Author's Note: So, I'd like to take a minute and wish Edward Cullen a (albeit, three days late) Happy Birthday!! Happy Birthday, Edward; Muchas Smoochas to you! 3

Thanks to Sock Shopping, miss.dramatikkkk, Ame Warashi, NellieGURL, and cakeaddict61! A very handsome, grinning Carlisle in a dripping wet, lavender shirt goes to Ame Warashi for reviewing Chapter Four!

Disclaimer: Twilight, New Moon, and Esme Platt all belong to Stephenie Meyer. ::bows and presents a live chicken for Stephenie's table:: The Taming of the Shrew belongs to William Shakespeare (what doesn't, really, other than Twilight and Pixy Stix?) Margaret Platt, Frank Bennington, and that weird magician dude belong to me.

7. My Dear

Five years later…

"Esme, quick! Look at this!"

"Step right up, folks! That's right, meet the man who taught Harry Houdini everything he knows!"

I joined Margaret over by a burly, tanned man who flashed an enormous grin at the small crowd gathered around him. Margaret caught eyes with me and grinned. She gestured my closer.

The magician, at whose feet were strewn such magical mediums as playing cards, brightly colored handkerchiefs, and a black top hat, was preparing for his final display. He held his hands, palms out, open towards the crowd, showing them to be empty. Then, he produced a pair of handcuffs out of thin air. The crowd gasped as one. Margaret and I both giggled.

"And now," he announced, grinning toothily at the crowd, "I will perform a stunt which defies the very laws of nature. An act which can better be said to dwell within the realms of the imagination!" Margaret and I traded a look, both smiling slyly.

"For this act I will need an assistant." He began searching the nervous crowd. "Ah, yes. How about you, pretty lady?" I froze automatically. He was looking right at me. "Yes, you. The one with the brown…ish, um, yellow-brown… the one in the green dress." That was me. I winced. The man chuckled lowly. "Why don't you just step on up here with me, m'lady?"

I turned to Margaret, desperate. 'Help me!' I mouthed. But instead she grabbed my shoulders and spun me around, giving me a firm push towards the man. He grinned again.

"Now," he said, "if you could please be so kind as to fasten these 'cuffs around my wrists." He wrapped the handcuffs around his wrists so that all I had to do was squeeze them closed. Even so, I could feel my cheeks burning with shyness, and I lowered my face so that no one could see it. Fortunately, I was not the object of attention for very long.

"Observe!" He hollered to the crowd, holding up his chained hands. "I am completely bound by these shackles!" To illustrate his point, he gave several strong yanks to the metal, which responded only with a few sparks between the links when he pulled them taut. He spoke to me again, but in a carrying voice so that the crowd could hear clearly.

"Now, if you please, blow on those chains. Just a little air, my dear."

I stiffened. Other terms of endearment were more common, but no one had called me 'my dear' in five years. No one had ever called me 'my dear' except…

"Hey," the man hissed under his breath at me, "come on, just go along with it, will you?" I snapped back to reality. I took a breath and then leaned down towards his hands. I blew out quickly, eager to fade back into the obscure crowd.

"And!" the magician held his hands aloft. He gave the chains three gentle tugs. "One, two, three!" The handcuffs broke apart. They landed at his feet, on top of the pile of cards.

The crowd applauded enthusiastically. Excited exclamations rose up like a wave. But somehow, over all of the din, the magician managed to make himself heard. "Thank you, thank you! And for my beautiful assistant," he waved his hands around ostentatiously. A rose appeared. He presented it to me amidst the crowd's approval. I smiled as graciously as I could and accepted the flower. He gestured grandly towards the place I had been standing, and I thankfully retreated.

"Very nice," Margaret smirked at me.

"Oh, hush!" I tried to sound stern, but failed miserably, as I always did around Margaret.

"Did a handsome suitor come calling for dear Esme?"

Margaret's eyes lit up as we both turned towards the sound of the voice.

