Heya. So we are updating this on ff. Apparently, we weren't clear about that.

But chapter three is already up at A Different Forest. Someone asked why we update there first… well, it's because that's our website, yo. You don't have to register there. We're just updating with more frequency on ADF to promote it. See how that works?

This story is for McSmirkle, who really ought to come out and play with us. It's not for cancer, which is stupid and should go away.

Thank you for reading, everyone. If you follow jandcoandwtvoc, jandco, wtvoc, and DifferentForest on twitter… you'll know precisely when we update on either ADF or ff.

"Dear Isabella" by jandco and withthevampsofcourse, Chapter 2

Bella

Edward cries at night.

Not loud sobs or anything like that and the only reason I know is because his slow tears leave silver streaks on his face… I don't even think he knows he is crying most of the time.

It's usually right before he falls asleep, when his lids are very heavy. Sometimes I see the silver lines when he's just going about his business, typing at the computer or balancing his check book. Once I saw them while he was brushing his teeth, and once I even saw them when he was already asleep.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, all the time. He used to jump and startle awake, then get out of bed and drink water and smoke cigarettes… but now his eyes just kind of open and he stares at the wall in the dark until they shut again.

I stay curled up right next to him in bed, when he's at his worst.

Especially at night, which is just… ironic. Edward used to be happiest at night.

Some nights we would turn our phones off and ignore everything but each other.

Some nights we would skip dinner and drink a bottle of Bombay in bed, and we'd throw each other around sloppily and laugh for no other reason than we were happy.

There were nights when I'd chase him around, giddy just to see his face at the end of the day and there were nights when we fell asleep on the couch, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist and my back pressed into the saggy back of the couch, because despite his protests, I was always the big spoon.

Night time is when we were happiest. So, I suppose it does make sense he's the saddest at night now.

It's when he's at his worst that I remember all of the good things… or rather, all of the things about us. I replay the story of us in my mind while he lays awake next to me, sometimes crying, sometimes swearing or sweating or punching the walls.

I can't reach up and grab him and I can't put my hands in his hair and I can't tell him it's okay and he's okay and I'm okay and I can't tell him to be happy… so instead, I think of us.

It used to frustrate me, not being able to get to him— sometimes it still does. But it's not as bad anymore. I used to scream my mute scream into his ears and sob dry sobs and chase him around when he was having a fit, but I don't do that anymore. It never worked anyway.

So, on his very bad nights, the ones where I know he won't sleep for hours and when he wakes his eyes will be red and angry… I play the story of us in my mind… and I start at the very beginning…

Tuesday, March 7th, 2000

I was always conflicted about the end of carnival season. On one hand, everyone go the fuck home already. On the other hand, I hate for anything to end.

Not that I was downtown anyway for all that business. Sometimes I'd watch everyone, caught up in the booze and the freedom. I laughed along with topless girls and went shot for shot with unbeknownst tourists. Once, I even hung out of my window and screamed at the top of my lungs into the crowd… but no one heard me.

I hated not being heard back then. Too young, too unbridled, I suppose… but I was desperate to stand apart and to have a loudness about me that I always felt the carnival season stole away.

So, that particular Fat Tuesday, I put on a pair of tap shoes I hadn't worn since I was fourteen. I rummaged through my top dresser drawer and found the tiny finger tambourines— you know, the kind belly dancers have— that I had bought at a flea market three years earlier and I wound my hair up with the bright, cheap beads some jerk threw at me the day before.

I wanted to go somewhere quiet so I could be the loudest one there. I wanted to hear myself be on top of the world… but mostly, I was just restless and wanted to do something, be otherwhere.

So, off I went into the loud and gaudy night, ready to make my own noise and paint my very own streak of red.

I walked with my head up and my eyes in the lights, occasionally hollering with exuberant partiers and admiring the way the ruffles on my skirt flared out around my knees.

I walked until I could hear the metal taps on my shoes on the pavement and then I held my arms above my head and made the little tambourines make awful music and I never intended on finding anything life-changing that night.

I never intended to crash my life into his life and tangle our lives up all together, so much so that they can't ever come apart.

It just happened.

Just outside of my destination, I saw the short, black-haired girl. Some people called her a gypsy and some people called her a psychic, but my own personal opinion was that she was a little bit this side of crazy.

