A/N: Happy Birthday, Jaime Arkin! Now I'm gonna make you cry. Sorry.
Team TiaL wrapped their virtual arms around me when I didn't think I could write this. Thank You!
I Know It's Over by The Smiths can be found here: ht tp : / / www . /watch?v=P2e7dpVDX54
It was a dark and stormy winter.
I giggle and take a sip of wine and erase what I've written. Face it, Bella. Write it down.
My mind keeps trying to shrink from the task at hand. I've avoided these words for more than twenty years, but avoiding them doesn't make them disappear. Your experiences don't have to be written down on a page in order for them to have existed. My entire life is a testament to the past - to this past; to the piece of it I'd like to obviate.
I take a deep breath and try again.
Edward was dark and stormy that winter.
Yes, that's closer to the truth.
Edward's mood matched the weather in late fall of 1989: ominous, dark, and gray. When I think about that time in our lives I see swirling clouds circling around bright green eyes.
Of course, Edward's mood didn't change overnight. Looking back, I can see the signs, but when I was there with him in that apartment, living it, I tried to ignore the subtle changes. His tendency towards frustration, his despair over not getting the album recorded quickly enough, his growing need to stay locked up in his room when things didn't go exactly as planned… these signs were eclipsed by the way I'd catch him gazing at me from across a room, or the way he'd hold me after we had sex.
By the end of that fall, I was passing long hours at school: studying, researching, and trying to end the semester on a strong note. Edward spent much of his time in the studio. It was like he had an arbitrary deadline in his mind, and he worked against the clock to make that album a reality.
Now I know Edward wasn't fighting a clock, he was fighting himself. He knew that he didn't have much time. He knew that we didn't have much time. Hell, everyone knew. I was the only one that wouldn't admit it.
Often, when I was at home, it was almost like my first year at Edward's apartment, where I'd wander through empty rooms, searching for evidence that he'd ever been there. Alice would show up with increasing frequency, unannounced and grumbling about escalating costs and artistic differences, eying me accusingly.
I hadn't told Edward to abandon the album like she'd asked. I couldn't. Edward was completely dedicated to his work, and it was beautiful, at that. In a way, the album was the story of Edward and I; it was dreamy and happy, and intricate and confusing. I loved it, and I loved him, and maybe it was self-serving, but I wanted the world to hear that.
"You're staying?" Alice asked one day as we sat across the kitchen table from one another, once again waiting on Edward.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"If you're going to see this through, just take care, okay?"
"Alice, I don't -"
She didn't let me argue, though. Instead, she took the opportunity to finally try to explain Edward's 'instability'. She swore me to secrecy and told me about the first time Edward tried to kill himself - how she found him naked, high and bleeding. There was the time he went after Jasper with a knife, and it took Emmett, Caius and Marcus to hold him back. There were times he went missing for weeks, only to show up filthy, skinny, and near dead.
I shook my head. Her words were meaningless. I let them go right through me.
"Please listen," she pled. "I see how you look at him, I see how much he holds on to you, but he's alone for a reason. You… you're vulnerable here. Emmett and I can't watch you all the time."
"He'd never hurt me, Alice," I insisted.
"Here's my number," she said, passing a card across the table. "I know a thing or two about staying. It's not easy, kiddo. But I get it, though, and I'm here if you need me."
Edward would show up at random hours, tense and angry-looking, but when he'd curl up with me on the sofa, he'd soften – his limbs, his mood, his lips as they met mine. He'd kiss me and hold me, and we'd talk in hushed voices, telling one another about our days spent apart.
He wasn't dangerous. He wasn't suicidal. He was in love. With me.
I could sense Alice's watchful eyes on us, but I tried to ignore her. Our lives had nothing to do with her. Edward was happier by my side. Everyone's fatalistic talk about moods was clearly unfounded. He simply needed me, and I needed him right back. Obviously, each of us had been what was missing in one another's lives. Cuddled up under a throw together, reading books by the fire, we were found.
Alice would pull him away all the time, though. She'd force him back to reality. I got the sense that she didn't play around. If Edward was serious about putting out a solo album, she was serious about making it a success. I tried to stay out of their way, but sometimes it was hard not to overhear them talking.
"This isn't exactly the way things are done, Edward."
"This is the way I want it done."
"It's not your decision to make. What does she want?"
"She wants this. She just doesn't know she can have it."
"Maybe you should tell her."
"Maybe you should mind your business."
"This is my business. You made it my business."
He'd almost always come out of those meetings upset. Alice would storm out, shaking her head. At first I tried discussing it all with Edward - the intricacies of recording, mixing, editing, marketing, distributing - and about Alice's part in all of it, but it only made him turn away from me as well. So, I let it drop. I decided that I'd be his refuge from that part of his life. I never pushed.
"Are you going home after finals?" Edward asked one night as he clung to me.
"Where's home?" I asked as my fingers slid down his arm, taking his hand in mine.
Flames flickered in the fireplace. Rain pelted against the windowpanes. Edward didn't answer; he simply watched me carefully, waiting.
"I haven't spoken to my mother in close to a year. My dad's more interested in his beer than in his daughter. You're my home, Edward."
He sighed and held me tight.
"I get to keep you through the winter then?" he asked.
"Longer, even."
I held back the word 'forever', but my heart knew it with certainty. No matter where I went, I'd given away a piece of myself. It was irrevocable. He'd have me for the rest of his life.
"We don't have to stay here, though," I murmured, my head resting on his chest. "I don't have school, and this album's… stressing you out. We could go somewhere, right? Somewhere you might be happy."
"Happy," he laughed. "We'll give it a go."
We went to the beach. Newport Beach, Rhode Island at Christmastime was deserted, cold and gray. Sleet fell in sheets from the sky and biting wind swirled off of the water. After five minutes outside my body felt like it was covered with a thin sheen of ice.
The suite at the hotel was overdone and ridiculously ornate. The bathroom was all gold and marble, the couches in the sitting room were upholstered in crushed velvet, and there were tassels on the drapes. Our bed had tall posters and a canopy and the walls were papered in silk.
Seeing Edward in the mist of it all, in his hoodie, ripped T-shirt and torn jeans, it was ridiculous and I couldn't stop laughing. So, I pulled off his clothes… and then I felt like some Victorian wench being defiled by her aristocratic rapscallion.
The silver tea service that came with room service only enhanced my silly fantasy. I dreamed about buying silk stockings and corsets, or those slips they were always wearing in Victorian movies, with the ties in the front that always came undone so you could get a handful or a mouthful of boob. Then Edward would be able to ravage me in style.
We didn't make it to many stores, though. We mostly stayed inside by the fire. We slept late and woke to room service and old black and white movies.
When I couldn't get Edward out of bed, when he pulled the blankets over his head, I'd coax him out with breakfast, coffee, kisses and my bare skin pressed against his. He'd reluctantly smile. I'd turn on something quiet, something like Chopin's Etudes, and I'd open the shades so we could see the clouds moving across the sky in different shades of gray, and how it met the churning Atlantic below.
