My Sister Rosalie, Book I: Captor Chapter 79: Tubthumping, a twilight fanfic

Chapter summary: Well, she ordered me to stay alive, and I did. So she can't fault me for that. So there.

The door banged open.

It was Rosalie.

"Lizzie, I..." she began.

But then she caught sight of me.

"Lizzie, ... I ..." She actually slowed down from her usual abrupt and certain manner, but it was also like she had come in, planning to say something to me, and she couldn't derail the plan, even as she saw herself falling over the cliff's edge.

Welcome home, Rose. I thought regretfully, and I felt a little sad for her that this was her homecoming, and it wasn't at all what she could've possibly ever imagined.

That's when I figured then the stench hit her, because she rocked back on her heels, and finally stopped speaking.

She looked at me. She just looked at me, and I could see the utter disappointment fill her eyes.

I noticed then that she had her hands full: in one hand there was something like a small wooden suitcase or ... valise? and the other hand was holding a large canvas bag over her shoulder.

Rosalie Hale: Santa Clause.

She didn't look jolly at all, however, and I knew why.

The 'why' was me.

She sank to the floor. And, seeing her collapse like that, made me feel that I saw a great warship at sea, hit right in the middle by a torpedo, slowly sinking into the ocean, everybody saw it happening, but nobody could do a thing about it, and everybody felt sad about it, all those sailors and soldiers, disappearing into the cold depths of the ocean. All those lives lost. Pa, too, and nobody could do a thing, and even the Germans were crying as they watched their enemies sink into the depths. All those lives. All that youthful hope. All gone.

I saw that in Rosalie's face as she sunk onto the cabin floor.

"Why do I even ..." she began and broke off.

She sunk even lower, burying her head into her hands.

"Just tell me," she said eventually. "Is it now? Are you dying now?"

I would've liked to have answered her, but what came out of my mouth was first the soap as I spit it out, again, and then, as I dry-heaved into my own cooling vomit, a little bit of soap-scum, and a little, tiny trickle of spittle.

I lay my head back down on the floor by the basin, closing my eyes as I heaved.

I noted that she was back much earlier than I expected. She must have been gone for only about a half-an-hour.

She must have known.

The heaving started to take on a desperate urgency, as if my body were trying to expel everything that was wrong inside me.

Unfortunately, everything that was inside me, ... it was all wrong.

... minutes ago ...

You see, soap is oily, but it's also an irritant, right? That's how it gets you so clean and still keeps your skin nice and smooth. They put oil in the lye.

You swallow enough soap? Your insides get really clean.

Really clean... that is, before you puke your guts out, as I did, running to the tub just in time to empty the surprising amount of bile I had had in my stomach — who knew chicken broth could come out so ... copiously? Ick! — and then when there was no more bile, I dry-heaved for a while, and then, while I was doing that ...

Well, they oil worked wonders on my intestines, didn't it? Loosened them right up.

Ick. The runs. Ick. While puking.

Ick, ick, ick.

Have you ever experienced that? Here's my recommendation: don't.

Well, the thing is — and I hope you got this already — I was weak as a kitten before now, ... did you get that? So when I emptied my stomach into to tub, did I have any strength left in my body?

Yes, I had just enough strength to hold my head up so that it would fall into what I just puked up ... as I ...

As I pooped. Onto the floor. Or actually, onto my thigh onto the floor.

And then I collapsed, right by the basin, covered with a film of my puke, right onto the floor where I ...

You know: emptied myself from the ... other end.

And then, okay, so do you think I could go any lower than this? I didn't. But then I saw the bar of soap that I had spit out beside the basin before I started violently emptying my stomach.

And I thought ... Rosalie said she would be the one to take it out of my mouth. Not me.

I hear myself cackle a little, defeated, crazed chuckle.

And I reached to the bar of soap, and I put it back into my mouth.

And I squeezed out two tears before I stopped myself from crying more.

This is how low I've sunk: naked, lying in my own shit with my puke providing a lovely taste in my cotton mouth to compliment the soap going back down my sore throat, and the puke in the tub a reminder of what chicken broth tasted like coming back up and how it smelled when it came up. It tasted awful the second time.

And Rosalie had told me to be grateful.

I wonder, if she were in my position right now, exactly where I was, lying in my own ... I mean, lying in her own shit, having just puked her guts out. I wonder, would she be like, oh, what happens to me doesn't matter, I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for that, la-la-la.

