Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything recognizable in the land of Twilight. No copyright infringement is meant.

Not Be Fooled

"I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying."

- Charles C. Finn

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Previously

I pick up the front of my dress, not wanting to trip on the gorgeous fabric. Only two minutes have passed since I signaled father. I shall have plenty of time to meet them in the awaiting car.

As I go to turn the corner, my breath clogs in my throat and my feet render me immovable. I feel as if lightening has just struck me dumb, along with stopping my heart for a time. My empty hand comes to my lips as a gasp falls from them.

In front of me, as handsome and princely as ever, is my recent dream. I'm confused and, for some unattainable reason, quite sad.What will become of this confrontation? From the unyielding look on his beautiful visage, I cannot guess. Or perhaps I'd rather not . . .

Oh my!

. .

I feel as if I'm about to choke. The oxygen stuck in my throat refuses to move. My eyes feel as if they are spinning wildly out of control, and my heart is all but sure to leap from my chest. My palms begin to sweat; I want to cringe at the terrible clammy feeling. My mask, which I so beautifully held up this evening all but shatters. But as I've come to anticipate, it's the norm around him.

Why should this evening be any different? Why should his sudden and wholly unexpected appearance sway me any differently? And goodness, do I wish it would.

Edward finally takes a small step towards me and with it, the air lodges from my throat. The lining now feels raw and parched. I wish for a glass of water to sooth the dryness, or perhaps a mood-inducing glass of champagne. If I were to call out, would a waiter bring one to me suddenly? Such a crazy thought to have in a moment, but my sanity seems to slip with Edward's appearance.

I swallow hard, grimacing as it seems to burn my esophagus. My eyelids blink several times in rapid succession, convincing me he is truly here.

But he told me otherwise, my mind reasons. Esme and Carlisle told me the same. What reason would they have to lead me differently? Especially Esme.

As my mind bombards me with several more questions, I take in the handsome contours of his face. Nothing has really changed, but there is a noticeable difference in the warmth I have become accustomed to seeing on his visage. His lips are straight with no hint of a smile. His eyes are focused and staring directly into mine. They look to be as hard as the gemstone color they represent.

His glorious hair is rakishly disorganized, only adding to his exceptional appeal. Only one line between his eyebrows gives anything away. It is creased, as if he is trying to figure something out. My heart beats so frantically as I wait for him to say something, to give me any indication what he is trying to see in me.

It's as if a veil is lifted from my eyes, from my mind, and I can all but see what he must be thinking. My hands continue to perspire and my shoulders suddenly sag. I have been at an unfair advantage all evening. It is all but clear now.

"How long were you here, Ed-Edward?" I question sadly, stumbling in my desolation.

He studies me for a moment longer before he answers. As he speaks, his emotions start to leak into his eyes. My heart falls at the realization, something my body seemed to have already riddled out.

"Long enough, Rosalie." My full name falling from his lips is the only indication I need to gauge his mood. It lacks the essential warmth.

I can feel something in me. I can't name it, but I can feel it as assuredly as I'm beautiful. It's telling me to run, to get out while I'm still unbroken. It's silly to think I could have such an absurd reaction to this magnificent boy in front of me, after only being in his acquaintance for a couple of months. But when are matters of the heart ever rational?

"I don't understand, Edward," I tell him softly, confusedly. Tears cloud my eyes, and I can't comprehend why the sudden reaction. My skin starts to itch with anticipation and breaks out in gooseflesh.

"What's there to understand, pray tell?" His tone is ice covered in silk. I can only imagine it is even softer than the material of my gown.

I rub my arms, cold under his intense stare. I find there is no answer to his probably rhetorical question. I shake my head in confusion. Can he see the despair on my face? Is he able to see the tough façade I wore at the party all but crumbled?

"You sure seemed incredibly aware tonight, Miss. Hale. Why the sudden confusion? Is this nothing but a game you play with me?"

No matter how much I will it, the first tear falls from my left eye. It rolls pitifully down my reddened skin. His hostility escapes my grasp. Many reasons can account for his behavior, but I can't remember when I seemed to have wronged him.

"I play no games with you, Edward. I have no guile where you're concerned." I swipe at the fallen tears, turning my eyes from his scowl. It hurts like nothing I've experienced.

"Your ever-changing personalities would suggest otherwise," he all but sneers. How much can a body hurt before it wants to crumble? How much can I take from the one person who has held me at a constant disadvantage?

"No," I plead forthrightly. "You miss understand."

