Thank you SunflowerFran3759 for your awesome beta skills. If there are any mistakes, they're mine for adding things after her review.
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Chapter 10
She was a fast runner.
He could feel the burn in his legs and the need for air in his lungs, but he couldn't let Tommy beat him. She was competitive, and one tough chick, but he wouldn't let her win.
She would give him shit if he did.
He laughed as he heard her whine in pain. Her back and legs were "killing" her. He stopped per her request, letting her finally catch up.
"You cheated," she said after she had slightly composed her breathing.
"How so?"
"I don't know. You just did…you have longer legs than I do."
He laughed at her ridiculous accusations and gave her a playful shove. He sat on a tree trunk for a quick rest. He smiled as he caught her sticking out her tongue in fatigue.
"What is it? Tired already, old lady?"
She flipped him off and sat next to him, not caring that they both didn't fit very well on the trunk.
It had been days since he had last seen her. The beginning of that summer had consisted of the same things. He would see her and hang out with her for a day or two and then she would disappear. He wouldn't see her for days.
And each new time he saw her again, she looked pissed off. She would push him away, tell him to go screw himself and ignore him, but he would find a way to get her to come around and join him.
At times, she would stay quiet for a few moments. He would ask what was wrong, and she would shake her head and pretend as if nothing was bothering her.
He understood her and didn't push it. Everyone dealt with the weight of their troubles in a different way. Anytime he would feel the cloud that took over his mind while thinking of his mother, he would escape his home and find something to distract him. Sometimes, those distractions meant trouble, but not with Tommy.
He swore his feet were lighter, and the sky opened up with her by his side. No clouds blocked the light to his mind. He tried not to admit it to himself, but he needed her so desperately. He needed her to stay afloat.
They were different people, but they both carried a heavy heart and it made it okay. She understood what to say, and what to keep to herself, and she knew how it felt to be so angry. He became weary of waiting for her and decided to start seeking her.
But this time, it had been different. She had been the one to look for him. Just the way it used to be when they were kids.
She snuck into his room, played video games with him for a few hours and then decided today was a good day to run around in the forest. He didn't ask why or questioned her presence and took advantage of her adventurous mood to join her.
Edward stared at the sunset, and listened as the waves moved and danced. The beach was only a few feet away from where they were, and suddenly that realization brought on a feeling of melancholy for Edward.
"Hey," she whispered, lightly tapping his shoulder with hers. "Don't think too much. It's not healthy for you."
"I can't help it," he said. "I can't even go down to the beach without getting scared like a fucking coward. It's like the water taunts me. It reminds me of my mother, and that I don't have her anymore."
Tommy sighed and took his hand in hers. "Come; let's get out of your head."
He followed her, not paying attention to where she was leading him. From time to time, she would turn around and give him a mischievous smile or wink. He laughed when she slipped, thinking how she hadn't changed a thing. She would glare at him, but soon enough found herself joining in.
He grinned at her laughter and at how the light of the moon shined down on her pale skin. The passing of the trees and the rustling of the leaves under their feet accompanied the silent night.
They walked, hand in hand until they reached a small cottage.
"Whose place is this?" He asked as she walked up to one of the windows to look inside. She didn't respond and continued to look around. "Does it belong to someone you know?"
She giggled as she walked to the back. "Yeah, nobody I know owns a damn cottage, Cullen. I have no fucking clue who this belongs to."
"What?" He asked in shock.
"I know! Isn't it awesome?"
He shook his head at the crazy girl, but decided to go with it and snoop around.
Edward walked up to the door as she opened one of the windows. "Come on. We can sneak in," she whispered and started to climb through the small opening.
Edward pushed the door open with little effort and rolled his eyes at Tommy as she managed to jump in from the window while he smoothly walked in.
"Well, you're no fun," she mumbled making him chuckle.
He looked around the tiny little place. There were three rooms. A small kitchen, an even smaller restroom and the largest room appeared to be a bedroom and a dining room at the same time.
"This is so cool," Tommy whispered as she studied the maps and fishing posters on the walls.
He smiled and opened the fridge.
