Chapter Summary: When Rosalie holds me against her body like that... Okay, so like she's cold, right? And you know when you have something really cold against your tummy for a while ... Wait, I didn't mean she's cold! I mean: she is hot. I mean... um, my cheeks are burning, aren't they? Can you not look at me, please?

She held me in her hug, in her strong, powerful arms, strong enough to rip a tree out of the ground, yet gentle enough to hold a slip of a girl without crushing her.

And I, a slip of a girl, held her back.

And time ... stopped. It stopped for her, she didn't move, she didn't breathe, she just held me. She was so furious just a second ago, or a minute ago, or was it an hour ago?

Because now she wasn't anything. Time stopped for her, and for me?

My world was just this, just me holding her and her holding me.

It wasn't as if she could be described as clingy at all. She wasn't a weak person.

But she said she wanted a hug, and I got the feeling that ...

That if she weren't holding me right now, there would be nothing for her to hold onto.

She was the strong one, and so forceful, so hurtful sometimes, but she wasn't clingy.

But she held onto me.

From the well of her infinite strength, ... she clung to me.

And for her, time stopped.

But the wheels keep on turning, don't they?

I hate that about myself sometimes. I think and think and think. Even when I try not to. It gets me in trouble all the time, like when I found out about the Cullens. I got an idea in my head, and instead of being like everybody else and everywhere else in the the world, and this according to Rosalie, ... instead of being like them and just letting the idea go: Huh, they're different.

Instead of just letting it go at that, I thought and thought and thought, and dug until I got my answers. And then I knew.

And when I knew, I just had to go to Rosalie and let her know that I knew.

I just couldn't be like everybody else, and let it go. No, I couldn't be like them and not care, and get on with my own life and my own business.

My own pointless life and my own pointless business.

No, I had to go to Rosalie and show her how clever I was.

I can just see myself from her perspective now, clever little me, riding up to her house. How conceited!

I'm actually shocked she just didn't ... what? snap her fingers and make me disappear from the face of the Earth right then and there.

But she didn't.

And now she's holding me.

But now, another damn nagging thought is in my head again, and instead of me just holding her back and enjoying this moment, forever, just her and me, that thought keeps nibbling away at my brain, an itch that needs to be scratched.

I sighed and dropped my arms from her back.

She didn't follow suit.

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

She didn't let me go. She didn't move.

"Rosalie?" I whispered quietly in her ear.

Had she gone?

"Yes?" she answered just as quietly, not moving, her chin on my shoulder, my face resting on her collarbone, buried in her golden, downy hair.

I breathed her in.

"Did you..." I hesitated. "Did you want to ...?"

"No," she answered simply, interrupting my hesitant question.

I understood. She didn't 'want to' anything.

I returned my arms to her back, rejoining her in the hug.

...

"Rosalie?" I asked again, quietly.

She sighed.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly, blushing. "But I think I have to go again."

I waited, held in her arms, now rather embarrassed.

Strike that: now very embarrassed.

Rosalie held me, soaking in what I said.

Then she chuckled. I felt it rumbling through her body, she was her laughter.

And she was laughing at me.

"Oh, to be human again and need to pee all the time," she quipped in amused tones.

"Jeez! Rosalie!" I whined. "I'm dying here!"

She broke the hug, holding me by my shoulders at arms length and regarded me. Laughter danced in her eyes.

"Didn't you just come from the outhouse?" she asked incredulously.

My face was beet-red.

"Yeah," I said, "but I ..."

Her tongue actually came out and touched her lower lip as she waited for my explanation. And I saw her pressing her lips together, around her tongue, trying to repress her smile.

She wasn't doing a good job at all of trying to look serious.

"Well," I nearly shouted in a huff, "it's cold out, and, you know, a girl gets thrown around and pounced on, and then, okay, the hug was nice, but you're not exactly the hottest person in the world, you know?"

She tilted her head to the side at the last bit.

"You don't think I'm hot?" she asked with a tone I couldn't decipher.

