**Reader WARNING** This chapter contains a recounting of a suicide. If this subject matter is difficult for you, please know that it is for me, too, and I will do my best to treat it with as much honesty and sensitivity as possible, in this and future chapters.

My awesome beta is happymelt and I am also lucky to have midsouthmama and faireyfan pre-reading each chapter. Many thanks. I do not own Twilight.

Playlist (links on my profile):
Never Ever by the Shout Out Louds
That Feel by Tom Waits and Keith Richards

Chapter 12: A Mark

Patience was something that had always come naturally to me. I'd been grateful all my life for my ability to keep myself occupied while anticipating some long-awaited event. Not so much right now.

Edward was inching his way closer to home. Closer to me. He was in Sam's truck at this moment, delayed by a nightmarish traffic jam involving a jackknifed semi on a county road just 20 miles from Clearwater. He'd stopped calling an hour ago, afraid that his cell battery would die. It had been 20 minutes since his last text, which described a glacial pace of progress.

I checked the real-time traffic map online, stroking my finger over the snarl of highway arteries digitally painted red on the screen, as if I could manually untangle it. There were no fatalities, thankfully, just a disastrous mess in the road.

I pulled up Edward's texts from earlier in the day.

Just before he boarded his 6:00 p.m. flight:

Take a nap. I want you wide awake later.

Oof. That made my eyes roll back in my head, then and now. And I had done it, too—I had napped a full forty minutes.

Then at 8:30:

Baggage claim. Sam is here. C U in 2 hrs babe

It was now almost midnight.

I looked around Edward's place. It was as spotless as he had left it. The air still smelled like apples and cinnamon from the muffins I had baked in my effort to while away the time.

That had been item number seven on the list in his journal: cook/bake anything from Uley box. Like a lot of families in town, Edward had an assortment of produce from the Uley farm delivered weekly, and I had eaten well all week.

Catching my reflection in the mirror near the door, I fidgeted with my shirtdress and finger-combed my hair. Edward's pile of mail teetered precariously on the narrow credenza. I divided it into three equal stacks, then combined those into two. Yesterday, on Thursday morning, a priority FedEx had arrived for him. I had called Edward to see if he was expecting something urgent, telling him it was from the Brandon Masen Fund.

"Oh, crap. That stuff needs a signature. Can you take it to Alice today? She's the only other person authorized to sign."

"Yeah, I'll see her at ten. Is that early enough?"

"Perfect." He paused. "Listen, Bella…it's not exactly a secret, but Alice and I are trustees of this Fund. Uh, we founded it, actually."

"Wait, really? I've heard of it. Angela was telling me about it. Emergency tuition grants, right?"

"And community arts programs, and disaster response. Yeah. What happened was…my birth parents were the last of a wealthy family in town…the Masens." As soon as he spoke the words, my eyes fell on his address label: E.M. Cullen.

"Is that what the M stands for? Masen?" As in Masen Hall, and Masen Square, and the Brandon Masen Fund. This was news.

"Yeah. When they arranged for Carlisle and Esme to take custody of me, they left them their estate, too. But Carlisle and Esme put it all into a trust in my name. They never touched it. They wanted to make sure I knew the money had nothing to do with my adoption, and they were comfortable enough already living on what they both earned. It provided more than enough for me and Alice. So, when I turned 18, I took out just what I needed for college and a bit for a nest egg, and used the rest to create this Foundation."

"Wow. That's…" I didn't know what it was. It was both surprising and not surprising. I thought back to little details of the cozy, well-worn home Edward had grown up in—the chicken coop, the hand-built tree house. Those things had made him who he was.

He was moving through the halls of his hotel as we talked, on his way to the second-to-last day of his residency program. I could hear his breathing get heavier as he left the building and began walking toward the Art Center. The sound of the wind whipped through the phone.

