Wilting Roses

Chapter Fourteen: A Resolution

"No!" the wicked queen hollered as prince Rose's mighty blade pierced her heart. "You've killed me!"

"I won't let someone like you rip my future away from me," he declared, holding the blade and making it dig deeper as the queen squirmed in pain."I'm done letting you ruin things for me. I am done having you as a rival for my happiness. No longer shall you rob me of my hopes and dreams."

"This isn't over," the queen snarled past a bloodied mouth as prince Rose stood back. Bella rushed to him, holding him in her fright over the dying queen. "I will come back, mark my words!"

"Then we will be ready for you then, and whenever else you decide to come back. And each time we will destroy you," Bella swore as the queen melted into a pile of bubbling goo, her voice silent for once.

Bella turned to her brave knight. "I am happy we got to be together after all. I love you."

"And I love you," he replied. And together, they got on a horse and rode off to their happy ending.

After the meeting at my house, it was show time.

I wasn't going to stay at home and mope over my biggest secret being revealed, despite how much I desired to do so. I had to hold my head tall, show them that I was unbreakable. That I was Rosalie Hale, and still queen of this school. I put on my armor by doing my face and hair, and dressing in my best clothes. I was going to look amazing, and feel amazing. I was going to blow them away by looking perfect, as if what had happened had no effect on me whatsoever.

We arrived at the school together, the boys walking on my outside and Alice right next to me. They were protecting me in their own way. Whenever kids would turn to glance at me, they would just as quickly turn away, catching Jasper's glare, Alice's tight lips, my haughty smirk, and the way Emmett cracked his knuckles menacingly. Edward was no where to be seen yet, but I knew he would make his appearance soon. He wanted to see his handiwork, wanted to gloat, and most certainly wanted to see my downfall.

I wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

He would be the one who would be ruined. My true friends would see to that.

I just had to stay strong. Luckily, I shared each of my classes with at least one of my friends, so they kept a look out on me, made sure I was okay. Not that I couldn't handle myself. I could. I was pissed and not devastated as I had first been. Sure, it hurt to be betrayed like this, to be gutted and left out in the open for everyone to examine my secrets, but that hurt had turned into anger. Into a need for vengeance.

If I caught a kid whispering or looking at me, I would glare back at them, or make a slashing motions across my neck. They still feared me enough that they stopped. That was the majority case. Not everyone was like that.

"So, you're a dyke," one of Edward's friends came up to me as I was leaving for my next class. He approached my desk, acting as if I wouldn't hit him. Jasper saw but I signaled him with my eyes to hold back; that I could handle this. "A big fat dyke."

"Did you come here to tell me something I already know? Or do you actually having something smart to say for once?" I said, hefting my purse onto my arm.

My fast speech threw him for a moment; he never was the sharpest tool in the shed. "What?" he let out.

At this I leaned closer. "Tell Eddy boy, that he has a meeting with all of us after school, and that if he wants a home to go back to, he should be there to negotiate stuff with us."

His eyes opened wide. "What-"

I didn't have time to hear his unintelligent repetitions. I left without another word, Jasper trailing me out of the class.

"Are you sure we should have trusted Darren to carry the message to Edward?"

"He's the best bet. You know that boy can't keep his mouth shut." I was eagerly looking forward to teaching Edward a lesson or two.

As the day progressed, I could feel myself grow more and more tense as lunch approached. That would be the defining moment- the chance to turn the tides in my favor. Only if I could pull it off right.

I had mainly kept Bella out of the loop because I didn't want to involve her too much in this mess. Also, she would get less flack if she stayed out of this. She would send me texts asking if I was okay, or how things were going. It made me feel good to see she cared and that she was silently supporting me.

At last, lunch arrived and with sweating palms I entered the zoo of the cafeteria. As predicted, all eyes were on me, which was perfect. I stood in the middle of the room, while my friends sat down at their table. I knew Edward was somewhere in the audience. I could just feel his smarmy gaze on me. I would give him the show he deserved and not the one he wanted.

The room began to quiet down as they saw me waiting. "Could I have everyone's attention?" I called out, to get them to shush more. They did, turning to me with curious gazes.

This was it. This was the moment. To gather confidence I let my gaze fall on Bella who was twisting her hands nervously. For some reason, seeing her nervous made me feel less so. "I'm pretty sure you're all aware of the posts on Facebook this morning." I cleared my throat, my voice wobbling a little. "The posts of me and Bella in lip lock."

There was a small murmur here at that. I let it drift out before I spoke again, my words ringing loudly. "And I'm not here to deny it. I'm here actually to speak out about it. Yes, Bella and I are in a relationship. Yes, we kissed. It's all true."

Now the buzz from the students was louder. They had clearly expected me to deny it.

"I'm not hiding anymore," I raised my voice over them. "Because I am happy to be with Bella. And I am proud to be with her. And if any of you have an issue with that, than I'll gladly acquaint your face with my fist."

"And that goes for me too," Alice got up, drawing some eyes to her. "No one hurts my friend."

"No one hurts my sister and her girlfriend," Jasper also got up.

"No one hurts my family," Emmett added on, rising to his feet, pounding a hand into his palm.

Bella too got up. "And no one hurts my girlfriend," she said, tears of happiness pressing at the corners of her eyes at being able to express that- at being able to call me a girlfriend publically.

The cafeteria was in complete silence until Alice broke it, clapping encouragingly. Jasper, Emmett, Bella followed and before I knew it, the rest of the school was clapping as well. Not everyone, for some threw me disgusted looks. And half of the applause was out of confusion as if they truly didn't get why we were clapping, but I didn't care. I had come out and I felt so much pressure leave my shoulders. Smiling, I sat back down right next to Bella, and we held hands on top of the table, enjoying our meal and conversation.

