There were prompts today, but I just wasn't feeling them.

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"I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love."

-Alice Walker, The Color Purple


Today, she stands by the door as they leave and practices their names.

"Have a good day, Victoria."

The girl looks confused but smiles and says "You too, Miss Swan."

"Bye, Andrew. Bye, Nathan."

They look up from their phones to give an all-purpose boy nod in her general direction.

"Have a good day, Tyler."

"I always do, Swannie."

Tyler laughs before rushing between his two friends, dropping his skateboard onto the floor and coasting down the hall. He makes it about ten feet before Bella hears Newton yell "Walk your board, Crowley!"

She looks at the stack of papers on her desk and smiles.

No movies will be made about the events that transpired in this room during the previous hour. Lives were not changed. Miracles were not performed. In fact, anyone walking by her door would have thought the scene entirely ordinary: a group of students, books open on their desks, responding to questions on a worksheet.

But Bella glows with triumph, and those crumpled papers covered in words and doodles might as well be her victory banner.

Students continue to amble out of the room, and she looks each one in the eye, matching faces with the names she spent an hour last night studying. Some are suspicious; other seem appreciative.

Emmett Cullen begins to smile, but it disappears when Rosalie Hale brushes past him in a hurry, her attention anywhere else.

He can only watch her leave.

"Emmett."

His eyes are still on the emptying hallway, but Bella knows he's listening.

"You should talk to her."

When his eyes whirl toward hers, they are horrified.

He tries to speak, but his head just shakes back and forth.

"Emmett, it's okay." She doesn't think when she places his hand on her arm, and she's about to pull it away and apologize when she hears his breathing slow.

He looks at her hand, ridiculously small near his shoulder, and then he looks at her.

Another victory.

"You know, you're a really good writer."

He exhales.

"No, I'm not."

This time, she tries not to look surprised at the sound of his voice.

"Yes, you are."

Bella crosses her arms in front of her chest, and stands directly in front of this broken boy, willing him to look her in the eye.

He does.

She smiles.

"Girls love letters."

Emmett looks confused at first, but when his eyes flash to the place where Rosalie Hale long disappeared to, Bella sees it.

Determination.

And when he walks away from her, he is a warrior off to battle.

Victory number three.

Bella hums while she moves through the kitchen, opening cupboards until she finds the bottle of wine she purchased on a whim on her last trip to the grocery store.

A celebration is in order.

But the rest of the contents of her cupboard and fridge leave her uninspired. Another bowl of frosted flakes is no match for how good she feels, so she pulls open the long forgotten drawer of take-out menus.

Italian, she thinks.

Bella places her order and pours a glass of wine before settling into Charlie's chair and turning on the television.

She finds a hospital drama she remembers watching before she couldn't stand watching anything involving hospitals, but the characters are new and unfamiliar and she feels a little lost.

PBS it is.

She's contemplating saving money to get cable when the doorbell rings.

And maybe it's because he's been on the periphery of her mind for two days, but when she opens the door to find Edward Cullen standing on her porch, holding a plastic bag and looking down at a receipt, she feels the blood rush to her cheeks.

"I have a delivery from—"

When he sees her, he stops.

"It's you."

But it's like he didn't mean to say it out loud, because he closes his eyes and shakes his head.

"Sorry—you live here?"

She nods.

"I do. I live here."

Good job, Bella.

His smirk is mocking, but it's a lot nicer to look at than the angry one.

"Well, here's your food, Miss Swan."

She's trying to tell him that he can call her Bella, but apparently doing that and taking the bag from his hands is too difficult a task, especially when his fingers brush against hers, because she almost drops her dinner and he has to scramble to keep it from falling.

"Thank you."

Definitely too much wine.

You had one glass.

The way he shifts his feet back and forth reminds her of Emmett, but the way he cradles the back of his neck with his hand, awkward and arrogant all at once, is entirely Edward Cullen.

It makes her smile.

And wonder why he's still here.

Perhaps he feels the need to berate her again, but she won't allow it—not tonight—and she holds her head higher in preparation for his attack.

"So I need—"

"Look, if you're going to yell at me again, I—"

"What?"

"What?"

He holds out his hands. Palms up. Defensive.

"I'm not going to yell at you. I just—"

"You just what?"

Her arms cross as she attempts to look as intimidating as possible while holding a large order of chicken parmesan.

"I just need the money. For your food?"

"Shit!" She nearly drops the bag again and frantically reaches in her back pocket. "I'm so sorry!"

He's laughing at her when he takes the twenty dollar bill, and reaches for his own pocket.

"Let me get your change."

"That's not necessary—"

"Yes, it is."

"But your tip—"

He stops in the middle of unfolding his wallet.

He's not laughing anymore.

"I'm not taking a tip from you, Miss Swan."

And he won't. She can tell he won't.

So she nods.

"Okay. But you need to call me Bella."

He smiles.

"Okay. Bella."

She's never liked her name, always thought it was too frilly for a skinny thing in jeans and glasses, and the other girls agreed.

But she likes the way it sounds when he says it.

When she takes the folded singles from his hand, he holds on to them.

"I'm sorry for how I acted on the phone, and at the meeting yesterday."

She wonders if it's a Cullen trait: eyes pooled in green and sincerity.

"Thank you."

He's still holding on, and she finds herself doing the same.

"I was having a bad night at work."

"At the restaurant?"

"No." And the sincerity mixes with shame. "At my other job."

She tries to joke.

"Geez, how many jobs do you have?"

It's not funny.

"Three."

She tries to apologize, but he's already putting his wallet in his pocket and turning toward the car still idling in front of her house. His shoulders are hunched, hands in his pockets, and she feels graceless and dumb with her celebratory dinner ridiculous in her hands.

How many victories have you had today, Edward Cullen?

"Wait!" she yells, too loud. Too desperate.

"I have another delivery," he yells, but he's stopping on the sidewalk and she takes that as a good sign.

She flies to her purse on the counter and dumps it out, hands searching until they find the worn piece of binder paper, folded in to quarters.

When she runs to him, she trips on the last step and ends up closer than she intended.

"This is for you."

He rolls his eyes and turns away from her.

"I told you I don't need a tip."

"It's not a tip!"

It's bitter January outside, so she thinks his arm shouldn't be so warm beneath her hand.

He's looking at the place where they meet when she holds the paper up. Her white flag. Her truce.

"What's this?"

"Emmett wrote it."

There is surprise on his face, and when he takes the paper from her hand and holds it like some precious thing, she knows she was right to do this.

"I don't even remember the last time he wrote something." But it's more to himself than to her.

She feels the chill through the thin material of her sweater and pulls it tighter around her.

"It's good."

He nods, still staring at the object in his hand.

"It's about you."

It must be another Cullen trait: smiles that light her up inside, even in the winter cold.

The warmth of her house makes goose bumps on her skin as she walks to the glass bottle, and lets the dollar bills fall inside it.

She smiles and thinks,

"I had a good day, Dad."

Then, she says it out loud.


A/N: I continue to be overwhelmed by the love for this story. Thank you.