Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does.
Wow. I'm blown away by the response to this story. Thank you to everybody who reviewed or added this story to their favorites or alerts. It makes me a bit nervous about this chapter though. I hope it's not a disappointment...
Comfort.
When I'd calmed down again I disentangled myself from my daughter and cleared away the essays I had been grading before. It would be madness to think I was going to get any more work done today.
I thought about calling Emmet and Rose to ask if we could drop by. I was in desperate need of some diversion but above all I really needed to talk about what happened with Libby today and I knew Rose would listen and give me her honest opinion. If anything, my brothers girlfriend was always brutally honest.
"How about we go visit Uncle Emmet and Aunt Rosalie?" I asked Libby.
"Yay! Do you think Uncle Em will play with me?" Libby was bouncing around like a kangaroo at the prospect.
"Don't know if he's home yet sweetie." I answered. "But if he is, I'm sure he'll be more than willing."
My brother used to be a very promising football player until he got injured in his second year as a pro. Together with one of his mates from the varsity team he had opened one of these upscale gyms not that far from their home. It had been a huge success and there was even talk of opening another branch.
The last time we'd been visiting my brother had taken it upon himself to impart the basic principles of football on my little girl. Of course the ball had soon been forgotten and it had turned into something more like a wrestling match where Emmet had let Libby hurtle him around the park. The memory of my tiny little daughter in her little pink dress tackling her 6'5" tall uncle to the ground was still edged into my brain. It had been the most fun I'd had in years.
I picked up my phone and dialed.
"Hello?" Rose answered the phone.
"Hi Rose. How are you?"
"O, things are great over here. Emmet finally put the crib together yesterday, so I can stop bitching about that. The little one's been kicking the crap out of me though, especially at night. Haven't had a decent night's sleep in two weeks. "
"Owww. I know how you feel. It might be genetic, Libby did the same thing." I replied.
"That's it. I'm not having any more babies after this one!" Rosalie laughed.
"Hey Rose, do you think it would be alright if Libby and I came over?"
"Of course it would be! Do you even have to ask?" Rose sounded almost offended.
"Well...I thought you might be tired or something." I replied.
"Bored out of my skull's more like it! I swear, if this baby doesn't come out any time soon, somebody's going to get hurt!"
"Okay, then I guess Libby and I will be there in..." I looked at the clock "...Half an hour?"
"Fine. See ya!"
"Bye Rose"
Libby had already started getting packed, or at least packing the stuff she thought essential for a visit to her favorite – and only - uncle.
I raced through the house, grabbing the bare essentials – purse, keys, money, cell phone – and we where on our way in under ten minutes.
Libby grabbed my hands as we walked from our small apartment in Morningside Heights to my brothers swanky abode on the Upper West Side. As often as I had walked this same route I could never get tired of it. I loved the hectic and anonymity of living in a big city especially compared to the little town of Forks where I grew up. It made me feel alive, like the city unknowingly rubbed some of it's energy off on me.
Libby skipped over the sidewalk - her hand still firmly in mine – towing me along. She was such an unusual child, but I guess that's what every parent would say about their child. She could be active and outgoing one moment and thoughtful and quiet the next. She would spend hours sitting in the windowsill looking at the world beneath her only to comment on some tiny little detail that everyone else overlooked. She sometimes amazed me with her insights into the world. Insights that were way beyond her age.
Her looks where a mix of mine and...his. She had his emerald eyes and flawless pale skin, my nose and curly chocolate colored hair. Behavior-wise she took more after me - which wasn't so strange considering I was her only caregiver – but thank God she'd inherited his graceful way of moving, though for me that pretty much applied to anyone who had the ability to move without falling down or bumping into something. How she had gotten her love for all things pink, however, was beyond me.
"Sammy!" Libby yelled as soon as we'd reached the building my brother lived in. She dropped my hand and ran into the building in search for the doorman. I could hear the laughing from inside where she had probably launched herself into the poor man's arms. It was typical behavior for my daughter. She couldn't be in a building for five minutes without befriending every living creature inside. So as soon as she could walk and talk she had made it her duty to get to know every person in our building and Emmet's and made them tell her their life's stories.