"Hey, look," he said and pulled out a bottle of red wine for her to see.
"Score!" She shouted, walked over to him and took it from his hands. "Can we stay here forever?"
"I'm sure the actual owners will show up eventually," he said with a smirk.
"Right. Hey, find us two of those fancy glasses I see people using on TV."
"Did you not hear me? What if Mr. and Mrs…" he grabbed an envelope from the dining table. "Matthews. Mr. and Mrs. Matthews might show up."
"Don't be a puss, Cullen. I'm sure they're nice folks who won't mind us stinking up their cottage and drinking their booze."
He chuckled. "Have you even tasted wine before?" He asked, looking around for the wineglasses.
"No, have you?"
"My dad let Alice and me taste it once. It's good. She hated it though." When he finally found the wineglasses, he took them over to her. She had placed the bottle on the nightstand as she continued to study the maps on the wall.
"Do you think these folks travel a lot?"
"The maps may just be for decoration, Swan," he said and poured wine into both glasses.
"Well, I know I would hang maps of the places I've been on my walls. However, they won't be hanging for too long. I don't plan on staying anywhere for too long. Imagine, just leaving and going to different places to discover things and meet different people. Wouldn't that be awesome?"
"I thought you hated people."
She smiled. "No, I just hate the people here."
"Ah." He handed her the wineglass and stared, as she tasted.
He laughed when she scrunched her face and stuck her tongue out as if it would help the taste.
"This is gross. How can people drink this?" She took another sip. "Yeah, it doesn't get any better."
"Well, I'll drink it," he said and offered to take it from her, but she pulled away.
"Hell no! You're not the only one getting drunk."
He laughed and sat on the bed. "I think I love this place," he said as she continued studying the walls. "Silent and simple. I bet that the view from the bigger windows is amazing during the day. I'm gonna have one of these one day. One day when I am rich and famous."
She laughed at him.
"It's hot in here," she muttered and began to take her jacket off. She threw her baseball cap on the nightstand, letting her brown wavy hair free. She ran her hands through it to smooth out the 'hat hair.'
Edward gulped nervously as she began to unbutton her jeans.
"Chill, Cullen. I'm wearing shorts under these," she said and placed her baggy jeans over one of the chairs. He tried his best not to let it show how much it affected him how her long, smooth legs and ample buttocks looked in the tiny and pathetic excuse for shorts. She then took off her Seattle Seahawks t-shirt off and threw it at him.
He smirked as he threw it back and went back to staring at her.
Now she only wore the tiny shorts and a white tank top. She stretched, and his eyes couldn't help but latch onto to the bare skin of her flat belly that peaked out from her tank top. His eyes continued up her small body, surprising him when he found her breasts. She had always been a small girl. In her boyish clothes, she looked tiny and sometimes even frail.
He didn't expect for her to look…like a woman underneath all the baseball and football t-shirts and baggy jeans.
He had been deceived.
He took a deep breath as she began to unhook her bra. "Uh, wha-what are you doing?" He asked in panic and started to scoot back on the bed.
She laughed as she finished taking the garment off in an almost athletic fashion.
"I can't sleep with my bra on. It's uncomfortable," she said as she jumped into bed with him, ignoring that he was squirming and that his eyes were not on her face.
She grabbed both their wineglasses from the nightstand and handed one to him. She took a sip, and Edward stared as a droplet of the red liquid ran down from the corner of her mouth and down her creamy, pale neck.
"Oops," she mumbled and wiped it away before it made its way down her top.
Edward caught sight of her nipples through the flimsy material of her tank top. His eyes widened as he felt his dick harden.
This was not the first time this had happened, but it had never happened with a real life girl sitting so close to him. He cleared his throat nervously and covered himself with the blanket on the bed. He closed his eyes trying to think of anything that wasn't her breasts so he could calm himself. He was pretty sure anything else he caught sight of would make him blow in his pants.
He gulped his wine down and tried his best to act unaffected by her. She was Tomboy Tommy after all. He wasn't supposed to react this way to her. He called himself an idiot and mentally slapped himself.
