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10.

I don't really know.

They were the last words Edward had wanted to admit. In all his life, he'd always tried to escape them, labeling himself as musician, brother, fuck-up or whatever name fitted at that given time. The truth was, though, that the answer he had given Bella was the only answer that rung true.

He didn't know.

He'd never known, and didn't really want to.

Instead, he had crafted himself almost into a caricature of what he thought he should be: the tortured artist who self-medicated on drugs to escape his troubled past and who took everything that had been handed to him for granted.

"When I was little, I wanted to be a pilot," he started, surprising Bella and even himself by just beginning to babble along like some lunatic. "It always amazed me how they managed to fly hundreds of people safely from one spot to another." He chuckled, remembering scouring the sky for signs of moving planes or the trails of condensation they left behind. "But then, two weeks before she died, mom played this Bob Dylan record to me and from that point on, the only thing I wanted to learn was how to be him."

"You wanted to be Bob Dylan?" Already, Edward could see that Bella thought he wasn't taking her question seriously. Not that he could blame her, because had he really taken anything seriously since he set foot inside his sister's house?

Well, apart from her, then.

Shaking his head, he tried to make her see the honesty in his words. "I didn't want to be him, I wanted to be like him; the kind of person who could tell stories in songs that would move people…get them to think and act differently or make them see the world in a different light. If there's anything I admire about people like Dylan, Neil Young or Crosby, Stills and Nash, it's the way they captured people's souls in their songs…how they sang about the things that happened to them or their friends, but at the same time, they could be singing about you. I wanted to do that, too."

"And you came to that realization when you were, what, ten years old?" Bella huffed skeptically, her fingers playing with the frayed edges of the blanket.

"Six," Edward corrected her, chuckling at the way her eyebrows shot up a little higher, "and of course back then, it just seemed cool to make music. It wasn't like I was some kind of child-prodigy or something. It's just…that music kinda struck a chord with me, you know? It was just a simple case of 'I like this kinda stuff and I want to be like that when I grow up'. The deeper shit only came when I got older."

Cocking her head, her eyes locked with his again; assessing, weighing, concluding. "If you like making music so much, then why do all the other stuff? I mean, I'm not really an expert with those kinds of things, but it seems to me like doing drugs and getting yourself arrested and thrown in jail aren't exactly helping you get to where you want to be in life."

"Ask Johnny Cash! I seem to remember he wrote some pretty poignant and classic songs about doing drugs and ending up in jail." Edward chuckled before turning serious again; his hand lodged in his hair as he tried to find the right words. "I don't know why I do that shit. I guess part of it is because I can. You know, after a while it gets kinda fun to play the game and see how far you can really go before someone calls you out on it." He shrugged, realizing only then how fucking pompous and stupid that sounded. "The rest is because it makes life on the road a little easier. The drugs, I mean, not the getting arrested. I pretty much hated that shit."

"You could have said no to drugs," Bella argued, cringing at her own clichéd choice of words. "You don't strike me as a complete idiot, in spite of the way you've acted the past couple of days. I don't understand how someone who can speak so intelligently and passionately about music can be dumb enough to throw your career—your chance to make music and have that influence on people's lives—away from drugs."

"I know." Edward shrugged, breaking off a few tough pails of dune grass. "But if there's one thing about me you should know, it's that I'm a spineless son of a bitch first and foremost. When you live in the world I belong to, taking drugs is much easier than abstaining." He chuckled, closing the door again before it could lead him to an even scarier place than he was at that moment. "Besides, life's so much more fun when you're high."

"I don't believe you," she countered, sticking her chin up in the air as she leveled him with a defiant gaze. Holding it, he quite enjoyed the way her eyes narrowed in frustration as she let out a small, adorable growl when she realized he wasn't going to budge. Rising, she all but threw him from the blanket as she scrambled to assemble her stuff. "If you want to go on fooling yourself, Edward, go ahead. But don't forget that I know the truth."

As much as Edward wanted to claim victory from that particular battlefield—after all, he had chased her away—he knew that with that parting remark, she'd won.

But so did he.

Making his way back to the house, his mind was spinning as out of control as it had when he'd made his hasty escape. This time, though, it was running wild on creativity, as words and melodies exploded through his brain like fireworks.

Locking himself away in the music room all day and night, the outlines of what was shaping up to be his first record in more than a year was starting to take shape; a record about love, suffering, longing and heartbreak…just like every single damn record in the shops those days. What set the songs he composed in those frantic twenty four hours apart from the rest, though, was the passionate, almost feverishly haunting way in which they were written.

They were naked.

They were pure.

They were him; a version of himself he wasn't even ready to admit was there.

They were the truth.

The only interruptions in his creative spree were the few bathroom breaks he was forced to take and a distraction in the form of a knock on the door that came just after the sun had set for the night.

Growling, his gaze lingered on the door for a moment; the rest of him not bothered enough to get up and see who dared disturb them. It couldn't be Esme or the kids, as they knew the music room was out of bounds whenever he was in it so it could only be two people.

