I updated my profile to include the music mentioned in the last chapter. I'll do that moving forward for each chapter and do my best to explain how the music I've selected fits into the story.
This chapter includes a short JPOV. He'll show up from time to time.
ALL LOVE to Badly Drawn Boy and Neko Case and Joe Purdy for their amazing music and inspiration. I've put links to their songs in my profile. The lyrics are amazing. CHECK THEM OUT :D
Please review!! Even if you think I suck ;p
SM owns all things Twilight.
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EPOV
I should feel like a sugary regret-filled asshole after what just happened between me and Bella. I let it happen. I wanted it to happen and if she didn't stop me I would have let it continue to happen all the way up to her bedroom. I'd be laying between her sheets right now with our underwear tangled in a pile on the floor and muffling my moans into her neck instead of on this hard park bench replaying that kiss over and over again, desperately tonguing the sides of my mouth to lick up the remnants of the metallic taste she's left on me.
But I'm a cheater and now she knows it. If she ever believed for one second that I was different, that I didn't have only one thing on my mind, I surely ruined any chance I had at showing her that. I can't blame her for never wanting to see me again. I'm shocked she entertained my presence at all after what I told her.
At least now I'm the scumbag she wanted me to be.
I should probably feel like a dick for what I did to Victoria. But I don't. Not even a little. And there's a pretty good reason for that.
**
The summer after I graduated from Forks High I was supposed to spend two weeks with her in California. It was my mini summer vacation before my father strong-armed me into making a decision on what I planned to do for the rest of my life.
I should have known something was up when after a celebratory dinner at my house, she took my hand and led me outside. I felt a "talk" coming on.
"Edward, I decided to take a bunch of extra classes this summer in order to graduate early. I've also been accepted to intern at Hauser, it's this amazing full-service agency in LA where I can make a ton of connections."
"Whoa, that's really great." I tried to sound enthusiastic but not only did it sound fucking boring, I had a feeling a sick blow-off was right around the corner.
"It also means that most of my time is going to be spent either in class or studying or at work."
"Uh huh. Sounds like there won't be a lot of time left over for me."
"...I think the best thing for us right now is to do our own things for awhile."
"Our own things," I repeat, crossing my arms.
"Until my life settles down. Everything is so crazy with school and work..."
"...So you said..."
"We can still talk all the time, like we do now. I'll probably be at work or in class but if you call my cell I'll definitely call you back as soon as I can."
"Wow thanks." She ignored my snarky comment and kept right on going.
"Your father told me about South America and I think it's a great idea"
"You think I should go?"
"Definitely! You'll have a great time! I'll miss you like crazy of course, but..."
And then the clincher...
"I would understand if you wanted to see someone else while you were away."
"Uhhh....Huh?"
"Edward, you're young and handsome and charming and it's only natural that women find you attractive. I've accepted that and I wouldn't be angry with you if you were with someone else. We're at a point in our lives where anything is possible and I don't want to hold you back from experiencing the world and what it has to offer."
"Like hot sex with Brazilian chicks? Yeah I suppose it would be a shame if I missed out on fucking Gisele's sister."
"It's better this way, Edward. For now, at least. I want you to have the time of your life while you're there and once I'm through with college…we'll see how it goes."
I had never been broken up with before. I wasn't sure if that's what was happening but whatever it was, it gave me a sudden and unfamiliar pressure in my chest and I felt like I was going to cry. Not the way I cried when my grandmother died or when I was a kid and didn't get my way. It was a different kind of unhappiness. It was a melancholy; a feeling of inferiority, the way you feel when you get second place in a contest or lose a race that you thought you were winning.
I knew what it was.
It was rejection.
She rested her hand lightly on my forearm in a patronizing and consolatory way that filled me with an overwhelming desire to punch her in the face.
"I know we'll see each other again. I don't want to lose you."
Then why the fuck are you dumping me? What the fuck kind of sense does that make? I wanted to say all of that and more – I wanted to call her a fucking stuck-up, elitist cunt. Instead I nodded and forced a weak smile through my pursed lips.
At that moment a cab pulled up in front of my house. It seemed she had this all planned out from the day she landed in Forks to attend my graduation and there wasn't much I could do or say to change her mind. I didn't even feel like trying.
I helped her with her bags and opened the car door for her. She stuck her head out the window and I wanted to chop it off.
"Call me when you land in Rio, ok?" She tried to look sad that she was leaving but her face betrayed her and showed what she truly felt…relief.
"Yeah. Good luck at school or whatever." Fuck you.
