Disclaimer- All recognizable characters are the creation of Stephenie Meyer, and therefore not mine.
Renesmee's POV-
"It's okay, Rose. I don't think anything could ruin this moment."
Almost immediately after the words left my father's mouth, the phone on the wall started to ring, and I remembered what my next task this morning would be. I tried to hold on to the happiness I had just been feeling, but I came to realize all too soon that it had quickly disintegrated.
"I spoke to soon, didn't I?" My father asked, sensing my disappointment, and trying to lighten the mood. I cracked a small smile. Esme answered the phone, and had a brief conversation with Tanya Denali. Esme mentioned that I had come to visit, and I could hear the phoniness of Tanya's enthusiasm through the phone. She tried to disguise it, but she didn't have me fooled. Maybe she wasn't so oblivious to Jordan's infatuation with me as she had let on in Volterra.
The phone call ended soon enough, and I sat silently on my chair. I knew it was better to just call and get it over with but I really, really didn't want to. Alice began tapping her fingers rhythmically on the countertop, and the sound brought me out of my thoughts.
I sneaked a peek up at my dad, and he looked like he was uncomfortable. Alice looked like she was lost in thought, but behind her I could see Jasper trying to hide his grin as he looked at my dad.
"Knock it off, Jasper. You're making it worse." My dad said in a partially annoyed tone.
"That's kind of the point." Jasper joked, smiling. Alice slapped his chest with the back of her hand, and as she went to pull it away, he grabbed it and pulled it to his lips. She tried to hide her smile. It was adorable. I got to know everyone pretty well in Volterra last month, but now it was much better because, despite everything that had happened, everyone seemed much more relaxed. Everyone but my father, that is.
"Okay, I give up. What am I missing?" I asked, my happier mood returning. I liked watching everyone interact. It was still a little surprising to see everyone acting like a true family.
"Renesmee, I think…that maybe…it might be a good idea…to possibly…call your mom?" He said, although it sounded more like a question.
"See, now that wasn't so hard—" Jasper started, but my dad cut him off.
"Shut up, Jasper." He said. Emmett chuckled.
"Watch it, Eddie. You don't want to teach your daughter to use that kind of language." Emmett snickered. My dad cracked a smile.
"Shut up, Emmett." I mimicked with a smirk. His booming laugh turned my smirk into a full blown smile, and I laughed.
"Took the words right out of my mouth." My dad chuckled.
"Are you sure you wouldn't have added a few maybe's?" Alice asked, referring to his nervous request for me to call my mom.
"Oh, no. Don't you start you start, too. Why am I being attacked?" My dad asked, and I could see him slightly pout.
"Oh, stop your pouting, and get used to it. We missed out on 100 years of Dadward jokes because of your dumb ass." Emmett responded. My dad shot him a glare, but I burst out laughing.
"Really, Em?" He questioned.
"Dadward? That's clever." I praised. Emmett shot me a wide grin, and I saw the corners of my father's mouth pull up.
"Well, I'm about to be Deadward if you don't call your mom soon." He responded. Despite his words, I was still feeling happy, and decided to push my luck.
"Is that a suggestion or an order?" I asked, remembering how nervous he was to bring it up earlier. I think I caught on a little bit to why he may have been uncomfortable. Like he said last night, he's new to the whole father thing, and I'm a hundred years old. He didn't know that I was used to playing the part of the child. I'm capable of thinking and acting like an adult, making my own decisions, and caring for myself. However, seeing as I'm at constant odds with my human nature which told me to be a sixteen year old girl, it was more natural to just give in and play the role of the teenage daughter. I also did so for the sake of my mom. She let me know through both her words and actions since I was very young that I would always be her little girl, no matter how old I was. She liked being a mom, so I let her care for me, and advise me. At least, that's how it used to be.
Everyone was waiting for my dad's response, but he clearly didn't want to answer. He knew I was joking, but he was being careful about his boundaries. His eyes looked like they were pleading with me to not subject him to this.
"I don't know." He answered. I raised an eyebrow at him.
"So you're not forcing me to call her?" I inquired. He gave me a look, but didn't say anything. "So you are forcing me to call her?" I asked, smiling. He groaned.
"I'm not forcing you to do anything, but…I think you should call her." He said.
"What if I don't want to?" I asked, smirking. Everyone was smiling at our exchange, and Jasper and Emmett were laughing.
"Why are you doing this?" He half-asked, half-groaned at me, putting his face into his hands.
"Because you said you said you don't know how to be a dad, so this is lesson number one." I answered. He removed his hands from his face and tried to hide a smile.
"Which is?" He asked.
"You're supposed to tell me what to do" I answered. "Granted, I might not always listen, and I may chew you out for it, but I still need to hear it. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't always make the best decisions on my own. So what do you say?" I challenged. He raised an eyebrow at me, and a small smirk escaped his lips.
"I say, call your mother, Renesmee." As much as I didn't want to actually follow through, I had already turned the situation into a lesson, and it probably wouldn't do much good if I didn't listen to my father's first official command.
"Okay." I sighed, and hopped down from my chair. I walked over to the phone and entered my mom's cell phone number. It went straight to voicemail and I felt relief wash over me. "Well, she didn't pick up so…" I started.
