ASL 14

The Truth

Tanya POV:

Late December:

I leaned against the wall and took some deep breathes to keep myself from hyperventilating. I had not wanted to believe the things that I overheard Edward telling Bella. I wish I had never overheard that conversation. But I did. I couldn't escape the memory of standing outside the room hearing him say that he did not want me. For the next few days I kept replaying his words in my head until my chest ached and my head felt like it was splitting in two.

I sighed and pushed those thoughts from my head as I forced myself to focus on what remained of the kids in my class run around the room. They were on a sugar high from the cookies and punch the PTA had provided for our class party and it made me want to punch the PTA. Today was our last day of school before Christmas break, and thankfully most of my students had already been taken home by their parents.

I looked back up at the clock and inwardly thanked God that it was time to get the kids ready to go outside and give them back to their parents. I loved my job and I loved my students, most of the time, but everyone had their breaking point and with everything going on at home I was quickly approaching mine.

Once all the kids were packed up and bundled up, I grabbed my coat and my bags and led them outside. As soon as my last kid had been retrieved by her mother I walked over to where Edward was parked waiting for me. He had taken to driving me to work and keeping the car since we could not afford to replace his right now. It made sense to both of us. I didn't really need it, and it kept him from being trapped at the house all the time.

I tried to send him to the grocery store once so that I wouldn't have to stop after work, but that didn't quite work out the way that I had hoped. I gave him a list but he came home with a bunch of junk food instead. I was used to being on a budget, but he wasn't. I had to dip into our savings again to replace the money he spent from our limited grocery budget. There were other times that he bought things without thinking of the financial consequences, and it was up to me to figure out how to deal with it while still keeping our heads above water.

After 'that afternoon' at Bella's office, I had started silently watching and observing Edward when we were home alone and when his family was around. He was so open and outgoing with everyone. Everyone but me, that is. With me he was quiet and distant. I had foolishly believed that he was just nervous around me. After all, I was not oblivious to the fact that he saw himself as a sixteen year old boy and I was a grown woman. I thought that it was just a temporary thing. I always believed that he would remember everything.

I tried to get his attention. I was determined that I was not going to go down without a fight. I tried harder to engage him in conversation. One night, I arranged for a sitter so that we could go out on a date, dinner and a movie. But he fell asleep as soon as he got home from his session with Bella. I ended up ordering pizza and eating alone in the kitchen.

I tried again a few days later. This time I made his favorite meal. I went so far as to try to use alcohol to relax him and loosen him up. It didn't work at all. Even drunk he didn't want me. I ended up crying myself to sleep alone in the guest room that night. That is where I slept from that night on. I would wait until he went to bed, in case he needed help with anything, before I would go to bed myself. If Edward even noticed that I was gone, he never said a word to me about it.

He had made huge strides in his therapy sessions with Bella and I was so proud of him for that. All of his injuries had completely healed and he had been cleared to drive again. He no longer needed me to take care of him. One thing that he did talk to me about was that he had decided not to try to pursue a career in medicine again. I didn't blame him for that. I didn't really care about being the wife of a doctor. He could do whatever he wanted; I just wanted him to be happy, no matter what career path his future held.

I was there when he told his parents his decision. Carlisle sadly accepted Edward's decision and Esme cried. I knew it wasn't because he wasn't going back to medicine; it was the fact that the decision meant that Edward had officially given up recovering his memories, and was looking for a way to move on with his life.

Yet, I waited silently. I could rationalize my silence and procrastinating all I wanted. First it was that he was still recovering from his injuries and needed me to take care of him. I couldn't leave him when he couldn't take care of himself. And then that I didn't want to ruin Christmas for the whole family, let alone Ethan. The honest truth was that all I was doing was deliberately avoiding the inevitable.

We were silent as Edward drove us to his parent's house to pick up Ethan. I stared out the window and held in my urge to scream. It wasn't fair! Our life wasn't supposed to end up like this! We loved each other and we were happy!I almost started laughing when I realized that I sound exactly like Ethan did when he threw a tantrum when he wasn't getting his way. I was the petulant child that I often accused my son of being, and I didn't care. I felt that I had the right to be a bit pissy about the situation we were in.

As we pulled into his parent's driveway I finally turned to him, "I need the car tomorrow. I have some errands to run." He just nodded and got out of the car. We only spoke a handful of words to each other for the rest of the evening.

The next morning I sat in the car staring at the building in front of me. I never thought that I would end up in this position. I never would have believed that I was going to do this but I was so very tired. I looked at the business card one more time before grabbing a Kleenex out of my purse, wiping the tears from my eyes, and forcing myself to walk into that building and take the steps that I knew were going change everything.

