It was bittersweet, I'll admit. The sun was bright that morning, but by noon those ubiquitous clouds that I had come to associate with good days had crept in. Our plans were not to be dashed that day, as they had been so many times before. If you were a normal inhabitant of Forks, Washington, sunny days might seem as few and far between as weekends seem to a high school student, but for me, they came far too often. On sunny days he would always be on guard, on edge. Around me there was always that underlying struggle of holding something back on his face, and I despised those days that there was an even more apparent one.
To make things even worse, Charlie would always be on top of me on those sunny days. "You're going to spend the entire day inside the Cullen's house? What a waste of the sun! Why don't you come down to La Push and fish with Billy, Jake and me?" His not so subtle attempts to redirect my time spent with Edward to time spent with Jacob Black were wasted upon me. By now he had become accustomed to my "you can't be serious" look and subsequent swift exits.
Anyways, I don't have a great liking for sunny days…but thankfully this wasn't one of them.
I didn't bother calling the Cullen house to alert them of my impending arrival…one of the perks of having a family member who can see the future. I stood at the front door of that grand house that had slowly become home to me for a moment, allowing the shrill whisper of wind rock me backwards and forwards, for a moment relishing in my humanity. When I was around Edward and his "family" I could often find myself resenting the blood that ran through my veins, the very substance which permitted me to live on as such a clumsy, injury attracting being. So before I spent any amount of time staring perfection in the face, I tried to find something about being myself that I actually liked. Sometimes it was the way steam would collect around my warm fingertips against the cool glass of a Forks windowpane…sometimes it was knowing that merely a whiff of my blood sent Edward, the impenetrable fortress, jump a million miles into the sky.
But as I stood in the January chill, it was the feeling of being breakable. It would be something to remember once Edward held true to his promise, once I was a nonliving, non-breathing member of his coven.
I didn't have much longer to ruminate. As I'd expected, Alice had alerted the family of my arrival, and in less than a moment, the door was opened before I had the chance to knock. Sometimes the sight of him was too much to take without preparing myself. His presence was enough to make me weak in the knees. To know that this being of such physical perfection was mine…all mine to lie with in the cold Washington nights, all mine to kiss and hold, all mine forever…at least, soon.
"Bella," he sighed, his arms around me like a heavy winter coat, sheltering if not warm, encasing me in his skin. His voice sounded like melting chocolate no matter what words he spoke, but hearing him say my name made this whole fuzzy dream snap into place. For so long I convinced myself that perfection like this would never come to someone like me, that one day I would open my eyes to my old bedroom ceiling in Arizona. For so long I cried inside, sure that all of this would be taken from me in a cruel jump to reality. For so long I wasted time I could be enjoying, until I decided that if I were in a dream, it had been much too long for me to wake up now.
He had pulled away, one of those grins that cause me the greatest joy and greatest confusion plastered on his face. "You smell especially delightful today," he said, weaving his long fingers through the strands of my hair the wind had blown into my face and gently tucking them behind my ear.
I blushed, another one of those cursed human flaws, looking down at his feet, "I'm sorry," I mumbled.
He laughed, and where I might once feel childish and inadequate, I felt light, "I only meant your perfume," he restated, leaning towards my neck before stopping to take a deep inhale. His blue-white eyelids closed and his neck tensed. I felt the bridge of his nose behind my ear, a gentle breath let out along my shoulder, "Though I hate to say you are still as tempting as ever on that front."
Apparently it was impossible for Edward, having been a vampire for so long, to realize what that show of breathtaking romance could do to a teenage human girl. He grabbed my hand immediately, striding past me and towards the cars before I had even a second to recover. "Where are we going?" I asked, nothing to do but fall in piteous step with him, my imprints a tiny joke inside his footprints in the snow.
We stopped abruptly. I nearly fell forward into him from the suddenness. Another one of those smirks and I would have followed him to the end of the earth, and damn it if he knew it too, "You'll find out soon enough."
A slow smile tripped across my face as we pulled into the woodsy setting. Living in Forks, you were never far from tall grass and leafy trees, but this secluded area had always sparked my interest as we zoomed past it on our way to the Cullen house. So many times, in the form of questions not asked for an answer, I'd inquired as to the business of that perfectly kept wooden cabin by the side of the lane. Edward had merely shrugged, "I suppose we'll never know."
But today we were to know. We slowed to a stop on a low patch of grass. When Edward moved his hand over the gearshift to secure the car in park, his eyes drew an invisible line up my arm and to my face. We exchanged knowing smiles, each opening our respective doors simultaneously. I had barely felt the crunch of snow beneath my feet before Edward was behind me, arms draped over my shoulders, "And you thought I wasn't listening," I could tell he was smirking by the tone of his voice as his words slipped out of his mouth against my neck.
"So what is it?" I whispered. He had shut my door and we were beginning to move together towards the brown shuttered door.
He reached an arm out towards the rusted doorknob, bringing his lips over to trace my earlobe as he did so, "It's ours."
It was a blissful day, one that I was sure I would never (or ever want to) forget. I didn't get any closer towards bringing Edward's guard down enough to give me the one thing I truly wanted…but what he gave me was enough. We tested those limits that he would trust himself with testing, which of course were never enough for me. It was one of the best days we'd spent together, mostly because it was wholly uninterrupted: no Charlie hovering above us, no Alice (as much as I loved her) flitting in and out, no one's thoughts fluttering through the air to distract Edward. He was left alone in his vast mind with his own thoughts; ones that he took great care to share with me throughout the day. I learned as much as he would give me. He told me about the life he could remember in Chicago, how the inside of this cabin reminded him of a country home his parents would take him to during his teenaged summers. I listened, intent on memorizing everything about him. As we lay together in the tangled sheets, warm from the heat of my body, we promised to return every year, no matter what directions our lives ended up taking, because we believed they would always be together.
I'm trying to keep my promise, and that's why I'm here. That's why now, a year after that blissful day, I'm pulling up to this cabin in the car that used to be his, praying to God that somehow he's made true on his end. But knowing in my heart that I am a fool