Disclaimer: SM owns twilight, I just steal her Barbie's and make them do dirty things.
A/N: I'm going to tell you right now that this is a long ass chapter. Its 3,057 words and 4 pages long on my word doc. So you've been forewarned. Also we learn quite a bit about Bella in this chapter. Read on my chickens.
Bpov
We pulled up to the large, dark house, and even from the outside it felt empty and alone. The car ride from the hospital had been relatively quiet, and the closer we got to the house, the thicker the air got in the car. It had felt like I was suffocating. I didn't know what I had expected. I think I was hoping Carmen would bust out the front door laughing, telling us we've been pranked. But sitting in front of their empty house now was a reality I wasn't ready for.
"I think we should get out." Edward said softly. I looked over at him as he grasped my hand tightly. I only nodded. I didn't trust my mouth to speak. I was afraid that if I tried to say something I would cry, and I was already too exhausted. He was the first to open his door. He came around and opened mine for me. It still took me a minute or two to actually get out of the car. Edward flicked the lights on as he opened the front door. It still looked the same. Her silky brown couches were still filled to the brim with the most comfortable pillows I had ever laid on, and there was a pile of mail sitting on the coffee table. We just stood in the doorway for a few minutes. I was the one to clear my throat first.
"I'll take the couch."
"No, Bella. I'll take the couch. You take the guest room."
"Are you sure?" I was too exhausted to argue. When he nodded I attempted to smile thankfully, but I think it came off as more of a grimace. When I opened the door of the guest room I was reminded of the last time I slept in here. My apartment was in renovation and Carmen had insisted I stay at her place. We made an entire weekend out of it. We drank our body weight in wine and watched sappy romance movies. Smiling at the memory, I took off my heels and pants before curling up under the blankets. I stared off into space and watched our memories play out in front of my eyes. I don't know how much time I spent recalling every single day of our life until I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
The smell of bacon and coffee woke me out of my deep sleep. I sat up and looked at the clock, shuddering when 7:30am looked back at me. I fell back to the pillows with a groan.
"It's too early." I sighed to the empty room. My eyes wandered and I turned my head towards the shut door. I could hear faint talking, and I jumped out of bed. Throwing on my clothes as fast as possible proved to be quite difficult due to the fact that my arms felt like rubber. I opened the door to the bedroom and followed the sound of hushed talking. I stopped just before the doorway to the kitchen when I heard my name being whispered angrily into the phone.
"Yes, Bella Swan. She's Carmen's sister. Yes-err, No. I know, Rose." His voice rose a little bit but he lowered before speaking again. "I don't know. She owns a bakery." He paused for a second, so I assumed he was waiting for her to finish talking. I twisted my ring around my finger nervously.
"Goddamnit, tell her to mind her own business. I AM doing this. I'm NOT pushing the responsibility all on Bella, EVEN though she offered. Get some goddamn sense into that thick fucking skull of yours, Rosalie. It's like you don't even know me at all!" he practically shouted the last part. I heard him sigh deeply before the phone clattered onto the kitchen counter. I waited a few short moments before deciding to make my presence known. I took a few steps back before making a show of walking into the kitchen. He looked towards me and smiled sheepishly.
"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" I smiled back at him.
"No. I was already awake. I smelled Bacon." He nodded before gesturing to a plate on the counter.
"I didn't know what you liked so I stuck to basic breakfast foods. I can make you something else if you want." I only smiled at him.
"This is good, thank you." I poured myself a quick cup of coffee before sitting down at the table. He didn't say anything else so neither did I, and we sat in silence as we ate. My mind started filling with dread as I looked around the empty house. Suddenly I wasn't as hungry. I got up quickly and threw away what little I had left on my plate. I had to break the silence before I went insane, so I sat back down and looked at Edward.
"Have they called yet?" he took a sip of his coffee before replying.
"They're dropping Marcy off at 9. We need to come up with a plan. When do you work and when do I work. We need to write up schedules of when we're going to be available. Are you going to be moving into this house?-"
"Well we can't just take her away from this house. She needs a stable place to grow up in. All of that bouncing around is not healthy for her dynamic…" I interrupted him, taking a big gulp of my coffee. "Don't you travel a lot for your job? Also we need to talk about dating."
His eyes widened. "I mean our dating life. You can't just bring home a new girl every week…" I shrugged and rolled my eyes at him. He scoffed. He literally scoffed.
"The fact that you think I'm that kind of person seriously offends me, Bella." He almost looked hurt.
"Well don't shoot the messenger. It's just what I heard." He shook his head.
