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

trente

Rosalie hesitated in the doorway, her breathtaking face unsure.

"Of course," Bella gasps, voice raising in surprise. "Come on in."

She crawls out from the nest, backing away so she was pressed against the couch.

"He's always around, it's hard to find a moment to speak with you girls alone," Rosalie says, eyes flicking from the stripped bed to the makeshift pile of blankets. "I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, I couldn't sleep," Bella says quickly, voice still an octave too high.

"Neither could I," she adds, smiling softly, as welcoming as she could make herself. "Is something wrong?"

The vampire comes in, sitting on the edge of the couch. Bella goes to join her, sitting with her legs pressed to Roman's shoulder.

"Please don't think I'm horribly interfering," Rosalie said, her voice gentle and almost pleading. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them as she spoke. "I'm sure I've hurt your feelings enough in the past, and I don't want to do that again."

"Don't worry about it, Rosalie. My feelings are great. What is it?"

She laughed, sounding oddly embarrassed. "I'm going to try to tell you why I think you should stay human — why I would stay human if I were you."

"Oh."

"Did Edward ever tell you what led to this?" she asked, gesturing to her glorious immortal body.

Roman shakes her head, glancing at Bella that nods slowly, uncertain.

"He said it was close to what happened to me that time in Port Angeles, only no one was there to save you," Bella says and Roman shudders at the thought.

She had heard everything that she could from Bella herself, long ago, right around the time that Edward had decided to come back, and it still gave her chills to imagine the sheer amount of danger that this girl attracted. If something had happened to her, Roman was sure she would have fallen apart.

Because they were both her life and more now. She was never going to have anything ether than them.

"Is that really all he told you?" she asked.

"Yes," Bella says, voice blank with confusion. "Was there more?"

Roman dreads the thought, shrinking away from possibility. She presses herself closer to Bella, a hand falling onto the girl's ankle -- reassuring herself that she was still there, that nothing was wrong.

Because it was clear to her that Rosalie hated the life she had, or maybe not the life, exactly, but the way she was living it. She loved Emmett, that Roman could see with the same amount of certainty that she knew gravity was real, but she had been clear on her disapproval of Bella becoming a vampire that day.

"Would you like to hear my story, Bella? It doesn't have a happy ending — but which of ours does? If we had happy endings, we'd all be under gravestones now."

Roman stays frozen, frightened by the edge in her voice.

"I lived in a different world than you do, Bella. My human world was a much simpler place. It was nineteen thirty-three. I was eighteen, and I was beautiful. My life was perfect."

She stared out the window at the silver clouds, her expression far away.

"My family was thoroughly middle class. My father had a stable job at the back -- something that I now realize that he was smug about. I was blinded then to the truth that our mediocre success was built from luck and not the hard work that my father claimed it was. I didn't believe the great Depression was truly real because it didn't affect us. I saw the poor people, of course, the ones who weren't as lucky. My father left me with the impression that they had brought it onto themselves.