Ficawesome Gift Exchange- TAKE 2
Title: Miles to Go
Written for: Skychaser
Rating: T for language and themes
Prompt: 'The distance from A to where you'd Be is only finger lengths that I see'
Summary: Bella Swan is about to embark upon a road trip to rainy Forks, Washington, to visit her boyfriend Jake when on a whim she offers a lift to a hitch hiker. Little does Bella know that this man will alter not only her views of the world but ultimately, her future. AU and AH.
If you would like to see all the stories that are part of this exchange then please visit the Facebook group Fanficaholics Anon: Where Obsession Never Sleeps.
Chapter Two
'The Apple Pie Life'
Bella's POV
I gulped down my recently purchased mug of black coffee and shot an irritated glance at the clock above the counter. After no less than three hours of Cullen's whining I had finally pulled over to allow him to take a leak. Secretly I had enjoyed watching him squirm in his seat, until his threats of staining my upholstery had become a little too real for comfort. Finally I had decided that Cullen's suffering had been sufficient and I had pulled into the parking lot of the first diner we stumbled across. The entire place looked like a strong case for the Department of Health but I was now several states passed the point of caring. One hundred and eighty minutes in a confined space with Edward Cullen was enough to do that to anyone.
I peered at the clock again, wondering what exactly could have occupied Cullen in the bathroom for the last fifteen minutes. Shuddering, I immediately regretted the thought and grimaced. Thankfully, mere seconds later Cullen sauntered back to our table and flashed me a winning smile that I met with a sigh.
"Get lost in the five feet between the restroom and the table?" I asked, scanning the menu with a frown before deciding that starvation was preferable to clogged arteries.
"Nah," Cullen replied with a wink as he pushed a piece of paper across the counter to me. I glanced at the greasy white square which I realised was actually a napkin with a series of numbers scrawled across it in biro.
"You gotta be kidding me?" I demanded, my anger threatening to bubble up to the surface. I swallowed hard in an effort to dispel it and leaned across the table so that my face was mere inches away from Cullen's. He seemed to find only amusement in my outrage.
"We've been in this town twenty minutes and you're already taking down girls' numbers?" I hissed, pushing my dark bangs away from my face as they obscured my vision. "We're not staying you know."
Cullen's expression remained serious and he inclined his head towards the counter where I could see a red-headed waitress with braces watching us intently. She looked to be several years younger than us at least and I was vaguely shocked by Cullen's gall.
"She thinks you're my kid sister so don't go shattering any illusions," he murmured, all the emphasis placed on the word 'kid'. I snarled and scrabbled desperately for a comeback but before the words could form on my lips the waitress had sashayed over to our table. She slid a large slice of apple pie towards Edward, who beamed at the girl and winked. This evoked a giggle that almost caused me to dry wretch on the table but neither of the lovebirds appeared to notice. She was hardly Cullen's usual type, all tombstone teeth and knobbly knees as opposed to flat out runway gorgeous. Cullen may have been rumoured to be a sex craved pervert, but he was a selective one at least.
"It's on the house Eddie," the girl purred in an attempt at a seductive tone. My lips twitched at the corners but I managed to thwart the threat of an openly mocking smile. The girl lingered several seconds longer, twisting a strand of almost orange hair around her finger and staring at Cullen with a glazed expression I had seen a hundred times before.
"Thank you love," Edward said huskily, watching the waitress' retreating figure in a pantomime of appraisal that was obvious to me. Cullen leant back against the booth with a contented sigh and stuck a fork through the centre of the pie, cutting it into two equal sized wedges. I shook my head in disbelief.
"Dig in Belles," he enthused, forking pie and whipped cream into his open maw. His emerald green eyes widened to impossible proportions as he chewed on his prize. "Shit this is some good pie!"
I screwed up my nose in disgust and wiped away the crumbs that had flown from Cullen's lips.
"I don't eat pie," I spat, staring at the plate with loathing, "and even if I did, I wouldn't be prostituting myself for it in a sleazy diner in the middle of nowhere."
