Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga and its inclusive materials are copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original character(ization)s and plot are copyright to the authors of this story. The authors of this story, (Bob and Peter,) are not connected to any media franchise. No profit is made and no copyright infringement intended.
Unattainably Close by Bob and Peter: At the age of twenty four, Edward has never had a serious girlfriend; a few dates here and there, but nothing long-lasting. The brown-haired girl with whom he'd gone to high school with might have had something to do with his lonesome lifestyle, or the fact that he might share an apartment with the same girl he'd admired from afar. As an intern, Edward - on several occasions - has had to patch up the clumsy and bashful girl. Recognising that males aren't blind to her beauty, Edward has to gather up the courage to reveal his infatuation before it's too late.
Genre: Romance/Friendship/Angst/Humor
Pairing: Edward x Bella (and otherwise canon)
Rating: M
Peter's Note: Hi, readers. It's me. Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.
Bob's Note: And his trusty neighbourhood master. Bow down to your superior.
P/N: Yes! Or, er, no. I think Bob got it mixed up: I'm the superior. But to the point - we have gathered here today to present you our very first piece of epicness. Well, you can bow to the both of us so Bob wouldn't have to feel left out.
B/N: If anyone has any objections... Please, do feel free to leave and not turn back. I'd rather not waste such a delightful story, eh, Peter? To those who do stick around: Thank you, darlings! Gosh, aren't you the best?
P/N: Are you talking to me or the readers? Of course I am the best. No question. ("Gosh," Bob? Every day I am further convinced that you are actually a five year old girl. Have you changed gender since the last time I saw you? If so, it's cool, man.)
B/N Readers, we love you. So get on with our story. I have a bone to pick with Peter in an empty alleyway scheduled for now o'clock. (I could have sworn I was nine! Darn you, Petey!)
P/N: "Petey"? FYI, if you are my most precious reader and call me that, you are a pink fluffy piece of scum on my shoe. And that is not a good place to be, I assure you. No Petey. Never. (Nope, at now o'clock you are five.)
B/N: Peter lies. He loves me and everyone. Anyways, he also promises retribution if you all don't review. And I mean hardcore review. I'm off to do more, shall I say, exciting things? We sincerely hope you, Reader, enjoy this chapter.
P/N: ^- ...what he said.
Unattainably Close
by Bob and Peter
(P: But mostly Peter.)
(B: …in your dreams.)
Chapter One: Raindrops
"On n'aime que ce qu'on ne possède pas tout entier."* ~ Marcel Proust
Edward Anthony Masen
The man stepped into the unusually quiet room, shut the door and slumped down on the leather couch. His eyes caught the trace of paper under the window and he picked up an old issue of Discover Magazine that dated back to April 2003. His eyes lingered on the striking red headline, 'Was Einstein Wrong About the Speed of Light?' before he leaned his head against the back of the couch, opened the magazine from a random place and covered his face with it. As he only intended to rest for ten minutes, Edward didn't remove his glasses.
The sun had probably risen, but since obscure grey clouds extended over the sky, one couldn't be entirely sure. Columbia University Medical Center covered several blocks from Audubon Avenue to the Henry Hudson Parkway in the Washington Heights part of Manhattan, and while Edward had spent a lot of time "exploring" this area, it was still his first year as an intern. He learned quickly that the first year of residency ― PGY-1 (Post-Graduate Year One) or internship — was spent rotating through different specialties or to different areas within one specialty. Either way, it resulted in diffuse knowledge and lack of concentration on one specific area. He couldn't wait for the PGY-2, a time when he could focus more on surgery and leave influenza and migraine to those who were interested in becoming a General Practitioner.
But Edward had no intention of complaining. He had the chance to spend his residency in one of the leading academic medical centres in the world, and that fact alone made it easier to study areas that didn't directly interest him. From the start, you could tell why this place held such a high place among medical centres, for the excessive amount of time spent on research could (and probably would), after decades, offer earth-shattering results; as it already did in many areas. Of course, being a resident here was far more demanding than anything else he'd done. Being accepted to Columbia University on a full scholarship had intimidated him, but once he realized he could keep up with other students and even get ahead of his fellow students in certain subjects, he calmed down and let himself focus on his studies.
