Only For You (Twilight Fan Fiction)

Chapter Eleven

Rosalie was taking me to the baseball game that they were having. I was scared because Bella would be there and she didn't know about Rosalie and me but I could deal with it by watching the play baseball.

We headed out to the pitch and I stood in the corner with my arms crossed over touching my shoulders. I saw Bella get out the car and she instantly saw me.

"What are you doing here?" Bella asked confusion flooding her face

"I am with my girlfriend," I replied not looking at her

"Hang on what?"

"Rosalie is my girlfriend"

"Since when,"

"Since before you moved here now please don't talk to me"

Bella walked away from me and to the others.

"Was that you we heard, Edward?" Esme asked as she approached them.
　　
"It sounded like a bear choking," Emmett clarified. I laughed at Emmett's joke and he grinned at me.

Bella smiled hesitantly at Esme. "That was him."

"Bella was being unintentionally funny," Edward explained, quickly settling the score.
　　
Alice had left her position and was running, or dancing, toward us. She hurtled to a fluid stop at our feet. "It's time," she announced.
　　
As soon as she spoke, a deep rumble of thunder shook the forest beyond us, and then crashed westward toward town.
　　
"Eerie, isn't it?" Emmett said with easy familiarity, winking at Bella.
　　
"Let's go." Alice reached for Emmett's hand and they darted toward the oversized field; she ran like a gazelle. He was nearly as graceful and just as fast - yet Emmett could never be compared to a gazelle.
　　
"Are you ready for some ball?" Edward asked, his eyes eager, bright.
　　
Bella tried to sound appropriately enthusiastic. "Go team!"

He snickered and, after mussing Bella's hair, bounded off after the other two.
　　
His run was more aggressive, a cheetah rather than a gazelle, and he quickly overtook them.
　
"Shall we go down?" Esme asked in her soft, melodic voice, and Bella realized was staring open mouthed after him. She quickly reassembled her expression and nodded. Esme looked at me and I nodded as well. Esme kept a few feet between us. She matched her stride to ours without seeming impatient at the pace.
　　
"You don't play with them?" Bella asked shyly.
　　
"No, I prefer to referee - I like keeping them honest," she explained.
　　
"Do they like to cheat, then?"

"Oh yes - you should hear the arguments they get into! Actually, I hope you don't, you would think they were raised by a pack of wolves."

"You sound like my mom," Bella laughed, surprised. I looked at my feet not wanting to get into a conversation about mothers

Esme laughed, too. "Well, I do think of them as my children in most ways. I never could get over my mothering instincts - did Edward or Rosalie tell you I had lost a child?"

"No," Bella murmured. I shook my head and carried on looking at the ground
　　
"Yes, my first and only baby. He died just a few days after he was born, the poor tiny thing," she sighed. "It broke my heart - that's why I jumped off the cliff, you know," she added matter-of-factly.
　　
"Edward just said you f-fell," Bella stammered.
　　
"Always the gentleman." Esme smiled. "Edward was the first of my new sons. I've always thought of him that way, even though he's older than I, in one way at least." She smiled at me warmly. "That's why I'm so happy that he's found you, dear." The endearment sounded very natural on her lips.
　　
"He and Rosalie were the odd people out for far too long; it's hurt me to see them alone."

"You don't mind, then?" Bella asked, hesitant again.

"That I'm... all wrong for him?"
"No." She was thoughtful. "You're what he wants. It will work out, somehow," she said, though her forehead creased with worry. Another peak of thunder began.
　　
Esme stopped then; apparently, we'd reached the edge of the field. It looked as if they had formed teams. Edward was far out in left field, Carlisle stood between the first and second bases, and Alice held the ball, positioned on the spot that must be the pitcher's mound.
　　
Emmett was swinging an aluminium bat; it whistled almost untraceably through the air. Bella waited for him to approach home plate, but then she realized, as he took his stance, that he was already there - farther from the pitcher's mound than I would have thought possible. Jasper stood several feet behind him, catching for the other team. Of course, none of them had gloves.
　　
"All right," Esme called in a clear voice, which I knew even the others would hear, as far out as they were. "Batter up." Alice stood straight, deceptively motionless. Her style seemed to be stealth rather than an intimidating windup. She held the ball in both hands at her waist, and then, like the strike of a cobra, her right hand flicked out and the ball smacked into Jasper's hand.
　　
"Was that a strike?" Bella whispered to Esme.
　　
"If they don't hit it, it's a strike," she told me.
　　
Jasper hurled the ball back to Alice's waiting hand. She permitted herself a brief grin. And then her hand spun out again.
　　
This time the bat somehow made it around in time to smash into the invisible ball. The crack of impact was shattering, thunderous; it echoed off the mountains - I immediately understood the necessity of the thunderstorm.
　　
The ball shot like a meteor above the field, flying deep into the surrounding forest.
　　
"Home run," Bella murmured.
　　
"Wait," Esme cautioned, listening intently, one hand raised. Emmett was a blur around the bases, Carlisle shadowing him. I realized Edward was missing.
　　
"Out!" Esme cried in a clear voice. Bella stared in disbelief as Edward sprang from the fringe of the trees, ball in his upraised hand, his wide grin visible even to us.
　　
"Emmett hits the hardest," Esme explained, "but Edward runs the fastest."

