February

Chapter 5

The weeks following their impromptu garage brawl were a mix of Edward trying to give Rosalie what she wanted, and Rosalie trying to pretend she didn't want anything in the first place. To his credit, Edward barely even spared a glance for the obnoxiously ordinary girl across the cafeteria, irresistible blood or not. That being said, sexual tension ran higher than it ever had between them as a result. Rosalie was back to where she began—not knowing what she wanted.

Edward certainly wasn't making it any easier for her. She wasn't sure if the cheeky bastard was sending her those long, burning looks made of pure sex across the family room to turn her on, or to compel her to murder him and put him out of his misery. He was hitting both marks. Thanks to him her days were currently filled with an uncomfortable mix of guilty arousal and flat out annoyance at his unfair tactics.

Having Emmett and Edward in one room at the same time was becoming unbearable for her. She could barely even look her beautiful Emmett in his eyes anymore, and she wondered how long it would be before he finally said something to her. He was so incredibly patient with her moods and phases—he was too good for her, but exactly what she needed. She was a monster.

As a way of avoiding Edward's long stares and the occasional brief brush of fingers that, to everyone else went unnoticed, but to her caused electricity to crack under her skin, she put all of her energy into giving Emmett everything he wanted. She went on extra hunting trips, spent more time with him in their room, and tried to be game to his playful moods, all the while being very careful not to let Edward's name come up in conversation. It wasn't enough to make her forget her internal struggle all together, but it was distracting enough.

One day when Emmett was out with Jasper, Edward approached Rose where she was sitting at the granite island in their generally useless kitchen. She had her corn silk hair piled on top of her head in a loose bun that would have looked messy on any normal person, but on her looked like a perfect arrangement of each hair on her head. She was perched on one of the tall stools, gazing at the screen of her razor thin, silver laptop, her legs crossed at the ankles. The image was something that showed up in the laptop company's wildest dreams, along with skyrocketing sales and mad success.

She, of course, heard him approach, but was conveniently ignoring the fact that he was in her presence, as she had been doing since their discussion in the garage. She trained her eyes intently upon the Vogue Management website she had been reading. With Edward in such close proximity, she had no hope of actually focusing on the words now, but she still didn't want to seem like he had any effect on her at all.

When he came up behind her and pressed his face into her neck, it took every bit of strength and willpower in her body not to shiver and melt against him. Instead, she rallied, and leaned away, regarding him with a cool gaze.

"Did you need something?" she said, the chill practically falling off of the words in icicles.

He, however, did not lean away. Instead, he turned the full force of his gaze on her. His body was too close to hers, his mouth too close to hers, and she could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"Have I proven myself to you yet?" His eyes darted a glance at her lips and then flicked back up to her eyes, the intensity never wavering.

She was embarrassed to find that it took a moment to get her mind to function properly. After decades of living with Edward, she thought she was immune to his antics, but that was far from the case at the moment. "Five days of not talking to the girl is hardly proof that you don't have feelings for her, Edward."

He tilted his head and his mouth turned up in that cocky, crooked smile that, to Rose, was a mix of sexy and obnoxious. At the moment it was absolutely the latter.

"If I was so hung up on her, why would it be that I can't stop thinking about you?" He leaned forward to close the distance between their lips, but Rose pushed away from the counter and was on the other side of the island in a blur of movement.

"Don't play these games with me, Edward. We need to start being honest with ourselves here, because I'm getting a little sick of this childish back and forth we have been doing."

She began to pace, one hand on her forehead, one braced at her back in a stance of obvious stress. After a moment she turned to meet his gaze full on with a stare that matched the intensity of his, and then some.

"I'm just going to be blunt, here," she said with decided resolve in her tone. "Emmett is the love of my life. That isn't going to change. Ever."

She waited a beat, gauging his reaction. She noticed the slight flinch and the darkening of his eyes, but she forged ahead.

"This little affair of ours was never about discovering some long forgotten feelings of passionate love for me. I don't know what it was for you, but if it was something along those lines, I was tragically misinformed."

"Rose, I…" Edward began to take a step toward her but Rose held her hand up.

"No, just be quiet. There was some confusion on my part due to some kind of intense jealousy, and I'm not going to lie and say that all of that is gone. I think this little infatuation you have for this child is ridiculous and not a little dangerous." A smile turned up the corner of her lips, "Not to mention you can clearly do better."

At that he growled, "Rose, how many times do I have to tell you. I do not have feelings for the girl."

She laughed softly, "Oh, Edward. I've never met anyone that is so quick to lie to even themselves, let alone everyone around them."

She hadn't even blinked and he was in front of her, pushing her back against the counter. His hands were on either side of her, trapping her there, and his face was now so close to hers she could feel his breath against her lips.

"And I'm the only one lying to themselves? You don't want anything to do with this anymore, is that what you're saying, Rosalie? You can just go back to the way things were six weeks ago without a second thought?" His breath was heavy with anger, and the heat in his eyes was almost enough to break her resolve right then.

"You don't know what you want, Edward."

He laughed bitterly and pushed away from her, "Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?"

As he stormed out of the room, she slapped her hand down on the counter in frustration.

The next day, Rosalie arranged to go shopping in Seattle with Alice. It was just another attempt to restore her life to some semblance of normalcy, and she hoped that Alice would play along without prying.