I'd climb under the covers and pop a piece of pastry in Edward's mouth, and he'd hold me, trace his fingers between my breasts, down to my naval, and then it was best to move the coffee and the food.
Sometimes we braved the weather and walked along the beach hand-in-hand, with bowed heads, our voices swallowed up by the crash of the breakers. We'd hide out near the lighthouse, sipping the hot chocolate we found at the only café that was open for the season.
"You can leave whenever you want, Bella," he said to me one afternoon as we huddled on a bench.
"Leave?" I asked like I had no earthly idea what he was talking about, snuggling into his side. Denial like that is so easy when you're young.
"This is where I'd ask anyone else to leave. But I don't know if I can make you. I don't know…"
"Edward, please -" I began to beg, feeling suddenly desperate, but before I could tell him that I wasn't going anywhere, that I would never need to go anywhere, he interrupted me.
"Leaving was never an option when I was a kid. My father… I took off, though, eventually, when I saw another cycle coming on. The signs are unmistakable when you've known them since birth. My mother, though, she never escaped."
"Your dad?" I asked.
"It took a while, but I finally realized there are some things I can't fight. I'm my father's son. His moods, his rage, his stupid self-destructive behavior… it was passed down to me. You're stronger than my mother, though. You can leave. Don't let me keep you."
"Don't you get it?" I argued. "I don't want to go anywhere. Where would I go?"
He wouldn't look at me, though. He stared off into the icy wind, instead.
"Wherever you want. I promise."
"I don't want to go!" I yelled, frightening a murder of crows clustered on the jetty.
"I don't want you to go either, Bella."
At least that's what I heard Edward say. I couldn't be certain of anything given the cawing and the wind and the waves.
"I'm going to try, though," he added to himself.
I didn't have the heart to ask what Edward was going to try to do: try to keep me, or try to let me go. He was moodier, but it was nothing like the deadly self-destructive behavior Alice had described. I could explain it all easily away… He was going solo after more than ten years with The Masens. He was moving in a different musical direction. He was frustrated with the lack of progress with the album.
I wanted so badly for that to be the truth. I wanted to think that I was enough to save us both. I tried. I tried very, very hard.
xXxXx
Present Day
I take a break and look at the clock. It's been two hours since I sat down. Two hours lost in the past. Two hours dredging up romantic naïveté. Two hours examining the parts that both Edward and I played in it all.
When I used to re-examine the past, I'd come away saying that Edward should have cut his fatalistic crap and tried to get help, instead. Of course, I didn't know at the time that he had done just that. That fall he'd started seeing a therapist for the first time in years. I learned about that much, much later. No one knew at the time, not Alice, not Emmett, not me.
Even so, Edward didn't want to get my hopes up. In fact, he treated my hopes like rocks on the shore. He tried to break them, with wave upon wave of relentless warnings. Then he'd cling to me, though, like he secretly prayed he was wrong. He wanted it to work too. He had hopes just like I did; he simply wouldn't admit it.
In the end it turned out that it would take more than warnings to break both of our hopes, and to break our hearts.
I stand up and stretch. I refill my glass of wine. I walk around the house and loosen my limbs. I'm stalling, but I tell myself that I'm taking the time to appreciate the evidence that I was able to move on, eventually. My life: my house, my daughter, my friends, are all proof that I didn't break. Maybe I came out of it all with broken hopes, but was intact in who I was.
I eventually picked up the pieces. I know that I have Edward to blame for the heartfail, but in a way, I also owe everything I have to him as well.
I wander into the bedroom. The contents of his box are scattered over my bed. Over the past week everything has been unearthed. It's left me a churning, uneasy mess of a human being, but it's part of the process. It feels necessary.
I pick the eight by twelve, flat box out of the rubble and smile. I even kept the navy blue bow he'd tied around it. I take both back to the office. I need to write, and if I sit on the bed with that box, I'll get lost in more memories.
xXxXx
Christmas 1989 – Newport Beach, Rhode Island
Edward and I stayed shut in our suite for Christmas. When I first woke him with kisses, running my hands through his hair and wrapping my arms around his body, he pretended he didn't know what day it was. I was excited, though. I'd thought endlessly about what to get a man that could have everything he wanted at his fingertips. I settled on part of myself. I disentangled my limbs from his, ran across the room and popped a cassette tape into the stereo.
I'd wrangled one of Edward's new tracks from Alice. It was the first piece I'd heard him playing on the piano that previous summer, the one he'd tinker with alone at night… before he started spending his nights with me.
I wrote a story to go along with that piano piece. It was similar to the one that had gone missing from my notebook, except this one was more personal. This man and woman resembled Edward and I much more closely, and it didn't end in certain tragedy. It was the story of a girl that idolized a man, and how she only grew to love him once she got to know him. It was about how this certain, nameless girl figured out that the man was even better than she could have imagined, once he came down from the pedestal and stood before her, simply because he was real – imperfect and flawed.
Edward read along and laughed, but there were tears in his eyes. He kissed me on the nose and rifled around in the nightstand on his side of the bed. I was silly, I closed my eyes as he placed a flat box in my hands… tied with a ribbon.
"Open it," he whispered in my ear, wrapping an arm around my bare waist.
Inside I found two of the stories I'd written that fall, but they were typed and bound. "What -" I began to ask.
"Keep reading," he urged, picking up the pages, unveiling letters underneath.
Official letters… from the editors of esteemed literary magazines. They were official letters addressed to me.
Dear Ms. Swan…
"The Hudson Review and… The New Yorker! The New Yorker? Edward, what did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. They'll expect to hear back from you after the holidays."
"I'm going to be published, twice? Who did you talk to? How did you do this?"
"I just had Alice act as your agent. I told you, Bella, you have no idea of your worth. There's so much intricate beauty in that pretty little head of yours… it's all you. Everything is yours to take. You should meet with Alice next week. There's an editorial process, of course, and I imagine it will be months before these are published. Of course, you could decline their offers if you…"
I threw myself at Edward, tackling him to the bed.
"I'm going to be published?" I asked, as he let me pin him down.
Edward smiled and nodded and knotted his hands in my hair. We made love on top of the pages of my stories that told of how deeply I'd fallen in love, about how it felt when one loved unconditionally. The papers wrinkled and tore beneath us to the sound of Edward's piano playing.
xXxXx
Returning to New York wasn't easy for either of us. Edward tried to throw himself back into his work, but it was like there was some big magnet pulling him deeper into himself. I'm almost certain there were days when he'd stare at the walls. I'd tempt him out of the house with wet walks through Central Park. We'd bundle up in sweaters and scarves and clutch each other's hands, bracing against the harsh winter wind. The freezing rain would force us to seek refuge under bridges and he'd kiss me against the dirty concrete as horse and carriages carrying tourists rolled by.
