DISCLAIMER: it goes without saying. Mrs. Meyer owns all.
author's note: this story will alternate between the year 2000 (which for all practical purposes is present day) and years past. This story is AU. You will see many characters from the Twi-universe, but the focus is the relationship btwn Edward and Bella. Rated M for adult/"heavy" situations. (If this were a movie, it would be rated PG-13.)
In chtp. 4, we're back to the year 2000. Bella is still under The Tree, still enraptured by the photograph...
Chapter Four---2000
"Bella? Is that you, darling?"
It was officially dark but I couldn't pull myself away from Our Tree or the precious photograph I'd uncovered. I just laid there almost paralyzed, certain the moment I stood up, stopped looking at the image of Edward and me, and walked back to real life, the gnawing would come back. And then I'd have to figure out what to do about it.
I cleared my throat and sat up, straightening my hair nervously. "Yes, Ms. Masen. It's me."
I'd know Esme Masen's voice anywhere. I'd grown up with it and it had been a sound of comfort and familiarity to me over the years. And at the age of twenty-seven it still was.
"What in the world are you doing out here in the dark by yourself?" She crouched down beside me and I could see her well enough in the moonlight. She looked younger in the distortion of darkness. The lines on her face and the grey that had overtaken her caramel hair weren't visible. In that moment she could have been the version of herself from when Edward and I were in junior high.
"I was just relaxing and lost track of time," I lied, subtly hiding the photo I'd just spent an hour scrutinizing.
"Wouldn't be the first time you've done that. Wonder how many hours you and Edward logged in right in this very spot?"
She sat down next to me, several joints cracking loudly in the motion, and I noticed she still had on her work clothes. How very typical it was of her to work late; very late. She'd been putting in twelve to fifteen hour days for as long as I could remember.
She exhaled loudly and rolled her neck. "Oh, it feels nice to just sit."
I reached over and squeezed her hand impulsively. She squeezed mine back and her hand felt exactly the same as it always had. Soft, thin and bony.
"So Ms. Bella, how was your weekend get away with Mike?" Her voice was impish.
"We had a great time." I reflected on the weekend I'd just come home from that had unbeknownst to me ended up being my engagement weekend. "Mike took me to his folk's cabin in New Mexico and we read and ate and hiked. It was perfect really."
I shyly moved my left hand over toward her and tilted it up slightly. Even in the dark, the large diamond was easily visible. It caught the moonlight so beautifully it looked like a special effect.
"Oh," Esme gasped and drew her hand up to her mouth. "My sweet, sweet Bella girl. It's gorgeous!" Her voice wavered emotionally and I couldn't bear to glance at her face, knowing the expression there would match her voice. I couldn't take it.
She turned toward me and pulled me in for an embrace. It was warm and motherly and I leaned into her forcing the hug to last seconds longer than it likely would have. It was exactly what I needed.
She pulled away from me grabbing my hand to get a better look at my ring. "It may be dark out here, but I can see enough to know that is one fancy ring." The word fancy danced on her lips in a very Southern drawl.
"I guess it is." I blushed a little while noticing the gnawing had returned.
I loved the ring. Who wouldn't love a ring from none other than Tiffany's? But it was quite fancy and certainly expensive, and though I would never admit it to another soul, the ring didn't suit me. I'd always pictured myself with something simple or vintage maybe. Wearing a two-carrot ring from a place like Tiffany's only made me feel like an imposter.
"Do you have a minute to spare?" She was grinning ear to ear and I could see the excitement in her eyes. "I have a bottle of red I've been saving and would love to open it in celebration of your upcoming nuptials!"
"That sounds nice, Ms. Masen." And it did. As strangely comforting as my reminiscing had been, I knew I couldn't let myself stay there. I was prone to melancholy, and had learned over time what it took for me to avoid all out depression.
"Super!" She grinned widely. "But before we crack open the vino, you have to promise me one thing."
"Okay?"
"If it's the last thing I do, I am going to break you of the whole Ms. Masen thing. Please call me Esme?"
"That I can do," I conceded, knowing full well I would likely slip up and revert to Ms. Masen before the night was through. Old habits die hard.
I hopped up, quickly and discreetly slipping the photo into my jeans pocket, and held out a hand to help Esme up. We walked arm in arm to her back door. Then she led me into her home, otherwise known as the house time forgot.
