As much as I hated to admit it, Jake was right. Yelling at everyone wasn't me; I meant everything that I'd said to my sister and her "family", but I could have gone about insulting everyone in a different way. There was a part of me that didn't want to apologize for my actions, that I didn't actually need to apologize for my actions. Was it my fault if I had spoken the truth? I mean, I could have found a better way to say it.
Jake was pacing behind me while I walked with Renesmee, her reddish hair gleaming in the sun. "You said that you could show me?" I asked after a while. She nodded and lifted her hand cautiously. I heard Jake growl behind me as her frozen hand pressed against my cheek. Images flashed through my mind. Bella's face, almost death-like, grey with eyes sunken in to her skull. The Cullens came next, blonde Rosalie holding a bottle, Alice picking outfits, Carlisle with a measuring, Esme humming in a rocking chair that I was apparently sitting in too. I was seeing the kid's thoughts, the things that she remembered. And then the thoughts were slowed a little.
"I have a dad named Charlie. He's your grandpa, like Carlisle. And then you have a grandma named Renee; she lives in Florida, but she travels with her husband Phil," I could see Bella saying like she was talking to me. "My best friend, besides Daddy, is Jacob Black. You'll meet him one day, little one. He'll love you. He likes cars and music. You two will be best friends, better than him and your Aunt Ryanne." Renesmee must have been questioning who I was then because Bella pushed onward. "You have an aunt named Ryanne, like your Aunt Alice or Rosalie. We're the greatest friends. She's good friends with Jacob too," Bella explained. Good friends? I was only good friends with Jake? Really Bella.
The cold hand that I had forgotten about pulled away from my face. The images stopped flowing abruptly as her skin lost contact with me. Without the pictures in my head, I could hear the things going on around me once again. "That's what your mom told you about me?" She nodded. "Do you want to hear my side of everything?" I didn't have to like Bella or her "family", but the girl deserved to know the truth about what had happened between me and her mother. She nodded. I licked my lips and took a deep breath. "When we were little kids, your uh... grandparents split up. Bella went to live with our mother and I stayed in Forks to live with my Dad.
"Bella and I have never really gotten along. We just don't know much about each other. I don't know how much you know about your parents meeting and all that. But for a year, things went well and then your - uh - dad left. I tried to be helpful to Bella because my dad wanted her here. I knew that he didn't want to send her back to Florida. I brought her around my friends down at La Push. She had a thing for Jake, my best friend. Or maybe she didn't have a thing for him. I don't know. All I know is that the two were something." Jake roared a snarl, upset by what I was saying. I ignored him and kept going. "Jake phased into a wolf and he imprinted on me. Bella still wanted to be his friend and Jake was fine with that, but it just go to be too much. I worked so hard to help Bella, to be a good sister, and we just weren't friends. It was never going to happen for us. Everything kind of exploded after Bella kissed Jake. Things will never be the same between the two of us.
"I mean, things were never good between me and Bella. But at least we could be in the same room together way back when. Now? Now we can't do anything together. I moved out of the house that we lived in with my father. I went and lived with Jake and his dad. They're the family that I have now. I still love my dad and I still hang out with him, but Bella has caused a strain on everything in our house. I'm not your family. I'm not your aunt, Renesmee. But none of that is your fault. It was wrong of me to react the way that I did and I'm sorry. Maybe you and I can figure something out, be... I don't know be friends or something. But just call me Ryanne, okay? I'm just Ryanne," I finished. Jake had stopped growling and was smiling a little at me now. Not a lot, his anxiety over our location outweighing his joy that I was actually going to be okay. But at least he was smiling.
"You didn't know about any of that did you?" She shook her head immediately. "Like I said, we can get to know each other or something like that. I'm not your family though, okay?" I needed her to understand that I wasn't her family, she didn't get to have a claim to me. I needed her to know that. However rude that made me, I refused to have any ties to the vampires. I wasn't going to be related to the in any way.
"Thank you," she replied. She pressed her hand against my cheek again. An image of me and her sitting on the balcony of the Cullen home painting our nails flashed through before my eyes. I just smiled, but I didn't say anything else. She dropped her hand and smiled a little wide before she decided to turn and leave.
"Renesmee, come inside," Bella called. Jake was by my side in a flash. Great, this is just what I needed. "I don't appreciate you telling my daughter lies," she hissed at me. Jake snarled and pulled me closer to his side. "You don't have to believe a thing that she says," Bella said, grabbing her daughter and pulling her behind her. Renesmee pushed her hand into Bella's neck. The older's red eyes flashed anger. "You shouldn't have told her such things. How could you do that Ryanne? You told her blatant lies."
"No, Bella," I said quietly. "You told her blatant lies. I told her what I remember happening to us. I told her the truth. She deserves to know the truth. She deserved to know what I thought happened to us," I whispered.
I had gotten beyond the point of anger with my sister. She had to lie to her own daughter. Or, at least, she felt like she had to lie to her own daughter. I pitied her. She wanted to have everything. She couldn't just be happy with what she had. She had what some people would deem more than enough. Ignoring the fact that she was a vampire, she had a family that loved her and all the money in the world. It was because she was a vampire that she couldn't be around humans. It was because this was the life that she had chosen that she couldn't have all the things that she wanted.
But I still didn't understand why she needed them. It didn't make any sense to me. She had the man she chose, the life she chose, the family she chose! All of the things that had happened were by her own choices. After sitting here and telling Renesmee about everything that had happened, I realized that my sister would just never be satisfied with what she had chosen. She would always wonder if the grass was greener on the other side. But I couldn't bring myself to be angry at her. She needed help or something. I didn't even know. But my anger wasn't going to help her. So I chose to feel bad for her, for the fact that she didn't realize that she had a life that someone else would die for. I mean, she had died for it.
"What you thought. You see things completely differently than I do. There's no one else that sees stuff the way that you do," she argued.
"I do," Jake said, turning to look a Bella. He kept his hand at my waist as he turned to face her completely. Edward appeared beside her, his hand resting on Renesmee's shoulder and his other arm on Bella's waist. "Tell me, leech, do you think that anything Ryanne said was a lie?" he directed at Edward. "Because what she told the kid is true. All of that shit actually happened the way that she said it," Jake growled.
"I was depressed!" Bella screeched.
"And she tried to help you!" Jake screeched.
I rested a hand on his bicep and pulled on him, hoping that he would calm down. "Stop, that's enough," I whispered. The other vampires were now in the backyard staring at us. "We're leaving now, okay?" I tugged a little harder and pulled him towards the forest. "It was nice to meet you all," I said as we took our steps towards the forest.
Jake pulled me back against his chest, my feet dangling in the air as he sprinted towards the Rez, grunting, growling, and mumbling under his breath. I just rested in his arms and quietly prepared me for his lecture.