24

Bella was nervous. It was stupid and silly, but she was standing inside Rose, Esme, Carlisle, and Emmett's room getting ready for her 'date' with Alice. Date. Sounded so weird, considering she was already madly, passionately in love with her, but they were going on a date, and Bella was nervous. She didn't know how to date.

"Wow," Esme murmured, and when Bella looked back, she saw the woman leaning against the doorframe to her bedroom, a warm smile on her lips. "You look beautiful, sweetheart."

"Thanks," she whispered, turning back to the mirror and looking at her reflection. She was wearing a tight icy blue dress that hugged her curves and made her feel beautiful. She wasn't brave enough to wear heels, though, so she was wearing pair of silver ballet flats and had left her hair down. "Do you think she'll like it?"

"I'm sure she will." Esme walked up behind her, placing her hands on Bella's shoulders. "But she'd love you no matter what you wear, sweetheart. Alice loves you."

"I love her, too," Bella whimpered. "It kind of scares me."

"Why? Why does it scare you?"

She smiled weakly as she turned and faced Esme. "I've always known I was different. My mother never let me forget how different I was from normal girls, I guess. I always thought there was something wrong with me, because I liked girls and not boys. And then I came here, and I saw her, and I felt this . . . this need," she whimpered, "to be close to her. I'd watch her all the time, envious of how free she was, Esme."

"Oh, sweetheart."

"When Edward and Jasper saved me from Jacob Black, when I found myself in the backseat with Alice, Esme, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in my entire life."

Esme smiled. "I remember feeling like that."

"When you met Rose?"

"First with Carlisle and then with Rose and Emmett," she clarified. "Carlisle said he told you about us."

Bella bit her lip as she nodded.

"He's a bit of a romantic, and made it seem so easy, didn't he?"

"Kind of."

Esme sat on the edge of their bed. "I wish it had been as easy as he think it was. I've loved him since the first time I saw him, sitting across the cafeteria. He's handsome and kind and I wanted him, Bella," she murmured. "He was the first man who ever saw me. Like really saw me." Esme frowned. "My mother died giving birth to me, Bella, and my father . . . Well, I think in his own way he loved me, just didn't know how to show it. He worked hard and raised me on his own, but he was never involved in my life, not my schooling, extra activities. He never told me he was proud of me, or that he even loved me. Carlisle told me every day how much he loved me, needed me, so when I met Rose you can imagine how confused I was about my feelings for her."

"I have an idea," she murmured, thinking about Angela, about how at one point, she thought she was in love with her, but now, she knew what they had was never love.

"Rose was confident and beautiful," Esme laughed. "And I wanted her, Bella. I wanted to kiss her and touch her, but I didn't act on my feelings. I would never hurt Carlisle like that. And then she started dating Emmett, and I found myself attracted to him, too. I didn't understand why I felt so . . . full of lust around them."

Esme stood up and walked over to her dresser, opening her jewelry box and slipping out a gold oval locket. She turned back to Bella and said, "My father died just after the start of the year, and I was heartbroken," she whimpered, "because I loved him. Emmett and Rose went home with me and Carlisle, helped me organize his funeral, pack up his things. We were going through some boxes in his closet when I found this."

Esme sat back down next to Bella and held the locket out to her. She took it and opened it, smiling at the picture of him on one side and her mother on the other.

"You look like her," Bella whispered, shifting her eyes to Esme. "You look like your mother."

Esme nodded. "There was note with it, which I'm not going to share, but my father had gotten this for me when I graduated high school, but he . . . he never gave it to me. I'll never know why he didn't. But just knowing that he did love me, in his own way, gave me the courage to let myself love Emmett and Rose the way I loved Carlisle. It took some liquid courage, but the night we gave into our feelings, was the first time I'd never felt complete, Bella."

"I'm scared they'll take me away," Bella whimpered, feeling her eyes fill with tears.

"We won't let them take you from us, sweetheart." Esme wrapped her arm around her. "We don't give up on our family, not ever."

"I really hope not," she whispered as someone knocked on the door.

Bella and Esme looked over, finding Emmett standing there with a smile on his face. "Your date is here, Bella."

Taking a deep breath, Bella stood up and grabbed her bag and a jacket before giving herself another look in the mirror before she turned and headed out to meet Alice for their first date.

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