Chapter Summary: What a lovely day to say you love your love. Fa-la-la, tra-la-la. La-di-dah! La! Happiness and gaiety! ... Isn't it? Isn't that way it's supposed to be when you say you love someone?

Why do things always have to be so hard with Rosalie?

Breathing.

Breakfast was ...

Okay, it was great. Whatever. I don't even remember what I ate, or even what the food tastes like. Anything. I just remember wolfing down – oh, my God! – three eggs and Rosalie just ... standing there.

Just ...

Standing there.

Like ... like it was my fault I was starving, like that made her more right and made me feel

... feel so small, I was also sick eating, but so starved, and I hated myself for my hunger, because it only showed her right and me stupid.

As always.

And I just don't know how to turn that around, to break out of this endless cycle.

Because I know I'm better than this, and I know she is, too.

She's just as trapped in her righteousness as I am trapped trying to dig myself up from under it.

But I haven't found a way to magically rise above this situation, like Rosalie pretends to do, so I just keep trying to dig myself up and out to breathe again.

And I just keep digging myself deeper into the pit.

It was like a dream, eating. It was like somebody else was eating, and I was watching her, and I was watching Rosalie watch her.

And judge her.

And find her ... not even worth her time.

Although she didn't say anything like that.

She didn't say anything at all.

...

I don't remember how I got behind the triptych and was bathing myself. I really, really have to pull myself together, because why? Because she's worth it.

And I am.

I am worth this.

Because if I'm not, then there's really no point. Why should I love Rosalie Hale if I'm not worth it? I may as well just kill myself and be done with it.

But it's not me now. It was all me before, after Ma left: me, taking care of Pa, me, arranging my own safe, little world to live my quiet, little predictable life until what? Until Pa died, and then what? Until I died an old spinster or married to a quiet, stable, predictable man and we had our quiet, stable, predictable children?

My life, as I saw it, nothing separating today from yesterday from tomorrow.

And, that life? What was the point of that? No point. What was the point of me in it? None.

But now.

But, ... now. If I'm not worth it, saying that I loved Rosalie, because why? Because I meant it with everything in me, and because why? Because she is lovable and worth it! She just doesn't see it.

But if I'm not worth it, then I don't just hurt me, and I just can't 'x' myself out of the picture, because ...

Because that would be one big lie.

Because I am worth it.

I am.

Because I can just see it. If I'm gone, Rosalie's life, or whatever you call it? It becomes all-of-a-sudden empty, and then: pointless.

And she'd just ... what? wander around, drifting, here, there, everywhere, nowhere? Nobody to be bossy to, nobody to be frustrated with, nobody to argue back to her so hard she gets that stunned look on her face...

Because everybody else? Nobody means anything to her. Nobody else ever gave her pause. Nobody else ever made her stop and say: 'I don't know what I'm doing here anymore.' Nobody else has ever done that.

Only I've done that.

I'm worth it.

She just doesn't know that.

Or maybe she thinks of herself kind of like how I think of myself. Maybe she thinks she's not worth it.

But that's just stupid.

Just like she is. Stupid and stubborn.

Well, she ain't seen 'stubborn' yet. Not by half.

I just wish ...

I looked down at my sad, little, scrawny, girl-child body.

I just wish I was anyone else but me.

By every single measure, Rosalie's perfect. Her mind and insight? Terrifying.

And her body.

God.

Don't get me started on her body.

It actually physically hurts, just thinking about her, how beautiful she is. It's scary and it pulls me apart inside how badly ... I want to hold her, and comfort her, and just ...

Just tell her it's okay, or tell her to just for one second not be so damn serious and proud and angry and hurting all at once and all the time!

And if I measured myself against the yardstick that is Rosalie Hale, there is no way, shape, or form I could measure up.

The sad thing is, put me up against anyone else, and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion I wouldn't measure up to them, either.. aye-ther? ... ee-ther?

Whatever.

I brought the washcloth up to my body to give myself a good scrubbing.

Breakfast smells really embed themselves on your body, don't you know.

And I stopped.

And looked at myself.

Hard.

Again.

As Rosalie always told me to do.

"Rosalie?" I called softly.

I bit my lip.

"Ya," she said.

I don't know if she were mocking my German accent. There was a edge to her voice I couldn't place.

"Do you have a razor?" I said. "Is there a razor I could have?"

Silence.

Rosalie came into view, fully dressed now, unlike me, obviously, but it was just one more thing, always, that put her above me. She glided from around from the corner of the triptych and stopped a slight distance in front of me and gave me the once-over coolly.