We'd drink bad coffee and share a warm pretzel or roasted nuts and curl up on a bench. He told me stories about the road: about bars in Texas, flat tires in the California dessert, and earthquakes in Japan. It didn't take long to figure out that everything was edited, though. There was no mention of the kind of things you'd expect to hear from rock stars: parties, women, drugs… or band mates, even.
"I can take it, you know," I told him one afternoon as we sat on the wall by the lake and he finished up a story about a night in Vegas that didn't include a single bare boob, or even much drinking.
Edward offered me the bag of roasted cashews he'd been monopolizing. "Fine, take my nuts. You have me by the balls, anyway." he laughed.
I threw a cashew at him.
"I'm not an idiot. I don't need the PG version of Edward Cullen. I just want to know you."
Edward looked away rather than answer. I felt his signature hardness and heaviness returning. It could sweep in from nowhere those days.
"There's nothing you could say to make me change my mind about you," I reminded him.
"All that shit… I'd rather not go there. I want something different."
"Without all of it, though, who's to say I'd be here with you today?" I asked, testing out a new theory of mine.
Edward laughed out loud and threw the rest of his cashews into the lake.
"I fucking guarantee you're not sitting next to me because of one night in Vegas, six grams of coke, and three women in the back of a limo."
I nearly choked on his nuts.
"Or did I lure you into my life when you saw my ruined veins?" he asked, rolling up a coat sleeve and holding out an arm "Fucking hot, I know. Right?"
I stared at his bare arm as it grew red in the cold air. I'd never thought twice about his veins. Was something wrong with his veins?
"Half-truths are as good as lies in my book," I said quietly.
"I wouldn't lie. Not to you," he insisted.
I rolled down his sleeve and then he let me hold his hand.
"Then tell a whole story?"
"Ask," he sighed and looked out over the lake.
It wasn't the way I wanted it to happen. I just wanted to know him completely, not poke at his secrets.
"How many… others?" I tried. I figured there were at least three… in a limo in Vegas with lots of cocaine.
Edward gave me this look like I'd just asked the square root of nine thousand seventy-two. "There's no one but you. You're all I think about."
"But -"
"I don't fucking know."
"Anyone that I might -"
"I lived a fucking lifetime before you turned ten, Bella. What do you want me to say? Should I count off the dozens like donuts?"
We fell silent. Some swans paddled over, but we were out of nuts. I sipped at my cold coffee and hoped they didn't try to bite. Swans in Central Park did that sometimes.
"Okay, then… what about… Jasper?"
Edward's face went a whiter shade of pale. The pink disappeared from his cheeks.
"Alice… she doesn't say, but it doesn't sound… good," I pressed.
Edward stared at his lap.
"Heroin is useful when you're so high you can't sleep or when you need to focus in order to sing fifteen songs from beginning to end," Edward said quietly. "Heroin reminds you that you have a body when you're all up here." He tapped the side of his head.
"Then, when you can't get out of bed, when you can't leave the tour bus, cocaine will get you up and out. It'll make you smile for an audience. It'll make you the most charismatic fucker in the room."
"But, you don't do drugs."
"No, not anymore. It's easier for some people to stop than it is for others. Jasper… not so much. Not ever, as far as I can tell."
"Oh."
"We did everything together… until he turned into a fucking idiot," Edward spat.
"Um..."
Edward took a deep breath and slid closer. "I prefer the other stories. Stories without addicted assholes, stories that don't involve meaningless fucking. Okay?"
"Yeah, I guess. It's just that -"
"Someday I want to tell stories about you. About us. Someday I wish we could look back and say, 'Remember that day when I kissed you for the first time?'"
"Me too," I agreed, falling against Edward, warming myself in his embrace. "But I kissed you."
Edward smiled down at me. It had been so long since I'd seen him smile that my heart fluttered. "You already do, Bella. You tell those stories. You tell beautiful, dirty stories that are going to make you famous."
"I don't know about that," I demurred.
"Which part don't you know about?" Edward asked, pulling me onto his lap. "Beautiful, dirty or famous?"
"Well, definitely dirty," I agreed, giggling.
xXxXx
I stare at the glowing screen, looking over the words I've just written. My eyes settle on the last period of the last sentence. It holds so much finality. It marks the ending of what was, quite possibly, the last peacefully secure moment that I remember spending with Edward.
Afterwards, he threw himself back into his work with renewed vigor, and it frustrated him to no end. His smiles disappeared completely, and they were replaced with groans of frustration and orders barked into the receiver of the phone.
I began my spring semester at NYU and also started meeting with Alice about the publication of my short stories. She was more than encouraging about my writing and began mapping out a career trajectory that left me completely breathless and overwhelmed.
Seth and I wrote back and forth a few times. He'd been in touch with Jake and the two of them wanted to meet up with me when Jake was in town for Fleet Week. After nearly two years, I was excited to see them both. Of course, I was also more than a little curious about what was going on between them. I was kind of worried, too. Edward was all over the place. I didn't really know what to expect from him, especially where Jake was concerned, the only other guy I'd ever really been with.
Of course, it turned out that it was never really an issue. There were other… issues - ones big enough to overshadow everything else in my life for years to come.
Right, the issues... We're just about there.
For me those issues began with a phone call.
I was at the apartment messing around with an outline for a story Alice thought had the potential for a full-fledged novel. I'd just about given up for the time being and decided to sneak in some 120 Minutes while Edward was out. He never would have let me live that down. He wasn't exactly a fan of Downtown Julie Brown, not since that time she threw up on Edward's combat boots. Long story.
When the phone rang, I totally thought that Edward was somehow onto me. I actually turned off the T.V. before I answered the phone. It wasn't Edward on the other end of the line, though.
"Hey, Trouble?" Emmett rasped, like he was trying to keep his voice down.
"Emmett?"
"You think you could get yourself down to the studio kinda quick? Like, maybe hop in a cab immediately?"
"Emmett?"
"We need you, kid. The sooner the better."
I'd never been to the studio where Edward was recording, so it took precious minutes for me to find the yellow pages, figure out where recording studios were listed, and then find a blank piece of paper to jot down the address. I ran out of the house in just a tank top, scarf and gloves, clutching cab money in my hand.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped off the elevator into the lobby of the studio. The worried-looking, greasy kid at the front desk buzzed me right back without so much as a word. I didn't have to ask where I should go, either. I could hear the yelling before I'd even made it down the hall.
Edward's angry voice scared the shit out of me, to be honest.
"You're not fucking with that goddamned track!"
Urgent voices interrupted, but they were much quieter and I couldn't hear what they were saying.
"It's marketable whether or not you change the fucking sound from blue to fucking yellow. It's an asinine idea, and it's fucking with my goddamned work! I don't need assholes stepping in here and telling me -"
More low voices tumbled down the hall. Something shattered. A door slammed and two kids with colorfully dyed hair and baggy jeans ran past me down the hall.