I wonder if she could do that, if she could be grateful for anything if she were so reduced, lying in her own shit and puke.

But then I wonder if she actually already did that. I wonder, when those ... people left her lying on the ground ...

She must have been in a state. She must have been beaten pretty badly, and she said Royce ... She said he treated her like a 'cum-dump.'

She was probably lying in filth, dying, but the filth wasn't her own, or maybe it was, but it was from the men who raped her.

And she wasn't grateful then, I imagine. She hated herself and everything in the world, wanting to die, then wanting to kill. Then killing and killing and killing, taking out her terrible vengeance but still so angry and hateful.

And even with all that, she still held her head high.

How could she do that? Being beaten to the ground, but still refuse to be broken?

How could she do that? When I couldn't?

And then I looked at myself, thinking these thoughts, and I saw I was doing exactly what Rosalie said I would be doing. I was angry at her and blaming her and saying woe is me! and I bet she couldn't do better, so why is she making me do this, that bitch! and then wallowing in self-pity saying I could never be that. I was doing all that instead of being grateful.

But what could I be grateful for? I couldn't even lift my head anymore. I couldn't crawl away from my own stink that I made, and then to do what when I did crawl away? Would I go to the pile of clothes, find a towel, wipe myself down a bit, and try to clean up the mess up a little bit in the couple of hours it would take for Rosalie to do her thing and come back?

I mean, who could find anything to be grateful about if they were in my situation?

I mean, seriously? Who!

But I suppose I could be grateful I was still breathing, right? Rosalie told me to be grateful for each breath, and at least I didn't choke on my own bile, so I guess that's something to be grateful for.

I think if I told Rosalie, 'Well, I was grateful I didn't choke in my own bile,' ... I think she would be angry with me... I think she would say, 'You can't be grateful for something that's "not." Be grateful for something that you have, don't be grateful for something you don't have!'

I could just see her saying that, as she cleaned me up, so pissed off at me for dirtying myself and her stuff, so pissed that I made the mess but she had to clean it, so pissed I didn't do what she told me to do.

I could just see her, coming through that door, so pissed off as she took everything in.

So pissed off at me.

... now ...

And — wouldn't you know? — just when I thought that, that's the moment she decides to burst through the door, Her Highness, unannounced, without even knocking, just as if she owned the place.

Because she said she did, so it must be true: her word, the law of this tiny, little part of the world that she owned.

And that's when she had the look on her face of the question she didn't want to ask, 'What happened?' Because she knew the answer, and didn't want to hear it.

She knew. As if there were a way for me to hide all the evidence of my shame.

I swallowed bitterly, and instantly regretted it, because the soap went down to my tummy, now seasoned with my own puke, stuffing my nose and my throat, and my stomach did a lurch.

'What happened?' Oh, not much, Rosalie, just the usual. Just the usual.

She had with her a canvas bag, stuffed with, well, ... stuff, and she was carrying a case, and odd, not-rectangular-shaped case that looked like it could hold a tommy-gun if you had disassembled it. And I wondered: home defense? Why would she need that?

But I didn't have time to meditate on any of this, her shocked look, the things she had, because my stomach did another lurch, then everything twisted, and I spit out the soap quickly, and ... I wish I had found some reserve of strength in me, but I didn't have any more reserve, so I started heaving right beside the tub, onto the floor.

I saw nothing come up and out, then I saw some clear phlegm, just a little tiny bit of spit and the dry heaving began in earnest.

Rosalie dropped her sack and put down her little wooden carrying case, and came toward me.

"No!" I screamed as I gasped between heaves.

She froze in shock. "What?" she exclaimed, taken aback.

I heaved out emptiness, again, but I knew I wouldn't, ... I couldn't ... keep forcing out nothing from my emptied stomach. I knew something else would be coming out soon if I kept having spasms this hard.

"Blood," I wheezed, then heaved again, a thin trickle of clear spittle falling out of my mouth onto my cheek.

Rosalie twitched at that, and if she had frozen before, then now she became a statue, regarding me in absolute stillness. But I saw it, the conflict warring within her. Did she want to stay and risk killing me herself, or would she leave, and come back to find me in a worse state, vomiting up blood?

"Get..." I started, then heaved again, "get out of here, Rosalie, please!"

