Thanks for all the reviews and adds this week. I might have used them to justify an early update. Just so you know ;)
Thanks to Stratan for the beta work, and thankies to stephk0525 for prereading everything I've written so far. She's amazingness. I heart her.
Uh, I always forget to include this, because I'm kind of a hermit. I'm on Twitter if you want in. (at)JT040708
Ok, onto some more progress...
Chapter 8
Edward
Bella shifted next to me, rolling over so that she faced me, and slowly opened her eyes. I'd watched her sleep all night, strangely unable to stop myself from listening to every sigh and sound that had escaped her mouth. She was a talker it seemed, and I'd hung on every word spoken in the night, hoping that something discernible would come out or that I'd get some insight into the girl that I couldn't stay away from.
Infuriatingly, it had been nothing but gibberish. Talk of that girl named Alice and something about missing pizza, of all fucking things, was all I could seem to decipher, and it had me plotting to stalk her in the night just to learn everything I could about her.
After all, asking was just entirely too fucking easy.
A smile crossed her face as soon as she blinked me into focus. She was rumpled from sleep and absolutely breathtaking. I had to move back toward the edge of the bed so that I didn't take her and just… rip off her clothes. Drive into her until we both fell into mindless oblivion. Catch my breath.
Repeat the process all over again.
It was nerve-wracking how much my body reacted to just the thought of hers. Every second we were alone was torture, and I wondered idly if I'd always feel this way… if I were even supposed to. It wouldn't surprise me if I were addicted to her. Addiction was, after all, deeply rooted in my family tree.
Which would be the reason why I was currently about to sell my left fucking kidney for a smoke.
"Hi," she whispered, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth, looking embarrassed for some reason.
And then it hit me. She was trying to cover up any morning breath she might have had.
I had the strange urge to laugh again with that, but I just pulled her hand away. "Hi."
She twisted her hand around in mine in a futile effort to get it back up to her lips. "It's bad," she warned. "Like knock you on your ass bad."
"Right." I rolled my eyes.
"It is," she insisted.
"Then why don't you turn your head that way so I don't suffocate?" I said, pointing toward the wall behind her.
She pushed at me a little, her eyes widening as soon as she realized what she'd done. I couldn't have her worrying all of the time; oddly enough, I knew right then that I wanted her to feel comfortable around me. She was the only one I wanted that with, other than the members of my family, and even they weren't able to touch me at will. So I grabbed for her arms and tugged her closer to me, fighting every instinct I had to either run or stake my claim on her.
Because fuck if she didn't look edible in the morning.
"I thought maybe I was dreaming and that you really hadn't snuck into my bedroom last night. Or that maybe yesterday didn't happen at all."
"It happened," I assured her, and I had no fucking clue how it did. One second I was sitting on the shore of First Beach trying to come up with a way to escape this town, these feelings and this girl, and the next I was lying next to her in her room, while her father slept obliviously down the hall, and telling her things I'd never told another soul outside the medical profession. She was so nonjudgmental; nothing I said had fazed her yet, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for that split second when I finally told her a piece of my past and watched as her self-preservation kicked in and she left me to face it all on my own.
Or drive it away again. It made no difference because no matter which I chose, I knew it would hurt to watch her go. And that terrified me even more than all the strange, unknown feelings that had coursed through me these last few weeks. Because opening up to someone, only to have them reject you, would be...
I wasn't exactly sure. Hell, I presumed.
She shifted and sighed, and I had to grit my teeth against the sudden need to skim my fingers over her jaw and through her hair. This view was so new to me, and something I still couldn't imagine seeing every day for as long as I lived, like my parents did. But somewhere down deep I thought that maybe I wanted it, regardless of how I hadn't the slightest idea of how to start living that particular fantasy. Or if it was even possible. I was still the same Edward Cullen that had poison running through his veins.
Maybe Emmett was right. Maybe I wasn't destined to be alone after all. But merging this newfound desire with who I was before seemed impossible. I was so set in my ways, so fucking contaminated…
She reached out and ran her thumb over the frown line that formed between my brows. "Whatever it is you're thinking, stop."
I sighed. "I don't know how to do this."
"You keep saying that," she responded, her annoyance clear, "so why don't you quit trying to figure it out and just take it one day at a time? I'm not any more experienced than you, Edward."
I stared at her in confusion. "What?"
"I've never had a boy…" Blood pooled in her cheeks, and she quickly tried to cover up what she'd started to say. "I mean-"
"Boyfriend," I interjected. "I know what you meant."
