The Twilight Twenty-five
Prompt: Red
Pen name: K. Cerena
Pairing: Bella/Edward
Rating: T
For all you Brit lit nerds out there, this is Edward and Bella with a touch of Will and Anna Brangwen from The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence :)
Incidentally, Twilight isn't mine. Pleeeease let me know what you think-- I'm new to fanfic, and any kind of feedback makes my day!
Edward was sitting in the third pew, near the center aisle. I didn't know who he was or why I cared. I did know that his hair looked like burnished copper in the candlelight, and I think I knew his features were perfect because they framed the stare that was consuming me. The stare flashed toward me as I entered the church, and in that instant his eyes claimed me without shame or hesitation. In the next instant they claimed the Madonna above the doorway, then moved through the church on a hungry rampage that trampled me until the service threatened to start. Without thinking, I sat down across the walkway from him. I was afraid to sit any closer, and I half-wished I were farther away when the sermon started and Edward's face got weirdly bug-eyed. He opened his mouth slightly, and a flush spread from the wet skin inside his cheeks to the outer edges of his full lips. When the flush got there, it torched the lightly freckled skin of his face and neck. His green eyes should've popped out comically from all that redness, except that everything was sinking into the maw of his dilated pupils. He seemed to be absorbed in the words of the communion, but only in the sense that normal things absorbed Renee when she was stoned out of her mind.
His eyes and mouth crumpled closed when communion finished, relaxing into the look of a tired little boy with sticking-up hair. Edward didn't seem embarrassed to look that way, any more than he'd been embarrassed to stare at me when I came in or gape at the sermon like he was possessed, and so I giggled in his direction, relieved that the new pose was vulnerable enough for me to mock it aloud. The parishioners were all making noise now, putting on their coats and shuffling toward the exit, but Edward jerked his head up like I'd giggled during the sermon and looked at me with the scariest expression his face had borne yet. His long, beautiful fingers seemed to move in slow motion, pushing aside molasses as they clenched into a fist, and pallor spread quickly to his once-flushed lips. He'd so clearly caught me staring that I couldn't look away, and I couldn't even control the way my giggle trailed off into a whimper. For a second, I thought he might hit me, but then he whirled and strode away from me, unperturbed by his own impossible speed. Confusion and anger unbalanced me as I tripped and stumbled out the church's other exit. How could he think he had the right to glare at me like that? He looked ridiculous enough that he deserved to be laughed at, and I was sure I couldn't be the first one to think so.
I knew Edward's name by the time I next entered the church, but I couldn't have said what made me show my face there again. I sat as far away from him as I could, but he had the nerve to flinch away from me like I was breathing down his arrogant little neck. Whatever… I'd just have to ogle the apparently gorgeous minister. He was probably old enough to be my father, but he looked so much like a movie star that a girl really shouldn't have to bother staring at anyone else in the room. He started praying then, and his commanding, melodious voice started seriously competing with the face. Unfortunately, none of could quite blunt my awareness of Edward and his gawky gape. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or abashed that my giggle hadn't make him self-conscious enough to close his mouth. He continued to gape through more Sunday services, and every time I looked at him, I clamped my mouth more firmly shut. I only stole glances at him when his mind was obviously elsewhere, but that was admittedly really often.
I often noticed other eyes lingering at his pew, but most were probably focused on his gorgeous younger sister. Rosalie was eighteen, and already married, with a baby in her arms and another on the way. Their father, naturally, was the beautiful Reverend Cullen. Rosalie seemed pretty embarrassed by Edward and his gape, sniffing when she looked at him and tossing her impossibly shiny hair. She'd caught me staring at her brother once or twice and inspected me so snidely that I mentally got revenge by calling her Bristol Palin. Rumor had it that the first baby'd been born just six months after her marriage, and it was only fair to judge her by her own stupid minister's-daughter-who-gets-married-at-eighteen rules, at least when she looked at me like that.
Weeks stretched into months, but neither Edward's devotion nor my own seemed in any danger of waning.
I was walking up the path on one unusually clear Sunday when I noticed a hectic energy in the air. Too many people were hurrying past me into church. I suddenly remembered that it was Easter Sunday, and wondered if I'd be able to get a seat. Edward suddenly breezed past me, hurrying Brist--er, Rosalie and her husband inside and disappearing into the crowd. Disappearing, until I saw that every seat was taken except the one next to him. I almost ran away, but then I saw Carlisle staring expectantly from the pulpit, and I remembered the racket that the heavy doors always made.
Sitting next to Edward was even weirder than watching him from a distance, because his shameless reverent energy seemed to crackle between us. The packed church squeezed us way too close together, and when his arm brushed mine, I felt so uncontrollably embarrassed that I wondered if he could be filling me with his own suppressed feelings. That gape must embarrass some teeny bit of him!
