Bella
Yesterday, I was just a little girl and tomorrow, Alice is getting married. Sometimes I blink and wonder how time passed me by.
I sit on a plane to San Francisco, butterflies and knots, on my way to see the only family I have left. Although I've distanced myself from them as best I could, the idea of seeing them again makes me suddenly miss them. And I wonder what my life would be if I had never known the Cullens.
Trapped thousands of feet up in the air, with nowhere else to go, I try to figure out how I got here. There are a handful of moments I can pinpoint, where my life veered off course. They were blinding, bombs exploding.
Losing my mother.
Losing my father.
Losing Edward.
The rest of it is jumbled and confused. The moments that seemed insignificant at the time, but were really the beginning of something, and in some cases the end.
I close my eyes and let the memories flood in.
…
Eighteen.
Charlie tosses two advil in his mouth and swallows them dry. He doesn't see me watching him from the doorway. He's holding something. A small piece of paper. He stares out the kitchen window and I've seen that look before.
I clear my throat. He spins around and stuffs the paper into the silverware drawer.
"You scared me, Bells." His face looks old. Old and tired. I should have seen the signs, but I didn't. I had no idea.
"I'm heading to school." We don't have real conversations.
"Alright, then. I'm working late tonight. I'll see you tomorrow. Love you, Bells."
"I know." I've never said it back. I've never said it.
A nod. He leaves the room carrying something invisible.
I stare at the kitchen drawer. It's begging me to open it. I'm too curious to leave it alone. I walk over and open it slowly. Almost afraid. Like there is a live animal inside.
Staring back at me. But not alive.
Two girls. My mother.
I've never seen a photograph of her. Not in this house.
They're laughing. Hair in their faces. The sun shining.
I carry the tiny picture into the living room to find Charlie standing in the middle of the room, more out of place than usual.
I whisper, "You still have her picture. " It could be an accusation, but it's a statement. We haven't talked about her in years.
He turns slowly. One deep breath, hands on his face, "I guess, I couldn't bare to part with it. I thought it was all I had left of her."
"Well, who's fault was that?" He doesn't deserve it, but I say it anyway.
"Bella, if I can be faulted for anything in my relationship with your mother it would be loving her too much. Smothering her." And we're having a real conversation.
I know all about loving people too little. I push aside the desire, the need to be indifferent to everything, and ask what I want to ask. "How do you love someone too much?"
His shoulders slump, and he turns away from me again. He melts into his armchair and I don't expect an answer.
"I don't know. You just do. I was in love with her the moment I saw her that first summer. I had to be with her."
As I stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, he rubs at his eyes with his palms.
"She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was filled with hopes and dreams, and she wore them all over her face. We were married a month later. We were just kids. Stupid kids. Way too young for any of it. But I knew I would never want anyone more than I wanted your mother, for the rest of my life." He shakes his head. "It all seems like a dream now."
"Would you change it, if you could go back?"
"No."
I believe him.
"What happened?" I've never asked.
"We had been married for a couple of years, still madly in love, at least I was, when I became a police officer. I knew she didn't want to be tied to this town. We talked about getting away from Forks as soon as we had enough money saved. She wanted to buy an old Winnebago and drive all over the country. I don't know when it happened, but we woke up one morning and wanted different things. I thought it was her, that she had changed, changed right before my eyes without warning. Looking back now, it was me."
I can almost imagine her, the way she was before she was my mother.
"It was the 4th of July and she had this whole adventure planned for us." His smile shows everything. The way he loved her.
"I wish I had known. I wish I had known it was going to be the last day I would ever see her. We had a fight. The kind where things are said that you can't take back. The next day, when I got home from work, she was gone. I got the papers in the mail shortly thereafter. You know what they say about loving someone and letting them go. All that hogwash." He almost looks embarrassed. Embarrassed for what, I don't know.
"What did you fight about?"
A deep breath. "It was always the same fight." His face starts to crumple and fold.
"Dad?"
"It doesn't matter, Bells."
"It matters. I want to know."
A sigh. "We fought about having children." I feel the words pressing down on my lungs.
"She didn't want…."
"She didn't know what she wanted until she had it, Bells. She wanted to wait is all. She wanted you."
"She never wanted to be a mother. It's okay. I can handle it."
"Bells, I always wanted you. Always."
"I know."
"And Bells?"
"Yeah?"
"I was wrong about not having anything left of her."
He doesn't have to say the rest. I know.
I run my thumb over her face. Her happy face. "Can I keep this?"
He doesn't answer right away and I'm afraid to look at him.
"Yeah, you should have it."
I slip the little photo into my back pocket and give him a small smile.
Real conversation over, and I've never been so eager to get out of this house and go to school.
That was, of course, before I knew anything about the Cullens moving to town. Forks is the kind of town you're born in and you die in. People don't move to Forks. The halls of Forks High are filled with pointed stares and whispers.
New York City.
Dr. Cullen.
Old money.
Alice. Delicate. Graceful. They hate her. They want to be her best friend. They want to be her.
Edward. Gorgeous. Brooding. They want to date him. They want to fuck him. They want to marry him.
Alice and Edward are both Seniors but they aren't twins, which means one of them is either ridiculously smart or incredibly stupid. All I want to know is why on earth they would ever move here. Or if the rumors are to be believed, why they moved back.
I sit at this table every day.
Alone.
