Author's Note: Before you turn away from this story because of the incomplete status, have no fear! This story is complete and waiting to be posted, but I just want some reviews before I post the rest. There are only 18 chapters in total and since the chapters are long, I hope they tide you over until I add the rest! Please enjoy and thanks for reading! There may be some mistakes in my writing and I apologize! I wrote this story originally years and years ago, I just thought that E/B were better suited to this story than my original characters! Reviews equal love, people! Mwah!
CHAPTER ONE
Twenty-three year old Bella Newton rested her hands on her hips and surveyed her work. The furniture was in place and the shelves and cabinets were dusted and finally clean. The picture frames were finally straightened and smiling babies grinned back at her from behind the glass, toothless grins and soft, bald heads dominating the portraits. Early morning sun glimmered through the windows, casting gentle warmth over the room.
"Perfect," she sighed as a small smile crossed her lips. After two days of cleaning, unpacking, and rearranging, her new living room was finally completed. Her husband, of course, had been of no help.
"Don't throw your back out, babe," Mike had said upon Bella's first mention of the work she wanted to do in their new house. They'd moved in only five days before and the only box that he had opened had contained his TV. Between wrestling her children down for naps and getting them fed, bathed, and oxygenated outside, she had no time to even think about doing all of the unpacking on her own. But Mike wasn't showing any signs of progress in that department. His clothes were still overflowing from the boxes in their new master bedroom.
Surprised that her babies hadn't woken her up at the crack of dawn, Bella took advantage of the free time and by 8 am, she'd finished the master bathroom, the kids bathroom, and the living room. Just as she stepped towards the kitchen, the cries of her nine-month-old son, Sam, rang from the back of the house. Sighing, she set her cleaning supplies and box cutter to the side and made her way to his bedroom.
"Samuel…" she cooed, as she stepped inside his nursery. It was plain and the walls were garish and white. She'd managed to unpack most of his clothes but a box of his toys was tipped over sideways and the contents had spilled across the carpet. She'd wanted so badly to give her children beautiful bedrooms when they arrived at their new house in Chicago but it was too hard to find the time to do anything other than care for her children and the rest of the house.
"Hi baby," she smiled, as she approached his crib. He was lying on his back, tears glistening in his brown eyes and his cheeks flushed a bright shade of red. At the sight of his mother, he stopped crying and stared up at her expectantly. She reached in and lifted him up and into her arms. He pushed his face against her shoulder and then rested there as if he'd just experienced the most horrible tormenting. She was still dressed in her flannel pajama pants and white tank top and so Sam's warm tears fell gently on her skin.
"How about we wake up your sister and get some breakfast, huh?" she asked, looking down at him as they left the room. She wiped his cheek and kissed his forehead and then quietly stepped into Lana's bedroom. Her three-year-old was wide awake, sitting on her bed, cross legged, while Dora the Explorer played on the TV at the end of her bed.
"Mama!" she cried when she noticed that Bella had entered the room. She pointed at the TV and grinned. "I turned the teebie on!" Bella smiled. Lana was her golden child. She was a modern, miniature version of Shirley Temple with her tight, brown curls and sweet dimples. She was smart and alert and she loved everyone, especially her father which was heartbreaking for Bella because she knew that Mike was not tuned into his daughter's intense desire to be with him whenever he was home.
"Good job, baby!" Bella praised and then wiggled her fingers at her daughter. "You hungry, Lana? I'm going to make some breakfast and then we'll get dressed and go to the park!"
"Okay!" Lana cried, jumping off of her bed. Bella knew that would do it. If anything could pry Lana away from the TV, it was the promise of a trip to the park or the playground, or anything that was outside. She sat through breakfast and a bath without contest and by eleven, they were on their way to the neighborhood park, Sam in the stroller and Lana toddling along beside her mother, picking at flowers and talking to the bees.
"Stay where I can see you, Lana, okay? The sand box and the swings!" Bella called, as soon as her daughter took off across the grass, her small legs carrying her to the sandbox where she met her daily array of toddler friends. A group of familiar mothers smiled to Bella and she waved gently as she began extricating Sam from the stroller. She rested him on her hip and pulled the blanket from the back of the stroller in one single motion. Pushing the stroller to the side, she spread the blanket out over the grass and lowered herself on top of it. She laid Sam on his stomach and let him paw at the blanket. Sitting back, she took a deep breath of the fresh, June air and then exhaled slowly.
