A/N: My apologies for the late update on this chapter. It was mine to finish and I accept full responsibility for the delay.
Endless thanks to the lovely Vixen1836 for her excellent last minute BETA services on this chapter.
And now, without any further ado, here it is all new and shiny and ready for your viewing pleasure . . .
The wedding reception passed in an elegant but relaxed fashion. The tables were set up in the Cullen's expansive back courtyard, under a canopy of trees and softly glowing candle light. There was a live band playing soft music while the couples in attendance waltzed gracefully across the floor.
At first, I had been nervous when Edward asked me to dance with him, remembering our first experience waltzing in front of an audience together. But he surprised me as he scooped me into his arms and winked at me, placing my feet on top of his so that he could lead us gracefully as one around the floor. It felt as if I had fallen in love with him all over again in that moment.
We spent the rest of evening seated at our table, relaxing and talking with friends. We spent a considerable amount of time chatting with Alice as Jasper, as per usual, and even Emmett and Rosalie stopped by to say hello. She spent the first few moments avoiding eye contact with me, but when our eyes finally met, her expression was not antagonistic or hostile. She merely nodded politely in recognition, and I nodded back. It was a relatively civil exchange.
There was only one moment that put a slight damper on the evening, and that was our conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Eunice, the elderly couple I had been introduced to during my very first dance at the Cullen mansion. The Eunice's were polite and cordial, as always, but I noticed Mrs. Eunice's eyes as they followed my arm to where it rested behind Edward's back. Undoubtedly she was noticing our overt affection for each other, so very unlike the last time she had seen us together.
As if on cue, Mrs. Eunice slyly asked Edward if he planned to settle down anytime soon. "It would be so wonderful to have a wedding in the spring," she said.
Edward looked down and blushed furiously, but he nodded and murmured, "Perhaps," before turning and giving me a look that made my bones turn to jelly.
Again, as if on cue, Mrs. Eunice ruined the moment by adding, "And what about you, lass? Are you ready to settle down and raise a family?"
"Yes," I murmured, looking back into Edward's eyes and giving him that same adoring look. "I would like to have a family some day. . . although I also had dreams once of moving out west and becoming a teacher."
The Eunice's laughed thoughtfully at that, as if it were absurd to hear of such a thing. I laughed politely along with them, but I immediately noticed that Edward, generally at ease in large crowds, had become uncommonly quiet. I looked at him, but he was looking at the floor, trying to hide his expression from me. There was something off about his reaction to my statement, but I had no time to analyze it then. I wrote it off on account of his stress and fatigue from the day's activities.
Later that night, after all of the guests had left, we walked back to his room together hand-in-hand in companionable silence. He undressed quietly while I washed myself in the sink basin, smiling to myself, and wondering if this was how a normal married couple would interact. Edward came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, placing a soft kiss on the exposed side of my neck. After leading me back to bed with him he proceeded to keep his arms wrapped around me the entire night as if he were afraid to let me go. The intense quality of his affection was unusual, but I thought nothing of it as I drifted off to sleep.
The sun was high in the east the next morning when I woke up. Edward was no longer in bed with me, which was strange and somewhat unsettling. I could tell that it was late, surprisingly so, and I wondered why no one had woken me up. I rarely got the chance to sleep in late anymore with both Alice and Edward constantly dragging me out of bed at unreasonable hours.
I stood up, stretched, and put on a loose fitting silk robe so that I could make my way downstairs. The hallway outside of my room was quiet, impossibly so, and I wondered briefly where everyone could have gone to. I descended the stairs slowly, carefully, expecting someone to jump out and surprise me at any moment. No one did, however, and my sense of unease only increased as I reached the first floor landing.
Something on the floor caught my attention briefly. I stared at it for a moment, realizing that it was a rose petal; small, round and blushing in a pink color that contrasted vibrantly against the wooden floor's deep, rich hue. I picked the petal up and held it between my fingers, taking in its soft, supple texture. I then held it to my nose and inhaled, immediately feeling calmed by its lovely floral scent.
I was just making my way into the dining room when a loud noise made me nearly jump right out of my skin.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BELLA!"
They were all in there; Edward, Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Angela, and even Rosalie. They were all assembled around the dining room table, every square centimeter of which was covered in pink candles and dozens upon dozens of fresh pink rose buds. In the center of the table was a positively enormous cake; three tiers, covered in mass quantities of pink icing and adorned with even more of those ridiculous pink rose buds. I counted the candles on top of the cake; one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . sixteen . . . eighteen.