She obviously hadn't hunted, not in this short of a time, her eyes so black, and if she stayed with my insides weakening then tearing?

But she ignored my plea. She came to me, purposefully, and with each step that she approached me, her eyes shifted, gaining a golden tint, but other than that, her face was completely impassive and determined, and there was not one trace of human movement to her body.

It was if she were a machine, a perfect, graceful machine animating this statue that was her, and there was an economy where she didn't waste any pretense to appear human, she just simply glided up to me, picked me up from the floor, cradling me in her arms, lifting me, feet from the floor, floating above the tub, but now out of my own squalor, and her grip? It was solid about my ribs — tight — as if she knew she needed to hold me together as my own body tried to rip itself apart in its shaking and heaving.

Of course, my stupid hair fell down around my face, and it was wet and matted with sweat, but did it stick to my skin? No! Or, that is, it clung to me around my cheeks, and snaked its way into my mouth, finding the best way to get in my way, so I couldn't even puke in peace.

My stupid, thick, ... god-damn hair, I just so wanted to cut it off in a bob like was all the rage of those wild, rebellious girls a decade ago, bobbing their hair, smoking cigarettes, drinking, openly kissing whoever they wanted to in the speakeasies, just so alive and carefree, just so ...

... just so not me.

I heaved again, my whole body convulsing to empty itself of the the remaining irritant, but it couldn't do that, the soap had slimed my insides, and puking only made things worse, not better, but what could I do? Tell myself to stop? I thanked God I was wrapped tightly in Rosalie's arms, because that was the only thing keeping me alive right now, I think. I tried to spit my hair out of my mouth and away from my face.

Rosalie noticed, God bless her! And shifted her left arm so that most of my weight was distributed over that, snaking her left hand up to my shoulder while her elbow formed a 'V' of her arm, cradling my whole upper body in a harness of solid, reassuring stone. While she did that, her right hand snaked around behind me, hooking then twisting my hair in a long loose tail, capturing it and holding it back toward her and away from my face.

That's what she held: my puke-y, sweaty, matted, disgusting hair, she held toward her face, so it wouldn't entangle itself into mine. I wish I could tell you how much I hated my hair just now, that she had to hold that disgusting thing toward her. I wish this was the old days, and I had stumbled off on my own and ran into a group of Indians furious at me, this little pale-face, for trespassing on their lands, so they would do me a proper and scalp me.

I knew it would kill me, because it was like half a beheading, but at least that way Rosalie wouldn't have my ratty-matty hair to defile her any more.

That's how much I hated myself and my hair right now.

I heaved again, and the pain on my insides, burning its way up through my throat and mouth, took my thoughts off myself and refocused me on my task at hand: puking my guts out without trying to spit out blood.

And that was hard enough as it was.

Eventually the spell passed, and all that was left was me, or what was left of me, was held, suspended, in the crook of Rosalie's arm.

I spit out the putrid aftertaste from my mouth, watching my string of spittle hit the basin, and then I was suddenly embarrassed.

Here I was, spitting in Rosalie Hale's presence.

I wondered if I'd get the lecture that 'A Hale does not spit!'

Or, worse: 'No young lady under my care would behave in such a base manner!'

And then I'd get the old heave-ho out the door again, but this time she'd be through with me for good. And I say 'for good' because it would be 'good riddance' to me if she did that now.

I breathed in an experimental sip of air.

It tasted like I felt: acidy, like bile — terrible and disgusting.

And it hurt, a little bit, but I knew a bigger gulp of air, if I sucked it in, because, say, I got the wind knocked out of me again today, would hurt like the Dickens.

Rosalie held me, and then she took an experimental breath herself.

Her experimental breath of cabin air that was filled with wood-smoke, puke and poop.

I waited for her 'Oh, God!' of disgust.

It didn't come.

"Baby, ..." she breathed softly.

And if I weren't mistaken, maybe there was some care in there? some tenderness?

My face twisted into a wry grimace. I sighed a very careful sigh, and that turned into a big yawn.

God! I hurt so much! And I was so, so tired, ... exhausted from the wringer I've been through today.

The unrelenting wringer from pretty much the moment I woke up until now.

I don't think I could take much more of this, because I think my body would literally start to fall apart if much more stress, or any more stress, came my way today.

