"Edward, what are you―"
Edward placed a finger over his lips, asking me not to be so loud. I immediately shut my mouth and waited. What else could I do? Here was this man in my bedroom, granted a man I knew, but still there he was. I didn't know how he had gotten in here without being noticed, but he had done it. And now all I could do was stare dumbly at the beautiful man sitting across the room from me.
H got up and walked very slowly and carefully to me, making sure to make as little noise as possible. He didn't sit on the bed with me, only knelt down next to my bed and smiled. He looked up into my eyes with mischief and excitement.
"Come with me," he whispered. I opened my mouth to protest but he shook his head. "Come with me," he repeated. I couldn't help but smile. Even in those few words he communicated this urgent exhilaration. I didn't know how long he had been waiting for me to wake, or what he would have done if someone had found him, but he didn't seem to care.
"Okay," I whispered back just as quietly. I wanted to ask him so many questions but I kept silent for the moment. He rose silently and I got up as well, careful to make as little sound as he did. I knew this was an idiotic thing to do, on so many levels. The first of course was that I didn't need to sneak out. If I wanted to go out in the middle of the night I would damn well go. But of course Edward's presence made things different. I couldn't just leave in the middle of the night with another man. And moreover, and possibly the more important point I could think of, my trying to be stealthy in any way would only end in disaster. I couldn't live my everyday life without having some sort of accident. How could I possibly sneak away from my home, even if just for a little while, without falling or breaking a bone or getting caught?
My heart was pounding as we began to walk, first out of my room and then down the halls. I tried to be silent as Edward was, walking without making a sound. But of course I couldn't. Things just seemed to be noisy when I walked over them or passed by them or sent them crashing to the floor when I bumped into them. We were almost out at that point; I could see the door, when we started walking a little faster. I should have known that it was too good to be true; that the chances of my getting out without being noticed were so slim I shouldn't have even tried. So as we neared the door, walking too fast with the taste of victory already in our mouths, I bumped ever so slightly into a table with a vase full of flowers on it.
Both Edward and I watched with sick fascination as it toppled slowly, tumbling to the floor and breaking upon the floor, pieces of glass and flowers spreading in a sad heap there on the floor. We both looked at each other, hearing the sound of its shatter ringing in our ears. And then Edward looked past me, so I looked there too. And then I heard footsteps, drawn most likely by the sound of the breaking vase. So we did the only thing we could do.
We ran.
Without a single second thought Edward and I took off into the night, running as fast as we could into the chilled evening air. We sprinted at first, sure we were being followed and for all I knew we were. But eventually we both grew tired of running and we slowed and eventually stopped. We were somewhere along the garden path back into the woods, I could see that much in the pale moonlight. We both stood, panting and laughing. It was a miracle that we had managed to get out without my injuring myself severely or getting caught.
"I can't believe this is happening," I mused, more to myself than to Edward. He grinned at me. Silently he motioned for me to continue on with him, to keep going along the path we were taking. Without another word I obeyed, unsure of why I was following his instructions but not sure what else to do. So we walked in a silence for another short while until we reached a clear part of the garden path. There was a clear part of the wooded path with flat meadow on either side of the path. The moon lit it so brightly that I didn't have any trouble seeing the mischievous smile on Edward's face as he deviated from the path and began to walk into the sweet smelling summer grass and tiny little ground cover flowers.
My feet moved of their own accord, walking behind him before I even knew what was happening. Eventually he stopped at a spot almost to the edge of the meadow, perfectly bathed in light and covered in the tiny whit flowers I had noticed here so many times before on other walks. He sat down slowly and motioned for me to do the same.
"I don't understand any of this," I told him, letting my voice go to its normal volume. No one was going to find us here, and we were far enough away from the house that no one would hear us either.
"How did you get into my bedroom in the first place? And how long were you waiting for me? What would have happened if someone had come to check on me? How did you know where to go back in the house? And what was even―"
Edward began laughing hysterically as I was talking and so I stopped speaking in the middle of a question. I glared at him, and he only laughed harder.
