AN- If you havent read/finished breaking dawn, no worries, there are ABSOLUTELY no spoilers here.
"Bella!" Ange exclaimed, "The turns coming up!"
"Oh," I snapped out of my trance, "Yeah." I turned down the obscure drive and rolled onward.
At the end, standing, large and white, in a sea of darkness, was the Cullen house.
The moment I stepped out of the drivers seat I was bombarded, attacked almost, by Alice.
She raced from the porch, where the rest of the family stood and threw hers arms around my neck.
"Oh God Bella I am sooooo sorry!" She cried, "I can't believe I behaved as I did! You have every right in the world to throw me off of you right now, get in your car, and leave us forev-"
"ALICE!" I laughed, "Calm down!"
She looked at me, "Your not going to leave?"
"Not yet, at least." I smirked.
"Oh." She let go of me and grinned, "Good. Because we have some MAJOR explaining to do here."
She turned to Angela, "Bonjour, again."
Angela smiled, and rolled her eyes. "Hey Alice."
Alice smiled widely and grabbed both of our hands, pulling us to the house. The rest of the family was silent as we went through the door, coming in behind us.
I was surprised to see that this home was almost an exact replica of their Forks home. The one, blaring difference was that the piano was locked shut. I glanced back at Edward, who was looking at the ground silently.
Unlike earlier, I now allowed myself to appreciate every aspect of Edward.
But, before I could do so thoughrally, he looked up at me, and I was forced to look into his eyes, for mine wouldn't go anywhere else. I finally pulled away to realize that everyone was staring at us.
I looked directly at Esme and smiled, "Sorry about earlier, Esme." I said, quietly.
"It's alright." She smiled warmly, "We deserve your anger."
I started to tell her that they didn't when Jasper spoke up.
"Bella, I'm sorry about the way that, not only I, but all of us acted before."
"It's not your fault Jasper-"
"I'm afraid that it partially is, actually," He smiled apologetically, "Did you happen to notice that everyone in the school was particullarly ornery mood today?"
I thought for a minute,"... You made that happen?"
"Not purposely, when you confronted us with all of that anger it kind of took over my entire self, I couldn't change it, I couldn't calm you, or make it go away, so, in my attempt to get it out, I projected it everywhere."
"That would explain a lot." I muttered, thinking of my math teacher, who had practically tackled a student earlier that day.
"Not that that excuses our additudes at all. We should have had better control." Carlisle threw in.
"I understand, but I still want to talk about what I came here for."
"Of course," Carlisle smiled, "Let's go into the family room."
We went and sat on the white couches, Angela and I sat together, she had Alice and Jasper on her other side.
John sat across from us, I caught Ange wink at him, he grinned. I elbowed Ange lightly, she looked at me and smiled apologetically, I rolled my eyes, as if to say, 'If you must'.
"Well, firstly, we should probably explain why we left..." Carlisle said, "After the birthday party insident... some of the members of this family felt that you would be safer without us around to complicate your existence."
I snorted, "That obviously worked out so well."
Emmett grinned, "I told them that no matter how far away we went, you would still be putting you life in danger."
"Shut it, Emmett," Rosalie said smiling. "Bella, he only means that you had a certain... gift of clumsyness."
I wa a little shocked, "Rosalie, did you just-"
"Say something nice to you?" She smiled, "Yeah, sorry about earlier, initailly, before you started shreiking at us, I mean, I was planning on being nicer than I was before." She laughed, "But, Jasper had to go and be a drama queen about it."
I saw Jasper whip a pillow at her, and she caught it. "Hah."
He rolled his eyes. This was what I had missed, I realized.
"Anyway, you have to understand how difficult that decision was for us to make. We had no desire to leave you." Carlisle finished.
"I think I understand that. But I don't understand why you couldn't just tell me that."
"Because I wanted you to forget, and go on with your life," Edward said queitly, not looking up at me.
"You should've known that that was never going to work." I answered, "I was never going to move on. Never. I loved you all far to much to forget about you. You all took a little bit of me with you when you left."
"I'm so sorry, Bella," Esme whispered brokenly. "We honestly thought that we were doing what was best for you. We tried, but, you have no idea what we were... what we are without you. Its been so long since we were all happy. So long since the piano has been played..." She trailed off, "Edward came back," she said, looking at her hands, "To see if you were happy, if not, he was going to saty, we were all going to come back... but if you were happy, he was leaving... He, none of us, anticipated what he was going to hear."
"Do you mind if we finish this story alone?" Edward asked.
A chorus of "Of course not," flooded the room, and he looked at me. "Sure," I whispered.
I stood, Ange gave me a reassuring pat on the back, and we went to the porch, down the stairs and into the yard.
"Bella," He said quietly, "I'm very sorry. When Charlie told me you were dead, I tool off, without even looking at the evidence. I was in Italy in a matter of hours." I gasped.
"Luckily, Alice caught up with me. She really hit below the belt." He smiled a little, "She told me that you wouldn't want this for me, and then she brought Esme into it..." He trailed off, "I couldn't do it after that. I guess I decided that I should be punished for leaving you anyway, and dying was far too humane."
He looked at me.
"Edward, you shouldn't have tried to kill yourself." I whispered, "It wasn't your... Well, actually, it kind of was, but, my point is that, you should never have done that, it would have killed the entire family."
"I know," He sighed.
"I know that I don't deserve your forgiveness, or your friendship, but-"
"No, you really don't," I smiled, "But, we'll work on number one, and officially instate number two." I held out my hand, "Friends?" The word was almost painful to say.
He shook it lightly, the electricity was almost impossible to ignore this time, "Friends." he said breathlessly.
AN- I know, not that long, but I'm working on the next chapter as we... type?
Anyway, I finished Breaking Dawn two days ago!! On the 4th! (I tried to pace myself) woo! IT WAS AMAZING!! I was SHOCKED! Throughout the WHOLE thing!
However, I am commited to keeping the spoilers away for a few weeks, so yeah,
The release party I went to had an Edward/Jacob debate! I swear, I thought it was going to turn into a riot!
Anyhooooo, thanks for reading!
Reviews are WONDERFUL!
- alison