Chapter Text
Apologizing was the first step.
For what exactly she had no clue— logically, for nearly maiming the poor girl before she had even an inclination as to what was happening (and continuously thinking of doing so despite her trying efforts). Realistically, perhaps for carrying an overwhelming amount of negativity that it could jump start the engine to a classic Ford mustang.
Rosalie wasn’t above apologies. She just despised doing them.
The heady scent of her mate Bella was still staggering, enough so to make Rosalie shuffle uncharacteristically in her seat. Their proximity helped little. She could hear every little creak of Bella’s own seat settle with her weight, skin brushing against hair when she pushed it behind her ear, fabrics rustling with every nervous twitch.
It was laughable really.
Rosalie waited for Mr. Banner to finish his blathering, only stealing a few short glances at her desk partner throughout his spiel.
The clattering of moving equipment was all but a buzz in the back of her head. She watched as Bella looked between her and the microscope placed between them, a mask of uncertainty on her delicate face.
“Would you like to go first?” Rosalie held her breath as she spoke, only realizing a second later there was no need for her to do so.
Bella nodded and drew the microscope towards her, peering down its lens. Rosalie stared, hating every second of it.
Bella pulled back and pushed the instrument towards its previous placement. “Prophase.” Her gaze remained steadily on her hands, peering up at the lack of response.
Rosalie blinked. Then nodded. She reached for the worksheet laid beside the microscope and filled out the first line in her signature neat, flowery script.
“Do you wanna check it?” Rosalie’s pen halted.
“Are you not confident in your answer?” She asked, a challenging lilt in her voice. Rosalie turned her head slightly, fixing her sight on the girl.
Bella shrugged, rather pathetically. “Not really.” There’s an undertone in her response that said otherwise, but instead of pushing the matter, Rosalie dropped her pen and pulled the microscope towards her, barely checking the slide before pushing it away.
“Prophase.”
Bella exhaled quietly to herself, an action Rosalie couldn’t help but be somewhat endeared to. She shook her head. The madness this puny human would unknowingly put her through was far too telling already.
“Do you wanna go next?” There was a slight richness to her voice, a dulcet quality that Rosalie found herself leaning into. Different from Esme’s warmth and Alice’s falsetto.
Perfect, an annoying little voice uttered in her head.
Rosalie shut her eyes, jaw clenched, while she regained composure. She didn’t dare peek to her side. She quickly switched the slides and after a second,
“Anaphase.” She didn't write the answer, twirling the pen around her fingers. “Would you… like to check?”
Bella shook her head, shoulders raised as she curled into herself. “No, no, you’re good— I mean, I trust you— your answer. I trust your knowledge.” She slowly unfurled her arms out before her, a deeply unsettling sigh racking through her body.
Rosalie cocked her head at the display, nodding to herself after a minute.
She wrote out the answer on the second line, then faced Bella. Time to rip the bandaid.
“I’d like to apologize for my behavior last week. If I came across rude or unwelcoming.” She most certainly had. Bella turned to her, eyes wide and questioning. Her lips slightly parted.
“I’m Rosalie Hale, it’s—” lovely, horrendous, wonderful, terrifying “—nice to meet you.”
“I know who you are.” Rosalie raised an eyebrow. Bella cleared her throat, sitting up in her seat. “Sorry, uh, nice to meet you too.” She let out a breathy, nervous sound and bowed her head slightly. “I’m Bella Swan.”
“I know who you are.” A small smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. She suddenly felt like a schoolgirl again, making juvenile attempts at speaking to a boy she was sweet on.
But Bella smiled, shy and unrestrained, like she couldn’t help the grin from stretching across her lips. Rosalie internally preened at the sight.
“Funny,” Bella said in a low tone and Rosalie nodded to herself. She could be funny sometimes. Her smile began to slowly fade as silence between them stretched.
When was the last time she willingly spoke more than a few words with a human before? She had apologized, now what?
She gestured towards the slides in a manner most unlike herself. “Would you like to…?”
“Oh, yeah sure.” Bella jumped into action, switching out the slides for another and peering down the lens.