It was clean and kempt, but remained in décor exactly as it had been since I was a little girl. Dusty mauve and Williamsburg blue, with lots of geese and country trinkets. When Esme had decorated her home years prior, everything she'd chosen had been trendy and up to date. But things changed drastically after Mr. Masen left her. She struggled financially, and I understood she couldn't afford to constantly keep up with trends in her home and her clothing. But I sensed in my gut there was more to it. Perhaps the lack of change reflected her approach to life in general. Other than the fact that she had gone back to school and secured herself a good career after the divorce, nothing much else had changed for her. She hadn't really moved on in any ways except those in which necessity forced her to. It made me sad, but I didn't look down on her. In so many ways, though it might not have been as obvious, I was very much in the same boat. Freaking frozen in time.
I sat down at her breakfast bar as she got down two glasses and began to open the wine bottle. I absentmindedly traced the dated pattern of the Formica on the countertop, remembering how Edward and I loved that we could spill stuff on it and it never showed.
"So Bella, tell me about the proposal. I want all the juicy details!" She filled the glasses. She looked so excited; so truly happy for me. In a fleeting thought I wondered how my own mother might have reacted to the news. But since that was a sad notion and I was supposed to be a happy newly engaged girl, I pushed it out of my head before it had a chance to sit and take root.
"Well," I bit my lip feeling the slightest bit awkward, "Mike made me go on a hike. I'd been engrossed in a book and I wasn't really in the mood to break away."
"Jane Austen again?"
"None other," I admitted sheepishly. "But I finally agreed to put my book down because but he was very adamant about taking this hike. Since that's so out of character for him I agreed to go. Long story short, he got down on one knee right at sunset and popped the question right there on a mountain top."
"Oh, how romantic!" She handed me my wine glass, grabbed hers and sat down on the stool next to me. She leaned toward me in anticipation of hearing more, as if we were two schoolgirls gabbing about boys. The harsh kitchen lighting illuminated her face and in it she looked so worn and aged. She was still beautiful to me, but seeing her like that made me wish we were still outside where the night sky camouflaged the wear and tear of the years.
"It was quite romantic and perfect and thoughtful," I admitted quietly. "Pretty much everything that Mike is."
I felt so utterly guilty as I contemplated everything my fiancé was. That despite his character and how he loved me so completely, I still had that unsettling churning in my gut at the idea of being his bride.
"So did you set a date?"
"We are thinking June. I wanted to be sure Alice could be there for it, so we had to plan around her due date."
"Oh, that's right. And I assume Alice was thrilled with the news?" She smiled, knowing all too well how positively frenetic my best friend's energy could be.
"You have no idea." I took a big sip of the wine. It tasted good but as it hit my stomach it burned. I closed my eyes and winced in a way I hoped had been imperceptible.
Apparently it wasn't. Esme's eyebrows knit together as she inspected my face. "What is it, Bella?"
"Just a queasy stomach or something. It's no big deal." I took another sip just to prove my point. "I'm just a little off tonight I think."
Her face was tender but her green eyes were intense on mine, "I can sense you're off. You' seem a million miles away right now. I know you aren't a super excitable kind of girl in general but you're definitely not acting like someone who just got engaged." She cocked her head to the side, and thoughtfully narrowed her eyes. "What's going on in that head of yours?"
"I'm not sure, Mrs. M," I whispered, looking down to avoid her gaze.
She used two fingers to tip my chin up, giving me no choice but to look at her. Just as I feared, she wore a knowing look as if she was already privy to what was going on in my head. I felt like I was ten years old again; small and vulnerable, and worst of all, completely transparent.
"Bella." Her voice was steady and maternal and I was drawn to it. Despite myself, I let my eyes connect with hers, and I was sure what she saw in them would tell her everything she needed to know.
She took the last swig of wine from her glass and turned to face me pulling her stool closer to mine so we were knee to knee. My bottom lip trembled and my eyes welled with tears. All I could do was take a deep shuddering breath and employ my nervous habit of biting my lip.
She took a deep breath too and paused briefly, "Your mother took care of Edward for me when I couldn't and I am fully aware that when it came time for me to return the favor, I dropped the ball."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she didn't let me finish. "I need to get this out. Please let me?"
I nodded my head and dropped my eyes.
"I was covered up in my own stuff," she continued resolutely, "and I didn't advocate for you when I should've and I will go to my grave regretting that. But I have the chance to help you now; to speak some truth into your life, and I need your permission to do so." And with a little smirk and a sparkle in her eyes she finished with, "Though I'll likely say what I need to say whether you give me permission to or not."
I looked up at her and smiled despite my trepidation at the thought of hearing what she had to say; loving that she seemed more like the Esme Masen of my distant memory than she had in a long time. The woman that had a fire in her belly. "Go on."
"You need to go to him." She was resolute.
"Go to who?" I asked, as if I didn't know with one hundred percent certainty who she was talking about.
