Title: Making House
Summary:Bella had always known what to expect from her life, grown to accept and even love parts of what was in store for her. Then all of her plans are abruptly changed, and she's thrust into a world she has no idea how to navigate with a stranger by her side. EdwardxBella
This is a new story that I've just started writing. I am going to attempt writing and publishing as I go for REAL for the first time in 4-5 years. I've always published finished stories, so let's see how this goes! This story will contain adult language, sexual content, possibly other mature content that could require a warning before reading. I will do my best to avoid triggering people, so I will always start chapters containing possible triggers to have a warning.
I apologize for the spelling. There are a few, ehm, excuses for that. I mix american and british english spellings a lot, and I also don't currently have a spell checking program because my computer is brand new and it confuses me a whole lot. I've tried having a beta in the past, but I'm not cut out for that kind of thing, heh. If you're looking for a HEA story this might not be it. I have a rough outline for the story, but the ending... I do all kinds of endings, but I have killed off almost everyone in the last chapter before. So, don't trust me with these kids, okay?
I hope you enjoy this story, and reviews, follows, and favorites makes the fanfic writer happy, so remember that!
From my seat on the couch I could see the whole sitting room. With my back stiff, and my head bent slightly as if I was deeply imerged in my book, I could see my parents talk with someone I vaguely recognised from our summer trips. Compared to my parents' shortstatures, delicate frames, and dark hair, the man was tall and blond with broad shoulders. If I remembered correctly he was the owner of the properties on the east end of the beach strip our summer house was located, he would sometimes spend a few weeks there. I knew that he had two son's, both of them a few years older than me, so I had never had the opportunity to meet them. Of course I knew that this was about to change, my parents' curious and excited expressions told me as much.
When I was about seven years old my parents had sat me down on the couch, much like this one but located in the study on the other side of our house, and told me about my future. While some part of me was excited back then, in my innocence how could I not have been? Their future ensured me of everything a small child could dream of, because anything other than an ending resulting in happiness was not fantomable. With time came the weariness, the dejectedness, and the disappointment that there wasn't much in life for me to figure out on my own, that there was no uncertainity, no not knowing.
A part of life was, after all, not knowing what would happen at the turn of a corner. With parents like mine few things were left up to chance. I suspect that the sudden departure of the Black family, as people preferred to call it, left them with many sleepless nights. That Carisle Cullen was standing in our home surprised me, I had expected them to have been insured with a good future before their first breath had even been taken.
To keep up my charade I absentmindedly turned a page in the book, breifly scanning over the text before I returned my gaze towards them. Their conversation appeared to be over, and when they started to walk towards me I strained my ears to hear some of their converstion.
"Well, he isn't happy about it, but the way Elizabeth has let him run I shouldn't have expected anything else," I heard Carlisle say. From my understanding Elizabeth was his wife, a woman he always appeared to only tolerated because their circumstances forced him to. While my parents weren't in love, they at least respected each other.
"I am sure that this will bring out the good in him," my mother said cryptically, probably knowing that I was eavesdropping. "This is Isabella, Mr Cullen." Hearing my name being announced I glanced up from my book, and for the first time got a good look of the man that had spent the last hour talking to my parents. He was incredibly good looking, there was something youthful about his appearance despite being at least a decade older than both of my parents, who were already worn with thephysical effects of aging. What he made up for in looks was completely void in his eyes. I'd grown up with the belief that there was always good in everyone, but I was uncertain now that I saw his eyes. Whatever had been good in him before had been completely wiped away by now.
The cool way he regarded me, as if I was nothing but a product on display, caused a shiver to run through my body. His eyes darted across my face, then down towards the book I had in my lap.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Swan," he said with a curt nod. I smiled as sweetly as I could, mustering up every inch of manners my parents had stuffed me with my whole life, and stood up to curtsey to him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Mr Cullen." I bowed my head, and then peered up at his amused expression.
"This one has manners, compared to the rat." There was venom dripping from his voice as he spat the word rat. I was unsure as to whom he was refering to, and I knew well enough not to ask.