Emmett wasn't far behind. He rushed to meet me, wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me down the hall towards the argument.
"I called when I saw it start to go south," he explained quickly. "He'd never listen to me. I just thought, I don't know… he's so chill with you. You could, I don't know, get him to get the fuck out of there without a struggle. I'd drive you two off and poof, or something."
"You motherfuckers don't have any fucking idea what music even is, do you?"
"Maybe I should go then, Emmett. I don't even know what's -"
Something else crashed in the room down the hall and Emmett picked up the pace, dragging me along. "I've got to get in there or they're gonna call someone," he explained. "I don't want to pull him out kicking and fucking screaming and shove him forcefully into the car. Help me, kid. Okay?"
"Emmett, but what can I -"
The door was flung open and I was face to face with a couple more fleeing interns. They'd left Edward staring down a frightened and defiant handful of record execs. The glass between the mixing room and the studio was cracked, chairs lay overturned on the floor. Edward was kind of stalking closer to the pack. He was beyond angry and his hair was standing out from his head like he'd been pulling so hard and so long that it was left that way permanently.
"You're not going to fucking do that to that fucking song," he snarled.
"I don't think you're listening, Edward," one of them began.
Edward charged across the room. "I've done nothing but fucking listen!"
Emmett jumped between Edward and the record guys, holding Edward back, while the small knot of men backed up against a graffitti'ed wall. I saw that scuffle Emmett was trying to avoid, I saw the men talking in hushed voices, I saw one of them leave with a curious glance in my direction.
Emmett talked quick, whispering in Edward's ear, motioning in my direction. I shrunk against the wall. A couple of men cast worried glances at me. Then Edward's angry and frightened eyes were raking over me too.
"What in the fuck were you thinking? Get the fuck off me, Emmett! Get the fucking hell, fucking out of… Fuck!" Suddenly, instead of wrestling Emmett to fight preppy guys in khakis, Edward was struggling to get to me.
"Edward?" I asked and my tiny voice floated in the air. "Edward?"
"Who in the fuck brought her here? Why in the hell …"
I crunched over broken glass and I was by his side, pushing my body between Emmett and Edward, wrapping my arms around him and whispering in his ear. I told him that I loved him, that I was scared, and that Emmett made me come.
The men were talking in the corner, and as we were leaving, lots of interns lined the halls with mouths hanging wide, or smirking, or whispering. There was security in the lobby by the time we made it out, but they stood back as we all passed, just like the cops on the first floor.
The reporters didn't stay out of our way, though. Apparently someone had called the media. Bulbs flashed, people shoved microphones in our faces, and Emmett skillfully pushed bodies out of our way.
But the car wasn't ready and waiting like it usually was. We had to walk, and the crowd walked with us. Edward shoved people away from me. Men landed on the wet ground, on their asses; someone twisted an ankle.
"What happened?"
"Who's the girl?"
"Is it true that you threatened Aro Volturi's life?"
I'd find out a day or so later that, in the madness, a nipple slipped free from my tank top. Lights flashed. The rain picked up. And it may have just been three minutes later that we piled into the car, but it felt like forever.
xXxXx
That was it. Afterwards, things slipped easily away, like sand down the drain after a long day at the beach. Edward retreated to his room and locked his door. Frightened and overwhelmed, I left him alone. The tabloids, spurned by an angry and enigmatic rock star and a tantalizingly wet nipple, ran with the story.
They found people willing to talk in half-truths.
"Up Close and Personal with Edward Cullen's 16-year-old Sweetie"
"The Little Girl That Broke Up the Band"
"Rocker Rebels Over Recording Disaster: It Takes a Homeless Teen to Save Him"
I was mobbed the next day as I tried to get to class. I pushed past the press camped outside our building, but then when I left the subway station downtown near my class, I was once again overrun and jostled. Questions were thrown at me from every direction.
I tried not to cry; I tried to stay strong and quiet as I pushed against the press, and as bystanders stopped to watch the commotion, and as some kids I vaguely knew from my classes pointed and waived instead of trying to help.
NYU security guards stopped the mob at the library's entrance and once more I found refuge in row upon row of quiet stacks of classics. I'd come full circle. The library gave me shelter when I had nowhere else to turn. I waited a few hours before I ran back to the subway and took the train uptown without going to class.
"Edward?" I asked, knocking on his bedroom door.
He didn't answer.
"Edward, please?" I begged.
I tried opening it, but it was locked.
"Edward, things are a mess. Please!"
I knocked. I banged. I sat outside his room. I wondered if he was even in there. Eventually, I went to bed alone.
Emmett stepped in the very next day. I'm not sure how he knew – maybe there was some secret security underground that alerted guys like him about damsels in distress. Maybe he was simply good at his job. Maybe he'd watched the news.
"Yo, Trouble," he said when I picked up the phone the next morning.
"Emmett?"
"When's your class?"
"Me? My class?"
"Anyone else up there have a class?"
"Um… At ten?"
"You don't sound so sure." he laughed.
"Yeah. Ten."
"I'll be by at nine-thirty. Wait up there 'til I call."
Just like that, I was suddenly the person Emmett ushered from the lobby to a waiting black sedan. Emmett pushed reporters aside and helped me into and out of the car. He cleared a path so that I could get to the lecture hall and he squeezed my hand supportively and bent his head to whisper in my ear that he'd be waiting when I was done.
Kids stared at me as I walked into class and took a seat. I'd been outed. I was Edward Cullen's girlfriend. It was more than that, though. There were the rumors. I was the girl that had been sleeping with Edward since I was in high school. I came between Edward and the rest of the band. My vagina was magical enough to change Edward's musical tastes forever. And then there was my nipple. People waited and watched like I was going to pull it out again, right in the middle of the Shakespeare Seminar.
Let me tell you, I was kind of tempted.
Every day, I'd come home from school and Edward was locked in his room. Every day the answering machine beeped with countless unanswered calls. Every day Alice checked in. Every day Emmett drove me back and forth.
Aro Vultori was suddenly very happy to speak to reporters. He told everyone how Edward's volatile behavior had torn the band asunder. He hinted that he'd seen me with Edward back in 1986.
After that, there were rumors of a criminal investigation into Edward's behavior with countless underage girls. The press went wild with exposes on what went on backstage at rock concerts and inside tour buses. Girls were interviewed that shared their salacious tales. Of course, they weren't talking about their experiences with Edward – they'd been with other rock stars, entirely. But, no one seemed to care that it had nothing to do with Edward and I. It's what people wanted to hear.
Seth wrote to ask how we were dealing with things. I lied with each and every reply.
Dear Seth,
Edward and I are getting through this together. He loves me, and he knows I love him. It's all that matters. I'm sure it's just going to bring us closer in the end. Thanks for thinking of me.
