Hello! I'm back! I've been writing this for so long but I kept getting writer's block. It's finally complete and I'd really appreciate your thoughts/criticisms. I know it's only the first chapter but I would love to hear from you guys to let me know if you'd be interested in a continuation. There are some sensitive topics in this story but I won't say too much just now because I wouldn't want to ruin it for you. Can I just say that any bands/musicians I mention in this are really worth a listen, they're British artists and most of them don't get a lot of recognition but they really are amazing. Anyway, thanks for reading and I would really love if you let me know what you think.
He had hair the colour of a penny; it was messy and needed a trim but perfect all the same.
He had eyes that were so green and held so much emotion that it seemed as though he was looking into your soul.
He was tall and toned and always wore jeans and converse with a beat up satchel.
He always had a professional camera dangling from his neck and headphones in his ears.
He had my heart stored away somewhere under his flawless, pale skin.
Up until recently I had thought that I was destined to be to be one of those people that went through life alone. Perpetual third wheel, the person that brought Jane Austin or Charlotte Bronte instead of a date.
I had set myself up for a life spent with 15 cats and a bottle of gin.
I was 19, I had started college and I hadn't even hugged a boy that wasn't a family member. Obviously, I wasn't destined to have any sort of male companionship.
Then I saw him.
He strolled through the campus, seemingly oblivious to the female stares that followed him. He walked strong and confident ; arms swinging by his side, jean clad legs taking long strides. So beautiful. At first I found it strange; I had never felt anything more than mild disgust towards a boy and all of a sudden I was getting a wave of... lust, love – I don't know – towards a boy I didn't even know. After I got over the shock I just became determined. Obviously it meant something if all of a sudden I was getting these sorts of feeling towards a stranger, obviously I had to act on it. The shy bookworm inside me protested knowing that were I to be rejected, I would be crushed but the confident college student inside was winning with the argument that, even if rejection was a possibility it was a risk I was willing to take if it meant that there was even a slight possibility that I would end up with the magnificent boy.
I began to see him almost every day, he always popped up when I least expected him to; my favourite book store, the music store where I worked, the coffee shop I went to everyday for my morning caffeine fix. I found it amazing that I hadn't bumped into him before. At this point, I was still working up the courage to actually talk to him, I mean he was him and I was Bella the girl that, although may be reasonably pretty, doesn't have a clue how to talk to boys. Seeing him had become a part of my daily routine; when I went to get my coffee he was there, when I walked to class he was there, when I was at work more often than not he would stop by. It began to make me question if he was following me. It would have been easy to dismiss as wishful thinking but I couldn't ignore the fact that for months I had been following the same routine and I had not seen him once before. I had planned five possible conversation starters with him some of which were better than others and I would decide which to use the next time I served him at the record store, providing it wasn't too busy but all rational thoughts flew out the window when he walked into the record store on a cloudy Saturday morning with his satchel hanging from his shoulder, the laces of his scruffy converse dragging on the ground and his hair gone. He browsed in the rock section for a while; all the while I stared at his head in wonder. I was shocked when he turned up at the counter a stack of CD's in his hand, it was amazing how pretty he still looked even without the mop of bronze hair. But still, me being the idiot I am, I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
"What happened to your hair?" I asked before realising I had actually said it out loud and subsequently slamming my hand over my mouth. He seemed confused for a moment before reaching up to touch his head as if checking to see what I was talking about. A look of recognition flitted across his face followed by a look of such sadness I had to fight the urge to jump over the counter and give him a massive hug.
"Well...Bella" he began, seemingly checking my name-tag before saying my name - I couldn't help but notice how perfect it sounded when said from his lips "Since I start chemo on Wednesday I thought I might as well get rid of it just now." He said finishing with a bitter laugh. I stood shocked for a moment. Chemo... as in chemotherapy as in cancer. I suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to puke and I didn't even know the boy, no matter how badly I wanted to.
He seemed perplexed by my reaction, I could tell that I had gone scarily pale and it was probably apparent that I felt a bit queasy.
