Clearing the Air
Chapter 3: Catching Up (Part-1)
Disclaimer : I don't own anything twilight… we all know who it belongs to..
A/N : This story does not have a beta. So all mistakes are mine
Its in the breeze that sings in her presence,
Its in the surroundings charged by her laughter,
Its in every breath that I can smell her,
She is here, she is really here, in the same place as me,
Finally everything feels just right to me
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Edward was fascinated by each and every move of Bella's every flutter of her eyes while she spoke, the way she used to shyly glance his way when she thought no one was looking, the way she would quickly art her eyes to other direction whenever he caught her looking at him, the way she used her hands a lot when she spoke, this was different; the girl he knew was far too shy to use her hands while she spoke. But he loved this change; most of all he loved that she was looking at his direction with the frequency that she did. He was so completely lost in ogling Bella, that he had no idea what Mike and Tyler were yapping to him about. He was bought out of his reverie when Tyler poked him in chest, hard.
"Dude, that hurt" Edward said rubbing the spot at which Tyler tested the flexibility of his fingers.
"Sorry man, but I had to get your attention, you seemed lost in your own mind and we are having a major crisis here"
"Yeah, you were definitely not with us here" Mike added supporting Tyler.
Embarrassed at being caught and not wanting to admit it, Edward tries to find an escape route.
"Nah, I was just wondering who all might be showing up and when the hell will this party start" Edward said feeling pretty proud of himself for having come up with a half way decent excuse without giving away the person that held his interest.
"Yeah, me too; have no freaking idea who may be invited. I'm just praying that they wouldn't call any of the girls that wanted to jump me" says Mike with a fake shudder and Edward fights hard to control the gag rising up his throat at Mike's blatant ignorance. 'nobody wants to jump your bones Mike, trust me' he thought. But out loud it actually sounded like; "Yeah, that might make things quite uncomfortable".
"Jeez we are deviating from the crisis again!" screeched Tyler.
"Yeah, about that, what was the crisis about" Edward said off handedly; he had already lost his interest in the topic and started 'Bella watching' again.
"Our great Mike here feels that the Yankees can do much better if their Coach was replaced with that of the Mariners. Like they would develop the kind of talent required to be on field just by a change of Coach" Tyler explained shaking his head to and fro like a hungry dog wagging its tail.
Riiiiiiighhhht.. Yankees and Mariners.. crisis… like the teams would even bother listening to what these two losers have to say, let alone make it an issue big enough to cause crisis.
Edward couldn't believe how immature these two people could get. Sure, sports was of interest to every human that calls himself a guy; but the way these two were arguing about it and blowing it up to big proportions you would think this would be the final deciding issue in next Presidential Elections of the US. He just hoped that the other guys would get here soon and save him from whatever the BS these two had in mind.
"Well, it doesn't…." Edward was saved the need to give a diplomatic answer when Emmett's Jeep came to screeching halt across the field. Rose had accompanied Emmett on this occasion and the couple started walking towards Edward. Edward actually started running in their direction and hugged Emmett with all the strength he could muster. He started chanting an endless stream of 'thank you' in Emmett's ears.
"Its good to see you too, Eddie boy" Emmett boomed as he returned Edward's hug. "Hey, that's my man you are molesting there" said Rosalie with a scowl on her face. She then turned to look around and saw that Tyler and Mike were standing with their arms outstretched right in front of her. They were so close that all Rosalie had to do was take a deep breath and their chests would touch. This disturbed Rosalie and she took a step back wrapping her right arm around Emmett's back. And then with a determined poker face she said, "hello creeps, you are invading my personal space right here" she said motioning to the space between them with their fingers and continued "so, unless you want my knee to greet your groins a powerful 'hello, its so nice to see you', you guys better back the fuck out. And no you are not getting a hug from me, so you can drop your arms unless you are experiencing some out of body experience with hugging the air around you an all" she said motioning to the general space around them.
Then she turned around and saw Bella and Angela staring at her with smiles so big that you could actually see the structure of all 32 teeth in there. Rosalie ran towards them and enveloped two of them in a group hug. She then kissed each one of their cheeks and turned her attention to Bella. "So Bells, how are you and where have you been! Its been such a long time since we last saw you! I had no idea that you were coming in here today! Who found you and bitch why did you not contact any of us for all of these years… you would've been getting some serious injuries with all the beating I would've showered on you right now if I hadn't missed you so much!"