"Whew, it's cold. What was I saying? Oh, yeah…you know, the way I see it, the money was never mine. It just made sense. The Masen family had always been philanthropic, and I thought carrying on that tradition on their behalf was the right thing to do. But I'm a Cullen. Alice is a Cullen. Our family now is our real family, and we were raised with the example of earning a living. I made Alice a co-trustee with me, to keep things balanced, and we've been at it for 15 years…oh, shit! My scarf!"

Scuffling noises were coming across the phone line, and I heard cars honking. I winced at the idea that he would chase his scarf into traffic. I heard his muffled "thank you" to some passerby who had snagged his scarf.

"Edward, be careful!" I laughed. "You're in the big city now, Ohio!"

He chuckled. "Easy, Swan. I'm a sensitive country bumpkin. Are you trying to hurt my feelings?"

"No, I would never. But it sounds like you've got to go. I'll bring this to Alice. Let's talk tonight, okay?"

He had called me that night from the open house that was the culmination of his program. The art teachers he'd been working with, their high school-age students, and the students' parents were all there—along with Art Center administrators and a handful of Twin Cities artists. After a debriefing the next day, he'd be on his way home. I was in the library when my phone vibrated, and I stepped outside to take the call. A few boisterous students were taking a study break out on the lawn.

"It's the best! The kids are great. They blow me away. The artwork is so good. They can see how proud their teachers are. And the parents…some of them are telling me they've never seen anything like this from their kids. Never. I'm taking pictures, but it's impossible to capture. I wish you could be here, B."

"So, it's good? Oh, I'm so, so glad."

"What? Say it again." He was basically shouting into the phone because of the loud music playing in the background.

"I said I'm happy for you. I'm proud of you. Will...will you do it again?" These were strange words to be yelling. I looked around to see if I was drawing attention, but the students were busy jumping into piles of leaves, not paying me any mind.

He answered immediately.

"No. Not here. Maybe I can do something like this in Clearwater, but I don't like being away from my known elements. I could get so much more done in the same amount of time when I know who to talk to and where to get resources."

His voice was starting to blend into the background music. Had I heard him right?

"Uh, okay."

"Bella, did you hear me?"

"No. What was it?"

"I said now I know. Even though it went better than I hoped, I still don't want it. So now I know for sure. I just want to be home. And I miss you."

"Edward, come home, then." I was laughing, but I felt so overwhelmed by relief, I was in danger of bursting into tears.

"I know, baby. I am. I'll see you soon."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

Now my phone chimed at me: a new message. I snapped out of my little daze.

#5 #5 #5 Plz Plz. Should pass this wreck in 30 min. ETA 45.

I smiled at this. Despite the frustration of traffic, his mood was light. Edward's number five on the journal list asked me to teleport through the phone lines.

I typed my reply. I'll be here. Drive safely.

Doze if u need to. I'll wake u, believe me.

I looked at the bed. I was a ball of nervous energy waiting for him, but if I could get in another quick catnap now, I'd be all the more rested when he got home. I set my phone alarm to ring in forty minutes and snuggled in.

But my alarm wasn't what woke me. Instead, a commotion in the stairwell roused me and set my heart racing. Edward was early. Less late. Whatever. I was blinking away the sleepiness when I saw him tumble through the door at the far end of the room, his shape lit dimly by the bedside table light. He kicked off his shoes as he strode toward me, stumbling and throwing off his coat.

I sat halfway up and began to swing my legs over the side of the bed.

"No. Stay there. Christ, Bella."

And then he was on me, diving under the covers, kissing and holding me, clutching me with all of his limbs at once, his whole body at once, ankles and forearms and ribcage and hands. When I heard him groan, the floodgates opened and I felt desperate for more of him, wishing I could pull his bones inside of my bones, feel his fingertips everywhere at once.

But there was something I couldn't ignore. "Edward…you…why do you have a beard?" I squealed. His furry face was buried in my neck, tickling me.