"Don't say goodbye, Edward. This isn't goodbye."
It sure as shit felt like goodbye. She pretty much just gave me free reign to fuck any Portuguese supermodel I wanted while she wined and dined and sixty-nined her way to the top of the corporate ladder. Fuck her.
I stood at the end of my tree-lined driveway and watched the cab retreat until it disappeared from view. I waited for the tears to come. Shouldn't I be crying? My girlfriend just dumped me. I tried to force them out, but I couldn't. They weren't there to be had. I went back into my plantation-style Tara-esque house and climbed the winding stairs to my room. I laid on my king-sized bed and assessed the past two-years of my life and the role she played in it. She was just like me on the outside. Beautiful, wealthy, intelligent, entitled. I thought so hard about the feelings I was feeling, I tried to define them. Abandonment? No. I didn't feel abandoned. Unloved? No. We never said we loved each other and if we ever did it would have been because we thought we should, not because we actually did. Ugly? Nope. I had a graduation robe full of phone numbers from willing applicants that wanted to board the Cullen-train. Long-distance ass, community college ass. I was all set. Failure? No. I didn't feel like a failure. I didn't want the same things Victoria wanted.
I thought so hard I ended up falling asleep. When I woke I had found it. The definition I was looking for. It wasn't abandonment or ugliness or resentment or failure. It wasn't even sadness I felt as I watched the cab take her away. It was…Disappointment. I was really looking forward to two weeks in the California sun.
**
It's after midnight when the cab lets me out in front of Victoria's building. I stumble out onto the sidewalk tripping over the curb giggling to myself. I had to get a cab after unsuccessfully attempting to navigate my way back here by subway. Shouldn't have sat in the bar down the block from Bella's building for an hour debating whether or not to go back to her. Six shots of Patron later...
I can only imagine the wrath that awaits me upstairs, the onslaught of interrogation questions, the look of disgust and disappointment, or maybe this time it will be her classic pissy attitude of huffing around and doing her best to show me that she's ignoring me. I spent the entire day and evening with Bella, completely lost track of time, and didn't even bother to pick up the phone to tell her I'd be home late. Normally I'd walk in with my tail between my legs, with my excuses already lined up and rehearsed on the way over, but this time I hadn't even tried.
She actually gave me a key, imagine that. I push open the door to find the place in darkness. I flip on the track lighting. Everything is just as I left it. I made sure to make the bed and clean up after myself before I left this morning.
My phone starts buzzing in my front pocket. I sift it out and flip it open.
"Yo."
"Is that how you answer the phone when your father calls?"
"Already talking in the third person, pop? This can't be a good sign."
"Have you made the appointments with the professors I referred you to?"
"Uhhh, nope."
"Have you begun looking for a job?"
"Negative," I belch into the receiver.
"You're drunk. I should have known. Already wasting valuable time..."
"I just fucking got here, dad. Can't I get a few nights of drunken debauchery in the Big Apple before I cut my balls off and give them to Victoria to put in a glass case?"
"That is not why I agreed to pay your way to New York, Edward. If it were up to me you'd be at the University of Washington on your way to a degree in medicine and on a path..."
"...That you've clearly defined and would have complete control of." I'm going to pass out any second but I have to get this out.
"You won't be happy until you're navigating my entire life. You told me I should work things out with Vic after she finished college, and I did. I went to LA. Practically begged her to take me back. Then she moves to New York..."
"...She was presented with an amazing opportunity that she would have been a fool not to take. If only you could recognize..."
"...And if that didn't shrink my man-sack enough, the two of you convince me to follow her out here like her fucking bitch..."
"Edward your language is reprehensible. Is this how you speak to your mother?"
"...Where she's the only person I know and I have to schedule a meeting with her fucking assistant to have lunch with her! Staying in her ridiculous apartment with a bullshit community college education and you all disappointed in me every fucking second and appointments at law schools I never showed any fucking interest in that YOU decided would be the right thing for me!"
"This ungrateful side of you is very disappointing, Edward..."
"I feel like I'm in an arranged fucking marriage!!"
"You're my son and I won't let you be an embarrassment to this family."
"Right cuz there's nothing embarrassing about being pussy-whipped by a woman as long as she's successful, right!? Put mom on."
I'm going to throw up Maker's Mark all over Vicky's cashmere couch or whateverthefuck if I have to listen to Daddy's voice for one more nauseating second.
"Edward? Sweetie?" My mother's delicate chirp calms me.
