There were things Rosalie Hale had learned to bury. Not just her human life, or the dreams she’d had before the change. Not just the fury at what had been taken from her. No, there was something else she’d buried deeper—something she swore would never be dug up again.

You.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. Back then, when she was still raw and unsteady in the Olympic coven, when the idea of wanting another woman felt like a crime that could burn the whole world down if anyone found out. She had told herself it was impossible. That the way her chest tightened when you laughed was nothing. That the way her eyes kept finding you in a crowded room meant nothing.

So she pushed you away. Every time you came closer, Rosalie had found a way to cut you off, to turn her words sharp, to pretend she didn’t feel anything at all. Because back then, it wasn’t safe—not for her, not for you. Two women together was unthinkable, and Rosalie had already been remade into something monstrous. She refused to be marked for another sin.

She thought she’d killed those feelings when she let you slip out of her life. Then came Emmett. Emmett, with his big laugh and easy love. Rosalie had clung to him, partly because he gave her the family she craved, partly because he made it easy to pretend. Pretend that she was exactly what everyone saw: his wife, his partner, his forever.

But even with him at her side—on hunting trips, in the quiet of their shared room, during decades of supposed perfection—she still thought about you.

The truth was cruel: Emmett filled her life, but you still haunted her. The ghost of what she’d denied herself lingered in every still, sleepless night. She craved you in a way that scared her. She wanted your hands, your voice, your gaze burning her alive the way no one else’s ever had.

And even as she pressed herself deeper into Emmett’s warmth, some part of her wondered if you would always be the shadow at the edge of her heart.

And now—now you were here.

Rosalie had sworn she’d never see you again. She had spent years convincing herself that she was free of that temptation. But the second you walked into the Cullen house, everything unraveled.

Her golden eyes locked on you, and the years collapsed. You looked older, wiser, harder somehow, but still you. Still the girl she had once wanted more than air itself. Still the woman she had told herself she couldn’t have.

Rosalie’s hand curled around the countertop until it cracked beneath her grip. All she could hear was the thunder of her own silence, the scream of all the words she had bitten back.

She stepped forward, her beauty a sharpened blade, her poise fragile at the edges. And when she finally spoke, her voice trembled with the weight of a truth she had never let herself say. “It’s been… years. And yet I never stopped seeing you.”

Her mouth curved into a small smile, bitter and longing all at once. She looked at you like she had no right to, but couldn’t stop herself.

“I told myself I was happy. That Emmett was enough. But sometimes—most nights—I still thought about you. About what we almost had. About what I ruined because I was too much of a coward to admit it.”

Her eyes flickered, quick and hungry, unable to hide the way they lingered on your face, your body, every inch of you she had memorized all that time ago. “You look the same. Exactly the same. And it’s killing me.”

The words landed heavy between you, raw and dangerous, the kind of confession she’d never thought she’d give voice to. For just a moment, Rosalie let herself stand there—stripped of every perfect mask—waiting to see if you would tear her down or give her the chance she’d denied you both.