She was kind of a staple around town— she wandered the streets and talked to herself and I was pretty sure she cut her own hair with orange-handled utility scissors. Because her hair kind of resembled my Barbie's hair when I had done that to her when I was seven.

Once I tried to smile at her, but she didn't even notice me and just kept right on talking to herself. Sometimes she laughed out loud and sometimes she actually had arguments with herself, but she never actually spoke to other people.

This particular night she was standing on the corner, picking her nails and talking about flowers.

"Don't be silly, Harry, why would they spring for roses when carnations will do?" she asked, and then was silent. Five seconds after I passed her, I heard her laugh a response at her imaginary friend, just as I opened the door to my hole-in-the-wall liquor store and went for the Bombay.

"Hey Gran," I said, as I clicked by the counter. My favorite clerk at my favorite liquor store barely looked up and grunted. I stopped like I always did, but this time I put my tambourined fingers in front of his face and gave him a ting.

"You're crazy, Bella," he smiled, and his big, shiny cheeks pulled up and he smiled at me, white and big. I gave him my best shuffle step and he shooed me away.

I tapped clumsily down the aisle and called at him over my shoulder.

"I'm hanging out with you tonight, Gran. We're gonna tap dance and sing louder than this whole damn city. What do you think about that— and who the hell are you?"

There was a guy standing there in grey wool pants and a once-crisp white shirt. There used to be a tie around his neck, I could tell, but now the button at his collar was undone. The sleeves were rolled to his forearms and I had a sudden urge to snap the suspenders he was wearing… because his hand was on the last bottle of my Bombay.

"Who the hell are you?" he shot back, looking at my tap-shoed feet and ignoring my suddenly defensive face.

"I… am Bella, the owner of that Bombay," I said, and I shuffled my right-tapped foot for emphasis. "By the way, the big party you're looking for is that-a-way," I said, jabbing my thumb behind me.

"I'm not here for a party."

"I meant Mardi Gras, and of course you are. You," I said, pointing to him and waving my finger up and down his tall form, "have tourist written all over your handsome face."

"I'm not a tourist; you shouldn't presume to know why people are anywhere; and thank you."

"Then what are you doing here? And I can presume anything I want; and don't thank me, thank your parents for the pretty face."

"I'm buying your bottle of Bombay; presume away, but you're wrong; and I'd rather be handsome than pretty."

"Bombay is mine; I will; and are you okay?"

"No; okay; and what? Of course I'm okay. Do I not look okay?" he asked and kind of looked down at himself, looking for some kind of imperfection.

I was tempted to ask if he found one, because I sure couldn't. His dark hair stood inches from his forehead, but it didn't look gelled and on purpose. It looked like he'd been pulling at it. Despite his Sunday best clothes, he hadn't bothered to shave for I'd say at least three days, and he had dark circles under cloudy green eyes. His lips were kind of chapped, and the top one was much fuller than the lower one… but all of these imperfect things made him kind of… perfect.

"Well," I started, and leaned an elbow up on the shelf of booze, "here you are at 11:30 at night in a liquor store buying up a fifth of Bombay that I presume you're going to drink alone as I don't see a frat buddy or a date. I'm here all the time and I've never seen you here, thus I assume you're sad, lonely and or desolate because, as I said, here you are all alone at a liquor store in what is essentially the middle of the night while the world's biggest party is taking place not even a mile from here. And we've already established you're not looking for a party."

"So?"

"So. You're looking to get trashed all alone. So I repeat- are you okay?"

He paused, a look of total amusement on his face. "I'm fine. Now, here you just admitted to me that you're at this liquor store all the time, and while I see it's a welcoming establishment, I find it rather alarming that a young woman spends 'all the time' at her local liquor store."

"Alarming?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Hmm. Perhaps, yet you still don't ask if I'm okay, which I suppose is fine. I mean, it would just be out of courtesy if you asked."

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I don't want your pity courtesy."

"Why did you ask me, then?" he shot back.

"I'm nosy. And I figured if you talked out your problem, you'd leave my Bombay alone."

"No dice. But I'm just fine. Thanks for asking."

He held the Bombay by the neck of the bottle and gave me this kind of half smile before walking past me.