I miss you,
Bella
I didn't want anyone to know that I cried myself to sleep each and every night.
There was one day, though, when I came home from class and checked his door as usual, and found it unlocked.
I gasped and let go of the knob like it burned. I held my breath, pressed my ear against the door and listened, but didn't hear a thing. Then I gathered my courage, turned the knob again, and pushed the door open. The only evidence that Edward was present was the long, uneven mound underneath the covers on the bed.
My mind reeled. Was he really spending his days sleeping while I fought off the tabloid press? Did he really leave me out there all alone… so that he could sleep? Day after day I got up, got dressed and faced reporters and gaping NYU students. While he slept?
No.
He needed to speak to me. I deserved as much. I didn't try to tiptoe as I walked across his room, dodging piles of dirty clothing, books, scattered magazines, and dirty dishes. The place was filthy and it stunk.
Edward didn't make a sound.
"Edward?" I asked.
I didn't get a reply.
My heart pounded in my chest. I considered walking back out and closing the door behind me. I considered walking away from the apartment and leaving him truly alone to pick up the pieces. That's what he wanted, right?
My heart rebelled, though. Edward said he'd try. This wasn't trying. I was the only one trying. I forced myself forward and lowered myself very gently onto the edge of his bed, almost like I was showing him that I could be present in his life without upsetting anything. I made sure my guilty nipples were covered.
"Edward, please… I can't take not talking."
"Talk to Alice or Rose," he huffed.
With five words, I was furious. The asshole was lying there, awake and aware that I was in the room. Did he know what I faced every time I tried to get to class? When was the last time he actually looked at me? When had he spoken to me last? And now, finally, I was tired of his stupid, self-pity.
"I want to talk to you, Edward."
"I don't fucking want to converse, Bella," he snarled, throwing my name in my face like it was some indictment.
I sprung off the bed and strode across the room.
We both had wants and needs. I wanted him. I wanted to work on this together. Okay, maybe his moods rose and fell, but I'd ride them… as long as we could face it together.
I pulled open the blinds and let in slanting gray light. It lit the dirty surfaces and showed off the thick cloud of dust suspended in the stuffy air.
"I want lots of light for this," I announced, turning around to face the bed and my hidden boyfriend. But my heart fell when I was simply met by a covered mound. What I wouldn't have given to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but jeans, ready to take me for the first time. Instead, he was curled underneath the covers, hiding and groaning, for fuck's sake.
"I'm sorry in advance," he'd said that day when we'd first made love. Is this what he was sorry in advance for? For hiding from me?
Well, I was sorry… that I hadn't broken down the door a week ago. I was sorry I'd treated Edward like a child. I was sorry I'd felt guilty about what the tabloids were saying and let him push me out as a result.
"Look at me!" I demanded.
"Fuck," Edward groaned and pulled the covers tighter.
I certainly wasn't letting a down comforter come between us. I marched over to Edward and pulled the covers away.
"Edward," I sighed. He was rumpled and unshaven and his eyes were closed tight, but he was Edward. After a week left facing things on my own, after a week without his embrace or his lips or his skin against mine, I'm pretty sure a traitorous smile snuck onto my face when I finally saw him.
Sue me. I was an idiot. I was in love. The two things are very close to being one in the same, sometimes.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, touching his face, fingers brushing stubble, bristles bringing me to life. Sorry I'd let it get this out of hand, sorry I'd bent to his will, sorry that my age and my nipple got in the way of his album.
"What the fuck for?" he snapped, pulling away.
"All this… stuff," I snorted, waving my hand around the disgusting room.
Edward coughed, rolled over on his back and covered his eyes with his arm. "Don't fucking ask for forgiveness when it's not your fucking fault."
"Jesus, Edward. Get over yourself, okay?"
"Oh my fucking god, Bella… This shit isn't about me! It's about you. I never wanted this. Never. I never meant for any of this..."
"Just don't make me do it alone, okay?" I asked. "Don't lay here alone. It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be. You're in there; I know it. The same guy that… I know how you feel about me."
That last part came out like an accusation. Edward heard it in my voice. His eyes went wide, almost like he was frightened about what I might say.
"You love me," I told him.
I placed my hands on my hips, challenging Edward to deny it.
"You do. I know you do," I insisted. "November 22nd, 1989. You said that you loved me, you selfish prick."
"Bella -"
"Not to mention, you let me stay here - over and over and over again. Even now. Even in the middle of this shit-fest. You love me."
"I'm an asshole. I won't fucking take care of you. I won't fucking listen. I'll just virtually screw with you at every fucking step. I'll ruin the confidence you have. I'll destroy whatever goodness I found inside you. I'll -"
"Are you depressed or are you an egomaniac? Do you think you're god? Well, you're not! You're just Edward Cullen. You like berries and weird contemporary music and the beach in the rain. You have a weird mark at the corner of your mouth. You have a little scar on the shaft of your penis… and one day I'm going to fucking find out how it got there!"
"Bella -"
"You're in there, Edward. Don't tell me you're not underneath all of this filth and shit."
Edward moved his arm away from his face and finally, really looked at me. I was always shocked by how vibrant and green his eyes were. That afternoon, though, I was also taken aback by the desperate anger I saw there, glimmering fiercely just beneath the surface.
"You're looking at me, Bella. There's nothing else inside. I'm not some goddamned onion where you can peel back a layer and get goodness and light."
"But I still… Fuck it. I love you, Edward! A lot. You're the only person I've ever felt this way about. And I'm not letting go, okay? I'm not. I won't. I can't."
"It's not fair to you."
"Then get help and make it fair!" I argued.
Edward simply closed his eyes, shutting me out the only way that he could when his door was unlocked and his covers were pulled back.
"I can't do this alone," I pled.
"I know."
"Try to stay with me?"
"I did," he croaked, blinking with the sun in his eyes. Gold and green. Gold and green. He licked his lips.
I wasn't going to let him get away. I edged closer; I went for his hand… if we could just stay connected, if I could just touch him or ground him and remind him how it felt when we were together…
Some things are bigger than almost everything. I was bigger than this. I was worth more than the insanity. I had to be, because he was worth everything to me.
I was his everything. He was my forever.
And like Edward could read my thoughts he reached out and pulled my face to his. I hadn't realized I was crying until I felt my tears wetting his face.
"I love you," I whispered as we kissed.
He held on tighter; he pressed my lips against his and grabbed me: my hair, my arm, my shirt - hard enough that I thought something was going to break. Suddenly we were both tearing at clothes, trying to touch, trying to reclaim what we'd lost. I was trying to show him that there was something worth fighting for… that this was the most important thing either of us had: each other.
I didn't care what anyone said about his music; it was perfect. He was perfect. I'd just take him lounging in the library, reading silly books about time travel. I'd take him with a croissant and coffee, or walking down the street holding his hand.
I didn't need popular approval.