I didn't know if that's what I could be considered at this point, but I wasn't about to get hung up on a label. I had enough of that shit on my own.
"Yeah, well, I didn't even have one of those lame kind in kindergarten. I've never kissed anyone or held hands or-"
"What the fuck?" Bella flinched at my harsh tone. "How have you never…? I don't get it, Bella. You're so... so... Why weren't any of those fuckers in Phoenix chasing you down?"
She glanced down to where her hands sat in between us. "I don't know. I was never interesting before, I guess. When I finally got the notice of a boy I liked in high school, I was diagnosed. So…"
I reached up and shoved my hair off of my forehead, searching for the appropriate words to say back to that. But I came up empty.
Jesus, I was a fucking moron sometimes.
"What about you? How inexperienced are you?"
"Uh…" My gut twisted at the one memory I refused to so much as acknowledge, much less confess, and I took a deep breath, hoping for flippancy when I answered. "Same. I've never done the whole girlfriend thing."
She searched my face before she rolled over, knowing how full of shit I was and not to press for more information. Every time she did that, my chest ached with more than simple gratitude. It was inconceivable that I'd met someone else who innately knew me like Esme did.
But here she was, lying beside me with her brown hair in tangles and her t-shirt bunched at her waist, exposing her creamy, smooth stomach...
I jumped off of the bed and retook my post in the rocking chair, running my hands over my hair, my face, my arms... everything I could reach. I shouldn't have been here with her, touching her. With every touch I marred her more, until everything I despised in myself would seep right into her and destroy the things I enjoyed most about her.
I couldn't do it to her.
"I can't... I have to..." I abruptly stood up and strode for the window.
She managed to beat me to it.
"No." She gave me a fierce look. "Stop running from everything, Edward. You will never have any kind of life if you don't."
I blinked rapidly. "What?"
"You will be stuck in this... this limbo… you've forced yourself into forever," she clarified. "If not with me then the next girl. Then the next after that and the next after that..."
I didn't like her talking about the "next girl". I wanted to scream at her to stop, but I couldn't pinpoint why.
So I kept silent and listened to the rest of her speech, the one that had me pegged as a coward and a liar. There wasn't a single day that I didn't lie to someone—to myself—about something, a single day that I didn't run away from my past.
"...Over and over again until you're old and senile. And alone. You'll be that poor bastard with no one mourning him at his funeral because he pushed them all away."
I gazed at her warily, feeling those words resound in me. Whatever was happening was bigger than either of us could manage alone, and it was completely pointless to keep fighting it. I'd denied the attraction she held for me for too long and was going to find myself sitting in a padded cell soon if I didn't stop. I didn't know why she enticed me the way she did, but I no longer wanted to think about it. Something about this girl made me want to try my hand at living again. Fleeing now would bring me right back to where I was before she stepped into my life. She was helping me find all the scattered pieces of my soul and pasting them back together again... with me.
I didn't want to be this broken, defeated, pathetic excuse for a human being anymore.
So I tried to explain why I was so fucked up, hoping that maybe it would settle the current raging inside me. I needed her to know why I was always pushing and pulling at her. I needed her to know all the doubt I had. But most importantly, I needed her to understand me and my life. What it was before and what it is was now. Maybe what it would always be.
"Addiction runs in my family," I started, telling her the very thing I'd been thinking earlier. "It chokes the life out of all of us and every one who cares about us. I can't have that for you. I don't know when it might come or what my addiction will be-"
She took a step closer, stopping my words. "Addiction," she repeated. "That's what this is about?"
Party. Mostly. Not at all.
I didn't say any of that aloud, though.
"My biological grandfather was an alcoholic… My supposed mother... She was addicted to everything. If she could get her hands on it, she used it. She..." Oh, fuck, I wasn't sure how to explain it without telling her the one thing I'd kept hidden away for so long. "I was hungry a lot of the time because she was too fucking strung out to remember I was around."
Tears welled in her eyes, and her hand came up to rub her chest, something I'd seen her do a few times since she'd arrived. I didn't think she even realized she did it half the time, and it made me wonder what it was about her surgery that had her making that unconscious movement.
And with that, I had a sudden urge to read that brown, leather bound journal sitting on her desk. I wanted it so bad, in fact, my hand twitched at my side, desperate to touch it.
"What the fuck are the tears for?" I questioned, ignoring it. I would never invade Bella's privacy like that. If I could never find it in me to give her what she deserved, I could at least give her this.
