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He runs a hand over his face, silent and embarrassed. "Sometimes you have the tact of an avalanche, you know?"
"I know." She leans closer and her smile fades. "I'm sorry. My grandpa—"
"I know, I know," he interrupts, adding a sheepish smile. "I understand, I guess. In a way. That you'd bring it up, I mean, not that you'd laugh at me about it."
She covers her face with her fingers when she sees the hurt she's caused. "I'm an asshole, aren't I? I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I was just trying to lighten you up to erase this, I dunno, awful awkwardness between us. And it's also, you know, occupational hazard. I didn't mean to hurt you."
He looks in her eyes, blinking in that calm, Edward-y manner, until Bella hides her face in both hands. "I'm an asshole," she repeats. "You should've let the wolves have me."
Edward continues to stare at her for an alarmingly long time until he nods. The edges of his lips tug into a smile. "They wouldn't have had you," he replies. "Too little meat."
He's hit with a pillow, and as both laugh, the tension fades.
"I don't really want to know the answer," Bella says, quietly, as they look at each other. "As long as you start acting normal around me, alright?"
He stands and offers a hand for Bella to take. "Fair enough." They check on Alice, who's licking a puppy with closed eyes, a big pink nose and a tiny body. The puppy is wailing a high-pitched sound before crawling under Alice's stomach. Bella crouches to see the furball clearer, but as Alice licks and nudges her little pup, she pulls her wet tongue over Bella's face, too. Bella withdraws, grimacing and eyes closed, and Edward throws back his head in laughter.
"It's not funny," she mutters, unable to open her mouth properly because of Alice's saliva. Edward can't stop laughing when he offers her a hand towel and guides her to the living room because she's keeping her eyes shut.
"Aren't we going to help her deliver?" she asks, sitting down and rubbing her face.
"She might deliver them until the morning, and you need your energy tomorrow," he replies. "I'll keep an eye on her."
It's a cozy, quiet night, but the living room is still too cold to discard hats and mittens. Bella rests her head against the back of the couch, legs under a blanket, and Edward throws wood in the fire before sitting on the other side of the couch, legs crossed. He's wearing a warm-looking green sweater with a collar that compliments his eyes in the cutest way.
"Do your parents know you're here?"
"If dad's bothered to speak to his secretary," Bella replies. "In all likelihood, he's been told but he didn't notice. Or care."
Edward observes her as she fiddles with the edge of her blanket. "You don't speak about them often."
"I don't," she says, with no initial intention of elaborating, but then her eyes fall on Edward. He looks like he genuinely cares, and that's always been a sweet spot for her. "What do you want to know?"
"All you've told me is that your dad's a senator," he replies.
"That's because that's about all I know," she replies, half-joking. "I think we've reached a sort of mutual agreement. I rarely let them know what I'm doing so that they wouldn't have to pretend to care too often. It's win-win."
"And your grandfather?"
"Beyond excited that I'm in Alaska to visit you. He'd love you. In fact, he already might."
"He hasn't even met me," Edward replies, slightly amused.
"And thank god, he'd replace me in your eyes and I'd be left with nobody."
"I'm afraid you can't be replaced," Edward says, slightly shy as he avoids eye contact. "That's the problem."
"That's nice of you to say, but my experience proves you wrong." Bella gives him a pursed lips smile. "You know, when I was fifteen, I think, and I'd seen dad in two elections, one when I was nine and the other when I was thirteen, I was positive that my issues with my parents had everything to do with their views, so I paid a few guys in my classes to sleep on my couch and pretend to have slept with me. I then proceeded to pretend to be pregnant just to see if my parents were just as anti-abortion they claimed to be, and you know what? When it came down to it, they both insisted they'd pay for abortion. Which, of course, I didn't have because it's quite impossible to get pregnant by having paid a guy to sleep on your couch."
"Was that before or after you pretended to be gay?"
"Before. Definitely. And I guess I had problems with the way they felt they must interfere with other's people's lives so that other people would only be allowed to live the way they approved of, but I had more problems with the way they just… didn't care, you know? I've never spent a single day with them as a family."
Edward looks at her in silence. "Why didn't they show up to your graduation? They must be proud of you."
"Don't be silly, Edward," Bella scolds. "They hated that grandpa helped me pay through college. I should've been a doting wife to some stuck-up millionaire when I turned eighteen. That's how I convinced them to move to Michigan for high school, actually. I promised a scandal about the way they'd been auctioning me off to their rich friends when I was underage. I even recorded conversations. My grandfather, the kind man that he is, took me in even when he thought I was an ungrateful, rebellious twat. So I moved from Little Rock to Gladstone. To both of our surprise, though, it turned out I wasn't all that rebellious when I had a person who treated me like a human being. All it took was for someone to care."
"I'm sorry I didn't make it to your graduation," Edward says, crossing legs underneath him and resting elbows on his knees.
"You were there when I got my Bachelor's," she answers with a small smile. "And grandpa was there when I got my Master's."
"The guy who taught you to create uncomfortable situations?"
"He was just trying to avoid letting me turn into my parents."
"He succeeded."
"He did, apparently," she replies. "Turned me into an asshole instead."
Edward laughs.
"You know, to think of it, I've always been surrounded by quiet people. My parents never spoke about the problems they had, and every issue that arose meant days and weeks filled with silence. Uncomfortable silence. I could tell you a thousand and one stories about living with them, but I'd rather not. So, from early on, grandpa taught me to always address the elephant in the room because the elephant always—"
"—grows bigger over time. I remember that."
Bella smiles. "Yeah. But then, grandpa himself is quite silent. Not distant, just quiet. But he isn't hiding problems with his silence, that's just the way he is. Like you. Unless, of course, you are hiding something that makes you uncomfortable, in which case I feel like I'm back at my parent's. And that's a tension I don't want to recreate, especially with you."
She smiles apologetically, and he nods, accepting her apology.
"I never thanked you," he says.
"For being an asshole? You're welcome."
"That, too," he replies. "But mostly for saving my life."
"I would've let you drown, but then I figured, out of the two of us, you're the only one who knows how to get out of this god-forsaken place."
He returns her smile. "I don't mean just yesterday."
"So I'm your damsel in shining armor. Get used to it."
"I just might," he replies quietly, watching Bella as she adds firewood to the fireplace before returning to the couch and yawning. She rests her head on the armrest, watching the fire in the distance as she removes her mittens. In the silence that follows, both in deep thought, Bella falls asleep. Edward checks on Alice, who's given birth to two more puppies, rearranges the firewood and places warm blankets on Bella. He sits cross-legged beside the couch, daring to run his fingers through her hair. She smiles in her sleep, so he stops, lies on the carpet and pulls a flimsy blanket on him.
He lies awake for a long time, listening to puppies wail and tucking Bella in when her blankets fall on the carpet. Finally, after adding a stump in the fireplace that should warm the house until morning, he falls asleep.
A/N: Thanks a lot for reading my little story! :) See you soon.