"Bella, that is a lot of questions to ask me all at once. Lets go one at a time shall we? How did I get into your room? Well that's not very hard. It wasn't as if there was someone guarding it. And I waited for…a while, admittedly. But I didn't know when else I would get to talk to you. My father tells me I am no longer allowed to come on the visits he makes to Jacob's father, so I didn't want to take the risk that we might not bump into each other again while you are taking a stroll at night."
"So what did you do all that time? Twiddle your thumbs?" I asked. Edward laughed again.
"You say very amusing things in your sleep," he replied. I gasped.
"You were watching me sleep?"
"There wasn't much else to do. I wasn't going to go looking through your things, but I can only amuse myself with twiddling my thumbs for so long. Besides, if I hadn't been paying attention, I would have missed out on hearing about all sorts of funny things. I believe you told your father that he couldn't have the last cookie," he said, his voice laced with amusement. I hung my head in my hands and sighed in embarrassment. I had always talked in my sleep, but so far the only one who had known about it was my father. Even though he teased me for it, it wasn't as bad as someone else knowing about it.
"What about my other questions?" I asked, trying to move the subject off my embarrassing sleeping habits.
"If someone had come in to check on you? Honestly, I hadn't thought that far ahead. But I am sure I could have come up with something if they had asked what I was doing there. But I have a feeling these aren't the questions you really want answered. So go ahead and ask," he told me.
"Why…why would you―"
"Risk being accused of kidnapping? Steal you away from home in the middle of the night? Wait all that time just to see you?" he completed for me. I nodded. Those were several of the things I didn't understand about him, although it was far from all of them.
"Bella, if I had the answers to those questions I would tell you. But I don't. I haven't been able to reason through those things myself. I wish I had some sort of answers, not only for myself, but for you. You have no idea how much time I have spent, thinking about what it is that draws me to you this way. And for that month, that whole endless month after we met I tried not to think of you at all. And after a while I was able. But when I saw you in town last night, I knew I couldn't pretend you did not exist.
"But you got hurt with me, even if it was just a stumble. And I put you in danger now, stealing you away. If we were to be found…I know Jacob is not an unreasonable man, but we both know he has trouble controlling himself on occasion. He could do what he wished to me, but if he harmed you at all I don't know what I would do," he confessed. "It seems as though I can do nothing but put you in harm's way."
"You did not put me in harm's way last night. I tripped, Edward, there was no danger―"
"You have no idea what kind of danger you were in last night."
"Then why wont you tell me! No one will tell me anything! There is so much going on and you all must think I am an idiot if you assume I don't know it. But every time I ask you pretend there isn't anything happening and I feel like I'm going insane. So please, Edward, please if you respect me at all, if you care for me at all, just tell me what's happening."
"And what do you think is going on?" he inquired. His tone was falsely inquisitive. Beneath it was something like impatient curiosity.
"Jacob and Sam and all of those boys have some sort of secret they are keeping, though I don't understand what. And Billy is sick and dying and I don't understand that either. But Jacob dislikes your father and your family and you seemingly more than anyone else and he wont tell me why. And you don't seem too fond of him either, nor does your father. And what happened last night, first in your house when Emmett made that little comment about me and Carlisle got angry and then when…when I fell and we had to run away…and its all connected somehow, I just know it. But I cant tell how because no one will tell me."
"And if you had to guess?" he asked slowly.
"I don't know, Edward! I would say you were lifelong enemies but you've only been here a year! And after all those things you said about being in a situation you can't change and wondering what would be different if you could change it…you seem like the odd man out in your family, and at first I thought it was just because everyone else has their spouse and you're all alone, but it seems like more than that now when I think about it. You just seem…different than they are."
"You don't know how close you are," he whispered, "but I can't tell you. If you knew it would only put you in more danger."
I became so frustrated then that I threw my hands up and began to stand. But Edward's hands grasped mine lightly but firmly, trying not to hurt my shallow scrapes.
"Bella, please, please you must believe me that I am only doing this to keep you safe. If it was not a matter of life and death I would tell you in an instant why you have so many questions that no one will answer, why you think I am so different from my family, why Jacob's family and mine will never get along and why he hates me more than the rest of them. I would sit and explain everything until the sun came up and I was blue in the face. But I cant just as I am sure Jacob cannot. I will give you whatever else you ask, but please, Bella, do not ask me to explain."