"Wait. Share it with me."

I don't know why I said it, and I fully expected him to call me an asshole, but he didn't.

Instead, he looked over his shoulder at me and said, "Okay."

I bought a row of Dixie cups with pink pastel flowers on them and Edward bought the Bombay and then we were leaning on the bricks outside of the liquor store.

I laughed at him, holding the tiny flowery cup and he asked me why I wasn't in the middle of the world's biggest party.

"I am the world's biggest party," I shrugged. He laughed and watched me do heel-toe-heel-toe down the length of the sidewalk.

"Why are you here, really?" I asked, while he was filling up my third round. One of our hands was shaking; I wasn't sure if it was mine or his.

"I'm with the world's biggest party," he grinned, not taking his distant eyes from my cup.

"It's completely understandable that you are here solely for my company," I said, "but you didn't know I was here. Seriously. What's your deal?"

"My father relocated his company here. Well, a branch of it, anyway."

"Ahh. I figured. You spend more time on Poydras than you do liquor stores, don't you?"

"Yep."

"So. Resent your daddy? Hate your high-pressured job? Dream of being a rock star but you're so oppressed—"

"No," he said, and looked up and kind of shook his head. "Not at all. I love what I do. I'm proud of what I do."

"What do you do?" I asked.

"Well, right now I'm overseeing the move of this business… and once that's done, I'll resume with school and keep learning the business… and then. My father will retire and I'll take it over completely."

I whistled between my teeth.

"You have a plan," I said.

"You don't?"

"Uh. Well. Sure, I do. I'm going to finish this drink. Tomorrow, I want to get to the library and learn how to make a lasagna. I have no idea what I'm doing the day after that. Or any of the other days after that. Wait, that isn't entirely true. I want to learn how to tap dance. These shoes inspired me, so yeah. I think I'll learn how to tap."

He blinked at me three times and stared like I just told him that I planned to go on a shooting spree.

"How do you pay your bills?"

"Well. I shoot dice and I have very good luck. It's worked for the past two years. When it doesn't, I wait tables and once, I worked at a pet store."

"How can you… not know what you're doing? Doesn't that scare you? They say social security will run out—"

"Stop," I said, putting my hand up. "I don't make plans because the only thing you can plan on is that plans won't go as you planned them. Life doesn't just do what you want it to do."

"Of course it does. You just have to work to see that it does."

"But you miss out on wonderful, unexpected things if you plan your whole life. For example, if I stuck with my original plans tonight, I wouldn't be sitting here with you right now," I smiled, and poked my finger into his chest.

"Yeah… but Bella," he said, and wrapped his fist around my finger, "I planned to come to the liquor store after work. If I didn't stick to my plan I wouldn't be here."

I just smiled then and did a tappy twirl for him and tinged my tiny tambourines for him, neither of us knowing he'd find out all about fucked-up plans soon enough.

Dear Isabella-

I found your tap shoes. The right heel was missing one of the screws, so I took the set in and had everything replaced or mended. I was thinking about sending them on to Renee- you know, she'd probably like to bronze them for you or something- but I just don't know, Bella. Despite all that's happened, I'd like to keep a memento of our first date. Or our first meeting or I'm not really sure what to call it. Yeah, that's something you do, and I know it's hypocritical of me because I always mocked you for keeping stupid shit lying around, but I'm feeling pretty hypocritical right now. I know that we said words like "always" and "I promise" and "True", but from my current vantage point, I know they were just words without actual, definable meaning.

Obviously, you didn't mean it.

So you had all of our milestones marked as "anniversaries" that I don't even remember anymore, right? What I do remember is how you'd wake me up for each of those stupid occasions, bright and early and all "Happy Anniversary of whatever, Edward!" March alone had eight such occasions. Our first meet, our first trip outside of New Orleans, our first sleepover, your first semi-successful attempt at knitting, my first disastrous Cajun dinner, that crazy vision you'd had about our lotto winnings, Charlie's death, Jasper's dissertation dinner. I think we just had our First Fight anniversary, but it's not like I dwell on these things as you always did.

Anyway, I'll keep the shoes. You don't get to take everything when you leave, so I'm keeping these fucking ridiculous reminders as- I don't know- a cautionary tale, or something.

-E.M. Cullen