Vanity and Patience: A Rosalie Hale & Emmett Cullen Story

Chapter 16: Scheming

Turning on my heels, I marched into the garage, slipping into the car and peeling out into the driveway and on to drive up north to upstate New York. I didn't miss that Emmett's face had slipped into chagrin as I left, standing helplessly as I glared at him in the eye and threw away a perfectly beautiful bunch of white lilacs, and the most beautiful vendella rose in existence. I had to get away, my face falling and my insides shattering into a million pieces at the memory of his mouth hung open, the corners turned down in pain from my rejection.

I spent hours on my drive up to Rochester thinking about my life, my situation, and Emmett. I knew I was being heartless and cruel. I knew that I couldn't go on like this forever. I knew I couldn't just take his gifts when I wanted him to suffer like I had. I wanted him to work to win me over, the way I had tried to win him over in the beginning.

I deserve that much.

Reaching Rochester, I parked five blocks from my family's home, and flew to spy on them as I scaled tree nearby. No one was home. I realized it was 1:30pm on a Sunday, and they'd be attending church.

I waited for an hour. Luckily, I remembered to bring a book. I opened up my copy of Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and let it wash me away to the late 1800s, living as a human girl with three sisters.

It was my second time reading the book, having read it when I was a human fifteen year old girl. I was a bit annoyed that Jo March turned down Laurie's proposal. I know I would have never done that, and it irritated me when I first read it. What was there not to like about him? He was gorgeous and wealthy. Fritz, the German professor who she did end up with, was old, poor, and in my mind, not as handsome. I related much better to the youngest sister, Amy, the girly one who dreamed of marrying Laurie and live in his large home since her childhood. She eventually did and I admired that she was able to make her dreams come true. Jo was an awkward tomboy who I could never look up to, with my very young and shallow thoughts.

As I contemplated this now, reading it a second time with my vampire eyes, I realized that Jo wasn't in love with Laurie at all. Laurie was helplessly devoted to her, and, though Jo valued his friendship and loved him dearly, she had other aspirations in her life, and wasn't a fan of change. She was also too immature then to know what she wanted, and didn't want to be forced into a position where she was to either marry Laurie or lose him forever as a friend. She just wanted his friendship, and for everything to fall back to when they were children.

When she finally matured and could accept change in her life, she found a modest man who shared the same passions as her own. Sure he was old, and probably not as good looking, but his support and encouragement made her a stronger woman. She had found true love in a place where she never thought she would. I started to notice how much I admired her for not taking the easy way out in marrying the wealth, handsome cliché, and trying to find her true happiness instead.

I sighed as all the love and romance in the book brought me to think about Emmett. I wondered briefly if my indifference to him was bringing me more suffering than it brought me joy or justice.

I heard a car approach, and I sunk further into the tree. It was my parents and brothers, and another car behind them. I frowned. I knew that Rolls Royce anywhere.

What were my parents doing with the Kings?

Stepping out was Mr. and Mrs. Royce King, and their youngest daughter, Janice. Janice was probably 16 now, with platinum blonde hair, and eyes as blue as the sky, much like her brother's. I shuddered at the memory of the eyes so similar that had deceived me to my near death. A thrill rushed through me as a glimpse of his terror-stricken, sky blue irises right before I killed him entered my mind. She wore a trapeze cut blue and white dress, and I couldn't help to note the way she had filled out these couple of years.