E POV
Time seemed to have a grudge against me. It ticked slower and slower by the second. I was waiting for the plane to land so that I could get home. Emmett sat beside me in the plane's seats and I watched out the window. We were to land any minute now in Miami and I couldn't wait to just call Bella.
Unexpectedly, when we made our way through the terminal, there were a few cameras flashing pictures at us. When I questioned Carlisle about it, he said that it was people from the news, snapping shots for their news stories and I was free to talk to them if I wanted. Apparently, I was hot news and my return home was the epicentre of the action. I ignored the reporters and photographers shouting questions and requests at us as we moved to the luggage claim.
I pulled out my cell phone that Rosalie had returned to me and gone down the list to Bella's name. I pressed the call button and the line only rang four times before Bella groggily answered.
"Hello?" she whispered into her receiver.
"Hey Love," I said.
"Edward? How was your flight?" she yawned. More media people came closer to me and shouted questions our way. "Edward, what's going on?"
"The media is here. Apparently I'm news to CNN and ESPN. I had no clue," I replied.
A reporter talked louder over the others and I looked at him, "Edward, over here. Who are you talking to?" he asked.
"Who said that?" Bella asked over the phone, sounding more awake.
"A reporter," I replied.
"Why don't you talk to them and get it over with?" she said, yawning again before she sighed.
"Do you mind, Love?" I asked.
"As long as you don't tell them my hiding spot, I don't care. The limelight isn't for me," she admitted. "Just remember to be nice. It's not their fault they have crappy jobs," she joked. Bella was right though. What person wanted to wait until one-thirty in the morning to get a story from someone who might not speak to them at all?
"Alright, do you want to stay on the line or want me to call you back?" I asked.
I smiled as she said, "I'll wait."
I looked back towards the crowd of reporters and they asked more questions.
"Where have you been, Edward?"
"I've been in Washington, near Seattle," I answered carefully as not to give away Bella's 'hiding spot' and more questions were fired off.
"Who were you on the phone with and what happened to you?"
"Why did you disappear? Was this an act of teenage rebellion?" a woman in a trench coat asked.
"I was on the phone with my friend Bella. I had an accident of some sort and somehow ended up in Washington. I'm not sure what happened because I have been suffering from memory loss but I'm sure it wasn't rebellion. What could I have to rebel against?"
"Is it true that you've been having an affair with this Bella?"
"She's my best friend," was all I said as more camera shutters clicked and flashes went off.
I put the phone back up to my ear with a smile, "Are you still there?" I asked as I turned away from the crowd and back to my family.
"Of course. I told you I'd always be here for you," she laughed quietly.
"I hoped that you'd say that," I laughed back.
Two days later I was still shut up in my room, looking through pictures and videos. I was also listening to CD after CD of music. My room had a huge rack of music. I would put on a CD and listen through the entire disc, finding that I would start lips syncing the lyrics half-way through the newly remembered song.
I heard a bit of a ruckus downstairs and stopped my music to go investigate. On my way out the door, I paused at the corkboard. I had put the pictures that Esme had brought to Seattle back up and added some pictures of Bella and I into the mixture of pictures. I couldn't bring myself to remember my supposed girlfriend Tanya despite all efforts. I couldn't remember anything about her.
I walked down the stairs and halted in my steps once I saw everyone. In a denim mini skirt and a red halter with heels on stood the strawberry-blond Tanya. Her eyes grew as big as saucers when she saw me. "Eddie!" she squealed as she flung herself at me.
"Uh... hi?" I said as a question. I looked down and Tanya seemed only a bit phased. "I don't recall ever liking the name Eddie, oddly enough," I said more to Emmett and Alice who were trying their best to keep their composure and hold in their laughter.
"See! I told you he remembers me!" Tanya spat at Emmett.
I shot a confused look around the living room to my family. I was mentally shouting an S.O.S. to everyone but it only succeeded in making Alice and Emmett finally laugh their faces off.
Tanya glared at the source of the offensive noises and, like a snobby child, rolled her eyes and pulled me away from the comfort of my family. "Let's go upstairs."
The next two days Tanya returned and I felt like smacking my head off the nearest blunt instrument but then I remembered that that may have been what had gotten me into my current situation. The only difference was that I didn't think that my previous injuries were self-inflicted like the ones I wanted to do when Tanya was around.
Never since regaining my memories did I ever think I would say it, but Emmett especially was right about her. Tanya drove me insane. She touched my CDs and moved them when I hadn't figured out how I had organized them before and that annoyed me to no end. Her overly sweet smell stuck to my bedding after she laid down on it and I had to wash it all five times within two days to get it out.
I thought she was getting worse when she started trying to hug me but I was wrong. The worst part about Tanya was her reaction toward the picture of me kissing Bella's cheek that was pinned up on the cork board the first day she had come to see me. She had freaked out and insisted I take the pictures down. When I refused, Tanya pulled them off herself and threw them face-down on my desk.
After that, it was all a downward spiral. Everything she did was infuriating. The third day, she decided that she wanted to try her own techniques to 'loosen me up'. Before I knew it, she was in her bra and jeans, straddling my lap, trying to kiss me. That was it for me.
"Tanya, get off of me," I said forcefully as I pushed her hands away from creeping under my shirt.
"Baby, come on. We're just going to have a bit of fun. What's wrong with you?" her voice accused. Did I mention that she was extremely insecure?
"Nothing is 'wrong' with me, I just want you to get off my lap and put your shirt back on," I retorted.
Her eyes seemed to darken with hate. "This is about that tramp that you kissed while you were gone, isn't it? Isn't it?!" she yelled at me, getting off of me and moving in front of my view.
"Don't you dare talk about Bella like that! You don't even know her."
Tanya raised her brow, "You're really going to defend her?"