"Because I grew a beard. It happens when a man doesn't shave for two weeks." He was mumbling into my skin. "And I was waiting for you. I'm going to go shave this mess off, and I want your skin to be the first thing to touch my face. Fuck, I want to go down on you."

Heat shot through my body like a fever. God, I wanted that, too. But I wasn't about to take my hands off him. Not now. I was still breathing in the scent of his skin, his hair. "Not…don't you dare go anywhere."

He murmured, his lips skimming across my forehead. I felt the shape of a smile. "Really, that's a 'no'?"

"No…not 'no.'" I was laughing through my kisses, so happy to finally be with him. "Just…wait. I need you."

"Okay, okay. I know. I can't believe I'm coming home to find you in my bed, Bella. God, I wanted this. I fucking missed you so much. You smell so good. What is that, cinnamon?" His strong hands cupped my face the way I liked. He tangled his legs in mine.

"It's the muffins." His hand came up to unbutton a single button and he laid his palm against my skin where my heart was pounding.

"The muffins? Uh, no. It's not muffins. It's your skin. Uhn. Come here…more." His voice was all breathy whisper.

I rolled my head to the side to feel him run his mouth and nose along the sensitive skin of my neck. He started dipping down to plant wet kisses on my half-bare chest, bolder now, and I liked it. So I told him.

"I like that."

"Good."

He hummed and trailed a soft, deliberate row of hot kisses along the edge of my scar, then lifted his head. The corner of his mouth twitched into the ghost of a shy smile. He entwined his fingers in mine and pulled my hand closer, brushing it along my collarbone, kissing my fingers one by one. "Bella."

Finally, finally, he bent to kiss my lips. Once I tasted his breath again, every conscious thought left my head, and all that mattered was the tenderness of his lips, his searching tongue, heat everywhere, an occasional flutter of eyelashes. I kissed him slowly for I don't know how long. My Edward was back.

I had to come up for air eventually, and found myself looking up at him. His eyes were twinkling, lit like a fuse. His face filled my field of vision.

"Hi." I tucked an errant strand of his hair back, only to feel it fall back onto my cheek.

"Yeah. Hi."

"You're home."

"I'm home." He traced my hairline with his fingers.

"Are you tired?" I realized my phone alarm was still set to ring, so I snaked my hand out to cancel it. It was almost 12:30. Only 12:30.

"No. Not at all." He sat back on his heels abruptly. The desk lamp made twin spots of light in his green-dark irises. I nodded at a question he didn't ask out loud, and he reached a hand above his head and back behind his shoulder blades to yank his shirt off in one fluid movement. And I was up on my knees, grasping him to me in the middle of the bed. I had forgotten how good his skin felt.

"Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Tired."

"No."

His breathing quickened, throatier now, just as his movements slowed. His eyes flickered to mine, then to the edge of fabric where one last button strained to keep my top closed. "That button. I want to bite it off. Is this a new dress…what is this, a shirt? A dress?"

"It's a shirtdress. It's new. From Columbus." I watched him—felt him—put his mouth on the button, playing, his hot breath seeping through. His hands crept up the sides of my legs, pushing the hem of my dress higher. How did he know to rub the flannel against my legs like that? Holy crow.

His mouth humming against my chest sent jolts of heat through my body. "It looks like one of my flannels. Remind me to put you in one of my shirts, B. Hmmm. Let's do it. You can dress as me for Halloween, and I'll be you. I'll wear all brown, head to toe…and your cobalt scarf…"

I thought I could recover from the subtle way my body stiffened when he mentioned Halloween, but Edward froze immediately. His head snapped up, and he saw the expression on my face. And I knew that what he saw was my struggle to hold back tears.

Edward smoothed his hands over my arms and sat me down. "Hey. Whoa. What is it, Bella? What just happened?" He reached over and twisted the knob on the bedside table lamp to a brighter setting.

"It's not…I didn't want to bring it up right away. You just got home."

