Dusk

#21

Bella

The light blazed off her skin, danced in prism-like rainbows across her face and neck, down her arms. She was so bright it was almost like looking at the sun.

When I finally stop gaping at the beauty in front of me, I looked into her eyes. Rosalie was looking at me cautiously , watching as I took careful steps towards her. I brushed my finger against her arm, hearing her sigh softly at the touch.

She stopped my hand, only to grab it with her own and pulled me further into the meadow. "Let's sit down."

Rosalie pulled me with her until she stopped and laid down on the grass on her back. I sat next to her, lightly trailing my finger tips over the faint pattern of bluish veins inside the crease at her elbow.

"It's so easy to be myself around you," she muttered, now watching as I traced her arm. "My actual self."

"You don't have to hid yourself anymore, Rosie." Looking back at the sky, I watched as a smile came on her face.

"Don't I? Bella, I could hurt you." She sat up and cupped one of my cheeks before finishing her sentence. "So very easily."

I leaned into her hand. "But you won't. Because you would have done it already if you wanted to."

"And I almost did," she confessed, shocking me. "The very first time we met. Your scent...called to me. If I had followed through," she paused, her hand moving from my face to brush a piece of hair behind my ear, "you would've broken my record."

"Your record?"

"Of never tasting human blood," she whispered, dropping her hand, "But when I looked at you, those feelings vanished immediately. What I felt for you, out weight my thirst."

"What...what you feel for me?"

Rosalie looked away from me to a random flower. "I might be falling for you, Bella," she admitted quietly. "And I don't want to ruin that by hurting you."

I brought her attention back to me, lightly rubbing my thumb over her cheek. "That's not going to happen Rosalie. Neither of us will let that happen."

She only looked at me, understanding my words. When she nodded, Rosalie moved to my lap and buried her head under my chin. I heard her make a strange noise, a purr almost, when I played with her hair.

"What is it like?" I asked after a few minutes of silence. "The thirst?"

"It's different for everyone," she answered, not lifting her head. "To Jasper, everyone one of you is much the same. He's the most recent to join and it's a struggle for him to abstain at all. He hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell."

"And for you?"

"I haven't tasted human blood and I've been around for a while, so it's not that tempting to me. It's more of a need than a want." At the end of her sentence, I felt her lips press at the corner of my jaw.

"So if we met in a dark alley or something..."

"The outcome would've been different."

We sat like that for another immeasurable moment. Rosalie slowly breathing in, soft purrs coming from her every once in a while. I kissed her forehead, looking up at the now dark sky.

"We should go," she said, moving off of me. Rosalie carefully pulled me up. "Want me to carry you again?" she asked playfully.

Chucking at her comment, I hoisted myself on her back. Like last time, she built up to her speed but unlike last time we made it to the truck quicker. The new change of speed didn't bother me in  the slightest.

"I'm driving this time," she stated when she put me down.

"I think I'm  getting used to that." I got into the passenger seat just as Rosalie started the car.

She could drive well, when she kept the speed reasonable, I had to admit. She barely looked at the road, yet the tires never deviated so much as a centimeter from the center of the lane. She drove one handed, holding my hand on the seat. Most time she glanced at me.

She had turned on the radio to an oldies station, and she hummed along quietly with a song I'd never heard. It seemed like she never every line.

"You like fifties music?" I asked.

"Music in the fifties was good. A lot better than sixties, or the seventies." She scowled. "The eighties were better."

"Can I ask how old you are?"

She smiled. "Well, I'm from the time where it was inappropriate to ask a lady her age." But still, she answered. "I was born in New York in 1915."

My face was unsurprised, waiting for her to finish. "Carlisle found me in an alley in the spring of 1933. I was eighteen, and bleeding to death."

Her voice was quiet, almost hard for me to hear. But still, I had to ask, "What happened?"

"Are you sure you want to know? It doesn't have a happy ending," she told me.

"Surprise me."

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So I'mma have zero money throughout the year of 2021 since Marvel wants to play around and drop seven movies.

Ridiculous.

Bye!