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CHAPTER EIGHT the human talk ☾
It had taken three weeks of Rosalie's stubbornness for Esme to finally talk to her. It always worked like this. Edward would provoke her in some way, Rose would undoubtedly lash out, unable to keep her anger contained, and Esme would play the doting mother, just as she was brilliant at, calming them into a muted peace that would last a few months again, only to see the cycle repeat. But this time, Rosalie didn't feel like she could comply with the unspoken agreement of the truce that Esme would always set.
Edward's cravings and dealings with the human were becoming increasingly dangerous. Somehow only Rosalie could see it. Alice was happy enough to introduce someone to the family, finding a new friend in the girl, no matter her plainness. Still, she insisted upon Rose's own obsession with humans, though much of a different manner, and was refusing her the dress that she'd specifically designed for her. It was upon Alice's smugness in the insistence of her similarity to Edward, that Rosalie had refused to think of Violet Green for the week following the cafeteria incident.
Esme had somehow heard of it. No doubt Edward had told her the details of it, hoping them to spur her to give Rosalie the same talk he'd had, and the moment Rose had spotted her mother coming, sensing what was to come, she sent Edward a withering look, only to receive a blazing smile back.
"Come, Rose, let's take a walk," Esme said, her calming voice soothing the blonde almost instantly. "We'll take your favourite path by the Falls."
She once liked her walks with Esme. They would take it slow, taking in the deep scents of the forest, letting their footsteps crackle over wood as they once had been designed to. The Falls had always been her favourite place, the sounds of rushing water, the sight of small birds using the stream as a bath. But now as she thought of the place, it came with the pretty face of Violet Green and her calming, yet electric presence.
When Rosalie remembered her aim to not think of the girl, she shook the image from her head and steered Esme from their usual trail, heading deeper into the woods. Her mother only glanced at her with a soft, knowing look.
"Alice mentioned you've made a new friend," she said, arm looping through Rosalie's.
"Alice?"
She shut her mouth with a clash of her teeth. That was a new type of betrayal from her sister.
"Violet Green. A lovely girl, I've heard. Her father is friends with Charlie Swan, a pleasant fact, isn't it?" Esme said, and Rose faltered in face of the smile that was sent her way.
"I don't need a talk about humans, Esme," she said, shaking her off either way, eyes closing only momentarily. "I'm not planning to endanger us all like Edward is."
"Why must the humans bring us danger? Is it such a bad thing to find a friend in the humans? Carlisle is able to work with them daily, to help them, is that so different?"