"Okay, now you're freaking me out. What is this…look in your eye?" His voice pitched higher, and he was grasping at his hair like he was trying to pull out a thick handful.

"Aw Hell, Bella, not you. You're the only person in my life who never looks at me like that. Don't you start. What the hell happened? All I said was you wear a lot of brown…"

"I'm not upset." I didn't want him to think I was insulted by his comment.

"No, I can see that. That's not upset. That's…pity. Please don't…you gotta talk to me." His eyes were almost wild with alarm.

"It's just…Halloween. Alice played me a video. She didn't want me to be blindsided by it…and you just looked so…different."

"The Halloween reel. Oh…of course." He turned his face up to the ceiling and scrubbed his face with both hands. "I guess I can imagine how that looked to you."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled me onto his lap. "I wish I had thought to say something…to give you a heads up. Why didn't you say anything? When was this?" He massaged my arms now, seeking out my eyes, concerned.

I rested my head on his shoulder. "It was Wednesday. I knew you'd be home soon, and I knew we'd talk. You…you looked so happy, Edward."

"I know. But, Bella, I'm happy now." He stroked my back and ribcage gently.

I lifted my head to look him in the eye, and I did see a sort of calm, comfortable happiness there. I smoothed my thumb over his eyelid. It was time to broach this subject once and for all. I squeezed my lips to keep them from trembling.

"Something happened to you, Edward. Compared to the person in that video, I think…well, I think you look like you had your heart broken." I let out a slow, controlled breath.

He seemed to consider this, pursing his lips. His eyes flickered to mine. "Oh, Bella. It's not like you think. If anybody broke my heart…I broke it myself."

"Can you help me understand? Whatever it was…well, it feels like you're keeping something from me. Something too big."

As I watched his face, the worry that governed his features gave way to resolve.

"Of course. In fact," he sighed, "come with me. I don't want to wait another minute. I should have done this ages ago."

He was out of the bed and jamming his feet into shoes, dragging me up with him. "This is my fault. Come on, come with me."

We were out the door and on the road within a few minutes. He stopped to ask if I'd be warm enough in my dress and boots, piled me into the truck, and began driving us toward campus. The parking lot behind the art building was empty when he pulled in from the road, cones of white light spreading from overhead streetlamps.

For a moment, I thought he was taking me to his office, but he steered me down the hall and into one of the classrooms instead. He flipped a switch on the wall and fluorescent lights flooded the room. I looked around me, my eyes adjusting to the brightness. Everything was white—the walls, the floors. Flat-file cabinets lined the walls, most of them doubling as waist-high work surfaces. Various black-and-white prints were clipped to wires along two of the walls. We were in the photography studio.

Edward leaned against a counter, folding his arms, tapping his fingers against his forearms as he blew out a breath in concentration. A heavy click announced the door closing behind us. The chairs were all stacked into piles at one side of the room, so I sat on the counter next to where Edward stood, my legs dangling. He looked at the ground, at the darkened windows, at the cabinet doors to his left—everywhere but at me.

"She was a photographer. Tanya." He took a deep breath, only to let it out again quickly, puffing out his cheeks.

"She came here in June of 2006 for a one-year teaching fellowship. She was very talented. She was…beautiful." He squinted his eyes shut, his fingers pinching the countertop more tightly now. "I'm sorry. I don't know how else to tell this."

"It's okay, Edward, please. Don't edit for my sake. I can handle it."

Whatever it was, I told myself, hearing it would be better than always wondering. Even so, my heart was racing. I wanted to put my hand on his—to still his fidgeting—but he was so wound up, he looked like he would shoot sparks out of his limbs if I so much as touched him.

"We dated for a while. Four months. It wasn't a particularly serious relationship, but it was a relationship. I was always honest with her. I was faithful; as much as I got around when I was younger, I was never a cheater." His hands were jammed into his pockets. He threw a glance my way, just long enough for me to see the hard sincerity in his eyes.

