Author Notes:
This is from Rosalie's point of view on the situation of Bella and Edward. It is personally one of my favorite stories I've written. I hope you like it.
Please review at the end. : )

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Jealousy

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The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.

--Baltasar Gracian

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I raised one perfectly arched eyebrow when Edward responded to Alice's questioning.

"That human?" I scoffed. "She's so… ordinary, I don't know." I slid my peach-colored fingernails through the hair around my ears.

"Rosalie," Emmett warned.

"Maybe he likes ordinary," I said to no one in particular, mostly to myself.

"Rosalie," Emmett said again, snaking his arm around my waist. I shifted into his grasp, leaning against his shoulder.

We were all sitting on the couch in our enormous home. Edward came back with a silly goose-egg smile on his face, and Alice—sweet, intrusive Alice—couldn't waste a moment before she gushed, "I saw you with Bella Swan, today." Of course he was with Bella Swan. After that embarrassing ordeal concerning his near lack of self-containment, the entire family knew about how he had Biology II with the police chief's daughter. It was a common topic-of-interest at least once a week.

"What?" I said to Emmett. "I don't like her. She's a human," as if that needed explaining.

"She's only a human," Alice said, sticking up for the girl. "You sound defensive. What did she ever do to you?"

"She existed."

"Oh, come now," Jasper championed. "You've never even spoken to her."

Even Jasper, with his obvious lack of self-control when it came to humans and their... qualities… was sticking up for her. I suppose Alice did have that kind of effect on people, Jasper especially. Anyone who thinks pairs grow accustom to each other had it all wrong—if anything, they dazzle even more.

"I don't need to speak to her to know that I won't like her."

Esme chuckled from a corner. She was knitting. How original.

"You're so stubborn," Esme told me. "You should open up to more people."

And bless the whole world with vampires? I think not. Not everyone is as compassionate as Esme or empathetic as Jasper. We can't all read their minds and know how to say just the right thing. We can't see into their future and warn them of that hawk that will come out of the sky and… well.

"Wonderful, Rosalie," Edward said, wandering into the kitchen. He retrieved a box of matches. The fireplace was roaring within seconds.

"What?" I defended. "It's not my fault you can't keep your nosy head out of my thoughts. You can't even read hers."

I laughed silently to myself.

He growled at me. Feisty, aren't we?

"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist," I snarled back. I gracefully left Emmett's arms and glided across the room until I was in front of the fireplace. Funny, don't you think? One of the few things that can kill us and it's sitting balefully behind me.

I noticed that Alice giggled at my remarks. Ahh, that's right. I said appealingly to myself. Alice—sweet, agreeable Alice.

"Rosalie, shut up," Edward barked. Funny. I never thought Edward to be the name of a dog.

"It isn't my fault you're so susceptible to being offended," I lashed out. "I'd hate to see your reaction when you saw Bella's reaction when she found out what you are."

I didn't expect Edward to pounce. We got into a thick fist fight, despite the fact that its effects would mean nothing in the long run. I humored him. I shifted my thin knee to his hips, pushing him off of me. I got on top of him and elbowed him in the jaw. He wrapped his legs around mine and pushed me to the side. In a flash, he was wrestling with my neck, trying to choke the death out of me. Touching. I slapped the side of his head and punched into his stomach. I rolled over and pummeled the area where his diaphragm was.

Emmett pulled me off.

"Rosalie!" Esme shouted.

"You're angry with me?" I asked disbelievingly. "You're angry with me when he's the one who started it?"

"Listen to yourself," Esme brandished. "You aren't a child anymore."

"And neither is Edward!" Edward glared. "But guess who is?" I whispered.

The room fell silent, waiting for the words that were bound to leave my lips.

"Bella Swan."

Edward's eyes shifted colors quickly, I must say, even for a vampire. Even Alice looked angry with me. Emmett had turned his head, but I could still detect the slight shaking of it. Esme was stuck in disbelief. Jasper wasn't even bothering to try and calm them down; his own anger was only making it worse. I plowed on.

"Here we have sweet, innocent Edward Cullen, who celebrated his one hundredth birthday not too long ago." I swept up to him. I explained to the rest of the room, although they already knew it, in a simpering whisper, "If you look close enough into his mouth, you can see the venom trickle down his cheek. And Bella!"

I turned around. "And then you have little Miss Isabella Marie Swan, the daughter of Charlie Swan, the police chief of Forks, Washington. She's as naïve as any other seventeen year old girl." I giggled to myself a bit before I said the next part. "She won't even see it coming when you drink her dry."

Edward slapped me. "Shut up."

I gawked at him playfully. "Oh, you don't like the truth, Edward? Or are you too ignorant to realize that Bella won't care if you're nice, or if you're handsome, or if you're intelligent. She'll only care that the boy she thought she loved was on top of her, amount to sink his teeth into her skin and kill her."

I took their silence as a standing ovation and continued.

I pulled a too-sweet voice to my throat and mimicked, "Oh, Edward, you're so caring. You'd never hurt me."

Edward's voice was next, "I'm too dangerous for you, Bella. You're better off without me."

Bella again, "That's impossible." I paused, enjoying the looks of incredulity they were giving me. I myself was even surprised with the gull I possessed.

I looked at Edward. "I bet you'll tell her you love her before you make the bite."

Before I could really even see what was happening, Edward pushed me across the room and into the wall. "You've gone too far, Rosalie!" he snapped, his voice shaking, before he stomped up the stairs and into his room.

"Face it, Eddy!" I called after him. "She's a human! You're a vampire! We don't mix! Don't you see that?!"

He paused and looked at me. "The only thing I see is that you're a lot more shallow and inconceivable than I first thought you could ever be. This is low—even for you."

