Man, I thought we'd get to that August installment by now, but I couldn't resist a third part to July. This chapter literally wrote itself and I couldn't put it anywhere else BUT in the month Blaire begins her healing journey.

If you recognize dialogue from Eclipse, yes you did.

JULY

Part III

I'D BEEN A VAMPIRE FOR almost five months. It was the weirdest observation I ever made in my entire life, but it fit the new one I'd been forced into.

The days slipped by fast, filled with lessons about my existence under Jasper's technical guidance and care. He kept the promise he made to me in Denali and tried to make my transition as easy as possible.

In the first months, his only focus had been hunting: teaching me how to mark my thirst and drink until I was satiated, because he couldn't expect me to retain any other knowledge if I was consumed with thirst. Then it shifted into managing my new physical abilities: controlling my strength, speed, and sudden lack of human mannerisms. His goal for me was to eventually hamper them back enough to blend in with human society, because he still seemed to think that was my end goal.

The physical training came naturally to me. Discipline was something that I had engrained deep within me before Jasper and I ever met. The daily motions of tracking my thirst felt like tracking my time when I would run a mile, except in reverse. A PR was made the longer it took for my body to be triggered to hunt by the dryness in my throat. I was able to study the small cues my body would give when I needed more blood. An infinitesimal drop in my speed and reflexes, a delicate tightening in the very back of my throat that would eventually turn into a steady burn. When my throat burned, the world felt dark and flat – which would match my eye color once they started to bleed of the remaining human blood coursing through my veins, Jasper explained.

Now, he wanted my focus to be regulating my emotions… which was the hardest. I struggled constantly, and it probably would've been easier if I didn't have an empath arching a curious brow at me every time I tried to manhandle my emotions and turn them into something different. He didn't need to know that arching brow was part of the reason for wanting to control my emotions around him in the first place. The want and desire I had for him grew stronger every day, and had only made leaps and bounds since that kiss.

It had been a little over a week since then, and since he told me about his past. A week for me to adjust and utilize the new laptop to learn more about the Civil War and Jasper's role in it. It wasn't my place to give forgiveness, but I did think it was my responsibility to educate myself as he seemed to.

"We were assigned a paper on this together in school," Jasper said when he saw my research, specifically the battle in Galveston, Texas. "I don't know if it ever got done, now that I'm thinking about it."

"I'm sure we were a little preoccupied," I said, because I didn't remember the essay. I still didn't remember a lot of things. My memories would be the payoff to learning how to navigate my emotions in this state. Once I found more closure to the way my human life ended, my memories would be easier to access. Jasper said Carlisle had a working theory that the dense fog shrouding them was a defense mechanism – that instead of experiencing one's life flashing before their eyes right before they died, the memories were held back in a trauma response due to the nature of being changed from alive to undead.

Jasper stood on the other side of the kitchen island I was posted up at, and was mostly leaned across it, his eyes floating just over the laptop. They were buttery gold in the soft nighttime lighting in the cabin. "You know… if you want more specific literature on the subject, we have a library up in the loft."

We. The word warmed me, the idea of sharing something with him, but I could hardly meet his gaze. "I wanted to give you a space for just you," I murmured.

Jasper's answering smile was bemused. "This is your home, too. You have as much right to any part of it as me. There are other works up there, too, if you'd like to explore more subjects."

That was the point of this computer, wasn't it? To explore. To find schools, find my friendships in Bella and Alice, find something that was me. To move on, even if there were days I still didn't feel like I deserved it. I sighed and folded the laptop shut. "Can I be honest with you?"

"Of course," he replied, unmoving from his side of the island, and entirely focused. That stare used to unnerve me, because some part of me always knew my place was in his eyes, but now I was at home in it. Safe. Unafraid.

"I don't know what I want," I admitted. "I know the training we're doing is supposed to prep me for a life living with… human people again, but… I don't want to go back."

"I know," he said. "It doesn't take an empath to notice the way you clam up whenever I so much as mention returning to human society. I only say it so you know the options are out there."

Options. I shook my head, my hands tightening together. "It doesn't feel like it. Everything that I was – My life, my… my family… my… dreams… It's all gone now. I know you told me we'd find the things that – that James took, but… I'm starting to realize they'll never come back. Not like they were before."

There. It was out. The realization that had been plaguing me for months. The person I used to be had no place in this new life, even though I spent my entire life being her: Blaire Holcomb. High school student. Only daughter. Favorite niece. Promising young soccer player.

"I don't know who I'm supposed to be now," I whispered.

Jasper was quiet for a minute, glancing over me in a concentrated way. One that let me know he was analyzing my emotions. "I'm sorry," he finally said.