"I love you," I reminded him, as I slid over him, as he slipped inside and I hurt and stretched and burned. Yes, it had been long enough to burn, and it felt so, so good.
"Fuck," he mumbled as I fell, as I opened, as the pain multiplied by a million.
"I love you." I couldn't stop saying it.
"I know, baby. I know," he agreed, kissing me, gasping, moving his hips.
I rocked and I cried and I held on tight enough that I hoped he hurt too.
"You love me, you asshole," I insisted. "Say it. Tell me."
"I love you," he agreed.
He loved me. He said it and it hurt and I moved faster, trying to ignore the sadness and the despair that grew to fill the bedroom, that blossomed and tried to pull me under right along with Edward. We were in love; it wasn't sad. We loved one another; it was all that mattered.
Edward seemed to agree. He sat up and pushed me backwards and climbed on top of me. He looked determined. No, he looked… frightening.
He fucked me with a fury, with steadfast determination. Harder. In a flash the love was gone. It had run out of the room along with the depression, leaving a man fucking me… in anger?
"Fuck," he growled.
"Edward?" I asked.
He thrust harder. Hard enough that it hurt.
"Christ," he rasped.
"Edward!"
I clawed at his back and pushed at his arms, but he didn't respond. He was looking at me, but his eyes were blank, like green paint on a wall.
"Shit," he snarled.
"I, I, I—plea -"
And before I could ask him to stop, he came. Pulsing inside me. Collapsing on top of me.
xXxXx
Edward stopped locking the door. He'd whisper that he loved me even when he knew I was awake. We slept together, a lot… true sleep, not sex.
We let things go: making beds, cooking, the cleaning lady. I concentrated on the fact that he let me into his embrace. I tried to block out the news when his first solo single was released. No one cared about the innovation, the intricacy or the beauty that it evoked. They speculated about his personal life, instead – specifically, they speculated about me.
It made me sick to my stomach.
It made me turn off the T.V. and close the blinds. It made me search the cupboard for stale crackers instead of leaving the apartment to go to the store.
It made Edward sleep. It made Emmett have to practically coerce me to go to my classes. It made Alice come to me when there was something I needed to sign off on.
I wasn't counting the days when I was in the midst of it all. Now I can tick through the time with ease. Six little weeks went by unnoticed. Spring threatened. Bulbs pushed up from the polluted ground in Central Park. The ladies on the Upper East Side started wearing pink and yellow. None of it made a dent in our existence.
The dent came soon enough, though. It snuck into the bedroom while we were sleeping and urged me to open my eyes and come to terms with my existence.
The dent. Reality. Insight. Understanding.
Whatever it was, it came swiftly and with certainty, and kicked me in the gut.
xXxXx
I think there are those moments in time when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your life is going to change forever. I'd thought maybe the time I met Seth, or the night I met Edward, or the first time Edward and I kissed might have been one of those moments, but none of it compared to the morning of April 11th, when I opened my eyes and I knew.
The mind works quickly when adrenalin kicks in. Days add up to weeks, and fairytales and fantasies become biological reality.
"Edward," I said, nudging him awake. "Edward, I think I'm pregnant."
For years to come I would curse myself for uttering those five little words like that. I told myself I should have thought it through better, I should have discussed things with Rose, or even better, with Alice. In the long run, all of that second-guessing is ridiculous, though. I was suddenly certain that I was pregnant, and Edward was my boyfriend sleeping at my side. I'd done nothing wrong.
"What?" Edward mumbled, rolling over in bed and wrapping an arm around my waist.
I wriggled away and sat up. I counted again and again. I wanted to throw up, and I'm quite certain it wasn't due to morning sickness.
Edward peeled open an eye. "What's 'm matter?"
"Pregnant?" I whispered.
"You can't be."
For three seconds I desperately hoped there was a good reason that it was impossible.
"Why?" I asked.
"Birth control," he said, like throwing the phrase out there could protect me.
"But -"
"You're on birth control," he said with more certainty, like he was willing it to be true.
I shook my head. My stomach dropped. Vomiting was becoming much more of a possibility.
"What the fuck?" He was sitting. I was wrapping my arms around myself, suddenly feeling very naked and very stupid, and very likely pregnant.
"It's been… six weeks," I choked, tears blurring my eyes.
"But you said -"
"I never said that."
"What in the fuck were you thinking!" he shouted, on his knees across the king sized mattress from me.
I shook my head. I hadn't been thinking. He never used a condom. At first, well, he was Edward Cullen. I mean, it didn't seem like I should stop Edward Cullen and ask for a condom.
I know. Believe me. I. know. I was supposed to be smarter than that.
I've quizzed my own subconscious for years. Was I trying to get pregnant with Edward Cullen's child? No. I can't believe it. I'm not self-destructive at heart. That was Edward's department. The best I can come up with is that I thought each and every moment with Edward was too unbelievable to result in anything as substantial as a pregnancy.
Or I was young.
Or I figured he would have said something about birth control.
Or, or… "or" just doesn't really matter, does it?
"Goddamn it, Bella! Answer me!" he bellowed.
"You never used a condom," I whimpered.
"Because you used birth control!"
"Where would I get birth control?"
"The same place every other woman on the fucking planet gets birth control!"
And he was out of the bed and pulling on jeans, and throwing T-shirts around the room.
"Maybe I'm not," I hoped out loud.
Edward mumbled something as he strode around the room, animated for the first time in months. I wondered what that dirty clothing he was gathering had to do with a pregnancy scare. Was he cleaning up his act?
"Maybe it's something… I don't know, something else," I offered timidly.
It wasn't, though, and I knew it. I squirmed to a corner of the bed and pulled my knees to my chin and wrapped my arms around myself. I hid my eyes. I was pregnant.
The bedroom door slammed on Edward's way out of the room. I let myself cry. I spent a good twenty minutes expecting my period to come and tell me it wasn't true. I spent much longer than that hoping Edward would come back and tell me he was sorry and he'd go get a pregnancy test and we'd figure it out together. That didn't happen either.
Instead, the phone rang. I rushed into the hall.
"You set, Trouble?" Emmett asked on the other end of the line.
I shook my head, but then I remembered that he wouldn't be able to hear me that way. "No," I croaked.
"Get your little ass in gear, Bella. You're gonna be late."
"Emmett?"
"Is it Edward?" he asked, suddenly understanding that something was very wrong.
"No, I mean, I don't know… I, I, I just can't -"
"I'm coming up."
"No!"
But he'd already hung up. I took a look around and realized that I was standing in the foyer of a very messy apartment, completely naked. And I was probably pregnant.
I found enough energy to unearth a T-shirt from a pile and pulled it over my head by the time Emmett was pounding on Edward's door. I can only imagine how things must have looked as he rushed past me, searching for Edward.
"Where is he? What'd he do? Edward! Jesus Christ, is he -" he asked, throwing open the bathroom door, searching in closets.
