VIOLENT DELIGHTS | Rosalie Hale

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LIKE A STONE

THEY KEPT HER IN THE HOSPITAL for six more days. I lost the baby on the fifth, before I could even tell anyone. It hadn't been a lonely experience. I knew it was coming - Alice had seen it, and warned Rosalie, who had warned me. It was better to know it was going to happen. Better to wake up without the blood all over the hotel sheets, because I'd expected it and worn a pad. It felt like a regular period, though the cramping was worse and there was a tiny sharp painful tugging on my left side. Dr. Owens confirmed it that afternoon, eyes filled with sympathy. But I knew she must have been a little relieved. I wasn't the first teenager to end up in her office, and I didn't want to know what percentage of them didn't make it out.

In my head, I knew this made sense. I was too young. I wasn't ready. My body wasn't built for carrying life within it, not yet. I was too thin, too inhospitable. But by the next day I was surprised by how sad I was. I'd gone from pretending it wasn't real to wishing it wasn't over.

Charlie's plan was that Bella and I would fly home with Dr. Cullen while Edward, Alice and Rosalie drove the truck back to Washington. Dr. Cullen fielded that call. He convinced Charlie that we had all missed too much school already, and Charlie was unable to argue with him. We could all fly home together. Dr. Cullen would ship the truck home. He promised Charlie this was easy to arrange and not at all expensive, and I knew it was a lie because I'd looked at trying to ship more things from home when we planned to move to Forks. Our budget had only allowed for what we could take on a plane ourselves.

We flew out after dark, so the glass ceilings above in Phoenix were no longer a danger. Alice pushed Bella in her wheelchair so that Edward could walk beside her, holding her hand. Rosalie and I lingered further back, and I found my own heart filled with bitterness whenever I saw them together now. It was no longer cute. Bella and Edward, together, served as a constant reminder of my sister's eager desire to rid herself of me and our family. To cast us aside. For him. I had been so mad at her for trying to sacrifice herself for me, and now I was eternally livid she would leave me the same for far more selfish reasons.

Bella didn't like needing the chair. Didn't like the curious glances thrown her way. Now and again, she would scowl at her thick, white cast as if she wanted to tear it off with her bare hands, but she never complained aloud.

She slept on the flight, and quietly murmured Edward's name in her dreams.

Charlie met us at SeaTac, though it was after eleven and the drive back to Forks would take us nearly four hours. Both Carlisle and Alice had tried to talk him out of it, but Bella got her stubbornness from somewhere and it wasn't our wishy-washy mother. The Cullens followed behind the Cruiser the whole way. And despite the egregiously late hour, Adam was there, waiting inside our house, passed out on the couch with a bouquet in his hands and a tacky 'welcome home' helium balloon. I didn't even give him a chance to wake up, tackling him.

"Oh thank god." He breathed, clutching me tightly to him from where I had laid on him in desperation. He breathed my hair in deep, and I grimaced as he did — it had been a long flight, I doubted I smelled like hotel shampoo anymore. "Oh my god I missed you. Do you have any idea how worried I've been? Never do that to me again."

"Sorry." I looked up, smiling, kissing him. I was so tired my entire body ached. "Hi."

"Hi." He smiled back, the tip of his nose rubbing against mine.

"When...how...?" I tug the balloon, getting up off him so he can stand up while Charlie helps Bella into the house in her wheelchair. He knew I meant how did he get into the house.