"Try Aro's phone." My dad told me. Great, so that was the plan. Try everyone's phone until someone picked up. Ugh. I dialed the number, and waited a few seconds before someone answered.
"Hello?" I heard Aro speak. I immediately was hit with a wave of panic. I could barely breathe. I couldn't even imagine what my reaction might have been if it was my mom answering. Then, I was hit with a wave of calm and I sent Jasper a thankful look.
"Hi Aro. It's me." I said quietly. I heard silence on the other end of the phone for a few seconds and wondered if he heard me.
"Renesmee? Oh my goodness! Are you okay? Are you safe? Everybody has been frantic trying to find you." He finally spoke. I felt bad that everyone was worrying. I hadn't considered that before.
"Aro, I'm fine. I actually called to talk to my mom. Can you get her?" I asked. I but my lip nervously, and twisted a finger around in my hair.
"Renesmee, your mom's not here. We don't know where she is." He admitted, and I grew worried. "We assume that she's out looking for you." He finished. This new information caught me off guard. She was looking for me? I felt my heart start to race at the thought.
"She didn't say anything?" I asked. Everyone else was sitting around the kitchen silently, listening in to the phone call. My dad looked like he was about to grab the phone from my hand, but was fighting with himself not to.
"No. When she heard that you were missing, she left almost immediately. She didn't tell anyone she was leaving." He explained. I tried to take a deep breath, but it came out uneasily. My dad immediately stood from his chair, and came to stand by me. I thought he was going to take the phone, but he simply moved so that he was standing next to me, rubbing my back in an effort to comfort me.
"Well when was that?" I asked, starting to panic again.
"Last night." He answered. I didn't even know what to say. This conversation was going nothing like I expected it to. "You know that I adore you, Darling, but you messed up this time. Running away is never the answer. You should have seen your mother in the few minutes before she left. She was distraught." I closed my eyes tightly, and a tear rolled down my cheek. My dad quickly wiped it away. "Renesmee, where are you?" He inquired.
"I'm with the Cullens." I answered in a defeated tone.
"Ahh, I thought the number looked familiar. What were you thinking, Renesmee?" He asked me. I ran a hand through my curly hair and laid my head against the wall.
"I don't know! She wasn't talking to me, and she was acting like I didn't exist. I tried to talk to her, but she freaked out. It was like she wasn't even my mom anymore, so I left." My voice grew increasingly quieter as I finished my sentence, knowing that my reasoning wouldn't make sense to him. I heard a few quiet noises through the phone, and I almost hung up when the answering voice wasn't Aro's anymore.
"That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Renesmee." I heard Jane say. I rolled my eyes. "She was upset, as she is allowed to be. You shouldn't have left." She finished.
"Well nobody really asked you, Jane." I replied defensively.
"Would you two knock it off? This isn't helping anyone." Alec's voice said to us both. "Ness, I think this time my sister may actually have a point." I rolled my eyes again, and sighed. "I know you well enough that you're probably rolling your eyes, but listen to me for a second. Your mom loves you more than anything. You know that." He told me.
"Alec—" I started.
"No, Ness. Listen to me. You're letting your human nature get the best of you. I know it's unintentional, but you need to stop and really think about what your doing. I could understand the wanting to meet your family thing. You were curious, just as anybody would be…but this? Ness, you were wrong this time." He finished. I was starting to grow annoyed and I just wanted to hang up the phone.
"Is there a point to this other than to just make me feel bad? I already feel bad enough without listening to you tell me about how wrong I was." I felt Jasper send another wave of calm my way.
"Ness, you and your mother have been a part of our family, for lack of a better term, for a hundred years. We care about you both, and I don't want to see you two fall out because of something like this. You were both in the wrong. She should've been a little more understanding, but she had a reason to be upset. There are things that you don't know—things she never told you for the sake of your own protection. You don't know the whole story, Ness, so please promise me that you won't make anymore rash decisions. When you see her, you need to apologize. For now, just stay put. She's probably on her way." He finished. Again, I'm hearing that there's stuff I don't know. I don't really know what else could be that important that it would change anything.
"Okay." I replied with an annoyed tone.
"I'm serious, Renesmee. Promise me that you were actually listening to what I just said." He pushed. I rolled my eyes.
"I promise, Alec! I wont do anything stupid. I'll stay put. I'll apologize, and I'll stop letting my human nature take over my mind." It was silent for a few seconds.
"I guess that'll have to do for now. Be safe." He told me. I sighed, and looked around the room. Everyone was still listening intently.
"I will." I said before hanging up the phone, and burying my face in my dad's chest, letting the the tears freely flow from my eyes to his soft shirt. Looks like it's time for lesson number two.
Author's Note:
Okay, so I ended up splitting this chapter up so that I'd be able to update today. I hope you're not too upset with that. I can't say when the next update is. I'll probably have the next one written by Wednesday because I don't have school Tuesday, but next weekend, I'll have no time to write so I might not be able to finish another chapter before the following weekend, leaving a week and a half gap between those updates, and considering the content of the next chapter, I'm 200% certain you'd hate me if I did that.
Review goal is 620. Let me know:
1. If you think I should update as soon as next chapter is written or just wait until the weekend.
2. Favorite part of this chapter.
3. Predictions on next chapter/chapters after that.
4. Suggestions/Questions
Until next time, Taylor