Little Slugger - Chapter 11 - Impossible
Author: realgirl-imaginarylife
A/N: Many thanks to my amazing Project Team Betas, TiffanyAnne3 and Batgirl8968 and my Twilighted Validation Beta Strider. Song for this chapter is We're Going to be Friends by The White Stripes.
No, not mine.
Edward stuffed his hands in his coat pockets, instinctively lifting his shoulders upward towards his ears in response to the night's cold air. Bella noticed that she was doing the same. What an odd little human response that was.
They walked together in silence for a few minutes, breath forming billowing clouds of steam and the late-night semi-hush of the city keeping them each to their own thoughts. Bella had walked three paces too many before she realized that he had stopped at the top of a staircase leading down below the city. She tured back.
"This is my train," he said, masnsaging his knuckles.
Bella pillaged through her sleep-needy brain, desperate to think of something she could say to assure that the night would end on a positive note.
"Let's go somewhere," she blurted, surprising even herself.
Edward's eyes jerked up in shock. "Go somewhere? It's almost two o'clock in the morning!"
"And I know for a fact you have no where to be tomorrow," she challenged.
"And I know for a fact that you do," he said pointedly.
Waitaminute, was Edward being feisty?
Bella pushed back. "Did you miss the memo? Ohhhh, right, you did. Tomorrow is 'Bring Your Pillow to Work Day.'" She grinned at him, hiding her desperation. "Please?"
She may have been feeling afraid that she'd never find him again if she let him disappear. He may have been feeling similarly. Edward sighed.
"Isabella, I don't know...I..." he trailed off, tracing the length of a deep crack in the sidewalk with the toe of his boot.
Bella froze. Had he just called her Isabella?
Even as her heart soared, she choked back a giggle, realizing that he probably only knew her name from the Vitamin Direct phone extension list, or perhaps her cubicle nameplate, both of which addressed her in the formal. She swallowed hard, refusing for one second to make him feel stupid after all his hard work tonight. In the back of her mind, she noted that as far as she was concerned, he could call her anything he wanted - Hound Dog, or Chi-Chi, or Spike - if it made him more comfortable around her.
"I just don't feel like going home. Not yet."
"Where are you suggesting we go?"
Bella turned around in a circle, watching the buildings and the starless sky whiz by as the cool air pierced her cheek, taking in a 360 degree scan of the area. Several blocks away, she spotted the tiny, bright glow of an animated neon sign, but couldn't quite read it from their vantage point. She looked back to Edward, her eyes devilishly bright, and then took off briskly in the direction of the colorful light, walking with purpose.
Edward did and did not want to follow her. Miraculously, up to this point he had managed to get through the entire night without fleeing. Or dying. Or making a terrible ass of himself. Elongating the evening only increased the chances of any one of the three, if not something worse.
He stood helpless, watching as she bounced down the sidewalk, only once turning back, flashing him an expectant grin. The sight made his heart feel hard, heavy, and like no matter how much he tried, he couldn't possibly pick it up and lug it to where she was. And might never be able to.
"Wait."
She stopped, impatiently jogging in place, determined to continue on despite his neuroses. Her eyes were so full of wonder and excitement. She cared not that it was the middle of the night or that they were standing there in impasse in the middle of a cold, smelly New York City street. She cared not that he was probably the single most ungracious company she'd ever kept. She cared not that he was stalling while she was diving in. And he envied her more in that moment than he had envied anyone in a very long time.
Her eyebrows were raised, waiting.
"I...I just feel like..." he trailed off, not even remotely close to finding the words he'd been searching for.
"You done with all that?" she asked gently. She waved her hand. "C'mon."
He watched as she turned, prancing towards the light in the distance with such a careful precision it was almost as if she were performing a choreographed scene from a musical. His script must've been lost in the mail though, because with zero certainty - and zero grace - he stumbled along several yards behind her, unaware of if or how or why he had even agreed to this ridiculous plan.
He met up with her a few minutes later, blocks from where they'd started.
First he saw her, gazing upward with wide, excited eyes, a huge grin, and the eerie glow of neon light reflecting off her face, animated shadows dancing across her nose and cheek. Lovely.
Second, he tore his eyes away, sending them to see what she was staring at, and in that moment nearly turned around, looking for traffic to run full speed in front of.
The green and pink lights were forged in the shape of bowling pins, with large blinking letters to the side - B-O-W-L. And the number 24. As in twenty-four hours. As in open all the time. As in, open right now.
