SM owns Twilight and its characters. I own this story. 2010.

Thank you, BilliCullen, for pre-reading and persistent reassurance (because I kinda freak out a little sometimes… most times). And thank you to infinity and beyond, Scooterstale, for fixing up my angst (despite your genre-reticence).

She Cut Me Right Back Down to Size

"Don't you dare give me shit, Edward Cullen," Bella snapped, as I stared incredulously at the half-painted toffee-colored walls of the empty living room.

"I never signed anything allowing this, Ms. Swan," I snapped back, seething and wildly waving my hand at the walls. My blood pressure was through the roof, having had a solid fifteen minutes of drive time to build. "You just presume to do whatever you damn well please, don't you? That's it, isn't it?"

Bella rolled her eyes and huffed, interrupting my assault. "No, you didn't sign a damn thing – apparently you were busy up in that office of yours. No, you weren't around to sign, but Mrs. Cope sure did on your behalf. Check your paperwork. And you ought to listen to yourself for once. I don't think you need to presume that you know anything about me," she growled, crossing her slender arms across her chest. Her eyes flashed me a look that blatantly said 'fuck you, asshole.'

"Oh, fucking Christ! You are so damned difficult!" I yelled, my fingers darting up to my scalp.

"Why are you so pissed off?" Bella asked, a deep crimson – this time, surely from anger – rising up her neck to her face. Her cheeks puffed out as she argued, "What the hell is the big deal? You can see I haven't done a thing to your precious new carpet. And just like I noted on my paperwork, when I leave, I will repaint the place that boring-ass apartment beige it came with. So explain yourself, Edward Cullen. What is your problem?"

Her question was valid. Very valid and very unexpected, and the heat in her demand disarmed me completely, obliterating my own rage. If I were being honest with both her and myself, I didn't know the answer. The moment I'd seen Jacob Black at the diner my irritation had spiked and then just grew from there. I couldn't rightfully explain my reaction. Was it because she asked that damned Black kid to help her? Or was it that she didn't ask me at all? I had no clue. Why do I give a shit if the walls were blue, beige, red or fucking purple, for that matter? I don't live here. And true to her word, there wasn't a spot on the carpet.

And fucking hell if it didn't look better. A lot better. The house looked like a home. This woman was turning my goddamned piece of shit rental into a home, something worth living in. And I couldn't comprehend why she cared, why she bothered. Something about it, however, about seeing the walls coming to life, about seeing signs of warmth and color, inexplicably made my chest ache. I didn't understand it, what or from where this throbbing stemmed. But it felt like someone had just punched me in the sternum, and my empty cavity of a body was swelling and ballooning against its frame. Suddenly, my eyes stung, and it was as though I were on the verge of tears, like I was some damned emotional junkie about to lose his composure. And that, my ludicrous reaction, just pissed me off even more. But there was no way in hell that I'd allow this woman to see anything of the sort from me.

Roughly, I dry washed my face and tried to focus on something else, anything other than this inane fucking question that I couldn't seem to answer, trying to push away the discomfort and frustrating confusion. But my efforts were to no avail; my chest still felt tight, wound up, and my jaw flexed, holding back God only knew what kind of emotional outburst. When it came to interacting with this woman, I had complete and utter mistrust in my body. All I could manage was to stand there and stare at anything but her, trying to figure out what to say and what to do.

But after a long moment of finding no answers and no reprieve, I sighed, deflated, tired, and unwilling to continue. I just wanted to go home and drink myself into a mindless stupor so that I could forget all of these nonsensical feelings. God, I hate 'feelings', I groaned silently. I wanted numb. While numb certainly wasn't happy, it was painless. It was safe and it was something I knew.

Glancing away, in a quiet, resigned voice, one that contrasted sharply with the heated ire I'd just inflicted upon her, I simply and honestly admitted, "I don't know. I don't. Just… whatever, do whatever you want. I don't care."

You win, I thought, my eyes involuntarily sliding shut as my forefinger and thumb pinched and massaged the bridge of my nose, attempting to divert the oncoming raging headache. Exhausted to the point of delirium, I just didn't have it in me to argue, or to talk, or to explain. I didn't fucking care about paint. I didn't care about forms or signatures or carpet or any of it. I didn't care about whatever foolish thing it was in my head that made me boil over in the first place. I give up.