I looked back at her in confusion. "No," I answered simply, "you're, like, really cold, Rosalie, ... like ice, and you were kinda ..." I paused, looking at her looking at me so gravely, but her eyes mocking and amused. I pressed on: "... you were kinda pressing against my front, and the ... you know ... cold made me..."

I couldn't understand her look at all.

"made-me-kinda-need-to-pee-right-now-is-all."

I finished in a rush, blushing harder.

Her tongue disappeared from her lips which twisted into a frowny-grin, so pleased with something, with my weak human frailty, I supposed, which only embarrassed me further.

But she answered evenly: "Okay, let's go."

We started walking back to where we came from. But Rosalie didn't seem to mind. If anything, she was amused at silly, little me.

But her smirking air of superiority was eating away at me.

"Okay," I folded, "what's so funny?"

I heard her chuckle lightly.

"You do know that describing a person as 'hot' or 'cold' is euphemistic, don't you?"

I turned to look at her, and she looked back at me, examining me closely.

She shook her head in disbelief, smiling lightly.

"I don't know about that, Rosalie," I admitted. "You're just not hot: you're cold, that's all I said ..."

I paused, wondering if I were insulting her.

"I mean, you can't help it." Here she laughed again, so I added quickly, "... not that I mind, I guess I'm used to it."

I wonder if I were ever in contact with somebody else, I mean, like: another living, breathing human being, would I find them hot? burningly so now that I was so used to how Rosalie felt when she held me?

Not that that would ever happen, but if somebody else held me like Rosalie did, would I find it unbearably hot now? or disgusting? Like people wouldn't smell like flowers like her, they would smell like, ... well: people. Would I find them gross and stinky now?

I mean, if Rosalie didn't kill them first in a fit of jealous rage.

Or was that wistful thinking on my part?

"'I can't help it'?" she asked lightly.

I looked at her, wondering what she was hinting at. Finally I shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, I guess, right?"

She stopped. She just stood there, stock still, regarding me evenly.

"What?" I asked.

"You are just so innocent!" she finally sighed.

I blushed and looked away. 'Innocent' sounded a lot like 'dumb' to me, and I felt embarrassed, and I didn't know why.

I could feel her smile and her eyes on me.

"What?" I whispered petulantly.

"May I tell you want 'hot' and 'cold' imply when they are used to describe a girl?" she asked.

"They are used to describe girls?" I asked, turning back to her.

"Yes," she said, smirking, then she explained. "When someone is described as 'hot,' it means they are desirable."

"Oh," I said. Then: "Oh, I didn't mean that you were ..."

"... in a sexual way." She finished.

"What?" I asked, surprised by this sudden turn.

"Yes," she said. "'She's hot!' is what guys say to each other when they find a girl sexually desireable, usually with the implication that they would like to fuck them."

"What?" I gasped, blushing again.

"So," she continued, her eyes dancing. "That same girl is describe as 'cold' or an 'Ice Queen,' or 'frigid,' when she doesn't respond to their sexual overtures. Like this: 'Goddamn it, that Rosalie turned me down, that bitch is cold!' implying that there's something wrong with the girl not wanting to sleep with the neanderthal with the manners of a lout."

She smirked at me. "Calling a girl cold means she's sexually repressed or dysfunctional and therefore undesirable."

"Oh," I said, my face stinging. "But you know I didn't mean that, right, Rosalie?" I asked quickly, trying to recover. "I mean, everybody knows you're ... um ... you're ..."

Okay, what was I going to say now? That she's sexually desirable?

"Yes?" she gave me a big, innocent-eyed look, almost simpering.

"Ah... um ..." I stuttered, then suddenly felt hot under my scarf. "Is it getting warmer outside?" I asked helplessly.

"What?" she ask, snickering. "Are you feeling ... hot?"

"Yes," I answered quickly, then just as quickly realized her innuendo, and my mistake of walking right into it.

She laughed openly, not waiting even a beat to cash in on my mistake. "Because that cheeky blush you're sporting, you surely are hot, you sexy thing!"

"Ahhhhh!" I squealed, and my mittened hands covered my cheeks.

The mittens felt icy, or maybe my cheeks were burning up.

