Chapter Summary: Rosalie lied to me. She just ...

We were …

Okay.

We were painting each other's toenails.

It was pretty fun, actually, because I really got to focus in on Rosalie's dainty feet, and make sure I didn't mess up as I applied the nail polish.

And not faint from the fumes, too.

So I got to not concentrate on Rosalie's intense scrutiny of my own monstrosities called feet.

Do you know how many ugly veins are down there? I didn't until tonight. And then … were my feet stinky? Rosalie bathed my feet before we started our session, so that was one less worry, but …

But Rosalie Hale bathed my feet.

Nobody has ever bathed my feet before.

I was so embarrassed, Rosalie bathing my feet, I thought I was going to die, or worse, pee all over myself and her again.

That would've been spectacularly classy.

So, bathed feet, then pat-dry feet, then … painting toenails.

Never in my life did I see this coming! Me? Bella Swan in a hen party (with Rosalie Hale!) painting toenails?

Yeah. Didn't see this one coming.

"So, Bella, …" Rosalie began.

Oh, no! I thought, instantly tensing up.

Rosalie chuckled, sensing my fear, that I didn't even know I had.

It's just that when Rosalie asks you a question, you just don't know how it will hit you or from what direction it'll hit you, either.

You just know you're about to be hit, is all.

Rosalie kissed my ankle. And I thought that was really sweet of her.

"'Fun,' remember?" Rosalie reminded me. "The girls' night is supposed to be fun."

"Uh, huh," I replied noncommittally, concentrating on the her pinky toenail as I applied the nail polish.

Her feet were small and smelled really, really sweet: like rose petals.

Women would kill to have Rosalie Hale's feet.

"Well," she said, "I was going to ask about you, but, on second thought, why don't you ask me something?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Anything you like," she said.

Her hands were incredibly powerful, holding my feet, guiding them this way or that so she could apply the nail polish with careful, steady strokes.

I thought about that for a while. What would I want to ask Rosalie Hale, now that she was actually letting me ask.

I concentrated on her feet and applied a bit more polish.

You know how you have a million things to say one moment, and the next moment you can't think of a single thing to say and you're drawing a total blank?

Yeah. That.

I looked hard at Rosalie's perfect feet, but now I knew why: I was hiding.

I stuck out my tongue in embarrassment.

"Actually," I admitted, "I don't know what to ask."

I bit my lip, cursing myself for looking like a fool.

"Okay," Rosalie responded easily, appearing unperturbed at my flub. "Then …" she began.

Then it came to me.

"Oh!" I shouted.

Rosalie stopped.

"Sorry," I said, "I know now what I wanted to ask."

Rosalie shifted a tiny bit, but she didn't say anything else, so I pressed forward.

"So," I said, "why're your eyes always black now? They weren't before, but you said they are when you're hungry, but you're always out hunting and so, but you aren't supposed to but once a week or something, and …"

I stopped. I realized I was saying too much.

Rosalie was quiet for a while, examining my feet.

"So," she said, "a serious question, then?"

I blushed and hid my face.

I didn't know there were rules to what you could ask and what you couldn't.

Rosalie was quiet for a second, then she pressed my foot to her lips and kissed it. She pulled herself out of my grasp and flipped around on the bed so we were now face to face.

I looked away from her.

Wow! I thought ruefully, I hit the proverbial home run! The light mood from before just packed up its things and left, leaving us with a now serious air.

Rosalie smiled apologetically at me, put my head in her hands and blew out a long sigh.

Her breath washed over my face, a cool breeze, and it was the sweetest thing I ever breathed in.

"I have to tell you something about us," Rosalie said.

"About … vampires?" I clarified.

"Yes," she said.

"So," she said, "as I've told you each person has a distinctive scent, and all are incredibly desirable, but there are certain people …" She paused then nodded toward me, "… you, for one, whose scents are so appealing that it's hard for most vampires not to notice, firstly, and for some, very hard to resist."

