Chapter eight
Serenaded Swans
December 2006
Beginning of December I got together with James and Riley and got the decorations up. Sometime near one in the morning Masen dropped by and helped me finish the last of it while Victoria left both of us to it.
"You're not hired help."
"I highly doubt that matters. Victoria was always a stingy manager."
Oh. "So she's not the owner?"
"Vick? No!" Masen laughs as he hands me some tape and some more decoration. I think I might fall off of the ladder but I hold my own. "Aro's the owner, though I've never seen him since the beginning."
"Since this place opened?"
"Since this place became Larry's. It used to be a supermarket before."
I'm not surprised, but there's not much else to say, and a lot more decoration to put up so I call it a night. "I've got an early class."
Masen doesn't argue and helps me down. His hands are warm against my thighs, I know this even through all these layers, and then his hands are on my bare neck, but it doesn't shock me until his eyes hold me against his gaze. This wasn't something we had indulged in before, and I knew what it was. I knew what this warmth spreading through me meant. I'd felt it before. It wasn't like this, though, and I knew how much trouble I was walking into even before he probably thought about leaning in.
I step away, and we pretend it didn't happen. I thank James and Riley and notice the air is tense as I pack up to go. As I walk out, I get ambushed by Victoria, but Masen's right behind me, so I presume she wouldn't try anymore of her jealous stunts to keep me from doing what I want.
Her eyes are the colour of her hair, again, so it dawns on me that I made a false assumption. "I thought there wasn't anything messy going on." Her voice is bitter, almost pouting.
I don't answer, but I think she wasn't asking a question. Masen replies, "What're you on about?"
"You and Bella."
Masen looks as if she's just realizing that he was an alien. "Okay. So?"
She doesn't reply, and huffs off before I can ask her, or him, what the heck they were doing, pretending I wasn't right there between them. "Do you generally insinuate you're banging your friends?"
"Banging." Masen doesn't take me seriously. "That's a first."
"I'm asking you something."
He lights a cigarette. This time I smell it, and I smell him. All of him. And I know why I never did before. I never stood this close to him before. Before, there was a good three feet between us. Somehow in the expanse of a year, we're barely two inches apart, and it scares the life out of me. "I'm not insinuating anything. It is what it is."
"Well, it sure doesn't feel like I know what exactly 'it' even is." I don't know how we end up outside my building, but there we are, arguing about something that has no name. Not yet, anyway.
"It is that I like you, I enjoy your company and I guess I don't see myself as your friend." I notice how harsh my breath feels, because it's like I was running against the wind, and that's because he isn't breathing deeply. He's unfazed as he continues. "And I think about us, and you and I like how good I feel with you."
"Friends feel that way." My voice shakes at the lie I'm telling him, and myself. "I feel that way about you, too."
He doesn't smile. "Friends don't want to do the things I want to do to you."
For an odd reason I can't quite pinpoint, I think about his fingers on my lips all those nights ago, their callousness against my warmth, and my gloved hand goes to my lips unthinkingly. I bite them, I feel angry, and I'm almost about to cry when I realize I've lost another friend to the same thing.
"I told you about Jake. I told you what happened."
He doesn't move. Compared to me, he looks so calm. If I placed my hand on his heart, would it be still, so unlike my own right now? "I'm not asking you for anything."
"Yes you are!" My voice is raised. I've never really raised my voice at people. I hate confronting them, because I'm never wrong, and they know I'm not. "You don't just—just—tell people these things and expect nothing. And you always want things, you can't just be happy with what we have. Don't you get it; I can't afford to lose you." I sound so desperate, maybe because I'm sick of being picky, and I'd settled for Masen, and I hate that he's settling for me. "You just want me because I said no."
He scoffs. "I'm not a masochist. You've said no a thousand times, Bella."
"So what, then? What makes you still want to tell me this, when you know I'll say no the thousand and first time, too?"
He looks away, finally letting out a ragged breath. It comes out white, as if a ghost, like the snow that's enveloping us. When had it started to snow? Looking up, I feel the tears fall and I know I have to leave this as it is. "I..."
