Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene | Rosalie Hale

Chapter 2

Rosalie POV

July 23, 2005

I have always longed for love. Real love. Not two people pairing up based solely on physical attraction or wealth. I had always felt like I was loving someone for someone else's benefit.

I was made to believe that my love for Royce was something real. In reality, it was for my family's status. They wanted money. They wanted a social rank. They wanted perfect. Something I thought I already had enough of until my good friend, Vera, showed me what I could have. A child and a loving husband who would come home and kiss my cheek. I wanted what she had. I wanted love. Something Royce couldn't give me and something I couldn't give him no matter how hard I wanted to.

When Carlisle found me, nearly dead and alone on the street, he sought to turn me solely for the purpose of Edward. He had hoped we could have the type of love that he and Esme shared so deeply. I didn't want Edward. In fact, I was repulsed by him and his family. And yet his rejection cut deeper than I ever thought it would. How could he not want me? I had been brought up believing that everyone wanted me. I was there to leave the men wanting me and the women wanting to be me. Carlisle damned me to an eternity of having that times ten and yet not at all at the same time.

When I first saw Emmett, he reminded me of Vera's baby boy. Brown, curly hair. Dimples. That childish innocence radiating off of him. He was going to be the one, I had thought. He was going to be the person that made me have purpose again. I brought him back to Carlisle in hopes that my existential crisis would finally be solved. But to my disappointment, he had rejected me as well. He, of course, felt bad, and we managed to maintain an amazing friendship that I never could've had with Edward.

Then Jasper came along, and I thought maybe it could be him. Maybe he could finally fix me. I wasn't entirely attracted to him. In fact, he had freaked me out a little at our first meeting. It wasn't long before he got married to his travel companion, Alice. I was much more fond of her than Jasper even if she did steal my potential last chance at love.

Even after all that, I still had not accomplished my goal of love. I didn't understand what was wrong. I was even more beautiful now that I was a vampire, but perhaps that was what had repulsed everyone. That I was some monster. No longer human. Some soulless woman that was destined to be alone no matter how much I had. I could be surrounded by every man in the world that wanted me, but it would never be able to work.

What was wrong with me?

I look up to find Emmett flirting with one of the Egyptian women trying to sell fruit to us. Emmett and I were on a trip in Africa and had decided to visit Carlisle's old friend, Amun, from the Egyptian coven. I had originally thought that this trip would help me get over my crisis, but instead, I fear the trip may have worsened it. I was surrounded by people finding and exploring love. Emmett flirted with almost every person that walked by us. Amun and his mate Kebi. Benjamin and his mate Tia. It's like I couldn't escape it. Love. What even is love? Everyone else had it so easy finding love for themselves, but all I could find was fake love. Love that was destined to fit others' perceptions of it and not my own.

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September 13, 2005

Emmett and I were standing behind Esme and Carlisle as we waited for them to hug Bella and wish her a happy birthday. Alice had interrupted our Africa trip for Edward's stupid human's birthday. This was a waste of all of our time, but Emmett insisted we go.

"Sorry about this, Bella," Carlisle apologizes. "We couldn't rein Alice in."

Bella could never understand my disappointment in her. Why does she keep wasting her time with us? The vampires. The soulless monsters with absolutely no purpose. She continues to throw away her life all because of her pathetic love for Edward.