EPOV:

Bella kept telling me that I needed to talk to Tanya. I knew that I needed to be honest with her. The problem was that I had absolutely no idea how to talk to her. How do I tell her that I am miserable and don't want to be here? I was so lost on what to do because I had never had to do anything like this before. So I kept it to myself. I wanted to try to figure out how I was going to make this work before I sat down and talked to her. Was it ever going to be possible for me to make everyone happy, including myself? I doubted that but there had to be some hope.

It wasn't just that I was having a hard time getting up the courage to talk to her about our relationship, or lack thereof. I had no idea what were we supposed to talk about at all. I kept hoping that I would discover something that we had in common, but I had yet to find anything. Well, except for Ethan. Ethan was what we talked about the most. When we did attempt to talk about anything else, the conversations would end up being short and a bit stunted. Mostly we avoided talking to each other all together.

I was going to try to find a way to talk to her that night she arranged for a sitter so that we could go out. I didn't mean to fall asleep. I had another hard, emotional session with Bella and I only wanted to lie down for a minute. I felt really bad when I woke in the middle of the night and realized that I had ruined our night out. I went up to our bedroom and found that she wasn't there. I found her sound asleep in the guest room, so I went back to our room and tried to get to sleep. I'd called Emmett and made him come over and help me move the bed back upstairs the day that I was cleared to start using the stairs again. Don't even get me started about how taking a real shower again for the first time nearly brought me to tears.

I started having trouble sleeping after that. I'd fall asleep just fine but then I would wake again around two or three and be unable to get back to sleep, so I would sit up alone in the dark and think. I knew that Tanya had given up sleeping in the same bed as me, but since she didn't seem inclined to talk about it I didn't bring it up either.

Today Tanya said that she had an errand to run and needed the car, so I was home alone with Ethan. I was starting to become comfortable with being a dad. Especially now that I was able to move around on my own and I could actually do things for him. This was only the second time that Tanya had left him in my care. The first time was when Rose and Alice had insisted that she join them for girl's night. He and I made pizzas, played memory, and watched Thomas videos all night until it was time to bathe and get ready for bed. So he was up a half hour later than his bed time. I didn't care.

The next night was my night to go out with Emmett, Bella, and Jasper. Baseball season had long ended and now we were watching football. Bella liked to join us even though she'd spend most of the night heckling us that rugby players made American football players look like whiny little wusses. She was smart and funny and we all loved hanging out with her.

Even though we were becoming good friends while hanging out with my brothers-in-law, she kept everything extremely professional when we were working. I was seeing her three times a week right now. I had officially given up on recovering my lost memories. It was a pointless waste of my time to try anymore. I had come to terms with the fact that I had lost thirteen years of my life and I had started focusing on the future. I was attempting to figure out career options that were worth pursuing. It seemed like everyday I found something else that captured my interest. Last week I had considered everything from lawn care, to law, to even law enforcement. I loved seeing the way that Bella lit up with pride when she talked about her dad and his career and I really wanted Ethan to look like that one day when talking about me. I was positive that my parents and sisters still believed that I would magically remember one day. It was just too unrealistic for me to keep sitting at home hoping and waiting.

She was working on teaching me how to use some electronics I had never seen before. That was intriguing and fun. It was amazing how many new toys and gadgets were out there now. I also had a new cell phone. Tanya sat with me and explained how to add numbers to it, and she also explained in detail about how minutes we had to use and that we had unlimited text messaging. Then she had to explain what that was, and how I would text someone, and why I would want to do that instead of just calling them.

Some things were just weird. Like paying at the gas pump with a credit card, self checkouts at the grocery store, and since when did McDonalds start selling strange coffees? I mean, what the hell is a mocha and why would I even be asked if I wanted it hot or cold? I just wanted a cup of coffee to warm up after being out in the cold rain.

Besides Ethan, the only other thing that Tanya would mention to me regularly was this budget she had us on. She kept trying to keep me from spending too much. I tried, but occasionally I'd see something new that I had never seen before and I just had to get it to try it. Sometimes it was just some food product, and she didn't care too much about those purchases. It was when I would charge something that was electronic and very expensive on the credit card that she would get upset with me. Once I accidently used this credit card that took the money directly out of our checking account. I didn't now that. She never explained that it was different. I felt bad when she had to call the bank and try to get money into the account to cover the bill. I felt real bad about that because I knew that if I was still able to practice medicine, or had any kind of job, that we would be better off financially. How was I supposed to get a job if I just didn't know what I wanted to do yet?

