"What do you want, Edward? Please, just tell me what you want from me!" I was screaming at him from across the room. I was sick of fighting, sick of feeling like he didn't want me anymore. I was done. If something didn't change, if he didn't tell me something that would convince me not to leave, I would be packing my things and leaving tonight.
"What do I want? Bella, you know what I want." I shook my head, because anymore I really didn't know what he wanted. And I wasn't going to stay around if he didn't want me. "I want you."
"You don't act like it anymore."
"You don't either!" He yelled it, loud, making me flinch. I was on the verge of crying, but wanted to stay strong. I couldn't let him see me cry.
"Why do you have to be so difficult, Bella? Why do you always get pissed off at me for the smallest things? Why are you asking me what I want? What about what you want? Sometimes I'm tired, and don't want to have freaking sex with you, and the fact that you act all pissed off at me all the time makes me want to even less! I don't know what the hell you want from me, Bella. I thought you wanted me, and I want you, but I can't keep living this way."
"I'm sorry," I said, hearing the defeat in my voice. I was giving up. Like always. I slumped against the wall, looking at the floor, refusing to look at him. It seemed stupid, the way we fought all the time.
I heard his footsteps, loud and demanding, crossing the room to where I was sitting on the floor. I felt his hand lift my chin up, trying to make me look at him. I refused. I wanted to jerk my head away, make him leave me alone, but I couldn't. I couldn't stop the tears that started flooding down my cheeks.
I knew he hated to see me cry. It was one of his weaknesses. I saw his knees bend, he was leaning down. He kissed me hard. I had known it was coming. It seemed like the only time he touched me in any way was after we had fought and I started to cry. I hated it. I hated the fact that the only time it ever really felt like we were together was after we fought.
"I'm sorry." That was different. He never apologized to me for the fighting. Ever. It caught me off guard, and I looked up at him.
"Why?"
"For making you cry. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to yell at you, Bella. But something has to give. We both feel the same way, neither one of us is happy anymore. It needs to change, because I would never want to leave you. I never want to be without you, even if we do fight all the time."
I was in shock. I swear, it had to be the most that he had said to me without raising his voice in months.
Suddenly, I didn't care that we had been fighting almost non-stop for the last few months. I didn't care that he had been making me feel unwanted, like I didn't belong here with him. I felt like I needed him more than ever, and I wanted him to know it.
My hands moved of their own accord. They reached up, cupping his face and pulling it towards me. I felt my eyes flutter closed as our lips met. It was like kissing him for the first time all over again. It was like the first time he had taken me out so long ago, when everything between us was okay. I felt right, I felt good. For the first time since the fighting and distance had begun, I felt right. I felt like I was wanted and loved by the man that I had chosen to spend my life with.
When he pulled away, I couldn't help smiling at hearing the words that I hadn't heard in so long.
"I love you, Bella."
When I woke up the next morning, there was a smile on my face that wouldn't go away. But there was doubt in my mind. That must have been a dream, right? There's no way that Edward could have done those things and said those things, was there? I mean we had fought almost non-stop for the last few months of our marriage. When I turned over to look at Edward's side of the bed, he wasn't there. It deflated my good mood. It must have been a dream. He was never there when I woke up in the morning.
I heard something from the other room. It sounded like the bathroom door being shut. I rolled over and closed my eyes, waiting to see what he would do.
I felt the bed shift on the other side of me, and felt him rub his hand up my arm. My eyes flew open and I gasped, rolling over quickly. This was different. This was deffinately different.
Edward jumped back, alarmed. He held up his hands. I could see the same emotions warring on his face. Doubt, confusion, sadness.
"So, it wasn't a dream?" I didn't realize that I'd said it out loud until he chuckled. Oh, how I had missed that laugh of his!
"No, love, it wasn't. I thought the same thing myself when I woke up this morning with you wrapped around me. You were holding on for dear life. I almost couldn't untangle myself from you to get up and get a shower."
I felt myself pouting. "Well, you didn't have to get up, you could have waited and we could have gotten one together. I woke up, and you weren't here, and I thought last night had been a dream, well except for the fight. That seemed all too real. But everything else seemed too good to be true, and when I woke up and you weren't here, I just thought..."
