THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A MAD WOMAN

she has her good qualities—loyalty, determination, self-discipline, and a very strong bond to her adoptive family.

• lately i’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that emmett and rosalie were alive and the same age at the same time
• what if they had found each other before carlisle changed rosalie?
• i mean picture it, maybe emmett’s job-hunting in the city because work had dried up in his town because of the great depression
• and one night he was walking back to his lodgings when he heard a woman crying
• he walked in the direction of the noise, barely noticing the group of men that passed him by walking in the opposite direction, laughing and talking
• he didn’t see the blood on their hands
• what he did see, only a few minutes later, was the crumpled figure of a woman lying in an alley
• she was bloodied and bruised, her face swollen and her bones likely broken
• she should have been dead, judging by the amount of blood pooling around her body, but she was still breathing and slowly her loud sobbing turned to quiet weeping
• emmett knelt down beside her and very gently rolled her over to face him
• she cringed away from the touch of a man and then winced as she felt her body aching
• emmett reassures her, “i’m going to get help, wait here.”
• his gentle touch worked its magic and the young woman called weakly after him
• “wait.” she reached out and touched him arm. “please don’t leave me.” she begged. “i’m scared they’ll come back.”
• “okay. i won’t leave you. um-…”
• carefully emmett scooped the young woman up into his arms, cradling her to his chest
• he walked as quickly as he could to the nearest hospital, trying not to jolt her too much
• on the way she slipped into unconsciousness and emmett worried that he was too late
• when he got to the hospital the night nurses took over, taking rosalie from him and lying her down on the closest bed
• the matron started to yell at emmett, telling him he should be ashamed of himself
• emmett couldn’t figure out what she meant until the loud shouts stir the young woman lying on the bed
• she managed to crack open one swollen eye and then she shook her head, “it wasn’t him. he saved me. it’s royce king you want.” she croaked and before letting her head fall back onto the pillow
• the matron apologised and told emmett that he did a very good thing and that he should be immensely proud of his actions that night
• “you probably saved her life. we’ll take it from here, young man. the doctor’s on his way now. you can go.”
• “excuse me, but may i stay?” emmett asked. “i’d like to make sure she’s alright.”
• “you can come back in the morning.” the matron told him, moving away towards another bed
• “how will i find her?” emmett pleaded. “i don’t know her name.”
• “you don’t know her name?” the matron laughed with surprise. “honey, this girl’s famous around here. that’s rosalie hale. royce king is, or i hope now, was, her fiancé.”
• “oh… i see.”
• the matron smiled at him and patted him gently on the shoulder, “you just make sure you’re back here in the morning. okay?”
• emmett nodded and promised to be back the next morning
• he made good on his promise and even stopped to steal a few roses from somebody’s front garden on his way to the hospital
• when he got there rosalie was sitting up
• her face was still swollen, but the nurses had cleaned most of the blood off
• he could see now that she was beautiful, more beautiful than any girl he had ever seen before
• no wonder everybody in town knew her name
• she smiled when he walked up to her bed and awkwardly offered her the limp flowers
• “thank you.” she whispered, her throat hoarse from screaming the previous night
• “how are you feeling?” he asked, knowing it was a pointless question but unable to think of anything else to say to her, and sat down in the chair beside her bed
• “a little sore.” she admitted. “but the doctor checked me over and he said i’ll be alright in a few weeks.”
• “anything broken?”
• “my arm.” she waved her cast at him. “and a few ribs. other than that it’s mostly my reputation.” she glanced away, as though ashamed
• “your reputation?” emmett repeated, confusion clouding his face
• “you think anybody’s gonna look twice at me now?” she challenged bitterly. “even if my face didn’t look the way it did… i’m damaged goods in every way possible.”
• emmett shook his head, “i don’t think that.”
• “don’t be silly, everybody thinks that.”
• “well i’m not everybody.” he shrugged
• rosalie opened her mouth to reply when the sound of footsteps approaching cut through their conversation and she tore her bloodshot blue eyes away from emmett’s
• “how are you this morning, miss hale?”
• emmett looked up and saw a doctor standing at the end of rosalie’s bed
• the doctor smiled politely at emmett, who couldn’t help but staring at him
• he was young, almost impossibly young for is profession, with a head of golden hair that matched rosalie’s perfectly
• “much better, thank you doctor.” rosalie replied sweetly
• “marvellous. and i see that matron believed you strong enough for visitors? that’s certainly encouraging.”
• “this is my saviour.” rosalie whispered, looking at emmett with eyes most people reserved for religious icons
• of course, emmett was too shy to meet her eyes and thus missed her admiration
• “ah, the hero makes himself known.” the doctor reached forward and shook emmett’s hand. “carlisle cullen, pleasure to meet you sir.”
• “you too, doc…” emmett mumbled
• “i’ll leave you to your visit, miss hale. i’ll check up on you a little later.”
• rosalie smiled and nodded as doctor cullen moved to the next bed
• “i guess being in hospital isn’t so bad after all, huh.” emmett chuckled
• “what makes you say that?”