His face and his words reminded me of his face the night before, his pleading eyes and desperate words. I couldn't ask any more of him. He looked as though he was physically pained as he spoke to me, as though he wanted so badly to explain, but he simply couldn't.
"What if Jacob tells me, then can you explain your side?" I asked. Edward laughed lightly.
"Yes, Bella, if you somehow manage to torture it out of him, I will gladly sit and explain everything on this very spot and answer each and every question your mind can think of. Fair enough?"
"I'm going to hold you to that," I told him. He smiled at me then, the first real smile I had seen since we began talking.
"I think it is my turn to ask the questions," Edward informed me after a moment. I nodded and said nothing, waiting for his interrogation, as it was sure to be.
"Why did you come?" he asked. I had to think for a moment. Why had I simply left my house in the middle of the night with him? I hadn't even needed to think it through. I simply went. Because I wanted to go. I desperately needed an escape from the trapped feeling I had whilst living in that house. And Edward was fun and dangerous and handsome but he was also kind and gentle and wonderfully charming.
"I don't know. I just couldn't be in that house any more. And when you offered me a chance to get out…I didn't even think, I just took it. You have to understand, Edward, I told you I felt alone because…I might be friends with Jacob and Sam and Emily and all the boys and even Billy. And my father comes to see me once a week and it means a lot to me that he comes here. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't belong there. That I am the outcast. It doesn't change the fact that I don't want to be there. Under different circumstances, I would love to just be friends with them and spend time there. But not like this, not when I have to."
"You don't love him," Edward stated. It was not a question.
"I don't think I ever could. It isn't that he is a bad man in any way. But the way we are now, the circumstances in which we met aren't conducive to love."
"So what will you do?" he asked. I looked up from my hands, meeting those bright green eyes. They drew honesty out of me like a serum.
"The only thing I can do—I will marry Jacob and probably have children and eventually grow fond of him. But I wont ever love him. But we will be the only ones who know that. Everyone else already thinks we're in love, Sam, his father, Emily…they all assume I am this happy little bride to be. Jacob I'm sure senses my apprehension, but he doesn't know the idea of marrying someone in five months destroys me more every day."
For the second time that day, Edward's nimble fingers touched my face, their heat burning me with the knowledge that though I should not be letting another man touch me, I would not tell him to stop. I unconsciously turned into his touch and sighed. With Edward I felt something foreign, something strange that I was not used to. There was an excitement in me, my stomach felt like it was full of butterflies, my heart jumped all over. I didn't think he knew of my uncontrollable physical reactions, but he was surely taking advantage of them.
"So what would you do if you had control over your life?" he asked, his hand still touching my face, our eyes still locked.
"I would travel. Go away from here. Do things the way I want to do them and never have to be under the control of another person. I would fall in love with someone and marry them if they wanted. I would not sit through everyday and waste the time I have looking pretty and chatting with other women. I don't want that life. But it seems that is what my life will be."
Edward smiled sadly.
"I do not think you will be that woman, Bella. You just don't have it in you. There is too much passion and life in that body of yours to ever sit your life away," he told me. I tried to smile, but found my lips could not make the shape. Edward moved his hand and gently tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering there for a moment before he sighed and flopped back upon the sweet smelling flowers.
"What are you doing, Edward Cullen?" I asked.
"Looking at the stars," he replied. With a sigh and a grin I could not restrain I laid back with him, far enough that we were not touching but close enough to feel the heat from his skin as it radiated out toward me. We looked up at the sky in silence for a while before he began to point out constellations and the stories behind them. We stayed there, Edward telling me stories and tales and mythology, until the sky began to lighten. When it did Edward looked to me and rose without a word. We left that meadow the way we entered it, in silence.
Before we left the woods, Edward stopped me so we could speak in a place alone and not be seen.
"I think I would like to meet you there again. Soon," he said.
"Tomorrow night?" I asked playfully.
"If you would be there tomorrow night, I would come to meet you," he said quietly, using more caution now that we were closer to the house.
"I will he there," I promised. He smiled and drew me in for a friendly embrace, during which he kissed the top of my head.
"Oh my Bella. I hope your day is well," he said softly.
"I'm not your Bella," I reminded him. He grinned.
"Not yet."
So I know this one is a little on the short side, but I like it. hope you did too :)
