but he could handle it.
He knew I was dismissing what was really going on between us by not giving it a label, but honestly labels on this were incredibly difficult anyway so he didn't protest.
"Are you trying to drive distance between us?" He asked. "Did you ask just to sabotage us? To scare yourself away from me… again?"
"No." I answered honestly, I think, but maybe he saw something I didn't and it made me panic.
I wanted to murder every single person he'd ever had sex with, and I could. I could do it…
It was irrational and I felt like a psycho.
"I just want to know…." I took a deep breath wishing I could make sense of all the tangle in my mind.
"What do you want to know? I'll tell you." He assured me, his honesty unconditional.
I played out his sexual experiences like a moving picture in my mind and I thought I was going to drop dead right here. It was like it was happening right here, and right in front of me.
I worried incessantly, unable to picture a reality now that I wouldn't latch on to their names and create elaborate stories surrounding them.
Then, I wondered if he'd said the same things to them that he said to me. I wondered if he looked at them the way he looked at me. I wondered...
"I… want you all to myself." I finally said, unable to look at him as I said this.
He was pleased though because of what I expressed, and I saw his dimples out of the corner of my eyes.
"You do have me all to yourself, Rosalie." He said, kissing my cheek and letting his lips linger as if asking for a kiss but I couldn't do it.
I imagined the reverse of it and it made me sick, wondering how he would respond to what happened to me… The damage I carried that in my mind, made me less his. Even though I had no control over it. I wanted to be all his… I wanted him to be the only person that had ever and will ever touch me…
I was projecting, but I would not acknowledge it. I wouldn't.
It was a control thing to me.
"But…"
"It was all before I knew you." He assured me.
I clenched my jaw and crossed my arms trying not to look like I was pouting, but it was impossible.
I was pouting.
"Are you needing validation from me?" He raised an eyebrow.
I would've rolled my eyes, but he wasn't joking.
I felt his sincerity and his sincere desire to assure me if I needed it.
And honestly… I think he might've been right.
So, I just nodded.
"Rosalie, I love you. I have never been in love before, and I've never felt so secure in someone in my entire life. You are beautiful, and intelligent, and headstrong, and captivating. Every new thing I learn about you makes me love you more." He spoke these flowery words with such conviction.
The forefront of my mind for the moment was about his insatiable hunger for sex due to his promiscuous past, and if I'd be enough for him now so I went with that.
"Will you…be faithful to me?"
He almost couldn't believe what I was saying.
"Of course, Rosalie. That's ridiculous." He took my face in his hands, kissing my lips quickly as he saw the storm of insecurity in my eyes.
"Eternity is a long time." And right when I said it, my stomach dropped to my knees, hating I was even implying our commitment to one another.
I worried it would be stifling to him and I would sound crazy and desperate.
"I understand that." He smiled though, seeming pleased and it lightened my heart. "I only want you. Always. You have to believe me."
"I don't know if I can." I breathed in self destruction after how my heart began to settle into the security of our relationship.
"Because I had sex before I knew you existed?" He tested. "I will talk you through your feelings and assure you the best I can, but I won't be made to feel guilty for the rest of eternity. I want you to know that has nothing to do with you."
He had a point and it filled me with rage.
I gritted my teeth, hating the war going on within me.
I was being torn apart and the looming, awful puppeteer of my own past was pulling my strings and making me think and feel things I didn't want.
I…. I was the one filled with guilt with each passing moment. I wanted to give him everything, every part of me. I wanted him to be the only person that had ever…
"I don't know what to say…" I exhaled.
"None of it matters anymore." He said.
"It does to me." I said through my teeth.
"I want you to tell me why it still matters." He pressed.
"Because…" I whined, hating the way my voice sounded so brokenly desperate.
"It was all just meaningless sex, you know?" He tried again, a different way of going about it.
That was the dumbest thing he could've ever said and it made me fume.
I clenched my jaw. I think he meant the meaninglessness as a good thing, but I couldn't accept that in my own warped reality right now.
"No, I don't know what that's like." I said tightly, the hostility in my voice betraying me as my hands came off of him entirely. "Sex means something to me."
It meant something to me and it had been stolen from me… painfully. I wanted to preserve it for someone that loved me…
Now, I was dirty and unworthy despite my best efforts and it was meaningless to him?
It seemed to diminish everything I held inside, every ounce of my pain.
"Rosalie…" He groaned, wiping his hands over his face. "That's not what I meant. It means something to me with you. I love you."
I knew what he meant, and it illuminated a harsh reality for me.
My past experience with physical intimacy, or really the lack thereof in my case, was a weight on my new experiences and his weren't.
He didn't take these experiences into our relationship. He was right... His sexual experiences had nothing to do with me.
They had nothing to do with our relationship.
But mine... Mine did. I took my experience into our relationship. Even though it had nothing to do with him, I brought my experiences forward.
He wasn't allowing his past to weigh on his present like I was. He wasn't letting his past dictate his future.
He was free of the chains of the past, but I…
I was still a prisoner.
Could I be freed?
My trauma seemed to be a heavier and heavier burden with each passing day, and as time marched on and my relationship with Emmett was getting more and more valuable to me, I was realizing just how much I wanted to be free of my pain.
I was realizing how I wanted to tell him... so he would understand...
But, I wanted to tell him... for me. I needed to share my burdens to lighten my load and to stop letting my past haunt my present.
Was I brave enough to face these ghosts?