"No," he said, shaking his head vehemently, "No. No way. I...I have...stuff...stuff I need to do."
"Stuff?" she said. "Like what? Polish your boots? Clean your sink? Write a new song? Come, Edward, let's go write a song about the time you bowled in the middle of a Wednesday night. With me!" She held the door open open with her foot, gracefully posing her arms as a game show prize girl might, presenting the way through.
Edward glanced down at his boots - they could use a polish. Despite himself, as he squinted beyond the dark threshold into the empty bowling alley, he couldn't help but feel a bit like a field mouse staring into the open mouth of a hungry viper.
You're losing. Miserably." He shook his head with disbelief, surveying their score sheet like an eager first-year accountant.
"I love losing!" she shouted loudly enough to produce an echo, before winding up enthusiastically to roll her ninth gutterball of the evening. He tried to hide his responding smile with his teeth, but she caught a glimpse of it. "Admit it," she prodded, "you're having fun!"
It appeared that he was, actually. The mood between them had lightened; the air lean and light.
He shook his head, smiling, and looking away from her. Over the course of the evening, she had decoded that was his way of telling her that he was so very sure she didn't know the half of it.
"I haven't been bowling since..." as he searched for words, his eyes found something very far away - much farther than the cinder block walls of the bowling alley. "Not for...years," he finished simply with a deep breath.
Bella grabbed a cheese snack from the noisy foil bag on the table between them and paused dramatically, leaning towards him and ushering the unnaturally orange stick towards his mouth. His lips pursed in revolt, eyes widening as his back pushed back as far as it could into his seat. Half of her mouth tipped upward in a grin as she leaned forward towards him, holding it, unshaking, near his face, awaiting his trust.
"Cheese curl?" she asked innocently, her eyes dancing.
Edward swallowed obviously and opened his mouth, only barely enough for it to fit through. It was an act of pure surrender that he was completely unready for, but for some reason he appeared to be going through with it. After several seconds of some of the most painful anticipation he'd ever felt, the snack a mere centimeter from his trembling lips, she quickly flicked her wrist and snatched the snack back, crushing it solidly between her own teeth with a crunch, rogue shards of orange corn bits flew like tiny fireworks.
She was appalled at herself for torturing him but played it off, winking at him before swinging on the ball of her slippery rented bowling shoe and turning away from him. She jogged back to the lane and pressed her thumb on the alley reset button. The button required a surprising amount of force and she was nearing a blister. It hurt so good.
"You're up, champ," she told him, feeling equal parts humiliated and victorious.
He was sitting motionless in the scorekeeper's chair with his pencil elevated in mid-air, captured agape like an ancient statue in a museum of rejected art. Bella took a moment to let him unfrazzle, continuously fishing snacks out of the bag in nervous repetition.
He stood stiffly, as if he were wearing a full-body cast, and ambled over to pick up his ball from the corral. He stood a few feet from the lane, overconcentrating. He took two fluid steps and swung his arm behind him...
"Edward, why open mic?" she blurted loudly with her mouth full, interrupting his stride at the peak of the windup. His bowling arm froze out straight behind him as he let out an audible gasp, until the weight of the ball became too much and it swung down to his hip .
Her head was cocked neatly to one side. She was honestly curious. Her timing dubious, her intentions pure.
His eyes locked onto hers. "What?"
She spoke slowly and softly, like a preschool teacher. "How did open mic night become your 'dirty little secret?'"
At first Edward stiffened, his lips pursed. She felt like she could almost see his heart hammering in his chest. But after a moment, he sighed and shook his head a few times while spinning his ball around between his hands, watching the aged marble pattern dance under his eyes. Without answering her question, he turned back to the lane, wound up and released the ball, knocking down eight pins. She quietly applauded his success as he waited in still silence at the ball return.
He was wildly picky about which ball he chose. She just grabbed whatever was prettiest.
Neither of them moved while he waited. It was the longest ball return in history. They each had moments of wondering if the machine might be broken. But no, after some time it came home to him. He took a deep breath and grabbed it, moving his body methodically, like a robot that (for whatever reason) had been designed only for bowling. With great precision, he sent the ball down the lane, leveling the last two pins and securing his spare. Bella again applauded, adding a little "Woot", then shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
The late hour and lack of proper nutrition was definitely impeding her ability to pay proper respect to the Mister-Supernaturally-Sensitive thing he had going on.
