BPOV
The moment I fell over the hurdle, I realized my mistake. Edward had warned that we could not afford to lose our attention during the exercises. And I did just that. While whispering to Alice that Jasper was stealing glances at her, I miscalculated the height. When Edward walked to me with the cane in his hand, I knew that this mistake was going to cost us both dearly. I remembered clearly what he had told me about the first mistake of the batch.
Poor Edward, he looked absolutely crestfallen. I knew him well enough to know that punishing me will almost kill him. He will not be able to forgive himself. That's when I decided that as much as possible I will hide my pain from him, not a word could be allowed to come out of my mouth and definitely no tears. I could see that he was trying to control himself – I could not allow him to lose it by my weakness. So I did exactly as he asked me to and prepared myself for the first strike. The pain was excruciating, way beyond anything I had ever experienced. It took all my will power to remain still. I kept repeating in my mind – Bella, Edward is giving you this and he loves you so much. I'm sure this mantra took me through. By the time half of the caning was done, I had tears in my eyes that threatened to spill over. That's when I saw Edward's eyes. My pain was reflecting in them. And I knew that I have failed miserably in keeping my pain from him. This realization hit me hard and a tear rolled off my right eye. I saw Edward flinching and moving slightly towards me to wipe it out. For a second it felt like he will definitely reach out, but then he composed himself just in time. He was on the edge and I knew the sooner the punishment was over, the better it will be. So I quickly brought my left hand up and tried to tell him with my eyes that I'm fine and that he can continue. That I love him and I will take whatever he gives me with pride.
By the time the caning was over, I was a mess with unbearable pain not only in my palms but also in my heart, knowing that Edward must be feeling ten-folds of what I was feeling. And then Edward delivered the remaining punishment. I looked at my hands – the palms were badly bruised from the worst beating they have had. I knew running while holding a rifle above my head was going to test my tolerance to the limit. But I had to do this – couldn't let Edward down. Come on Bella, time to face the music. I had so confidently told Dad that I can go through anything to fulfill my dream of joining the army. Time to walk the talk now.
With that in mind, I started the first lap. The lunch break was 1 hour. So if I wished to get something to eat, I had 30 minutes to complete the rounds and get my ass in the mess. It was not easy but I was able to finish up in 30 minutes. I deposited the rifle back on the rack and slowly starting walking towards the mess. When I was passing in front of a door, I felt two strong hands grabbing me from the waist and pulling me inside the door. I did not need to look into the face of the person to know who it was. I could recognize this touch even in my sleep. Before I could say a word, the door was bolted, I was sitting on a chair and Edward was kneeling in front of me on the floor.
"Edward..what.." "Shhh my love, let me see your hands first."
I tried to hide them behind me – it would really torture him to see the result of the punishment. I wanted to spare him the pain. But he would not have any of it. "Please Bella, please don't hide from me. I need to see what I have done." His voice was full of pain and guilt. He gently held both of my wrists in his hands and brought my hands to my lap, palm up.
"Oh my God..Bella.. it must be hurting like hell…". There were angry purple bruises criss-crossing on both my palms. They did hurt a lot, but I couldn't tell this to him. So I just kept quite.
"I'm so sorry love, so sorry…oh God…" he kept repeating and started kissing my palms tenderly. After kissing every inch of my palms, he took out a lotion from his pocket and proceeded to apply it on my palms. "Love, it will sting a bit in the beginning, but will sooth the pain real quick." Seeing him tending to my injuries, my control just gave way and I started crying. He was instantly alarmed. "Bella..my darling, what happened? Is the pain too much? Tell me, please." He was growing frantic by the minute. So I did the only thing I could think of to shut him up – I kissed him on the mouth. He immediately responded and took me in his arms. We continued kissing for some time. Then I felt him breaking the kiss reluctantly. When I protested, he chuckled and said – "Hey, I know. I would like nothing more than to continue this. But you have just 15 minutes left of your lunch break and if I don't feed you the evil pixie will kill me." Ah, that was certainly true, Alice will not spare him. I smiled at him then and started to go out. "Oh no… there is no need to go dear. I have your lunch here". With that he picked up a food tray from the table and placed it on my lap. When I tried to reach out for the spoon, he quickly took it in his own hands, "I said I will feed you". And started doing just that.
"Oh Edward, I love you so much." I kissed his hand lightly every time he brought the spoonful of food to my mouth.
"You don't have to say this love. I understand that you must hate me right now." I could hear the self-loathing in his voice. I stopped eating abruptly and lifted his face to look into his eyes. "Edward - I can never hate you. Rather I am so proud of you my darling that you did not let your feelings come in between doing what was right. I'm so proud that you did not lessen the punishment even when I was the one receiving it. I know it must have been so so difficult to do what you did." And kissed his hand again.
"You know this is the same hand that punished you some time back".
"Edward please. I'm glad it's this hand that punished me. I erred and you corrected me. That's it. End of the matter please. I don't want to spend whatever little time I have with you arguing on something so inconsequential."
"If you say so, my dear." He continued to feed me then, but I could see that this matter was far from over in his heart. I was scared that when he will be alone, he will again dwell on this. I just hoped that he will not do anything rash.
When I was done with the lunch, we parted reluctantly. But not before he took me in his arms one last time and squeezed me tight to him. He also gave me the lotion to apply again later. It really was effective. The burning on my palms was reduced to a dull throbbing now. I quickly reached the mess and made my way to the table where Alice and Rosalie were sitting. We had met Rosalie yesterday and the 3 of us had instantly clicked, like our boyfriends, or almost boyfriends in Alice's case.
Rosalie looked very angry and I could make out from her rants that the anger was directed towards my boyfriend.
When they saw me coming, both of them got up and came to me. Rosalie was the first to speak – "Bella, how are you? Did the monster give you any more grief?"
"Monster?"
"The Edward Cullen of course. Haven't you heard, he has had equally flattering nicknames every batch he has taken? When Emmett first told me about his reputation, I thought he was being a bit over the top. But now after what he did to you today, I have no doubts. He really is a monster"
I started laughing. "Come on Rose, give the guy a break. He just did his job. He had already warned us that we were to be attentive always."
"But the punishment was a little severe for a first offence Bella." Alice interjected. I could tell from her tone that though Alice loved Edward like her brother; she was quite upset with him right now.
"He already told us that he will treat us like any other male cadet and will not be lenient. Frankly, I don't fault him for doing what he said he will do. Rather I respect him for this. I would have thought less of him if he had not followed up his speech with action. Besides, didn't I tell you the significance of the first punishment of the batch?" And proceeded to tell them what Edward had told me earlier.
Thankfully, the lunch was almost over and we started moving towards the ground with Rosalie walking ahead of us. Alice took the opportunity to ask me quietly. "How is your hand now Bella? And did you have lunch? I hope Mr. Monster took care of everything to your satisfaction. Else, I will hunt him down and give him a piece of my mind. "
"Not you too Alice. Of course he took care of everything. Let's just say that given this after care, I would be ready to take the punishment again and again." I smiled. Still, she didn't look convinced. I signed – "Alice please, don't be too hard on him. He is suffering as it is. You know how hard it is for him to see me in pain. Compound it with the fact that he caused this pain. Believe me, he is in absolute agony. I'm afraid that he will want to punish himself later for this." I finally voiced my concern.
"Hush Bella. Don't worry about it. I will tell Jasper to talk him out of any such idiotic thought. Now concentrate. We don't want an encore of the morning. Even if you may, Edward will never survive it."