"Hi, ma. Dad sounds pissed." To put it mildly. I hear him in the background ranting. Entitled little punk, ungrateful brat.
"I wish you wouldn't fight with him. He only wants what's best for you, even if he has a tough way of showing it."
"Please don't stick up for him."
"He's your father, Edward. He loves you..."
"As long as I play by his rules. As long as I give in."
I hate arguing with my mother. She may have been medicated my entire life and had one too many high-balls at dinner every night but I always knew she loved me and Rosalie. She told us we were smart and beautiful. Her little angels. Her shining stars. Her precious babies. And as corny as it sounds, those are the things I remember about growing up in the Cullen clan. Not the fact that she stood behind my father as he told me to pack my things and get the fuck out of his house.
I hang up on her just as Victoria walks through the door, dumping her briefcase on the island in the center of the kitchen.
"I could hear you arguing out in the hall. Was that your father?"
"Uh huh. Then it was a tag team match, only I was missing a player." I walk away without kissing her hello – I doubt she notices – and slump on the couch. I reach down and pull the guitar case to my lap and rest my hands on it. I want to take it out and practice the song I started writing on the subway ride back from Bella's but I don't want to share it with Victoria.
"What's wrong, Edward?" She's unfastening her skirt on her way into the bedroom. Normal, pre-Bella me would have followed her in there and given her a hand, and by hand I mean bent her over the dresser and rode her until I forgot what I was angry about. But post-Bella me doesn't feel like forgetting anymore.
"I don't know how to make him happy."
"You need to start fresh," she calls out.
"You mean start over. Completely disregard who I am."
"I never said that."
"Look, I didn't even ask you where the fuck you've been all night," I snarl. "Did I?"
"I misplaced the number to your cell. I left a message on the house phone."
"Like I even know how to use that space station you call an answering machine."
I'm wrong. I'm drunk. I'm fucked in the head. I'm arguing with her and being an asshole for no reason. Because I don't want to be here. Because I feel trapped. Because I want time to reverse. Because I wish I never met Bella. Then I could be a pussy-whipped bitch and settle and never know she existed. I'm a scumbag, remember?
"I moved out here for you, Victoria. And you only let me bring one bag. Can you fit all of your possessions into one bag?"
"You're drunk."
"Stunning observation. Maybe you should be the lawyer."
The shrill ring of her Blackberry echoes through the apartment.
"I have to get this."
"Of course you do." I roll my eyes as she picks up.
"Yes? ...Jackson, is everything alright? ...I thought the presentation went well and....he did? Tomorrow night? Where? ...Yes, we'll be there. ...Yes, Edward, too."
BPOV
I trip my way up the stairs. Fucking flip flops. Fucking super still hasn't fixed the lighting in the entranceway or staircase. I've fallen over my feet this week more times than I can count. Asshole. I race down the hall to my door and fumble with the lock. I'm inside in record time. I slam the door behind me, kick off my flip flops and dart into the bathroom where I can finally let it out. I make sure to grab the cordless phone on the way.
He won't see you cry in here. He won't know.
I don't even bother turning on the light. I lean against the door to support my shaking body. The street lamp outside gives just enough illumination without allowing me to see my reflection in the mirror. I hug my arms underneath my rib cage and bend over at my waist. I let the sobs rack my body with a power all their own. The pain in my stomach is as real as if someone had sliced through it with a blade. My chest is heavy with the weight of a thousand regrets.
I can't get the picture of his face out of my mind, the look of overwhelming sadness and understanding in his eyes as his lips left mine. He let go with no questions asked. He nodded in agreement.
We can't do this.
Then why do I want to run to the window, fling it open, and beg for him to come back?
My throat is parched and raw from the force of my cries. My stuttered breaths. I stand upright and wipe my eyes so I can find the numbers to dial Jasper's cell. There's no way I can call Alice like this.
"Hey, Juh-Jazz?" I stammer between muffled sniveling.
"Bell??"
"...Uh huh..." I barely eke it out as another wave of sadness hits me. Edward and I have never even spoken on the phone. I'll never know what that soothing voice sounds like from the other end of a phone line. Suddenly it's worth everything to me to hear his voice again.
Jasper's tone is growing in agitation. "Where are you? What's wrong?"
"I'm h-home. You...wanna...come over... and...talk to me?"
"I'm getting off my shift now. I'll be right over. Did something happen?? Did Jake show up again? You know what I told you to do if..."
"No. Not him. Different boy. Different pain. Same need for chocolate ice cream though. Pick up a couple pints on your way over?"