As I moved to turn away, to exit her home, to run away and hide in my own personal prison, I felt a slight pressure on my upper arm, gently holding me in place and preventing my retreat. It was unexpected and my body reacted with a surprised shudder. The pressure felt foreign, but warm and soft. And there was something else there, some indescribable sensation that coursed into my body, something that made my words thicken in my throat but somehow made the tightness in my chest infinitesimally relent. "Wait," Bella murmured, her voice lowering and softening. "I should have mentioned it to you. I just assumed that you'd have seen the forms and talked to Mrs. Cope. I apologize. It's your property. I can change it back if you'd prefer."

I stared down at where her hand rested lightly against the fabric of my shirt, where I could feel the warmth from her body radiating into mine. When my eyes trailed across to meet hers, for split second, the air seemed to heat and crackle. It wasn't unlike the electric sizzle in the air during a summer lightning storm. In that short second, it was as if I couldn't catch my breath, like my heart was racing, like I'd just run a marathon. It was confusing and frightening, but I didn't want her hand to leave. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognized that this was the first time in years that someone other than a blood relative had willingly touched me. No one else would dare get close enough; I'd more than effectively scared them away.

I wasn't sure how much time passed, how long we stood there speechless, staring, and connected by nothing more than her hand on my bicep. Though physically connected, I felt adrift, as though I were lost in a sea of flickering, disjointed thoughts and alien sensations. She made no move to release me; from what I could see, Bella seemed equally stunned. Her eyes, a dark liquid chestnut, were wide and surprised, and her lips, full and pale pink, were slightly parted. The deep scarlet of her angered blush faded to a light dusting, just enough color to highlight and offset the cream of her complexion. I wasn't sure what held me more, the strange feeling of her hand on my body or the look on her face.

When my mouth finally moved to speak, my voice sounded strangled. "Why do you care about this place? Why bother?"

Her gaze dropped and her brow creased. I wondered if she would answer; she seemed reticent and uncomfortable with my prodding. Curiously, I watched her chest expand with the deep breath she took, almost as if she were steadying herself to respond. Whispering, she answered, "When I was a child, I used to live here. Or rather, my father did and I visited sometimes in the summer. This is the closest thing to a home I have left. I, just-, I wanted to feel close to something."

Wait.

No.

What?

Mouth agape, I stuttered out what I thought vaguely sounded like a request for her to repeat her statement.

"Yeah," she affirmed with a small, sad smile, finally releasing my arm. "I was young, just after my mother and father divorced. During the school year, I lived with my step-sister and mother in Arizona, and even in Florida for a while. But during the summers, I'd come up here and stay with my dad.

"When I was a little older, I stupidly decided that Forks was too boring and made my dad meet me places. That was all before he died though, a few years before you and your family moved up here. He died when I was fourteen."

My face surely betrayed my disbelief. "Some guy from out of town owned it when we moved. He just rented it and I never thought anything of it," I mused aloud, damning myself for not having paid attention to the deed records. "But I don't understand. If you wanted to buy the place from me, why didn't you just say so?"

"What would you have said, anyway? And I don't want to buy it. Or well, I don't know if I'd even be up for that. Initially, I said nothing because I wasn't sure if I could handle living here all by myself or even if I'd stay more than a couple of months. Edward, I haven't lived alone in a long time, and if I'm being one hundred percent honest, it wasn't really in my best interest to do so these last couple of years." Glancing around, she waved and added, "This is a test I suppose."

I had no idea what she meant by half of her reply, but the melancholy in her voice and on her face told me to keep those particular questions to myself. So instead, I settled for addressing her very last admission. "Are you passing?" I asked lightly, only partially understanding what I was asking and feeling very uncomfortable with where this new information and sharing put us.

"I think so," Bella replied softly, gazing out through the window across the green expanse of her back yard. When she caught sight of a furry, black animal wagging its tail and looking upward, a faint smile spread across her lips.