"I'm sorry." I choked out. I had no reason to be so devastated by the news. Apart from the fact that he had been all I had thought about for the past month I had absolutely no connection to him. Hell, I didn't even know his name. I knew this wasn't how you were supposed to act when you found out a practical stranger had cancer but I couldn't help but feel like he was so much more to me. He continued to stare at me, a strange look of satisfaction on his face - it seemed absurd that he should be at all happy about his situation, never mind my completely ridiculous reaction to the news. The store continued to buzz around us, and old Smiths record played in the background while the only other customers – a young couple – whispered quietly to one another. I felt the urge to sing along to the familiar song just to break the silence between the two of us.
"Are you okay?" He asked eventually, I immediately felt like a huge idiot – he was the one that had just revealed that he had a potentially life threatening illness and he was asking me if I was okay.
"Shit, yeah. Emm, sorry. I guess, wow, just shocked. I mean… shit." Oh, bravo Bella. First time you talk to the man of your dreams – your very steamy, arousing dreams – and he's probably left thinking that I'm completely stupid. I was surprised when a loud laugh erupted from his mouth,
"Is it really that bad?" he managed, still laughing. I was slightly perplexed but not enough to miss the fact that he had the most beautiful laugh I'd ever heard. Once I got over just how amazing his laugh was I registered what he said, he had cancer, of course it was that bad.
"What are you talking about? You have cancer, it's a serious…" he cut me off, a pained look quickly crossing his face.
"I was talking about my hair, Bella... It was a joke." He said quietly. Had I not been so embarrassed I would have noted that he seemed to make me name sound better than I ever thought it would.
"Oh, well I mean your hairs not so bad, I mean it was nicer long but I think it looks kind of sexy." I stopped myself before I could embarrass myself further - I had quickly realised that my filter seemed to completely breakdown when in the presence of him. I could feel my cheeks heating up almost instantly and I quickly felt the sting of embarrassment that so many teenage girls experienced in all the chicks flicks Alice had forced me to watch all through high school.
"I should really just stop talking." I said after the awkward silence became too much to bear. I began to ring up the pile of CDs he had brought to the counter just so I had something to do that wouldn't cause me to embarrass myself further. The monotonous beeping of the barcode scanner covered as white noise while I gathered my thoughts. In the space of a minute and a half I had went from fantasizing about my Mr Perfect to having to take into serious consideration the fact that he might die before I even got to know him and – more importantly – before he even got to live.
Two Door Cinema Club. Beep. Mumford and Sons. Beep. The View. Beep. Bombay Bicycle Club. Beep.
The stack of plastic cases diminished far too quickly and I was forced to look back up at him.
"42 dollars 79" I said in a horribly croaky voice. I still couldn't bring myself to look up at him, too worried about what I would see in his deeply expressive eyes. Sadness, hopelessness, disgust?
"Bella." He all but whispered, as if my name was in some way deeply significant to him, I continued to stare at the counter as I placed all the CDs in a paper bag.
6,5,4,3,2,1…
I counted off each square plastic case as I placed in in the bag taking unnecessary care in making sure that they were neatly piled. I knew I couldn't hold it off for much longer.
"Bella." He repeated, louder this time, with a hint of determination in his velvet voice, my head snapped up involuntarily and the sight she was greeted by was worse than anything I could have imagined, my confident, beautiful fantasy man became incredibly real.
He looked utterly broken, a look of despair radiated from his mossy orbs. I had to catch my breath, it physically hurt to look at him, to see him in such a horrible situation. He nodded slightly – seemingly reassured - and smiled weakly before placing a handful of crumpled notes on the counter and fisting the handle of my carefully arranged paper bag.
"Bye, Bella." He said before striding to the door – the confident swagger I had seen on campus replaced by the walk of a broken man.
"Wait!" I shouted, not quite sure what I was doing. He turned, a look of shock colouring his pale skin. "You didn't say what your name was…" I trailed of awkwardly just as I reached him. He smirked lightly, his eyes lighting up ever so slightly.