He'd always been focused. Even when he moved to Forks from Chicago in the middle of his freshman year, he didn't have much in common with his new fellow students, and therefore, spent more time studying than one would expect from a high school student. He was scrawny as a child and didn't manage to gain weight until he moved to New York when he was eighteen. By then, he was so used to being the recluse and quiet one that he started to search for a latent meaning behind the intentions of the girls he met. He preferred to study instead of going out — it wasn't because of the lack of opportunities, Edward just didn't enjoy getting drunk with people he barely knew.
He didn't think he was hard on the eyes, but rarely had reason to give any thought as to how he looked. Edward was six feet and four inches tall (a height that made him feel awkward as a doctor because he easily drew attention), lean, with broad shoulders and disarrayed reddish hair. His eyes were obscurely green, his jawline sharp and a lack of time tended to cover his chin with a few days' worth of stubble. Edward wore glasses without noticeable frames because contacts made his eyes water and going to middle school with plastic-framed glasses made him paranoid about his looks. Frames made him feel ridiculous.
Dedicating most of his time to studies, however, meant that he'd never really learned to converse with people, especially with members of the opposite sex. Edward just didn't know how to act around people. He'd gone out with a few girls, but neither the twenty two year-old Tanya Denali, a Russian majoring in German in New York University, nor Victoria Stevens, the twenty five year-old redhead from Michigan majoring in Medicine, became comfortable with him. Or he with them? Either way, Edward didn't succeed in wooing the girls.
Ironically, he'd been told by several people that he could look "cool" if he kept his mouth closed (referring to his tendency to stammer around girls), which only made Edward more quiet around people. He almost lived the life of a hermit and he didn't even mind.
His inability to act around the opposite sex was encouraged by the fact that he grew up without a mother figure. Edward's mother Elizabeth had died in a car crash on a dark November night twenty two years ago; along with Elizabeth, neither of his grandparents survived. Edward had been two years old at the time and did not remember her. His brother Emmett had been four.
It is not to say that Edward and Emmett grew up to become chauvinistic pricks, because that would underestimate Carlisle's authority and ability to discipline his children. He took it upon himself to teach his sons to not only behave like a gentleman, but to actually be one. Carlisle had been young when Elizabeth passed away and still learning to become a cardiac surgeon, so his salary hadn't provided a luxurious life for the family. Together with Elizabeth, he'd bought a modest house in the suburbs of Chicago purely on a loan. Elizabeth had been working as a lawyer for the first years, which meant that paying back the loan shouldn't have been that difficult.
But life didn't follow a plan.
Emmett and Edward didn't suffer of hunger or lack of love; in fact, they managed to live a normal, middle class life— nothing too fancy. Being Edward, he didn't mind moving across the continent to a small town (with the name of a culinary utensil) near Seattle where Carlisle's parents had once lived. With Emmett, it was a different story. He found friends like fish in the sea and put up quite a fight. But it was a lost cause from the beginning, and two months after Carlisle announced that he would start working at the Seattle Hospital starting from new year, they moved to Washington State. It was the first and last time for them to spend Christmas Eve in an airport. All flights had been delayed due to a snowstorm in Seattle, preventing any incoming flights.
They sat, cross-legged, in one of the many corners of Denver International Airport, right next to the radiators, and shared gifts. Carlisle told them funny stories about his childhood, residency, his father and Elizabeth until the boys fell asleep. Bing Cosby's Dream a Little Dream emitted from the nearest coffee shop and echoed slightly in the corridors. That was the best Christmas Edward had ever had.
Switching schools in the middle of the school year had been a strange experience. Everyone else knew each other, but fortunately, Forks High wasn't as cliché as the school Edward had left behind in Chicago. Miraculously, no one teased him about his lanky build and horrific glasses. Edward suspected it had something to do with Emmett attending the same high school he did; his older brother easily found a voice amongst the more popular crowd. Whatever Emmett had done to stop the teasing, he was grateful for.
One of the other reasons for his lack of active interest in girls— a reason he pushed to the back of his mind for its ridiculousness— was his tendency to compare the girls he met with a stupid high school crush. He'd never spoken a word to Isabella Marie Swan, and yet, she'd often been the reason he forced himself to participate in social activities. The brown-eyed girl was two years Edward's junior, which made casually sitting next to her impossible. (Then again, Edward sitting next to Isabella Swan referred to anything but casual, and he was well aware of that fact.) Perhaps it was better that they didn't speak; Edward had already made a fool out of himself in front of her more times than he could count.