"Yes, I am because she seems to be the only person besides my family that doesn't want me for my looks, popularity or money," I seethed back.
"Then what does that say about me? I'm your girlfriend, Edward Anthony Cullen!" she shrieked.
I smirked, "I'm calling the shots like I see them and from my point of view, you're not my girlfriend anymore. I can't be in a relationship with someone I can't remember at all and who treats me and my feelings like shit. It's not worth wasting my time."
"Edward Cullen, are you saying I'm a waste of time? Me? I think you hit your head a little too hard on the cement."
"I think you should stop calling me that and yes, I think I might have too because I can't imagine how I survived these few days with you let alone before my incident. I think it must've been a major wake-up call."
"I wish you weren't such an idiot! You could be getting some right now if you weren't," she raised her voice as she pulled on her sorry excuse for a shirt.
"And I wish you were Bella! I might actually be happy for once!" I shouted back. My words echoed through a tangible silent. There was no sound to be heard at the words that had slipped out of my mouth before I realized it. I had just told my now-ex-girlfriend that I wished she was another woman. What kind of asshole was I? Sure I didn't like Tanya and though she should leave me alone but even that was low for me.
Tanya's beady eyes watched me like the predator bird stalking it's helpless prey, waiting for a moment to make it's death certain. I glared at her and her blue eyes stayed on mine as we stared one another down as if our lives depended on the other person's stare breaking.
I quickly turned away, back to my bed. "So that's how it is?" her strained voice seemed to echo in my room.
"Yes now please leave," my voice stung like dry ice against skin as I almost whispered out the words.
"Eddy," Tanya began sounding like she was trying to soften me up.
"Just go, Tanya."
I heard her rushed footsteps walk away from me and she let out frustrated cry once she opened up the door before leaving and slamming it shut. I let out a deep breath and sighed. My knees went weak and like the tired character at the end of the story, I fell onto my bed and pulled the blankets up around me.
The sheets smelled slightly of Tanya but I was too exhausted to care about if I woke up with a headache from the smell due to not washing my sheets. I decided to do one last thing before I went to bed. Flipping over in the bed, I reached out and groped for my cell phone.
I pressed the #2 speed dial and listened to it ringing.
"Hello?"
I smiled as my angry feelings dissipated just to be filled with a sense of comfort and relief, "Hey, Love. How was your day?"
I heard her sigh quietly into the phone, "It was alright. I knew you were going to call for some reason. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you! I was going to tell you yesterday but I figured that you might be asleep. I took the scholarship exam for my school to get back in and they gave me back my partial scholarship! I start next week.
"I'm going to take some independent studies though because I missed too much of class to take any of my exams. I'll be studying for the last month of school and over the summer for my exams which I will have to take in September and it's a little confusing but I get to go back! I'm so ready to get out of this house," Bella sighed.
II started to feel a twinge of regret for taking her education away from her when she spoke again, "I mean, it was great when you were around. I didn't have a problem staying home but just here by myself, it gets lonely real quick." Her silence matched mine before I broke it.
"I miss you," I mumbled into the receiver, knowing she'd hear me.
"Miss you too. How's it been going for you?" Her tone was happy. She was happy to be talking to me. It's times like this when she made me feel special.
"You know; the usual. Looking at pictures, breaking up with the psychotic girlfriend, listening to the umpteenth CD in my vast collection..." I trailed off because she interrupted me.
"What do you mean by you broke up with your girlfriend? Was she really that bad?" Bella's voice was concerned.
"I mean I was getting fed up with her and I broke up with her. I can't remember anything about her at all and on top of that she doesn't respect my space, messed with my pictures, called you a tramp and smells like a prostitute would I'm guessing. Her perfume stinks and sticks to every soft surface she touches. I swear that Esme is going to have to get me new linens either because I can't get the smell out or because they're worn out from all the washing."
Bella laughed and her musical tone was like velvet, caressing my eardrums. "What colour is your bedding?" she asked once her laughing subsided.
"Gold with black sheets colour schemed. My entire room is like that. I have gold drapes hung along all the walls and the back of my room is part of the glass wall at the back of the house. I think the curtains make for better acoustics for my music and the window has a great view. You should come down here sometime and get a load of this. Then you'll never want to go back to dreary Forks and I'll be the happiest man alive," I rambled jokingly yet with pure honesty.
Bella laughed again and asked, "Why would you be the happiest man alive, exactly?" My mind froze, realizing the slip-up. I thought it would be better to just go with it.
"I wouldn't have to give you up, that's why. I hate not living with you anymore," I admitted sheepishly. I heard Bella sniff a bit on the other end of the conversation. Oh crap. "Bella, Love, don't cry please," I begged.
Bella's voice gave a half-hearted laugh and sniffed again. "How do you know me so well?" she asked and I could hear her smiling through her tears. The image in my head of Bella's small smile and run lines from her tears on her face still made her the most beautiful creature I had ever known – inside and out. I loved her.
Notes to my reviewers:
MickeyMC: I LOVE YOU!!
JustSickAndTired: I'm glad your friends like it and thanks for spreading the word. I'm grateful for any and every fan who wants to read my story and I appreciate your words.
HaPpY bUnNy Is NoT aN eMo: Your persistence is appreciated and makes me laugh. Five gold stars for you.
krisso94: Thanks
FRK921: I love your ideas. They're creative and very original. No, Rosalie isn't conspiring against Bella and no, Bella and Edward didn't know each other when they were younger... at least I don't think they did... ;-P / P.S. Thanks for ALL the messages!
WickedSoulx: No worries, there is hope for them... just not yet. I'm busy being a sadist.
EdwardsMin4-Eva: hanks for going as far as PMing me about this story. Great lengths to review are appreciated humongously.