Wilting Roses

Chapter Eight

Love and hate. Death and life. Two words that represented the complete opposite of their respective fields, yet they couldn't be closer. And day by day they were melding closer and closer to one another until I couldn't make heads or tails of which I was currently feeling. All I knew was that I was staking everything on this one answer. My past, present, and future were all at the mercy of this one person, who in my eyes were the god of my world.

I avoided him.

Her.

Them.

I didn't have the stomach to face my friends, or Bella, or Dickward after all that happened. Naturally they were concerned for me. Alice would text me, and call me and come over to the house, but I stayed locked up in my room, even Jasper kept out.

"Please, Rosalie, you can't keep doing this," Jasper begged across the wooden barrier. "It's concerning, and if you don't stop I'm going to have to tell mom and dad."

I blanched at that. I didn't want my parents to come home. They would be less than pleased that their business trip had been cut short because I was acting 'off'. Once more I realized I was letting my emotions get to me, so I held my head high and decided I wasn't going to let them get me down. But that was harder said than done when faced with Dickward. I couldn't do it. I chickened out. I didn't sit with my friends at lunch, instead hiding myself away in the library, the one place they would never think to look for me in.

All except Bella, who was no stranger to libraries unlike me and my friend group. She had been perusing the books during one of our shared lunch periods and sighing heavily when she couldn't find the volume she wanted. I noticed her first, and holding my breath, I tried to slowly slink out of the chair I was seated at, but a creak of the wooden floorboards gave me away and Bella span on her heel as I froze mid step, bag halfway on my back.

"Rosalie!" her face was a mix of happiness and surprise. "So this is where you've been hiding."

"I'm not hiding," I growled out, the retort a defensive mechanism that was reflex.

"Yes, you have. And we've all been worried for you. Why are you doing this? What's going on?" she neared me and I took steps back, feeling caged in and like I wasn't in control of this situation.

"Nothing. Nothing is going on," I grunted out as my back hit the shelves of books and still Bella wouldn't stop pressing in. Why was she getting so close?

"That's not true." Her big eyes searched my face and I couldn't help but stare at her lips. They were so close to me. Closer than ever before. I could just reach out and kiss her, cup her chin, tangle my hands through her hair.

I swallowed the dry lump in my throat. This, this was why I was avoiding them all. Because it hurt too much to want Bella like this, only for Edward to stand in my way.

"Rosalie, please, just tell us how we can help you. You're not alone in this." She grabbed a hold of my hands and they shook in her grip; I cursed myself for that weakness but I couldn't stop them.

"I just need time by myself. I need to be alone. With my thoughts."

"No, that's not healthy. I..." at this Bella bit her lips. "I need you back with us." She flushed slightly at her own brazen words. "I need you to not give up. To not stop fighting. If you don't stop, I won't."

What was Bella talking about? Was she talking about my feelings for her? Did she know? How? Had Edward told her? If so, I was going to murder him! I was going to make him rue the day he ever opened that mouth of his!

"Fighting?" I echoed, urging her to go on, so I could get more of a context.

"I know it's hard when you have a crush."

My heart seized up at words. Tightened with pent up emotion and foolish hope- I don't know why I was hopeful- and dread.

"And its even harder when the crush doesn't like you back. But you can't let that get you in the dumps. You can get over Edward. Trust me. You're stronger than that."

"O-oh," comes shakily from my mouth and my heart shatters. Of course. It's still all fucking about him.

My hands are still shaking but this time from anger. I hate him. I hate him for consuming my life like this. I am disappointed that Bella can't see behind the lies I told to protect myself from her, and I drop my hands from her hold. "Leave me alone," I snarl out more viciously than I intend and I shoulder check her on the way out. I won't let her see me cry from frustration.

I can't deal with this. I can't deal with the tangle of emotions my life has become, and I ache for the simpler days when I had ice around my heart and in it.

Avoiding my friends becomes easier. They've decided to ease up on chasing me down between classes and on calling me so much. They think that space will do me good, and it is. I feel oddly at peace without people nagging at me, and without having to see Edward's dumb face. It helps the pain in my heart. I don't have to see him flirt with her, don't have to see him sling an arm around her. No doubt right now he's laying on the charm thick because he refuses to lose her to me.

But she was never mine; I was never a threat. I wasn't going to make her mine even if I wanted to badly with every fiber of my being, because I knew there was no way she could be mine. Not when she was straight, and not when I had a reputation to uphold. Edward has no need to be this cruel to me. Has no need to rub it into my face that he can openly lay a claim on her.

But he'll do it anyways because he is possessive and controlling and hates losing to other people, hates being second place.