"Are you coming Libby?" I asked, pausing by the tangle of doorman-red and Libby-pink. "You wouldn't want to keep Uncle Emmet waiting now would you?"
Libby squealed and ran towards the elevator.
"Sorry about that!" I apologized, smiling at the now scruffy looking doorman.
"My pleasure, Bella." The doorman replied laughing.
My daughter was already standing in the elevator, tapping her foot and huffing with impatience. As soon as I had set foot into the elevator she raised her arms so I could hoist her in the air to press the button for Emmet's floor.
"What do you know! It's the Squirt and the baby Squirt!" Emmet called as soon as he opened the door.
I could faintly see a squealing flash of pink and brown flying past me and launching itself into Emmet's arms. It was their traditional greeting ritual. Emmet's thundering laugh joined Libby's when he whirled her around the hall of his apartment.
Before I even registered that my brother had put Libby back on the ground I was lifted into the arms of my big burly brother and squished into a bear hug.
"Em...can't...breath!" I managed to squeak.
"Sorry, sis!" He laughed, dropping me to the floor and ruffling my hair with one of his huge hands. "Forgot that you're of the more breakable variety."
I glared at him. It wasn't like he hadn't accidentally put me in hospital before!
I heard a soft chuckle coming from behind my brother and walked further into the apartment to greet his girlfriend.
Rose and I had met four years ago. Not wanting to leave his baby sister open to the dangers of the big city my brother had forced me to take self-defense classes almost as soon as I had given birth to Libby. He wouldn't take no for an answer, not even after I'd explained to him that I was more likely to get hurt trying to learn how to defend myself than I would ever be walking the streets of New York.
Rose, who taught my self-defense class, and I had taken an instant dislike to each other. Rose had thought I was a whiny stuck up literary snob and I thought she was just another brainless blond Barbie.
We got to know each other when she had to take me to the emergency room after I had sprained my wrist during the fourth lesson. I had just been thinking about how proud I was to have made it through three whole lessons without breaking anything when my sparring partner had unexpectedly decided to practice a shoulder throw. Instead of absorbing the blow with my back and legs and roll gracefully onto my knees like I had been taught, I dived head first into the mats and collapsed unto my wrist like a sack of potato.
While we had been waiting for the doctor to see me we talked and got to know each other. I found out that Rosalie had started taking martial arts classes when she was fifteen after she'd been attacked in the street by a group of drunken men. It had helped her get through what had happened to her, made her feel less like a victim. She had found out that my whinyness had been born out of experience and that it was shyness and not snobbishness that made me seem a bit distant.
In spite of all our differences we'd become friends and after a while I had even set her up on a blind date with my brother. They had immediately hit it off – the ex-model and the ex- football player – and moved in together last year, a huge step for my brother. He had nearly had a heart attack when she told him she was pregnant a few months later.
"Baby Squirt?" I was startled from my thoughts by the thundering voice of my brother.
"Yes Uncle Em?"
"What do you say we leave these two lovely ladies to talk and we go out to the park for a second football lesson?"
"Yay! Yay! Yay!" Libby replied, once again bouncing in place.
Emmet picked up my daughter, grabbed the ball and bounded out of the apartment, the sounds of their laughter resounding through the building.
As soon as they had gone Rose pulled me into the living room where a steaming teapot and a huge plate of chocolate chip cookies where waiting for us.
I was completely baffled. Rose was a good friend, don't get me wrong, but she hardly ever noticed the world outside her own little bubble and though she was a fierce protector of the people she loved, she wasn't the kind of person to pour your heart out to over tea and cookies. She was more the kind of person who went out and kicked whoever hurt you in the balls.
"What brought all this on, Rose? Are you...nesting?" I asked, once my speech had returned.
"Don't you say a word missy!" She said pricking one of her perfectly manicured fingers in my chest with every word. I subconsciously retreated to a safer corner of the room.
"You call me, sounding all teary and miserable making me go all soft and hormonal. You're the one who owes the explanations around here!" she barked.
She pointed towards the sofa and I sat, not daring to argue with my formidable future sister in law when she was like that. She sat down next to me, poured the tea and shoved a cup into my hands, the hot liquid nearly spilling over my hands.
"I'm waiting..." she said, tapping her nails against her cup. Suddenly I knew what the victims of the Spanish Inquisition must have felt like.