The inning continued before my incredulous eyes. It was impossible to keep up with the speed at which the ball flew the rate at which their bodies raced around the field.
　　
I learned the other reason they waited for a thunderstorm to play when Jasper, trying to avoid Edward's infallible fielding, hit a ground ball toward Carlisle. Carlisle ran into the ball, and then raced Jasper to first base. When they collided, the sound was like the crash of two massive falling boulders. Bella jumped up in concern, but they were somehow unscathed.
　　
"Safe," Esme called in a calm voice.
　　
Emmett's team was up by one - Rosalie managed to flit around the bases after tagging up on one of Emmett's long flies - when Edward caught the third out. He sprinted to Bella's side, sparkling with excitement.
　　
"What do you think?" he asked.
　　
"One thing's for sure, I'll never be able to sit through dull old Major League Baseball again."

"And it sounds like you did so much of that before," he laughed.
　　
"I am a little disappointed," Bella teased.
　　
"Why?" he asked, puzzled.
　　
"Well, it would be nice if I could find just one thing you didn't do better than everyone else on the planet."

"I'm up," he said, heading for the plate.
　　
He played intelligently, keeping the ball low, out of the reach of Rosalie's always-ready hand in the outfield, gaining two bases like lightning before Emmett could get the ball back in play. Carlisle knocked one so far out of the field - with a boom that hurt my ears - that he and Edward both made it in. Alice slapped them dainty high fives.
　　
The score constantly changed as the game continued, and they razzed each other like any street ballplayers as they took turns with the lead. Occasionally Esme would call them to order. The thunder rumbled on, but we stayed dry, as Alice had predicted. Carlisle was up to bat, Edward catching, when Alice suddenly gasped. Edward rushed to Bella's side
　　
"Alice?" Esme's voice was tense.
　　
"I didn't see - I couldn't tell," she whispered. Rosalie was next to me within seconds her hands wrapping around me protectively

　All the others were gathered by this time.
　　
"What is it, Alice?" Carlisle asked with the calm voice of authority.
　
"They were travelling much quicker than I thought. I can see I had the perspective wrong before," she murmured.
　　
Jasper leaned over her, his posture protective. "What changed?" he asked.
　　
"They heard us playing, and it changed their path," she said, contrite, as if she felt responsible for whatever had frightened her. Seven pairs of quick eyes flashed to mine and Bella's faces and away.
　　
"How soon?" Carlisle said, turning toward Edward. A look of intense concentration crossed his face.
　　
"Less than five minutes. They're running - they want to play." He scowled.
　　
"Can you make it?" Carlisle asked him, his eyes flicking toward me again.
　　
"No, not carrying -" He cut short. "Besides, the last thing we need is for them to catch the scent and start hunting."
"How many?" Emmett asked Alice.
　　
"Three," she answered tersely.
　　
"Three!" he scoffed. "Let them come." The steel bands of muscle flexed along his massive arms. For a split second that seemed much longer than it really was, Carlisle deliberated. Only Emmett seemed unperturbed; the rest stared at Carlisle's face with anxious eyes.
　　
"Let's just continue the game," Carlisle finally decided. His voice was cool and level.

"Alice said they were simply curious." All this was said in a flurry of words that lasted only a few seconds. I had listened carefully and caught most of it, though I couldn't hear what Esme now asked Edward with a silent vibration of her lips. I only saw the slight shake of his head and the look of relief on her face.
　　
"You catch, Esme," he said. "I'll call it now." And he planted himself in front of Bella.
　　
The others returned to the field, warily sweeping the dark forest with their sharp eyes. Rosalie kept standing next to me as they went and she pulled my long hair so it covered my neck and she handed me her jacket. Alice and Esme seemed to orient themselves around where Bella and I stood.
　　
"Take your hair down," Edward said to Bella
　　
Bella obediently slid the rubber band out of her hair and shook it out around her.
　　
Bella stated the obvious. "The others are coming now."

"Yes, stay very still, keep quiet, and don't move from my side, please."

"That won't help," Alice said softly. "I could smell her across the field."

"I know." A hint of frustration coloured his tone.

Rosalie frowned, "What about Emily?"

Alice looked at me, "I can't smell her for some reason. Her scent is weak and I can only smell it from here," Alice was stood a meter or two in front of me

Carlisle stood at the plate, and the others joined the game half-heartedly.
　　
The seconds ticked by; the game progressed with apathy now. No one dared to hit harder than a bunt, and Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper hovered in the infield. Now and again, despite the fear that numbed my brain, I was aware of Rosalie's eyes on Bella. They were expressionless, but something about the way she held her mouth made me think she was angry.
　　

Edward paid no attention to the game at all, eyes and mind ranging the forest.
　　
"I'm sorry, Bella," he muttered fiercely. "It was stupid, irresponsible, to expose you like this. I'm so sorry." Edward stood in front of her protectively.
　　
Carlisle, Emmett, and the others turned in the same direction, hearing sounds of passage much too faint for Bella and I's ears. Rosalie came over to me.

"Promise me you will do whatever I say," Rosalie said looking at me sincerely

"Promise," I said to Rose