Maybe I should forgive him for this behavior? A small part of me whispers. It would be the grown thing to do. The best thing to do. I can't avoid him forever. Because I'm avoiding my other friends and they don't deserve that.

But a bigger part of me snarls fuck him, and I listen to that part. It gives me some confidence. Let's me carry myself like I'm not a broken mess on the inside; it mends some of the worst of the shards. Hating him helps deal with the ache of my love for Bella. But the two emotions are so tightly wound and their ability to work is based on each other that it's hard to tell sometimes where one ends and the other begins. Do I hate Dickward for the fact that he's a man, or do I love him because he can treat her like I can't? Do I love Bella for all her charms, or do I hate her for them, because of what they've driven me too?

I'm in the bathroom between second and third period when I get a text; the one that breaks me all over again. It's from Bella. And it stops my heart cold, makes my back hit the wall. I slowly slide down it, eyes wide, breath haggard.

All I can think is oh fuck, over and over again.

Edward asked me out. He's been so insistent, so I had to say yes. I'm sorry.

There's another message from her, but I can't read it, my eyes unseeing as saltwater fills them. My phone slips from my grip and I sit there, head in my hands, trying desperately not to feel anything even though my whole world has tilted off it's axis and I am barely clinging to it; to my last shreds of sanity. I'm a planet knocked out of orbit.

It's by luck (bad or good, I can't tell at this point) that Alice finds me like that before anyone else. I am barely aware she's even there- how much time has passed? My body is cramped and cold from the tiled floors.

"Rosalie," she gasps as her hands circle around my biceps and pry my arms away so she can look into my countenance. I briefly look up at her, her face still blurry. "What happened?" I simply shake my head, too afraid to speak for fear I will burst into tears. Then I look back down, staring at the blue screen of my phone unseeingly.

She notices that, and picks it up. Her brows furrow. "Oh, that asshole. I'll never forgive him," she breaths, "how could he do this to you, after this is your first crush. I'm going to talk to him and get his head on right."

"Don't." I grab her arm. "Just don't."

She pauses, bites her lip. "I'm so sorry Rosalie," she says softly. "This wasn't the way I wanted your first crush to go."

"No, I'm sorry. So sorry." I don't know why I'm apologizing. Maybe because I avoided her for so long?

"You have nothing to apologize for." She leans in and hugs me, her hold warm on me. Somehow that breaks me. Despite how much of a bitch I've been to her the past couple of days, Alice was still ready to fly to my defense, to chew Edward out, to hug me and comfort me. My words come spilling out of me. I can't hold back the truth anymore.

"No. I do. Because I've been keeping secrets from you, I've been lying this whole time."

"About what?" Alice's voice walks the perfect line of cautious and understanding, and not accusatory.

"About this whole Edward thing." I take a deep breath, swallow my tears down, her fingers rubbing my shoulders as I keep my head bowed. My voice is muffled by sadness and cloth and bad angles but she can still hear me. She waits for me to continue, exhuming a rare patience.

"I don't actually have a crush on him. I lied, because I didn't want you knowing who I really had a crush on. It's Bella. I like Bella."

Alice's fingers still on my shoulders and I can feel the quick inhale of her chest.

"I don't even know why I like her. I've never liked a girl before, but ever since I've meet her I've been inexplicably crushing on her, and I don't want to but I do at the same time. So when Edward is flirting with her, it hurts to be around, that's why I left. He knows I like her and he's doing it on purpose: asking her out and getting too close to her. And I don't know how to deal with this. I never asked for this."

Alice hasn't said anything. For once she is quiet and I wish she wouldn't be. I need the comfort of her words more than anything.

"Tell me what to do," I beg in a wavering voice. "Because I don't know anymore."

She pulls away from me and fear strikes my heart so sharply I'm afraid it will cleave it straight in half. Is she grossed out by me? Will she stop being my friend? Is she going to tell everyone?

I'm shaking again and I feel nauseous and light headed. I look up, ready to see disgust and revulsion on her face but instead she's wearing a sort of happy sadness. She holds up my phone, pointing to Bella's second message on the screen.

Please, I don't want to be with Edward.

Come save me.

It's hope.

Alice is giving me hope.

"Go save your girl, Rosalie."

With Alice's words at my heels, and Bella's to guide and fuel my footsteps, I go to meet Edward, ready to slay the Evil Queen who has taken away my Snow White from me.

A/N: A bit of a shorter chapter, but I wanted to leave it off on this hopeful note; it seemed like an appropriate place to end it.

And Edward's the evil queen, cuz he's so dramatic sometimes, or at least that's how he came off in the books to me.