Rosalie wrote down the phase before Bella could speak, wanting to get ahead before any of doubts began to surface.
“So you moved from Arizona?” She glanced at the other girl, trying to show interest and hoping Bella would be the driving force of her sad effort at conversation.
“Uh, yeah.” Rosalie blinked, lost.
This was hopeless. Nonetheless, she remained determined.
“Did you not like it?” She asked carefully, filling out the rest of the sheet after a brief look towards the untested slides.
“No, I did. My mom wanted to move to Florida with her boyfriend— husband. His job makes him move around a lot.” After a moment Bella moved to switch out the slides and proceeded with analyzing them.
Rosalie’s brows furrowed slightly. “And you chose Forks over Florida?”
Bella made a face like she couldn’t believe her choice either. “Yeah, I know.” She shook her head. “Metaphase. This was a better option for me anyway.”
Rosalie would vehemently disagree.
“Surely the weather would’ve been enough to change your mind.”
Bella tilted her head in thought, strands of hair that previously escaped the confines of her braid brushed along her neck. With the dreary lighting framed over her, Rosalie was certain now more than ever this girl was not meant for such a place.
“I guess. I don’t like the cold, but I am getting used to the rain.” Her lips twitched faintly, before she tugged the bottom lip between her teeth.
Rosalie nodded like it made sense to choose the warmth of the sun's ray over storm clouds and sleet. It’s all she seemed to know how to do, act as if everything Bella said and did made any sense to her even if it didn’t.
“What does your mother’s… husband do for work? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Bella frowned at the pause and began to fiddle with the knobs of the microscope.
“Phil’s a minor league baseball player.”
Rosalie hummed faintly. “Any team I know?” She smiled, hoping it came across sincere.
The other girl snorted, shaking her head dismissively. “Doubt it. It’s like, really minor league.”
“So not the Marlins or Rays. Got it.”
That got a melodic chuckle out of Bella. “He wishes.” Rosalie stared at the soft curve of her jaw, the divot of her neck, entrapped by the sound of deep, enriching blood flowing through Bella’s artery.
Rosalie tensed her jaw, willing her fangs to be kept at bay. She fiddled with the pen between her fingers, facing her body from the taunting form of the gir— Bella.
Bella. Rosalie felt like tearing at her hair.
Her mind flashed briefly to Alice, who was no doubt somewhere reveling over Rosalie’s current predicament. Being forced to make nice with your mate while simultaneously refraining from killing her had never been so fucking hard.
Perhaps this was her karmic justice. A cruel joke piled on top of another.
“Can I ask you a question?” Bella fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves, tugging them over her hands, stretching the fabric.
Rosalie paused, then answered quietly, almost uncertain, “Yes?”
Bella’s eyes flitted across the table, like she hadn’t actually thought which question she’d ask first. But Rosalie remained patient, the longer Bella took the more time passed and hopefully the bell would ring sooner than later.
Bella glanced at her, her face metrical, before she sat back startled, as though she had now remembered something recently forgotten
Bella licked her lips before speaking. “Your, um— do you wear contacts?”
Rosalie blinked, body tensing. She pulled her hand farthest from Bella under the table and crushed the pen. If her heart had still been beating, it would’ve been hammering against her ribcage. She waited.
“Your eyes are— last week they were really dark, like brown?” Bella didn’t sound sure of herself. Good, that was good. Rosalie didn’t want her to be. “Now they’re lighter. Like, I don’t know.” She shrugged pitably. “Light,” she finished weakly.
Rosalie’s eyes flickered about, if only to avoid catching the other girl’s gaze. She clicked her tongue, almost chidingly, her answer clear as day.
“Yes. I have an astigmatism.” She huffed at the absurdity, entertained by her own words. “Colored contacts help keep things more… fun, I suppose.”
“Right, yeah, obviously.” Bella nodded in agreement, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.
“What did you think?”
“What?”
“What did you originally think to ask me that?” Rosalie couldn’t help herself, a part of her wanted to know. Needed to know.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you.” Bella shifted in her seat, a deep look of regret settling in.
