Author's Note: Sorry it took so long to update. I wasn't getting any of my alerts so I figured no one else was either, and I didn't want anybody to stop reading because they didn't know I'd updated. Sorry about that!! R&R!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Twilight characters.
Chapter 10: Real-Estate
We laid there for a few moments, not know what to do or what to say. At least I didn't. So much for Rosalie's warning I thought to myself, inwardly laughing yet chastising myself at the same time. I knew that we were in love and that, in one way or another, we were together again. But at the same time, we weren't. And this had just taken it to a whole other level of confusion.
I felt his arms around me. He pulled me closer to him as he took a deep breath in and my worries faded. I felt his lips against my hair.
"Should we get back on the road?" I asked without looking up at him.
He didn't answer at first, he just seemed to be thinking about it. He removed his arms from me and sat up.
"I guess we should," he said, slightly disappointed. "Or we could just stay here for a while." He said, looking over at me for an answer.
I smiled at him and stood up. I walked past him and saw him breathe in, deeply. I laughed at him and he opened his eyes, starring at me as if he wasn't quite sure what was so funny.
He tilted his head to the side. "What are you laughing at?"
"You." I said, matter-of-factly.
"Just because your scent is still so intoxicating doesn't mean that you get to laugh at me." He said with that same crooked smile that I'd missed so much as he walked towards me.
I ran for the car, allowing him to chase me, knowing that he'd never beat me there. By the time he arrived, I was already in the driver's seat putting my seat belt on.
I turned the car on and headed back for the highway, driving as fast as the car would allow me to. We drove without talking for a while, the only sounds being the music playing on the stereo. He had put a CD in the stereo, Debussy as always. I smiled as I thought of the past times we'd listened to this. When I was human and he was my vampire boyfriend. Before everything had changed so dramatically. And then Rosalie's words came back into my mind.
"Don't be too easy on him…He nearly obliterated your heart when he left… Don't be too easy on him." And my smile faded.
Edward must've seen the worry on my face. He put his hand on my leg.
"You alright?" he asked me.
I glanced over at him for a second, "I'm fine." I told him, trying to be as reassuring as possible.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I said, a little too quickly.
"That means something. Tell me."
I wasn't sure if I wanted to talk to him about it. If it was even something that was up for discussion in my mind. But I knew that sooner or later, it was going to have to come up.
I starred into his eyes, trying to find the words but all I found was more complication. And more reasons not to say what I was thinking. I looked back towards the road and it came out anyways.
"I'm thinking that Rosalie's right." I waited for a response that never came. He just starred at me, his face expressionless and I saw his eyes go blank.
"Moving so fast…it's not a good idea. We both get hurt this way." I continued. "I need to trust you again and there's a lot that we both need to prove to each other. That… what we just did. It muddles things up."
"But you told me not to stop." He said. And he was right. It had been my decision. I had wanted it. And I had been wrong.
"I know I did. And maybe I shouldn't have. I'm not saying that I regret it, I don't." I said, trying to repair the damage that I'd done. "I just think we need to go slower. I'm still broken. I'm still a shell. And just because you're here now doesn't mean that you're going to be here tomorrow."
He was starring at me now and I felt his eyes boring into me, trying desperately to read my mind the way he could everyone else.
"I can't make you stay, Edward. I haven't been able to up until now and I don't want to convince myself that this time is going to be any different. And I don't want the fact that we had sex make me think that somehow I'm going to be able to keep you here. With me. It won't. If you want to leave, I know I can't stop you."
I hadn't noticed that I'd been steadily speeding up. The harder it became to say what I was saying, the faster I went. I was pushing 115 now and I wasn't sure I wanted to slow down. I was terrified of how he was going to react to what I'd just said. It took him a couple of minutes to respond to me.
"I deserve that. I broke your heart and I don't deserve you. But I'll do anything to gain your trust again. No matter what."
And that was all he said. We drove the rest of the way to Alaska that way; in silence. He starred at me the entire way, occasionally running his hand through my hair or writing messages on my leg with his fingers. Things like "I love you" and "I'm yours" and my favorite, "Forever."
We finally arrived in Anchorage after a little more than 24 hour long drive. It should've taken nearly two days with stopping for gas but now that neither of us took issue with driving nearly double the speed limit, trips went faster.
We pulled up to the house and saw that the delivery trucks had already arrived at the house and left everything in the appropriate rooms. The house was beautiful. A large wrap around white porch with blue wooden benches every few feet, with planters in between each one full of the most beautiful flowers. We walked into the house; you entered into one of the biggest living rooms I'd ever seen, with hardwood floors and plain white walls, a marble fire place at the far west end of the room. To my right was the dining room. The walls were burgundy with a bright silver chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the floors here were also a light hardwood. An archway lead into the kitchen where there were granite countertops all around the exterior of the room and an island in the middle of the room with yet another chandelier hanging right above it.
At the back of the kitchen was a door that went out to the back porch, but if you turned left there was a pantry nearly half the size of the kitchen itself.
"Do you like it?" Edward asked me, hopefully, as he peeked in at me.
"Are you kidding me? It's gorgeous!" I told him. He grabbed my hand and lead me up the stairs that were in the living room. We passed by a bathroom that looked absolutely huge, but I didn't get a chance to look at it.
Once we were upstairs, he pushed me in front of him. I looked in each room, all of them were different colors, each bigger than any room I'd ever lived in. The fourth and last bedroom door was closed. He stepped in front of me as I went to open the door.
"This one's yours." He said, a dubious smile spread across his face, reaching his eyes.
"Close your eyes." He said, and I did as I was told.
I heard him open the door. He was behind me again with his hands on my hips, leading me into the room.
"Open them." He said when we'd walked a little ways in.
I gasped.