"Well...Libby asked me about her dad today." I blurted out.
"What?" Rose nearly fell from the sofa. "Bella, are you alright?"
"Yeah, at least I think so. It was just...hard. Harder than I ever expected it to be." I answered, looking at my fingers while the tears made a reappearance.
"What did you say?"
"Just that she had a dad, just like everybody else, but that her dad wasn't around."
"How did she react?"
"She was okay about it. Don't think she's completely satisfied though. She only held of on further questioning because of me..."
"Why? What did you do?"
"I cried. I couldn't help myself..." the tears now streaming freely down my face. "God! I hate myself for doing this to her!"
"Doing what?" Rosalie said, pulling me into an embrace as tight as her present condition allowed. "Honey, you didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you deserve a medal.."
"Sure I do," I snorted in between sobs. "The medal for the biggest mess ever created by a single person."
"NO BELLA" Rose's voice sounded fierce and I suddenly understood why her colleagues at the fashion magazine where she worked called her 'the barracuda'. "If there's anyone fit for sainthood it's YOU. You had to go through loosing your father, finding out you got knocked up by some bastard who's abandoned you and breaking with your mother all in one week and not only did you survive THAT, you also managed to bring up the most beautiful little girl and graduate with honors from and Ivy League school!"
"He didn't abandon me, Rose" I murmured trying to brake free from her hold.
"Did he ever call you?"
"No...but..."
"Did he ever e-mail you?"
"No...but Rose..."
"Did he ever send a carrier pigeon to your house?"
"No, but Rose, what if something went wrong? What if he never got my message? What if..."
"If he had wanted to contact you, no force on earth could have stopped him. But he didn't. That's abandonment in my book!" She huffed.
I hated when Rose talked about Edward like that. Libby's words might have ripped open the stitches that had held my heart together for the last five years, Rose's words actually drew blood. It all came back to me in a rush. Having to run away from my own little slice of heaven with nothing but a note to explain what happened, going from extreme happiness to utter devastation in the span of two days...
I remembered lying in Edwards arms after the best night of my life feeling as if I could burst with happiness. Not 48 hours later I sat by the lifeless body of my father and five weeks later it had felt like my foundations had been kicked out from underneath me. I had gone from a promising student who had her future laid out for her to a single mom, alone in the world with no one but my two best friends and my brother to support her.
Underneath it all there had always been a feeling, almost a certainty, that something must have gone wrong. Edward wouldn't abandon me like that. He just...wouldn't.
I was near hysterics now. Curled up into a ball against Rose.
"I...don't...know...why...her...questions...got...to...me...like...that...I...thought...I'd...put...it...all...behind...me." I managed to stammer in between sobs.
"You know as well as I do that you never 'put it behind you', honey." I'd never imagined Rose to be capable of sounding soothing "You may have been able to ignore it, but you know as well as I do that you still love him."
She was right. I still loved him. Even after all these years. Even after all the pain and the suffering. I still loved him...so much.
"What do I do, Rose?"
"The same thing you've done every time this has happened: grin and bear it. I wish anything I could say or do could help you get through this but you know you have to do this on your own. And you will, darling, because you have to."
I sobbed onto Rose's shoulder until I started to feel in control again. Rose was right. I would bear this. I had to.
"Now," Rose's voice had regained it's usual perkiness. "Are you ever going to tell me a little more about this elusive Edward?"
I had expected this from her. She had tried every time his name had somehow come up in our conversations. She couldn't stand not knowing anything about the man who had managed to cause such upheaval in the lives of her loved ones.
I had never told anyone about Edward. Well, nothing apart from his first name, the admission that I had been in love with him and the fact that he was the father of my baby. Only my best friend Angela knew the full truth and she would never tell.
At first I had done this to protect him. I knew that as soon as my brother found out his last name was Cullen he would round up all available phone books and start calling every Cullen living in the United States until he found the one that had knocked the little squirt up. When he'd found him he would of course track him down and beat him into a pulp and as much as he had hurt me, he didn't deserve that.
It had all been my own fault. I had been the naive little country girl that had mistaken a common flirtation for true love. I still don't know how I could have been so stupid. Edward Cullen being, after all, light years out of my league. Me and him together would have been like a donkey competing in the Kentucky Derby!
