Chapter 3 – Questions
...But I don't feel the hard wooden floor, something cushions my fall.
I awake several hours later by a roaring fire, wrapped in a soft blanket. I feel so comfortable that I do not want to get up, or even open my eyes. But the warm, fuzzy sensation of just waking up soon fades away and I am forced to sit up from where I lay. I still do not open my eyes.
I smell roasting marshmallows and sliced apples, the fragrance too familiar to not know straight away. I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands and yawn, whist stretching my arms and legs outwards. I feel my right leg hit something hard so I open my eyes to investigate. My jaw drops again and I feel my face turn a shade lighter. My eyes stare glassily at the figure crouching next to marble hearth of the fireplace. Stunned I try to mumble something out, but all words fail me.
"Bella." The voice echo's around the room, I still stare in disbelief. The voice chuckles a smooth and delicious laugh, so I close my jaw. He closes his eyes and runs his fingers through his unkempt copper brown hair, still branding a half smile. He stands up and walks around so he is near my face, yet I am still speechless. He crouches next to me and hands me a sticky toasted marshmallow, oozing goo all over his finger tips. I reach my hand up, shaking and I take the marshmallow from his hand. His fingers are cold, despite the warmth of the marshmallow. I shiver from the coldness of his fingers and he sighs, now holding a distasteful look on his face. I place the marshmallow in my mouth and chew, it is cooked perfectly, gooey on the inside, slightly crisp on the outside.
I bite my bottom lip and take a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before exhaling. I smile and then try to speak.
"Uh-um... is that you... Edward?" Another cool chill rockets down my spine, so I shuffle closer to the fire. He is still crouched and still looking in distaste, yet, now he is drawing up another slight smile.
"Bella." Again, his voice echo's around the room. My lips now pierced, he answers.
"Yes, it is. Is that you, Bella?" His voice seems sad, yet with a velvet smooth touch to it.
I mumble out the words "Yes, it is."
"Did I startle you?" He asks, turning towards me and looking me in the face, I blush and he smiles.
"I guess your face answers it all." I blush a further tone of tomato red, making his smile spread further around his face.
"That's cute." I feel my face get hot, so shift away from the fire, hoping it will cool me down. His eyes follow my movement. I try to look further into his eyes, but he is too far away at the moment. From where I am sitting, they look a crystal topaz, a strange eye colour to have.
He pulls another marshmallow off the twig and hands it to me. I gladly accept it and playfully push it into my mouth. So warm, so delicious.
"I know I left suddenly, and I'm sorry. I had to leave, so did my parents. You think it is strange how we only took paintings, plants and a piano? We only took the important things.
"Sometimes I wish I had stayed, but I had to leave." He was sounding too cryptic to be trying to explain something, more like he was trying to leave clues for me, like he wasn't allowed to tell me something... like I had to figure it out for myself.
"Would you like to ask me anything?"
I thought of all the questions stored up in my head, from when I was younger. They were silly questions like 'Do you have a girlfriend?' and 'Why do you suck at chess?'. I decide to ask a more admirable and sophisticated question. I suck in a breath and breathe out my question.
"Why did you go?"
There was a long pause before he plucked up his courage and answered me, like he was trying to say that he couldn't really tell me.
"Because I had to." He replies to me. Is that all?
"But why?" I whisper, trying to look hurt so he will tell me. He gnaws on his bottom lip and doesn't say anything.
"Okay then, where did you go?"
"Everywhere."
"Why did you go everywhere?"
"I was searching for something." I paused a second and then fired out another question.
"Did you find it?"
"I have now." He is intriguing, he doesn't look a day over 18. He reminds me of the book, Dorian Gray by Mark Twain, yet not in the selfish, pig-headed way that Dorian Gray is portrayed and how he acts. He is more of a... Anton... from Professor Layton and Pandora's Box.
"What did you find?" The room only filled with the noise of the crackling wood on the fire and as the fire dies down, it feels abundant with silence. I guess he is thinking of yet another cryptic answer, which I am starting to loathe.
"You." Now I was the deadly silent one. Where did that come from? Why did he search everywhere for me when he should have realised I was still here all along? I felt a warm sensation prickle my back and I started to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I was filling with joy and happiness. I was feeling good for the first time in the last year.
"R-real-really?" I still can't understand that I am the thing he was looking for. Maybe he said it to shut me up, or maybe he really means it. Who am I to know, I can't read minds. He looked up at me and starred into my eyes, making my warm, fuzzy feeling inside grow intenser and more defined.
"Your eyes are still so beautiful, although all the loss and despair you have gone through. I still remember your face from when you beat me at scrabble, the day before I left. Such bold and intense brown eyes, piercing and capturing the hearts of all whom gaze into them.
"And your smile, so bright and hopeful, even when the worst was succumbed to you. Admirable, how strong your little heart was, when Miss McIver died. She was like your second mother. To me she was the only mother I ever really had. My mother was always to busy to care for me." His face looks cold and pained, like he is blinking back tears.
"You don't look a day over 18, although you should be about 22 now. Your eyes look different, I always remembered a magnificent green, with a dark green edge. Your skin looks paler, more porcelain than it was. And your hair... much darker, it used to be... a blonde brown, now it's a kind of coppery, still beautiful though. And your taller, by about half a foot. Did you go to University or College? Study medicine by any chance? You would always pick me up when I'd had an accident, which was every time I'd come by. You must have been strong to cope with Miss McIver's death also, although you must have had time to reflect on it all when you ran away. Why can't you tell me why you left?"
I am on the verge of crying now, but the way he blinks back those tears, to show he is brave, although I wouldn't mind them, he helped me not to burst into streams of desperate and desolate sobs. I couldn't help but let one more tear run down my cheek, for Miss McIver. Edward must have noticed this because he walks over and sits next to me, putting his right arm around my shoulders and using his left index finger to brush away my fallen tear. I lean my head on his chest and close my eyes, feeling another set of tears fall down my face. And we just sit there, for what felt like hours, but they were thoroughly enjoyed as Edward brushed back my tears and I snuggled into his hard, yet delicate chest. He made me feel complete for the first time in years, maybe my whole life...
I wanted to stay like this forever, with a friend who understood what loss and despair was, and who wasn't silly, shallow and only thinking about their looks.
Staying with someone who cared for me. That's all I wanted for now.