"Woah, one thing at a time Rosie! I'm fine, I've been in Florida, I have a job there that I love and now I own a home there too, yes, its been a very long time since we met the last time and I missed you guys very much… I initially couldn't contact any of you because of the pressure of moving across the country and getting started with college.. then later on I just lost touch with you guys and didn't know if you remembered me anymore. I was actually surprised when I found Alice on fb, you know, but I rarely log in so I didn't get to search you people there. Then Alice invited me to this reunion and I had lots of stacked up vacation time so I thought why the hell not and ended up here. I was just catching up with Angie when you showed up. Ok, so I think I've answered all your questions and its my turn now. How the hell have you been, are you and Em still together, are you happy, well, that's pretty much all I want to know righ now.." said Bella with the smile still in place.
It was only after her rant that Bella noticed the ground had gone quiet all of a sudden and everyboy was staring at her with their mouths hanging wide open for flies to take up residence. "What?" Bella asked feeling conscious all of a sudden. She was now used to having attention of many people at once, but 6 people staring at her with their mouths open made her uncomfortable. "No, its nothing, none of us have seen you speak so much in a single breath without turning red as a tomato is all" said Edward who was the first to recover from shock of "New Bella".
It didn't escape either Edward or Bella's notice that these were the first of words spoken between them in many years. Both of them had spent many nights imagining getting reacquainted with one another, but this was not the opening dialogue in either of their fantasies. "Well, I do work in a center for better communication as an instructor and have got masters in communications, what did you guys expect from me" Bella said in a tone of mock hurt. "But we didn't know what you did until now!" countered Edward with a straight face even though he was jumping inwardly for having broken the ice and not letting know of his "discoveries of Bella" to Bella. Bella blushed slightly at this "Well, now you know…" and ended the argument about her speaking skills with a wink directed at Edward surprising both of them. 'Oh, she flirts' noted Edward with a certain amount of glee.
Emmett who had been watching all this from a distance couldn't control his scoff at the display of blatant flirting these two were exhibiting. Rose who noticed this while Edward and Bella were busy staring at each other, threw him a warning glance that said 'you better let this be and take its own time. Don't you dare interfere.' Emmett who had known his girlfriend long enough knew this was not one of her empty warnings and she wouldn't think twice before making him sleep on couch for the following month, nodded once in her direction and started mingling with the guys that were in attendance.
Meanwhile, Rose and Angie got Bella talking to them leaving Edward an opportunity to stare at Bella once again. Not that he was complaining, in fact he had missed staring at Bella; because that was all he used to do once they had stopped speaking back in 5th grade. A loud screeching sound of a noisy truck made everyone stop talking and look up, Eric had arrived with his groupies. Back when they were in school, Eric was a popular kid since he belonged to some local band, the name of which nobody cared to remember, so it was not unusual for him to be surrounded by few people fawning over him. Seemed like it was the same case even now. Though Eric was surrounded by at least ten people, he didn't even spare them a second glance, his eyes were glued to the girl next to him, Stacey. Bella remembered Stacey from the time of her fight with Lauren, Stacey had backed her up then and ensured that the entire school knew that Lauren was nothing more than a lying bitch. Bella also remembered from that time that Stacey was always a fan of Eric, but never had the guts to speak to him. She used to pine after him from a distance, never meeting his eyes. Bella wondered what had happened that had caused this change, an made a mental note to ask Stacey about this later. As Stacey noticed Bella standing between Rose and Angie, she gave Eric a brief kiss on cheek, whispered something in his ears and walked straight to Bella. She hugged Bella, said her hellos to Rose and Angie and went to hugging Bella again.
"You can't imagine how much I've missed you, Bella. I finally took your advice and made an effort to actually speak to Eric in college, turns out that he wasn't so bad as he was projected, we were friends for quite some time, somehow ended up being single at the same time, and Eric asked me out two years ago! We are together ever since. None of this would have happened without you! Thank you so much for your endless hours of pep talk. God knows how much I missed you during the entire phase. Now that you are here I won't let you get out of touch again." Stacey said without even stopping for a breath. Bella was briefly reminded of a puppy that Maggie had 'rescued' and bought to their home which would endlessly bark at Maggie without even stopping for a breath and would pant for the next half hour. A small smile threatened to creep through her face, but Bella took a deep breath and composed herself thinking it would be rude to laugh at a friend that had missed her.