**
I managed to crawl to the bedroom and change into gray checkered cotton pajama bottoms and a Joy Division t-shirt before hitting the button on the stereo and slumping back on the bathroom floor.
I'm still there when Jazz arrives. He pushes the door into my head and drops to his knees to rub where it hit. He smells like food.
"Bell-bunny, what happened?"
"Nothing," I sniff.
"Uh, okayyy, so why are you huddled in a ball on the bathroom floor – which needs to be scrubbed by the way – listening to Badly Drawn Boy?"
As we speak "Camping Next to Water" is wafting emo-ly out of my small, but powerful surround sound speakers.
But there's no use in feeling
All the things I'm feeling
There's no one here to feel with me
A groovy sound system is a must. Another worthy investment that my broke-ass doesn't regret.
"I just saw you this morning and you were fine."
"No I wasn't."
"You looked fine to me."
"Yeah…that was before he came back."
"Before who came back?"
I slide my legs underneath me and fold into a sitting position. I run my fingers through the knots in my hair.
"Really? I'm shocked Alice hasn't told you. I met someone yesterday…a guy."
"Christ I leave you alone for two seconds and you get a boyfriend."
"Ha. Yeah. Someone else's." I cross my arms at my chest and rock.
"Huh?"
"It's…forget it. We ran into each other yesterday, ran over me is more like it, and then he came back today and hung out at the club for hours and walked me home and one thing led to another on the stoop aaaaand…"
Uggggh my head is starting to hurt. I want his phone number so I can call and hang up before he answers like I used to do when I liked a boy when I was 14.
"What's this dickhead's name?"
"Edward Cullen. And he's not a dickhead. He's tall and smart and hot, fuck OFF he's hot. And for a second I thought he might actually like me. But he has a girlfriend."
"WHAT?" Now he really sounded like Alice.
"Yes I know. He's a pig. Now gimme the fucking ice cream so I can drown my sorrows and move on."
Thirty minutes later after every last spoonful is gone and my stomach is aching from the chocolate overload, Jazz starts to nod off on my couch swallowed by the array of multi-colored pillows that cover it. He was probably put to sleep from my non-stop agonizingly detailed description of the way Edward's shirt clings to his back and hangs down the muscled line of his spine.
I put a pillow under his head and spread a blanket over him on the couch. I get one of each for myself and put a pot of coffee on. Then I grab my notebook off the kitchen table and sit on the floor by Jazz's feet to write until the sun comes up.
JPOV
Oh baby, why I am worried now?
Did someone make a fool of me? Before I could show them how it's done?
I can't give up acting tough
It's all I'm made of
Can't scrape together quite enough
To ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love
She's lightly breathing when I wake up, which means she has fallen asleep an hour ago at the most. I look at the clock. 6:56am. My lunch shift at the restaurant starts at 11am and I desperately need to get home for a shower and a shave.
Her cheek rests on the left-hand page of her open notebook. I feel bad reading over her shoulder but I can't help it. It's the only time I get a true glimpse into her head, into what's going on inside that fascinating mind of hers. There are pages scattered at her feet scrawled in her windy handwriting. I don't pick them up because I don't want her to know I've read them.
I've always been overly protective of her. It started the first day we met.
**
I was dropping my mother off at the Port Authority Bus Terminal after her bi-monthly week-long visit/imposition when I saw the most pitiful quivering lump of sad girl curled up on one of the curbside benches near the ticket plaza and information booth.
She looked asleep but when I bent over I looked directly into her wide brown eyes, blinking but not seeing.
"Are you alright, miss? Do you need a doctor?"
Three glasses of ice water and about ten cups of Seattle's Best from the vending cart later, I convinced her I wasn't with the group of assholes that knocked her down and that I wasn't going to rob her. I was one of the good guys and I'd help her find her friend Alice.
Three train connections later, she was in the proud possession of this wondrous creature called Alice and I had two new girls in my life in less than two hours.
At a party three weeks later, she'd meet Jacob Black and it would take me months to forgive myself for letting that happen.
**
I quietly let myself out and lock the door behind me. I know better than to attempt to move her.
EPOV
Her last words to me were…don't come back. But her eyes betrayed her. I can still see the desperation they held; daggers drilling into me with a hunger, a breathless longing that said it all. I want you to come inside. She knew I had a girlfriend and yet she still wanted me. She's known me two days and she was the one who willingly shoved her glorious tongue down my throat, who moaned into my mouth first, who tugged at my belt loops and pressed her pelvis into the erection that she knew would be there.
