Ch. 2 Cullens House
I never would have guessed that I'd act so girly over this. Charlie and Renée were happy that we met some of our kind and agreed to go over tonight to their house. When I heard that, I rushed up to my room and grabbed my stuff and headed for a shower. After using enough of my strawberry shampoo and cherry blossom shower gel that could have supplied 3 showers, I stood in my closet deciding what to wear.
My closet was one of those walk-in kind and trust me it was full of things! T-shirts, blouses, skirts, dress pants, jeans, sweat pants, jackets, sweaters, vests, etc. Thanks to my inheriting everything from my parents, I had so much money, it could last me forever, but I doubt it. With the way Jenna buys things? I'd be lucky if I had any left by next year! Just kidding. No, I'll always have lots of money.
Anyway, I stood there for what felt like hours trying to decide what to where. I never really wanted to impress others when I met them. Once, when I met a family of vampires that now lives in Denali, and I didn't care about trying to look nice. In fact, I cared so little that I wore a pair of worn jeans I owned and a t-shirt. But this time, I wanted to look stunning. That's when it caught my eye.
There was the perfect outfit! It was a dress that I had once designed. It was a deep nay blue that was slightly tight on the leg area and ended at my knees with off the shoulder and spaghetti straps holding it up. Along with the dress, I added some deep blue stiletto heels that I had bought once on a shopping trip with Jenna.
Once I was dressed and my hair dried, I did something I never do: I went over to Jenna's bedroom. I knocked on the door lightly and when she opened the door, she looked at me with a shocked expression on her face.
"Bella, is that you?"
"Yeah. Listen I need your help. I need you to do my hair and make-up. Your way better at it then me," I told her.
She smiled so big that it made the Grinch look like he was snarling. She yanked on my arm and slammed the door close before sitting me down at her vanity.
"OK! We have only 2 hours to do this, so let's get started!" she proclaimed and then got to work.
For the next hour and a half, she primped, curled, straightened my hair, and experimented with shadows, liners, nail polishes, and lipsticks, and I was never allowed to see what it looked like. After what felt like forever, she finally seemed satisfied and turned the seat towards the mirror.
I couldn't believe it. I didn't even look the same. Jenna curled my hair and pinned pieces back using deep blue jeweled berets, chose a blue eye shadow that matched my dress perfectly and put on black eye liner too. It seemed like she even put on mascara because my lashes looked longer. She made my eyes pop! My nails were done in the same shade of blue like everything else and had French tips. Lastly my lips, where she just put a bit of gloss. I looked at her, wondering why she went expert on the rest of my face and not there.
"You didn't need lipstick." And with that, she pulled me up and downstairs.
When we got there, I saw Charlie and Chris in white dress shirts and black slacks. Renée was wearing a simple green sun dress with matching shoes. I also finally noticed that Jenna was wearing a bright yellow dress.
I then got in my Audi coupe with Charlie and Renée while Chris and Jenna took his motorcycle and drove over to Edward's house. Charlie decided that he would drive.
The house was very far from town like ours, in the opposite direction. We drove over the Calawah River and all the way to the woods. We continued driving, and all that time, I kept smoothing out the wrinkles in my dress. Once, Charlie looked in the rearview mirror to check and see if Chris and Jenna were behind us and he saw me smoothing down my dress.
"Don't worry Bella. You look beautiful," he told me. I smiled at him and finally relaxed somewhat. I knew I was being a little over the top, but I couldn't help it.
A few miles later, we finally arrived at the house and the outside was stunning. The house had a timelessly graceful style to it; its walls painted a soft and faded white color. It looked like it was 3 stories tall and was well spaced out. A large porch seemed to surround the entire bottom of the building. As I stepped out of the car, I heard the sound of a river close by, and it was hidden by the large forestry surroundings. It was as though this house was made to fit my likings exactly!
After Chris parked his bike and helped Jenna off it, we walked up to the door. Just as Charlie was about to knock, the door swung open, revealing an excited Alice.
"Yay! You came! Hi! I'm Alice," she introduced herself to Charlie and Renée before pulling us into the house.
If I had thought the outside of the house was nice, the inside was even nicer! It seemed to look as though it originally was a one-floored house with several rooms, but the bottom had been changed to one largely spaced area and two floors were added. The south wall looked like it was replaced by one large pane of glass, letting the last few rays of light in the building. A large staircase that curved covered the western side of the room, and standing by the staircase was the rest of the Cullens. Everything was a different shade of white; the floors, walls, carpets, and furniture.
I already knew who the rest of the family was and after smiling at Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward, I looked over to the last two members of the family.
Carlisle was young, around his 20s and had blond hair. He had the same pale skin and gold eyes as everyone else, and the bruise like shadows that we vampires get when don't feed after a while were so pale, they looked like they weren't even there. Beside him was Esme I assumed seeing she was the only other female in the family. She to had pale features like her husband and children. With her heart-shaped face and caramel- colored hair, she reminded me of the actresses I'd seen in the old black and white movies I watch, and I could almost swear that I was meeting Snow White.