"I didn't want to lie to you. I guess I've always wanted you. I remember seeing you that night and thinking you're the prettiest thing in there. I knew you were underage, and you didn't have to tell me you were a virgin, and I didn't care what the fuck you wanted to talk about because I wanted you for myself. I wanted you as you were, drunk and bloody perfect, telling me the things you wanted me to know." Some cruel, dark part of me loves hearing this. "And I need you so much now that... that it's pathetic, the things I'll bloody do for you, stomp on my own pride for you. Everything we are up until now is how you've wanted it, Bella, and I'm so fucking scared that if I ask you for anything, even a little more, even a kiss, or a hug, even, you'll run for the hills. That's how pathetic I am for you."
Hearing his need for me, because finally, it's all out in the open, and finally, I've got everything I've secretly wanted from him. It's been a year of this dancing around and the snow makes me shiver, but not as much his confession does. Does he want me to kiss him now? Do I want to? Should I care enough to remind him who we are and why we're here in the first place?
I don't. Remind him, talk to him, or tell him things. I reach out and hug him, and he hugs me back. It's the closest I've felt to anyone in years, and I cry just thinking that. It all falls apart and so very heartbreakingly into Masen. "I can't. You know I can't." I'm literally sobbing, and it's the most raw I've felt since I remembered Phil and that night. "I can't screw us up. I've done things, I get too close and then it's all over. It's why I don't have friends."
He hums into my ears and kisses the side of my face, and I'm tingling from the sensation, but I pull away. Wiping my eyes, I back away. "I'll..."
He nods. "I'll see you soon." And then he's gone, too.
...
Sometimes when the weather got cold I wondered why people ventured out at all. For more than one reason, I realized that the state of Washington was the coldest during the winters, and I couldn't really remember what it felt like during spring or summer. The end of the year held me by my toes and washed over me without my permission. It was all going to start again, and how much I hated it.
I knew I ought to go to the pub but I didn't quite feel up to meeting Angela, or even Jess and the others and I definitely didn't know how to handle Masen anymore. One more meeting and we'd almost be a married couple. I didn't like people, and I definitely didn't have to like them, no matter how much they forced themselves into my life. Masen was one such person, and I was feeling dead stubborn to keep him out.
I didn't buy a TV like I promised Renee I would but that didn't mean it mattered what I did. I was supposed to get through a decent first inspection of my switch circuit, and I did. Some things worked out fine, but Masen?
The buzzer sounded just in time, and I knew who it was. I ignored it. Twenty minutes later, it incessantly rang, and I told myself why it was so hard for me to forgive what had happened with Phil. He probably buzzed the apartment we'd been living in too, and my mother let him in. She let him in and she let him hurt me and today, I know that if I let someone who isn't worth my trust in, he could possibly kill me.
Some nights when I tried to sleep I could remember how angry Masen was, and not even with me. I didn't do anything, and it added to the fire that we sorted things out because I apologized over nothing I did wrong.
"I'm sorry, Masen." Here I was, talking into an empty apartment, apologizing again. "Please."
I guess he heard my silent plea, because the buzzing went away. Two hours later I was drunk on a half a bottle of scotch left over from my birthday, only this time I was alone and selfishly miserable, not caring for anybody's issues but my own. I thought about decorations and the lack of decorations in my apartment. I thought of home and how I could never face Renee and Charlie again without ruining their marriage. I thought of Phil, almost all the time, but it evades me that that isn't particularly healthy. I think about how much I hate him that I almost forgive him, but I'm nowhere close to forgetting him, or what happened.
This time, I was actually alone.
"Merry Christmas, Bella Swan. Congratulations," I take another chug of the beer in my hand. "You're successfully and completely alone. And still very much a virgin."
Note: Happy holidays you guys. Kick ass on your resolution list, and send me some of them, will you? I'm trying to see what the usual lists look like.
And I swear, I've got about 25k words of this bad boy done. Tell me where you want to see this story and I'll tell you if you're right.
Thanks everyone who has reviewed, favourited and followed this story. It means everything. Until next time, which will be soon!
