Lovely Readers - There is a part of this chapter that may not go over all that well with some of you. I'm going to warn you now, the subject of abortion gets brought up in a semi-casual way. PLEASE DO NOT SEND FIRE FOR THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED. They just that, opinions... and you know what they say about opinions? They're like asses... everyone has one, and they all stink. Not everyone agrees or gets along with certain opionions and honestly people, there is absolutely NO sense in ruining the nice, fun atmosphere of FF by turning it into some political or religious issue. That's not how what I wrote is intended.
ON TO THE GOODS! I could've written this into one big chapter, but EH, let's not and say we didn't.
Regular shit: I don't own Twilight. If I did I'd be backpacking through Europe right now with my camera photographing EVERYTHING.
13. EDWARD'S APARTMENT – THERE AREN'T WORDS
When I got to Edward's I pounded on the door so hard with my fist that I was sure I'd have bruising later.
"Jesus Bella, calm down. I've got neighbors, you know." Edward grabbed my throbbing hand and pulled me into his apartment.
He was wearing nothing but jeans, not even a little sliver of underwear waistband showing, and his muscles looked oh-so-enticing. I had to stop myself from drooling to remember why I came over in the first place. I'm not sure what it was about the boy, but he was just so calming.
"Here." He pulled me to his fancy brown leather sectional couch. Once sitting he crossed his arms over his chest. "So what's going on?"
"Where are your glasses?"
"Bella, you called me all freaking out and now you're here. Don't deflect. What happened?"
I recapped my morning to him, and watched his facial expressions. He never looked more than attentive.
"So Emmett has been seeing Rosalie and lying to you…"
Before he could finish the strangest creature came into the room. It looked to be about twenty pounds and maybe fifteen inches tall and had this wiry grey hair that had what looked like dread locks in certain spots. The mouth was crooked, the bottom jaw shifted to the right with a few of its teeth jutting out, and it had so much hair in it's face that you couldn't see it's eyes.
"Edward, don't freak out but some sort of strange animal just came into your living room." I whispered. Edward started chuckling at first then laughed. "What?" I demanded, a little peeved at being laughed at.
He made a clicking noise with his tongue and the ugly ass animal came over to him. He picked it up and nuzzled his nose into its face.
"This is Kin, I've had him since I was fifteen."
"What is he?" I swear to God I wasn't trying to be a bitch, but I just couldn't fucking tell what sort of animal this was supposed to be.
"He's a dog, of course." Edward scoffed like it should have been obvious.
"Um… what kind?" I'd never seen an animal quite so ugly in my life.
"I don't know. I was out riding my bike around my neighborhood and he followed me home. I had always wanted a dog, so my parents let me keep him. He's really very cute. Look." Edward pushed the dog's hair out his face and held him up for me to see. It still wasn't any cuter. I tried to smile but it just came out as a grimace and Eddie Boy got defensive. "If you're going to be spending time with me, you might as well get used to Kinardly."
"I'm sorry, what now?" What the fuck is a Kinardly?! I assumed it was the longer version of 'Kin', but I couldn't make heads or tails of what the hell a Kinardly was.
"Kinardly. As in 'can hardly tell what he is'."
Holy dear God. This man not only acknowledged that his dog was barely recognizable as a pet, but named him so? I was seriously doubting any sort of relationship with Edward at that point and about five seconds from taking off.
"Hey, you seemed really shaken this morning. Is there anything I can do?" The sincerity of his voice kept me seated.
"I don't think so. I'm just so… upset. Emmett and I have never gone into great detail about our relationships with one another, but we've never lied to each other about them either." Eddie Baby nodded for me to continue. "Plus, it's Rosalie Hale! That woman hates me with every fiber of her being, and he's fucking her! Might as well give his dick over to the Devil…"
Edward choked on the water he'd taken a sip of and sputtered a bit. "Uh… well what do you plan to say to him? You'll have to talk to him at some point." Edward was playing with a one of Kin's little doggie matted up dread locks
"Or I can just ignore the issue all together and come whine to you about it when it pisses me off."
Edward looked at me like the clearly insane person I was and then there were keys at the front door. Kin started making a strangled rasp sound but his face looked like he was barking.
"What the hell is that? Is he choking?!" I stared wide eyed at the strange and ugly animal.
"No, the vet said that who ever had him before he found me had him de-barked."
Before I could ask what the fuck that meant a very typical college looking boy came into the apartment wearing nothing but boxers and sneakers, carrying his clothes in his arms.
"Oh, sorry Edward. I didn't know you'd have company so early. Uh, I'll just go to my room."
"No problem. Hey, this is Bella. My uh…" Edward looked at me to finish his sentence but I just shrugged my shoulders, I wasn't sure what he really was at that moment. "Bella this is Tyler, my roommate."
Tyler bent down to shake my hand. "Nice to meet you, Bella. Sorry about my… er… predicament." In truth, his smirk let on that he wasn't sorry at all.
