Who's Wandering Back Home

"You're sure you'll be fine?"

I chuckled. "For the millionth time, Edward, I will be fine. Go find yourself some mountain lions and leave the girly stuff to us."

He sighed. "Well then at least allow Alice to pay for the dress."

The corners of my lips immediately pulled downward in a frown. "No."

"Bella, please don't be difficult."

"I'm not. I'm being reasonable."

"Don't worry, Edward," Alice chirped from behind me. "I won't let her pay for the dress."

I pursed my lips in annoyance, but I didn't say anything. It was going to be very difficult to outsmart Alice, but it didn't mean I was going to try. I couldn't let her pay for this dress; it was bad enough that I was going to this stupid dance in the first place.

"Bella, I tricked you into going into this dance," he said as if reading my mind, even though I knew perfectly well that he couldn't. "At least let me make it up to you by buying the dress."

He had a good argument, but I wasn't going to cave. I refused to be tricked again.

"Go," I urged, trying uselessly to push against his granite muscles.

He sighed and pressed his lips against my forehead. The simple touch sent shivers all over my skin and I inwardly sighed. Would I ever get used to this? "Make sure you stay with Rosalie and Alice the entire time, okay? Even when you need to go to the restroom."

I rolled my eyes, but smiled at the same time. "I will. I promise."

Then he bent down and kissed my lips. And quicker than I could breathe, he was out the door.

When my heart resumed its normal pace I started up the staircase to look for Alice, who managed to disappear during our goodbye. She wasn't in her room so I crossed the hall to Rosalie and Emmett's room.

I knocked on the door and a soft voice called, "Come in," from the other side. When I opened the door, I saw both the Cullen sisters sitting on a humongous bed with black sheets.

"Bella," Alice greeted with a wide smile.

"Hey," I said, a little uncomfortably. "So, are we going?"

"In a minute," Rosalie answered. "I actually wanted to talk to you, and I couldn't really do it with the boys around."

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. After the first encounter with Rosalie, she never returned to her hostility, not even once; in fact, she had gone out of her way to make me feel at ease. But despite all of this, I couldn't bring myself to let myself feel comfortable around her.

"Sure," I murmured as I brought a chair closer to the bed.

"I think I'm going to go out and hunt for a little while," Alice declared. She gracefully unfolded her form and stepped out of the room. "I'll be back soon." And with a reassuring smile, she left the room.

Panic bubbled in my stomach. I was alone in a room with Rosalie. Now, logically, I knew that she wasn't going to do anything to me. But my uncomfortable gut feeling was clouding my logical side.

"Bella," she began. I turned to look at the beautiful vampire sitting in front of me and I found myself once again being mesmerized by her loveliness. I had to shake my head to properly focus. "Has Edward ever told you anything about me?"

I shrugged. "A little. He talks about how you're a good mechanic and how you're really stubborn."

She allowed herself a small smile, but it quickly dissolved. "Did he tell you about how I became a vampire?"

I shook my head, suddenly interested in spite of myself. "No, he didn't."

Rosalie nodded and stared down at the comforter. I waited patiently for a few moments and she began her tale.

"I was born in Rochester, New York in 1915 to a middleclass family. My father was a banker and my mother was a housewife…like all wives back then. And we were very proud. Father took pride in the fact that he had a stable job during such times of economic hardship. He thought that if other people worked as hard as he did, they would be better off. I never believed any differently and as a result, I lived a life of blissful ignorance." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I was a sheltered child.

"But I was happy. As I grew older, I gained a reputation based on my beauty. Everywhere I went, heads turned and men followed. I was an object of desire and I thrived on the attention. My parents noticed and realized that this was their ticket. They wanted more than what they were given, you see. They wanted greater riches than they already had. So when Royce King, the son of the wealthiest family in Rochester, asked for my hand in marriage, they were completely thrilled."

I noticed the change in her voice. There was an edge in her tone and I felt dread for what was to come. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but I knew something was going to happen.

