Chapter 20 – Charlie's thoughts
NO POV
When Charlie came home that evening the first thing he saw was Bella's stun gun on the kitchen table with the batteries on the charger. then his eyes traveled from the betadine, to the used cotton swabs to the bloodied t-shirt on the back of a chair landing to the living room.
There Bella slept on the sofa, with her head thrown back and on her lap, resting on a pillow on her crossed legs was peter, the TV frozen on the credits of 'finding Nemo'
He sighed as he took in the scrapped face of his son. News about the bullying incident at school had reached him and he was proud of his son for sanding up for a smaller kid.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge he sat on his favorite leather armchair and he observed his sleeping children as his mind flew away down memory lane.
On one hand he had Bella. the accident child that had caused him and Renée to be together. they never told her, but Renée was three months along when they got married. the child that was responsible, quiet, always putting others' needs above her own and who packed and came to forks with them with a brave -fake- face. the child that had changed since her birthday, the previous month, but he couldn't place how.
on the other hand he had Pete. the reward child. the child he and Renée had when their trial time together had worked. they never told anyone, not even their parents, but they had decided that if they broke up again in the next three years, the amount of time it took to finish college, they would divorce. When that time passed and they weren't ready to call it quits they were blessed with a child. A child that was loud, loved to play sports, wanted to be taken to a shooting range for his sixteenth birthday and who had played so many pranks on his teachers in phoenix, he was sure the school had a party when Pete was pulled out mid-semester.
he loved both his children but for some reason, deep inside him was a little voice that stopped him on being so attached with pete.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw the mantle above the fireplace. for some reason no photos of Pete, or Renée were there. Only yearly pictures of Bella and himself.
Only one picture had Renee and that was because Bella was a baby and they both held her. he couldn't cut his ex wife off it.
a wife he had met one summer afternoon when she and her friends stopped on la push during a road trip. a wife he fell madly in lust with immediately. A wife he married out of pride mostly because she was carrying his child. a wife that hated the small town just as much as he loved it.
he should hate her but the nagging little voice inside him told him to set her free. that they were not supposed to be together for so long.
ever since the night he couldn't reach Bella on the phone, when she was in Virginia, he felt as if he was living a dream most of the time.
Would he wish for it to end though? Hell, no!