He was going to beat this feeling. He took another glance at her and became mesmerized by the way she licked her pink lips.
"How's your dad?" She asked, and that quickly did the trick.
He groaned in annoyance and leaned back into the headboard, feeling the buzz from the wine finally relax him.
"Always working. He doesn't want to deal with us, I guess."
"Do you think he's moved on?"
"I don't know, Swan. I think he might be working his ass off, so he doesn't have to think. But what do I do? I can't help my mind. I think all the time. It's torture."
"What's something pleasant you think about? What's your favorite memory?"
"I don't know," he mumbled and stared at the map on the wall in front of him.
"Don't lie to me, Cullen. What is your favorite memory of her?"
He sighed as she scooted closer to him. He could feel her warm arm resting against his.
"Well, there is this one…"
"Share it!"
"I'm going, I'm going." He took a deep breath as the images of his favorite memory started to dance around in his mind. He chuckled. "One day Mom was baking cookies and warming some hot chocolate the way mothers are supposed to on cold nights."
She smiled and anxiously waited for him to continue.
"I was sick as a dog. I had gone outside in the snow even after she told me not to. I was a stubborn kid."
"No shit?"
"Shut up, Swan, I'm not done," he said with a playful bump to her shoulder. "Anyway, she went into my room and gave me medicine and rubbed my back. She let me have two cookies instead of just one. She held my head against her chest as I fell asleep. I can still remember following her heartbeats into my dreams." He smiled to himself and played with the loose threads from the blanket. "For some reason, that memory always comes to mind when I miss her," he whispered and turn to look at Tommy.
There was a soft smile on her pink lips.
"I know. It's kind of lame."
"No!" She corrected him. "It's beautiful. I hope you always keep that memory of her. It'll remind you that she loved you. It'll be like a breath of air when you have bad times."
"What reminds you of good things when you have bad times?" He asked her.
She shook her head and looked at the maps. "I still haven't made those memories—not that I know of. One day I will."
They finished the bottle of wine, and a tipsy Tommy was hilarious. She danced around the small cottage to the radio and forced Edward to dance a few songs with her. She was no dancer. She was awful. But that didn't seem to concern her.
They fell on the bed, exhausted and dizzy from the wine.
"Goodnight, Cullen," she mumbled as she allowed sleep take over.
Edward looked over her sleeping form and smiled to himself. He moved a strand of hair from her face and stared at her for a few minutes. He didn't move when she placed her head over his chest and instead gently placed his arms around her small body. Her hair smelled like the forest on a rainy day, and her skin was warm like the rare and treasured sunny days in Washington that felt oh, so nice.
He traced the freckles on her shoulders and thought about how similar she was to those rare sunny days. She came to him so rarely, filling his life with a bright distraction from his cold mind. And with the passing of time, he felt like she was disappearing little by little. Soon enough the fall and winter would take over his world, and he was sure she wouldn't be there anymore.
She wouldn't be there for him anymore.
He fell asleep, unknowingly saving this memory in his mind for it to be one of those unique memories he would think of during bad times to feel better.
Or whenever he missed her.
~Tommy~
Present Time
"I haven't been to Seattle in a long time," Alice says as they walk down the streets of the large city.
"Yeah, I've missed it. It's a good thing Em invited us to come with him," Rosalie adds.
Edward walked behind them with his hands in his pockets, looking around the busy shops and restaurants.
He decides to walk around on his own as the girls go on their shopping adventure. He remembers his time in Chicago and how this will be his life in just a few days. He doesn't remember when he lost his ability to befriend people easily. He was great at it in high school. Not everybody was a 'friend,' but he remembers how everyone treated him well, and there was never a party he wasn't invited to.
But when he moved to Chicago for college, he realized he never cared for any of those kids that he called friends. He didn't miss them or think of them. They didn't change his life or make an impression. He realizes that maybe it is his fault. He was so closed up as a kid. He didn't let anybody in.
He always felt too old for those kids. Even though he did enjoy a party once in a long while, and though he did enjoy playing sports with the other guys, there was nothing he enjoyed more than his solitude.