"Suit yourself," Cullen replied with a shrug before pulling the plate closer and demolishing the dessert in less than seven bites. I continued to nurse my coffee, all the while shooting bitter glances between Cullen and the waitress that, if caught, would make our sibling bond somewhat questionable.
"And don't call me Belles," I added as an afterthought as I watched Cullen wipe his mouth on the serviette that contained the waitress' number. He screwed the now dirty paper into a ball before tossing it over his shoulder where it landed in a trash can. My mouth dropped open and I gazed at Cullen, appalled.
"What?" he demanded, his expression stoic, "you said yourself, we're not staying."
I closed my mouth, unable to find a response that adequately displayed my disgust. Cullen simply grinned, looking for all the world like the cat that got the canary.
x-x-x
Another half hour of silence followed our brief rest stop, for which I was grateful. Although the tension between us was somewhat awkward, it was preferable to attempting to make small talk with a guy so much my opposite it was almost funny. The situation with the waitress had inexplicably infuriated me. I assumed that I somehow perceived her as being taken advantage of by an almost predatory figure, and chalked my outrage up to as much.
Cullen seemed at ease with the blare of the radio for company and so I was surprised when his voice speared my thoughts.
"So where is it that you're going Belles?" he asked, his eyes trained straight ahead on the horizon in a manner that served to irritate me further. I managed to bite back a 'none of your damned business' just in time and instead replied with a degree of civility.
"Washington," I answered, my eyes never once wavering from the interstate. I pretended to study my mirror, hoping that Cullen would take the hint and reduce himself once more to mere eye candy.
"What's in Washington?" he continued, unperturbed. I had to at least give him points for his resilience.
"The National Mall," I replied tersely, flexing my fingers on the wheel and hiding a smirk.
"You got a major shoe craving or something?" asked Cullen, his tone innocent enough. My eyes widened and I turned to survey him only to be met by a wolfish grin. Groaning, I turned back to the interstate which was growing steadily busier as the time marched on towards rush hour.
"Now really," Culled said, his chin resting in his palm, "why are you headed to Washington?"
"Why are you headed to Seattle?" I countered, my determination to be secretive unwavering. Cullen shrugged and glanced down at his perfectly manicured fingernails.
"I got a cousin in Seattle plays guitar pretty good. We're starting a band, playing the club circuit for a year or so until we can work up to some studio time and maybe a break in L.A."
"I would have thought your Dad could buy you a recording studio," I scoffed, my tone mocking and tinged with more derision than I would have liked. Cullen simply glanced out of the window, traces of a smile playing across his lips. He shrugged and then returned his attention to me.
"Perhaps he could."
I nodded and swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable with my own attitude. Sure I didn't owe Cullen any favours, and he was a jerk of the highest degree, but the guy had never done anything to hurt me directly.
"I'm going to see my Dad," I blurted, feeling my cheeks redden as Cullen's intense gaze was upon me once again. I finished with a stammer, "In Forks. He's Chief of police there, and for a while I lived with him."
Cullen appraised me for a few seconds, perhaps attempting to gauge if it was safe to continue the conversation. When I made no move to tear his head off, he took a deep breath.
"How come you moved back?" he asked, his interest apparently peaked.
"It's complicated," I replied, striving to maintain a more neutral tone. "Family stuff mostly. But I was happy there, so I guess I'm going back."
"No big college plans?" he pressed, one eyebrow raised in questioning. I simply shook my head, aware that it would seem odd that the class valedictorian had not yet settled on any definite plans. I had been receiving the same 'look' from my Mom and teachers for the last six weeks of high school. They were concerned by my apparent lack of aspirations for my future, although I had no immediate desire to assuage their fears.
"I guess not," I replied simply, a small but genuine smile finding its way to my lips. Cullen studied me for several more seconds, his eyes narrowed, before breaking his gaze and beginning to toy with the radio again. I blinked in surprise as the heavy rock beat subsided to the mellower thrum of string instruments. The heavy thumping in my temples that had started up along with the radio began to ebb away and I shot Edward a relieved look.