So why was she (unwillingly and unknowingly) stopping him from pursuing women? He didn't have the answer to that. The chances of meeting her again were slim, unless he pulled a stalker-ish act and appeared on her doorstep. The fact that he knew her address alone was a little creepy and her father, a police chief, would probably put his gun to good use. Edward wouldn't blame him.
The large but cold house they moved into had belonged to Edward's French grandmother, Adèlaïde, who'd moved back to France a few years prior. Carlisle had spoken French to Emmett and Edward when they were little and had taken them to France a few times to visit Adèlaïde. Carlisle didn't want his sons to forget their roots. It was confusing at first, but as soon as they started going to school, the "Frenglish" they spoke quickly transformed into two distinct languages they learned to speak fluently. It made French lessons pointless but amusing (since the only big French thing about their teacher, Mrs. Yvonne Legrand, was her name).
The first time Edward accidentally met Isabella Swan, it happened in a meadow a few miles from his house. It had been snowing incessantly since the storm on Christmas Eve, and as Edward strolled into the forest, looking for the Bald Eagle —at the time of his ornithology fascination— he found a brown-haired girl, laying on a flat rock, creating a snow-angel and staring at the white sky. Edward retreated so as to not disturb the girl in blue coat and watched her for a while (but only for a while because his toes started to feel numb in his hiking boots). His size eleven footprints left behind a winding trail and were the only indication of his presence. He hadn't found a Bald Eagle.
Edward noticed the same girl at school, a week after he started attending Forks High, and realized why the face felt familiar to him. He found out her name two weeks later, when the petite girl had accidentally dropped a book in the library and the librarian called the girl by her name.
Isabella Swan was slim, quite short, with wide brown eyes and long hair with the same color. She spent a lot of her time reading (even during the breaks), had a close knit set of friends and - without any exception - took her own lunch with her. The girl wasn't popular, but she seemed truly nice to everyone (including the nastier part of the student populace), so even the people she didn't seem to converse with often send her a smile or a 'hi'. Edward became pretty sure he wasn't her only admirer, but he was probably the only one not to try anything.
She probably wouldn't even remember Edward existed.
Edward felt a hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes to a blurred vision of paper. He shoved the magazine aside and took off his glasses, wiping his eyes as he acknowledged the sound of raindrops dribbling the window and how much darker the room had become. He immediately straightened his back and put on the glasses. Ben Cheney, one of the few people Edward considered his friends, was leaning over him and picking up the magazine. Ben was quite short, perhaps 5'8", about as lanky as Edward had once been, with burr-headed dark hair and signs of acne. He was strong-willed, liked to quote old classic movies, came from Boston and lived on campus.
Edward moved away from campus a few weeks ago to a two-bedroom apartment on 180th Street & Avenue, a place so close to the CUMC that he didn't have the heart to keep searching for other apartments. Interns were payed for what they did, but he wouldn't come close to paying his bills without finding a roommate. He didn't have many acquaintances and had asked for help from Emmett, but half a month had passed without finding an appropriate person. Unless he counted Lauren, who freaked him out with her revealing clothing and stench of beer, or James from NYU, who smoked like a chimney and assured that Edward's inability to organize the place would not bother him.
Was it really such an impossible task to find a decent roommate?
Edward wasn't deliberately negligent, he just focused on studying and found it much easier to not be obsessed with clean surroundings. Since he was also an insomniac, Edward slept only a couple of hours a night and spent most of it reading medical textbooks. Currently, he was in the middle of Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, but a few fictional action books - amongst others, the creation of Greg Iles, Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton - were waiting for his attention.
Edward stood up and wiped his face. "What's the time?"
"A'most sev'n," Ben sat down and placed his legs on the round coffee table. "Relax, Cullen's lecture's delayed, it'll staaht half past seven. That Bahney had a lecture yestuhday in Baltimore. It'll take a while for him to geddere - it's rainin' like a bastuhd outside."
