twispitefic

Title: Calling Edward
Author:

gehayi
Fandom(s): New Moon
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,428
Summary: The phone call in which Rosalie told Edward that Bella was dead—from Rosalie's point of view.
Chapter Inspiration: New Moon Aside — Rosalie
Author’s Notes: There are two problems with this outtake: a) Edward is telling the story and b) Meyer is writing it. Obviously the story needs to be told from Rosalie's non-emo point of view.

Meyer's dialogue is in bold.

***

Rosalie wasn't particularly eager to call Edward. She didn't like him at the best of times, for practically everything she did or said or was was offensive to his delicate sensibilities. He didn't like women to be conscious of their beauty ("That's vanity"); he disapproved of women speaking their minds or swearing ("Honestly, Rosalie, is it necessary for you to say such coarse things?"); he was actively repelled by sex ("Must you and Emmett do THAT all the time?"); he loathed those who killed and didn't moan "OH WHAT A MONSTER AM I" afterwards; and, above all, he hated the uncertain and the unpredictable.

If Edward had been less of, as Emmett put it, "a douchenozzle," she might not have minded indulging him on one or two points. She could have been less outspoken around him. She could have pretended to be modest. But instead, he was spoiled and petted and indulged and fussed over by Carlisle as if his every whim was sacred. And of course Esme completely followed Carlisle's lead in everything, so there was no help from that quarter. Alice supported Edward in everything, and Jasper...well, Jasper was pretty much Alice's bitch in all things. Even Emmett liked Edward--though not enough to change his personality to suit Edward's requests.

And it was easier to just smooth the way for Edward, avoiding this music or that TV show because it upset or offended him. Easier on the surface, that was. Living with a melodramatic maniac who could and did read minds and who had no concept of privacy was, in Rosalie's view, rather like living with that creepy kid from the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." That kid could read minds too. He killed people in hideous ways if he got angry. And you never knew what was going to set him off.

This news probably would. But it had to be done. The others had been dithering for a day or two about how they couldn't tell him, they just couldn't. Obviously if anyone was going to tell Mister Emo Jones the truth, it was going to be her.

Of course, first she had to wait until he picked up the phone. That took about twenty calls. And when he finally did pick up, he only said one word, and it wasn't even "Hello."

"What?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "Oh, wow. Edward answered the phone." She didn't bother to add the word "finally." "I feel so honored."

He hung up.

Rosalie pushed redial. Sorry, Edward. This is something you can't run away from.

The phone rang, and again he answered. "Get on with it.

It would have been so much simpler if she could have said, "Edward, I'm sorry, but Bella committed suicide." Unfortunately, he would just demand to know why she was playing such a cruel joke and hang up once more.

So the only alternative was working up to the news. At least he might listen if she did that.

"I thought you would want to know that Alice is in Forks."

"What." It might have been a question or a statement. It was hard to tell from a monotone. Nevertheless, Rosalie could hear the unspoken What's Alice doing in Forks when she promised me that she'd leave Bella alone? loud and clear.

So she answered the unspoken question.

"You know how Alice is — thinks she knows everything. Like you."

Silence. Rosalie wasn't sure if Edward had hung up again or if the cell phone had gone dead.

"Are you still there, Edward?"

More silence.

"Edward? Don’t you even care why Alice is there?"

"Not particularly." The fury in his voice--someone had dared to do something he didn't like, oh no!--told Rosalie quite clearly that this was a great big fat lie.

"Well," she said, hedging a little closer to the bad news, "of course, she's not exactly breaking the rules. I mean, you only warned us to stay away from Bella, right? The rest of Forks doesn't matter."

She laughed nervously; she hadn't anticipated his becoming angry over Alice going to Washington. Curious, yes. But not angry. Apparently, in Edward's mind, Bella Swan equaled Forks.

Edward didn't handle disobedience well. It pushed all his buttons. When infuriated, he could be dangerous--even to another vampire. Yet another reason that the family tried to appease him so much.

"So you don’t need to be angry with Alice," she continued, trying to calm him down and make him listen. Hopefully he would get the message that Alice was visiting someone else in Forks. Hopefully.

He didn't. Instead he became stern and paternalistic. "Then why did you call me, Rosalie, if not to get Alice in trouble? Why are you bothering me?"

Rosalie considered telling him that Alice had a fucking right to go anywhere she wanted, including Forks, and to stop being such an asshole, then sighed. He'd just hang up again, and there would be trouble later. Better to just get it over with right now. "Wait! That’s not why I called."

Which, really, he should have figured out on his own. She could be bitchy at times, but she'd never been a backstabber.

"Then why? Tell me quickly, and then leave me alone."

"Well..." How did you tell the guy whose wife you'd been created to be and who now considered you a sort of sister that the dim-brained sociopath he was obsessed with was dead?

"Spit it out, Rosalie. You have ten seconds."

Asshole, Rosalie thought. "I think you should come home." Not that she particularly wanted him there, but emotional support was good for mourners, right? Even emo, melodramatic ones.

She scrambled for reasons he would accept. "I'm tired of Esme grieving and Carlisle never laughing." Not that Esme had anything grieve about, as far as Rosalie was concerned, since Edward not only wasn't her son, he was older than she was. And Carlisle wasn't big on laughing at the best of times. "You should feel ashamed at what you’ve done to them. Emmett misses you all the time and it's getting on my nerves. You have a family. Grow up and think about something besides yourself."

...well, so much for the attempt to guilt trip him. I must be madder than I thought.

"Interesting advice, Rosalie. Let me tell you a little story about a pot and a kettle...

Wait, so you say that I do the same thing you do? Do you realize you just admitted you don't think of anyone but yourself? I'm going to REMEMBER that!

She spoke in a tone that fairly dripped icicles. "I am thinking about them, unlike you. Don’t you care how much you’ve hurt Esme, if no one else? She loves you more than the rest of us, and you know that." Why was an open question, but she did. And that would help Edward...well, probably. At least there would be someone around to care that he missed the Swan girl. "Come home."

Silence again.

Rosalie sighed. "I thought once this whole Forks thing was finished, you would get over it." After all, he was over a hundred, and he'd known the girl for what, six months? Of course he'd insisted that Bella was his One True Love, but since Rosalie could remember thinking that a fair number of boys and young men while growing up, this hadn't impressed her. It had seemed like a typical high school romance to her--intense, dramatic, quickly over, easily forgotten.

"Forks was never the problem, Rosalie. Just because Bella has moved to Florida, it doesn't mean that I’m able...Look, Rosalie. I really am sorry, but, trust me, it wouldn’t make anyone happier if I were there."

Moved to Florida?

"Um...I didn’t say that Bella moved."

More silence.

All right, Rosalie. Let's just get it over with.

"They didn’t want to tell you, but I think that's stupid. The quicker you get over this, the sooner things can go back to normal." A long pause. "She's dead, Edward. I'm...sorry."

She wasn't sorry. Bella Swan had been a complete waste of oxygen. But you were supposed to be sorry when someone died. She remembered that rule.

"You have a right to know, though. Bella threw herself off a cliff two days ago."

She tried to tell him a bit more--that Alice had foreseen the death, that she herself had tried calling Charlie to warn him, that Alice had gone to Forks to console Bella's father. But the conversation truly ended there.

She wasn't surprised when Edward hung up yet again.