"I can't say that I really loved Royce…we never spent enough time together to fall in love. It was a marriage based solely on image, really. He was handsome and he needed and equally beautiful wife clutching his arm. But I was still pleased that he proposed to me. We were a lovely couple and we would make a lovely family. For that was what I wanted most, at that time…I wanted a child of my very own." She looked down at her hands. "In fact, I still do."

Something about her tone seeped into my heart. Without consciously thinking about it, I reached over and squeezed her hands with mine. She probably didn't feel the pressure, but she looked up and smiled warmly at me anyway.

Then she sighed. "I probably should have taken the time to get to know my fiancé. It might have prevented what happened later."

I held my breath. The warmth left her golden irises and was replaced by a cold, faraway look. They darkened, but thankfully, they didn't revert to the complete pitch black.

"I was visiting my friend a week before the wedding. By the time I decided to go home, it was already dark. I was only a few streets away from my house when I heard them. A familiar but slurred voice called my name. I turned around and saw my future husband surrounded by a group of people I had never seen before. The horrid stench of alcohol wafted off their clothing and I was disgusted.

"Royce was completely drunk. He held me by the shoulders and showed me off to all his equally drunk friends. They laughed, leering at my beauty with their watery eyes." Her fists clenched underneath my hands, but I didn't move them.

"He ripped my coat off, then my hat. The pins pulled at my hair and I screamed; I think that made them excited. They tore at my clothes even faster."

My muscles froze at her words.

"There were five of them and only one of me. I couldn't put up much of a fight. I tried, believe me…but they were too strong. They grabbed every part of me they could reach: my hair, my arms, my legs. I thought my throat was on fire, I was screaming so loudly. And it was so cold."

I caught the very faint tremble in her voice. It was so small that I doubted anyone would be able to hear it, but I heard it easily.

"They each took turns. But Royce was last and he took his time. He tortured me much worse than any of the others: he pulled my hair, he slapped my face, and he pounded against me much harder than the rest of his friends did. I suppose that since I was his fiancée he felt he was entitled to the most from me. I don't know. But it was more painful with him than anyone else, and not only in a physical sense. I felt completely betrayed, by his false manners and by my dreams. I thought he was a better man than to stoop to all of this. But I was taken in by his charm, his manners, his good looks and his money. My parents raised me to believe that people with money were well-bred and polite—the best of the best. How could they be so wrong?"

The subtle pain in her voice was unbearable. Without thinking, I moved from my chair to sit on the bed next to her and wrap my arms around her shoulders.

"When they were finished, they left me there for dead. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, but I heard their cold words. John was joking that Royce was going to have to find a new bride.

"Carlisle found me a half hour later. He smelled the blood, took me to his home and changed me. The rest is history."

When she finished, I sat completely still, staring at her supernatural beauty with a completely new set of eyes. I had always known that beauty could double as a curse…I just hadn't known to what extent.

After what seemed like hours of silence, I finally found my voice. "How did you deal with…with afterwards?"

She sighed. "I thought about it a lot. I was almost obsessed. You see, Bella, when you turn into a vampire, you gain a perfect memory but your human memories will fade very quickly unless you hold onto them. I held onto this human memory harder than any other. It's why I can remember it so clearly. I spent weeks on end just sitting in my room and thinking about what happened to me."

Therein lay the difference between Rosalie and me: she wanted to remember. I didn't.

But she went on. "Mainly I was angry. I hated that something so base, so vile could happen to me. I hated that I wasn't strong enough to fight them off. And of course, I hated him and all his disgusting friends for what they did. I was so angry that I sought revenge. I killed them all before some poor, faceless girl would have to go through what I experienced."

I shivered. I had seen her rage first hand, and it was not a pleasant sight.

"But I also felt so betrayed. I didn't really talk to my new family, not like I do now. Edward always knew how I felt because of that stupid power of his and Carlisle had a good guess, but I didn't tell them about it until almost a year later. I had spent an entire year to myself, trapped in my own head. There was no outlet and there was no one to stop me from replaying that night over and over again in my mind. It wasn't until Esme shared her own tragic tale that I began to really open up."