"I beg to differ." And the tightness he holds so rigidly cracks minutely. Hurt shines in his eyes, and even though he turns from me the next moment, as if trying to hide it, the damage is done. I've seen the truth. In some horrid way, I've upset him, disappointed him.

I pillage through my mind, trying to find the exact occasion in which I've hurt him. Nothing specific comes to the forefront.

"Please, Edward! You speak of not playing games, tell me how I've hurt you," I implore him. The emotions in my voice are thick, and I wonder how they don't get stuck in my still dry throat.

I go to instinctively reach out to him, ignoring decorum and social graces. It's seems imperative to comfort him. He backs away from me, as if my touch can somehow taint his very pale skin.

I recoil my hand and wrap it around my stomach. Perhaps if I hold it there long enough the violent churning in my stomach will desist. I can't understand why I haven't become sick everywhere. The acid has already burned my esophagus raw. My eyes become blurry again, making him seem like a watercolor painting, almost unsettled.

"How many roles are you able to play, Rosalie? How much of everything you confided in me was even truthful? Did our interactions mean anything to you beside some sick kind of practice for your next starring role in public? Rosalie Hale: beautiful, untouchable, cold, coyly beguiling, the Grande Dame of the most elite," he finishes his cruel, yet sadly accurate, description.

I wonder if anymore disgust can wrap around his perfect portrayal of me. I'm all those things and more. It's how I've been raised and trained to depict. No words even come to defend my actions; it's how I always intended to act.

"I can't defend myself, Edward," I tell him tiredly, dejectedly. "It's how I always am in public, at some party. I don't know any differently. Whether you are there or not, I would have acted the same." I give him the solid truth. "Probably even more so."

Anger, along with confusion, swirl in his amber orbs.

Had I known of his presence previously, I would have been even more rigid. I would have surely become distracted, thus having to put even more ice into my mask.

"But it doesn't define me," I say shakily. It has to be the truth of me. "It's but a mere act. You mean so much more to me than I can even intimate," I say to him, giving him the deepest, scariest part of my truth. It's as if I'm laid bare to him. My slightly suggestive dress seems all the more risqué.

He's silent for a time, only studying my face. It's as if he's searching for any fallacy, any misleading notion I may have told him. I can only imagine how I must look to him. I know my face is droopy, all but surrendered to erratic emotions.

My arms and fingers are fidgety, wet as they try to grasp at my flesh. My entire body is filled with anxiousness and fear. I know it lingers on more than just the surface of my skin; it's swimming in my very veins.

I give all that I can to Edward and continue to wait for his reaction. Will he tear me down to my lowest level? Will he understand my public persona, the role I must play in order to fulfill my deepest desire? Have I only set myself up for failure, or will my truthfulness redeem me in his splendid eyes?

My suspicions are answered as he begins to talk. I back slowly and shakily away with each syllable that leaves his gorgeous lips. He's always so beautiful, even in disillusionment.

"You're not what I expected, Rosalie. Perhaps I was always fooling myself. I tell myself to stick with what I know, what is proven! For a moment I seemed to have lost myself, but it all seems forgotten now. Never should I have allowed my eyes to be blinded."

He answers my unspoken questions impeccably.

"E-Edward," I start to cry miserably. My mind tries to comfort me as my heart tries to leap out and go to him. It wants to reject me. The two opposing sides play even more havoc with my sinking despair.

"I imprudently listened, knowing deeply that it was wrong. How could I have been so negligent, so reckless?" His words are a reflection on only himself. He doesn't even look at me as he righteously blames himself.

"Edward?" I whisper again, confusedly. My head swerves from side to side in disbelief. I don't understand his rebuke and whom he supposedly listened to.

"I was only ever fooling myself. Never was I meant to be friends with you. We are so entirely different, Rosalie. I can do this no longer!"

No . . .

My breath stops wholly at his last statement. I can't think straight, and I feel as if I can no longer function properly. What have I truly done?

"Please, don't say that," I completely beg, forgetting I have any dignity. What good would it even do me without the greatest comfort I've ever had? "I need you in my life, Edward. I can't even explain why, but I do. What you saw tonight is but a small part of me. It's the persona I dawn in public. The girl you bring out in me is entirely yours. I wouldn't know how to be like that for anyone else. Please, please, don't remove your friendship from my life."

I have nothing left to give him. My coffers are empty, given unreservedly to him. My pride lays at my feet in tatters, and they only wait for his skilled hands to put them back together.