She snickered again.

"I could just die," I exclaimed in embarrassment.

"Oh," she responded lightly now, no trace of her earlier fury by the fallen tree. "I'm sure you'll be just fine after you relieve your bladder." Then she tugged on my sleeve, ordering easily: "Come along."

I harrumphed and then trudged beside her, muttering to myself.

"What is it?" she asked after a moment of my sullen silence.

"Is everything a sexual thing to you?" I demanded.

"Oh, and why do you ask, you self-righteous little thing?" she returned glibly.

I scowled and blushed.

"It's just that it seems to me everything I say you're turning into a sexual thing now," I complained. "Are you doing that on purpose because you like seeing me embarrassed or something?"

"'Or something'? 'Or something' like what?" she asked.

Professor Rosalie and her exactitude.

"Okay," I groused, "or just embarrass me, is all."

We walked along in silence. I saw her reflecting on her thoughts.

Eventually she said: "I find your naïveté endearing, but I don't see why you would be embarrassed that your words often have a double-meaning with a sexual innuendo. Things of a sexual nature are often referred to in a circumlocutory manner, as to be blunt here in a social setting is considered gauche."

"But I'm not double-meaning anything," I responded quickly. "All I said was you were hot, I didn't mean anything sexual by it!" I responded hotly.

I mean 'hotly' but not in a sexual manner, if you take my meaning, and you darn well better as this was embarrassing enough for me as it is.

Gosh! I can't even think a thought without getting embarrassed!

Rosalie stopped again and regarded me levelly.

"What?" I demanded.

Her scrutiny of me was always so intense, and she could always read my mind, but I never seemed to be able to figure out what she was thinking or what her looks meant.

"You said I was hot?" she asked cautiously.

"Yeah," I defended. "All I said was you were hot, and you turn it into this whole, big ..."

"No," she interrupted, "you originally said I was cold, not hot."

"Huh?" I asked, taken off guard.

She repeated: "You said I was cold, that's why you needed to pee, not hot. So why did you just say I was hot, knowing the sexual connotation now?"

"I said you were ..." I began, but then I stopped, not knowing how to continue.

Now I was really confused. Did I call her hot, or did I call her cold? And why did I call her hot now if I called her cold before?

I turned away, blushing.

"I'm confused." I whispered to the air.

That's how I felt. I felt confused, and that hurt.

Everything I was saying and doing was wrong, when everything I tried to do in front of her, I tried to do right, and it just made everything worse that she kept calling me out on it all the time.

"You're confused; you're embarrassed," she agreed, then she pressed: "What is it for you that you have these feelings so strongly now?"

"I don't know," I whispered, still not looking at her.

I felt her hand on my chin, and the gentle, irresistible pull as she forced my face to face her.

"You do know," she said quietly. "Try harder."

"I ..." I said, and tried to look away.

I couldn't. Not from the intensity of her gaze.

"I just guess we never talk about those kinds of things out here." I said.

"'We'?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, "we're not, ... well: frank, I guess, like you people Back East."

She regarded me coolly.

I wonder if she were angry with me now, with me comparing us out here in the New West with her kinds of people Back East.

She said quietly: "Isn't it interesting when you get close to a self-realization, you automatically deflect it away from yourself by switching from 'I' to 'we,' or by asking me a question and then becoming very defensive when I probe what in you prompts the question in the first place."

"What?" I barked, shocked at her accusation.

She raised her hands placatingly. "It wasn't a 'we' who were embarrassed, but as soon as I started to ask you to look within yourself as to what made you embarrassed it became a conversation about regions, and not about yourself any more. You come this close to it, to you and what you're dealing with — actually to acknowledging that you're confronting something in yourself, even — and then shy away from the truth, and your defenses rise up, and then you go on the attack, and accuse me of the sin of not being in your region, or me trying to sabotage your new-found maturity with a hug, of all things, or by doing any and everything to avoid confronting that, as you see it, that horrible, little truth that you may actually have a say in your own feelings."

She glared at me. "Why do you do that?"

I looked away.

"I..." I started, then stopped.