I was startled. "Was Esme…?" I trailed off in fear. I couldn't possibly imagine something so despicable happening to someone so sweet.

"No," she said quickly. "She was put through her own round of abuse, but not like me. Not like you."

I stilled at her words. She knew of my circumstances; Edward told his family so they could keep a better eye on me. But as far as I knew, none of the Cullens knew for certain the extent of my damage. I suspected Carlisle had a few guesses and Edward would have seen that, but I knew they would keep quiet about their suspicions. They would wait until I was comfortable.

I felt my face shut down when I turned back to Rosalie. "How did you…?"

She smiled sadly. "I recognized the same look when I met you. When Edward brought you to the house for the first time, I saw your face. There was so much pain in your eyes that I almost drowned in it. I felt like I had traveled in time and stared at my own emptiness from decades and decades ago."

My stomach clenched at her words. I remembered as well.

"I knew just by looking at you. You went through something similar to what I experienced. And just like me, you've been holding it in."

I couldn't help it. Tears started streaming down my face long before I realized that they had even gathered in the first place.

"He killed my parents, you know," I whispered. Then I laughed, but it was hardly funny. "Of course you know. Edward told you."

Rosalie didn't say anything. She just reached toward me and held me close in her cold arms.

I cried into her designer shirt. "He kept saying, 'I love you. I love you, Bella.' But he couldn't love me! If he loved me, he never would have…" I couldn't complete my sentence. Despite all I had gone through, I couldn't admit fully to what he had done.

"And then, I thought, it must have been my fault after all. I didn't fight as hard as I could have." My fingers clenched tightly over her collar. "I wanted to keep my parents away. If he was preoccupied with me, then he'd leave them alone. But then it just kept getting worse."

Her arms tightened around me, but she didn't say anything.

"I thought it must have been some kind of punishment. Like I deserved it."

She finally broke her silence. With a firm touch, she pulled me away so she could look me straight in the eye. "No one deserves it," she said sternly. "Especially you. You never deserved any of this."

The careful dam I had built to hold all of my anger suddenly broke. "Then why?" I screamed. "If I didn't deserve it, why did it fucking happen in the first place? Why do people like Alan Vickers and Royce King even exist?"

She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me gently. "I don't know. I don't know why horrible things happen to good people. But all we can do after it's finished is move on and make sure it never happens again."

"But I'm not like you, Rosalie! You're so much stronger than I am, and I'm not talking physically. You weren't afraid to think about what happened, and you were attacked by five men. You didn't shy away from your thoughts, and I'm afraid to even think about it. I don't have that kind of strength."

She frowned. "Bella, what are you talking about? Alan Vickers killed your parents, raped you, and got off scotch free! You had to move to a completely different state to make sure he wouldn't kill you, but he found out where you are anyways. The fact that you're even breathing astounds me. You have so much more strength than I could ever hope to have."

But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to help me face this and finally accept it. There was still a huge part of me that was waiting for me to wake up from this terrible nightmare.

"You're stronger than you think," Rosalie whispered after a long moment of silence.

I didn't say anything in return; I couldn't bring it in myself to tell her that she was wrong. So I just buried my face in her shirt and she held my quietly sobbing form, rubbing comforting circles on my back with her cold hands.

An hour later, my chest had stopped shaking. I was finally composed enough to speak.

"You're not going to tell Edward, are you?" I whispered.

"No," she said very firmly. "It's not my story to tell. Besides, Bella, I don't think I'd ever be able to do it justice."

I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "How did it ever come to this, Rosalie? How did things end up like this? And why do these things happen to us? We were happy and content before all of this happened. It's almost like we were too happy. It was like some huge, cosmic form of justice. There had to be equal amounts of happiness and misery."

"No," she said again only with a harsher tone. I looked up and her luscious lips were pressed in a very thin line. "No one ever deserves that kind of misery. Not you, not I. We don't deserve what happened to us and the bastard that left you like this will get his."