He fished his key ring out of his pocket and began worrying it with one hand, flipping the keys around the metal loop one by one. He dragged his other hand through his hair, his fingers curled awkwardly.

"I believe you. Edward…what happened? You fell in love, and something happened?"

He huffed and pushed himself away from the counter. He shoved his sleeves up to his elbows, forearms flexing. He turned halfway toward me, not meeting my eye. "Well, that's just it. That's it, Bella. I didn't love her."

I couldn't sort out the cocktail of emotions that swelled up in me. It felt a little bit like dread. He didn't love this person, and instead of feeling relief, I felt sadness. I felt it because it was radiating off of him in waves. I searched his face. No, he didn't love her. What was it, then?

"We had fun together. Tanya was…she was my friend. I thought I was a friend to her, too. She even got to know my family. I…I liked her. But it wasn't clicking for me." He looked at the ceiling, then at me. Finally.

"I wasn't in love, and I wasn't going to be. So…as soon as I was sure…I broke it off."

He continued to gaze at me, that ancient sadness present in his eyes. He made no attempt to mask it this time. He was waiting for me to react.

"That sounds like…a breakup, I guess. An ordinary breakup. Edward…how did she take it?" I had an inkling of where this was going, and I wasn't sure I was prepared to hear about the next sequence of events.

"Exactly. That's how it sounds, right? Like a breakup. That was how it felt to me. It wasn't the happiest moment of my life, but it also wasn't the lowest. How did she take it? Well, as it turns out, not so good." There was a dull bitterness seething below the surface now. I could hear it in his voice. It didn't have the sharp and vinegary tones of fresh anger, but instead was sad and blunted, the way black licorice numbs the tongue.

He caught the way his own voice sounded, and softened it. "She took it badly. But nobody knew how badly until it was too late…least of all, me."

I watched as he studied his own reflection in the dark windows and took in a deep, slow breath. He stooped suddenly and unlocked one of the flat files. I straightened my legs at the knees to give him access to the drawer, and he held my calves up with his forearm. He pulled an eight-by-ten print out of the drawer and slid it across the countertop to me, face down. Then he shut the drawer and lowered my legs back down gently.

I lifted the corner of the print, my heart stuttering. It was a portrait. A simple portrait. I picked it up and looked at it. Her light-colored hair was wet, and her eyes gazed into the lens with a peaceful expression. She was smiling. Her face looked bronzed and freckled…young, but a little bit weathered, like she spent a lot of time outdoors. I could see water behind her, rays of sunlight glinting off of the surface. At the top edge of the photograph, framing the shot, I could make out the shape of that mysterious footbridge.

For a moment, I really looked at this woman. Tanya. She was…a regular person. And she was beautiful.

"She loved the reservoir. It was one of her favorite places to take photographs. She kept a tripod hidden in the weeds—that was how often she went back there. The water is a few hundred feet down from where the footbridge is, and the steep climb means it's hardly ever crowded. She loved to swim, and after it froze over she would skate on it, even though there are better groomed rinks in town."

He took the photograph from me and I watched his eyes drift across the print, revisiting its shadows and bright spots wearily. His eyes returned again and again to the upper edge—the bridge. And then he turned it face-down again.

"This is from a series she submitted for a juried show the Brandon Masen Fund sponsored. They were very good, but I removed myself from the decision-making process. And…we fought about it. This was a full two months after we'd broken up, and until this fight we had managed to be on friendly terms. But she really blew up about this juried show. She seemed so intent on being selected. I didn't understand it at all. That should have gotten my attention right there. I mean, her begging me to use my influence just showed why these ethics guidelines exist—why I didn't have a choice but to stay out of the Fund's decision. And, worse than that…it was out of character for her."

I couldn't stop myself from putting my hands on his shoulders, massaging and soothing, as if I could wring the grief out of his voice. He relaxed into it, but only enough to signal that he welcomed it.