Respect.
"Because... I don't... Why didn't she give you up?" she cried softly. "Why didn't the state come and take you away from that? How was it that you were left behind like that?"
I didn't understand her words. They were cryptic somehow, like she knew so much more than what those simple words said. It made no sense to me. She knew nothing about me, because I hadn't let her in before now.
But I tried to answer her anyway.
"She… she was a master at hiding things from people," I sighed, thinking of how I inherited that very same trait. Those who knew me well knew that I was fucked up. They just didn't know the reasons why. "No one knew anything was wrong until it was too late."
"Oh."
"But I mean, she wasn't always like that," I continued. "I don't really remember it, but I remember finding pictures of her before... with whom she always said was my father. She was so beautiful, Bella. Not like the Elizabeth I knew."
It was a pageantry kind of beautiful, perfection that belonged on stage. Her hair was the same strange color of red as mine, and her eyes were this unbelievable shade of green… A green that went dull and glassy as time went on. She was thin with a body most women would die for, and at one time, had the complexion to match.
Then there was her smile. Her smile could light up the room. If I let myself, I could remember feeling so warm and safe and happy when she smiled at me. Bella's smile gave me that same feeling only it was amplified in some way, more intense. Bella was warm and beautiful and happy, just like Elizabeth had been.
Until she discovered how it felt to get high, that is. Then the warmth faded and the smile died. And I was left with a shadow of that woman for my mother.
"What happened to him, your father?"
"I don't know," I replied. I was so ready to shut down again and keep her from digging anything else of my past up, but I forced myself to continue. I wouldn't keep being so hypocritical with her, ferreting out all the information I could about her life while giving nothing up of my own. "Elizabeth didn't tell me, and I never fucking asked. He left me... to rot... with her. He's not worth my time."
"I'm sorry."
"So you see? I can't do that to you, Bella. I can't make you suffer like that."
"You won't," she said emphatically. "You could never hurt anyone like that."
"You don't know-"
"And neither do you."
"But it's in me... I smoke, I drink, I've tried it all, Bella. I tried everything I could to take this pain away," I said, giving her a moment to process my meaning.
When she did, she simply cocked her brow for me to continue. I couldn't think of many other people that would possibly be as accepting as her. It was unbelievable.
"I want..." I shook my head. "No, crave you already. I feel it all the time, taunting me. You don't know what I am, what I've done..."
"Then tell me," she breathed.
But I couldn't. The words, no matter how much I wanted them to, simply wouldn't come.
Involuntarily, I inched closer to her. I searched for something to hang on to and save me from this magnetism that kept forcing us together. But there was nothing to grab, nothing to ground myself to. Nothing but Bella standing before me... watching, waiting.
Hoping.
And then suddenly my mouth was on hers. Her lips were plump and ripe and melded perfectly to mine. My blood spiked the second my tongue slid over hers. My heart raced when she clung to my shirt and pulled me closer, silently begging for more. She tasted like sunlight and smelled like coconut, of all things. She made every inch of me come alive.
She made me forget who I was, who I am, my name... my flaws. I lost myself in her every time I touched her, looked at her. She pulled me in; she numbed the ache, yet somehow made me feel again, so much more than I was ready for.
I pressed her against the wall, making sure every line of my body touched every curve of hers. Her hands were in my hair, grabbing at it and trying to get me even closer to her. She shifted against me in the most incredible way, and a low groan bubbled up in my chest. Fuck, I wanted her naked and wrapped around me. I wanted to make her scream out a thousand obscenities as she came. I wanted to feel her pliant and clinging to me afterward, burrowing her head against my chest as she slept. I wanted to fall asleep with her and not be woken up by nightmare after nightmare, memory after memory. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be loved.
But it was more than that now. I just wanted her.
With a jerk of my head, I broke away from her, panting and staring down at her in shock. I hadn't planned to do anything that... significant with her anytime in the foreseeable future—if ever. Yet I did. And I had no idea how it'd happened. It just the few short hours that I'd been with her, I'd managed to give up trying to stay away from Bella Swan and doing the complete opposite.
I'd attacked her. I'd overstepped my bounds and given into that craving I had for her, practically devouring-
Her smile stopped my internal rambling. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen from how hard I'd kissed her. She didn't say anything for a while, likely trying to get her bearings as I was. And when she did, my heart stopped.
"Wow," she rasped. "That was just... huh. Hands down, best first kiss ever."