We were quiet for a long time. I just sat there, on Rosalie's bed as she rubbed comforting circles on my back. Her words echoed through my mind and I dwelled on them longer than necessary. But somehow, knowing that she had gone through what I had, knowing that she understood how I felt made me a little stronger, a little more reassured. This beautiful, strong creature was the light at the end of the tunnel. If I survived this, if I finally reached the coveted closure, I would be as strong as Rosalie.

"Thank you," I murmured after the extended silence. "I know how hard it must have been to tell me that."

The corners of her mouth turned up in a small smile. "It gets easier, Bella. I promise."

I wiped the remaining tears from my eyes. "Is this why you started being nice to me? Why you stopped arguing with Edward after that first time?"

She nodded. "After I saw your eyes, I knew you would be better off here with us than alone and trying to fight away your memories. The moment I saw you as my kindred spirit, I could never push you away. I've wanted to talk to you for a long time, but Edward was trying to keep you away from me."

I frowned. "Why would he do that?"

"He was afraid that I would hurt you even more." She rolled her eyes. "He should have known better than that."

At that moment, tiny Alice Cullen bounded into the room with a wide smile on her face and an almost flushed complexion. "So are we ready to go?"

I took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded. "Yes, I'm ready."

I followed the two Cullen sisters out to the garage and we piled into Rosalie's flashy red convertible. The top was down today because Alice didn't predict any rain.

Having heard Rosalie's story made me morbidly curious. "Alice?" I asked a little hesitantly. I wasn't exactly sure how to ask such a question and I also didn't know if it was too personal a question to ask.

But her small lips quirked up in a smile and I knew that she already saw what I was going to ask. "Yes, Bella?" she prompted. I took it as a sign that she wasn't offended.

"How did you become a vampire?"

I didn't see any pain on her face, but an expression of intense longing dominated her features. "I don't know," she replied. "All I know is life after my transformation. When I woke up, I saw my future family and Jasper in a vision." She smiled at me, probably to show that she didn't have any hard feelings. "If I didn't have this ability, who knows what would have happened to me."

I frowned. "Do you ever wish that you knew what happened?"

She shrugged. "Of course I'm curious, but I don't know how I would feel after I found out." She smiled sadly. "You heard Rosalie's story. Esme's tale is equally tragic. It's a terrible pattern with female vampires and none of the endings I've heard are pleasant."

But I still couldn't wrap my head around the concept. "So you don't have an idea? None at all?"

"Nope. But I don't really worry about it. I'm happy now; I have a wonderful family and a husband whom I love more than life itself. Does the past matter so much as long as I'm content?"

I suppose it didn't. And in a sense, I envied Alice. There was no doubt in my mind that her past was probably as tragic as her sister's. It didn't seem possible for a vampire to have a happy human existence; if they had, they never would have become a part of the supernatural. But in Alice's case, she just skipped all the sadness right to the contentment. She didn't have to relive her pain, like Rosalie and I did.

I spent the rest of the ride to Olympia in quiet contemplation. I felt closer to both of Edward's sisters than I ever had before. Of course, Alice was an easy person to feel close to, but I always felt like Rosalie was a completely separate entity, too aloof and too cold to approach. But now that I knew her story, a story so similar to my own, she and I had become something close to sisters in our own right. We shared a secret, a desperate pain that still haunted us.

When we made it into downtown Olympia, we parked in a parking garage not far from the center of town. I stepped out of the car and drew closer to Rosalie's side than I would have before our conversation.

"Rosalie?" I asked hesitantly. "How…how long did it take before it got easier?"

She sighed. "It didn't get easier until after I started talking about it. For me, it was a couple of years."

The corners of my lips pulled down in a frown. I didn't have a couple of years—I wasn't even sure I had a couple of months. The trial was bound to come soon.

She must have realized what I was thinking because she rested her cold hand on my shoulder with a reassuring smile. "Everyone's different, Bella. With your strength, I'm sure that you'll be able to face it much sooner than I was."

But I didn't have any strength.

