CHOICES
Monotony became meaningless. I no longer remembered a time when day-to-day life among humans seemed monotonous. Every hour was so swamped with torment that even the idea of monotony had become impossible.
It would have been easier to quit, but I slogged on, committing to every act perfectly. I behaved like the perfect gentleman to everyone I associated with, kept my temper in check, and shirked none of my responsibilities.
Since leaving Forks was no longer an option, I returned to my public routine. I hunted no more than absolutely necessary, wrestled with Jasper, pulverized boulders, and attended every single one of my classes.
Edward informed us that the girl never mentioned a word about my abilities. When asked about the accident, she repeated the same story over and over again until even the most rabid of her fans eventually got bored and stopped asking for details. In time it was obvious, even to us, that her story wouldn't change. We grew more comfortable.
To be clear, my siblings grew more comfortable as the weeks passed. I continued to exist in mute frustration. Edward would occasionally pat my back in support, or grip my elbow in a show of brotherly love, but mostly I endured my self-made torture alone.
He once asked me why I continued to fight through this. Now that it seemed confirmed she would speak to no one, I was free to leave. There was no easy answer to give him - at least none I could vocalize. I'd considered going through with my initial plan of putting oceans between us on many occasions over the passing weeks, but now that I was getting used to the rhythm of our silent dance, it was becoming harder to consider leaving.
Mostly, I didn't want to hurt her and since I inexplicably couldn't leave, the only sure way of keeping her alive was to pretend she didn't exist.
At first, it worried me just a little that my attempt to keep from causing her pain would defeat itself. No one appreciates being ignored, but the whole point was that by doing this I would save her even more pain in the long run. I didn't know what I would do if she objected to my mute treatment. Hopefully, I would be strong enough to persevere even if she protested. The best outcome would be if she decided she didn't want to know a supernatural monster anyway, and forgot about me entirely.
At the time, I was sure the first day would be the hardest, and that with time I would be able to grow accustomed to her presence. At the end of the first day I had been completely sure it would be the hardest, but I was wrong.
The first couple of days back to school were, in fact, the easiest. I was able to slip into the back of the class after it started. She never even saw me, though I watched her every movement through the hour. During the breaks on Monday and Tuesday, the whole family ditched lunch under the pavilion, eliminating the need to pretend to be normal. Lab would be harder as we shared a desk.
When the time came on Wednesday afternoon I was already seated when she entered. Edward had thought it might be easier to keep from acknowledging her if I was already there, and I followed his advice. I'd listened to her approach along the back of the class, listened to her sigh as she bent to put her bag away and pulled out the stool.
"Good morning, Emmett," she'd said. Her voice had been friendly and welcoming, almost as if she'd already forgiven my poor behavior at the hospital. Could she possibly have forgiven a broken promise so easily?
The question burned in my throat nearly as hotly as my desire for her blood. Just barely, I stuck to the plan by giving her a slight nod without looking at her, and turned back toward the front of the room. I could almost feel her rage behind me, but she didn't say anything else that day. Or ever again.
As soon as we got back from school that afternoon I gave Jasper about half a second's warning before tackling him. We fought viciously, breaking boulders over each other's heads and sometimes bodily throwing each other into cliff faces. There was a catharsis in the violence of our fight - an unspoken "I love you, and I forgive you."
We repeated the match the next day, and the next, until they became accepted as a daily habit. Occasionally Edward would take Jasper's place, but they both seemed to know that fighting was the only thing that made me feel better.
The possibility of loving her didn't occur to me again. I was too occupied by forcing myself to not notice her. The effort took all of my concentration; any left over capacity was taken by coping with the pain caused by my self-denial.
More than a month had passed and it got harder every single day. The ever-building urgency to be near her threw a giant wrench in my plans. Familiarity was supposed to make this easier - what is that old adage? Time heals all wounds? Apparently, time also allows wounds to fester, because I was coming to the limit of my abilities. This must have been why Alice was so skeptical. She must have seen this slow degradation of my strength.
Thirsting for the girl was now the least of my worries. It was the only torment that did seem to get better with familiarity. Every interaction would make me start from scratch, fire would lance down my throat and burn up my chest, but generally by the end of the class I could breathe just a little easier.