Edward shakes his head as the thoughts of his younger self comes to mind. He is lying to himself. It wasn't the solitude he enjoyed the most.
It was someone else that made everything bearable. It was someone else that made it all worth it.
Rose and Alice invite him to dinner before calling it a night. They chat to him about their shopping experiences, but stop when they realize he isn't listening.
"You know, you could at least be more social, Ed," Alice says. "You've always been quiet."
Edward chuckles and doesn't move his eyes away from the menu. "Why would I change now?"
"Yeah, let your brother brood, Al," Rose says. "You know that all the girls fawned over you and your brooding face in high school. They over romanticized you. 'Oh, look, he's so deep."
Edward chuckles, rolling his eyes at the thought of the silly girls from his school.
"I hated those girls," he mutters.
"I think that's why you were close to Tommy Swan. She saw through your shit and wasn't afraid of you."
Edward doesn't understand what she was talking about. As far as he is concerned, Rose and Tommy had never spoken to each other due to Rose's disdain for the boyish girl and Tommy's hate for all things materialistic, which Rose was obsessed with, alongside every other teen girl.
"What? How do you even know that? When did you ever talk to her?"
Rose clears her throat and looks down at her hands in her lap. "Senior year…after school started. We kinda bonded in gym class. She also helped me come to my senses...to cope with things."
In disbelief, Edward stares at his cousin. "I don't know what to say."
"You all think that I don't care about her or that I never did. But she…that crazy girl…she helped me when nobody else did. I mean, I didn't tell anybody what happened because they would have judged me, but somehow I know she would have been the only one that would have helped me even if everyone knew."
"Rose, what are you talking about?"
"I've been wondering where she is, as well. I've searched her name on the internet, and I've called a few places. You're not the only one that is upset over losing her. I mean, I didn't lose her…" Rose takes a deep and frustrated breath. "But it kills me that she just disappeared like that."
"How did she help you?"
"I didn't mean to bring this up while we're on this mini trip. I just…I just wanted you to know that not everybody was against Tommy, Edward, and that she was special to me, too. Maybe another time I'll tell you how."
Alice looks at her brother in question, but he quickly encourages his cousin to continue.
"Just tell us, Rose. We're your family."
She takes another deep breath and clears her throat after the waiter took their order. She stares at her hands on the table as she begins to speak.
"I knew she was going to disappear. I saw it in her eyes on graduation night. I first saw it when she came and visited me in the hospital where nobody knew I was. When she was my only friend, I saw it—I saw her need to disappear…"
~Tommy~
Edward could feel his body aching from sleeping for too long and the sweat running down his face. It was a hot summer morning, and the warm body next to him was making the heat worse.
He sat up, rubbed the sleep out of his face and look down at her.
Her back rose up and down at a slow pace with her breaths, and her sweaty face was buried into the pillow.
Edward chuckled and placed a hand over her shoulder. "Hey, Swan, wake up," he whispered.
"Screw you," she mumbled and tried to get more comfortable.
"We have to go. We're still in the cottage."
She quickly sat up, holding onto his leg for support. Her hair was a mess from sleep and the sweaty morning.
"Shit, we actually stayed the whole night? We didn't go home?"
He laughed. "Yes, and I think we're both in deep shit. My dad is going to be furious."
She placed a hand over her forehead and whimpered. "Shit, I think that wine messed up my head. It's all your fault, Cullen."
"What?" He laughed. "How is it my fault?"
"You're supposed to be the responsible party. You've failed me."
He laughed, making his headache worse.
"Who the hell is in there?" A gruff voice shouted, making both of them jump.
"Fuck, we have to go!" Edward whispered loudly, grabbed her by the arm and pulling her toward the door.
"Hold up, my clothes!" She grabbed everything she owned and carried it as Edward pulled her out of the cottage.
"Hey! You damn kids!" The voice continued, but Edward and Tommy didn't dare stop.
When Edward believed they were far enough, he stopped, and let go of her hand so she could sit and rest.
He took one look down at her on the ground, and they both exploded into a laughing fit.