He sighed. "In late January…the 30th…I asked her to have dinner, to try to repair the rift, you know? And she agreed. And we had a good talk. We ended the night on a positive note, I thought. She said she understood my reasons for staying out of it, and she really seemed to mean it. She even joked that it would taint her reputation to have an award on her C.V. that could be traced to an ex-boyfriend."

He glanced at me, shaking his head numbly. "I've played that conversation over in my head a few hundred thousand times. She said 'ex-boyfriend,' I'm certain of it."

"And then she had me drop her off at the trailhead. We had just gotten a fresh snowfall, and she said she was going to take advantage of the window of clear weather and get some moonlight shots of the reservoir from the bridge. She asked me to meet her there and walk her home like we used to do, and I agreed. I was glad she was asking me to do it, really, without having to insist. I still cared about her. I didn't like the idea of her walking home alone at night."

He sighed and looked to the ceiling, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. I rubbed the back of his neck. It was glowing with sweat.

"I was supposed to meet her at eleven. It was a nice night. The moon was big. It wasn't windy or very cold, but a storm was coming—a big blizzard. I made myself wait until ten, because I knew she preferred to shoot alone, but...the storm was coming faster than expected."

His breath hitched, and I prepared myself for what was coming. He seized my hand with one of his, curling it around the top of his shoulder and holding it there.

"You know, it was the strangest thing…as I was walking across the field to meet her, all I could think about was how beautiful the night was, and how wonderful her pictures would be. I felt happy for her. The snow, when it's fresh, absorbs all the sounds of the forest, and all you can hear is wind in the branches of trees. The snow was sifting back and forth…that dry, loose kind that seems like sand dunes. Everything was perfectly still and quiet. I actually stood there and looked at her on the bridge, watching her gaze at the reservoir. I was probably…forty yards away."

He swallowed and let his eyes fall closed. I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down. His whispered voice was shaking now. "And then an owl hooted, and she turned her head, and that's when she noticed me. I smiled at her, but she just looked straight through me. Her face was…so hard and alien. It gave me a chill. And then…she threw herself over the railing, Bella. Without a word. One minute she was staring daggers at me, the next minute she was gone. She didn't scream. It's not enough to say that it shocked me...it was like I was watching TV and the station changed to another story, another life. Nothing connected."

I realized I had thrown my arms around his middle and was pressing my forehead into his neck. "Edward. Oh."

He covered my arms with his own and let me hold him.

"She was...sprawled on the ice, totally still. Three hundred feet below me. I could see the blood spreading. I...I thought I was hallucinating. I guess I did hallucinate, because I don't remember calling anyone or doing anything until I was in an ambulance being treated for shock. They told me later I broke my collarbone lunging at the iron railing, that I called Carlisle on my cell. But all I remember is not being able to move, not being able to get to her. The whole time thinking about the way she looked at me. The way she…made sure I was watching."

The anguish in his voice as he blurted it out was agonizing.

"Oh, Edward, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that you lost her and that she…that it happened this way." I felt my stomach turn, imagining anyone making such a decision. However angry she must have been, however numb…to involve him in that way was vicious. She had to have known he would take it as a denunciation, a laying of blame.

He pulled me into his arms and set me on the ground, giving himself space to open the flat file again. He slipped the print back into the drawer, locking it up. He put his hand out to me. His eyes were so drained. "There's more, Bella. Come with me."

"No, Edward, just wait a minute. Stay here with me, just for a minute." I needed to feel him here with me in the present day again, not back on that night. I took his hand and held him still, flush up against me. "We're doing this because I asked for it, but you don't need to go further tonight, if it's too much. Not for me. I can wait."

"Well, I can't. I've waited too long already. There's something…something no one else knows about. I've talked about it with my therapist, but I can't bring myself to show anyone who knew her. Will you come see it?" He gazed at me with a matter-of-fact expression. His mind was made up.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's go."

