wow i am so so sorry that this took so long-classes have started (as has an internship) so i've been super busy. plus this website wouldn't let me log in for a few days so that delayed things. thanks for sticking with this.
chapter ten
"New haircut, Esme?" I ask as I make my way into the periodical's room. Esme grins and spins around in her chair.
"Oh, yes," she says, her fingers reaching to touch the curled ends.
"It looks great," I tell her, and it does. Her caramel locks are a few inches shorter and wavier than usual. I think she got some extra highlights, too. I look on with jealousy as my hair weighs heavily in a bun on top of my head.
"Having a good week so far, Bella?" Esme asks as I start sorting through magazines.
"Yeah," I sigh. "It's been okay. Mid-terms were terrible though." Thankfully they're over now. Edward and I spent a lot of time trying to catch up on reading and writing response papers and he's been trying to convince me to sign up for the writing class next semester. My schedule is full already though so I would have to drop another accounting class to make room.
I've been debating it in my head for weeks.
We're getting settled back into our work when my phone rings loudly on the desk next to my elbow. Esme looks up.
"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to put it on silent. It's just my mom," I say, staring at her picture on the screen and feeling a vague crashing of nerves in my chest.
"Don't apologize, go ahead and take the call," Esme says kindly, but I don't want to hit the green button. I'm guessing her phone had been shut off after all because I haven't heard from her in weeks.
"It's okay," I say quietly. "I'll call her back later."
Which I do.
As much as I don't want to, she's my mom and I don't want to feel such animosity towards her. I'm trying, I promise.
So when she answers later that afternoon, my hello is more cheerful than I feel.
"Sorry, mom," I say after she finishes her whole I'm so glad you called speech. "I was working."
"Oh, no, I'm sorry about that! You know me, I forget stuff like that."
"Yeah," I sigh. I'm walking back to my dorm, fidgeting with the hem of my sweater. Late October has brought a cold wind with it. I make a note to myself to grab my heavier coat next time I go home. My mom is saying something new but I miss the first part of it.
"…phone was turned off so I'm really sorry if you tried to call," she says and I ignore the pang of guilt that hits me when I realize I never did try.
It's not that I don't love my mom, I know I'm a shitty daughter, she just gives me so much anxiety. I can never find any stable ground with her.
"I'm thinking about going to Florida, maybe to move. I don't know. I'd like to see some palm trees. You can come with Phil and me if you want." When she starts listing off things we can do in Florida, my heart sinks. I don't want to get my hopes up; it's never worked out before.
I think back to my tenth birthday, how we were supposed to spend the day at Wild Waves before it closed for the season. After waiting for about three hours for her to show up, she called my dad and told him that her car got towed because she didn't renew the parking pass she had for her apartment. They fought for what seemed like a really long time and my dad spent the day trying to make it up to me by ordering a pizza and letting me watch a PG13 movie before he had to drop me off at the babysitter's while he went to work.
So let's just say I'm not shopping for a bikini and a new beach towel.
"Wait—how are you going to get to Florida?" I ask as I reach my dorm. I struggle to get my ID out of my pocket to swipe in and I'm already stressed. She just got her phone turned back on; she isn't exactly going to be able to afford to get herself, let alone me, three thousand miles away.
I walk upstairs slowly, listening to her grand plans for coming into money, how she's hopeful that Phil will get the new coaching position at the high school nearby and that she'll be signed onto a Seattle based style magazine full time. I mhmm and yeah at all the right moments and when I get to my room, I use it as an opportunity to escape, a headache growing behind my eyes.
"Alice and Rose are here, gotta go, Mom," I say when I see my friends stretched out on Rose's bed, messing around on their phones.
"Okay, tell them I say hello. Miss you baby," she says.
"Miss you, too," I say quietly. "Bye."
I hang up and they look up at me expectantly.
"My mom says hi." They both smile cautiously.
"How's it going with her?" Rose asks, patting the spot next to her. I sigh, slipping out of my boots and collapsing next to her.
"Okay, I guess. I don't know. She got her phone turned back on. She wants to go to Florida."
"That's ambitious," Alice breathes, a smirk dancing on her face. They both know my issues with her, and while sympathetic, they take what I say with a grain of salt. They don't see her as completely at fault in every situation. It only makes me slightly bitter.
"She wants me to come with her," I say, rubbing my eyes hard. Rose and Alice exchange a look.
"It's movie time, I think," Rose says and she moves to the DVD player. We don't mention Florida or my mom or anything other than how good Ryan Gosling looks without a shirt on for the rest of the night.
Around two am, I'm woken up by my phone buzzing in my pocket. I glance around the room, my neck stiff, and I see Rose asleep on the futon under my bed and Alice is nowhere to be found. We must have fallen asleep somewhere around the fourth movie. My phone keeps buzzing and I get up, going out into the hallway to answer it, kicking an empty pizza box on the way.
"Hello?" I whisper, my eyes trying to adjust to the fluorescents in the hallway.