Eighteen. Today was my eighteenth birthday.
Thinking back, I realized that this was the first time I had celebrated a birthday in almost thirteen years. The thought of that, and the vision of seeing all of them, my new family, assembled together and looking back at me with smiling faces, was enough to make me blush furiously. I darted my eyes to the ground as a large lump rose in my throat.
Alice was the first to come around the table and approach me, pulling me into a tight, bone-crushing hug.
"Alice," I mumbled, my words distorted by the amount of force with which she was squeezing me. "You really didn't have to do this."
"Of course I did," she insisted. "A girl only turns eighteen once in her life, Bella. Today is a very important day."
And she was right; today was an important day. Today I was eighteen, officially an adult. And although I was still technically a servant to the Cullen's in many ways, for some reason it felt different; I felt different. For once in my life, I felt like I had a future with options. But it took only a moment for me to realize that I wanted no other options than the ones I already had in front of me. I had a home, I had a family, and I had . . . Edward.
Speaking of Edward, he had been extraordinarily quiet and subdued since I entered the dining room. He merely sat quietly and watched my exchange with Alice, paying very close attention to my face. He gave me a small smile and a gentle squeeze of my hand as I came around the table to sit next to him, but he still seemed . . . not quite himself. I decided to let it go, thinking perhaps he was still tired from the reception.
Alice suggested that we open presents first, and Emmett grinned brightly, agreeing wholeheartedly. I noticed that Rosalie was seated next to him at the table, looking quiet and relatively subdued. But as we made eye contact across the table, I nearly fell over from shock as she gave me a small, tentative smile. I blinked back, completely stunned and taken aback by her sudden unexplained warmth towards me. I looked to Alice quizzically, but she just shrugged.
I opened Japer's present first; a beautiful leather bound journal with a very expensive-looking set of stationary paper and filigree pens. "For your writing," he explained with a grin that I reciprocated. Next, I opened Alice's gift; a thin strand of pearls which had been left to her by her mother. I got quite teary eyed at that one and ended up thanking her with one of her own signature bone-crushing hugs. The next present, a box of fine chocolates, was from Emmett (and from Rosalie, according to the card, although I had a feeling that was a last minute addition). I received a large bouquet of hand-picked wildflowers from Angela; it was a simple gift in comparison to the rest, but I knew she would understand how much I appreciated it.
And then, finally . . . it came time for me to open Edward's gift. It was small, flat and sturdy, and wrapped in solid plain paper. I almost felt guilty accepting anything from Edward at all, seeing as he had given me so much already, but I was none the less moved by the gesture. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze as I smiled at him, but his returning smile was weak and halfhearted. I was once again disturbed by his strange behavior but again chose to ignore it, ripping the paper off between my fingers.
Inside there was an envelope; plain white and unassuming. I slipped my finger beneath the edge of it, and I could have sworn I heard Edward's sharp intake of breath. I broke the envelope's seal and opened it, and found the last thing I'd ever expected to be inside. It was a check, written out in Edward's elegantly scripted handwriting . . . for 100,000 pounds.
I looked up at Edward, and he was watching me with a grave expression. "Edward," I whispered. "What is this?"
Edward cleared his throat and placed his hands upon the table, staring down at them as he spoke. "Part of it is the money I owe you," he explained. "It is the amount I paid for you that day in the square. The rest of it is my gift to you; it is enough money for you to head west and to acquire your license as a teacher. You are free to start your life now, Isabella. You are no longer obligated to stay here. You are free to go."
He continued looking down at his hands even after he was finished speaking. The silence in the room was deafening as a sharp pain ripped through my chest . . . the rush of a thousand heartbreaks. Edward's eyes finally found mine then, echoing the same desolation that was surely visible in my own. But I was far too wrapped up in my own pain to think about what Edward could possibly have been thinking or feeling.
We continued to stare at each other for one very long moment, in complete silence. I wasn't sure exactly what the expression on my face conveyed at that moment, but Edward seemed to be staring at me, searching for something. I felt such a complicated mix of emotions in that moment; pain, hurt, anger, rejection, abandonment. Edward apparently didn't find what he was looking for, because his face fell into what looked like deep sadness or disappointment. Without a word, he pushed himself away from the table and excused himself from the dining room, leaving me alone with his siblings.