I looked around the room, noting the place was still only partially furnished. She was waiting, buying for the rooms as she prepared them. That first delivery had probably just been the necessities. But even minus furnishings, her space looked warm and inviting. It matched her. It fit her style – effortless, casual, yet timeless. Beyond the empty living room, in the already completed dining room, I could see a dark cherry wood table with matching chairs, all clean, solid lines. Bold prints, with deep reds and dark greens, hung against the taupe walls. If I were not looking, I'd have missed the fact that there were no photographs.

"So this is what you do at night? Paint?" I asked, now wholly curious. I wanted to know just how much of this she'd done and how much had been completed by way of the assistance of Jacob Black. I could not put my finger on why I cared, but I did. I didn't like the idea of him here. For some reason, I just… didn't like it.

Her head swiveled back to face me, her hair whipping from the sudden movement and sending a wave of light floral perfume across my skin. "How did you know?"

"What? That you are painting? Uh, Bella, I think that's pretty fucking obvious," I chuckled, sniffing exaggeratedly at the noticeable smell of latex in the room.

"No, you asked if I did this at night. Why would you ask that?" Her tone was laced with accusation.

Fuck.

A new, unfamiliar feeling swelled in the pit of my stomach, a sickening feeling akin to nausea. Not comprehending, my brain flipped through an array of emotions I hadn't felt in years, trying to pinpoint the name of what exactly I was feeling. It settled on nervousness. I was nervous. I was nervous because I'd essentially outted myself and not even realized it until she'd called me out for it. While my late night behavior hadn't seemed off to me at the time, I supposed that the average female would be none too pleased to learn of a random male neighbor routinely sitting out on his porch at two o'clock in the morning watching the lights of her windows.

Nervously, I stammered, "I don't really sleep so well either. I, well, I keep odd hours and sometimes I see your lights on."

Fortunately for me, that seemed to satisfy her. Before I could recover from that round, however, Bella stunned the hell out of me again. Her mouth transformed into a mischievous smile, one that both baffled me and simultaneously made me want to smile in return - like perhaps I could be in on whatever secret made her giggle, too. Clearly amused with herself, she asked innocently, "Do you paint?"

"What?" I fumbled, not immediately following. Then again, every single time I was in this woman's presence, I felt like my brain wasn't functioning properly, like it couldn't comprehend the most basic of concepts. It was as though I existed in a perpetual state of stupid where she was concerned.

Bella just rolled her eyes and repeated herself, enunciating as if she were speaking to a child. "Well, it's your house after all. And you just said you're up at all hours like me. I'm asking if you want to help me paint."

No, I wanted to say, but didn't. At some time, somewhere in our discussion since leaving that diner, something had changed in our dynamic. What that something was or to what it had changed, I hadn't determined. I wanted to say no, but I also wanted to say yes. Maybe my loneliness had finally won; perhaps I wanted some human companionship in the early hours of the morning, something other than a bottle of scotch with which to converse. Or maybe I wanted to feel useful for once rather than being the dragging weight on everyone around me. Or maybe my mind couldn't resist the allure of solving the puzzle of her. Some small part of me admitted that this woman wasn't so terrible to be around, a hell of a lot better than my family. Maybe I just didn't want Jacob Black finding out what I was only beginning to understand. Possibly, some deep recess in my psyche tugged at her hidden vulnerability. Or probably, it was some fucked up combination of it all.

As if in a barrel, I heard the echo of my voice answer a quiet, "Okay."

~.~.~

Swish-swish

Swish-swish

Listening to the rhythmic brushing of horsehair against wood almost put me to sleep, almost lulled me toward unconsciousness. There was something about it, the regular pattern, the unthinking motion of my wrist – up and down, dip, up and down again. It was almost soothing. And it allowed me to sink into that comfortable mindless state that can only be reached through mindless activity. For those precious few minutes, I didn't think about why I was here, I didn't think about what had driven me to say yes. I didn't focus on the disconcerting notion that I was renting this house to someone who'd actually lived here before, and that she was fixing what I'd chosen to ignore. Temporarily driven from my mind were those always-present thoughts of self-loathing and antipathy. I thought of nothing but the satin-white evidence of my brush's path along the doorframe.