"No big. Nice to meet you too."
I had to admit, the guy was hot. He was exactly the kind of guy I would usually go after. His milk chocolate colored skin looked so smooth that I wondered briefly if I licked it, would it actually taste like a Hershey's bar. He had nice lips and a wide smile flashing a set of too-perfect white teeth that reflected the light just as much as the large diamond stud earrings in his lobes. He was nicely muscled, not too big, not too small, and looked like he could've been the quarterback of a football team. The big earrings were a bit of a turn off, but I could always make him take them out. I was a big fan of body piercings but diamond earrings on a man just looked stupid. I bet he wouldn't hold his peen from me.
I felt a sharp elbow nudge me in the ribs and was abruptly brought out of my ogling by Edward. He was looking at me like I had just terribly offended him, which I probably had, and all I could do was try to grin a little before looking down at my hands.
To make up for it, I decided I wanted some alone time with Eddie Baby. "Edward, can we go to your room?"
"Uh, sure."
Edward walked me through his apartment and I couldn't help but notice the strange mish-mosh of clashing decorations. The furniture suggested high end origins, possibly even some imported items, but then there were things like a lamp with a topless hula girl as the base and a giant stop sign that was at least four feet in diameter with the word 'don't' spray painted above the letters hanging on the wall. At one point I even saw a disgusting looking pair of underwear pinned to the wall. There was even a keg in the dining room in place of a table, surrounded by fancy dining room table chairs. There was no way in hell I could just walk away from those and not say anything.
"Edward, why the fuck are there underwear on the wall?"
"Those?" He pointed to the underwear and I nodded, wondering why he would need clarification. How many pairs do you have pinned to your walls?! "Uh… I'm not sure if I should tell you. It's really gross."
"I grew up with Emmett. I think I can handle it."
"When I turned twenty one Tyler took me out with a bunch of guys to drink. I got trashed and they started daring me to do stuff. Those underpants came off of a homeless guy outside of a liquor store."
Cue vomit. "Oh God." My typical response would have been to bury my face in my hands, but the story was so gross and so enthralling at the same time that I couldn't move.
"I didn't wear them or anything. But I paid the dude twenty dollars for them so I couldn't just throw them out."
"So you put them on your wall?!"
"Well I washed them first."
"Cause that makes it so much better." I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. "Did it ever occur to you that said homeless man could have had crabs or scabies or something equally nasty?"
"Not really. I was pretty plastered."
We continued our way into his room and I probably shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I expected a room similar to Emmett's. Pretty much every guy's room I'd seen while in college looked the same. Bed unmade, clothes and just stuff in general every where, maybe even a beer bottle or can on the floor that hadn't quite made it into the trash can. Edward's room was nice and tidy.
His bed was still unmade, but any dirty clothes he may have had were tucked into his hamper in the corner of his room. Centered on the far wall, under a window, he had a king sized bed with a minimalist black head and foot board. His grey comforter had black piping along the edge and the four pillows at the head had matching pillow cases. His dresser was also black and with minimal design and was positioned directly across from the bed. In place of a mirror above the dresser was a large flat panel TV suspended on the wall. Below the TV, nestled between two medium sized speakers on the dresser were a DVD player as well as a digital cable box and a stereo system, all neatly stacked. There were two doors on the wall to the left of the bed, one was opened revealing a bathroom and the other was closed. I assumed it was his closet. I went to his bed side table to get a better look at the photo inside the black picture frame.
The photo was of Edward and what I assumed was his family, considering the placement of the frame, but nobody looked alike.
"Edward, who's this?" I held up the frame for him to look at, although I'm sure he didn't need to since it was the only photo in the room.
"Uh, that's me and my family. My parents, Carlisle and Esme, and then my sister Emily and my niece Claire." Edward's finger slowly traced over his sister and niece's faces.
I was surprised by a few things. One was that Edward didn't look anything like his parents. Two was that neither did his sister. Edward was fair with crazy looking reddish hair and green eyes, Emily looked to be of Native American descent. The man in the picture was tall and lean with blond hair and grey-blue eyes and very pale skin. The woman was petite with soft features. She had golden brown hair that tumbled over her shoulders in soft waves and she had a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
The other thing was that he said Claire was his niece. Emily couldn't have been more than twenty in the picture, and Claire looked to be about four or five. I studied the picture more, trying to make up some conclusion that wouldn't sound judgmental or rude.
"Emily and I were adopted as infants. My mother can't have children." Well that answered two questions.
My eyes focused back to his sister and niece. Teen parenthood was not a foreign concept to me. I grew up in a tiny town with nothing to do, and kids got bored. Easily. There were loud parties out in the woods with alcohol, drugs and sex galore. These parties would make a Rolling Stones tour bus in the seventies look fucking tame. We were looking to anything for a rush, and it wasn't uncommon for at least five girls in the high school to be pregnant at once as a result of the boredom.