Rosalie felt my yawn through my chest cavity as it expanded, and her arm gave me just enough room for my chest to sip in that air as I yawned.

She chuckled at silly-yawn-y me. There was a hint of relief to her laughter.

"I'm not going to ask how you are," she remarked wryly, "as it seems quite evident how you are faring, but I will ask if you can stomach a cup of Earl Grey tea?"

I think what I managed to get out of my mouth sounded something like, "Urggh."

I sounded wretched. Even to myself.

"Baby..."

Rosalie sounded ... desperate. Like she was at the end of the rope, or at the end of her patience with me.

She sighed, sounding exhausted and frustrated.

"So much to do now, and I don't know what to do first!" she complained.

She put me down on the floor, away from my mess, and took the sheet she had ripped from me from the bed, and started mopping up my mess into it, her face absolutely impassive, but I saw no movement from her chest. She wasn't breathing.

I didn't blame her.

"Uhhhn!" I whimpered, reaching toward her, toward the sheet. I hope she got my 'I'll do that.'

Her head snapped up, and she regarded me sharply. "Don't you dare!" she hissed.

Her eyes narrowed at me, making sure I didn't try to get up to help her.

But, realistically? As if I could, and that made it all the more hurtful: I couldn't help, and on top of that, she forbade me from helping to clean up the mess that I made. I just felt so low and helpless.

"You stay right there!" she added, as if her verbal command could nail my butt to the where I rested more securely.

Then her face twisted up in a wry grin. "But seriously, baby: 'uhhn'?"

Her tone and her watchful eyes were mocking, but also very slightly relieved.

I glared.

Sure. It was easy for her to make fun of me now, because, after all, what could I do about it? My insides burned too much for any verbal sparring, that she always won anyway, so now she could 'uhhn' back at me and all I could do is glare back.

Kick me while I'm down, why don't you, Rosie-toesies! I thought spitefully in her direction.

But this only seemed to please her somehow, and she finished up the disgusting task of mopping up my excrement with a little less anxious air about her. She tossed the sheet with the accumulated waste into the basin after she wiped her hands clean of my filth.

She turned her attention back to me. She grimaced.

Yeah. I must have been quite the sight, but not for sore eyes, by any stretch of the imagination. I was probably a sight to cause sore eyes!

Great.

She went to the pile of clothes and picked up a tee, came to me, and very gently wiped me down. It didn't clean me off, but it took off most of the stuff caked on me. I didn't feel human, at all, but was grateful to be less squalid, to look less like a pig in the sty, ... or an ass covered in her own shit.

As she wiped me down, she held me to her, getting my gunk on her, supporting me. Then she tossed the sodden tee into the basin, too.

She looked down at me and tsked, shaking her head.

My eyes slid away in shame.

"Baby," Rosalie said, almost desperately, "what can I do? I'm starting to get the impression I can't leave you for two seconds without your life being endangered, and this after I made a point for you to guard your health, and I come back to this?"

"I'm still breathing!" I muttered this petulantly.

I did do what she told me to do: that is, keep breathing, but I knew I was in trouble. And by 'in trouble' I mean, in serious trouble with her this time.

Uh, but then again, I'm always in serious trouble with her.

"Only just!" she countered angrily. "When I told you that you were responsible to keep breathing, I thought you would — just this one time! — not push yourself to the brink! Why do you do this, Lizzie, every time!"

She looked truly angry.

Well, she wasn't the only one.

"Excuse me?" I shouted.

Then instantly regretted it. My head exploded in pain at my scream, and my throat felt it was being ripped open from the inside with knives made of air.

That hurt. A lot.

Rosalie waited, but then lost patience again. "Excuse you what?" she asked, glaring down at me.

"... Can't go on, Rose," I whispered, and I felt tears being pushed out of my squeezed-shut eyes. "I can't go on."

I didn't even have enough strength to defend myself, or to do anything than to be held in her arms like ripped-up pieces of firewood.

I heard Rosalie expel a frustrated gust of air.

She just held me for a while.

"This isn't working, baby," she said finally, quietly. "This just isn't working for us. I have to go out from time to time, you know this, and I can't keep finding you in this state when I get back. If this keeps happening, I'll make mistakes out there, being distracted with what I fear is going on here. I can't make mistakes out there. Someone will see, and then the game will be up, either it will cause a stir, or I'll have to silence the witnesses, and others will be to see that happening, and then news will spread, and ..."