He walked with his eyes watching the floor in front of him as he turned back. He slowed to a stop in front of her, flopping heavily into the pink plastic chair connected to hers. He looked over at her, the purple circles under his eyes accentuated by the poorly lit alley. He never looked more tired than he did when he was about to open up to her.
They were quiet for a moment while Edward entwined and re-entwined his fingers, and Bella adjusted and readjusted the Velcro on her shoes. She leaned back in her seat and ran her hands through her hair, a stray lock falling in her eyes. She looked over at him and smiled, blowing it away dramatically.
Edward didn't return her smile, but he did finally answer her question.
"My songs," he started, squinting at his hands. "They don't feel...finished...until they've been heard."
Bella had to work to restrain the width of her smile as she held out a figurative fist bump to her sleuthy little friend, Nancy. A clue. A good one.
"I understand," she said.
"Do you?" he asked solemnly, doubtfully.
"I think I do," she nodded. "Enough, at least, to know that I should skip the part where I ask you a series of follow-up questions about the fact that you want your songs to be heard, but not by anyone who knows you...or, since we're on the subject...about why you don't seem to want anyone to know you at all."
He cringed as a parade of emotions marched through his heart. The defensive brass band; the sad waving pageant queen; the blaring, mortified fire trucks; the angry clown lugging an arsenal of over-sized balloons; and leading the whole affair with a tall black hat and a giant plastic grin - the scared-to-death grand marshall.
Bella watched the change fall over him and added quickly, "I know I ask far more of you than what I've earned, Edward. I'm sorry. I sometimes - or always - accidentally say out loud all those little thoughts about people that you're supposed to keep to yourself."
Edward found it in himself to laugh a little. He had already gathered that about her.
"No, you haven't done anything wrong. It's important to me that you know that. I haven't spent time, like this, like...friends...with anybody for so long and it's..." he sniffed loudly, grabbing at his hair, shaking his head and rolling his eyes up towards the ceiling. "I feel like what you need to know is that I'm just...I'm..."
She leaned in towards him, urging him to look back to her. When he eventually did, Bella saw that those tired eyes were now shielded by a layer of moisture. Her hand halfway reached out to him before she could even think to stop it, frozen in the air midway between them.
"Shy?" she offered, slowly lowering her hand.
He shook his head slightly, looking down at her hand for a moment before turning back to her eyes.
"Impossible," he decided with a sad finality.
With no pause, she stood up, shaking her head. Her eyes blazing.
"No. NO. Impossible? You?" She looked down at him, speaking as if she may have some authority on this particular subject. "God, Edward, nothing is impossible. Do you wanna see? 'Cause I'm going to prove it to you right now."
She turned and walked confidently towards the prettiest ball she could find. It was pink with little sprinkled flecks of blue, white and yellow.
Bella took three strong steps, holding the ball atop her fingertips, her determined eye on the center pin. She stretched her right arm out behind her and swung it forward like a perfect pendulum, releasing the ball with grace onto the creaky floor. She watched as it rolled and rolled. And rolled. Again and again, the tiny flecks of color blended together, making the prettiest pink bowling ball look like a giant magenta gum ball from a machine sitting outside a big box store. It turned and turned across the wood planks, until finally it collapsed into the curvy white towers that stood there in anticipation, awaiting its arrival.
And down they fell.
Had she intended upon bowling a strike the moment she'd stood to defy him? Absolutely. Had she actually believed she would achieve it and validly prove her point? Hell no!
Leaping into the air herkie-style, she shrieked in celebration, attracting the annoyed attention of the very bored-looking attendant behind the front desk. In response, Bella sprinted from their alley up two stairs and across a sea of vintage deco-patterned carpeting to where the attendant sat on tall metal stool with a flattened pillow beneath his seat, two-thirds complete with a advanced level sudoku puzzle. Bella held out her hand to him, anticipating a high five. Aside from glaring at her from beyond his low-resting glasses, he did not move a muscle.
After a beat, Bella slowly backed away, tip-toeing back towards Edward.
"Denied," she said under her breath.
The thick tension of just a moment before dispersed as Edward coughed into his hand, fighting to disguise his amusement. He marked an X on the score sheet in honor of her success as Bella plopped down in the chair beside him with her arms crossed on her chest, smug.
"Nicely done," he said with a subdued smile.
She remained stern. "Nothing is impossible," she announced. She watched his fingers as he retraced the lines of her strike mark, darkening them, lost in thought. "And furthermore," she continued after a moment, "And much more importantly, no one is ever impossible." She glanced over her shoulder at the attendant, who was back to scratching out the numbers of his puzzle with a dull pencil. "'Cept maybe that guy."
