Too Close | Rosalie Hale

Chapter 13

Rosalie's pale fist knocked loudly on a heavy oak door. She could hear someone rustling around inside of the house. The door swung open, and Rosalie was met by the sight of a dark haired woman. The woman looked pretty normal— her hair and clothes gave off the impression that she was well put together— except for the fact that her eyes were filled with sorrow and had heavy purple bags beneath them.

"Hello, Mrs. Holloway," Rosalie sent a delicate smile.

Lex's mother recognized the girl at her door as one of Dr. Cullens children, but she had never met her before. Mrs. Holloway couldn't help but wonder why Rosalie was at her house.

Noticing her confusion, Rosalie spoke up. "I know that you don't know me, but I was a friend of Lex's."

"Oh," Mrs. Holloway's eyes watered a bit at the mention of her daughter. "Would you... Would you like to come in?"

"If it's not too much of an imposition," Rosalie replied. 

"No, not at all," Lex's mother insisted. She was desperate to preserve any connection to her daughter. "Please, come in."

She led Rosalie into the living room, where the two of them sat on the sofa together.

"I didn't know that you two were friends" Mrs. Holloway said. She sounded sad, like it was dawning on her how much she didn't know about her daughter. And it was true, there was a lot that she didn't know. But it wasn't her fault— nearly everything that Mrs. Holloway didn't know about had happened after Lex had become a vampire.  

"We mostly talked at school," Rosalie replied, hoping to soothe the older woman's concerns, but not wanting say anything suspicious. "I wish I could've gotten to know her better."

Mrs. Holloway nodded wordlessly.

Rosalie looked around at the photos that were hung on the walls— most of them were of Lex, either by herself or with her family. Rosalie smiled as she saw them. She had only known Lex as a teenager, so seeing her girlfriend's childhood in photographs made Rosalie feel closer to her. 

She stopped to inspect one particular picture of Lex. She appeared to be about seven or eight in this particular image, and she was dressed in a princess costume holding a pumpkin shaped bucket full of candy, but she looked absolutely miserable. Her brilliant green eyes were downcast, and her mouth was was down-turned into a pitiful scowl. Rosalie chuckled slightly at the expression on Lex's face.

"She hated that costume," Mrs. Holloway said, joining Rosalie in front of the photograph. "She wanted to be a pirate, but her grandmother had insisted on a princess costume. You know Lex, she would always go along with things like that to make people happy, but she would let everyone know how she really felt about it... We weren't going to put that picture up— she looks so upset— but Lex insisted. She said that if she had to wear the dress, then we better appreciate it."

"She can be dramatic," Rosalie agreed. "I mean could— she could be dramatic."

"We had a hard time with that too," Mrs. Holloway told Rosalie, mistaking her slip-up as denial. "Talking about her like she's still here... It's been three months. The police said that after the first seventy-two hours..."

Tears fell down Mrs. Holloway's face as she became overcome with emotion. Rosalie put her hand on Mrs. Holloway's arm in a comforting manner. 

"Sorry," Mrs. Holloway sniffled. 

"Don't apologize," Rosalie told her. "What you're going through... it's horrible. You don't need to apologize."

"I just wish that we knew what happened to her," Mrs. Holloway cried. "I can't stand not knowing if my baby is out there somewhere suffering."

Rosalie wished that she could tell Mrs. Holloway the truth about everything— that Lex was happy, and being cared for. But she couldn't. Instead she comforted the poor mother the best she could. 

They were interrupted a few moments later by Mr. Holloway entering the house. He was wearing a suit and carrying a few grocery bags.

"Ceci, I stopped by the store at my way home from—" he cut himself off as he noticed the state of his wife. "Oh, Cecilia, darling."

He rushed over and pulled his grief-stricken wife into a tender embrace, whispering sweet reassurances to her, completely oblivious to the fact that Rosalie was in the room. She sat awkwardly on the couch while the older couple had their moment. 

Mrs. Holloway broke away from the hug. "Dan, this is Rosalie. She uh— she was a friend of Lex's," she said as she wiped her eyes.

"Nice to meet you," he said, a bit awkwardly, to Rosalie.

"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Holloway," she said sincerely. "I just came to offer my support. I can't even begin to imagine how hard this must be for you, and I just thought that you might like to know how much your daughter means to everyone in Forks... especially to me."

Realization flashed across the Holloway's faces— this girl obviously had feelings for their daughter. Neither of them said anything about it though. It didn't feel like their place to talk to some teenager about her crush on their missing daughter.

"Thank you," Mr. Holloway replied. "I'm sure Lex would've appreciated you coming over here."

"Anyway, I should probably get going," Rosalie said. She had been there for about an hour now, and she felt as if the Holloways could use some space. Lex would be happy to learn that her parents seemed to be beginning to heal. Of course they still missed her, and they would never get over the pain of losing their daughter, but they were learning how to live through the pain. Lex's biggest fear was that they would let the pain consume them.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner?" Mrs. Holloway asked hopefully.

"Thank you so much for the offer," Rosalie said. "But I promised that I would be home for dinner tonight."

After she left the Holloway residence, Rosalie hurried back to the Cullen house. She knew that Lex was anxiously awaiting an update about her parents, and Rosalie was desperate to soothe the guilt that had been eating away at her girlfriend's sanity for the past few months.

Lex was waiting near the door when Rosalie arrived.

"Are they alright?" Lex questioned. "What happened?"

"Come on," Rosalie said. "Let's go for a run and we can talk about it then."

AN:

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thank you so much for reading!!!