That was all he said, and it was enough. I only wanted him to understand.

"Even though my change was abrupt as well, I didn't necessarily have a human life to mourn," he went on. "I was going through the motions. Always have been if I'm being honest. I know I'm not the best person to talk to about this, but I do know someone. If it's something you want. Her turning was traumatic as well. Like you, she also had a full life to mourn. It might help give you some perspective on things. I just fear you won't like it."

I cringed. "Is it because you're talking about Charlotte?"

Jasper frowned. "No. I was talking about Rosalie."

Her shiny blonde hair and glaring, flinty eyes flashed through my mind. "Oh."

"You didn't have the best rapport when you first met," he admitted.

"I remember that much," I replied. The phrase "fuck you" acutely came to the forefront of my thoughts.

"Still, it might be worth mending that bridge and hearing her out," he reasoned.

"If she'll talk to me," I said. But… my curiosity was piqued.

VRRRGH! VRRRGH!

Both our heads snapped to Jasper's phone on the kitchen counter. He picked it up without looking at me, reading the text message splayed across his screen. His frown deepened.

"What?" I asked.

"Alice," he said. Then he turned his phone to me.

I'm already at the computer. Call me when you're ready.

Jasper said Alice, but the message was from Rosalie McCarty. I looked up at him. "I thought her last name was Hale?"

"Her maiden name is," he said. "She took Emmett's name when they got married. She prefers it that way."

"Right." I didn't even consider vampires getting married, but I guessed it made sense. Would Jasper want the same thing?

Jasper leaned further across the kitchen island and pulled the laptop screen back up, casually crossing into my personal space. Excitement fluttered within me at the simple movement. Even more so when I imagined a wedding band on his left ring finger. I shook my head, as if I could physically clear my thoughts.

"You know how to set up the call, right?" Jasper asked. "I'll let you make it. I'm going to hunt."

He didn't have to, but I understood the meaning all the same. "I love you," I said.

"And I love you." He stretched his body further along the counter, kissing my nose and slipping out of the cabin before I could react, and subsequently melt at the same time. And then I was alone with a computer and the realization that a vampire I only remembered I didn't particularly like would be waiting on the other side.

I called anyway.

Rosalie was still lovely, even through my new vampiric lens, and projected through her computer's camera splaying her grainy image on my screen. She stared at me, still as stone, like an angel of death. Her long blonde hair hung in thick curtains on either side of her face, running down her shoulders like water. Her golden-brown eyes blinked back at me, as if she were regarding me with as much interest as I was her. Or maybe scrutiny.

"Is he with you?" she finally asked, the words lashing out strong and clear. They were abrupt, but not accusatory.

"Um no," I said. The flatness of her gaze made me glance around, though, as if I was wrong, and Rosalie knew he was actually standing behind me in the kitchen. "He left to give me space."

"At least he can read a room," she said. I didn't say anything back, didn't exactly know how to take it – "That was a joke, Blaire."

"Oh." I didn't laugh, but I let my shoulders relax from the tense position they held before.

"So what were you talking about that gave Alice a vision of you calling me?" she asked.

Rosalie was unnerving. That was the only word for her. Her questions were cutting, far too direct for my comfort. I didn't move, but I wanted to shy away from the computer. Maybe this was a mistake. But she wasn't saying anything else. She was waiting. And I did call her…

"Jasper said that I should hear your story, if you were comfortable sharing it," I added. "He said I could relate…"

The words lodged themselves in my throat, refusing to break. Rosalie cocked her head to the side, her hair swinging with the movement. Her frown deepened. A thoughtful hum passed through the laptop speakers. "I never considered it," she said, "but I suppose he's right. Would you like to hear my story? It doesn't have a happy ending."

"No dealing with a vampire is ever pleasant." The words leapt out from me, and Rosalie's brows rose in surprise.

"No," she agreed with a sigh. "No, it does not. We both know that firsthand, and not by our own choice."

There was something in those words, the way we stared at each other, that made my body relax more. An understanding, maybe. Whatever it was, inch by inch, muscle by muscle, I settled against the countertop and waited.

"I lived in a different world than you do now," Rosalie finally began. "My human world was a much simpler place… or I should say my perspective had been simple. It was nineteen thirty-three. I was eighteen, and I was beautiful. My life was perfect."

I was seventeen, and I had friends, family, and a passion that guided my life. My life had also been perfect.

"My parents were thoroughly middle class. My father had a stable job in a bank, something I realize now that he was smug about – he saw his prosperity as a reward for talent and hard work, rather than acknowledging the luck involved. In my home, it was as if the Great Depression was only a troublesome rumor. Of course, I saw the poor people, the ones who weren't as lucky. My father left me with the impression that they'd brought their troubles on themselves.