"I assure you that Isabella is everything you could wish for," my dad injected. Carlisle appeared to want to roll his eyes, and just barely was able to stop it.
"Well, I will be back with my son tomorrow so you can meet, I hope for all of this to be a speedy happening, this has been dragging on for too long."
When Mr Cullen left I was left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. While I had always been disappointed in my lack of spontaneity in my life, I had learnt to look forward to some parts of the future that I had in front of me. Now I was fearing that Mr Cullen was about to rob me of all of it.
Ever since I was twelve years old I knew I was set to marry someone, until six months ago that person had been Jacob Black, a sprawny boy that bloomed into puberty long after the other boys. He was kind, harmless, and would give me a future where I knew I would have freedom. He would be too kind to refuse me that. Now that the Blacks were gone, that future was ripped from me.
Before thay'd left Jake and I had already begun to plan our wedding, not in great detail, but we were agreeing on things. We wanted it on the beach at our summer houses during summer, it would be as extravagant as our lifestyle would demand it to be, we would have written our own vows, and our wedding song would be the one we danced our first slow dance to in middle school. I might not have loved Jake, but I cared for him deeply, and was alright with marrying him.
If Mr Cullen demanded a hasty wedding, as his words would suggest, I wouldn't get to have a beach wedding with self-written vows, marrying a person I knew and respected. It would most likely be terrifying, and far from the wedding I had imagined.
My parents did confirm my suspiscion that it was my marriage they were talking about. In another world, beyond the gates of Hawford, there were people who found the person they wanted to marry themselves, but here parents only let you marry someone they could trust. Money makes you vulnerable, and you can't let the wrong person get to it.
Knowing I was about to meet my future husband the next day I spent my night fighting a herd of elephants raging in my stomach. At 12 I had not understood the magnitude of what would the meeting I had with Jake Black would lead to. This time I was old enough to understand what was happening, the comittment I would be making to a stranger. That was the difference eight years would make, it would make you grow up and understand fear. It would make you see how reasonable that fear was, too, causing even more fear. Thus the cycle begun.
My night routine was hurried, I dreaded going to bed, but at the same time longed for the comfort of the heavy covers. When I washed my face I worried what he'd think about my looks, would he deem me too plain? As I brushed my hair I worried if he would think my thick mane of brown hair was dull, if he preferred girls with shorter hair, maybe hair that was so blonde that it shone when the sun touched it, like it did with Rosalie McCarty's hair. Undressing I started worrying about my underwear, which was irrational because he would not see them until after the wedding, but I worried because I knew I'd want to buy new ones before then. With Jake I never had that worry, but he had seen me undressed.
The last worry was just that, too; would he want me if I knew I was almost not a virgin? Only my fear had stopped me before. Ill equipped with knowledge of safe sex, but enough to know that we knew too little, I had halted it before it got too far. While I had no qualms about going against my parent's wishes of being a virgin on my wedding night, I didn't want them to know it, and I definitely did not want to be pregnant before I was wed. That would bring shame upon both our families, but mostly mine.
I cralwed into my bed, trying to remember what the two Cullen men looked like, and their names. Much like those living here in Hawford, for those with beach houses in Voltura names were always classic. A child was given a name that as an adult would adorn buildings, company names, and demand respect. Any modern, cutesy, or creative names were looked down upon. No one here would even hire a cleaner with a name they didn't think was appropriate. Common names were Charles, Robert and Richard among men, I had never met any one with the name Taylor, or Jordan. None of those names rang a bell with me.
I flopped around in my bed for most of the night, but when I looked at the clock for the twentieth time, and it was only 2am, I got out of bed, put on my fluffy purple robe and brown slippers, and walked down into the kitchen. In most homes I imagine that the kitchen was empty at night, but in my house night time was when the kitchen staff prepared breakfast and lunch for my family whenever we'd be having guests over the following day. So when I walked into the kitchen and found the house cook standing by the stove stirring a pot, I wasn't surprised in the least.
Elise was the house cook and an older woman with a soft body and an even softer smile. She was often times the one I sought comfort in the most as a child, and I still viewed her as a big motherly figure in my life.