I looked up at her, seeing her worried, concerned, ... scared.

"And then others will come to clean up the mess that I made. And the mess won't be like this, and the clean up won't be, either."

Rosalie looked so grave as she said this.

I was just so angry with her a second ago, but now I was a little bit scared, in sympathy with her fear.

"I know," I whispered. "I saw."

Rosalie brushed my matted hair away from my face.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Rose,..." I said, "how did I see this?"

Her lips quirked sadly. "I don't know ... precisely."

"But you have an idea?" I asked.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Are you going to tell me?" I asked after waiting, looking at her looking down at me.

"Lizzie, ..." Rosalie sighed. "It's not important."

I felt my eyebrows crease. "It's not important that I know stuff that nobody's told me, and I see stuff in my dreams that could happen, that could ..."

I paused. I felt my emotions welling up, and that made breathing difficult and talking, even if I were just whispering, impossible.

I saw her cut up into chunks and then I saw her burned — no: incinerated — into a hole in the ground, and that wasn't important?

"Yes," she said, "it's not important that you know things you haven't been told, and it's not important that you've seen things that may happen. Those things aren't important considerations."

"Then what is important?" I asked.

Her lips quivered slightly. "What is before me, baby."

She smiled sadly at me.

"I have to get you cleaned up, which means I have to empty out this basin and clean it out first. I'll bring it to the river and be right back after that. Baby, I can't take you with me, you're already in a far too unstable state as it is, and the slightest thing may result in severe consequences. Can you please, please, please at least try to last until I return?"

I sighed. "Okay," I said humbly.

"'Okay'?" Rosalie asked impatiently. "Lizzie, I need to know now if I'm going to be wasting my time! I am running this errand solely for your benefit, you know."

I shut my eyes and my head lolled back into her arm.

"You know, Rose, " I sighed angrily. "This all wouldn't have happened if you hadn't've shoved soap down my throat and beat the ..." I paused, imagining the filth, my filth, Rosalie had to clean up, I thought the dirty word for that, but my throat caught as I went to say it, stopping me. "... the crap out of me!" I finally managed to spit out.

"Which wouldn't have happened if you didn't say 'fuck you' to me, Lizzie!" Rosalie spat right back.

"Which wouldn't've happened if YOU LET ME HELP YOU!" I screamed.

Rosalie stared at me quizzically. That's when I realized I was screaming at her.

She shook her head. "So," she said slowly, "you said 'fuck you' to me because instead of letting you help me ... and how again would you help me? ... I required you to rest, as you needed?"

She looked at me as if I were some ...

Well, okay, like I were some foolish, disobedient child.

And I felt shamed, and I felt hurt. I felt ashamed of myself and hurt that she didn't understand me at all, and that no matter how I tried to say otherwise, she always felt she knew what she was best for me, even if I didn't think so, even if it actually was the worst possible thing for me.

Like right now. She so easily crushed me with her 'understanding' and her 'caring' for me, and I felt myself wasting away under her supervision, becoming less and less, so that even the fight in me was being whittled down to just dull acceptance.

"Rho-Rose," I gasped. "No, okay, I didn't say that because I was supposed to rest or whatever and because ..."

I looked away.

"It's just everything," I whispered. "It's just everything. I can't do anything, and whatever I do is wrong and just makes you angrier, but when I don't do anything I'm a burden on you, okay, and I get it, that that's okay with you, but it's not okay with me. I-..."

I sniffled.

"I wanna help," I said, "and you're not letting me, and you just shout at everything I do whenever I do anything wrong, which is like, always, and you never notice when I do anything good or even notice, and ... and ..."

"Baby," Rosalie said quickly, "that's just not true, and you know it. You have made so much progress, and I have praised you for it, and when I correct you, I co-..."

She stopped, looking away, thinking I don't know what to herself.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist. "See?" I asked sadly. "You're doing it even now. I say you're always mean to me, and instead of even thinking about that at all, you just scold me right away and say, 'No, I'm not, I'm nice to you, so there,' and here I go again, feeling like dirt because I can't even say how bad I feel without you making me feel bad."

Rosalie turned to me and glared at me angrily.

I smiled sadly. "Go ahead," I whispered. "Say it. I know you want to."

She crossed her arms. "Say what?" she demanded angrily, looking affronted.