For anyone who didn't know him, his Boston accent would easily become a distraction, but Edward had gotten used to the way 'er' almost always formed 'uh' (rhyming with 'duh'), 'ar' sounded like 'aw' and 'wicked' seemed to mean 'very' (Edward wasn't quite sure, though). Ben taught everyone that 'no suh' (no way) had to be followed with 'ya huh' (yes). He had joked about his accent, saying, "Don't get me staahtid with the actors. All 'xept Walberg and Damon, and maybe Affleck, aah screwin' itup. Ya have to be a natural to getit, trust me. Kevin Costnuh and Robyn Williams weren't even neah Boston accent."
Edward sat back down and took out his laptop before asking, "You don't happen to know anyone seeking for a place to live, do you?"
Ben strolled to the fridge and found a half-filled Peach Ice Tea and a squished sandwich. He cocked his head back to look at Edward. "Whatahya - still lookin'?"
"Yeah," replied Edward. "But I'm about as successful as Thomas Edison. I can't find my wolfram."
"Hey, Edison was successful in the end," argued Ben, biting the sandwich and taking a moment to think. "Hm. Is genduh important to you?"
Edward scratched his neck and shrugged, but it didn't come out as casually as he intended. "I guess not. I'd just rather not have a heavy smoker-drinker-drug-dealer."
"Yeah, but it's New Yawk. Ya just narrowed it down to one nun in the distant suburbs of Sussex."
Edward nearly snorted and shook his head. "And even she moved to the abbey."
"Exactly." Ben chuckled. "But if you really wouldn't mind a girl -" he raised his eyebrows, but didn't voice his thoughts (and he didn't have to), "I think there was a fire in Angela's apartment-buildin' on campus... if anyone there's interested, it'll obviously be a woman."
"Anyone in particular?"
Ben chewed before answering. "Yeah, I think there's someone, but I can't remembuh haa name. Betty or Barbara or Beatrice or... whatevuh."
Edward awkwardly scratched his neck. "Could you, uh, do me a favor and talk to Angela about it? I need to find someone as soon as possible."
"Sure thing," replied Ben. "Hey, listen, I was wonderin' if you wanneto go to a wicked paahty tonight? Ya'know, hang out and meet new people."
Edward shrugged, but shook his head. "Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass."
"You sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure everyone'll miss me."
"Sorely," chuckled Ben inaudibly. "You sure aah unpredictable."
"Incredibly."
As Edward stood up next to Ben, they were both reminded by the eight-inch height difference. Before Ben could offer going to the auditorium on the third floor, the door was shoved open and residents swarmed in, arguing, laughing and in (constant) search of a hot caffeine-boost. Edward, having been on call for the night, shut his eyes before adjusting his glasses and re-opening the door for Ben. He sighed. "I was wondering why I felt so content around here."
"Yeah, happy people," mocked Ben. "Mood ruiners."
Edward laughed silently.
Since Edward had worked all the way through Wednesday and his team had been on call for the night, he was supposed to catch up with sleep (read: study) Friday evening, but he had no intention of doing so. A common day in residency started at around seven AM. The first thing in the morning was to do 'rounds' to check on the results of diagnostic tests and see how the patients were responding to therapy. After that, residents had a round with their team, consisting of interns, an upper lever supervising resident and a teaching or attending physician. A 'round' meant to walk around the hospital to discuss different patients' care and usually, conversations involved suggestions on further treatments and diagnostic tests.
After rounds, residents could return to see some patients in more depth, talk to the patient's private physician, or simply do whatever procedures needed to be done. Usually, there was a lecture or a conference during the day, sometimes several. After lunch, new patients were admitted to teams. An intern was known to be at the bottom of the food chain at a teaching hospital for all menial and unpleasant tasks ("scut" work) became their job. Interns quickly learned the phenomenon "see one, do one, teach one". That is, once an intern has seen a job done, he'd be next to do it and after knowing how it's done, he'd teach it to the interns who had yet to learn it.
All in all, being an intern had its moments, especially in a place like CUMC, where rare, uncommon diseases and disorders weren't as rare and uncommon as they were in other teaching hospitals. A few interesting cases came in every week, Edward had already seen a cases transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), Erdheim-Chester disease (which was rarer than rare) and Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome. Workload might have grown over the head from time to time, but internship rarely got boring.
Finally, at ten PM, Edward heaved his nearly broken but faithful backpack over his shoulder, said goodbye to his fellow interns and stepped out of the beige towering building. It was drizzling. He clutched the black coat closer to his body and quickened his pace. A police siren echoed in the distance, taxi drivers flung water on the pedestrians and beside the door sat a homeless man with the sign: 'Help New York get rid of the homeless. Help me poison my liver one buck at a time.'