"Emily had her two months after she turned sixteen." Edward said quietly, answering only one of the questions I couldn't figure out how to ask. I looked at his face to see if I should continue the conversation. All I saw was hesitation, as if he was worried I would run if he told me more.
"You can tell me if you want too." I shrugged. "I'm sort of used to teen pregnancy." Oh that came out so wrong! Edward's expression turned from hesitation to alarm. "No, I mean… shit. Okay so I told you how I was raised in this super little town, right?"
Edward nodded, looking quite confused.
"Well, we got bored. A lot. Forks is tiny, Edward. There is almost nothing to do and once the bowling alley closes, aside from First Beach there becomes literally nothing to do for fun."
"What's wrong with the beach? Beaches are fun."
"Hmm… You said you grew up in Maine, Right?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, so picture yourself still living there. Someone asks you out to dinner and gives you the option of Red Lobster or a Japanese restaurant, which would you choose?" I was desperately hoping my little metaphor would get through to him because I couldn't think of any other way to describe it.
First Beach was a beautiful beach that edged the La Push reservation right next to Forks. It had pebbles of every single color, drift wood that was whiter than bone and water that was such a dark blue it might as well be black under cloud cover. It was quaint and charming and lovely, but that charm was lost on restless teenagers who had grown up looking at it. Unless, of course, there was a big party with booze and drugs.
"Ah. I get it." He nodded his head.
"Yeah, so we were all pretty bored and restless. There was a lot of drug and alcohol use, and it wasn't a rare thing for those things to combine with hormones, and when your brain is all fucked up, you don't always think about condoms. Not many girls were on birth control because most of the adults in town didn't even know their daughters should be on it. The ones that did know what was happening were happy to turn a blind eye, preferring to pretend everything was perfect. I have no doubts that at least a third of the income of the Port Angeles Women's Clinic came from Forks High.
It happened to one of my best friends. Jessica got knocked up and panicked. I wouldn't support her getting an abortion though. She would have been due during summer vacation, so it's not like she would've missed any school to actually have the baby, so she could've easily given it up for adoption."
"So you're pro-life?" He quirked an eye brow.
Interesting turn in conversation. "Pro-choice."
"Oh." His face fell a little bit.
"Hey. Pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion. It just means I don't feel like a person's choice should be taken from them. Do I think the choice itself is a horrendous one? Of course! But that doesn't give me the right to take the choice away from someone else."
I could see this was bothering Edward a little bit, so I went back to my previous subject. "Anyways, Jessica got all chummy with another girl at school named Lauren who'd been in her shoes and encouraged her to have the abortion. She'd already had two, the dirty whore, and Jessica did it. I stopped talking to her after that."
"And let me guess, the guy that got her pregnant bailed?"
"Yep. Most of them did. I'm pretty sure there were only a handful that stuck around, but that didn't make their girlfriends' lives all that much easier. Don't get me wrong, I'm sort of proud of the ones who did stick around, even though that pride isn't my place to hold. But you could see on their faces what it did to them."
"So did you partake in these parties and shit?"
"Of course. I was just as bored and hormonal as the rest of them, I was just smart about it."
"So you saw all this happening around you, you even lost a friend because of it, and you still did it?" Edward was angry, and ironically enough, his face turned the same color my father's had when he caught me and Sam Uley making out in the garage with Sam's hand up my shirt.
Something clicked in my brain right then. The reason Edward was still a virgin at twenty three years old. Emily was probably a part of something very similar to what I had done in my high school years, and it was obvious from Edward's tone that the daddy hadn't stuck around. Emily had her baby at the age of sixteen with no one but her family. She probably had all of two friends that stuck by her throughout the whole ordeal too. I had seen the girls in high school that chose to keep their babies lose almost every single friend. Edward wasn't going to put himself in the same position as she did. He was probably a normal hormonal teenager, just a bit of a late bloomer, and then this stuff happened to his sister and he just… couldn't.
Suddenly a second thought dawned on me: what if he wanted to wait until marriage?
"Jesus fuck! I'm never gonna get to have sex with you, am I?!" I yelled, throwing my hands in the air and slamming my body down to his bed.
P to the S - That underwear story... yeah that actually happened to my older brother's frat brother. And I believe the underpants are still pinned to the wall in the frat house... And Edward's dog? Yeah... the dog I described actually exists, only with a different name. He's my God mother's dog. The name I got from my great uncle who had an equally fugly dog. I meshed the two.
*****************
Dani: Taps her pen lightly on her chin. So Bella, that was quite a little revelation there...
Bella: Arms are crossed, she's scowling and looking at her feet. Jesus fuck Dani! I'm not fucking talking to you. I WANT TO GET LAID! Preferably by Eddie Baby and his fucktabulous peen!
Dani: Looking at little stunned. Point taken.