"Cry me a river, brother dearest."

He left, leaving me in the presence of the rest of my angry family.

"Rosalie…" Alice started. I couldn't quite tell if she was indefinitely tempestuous at me, or if she was trying to calm me down. I decided it was the former, as I wasn't the one who needed her easing words.

Emmett was in my face in a moment. "You know I love you, Rose," he said. "But right now—right now—you've gone too far."

"There's a line a mile behind you, Rosalie," Jasper snapped, before he tore away at the stairs after Edward. Emmett grimaced at me before he followed. Esme stood silent for a moment, unsure of who to comfort, before she undoubtedly decided Edward. She was up the stairs in a flash.

"Rosalie," Alice continued. "I never thought you could be so jealous before." She laughed. "And I'm the one with the foresight."

"Jealous?" I scoffed. "Why would I be jealous?"

"You tell me," she retorted angrily. "You have everything anyone could ever want. A family; love; beauty; money; immortality, even! What more do you want in life?"

I knew the answer to that, I but I ignored it nonetheless. "I'm no more jealous than anyone else in this family."

"That must make you pretty jealous, then, because we all have our wants," Alice snapped.

"Oh, really?" I pushed. "Everyone here is just so gosh darn perfect. You said it yourself."

"I did," she said. It was more of a statement than anything else—a confirmation of her own words. "Take a look at Jasper—you couldn't even begin to comprehend how he wishes of the self control he had. He wants nothing more than to have our restraint with them." By 'them', she meant humans.

I blinked, showing that I was listening.

"And Edward," she continued. "He has to look at his entire family every day—he has to look at the love we have all found and then think of how he hasn't, yet. And you dare take that away from him? How impeccably heartless you are."

"And what about you?" I whispered heatedly. "What are you jealous of?"

She laughed a humorless laugh. "Take a wild guess," she spat. "Do you have any idea—any conceivable idea how hard it is to not even know who you are?"

"You're Alice Cullen," I told her. "You know that."

"You know what I mean!" she shouted back. "Who was I before I was a vampire? I don't know my name, my family, where I lived—I don't even know the year I was born! Do you have any notion at all of how frustrating that is?"

I blinked, too focused on the point she was trying to make than anything else.

"Don't you whine to me about how jealous you are of Bella because—"

"I'm not jealous of that scoundrel!" I shouted.

"Then what makes her so wicked?" she asked me delicately. "The fact that blood still runs through her veins or that she'll grow a year older in the fall?"

"You have no idea of what you're talking about."

"Really? I don't?" she asked rhetorically. "Well, I suppose Edward doesn't, either. He doesn't need to fall in love with a human, because it doesn't gain your approval. She is what you will never be, again, Rosalie. Don't deny it. You're jealous of her."

"And so what if I am?" I screeched. Within seconds, every thought and feeling I had ever had on the subject came tumbling out.

"I didn't ask to me a vampire, Alice. I never wanted it—I still don't! I would give anything—anything—to be a human again."

"And you'd leave us all, just like that? You'd leave Emmett, just so you can have your silly human existence, again?" she asked disbelievingly.

"Don't get me wrong, I would pick Emmett over Edward any day—I love Emmett more than anything in the world, and Edward is only my brother in comparison, but you weren't there—Carlisle picked Edward for me, and to be passed over as just a sister? And now, he picks a common human? Can't you understand the impression I'm under?"

"No, I really can't," she said with intrepid bluntness.

"I'm a vampire—the all-powerful 'warrior of the night'—we are born into perfection. Can't you imagine how it feels that a human took my place?"

"Rosalie, you're right. You are a vampire, born into perfection. She's a human, you're worried over absolutely nothing."
"I'm worried that I'll be tossed aside like some sort of pack mule!"

"You're worried that she'll replace you!" Alice shrieked. "You're worried that no one will care about Rosalie the Beautiful Vampire anymore—you're worried that Bella the Human will be the new novelty of the house."

My mouth dropped open.

"You're jealous of Bella because she's a human. You're jealous because she has, what, mortality? You want to die? Go throw yourself in tha fireplace right now, then, if you're so eager." Her eyes trailed across the floor to the blazing fire, egging me on. "You're jealous because she's a human—and you want to be a human. Is this all about your ego? You're worried that, despite your morbid beauty, the human girl that Edward likes will be what we're all focused on?"

Her eyes burned a whole through mine. She stared intently, waiting for an answered I didn't have to give.

"Dream on, Rosalie. You're family. We don't do that to family. Or," she paused, looking up the stairs where Edward had gone. Her gaze soon came back to me. "Perhaps some of us do."

Alice left the room, her usually short, pixie-like figure replaced with a sudden trembling anger.

I stood still for a moment, embracing the conversation that had just taken place.

Jealousy, one of the seven deadly sins, possessed me. It encompassed me entirely, completely. And for some reason, that didn't bother me in the least. I replayed the entire course of events that had taken place with foolish eagerness—perhaps I really was as heartless as Alice claimed, if the fact that I had hurt my family so much entertained me. I pondered myself. Perhaps forgiveness is what I wanted, absolution for my wrong-doings. I wanted comfort. It suddenly occurred, however, that the jealousy remained. I wanted it to remain. I wanted to feel the resentment against the human girl—almost as if I needed it to survive. That was silly, though. There's only one thing I need to survive, as well as Emmett. How incontrovertibly odd it was that jealousy was now fighting for my affections.

I gathered myself up into a suitable manner and decided to leave—to go hunting. I had to get out of this house. After the events that had just taken place, I doubt anyone wanted to see my robust face for a while. I quickly wrote a note, one that I was sure would be torn up and thrown into the fire when it was first read. I'll leave them be for now—I can fake an apology later.