They were all staring after Edward with their faces frozen in shock, their expressions ranging from pity to anger to unadulterated loathing. Alice, however, was looking directly at me with a heartbreakingly hopeless, pleading expression, but I was in no mood for her sympathy at the moment.
"Excuse me," I muttered as I subsequently removed myself from the dining room, following in the same direction Edward had gone.
The tears started to fall as soon as I was clear of the dining room. They fell down my face in hot, thick streaks. I felt betrayed and heartbroken; but more than that I was unbelievably furious. Did he really think that I would fall to my knees and thank him for giving up on me, for letting me go? Did he really think I would happier on my own, halfway cross the world, away from him? He was completely insane, that much was for certain. I had finally reached my breaking point with Edward; this was the final straw. And I would be damned if I didn't let him know it.
It wasn't long before I found him, seated outside on one of the manor's large stone front steps. He looked visibly tense and upset, hunched over with his head in his hands. But I was far too preoccupied with my own rampage to notice.
"You incomprehensible bastard," I spat.
Edward's head snapped up at that, his face hard and his eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"Tell me," I demanded, my voice shaking with tears. "What is it that makes me so easily dispensable to you? Is it because I'm poor? Uneducated? Is it because you own me? Or is it just because I was foolish enough to share your bed?"
Edward did not respond; looking down at the ground again, but I noticed that his hands were curled into tight fists, his knuckles turning white against the strained skin. This only angered me further.
"I have done everything you ever asked me to," I told him, hoping to elicit some sort of reaction. "And yet you still find yourself incapable of wanting me. I told you I loved you for god's sake, and you said nothing to me – nothing. And I want to know why. You owe me at least that much. I want you to tell me why, you coward!"
There was a long, painful silence, and then suddenly Edward was on his feet again, glaring at me with a frightening sort of uncontained fury that I had never seen in him before. He took several long strides forward until he was standing mere feet away from me - fists clenched, nostrils flared and very, very angry. His eyes burned into mine with the gravitational force of a black hole.
"Because I love you too much to keep you here!" he shouted at me, eyes blazing. "Because I love you too much to make you stay. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, GOD DAMNIT!"
I felt every muscle in my body tense and release, and then everything around us was impossibly silent, and still. Edward's breathing slowly calmed as his posture relaxed, and then the recognition of what had just happened settled upon his features. His eyes widened, taking in my expression. I must have looked shocked, or even impassive, seeing as I had no idea how to react to his revelation. But there was only one thought running through my mind in that moment: He loves me, he loves me, he loves me . . .
I took one step toward him, but he did not move, seemingly glued to his spot on the floor. His eyes widened in a reaction that looked like genuine fear as I approached him; he resembled a helpless mouse cornered by a snake, or a gazelle caught in the lion's hungry jowls. It was strange to think that I could elicit this sort of reaction from him; and that, after all of his stoic bravery, it was an admission of the truth that finally broke his carefully crafted outer shell.
I continued moving until I was only mere inches from him, my fingers reaching out of their own accord to touch softly over his parted lips. They moved lightly across his face and over his cheekbones, and finally rested on the side of his face. Edward's eyes fluttered closed at the contact, and when he opened them again they were softened, shining with unshed tears. I realized with shock that I could feel him trembling.
Edward's hands raised themselves tentatively from their places at his sides, and they slowly came forward until they were planted on either side of my face. He touched me in the same way I was touching him, with soft, gentle caresses over my cheeks, nose, forehead and lips. Once he was finished he stared directly back into my gaze, and I felt the weight of his stare piercing down to the very depths of my soul. It was then, in that moment, that I knew I had been right about him; I had been right not to give up on us.
Edward sighed, closing his eyes again before leaning forward so that our foreheads were touching.
"Bella . . ." he whispered. "I love you."
A/N: This was supposed to be the last chapter, but instead we decided to do a cliffy and to extend the big "I love you" scene. We figure we owe you all one extra chapter since you waited so very patiently for this one.
So, yeah . . . one more chapter after this, and then an epilogue. Possibly some outtakes after that. I know you're all excited for some EPOV, and we promise to deliver. If there's a scene you'd particularly like to see, stop by the forum on Twilighted(dot)net and let us know. We aim to please.
Anybody else sad that this is ending?