For a moment, I see Edward; the one who saved me from a broken elevator; the one who comforted a discombobulated girl he knew not; the one who spoke to me gently and beautifully; the one I've come to regard in the highest esteem; the one I dream of at night and long to see every hour of the day; the one who has etched himself into my very skin. Edward.

His eyes shine with the compassion he shows only to me. He goes to take a step towards me. I can make out his hand reaching forward. And before I can reciprocate his action, he stops. The small, fragmented light leaves his eyes and is replaced with a fierce determination. Without him even speaking, I know the outcome. I've somehow lost.

Tears fall quickly from my eyes and I do nothing to stop the flow. What would even be the point?

"I can't, Rosalie. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. You seem infinitely more comfortable being the girl I saw tonight than what you ever were with me. I could never compete for that girl, Rosalie. I could never compete with Lawrence Andrews or any other beau that would want your attentions. It would never be fair of me to even want that. What they can give you, I never could."

"And what's that," I croak out, surprised by the deep vulnerability in my tone. I don't even know where the question comes from.

"Normality, stability. I go against the grain of every social grace. Your world is so far removed from my own. I should have never stepped into it. I can't do this any longer, Rosalie," he finishes quietly.

For a moment we are joined in our heartache. And no matter the words that just escaped his lips, I know we are feeling the same. The longing is momentarily clear in his glorious eyes.

I'm so confused. He speaks as if he's angry with me about my actions tonight, yet he claims not to be the same as other gentlemen in our social circle. Where does he truly stand? No matter, I don't want to be without him either way.

"Please," is all I can whisper. I shake my head in steep denial. He can't mean what he's just spoken. This has to be a wronged figment of my overactive imagination. This is so terribly wrong!

"It's finished, Rosalie. You're not the person I believed. Your vanity is astounding and completely opposite of what you lead me to believe. Lies, it's all been lies. You're beautiful, love," he scorns. There is no flattery in his description of me. I feel nothing but cold at his endearment. "But so imperfect."

Truths I'm already well acquainted with . . .

With the last scrap of my dignity thrown away, I speak once more, "Please."

"It isn't enough, Rosalie Hale. You were never the person I imagined. Goodbye, darling."

And before I can reach out, beseech him to stay, or even throw myself at his feet, he walks past me and out of my sight."

My hands tremble from the crushing blow I feel to my stomach. My lip quivers as I bite down. My eyes stings as useless tears drop from my overflowing sockets. Finally, my knees that I demanded not to buckle give out. I tumble gracelessly to the ground and bend from the waist down.

Loads of devastating heaviness press down on my body, demanding more from me than is capable. My shoulders shake from the difficulty of trying to cope, trying to comprehend what has happened.

Nothing makes sense, yet I know Edward has removed himself from my life. He no longer seeks my friendship, and I was nothing but a disappointment to him. He only saw lies when all I knew was freeing instability around him.

What he perceives to be the norm from me tonight is nothing but a well-practiced dance. Something I was carved into being. Hours upon hours went into training Rosalie Lillian Hale: Socialite extraordinaire. Though I play her quite well, she isn't how I ever internally aspired to be.

Yes, I am vain, and I know my extensive beauty, but it is never more important to me than children. I would gladly give up every beautiful feature I posses for a child in my arms.

Rose is an unpracticed girl I hardly know. Though she frightens me, I crave her more. She is real and quietly challenges me to be different. Yet Edward thought her to be lies. She is the redeeming truth.

I bring my hands to my face and cover my humiliation. I lean back and allow the wall to support my flailing weight. I don't want to be without him. Edward, my mind pleads. Don't do this. Feel the real me. Know that Rose was never a mirage. She is the hidden part of me that is sincere, unrefined. She calls for you.

Please.

The only thing that greets me is silence. He doesn't magically appear.

I lean against the wall. Nothing seems to faze me. Time has no meaning, and I feel nothing but terribly desolate, utterly sad.

What will become of Rose now?

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Author's Notes: Wow, loves . . . that was quite heavy (*bites lip nervously*). I know it was short, but it held everything that needed to be said, and then some. Did you expect Edward to be there? Did anyone pick up Carlisle and Esme talking to Edward in the last chapter? He is the shadows Carlisle was talking about.

Anyhow, thanks to the three people who reviewed last chapter. They meant a lot, a lot to me. I can't thank you enough. Is this story worth continuing? Has the interest in it passed? I don't want to continue if no one is reading. If you have the time or inclination, please review, loves! It takes only a few seconds. One minute at the most . . . LOL.

I hope all is well with everyone. Much love sent to all.

Updated: Thursday, 9 August 2012