Darkness Will Come to Light [1]

VII. Personal Bubble

Leaving lunch early after not being hungry enough to eat, Melaina arrived in French before Madame Zee arrived. She dropped into the wooden chair with a sigh. Mel didn't expect anyone to join her for another five or so minutes.

A gasp escaped her lips as she turned to place her bag under the table and saw Alice Cullen a few inches from her personal bubble. No one else ever bothered to go out of their way to talk to Mel anymore, especially when she had both headphones in, but Alice was persistent. Mel paused her music after a minute of her classmate tapping on the table in front of her to gain her attention; she felt guilty being rude to Alice and it frustrated her that she couldn't explain why.

"I like what you've done with your hair," Alice complimented with a bright smile.

"Thank you," Mel said quietly. She played with the blue ends of her hair.

Ever since last summer, Melaina tried to shy away from people--especially people who were nice. Because nice people became friends and friends shared secrets and no one needed to know hers.

"Did you do it yourself?"

Mel only nodded.

Alice talked to Melaina before Madame started class. Alice held most of the conversation, but Mel nodded along and listened. Alice was not discouraged by the girl's antisocial behavior; she foresaw their friendship and continued to push back when Mel tried to turn her away.

Rosalie, on the other hand, found Alice's contact with the dark-haired human to be an atrocity. "Why are you mingling with a human, Alice?" The blonde beauty hissed at her only sister when she entered the classroom.

Alice barely spared her a glance and spoke in a frequency that only the vampires could hear: "Stay out of it. I don't see anything bad happening from a conversation about papier-mâché." Rosalie huffed and began to rant about the unnecessary risk of exposure and the insignificance of conversing with someone outside of the family...

"Bonjour, class." Madame Zee started each day the same way with her sing-song French intonation.

As the students chimed in sync, "Bonjour, Madame," Alice returned to her seat beside the angry vampire. "Rose, she's being abused at home," the spiky-haired sister said softly, interrupting Rosalie's spiel.

The blonde paused at that, then regained her self-righteous mindset. "Why should we care?"

Alice gave her a hard look and bit her granite lip. "If we don't intervene, Melaina will end up killing herself before she's twenty."

With her similar human background of abuse, Alice predicted that Rosalie would reconsider her previous reproach. Rose did, for a moment, but one little human was not going to disrupt the life she had created--the second time around. Rosalie refused to think about damning another human to immortality, so what if Melaina had the same tragic end?

"Humans die all the time. That is the life that they are meant to live and leave." Rosalie's usually harmonious voice was a monotone and her mind wondered to a girl other than herself for once.

"Rose." Alice paused. "If this goes where it has headed... then Melaina is going to need you."