"It was my mother's job to keep our house – and myself and my two younger brothers – in spotless order. It was clear that I was both her first priority and her favorite. I didn't fully understand at the time, but I was always vaguely aware that my parents weren't satisfied with what they had, even if it was so much more than most. They wanted more. They had social aspirations – social climbers, I suppose you could call them. My beauty was like a gift to them. They saw so much more potential in it than I did.

"They weren't satisfied, but I was. I was thrilled to be me, to be Rosalie Hale. Pleased that men's eyes watched me everywhere I went, from the year I turned twelve. Delighted that my girlfriends sighed with envy when they touched my hair. Happy that my mother was proud of me and that my father liked to buy me pretty dresses."

It was wholly different, but I had gotten noticed for the way I could play soccer when I was that age. I could relate to basking in the attention of coaches and trainers fawning over my potential. But I wasn't like Rosalie. My stomach roiled at her admission, making me sick with the fact that men had been looking at her for her beauty when she was a child. And that she had also been so aware of it.

"I knew what I wanted out of life," she went on, "and there didn't seem to be any way that I wouldn't get exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be loved, to be adored. I wanted to have a huge, flowery wedding where everyone in town would watch me walk down the aisle on my father's arm and think I was the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen. Admiration was like air to me. I was silly and shallow, but I was content.

"My parents' influence had been such that I also wanted the material things in life. I wanted a big house with elegant furnishings that someone else would clean and a modern kitchen that someone else would cook in. As I said, shallow. Very young and very shallow. And I didn't see any reason why I wouldn't get these things."

She smiled a little then. "There were a few things I wanted that were more meaningful, though. One thing in particular. My very closest friend was a girl named Vera. She married young, just seventeen. She married a man my parents would never have considered for me – a carpenter. A year later she had a son, a beautiful little boy with dimples and curly black hair. It was the first time I'd ever felt truly jealous of anyone else in my entire life. It… it truly was a different time. I wasn't much older than you, but I was ready for it all. I yearned for my own little baby. I wanted my own house and a husband who would kiss me when he got home from work – just like Vera. Only I had a very different kind of house in mind…"

I had been ready for it all, too. I remembered only wanting to further my career in soccer. Take massive fields with higher stakes, bigger crowds, more prestige.

But Rosalie's words – little baby – threw me. "We can't… have children anymore, can we?"

It was a dumb question because I already knew the answer. It was a fleeting thought when I realized I hadn't had any bodily functions, including a period, since becoming a vampire, but there had been so much more going on that I barely gave it attention. Until now.

I swore Rosalie's eyes glimmered with something more than the light of her computer screen. "No, Blaire. We can't."

For a second, my vision swam and I felt unsteady on my feet. Another aspect of my future had been stolen away from me without my consent – without me even realizing. I didn't really think about children when I was human, whether I wanted them or not, but… now the option was gone before I could make the decision.

I couldn't stop the image of a little boy with strawberry-blond waves running on the beach beyond the cliffs from flashing through my thoughts though, vibrant against the gray water and sky. Or the idea of a little girl following me in the woods, learning how to climb the trees.

Then I thought about their skin sparkling like crushed diamonds in the sunlight, or blood staining their tiny mouths, or the idea of making something just as horrifying as James had made me. My stomach turned again. "Oh."

Maybe it was for the best.

"I'm sorry," she said.

I waved her off, even as something I couldn't name felt a little hollower inside of me. "What else happened? To you? I know the story doesn't end there."

She nodded, her mouth set in a thin line. "In Rochester, there was one royal family – the Kings, ironically enough. Royce King owned the bank my father worked at, and nearly every other really profitable business in town. That's how his son, Royce King the Second, saw me the first time.

"That night, the first of the roses came. Every night of our courtship, he sent a bouquet of roses to me. My room was always overflowing with them. It got to the point that I would smell like roses when I left the house. Royce was handsome, too. He had lighter hair than I did, and pale blue eyes. He said my eyes were like violets, and then those started showing up alongside the roses.

"My parents approved – that's putting it mildly. This was everything they'd dreamed of. And Royce seemed to be everything I'd dreamed of. The fairy tale prince, come to make me a princess. We were engaged before I'd known him for two months. It wasn't a long engagement, either. Plans went ahead for the most lavish wedding. It was going to be everything I'd ever wanted. When I called at Vera's, I no longer felt jealous…"

But her words became harsher, shorter. This wasn't her story, after all.