After she got home from her errands she went straight into the kitchen and started dinner. She never told me where she'd gone to, but then again, I never asked either. All I could really tell you was that she was nervous and fidgety for the rest of the night. Then for the first time she went to bed first and went directly to the guest room.

We opted not to go to the Christmas party at the hospital this year. Tanya told me that we had gone every year before. I just didn't feel up to it. I didn't want to stand there and have all these doctors and nurses that thought they knew me look at me with pity and sorrow. Poor Dr. Cullen was not allowed to practice medicine anymore. I had enough of the looks and whispered comments every time that I went to the hospital for my appointments with Bella. They just didn't get that I didn't care. Every time I would say that I'd get the other look. The one that said they thought I was full of shit. I did know that Bella was going to the party before flying out in the morning. She told Emmett and me that she taking some guy that she had been out with a couple of times as her date. Seth was pretty cool. I liked him well enough. Bella had brought him with her to football night once so that Emmett could meet him. I guess her dad wanted a full report from Emmett on whether this guy could be trusted with Bella.

When I woke the next morning Tanya was gone. I knew that Bella had asked her to drive her to the airport, seeing as the rest of my family would be tired and sleeping in after the party. I hoped that Bella enjoyed her trip to see her mother. I knew that she had been looking forward to being able to lie out on the beach on Christmas morning. She was going to be gone for a week so she gave me homework to do, and told me to call if I needed her.

The next few days went by quickly. It seemed at times that Tanya wanted to say something but then she would change her mind and leave the room. Yesterday was Christmas and it was thrilling to watch how excited Ethan and Kara got with their presents. Just like Thanksgiving, we spent the holiday at Rose and Emmett's house. I had no idea what to get any of them for Christmas so I had enlisted Alice to help me. I convinced her to take the afternoon off work to go out with me. It was a fun afternoon for both of us and it worked to accomplish more than just shopping. We were able to really talk and I got to know who she was now. Thankfully, Alice was able help me stay on my budget and still get everyone something they wanted. I think grown-up Alice and I were going to be good friends.

Christmas was two days ago and right now I am sitting in a restaurant absolutely stunned. After Mom called, inviting Ethan to go with her and Kara to the museum, Tanya had suggested that we go out to lunch. The waitress had just left after taking our orders when Tanya started talking, "You proposed to me here. It's also where we had our first date." I just nodded in response. "You don't know that. I know that you couldn't know that anymore." She sighed, "I've…I've come to understand that and I accept that." Then she looked me directly in the eyes. "The man that loved me? The man that sat right in that chair where you are sitting and asked me to marry him? He died six months ago in that car accident. I understand now that you are not that man, and you will never be that man again. I will never be able to get him back. I can't live with myself knowing that I am forcing you to try to be someone you are not. All we are doing is living a lie and hurting everyone in the process." We both had tears streaming down our faces by this point, "It's not fair to either of us. It's not fair to our son. I love you so much and I will always love you. I could try to hold on and attempt to make you love me, but we'll only end up hating each other and I don't want that. I want you to be happy. Hell, I want me to be happy. That is why I've filed for divorce the other day. Well, I met with a lawyer last week, the papers will officially be filed sometime this week, and then you will be served a copy at your parent's house. I figured that would be the best arrangement. Sorry, I guess it's not my call where you go, but I would appreciate it if I could stay at the house."

She did what? Was she serious? She was letting me out of this? I sat there staring at her for along time. I really didn't know what to say to her. My parent's place was probably the best place for me to go. Alice had the baby and I had this strong suspicion that Rose and Emmett were trying to get pregnant. I definitely did not want to be around for that. I nodded a few more times before I was able to regain my ability to speak. "What about Ethan?"

"I'm hoping that we could come to a friendly agreement about custody. I thought joint custody, but with him living with me primarily and visits with you. You'll see him everyday after school until I pick him up and then maybe every other weekend. We can work out details later. I think we should just take some time and let this sink in a bit. I just don't want this to turn into a big battle."

I sat there staring at the food that had just been placed in front of me. I didn't want to fight with her either. I was no longer hungry and from the way that Tanya was pushing her food around the plate in front of her, she had lost her appetite too. I nodded…again…and just said, "Ok," because really, what else could be said.

A/N: I guess I can reveal now that the inspiration for this story is Bonnie Raitt's song "I can't make you love me." This chapter is what I centered the whole story on.

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Thank you to Sweetpea123 for working her magic on cleaning this up. She is about to get the next chapter tonight and she also got the Living Life outtake for Fandom4autism. I