Just for the amusement, Edward threw fifty cents into his ragged hat.
Fifteen minutes later, Edward trudged three floors upstairs, took out his key-set - in order to open the door, one had to use three keys - before unlocking the door and stepping into the dark hallway. The apartment he rented was modest, with central heating, one bathroom, a living room that was separated from the kitchen with a wooden counter, and a small terrace. One bedroom was slightly larger than the other one and had a king-sized bed - needless to mention, that became Edward's bedroom. But the smaller bedroom had a better view and a separate entryway to the terrace.
Edward took off his shoes, carelessly tossed his coat in the hat-rack's direction and strolled toward the built-in silver fridge. Like every other piece of furniture, it was new, but the size became more deceitful as it seldom contained (edible) food. Half a sausage lay in the corner of the first shelf, an outdated milk right next to it, a tube of mustard and ketchup sitting on the bottom of the fridge. A brown banana was tucked into an egg-holder. Edward peeled it even before closing the fridge and opening the freezer.
A small Domino's Hawaiian Pizza brought a smile to Edward's face. He shut the freezer, opened the microwave and shove it inside. He ate the banana as he lay textbooks and his refurbished Fujitsu laptop on the large table in the living room. The living room had a far more comfortable place to sit (a green couch instead of the uncomfortable wooden chair in his room) and the vast windows made it lighter. He preferred to study in the living room.
A 'ding' was followed by his footsteps, and soon he was crouching on the couch, a slice of pizza in his one hand and the ninth edition of Schwartz's Principle's of Surgery in the other. He sensed the silence of his apartment and put on a playlist to avoid thinking of it; Mark Cohn's Silver Thunderbird sounded from the speakers, and for the first time in months, Edward wondered if his father would mind if Edward gave him a call at work.
It was 10: 46 PM, but it would be only 7:46 back in Washington State. Edward's eyes stopped on his scratched Sony Ericsson, but after pondering on it for a minute, he sighed and decided against it. He suddenly felt a little pathetic, twenty four years old, without a girlfriend and studying on a Friday night. But he didn't give much thought to it. Edward commonly didn't mind being alone, he even liked it, but today's thoughts of the girl from high-school led his thoughts to a strange direction. He couldn't remember the last time he felt lonely.
An hour later, Edward was deeply consumed by chapter thirty three, exploring the computed tomographic scan of extensive pseudocyst disease on page 1201.
. . .
At the crack of dawn, Edward placed his glasses on the edge of the couch and stretched his muscles. He'd slept for two and a half hours, but he felt quite rested. He changed into shorts and a T-shirt, took the key-set and an MP-3 player from the counter and went for a jog. The streets were still wet and sparsely crowded - being the main reason Edward jogged, in Emmett's words, 'so damn early.' The sky was clear and sun had risen, but the humid air was cold.
Edward didn't take his usual route south through the Highbridge Park, instead, he started jogging north toward the Inwood Hill Park. It was probably three or four kilometres from his place, but he didn't mind the distance.
In the corner of Fort Washington Avenue and Cabrini Boulevard, Edward slipped in a little mud puddle and slammed into a tiny body. His MP-3-player fell into the water on the road and got squished by a truck. Not having noticed that, Edward groaned silently and held onto the body that lay on him.
"Uh..."
He couldn't see anything because of the thick layer of dark hair that seemed to fill his every sense. Edward attempted to speak, "Ma'am, uh, are you alright? I'm... uh, so incredibly sorry... I didn't mean to..."
The creature whimpered and gently placed her tiny hand on Edward's chest before getting up and offering a hand to the man. Edward accepted it, but still couldn't see her face.
"No, it's my fault," the girl apologized and threw her messy long hair out of the way. "I attract slippery substances."
Edward drew in a deep breath, recognizing those brown eyes and the soft voice immediately.
"Bella?"
The girl took a tentative step back, but stumbled on her large handbag. "How do you know my name?" asked the girl, her voice cracking a little. "Do I know you?"
* "We love only what we do not wholly possess."
Bob's Sneaky Note: Peter promised to practice autopsy on you if you don't review. But shh! Don't tell him I warned you.