Thanks to those of you who called out that weird upload glitch - hopefully this works better. Let me know! 3

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Thursday May 4th, 1933

2 days until the wedding

I waited upstairs for another hour before making my next move.

I opened the door to my bedroom and peeked out, sniffing the air. I caught both Carlisle and Esme's scents immediately. Following my nose, I tiptoed to the pitiful excuse of a room that Carlisle called his study, then knocked softly on the wooden door.

"Please come in, Rosalie," he called.

For some reason, my stomach dropped. His assumed sense of authority irked me.

I would have to pull out all the stops if I wanted to get my way, and I didn't like making an underhanded entrance.

I opened the door, eyes wide, leaning into the fear and innocence of a girl whose entire life had been taken, resurrected, reanimated, and forced into some grotesque, never ending nightmare in which even her own thoughts weren't safe.

I didn't have to try very hard.

Esme and Carlisle were sitting together on an upholstered bench, its fabric bleached from untold years of existence. They were holding hands and looking up at me, waiting for me to speak.

Rather than taking a seat in one of the armchairs across from them, I stood and wrung my pretty little hands, eyes on the floor.

"I'm sorry for my outburst earlier," I said quietly. "I just… I don't know how to…"

When neither of them rushed to comfort me, I peeked up.

"Take a seat, dear," Esme encouraged.

Why did it feel like a trap?

"I… I don't want to."

"Why not?"

I didn't have an answer. "Because I don't want to, and you can't make me."

It was weak, but it was true. Even if I did just give away whatever leverage I thought I'd had walking into the room.

They were both looking at me gently. "You're right," Carlisle said. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

"Don't I?" I burst out into maniacal laughter. "I'm still alive, aren't I?"

They said nothing and just looked.

So I went on. "I don't want to bond with the revolting curmudgeon everyone refers to as Edward Masen, but I'm expected to be touched that I won't be alone while the rest of the town goes to my wedding. I don't want to live in this shed you call a house, where the only time I can leave is when I have the privilege of devouring forest creatures with my bare hands. I don't want to hear him on the radio, saying he loves me and wants me to come home. I don't want to be tasked with finding things to do to fill my time for the rest of time. I don't want to do anything. I don't want this… life. It's not mine, and I don't want it."

They remained silent. Their eyes were full of pity for me.

I wanted to claw my skin off.

"I don't want you experimenting on Henry Marshall!" I cried, jabbing a finger at Carlisle. "I don't want you to think you have the right to decide who lives and who dies, because you don't. You don't care, and if you did, you would've let me die in the street like I was supposed to."

I trained my glare on Esme. "And you? I don't want to partake in this 'playing house' charade you seem to be committed to. I don't want to be your substitute daughter. I don't want to come up with some story to explain to people why I'm barren against my will. I don't want to be like you! I don't want to be you!"

They could've been statues. They didn't look insulted in the slightest.

"I want to get married!" I wailed. "I want to walk down the aisle on my father's arm and have the people of Rochester think I'm the most beautiful thing they've ever seen, because I am! I was! I am!"

I wasn't even making sense anymore.

"I want a husband who loves me, and I want to have pretty babies with my husband, who loves me. I want to be a mother! I want my husband to kiss me when he comes home from an honest day's work and pick up our babies and spin us around because we're his whole world!" I wiped my eyes as if tears were falling – which they weren't – which enraged me all over again. "I want to cry, goddamnit! I want other people to cry because they want to be me! I want a garden and a house and staff and expensive furniture and a nursery and playdates with Vera and Poppy and Marie, I want to be devastated when I start to develop crow's feet, I want to die of old age in a big white bed, surrounded by the family that I built, who look like me, and who love me, and who will miss me when I'm gone."

This was humiliating. I'd never been hysterical like this.

I was sure it was unbecoming, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

Well, since I'd dug the hole so deep, and they apparently already knew…

"I want to kill him and the rest of them. Brutally. But you already knew that." I gritted my teeth. "And I want my fucking wedding dress. That's what I want. And I get everything I want."

Satisfied with my tantrum, I crossed my arms and tried to look like I wasn't afraid of their reaction.

They waited a while before either of them spoke, both leaning forward in their armchairs with knots between their eyebrows.

Finally, Carlisle looked at Esme, who started her sermon.

"You're well within your rights to want all of those things," Esme said gently. "They're all things I had hoped for, too."

"And what made you finally give up on yourself?" I uttered the words before I meant to.

"I haven't given up," she said. "In the twelve years it's been since I died, I've actually gotten most of the things I wanted. I have a husband, who loves me – "

"I worship you," Carlisle corrected. I concealed my dry heave.

" – who worships me. I have a son in Edward. And, though you have every right to refuse me, I will always have space in my home for you. Always."

I tsked.

"There is more to being a mother than pregnancy, Rosalie," she instructed strictly – and somehow still warmly?! How did she do that?

"I know that," I huffed. I didn't think that hard about her words, but I agreed with her because I wanted her to shut up.

"Then you know your life has value," she concluded. "Whether you are a mother or not. Whether you become pregnant or not. Your life, on its own, has value."

"Value to po-ten-tial hus-bands, Esme." I clapped along with my enunciation. Apparently, she lacked in brains what she had in beauty. "There isn't a single useful thing about me outside of the role I was put on this very Earth to play – attract a husband, marry, have and raise his progeny, die happily."

"So you believe your value can only truly be assessed by a man?" Esme asked.

"It's not like anyone else's opinion matters," I spat indignantly.

"You believe that only a husband's opinion is valid, Rosalie?" she pressed.

"Obviously. That's what I've been trying to tell you," I countered.

Esme nodded, then looked to Carlisle. "Husband, will you please take the floor?"

Oh my God.

She didn't need to rub her marital status in my face.

I turned on my heel and headed for the door, but Esme got there first. I groaned.

"Please sit, Rosalie," Carlisle asked. "Please."

Clearly, I wasn't getting out of this nonsense without playing along. I pivoted and sat down, literally biting my tongue.

"I want to apologize," he started

"You've done that a lot," I lashed.

"I want to apologize," he continued, "for the falsehoods the world has told you about your worth. You and I both know that I am not directly responsible for that, so you can't be cross with me."

He smiled a little, amused by his own logic. I blew out a long breath and stared at the ceiling.

"The fact that you exist at all – in any state of being – is a miracle. As a girl, as a woman, as a bride, as a wife, as a mother, as a human, as a vampire. As a victim. A survivor. An unmarried woman… and as a barren woman."

I hissed. I was still looking at the ceiling.

"You are worth something immeasurable," he told me. "You are worth more than a white wedding for Rochester to gawk at. You are worth more than daily bouquets of the finest flora."

I flinched, looking at him. How did he know about my daily deliveries?

He looked back at me seriously. "You are worth more than money can buy."

…Okay, that got my attention.

I just kept staring at him. I couldn't let him know.

"Your life, in any and every form, is worth living," he said easily, without a trace of sarcasm or malice. "No matter the opinions of men or anyone at all, for that matter."

He waited for me to say something back, like he'd gotten through to me or something.

"Just like all your other apologies, Doctor Cullen," I replied with an equal amount of effort. "I don't buy that for a second."

I stood and headed for the door again. This time, Esme let me pass.

In a wondrous turn of events, Edward had apparently returned from his adventure in the woods. I walked by where he sat on the loveseat, his nose still in that fucking book, without looking at him.

"I think you got through to her," I heard him call out behind me.

I went for his throat.