I sank into a small pile on the ground in the foyer and folded my legs and wrapped my arms and waited… either for Emmett to leave or Edward to come back.
Edward didn't come. Emmett didn't leave.
"Trouble? Trouble, what happened, sweetie?" Emmett asked on his knees in front of me.
"Pregnant," I whispered.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"Edw -"
"He left."
"Are you sure?"
I shook my head. Tears trickled over my cheeks.
"Let's make sure, okay, Trouble? This could be a big deal over nothing. You stay here. I'll call Alice. We'll figure this out."
"No, please," I cried. My relationship with Alice had been so cordial and professional. I didn't want her to know how much I'd fucked up.
"Rose?"
"No," I whispered and wrapped my arms tighter, like maybe I could squeeze the reality away. I'd been dumb. So, so dumb.
"Fuck, okay. Hang tight. I'll be right back."
I couldn't say if Emmett was right back. I sat and cried and pretended it wasn't happening. At some point Emmett handed me a box and pulled me to my feet and led me to a bathroom, and asked very awkwardly if I thought I needed help.
I shook my head.
He closed the door.
I used each of the three tests.
I didn't have to say anything when I walked into the bedroom ten minutes later.
"I can help you fix this," Emmett said as I sat next to him on the dirty, unmade bed.
"What?" I asked, because unless he could go back in time…
"I know a doctor. Real private. You can't just show up at Planned Parenthood or something. Can you imagine what they'd say in the papers?"
"Wait, what?"
"Eddie boy will pay. Don't worry about that. Christ, knocking you up. The fuckhead."
"A doctor?"
"He's good. I've uh, kind of, used him… once, a while back. He was good."
"An abortion? You're talking about me having an abortion?"
"Well, you're going to have one, right?"
"I am?"
"Well, uh, look around you, Bella. You think either of you is set to have a kid? You're what, eighteen or something?"
"I'm almost twenty!"
Emmett rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying -"
"Get out."
"Excuse me?"
"Get out, please. Now."
Emmett stood up and towered over me.
"Get out," I repeated, standing too and taking a step in his direction. I think that if there were any flies on the wall, they were definitely laughing. Emmett had close to two feet and two hundred pounds on me.
"I don't have to go, Trouble. I can wait with you, at least. Get you… food? Pickles?"
"Oh my god, please just leave!" I shouted and picked up the nearest thing I could find and chucked it at Emmett's head. Ashes flew through the air. Cigarette butts fell on the floor. Emmett caught the ashtray without even flinching.
I coughed.
"You want me to clean that up first?" he asked.
"Out," I demanded, and pointed towards the door.
Emmett shook his head and dug his hands in his pockets. "Have it your way, Trouble. Call me if you need me. Okay?"
I sank on the bed and he finally left without another word.
xXxXx
Edward didn't have a cell phone in 1990. No one did, really. He was simply… gone.
Me too. I mean, I was in the apartment, but I stopped going to classes. I let the phone ring. I slept a lot and ate a little. I didn't have the stomach for much. I watched my belly like it was going to pop out at any second. I paid way too much attention to the calendar, and as best as I could figure, I was about six or seven weeks along.
I was dying for a book about pregnancy, but there was no way I was calling Emmett, and I was slightly afraid I'd get spotted by some tabloid reporter as I was at the register with What to Expect When You're Expecting.
I closed my eyes and hoped I'd wake up and it was all a dream. I apologized to god for ignoring him or her and prayed for Edward's return. After a while, I gave up on god.
I won't lie. I thought about abortion. Emmett was right; I was in no condition to be a parent. I'd lived for eighteen years with two terrible parents, and now I was setting myself up to walk in their footsteps.
And Edward… Edward was gone. Did I really want to have the illegitimate child of an absentee rock star? Could I handle seeing Edward's eyes in some baby's face day after day, knowing he wanted nothing to do with either of us?
Then the thought that I could have a child with Edward's eyes… the idea that Edward and I made this thing in my belly and it could be our kid… that idea made me cry. Daily. There was this possibility that we could make a family and we could be a mom and a dad and we could stay together and make it work like my parents never could… and it was impossible. It mocked me. It wasn't real.
xXxXx
I heard the front door opening and I ran.
"Edward?"
"Christ, doesn't anyone wear clothes around here?" Alice asked, eyeing my tits and my panties.
I collapsed against the wall.
"Where is he?" she asked with raised eyebrows, scanning the filth.
I shrugged and slipped to the ground.
"Seriously, Bella. His accountant just called and I want to know what the hell all of this means."
"I don't know anything about Edward's accounting, Alice," I groaned.
"What did he do?" she asked. Somehow she was suddenly on the floor next to me.
"He left," I choked out and hid my face against my knees.
"Where'd he go?"
I shook my head.
"Fuck," she groaned. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I began crying all over again. It was real. Alice didn't know where he was.
"That explains a few things, anyway. You have a bank yet account, kiddo? We've got work to do."
"I'm not working right now, Alice," I said, figuring she was talking publishing and editing and putting together that outline for the novel she wanted me to write.
"I'm sure no one's going to kick you out of here. But it'll feel better to have a place of your own, won't it?"
"What?" I asked, finally looking at Alice. She awkwardly patted my hair, trying to put it into some kind of order.
"Come on, Bella. Let's clean you up, pull you together and figure this out. Okay?"
"I'm not leaving, Alice. He could come back."
"Yeah, you didn't leave, just like you said. You proved your point. But you weren't the only one that could up and go. And I've got a cashiers check and an apartment lease that says this is something of a permanent arrangement."
Alice sent me to shower and when I came out, she'd somehow found a complete set of clean clothes of my very own, she'd ordered take-out, cleaned the place up a little, and had flowers sitting in a vase on the kitchen table. She poured two glasses of red wine.
"There's Hagen Daz, in the freezer, but you're pale, kiddo. You should eat real food first." She handed me the wine and it sloshed in the glass.
I was pretty sure that drinking alcohol while pregnant was about the worst thing you could do. Of course, a little wine wouldn't matter if I was going to end the pregnancy. Holding that glass, though, it mattered. I cared. I knew.
I placed the wine back on the table.
"I'm pregnant, Alice."
"Holy motherfucking shit on a stick!"
I sank into a chair. Alice downed her glass of wine in one gulp and then pulled a chair up next to mine.
The words I'd held inside for days tumbled out of my mouth. "And I didn't even know for sure and I told Edward and he got dressed and left and I haven't even talked to him since."
"Motherfucking son of a bitch."
"And Emmett said I should have an abortion and I feel like I can't leave the house and I don't want to raise a baby alone, Alice, and I don't want to have to chase down a kid's dad and I just want him here and it hurts being pregnant, like, really bad."