Why does she do this to me all the time? I just was trying to ... well, not even be judging, I was just saying we're different, East and West, and she blows up in my face, turning it into this attack against me that I'm this mean person who would rather hurt her than look into myself.

It was like it was mirror time for me with Rosalie, all the time.

She continued coolly. "And when I ask 'why,' it's not because I don't know why you do this. I do. I ask you why-questions so you can know. Do you see the distinction? Do you see when you ask why-questions, you are coming from a place in yourself that lashes out to hurt me, so you can feel justified in your perceived inadequacy? Do you see when I ask you why-questions, it's to challenge you to look into yourself, so you can see how you are being, and becoming aware of that, you can now choose, freely, how to behave now, and going forward?"

She was just so relentless.

"You asked me why I ask you why-questions if I so disapprove of them from you," she said coolly, lecturing me. "And now you know why. Do you see the distinction?"

She turns my innocent comments into sexual ones, and when I get embarrassed at that, instead of easing off, she attacks.

I sighed, and turned to her, tears staining my cheeks.

"No, Rosalie," I said finally. "I don't see that, okay? All I see is ... okay, I just say something, anything, and you like, attack me, all the time, and you never, ever give me one second to breathe, okay?"

She regarded me coolly. "You mean I never give you one second to allow you to regroup your defenses, so you can attack again. You're right. I don't. And even with every ounce of effort I expend to reach through to you, you still close yourself off, and you still lash out at me."

I heard an insane scream tear through my throat, and I found I was laughing. "Rosalie," I screeched, "that's you! I'm the one who's always trying to break through this ..." — I waved at her — "... whatever! This wall you put up, pretending to be so mean and cold when you're not! And you're the one who's always lashing out at me!"

She paused, regarding me, and smiled sadly.

"Do you see what you just did?" she asked quietly. "You deflected me away from you by attacking me. Do you see we're saying the exact same thing? But do you see you're defensive and lashing out? ... and do you see I'm trying to reach out to you?"

"I..." I said.

I wish I could just die.

There was no escaping this hell. Every time I get embarrassed, she calls me on it, and then says it's all my fault, and I'm the one who's being mean when I try to defend myself, and where does that leave me? Nowhere. I have nowhere to turn, nothing to hold onto, and I'm reduced to not even being able to speak, because anything I say is bad or wrong or both. I can't even say 'I'm sorry,' without bearing the brunt of her furious tongue lashing: No, you're not sorry, otherwise you wouldn't have done it!

She injures me, and then she heaps insults on top of that hurt.

I just stood there, looking at her, the hated tears falling from my eyes.

"Help," I whispered.

I didn't even realize I said that. But it was the only thing left I could say.

Rosalie regarded me coolly. "Okay," she said.

She stood there, looking at me looking at her.

"Do you want a hug?" she asked.

I didn't know whether to laugh or to sigh. Would it be weak of me to say 'yes' after I just broke off the last one so I could go pee? Would it be weak of me to think I'm weak and not just say 'yes'?

I didn't know how to answer her.

"I'm scared, Rosalie," I whispered.

Rosalie was so still. "You're scared," she acknowledged, then paused, thinking. "Okay, you're scared. Did you want the hug even though you're scared, or no?"

She didn't even ask why I'm scared. It was like she didn't care, but not like she was being mean, but like me being scared had no bearing on the hug.

What if me being scared didn't have anything to do with the hug, I wondered. What if I could have the hug, scared or no ... would I feel better?

Yes.

"Yes," I whispered to her.

She smiled at me, a small smile, and, coming up to me, gently wrapped me in her arms.

I breathed her in. I let her, her hug, fill me. She was cold, but I never felt cold when she held me. I felt her power, her strength, her ... tenderness ... or so I imagined it to be, so I hoped it to be, and that was enough for me. Her: my hope.

"Do you ever think..." I whispered after a while, after I recovered a tiny bit, "Do you ever think you push me too hard?"

Rosalie was quiet for a while, holding me.

"No," she said simply.

I didn't like that answer.

"Why?" I said.

"You said 'push me too hard.' I don't think I push you too hard," she explained.