“You didn’t,” Rosalie assured. “I’m just curious now.”
“Honestly I don’t know.” The other girl twisted her lips, narrowing her gaze at her hands. “You just kind of scare me.” She closed her eyes, the confession perhaps sounded more childish out loud than in her mind.
Rosalie turned her head away, biting back a twisted smile.“I don’t mean to.” She flipped her hair with a calm mask of indifference.
“Yeah, I-I know. I'm still in my head about last week. I’m- I… sorry. Sorry.”
Rosalie watched as her mate caved, feeling less than satisfied with the end result. The longer she sat with it the more disappointed she felt. A small part of her felt bad. Though it was for the best, she reminded herself. She wasn’t pursuing Bella romantically, despite what her family believed she should do. She needed to know the girl first and already from what she‘d learned Bella was a non-confrontational, perceptive, possibly very self conscious person. An interesting mix that eventually Rosalie could see coming back to stir up trouble.
But that was an easy fix. For now she would keep her cool and her answers vague yet rational. Nothing too outrageous that would instill intrigue.
Suddenly Mr. Banner called for worksheets to be passed up, the sound of shuffling paper and despondent voices followed. Bella fidgeted nervously beside her, face pinched worriedly.
It took the teacher roughly five minutes of grading to call a winner. It took all of those five minutes for Rosalie to be struck with the realization she’d been staring at Bella like some degenerate.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the golden onion,” he held the vegetable with sentiment, “Rosalie and Bella!” He made his way towards their table with a wide grin, clapping as he glanced around the room, a clumsy echo of claps lead after.
Bella’s mouth opened and closed, a strange look passing her face. Rosalie paid no mind as the sharp shrill of the bell conveniently rang and everyone began to collect their things.
“We won?”
Rosalie gave a faint smile. “Appears so.”
“But we didn’t finish…” Bella hesitantly picked the onion by its long stem, holding it out cautiously. It would’ve made for an endearing sight —Bella looking at the vegetable like she’d never seen an onion before— if Rosalie wasn’t trying to figure out how to respond to the other girl’s observation.
They (Bella) hadn’t finished, but Rosalie had already known all the answers just by simply looking at the slides and their phases. She may have gotten a little ahead of herself.
Sometimes the best answer was no answer at all.
With a shrug, she shouldered her bag on and waved at Bella.
“We got lucky. See ya.”
Rosalie stood, leant up the side of her car, watching as across the lot Bella walked to her truck, the silly ‘golden’ onion tucked under her arm. Her vehicle was a behemoth of scrap metal that she could already tell would be better for parts than driving on the road. She could smell the pungent odor of burned fuel, even with the engine off, and imagined the kind of headache she would’ve endured had she been alive.
Bella made a move to open her door, pausing at the feeling of eyes trailing her movements, to look up and catch Rosalie’s gaze.
It was peculiar how different Rosalie felt after her class with Bella. The innate, primal urge to feast on the girl still reigned present, but it no longer festered at the forefront of her mind, rather it lingered in the back like an afterthought.
Instead she found herself wanting to continue speaking with the girl, about what she couldn’t seem to make her mind up. The weather, music, that abomination of a truck, what movies she’d seen, why Forks and not Florida.
Her brows pinched in thought as she kept staring, so very fascinated, so impossibly confused. Bella lifted her hand slowly, waving at her with an uneasy smile. Rosalie blinked slowly at the sight. Her stomach twisted in an unsettling swoop. Stiffly, she lifted her own hand in a small wave, her movements robotic.
Off to the side, Alice stilled in her steps, a stuttered gasp leaving her lips as her eyes lost focus. Jasper was quick at her side, a hand comfortingly on her shoulder. Edward turned to them, a deep set frown on his face as he tried to make sense of her thoughts. However, none of that mattered to Rosalie because before she could make sense of what was happening, the ear piercing sound of tires shrieking against asphalt swept throughout the parking lot.
And before she knew it, she was beside Bella, her hand pressed into cold, wet steel, denting the material on impact and the overwhelming feeling of shock coursing through her.
So much for rationality.