"Emergency," Edward's voice says and I stand up a little straighter, my heartbeat quickening.
"Are you okay?!" I nearly shout and I hear him suck in a breath.
"I'm in desperate need of a donut." It takes me a beat to register that he's not bleeding in the street somewhere.
"Are you serious?"
"Deadly serious," he says grimly.
"And you're telling me this because?"
"Because, Bella, I need you to come with me. You sound like you could use a donut."
"Because you just woke me up," I mutter.
"More reason to get one."
"Where do you want me to meet you?" I sigh. I can practically hear Edward grinning.
"I'm right outside."
"You're insane," I say. "But I'll be there in a minute."
I throw my hair into a ponytail and I grab a pair of boots from my room, closing the door quietly. When I get outside, Edward is drumming his fingers on his thighs, as always, and really awake for how late it is.
"McCallister's has been open for an hour, we need to go before all the good donuts are gone," he says, already turning towards Main Street. McCallister's Bakery is known for opening at one am and closing by 10 am. It's a Forks tradition to go at least once. It's not that exciting but it's been a thing for like sixty years or something. Two donuts and a carton of milk for a dollar.
"Wait for me," I grumble, picking up my pace.
"What was that?" Edward calls over his shoulder and I flip him off. He turns around and grins his biggest grin at me.
"You're buying me my donut," I tell him once I reach him. He throws an arm around me.
"I was planning on it anyway," he says and I do my best to not lean into him.
I spend the walk in Edward's casual embrace, feeling the heat of his body through so many layers of clothing. I'm hyper aware of the way his fingers drum themselves on my shoulder and the way he smells like fresh snow.
I glance up at him and I wonder what he's thinking about when there's a small smile playing on his lips.
When he converses with the girl behind the counter, making her giggle over chocolate cake donuts and éclairs, I try not to be jealous of her blond hair and pink lips and the way Edward smiles at her. She hands me my food over the counter, not even glancing at me as Edward pays, telling her to keep the change.
We start to wander down the street and I'm missing the feel of his arm on my shoulders.
"Let's have a midnight picnic," he says, gesturing towards the trail leading into the park.
"What about wolves? Or bears?" I say and he laughs.
"Bella, we're literally right next to a McDonalds right now," he says.
"That doesn't matter!" I hiss and he shakes his head. I follow him down the path anyway, looking over my shoulder the whole time.
"You need to chill out," he laughs and we finally reach a spot he deems perfect. It's just a place under a tree where the moonlight is filtering through, just slightly. He sits down and pats the grass next to him. I take a seat tentatively, uncertain of, well, everything.
We eat our donuts and drink our milk and Edward asks me questions so I stop looking over my shoulder for animals every five seconds and we go back and forth for a while like that. We are different but in a way that makes it easy for my heart to flutter when he teases me about my fear of clowns and the way he listens intently about why my favorite movies are my favorites. Sitting under that tree as the temperature drops and our donuts are only crumbs, I watch Edward's eyes shine in the moonlight while I learn that he loves horror movies and that he's from Chicago. He tells me his favorite color is blue and I tell him that blue is generic and he throws a handful of grass at me. We wander further into the woods and Edward balances on fallen logs and the smell of grease from the McDonalds gets further and further away.
"I've never stolen anything," I say. We're onto a new game called Things Bella Hasn't Done.
"I stole a nerf gun when I was ten and I was so nervous about it I threw up right outside the store," he replies.
"I've never gone skinny dipping."
"I went with Emmett and these two girls we liked in high school and Emmett stole my clothes and made me walk home naked."
"I've never gone camping."
"That was another time Emmett stole my clothes."
"How many times has he stolen your clothes?" I laugh and the sound is too loud for the quiet hum of the night.
"I've lost count," he says with a shrug and this time both of us let out a laugh. We let it die slowly, the sound fading and the energy around us shifts with the drawing of warm breaths.
"Is there anything you haven't done?" I sigh and he stops and looks around.
"I've never been this far into these woods so late at night."
"I haven't either."
"Well."
"We're lost."
"It's possible."
He looks as if he's bracing himself for the panic to burst from every part of me, but it doesn't come. I want to tell him that I'd stay lost in these trees with him forever. That I'd forget everything except the lilt of his voice and the sight of his eyes. I think of track eight on his CD.
Your heart is like an ocean breeze.
I want to ask him who he wrote that song—or all of his songs—about. The thought of him in love with someone back in Chicago makes my throat burn.
"Are you writing more music?" I ask instead. A dimpled smile appears on his face.
"Yeah, actually. We've been doing a lot of work on a new album. I think Jasper's gonna come home with me over winter break. We're trying to tour or something this summer. We've been sending demos to bands for months, begging them to let us tag along." He shakes his head like it's ridiculous to even imagine it working out.
My heart sinks like a stone because I know he'll get something. He's too good not to. But when he's gone, off reaching out to so many people through his words and the chords of his guitar, he's not going to be reaching back to me when he returns.
If he even returns at all.
i'd love to hear your thoughts.
til next time,
meg