"Why."

She said.

She didn't like my question. Not at all.

I looked away from her cold stare.

"Because ..." I whispered, "because I need to shave, Rosalie." I added: "Obviously."

I looked down at my hairy arms and hairy legs.

Some of us Germans are blessed with smooth skin, ... the rest of us are gorillas. Guess which one I am.

Rosalie, not budging: "Why."

I tsked in annoyance and looked back at her, glaring.

"Oh, for goodness sake," I huffed. "Seriously! Are you blind?"

"No," she said curtly.

"Rosalie," I wheedled, trying to be the reasonable one here, "come on! I look ugly. I want to shave away all this hair all over my body so at least I can be presentable. Is that too much to ask?"

It was, obviously, too much to ask. "You don't look ugly to me, Bella," Rosalie said. "You don't need to do this on my account, nor on anybody else's. You have body hair. So what? Who cares? I don't. I'm fine with just the way you are."

"I'm not," I snapped quickly right back at her.

Her face became more stone.

... if that were possible.

"Rosalie," I sighed, "I'm not asking this for anybody else, nor even for you, okay? I feel ugly this way. I feel ... dirty, okay. You say I have to be happy with who I am, well, I do, okay? And I want to feel ... pretty, okay? and clean, for goodness sake."

Rosalie crossed her arms, glaring at me. "You have ... no ... idea what your asking here," she spat tightly. "Just one cut and ... I won't be able to stop myself. Don't you understand? This isn't a game here, Bella. You die, just like that. Why can't you get that?"

"Oh," I said, bridling, "You think I'm stupid and careless? Well, ..."

I paused. Everything up to now clearly showed that I was stupid ... and careless.

But I wasn't. Really... but then a little, poisonous voice whispered in my ear: it just looks that way ... all the time.

I felt my whole body tighten up.

"Well, I'm not." I said, "You think I don't get it? I do! Okay?" and I glared right back at her.

And then it was the staring contest.

Joy.

"Rosalie," I said, relenting just a little tiny bit, and cursing myself for being so weak! "I bet you did everything, every day, to be beautiful to everybody in the whole world..."

I looked away. "I just wanna be pretty for me ... just once in my life."

"Bella," Rosalie said, "but you are pretty!" She said. "You are pretty to me."

"Then let me feel that way about myself, too," I whispered.

Rosalie just stared at me for a long time.

"God," she said.

And she left, disappearing back behind the triptych.

I looked after her, then I resumed bathing.

A little, tiny smile formed on my face.

I had just done the impossible.

I had just won one against the Great Rosalie Hale, and did you notice something? I didn't break down and cry. She stated her case, and I disagreed with her, and stated mine.

And I won, using her own way of arguing and reasoning, too.

Suddenly, everything didn't feel so impossibly hard anymore.

I took a big breath, and I let it out slowly.

I felt like fainting.

This arguing with Rosalie stuff – win or lose – was hard!

Would it ever get easy?

It'd better, I thought angrily. Swear to God, if Rosalie didn't learn to just let some things go and relax ... well, I'd really smack her silly until she did.

Probably what I did last night, I thought ruefully. Rosalie probably got all bitchy, ... and I smacked her.

I looked down at my hand, my face burning with shame.

Why did she always have to make everything so hard?

Why did she always have to bring out things in me that nobody had ever before? And, like: all the time, too?

...

Razor.

Rosalie was holding a straight-edge. It glinted wickedly in her hand: a sharp, sharp instrument of death. She had gone to town and come back by the time I finished my bath.

"This," she said curtly, and put it away.

"Uh," I pointed out helpfully.

"After our talk, Bella, not now," she said.

She was just so tightly wound up about everything.

"Now, we talk," she said.

"Oh," I said.

...

Rosalie.

Glaring.

Cold.

Jesus, I though ruefully.

Why does everything have to be so hard with her?

I shook my head.

I remembered she said so scathingly that somebody told her what she needed was a good fuck.

I shook my head again.

I couldn't disagree. She really, really ... really just should have had her way with me. That way, that would've been behind us, one less thing for her to be angry and bitter about, and maybe, just maybe it was exactly what the doctor ordered for her.

She was really tense, after all.

What she really needed was ...

Well ...

Well, she was all hard, and I was all soft. Bony, yes, not bodacious, but soft, still.

She really needed some softness in her life.

Some softness, maybe exactly like me.

"Sit down, Bella," she commanded.