"What's wrong sweetcakes?" she asked as I stood next to her by the stove. She stroked my cheek tenderly, just as she always did. "Why are you up at this hour?"
"They found Jake's replacement," I said bitterly, my voice souring at the word replacment. No one could replace him.
"Couldn't let you get on with your life?" It wasn't really a question, it sounded more like she was disappointed. "I knew this day would come, honey, do you know who it is?"
"One of Mr Cullen's sons, do you know them?" I stood on my toes so that I could look at what she was stirring. It was a dark thicker liquid that I couldn't name. I wished I could cook, but my mom never let me. The little I knew Elise had taught me. It, apparently, wasn't becoming of a fine young lady to be acting like a staff.
"You don't know who yet?" Her eyebrows shot up in her forehead. "Well, I do actually know who they are..." Elise trailed off. I stayed by the stove, leaning against the counter next to it, as she turned around and walked towards a cupboard at the other side of the kitchen. "First there is Jasper Cullen, he is four years older than you, but he's already married to Mary-Alice, and I do know that their father now regrets that union because... he doesn't really approve of her."
"So not Jasper then, unless he wants to make them divorce, which I doubt would ever happen." Divorce was regarded as lowly to most people, and a failed marriage ending in divorce was enough to have you ailienated by everyone. I wondered if Mary-Alice was the rat Mr Cullen had been talking about.
"Edward is older, so I'm surprised that your father would agree to it, and even more surprised that he's not married yet..." Elise walked back towards me with a packet in her hand. I didn't look to see what it was. "He is 27, went to some Ivy League school, he was gone after that, but something must have happened to make him return..."
"27 as in he is or about to turn 27, or is he well on his way to be 28?" I asked, weary. I knew my parents wanted me to marry, and men with respectable, and rich, families didn't grow on trees, a 7 year age difference was a bit of a reach, even for them.
"I may know some, but not that much," Elise said with a smirk on her face. "There is Nutella in the cupboard if you want."
"How come you know all of this?" In the cupboard I found a jar of Nutella, as promised, and in a drawer next to it I found cutlery that would never touch my family's dining table. If my parents knew I ate Nutella, and that I ate it straight out of the jar in the middle of the night next to the house chef, they would freak if they knew, but what they didn't know didn't hurt me.
"House staff love to gossip, it's our currency." The look on Elise's face was that mischevious one that I had always loved, ever since I was a kid.
"Can you tell me anything about Micheal and Jessica's wedding?" I was leaning over the counter by now, watching her work on the food. I would've offered the help, but knew she'd get offended then by experience. My want to know about their wedding may have been strange for other people, Jessica and I used to be friends in high school, but after the debacle with the Blacks we hadn't seen each other. It also didn't help that the Newton's had wanted Mike to marry me, and that Jessica was second choice. When that came out it tore what little of our friendship that was left into shreds. We were supposed to have gotten married around the same time. She in May, and I in June. Whatever she is doing now I was supposed to be doing too, if Jake and I were still about to get married.
"I don't know if there's much to tell, I know there is cake drama, but Hawford ladies seem to always have some drama over cake." Jake and I wouldn't have had drama, our cake would've been chocolate sponge with white chocolate coating, and we were supposed to have red velvet cupcakes, too. Our names would have been on them. I sighed dejectedly."What's with the sad face, honey?"
"Just thinking about Jake... I miss him." I put a big mouthful of chocolate almond deliciousness in my mouth.
"And he misses you too." No matter how good it tasted, it grew in my mouth as I fought back the tears. He'd have made a good husband, one other girls would have been secretly envious of. I knew they teased him before, but once he did bloom out in puberty they knew they were not just missing a fantastic person, but someone who looked really good, too. He was too beautiful.
"I wish I could see him." The Nutella wasn't as appealing anymore, so I stabbed into the jar with my spoon.
"One day you will hon, but first you have to get married," she stroked my cheek. We both wished those would have been comforting words, I knew that.
"Yeah, to Edward."
