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“You were always temporary.”
Then he was gone. Edward’s words were final as if everything he said before had been in jest and open for interpretation. I stood in the clearing, wearing a jacket Alice purchased for me, and it felt wrong. I shrugged it off and let it fall to the mud. Clouds rolled over the clearing as thunder crashed in the distance. I was tempted to stand there for the rest of the evening. But my body moved on its own accord. I could almost hear their cars speeding down the highway, away from Forks and away from me. The walk home was a mournful experience, but my grief was not directed at Edward. I think I’d always known that I used him as an excuse. Being with him allowed me to be within striking distance of the one who captured my attention the moment we met.
But life is cruel.
Knowing the entire family supported Edward’s desire to leave hurt more than I wanted to admit. Rosalie’s absence left a gaping hole in my heart, even if I hadn’t yet experienced it. I dragged myself to my house and found the lights still on downstairs. Part of me wanted to ignore Charlie, but a wave of righteous anger bubbled in my chest until I crashed into the living room and told him everything. I poured it all out in an almost indecipherable ramble from the moment I met Edward to the last hour of my life. In the end, he gave me a heavy sigh and stood. Charlie hugged me with no judgment, questions, or condemnation. It was the first time I felt protected in the face of the unknown.
That day in the clearing changed my life for the better and worst. I didn’t fully understand what Edward’s absence entailed. Sure, some part of me loved him. Maybe. I never sat down and thought about the intricacies of our relationship. Edward was a vampire, and he’d been alive a lot longer than I was even a thought. But he’s stuck, frozen in time, and that stasis came at a cost. He took my complacency, and I was the one in stasis. I should have listened to Rosalie. She warned me they were no good, that my life would end when I learned their secret, and I lost everything in the aftermath.
Five Years Later
“Writing in your diary again, Swan?”
I looked up when my window creaked open. Despite the Cullens not being in my life, my ability to attract vampires never left.
“Hello, Peter.”
“Evening. It’s getting past your bedtime?” he asked.
“I have ten more minutes.”
Peter hummed and sat down on the floor. Charlotte crawled in after him and looked as perfect as ever. I would ask how they managed to climb up fifty floors unseen, but it would be a waste of time and breath. They probably came from the roof anyway. One ill-advised trip to Dallas with an ex ended with Peter kidnapping me because my ex was a wanted serial killer. Who fucking knew? After that, we formed an unlikely friendship with one rule.
Never tell the Cullens about me.
It’s been smooth sailing since.
“I thought you were in Alaska for the weekend visiting Jasper,” I said, closing my journal.
“We missed you,” Charlotte said, stretching out on my bed.
I waved off the comment and put my journal in the side drawer.
“What happened this time?” I asked, propping my chin on my desk.
“All we know is that an unnamed coven is having issues, so we left,” Peter said.
“I can only imagine what has the Olympic coven up in arms,” I drawled sarcastically. “Maybe they returned to Forks and were disappointed not to find my corpse in the clearing where Edward left me.”
“And here I thought you’d moved on,” Charlotte drawled.
“Is it not good enough that Jasper knows you’re alive?”
“Jasper knowing was never part of the plan.”
“The Major keeps secrets when he understands the importance,” Peter said vaguely.
“Right, whatever.” I glanced at the clock and sighed. “Why do you two always visit at night?” I asked.
“Your class isn’t until ten in the morning,” Charlotte pointed out.
“And you’re barely twenty-three. You’re supposed to get drunk and sleep with anyone you want.”
“First, that’s horrible advice. Second, the last time I went on a date, I almost got skinned and worn as a coat,” I pointed out.
“That was two years ago. You know I’d never let anything happen to you now,” Peter said.
“Neither of us will,” Charlotte added.
I shrugged and flicked off my light. I stood, stretched, and padded over to my bed. Charlotte moved over, and I laid down beside her. Peter stayed on the floor. Charlotte ran her fingers through my hair and sighed.
“You still wear the hoodie,” she pointed out.
“It was left in my truck,” I murmured.
The Columbia University hoodie came from Rosalie. She never mentioned leaving it behind, and neither did I. It was faded with paint on the sleeves, and it was the only thing that brought me comfort. Even when her scent was no longer wrapped in the fabric. Did the hoodie convince me to apply to Columbia? No, but it didn’t hurt the decision in the long run. Moving to New York for graduate school was a shock to Charlie and me. But he was the first person telling me to go for it.