We both wore white. I didn't do this on purpose. Honest. She worn a white dress, that looked really good on her, with frilly lace and all, and I wore ... a simple house dress.

Yeah. I couldn't compete, so why even try.

But that's the thing. I was trying. Couldn't she see that?

Her eyes were two hard black stones.

She couldn't see it.

I sat.

Rosalie glared at me from across the table.

"Well?" I said.

Immediately I regretted that.

Why do I have to say something in the uncomfortable silence, when there's nothing to say?

Rosalie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, regarding me coolly.

Her fingers drummed on her arm, the only indicator of all that nervous energy and power bottled up inside her, for, otherwise, she was as cool as a cucumber: a sour one, with her sourpuss all twisted up in a thoughtful frown.

"Well," she said. "You said something to me last night. Obviously, you were going through a lot at the time, and I totally understand that if you ..."

"Rosalie," I said firmly, raising my hand, "don't do that. Just ... don't."

She frowned. "I'm offering you an out," she said reasonably.

"I know what you're doing," I said, "and ..."

I stopped.

No, I didn't. I didn't know what she was doing.

I mean: hang on. She said she was offering me an out.

Maybe she was offering herself an out.

I looked at her, hard.

She looked right back at me: a stone.

Why would she offer me an out? Unless, of course, she were the better person in all this, and she wanted to give me option of backing out instead of making a complete fool of myself. That's what she said, wasn't it?

Unless what she said was all just a big lie. A big cover-up for something she didn't want to show.

"And ..." I said.

What did she not want to show? That she was weak, right? She hated that. But I said that to her face yesterday. Scared her out of her mind when I did. But she knows I know that now. She can't be hiding that!

What could she be hiding?

"And ..." I said.

No time to think anymore. I was looking more and more like an idiot, and that's not what we were here for, either.

"And I'm not going to back out, Rosalie," I said. "I said what I said. I'm not taking it back."

"What did you say?" she pressed.

"Uh," I blushed, suddenly hot under the collar... that this dress didn't have.

Cute little pinafore.

I fingered my choker nervously.

"That ... that I love you," I said, blushing and embarrassed.

"Why." Rosalie said.

Coldly.

"Uh, what?" I said.

Rosalie just glared at me.

You see, this wasn't in the script, you see? You say you love someone, they say, 'Awww!' and you say, 'Awww!' and then it's hugs and snuggles time.

You don't say, 'I love you,' and the other person glares at you and says, 'why.'

That's not supposed to happen.

It was happening.

"Uh, ... uh ... um, is this your one word?" I squeaked, grasping at straws.

"Answer the question," Rosalie snapped.

"Because ... because ..." I floundered, suddenly lost. "Because lots of reasons, Rosalie! Jeez!"

"NAME ONE!" She screamed and slammed her open palm on the table – WHAM! – and I felt the whole cabin shake, just a little bit, at the impact of the blow.

I swear the table lifted up a little bit on my end.

"D-d-d-d-t-because ..." I said, transfixed by her cobra eyes. "Because you, every single day, Rosalie, every single minute, you ..."

"Choose carefully, Bella," Rosalie growled so quietly.

"What?" I said.

"I said," she snarled, "'Choose carefully, Bella,' because, know it or not, little girl, you are saying something that impacts everything..."

"I know that," I said angrily, stung by what she said.

"No, you don't," she snapped.

"Yes, I do!" I snapped right back.

Rosalie glared at me. "Then if you know that, then you know that its impact is in Eternity, and not just some little thing you can say now and revoke tomorrow. Is love a feeling or a fancy, oh, no..."

"'It is an ever fixéd mark,'" I quoted right back and glared at her.

Rosalie snorted imperially.

But she stopped in her tirade.

Point for me.

I knew my extensive reading would serve me in good stead someday. I just didn't see that happening because of today, is all.

"So you can quote Shakespeare," Rosalie said sarcastically, "bravo!"

I bridled. I wanted to said that she started it! But that would be just so mature.

"So," Rosalie said and nodded for me to proceed.

I stewed.

She smirked. "Would you like a hint?" she teased, with a wicked edge to her voice.

I looked away.

"Do you want to take it back?" she pressed, just as teasingly.

"Never," I whispered.

"Why not?" she said, "for it surely looks like you don't 'Oh, Rosalie, I love you!' now!" and she batted her eyelids in a mockery of me and my romantic foolishness.

I swallowed. "That's not fair at all, Rosalie," I said.

She smirked. "Everything is fair in love and in war, Bella," she said, "or haven't you heard?"