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I stayed with Elise for almost an hour before she sent me to bed. With my stomach filled with too much sugar, and my thoughts running wild with the thought of 27 year old Edward, the little sleep I got was restless, and I woke up in a panic when I managed to get myself twisted in my sheets. By the time my alarm clock went off at 9am I was more exhausted then I was when I went to bed last night. The bags under my eyes were heavy and blue, and the second my mother put her eyes on me she sent me back to my room to apply concealer. While Edward may not have a choice in marrying me, and would most likely see me in far worse shape than this in the future, a first impression was important for it to be good. Not only to show our status, but because first impressions had far more effect on your future marriage than most people thought it did. It sticks with you for a long time, hard to shake off, and shapes your relationship completely.
The second time I descend the stairs my mother gives me an approving nod, and I head into the breakfast room. It was a room much smaller than our dining room, with four chairs around a round table. The windows that took up three of the walls gave a view of our lush backyard, and the windows were draped with light seafoam green cutains. It was a nice airy room that was supposed to be a bit more comfortable and relaxed than the dining room, yet it had never had that effect on me.
I sat down on the chair, all chairs were cushioned, the fabric matching the drapes. On the other side of the table my dad was sitting, immersed in today's newspaper. I saw that it was the economic section. He only read the economic section in the mornings when he was nervous, worried, or both. I debated reaching across to take the hand that was resting on the table in mine, but decided against it. That wouldn't lead to any good. Instead I poured myself some coffee, and put a generous amount of scrambled eggs and bacon on my plate, knowing that in my parents eyes it would be far too much, but not finding it in me to care at this moment. I was about to marry a 27 year old man I had never met, I could indulge myself in Margaret's scrambled eggs. If Elise worked night, Margret worked the morning. I'd never tell Elise, but Margaret's scrambled eggs were something from the gods.
It turned out that my father was far more nervous than I had expected, so he was completely lost in the paper, meaning that I could gorge myself on the food without any disapproving looks. By the time I had taken the last bite of eggs, and regretting the portion size due to my now too full stomach, my mother walked in briskly and sat down in the chair next to my dad.
"The Cullen family will be here in an hour, and I want you to remember Bella how important this is." Her eyes were fixed on mine, making the demand hidden in there absolutely clear. I would behave, and be nothing but the perfect future bride. "Maybe it was a blessing that the Blacks... Isabella marrying a Cullen will be a big thing."
If Reené was like any other mother she wouldn't have said that, she wouldn't have been completely oblivious to her daughter's feelings, of the loss she had gone through, and the dread she had about what she was about to face. My mother wasn't like other mothers though, she had never had any motherly urges or feelings, and have spend most of my life pawning off responsibbility torwards me on others. That I married someone influential was pivotal, and one of the few things she cared about me doing in this world. Another thing was me having children, not so that she would become a grandmother, that she dreaded, but to secure an heir for my husband's business, and my family's business. It became clear in my younger years that I was not fit to run a company, not only for what I had between my legs, but because I wasn't cut-throat enough. I was too kind, apparently.
"I'm sure Jacob would have been a good husband to our daughter," dad said behind his paper. He gave me a look above it, one that said it all. While my dad was almost equally bad as my mother at being a parent, he'd never hidden the fact that he loved me. It was expressed in inconventional ways, but it was at least shown.
"I'm sure he would've," my mother said, but didn't seem to be convinced.
The dress I wore wasn't something I would've chosen myself, in fact any dress was far fom what I would have ever chosen to wear. It was a navy blue dress, th hem of the flairy skirt touched the under side of my knees, barely skimming my shins, and the top of it dipped modestly down past my collarbone, hugging my barely there curves, and held up by an inch thick straps. If I had been in charge I would have picked a pair of skinny jeans, and possibly a blouse. One of my dad's flannel shirts that he wore whenever my mother was away on trips also would have worked.
This dress made me feel self-conscious, and made me stretch my back uncomfortably. If I slouched even just a little the tiny rolls created on my stomach would be too visible, and no matter what, there was no way to convince my mother it was acceptable. I was skinny as a rail, and that was probably the reason for my mosquito-bite breasts, yet my mother still berrated me if a single roll naturally formed on mystomach appeared.