"My name is Edward Cullen." He stated simply, offering his hand for a shake then retracting it quickly when he realised how odd a formal handshake would be in such a strange situation. Mind you, I wasn't sure on the correct etiquette for such an occasion.
"Well Edward Cullen, I'm…"
"You're Isabella Marie Swan, age 19, born in Forks, Washington to Charlie and Renee Swan. I know." He – Edward – listed off as if it were common knowledge. Edward quickly made his escape as I stood numbly in the doorway. For the second time in 5 minutes I was left to catch up on the events that had taken place, such a small space of time. How is it possible that 300 seconds could change my life?
I finished my shift at the record store, merely ghosting through activities that I usually enjoyed; talking to customers about music, deciding what record to play, choosing which promotional posters to put up. I tried not to care; I tried to pretend that I wasn't affected by this news as much as I actually was. I wanted to be angry at Edward for making me feel so strongly but I could hardly pin my blame on him, after all it was hardly his fault that I had developed some creepy infatuation with him before I had even spoken to him.
It wasn't until the end of the day, after I had thought of every possible solution and outcome to my current situation did I allow myself to analyse his last words – the way he had listed off facts about me, facts that could only be discovered through research. It wasn't like the whole campus knew where I was born or what my parents' names were, he would have had to find that out for himself, how he managed to find that information I couldn't figure out and why he even wanted to know about me was an even bigger mystery.
As cruel as it may sound I did not even want to know, he was sick, I mean really sick and getting involved in some form in relationship him had the potential to end in a great deal of heartache that I really wasn't sure If I'd be able to recover from. This morning, if I had been faced with the possibility that my perfect man might harbour some kind of feelings for me, I would have been utterly ecstatic, now it just made me incredibly confused, scared and angry. We had been crossing each other's paths for months and it was only after he discovered his he had a life threating illness that he decided to give any sort of indication to his feelings. Of course I know I was being completely selfish and irrational, it is as much my fault as his that we hadn't spoken before today, it was also unfair of me to blame him for even mentioning his illness as it was the fault of my massive mouth that it was even factored into conversation.
After my inner dialogue became too much to handle I called my long-time best friend Alice who I knew would be happy to help me get absolutely smashed. It was a Friday, I was single, I didn't have to work or go to school until Monday and I didn't see why Edward's 'news' should stop me from having fun. I spent a large part of the night feeling like a selfish bitches, images of Edward sitting in his apartment alone, head hung in despair constantly flashing through my mind. Alice could tell something was wrong when I downed three double vodka and cokes then washed them down with a round of tequilas but she knew me well enough to not question my lack of sobriety – that could wait until our routine morning after brunch, specially developed to get rid of even the worst hangover. More often than not it was me preparing the meal for Alice as I was usually smart enough to stop drinking when I got to the merry 'tell everyone you love then and kiss the hot bartender' stage.
Alice, however, preferred to continue drinking until she was claiming to see pink elephants and leprechauns; she would wake up in the morning with little recollection of the night before and a killer headache. I could tell that tomorrow morning this would not be the case as Alice – the amazing friend she is – had stopped accepting drinks from the line of willing, horny men wanting to get lucky as soon as she realised that I was on the quest to reach all consuming intoxication. She saved me from some sleazy guy wanting to get lucky with my drunk ass; she held my hair as I puked in a McDonald's carry-out bag, she helped me stumble into a cab then she sat with me until 5am while I cried about Edward and cancer and penny coloured hair.
I think it was the next morning that it fully hit me, I woke up – surprisingly hangover free, probably due to the fact that I had barfed all the alcohol out of my system – and I had this moment of clarity. What I felt for Edward was obviously very real, as was the fact that he could die from the illness that he had I realised how selfish it would be to turn my back on someone I had been so obsessed with just because I realised he wasn't perfect and there were things about him that didn't match up to the perfect image I had of him. I had been completely delusional to think that I would talk to Edward and he would be totally as I had imagined him to be, as much as it hurt to admit he wasn't the person I had made him up to be but despite this I still felt an extraordinary pull to him.
