Falling To The Sun | B. Swan + E. Cullen

vingt et un

To be completely honest, Roman wasn't sure what she was expecting when Marnie came home, but it wasn't the overly affectionate, hovering woman that was in her place. She was too happy, too talkative, as she tried over and over to spend time with her.

It was like she was overcompensating, trying too hard to make up for lost time. It was like she was trying to pack in as much time possible into one a limited amount of time.

And she was rightfully suspicious or maybe she was worried, she wasn't sure, but it bothered her enough to make her want to bang her head against the wall, or through a wall. She had only been back for a week and it was enough to make her go crazy -- more so when her already limited time was pilled on with additional work.

The punishment had seen great at first, a reminder that her mother cared, but now it was cutting into the time she could spend with Bella and Edward, or the wolves. It just all felt a little ridiculous now that she knew her mother couldn't have cared about her all that much after what she was planning with Julius.

Still, she got it, she guessed, that sort of love where you would do anything for them. Roman couldn't blame her in the end because no matter what her mother might feel, she did love the woman.

If she had to put up with her overbearing attitude until she got over it, then fine, as long as it made Marnie feel like a better mother.

Sighing, Roman filled out another copy of the sign request form because apparently a sign for trail safety needed to be filled in quadruplets when she wanted to keep people from dropping off a sharp edge. Which reminded her that she needed to fill out a request for additional wildlife warnings to hikers, as well as an unnecessary form for trailhead sign placement about what to do if you encounter wolves -- which made her want to both laugh and cry because the wolves really weren't the danger.

She had so much paperwork to file and trail walking reports to log, not to mention fake tracking the wolves that were working only working on their side of the treaty (except for Seth, of course, because he didn't seem to care about the treaty at all when it came to protecting her when she was working). There were so many things to do that she was genuinely worried she might not get them all done in time.

At least it was a Saturday and she could stay as late as she needed to finish everything up because there was no way that she could finish within the next hour.

"Do you want me to order you something to eat?" Marnie asks, hovering at the corner of the desk.

Her finger twitched. "No, I'm fine. I don't want to be distracted from all of my work."

"Romey, you can't just put off eating," her mother scolds with a deep frown.

"I'm not. I'll eat when I'm done," she corrects, adjusting her hold on her blue pen as she filled out the last of the sharp-edge-dropping-sign papers. "I just have a lot of stuff to do."

"It's okay to take a break, dear."

"Look, I get what you're trying to do here, but I just want to finish up all of my paperwork so that I can go to Bella's."

Marnie shifts her weight on her feet. "Maybe it's not a good idea to go over. Charlie might not--"

"Charlie is fine with me being there, mom, he doesn't mind, I think, because I can't get her pregnant, being a girl and all," Roman states, pushing her mother's buttons just a little bit. "Or maybe, like you, he doesn't take whatever relationship we have seriously so he doesn't mind."

"Roman, that's not true! I have complete faith in your relationship!"

She sets her pen down carefully, paperclipping the four copies together and placing them to the side carefully. "You spent like two weeks with Julius and he made his beliefs very clear. If he hasn't tried to plant a seed of doubt in your brain then I would be incredibly disappointed."