Dazed. That's what she was. I'd done that to her, but I didn't know if I should be pleased or not; I'd never been in this situation before.
Something swelled up inside me, anyway.
"I have to go," I murmured. "The chief will be up soon, and you have work."
A pout formed on her lips, and I suddenly found myself hurriedly trying to make it go away.
"I'll pick you up, though," I offered. "We can have lunch later too?"
It worked. She broke out into a gorgeous grin, and I nearly bent down to kiss her again. Stunned with myself, I stepped further away from her.
"That'd be nice. See you soon?"
"Yeah," I answered, hopping up on the window ledge to get out of here before I did something stupid. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
I was nervous as fucking hell as I waited outside the car for Bella. I fidgeted with my t-shirt until I realized how stupid I looked and then shoved them down in my pockets instead. I couldn't stop wishing like mad for a smoke. It'd been over twenty-six hours since I'd had one. Twenty-six hours, eleven minutes, and… fifty-five seconds.
Not that I was counting or anything.
But I wasn't just anxious because I was going through nicotine withdrawals, despite the fact that I was wearing one of those stupid fucking patches on my arms. Now that I was here, in public, I was realizing how much I didn't deserve to be walking beside Bella, having her smile at me, or holding my hand, even, as we walked through the doors. It was wrong for her to want it, wrong for me to let her. Damn it, I wanted to just push her back into my Volvo and head up the trail again, or maybe spend all day sitting in her room. At least there I felt more like her equal and not the street trash I was. Here in reality, it was all magnified and staring right at me.
I was, without a doubt, wholly unworthy of her.
"Where do you want to go for lunch?" Bella asked cheerfully, carefully shutting the car door behind her.
"Um, I uh..." I ran my hand through my hair and waited for my heart to beat out of my chest and onto the asphalt as she neared. I'd had the same reaction when she'd rushed out of Chief Swan's house earlier with her gauzy, cream colored dress billowing behind her with the wind, and I swallowed thickly as I tried to get a handle on it.
She giggled at my inability to communicate, causing my eyes to narrow a little defensively. I had to make a conscious effort not to lash out at her, forcing myself to remember that this was normal interaction between two people and that I'd seen it nearly every day with my parents or Emmett and Rosalie. She giggled not out of malice, but because the idiotic stuttering I did somehow made her happy.
Though I really couldn't see how.
"You look good," I muttered.
"Why, thank you." She did a little twirl, and I felt a smile pull at my lips. She was so damned joyful this morning.
I wondered if maybe I had something to do with it.
She abruptly stopped and stared up at me. "Oh, was that a smile?" she breathed in awe.
"Not quite." At least, I didn't think it was.
"Ah, shit." She did that pout again, the one that made my chest tighten uncomfortably. "What do I have to do to get you to smile?"
"I'm… I don't really know," I admitted honestly. "I don't usually have a reason to. You're the only thing that makes me even remotely happy these days."
"That's sad, Edward. Really, really sad."
Tell me about it.
"So anyway, back to lunch. How about that sandwich shop up the road? I hear they have good salads."
"Yeah, fine. Whatever." I was going to be so worried about trying not to snap at her that I doubted I'd be eating much of anything. So it really didn't matter where we went later.
"Go smoke," she said knowingly.
"What?"
"Go..." She glanced around the parking lot. "Go by the sign and smoke. Then we can go in. You look like you're about to combust. It's kind of funny, but I think that maybe if I laugh, you might bite my head off."
I gave her an annoyed look, locking my teeth together so I didn't, in fact, bite her head off.
"Go," she repeated. "You'll feel better afterwards."
"No, I..." I scrubbed at my scalp angrily. "I really should quit."
"So why haven't you?"
"Didn't give enough a shit about what it was doing to my body to?"
"And you do now?"
"I... I'm not sure yet," I responded.
She sighed and took a step closer to me, her fingers grazing over mine. "Last one, then. It can be like some sort of freaky cleansing ritual."
One I highly doubted would work, but if she insisted I do it, I knew I would. Something in me wanted to please her all of the time.
I didn't think I necessarily liked it. Or maybe I did, and I just wasn't aware of it yet.
Fucking hell, this was confusing.
I hurried away from Bella and over to the shop's sign at the road before I could think about that any more. I had a feeling if I made any kind of attempt to figure it out, I'd be shoving her away out of frustration again. And that was the last thing I wanted, to push her away. I may have had moments of anxiousness or discomfort with her, but it was because I didn't have any idea how to act around people, and I was finding that I constantly second guessed every word said between us. It had nothing to do with Bella herself. I wanted her with me.