Later I'd kept my mouth shut out of self preservation. After I had painstakingly stitched my heart back together I didn't want people to keep bringing him up. I didn't want to think about him because it hurt too much.
Rose seemed to have other thoughts on that matter though. She thought I'd never get through this as long as I didn't face the bare facts.
I don't know how long Rose and I sat like that when I heard the voices of Emmet and Libby, sounding like two soldiers returning from the battlefield. Luckily my tears had dried some time ago. At least I wouldn't look like a total mess.
"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Libby screamed running into the living room.
"Yes, baby?"
"Uncle Emmet taught me how to make a field goal!" She yelled, emphasizing the last two words like they held some kind of vital importance. I tried to remember what a field goal was but couldn't be sure. I had always been careful to avoid all kinds of sports since to me they only meant ending up in the ER.
"Wait...is that the thing where they try to kick the ball in between those stake-things?" I asked.
Libby merely huffed at my ignorance of the proper sports terminology, shot me a crushing glare and turned towards Rosalie, nearly sending her uncle into hysterics.
"I'd better get Libby home. It's getting pretty late," I said, trying to get up from the sofa.
"I have a better idea..." my brother claimed. "How about we order some Chinese and have an all night penguin and ogre marathon!" He continued, hi-fiveing Libby.
Rosalie and I rolled our eyes. Emmet was such a child sometimes!
"Can we mommy?" Libby asked, unleashing the full power of her pout.
"You know I can't say no when you look at me like that!" I replied, playfully scolding her.
The rest of the evening was filled with laughter and happiness. I was glad to be able to forget the drama and focus on the good things to come. I had everything to be happy about. I had a great job and was blessed with the most amazing little girl anyone could ever imagine. I was surrounded by people who loved me – warts and all – and soon I would become a first time aunt.
Emmet ordered enough Chinese to feed an entire army and proceeded to eat through at least half of it. After we where done eating the penguin and ogre marathon started. Though every one had seen 'Happy Feet' at least half a dozen times we still couldn't help laughing. Libby and Emmet's reactions making the movie extra funny. I nearly rolled of the couch when Emmet tried to re-enact the dancing routines, almost breaking the glass coffee table in the process. Rose and I held onto each other trying to catch our breath.
Somewhere during 'Shrek' Libby had fallen asleep on Emmet's lap and since I nearly dozed off myself I decided to call it a night. Emmet offered to walk me home, an offer I gratefully accepted knowing I'd have a hard time carrying Libby home all by myself.
When we got home Emmet carefully placed Libby in her bed, giving me some space to put on her pajama's. She never woke up, not even when I had to pry her little arms out of her dress. When I was done I gently eased her down on her bed again., kissed her goodnight and placed her Emmet Bear – a teddy bear Rose and Emmet had given her when she was born – in her hands.
"Thanks for tonight, big brother." I said to Emmet, who was still standing in the hallway.
"Don't mention it, squirt. You would've done the same for me." he gave me another one of his bone crushing hugs and left. Emmet and I where never ones for big speeches.
I bolted the door and sighed. I was dead on my feet but I didn't want to go to sleep, knowing full well my dreams would be about him. The dreams would come every time I would think too much about him during the day and though I loved dreaming about him, the pain that always followed was hard to bear.
A few things about this story:
I know this chapter may be a bit confusing about what happened between Edward and Bella. Don't worry, everything will be explained in later chapters. Also: Bella might come across as a blubbering mess in this chapter, she's just surprised about Libby's questions. She'll be much more composed in the next few chapters. I promise. The things that happened in the past will be explained in flashback-chapters, the next chapter being the first of them (involving Edward, Bella and a beach...)
If you have any questions/remarks about this story or about me. I'm still pretty new at all this so even if you didn't like this chapter, or my story, let me know what I can do to better myself. I also think I may be in serious need of a Beta. English isn't my first language, as you may have noticed, and though I've proofread this chapter twice I'm still afraid there will be a lot of mistakes. So if there are any Beta's out there willing to help, please let me know.
Did I mention how happy I was about the response to the prologue?
Okay, I'll stop now... (I don't usually leave authors notes this long...)