“You’re meant for greatness, and I hate to say it, but it ain’t here,” he’d said.
And that was that.
I announced my decision and went to dinner to celebrate with the few friends I still had. Graduation from Seattle University came and went, and I carried my English degree proudly. I spent a few weeks in La Push to hang with Leah and Embry. They were the only two outside of Charlie who I tolerated in the small town. Angela had all but left, moving to Los Angeles with Ben, and Lauren was never worth the trouble. Jessica, Mike, Tyler, and the rest of my senior class dispersed from Forks en masse. Leah was there when Embry cut my hair, buzzing it down on the sides and leaving it loose and curly on the top. And Embry watched in amusement as Leah fumbled her way through the instructions for dying my hair. It was supposed to be honey blonde, but I think the almost platinum color worked out.
In the end, I promised to visit during the holidays. I would’ve said goodbye to Jacob had he not been a complete asshole about everything. He felt as if he deserved a chance with Edward out of the way, and I wasn’t in the mood to give it to him. But if I noticed him in my reflection as I drove off the reservation, it was in passing as he sprinted into the woods out of spite.
“Where’s your head, Swan?”
“I was never meant for your life,” I whispered.
“You were never meant to live it with him,” Charlotte corrected.
“Edward’s a child, Bella,” Peter said, his head turned to the window. He had a distracted frown as he added, “Excuse me.”
Charlotte waved Peter off, and in the dark, I couldn’t help but compare myself to her. She was perfect, always was, and always will be in a wild, free-spirit way. Her eyes weren’t red anymore, a soft orange that revealed her dual diet, and she studied me just as I studied her. I had hair stuck to my neck because wash day came and went, and I missed it. My pants were too big, hanging low on my hips, and they still had pizza sauce from dinner. I was embarrassed to be caught in such a state, but my Cold Ones were apathetic to my appearance.
“Do you miss her?” Charlotte asked.
“Every day.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Charlotte asked. “Before they left.”
“Someone like that doesn’t get with someone like me.”
Charlotte’s eyes darted to the window and back again.
“What if Rosalie’s your mate?” she asked.
“Don’t get my hopes up. Rosalie’s not mine, and I’m not hers.”
“But if she was?”
“Then I would love her openly and proudly,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
“We believe that we can change the things around us in accordance with our desires—we believe it because otherwise we can see no favorable outcome. We do not think of the outcome which generally comes to pass and is also favorable: we do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant to us. We have failed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us beyond it, and then if we turn round to gaze into the distance of the past, we can barely see it, so imperceptible has it become.”
I clapped with everyone else. That was a good choice. I wrote a note to re-read In Search of Lost Time later that night. The door to my classroom opened, but I ignored it in favor of checking the library online to see if they had a spare copy I could rent. I shook my hair out of my face, the curls vibrant and bouncy, unlike the last time I’d been on campus, and I chewed on my lip.
“I apologize, Professor, for the interruption. But there was a bit of a mix-up with my schedule this morning. My name’s Rose Whitlock. I emailed you last night?”
I paused at the familiar voice, and the conversation moved on without me. Wait, Whitlock? Those motherfuckers!
“Ah, yes! Come in, come in, and take a seat. Pick anyone you like,” my professor said.
“Thank you, and again, I apologize for the disturbance.”
“Not at all. We’re going over some of our favorite passages from literature. Think hard on it, and when I get to you, have one prepared.”
“Of course.”
Why the fuck wouldn’t they tell me she was – Peter. That’s why he was acting strangely last night. I opened my text app just as Peter’s message came through.
Pete: Inevitable.
Me: Screw you.
I exited the app and turned off my phone. I did a glance around the room and tensed. There was only one empty seat, and of course, it was the one next to me. I shifted the closer Rosalie got to me, and I ducked my head to avoid looking her way. But damnit, my eyes traveled the short distance to where she removed her outer coat, and fuck.
Who the hell makes corduroy look good?
“Swan?”
I tore my eyes away from Rosalie and glanced at the Professor. He smiled, expectant, and I sighed. After developing events, I should’ve chosen a different passage. I cleared my throat and stared resolutely at the front of the room.
“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
Applause sounded in the room, and I scratched the side of my head in embarrassment.