And one of them, Edward was pretty sure, was still stuck in town.

"Edward?"

Even in spite of his chagrin at being disturbed, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but lift up into a smile at the sound of her voice. Still, he didn't have time to be social, not when he had the makings of one of his best albums yet rolling around in his brain. "I don't want to be disturbed."

Not that she was deterred by his gruff response. Or instead of backing away like his words had intended, he could hear the sound of a door opening and shutting behind him, the smell of food and her making him dizzy with desire. Knowing there was no battling the temptations, he sighed and turned around. "I thought I told you I didn't want to be disturbed?"

Rolling her eyes, she committed yet another sin that would have been cause for capital punishment had it not been for the person committing it: she put the plate on top of the pristine Bösendorfer piano he'd equipped his sister's house with after having suffered through an inferior instrument the first time he visited. He couldn't play an inferior instrument and he certainly couldn't create on one. And when on stage his guitar was his instrument of preference, for some reason Edward found it easier to compose on a piano.

Bella, however, knew of no evil as she put the food down, her look measured as it traveled up and down his slightly rumpled form. "That's all fine and dandy, but if you don't grab something to eat every now and then you're going to keel over."

"And who died and made you the expert on a musician's feeding habits?" Edward grumbled, though he had to admit that by that time most of his bad humor was fake.

"Believe it or not, but for some weird, masochistic reason, I have started to actually care about you," she admitted, much to Edward's delight. "I just can't go to sleep knowing you probably won't eat until you're done."

"Fair enough." Edward nodded, his mouth already filled with half a chicken leg. "So how does a girl from Bumfuck, Washington get so smart about what an artist needs?" Patting his piano bench, he scooted down, allowing her to sit next to him.

"My dad might not have been an artist like you but when he was on a case, he wouldn't stop until he solved it," she replied, reminding him about the police chief dad his sister had told him about. "If it hadn't been for me throwing some food at him at regular intervals, I think he would have starved himself in no time."

"You two sound very close," Edward remarked around a bite of food. "You must miss him." He still knew how it had felt to be without his sister for the first time. In fact, the longing and pain he had felt were part of what had made him end up the way he had.

"Yes, I do." Bella agreed with a sad smile, stealing a little bit of chicken off his plate. "But we both knew this was going to happen at some point; I couldn't stay home forever." Sighing, her eyes flashed over the sheets of music paper and the scraggly mess of notes he'd scribbled on them. "You've been writing?"

He nodded. "Once I get going, I can't stop. I have to create…it's like a force within me, demanding my attention." Dragging the final piece of bread through the leftover juices of the chicken, he scooted forward. "Do you want me to play you something?"

The enthusiasm of Bella's nod made him chuckle as it confirmed that might have been what had lured her to the music room in the first place. "Is it okay if I stay here or do you need more room?"

"You're fine where you are, kitten," he assured her. "Most of the wide gestures you see a concert pianist make are just for show, I think. At least I've never felt the need to spazz out whenever I'm playing."

Taking a deep breath, his fingers started on one of the first songs he'd created that day; the knowledge that she was sitting right next to him when it was her memory that had brought those notes to life made him feel equally elated and naked.

He was offering her himself…his art…his mind.

And the look in her eyes when he finished, told him she understood. "That was...it was everything," she stammered once the last note had faded in the air.

"Thanks," he whispered, feeling oddly shy all of a sudden. Looking up, their eyes locked and that same, strange thing happened again where they seemed to be able to look right in each other's souls without saying a damn word.

It scared him but this time, he wasn't the one to back down first. He could feel it in the air, the ease in her body growing rigid as she stood up. "I'll leave you so you can get back to it, then," she breathed, her eyes slightly panicked as she all but dashed away from him in much the same way as he had the previous day.

But that look…

It was more than enough to keep him going, his hands already itching to continue.

By the time another morning tide rolled in and the room was illuminated pink from the coming dawn, he slumped forward, his eyes blurring as his mind was finally spent. All night his brain had been at work; the one image of her spurring it on and on as more songs started to take shape; their crude outlines splattered all over the sheet music that surrounded him like a paper sea.

Still, Edward did not go to bed. Since the high of creativity had settled, there was another craving deep inside him that was clamoring to be stilled. The vision settling behind his eyelids whenever he closed them, becoming more clear and demanding the longer he had been without her. And after the way she had cared for him the previous night, who was he not to return the favor?

So instead of heading upstairs to his bed, he snuck through the dark house, using the faint illumination of the rising sun to navigate until he managed to slip out undetected. A short trip later and he had everything he needed, his head pounding with sleep and caffeine withdrawal as he added the finishing touches to his scheme and waited.

For as much as the creativity had left him drunk with relief and satisfaction, he knew that underneath it, there had been only one drug to fuel this sudden writing spree.

It was her.

Thoughts?