"No," I said, "I haven't." And I glared at her. "And I don't care about what's been said by whomever, Rosalie. I said I love you, and I didn't say it like that, and I didn't mean it like that. I love you, Rosalie Hale, even now, okay? Even now that you're being so mean to me, because I know what you're trying to do, and it's just not working, okay?"

Rosalie looked away from me. "Seems to be working rather well, I'd say," she mumbled.

"Rosalie," I tsked, "you are ... you are so God-damn beautiful, and, okay, everything fell apart for you, and I get that, okay, maybe more than most, I don't know, but ..." I paused and took a deep, calming breath.

It didn't work.

I tried to proceed more slowly, speaking quieter. "But ... you don't have to do this, Rosalie. You don't have to fi-..."

"What does my being beautiful have to do with anything?" Rosalie cut in coldly.

I sighed, "Oh, for God's ..."

"No," she said. "You listen. I would cut my face if I could, over and over and over again, just to be ... just to have a normal, plain life. No. I would do it just to be dead, just to end this unrelenting agony of being eternally in want and in hate. And you love me because I'm ... 'beautiful'?"

"Of course not!" I said, stung.

"Then ... why?" she demanded.

I bit my tongue.

Rosalie. "Take it back." Softly.

"No," I said.

Rosalie frowned. "So you say something, but you give no reason for it. You hate me, you love me, and it's all the same to you, is it?" She looked away, pausing, then look back at me. "Why bother saying anything if it means nothing?"

"Because it had to be said," I said.

"Why?"

I glared at Rosalie. "You know, I'm getting tired of that question."

Rosalie snorted. "Now you know how I feel," she quipped dryly.

We looked at each other across the table for a moment.

Rosalie shook her head. "So this is your love?" she said. "Anger and bitterness? The second I challenge it – and with good reason, Bella, you must admit it! – you become sullen and silent?"

"Now you know how I feel," I retorted.

But I didn't laugh like she did. I didn't think this was funny.

"Touché," Rosalie admitted.

She looked down at her hands.

"Well," she said, standing, looking out toward the door. "If this is it, I don't want it. I don't need this. I'm just going to ..."

"Rosalie," I said quickly, "you're not even giving me a chance!"

She looked back at me.

Then she shook her head.

"This is me, Bella," she snarled. "This is me, giving you a chance. Right now!"

Rosalie glared at me hard.

"'Take it or leave it'?" I said sadly, translating for her.

Rosalie squinted at that, then shook her head. She looked away. "Fuck this," she whispered bitterly and walked toward the door.

"Rosalie," I shouted desperately, "I love you from the bottom of my heart! I don't have a reason for it, okay? I can't explain it to you in some ... reasonable way that will make perfect sense to you, okay? I love you... why can't you just accept that?"

Rosalie turned full on at me at that.

"Stand up," she said.

I swallowed and stood, facing her.

"Because," she said, "I accepted Royce when he said he loved me, and what did it get me? He punched my eye so hard it ruptured and then he shot me in the stomach and left me to die! At least, if he truly loved me, he should have made sure he finished the God DAMN JOB, BUT NO! AND NOW THIS?"

Her voice got louder and louder. She was screaming when she finished.

And she only finished because she stopped screaming, but she was truly angry now, panting in very tightly controlled rage.

I looked at her, not stunned.

Just ... sorry.

"Now this, Rosalie," I said. "Me."

She glared at me a second, absorbing my words.

She broke off, looking away. "That's not what I meant."

"Well," I said, "that's what you've got now."

She wouldn't look at me.

"Rosalie, look ..." She wouldn't. "This is stupid, okay?"

"It's not okay," she whispered bitterly.

"Arrrrg!" I shouted. "God ... damn ..."

I stopped. It was physically painful stopping myself, because I so wanted to indulge, just like she did, but I couldn't. She got to do that, because it was her against everything and everybody, and she had nothing to lose.

And she was being a real bitch about it, too.

I had everything to lose.

I walked up to her and put my arms around her. She was God-damn flinching the whole time, like I was going to hit her or something, and that made me angry, angry at her for being scared of little me, angry at myself that I could be this angry. Angry at myself again, knowing that I had hit her last night, and I didn't even know it, so she really did have a reason to be scared of me.

Big, scary vampire, flinching at little, harmless me. Ha, ha, so funny.

So not.

"I'm not Royce," I said. "I'm not gonna shoot you or hit you ..." I broke off. Should I say, 'again'?

Weak, Bella Swan, I berated myself. So weak.