I let him lead me to his office, where he flopped into one of two upholstered chairs. I took in the orderly piles of books and objects scattered around the room. Framed artwork was piled against the wall in a stack. My eyes fell on a bottle of Maker's Mark wedged into a shelf, and I reached up to pull it down. Edward nodded toward a coffee mug on his desk, and I poured a few fingers of bourbon into it.

He took a swig, then sat silently for a moment, gazing into the mug. And then he was on his feet, striding toward the phone. He handed me the mug. I drank. The bloom of alcohol pricked my mouth for an instant before numbness took over.

He poked at buttons on the phone. "I found this on my office voicemail the next day. The time stamp is 9:20 p.m. I really don't want to listen, so…just use the handset, okay?"

I pressed the receiver to my ear. What I heard was mostly static. He paced while I listened. I pressed a key to repeat the message. Her voice was wavering. I think she was crying. I could make out Edward's name, and a few words.

"Edward…not how it should be…opportunity, this window…a stranger…it isn't fair...your family…so much love…you'll understand when you see the photographs."

That was the only really clear thing I could make out. You'll understand when you see the photographs. I looked at Edward and replaced the handset in its cradle.

"The photographs?"

He nodded. "They found her camera hanging from the railing, wrapped in her red scarf to protect it from the snow. And as a flag, I guess, to make sure they found it. She never took that camera from around her neck, Bella, especially on an icy day when she might have dropped it in the snow."

"No one has heard this? You said no one but your therapist?"

"No, that's not the part I meant. There was an investigation, of course; it's routine. So the investigators heard this. There was never a chance of me being accused of anything. They just needed to get all the facts out. Of course, there was gossip. With my history, I was a wide open target for all kinds of rumors. People made me out to be a womanizer…a controlling bastard with sick kinks. Like you heard that day outside the student clinic. That shit was the least of my concerns at the time."

He reached for something tucked above some books on a high shelf—a small stack of prints and a white linen box bound together with a rubber band. "These were the photographs that were in her camera."

They looked like test frames—the type of careless, offhand photographs a person would take to evaluate a new lens or filter, or to document a light leak to show a repair technician.

"I don't see anything here. What was there to understand from these?"

"That was my reaction, too. Then I found this." He gestured to the white linen box. "It was on her desk. Sitting there in the middle. There was even post-it that said 'enjoy.' "

He sat down heavily in the chair, and I lowered myself to sit on his lap.

He threw his head back to stare at the ceiling, and I looked at the box. The cover was etched with Edward's initials—EMC—in an elaborate, scrolling gothic font. It was really quite elegant. I opened it and found a pile of twenty or so three-by-five prints. The top few were all text—one word per card.

This

Valentine's

Day

I

give

you…

And then a series of photographs. Black and white close-ups of glimpses of a woman's body: Tanya. It would have been beautiful, under different circumstances. The back of a knee here, an ankle, the crease of an elbow. The milky underside of a breast. My hands were shaking. Edward released a shuddering breath underneath me as I flipped to the end quickly. The final two cards made me choke back a sob: her abdomen, tattooed with the same filigreed EMC from the cover of the box, and then the word…myself.

I give you myself.

I shut the box and shoved it onto the desk, feeling sick. I blinked at Edward. I had no idea where to begin, what to say.

He spoke to the ceiling. "She didn't have that tattoo when we were together."

"No?" I had little hope of soothing him, but nonetheless I swept my hand over his hair.

"No." He sounded so exhausted. "How could I have been so oblivious?"

I dragged my fingers through his hair at the temples, letting my short fingernails massage his scalp. He closed his eyes slowly and opened them again. He looked at me.

"I don't know when she would have gotten it. I have almost no memories of how things were between us—nothing that corresponds to this. These photographs. A tattoo of my initials. Despair, suicide. For God's sake. Maybe she had a mental break. Maybe she was obsessed. Whatever it was, I never noticed a thing. All my instincts, everything I ever thought I could rely on…it was for shit."

