Morning.
Edward and Bella sat silently on the couch, their heads at separate ends but their feet were knotted together in the center. They were both fixated on the television screen.
"So what do you want to watch--there's a documentary about serial killers, a re-run of Friends, the Today show is still on…"Bella flipped through each one with a definite click of frustration. "Oh, Fraiser's on---I had an old teacher who raved about this show; he would try to tell us all the jokes, but he laughed too hard to finish."
Edward shifted his head from the screen to her face. "The psychiatrist, right?"
"Yeah," said Bella, her attention back on the television. "Lives with his dad in Seattle because he's divorced, drinks expensive wines, makes literary jokes and goes on bad dates."
"Your dream guy, then," Edward laughed.
"I'm so sick of pretty boys in fast cars with 'strange tastes'--I want a baldy with a shiny head."
"Hypothetically speaking then," Edward started up, "is it better to have a 'pretty boy with a fast car' then a smart man of culture and taste, whose head, unfortunately, shines in the light. I'll remind you, Miss Swan, I shine in the light and you like it!" He ended with a pretend sniff of hurt feelings and stuck his nose in the air.
"I have both," Bella clicked off the television, stifling a mischievous smirk. "And if you think about it vampirism is a much better dinner conversation than hair plugs you are quite mistaken." Edward chuckled.
"Mr. Cullen there is nothing on and I'm bored. Entertain me."
"Jesus, seven rabbis, and a three legged horse walk into a steak house…" he began dryly.
"I've heard that one. I was thinking of a lap dance." She nodded, in mock encouragement.
"Oh, come on, Bella, this is serious." His annoyance was quick to the surface, giving his face the hint of a sneer. "I don't abstain in affection so you want it more: I---"
"I was only joking, Edward. "Besides," she added, "what you won't give me, I get from Jacob."
Edward gave an involuntary jolt of jealousy.
"Mmmm." He crawled up to her, tracing a finger along the long line of her shin bone. There was a blue-yellow bruise just below her knee, and he kissed it. " Tell Mr. Black then that he owes me, won't you. It was such a hassle trying to get you off my hands."
"There's only you, and only ever will be." Bella said, her demeanor changed, all seriousness now, her eyes wide in sincerity.
"Yes, I know."
She reached out for his wrist. Edward felt the lightness of her grip, the fragile hold of her tiny hands, so soft. She tugged and he followed, but he stopped, hovering his hips just over hers. Another hand reached up, grazing his face, warm, deep in its scent. He inhaled deeply, feeling the watering around his tongue, where he felt the taste and flow of her once, just once. It shamed him to think of it, but he did.
The flush was coming to her cheeks and her eyes were getting bright, too bright, too excited. Her lips parted and she softly sighed. The hand in his hair slipped back to the nape of his neck, so soft, so warm, and it pushed.
But he held, his arms never quivering from the weight. But the weight…!
"Bella," he breathed. "I can't. I can't and you know it. You can't."
She pushed still. "Yes, we can."
We. The whole shape of her mouth changed to form it, her lips coming together for the W. It was in that we where his life was, where Bella dwelled in wait. Waiting was the word he hated most: it was so heavy.
"Edward, don't be scared."
"I'm not afraid of you, I'm afraid for you. I have to be as you absolutely refuse to do it for yourself. Life, your life, is fragile and can end in a second. An accident--loss of control--takes only a second." He began to pull away, but the hand at his wrist gripped harder, the knuckles going instantly white with the strain.
"You're leaving me." In those bright eyes was hurt, the sting of rejection.
"I'm not leaving you!"
"You're rejecting me, you don't want me!" She was furious, angry like he had never known her to be. "You said you loved me! And now you're saying you can't. You have the control. You saved my life, that took more control than you thought possible of yourself, but you did it." She fought furiously from the tangle, sliding with a thud from the coach. She stood up quickly and balled her fist. She was fighting with him and with herself, pushing her tears of rage back.
She lost and one fell a quick descent down the side of her face, but she was quick to hide it away.
"Bella, you don't understand. That was different! Can't you see that--no because you won't." Now he was getting angry. Angry at himself for letting it get this far: This wasn't her fault, it was his.
"Then make me understand, Edward. Explain it to me so I can see. You're keeping me 'alive' but giving me nothing!" There were more tears, but she didn't wipe them away this time. Her face and neck were in a complete flush. A vein in her neck quivered with her quick, shaky breaths.
Edward stood to go to her. She flinched.
She flinched. The shock sent him back to the coach.
In the early days of their romance he told himself she would go, eventually, soon. Get scared and run, be scared because he was a monster because she was fragile because he wanted her because because. She wasn't, which he loved in her. She was brave, but now she had flinched at the promise of his arms.
"Make me understand!" She yelled, her teeth in a bare.
"I did what had to be done. You would have died, in agony, before your time. You would have died a useless death that wasn't meant for you. A death you are so stupid to want! If you think we are glamorous you must look again. We live as outcasts!" He rushed to the window where the afternoon sun was coming in. "There is a sun out today and I can't go out! I'm stuck indoors because there is a sun!"
"It's just a sun!" Her voice had lost its edge and was moving into a shrill tone. The anger was leaving her. "It isn't a loss. I can make do without the sun, but without you there's no point!"
"One day without the sun is fine, but ninety years I've been playing this game and it's tiring but I make do with what has come my way. There is no reason for this, for you to become what I am. Why don't you make me understand why you are so eager to just throw your life away. Tell me why it doesn't matter to you."
"I love you," she cried, but her speech was beginning to garble with her sobs. "If I can't have you in this life, let me have you in an eternal one. You wanted me to go, but I didn't. I stayed, Edward, I stayed. I'm devoted. Please!"
He dropped to his knees just as she did, catching her. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry.
From the driveway came the crunch of the cruiser. Bella didn't hear it.
"Upstairs," he hissed.
She scampered from the living room and up the stairs. She wasn't surprised to see him sitting on the bed before she got there. His face was in his hands.
"I'm sorry I put you through that," she said, but she didn't go to him. "It was selfish, I know. I just can't help it. The moment happens and I want it so badly!"
"Bella," Charlie called from downstairs as he walked in the door.
"Yeah, dad." She called back, but she didn't turn from Edward, still lost to his hands.
"How about lunch in town today?"
"Oh, I don't know, dad--can you give me some time to decide?"
"Just tell me when you're ready," he said back, jovially; it contrasted with her misery perfectly.
She and Edward stood silent again, still.
"Bella, I wish I could: That is selfish. I've thought about it: That is wrong. We can be together, I want to be and you want to be, when really that is a taboo, but we are anyway and I'm happy for it; but there are things that we can't do, lines that cannot be crossed." His voice was tense, and Bella understood that she was being given a lecture. She didn't want to yell anymore.
He held out his hands in surrender. She fit herself there between them. His skin was ice cold on his neck where she lay her face. For now the few inches of pale flesh just above his collar was enough, and if it was all it would still be enough.
Downstairs Charlie flipped on the television. Another episode of Fraiser.
They both had to laugh.