Hi, guys! This is by far my favorite chapter so far. It's Rosalie's POV, just a few minutes before the funeral (though they're still at the Cullen's house). Sorry for those of you who voted D in the last chapter :-(.
Oh. And I also wanted to say something else. A million of my reviews say something along these lines 'OMB why did you kill Bella??? I say you should bring her back to life!!!!' Guys, Bella is NOT coming back to life. Sorry. For those of you who missed it (even though that's what I've said dozens of times in every chapter since the first one): She. Is. Dead. Edward crushed her heart in his own hands. Her heart stopped beating, and it will NEVER START AGAIN. Ever. She also WILL NOT come back as a vampire.
I may not be sure how this story's gonna end, but I do know that Bella coming back to life WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Just wanted to clear that up. Happy reading!
The baby in my arms cooed and touched my face. I sighed, shifting her to my other hip. The picture she was showing me was one I would never get used to.
It had been the first picture she had shown me, moments after I had saved her from that murderer of a dog and stopped her from crying. My small gasp of astonishment had been lost in all the drama that had unfolded in the ensuing conversation, but Esme and I had marveled about the second I had had the chance to tell her.
I felt bad for poor Esme; her feelings for Renesmee were so confused. On the one hand, she loved her, as she had loved her baby so long ago. But on the other, Renesmee had been the cause of Bella's death, and she had loved Bella as her own, too. But Esme had always been practical, and Renesmee's face - though it harbored such resemblance to the daughter she had already lost and the son that she would lose – was the perfect antidote to the grief she was feeling.
The picture Renesmee was showing me now was repetitive to say the least – it had been the first picture she had shown me and virtually the only one since then. It was Bella, her only memory of her, minutes before she died. I was so well-acquainted with the picture that it was almost like I had been there, instead of downstairs, being forcibly restrained by Jasper.
I had regained my senses moments after I was away from the enticing smell of Bella's blood, and I would have made it back up the stairs sooner, but stupidly I had fought against Jasper's arms, trying to break free, and that had only convinced him that I could not go back upstairs.
Renesmee's picture was a throbbing question. Where was this woman that she had come to love so deeply? What had happened to her?
Each time she had asked me, I didn't know how to answer. I would panic, stroke her hand and ignore the question altogether or just pass her off to Esme, who would gladly take her.
This time, though, I turned to Esme and said, "We should probably get her dressed for the funeral."
Renesmee had to go the funeral, there was no question about that, because all of us had to be present – Bella had become our inlaw just a few months ago, after all. How would it look if one of us didn't attend her funeral? So Renesmee couldn't stay home with one of us, even if one of us had wanted not to go. She was to be billed as the newest foster child of Carlisle and Esme's – Bella's eyes and Edward's hair could not be hidden, but they could be denied if anyone would look too closely - which, hopefully they wouldn't. Lots of people had brown eyes and reddish hair.
Esme and I quickly dressed Renesmee in a simple, black, high-collared dress. Her hair was pulled back in an inconspicuous ponytail.
I put on my own black dress and went back down the stairs. The group gathered there looked very macabre. Carlisle, Jasper, and Emmett wore crisp black suits. Jacob was gone, at his own house, readying himself for the funeral. Alice, curled into Jasper's side, wore a black dress that she had purchased only two days before. Mine and Esme's dresses had come from that shopping trip too. She had departed for it just moments after Edward came back from telling Charlie.
To many people, that would seem superfluous, I supposed. To go shopping instead of staying home comforting your brother over his dead wife. But I knew that to Alice, that was just the way she dealt with things. To immerse herself in shopping for a few hours was how she hid from the depressing visions that plagued her. No one could blame her for that.
Edward was standing part from the others, staring out the back window to the river. He, too, was dressed in a black suit, and I realized with horror that it was the same one he had worn to his wedding. The beginning and the end.
Before I knew what I was doing, I had crossed the room and stood behind him, just off his left shoulder.
"Edward?" I asked tentatively.
"Rosalie…" his voice scared me. I hadn't heard him talk much in the last couple of days, but it was so flat, so dead, so devoid of everything that it made me involuntarily shiver. "Please. Take it – Renesmee – away from me. I don't want to see her."
In truth, that was not the reason I had come to him. I came as a comforter, not a messenger. But his words angered me. He should be forced to meet his daughter, should be forced to at least look at her once before he died. That way, he would know that he was making the right choice, would know for certain that there was nothing in this world for him to live for.
"No, Edward. Look at her. Please. Take her in your arms and look right into her face. Tell her that you love her and that you're sorry. She's been asking for her mother, you know that. Answer her questions, Edward. Be a parent."
I heard Emmett's voice break through the silence. "Rose…" His tone was disapproving. This only angered me further.
"Emmett! He's going to die without every having looked at his child! Bella-" Edward flinched at her name, "-would not have wanted Edward to go on ignoring his daughter the way he has been. She loves you, Edward. Renesmee loves you. Why aren't you there for her? You don't think she'd feel bad about what had happened if she knew what she'd done? Of course she would! When she learns that she killed her own mother, she'll be just as agonized as you are right now – more so, because she will have been the cause of her father's death, too! Just take her, Edward. Look her in the eyes and then tell me that you will put that burden on your shoulders. You can't not love her, Edward. It'll help, I swear it will," I continued to rant, my tone going softer. "It helped Esme. It'll help you to have something to love. It'll help take the pain away."
This I knew from experience. After my own transformation, I had wandered, grief-stricken, half-crazed with thirst, my mental wounds healing just as well as the physical ones I inflicted on the animals I had hunted. I had not come close to healing until I began to fall in love with Emmett. And then I had felt better. The grief for all I had lost subsided, became muted under this new warm feeling that smothered all the pain like warm sticky syrup falling on top of shards of broken glass.