Ignoring La Davis wasn't easy by itself, but what I didn't expect were the other little tortures ignoring her would cause. The first of these was my curiosity. I was constantly aware of her movements and her moods. When something changed or shifted my first instinct would be to ask her why. Of course, this would defeat the whole purpose of ignoring her, but not being able to ask irked me more with every missed opportunity.
When she was with her human friends I listened in, trying to glean whatever information about her I could. I thought it might be a good way to assuage the need I felt to ask her myself, but it just raised more questions. She would frequently drop into the monotone I'd heard on her first day, or answer questions with generic answers that were clearly already expected. Occasionally I would catch her asking a question to which she obviously had no interest in the answer, and I wanted to know why she did that.
This girl was an enigma. It was like she was playing a role she had no real interest in, but what reason could any human have for role-playing in their real life like that? The fact that I couldn't simply ask her made my frustration build rapidly.
The torment that surprised me the most was my fury toward the little blonde boy that hung around her like a fungus that couldn't be removed. Never in a million years did I think I would ever find a human so infuriating, but I considered tripping him and watching him fall on more than one occasion.
The only benefit to his obsession was that it fed my own. He constantly asked her questions or engaged her in conversation in some other way. He never asked the right things or followed up in the correct way, but his constant barrage still offered up little tidbits that she would sometimes slip up and drop.
Through him, I discovered she had a dry sense of humor, but enjoyed the occasional pun. She genuinely cared about others, nearly to her own detriment. She was loving, and genuine and kind, and a whole lot less patient than she appeared.
The blonde never noticed any of these little slips, though. Didn't hear her when she spoke so glowingly about her niece and nephew, or described in detail the book she was reading. He had built up this imaginary picture of a girl that didn't exist. It was obvious in the way he interrupted her, and listened only long enough to tell his next story. He watched her constantly, but he didn't actually see her.
She deserved someone who saw her completely.
I would have told her that, but she couldn't exist for me.
The worst torment was that she seemed perfectly comfortable pretending I didn't exist either. It would have driven me mad if I wasn't hyper-aware that she still sometimes watched me the way she did before the accident. Alice would give us little warnings before she looked our way.
"La's going to stare at Emmett in a minute," Alice whispered to us during one Wednesday lunch break at the end of February. "Look normal!"
We shifted and fidgeted for the duration of her lingering look. I didn't know what it meant, but I was glad for it.
"I wish…" Alice gave a dramatic whoofing exhale.
"Don't even think about it, munchkin," I said sternly. "It's not happening."
She pouted just as dramatically as her sigh had been. She was anxious to form the friendship she had foreseen. It seemed like she missed the girl, even though she didn't even know her yet.
"I'll admit, you've done better than I thought you would," she frowned. "You've got the future all snarled up and senseless again. I hope you're happy."
"I don't know how to answer that, except my decision makes plenty of sense to me."
She snorted. It made me miss the sound La made when she was surprised or annoyed. The blonde kid was too generic to win it from her.
I was a little more tense than normal that day. Though I tried to hide it, my siblings were all very aware of this fact, each with their special gifts. Decades-long familiarity gave them the wisdom to refrain from pointing it out, and I was too embarrassed to admit the reason without a prompt.
The truth was becoming clearer by the day; I was jealous of a human.
The day before, I'd overheard La's blonde-fungus-friend telling one of his little buddies about a new club that had opened in town. They were making plans to go dancing together as a group. Everyone was coupling up, the Fungus had stated. He then proceeded to describe in excruciating detail how and when he would ask La to go with him and continued by expressing his certainty that she would agree.
This was it. This was the Awful Thing I'd been unconsciously waiting for. Some other, unworthy person to make their move on her. The rage this caused shouldn't have taken me by surprise, and yet, it was all I could focus on. It would be no effort at all to casually walk up behind him and snap his stupid little neck too quickly for anyone else to notice my crime.
Reign it in man, I talked myself down. I'd made my decision. I wasn't allowed to then whinge and whine about it. This, of course, did not help the irrational emotions that swept me, so I mulled and watched them from a distance.
As far as I knew the blonde hadn't worked up the courage to ask her by break, regardless of the boy's precise plans from the day before. It seemed La knew something was up, as she was moving more carefully around him. She made sure to enter the pavilion with Jessica and placed several people between herself and the boy before taking her own seat.