"The same goes for you, Bella. You can't just bring home a new guy every night."
"The fact that you think I'm capable of that is truly flattering, but that's not happening any time soon." I looked up and was instantly embarrassed. He merely raised an eyebrow and smirked.
"Why not?" he leaned forward, intrigued. My face felt hot. Why did I even bring any of this up? It's not that I didn't date; it's just that I was bad at it.
"I don't date." I shrugged my shoulders again before getting up to pour myself a cup of coffee. I turned around. "Well, anymore. I don't date anymore. I used to. Past tense." Now I was rambling. I turned back around before I could embarrass myself any further.
"Am I allowed to ask why? Do I even want to know?" the tone of his voice irritated me.
"It's not that I can't get a goddamn date." I sat down in front of him, mixing the sugar and creamer into my coffee until it turned a warm light brown. "I just haven't been on a good date in years. My last serious relationship pretty much ruined every guy for me."
"What happened?" I just stared at him and sighed.
"Can we step away from my non-existent dating life and get back on topic?" I pleaded.
He tapped the table. "How about this. We'll play 20 questions. I ask you something, you ask me something. Clearly we know nothing about each other, and we still have…" he looked at his watch. "An hour until Marcy gets here." I sighed, taking a sudden interest in the rim of my coffee mug. I ran my finger along it a few times before sighing again.
"Okay." I looked up at him. "But I'm first." He shrugged one shoulder and nodded.
"Seems fair. Ask away."
What did I want to know about Edward Cullen? That was a loaded question. Somehow I found myself wanting to know everything.
"What's your favorite color?" he rolled his eyes before smiling.
"Blue." He leaned forward.
"What's yours?"
"That counts as your first question you know." I raised an eyebrow. I figured that he would ask something about my relationships.
"I'm aware." He grinned.
I hummed. "Why do I have to choose just one? I like them all." He smirked. "Well, okay, I guess I use a lot of greens, and blues. But I really dig yellow, orange and red." I shrugged.
He sat back in his chair and brought his cup to his lips. "Your turn."
Almost instantly a question came to mind but I smothered it down. "What do you do? With your business, I mean."
He raised his eyebrows and put his cup back down. "Architecture. Basically we're the people who celebrities and the really spoiled rich bitches call when they want an indoor pool and a house as big as three football fields."
I rolled my eyes. "I know what architecture is, but thank you for explaining that to me." I perked up at the celebrity part.
"Have you built any houses for any celebrities?" I imagined him building Will Smith, or Orlando Bloom's house. Obviously he was shirtless in these fantasies.
"Yes." My eyes widened.
"Who...-"
"Ah, no. It's my turn." I sighed as he tapped his finger on his chin.
"Hmmmm…." The muscles in his arms bulged nicely as he leaned forward. I pretended not to notice.
"Why did your one serious relationship ruin dating for you." My eyes snapped from his nicely sculpted arms up to his eyes in a matter of seconds. I sighed before gulping down the rest of my coffee.
I traced the rim of my coffee mug once again as I talked. "His name is Jacob. And I've known him basically since diapers. We grew up together. It's funny, because Carmen would always dress us up as bride and groom and she would steal my mom's makeup and practically cake it on my face, and she would snag a pair of mom's heels and we would make a real event out of it. She would set up chairs and practically beg our neighbors to attend. Then she would pretend to be the preacher and she would marry us off and make us kiss. It was cute until our neighbors got tired of humoring us. Anyway. Jacob and I started to actually date our sophomore year, and we stayed together until our senior year of college. At the time I believed that he could do no wrong. I had believed that I knew everything about him, inside and out. It was my impression that we were in love. We both went to an out of state college, so every year we went home for Christmas. While we were packing, he proposed to me. I was beyond ecstatic. I couldn't wait to tell my family. I said yes, obviously. We both agreed that I wouldn't wear the ring until we told our families. When we got to my house, Carmen instantly pulled me aside and told me that she had to tell me something. She took me away from our family and brought me upstairs to her room. At this point she was really scaring me…" my finger stopped circling the rim as I remembered that day and all of the feelings that I had felt. I took a few deep breaths before tapping my fingers against the mug; again my finger started tracing the outside of the mug.
