~*~ Author's Note ~*~

Okay, so this is kind of a transitional chapter. There's Forks high schooler's hormones coming up, Bella's getting down to the grit with her relationship with Edward, and collective Cullens are on the horizon… and is that Victoria I see?

~*~ Shattered Bullets and Lasagna a la Edward ~*~

My face flinched as a slow screeching sound careened against the wood flooring of my bedroom. Beads of sweat formed at my forehead as I pushed my back against the dresser, leaving the window uncovered. After successfully swinging it over to its prior place, I fell down on my back, bouncing slightly on my bed.

The past hour had been overwhelming and slightly scary. Overwhelming in that, well, Edward was back… and I still hadn't had enough time to even process the idea. I was still under the assumption that I would wake up in a few hours. The night had been slightly scary in that Charlie was not very happy.

Well, that would be an understatement. He was pretty furious.

I tried to put myself in his shoes and understand what he might be feeling. I guessed if my daughter's ex-boyfriend had left her, catalyzing her emergence into a catatonic shell, and was spotted months later on the brink of kissing her, I would probably make good use of the shotgun hanging next to the fireplace.

Which was what he had done.

He moved so quickly that I only saw a blur of plaid and jean as he threw the fish down onto the couch and grasped the gun off of the wall. I'm sure I looked horrified. I was fairly certain that Charlie wouldn't actually shoot Edward, but I had no idea how to explain a bullet being shattered when making contact with Edward's skin.

It seemed that Edward did not want to take the chance either. He let go of me, standing to his feet. His face was pulled in a nervously sad expression. I was sure he was reading Charlie's mind.

"You. Have. No. Right!" Charlie yelled, gruffly poking Edward in the chest. Edward backed away towards the door, hands held in front of him in a surrendering position.

"Please, sir, let me explain…" his melodic voice hit the air as his eyes bore into Charlie's.

"No need. I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth. I don't want to see your face around here. And I most definitely do not want your empty apologies. Now, get the hell out of my house."

Charlie's voice was dangerously low, his eyes ablaze with pure hatred. Edward glanced at me, as my head swerved from him to Charlie and back again. He backed up towards the front door and grasped the handle.

"I truly am sorry…" he said, his voice catching in his throat, "more than you will ever know." He turned to the door and opened it, letting in the Forks night air. He briefly turned once more, and gave me a blazing look that stoked a fire through my veins. He glanced up to my room, then back down at me, and shut the door behind him.

*************************************************************

I closed my eyes as I got back up off of my bed to open my window. My hands shook as they gripped the clasps and turned them to the right. My gaze slid over my floor, when it caught my attention. My blue notebook was nestled in between my clothes from the previous day. I grabbed the cool spiral binding, and took to my bed.

My fingers flipped from page to page, looking at the distracting piece of evidence; a reminder of what I had become when Edward left me. Had he been telling the truth? I couldn't fathom why else he would be back now, trying to connect with me once again. Letting out a gust of air, I glanced down at the page open in my hands.

Dotted and skewed along the recipe for a lasagna, his name was etched over and over again. I flipped through the rest of the notebook and realized that his name marred each entry, each written distraction. He had perforated my every thought. My subconscious had been screaming his name at me.

I hadn't had a choice. I hadn't had a say. Our relationship had always been that way. He always decided what was best. He had convinced me that the severity of the situation called for him to use his judgment, but in the wake of it all, I had lost mine.

Letting his absence sift through my soul and slowly kill me, I had given up the independent, strong person that I knew myself to be deep down. At that moment, thin white fingers graced the window frame, and I briefly wondered where Charlie had left his shotgun.

My heart involuntarily sped up, beating furiously as a hummingbird, catching in the back of my throat. He slowly stepped around the debris that littered my floor, settling himself beside me on my bed.

"I'm sorry for the way Charlie reacted. Please, Bella, don't be angry with him. He has every right to feel how he does… and his thoughts…" Edward had mistaken my look of rage as one of that pointed towards Charlie.

"I'm not mad at Charlie. I understand what he's thinking."

His mouth slid upward into his signature grin, as he tucked a rogue hair behind my ear. I could feel myself slipping, getting lost in his eyes, and I shook my head furiously in order to keep my mindset on track.