• “well you’ve got a bed to yourself for one thing.”
• rosalie furrowed her brow, “i always have a bed to myself.”
• “oh…”
• “don’t you?”
• emmett shrugged uncomfortably, “well back home i share with my brothers… but right now i’m in a lodger’s house so i have a crib to myself. it’s a real luxury.”
• “oh…”
• emmett cursed himself for having mentioned it
• of course a girl like her wouldn’t have ever had to share a bed with her siblings, she’d probably had a room to herself her whole life
• “and you’ve got a handsome doctor waiting on you hand and foot.” he added quickly, hoping to distract her
• “handsome?” rosalie repeated and looked in the direction that doctor cullen had just vanished in. “really? i hadn’t noticed.”
• rosalie smiled at emmett and suddenly he forgot why they were even there at all 
• he cleared his throat, “so the matron told me you have a fiancé?”
• “not anymore.” she said firmly. “daddy made sure the police picked royce and his friends up this morning. i don’t ever want to see him again.”
• “i don’t blame you.” emmett mumbled
• rosalie kept her eyes down but she smiled softly, “you know my friend’s son has hair just like yours.”
• “oh yeah? handsome fella then?” emmett joked, leaning back in his chair
• “oh sure.” she smiled a little wider and nodded at him
• “hey, i’m sorry the flowers aren’t up to much but-…”
• “no, no.” rosalie rushed. “they’re perfect. thank you for bringing them. thank you for coming this morning. thank you for last night and-…”
• “no more thank you’s, miss hale, you’re making me blush.” emmett interrupted
• “please, call me rosalie. or better yet, just rose.”
• “okay… rose.”
• “and you? do you have a name? or are you intent on remaining a mysterious heroic stranger forever?”
• “well as fun as that sounds… my name’s emmett. emmett mccarty.”
• “it’s nice to meet you emmett. properly.”
• “you too ros-…”
• “that’s enough visitation for today, young man.” the matron walked over and tapped her foot disapprovingly. “miss hale needs time to heal.”
• “i’m sorry.” emmett blushed and stood to leave, tripping over the leg of his chair.
• “wait…” rosalie called out, a little desperately. “will you come back?”
• “of course i will, if you’d like me to… remember what i said last night?”
• “my memory’s a little foggy.” rosalie giggled. “remind me?”
• “i said i wouldn’t leave you. i’d like to keep that promise, if you’ll let me miss hale.”
• “i’d like that. but only if you promise to call me rose!”
• “you have deal, miss rose.”
• emmett came back every morning to visit rosalie, and on each visit he brought her a single rose from the bush en route
• he promised himself that once he found a job he would leave some money for the person that had grown them, but found himself too distracted by rosalie to focus too much on the job hunt
• two weeks after her admittance, doctor cullen allowed rosalie to be discharged from the hospital under the condition that she rest at home until she had fully recovered
• on her last day in the hospital, emmett walked in to find rosalie standing next to her bed, packing away the suitcase her mother had brought her on her first night
• she was dressed in a pale pink dress and someone had done her hair for her
• she smiled widely when he walked in and then dipped her gaze a little self-consciously, “how do i look?”
• “like-… like you deserve a hell of a lot more than a dead rose.” emmett said, dropping his gift onto the pristine white bed
• “no, don’t be silly. i love roses.”
• emmett shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets, “i guess this is it then.”
• “it?”
• “the end of our visits…”
• “why?” rosalie exclaimed, horrified
• “well you’re going to go back to your real life now, right? back to your friends and your family. back to the life you’ve always had. one that doesn’t have room for someone like me in it.”
• “someone like you?” rosalie narrowed her eyes. “what? someone brave and kind and handsome and-… why on earth would you think i wouldn’t want someone like you in my life.”
• “well i-…”
• “in fact, mr mccarty, if you do not continue to visit me at my home as i recover i will take it as a personal attack.” a small smile spread onto rosalie’s lips as she finished her determined sentence
• emmett grinned and played along, “well we can’t have that, can we miss rose?”
• “so you’ll be there tomorrow?” she asked pleadingly
• “certainly, ma’am!” he bowed and presented her with the rose he had brought with him
• the following week emmett and rosalie were sitting on her family’s front porch when her mother walked out with a notepad and pencil
• she smiled at emmett, forever grateful to him for saving her daughter’s life and for sticking by her when the rest of society had seemingly turned their backs on her
• rosalie couldn’t have cared less about the rest of them, she only had eyes for her saviour
• “rosalie, will you help me decide which flowers to choose for next week’s gala?” her mother asked, sinking down beside her daughter
• “why don’t we do roses?” rosalie suggested, smiling dreamily
• her mother’s forehead creased in confusion
• “roses? but you always hated roses! when you were ten you told me you wished i’d made lillian your first name because liles were so much prettier than roses.”
• rosalie shrugged and looked to emmett, his freckled skin glowing in the afternoon sun, “i changed my mind…”