Chapter 13 – Couldn't Let You Go

We hear the dogs barking first. Rosalie cocks her head to listen, a restraining hand on my arm as we hear tramping feet coming closer.

"That must be the search party that Edward mentioned," she says. "You shouldn't be here when they arrive, especially with dogs – I'm sure they won't have any suspicions that we're actually involved, but we still want everything here to look completely ordinary. You should go into the house, up to the attic maybe."

I frown. I made this mess, and I don't really like the idea of hiding away and shirking responsibility while the others take the heat. But with my eyes glowing ruby red I don't really have much of a choice, so I do as Rosalie suggests and retreat to the house.

It's a couple of men and a younger boy that appear in the yard, two dogs sniffing around their heels. Carlisle greets them from the porch, carefully downwind of the dogs so they don't scent him and get riled up, and answers their questions. No, we haven't seen anyone around. Haven't heard anything unusual. Certainly we'll keep an eye out. He hopes they find who they're looking for. One of the dog howls, until the man calls it away and from my position behind the dormer windows I watch as they head back out into the forest.

"It's all right," Rosalie joins me in the attic. "They've gone."

"I keep thinking that he just went out fishing. Like I did." I turn away from the window. "They're looking for him just like my family must have gone out looking for me…and they won't ever find out." I flop down on her chaise. "My family won't ever know."

Rosalie sits beside me. "Your family are sure that you've died, even if they're not quite sure how it happened," she says. "They thought it likely after the first day you didn't come home, when they found all the blood on the riverbank, but the dead bear at the scene was hard to explain. They thought you might have killed it and been injured enough to die yourself, and then been taken by other animals. But they were also afraid that maybe you'd been…taken. Humans can be just as monstrous as the monsters sometime. I didn't want them to have to go on wondering and hoping and agonising, so a little later we took the remains of your clothes, and some bones, and we left them where they'd be found. We hoped it might lend a little credence to the theory that you'd been taken by an animal, but it would give your family a measure of certainty in any case."

"Bones! Where did you get bones?!" I say in horror. "Are you out robbing graves?!"

"No!" Rosalie rolls her eyes. "We're not completely amoral! You can buy them with the right connections– for medical research and things. And if you have a couple of clearly human bones you can add some animal bones and…well, people see what they believe they're going to see."

"That's how we get away with a lot of things, isn't it?" I say. "By playing into people's assumptions. Making them see and think what we want them to see – anything but the truth."

Rosalie smiles faintly. "The real story is so fantastical, it's very easy to cast people's thoughts elsewhere. Why think 'vampire' when you can think practically anything else? You had vanished, leaving behind pints of blood soaked into the dirt of a riverbank, and then they find some human long bones and tattered remains of boots and overalls - what's more likely? That a supernatural creature of myth and legend was abroad in Gatlinburg, Tennessee that morning…or that you were taken by an animal?"

"I see your point." I gnaw on a fingernail, and even though I'm not sure I want the answer I still ask the question. "So you went back home? Did you see my family?"

"I did. Not the first time – Carlisle and Edward were with me then, we left them money as Carlisle said we would. But I went back later, alone, a few times." Rosalie shrugs. "It's hard to explain. Part of it was guilt for what I'd done to them when I brought you here, but…really, I just wanted to know. I thought that perhaps I could learn something that would help me understand you, and maybe then I'd understand why I couldn't look at you without feeling the whole world spin."

"Did you?"

"Not really." Rosalie takes my hand, watching our fingers interlace before she looks back up at me. "I saw how much they love you. I won't lie to you – they were devastated by the loss of you. But I also saw their strength, and the way they've all come together, and I think they'll be okay." She squeezes my hands. "They were all just as you described them – I see why you love them!"

I give her a lopsided smile. The fog that becoming a vampire has laid over my human memories make my family seem further away than the time I've been here should warrant, but it still makes my heart glad to know that they're okay.

"They look like you," she goes on, reaching up to twine one of my curls around her fingers. "All your sisters have the same hair. Your brother has your laugh. And your mother has the same eyes."