She frowned and looked away. "So, there's that," she said. "But then, there are certain people that has a scent that … calls to a vampire. And that call … usually is so irresistible that it drives a vampire insane. Once tasted, the scent draws the vampire in, and there is no end to the pull: just the strike, then death. The call is so powerful, that the person is called the vampire's singer, as the blood sings out to the vampire. Yours sang to Edward."

"Edward?" I said, surprised.

Rosalie nodded. "Yes," she said. "When he first encountered you, the pull was so strong he nearly broke his vow that he had solemnly promised to Carlisle, but it was that vow that stayed his hand at that time. If it had been any other vampire, there would've been nothing to stop them. You would have just simply been dead."

"But it was Edward's one promise," I said. "And he couldn't break that, right?"

Rosalie regarded me with black-black eyes, her face unreadable.

"Yes," she said.

But her quiet, firm answer, … I knew there was much, much more to it than just 'yes.'

"Edward always had black eyes," I observed.

Rosalie's own eyes narrowed at me.

"Yes," she said.

"Now you do, too," I said, stating the obvious.

Rosalie smiled sadly at me. She brought her hand to my cheek and cupped my face for a moment.

"Something …" Rosalie said.

She paused and looked away for a moment.

Her gaze returned to me, and she regarded me seriously. "Something happened," she said. "Something changed in me, chemically, and when that change occurred you became my singer."

She gave me a hard look. "Do you remember when the change occurred?"

I bit my lip. "Yeah," I said. "That night when …"

Now it was my turn to look away. That night when I almost died (like every night) (except tonight) (fingers crossed) and I felt really funny and I told her she should get her a big teddybear of a boyfriend, who'd understand her, just like me. And when I rubbed against her before falling asleep then peed on her.

That night.

"… when a lot happened." I finished weakly, not being able to look at her.

She knew what I meant... what I didn't say.

Because that night, I said a whole lot that maybe, just maybe in retrospect, I shouldn't have said.

Well, that was water under the bridge. Best not to repeat that mistake, however.

I've grown a lot since that night, though, what, two nights ago?

Jesus, just two nights ago! It felt like forever.

And, as I was thinking through this, Rosalie watched me the whole time, reading my every thought.

I bowed my head shamefacedly, before she whacked me for taking the Lord's name in vain.

Rosalie smirked in recognition, but it was a humorless grin.

God! I thought with regret, it was just so serious now.

"Yes," was all she said in reply.

"Was it something that I did?" I asked ashamed.

I did do, and say, a lot that night.

Rosalie looked away. "No," she said, "it was …"

She looked back at me quickly, her eyes flicking to me, then flicking away. "I don't know what it was," she said quietly, then looked back to me and addressed me directly. "Something in me changed, and before I thought I could handle it, this need, and then, suddenly …"

She swallowed, and if her eyes could become more pitch than black, they did. "Then suddenly I couldn't."

She swallowed again and looked away.

I knew that look.

It was shame.

She was ashamed of herself.

I wanted to forgive her, right away, right then, because I knew this pain, this pain of not being good enough, not even to yourself, and I couldn't stand it in myself, but, seeing it in Rosalie's face, it actually hurt me more, seeing this hurt in her eyes.

But if I said, 'Oh, it's okay!' I just knew that it would unleash the torrent from her. She wasn't me. She wouldn't be quiet and just blame herself if I forgave her. No, the blame and recrimination with anger and shouting would flow from her.

And I just really wasn't up for that. Not tonight.

Not when I wanted to hold her so badly like this.

"But you did," I whispered firmly, stating the obvious.

She did. She somehow controlled herself, when I didn't even know that she felt she couldn't.

She looked back at me at that.

"What stopped you?" I asked.

Obsidian eyes looked back at me, measuring me.

Alien they were, and cold.

"I don't know," she said, and looked away.

I swallowed. "You're lying," I said.

Hard eyes, two black chips, focused their intensity on me.

"I can tell," I said softly, "you looked away, because you knew you were lying. Because you didn't want to see me when you lied to me, right?"