"Say that," I said, "say that it's not your fault that I feel bad, that it's my fault ... how do you say it? ..." I thought quickly. "Yeah, that it's my choice that I feel bad."

She just kept glaring at me, looking even angrier now.

"Go ahead," I said quietly. "You know you're right. You know you want to say it."

Rosalie's eyes narrowed to slits. "Well, it is your choice, baby," she finally muttered with displeasure.

My lips twitched up sadly. "Thanks for that," I said dully, utterly beaten, utterly defeated.

I try as hard as I can, I fail miserably, and Rosalie right there to say I'm not good enough, I'm never good enough, and it's all my fault.

All my choice. Whatever.

I buried my head in my arms.

Rosalie came and sat down beside me, lying on the floor where just recently I was lying in my own filth.

She just sat beside me as I breathed in my arm, my sweat and stench. She didn't put her arm on my shoulder, she didn't ...

She didn't hold me, like I so wanted her to, so I could really let go and have a really good cry into her shoulder. No, she just sat beside me as I breathed in and out, just trying to do that, and wondering how I even managed that, seeing what a screw up I was in her eyes.

"I suppose," I said sadly, "you would be wasting your time throwing out the mess ... I mean my mess. Why don't you just take me to the river instead and drop me off, so you won't waste your time any more?"

I sniffled again.

I stank. Even my snot stank from the puke.

I heard Rosalie's jaw working, but it was a thoughtful, not an angry, sound, like she were actually thinking over my proposal.

I could see how it would make a lot of sense to her.

I felt her cold, smooth hand on my shoulder, and I jerked in surprise at her touch, not at all expecting it.

Finally, she said quietly, "You can't be serious."

I kept my head buried in my arms.

"Why not?" I asked. "I'm totally serious. With me out of your hair, all your problems would just go away."

Rosalie's hand remained on my shoulder. I couldn't decide if her touch was painful, or if I needed it more than anything in the world.

Or both.

"And you?" she asked.

"Who cares?" I whispered intensely, and I thought bitterly, at least this will be over. And I so wanted all this to be over. Oh, God, did I want it to be over! Even excruciating pain of being tossed into the river like refuse and then death would be a welcome relief to this unrelenting torture of never being able to measure up, and being constantly reminded of it, too.

Just as intensely, Rosalie answered back: "I do!"

"Why?" I asked.

I could never figure it out. She tried so hard to make me not to care about her, so why would she care about me now, if she was pushing me away as hard as she could?

Rosalie was quiet for a moment, then, quietly. "I didn't offer you your name, I didn't offer what that meant in vain. We are family now. That means I care, and that I take care of you. That's what family means."

"It ..." I stuttered, and then my throat swelled up and closed around my windpipe, so I had to force the next words out, and they came out weak and small, just like me.

"It didn't mean that to my ma..aaaa..aah."

Oh, God.

Oh, God, that hurt, saying that, and suddenly, I found myself crying, but this cry was different than before, somehow, because this hurt came from deep, deep inside me, buried away for years, and opening this wound...

It hurt.

Rosalie scooped me up from the floor and held me, and I cried into the crook of her arm at first — why didn't she turn me into her, like I wanted? Was she afraid I'd puke on her? — but then she did turn me into her, when the tears became sobs, and I found it harder and harder to breathe through my closed-off throat and my sobs.

"My baby," Rosalie sighed. "My baby, my baby."

And I couldn't hear her comfort. I kept saying I was sorry and crying more.

"Why are you sorry?" she asked as I apologized yet again.

"I'm not..." I whimpered, "I'm not allowed to cry, and I'm crying and I ca-... I can't ... I can't..."

I wailed piteously. I couldn't stop crying.

Rosalie sighed.

"My little one," Rosalie said gently. "Cry. Cry it out."

If I could've collapsed, I would've collapsed in her arms.

But there was no further that I could fall than where I was now, my body rested on the floor and on her. She held me up, and she held me together, and there was nobody who had ever been meaner nor harder than her. And there was nobody who I could ever lean on like this. I felt so weak, and she felt so strong. I needed her to be strong now, because I had never hurt like this.

Family means you are cared for.

But it didn't mean that to my ma, and I had spent my whole life trying to patch over that hole in my heart and trying to pretend that it wasn't there.

