A/N - Thanks to Choc & Sparrow for everything they do to help me get these chapters out. I don't say that nearly enough! 3
Chapter 10
I drive out toward the coast, finally pulling into a parking lot surrounded by trees. It's still light enough to see everything clearly, but the sky is painted with watery orange streaks. Despite the few cars parked up around mine, there are no signs of any people as I follow the pathway, Alice's letters weighing heavily in my hand.
When I reach the sand I turn right, walking parallel to the ocean. There's something prehistoric about the place, the way it's littered with salt-bleached, bone-like tree trunks, battered smooth by the ocean before they finally washed up here. I pass a middle-aged couple walking hand-in-hand, as a small fluffy dog trots along beside them. The woman smiles, says hello, but I'm in no mood for niceties. I scowl and purposely look the other way, into the treeline. I know I'm being rude, and my mom would be mortified if she could see me now, but I can't bring myself to give a fuck.
I can't find a place I'm completely happy with, but eventually I decide on one that'll do and climb up onto the tree. It's large enough, as it lays on its side, that my feet don't touch the ground as I dangle my legs down. Diligently sorting through the letters, I place them in post-mark order, oldest first. Then, slowly, I ease my thumb under the flap, tearing along the paper when it refuses to lift.
Her letter has no words. It's a sketch of a photo I remember well, but haven't seen for a while. I wonder for the first time if she has it with her? I never knew she could draw like this, but then her interests were sparse and almost exclusively anti-social in nature over the past couple of years. I guess incarceration brings out interests you never knew you had.
The lead smudges as I test it, pushing down on the paper at the grey edges of her face, and pushing a dirty mark inward, blurring her features. I do the same to the image of myself, sitting on the floor at her feet, and then I refold it and shove it roughly back into the envelope. It's pissed me off and I don't know why. Maybe I was expecting her to tell me she misses me as much as I miss her, or some sympathy for the situation we're all in now - fuck, an apology wouldn't have killed her. But this? Fucking pansy-ass drawing of the two of us when we were all a family? Well that's not worth shit to me now.
I open the next letter with hands that shake. What I'd give for a cigarette right now.
I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the loop of her neat handwriting through the back of the paper, but the tension returns with my next breath in when I see it's a poem.
I don't even bother reading it, or stuffing it back into the envelope, I just pick all the papers up and jump off the log, as I consider leaving them right here to rot away.
Fucking poetry.
As I stomp back to the car, I pause at the garbage can at the edge of the parking lot. I lift the lid and hold the letters over it and then release them, dropping them in.
I'm almost back to the car when I turn abruptly and walk back, fishing them out again and gingerly wiping the remains of somebody's dinner from the paper as I curse under my breath.
Just because I rescued them, it doesn't mean I want to read them any more than I did when I dropped them in the garbage, so as I get in the car I throw them onto the floor on the passenger side and turn on the radio. Sliding back the seat as far as it'll go and laying it back a little, I sit, murmuring the half-forgotten lyrics to a song I used to be word-perfect on, back in the days when my life was pretty normal. My mind wanders before the song is even over, and when I pull out my phone I see that Bella sent me a text over an hour ago.
Sorry about earlier xx
I have my reply half-typed out when I decide to call her instead.
"Hey." Her voice is sleep-heavy.
"I woke you, didn't I?"
"It's okay, I don't mind." Her voice becomes strained, followed by a sigh, and I guess she's stretching. "What are you doing?"
"Sitting in my car at the beach."
"It's a little late for the beach, don't you think?"
"My dad pissed me off. I'm going to sleep out tonight." I slide lower in the seat and trace the Volvo badge in the center of the steering wheel.
"Who with?" Her voice is abrupt and it makes me laugh.
"With nobody, I'm alone. Who'd you think I'd be with?"
"A girl?"
I'm unsure whether it's a show of insecurity or immaturity. I'd be annoyed at her assumptions, but something in her voice when she made them, tugged at my usually cold heart.
I try, but I can't hold back a smile.
"Are you jealous?"
"No." She sounds defensive and fearful, the absolute opposite of her declaration.
"Good, because I want to tell you a couple of things. Firstly, you're absolutely the only girl I've met since I moved here, so there's nobody to even be jealous of. Secondly, I don't know what kind of guys you've been around before, Bella, but I'm not the kind of guy who'd kiss one girl then go see another. If I'm with you, then I'm with only you. Understand?"
She's quiet, not offering a reply. "Are you still there?" I ask after a moment.
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Good."
"Come and get me?" she asks, dropping her voice so low I almost miss the question. I stare through the windshield at a young couple walking over to their car, hand in hand.
"Not tonight."
"Please, Edward."
The thought's tempting, and my hand even travels down to where my keys hang from the ignition, but I decide I've had enough of family friction for one day.
"There's no point, your dad'll only hunt us down again."
"I'll sneak out, he'll never know."
"Just...leave it for tonight, hey, B? Give your old man a break, will you?"
I hold my breath for a moment as I wait for her to lose it with me, like she has done before when she didn't like what I had to say. This time she surprises me.
"Okay."
The sigh that follows is deep, and I get the sense that she's as exhausted by it all as I am.
"Get some sleep, huh? I'll see you tomorrow."
"You promise?" Her voice is filled with hope, and it scares me that I have expectations to live up to.
I've never been great at that.