Chapter 14
"Do you remember that summer? Honest to God, I don't think I would have made it without you."
Stefan said softly from behind her.
"I remember."
Bella didn't look back. She remembered thinking that with Damon off at the war; Stefan would want to spend more time with her. She had selfishly considered telling him how she felt.
In fact she had decided she'd do it. She had asked him to meet her at their place a late afternoon but he stood her up. After waiting for almost an hour, she had gone to find him, only to find *her* with him.
Katherine Pierce had arrived. The human (as Bella thought at the time) wrecking ball and she had clashed at first glance. No, 'clashed' is the wrong word. The two had gated each other. Katherine seemed to be able to read Bella's mind and heart. The bombshell had understood all of Bella's feelings for Stefan and proceeded to destroy her hopes.
Within the week Bella had been relegated to less than a friend, plagues with pain and self-loathing for being dismissed. She wasn't sure what Stefan remembered but her summer had been spent trying to make herself not actually want anything more, trying to lock the love she held for her best friend in some airtight box and lose it deep inside. It was a battle she lost but it didn't matter. She didn't matter.
Hot tears clouded her vision and she felt glad that Stefan was behind her and couldn't see her. She raised one hand to toy with the bitch's pendant around her neck. Thinking what would happen if she took it off for a bit.
"The smell of hay still makes me think of you sometimes,"
Stefan continued blissfully unaware of the memories he stirred up in her
"I'll be somewhere completely unrelated, and go past a field where they'd been cutting hay, and I remember that summer and the loft and you."
"Me too."
Bella was sure that Stefan meant of all the good times they spent hiding away. Her own memories though would be a mixture of being stood up, being dismissed and being killed.
"I remember I used to dare you to jump out the hatch."
Stefan mused.
"I could never refuse a dare."
I wanted you to admire me.
"We were both idiots."
"Isn't that one definition of fifteen year olds?"
"I guess."
Stefan got up, came and sat beside her in the doorway, pushing open the other half of the door so they could share the space without touching.
"That's better. It's fucking hot up here."
For a while they were quiet, sitting there in the shade of the overhang, watching the goats wander around their bit of pasture below. Eventually Stefan said,
"Did you ever wonder what would have happened if Damon hadn't left or if Katherine had never chosen our house?"
"Sure."
Only every day for years. Bella made her voice light and amused.
"Damon would have been forced to either own up the company or travel for the company and you'd have gotten married probably to start producing little heirs. Maybe you'd have married Hannah."
"No way,"
Stefan said seriously. Hannah Fell had been one of their friends and was their age. It wasn't a secret that the Fell family had wanted to merge fortunes with the Salvatores.
"I liked her, but she was way too earth-mother for me. She'd have had me turning vegetarian and marching in protests."
"Heaven forbid."
"Hey, I like meat"
Bella snorted suddenly glad she never mentioned how the Cullens called their diet to him. This would have been way less tongue-in-cheek. Stefan hesitated.
"Anyway, when I wondered about how things would've been different, I wasn't thinking about Hannah, I was thinking about you. You were the best friend I had in the whole world. The only one who really knew me and stuck with me and didn't laugh at my ideas and shit."
"Your ideas were shit. I was just too polite to laugh."
Stefan punched her arm.
"You know what I mean. When Dad announced Damon was leaving... I felt so alone. I tried to get him to stay you know"
Stefan frowned to himself.
"I suggested that I could go and he'd stay with you but father refused to even listen. He said it was decided. I thought of sneaking out to join too but..."
Stefan hesitated.
"Then I'd leave you alone"
From the corner of her eye, Bella could see that Stefan was looking at her
"It's a good thing our summer was full of jokes and fun and being together then"
Bella said in a falsetto forcing her eyes to focus on a bush of flowers at the distance. The last thing she could see in the distance
"I missed you know. Even though we were in the same house, we had never been further apart"
Her own vice was hollow, the fight gone.
"Sorry."
"I wasn't sure if you were getting bored with me hanging around you."
"Jesus, no. why would you think that?"
Stefan exclaimed. Bella bit her bottom lip and began chirping the creamy silver nail polish of her left thumb
"Because Katherine had a point. Damon may have been the oldest son but you were the Salvatore heir. And me being around you so much only blurred the lines"
"What are you talking about?"
Bella chuckled darkly.
"You were Giuseppe's son and I was your servant Stefan. Even if some of the rumors were true, I'd be Giuseppe's little bastard daughter. But you and me and Damon hanging together so much... it gave birth to too much gossip around. I know that and you know that"
Stefan remained silent for a while. Bella was unsure how it sounded but she didn't like the silence. it was heavy. Too heavy. Imagine how worse it'd be if she had fessed up the real reason behind the pretense of caring for the propriety.
"Come on, help me grab some bales and finish up. I really, really want a shower."
"You go first. I want to go for a hunt"
Wordlessly Stefan stood in one fluid motion and left. Bella sat for a moment longer, looking out the loft door, caught back in time, in a moment when life had seemed hard and easy. The heat and the darkness of the loft and the scent of hay and Stefan's lingering scent blurred the past and the present.
And for just a moment as she stood and turned, she expected to see the skinny boy with shaggy, dark hair and big, shadowed eyes waiting for her there by the top of the ladder.
And just in tune with the memories, the ladder was empty.