“Do you have a secret, Swan?” the Professor asked.
“We all have one,” I answered. “It’s a matter of importance, I think, that changes things.”
“And is your secret important?”
“Life-changing,” I joked weakly.
The Professor laughed and moved on to Rosalie, who hadn’t so much as acknowledged me. I hadn’t decided if I were upset or relieved by the silent treatment.
“I know this is somewhat last minute, but do you have a quote for us? Any book of your choosing.”
“Did you set a rating for these quotes?” she asked.
“As long as you aren’t quoting erotica like Mr. Johnson, you’re fine.”
“The only one that comes to mind is from Looking For Alaska.”
I tensed and gripped the pen in my hand a little too hard. My favorite copy of Looking For Alaska went missing the day before the Cullens left, and I knew the perpetrator was right next to me. I side-eyed her, and Rosalie looked down at the table. She played the act better than most, but only I noticed the subtle way she tilted her head to the side and tucked hair behind her ear. There was no act to her shyness, and my irritation grew.
“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane,” Rosalie recited softly.
I hated her.
And the worst part of it all was that I still wished I was the love of her life.
Peter was waiting in my bedroom, and I threw my textbook at him. He caught it with one hand and laid it on the table.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me?” I exclaimed. “Why would you let me find out that way?”
“She asked me not to.”
“What?”
“Last night,” he explained. “When I left, I went to Rosalie on the roof. She knew we were here because of Jasper, and she asked me not to tell you that she was in town. Rosalie had no idea if her transfer would go through, and she was afraid.”
“First, you swear to me that Jasper won’t tell anyone where I am. Second, the one person I don’t want to see just a little less than Edward shows up in my favorite class, and I’m supposed to be okay? Lastly, afraid? How can someone who uprooted my entire life just by existing be afraid? Are all of you this self-absorbed? Oh, poor Bella has a vampire complex. She can’t help but be around them and want to be with them that she’ll accept whatever shit they throw her way. It doesn’t matter if she gets hurt, or if she spent years getting over a heartbreak that never happened. No, let’s just do what we want and fuck the consequences!”
“Bella-
“Get out.”
Peter stood with his hands up, and he backed out of my apartment the way he came. I went over and slammed the window shut. I saw the blonde figure across the street, wrapped in something expensive, and Peter approached her. Rosalie said something to him that I couldn’t hear, and Peter patted her on the shoulder. Rosalie’s head turned in my direction once more.
“Your brother made it clear where I stood with you,” I said to her. “So do me a favor and leave me the fuck alone.”
I closed the curtain and went over to my drawer. I took out my journal and ripped the pages out, tearing them into tiny pieces. I eventually threw the whole thing away and picked up the hoodie hanging off my chair. I was two steps away from putting it in the trash when my body physically recoiled the idea of getting rid of it. I held it up to my face and screamed in it, wishing I had never met Edward.
That next day in class, I sat in the front, and Rosalie sat in the back. I ignored her to the point I almost forgot she was there. When we were dismissed, Rosalie was the first one to leave. I watched her go in annoyance. Some part of me wanted her to fight me on it, but another part of me knew she never would.
Someone like her didn’t go for someone like me. I was never hers, and she would never be mine. I left the classroom and made my way across campus to my lecture hall. Rosalie Hale would run again.
It was inevitable.
Your brother made it clear where I stood with you. So do me a favor and leave me the fuck alone.
Rosalie ran to the house she shared with Peter, Charlotte, and Jasper. It hurt being in class today, feeling Bella’s walls shut her out, but nothing hurt more than what Bella said to Peter. Yet her final words made Rosalie uncomfortable like something was missing from the puzzle. She opened the door and searched for Jasper, finding him in the art room.
“What did Edward say Bella told him that night?” I asked.
“I believe it was something along the lines of I’m scared of your family,” Jasper answered, moving paint cans to the far corner. “Bella was terrified to be around us.”
“Yet she spends time with Peter and Charlotte?”
“Things change,” Jasper said. “Peter said Bella isn’t so easy to scare anymore.”
“But she hates me,” Rosalie murmured. “Like genuinely hates me, and I don’t know why.”
“Don’t you?” Jasper asked pointedly. “You don’t belong with us, Bella. You’re a plaything, Bella. We were better off without Bella around. We should leave while we still have-
“I get it,” Rosalie snapped. “I never… I wasn’t… Edward was her mate.”