He was quiet again for a long time.

"I thought I would never be able to trust myself again. I thought it would be better to stay away from people altogether. My therapist, she suggested…she thinks I had a sort of shield in place to keep people from getting close and leaving me like my birth mother."

"Do you think that's true?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to think. All I know is I did something to Tanya that made her crack, to make her decide her last act on earth should be…cruelty. And I have no idea what it was I did to her. The warning signs came out afterward, you know. People said she had been behaving strangely, getting drunk in the afternoon. She was coming apart, she was losing it, and I should have seen it. I should have been a better friend to her." I had been waiting for him to break down, and that was what did it. A single tearless sob burst out of him, and he clutched my body for dear life. "I should have paid more attention. I should have seen it. I should have stopped her. I should have stopped her."

He took in a new breath with a gasp. "You saw that portrait. You saw how beautiful she was, how young…how can shit like that happen to someone so full of life? How can there be any joy, after that?" His eyes were boring into me now, his hands massaging my arms. "But there is joy. You make me feel it again, Bella. It hurts and it feels good, but I can't go back to feeling nothing. It's the truth. And it's fucking terrible. The way you look at me sometimes, I feel like you are…ready to hear the truth, no matter how terrible it is. It might make you leave me, but at least you…see me."

He looked me up and down, reading my face and gazing like he was committing it to memory. "So now you know."

"Edward, I wanted to know. Thank you. So much of it is terrible…I'm sad for her, and angry, too, and I'm sorry this is something that happened in your life, but I don't think it's your fault. I don't pity you. And I'm not going anywhere."

I cradled his head against my shoulder, and it reminded me of how things had been when Renee died. Charlie. Phil. I was always cradling heads against my shoulder. I was thinking about the idea of guilt, the way it marked you irrespective of whatever reality said was true. He wasn't to blame, but he felt to blame. That was something I understood.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

We decided to ditch the truck and walk to my place, bourbon and fatigue and grief in our veins. At the turnoff to my house, he veered in a new direction, and I followed his lead halfway across the square. And then I saw it. We were headed for the dandelion oak.

Looking up at the tree from below, I could see stars through the bare, veiny branches. Edward hoisted me up carefully, and together we climbed to a nearby branch.

He leaned against the thick trunk of the tree and held me close. "I don't want you to remember this night for what I just told you, B. I want you to remember it as the night I came home to you, and the night you saw this. Will you do that for me? Will you try?"

I nodded my head. I would remember the way his eyes looked right now, the new depth of tenderness they held. He put my hand against a smooth spot where a limb should have been. A ridge of bark surrounded it like a collar.

"An oak tree seals itself off when a limb comes down, did you know that?"

I didn't know that. I shook my head.

"This is called a callus."

Running my fingers along the smooth wood, I felt something then. A carving. And another carving. I bent my head to look. Inside the smooth circle of wood where a limb had been pruned away were a series of initials, some of them inside hearts. A + J…E + C…E + E. That had to stand for Edward and Elizabeth. "Your parents?"

"Hmm. Yes, all of them." He was smiling. "And this is Alice and Jasper. You're not supposed to carve the bark. Even this is…pushing it. But we take care of the tree."

The tears that had been building up in me spilled over then. "I can see that, Edward." He brushed my face with his fingers, then kissed me.

"Yes, Edward. I'll remember this." I laughed a little. I didn't know then—I couldn't have known—that this was a promise that would prove to be among the most important of my life. "I'm tired. Let's go home."

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

AN: Thank you for reading. Edward needs your loving support right now…please review!

PS: Check out the twificpimps podcast, where the awesome Althea reviewed Branching Inward in episode 11 last week... It's a cool episode that breaks down all the various fanfiction recommendations blogs that are out there! (you'll need to replace the dots: www dot twificpimps dot com/2010/12/episode-11-rec-blogs-5/ )