Their conversation was uninspired to the point of mind-numbing. La only joined in when nudged or asked a direct question. The idea of such a bland little shit taking her anywhere made me feel like I would break out in hives. Something I hadn't had since around 1922, long before my transition. If my dim human memories served, I'd tripped and fallen into a thorn bush and had gotten tangled in the branches. I'd only gotten free with the strategic use of a pocket knife and spent the rest of the week scratching at my skin feverishly. This human fungus was nearly as irritating as that rash had been.
When La's phone reminder went off she tried to duck away before The Blonde Fungus could catch up. Unfortunately, she was carrying a large, heavy box that slowed her down. I fought the urge to take it from her and felt another irrational rage when he caught up with her and took it in my place.
I couldn't watch this. I fought a second urge to knock him over as I passed, and headed straight for class. They followed me in an interminable amount of time later. The boy settled the box down on the floor beside her desk, and took up residence leaned against her side of our table. This had become a weekly habit.
I imagined knocking him on the top of the head with enough force to make his whole body sink into the ground like a pile driver.
"So, hey, La," the idiot faltered. He was waiting for her to ask. What a coward.
"Hey, Mike," she said back.
Oh right, his name was Mike. I endeavored to immediately forget that piece of information.
"Jessica asked me to go with her to the club thing next Saturday…" Fungus let the sentence trail off, obviously trying to lead La into the reaction he desired.
UGH! Twice the coward!
"That's great, Mike! You're going to have a whole lot of fun with her!" Her voice was bright and cheery. I would have laughed at the look of destitution on the kid's face, but I wasn't supposed to be noticing this little drama at all.
"No, I told her I would have to think about it."
Of course you did, I thought savagely. There was nothing likable about this boy.
"You did what?" La punctuated each word. Her voice dripped with disappointment. Oh, she was good. "Why did you do that?"
She clearly wanted very little to do with this stupid person. The knowledge caused happiness to swell inside my cold dead chest cavity until I thought I would burst. I'd known she was too smart to fall for someone like that, but I couldn't help the nagging worry he would somehow end up being her choice.
"Well, I was sort of wondering if maybe you wanted to go with me?" the boy wheedled.
This was it. The answer once and for all. She hesitated for only a fraction of a second.
In that millisecond I saw her future spread out more clearly than any vision Alice might have. I saw her choose some measly human, saw her go to grad school, choose a career, buy a house. I saw her adopt pets with whichever human she ended up finally saying yes to.
In that fraction of a second, I saw her beautiful and flushed with happiness as she walked down an aisle dressed in white. Walking toward a forever with someone that wasn't me. The happiness that had filled me fizzled into an aching melancholy. Could I withstand that? An existence of watching this girl live with anyone else?
That was the point, though - the crux of this whole issue. The conundrum I'd been grappling with for weeks. If I stayed away she would have the chance to live, breathe, grow. There was no guarantee that would happen if I gave in and broke our long silence.
It's possible, Tanya had said. To love a human.
The point I had been avoiding: Alice's vision. According to Alice, becoming involved with La would mean one of two things; she would die, or she would become undead.
If I was strong enough to keep from killing her outright, she might at least exist. If this option was something I could forgive myself for, then it made sense to at least offer her the choice. In time, once she understood the truth and the gravity of the options, it could be her decision to transition.
What was left of my resolve crumbled and swept away.
"You should tell Jessica 'yes,' Mike," she said.
The boy's eyes swept toward me aggressively. I had to remind myself that I shouldn't laugh at him. "Are you bringing someone else?"
La stiffened at his question. He hadn't even tried to disguise his possessiveness, his jealousy. In that moment I wouldn't have put it past her to pile drive the little shit into the ground herself.
"No, I'm not going at all. I've planned a trip to Seattle to get some stuff for the house." Her words were laced with her displeasure, but Fungus was far too oblivious to pick up on it.
"You can't go some other weekend?" What a whiner.
Since I already got the answer I was looking for I stopped listening. Instead, I allowed myself to face her and look at her properly for the first time in over a month. It felt like a pressure valve was released in my brain. I didn't realize how hard I'd been working to keep from looking at her until I suddenly stopped trying.
I watched her navigate what was left of her thorny conversation with The Fungus. She spoke deftly and left no doubt about the silly boy's chances.