A much more unpleasant conversation awaited after school when we were supposed to meet up with Edward. There was no telling if the scoundrel would come, but I hoped he would, so I could turn that lopsided grin on his into a permanent feature.

We loitered by the back of the school, silently waiting for Edward. Even Emmett was too tense to make some snarky remark. At last, the boy made an appearance. His face was carefully neutral so it was hard to read what he was thinking or feeling.

"You sure took your time coming here," Alice said, her naturally high voice low in disapproval. She tightened her arms over her chest and Emmett saddled himself next to me, knowing that I was legit not too far off from leaping out and punching Edward. If he so much as breathed wrong in my direction I would be all on him.

He didn't say anything to that, just jerked his chin up and gave a lazy eye roll like we were the idiots here. A low growl rumbled to life in my throat and Emmett's giant hand clamped down on my shoulder to remind me to hold still. "Let me punch him, just once," I said to Emmett. "That's all I need."

"Not yet," Emmett whispered lowly in my ear. It was enough to make me stop squirming even as my muscles itched.

"Edward Masen. This meeting has been called in order to question your recent activity towards one of our members. Upon entering this special group, you promised to uphold our moral code and to always be a friend in need. A friend does not act the way you do-by hurting a fellow member by airing out secrets and private information. Thus, by unanimous vote we decided to expel you from the group. You no longer have the privilege of this group and should you seek to make further contact with us, or even try to harm us, than those times we will come at you full force because you are no longer a friend of ours," Jasper said, in that calm yet commanding tone of his. "Do you have anything to say?"

He glared at us, venom in his eyes. "I can't believe you sided with her," he spat out, not even looking at me.

"She wasn't the one who violated the rules, and frankly, we liked Rosalie a whole hell of a lot more than you, because at least she's not some whiny prick," Emmett said and then he lifted his hand up from my shoulder. That was all the permission I needed. I curled my hand into a fist.

"Before you go, I have something to say," I added to Edward who had already turned to leave.

He stopped. "I have nothing to-" he said as he turned to face me and that's when my fist collided with his face.

He fell right onto the ground, clutching his bleeding nose. "I'd have more to say, but I don't think you'd live to hear it," I hissed down at him. My fist throbbed; I had put everything into that punch. The pain felt nice because it meant I had finally punched Edward and made him hurt at least a fraction of what pain he made me feel.

Then, leaving him there, we all left, barely sparing a glance backwards.

After all that, life sort of just...carried on. The gossip around me began to die down and I could focus on my normal life. On hanging out with my friends or on studying for exams.

Now that Edward was thrown out from our group, Bella took his place.

She made a better member than he ever did in my opinion. But hey, my opinion might be heavily biased.

"And I solemnly swear to always protect my brothers and my sisters," Bella pledged, one hand raised as the flames of the bonfire danced across her face. "That I will never betray them, and always be there for them when needed."

"Welcome to the Cool Club," Alice said as we all clapped at Bella's speech's conclusion. "We now crown you as a core member. May we have long nights out, lots to drink and talk about, and always have good memories." She approached Bella and placed a lei around Bella's neck to cement the ceremony. Bella hugged Alice and then came to sit by me on the bench by the bonfire as we all clapped at her acceptance. It was funny how just a couple of months ago, I had sat here in the middle of winter with her head on my lap and Edward had exposed me for my feelings. I had been terrified then, but now, with chill of winter dissolving into spring, I felt more content than ever.

I handed her an opened beer and she took it. "So," she said when she had taken a long swig. "Just what exactly did I get myself into?"

I chuckled. "You would have joined a cult without even questioning it?"

"Well, I had to. They had this really cute girl named Rosalie there. I kind of couldn't say no."

I can't help the smile that overtakes my cheeks. "Well, it's nothing serious. We just have this whole ceremony for shits and giggles. All we do is have each others backs. And we do stupid events from time to time. Bonfires, cookouts, parties, you know, typical teenage stuff. And then sometimes we do really nice things, like helping out in soup kitchens or helping charity events."

"That's really sweet," Bella gushed. "I can't wait to do those things with all of you."

"You won't have to wait long. We got something big coming up."

Of course, it wasn't all without trial these future days. I would still get dirty looks from kids in the hallways; sometimes they might say a derogatory word or two, but I let it all brush off of me. I have better things to do than waste my time on some kid from a small town with no future.

Edward stays out of our way mainly in the school halls and outside in town; it's a hard feat given how both locations are small and we have to occasionally share the same space. We don't want him back in our group and he doesn't dare to come back. While explusing him and punching him was minor retaliation for what he had done, something told me he was going to have a hard time with getting accepted to any college if we had our say. Because we all knew he hadn't truly learned his lesson and that he was scheming to take all of us down. He was petty like that, given how he had schemed against me in order to try to win over a girl that didn't even like him. Truly, there was no telling to what depraved depths he would sink to.

Not like we would let that happen. The end of sophomore year might be approaching but we still had two more years in this school until Bella and I were free to truly be ourselves in college.

But with her by my side, I didn't mind waiting.

A/N: So this is the end of this story. It took longer than anticipated to complete but at least it's done now. I left some plot lines unresolved to give a more hopeful yet uncertain feel to the future for the characters, which I feel is par for how real life goes.

Thanks to those who stuck on this journey. I'm looking forward to writing more Rosella in the future.