"She told me that she had some bad news, and that it was about Jacob. Apparently, while we were home visiting for Christmas the previous year, Jacob cheated on me with my best friend Tanya. What makes it bad is that he got her pregnant. At first I had the naïve thought that we could work through it. But then I realized that I didn't want to be that girl. At the time that she was telling me this, my supposed best friend was chatting up my family and my fiancé. I was livid. I was literally seeing red. I wanted to go down there and kill her. I told Carmen about Jacob's proposal, and I showed her the ring." I hurriedly wiped a stupid tear off of my cheek. "Really I'm just angry that I let myself fall so incredibly in love with him." I shrugged and sighed before going on with my story. "Carmen told me I needed to confront him about it. I told her that I was just going to break up with him when we got back to school, but she insisted that I confront him now. At the time I was angry at her for telling me instead of letting me find out for myself, but I'm really glad that she did. To be honest, if she didn't, I'd probably be married to him right now. And I wouldn't have my bakery." I shrugged. "So we went down stairs and Jacob greeted me, but before he could kiss me he knew something was wrong. I guess he kind of put two and two together because of the look on Carmen's face. I swear, if looks could kill. At that moment I became a different person. I stomped into the living room in search of Tanya. When I found her I started screaming at her. I literally hurled the ring Jacob gave me at her face, and unfortunately it hit her in the eye and she had to go to the hospital. She didn't press charges, though. I went home the next day, and she tried to call me for weeks after. Jacob transferred to a school closer to Tanya, and it was the end of that." I finally looked up to him. Sorrow mixed with anger flooded his features. "It ruined dating for me because I'm always second guessing myself and I don't get close to anyone. I turned to Baking as more of a comfort thing. Plus I had been baking since the age of 12 with my grandmother, every summer. I guess that's how I ended up with a Bakery. It helps me when I'm stressed out." I let out a shaky laugh and looked at the clock.
"God damn that was the longest 45 minutes of my life. Sorry." I rubbed my face and closed my eyes. I don't know why I spilled as much as I did to him. I felt strangely comfortable with him. I didn't mind talking to him. I didn't feel like I was wasting his time when I talked. It felt like he was really listening to me.
"You are literally the third person who knows the entire story." I admitted.
"Bella…" I looked at him and shook my head.
"Please don't. You asked, I told you. To be quite honest, I don't even know why I told you." I cleared my throat. "But Marcy will be here soon so we should clean this up." He nodded and picked up my cup along with his before dumping them into the sink.
"It's your turn." He said, changing the subject, which I was grateful for. I laughed and tried to think of a question.
"What's the worst date you've ever been on?" Right as the question left my mouth there was a knock on the door. I peeked at the clock.
"She's ten minutes early." My stomach filled with anxiety at the thought of seeing Marcy. I was excited to see her again, but sadness filled my heart for the loss of her mother. I ran to the door and opened it. Beautiful blue eyes stared back at me. She squealed in delight and threw her arms out.
"Hello, my darling!" I smiled at Marcy before letting the social worker in. I reached my hands out for Marcy and she easily went to me. Edward smiled at Marcy before extending his hand.
"Hello, I'm Edward, and this is Bella." She grasped his hand, tightly, might I add, and shook it with such force that it surprised me.
"Lauren Brown. I just need you guys to sign a few papers so I can leave her with you." She smiled briefly towards Marcy and then looked me up and down. I instantly didn't like her. We both signed and she smiled a flirtatious smile towards Edward before nodding curtly at me.
"Thank you." I forced out as she left. Marcy giggled happily and laid her head down on my shoulder.
"She's tired." Edward commented. "Do you want me to put her down so that we can go over a schedule?" I nodded but didn't hand her over.
"Bella?" I sighed.
"Give me a minute." I hugged her tightly. She fit perfectly in my arms as I rocked her, and I instantly knew I was ready for this. Carmen may have been crazy and impulsive half of her life, but she really thought this through. She was doing me a favor. I knew that now. I could hear Marcy's soft snores as I laid my head against hers. I kissed her on the head twice before reluctantly handing her to Edward. His eyes lit up instantly, and even though he didn't know if he was ready, I knew that Edward would make a wonderful dad.
A/N:REVIEWS ARE LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN AND I WANT THEM IN MY VAN. I HAVE CANDY. COME TO THE DARK SIDE.
So I know this is posted at a weird time, but where I live, it is still Wednesday, so there you go! I know it was kind of hefty and we only got a few minutes of Marcy, but trust me, we've got the rest of the story to spend time with her.
Also I realized that I didn't mention ages. Marcy is 9 months, Edward is 27, and Bella is 26.
Some new characters will be introduced next chapter! Also, I decided that every 5 chapters I'll do a chapter in Edward's POV. So that's something to look forward to! Yay! 3 more chapters to go my lovely little hens!
Until next time,
-Olive.