"Come on!" Alice shouted excitedly when she spotted a store across the street flaunting fashionably-clad mannequins in the window. "We'll start there!"

Rosalie and I followed at a much slower pace. "Should I be scared?" I whispered to her out of the corner of my mouth. It was useless to whisper with Alice around because I knew she'd be able to hear it anyway, but it didn't stop me from trying.

The blonde Cullen sister nodded. "Yes."

Scared was a little bit of an understatement; shopping with Alice Cullen was like shopping with a tornado. The moment we crossed the threshold of the store, she tore through racks with the most conspicuous clothing and tossed the hangers into my bewildered arms, not bothering to ask me my size. After picking at least sixteen different dresses, she pushed me to the back and into the nearest dressing room.

The second the door closed, I sighed and pulled the first dress off the hanger. It was pretty, I suppose, but much too fashion forward for a high school dance, much less a Forks High School dance. I turned the tag over and felt my eyeballs bulge out of their sockets at the price.

"Bella?" called Alice impatiently through the dressing room door. "What's taking so long?"

"Alice, this dress costs five hundred dollars!"

"So?"

"I can't try this on!"

"Yes you can," she insisted. "I probably won't even buy any of the stuff you have with you right now."

I tried to glare at her through the thin wood. "Then why are you making me try them on?" I demanded.

Her muffled sigh permeated the door, like an exhausted teacher trying to explain a simple concept to an even simpler student. "I'm trying to find your aesthetic."

"What?"

"Quit stalling!" she cried. "Try them on before I go in there and force them over your head!"

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that she would, so I hastily threw the dress on.

After four more stores, Alice declared my aesthetic was "classical romantic." I had no idea what in the world she meant by this, but the look on her face told me that challenging her verdict would not be wise. When she had her back turned though, I shot a glance at Rosalie who only smiled apologetically in return.

However, before we could begin the real dress shopping, my stomach started grumbling at an embarrassing volume.

"Why didn't you tell us you were hungry?" Alice scolded.

"You wouldn't have believed me," I pointed out. "You probably would have accused me of trying to stall the dress hunt."

Rosalie chuckled. Alice scowled.

We walked to the closest Burger King and I placed a large order, hoping to draw the shopping break out a little longer. Unfortunately, it was brought to me practically the second after I paid. It must have been some kind of conspiracy or really good planning on Alice's part; in fact, she looked a little smug.

The moment I ate the last fry, the tray disappeared and the smallest Cullen sister was on her feet. "Come on, let's go!" she cried, tugging gently on my wrist.

The actual dress shopping wasn't nearly as bad as the aesthetic-finding. We found a dress in the second store after lunch. It was a deep, rich blue, made of silk. It had a sweetheart neckline with thin silk straps and an empire waist lined with tiny crystals. The skirt was draped elegantly from the waistline and stopped mid-calf, with several layers of lighter blue and differing in lengths floating around my legs. I actually didn't think the dress looked very good on me, but Alice swore up and down that this was the one for me. Even Rosalie smiled when she saw me in it.

When we got back to their house, Alice sped away to put the dress in her closet. I didn't argue; having the dress in my closet would only make me more nervous about the dance.

The moment I stepped out of the car, Edward was already at my side. "So you survived after all," he said by way of greeting.

I grimaced. "Barely."

He chuckled and leaned forward to kiss my forehead. "Surely it wasn't that bad."

My eyebrows set over my eyes in a heavy line. "Have you ever gone shopping with your sister?"

"I make it a point not to."

"Then you wouldn't know."

He laughed again, but didn't answer. Instead he wrapped my small frame with his cold arms. I leaned against his strong shoulder and breathed in his delicious scent, glad to be in his presence once more.

A/N - Woo hoo! Favorite chapter! If you want to know why, you'll have to read the blog (listed as my website on my profile). And as always, I put a sneak peek of the next chapter.

Please, please, PLEASE review! I've recently acquired a MacBook and the funny thing about these things is that if I don't get enough reviews, it simply won't let me update. Stupid Apple...but it can't be helped.