I filled Alice in on the events of the past day as well as my revelation over brunch, she was sympathetic and wonderful but made me see how wrong it had been for me to idolise Edward then want to turn my back on him when I found out he didn't meet my specification. Our discussion only cemented my decision that I wanted to be there for him – if he wanted me that was. All my thought and deliberation would be completely pointless if I discovered that I misread the signs and that he didn't actually harbour sorts of feelings towards me, it was plausible that he had just overheard me talking about my parents and my hometown.
I spent the rest of the weekend catching up on reading and updating my own record collection – working in a music store exposed me to all sorts of music but I rarely got a chance to add all the bands and singers to my expansive iTunes library. On Sunday night I went to bed early hoping to be alert for the next day, the last thing I wanted was to be dead on my feet for what I hoped would be a very important event. I woke up early on Monday morning pulling on a Beatles t-shirt and a pair of dark denim hot-pants. I swiped on some liquid eyeliner, mascara and fluffed my shoulder length chocolate curls pulling on a pair of knee high socks and brogues, the apartment door slammed just after Alice shouted a sleepy 'good luck'.
I sat through class, devastated when Edward didn't walk through the door – I spent the entire lecture staring at the door in vain hope that he would stroll through the door and that everything would be as it was this time yesterday. A tiny part of me still remained optimistic that yesterday was a horrible dream designed to scare me into making my move on Edward before something actually did diminish any chance of us being together. My mood took a nose-dive when I didn't see Edward at the tiny hole-in-the-wall coffee shop that we were both regulars at – if he wasn't in class or at the café there was little chance he would turn up at the store. I had to hold back pathetic, traitor tears as I took sips of my Chocolate Mocha on the way to work.
Once at work my mood did not improve at all, every customer seemed to be an arrogant ass whose sole purpose to annoy the shit out of me, the antique sound system that – after 20 years of service – decided to pack in meant that the usual hum of my favourite music was replaced by the annoying voice of the local radio jockey and all his 'chart-toppers' which to me sounded like a fatal mix of auto-tune and thumping bass. Today had obviously been designed to try me to my very limits. When closing time rolled down I was more than relieved even though I knew when I got home I would be greeted by an empty fridge and a huge pile of homework, I set about the mundane tasks occasionally wincing when the voices of the newest manufactured girl group crossed the line from being 'hardly bearable' to 'trying to communicate with dogs'. It finally became too much and I began to walk to the back office just as the bell rang above the door – that's funny, I was sure I'd put the 'closed' sign up. I turned around to tell whoever it was the we were closed while refraining from taking my pent up frustration out of them when I heard an all too familiar voice.
"Bella," A smooth voice all but making me scream out of shock "I know you're closed but I really wanted to talk to you" He continued, making my stomach flip and my heart rate increase ten-fold.
"WHAT?" I screeched, surprising even myself. Edward blinked a handful of times before taking a few steps back, clearly terrified from my outburst "I'm sorry" I began in a considerably more calm tone "It's just been a shit day and I just feel shit and everything is just…shit." I finished, realising – yet again – how selfish I was being by comparing my own petty issued to someone that actually had real problems. There was something about being around Edward that just made me a really shit person. Much to my surprise though, Edward laughed, looking as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
"I thought you were angry at me…I mean I didn't exactly leave in the best way yesterday and I know it was a bit of a shock." He trailed off, hiking his satchel up his shoulder and nervously running his hand over his bare scalp as if searching for hair. It struck me how selfless he was, obviously caring more about my reaction to the news that the news itself – it may have been stupid but it made me heart speed up.
"God no! I mean I was angry, a bit, but that was more at myself and I just feel so selfish and yeah, I mean it was a shock but… yeah. Shit" I finished with great eloquence – as always seemed to be the case around him. Again, Edward laughed instantly making me feel 100% better.