"My boyfriend's back in Forks too," I exclaimed, instantly regretting the words as soon as they had been spoken. Cullen glanced at me sharply and then nodded, a sudden knowing expression darkening his features.
"Hence the lack of plans," he guessed, shaking his head with a smirk that caused me to bristle.
"I don't have plans because I don't want to have plans," I insisted, combing one hand through my hair. Cullen ran the tip of his tongue over the surface of his perfectly white teeth, the bottom row of which I noted with surprise were slightly crooked. I would have figured that a guy as concerned with appearances as Cullen would have had that imperfection fixed long ago.
"Sure," Cullen replied in a patronising tone, "although some would say you're blatantly throwing away your future to run back to lover boy with your tail between your legs before he jumps the next hot little piece of ass that he meets. Thereby, you are condemning yourself to the small town life with a small town guy who has an undoubtedly small town mentality."
My jaw set in irritation, and I swung the wheel to the left, changing lines with such force that Cullen's body was slammed against the passenger door. A thrill of triumph coursed through me as from the corner of my eye I watched Cullen rub a tender spot below his elbow.
"Why are you being such a jerk?" I demanded, not bothering to mask the hostility in my voice now. "I'm hauling your pathetic tail nearly a thousand miles, out of the goodness of my heart, and all you can do is sit there and take a swipe at me because I'm not going to college?"
"So you admit that it's not that you don't want to?" he asked instantly. I blinked in surprise, momentarily taking my eyes off the traffic ahead in order to bestow Cullen with a bemused stare.
"That would have been the point that most guys offered to chip in for gas," I helpfully supplied, shaking my head and chuckling dryly. Cullen seemed unabashed.
"Sure, I can give you a couple of bucks," he said, clearly bored. It almost seemed as though money was some great inconvenience that he simply bore on a daily basis. I supposed that to those who had it in abundance, money did quickly lose its overall attraction. I thought again of Jake and his father who struggled so much that they had a stack of final demand notices propping up the wonky leg on their coffee table. My heart ached and I dug the nails of one hand into my thigh in order to centre myself.
Cullen cleared his throat before speaking again.
"Just don't go getting yourself knocked up or anything. Then your life would really be over. "
Outraged, I tugged on the wheel once again and pulled the car over into a convenient rest stop. A cloud of dust was tossed up by my tyres, filling the air around us, but I hardly noticed as I affixed Cullen with my most deadly glare.
His words had both shocked and infuriated me, but the degree of contempt with which they had been spoken was something else entirely. Cullen met my gaze with his chin raised in defiance.
"How dare you," I seethed, my anger beginning to get the better of me once again, "how dare you judge us when you know nothing about us."
"Then tell me," he answered, not even blinking under the weight of my stare.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," I hissed.
"Then don't."
Silence dropped between us like a thick veil. I peered at Cullen for several seconds and when he showed no signs of backing off, I let out a defeated sigh. Cullen settled against his seat and we both knew he had won this one.
"I'm only going back for a little while," I spoke grudgingly, anger still staining the edges of my voice, "Jake's dad is... he's in a wheel chair. Jake left school to take care of him. He's a great guy and he'd never... he's only ever wanted the best for my future. He loves me and I love him. For once, I just want to spend a little time with the people that matter. Is that so wrong?"
Cullen gazed at me analytically and shook his head, offering me a small smile at the same time. He dug into the pockets of his jeans and fished out a twenty dollar bill that was so rumpled it looked as though it had been through the laundry several times. Cullen slapped the note on the dashboard, flashed me a grin that I could not interpret, and then turned to look out of the window.
I sat unmoving for a second or two, wondering what had occurred, before easing my foot back onto the accelerator. The moment, whatever it had been, had clearly passed and I was eager to cover as many miles before sunset as was humanly possible.