Too Close [RENESMEE AND JACOB]

5

Which way is right, which way is wrong?
How do I say that I need to move on?

It was late at night, way past midnight, the party having ended an hour earlier.

 Renesmee couldn't sleep. She laid in bed with her eyes wide open, her ears pricked listening to the sounds around her. Her parents were in their own bedroom. She could hear them talking but had a hard time understanding, her hearing being weaker than theirs. Sometimes she wished she was a vampire. Or a human. Anything but a hybrid. Even if that made her a monster.

Nothing was normal in her life anyways. So what if she became a dictator? Or a predator?

Or even prey?

Who would care?

She snuggled with her favourite stuffed toy, surprisingly not a gift from Jacob. She had found out that lately her favourite things hadn't been given by him. At the same time, it didn't come out as a surprise to her any more.

Renesmee felt stuck. She knew she had to do the right thing and tell Jacob the truth, to explain herself. But how? If she told him the truth, she could hurt him. If she lied to him, she would have to fake it through possibly all of her life. She had heard him talking about family. He wanted children. She knew she didn't want any at the moment, being a child herself.

She heard a soft knock on her door. She bet a thousand bucks it was her father. He was the mind-reader. He would probably attempt to have a deep conversation with her. Alas, she was not in the mood for any of that. All she wanted to do was to fall asleep and pray for a better tomorrow.

"Renesmee," Her father signed, leaning on the door, "Please, let me in. I need to talk to you."

His daughter stubbornly punished him with silence as she shut her eyes closed and focused on her breathing, like her uncle had taught her. Having experienced the confrontation with the Volturi, she had struggled with panic attacks in her late childhood.

She tried to keep her focus steady on her breathing as she imagined a scenery similar to her parents' meadow. She imagined herself lying on the grass, almost feeling it. She swore she could almost hear the sounds of birds chirping as if she was really there. That brought a sincere wide smile on her face - one that hadn't been on her face in a while.

The next day came too soon for everybody. Including Renesmee. She woke up on the other side of her bed with messy hair and false hopes. Her stuffed toy had fallen on the dirty floor. She had to have dropped it. She was going to wash it later.

While attempting to fix her hair, she thought about Jacob's words. She wasn't ready to have a family. She couldn't bear to wear the deceased Sarah Black's ring or to have her future child carry her name. She had never met that woman, had no connection with her besides Jacob and the rest of his family that she barely knew.

She tried to block the thoughts from her head, fully aware that her father could hear them. She wanted to continue living in a lie until she figured out a better way to express her true feelings.

Express her true feelings...

And that gave Renesmee an idea.

Music! She could use music to express herself!

Ever since she had been a little girl, she had played the piano. However, she was terrible at writing her own music, including lyrics. But that didn't mean she couldn't find a song to play to Jacob. Why not? It wasn't like there weren't songs that had lyrics similar to what she felt. Nowadays there were plenty of them. She just had to find the perfect one, the one she identified the most with.

After hours of looking up songs on YouTube and Spotify, she seemed to have found the perfect one. It was called "Too Close" and originally was by Alex Clare. However, the version she had found was also performed by Melanie Martinez. That version seemed to fascinate Renesmee more than the original. To her, it sounded more ballad-like.

In no time, Renesmee knew the lyrics by heart and was on the piano, her phone in front of her as she was trying to learn how to play it.

Edward, of course, was elated to hear his daughter play the piano. She hadn't done that in a while. He missed listening to her, adoring how she had inherited his musical abilities. Typical parent.

"And it feels like I am just too close to love you!", Renesmee sang, trying to play at the same time. She was not used to it. Her voice could hit the notes just right but she lacked the technique. Like she cared. It wasn't like she was going to perform in front of a large audience ready to be judged. It was only going to be Jacob... if she gathered the courage to play in front of him.

Edward bit his tongue and sat down to listen instead. Soon, the whole family gathered in the formal living room and sat together, each with their mate.

Renesmee's fingers never stopped running and jumping on the black and white piano keys. That song was her way to pour her heart out. She never stopped singing even when her family requested her to play something else, annoyed of listening to the same song over and over and over again like a broken record.

She had finally found it - her song. The song describing her feelings. And everybody would see the change in her.