And then she pushed me away. Any other asshole out for a fuck would have called her a cock-tease, but I respected her for it and hated myself.
So I left, just like she asked. And I would stay away, just like she asked.
Which is why instead of being at the Bowery's Open Mic Night fullfilling my end of our bargain, I am accompanying Victoria to the Waldorf-Astoria for some kind of celebratory soiree to congratulate her company landing a new account or some bullshit. Victoria prepped me on the details the cab ride over after she had dressed me in acceptable clothes. The black dress pants she bought fit perfectly and hung down my legs to land exactly at the top of my shiny Kenneth Cole dress shoes. A new black leather belt, a starched and pressed white fitted dress shirt and black fitted blazer. I cleaned up pretty damn well and had just enough stubble to know that it was the right amount to drive the stuck up bitches wild.
"We've been in a bidding war with other agencies for months competing for this business. Our team put together the best plan and presented it to the client and they loved it! They went with us hands down. It's going to mean a lot of late nights at the office to fulfill on all the promises we made them but oooh its going to be so great for our company, Edward. And for my career."
I stopped listening after "bidding war". It was more interesting to look out the cab window at the city lights rushing by and the tremendous skyscrapers disappearing into the black abyss of night.
"I heard Gary from legal say they could use an assistant to help with all the busy work that comes along with landing such a high-profile account. We'll probably be getting sued every other day. It could be a great stepping for you so I gave them your name, told them you'll be attending either Columbia or Pace, if you want to pursue environmental law which in this day and age could be a gold mine in terms of the number of cases, then Pace..."
I'm going to fall into a fucking coma before I've had my first glass of champagne if she keeps going on like this. She and my father may want things to go back to the way they were when I was a teenager and didn't care that she had the upper hand as long as I was getting laid and not having to commit to her or anyone else, yes'ing her and my father to death so I could get drunk in peace. But I'm not 17 anymore and my patience with this shit is getting thinner and thinner.
I want to dive out of this cab head first and run the thirty blocks back to the apartment. I want to change into something worn and wrinkled that hasn't been washed in days, grab my guitar and find Bella.
"Are you comfortable in that?" I ask without emotion, finally looking at her. Victoria's dress looks like it's made of a boa constrictor swallowing her alive.
"I got it at the Prada sample sale. Invite only. No one else will have it."
"But is it comfortable?"
"It doesn't have to be comfortable."
BPOV
I don't normally drink behind the bar, especially during Friday Night Open Mic. It's too busy and I don't like making mistakes, but I need it tonight so I'm going one for one on the shots of Kettle One with Donovan and some overly-flirtatious and already drunk NYU co-ed.
"Take it easy, B. That's four and you're tiny."
I smile and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand before pouring two Sierra Nevada's for a customer.
I'm glad I'm getting a good buzz on because as the clock approaches 10pm I know I only have a short time left to live. Jasper just arrived and is tuning up for his set. He gives me a thumbs up and I force a smile. Every time Emmett rounds the corner I stand between his line of sight so he can't see Jasper in the corner.
Too late.
"What's blondie doing here? It's not country night is it?"
"No idea. 'Nother shot of Jager, Em?" He's already looking at me cross eyed. I've been trying to get him drunk all night.
"For your birthday. Don't get your panties in a bunch, I'll throw some cash in the till to cover it."
If Em keeps it up, he has a sweet spot for Jager, he won't even notice when Jazz takes the stage. Donovan works Friday night's with me and after a few more shots, Em will be craving a joint that D will happily provide, and they'll disappear out the back door of the club indefinitely.
Right now there was a not-good beatboxer on stage and Alice and I are taking turns rolling our eyes and giggling into our shoulders at the lame-ass rhymes he's coming up with. We clap and hoot and holler from behind the bar. I'm pretending to have a good time but every time the front door opens my eyes dart in hope that it could be Edward.
I don't know why I expect him to show after what happened last night and the way I talked to him. The look of disappointment in his eyes – not because I wasn't going to have sex with him, but because I was stopping any chance of anything happening before it started.
"Hey."
"Hey! The human beat-box is hysterical," I say cheerfully.
"Stop faking it."
"Faking what?" I make change for the Jack and Coke and Alice's hand grabs my wrist.
"Why didn't you tell me? And don't say tell you what. You know what I mean."
Jasper. I should have known he'd spill my breakdown to Alice. It was too good of a gossip nugget for him not to use as a conversation piece with his wannabe lady-love. Gross.
"Because I know you don't want me to see him and I didn't want you to get pissed."
"He's got a girlfriend, Bella!"
