Unfortunately, real life commitments mean I will be spending most of tomorrow in a car on the motorway, so the chances of being able to post tomorrow are slim. Sorry :-( Therefore I'm giving you two chapters tonight to make up for it!
I know some of you are getting antsy for E and B to meet again. We're getting there, I promise.
9. Bella
Esme headed back to her house, and I walked along the corridor to my new place. On the way, I passed Number Five, and heard the faint strains of piano music, Debussy, if I wasn't mistaken.
I swooned a little.
I always associated the works of Debussy with Edward Cullen; my former boss often played Clair de Lune in his office when he was doing paperwork, or on the rare occasions he performed at school assemblies. I was ashamed to admit that I still thought about him most days and the book he gave me was always on my bedside table. I idly wondered if he might be my piano-playing neighbour, but then I remembered Angela once mentioning his big house in Harrogate, a pretty spa town twenty miles away.
There weren't any attractive male teachers at Volturi Academy. Alice was off the dating scene, waiting for Jazz to return from the Far East, so she hadn't dragged me out man-hunting since the summer. Some people might consider the fact that I was single, over thirty and without any impetus to find a man rather sad. However, I had compromised my standards once before and got screwed over. Maybe it was the Austenite in me, but I yearned for a man with a romantic soul. In my mind, a man that appreciated Debussy, and who had such beautiful handwriting as Edward Cullen did, had to be in possession of one.
I spent the evening unpacking my kitchen stuff and living room boxes. I planned to do the rest on Christmas Eve morning, because I needed Esme to bring me some spare storage stuff for my bedroom and office. I couldn't help but marvel at the space. After sharing for so many years, it was a luxury to have so much, all to myself. I did a lot of wandering in and out of the rooms. It was a two-bedroom, two bathroom flat, with a large, open-plan, living and dining area, and a good-size kitchen partitioned off in the far corner. There were windows on two sides, with the kitchen window looking over the courtyard garden, and the main living room window looking out over a small patch of woodland.
Around eleven o'clock, I decided to unpack my last box for the night. It was full of photographs, some in albums and some framed. I picked up the top one, taken at my undergraduate graduation. It was of me, my dad Charlie, my mother Renee, my stepfather Phil, and my half-brother Jared, who was just six at the time. He was now fifteen and a strapping lad, standing over six feet tall. We were all smiling at the camera. I was always grateful, that despite not being happy married to one another, my parents always maintained a friendship for my sake.
The next photo I unpacked was one of my childhood best friend Rosie, and me at about age ten, bathing in the river at Ilkley in the summer. It was taken not long before my mother left my father to be with Phil, moving me with her to Florida where he lived; Rosie and I had a tearful goodbye and kept in touch by letters for a few months, but with the time and distance, the contact fizzled away. Losing touch with her was one of my few regrets in life.
There were only a few photos of my three years living in Florida; I loved my mother but hated living there because I missed England and my dad so much. There were a ton of my teenage years, taken by Charlie, who was so delighted that I came back to live with him that he pretty much took ten photographs a day for months until I made him stop. There were photos from my university years, of Esme and our friends, and me; I had stayed local because York was one of the best places to study English in the country, and because of the hopeful smile on Charlie's face when I suggested it as a possibility.
I went on to get a Masters in Romantic Literature from Edinburgh University, but during that year, Charlie was diagnosed with the cancer, and I spent most of it on the East Coast Mainline, travelling between the two cities. The last photo I unpacked was taken on my final holiday with Charlie, to a cottage in the Lake District where he could fish and I could read, so we were both able to enjoy the things we loved. My heart tightened a little as I placed the photo in the centre of my most prominent bookshelf.
I missed my dad every day.
I got into my pyjamas, crawled into bed with a bottle of Malbec, picked up Jane Austen, and ran my thumb over the inscription Edward Cullen had written for me.
Dear Bella
Thank you for all your hard work and dedication this year.
It's been a breath of fresh air to have a trainee as talented and committed as you at our little school.
Good luck in the future, although you won't need it. Your future is brighter than the Sun.
Don't be a stranger.
Edward Cullen
I read the last lines a few times.
I knew, from Angela, that the teachers from Meyer High were having a Christmas party tonight, and she had invited me along, but I'd declined because of moving house. Halfway through my third glass of wine, I suddenly wondered about dropping in and saying something like 'Hey, Mr Cullen, Edward, I mean. How are you? Would you like to have me for Christmas? I'm available to carry your babies any time.' Perhaps that was going a little too far. Besides, what if I got there and he was wrapped around some leggy blonde? His ex was a very leggy, very skinny, blonde apparently. If that was his type I had no chance.
Instead, I stayed put, downed the rest of the wine and fell asleep clutching the book.
-cc-
One more chapter tonight.