She hadn't asked for this life. She'd always dreamed of a husband and babies but not at the age of twenty. At seventeen, she had graduated high school at the top of her class. She'd once been enrolled at a four year university. Before she'd met Mike at the University, she'd never been with anyone before. He was a junior, two years her senior, and he had been a T.A. for one of her professors. He caught her after class one night during the first week of school and that was it. They were dating by Labor Day.
As a freshmen, she fell in love with him and she fell fast and hard. By winter break of her sophomore year, she was pregnant and terrified of how he would take the news. But he surprised her. Although she had to drop out of school, he proposed to her and promised that they would be married as soon as he graduated the following May. He kept his promise and they had a small summer wedding and he had bought her a dress that was tailored to fit over her swollen belly. Lana was born the following September and they were complete.
For the first year of their marriage, they lived in a small apartment in Seattle close to Mike's job where he was working P.R. for a small Internet company. When he landed a job at a bigger and better company, they celebrated his success and Sam was conceived. That's where Bella saw a change in her husband. Upon Sam's arrival to the world, everything changed.
Mike rarely woke in the middle of the night to help Bella with either of the kids. He started working later and longer and when he was home he only seemed to want television, beer, or sex but never love from Bella or the kids. When he announced that his company was sending him to the mother ship in Chicago, Bella almost expected him to break everything and go alone, leaving his family behind. She wouldn't have minded that so much. Anything would have been better than living in a strange city, hundreds of miles away from everything that she'd ever known, just to be with a man who didn't want her anymore.
She had her babies and most of the time, she believed that they were all that she needed here to be happy. Sometimes, though, in the dark of the night as Mike snored from his place beside her, she would cry her silent tears and wish for something better, some new reality to sweep her off of her feet and take her away.
"Mama?" Lana asked and Bella found herself swept back to her actual reality where a golden haired little girl with dirty knees smiled in the sun. Bella smiled, bringing her hand to her forehead, fighting the summer sun.
"What's up, baby?" she asked.
"I made a present," she said, extending her fist to me. She was standing over Sam, who was looking up at his sister with curious eyes. She moved her hand under Lana's and she opened her fist. A decapitated grass hopper fell onto Bella's palm and she screeched. The bug flipped into the grass beside the blanket and Lana giggled.
"His head come off!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "But I don't know where." Bella laughed gently and reached out, brushing her daughter's cheek gently with her palm.
"Thank you, baby," she said. "But bugs don't make good presents. Why don't you make me a sand castle? I have my camera. We can take a picture of it and put it in your room."
"I can't," she said. Bella raised her eyebrows.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Boys potty in the sand box!" she cried, as if it were the most horrific thing she'd ever heard. Bella laughed and looked past her daughter, wondering what on earth had happened to make her think that. A small, red headed boy about Lana's age was cowering at the edge of the sand box as his father, a tall, bronze haired young man, poked a finger at his face with a stern expression. Upon looking into the sandbox, she found a darker patch near the middle and she imagined that the little boy had done his business on the sand.
"Oh wow… well… do you want to go on the swings?" Bella asked, turning back to Lana. She readjusted her daughter's pink overalls and brushed the sand from her daughter's clothes as Lana contemplated her answer.
"Mmmm… okay!" she said, as if she really had to think about it. Bella smiled.
"All right, well you go on over to the swings and Sam and I will be over in a second to swing with you, okay?" she asked. Lana nodded feverishly and veered around her brother and hurried to the swings.
Bella watched her daughter find her way to the larger swings, where she was sure she belonged and then turned to Sam. She scooped him up off of the blanket and into her arms and slowly stood up. Sam smiled at her, happy to be outside and in the sun and she kissed his cheek and adjusted the hat that she had put on his head to keep him from getting sun burnt. Together, they left their blanket and crossed the playground toward the swings.
As she passed the father and his son, she glanced to them and offered a sympathetic smile to the father as he looked up to watch her pass. His eyes lingered on her and until she realized how completely gorgeous he was, she felt uncomfortable. Once she noticed the color of his eyes and the perfect curve of his jaw and the way that his hair fell in his eyes she was perfectly happy with letting him look at her. He sent her a small smile, as if he was surprised to find her standing there and she returned it warmly. The little boy stood beside him, tears in his eyes. Behind them, a baby girl waited in the stroller, her eyes closed and her body shaded by the leaves of the tree overhead. After another lingering glance, he turned back to his son and Bella continued to the swings, a smile on her face.