"See what I mean?! Did you think I forgot that or something? I said I wasn't going to see him again, alright!??? FUCK!!"
I grab the bottle of Kettle One out of D's hand and over-fill a shot glass and glug it down. Some of it rolls down my chin and neck and between my breasts and the creep at the end of the bar claps in appreciation. I smirk, wiping my hand down the front of my tight plain white tee.
I know Alice is only trying to protect me, just like Jazz does. I was a pretty big mess after I broke things off with Jake and he turned crazy, but this was starting to get ridiculous. I was finally interested in a guy again, and yeah, it was a fucked up situation, but HELLO welcome to my life.
I hear an Alice-sized sigh as Jazz starts to strum. She looks at me with a crinkled brow.
"Fine. I'll cover for you. Go find him. 91st and 1st, remember?"
As if I could forget.
**
The cab ride is positively excruciating. Traffic is a bitch and a half. It's beginning to drizzle for the first time in six weeks and the AC in the cab is blowing so cold that my skin feels covered in a sheet of ice. We arrive at the crosswalk and I tell the driver to pull over. You'd think the rain would cool off the suffocating heat, but no. The drops are hanging in the air sticking to everything and making it hard to breathe. Or maybe that's just the clamping in my chest as I hand the driver a few bills and he takes off into traffic.
What the fuck am I doing here? What do I expect to happen? Am I going to stand in front of his building like John Cusack in "Say Anything" holding a boom box over my head?
I can't change what I said to him last night or the fact that I meant it at the time. Nor can I change the reality that I pushed him away and sent him back into the arms of his girlfriend.
Now that I'm here, standing on the street corner of his block, I feel the space around me containing particles of him. Like the air his body pushed through as he walked by kept molecules of his scent and soul behind just for me. He's been here but I don't know where to start and the rain is starting to fall harder.
I check my watch. It's 12:45am.
My eyes narrow as each passing car throws multi-colored lights across the dampening pavement. I cross the crowded street, searching, scanning the blurry faces looking for the one I recognize. They rush past me. I'm in their way. They know where they're going and I'm lost. This was a bad idea.
And it's going to get worse.
A black livery cab pulls up next to me and the door opens into my leg. I jump back into the shadows of a building as the passengers exit.
My skin prickles as she steps out. Tall, statuesque, perfect breasts, perfect dress, long hair flowing brilliant red down her back. Even in the dark I can see it's luster.
I'm a street rat in comparison. Mousy brown hair tangled and pulled back in a stringy ponytail. Pale, short and plain. Unexciting and inferior in high-top black Converse and torn zebra-stripped knee highs.
I suck in my breath and hold it until I see him emerge. He steps out behind her and the tears are instantly streaming down my cheeks, intermingling with the rain drops. I want to cry out. He shuts the door and puts his hand on the small of her back to support her as they walk into the building. He's steadying her so she doesn't slip but he's not smiling. The rain drops fall willingly into his unkempt hair and sparkle like diamonds on each thick strand. He's dapper and distinguished and I'm filled with pride for having known him for those few short hours. To be the one on his warm arm will remain a dream.
He nods to the doorman like a true gentleman and holds the door open for her to pass through.
I'm standing too close and he sees me through the glass. His eyes widen with shock and recognition. He knows me this way.
"Bella?" I see his mouth move and his voice echoes in the vestibule. She hears it too and she turns.
He doesn't hesitate. He opens the door and is back out in the rain walking towards me, stepping in puddles in his fancy shoes. He reaches me with a sigh of relief.
"What are you doing here?"
"I don't know. I had to see you again." He's standing too close. I can't think. There's a droplet of water running down the side of his nose towards his mouth. The back of my white shirt is soaked from the rain pouring off the awning.
There's concern in his large green eyes. They're flittering back and forth across mine and I want to grab onto him and cling to his strong back for dear life.
"I'm glad you did. Really glad. You have no idea how glad..." his hands have found my wrists and are gripping them roughly.
"Edward?! Are you coming? My father is waiting inside." her sharp voice calls out through the crack in the door and her face is frowning and squinting to see where he went.
He looks back at her and nods, letting go of me.
She wins. She gets him tonight.
He leans in quickly and whispers into my face before backing up. "Sometimes I go to the park by your house."
I inhale his musty smell and lick my lips. I knew I saw him there that day among the crowd.
"You do?" I say breathlessly.
He's reached the door. His hand is on the handle but his eyes haven't left mine and his smile is intoxicating as it spreads across his beautiful face.
"Uh huh."
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