CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The last leg of the drive home of their trip had been done in silence. An insufferable silence that left Rosalie shuffling in her seat. Every few seconds, Violet would glance over to her and Rose would stop, hands gripping the steering wheel. A couple of minutes later she would start again, and eventually, some hours away from Forks, the other girl had placed her arm over Rose's on the gear stick, the movement making her still.
Violet slept most of the way, her chest rising and falling steadily, letting the heavy locket move with her. It looked right, tangling around her red-flecked hair and Rosalie could imagine her wearing it for years to come, never unwinding it from her neck, even when there came another.
Another. Rose had never thought that far ahead. She'd always been pragmatic, able to consider too many possibilities until it trapped her with immobility. But recently she'd fallen into Edward's influence, thinking of those moments. First, the moment in which she'd kissed Violet, feeling so wholly significant that Violet would never forget her. Then, in the future, the moment when they'd part ways and Rosalie would be left to yearn for eternity.
There would be others. Violet was beautifully human. She had the capacity to love and lose and still be whole and hopeful at the end of it. Yet it killed Rosalie to think of such a thing.
The weight of her hand unmoving on Rose's hand felt suffocating.
Violet hadn't moved her hand until the Jeep rolled to a stop and her eyes fluttered open again to land on the sight of her house. Her dad was already in the driveway and Rose watched as Violet hopped out the side and jumped into his hug.
"I hope you girls had a good time," he said, beaming down at her. Rosalie smiled back easily.
"Thanks, sir."
"I don't know how they do it up in that big fancy house of yours but you can call me Robbie," he said, nodding down to her with the warmest of expressions.
"Dad!"
Robbie Green only laughed, squeezing his arm around her shoulder, making Violet's bright pink face land against his chest.
"Thanks for taking care of my little girl."
Rosalie didn't linger. Leaving the Jeep in the driveway of the large farmhouse, she took her own car from where it had waited in the garage and zipped out onto the old backroads, hiding behind the thick cover of the trees from the sun that threatened to peak out. Immediately, she missed the feeling of the large-weight truck beneath her. Her BMW seemed small and inconsequential in comparison.
She took the long way home, rolling down the long, country rodes at a speed she liked to run at. With a deep breath, Rosalie closed her eyes and let the car float under her grasp, foot digging into the accelerator. Her fingers flexed around the steering wheel and she breathed as if she was human, as if it was the last she might take. Imagined that the car could tumble at any moment and she wouldn't be able to climb out of the wreck and just brush it off.
Rosalie reached her home in one peace. She stepped out of the car, letting her face bathe in the cool sun, and wondered if her life might've been easier had the sun been her enemy. That's how the stories had always told it- the creatures of the night, the dark undead, a vampire- was not supposed to face the light of day, the light of God.
Rosalie remembered the pain of first opening her eyes, changed. What little sun flooded into the room burned her eyes, making her press her back into the shadows until the wood splintered beneath her shoulders. The darkness had soothed away the pain for the briefest of time. It would have been easier to stay like that, to fear the day. But ease didn't agree with Rosalie.