At first there was a pause, very quiet like the last minute of deep sleep before the alarm sounds or the mutual quieting of nature just before a storm. But the moment they caught each other's eyes again, the well-laid wall between them very suddenly teetered, then collapsed, and they laughed. They laughed 'til their sides ached and their cheeks burned. They laughed 'til Bella slid right out of her molded seat and rolled onto the dusty wooden floor while Edward slapped his thighs, lost in hysterics. They laughed 'til the desk attendant lay his hand on the receiver, ready to call the police. The weeks of long-garnered tension between them was the fuel, and they just rolled and laughed, tears of whatever emotion streaming down their faces, until they both were running on mere fumes.
Afterward, they rested against their chairs in exhausted - and embarrassed - silence as their chests heaved, regaining heart rate and reality. Bella turned to him after a minute.
"You must think I'm insane. "
Edward guffawed, shaking his head. "No, I don't, actually. I find you...strangely easy to be around."
"So what are you saying? You think I'm strange or you think I'm easy?"
He seemed stunned for a moment as momentary shock grabbed hold of him. But he caught himself quickly and shook his head at her, incredulous. "Forget I said anything else. You are insane."
She smiled at him, her postgiggle glow in full force. But he watched her face fall as she saw through the glass doorway the black-fading-to-azure sky on the eastern horizon - the very beginnings of sunrise. "Shit. I really have to go," she said.
He nodded, fidgeting. "I know. You are going to have a terrible day at work tomorr..." he cringed. "Today."
"Please. At good old VD, every day is just varying degrees of terrible anyway. It was all worth it just for the strike." She smiled, recalling the glory.
He held up a rolled up scroll of paper. The score sheet. "You should take this, then."
She shook her head fiercely. "No way, that is yours. Hang it on your fridge. Let it remind you every morning before breakfast that nothing is impossible."
He smiled sadly at the reminder. "Fair enough." He reached into his pocket and pulling something out. "Take this, then. It's, you know, no big prize...but...you deserve to have a souvenir too."
Edward held out the piece of thin, smooth plastic for her to take from him. Bella's eyes went wide with realization that this was somehow the same night that he had sung for her at the North Star. It felt a million years and a million miles away. She reached for it, a little shudder of muted electricity flowing through her fingertips as they met his. She took a moment to admire her new treasure - a tiny orange guitar pick. It had once boasted the logo of the company that made it or the music store he'd bought it from, but it had long-since worn off, leaving behind only a few speckled fragments of black ink. It was perfectly perfect.
"Thank you."
She meant it. He could tell.
As a heavy-lidded Bella slowly pulled herself up the steep stairs to her apartment, the events of the early part of the evening replayed in her mind. Soon, Rosalie and Emmett would move out and she'd have to move as well. Or find a new roommate. Based on what she was accustomed to, preferably someone who knew her better than she knew herself. Someone who could kick her straight in ass and make her feel like a superhero in the same breath. She sighed. It wasn't going to be an easy transition, but she was happy for her friend. Rosalie, unlike Bella, actually liked the idea of growing up, and before long she would be a wife and a mother.
Or someone else's mother, she thought as she turned her key gently, trying to be as quiet as possible. Rosalie wouldn't be up for work for another hour.
Or...so she thought.
Rosalie was sitting stock-straight on the center cushion of the couch. She was staring daggers at Bella. A bottle of wine and two glasses of wine were sitting on the coffee table before her, untouched. Crap. She might've been sitting there for hours. She took a few deep breaths before finally venting.
"Isabella Swan. Where have you been?"
Bella realized that was the second time in four hours that someone had called her "Isabella." Because noting random coincidences was far better than facing the wrath of Rosalie. She tugged on her ponytail holder, shaking her head and letting her hair fall across her shoulders. "Umm...at a bowling alley?"
She seemed surprised. "Doing what, exactly?"
She sorted through her mental list - bowling, laughing, teaching valuable life lessons, asking inappropriate questions, fussing with Velcro, carefully selecting vending machine fare, irritating sort-of authority figures...until finally, she settled on a response.
"The impossible, I think."
Rosalie considered that for a moment, then surprised the hell out of Bella by pouring two half full glasses of wine and patting the couch beside her.
"Well, in that case. Come here and tell me all about it, will you?"
As golden rays scaled the roofs of the neighboring buildings, casting long, early morning shadows across the room, Bella grabbed a glass and settled into the corner of the couch.