I breathed her in.

"I think you do," I said.

I said it quietly, factually. I wasn't trying to fight with her or blame her. I was trying to tell her what I felt and how I saw it.

"Do you ever ..." I asked again. "Do you think you might push me too hard one day that I'll just break, Rosalie? Do you ever think about that?"

"Yes," she said.

I waited.

But that was all she said.

"So...?" I asked.

Nothing.

I pulled back out of the hug. She let me.

I looked at her as I asked: "So, what will you do if you push me so hard that I'd break?"

... like almost this time, I thought, then added ruefully: like almost every time.

She looked back coolly. "What would I do? Your implication is subjunctive."

I had no idea what she was saying. But that's not what I cared about.

"Yes, Rosalie," I said, "What would you do?"

She regarded me. "I would pick you up if you were to fall, and hold you if you wished to be held."

I thought about that. "Oh," I said eventually.

Then added: "What if that doesn't fix me?" I dared to ask.

"I'm not interested in fixing you," she responded right away.

I closed my eyes, then opened them again. "Okay," I said. I didn't know what I said wrong. If she broke me, why would she not want to fix me, that is: me, the thing she broke.

I tried saying it a different way. "So what if I stayed broken, even if you picked me up and held me?"

"... and you died, broken?" she asked levelly.

I didn't think about it that way. "Uh," I said, "okay, maybe, and I died, broken, would you just ..."

... would you just leave me? broken? to die here?

Could I ask those questions?

I don't think I can even think them without my throat tightening up, choking me.

She waited, then asked: "... would I just ... what?"

"Would you just ..." I whispered around my tightening throat, not being able to complete the thought.

She looked at me for a moment. "I would just hold you, and keep you, and wait for you to recover, and when you did, I would let you be you again. And when you didn't ..."

I waited for what she would do.

"... I would never forgive myself, for all eternity."

She was so calm as she said this.

"You wouldn't let me go," I said, asking, and saying at the same time.

"... until you recovered," she said.

"And if I didn't?"

"Then I wouldn't."

I was afraid she would just give up on me. But there she was, standing, so still, so assured, saying that she never would let go, even if I never became unbroken.

And she said she would let me go and let me be me as soon as I was me again.

And ...

And I never heard somebody say that to me, to anybody, before. Say that, ever, and if they did, mean that.

And here she was, saying that and meaning that.

"Oh." I said.

And I saw the heavy burden I was on her. I saw, not how she was unrelenting with me, but how I, just by being, and by being curious, and by forcing myself into her sphere, was actually the impossibly heavy burden on her. And instead of her crying and wailing about it, she just ... took it on, like it was her task, like it was her duty, and she did it uncomplainingly. She kidnapped me, but instead of me being the victim of this, she was.

I stepped up into her and wrapped her in my arms, and held her. My guardian, my kidnapper, my hope.

She seemed surprised at this sudden outpouring of ... well, okay, how do you say 'not-love'? because I didn't want to ... you know?

... of care. That's it. She seemed surprised at my sudden outpouring of care.

But then she held me back.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"... for being hard on you?" she clarified.

I just held her. I didn't want to fight more, and I didn't need to speak. She knew, even though she pretended she didn't.

"You're welcome," she eventually whispered back, as she held me.

I broke the hug.

I really needed to pee.

I wiped my eyes and trudged toward the outhouse, saying a 'Let's go,' to the air in front of me, knowing that in the pure silence, she would follow, even if not right away. I didn't need to look. I felt her. I felt her as if she were a part of me, and I were a part of her, and I felt ... good for that. I felt more complete than I had ever felt in my life, like we were a new family, like Pa and me used to be, but somehow different than that.

We made it to the outhouse, and I did look back at her. "I'll be just a mo', okay?"

She didn't shrug, but she didn't change expression at all. She didn't care. The little human going to the potty again, what else was she going to do? She didn't care, but I cared, being human, and being a constant imposition on her.

I went into the outhouse, and felt the need to give her a look of 'don't follow me in,' and closed the door securely this time, making sure the latch was in place.