"Not anymore." Especially not after today's forbidden feast, which will have turned my irises blood red.

"Not anymore," Rosalie allows. "But it doesn't matter. I'll always remember the way you looked when I first saw you."

"Will you tell me about it?" I ask tentatively. "Because I know what it was like from my side – well, sort of anyway, it's kind of a jumbled mess in my mind - but I still don't know why."

"I'm not sure I'll ever really be able to explain the why of it." Rosalie hesitates. "I've boasted of my control, but the truth is it failed that day. I smelled your blood, and in that moment nothing else mattered but that I would have it. My iron will and perfect control…it all came to nothing in the face of that temptation."

"But you didn't do it."

"No. I went towards the scent, thinking only that I had to have it. You were face down on the riverbank and the amount of blood spilled across the ground told me clearly that you were already dying, so I even justified it to myself. Your death was inevitable, and if I hastened it just a little it wouldn't matter, it might even be a kindness - oh Eleanor, I came so close! But then I turned you over and you opened your eyes and looked at me…and I couldn't." Rosalie moves closer, running her fingertips lightly over the curve of my cheek and gazing at me in wonderment. "It was like you spoke to my soul without words, and suddenly the only thing I knew was that I couldn't see you die. I had to save you, whatever it took." She leans forward and with the lightest touch kisses my eyelids. "Whatever it took…but I didn't know it would be this. I thought Carlisle could do something. But when he couldn't…I couldn't let you go."

She doesn't need to explain the why of it to me, not any more than this. Because among the confused memories of the bear attack and my transformation, there is one moment that stands out as clear as a beacon in my mind. The same moment that Rosalie is talking about; when I opened my eyes as I lay there dying and saw her, and knew there wasn't anything I wouldn't do just to keep looking at her. This inexplicable, irresistible sense of belonging together.

Rosalie plants tiny kisses across my face. "I couldn't explain it, not then. All I knew was that you had to live, that my world would be unbearable if you were gone." Her hands twine in my hair and she angles my head until her lips touch mine. "And now I have this. Oh Nell, we have this…you're everything I never knew enough to want."

There aren't any more words then. Just kisses, long and deep, and the wild bliss of feeling her in my arms. I might not have a beating heart anymore, but even so desire is like the pulsing beat of a drum throbbing through me as we tangle together on the chaise. She opens her mouth to mine and breathes my name as I draw her onto my lap, her body moulding against mine as I slide down onto the chaise. Her hair feels like silk in my fingers and her mouth feels like fire on mine, and even though we're both still fully dressed my whole body is exquisitely aware of how she feels against me.

There's no sense of time. Just heat and softness and strength, overwhelming pleasure and an aching desire for more of her. I am captivated by everything about the girl in my arms, and the euphoria of what we are doing is so strong I think I could stay like this until my very bones turn to dust.

But when my hands slide up her thigh towards her hip, pushing her skirt aside, she grasps my wrist and lifts her head. "Eleanor…"

I immediately pull back. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Rosalie teasingly catches my lower lip briefly in between her teeth and then grins at me. "I'm not angry."

I groan a little, and kiss her again with a brief laugh. "You're irresistible, is what you are! But I don't want to push anything on you…I mean, considering this morning you could barely look at me I feel like this is a pretty quick acceleration."

"Couldn't look at you?" Rosalie wrinkles her nose. "I couldn't stop looking at you. You've had me all in tied up in knots since the first time I laid eyes on you and I just had no idea what to do about it! But I'm sorry for the way I've behaved – I should have dealt with my own feelings without dragging you into my turmoil. It wasn't fair to you."

"Now I don't want you be sorry. That doesn't matter, not when we're here now." I run my hand down her back and squeeze her hip. "I know this whole thing kind of turns your world on its head."

Rosalie laughs self-consciously. "I feel so foolish. That I didn't recognise what this was and embrace it! But at the same time…I don't know how to be with you. Not just because you're a girl either, although that's a big part of it. It's certainly something I never even considered before this. But I also don't know how to express the strength and depth of what I feel for you – it feels too big for simply going on dates! Even if it wasn't – we're vampires, we can't exactly go out for dinner and drinks, or for picnics in the park."

