Keeping Secrets.
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[New Moon, page 544. Copyright—Stephenie Meyer.]
"Were you trying to kill yourself, Bella?"
"No, of course not. Just having fun with Jake. Cliff diving. The La Push kids do it all the time. Like I said, nothing."
Charlie's face heated up—from frozen to hot with fury. "What's it to Edward Cullen anyway?" he barked. "All this time, he's just left you dangling without a word—"
I interrupted him. "Another misunderstanding."
His face flushed again.
I watched his expression warily for a moment, as he appeared to be fighting with some type of internal indecision. Finally, he looked up at me, his mouth set in a hard line.
"I want you to stay away from him, Bella," he told me. His voice didn't shake. "I don't care if he's back. You are going to stay away."
My breath caught in my throat audibly at his words. It wasn't really that his declaration was so piercing (I had more than prepared myself for this type of forestallment from Charlie), but more so the way in which he had stated it. The fire behind his words burned deep into his eyes, hardening the aging creases of his face, and I knew that he meant what he said.
It had been my pain. It had been my responsibility. My burden. And yet I had still burned him with it, letting it leak from me and poison him. There had been no way for me to try hard enough to isolate the destruction that was my life from him. I had been too weak. Too mangled. And now Charlie was never going to let me forget it.
"Dad…" I mumbled, trying to mentally sift through my options. Truthfully explaining to him the situation was an impossibility—laughable. I had to protect him from my secrets.
I was entirely aware that, physically, Charlie was completely inept from literally keeping Edward and I separated. But he would do as much as he could, and it would hurt him more and more as I betrayed him. Just like Jacob.
"I won't let the same thing happen again, Bella," Charlie vowed in clear voice. I had never heard him speak this way before. Some small piece of my mind reminded me of Edward's presence in my closet. I could imagine him in there, hiding silently in the darkness, listening to what I was hearing, and beyond. My escape was a mere ten feet away…
"I don't trust him," Charlie said, breaking me away from my reverie. "And you shouldn't either. He's rotten for you, Bella, all right? He's rotten for anyone."
I was shaking my head subconsciously at his words, and he stopped to look at me. I could tell that he was expecting some type of fierce reciprocation from me.
I was a teenager, he figured. I was in love—or at least I thought I was. No way was I about to let my father tell me who I couldn't be with, right?
Somehow, despite his nonsensical demands, none of that really seemed to apply to me at the moment. What I was feeling was different…not a fear, of course. Definitely not that. I knew that Edward could get around Charlie. It wasn't anger, because I understood why Charlie was insisting on this, this ludicrous protecting of my heart.
I guess you could say that the conclusion I came to was that it didn't matter what Charlie thought of Edward. It didn't matter what he thought of my decisions, or of the past seven months where I had barely been alive for him.
I had always tried to give Charlie as much as I could—all that time, I had been fighting to stay alive for him. Now I realized that it was me I had to survive for.
And this was what I needed, and what I would always need.
"Dad, there is nothing you can say or do to keep me away from Edward. No matter what you try, it just won't work," I promised him earnestly. I only hoped that he would believe me. Somehow, this moment seemed like the final assertion—the true words that would separate me from Charlie forever and give me away to Edward. I felt like I was getting married right then and there—with no witnesses, no priest, and my groom hiding in the closet.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to Charlie.
"How can you know what you're doing, Bella?" he asked me. The unbreakable conviction I had heard in his voice earlier had eroded away—now was a plead rather a demand. "How can you be so sure about him? It could happen again, baby."
"It won't," I vowed.
He shook his head, unconvinced. "I won't let him mess you up like that again."
"It was my fault," I said. I knew at once that this was the wrong thing to say. The worst thing to say.
I almost thought that I heard a growl come from the general direction of my closet, but Charlie didn't seem to notice. I pushed the thought away, hoping Edward wasn't planning to leap out in protest at any of my words.
Behave, I thought to him, as if he could hear it.
"Bella—" Charlie sputtered, his eyes blinking wildly—"He was gone! No word, no letters, no calls. He left you dangling, baby, when you did nothing wrong! How can you say that, Bella? How can you believe that?"
"I, I…" I was trying to think of a way to save the conversation, to steer it back in my favor. Despite knowing that Charlie's aspires had no bearing whatsoever on the fact that I would always remain with Edward, I knew that I had to play this out. This was part of the deal. This was necessary.
I'm sorry, Edward. And for once, I wished he could hear.
"Dad, what happened to me when Edward left was not his fault. I was the one that couldn't deal, okay? I sorry I dragged you into it."
"Hardly, Bella," he scoffed. "You did every goddamned thing in your power to keep me out of it. You wouldn't let me help you…wouldn't let me send you to your mother—"
"Of course I was trying to keep you out of it! What else could I have done?"
"You could have let me send you to Jacksonville, Bella. You could have let me pay for a professional to help you, like I suggested in January."
This was getting embarrassing. I didn't want Edward to know these things. I was vaguely aware that he probably was already very well-informed from reading Charlie's mind, but it was worse to speak about them, knowing he was in the same room…
"Right now, Bella," Charlie said, continuing, "You can let me tell you this. Please listen to me. If he leaves again...he'll crush you, Bella, and it'll be even worse than the last time. Don't do this."
"I have to, Dad. Don't you understand? Why can't you get this? I can't live without him." My cheeks burned, despite myself.
Charlie sighed.
"And he feels the same? You can't be sure of that, Bella. Whatever the reason for him leaving you in the first place, it could happen again. The deeper you get in, the worse it'll be when he's gone."
These constant strikes insisting that Edward was going to leave me again were beginning to mess with my epiphany conviction. Charlie saw that in my face.
"I don't want to hurt you Bella, I'm just trying to tell you that maybe…" he broke off, trying to find another way to say the only thing that had been left unsaid.
"Maybe he doesn't love me the way I love him," I finished under my breath.
Here and now—away from the surreal streets of Volterra, away from the deluding scent of Edward's breath, away from the coolness of his arms and the constant reassurance his voice and kisses—I could almost believe what Charlie so desperately wanted me to believe.
Almost.
"I guess there is no way for you to be convinced," I said to him, "no matter what I tell you. I doubt you'll believe Edward, if he insists it himself. But he does love me, Dad. He's not going away. And as long as he's here, I'm here, and that's the way it will always be."
Charlie didn't say anything. He just stood silently, brooding, searching the depths of my eyes for uncertainties or lies. There were none.
He turned to go, and leave me with my vampire at last.
"I love you, Bells," he whispered, facing the ajar door. Light was spilling in from the hallway, illuminating the profile of his face against my floor.
"And I do understand."
Charlie closed the door, leaving me drowning in his words.