Now that I was free to look, I couldn't stop. She was radiant in a light blue dress dotted with bumblebees and vines. The color suited her well.
When the bothersome blonde slouched away, La flopped onto her stool and propped her feet on the top wrung. She exhaled in a burst that blew her lips out, then rubbed at her temples. Her shoulders bent in and around herself as though she was protecting her vital organs from a blow. It seemed to be an exaggerated reaction for a minor inconvenient conversation.
I waited patiently for her to look up. It had been so long since we made eye contact. When she did eventually turn her attention my way she caught my stare and held it. She looked weary and confused, but also defiant.
I breathed in just a little, tasting her scent on the air. It scorched through me, but I'd gotten better about controlling my reactions. It had been two weeks since I last hunted. I knew she must be looking into pitch-black irises, but she didn't flinch. Silly, brave, incredible woman.
"Can I help you?" She snapped, but the anger sounded forced. At least, I thought so. She didn't look upset, just flustered. I opened my mouth to respond as the TA called the class to attention.
Several times through the hour I thought about halting my experiment to talk to her, but felt unsure where to start. Nagging worries and doubts plagued me and held my silence, eager as I was to speak with her mere moments ago.
Next to me, La was prematurely cleaning her station, dropping things with more violence than necessary, and slamming notebooks closed. She wiped everything down with ethanol and stared at the cover of her lab book for a long time before finally opening it, and pulling out a calculator.
"La," her name popped out of my mouth. I was as surprised to hear it as she was. Her heart sped to twice its normal beat for a few seconds before settling back into a regular rhythm. She met my gaze slowly.
"What, Emmett? Are you talking to me again?"
"Nope," I offered and nearly laughed at her comically frustrated expression.
"Then what can I do for you?" It was the voice - the one she used when she was only doing what was expected of her. The meaning clicked into place; she used it when she was hiding something; be it extraneous emotions, or history.
"Nothing, I just wanted to apologize for being so rude to you," I said cheerfully.
"Oh? And why's that?" The 'all of a sudden' was implied.
"I don't know…" I said bluntly. I hadn't realized I was going to speak at all, let alone come up with something to say, but I had to come up with something now. I thought quickly. Honesty is the best policy, right? "I think I've given up."
"Given up on what?" she asked.
Ensuring your survival, not falling in love with you… Probably shouldn't start with either of those things. "I'm not sure yet, but I don't want to think about it too much."
"I don't know what that means." She said flatly. When I didn't offer an explanation she shook her head. "You know what? I don't care. I'm not playing games with you. Either you're going to treat me like a person, or I'm going to go on pretending you don't exist."
Uhh… That is also an option. Alice never mentioned it was one, but La not wanting anything to do with me could absolutely change things. "That's definitely an option I hadn't considered."
She didn't trust me, and why should she? I'd treated her abominably. She should pack her bag, walk away, and never talk to me again. It would make the most sense, but I wanted to be worthy of her trust. I wanted to earn it properly and eventually be able to share everything with her.
Before I could gather my wits and respond more appropriately she'd grabbed her bag and was stomping toward the door. About halfway down the back of the room her shoulder strap snapped with a loud crack. The bag swung off her shoulder in a spectacular arc and dumped all over the floor.
For an instant, she didn't move. Body rigid, fists clenched by her sides, face pointed toward the ceiling. I imagined she would be screaming right then if she wasn't in a room full of people.
It very easily could have been the wrong thing to do, but I laughed. Great booming belly laughs. She looked so frustrated! It was such a simple thing, and yet the funniest thing in the world in that moment.
I was bent over laughing when I heard a tinkling laugh join my own. La had turned toward me and for whatever reason, instead of getting more frustrated, started laughing as well. Tears leaked from the corner of one of her eyes as she gripped her stomach in mirth.
Still chuckling, I went to her and picked the books up from the floor. Another student had found her pencil case under their desk and handed it over. I stuffed everything into her bag and carried it out of the classroom for her.
"Thank you," she said and wiped at the tears on her cheek.
"You're welcome," I responded. "Can I help you to your car with this?"
"No, thanks. I can carry it," she took the bag from me and tucked it under an arm. "I have another class anyway. See you next week."
She wiggled her fingers in a gesture of goodbye and slipped down the hall to the stairwell.
"Yeah…" I said to no one in particular. Next week is not soon enough.