"God," I said, resting my head on her stiff shoulder. "I love you. I'm sorry, I'm not perfect, nor eloquent, or anything. I'm just me, and I love you, and I'm sorry."

"But you're not," she said, so remote.

I held her as I tried to think about what she said.

It's really hard to think when you're so in love and so angry, all at the same time.

"Okay ..." I said.

"It's not okay," she said.

I burst out in a quiet laugh.

"'A' for effort, Rosalie Hale," I teased, suddenly finding the humor in all this.

Rosalie was quiet, not reacting.

"So I'm not sorry, I guess, and I'm sorry for that," I said.

"You ... 'guess.'" She said.

I pressed forward, done with fighting her. All she knew how to do was to fight. But I wasn't winning the fight by fighting her. Not by playing her rules, anyway.

This was my game now. "... But I love you," I said. "And that's all I can say."

"Because you feel it?" she said.

"Yeeeeesssss," I said slowly.

"What happens when you don't feel it?" she said.

"Then ..." I said. "I still love you."

"Because... why, Bella," Rosalie demanded.

This was so important to her for some reason, and I couldn't get to the bottom of it.

I shook my head on her shoulder. I don't know. I guess it wasn't for me to know. She had her ways, they were mysterious. I loved her. I didn't care why. She did.

"Because I love you," I said simply.

Like I said: I'm not eloquent.

Rosalie pulled back a little at that and looked me in the eye.

I looked back at her, confused. It was a 'moment,' but I didn't know what this moment meant.

"Don't you ever forget this, Bella," Rosalie said. "This is your choice. You love me because you love me, and only you can take that back."

I looked her in her so intent eyes. "Uh ... okaaayyy?"

Rosalie sighed and pulled me into her arms. I rested my head on her shoulder. It felt slightly softer somehow.

"You just don't get it, do you?" she said.

"No," I said simply.

"You will," she said, "or you won't. Time will tell."

We were quiet.

"I have to say," she said, "your timing is exquisite."

There was an edge to her voice, but I was glad to hear her tone had softened somewhat from its seriousness.

"What do you mean?" I said, just floating in the beautiful, light scent of her. I could breathe her forever and not grow tired of it, and now I loved the smell of her, the honeysuckle and just a hint of rose. My rose.

My Rose.

I felt her smile. "It's February fourteenth."

She waited.

"St. Valentine's day," she added.

"Oh," I said.

I did not know this fact.

"Happy St. Valentine's day, Bella," Rosalie said.

"Oh," I said.

You would think I'd be proud of myself, telling Rosalie I loved her, and on St. Valentine's day, too.

But I wasn't.

I was embarrassed that I didn't know, and I was scared, maybe, and ashamed that maybe she thought I set this up so that it would happen that way. I was afraid that she might think I was trying to be clever and ashamed that I wasn't anything of the sort, but it surely looked that way.

I bit my lip.

"Can I ..." I said and I swallowed. "Can I ... you said I can kiss you if I wanted to kiss you, so, ... but ... can I kiss you?"

Rosalie was quiet.

"Never mind," I said quickly.

"I'm sorry," Rosalie said sorrowfully. "It just doesn't feel right."

She was right, of course.

She always was.

Rosalie spoke: "If we were to kiss, it would be on the ..."

"Just stop." I said quietly.

"... on the presumption of something shared that can never be, Bella, don't you see?"

She didn't stop, of course.

She never does.

"No," I said.

"Stubborn," she said sourly.

But she didn't say it proudly. She was just stating a fact.

"I am in eternity. You are in time. There is a wide gulf between us that can never be crossed, and that gulf, do you know what it is, Bella?"

I was quiet as she held me.

Her voice was so soft and lilting, so beautiful. I could actually fall asleep, standing, held in her arms, listening to her speak.

"That gulf is death, and none can cross that chasm."

"And yet," I said, "you crossed it, and here you are."

Rosalie held me.

"You have to choose, too, Rosalie," I said.

There it was.

The big, white, nine-hundred pound gorilla in the room that nobody was talking about and everybody was ignoring. And there it was. And I called it.

Thankfully, for once, Rosalie was quiet, and not lecturing me about what she was free to do or what I couldn't tell her what she must or must not do.

She had to choose, and her trying to talk it away wouldn't change that.

And she knew it.

She held me.

"I love you, Rosalie Hale," I said, and I kissed her shoulder.

Two tears wet the fine white lace on her shoulder.

Love was supposed to make everything better.

Why was nothing better?