"Go to Edward." She played along with my unassuming act. "Go to Fort Worth, sit him down and get it sorted out once and for all. You cannot take all that junk into your marriage with you. It's not fair to Mike and it's not fair to you."
"What do you mean by sort it out?" I air quoted to her, slightly annoyed that she could make something so utterly complex sound so easy.
"I mean get some closure. You will never move on with your life without it. Take it from someone who knows." She reached for the wine bottle, pulled out the stopper and refilled her glass with a bit of urgency. She topped mine off too.
Her words stung. I knew since her divorce she seem stranded to me and unable to make a new life for herself, but it never occurred to me that a lack of closure had anything to do with that.
"I don't really even know what closure is," I admitted. "Closure is a word they use in movies, not in real life."
"Closure is you shutting the book on you and Edward once and for all. Get him out of your system so that you can be engaged to a wonderful man who loves you deeply, without looking like you're facing a death sentence."
I buried my face in my hands to hide from her knowing eyes and ultimately from the truth she spoke. I hated that she was right. I hated that she could see through me so effortlessly, and I hated that Edward was in my system. But to purge him from it would be like cutting off my own arm. I didn't know how to do it and I didn't know if I could take the pain of it if I ever could manage to do it.
"Bella, you and Edward need to lay it all out on the table. You've needed to for years now, and until you do there will always be unfinished business. Unfinished business that is holding you both back."
"So I just go to Fort Worth and disrupt his life? I'm sure he and Tanya would appreciate that."
"That's exactly what you do." She touched my cheek and looked into my eyes somberly. "I am his mother and I am telling you, he needs the closure as much as you do. Do you understand what I am saying?"
I nodded my head, but what I wanted to say, or to yell really was, "So what's between us is sabotaging his relationships too? So he can't fully love Tanya because a girl from his past possesses a huge part of his heart and always will?" It's what I was dying to say, but in saying it I would reveal too much about the condition of my heart, of which I was ultimately ashamed. After all, I considered the way I felt about her son to be a sickness of some kind, or maybe even a form of masochism.
"And what do I tell Mike? That I'm going to see the guy who up until a year ago I was sure was the love of my life? That I'm going to get some closure so we can have a healthy marriage?" It was ludicrous for me to even consider having that conversation with Mike.
"You tell him what you need to tell him. Tell him the whole truth or just enough of it so he's not in the dark. I can't imagine it would surprise him, Bella. You wear your indecision on your sleeve and Mike is not a stupid man."
I just shook my head, knowing she was right yet again. My heart ached for Mike and how he must feel in even sensing an inkling of how unsettled I was. He'd put himself out there since the day I met him and what had I given him in return? I'd given him all I had to give, but it wasn't all of me and I knew it. My guess was he knew it too, and for reasons I couldn't fathom, he chose to be with me anyway.
"I am only asking you to consider it, Bells. I know it's not my business, but I am coming to you as a person who has lived a lot of life and has made even more mistakes. I am afraid if you don't do this, you will always live with regrets."
I rubbed my eyes and then massaged my temples hoping to alleviate the headache that had decided to accompany the gnawing. Certainly not the picture of a newly engaged girl. I thought sourly.
She leaned in once again and put her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in snuggly. "You're going to make it through this, Bella. Believe it or not, you will. But you need to do your part. One thing I've learned if I've learned anything, is that things like this don't just go away and they don't just fix themselves either."
"I'll think about it, Esme." My voice was quiet and calm, despite my inner turmoil. "I promise to."
"That's my girl."
"Thank you," I murmured quietly. "For the wine. And thank you for…for just knowing."
Her eyes found mine and I saw them swim with moisture. "I do know, my Bella girl." She gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
We finished our wine in a companionable silence. I found myself lost in thoughts about all my years with Edward, and what his presence in my life had meant to me. And I wondered if it was even possible to get closure with someone who was that inexplicably meshed with your very being.
When my lips felt tingly and my ears burned hot--both my personal tell-tale signs that I'd imbibed enough--I decided I was ready to go home. I wanted to sack out in my bed, where I could escape my screwed up reality for several hours. My head felt like it might explode from all the thoughts circling within it and I needed to escape those as well.
"My bed is calling, Esme," I yawned out.
As I stood up from my bar stool and leaned over to grab our empty wine glasses, the picture from my pocket floated down to the linoleum. As soon as I noticed it there, I bent down to retrieve it, but not before Esme saw it. I snatched it up, blushing a thousand shades of red and sloppily shoved it back in my pocket. Without saying a word, she simply stood up and pulled me into another hug; a tighter one, and she didn't let me go of me for a long, long while.