Outside, it was pitch black; not a hint of moonlight permeated the thick layer of clouds. It was one of those nights when I looked up, there was nothing to see, just endless dark. It was the kind of night that usually left my skin pebbly and left my mind wary, remembering too much. But now, my mind was calm. Because inexplicably, in the space between these walls, there were no traces of night.

It'd been two days since my brain had essentially shut down and given up, effectively ceding control to the dark haired woman to my left. I had arrived on her doorstep at quarter past two, disheveled and not quite convinced that I should be here at all. But sleep had eluded me, leaving me restless and self-destructive, more so than usual. My first inclination, of course, had been to drink myself blind, to force slumber as I always did. But just as I had poured my first glass of scotch, a ghost of a thought made me look up and out through the window, just to see, just in case. Instead of dark windows, my eyes had been met by familiar bright yellow light filtering through the glass, almost as if in beckoning.

It had taken me far longer than it should have to reach her door, but walking down the winding drive, flashlight in hand, I'd changed my mind and turned back almost half a dozen times. I could not reconcile the conflicting emotions; I still had no idea how I truly felt about the woman. For reasons I didn't fully grasp, she drove me insane, but I liked the fact that Bella didn't treat me with kid gloves. She didn't coddle me, she didn't fear me, and she certainly didn't take shit from me. She pressed me to my very limits, but right before I buckled, almost as if she understood, she backed down. And two days ago, I had finally understood that being near her made me… nervous. For as much as I struggled with myself to admit it, after four years of apathy, anger, and bitterness, nervous was… pleasant.

Standing there facing the freshly painted red of her front door, I had fought with myself. I felt idiotic and ridiculous. I couldn't believe that I was actually here – standing outside the home of a woman I couldn't decide if I even liked – willingly volunteering to paint fucking walls at two in the morning. It was beyond absurd, but yet here I was.

I had known she was awake. I could hear music pouring out of the open downstairs windows, and I could see her shadowy shape moving past the backlit glass. I didn't know how to knock, how to say, 'I'm here. Now what?' So, for at least ten minutes, I had stood there dumbly staring at the gleaming brass knocker in the center of the door. About the time my more intelligent half took over and sent me home, the nervous half of me took a deep breath, moved my hand to the door, and gently rapped the brass handle against its base.

Surprisingly, thankfully, she had answered almost immediately, swinging the door wide open and wearing a soft, warm smile. I'd expected her to smirk or to start with some sarcastic quip, something making me feel like the idiot I was. I'd expected her to taunt me and tell me to go the fuck home. But Bella didn't. For a brief moment, with one hand still on the knob of the door, she had eyed me up and down, as if she were cataloguing my unkempt appearance, taking in my wrinkled white t-shirt and wild hair, a product of near-constant unconscious attack. She paused her appraisal, lingering on my face, apparently seeing something. When her eyes met mine, they were depthless, and she wore an expression that I couldn't seem to entirely process – sad empathy or understanding perhaps. Without saying a word, her smile had broadened in welcome and she motioned me in. Three minutes later, we stood, side-by-side, wordlessly coloring her walls and listening to the wailing tenor of an old, sensual, bluesy waltz.

"Favorite color?" Bella asked suddenly, looking up from her roller. There were white and toffee-tinted spots and splatters littering the dark navy of her shirt, some old, ragged thing that at some point had sported the name of some college, the words having long since faded. But despite its wear, against the fabric, the cream of her skin looked like that of a delicate porcelain doll, and my eyes involuntarily traveled along the tattered scoop of the neckline. Even in rags, she was… distracting.

Pulled from my unthinking, silent reverie, I stuttered, "What?"

She flashed a grin and dipped her roller in the tray at her feet. "Favorite color? Mine's brown."

Caught off guard by the abruptness of her seemingly casual inquiry, I answered on instinct, purely without thinking. "Blue."

.

.

A/N: That 'wailing tenor' singing that 'sensual, bluesy waltz' was Sam Cooke singing Summertime.

Chapter title: Lyrics from Comedown, by Bush.