I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is explaining to his sister about his misplaced life ambition. If he could be anything, anything in the whole world, he would want to catch children as they are running through the rye. He wants to catch them before they fall off the cliff into oblivion. He wants to save children. The dude can't even fucking save himself. What's even worse, this big dream of his isn't even based on anything real. He got it wrong. I keep re-reading the same page. How can his only aspiration in life be based on a mistaken memory?
I hear the unremarkable, yet unmistakable sound of a lunch tray being set on my table. My table.
"Mind if we sit here?" She's everything I'm not.
"You must be Alice." Even I'm a little startled by the hostility in my voice but I don't know how to do this.
"I am. This is my brother, Edward."
And when I look up, he's smiling.
At me.
They both sit and start eating their lunches as if it's nothing. And now I'm the one who's staring.
He's watching me. He never takes his eyes off of me. His eyes are kind. They see me. They terrify me. They make me want to throw up.
I break eye contact first, scanning the room. Most of the faces in the cafeteria are staring, but there's one face that holds more weight than the others.
Rosalie Hale's eyes are boring holes in my skin.
The faintest smile spreads across her face as she marches across the cafeteria with the kind of confidence that only Rosalie can possess. She drops her tray down next to me. And she is grinning. She's fucking grinning.
She sits down like we're old friends. Like she sits at this table every day for lunch.
She glances back and forth between Edward and I, the slightest hint of annoyance on her face. "You two know each other or something?"
I almost laugh. "No."
Her smile is back and she turns away from me. "So, Cullens, what's your story?" Her audacity is infuriating, but if I'm being honest with myself, I want to know too.
Edward's eyes don't leave my face. "What do you want to know?"
"Is it true that your dad is some hot-shot doctor who up and moved your family from your glamorous life in New York City across the country to live in this shit town?"
He smiles, but not at her.
"If you want to look at it that way, then sure, it's true."
"What other way is there to look at it? Moving to Forks half way through Senior year… that's brutal."
"Our mom grew up here. She always wanted to move back."
There is something there. Something in his eyes. Somehow these two act like moving here isn't the worst thing to ever happen to them.
"Well I guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship." Rosalie is trying to be cute. She's not.
Edward's eyes leave mine for the first time, but only to tell Rosalie to shut up.
"She's dead." Alice. She is menacing. And the perky, spunky, peppiness is gone. I'm left wondering if it was ever there to begin with. Rosalie keeps quiet.
And this is why. This move is not the worst thing that has ever happened to them.
But I'm not going to pretend like we're friends now. I'm not naïve. It's their first day. They didn't know any better. And Rosalie will drop the act as soon as she gets in Edward's pants, I'm sure. I leave the table without so much as a goodbye and make my way to English.
I try not to think about him. The way he looked at me. Like he wanted to know me. Like he did know me.
Class passes in a blur and I'm irritated by how much his presence has affected me. I'm no different than the rest of the crazies in this town.
I walk down the hall with renewed determination, not to be like them.
And then I am frozen, in the middle of the hallway, watching his hands run haphazardly through his ridiculous hair. He is standing in front of my locker. I don't understand what he could possibly want with me.
"Hey!" Shit.
And I'm walking. In the other direction.
"Bella!" He is relentless. I refuse to let him chase me down the hall. It's getting embarrassing. I turn around slowly.
"What do you want, Edward?"
He shakes his head and smiles and he's… blushing?
"I just thought we could be friends." He's lying. I think.
"Why?"
He looks taken aback by the question, like it's a ridiculous thing to ask.
"I'm sorry you lost your mom." His eyes mean it and I'm so blindsided by his words that I can't control my own.
"I didn't lose her. Losing something implies the possibility of finding it again. So, no, I didn't lose her. She died. She's dead." He closes his eyes as his hands assault his hair.
"Bella, I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
…
The memory of meeting Edward for the first time sits on my chest like a dead weight. I didn't know then that our lives were already intertwined. I didn't know anything.
That was all before. Before Rosalie and I made a truce. Before Alice was my best friend. Before Edward was mine. Before I ruined it.
Rosalie and I don't really talk anymore. I guess we've never really been friends but that's not why. She holds a grudge better than anyone I've ever known.
I was surprised when she called and offered to pick me up from the airport. When she insisted, I agreed because I figured she'd need the escape. Being a bride didn't exactly bring out Alice's best qualities, and as her Maid of Honor, Rose was left to deal with the brunt of it.
I call her as soon as my plane touches down.
"Shit, Bella. OK, I'm on my way."
"Rose, I can take a cab. It's not a…"
"No! I'm coming to get you." There is no arguing with her.
Two coffees later, she's pulling up at the curb. I throw my bag in the back seat. She doesn't get out.
There is no awkward small talk. The only words she says to me are, "nice shoes."
Two spoken words have the power to bring back memories that have been buried for years.
"Thanks."
I'm not that little girl anymore.
But some things don't change.
I glance over at Rosalie in the driver's seat and she's doing a good job of pretending to be focused on the traffic. I reach for the dash to turn on the radio. I need a distraction.
Rosalie opens her mouth to say something only to stop herself. But this is Rosalie. She'll say what she wants to say.
"He seems really happy, Bella. He finally seems happy."
It's a warning.
And I was wrong about her motives for picking me up.
"I'm here for Alice, Rose. You know that. I'm not here to stomp on Edward's heart." His name burns my lungs.
"Well, it never stopped you before." It stings but she's right.
"I deserve that."
"Yeah, you do."