I knew what I wanted out of life

     “My parents were thoroughly middle class. My father had a stable job in a bank, something I realize now
that he was smug about — he saw his prosperity as a reward for talent and hard work, rather than
acknowledging the luck involved. I took it all for granted then; in my home, it was as if the Great Depression
was only a troublesome rumor. Of course I saw the poor people, the ones who weren’t as lucky. My father
left me with the impression that they’d brought their troubles on themselves.
     “It was my mother’s job to keep our house — and myself and my two younger brothers — in spotless
order. It was clear that I was both her first priority and her favorite. I didn’t fully understand at the time, but I
was always vaguely aware that my parents weren’t satisfied with what they had, even if it was so much more
than most. They wanted more. They had social aspirations — social climbers, I suppose you could call them.
My beauty was like a gift to them. They saw so much more potential in it than I did.
     “They weren’t satisfied, but I was. I was thrilled to be me, to be Rosalie Hale. Pleased that men’s eyes
watched me everywhere I went, from the year I turned twelve. Delighted that my girlfriends sighed with envy

when they touched my hair. Happy that my mother was proud of me and that my father liked to buy me pretty
dresses.
     “I knew what I wanted out of life, and there didn’t seem to be any way that I wouldn’t get exactly what I
wanted. I wanted to be loved, to be adored. I wanted to have a huge, flowery wedding, where everyone in
town would watch me walk down the aisle on my father’s arm and think I was the most beautiful thing they’d
ever seen. Admiration was like air to me, Bella. I was silly and shallow, but I was content.” She smiled,
amused at her own evaluation.
     “My parents’ influence had been such that I also wanted the material things of life. I wanted a big house
with elegant furnishings that someone else would clean and a modern kitchen that someone else would cook
in. As I said, shallow. Young and very shallow. And I didn’t see any reason why I wouldn’t get these things.
     “There were a few things I wanted that were more meaningful. One thing in particular. My very closest
friend was a girl named Vera. She married young, just seventeen. She married a man my parents would never
have considered for me — a carpenter. A year later she had a son, a beautiful little boy with dimples and curly
black hair. It was the first time I’d ever felt truly jealous of anyone else in my entire life.”
     She looked at me with unfathomable eyes. “It was a different time. I was the same age as you, but I was
ready for it all. I yearned for my own little baby. I wanted my own house and a husband who would kiss me
when he got home from work — just like Vera. Only I had a very different kind of house in mind. . . .”
     It was hard for me to imagine the world that Rosalie had known. Her story sounded more like a fairy tale
than history to me. With a slight shock, I realized that this was very close to the world that Edward would
have experienced when he was human, the world he had grown up in. I wondered — while Rosalie sat silent
for a moment — if my world seemed as baffling to him as Rosalie’s did to me?