"Well we could," I say. "It'd just be out in the forest, hunting up our own. Dinner and drinks all in one."

"That's not quite the same thing! It's not simply a question of dating either though; what does a vampire relationship even look like for me? Human relationships have a defined path and purpose – I was going to date and marry so I'd have a husband to look after me and we'd be a family to have children. But that doesn't apply now. Admittedly Carlisle is the one who actually made the money, but he's given enough to me in my own name that I would never need anyone else to look after me financially. As a vampire I have no need of a husband to partner me through social situations, and I'm perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. And children are out of the question."

"That's a very transactional way of looking at relationships," I venture. "I mean, I see what you're saying…and I know how many eyebrows I raised in my human life because I wasn't interested in catching a husband at all! But I think about how my mama and my pa were with each other, and how Carlisle and Esme are now, and it isn't like that at all. I think that maybe…if it's good…shouldn't it mostly be about love?"

"It should be. But for me, that's…it's terrifying. The idea of opening myself up to love and allowing myself to be vulnerable felt almost impossible." Rosalie touches my lip with a fingertip. "You burst into my life and I knew if I let you I would be utterly swept away. And I didn't know if I could bear it." Her face twists in something like grief. "I've told you how my human life ended. I remember it all, and even more than the physical agony of it all I remember the fear. I have never been so afraid…I died in absolute terror. But when I woke up, when I realised what I was and what it meant, that was the only good thing. I would never have to be afraid again. No one could touch me. And then YOU came along, and it changed everything. Because if I let myself go, if I gave into it and let myself love you…I could lose you, and that made every other fear I'd ever had fade away to nothing. I didn't know if I could live being afraid again."

"You won't lose me." I tighten my arms around her. "I love you, and I will do – or not do – whatever it takes to be with you."

"You've been doing it already. The way you take me just as I am, without judgement or demands or expectations. The way you offered me your heart so willingly and openly." Rosalie rests her forehead against mine and gazes at me with clear, honey gold eyes. "And in a world where the way I look has always drawn every eye, human and vampire, I think you might be the first person who has ever really seen me."

I kiss her again, feeling her smile against my mouth. "Beautiful girl, you are so worth seeing."

And I'm not talking about the white gold angel perfection of her. Anyone with eyes can see that, and it's an image she cultivates and wears like armour. I'm talking about the things that she keeps to herself - her fierce and complex heart, her courage and cleverness, the tenderness and vulnerability that she's only just begun to share with me.

Wrapped up together here in her attic I'm seeing another part of her too. It's less polished and immaculate, a little wilder and more intimate, and I think that maybe I'm the only person to ever see this way. Tousled hair, her shirt with an extra button undone, the tails of it pulled out of the waistband of a skirt that's pushed up above her knees. Her face soft, eyes dark with desire, lips slightly parted as she breathes sweetness against my mouth. So beautiful.

I want to lose myself in her. Lose myself in kisses that go from long and slow to hard and demanding, lose myself in the feel of her body stretched out against mine and her arms tight around me, lose myself in the touch of her hands and the silk of her hair against my fingers and the scent of her skin in my nose. My body burns, and aches, and thrills at what we're doing, wanting everything and then more, until eventually I feel almost like more sensation will cause me to shatter.

"Oh Rosalie," I groan. Stretched along the chaise on my back, I tip my head back and close my eyes for a moment.

Sprawled half alongside me and half on top of me, Rosalie has my thigh held firmly in between her legs and I groan again as I feel the subtle movement as she presses against me. "Oh Eleanor," she mimics.

I laugh raggedly. "Beautiful girl, I can't…you're killing me here."

"You're immortal," Rosalie smirks at me.

"Which is good, because I don't think a lifetime would even come close to being enough time for me to be with you." I ease myself upright, bringing Rosalie onto my lap as I do so. I press a brief kiss against her neck, thinking to myself how utterly perfectly she fits in my arms, and then sit up straighter and smile at her. "But I don't want to rush you, and if we keep on kissing and touching like we are…well, who knows how that's going to end up. I don't want you to feel pushed – I want you to be sure."