And Rosalie, unintentionally this time, I guess, just ripped off that patch and stuck her finger right into that hole, and probed around in that cavity, that hole in my heart, and now I was bleeding my hurt and pain all over the place.

'Bleeding all over the place' figuratively, I mean.

And what's worse. What's so, so worse, is that my mom was cold and distant to me, just like Rosalie is, but then I get punished for it by both of them. My ma left me, but Rosalie stayed and made me hurt for every mistake I made.

Why couldn't either of them have ever loved me, instead? Why couldn't they've just done that? But no, Ma was detached and distant, and Rosalie was perfect and demanding and hard, and both looked at me in disapproval, and I could never measure up to either of them. Ever.

"Nnnn," I tried to get out the terrible thing, "'Nn now you hate me, 'cause I s-said that to you, 'nn ... nn ... you... you ..."

And you're going to leave me now, too, just like Ma did.

Rosalie's hand came up and wrapped around my head, holding it — holding me — into her, and she let me cry myself out.

...

I sniffed, in her arms, my runny nose on her soft, soft flannel shirt.

"I hate you, then?" she asked.

Just the very lightest hint of amusement colored her voice. It was if she were afraid the slightest sound of laugher or teasing might just kill me.

I sniffled again. "Why wouldn't you?" I asked, disheartened.

"Fair question," she said slowly, mulling over her answer, I supposed.

After a while I wondered where her mind went. "Is that your answer?" I asked.

Rosalie chuckled. "Baby, you're dealing with a New Yorker. We use the word 'fuck' as a noun, verb and adjective. Now you saying 'fuck you' to me pissed me off, and no doubt about that, but New Yorkers are born pissed, and we're very good at staying that way."

"But, ..." I said, then paused.

How could she be treating this lightly, when before she wasn't just pissed, she was really pissed?

Pissed off enough to beat me within an inch of my life.

"Baby," she said. "You need to bathe ... again, and you need to rest, and I need to hunt, and I really, really need to hunt. Your metaphysical struggles come sometime after we've established you can make it through the end of the day first, yes?"

I looked up her.

So many unanswered questions, but she had a point: they wouldn't matter if I were dead.

I hated it when she had a point.

I hated all these unanswered question, and they seemed to be bugging me all the time!

Just one answer, and that would be enough.

But one answer from her always let to more questions! It was so frustrating! I needed to know what made her tick and why, but finding out one thing from her always lead to more things that I needed to know. And I, like, needed to know these things like my very life depended on it.

Why was it like this with her? Why wasn't it like that with anybody else ever, but it was always this way with her?

I mean, with everybody else, I had them figured out in two seconds or less, and they had me figured out even faster that that. And that was ... infuriating ... but not really. I mean, to them, I was just the nosy sheriff's daughter, the poor kid who didn't fit in, and that was it. And to me, they were just dumb townsfolk and farmers or rich kids with attitudes.

We just held onto our views of each other, them wrong about me, and me, probably, wrong about them, now that I see it this way, but we were fine with that.

How come I'm never fine with Rosalie being just so ... Rosalie? How come she always angers and frustrates and annoys me, all the time? And how come I do that to her, too?

"Rose," I said, and she sighed.

I had to know. And she knew it.

"You don't hate me?" I asked.

Rosalie looked down at me and smiled. She brushed slick strands of hair out of my face, then picked up my head, lightly, looking down at me, still smiling.

"I don't hate you," she said, both amused and kind, soft and gentle.

My gut wrenched to the side, and I wondered if I were vomiting again, but my chest wasn't heaving.

"I ..." I said, and my guts twisted inside me, and it was an effort to keep them inside and not spill out down below now, "I don't hate you, either."

Her lips twitched, looking at amusing little me.

"That's nice," she said dryly.

My eyes narrowed at her. I wondered if I could take back what I said just now.

SO annoying! She was just so annoying!

"But I have to take care of this mess," she indicated the basin filled with my waste, "and then get you cleaned again afterward. Then get you fed with some soup ... can you stomach that? and get me fed so I can clear my head again, yes? Me, clear-headed, that's desirable, isn't it? Instead of me being as I am at present?"

She smirked, trying to look wicked and evil and cunning.

But I only saw that she was trying to look these things, to scare me. I only saw that she was covering up something much bigger inside herself ... her sadness? her sorrow? her anger?

I wish I knew what it was.