"Whoa, whoa -"
"And Rose called and I told her and now she's so pissed at Emmett and I know he was trying to be nice, but I think she's going to -"
"Back up, Bella!" Alice grabbed me by the hand and tipped up my chin so I was looking her in the eye. "It hurts?"
"Yeah."
"Like hurts your soul, or hurts like you want to throw up?"
"Like really bad cramps," I explained.
"That's not right. Are you bleeding?"
"No, I'm pregnant."
"You need to see a doctor, Bella."
"I told Emmett I wasn't doing that! I'm not going to a doctor!"
"As far as I know, kiddo, you're not supposed to have cramps until you're ready to pop. Right now you're supposed to feel sick to your stomach and tired. How bad are these cramps?"
I held my flat belly. "Really kind of bad sometimes, but I'm sad, you know?"
"I'm staying here tonight, sweetie and I'm getting you an appointment with my doctor tomorrow. While I'm here, I'll see if Esme knows anything. We'll find the fucker and figure out what's going on, okay?"
I nodded and gave Alice a hug. She spent long hours on the phone, and I spent my time on the couch, watching re-runs of Different Strokes, eating butter pecan ice cream and experiencing the first maternal feelings of my short little life. It may have been that I was more focused than ever on the pain in my belly, but it seemed like the cramps were getting worse as the night wore on. I wasn't bleeding though, so I figured that whatever it was, the baby was safe.
The baby. My little baby. I was having a baby. Edward's baby.
I wrapped myself in a blanket and curled into a ball around my baby and fell asleep to the sound of Alice's exasperated voice floating into the library from the kitchen.
"Christ, Emmett, you could have said something!... No! No, I don't want to hear it! Where the hell did that asshole go? It's not okay. It's not okay, at all!"
It wasn't okay. Not by a long shot. I woke up to blinding pain. It was dark. The blue light from the T.V. flickered and seemed to burn out my retinas. I gasped and clutched for something to hold on to as an invisible knife stabbed me straight through my belly.
I called out for Edward, but Alice showed up instead. I knew it was her because of the small hands, the gentle hushing, and the patter of tiny feet as she ran for a phone.
I faded in and out, waking each time I was stabbed, clutching Alice as I was jostled into an ambulance, looking for Edward's face amidst all the strangers that were staring down at me.
He wasn't there.
xXxXx
Present Day
Now is time for me to stop.
Now I power off the computer.
Now I walk through the dark house, alone. I've spent the better part of my life alone - all because Edward left. The scar never healed, even when I pretended it was long gone.
I feel suffocated, so I step out onto the porch and take deep gulps of wet, misty San Francisco air.
I woke up on April 18th, 1990 and found myself lying in a hospital bed. Alice, Esme and Rosalie were in the tiny, white room with me. A doctor strolled in, asked everyone to leave and explained what had happened. I'd had something called an ectopic pregnancy. It was very common, and most cases resulted in spontaneous early miscarriages. Some babies, though, were tenacious. They latched on tight and if they weren't caught in time, they broke right through the wall of the fallopian tube as they grew… just like my baby had, or my ball of cells, or my embryo… my baby.
I was going to be fine, he explained.
I had a uterus and one ovary left.
I'd lost some blood.
"The baby?"
"I'm sorry. There was never any chance that…"
I closed my eyes and lets the tears fall. Edward had left for no reason, for a baby that was never ours to keep. He left because he was afraid of a future that I wanted suddenly and desperately, but a future that we would never have.
The doctor was still talking. "… one fallopian tube, so it cuts the chance of spontaneous fertilization by at least half. And we find that there is a greater chance that it may happen with the remaining uterine tube for reasons that aren't completely clear… advances in artificial insemination… precautions going forward…"
I didn't listen too closely after that. I got the idea.
I didn't go back to school. I didn't go back to Edward's apartment. I didn't move into the apartment that had been leased in my name. Alice took me in, and Esme took care of me. Rosalie graduated later that spring and I moved with her back to San Francisco. I started over and pretended never to look back.
The idea makes me almost chuckle. This past week I've very nearly made a career of looking back. I might be crying, my stomach might be churning, and I may feel lonelier than I have in years, but I'm proud. I'm strong enough to stare the past in the face. I know that if I could get through that time in my life, I can get through anything… and I have. I've survived the life of a struggling, starving artist, I've lived through Edward's eventual marriage, I dealt with Jake's suicide, and I've come out the other end intact.
And now… now… now life threatens brilliance.
Now it should be clear why I doubted myself for so many years. I had an affair with a rock star that burned brilliant and bright, like a shooting star. Like all shooting stars, though, it burnt as brightly as it did because it was falling from the start, because it was being torn apart before our eyes.
I loved Edward Cullen without reservation. He was the light of my life. He was my launching point. He took a girl and he made her a woman, and then he betrayed that woman completely.
You shouldn't love someone like that forever. But sometimes, sometimes you do - despite yourself.
For so many years, I saw that love as weakness. I saw it as a disease. I tried to exorcize the feeling I carried, buried deep inside. But in the end, I admitted it was impossible. In the end, I finally came to terms with all of it. But I'm not at the end of the story yet. There's so much more to tell.
I spend the rest of the evening on the porch with a pen and paper, just like I used to do - before laptops, keyboards and screens took over, bringing with them symptoms of arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. I doodle and draw and outline just what I'm going to say to my little girl.
I have to let her know that she's the miracle in the middle of all of this, and that she's the most important thing in my world. I have to let her know that she is at the center of the picture of my life. I have to let her see that even though the winter of 1990 is remembered as swirling darkness and bright green eyes, ever since she was born my life has revolved around a set of big brown eyes, instead.
She is my hope and I will never make a move in my life without taking her into consideration. It's what a mother should do. It's why this story is important.
People wait in the wings waiting to hear what my Little One will say.
So do I.
(Apologies in advance for this long ass note)
A/N: Each week I'm staggered by your support for this story. Thank you!
RobsJenn & CarenL took my breath away when they reviewed TiaL on The Fictionators last Friday. I may have framed it:
ht tp : / / www . fictionators . com/rec/there-is-a-light-by-belladonnacullen/
Rosa Arcadia made a fuck-awesome blinkie & wrote an amazing review too! Now I've gotta figure out how to frame a blinkie:
ht tp : / / rosearcadia . blogspot . com/2011/08/there-is-light-by-belladonnacullen . html?zx=438d431fe4fb2a6b
I'm going to post a teenie-tiny EPOV from this chapter as an outtake. It should be up soon-ish in a separate TiaL Outtake 'fic'.
In other news, I'm going on vacation next week. I'll be in a cabin in the mountains in the woods by a lake. Even if I can find an Internet connection, I won't be writing. There's a SMALL chance I might post a SMALL chapter next Wednesday. There's a bigger chance you might have to wait 2 weeks.
Find me on facebook where teaser wars damn near killed me this week. Fiction Freak95 and troublefollows are gonna take me down. I know it!
Until next time, xxx, M