When no one was around I slouched back on the couch I was sitting on, leaning my face in my hands, and peering through my fingers to see the time. At any minute my future husband would walk through the door, but by now the elephants had taken a rest in my stomach, and I had only been left with resignation. What could I do? All I had left was the hope that this man would treat me kindly, and act as a partner, a friend, and not shut me out. This could be the beginning of a lonely life.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't hear the doorbell, and it was when they rounded the corner that I realized that the time was up, I was about to see him for the first time. I quickly stood up fron the couch, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of my skirt, and turned my gaze towards him. While Carlisle Cullen was a handsom man, Edward obviously did not get his good looks from him. Next to Carlisle he seemed so much darker. His hair was brown, eyes darker, not blue, his shoulders were even broader than Carlisle, and he might have been even taller. Most details escaped me then, I was only able to take in the fact that he was impossibly handsome, in a way that could never fit into the real world. People must've stared at him wherever he went.
"Ah, Edward, this is my daughter Isabella," my dad said. I hadn't seen him appear, but he was standing just next to Edward, holding out a hand to gesture towards me. I smiled carefully, unable to find a voice in me to speak with. "Isabella, this is Edward." Edward and I shook hands, and I noticed that his hands were clammy, but I didn't say anything. That would be our secret. At least he looked as if he wasn't the least bit nervous, I must've looked like a wreck. I also shook hands with Carlisle again, but it didn't feel as good as with Edward, it felt like a dead fish, he was so noncommital.
"Please, sit," my mother urged all of us. Somehow I ended up back on the couch with Edward sitting next to me, is back just as rigid as mine, and his eyes carefully avoiding looking anywhere near my direction.
"I know, Isabella, that you were set to marry another person this summer, and I am saddened to hear about how that didn't go as planned, but my son Edward will certainly be a good match for you," Carlisle said to me when we'd sat down. I hadn't expected him to say anything to me, nontheless an expression of sympathy, still it did not feel genuine at all.
"Thank you, Mr Cullen." I smiled weakly at him, hoping the gratitude in my voice didn't betray how little I believed him.
"I also know how much it was to ask of you to agree to the time frame, and I very much appreciate your cooporation." No one had ever specified to me how quickly this would go by, and by now I was dreading it. Was it less than a year? How much time did I have to get to know the man seated next to me, refusing to even look in my direction.
"Oh, no, we were left with so many balls hanging in the air that it will be easy for us to pick it up again, from the start, but we do have people to turn to." As my mother spoke it became clearer to me that they were most probably talking about less than a year, maybe I'd get a summer wedding after all.. I didn't dare to ask, not yet.
"So the date still works, we're on track ofr January 3rd?" I didn't hear my mother's response, other than it was a confirming one. January was only 3 months from now, just barely. I glanced over at Edward who seemed so cool and unaffected by all of this. Sure, he was much older and much more ready for marriage, but who could ever be ready to marry someone they haven't even known for 3 months? Was I okay with this?
"Three months?" I hadn't intended to say anything, but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Everyone turned to look at me, even Edward, who I noticed had a look of momentary shock written on his too beautiful features.
It was hard to breathe. Jacob I had known for 8 years, it would have been almost 9 by the time we got married. I was okay then, I was okay with being married at 20 because I knew him and trusted him. Jake was Jake, solid, dependable, sunshine. What was Edward? He was the stoic stranger sitting next to me on a couch, much older and experienced. Jake was all my firsts, I was all of his, we knew each other.
I closed my eyes, knowing I had to keep up a good front, I had to build up the walls, and I had to go through this. Jake was gone. When I had counted to ten and opened them again, I knew that everyone would see that I was fine, they believed the smile on my face, the 'alright' that passed my lips.
No matter what I had to get through this.
I had to.
There will be angst, because realistically... a 20 year old getting married to a stranger won't be too happy about it. Reasons, characters, reactions etc will be explained more as we go. Can't have it all at once, can we? hehe