"I'm sure," Rosalie says. "Very sure, but also…perhaps not ready for more than this right now." With a slightly uncertain look towards me she begins straightening her clothes. "If that's all right."

"Of course it's all right," I look at her in surprise. "What, did you think I would…what?"

Rosalie shakes her head. "Nothing! Of course you wouldn't…you didn't." She glances over at the soft morning light falling through the dormer windows. "Do you realise we spent all night up here? And all that time you never did anything that I didn't want you to do. I know that's how you are, and I know that I don't need to walk on eggshells around you, or be afraid that you'll be angry."

"But it wasn't always like that," I guess. "Your fiancé…"

"Yes. He could be…difficult."

I see the shadows in her eyes, and I can't stop myself from tipping her face up and kissing her gently. "I'm not him. Won't ever be him."

"I know." Rosalie kisses me again and then pushes me away and starts smoothing her hair. "You're different in so many ways…lucky for me."

I grin at her and nimbly do up the two buttons on her blouse that have come adrift. "I'm not him. And seriously – look, I don't honestly know that I'm ready to jump ahead and do everything to you that I want to do either! I mean, unlike you I've spent a whole lot of time in my life, sometimes with a hand down my pants, fantasising about what it might be like to be with a pretty girl who likes me back but I've never actually DONE anything much with one! This is new to me too."

"You do that?" Rosalie raises an eyebrow so far it's nearly lost in her hairline. "Really? You…touch yourself?"

"Well chance would be a fine thing, in this house where everyone hears everything, even a girl's private thoughts…but what are you saying? You DON'T?" I look her at her in astonishment. "But all those hours in the bathtub…what are you doing in there?"

"Washing my hair! Reading!" Rosalie looks horrified.

I start laughing helplessly. "I'm sorry, but…if you don't…does that mean you've never…" I flounder. If Rosalie doesn't even know her own body well enough to bring herself to climax, this whole thing might have just got a whole lot more awkward!

"You don't have to laugh at me," Rosalie says stiffly, drawing backwards. "You're acting like I'm a freak."

"Aww Rosa-girl, don't get your feathers all ruffled! No one's a freak – not you and not me. Well, not as long as we don't count being vampires." I clasp both her hands and bring them up to my lips so I can kiss her knuckles. "You don't know what you don't know. But you might…well, next time you're alone in the tub maybe you just take your time and find your pearl and see what happens? You might be surprised."

Rosalie looks doubtful, and I let the matter drop. It's not that important, and I'm not going to push her into anything. I think she needs to feel like she's in control and I'm content to let her set the pace.

From below I hear the sound of Edward at the piano, and it reminds me that for all we've been undisturbed up here, we're not alone in the house.

"What do you think Carlisle and Esme are going to think about this?" I ask.

"And Edward." Rosalie grimaces. "I'm not sure that sapphic erotica playing out within range of his mental ear is going to be something he's happy about."

"Is that what you call what we've been doing?" I say. "Well, you might be right. But I also know that he knew how I feel about you from pretty much the first moment, and is not morally outraged by the idea no matter how uptight he might seem. Carlisle and Esme on the other hand…"

Rosalie frowns, stroking her thumb across the back of my hand. "I don't know. It's not as though the subject has ever came up in casual conversation! I know Esme originally had hopes that Edward and I would fall for each other, but she's definitely let that go by now. How accepting either of them will be of this I'm not sure."

"Well I guess we'll find out soon enough. Because I can't hide this. I mean, I'm not going to be throwing you down and having my wicked way with you on the dining table while Carlisle's trying to do the crossword…but I can't hide how I feel about you. Not all the time."

"You won't have to." Rosalie squeezes my hands. "We've got no reason to be ashamed, and we've nothing to hide. Not here at home among family. Either they accept it or they don't – but nothing will change how I feel about you, and how much I want us to be together."