And I felt sure that Edward would feel similarly if he would just look at Renesmee's face.
Edward turned away from the window to look at me, and his eyes were just as dead as his voice.
"Rosalie, I-"He was in the middle of another denial, I could tell.
"She's right," Esme said unexpectedly, and then she was by Edward's other side, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. "It will help, Edward."
Edward took one look at his mother's face and I knew that that would convince more than my words ever could. He turned back to me and said roughly, "Give her to me."
I held out the baby, watching his face warily for any sign of what he might do.
I needn't have worried. He took Renesmee so carefully into his arms that it might have been Bella. He used one finger to softly push back a lock of hair from her face and looked her dead on.
His breath caught and I knew he was looking at her eyes – Bella's eyes. His body shuddered under Esme's hand as it continued to rub methodically.
Was I just imagining it, or were his fingers clenching and unclenching, as though he wanted to crush Renesmee's windpipe? His expression was so unreadable it was making me paranoid, considering all the animosity he had felt toward her earlier.
Edward stood looking at Renesmee for the longest time, and I ached to know what was going through his mind. Was Renesmee helping him or making it worse? I couldn't tell.
And I did want it to help. Edward and I had had our arguments in the past, but I didn't like to see him in so much pain. That was part of the reason I had agreed with Jasper. He would not heal from Bella's death, that much was obvious to see. That was not the goal I was trying to accomplish by having him hold Renesmee.
I recalled a passage from Gone With the Wind, a book I had read too man times in too many English classes. The drugs were so scarce during the Civil War that they were used not to help the suffering of the wounded that would heal, but to ease the mortally wounded into death. That was what I was trying to accomplish with Edward and Renesmee.
But was it working? That was the question I needed to know. And Edward showed no sign of answering as he gazed into Renesmee's innocent eyes.
"Edward?" I breathed, soft as a whisper, touching his shoulder with the tip of my finger.
"Yes?" he answered back, just as quietly, and his eyes flicked up to meet mine, startled, as though I had cast him out some reverie. Was it a good reverie or a bad one?
"Are you…okay?" The question was a stupid one. Of course he wasn't okay, but I hoped he could see past the literal, straightforward meaning of my question to what I was really asking.
He didn't answer for a moment, but I noted with worry that his eyes were losing some of their deadness, a faint hollow pain coming back into them. But there was something else there, too. What was it?
"Um…" That word by itself was enough to shock me. Edward never, never used the word um. He always knew exactly what word he was looking for. "You know, Rosalie, I'm really not sure."
"Do you love her?" Esme asked from his other side.
"Yes," Edward whispered, and my heart surged. "It's not enough," he added quickly, hearing my thoughts, and my face fell ever so slightly. It was probably stupid, because I had known it wouldn't be enough, but I was disappointed, even though this was good news, fantastic news.
"It's not enough," he repeated, "but she's reminded me of all the reasons I loved her when I couldn't see her, when Bel-Bella was still alive." He still stumbled over her name, but at least he didn't resort to calling Bella her as he had done so many times in the last two days.
"When I could only hear her thoughts," Edward explained, "she seemed to me to be so pure, so loving. She loved Bella." Had he actually said her name aloud without stumbling? It seemed too good to be true. "How could I hate that which loved her? It was an impossibility at the time. But then, she died, and I didn't see how Renesmee could love the one whom she killed. It was stupid of me, I realize now, because how many times had I almost killed Bella? And I would kill anyone who claimed I didn't love her. But now, looking into Renesmee eyes – those gorgeous eyes – I see that she did love, still loves, and will always love Bella. And so I love her," she finished simply. "But I still can't see how I could live. I once compared Bella's place in my life like a shooting star. Renesmee is like Venus in the night sky – bright, brighter than most other things, but still nothing in comparison to Bella's light, her beauty."
"So you want us to raise Renesmee for you?" I challenged. "Tell her that her father killed himself just a few days after she was born?"
"She will understand," Edward said with certainty. "Maybe not when you first tell her, but when she finds someone of her own, if her senses are as passionate as a vampire's, but she will understand what it's like to love someone so much that if they were to die you could no longer live."
"Edward…" I started to say again, but this time Edward cut me off.
"Rosalie, we're going to be late. Let's go." He offered Renesmee back to me.
And I had no choice but to take her and follow the rest of the family to the garage. I went to Emmett's side and he put one arm around my shoulder and pulled me tight against his chest. I went into his embrace willingly.
Edward describing Bella the way he did had only made my own grief toward her more acute. Bella's life, according to Edward for the majority of Bella's pregnancy, had been nothing to me. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. I loved Bella. I had for many months, more than I cared to admit. She was endearing, that was undeniable, and for the longest time it was only her decision that stopped me from reaching out to her and bonding the way Alice had done so easily.
And now she was gone. The pregnancy had bonded us much more quickly than I would have thought possible, but there was still a long way to go until Bella understood that I truly did care for her. Now I would never have the chance to tell her. And suddenly that realization was so crushing that Jasper sent me a sudden sharp glance under the onslaught of emotion suddenly coming from me.
I looked up upon Emmett's face, the way I always did for comfort, and my expression must have been tortured because he put one finger against my cheek and murmured, "It's all right, Rose."
And I believed him. Like I always did. Like I always would.
I love you, Emmett.
Don't forget to review! (PLEASE!!) I'm at 59...can you guys get me to...say...65? That's 16. That'd be nice. Very, very nice.
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