Striding towards us, holding a cotton candy in either hand, with a third balanced precariously in the crook of his arm, was Frank Bennington. He gave each of us a cheeky grin as he unloaded his burden on us. Margaret's cheeks flushed slightly as their eyes met.

Frank Bennington had swept into town about a year ago on an internship with Dr. Malcolm. Ravishingly handsome with his dark, straight hair, sapphire eyes, and a smile that could melt rock, he was instantly the most sought-after man in town. Margaret had initially scoffed at the reception Frank had received from the ladies in town, talking about how his teeth had probably caught the sun and stunned them all, and when her parents had him over for dinner, she greeted him like an arctic wind. However, Frank had taken a fascination with Margaret, and had spent every waking minute that he wasn't at the hospital pursuing her. Margaret, at the outset, was absolutely infuriated by the audacity of Mr. Bennington, which she made clear in no uncertain terms.

She didn't seem to find it all fair that he had made her fall in love with him.

Astonishingly, though, and in what I liked to think of as my own personal viewing of The Taming of the Shrew, Frank managed to bypass all of Margaret's well-maintained defenses. One morning, Margaret simply knocked on my door and announced to me that she was going to be married.

Their marriage ceremony was only two weeks away, and I had never seen Margaret so ecstatic. All of our friends from school had already married, and they were thrilled to hear that the unattainable Margaret Platt had been attained by the mysterious and charming man from Wisconsin. That left only me.

Margaret laughed, snapping me out of my reverie. "Oh, yes. Esme is going to run off with a magician!"

Frank smiled softly. "That sounds almost as ridiculous as running off with a doctor." Their eyes met once again, and as I watched them, both looking so content, so… whole, just to be staring into each other eyes, I felt as though I were intruding. I dropped my gaze and wandered off, letting the rose fall to the ground.

It would be many minutes before they came to find me.


I sighed and rolled over restlessly. I stared at the shadows on my walls, all of them so familiar I could trace them all with my eyes closed. It was the night before Margaret's wedding, and I had been lying awake all night.

This is absurd, I thought to myself, the bride should be the one who can't sleep, not the bridesmaid!

I growled in frustration and kicked the covers off. I immediately regretted my aggression towards my blanket as the chilled air seeped in. I pulled the covers up to my chin and held my eyes closed.

I saw the same thing I had seen every time I had closed my eyes since the fair. Margaret and Frank. Frank, looking at Margaret the way someone had once looked at me. His words rang in my head continuously, driving me to the brink of insanity. "That sounds almost as ridiculous as running off with a doctor." Was I ridiculous to have wanted to run off with a doctor? I was only sixteen, after all. So impressionable. So naïve.

Then, another vision spread before my closed eyes. Yellow hair framing a pale face. Such fair skin. Golden eyes that held such kindness and strength and warmth and depth that the sight of them made every inch of me ache. A smile that was just for me, that said that I was safe and loved.

I let out a sob. I had to close my eyes to the picture, but my eyes were already closed. It was burnt into the inside of my eyelids, and that's exactly what it did. It burned.

Finally breaking out of the trance I was in, I rolled over and muffled my screams against my pillow as new voices, so familiar to me even five years later, filled my ears.

"Cold hands, warm heart."

"I don't necessarily think that's true."

"Why not?"

"Well, your hands are very warm, my dear."

If I was ridiculous then, I even more so now. Because I was twenty-one years old, and I would give my life to run off with a doctor.


Author's Note: So, what did you think? Were you guys too, too thrown off by the five-year leap? I was debating whether or not to do that, but I ultimately decided for the leap, because I just couldn't think of an un-boring way to fill up five years of what is essentially Esme trying desperately to forget about Carlisle. Also: I know it's not as long as the last few chapters have been, but I wanted to get something up on here, because it's been over a week. Actually, this and the next chapter were originally one big, honking chapter, but then I really wanted to have this be an end-of-chapter and it will take me another little while to finish up what is now Chapter Eight. So, even though this was basically a filler chapter, I hope it'll do until I can get back to the grub. :-)