"You should have seen your stupid face!"
"Yours! You look like you peed yourself!"
"I think I did!" She joked, making them laugh again.
He sighed and sat next to her to catch his own breath. He noticed her clothes and shoes were bundled up on the ground by her side as she stared into the forest. She was still in her tiny sleeping shorts and braless under that simple white tank top.
The running adventure and the heat of that summer day made her pale skin alight with a faint shade of pink.
She didn't even bother with make-up like all the girls he knew. She had always been different from everyone else.
And he didn't mind that at all.
She turned and looked up, catching him as he stared at her. He quickly shook his head and pretended as if something behind her had caught his attention.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
He chuckled to himself. "Nothing," he muttered. There was truly nothing wrong in that moment. There was never a wrong moment with Tommy.
He wondered if it was the same for her. He worried that in a few weeks, senior year would start and soon enough graduation would be near.
He didn't know what would happen between them. He didn't know if he liked the idea of never seeing her again if he went off to school.
He worried that he cared too much. After all, she wasn't even a friend of his.
But a life without her in it seemed…off.
Unbalanced.
He would have to figure things out and set things straight in his mind. He would go as far as possible for school to get away from this town and the memory of his mother's death, but that also meant getting away from Tommy.
He wasn't sure how that would feel, but thought maybe he could start getting used to the idea of her absence.
"I have to go home," he finally said. She nodded and sighed.
"Can't we just stay here for a few minutes?"
He agreed and scooted closer to her, forgoing his original plan to create space between them. They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to each other breathe. His eyes ignored the beauty of the forest in front of him and instead focused on the magnificent shape of her lips and the dust of freckles on her nose. Her long eyelashes danced with her blinks, contrasting her heated and rosy skin.
"Hey," he whispered.
She turned her face towards him, and without hesitation, he pulled her to him with his hand, pressing his lips to hers.
He felt her freeze, but didn't move away, hoping she would give in and kiss him back.
There was nothing he wanted more.
The wait was nonexistent. Soon enough, her lips were firmly kissing him back. It was a sloppy, rough and desperate kiss.
It was perfect.
She was salty from the day's heat, soft and warm.
They kissed for a few minutes, shoving hands into hair and running tongues against lips.
They broke for breath, pressing their foreheads against each other. Not a single word was said as Edward stole a few more pecks. Tommy had calmed her breathing, but maintained her eyes closed while he kissed her, running her hands through his hair.
She placed a long kiss on the corner of his mouth and silently stood up, ready to leave.
Still nothing was said as they both began to walk back into town until she stopped him by taking hold of his arm.
"Can I come over? I seriously don't wanna go home. Um, my uncle is in town, and I honestly don't like him. My mom will probably still be pissed, and my dad won't be home so she'll take it out on me. Maybe we can finish playing that video game. Or we could watch Rambo again."
He looked into her brown eyes, telling himself that he should say "no" and leave. He wanted to convince himself that her issues weren't his problems, but he couldn't deny the rage that bubbled in his stomach. He hated whatever made her uneasy or unhappy. He hated whoever hurt her with a raging fire.
"Why would your mom take her anger out on you?" He asked.
"Oh, you know how adults are…" she said nervously, and for the first time since he had met her, held a pleading look in her eyes. When he took too long to answer, she huffed, and with her shoulder shoved him out of the way. "Never mind, I'll find somewhere else to go."
"Stop!" He shouted. "Sorry, I was just thinking…" he sighed and walked over to her. "Come on, I think we have ice cream in the fridge."
She smiled, but quickly returned to pretending that she was unfazed by him, and that the kisses they had just shared didn't leave her dazed. He, on the other hand, could still taste her on his lips and couldn't bring himself to stop remembering how her skin felt under his fingertips. Each time she grazed his hand with hers, a jolt of excitement ran through him, making him grin to himself. She walked by his side, making jokes or playfully punching him each time he made a sarcastic remark to her. He laughed until his face hurt and they reached his house.
Edward decided that he would start his goodbyes for Tommy another day, and to hell with the future.
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