I faltered for a second, before whispering, "So, what happens now?" My stare stayed firmly on my laced fingers, not daring to look back up at his glorious face. I felt a cool finger hook under my chin, as my face was pulled upward.

"We will be together. Always. I don't have a care for anything that happens, as long as I am with you."

My eyes stubbornly locked on his forehead. I could not allow myself to get lost in his honey eyes. I had said to myself once that I loved Edward unconditionally, and that would never change. However, I was realizing that it would take me time to get over the pain that his absence had caused me.

"I…" I stuttered, blinking back tears, "I… need time, Edward. I died when you left. I… well, I just faded into nothing, into no one… and I can't go on knowing that you could leave again. I need to know that I'll have a choice, too."

Tears trickled from the sides of my eyes as I looked at Edward's hopeless expression.

"I will never, ever leave again, Bella. You have to know that." He touched the top of my hand, and I involuntarily shivered.

But, with resolve in my voice, I said what I was truly feeling. No forgetting, no filtering.

"I don't know that. You promised me once. You broke your promise. You broke me. I just… need time to trust you again."

He looked as if he had eaten a lemon. His lips pursed and he muttered, "I completely understand you not trusting-" and I cut him off, rolling my eyes and wiping them at the same time.

"Edward, I don't not trust you because of what you are, I don't trust you for what you've done, for the fact that I have zero control when it comes to you and me. With anything. I want to be with you forever, you don't give me a choice. I want you to stay, you leave without giving me a choice. Physically I have never had a choice. It has to change, Edward, or I'm going to go insane."

Out of breath and shaking, all of my torrent emotions whirled around me, and I took my hand out from under his. Heart pounding out of my chest, I quickly grabbed the back of Edward's head, pulling hard on the smoothly disarrayed hair. I allowed myself one quick look at his eyes, a look of shock and confusion. Then mine closed.

And I was kissing his sweet, cold lips as I never had. Pressing hard against the marble mouth, I caught his bottom lip with my teeth and bit down. I was possessing and pushing and trying to press all of myself into him.

His hands swept down to my hips as I sat, straddling him. I let go of his lip and commenced to kiss him deeply. My hands wondered of their own accord, my head starting to spin with the dizzying feeling of Edward clinging to my body. I slid up and over and around his shirt, touching his stomach and back. I rocked slowly once, wanting to feel all of him.

That was when he tensed. His lips turned statuesque against mine, and his hands let go of my hips. He pulled away, giving me an all too familiar stern look.

I was surprised when my mouth curled up into a grimace.

"That's what I thought." I spat at him, my pride wounded yet again, frustration seeping through me, realizing that I would never be close enough to Edward as I needed.

"Bella," he said, a slight laugh in his voice, "you know I only desire you. It is just impossible for me." He looked at me with his amused expression, and my arms crossed over my chest.

"That's another thing you're going to have to figure out, Edward. You won't change me, yet you won't let me love you either. Physically love you."

I could hear the exasperated frustration wielded in his voice, "Bella, it is impossible. It's not something that could feasibly happen. I will not do anything that would compromise your safety like that."

I laughed in spite of myself, "You may have that choice, Edward, but now I do, too. And you could never hurt me physically the way you hurt me when you walked away from me." I could feel the hole in my heart re-open as I said the harsh words to the man I knew I would always love.

"You can come to school. You can talk to me there, but until I have some things figured out, I can't be with you in any other way. It's too hard for me to be around you. I can feel myself wanting to just forget everything that happened and go back to the way we were."

"We can, Bella. Bella, we can do that. I'm willing to do anything you need to do, but I cannot stand to be without you. I can't lose you again."

"You didn't lose me, you left me. Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. If we go back to the way we were, you'll continue making decisions that affect the both of us, and I'll be stuck taking the repercussions of them."

"You want me to leave now," he stated, his voice small and sad. I looked up into his topaz eyes, full of regret, hurt, and pain, and part of me wanted to take back everything I had said to him that night.

And as much as I wanted to feel his arms around me, his voice tickling the inside of my ear as he hummed to me, I didn't think I would be able to stay true to the time I had allotted to myself to figure out everything between me and him.

"I never want you to leave again, but I need to be alone tonight."

He touched my cheek briefly, and I felt the blush creep up my neck and into my face. His eyes swam once again with unshed tears, and before I could stop my own from forming, my hair blew with a breeze, and he was gone.