“We both know that’s not true.” Jasper wiped his hands out of habit. “You were scared, to tell the truth, just like I was afraid to confront it. Alice and I were not meant to be, but I held on because what is life without her?”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell her the truth.”
“She won’t listen.”
“But she’ll know,” Jasper said. “Remember what Peter said?”
Rosalie already knew what was coming, but the words still stung the same.
“You two are inevitable.”
I found Rosalie in my room, looking at my bookshelves.
“What part of leave-
“Edward told us you were scared,” Rosalie interrupted, turning around. “He said you were terrified of our family and that we should leave to give you space.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. Emmett and I were against the idea, but we were outvoted. Jasper voted yes because he felt guilty.”
“And Alice? Esme? Carlisle?”
“Esme does what Carlisle does, and Alice agreed your future wasn’t clear enough for us to stay.”
“You mean to tell me that you guys just believed Edward at face value? None of you thought about asking me what the hell I wanted?”
“You were sleeping when I came by,” Rosalie admitted. “I just needed to know you were okay. Emmett kept a lookout for me.”
“He knew?”
“From the moment I laid eyes on you,” Rosalie said.
I ignored the reminder of Emmett’s warning, and I folded my arms.
“That’s when you stole my book.”
“And other things,” Rosalie said, wringing her fingers. “There was a necklace-
“That I bought at the county fair with my tickets,” I finished flatly. “Yeah, I know the one.”
“And your unicorn socks, your Phoenix Suns jersey-
“Jesus, Rosalie, what the fuck? I thought Charlie threw it away by accident! Why would you do any of that? Hell, why would you do any of this? You never liked me to begin with!”
“Because you scare me!” Rosalie shouted. “You make me feel things I haven’t felt before, and I was afraid of what that meant. Everyone talks about finding your mate as some glorious experience, but I was constantly free-falling. Every time you smiled, it burned. Every time you laughed, the sound was seared into my brain. Every time you looked at me, I felt exposed and vulnerable. Seen. And then you had eyes for Edward, and it hurt to breathe in your vicinity because you smelled like him. I hated you for making me feel human again, only to choose Edward. Every single fucking time, you chose Edward. I was left with nothing.”
“I didn’t choose Edward. I chose you! Those days I came over were to see you. Those sleepovers with Alice were excuses to see you before I went to sleep to make sure that your face was the last thing I saw before my day ended. Sitting at the lunch table was an excuse to be close enough to you that I could feel the brush of your jeans against my hand whenever you shifted. All that I did, I did to be closer to you, and you left! I was with Edward because you never made yourself an option.”
“I didn’t know I was one,” Rosalie argued.
“Because you never fucking said anything.”
“Neither did you!”
I took a deep breath and released it, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“What do you want, Rosalie?” I sighed. “Please, tell me so that I can finally let you go.”
“But I don’t want you to let me go.” Rosalie stepped forward. “I want to stay with you,” she said.
I refused to let my heartbeat out of my chest. Rosalie’s eyes lowered, and I scowled.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“You say that. But at the first sign of trouble, you’ll run. You can’t love me the way I want you to.”
“I will love you as I have always loved you,” Rosalie said, stepping forward again.
“Liar.”
“Then let me prove it,” Rosalie said, coming closer.
“No. I refuse to do this again. All you-”
My words trailed off as Rosalie molded herself against me and cupped my face. I leaned into her touch no matter how much I wanted to push her away, and I gripped her waist. It shouldn’t be that easy to fall into Rosalie’s gravity after so long, but I’m still in love with her as I was in high school. For someone so cold, my entire body was warm with her attached to it. It was the sweetest burn, and I wrapped my arms around her more. Rosalie traced the outline of my lips, and her eyes went to the other side of the room.
“You still have my hoodie,” she said.
“It’s mine to have.”
“And so am I.”
“Rose,” I whined. “Don’t break me again.”
“I won’t.” Rosalie exhaled and closed her eyes, laying her forehead on mine. “Just tell me to-
“Stay,” I whispered.
Rosalie leaned in first, and I sank into her lips like I was coming home.
It was inevitable.
Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones.
That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine. And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood, and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in.
That’s what this storm’s all about.