Nobody but Edward noticed the brief twinkle and start of a smile at Bella's face before she got it under control, Edward made a note to ask about that to Bella later on in his ever-growing list of 'things to be spoken to Bella'. "I'm so happy for you, Stacey." Bella said sincerely happy for her friend. "I missed you guys too…sorry couldn't keep in touch. And I'm happy that you sorted out the distance between you."
Bella ended the last part with one lingering look on Edward. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was hinting towards the distance between herself and Edward. Edward was just happy knowing that she hadn't given up on them entirely. Though she may have not wanted anything more than just being friends, but Edward wanted more, he resolved that he would try for more, but settle for what he got in this case, since he never wanted to live without Bella in his life again. The thought in itself was painful; Edward couldn't imagine having to live through it.
Bella on the other hand noticed how happy her friend looked with Eric and wanted that kind of happiness between herself and Edward. She knew it would be a long journey, if they even get there that is; and not something that can be crossed overnight or that the route would be filled with rose petals. She knew it would take a lot of honesty and courage to make it and was determined to see this through to the end. Eric seemed to be in conversation with Edward; they were both quite close during high school, apart from being two of the most popular kids at school, they shared similar tastes in music and literature. Their tastes had bought them together and still ha them talking about it. Although Edward's friendship with Eric was nowhere near as strong as the ones he had with Jasper or Emmett for that matter, he was glad to have a friend like Eric who shared his tastes rather than make fun of it like Emmett and Jasper. Jasper and Emmett loved Edward dearly, but they didn't understand his fixation to all things classical. They often used to joke that Edward was placed in the current century by some mistake of time machine. They were sure he had to be placed a century earlier, but somehow the time machine's battery run out or some shit and he phew he was placed a century later.
After going on about how she's been and what she's doing for the third time in the same day for Stacey, Bella started feeling thirsty. Edward, who had been intently listening to every word of Bella, noticed the change in her voice and blindly reached for his water bottle and held it in her general direction. To say Bella was surprised by this gesture would be an understatement. She didn't even know that Edward was hearing her let alone paying so close attention. She took the bottle and drank a sip from it, closed it and held it in his direction. His eyes met hers briefly and she tried to convey her happiness and gratitude through her eyes. Edward smiled slightly and nodded in acceptance and then shrugged in a 'no big deal' gesture, which caused a smile of its own to find its way through Bella's lips.
After they looked away, both realized that they had a conversation complete with 'a request, grant, thank you and no big deal' with each other and yet there was no need for words to be uttered. That they had the kind of understanding that couples married for about five years craved to achieve. While this realization made both of them happy, it also freaked them out like a bunch of zombies had appeared in front of them. They were happy to know that they understood each other, freaked out that the other person would never realize it or worse think no biggie of it.
The two were so lost in these thoughts that they didn't notice Ben join the party along with Kristen and Diaz; a loud laughter brought them out of their inner musings. They looked up only to get lost in each other's' eyes. 'I could spend an eternity looking at your eyes' they thought and quickly averted their eyes before anyone else could notice. What they didn't know was Alice and Jasper had filled Rose and Emmett in on "Edward-Bella-Elopement-Mission" and that Rose and Emmett were watching every one of their moves with hawk-like precision. 'We would make a good FBI team' Rosalie thought, 'Wonder what Rose will say to role-playing as FBI agents tonight' Emmett mused.
"Anyone know which other character will show up tonight?" Tyler asked loud enough to be heard by not only Forks, but Port Angeles and La Push as well.
"Dude! Keep your voice low we are all people with normal hearing here" Edward and Emmett shouted at the same time which caused a round of snortish laughter.
"No, no one would know for sure, Alice and Jasper kept the guestlist entirely confidential" Rosalie said with a hint of bitterness in her voice. "Speaking of which, where the hell are Alice and Jasper" Stacey wondered aloud.
At the sametime, they saw another car pull up the parking, having expected it to be Alice and Jasper, they were shocked to see Jessica and Lauren exit the car.
"I promise if that skank so much as jokes about anyone using her filthy language, I will gladly separate her newly recycled nose" muttered Stacey angrily.
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So… I'm leaving it here, I could have continued it..but then I'd have to leave it as a cliffy, which I really didn't want to..
What do you think happens next.. did it meet your expectations? I just wanted to make it clear that Edward and Bella could never have a proper convo in front of half of Forks. So, it had to be like this..
Are you pissed they didn't talk, or glad? Any favorite scenes/ lines? I would really like to know what you guys are thinking.. leave a review..
Reviewers get teasers as usual
Keep smiling
Tweety