"Carlisle, Esme, I'd like you to meet Bella Swan, her brother Chris and his girlfriend Jenna, and her parents…" Edward began to introduce us, but stopped when he came to my parents.
"My name is Charlie and this is my wife, Renée" Charlie finished for him.
"Yeah, and Mom, Dad, these are the Cullens and Hales. Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Emmett, and Edward Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale" I introduced them to Edward and his family.
I then could tell that Esme was the mother of this family. She walked over to each of us and gave us a hug, and when she got to me, she hugged me longer then the others, as tough she were trying to tell me something without actually saying anything.
"Bella, I absolutely love your dress! You HAVE to tell me where you bought it!" Alice exclaimed.
"Oh, I didn't buy it. I made it."
This seemed to interest her even more so. I don't know how she did it, but after shooting questions at me from every direction, she got me to agree to make her one too as well as for Rosalie.
I looked around the rest of the first floor area and my eyes landed on a beautiful piano that was sitting on a platform by the door. I walked over to it to admire it more, not knowing that Edward was watching my every move.
When I was still human, I had learned how to play the piano. My mother thought it would be good if I did- have talents that could come in handy.
"Do you play?" I heard Esme ask me. I looked over to hear and nodded.
"Yeah, I do. I learned how to long before I became a vampire, but that's it. I haven't played since then. Is it yours?" She laughed at my question.
"No, I don't. But Edward does. He's the musical one. Didn't he tell you that?" she asked me.
I looked over at Edward. He's handsome, caring, intelligent, and he plays piano too? Why was God torturing me?! He sent me to the mate who could have been my soul mate, and I still couldn't stop thinking of my parents and their marriage arrangement for me.
I snapped out of my thoughts as I felt Alice push me lightly on my back to sit down on the bench in front of the piano. I could tell that she wanted me to play. I turned to the keys and began to play one of my favorite songs- My Only Hope.
I soon became lost in my own world as I played it. I pictured myself and Edward lying down on the grass under a large oak tree in a beautiful meadow filled with flowers. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the sunlight was passing through some gaps of the tree's branches, making us sparkle slightly. All the while, Edward was whispering sweet nothings in my ear or kissing my cheek and pulling me closer to his chest.
I hadn't even realized I had finished playing. I opened my eyes to see everyone in the room staring at me with amazement clear on their faces. Edward was the one that seemed most amazed by this. He snapped out of it first.
"Bella, would you like a tour of the rest of the house?" he asked me.
"Of course!" I proclaimed. If he was the one giving the tour, then I was more then happy to attend it.
He took my hand- sparks once again shooting up my arm and down to my toes- and led me up the stairs. He started at the hall at top of the stairs, pointing out with room was which. We never went into the rooms until we came to the last room on the third floor.
"My room," Edward said as he reached for the handle and opened the door.
The room faced the south, and like the rest of the house, that wall was replaced by glass. It had the perfect view of the forest and river from it. The western wall was covered by shelves of CDs. It looked like he had more of them then a music shop would have. In the corner was a stereo system and along the rest of the walls, thick, dark curtains hung from the ceiling. A wide black leather couch sat on top of a thick golden carpet that reminded me of Edward's hair.
I walked over to the CD wall and check out some of the collection. It was huge!
"How exactly do you have these organized?" I asked him as I turned to see his face.
"By the year they came out in and by my personal preference to them," he said.
He then grabbed a remote and turned on the stereo system, a jazz number coming out from it's speakers, and it felt as though the band was actually here with us.
He walked closer to me and grabbed a CD from behind me, all the while never removing his gaze from me.
"Perhaps this is something you'd like." I looked down from his handsome face to the CD in his hand. It was Linkin Park.
"Linkin Park? How'd you know I like them?" I asked him. Now I was questioning his power. Could he really not read my mind or was he pulling my leg earlier?
"Alice had a vision that you were listening to it sometime," he told me.
I don't know why I did it- it was something I'd never done in my existence- but I leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on Edward's cheek. He didn't pull away. I moved back and turned my head away from him, ashamed of what I did. But he placed a finger under my chin and turned my face back to his.
"Do know that you look absolutely beautiful in that color?" he asked me. He then moved closer and placed a kiss on my lips.
What I had felt earlier that day when he touched my hand and arm was nothing compared to now. It was like thousands of firecrackers were being set off under my skin. My arms wrapped around Edward's neck of their own accord, my fingers twisting themselves into his hair to pull him closer. One of his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, his other hand running through my hair.
Just as the kiss got deeper, an image flashed into my head. It was my parents. Thinking of them make me break the kiss and pull myself away from Edward, even though I would have preferred for it to continue.
Edward was stunned. All I could do was say "I can't. I'm sorry" before rushing down the stairs and out the door back to my house, leaving a shocked Edward up in his room and everyone else down in the living room.