I knew it with everything I was now.
The cigarette seemed to be gone before I could blink. I flicked the stub out onto the road and turned back toward Bella, feeling more relaxed than I had in days. I wasn't sure if it was the nicotine that was now in my system or if that ridiculous cleansing ritual Bella had referred to actually worked. Whatever it was, I went with it, rushing back to where that beautiful girl stood and took her hand in mine, interlacing our fingers together and leading her inside.
Like ripping off a Band-Aid…
Bella stopped us as soon as we reached the door. "Are you sure?" she asked, chewing on her lips as she stared down at our joined hands.
No, but it didn't matter. For some reason, I needed to prove to myself that I was good enough to have Bella on my arm, in spite of every kind of fucked up mutation my DNA had.
With a deep breath, I nodded and pulled open the door. The second Bella came through it slammed behind us, alerting everyone to the fact that we were here.
But it wasn't as big of a deal as I'd made it out to be. We weren't exactly the center of attention; most of the guys didn't even glance away from the vehicles they were working on. There were a few double takes as we walked further inside, a few sets of eyes darting to where I held Bella's hand in mine, but mostly, no one was surprised to see us together.
Not even my brother.
He smirked behind the hood of an old Chevelle, and I knew he was watching us, even though I could never seem to catch his gaze. I walked with Bella to her office, gave her hand a quick squeeze before releasing it, and then made my way over to grab the next clipboard on the wall.
I found the matching set of keys hanging beside it, and headed out to the parking lot to get the first job of the day, fully expecting some asinine remark to come from Emmett's mouth now that I was alone. But there was nothing.
I eventually got the car up on the lift and an oil pan set under the chassis. I went to drain the oil, and finally couldn't fucking take it anymore.
"Just say it, Emmett."
He flashed me a grin, a triumphant, cocky grin that had my hands balling up into fists at my sides. "I fucking knew it when Mom told Rosie you'd gone hiking with her. I knew it."
"There's nothing to know. I like her, but I'm just…"
"Lost."
"Yeah," I sighed.
"So how was it, the hike?"
"Fine." He waited for me to elaborate. "It was good. I… She's… I don't know. She gets me, I guess. Enough that I ended up sneaking back to her house and climbing through her window to be with her some more."
Emmett laughed once. "And Chief Swan didn't catch you?"
"No."
"Well, you have bigger fucking balls than I thought you did. Either that, or your suicidal."
I shook my head at him.
"Next time, though, you might want to try knocking on the door like every other boyfriend on the planet."
"I'm not her boyfriend," I argued stupidly.
He gave me a long, sideways glance that told me otherwise.
"I only did it because I wanted to be alone with her. I didn't think Chief Swan would really want that."
Judging from the looks he'd given me recently, anyway.
"No, why would he? You're only trying to fuck his only daughter," he said sarcastically.
"Emmett," I warned.
"And you're only both adults…"
I huffed because I realized how much of an inexperienced douche I really was.
"… Who, if I remember correctly, will be going to the same school this fall. Why would he ever try to cockblock you?"
"Wait a second, Bella's going to UDub?"
"Yes," he said slowly.
Huh.
Running to Seattle would have been completely useless. Knowing my luck, I'd have slammed into her on the first fucking day.
"Listen, I told her I wanted to do something with her, but I don't think… I mean, I don't know… She suggested that you guys come with us. And I think that's probably wise."
Especially after this morning. I didn't think I'd be able to keep my hands off her anymore.
"Oh?" Emmett's smile widened. "It's totally understandable that you'd want to fuck her brains out. Like I said before: she's hot."
I cocked my head to the side and gave him a baleful look. "Keep talking about her like that."
He gave me a little shrug of concession. "What'd you have in mind?"
"Port Angeles, maybe? I thought Rosie could plan something."
"I'll ask her later. Maybe we can get Jasper to come with, so it's not exactly like a double date."
Date. I almost threw up with the word.
"Friday night cool with you?"
I swallowed down my nerves and nodded before heading back over to start changing the miscellaneous filters and filling the reservoir up with fresh oil. My eyes flickered over to Bella's office, just as she'd looked in my direction. She gave me a warm smile and went back to work, leaving me here to try to calm my fears on my own.
But I knew, rationally, that there was reason to be anxious like I was.
No reason at all.