Rosalie's eyes narrowed, glaring at me.

I glared right back.

And, eventually, it wasn't me who looked away. It was Rosalie Hale who looked away from me.

I shook my head. "Why do you have to lie to me and hurt me like that?" I asked.

"Maybe the truth would hurt you more," Rosalie said.

"D–…" I said.

Then I stopped myself.

I so wanted to answer her back, but I knew if I did we'd just end up hurting each other with things we shouldn't say. Not now.

This was too … delicate a situation now for either of us to go flying off the handle. Now, and, I don't know, maybe always, maybe never. Maybe nothing would work, ever, maybe we'd always be fighting or at odds, even today, right after she kissed me. Maybe it would never work out.

Or maybe it'd always be tense.

But before it wasn't. Rosalie was sweet and confident and … happy. God! Rosalie Hale was happy, even for just a few moments, and that was so wonderful, just to be around her, being happy.

Would I take this now to have that then? And maybe more of that happiness in the future?

Hopefully in the near future?

Yes.

But.

But she lied to me. And she … almost came right out and admitted it, too.

There were consequences for doing that to me.

It did hurt.

I laid back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

"Rosalie," I said, "You say I'm like perfect or whatever and I never lie," I said. "And, okay, I try to do the decent, but it's hard sometimes, to do that, but I make that choice, every time, and you know why, too," I said and I glanced at her. "If I lied to Pa, I'd hurt him. Bad… Badly," I corrected myself quickly. "Maybe I'd even kill him, if not for real, then inside a little, … or a lot."

I looked back at Rosalie.

"Your lie hurt me, Rosalie Hale," I said. "Would the truth hurt that much?"

Rosalie didn't flinch, not one little bit. She kept her gaze level.

Unrepentant.

Now my eyes dropped.

I had to say what I said.

What did I want out of what I said? An, 'Oh, Bella, forgive me; I'm sorry, and I'll never do that again!' from Rosalie?

Well … yes!

But was I going to get that?

Yeah. Probably not. Probably hell would freeze over first before that happened.

But now she knew, because I told her, because I was brave enough to say the thing I didn't want to say, but I told her, because if I didn't, it would just be this unspoken thing between us forever, worrying me down, and eating away at her, me: knowing she was lying to me, and her, knowing she was hurting me by doing it.

So now she knew.

Rosalie lay on her back now, herself, looking up at the ceiling.

"Don't leave me," I said in a small voice.

Rosalie's chest heaved and she blew out a big, long sigh.

She brought her hands up to her temples and rubbed distractedly for a moment.

She stopped herself, then glanced over at me. Checking to see if I were still there.

I was.

My eyes said: I'm right here.

I wasn't leaving her.

She sighed again softly and opened up her arms.

I snuggled, snuggled, snuggled into her arms, and she wrapped me into a tight hug and held me like that for a while.

She kissed me on the crown of my head.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I was quiet.

This was coming from Rosalie Hale, who told me, 'What does "sorry" do? Nothing!' when I apologized to her, and now she was telling me she was sorry.

Hell had just frozen over.

I wanted to bite something back at her. 'Oh, and that's supposed to make everything better?' I wanted to scream at her. 'Oh, and now you're going to be nice to me from now on?'

But Rosalie said she was sorry. Something she never did.

The tears welled up.

And then they fell onto my pillow.

"Me, too," I whispered and swallowed a big aching lump of sadness in my throat.

'Sorry' didn't do anything. But now there wasn't anything to do.

Just to be sorry, that's all.

Rosalie held me.

A/N: Rosalie's not telling Bella a lot. The story/novella "Rose by a Lemon Tree" I wrote shows from Rosalie's side what happened that night, and what it means to her, and what she's very much not telling Bella right now … and perhaps even why she's not telling Bella. Perhaps, and perhaps not. Rosalie is (… was) a very good liar, particularly to herself. She tells herself things about this, and give very good reasons for what she's doing. Very good reasons. So good, in fact, she maybe even believes that they are The Truth.