"It's hardly selfish, Bella" he said softly, adding my name at the end as if testing it on his tongue "a perfect stranger comes up to you and tells you they have can… a serious illness then lists off facts about you. It would be strange not be shocked." It did not escape my notice how rational he was – nor did the fact that he couldn't seem to say allowed that he had cancer. It was obviously a front, no one could be this calm and unaffected and it made me sad that he didn't feel that he could be open with me although based on out previous interaction I could hardly blame him.
"How did you know that stuff?" I blurted out, my mouth obviously having no sense of timing or manners. I could feel my cheeks warming as I waited for the answer, too scared to look at Edward. I knew full well that this answer was a pinnacle and as ready as I could convince myself to be about forming an attachment to someone so… fragile, when put in to practice the concept didn't seem so easy.
"I feel horrible for bringing you into my…circumstances but yesterday, the words just kind of slipped out. I've watched you for so long, Bella, I changed my whole routine just so I could see you for a few extra minutes every day and I know that sounds creepy but I just… I can't help it. I've never felt like this before, never had this pull and I know my timings shit and I wish I'd got the courage to talk to you before all this so you could of got to know me instead of ill Edward but – fuck – I just needed someone yesterday and for so long you've been the only person I wanted and I just couldn't stop myself anymore…shit, I'm sorry." He finished dejectedly as if expecting me to give him his marching orders but if he was to look up he would have seen the tears pouring down my face and the effort I was putting in to restrain myself from kissing him with every ounce of my might. As it was he stood there, staring at the ground so ready for rejection. As if I could ever deny him of anything.
"Fuck" I breathed after a long moment, testing his reaction before I said more. He looked up slightly, the smallest glimmer of hope clear in his eyes. Why he was hoping for my acceptance was beyond my understanding, all I knew was that, despite my previous qualms, all I wanted was to be there for him. Of course I had no real understanding of the implications this would have or the impact it would have on my life but I knew that sending him away simply wasn't an option and when your dream man comes along you pull him in, no matter what.
"I like you too, Edward." It was a juvenile thing to say but in the moment it was the best I could offer and it was perhaps the best thing to say. Now wasn't the time for decisions and reality. Now was the time to seize what was now, and what was now was the object of my desires offering himself to be completely. By previous attraction to him had been vain and shallow but my attachment to him was real and though I had little idea who he was, all I wanted to do was learn.
Edward looked as though I had spoken a foreign language, the expression of confusion on his face so potent that I could barely hold in my laughter. "I like you" I repeated, amazed that Edward was so sure of rejection.
A small grin covered his face before it returned to the solemn expression I had seen yesterday.
"You know what this means, right Bella? I can't believe I'm even dragging you in to this, I hate myself for it but I couldn't stop… fuck…" he swiped his eyes angrily before tears escaped and looked me right in the eyes before continuing "Bella, I could die." His voice broke as the tears could no longer be stopped. I got the feeling that this was the first time that he had allowed his emotions to consume him. I didn't even try to stop myself as I closed the distance between us, capturing his shaking body in my arms and letting my own tears fall. We stood for what seemed like hours, wrapped in one another's arms as we mourned for what we might not have. Eventually, I forced Edward's head up making him look at my directly once more.
"We have now, and even if that's all we ever have we should be thankful that we have anything at all. We're going to do everything we can to get you through this and no matter what you say or how much you try to push me away, I'm going to be there." I said, sounding more determined than I felt but knowing that I spoke the truth. Edward nodded slightly before softly pressing his lips against mine. As first kisses go, It may not have been the fairy tale little girls dream of but it was perfect all the same.
"Thank you Bella." Edward whispered against my lips, his salty tears mixing with my own. We withdrew from me slightly, studying my face closely before lifting his thumbs to wipe the damp from my cheeks as best he could while still taking in the planes of my face - "god" he whispered "I never dreamt you would be this perfect." Butterflies invaded my stomach and my hairs stood on end and as messed up as this might have been, I had never felt so complete.