I thought my gut would calm down once his arm left mine at the end of the sermon, but my insides squirmed harder as I weighed the awkwardness of looking at Edward against the awkwardness of looking away. My eyes lifted before I'd had time to decide, and his gaze devoured mine, unwavering as always and filled with a new warm solemnity. He extended his hand, then addressed me with a bit of his father's sonority.
"Would you like to take a walk with me?"
It was impossibly weird of him to be asking me that, in church in front of everybody. We'd barely said two words to each other, ever, he despised me, and his sister was currently looking at him like he was some kind of retarded child. I think I opened my mouth to tell him some of those things, but then his eyes started smoldering, and they cut off my air supply. I couldn't even ask him if he meant now or later, so I just nodded, and he actually offered me his arm. My legs were so wobbly that I doubted I could make it out the door without breaking something, so I just gulped, leaned on him obediently, and followed him out the church. I tried really hard not to notice the way Bristol Palin was raising her perfect eyebrows.
At some point, I realized that the sun was shining. When we got to a meadow behind the church, Edward took one of my hands in both of his, then removed my glove and used his cool, sinewy fingertips to explore my bare skin. My breath caught as the fingers moved beneath my sleeve. It felt like he was making snow angels against my white skin. Edward's touch didn't feel cloying and way too personal, the way I remembered from the times Jake had touched me, because Edward was touching something that I couldn't quite see or believe in, any more than I could see or believe in what he gaped at in church. But unlike in church, I could feel this new mystery taking shape under Edward's fingertips, like he was bringing something spiritual down to earth and pressing it against my nerve endings, and it was somehow me, or partly me, until Edward let go of my hand. He spread his jacket on the grass, invited me to sit, and devoured my eyes with his own once more.
"Tell me why you came here."
"I'm… teaching at Forks high school, working on my credential." He gave a curt nod, as if indicating I should move on to a part that somebody in town might not know already, and something about the weirdness of this whole afternoon made it impossible not to tell the whole truth. "I sort of came to church that first day because of something my mother said, that moving to a small town would turn me into a hick. She's lived in Berkeley all her life, and when I was a kid, she actually made me promise never to sleep with a Republican. Before she told me to use protection and wait until I was ready." I turned beet red when that one slipped out, but there was no turning back now. "I believe in pretty much everything she believes in, and that's why I get so annoyed when she acts like every red state oozes this deadly mold that'll suck out your brain if you get near it with a ten-foot pole. I wasn't even moving to a red state, but that didn't stop her from going on and on about the evils of small-town America. It makes zero sense to believe something is wrong while being deathly afraid it can somehow corrupt you, so anyway, that's why I came. To prove that the evil couldn't corrupt me." I was too nervous to smile as I combed his face for signs of the shield that goes up when you realize you're talking to someone whose values are completely disgusting and you have to shunt all auxiliary power to the political correctness vigil. My eyes flickered in a lame attempt to avoid his eyes, but I relaxed a little when a crooked smirk twisted the lower half of his face.
"Is that why you've been going to church every week for the past six months?"
I managed a watery smile. "Not exactly. I guess I found something that was new to me, new and strange and beautiful. I still don't really believe in it, but I like being reminded that some people are so moved by it."
Edward seemed to accept my answer, but his playful smirk faded without touching his eyes. After a long moment, he broke the silence again. "Have you ever…? With a Republican?"
My hands jumped to cover my scarlet face, and I mentally cursed the way I'd set myself up for this one. When the silence was getting unbearable, I murmured, "Never…with anyone actually. I dated a guy in college, but it didn't get to that point." My accidental virginity was something I'd scrupulously hidden from Renee, and from everyone but my closest friends, but the weird honesty of today had already started kicking in. "Things didn't feel quite right with Jake, and I was sort of worried that they'd never feel right enough with anybody. For that to happen. If it had felt right with someone, I'd have done it a long time ago." Great, the defensive line I'd saved up for if Renee ever found out.
Edward's eyes looked warmer now, and I noticed the change with a little fume of resentment. If he judged people for things like sex… I calmed myself down by remembering that I liked watching him get excited by things I didn't believe in, and that everyone should really be honest about those things, even when they were stupid. His eyes smoldered at me again, and he said, unbelievably, "I know what you mean." He met my confusion with a crooked smile that was graver than his earlier one, then offered an explanation. "If I had ever met someone with whom that had felt possible, I'd have married her a long time ago." The pressure seemed to build inside his burning eyes, and when he opened his mouth to question me again, the question smoldered too. "Are you still worried you can't feel that way?"
This answer was easier than the others had been. When he heard it, Edward's face began to glow with the worshipful flush that had dazzled me for so long.
"No, I'm not."
I'm trying to use the Twilight 25 challenge to experiment with various styles-- I really admire hilarity, but always slip into stuffy over-floweriness if I'm not policing myself, and sometimes it's fun to give in to temptation. Anyway, if you like, please review! It's your big chance to shape my infant fanfic identity!