After their day at school, and after successfully beating off most of the male population of Forks High School off of the candy red M3, they set out for Seattle at a cool 90mph. At first, Rose managed to keep the conversation general. They spoke of the latest fashions, of where Rose was considering taking Emmett on their next honeymoon, and the possibility of re-decorating their rooms. However, she was not pleased when Alice turned in her seat to face Rose with a serious expression on her face.

"You know, Rose, I've kept my promise," she said, her head tilted, surely waiting for some kind of explosion from her sister.

Rose just clenched her jaw and concentrated on the road, not even acknowledging Alice's declaration of loyalty. The last thing she wanted to do was have a heart to heart about what had been going on between her and Edward in the past weeks, especially considering Alice's initial reaction to the issue.

Alice sighed impatiently at Rosalie's silence, "Come on, can't you at least explain to me what is behind all of this? I promise not to judge…I was just caught off guard last time."

When Rosalie glanced over at her sister, she was gazing at her imploringly, surely hoping that the 'How could you not confide in this face?' trick was going to work. Sadly enough for Alice, that didn't work on Rosalie—she was too manipulative herself. On the other hand, though, she did have a sudden and overwhelming desire to share her agony with someone. She let out a low hiss and shot another dark glare at Alice.

"I just want to preface this with the statement that the face you just tried to pull on me did not actually work; I'm only sharing this with you because I'm desperate." She grimaced even as she was saying it. She couldn't believe she was actually going to open up about this.

Alice bounced a little in her seat and smiled, "Okay, point taken. Now what's going on?"

Rosalie continued to stare attentively at the road as if it would crumble away if she took her eyes away from it. After a moment, she took a deep breath and said, "I slept with Edward."

There was a very heavy beat of silence. Then Alice let out a huff of breath and said, "Oh my god, Rose."

She clenched her teeth again and tightened her hands on the wheel, "I'm not really proud of it, Alice, try not to rub it in okay?"

She felt a small hand close over hers on the steering wheel and then pry her fingers off of the leather covered metal. Alice held her hand in her smaller one, stroking it gently.

"We'll figure this out, okay? Why don't you just tell me how this all started."

Rose immediately relaxed. She hadn't realized how much she needed to talk to someone about this mess, or how much she missed talking to Alice. They had barely said more than 10 words to each other since their argument that night after the fateful car ride that started it all. She took another deep, unnecessary, breath.

"Well, you, Jasper, and Emmett don't know this, but Edward and I had a kind of relationship before you all joined our family so many years ago. We weren't in love or anything, but it was meaningful enough. It was enough to blur the lines a bit until I found Emmett."

Rose snuck a look at Alice to gauge her reaction, but found her just listening intently.

"Carlisle originally brought me into the family because he hoped that I would be to Edward what Esme is to him. What ended up transpiring between us, I'm sure, was not what Carlisle had in mind." At that she laughed; a sound part mirth and part irony.

"We had quite the torrid affair, and made reasonable companions for each other the rest of the time as well. However, honestly, we fought more than was really necessary; he hated my vanity and I hated his 'holier than thou' attitude. When I found Emmett, though, it was like every moment of pleasure, pain, annoyance, bliss—anything—that I had found with Edward was completely erased from my mind. Emmett immediately became everything to me."

Her voice wavered now, and she had to stop a moment to compose herself. What had she ruined? And could it be fixed?

"I honestly have no idea how it made Edward feel. Both of us knew that our relationship didn't have that extra spark that Carlisle had wanted it to. I wasn't in love with him any more than he was with me...but if anything, I can imagine there was a jealousy that this man out of nowhere came and broke apart our pleasant arrangement. But didn't I deserve more? Wouldn't he deserve more if he found someone?" She shook her head, frowning, "In any case, he made himself scarce for the transformation and for a good amount of time after. He could barely look me in the eye."

She sighed, turning to smile at Alice, breaking out of her reverie. "We never actually spoke about what we had again until this happened. He became Emmett's friend easily and they've been close ever since, which makes this even harder."

After a moment, Rose looked back out the windshield, willing herself not to fall apart. Alice, however, could sense her struggle, and said, "Rose, it's going to be okay, you know. I had no idea all of this went on, but I can see now why something like Bella coming along could stir things up again. I'm not saying that it's right for you to have an affair, but I understand where you're coming from. You've never found closure."

Rosalie nodded silently, still not meeting Alice's eyes.

"Rose, this is going to be hard for you to hear, but it needs to be said. You need to just let what happens between them happen. He isn't yours anymore, and you wouldn't want him to be. You have Emmett and you have to let him find what might make him as happy as you are." Alice shook her head at Rose's short, bitter laugh, "Okay, then, as happy as you usually are."

Rose's tone was hard with anger again, now. "Alice, this is the most ignorant and dangerous place to find happiness though. She is a human. He could ruin everything Carlisle has ever worked for, and break our entire family."

When Alice spoke again, she spoke resolutely, "Rose, you're just going to have to deal, because the girl is going to become one of us someday whether you like it or not. Maybe not today, but eventually. I've seen it."

Rosalie's head snapped up to look at Alice, "What did you say?"

"She and Edward will be together, and she will become a vampire. You better learn to live with it now," Alice said with the apparent air of being tired of Rosalie's intolerance.

Rosalie's clamped her fingers around the steering wheel as she began to feel ill. She suddenly had no desire to shop anymore.

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long to update! You may or may not have seen my author's note last night that I posted, but I had a death in the family as well as mountains of school work that seriously prevented me from being able to write at all. Thank you so much for hanging in there with me though, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you review you'll be my best friend forever and ever! Much love, Katie!