He kissed me. Not like he had that first time last night, but like he'd kissed me after we had gone to bed together. It all came flooding back into my mind, like a dream indeed, it was so vivid.
Edward picked me up, putting my legs around his waist as he carried me to our bedroom. He was kissing up my neck, giving me sensations that I hadn't felt in such a long time. It had been a while since we had been together like this, enjoying eachother instead of having angry sex.
I wanted more. I wanted so much more.
He sat me down on the bed kissed me hard. I pulled him down with me as I lay back on the bed, and felt the distict bulge against my inner thigh. It's like he was everywhere, his lips and his hands were everywhere on my body. I couldn't keep track of where he was kissing me and where he was touching. It was marvelous.
Part of me couldn't help but wonder why he was acting this way. We hadn't been loving toward each other in a while. Why would we start now? The other part of my brain told me to shut the hell up because this was a good thing.
I held on to him like I would lose him. Like he was the only thing holding me down to the earth. I felt like if I let him go, this would all disapear, it would turn out to be the dream that I was so afraid it would be.
I knew that there were tears running down my face, I could feel them, along with Edward wiping them away as he made love to me. I couldn't help but notice the love that was evident in his eyes and the way it felt like we had never hit the rough patch in our relationship. I still knew every part of him, and he still knew where to touch to make me yearn for more of him. He loved me so completely, and I tried to do the same.
It was almost like it was our first time again, like it was our wedding night all over again. I was scared that I would disapoint him. That I wouldn't be good enough and he would like this part of me. But when I felt him touch me, and saw the way he looked at me, it was more obvious than ever that he couldn't take his eyes off of me.
He pulled me out of my memory of last night with a kiss on my neck. I giggled, tangling my hands in his hair.
"I've missed this so much, Edward," I whispered into his ear as he continued to kiss along my neck.
"So have I, my love."
Suddenly, I had the overwhelming urge to ask him what had happened to us when we had begun to fall apart. And why was he being so different, so much like the old Edward that I had fallen in love with, now?
"Edward.." When he didn't pay attention to me, I went on. "Edward, stop. Please."
I know that he thought that there was something wrong, that I didn't want to continue, but I did, so much. This was more important though.
"What happened to us, Edward?" I asked. I could hear the hurt in my voice, and I saw his eyes tighten as he heard it, too.
"I don't know, I honestly don't, Bella. Don't you think if I had known what was happening, I would have done something to stop it? I would have changed it. Don't you believe that? Don't you think that I wanted to do something, anything, to make the fighting and the distance go away? Because I did. I don't know if you did, though I would like to believe that the same is true for you, but I can't read your mind. I don't know if you wanted to fix things or not. I assume you did or we probably wouldn't be even talking to each other right now."
"Of course I did. Don't ever think that I didn't want things to change. I wanted all the bad things in our lives to go away. I just want to know why it happened? We we doing so good together. And then everything just started to, I don't know, fade, I guess."
"I know. But it's all okay now, Bella. I promise. When you started crying when I yelled at you last night, I realized that you had to be hurting just as much as I was. I finally realized that if I wanted to keep you, I had to put some effort into it. I could see it in your eyes, you were going to leave last night."
"I was. But it's not because I thought we couldn't do it, I thought that you wouldn't do it. I thought that you didn't care anymore, that you didn't really want me anymore, but felt like you had to stay with me no matter how unhappy you were, because that's what you believe. You married me, we made a commitment, and I knew that you wanted to honor that, but I honestly thought that you had changed your mind about us."
"Every couple goes through hard times, babe. And things get worked out. Sometimes faster than others, but sometimes they get dragged out. We didn't know what was happening, not really, and we didn't know how to stop it. It happened, and now it's over. That part, the bad part, its over now, Bella. It's just you and me again. We're together, and we won't be apart. I promised you that so many times, and I'll promise it again. I will not leave you. Ever. I love you, Bella."
"I love you, too, Edward."
He wrapped me in his arms, snuggling me close. We lay there in each others arms, holding one another, loving the feel of being held, being warm, and being safe. I never wanted this to end. It felt like a dream that I never wanted to wake up from.