"I was at her place that night. Vera walked me to the door as I was leaving, her baby in her arms and her husband at her side, his arm around her waist. It was dark in the streets, the lamps already on. I hadn't realized how late it was. It was cold, too. Very cold for late April. The wedding was only a week away, and I was worrying about the weather as I hurried home. I can remember that clearly. I remember every detail about that night. I clung to it so hard… in the beginning, I thought of nothing else. And so I remember this, when so many pleasant memories have faded away completely."

She looked at me then. "You'll do well to remember the good you had, especially now. Your first few years can define you – define your future in this world."

"I was a few streets from my house when I heard them," she continued her story, while I considered her earlier words. It was so hard to remember the good memories when so much of it had been so horrible toward the end. "A cluster of men under a broken streetlamp, laughing too loud. Drunk. And then he called my name. It was Royce and his friends, sons of other rich men. He ripped off my jacket and tore my hat out of my hair. The pins wrenched my hair from the roots, and I'd cried out in pain. They seemed to enjoy that – the sound of my pain…"

Rage roared through me, blistering hot. It reminded me of a wet, cold night in a town with Bella's warmth clinging to my arm. Men screaming. Red.

"I wanted to die," Rosalie admitted, "but Carlisle changed me instead. And after he changed me, I murdered them all. I saved Royce for last. I hoped that he would hear of his friends' deaths and understand, know what was coming for him. I hoped the fear would make the end worse for him. I think it worked. He was hiding inside a windowless room behind a door as thick as a bank vault's, guarded outside by armed men. I was overly theatrical. It was kind of childish, really. I wore a wedding dress I'd stolen for the occasion. He screamed when he saw me, and a lot more that night. Saving him for last was a good idea – made it easier for me to control myself, make it slower."

"I wasn't slow with James," I said. But I understood her satisfaction. It was primal, consuming, more cathartic than words could describe. "I tore him away from Victoria so she would suffer."

I wanted to take my time with her, anyway. My Royce.

I almost expected Rosalie to gape at me, to regard me with horror like Charlotte had, or change the subject like Alice had, but of course she nodded. She understood the deep, safe void revenge created. "I thought you were… different when you were human. I thought you were arrogant, reckless, had no sense of self-preservation to think you could kill one of us, but I realize now you were desperate. You were doing everything you could to keep those around you safe and keep yourself human. I would've done it all the same, if I were faced with the same circumstances. It was why I wanted to speak with you when Alice presented the option. I was brutish to you, and I'm sorry."

I nodded. Even though I didn't need her approval or understanding, it was a relief to know someone didn't think I was a monster. But it didn't answer the problems left in the wake of our devastation. While totally different, Rosalie and I wanted to live dreams that were impossible now. "But we still ended up the same. And now I'm… lost."

"I was, too," Rosalie replied. "I still am, sometimes. Eternity isn't a concept one can easily digest over one night, or over the course of ninety years. The same can be said for the grief. Some days you still mourn what once was. But… you learn that other paths – other versions of yourself that you may not have let yourself consider before – open to you."

I frowned at her. "I'm sorry, I… I don't understand."

She smiled kindly. "I only had one other interest besides children and general wifery. Cars. I always found their mechanics fascinating but anything beyond housekeeping was prohibited for me. Until the times changed, and I was able to release some of the bitterness over what had become of me. Engineering opened doors to my life – to my potential that I never would have known if I were human. It gave me something more than beauty to place value in.

"While this isn't the life I envisioned for myself, I can still acknowledge it isn't without its opportunity," she said. "Now, I can live any other life I please. So remember the good, Blaire. Remember that you still have more than you've lost. You can rebuild. You can make yourself new."

The conversation eased into quiet, suggested times to meet and places to go, because there was so much of a world that could be discovered, too. Both human and vampiric. That there would be enough time to learn about it all and live it all.

That just because I was lost didn't mean I couldn't find myself again.

V

Ever since I started writing SAVAGE, I realized how much Blaire and Rosalie had in common, so I just had to have a chapter that addressed it. This was honestly the perfect time, because I think Blaire needed it. I couldn't imagine a life where everything is ripped away from you, including your dreams and passions. I don't know what I'd do in a world where I couldn't write. That being said, I do have wonderful plans for Blaire's future that I've already hinted at in both of these stories now, because I always knew what she'd want to do when soccer stopped being an option for her.

Anyway, I wonder how far Blaire and Roses's similarities will go when Bella proposes the vote for her mortality at the end of this story.

Which hasn't even started yet.

Muwahahahahaha.

And if you're interested in other stories that are just ramping up, as well as some self-promotion, my original serial novel on Wattpad is ongoing with weekly updates! It's called ONCE UPON A LIE, and it's available for free on Wattpad! We just posted our season one finale, and we're trying to break 2,000 views before the season two release that will launch in a couple of weeks!