chapter 21: Thanksgiving
EPOV
Today was the day. It would be our first family holiday together.
We had celebrated Halloween cuddling up against eachother on the couch, watching scary movies and feeding each other chocolate ice cream, but this would be the first holiday where Bella would accompany me at my old familyhome.
She had been dress shopping with Alice and Rose a few days ago and hasn't let me see it yet. I was glad my girl was becoming good friends with my other girls, though.
Especialy mom. If they weren't able to stand eachother, I don't know what I'd do, but luckily I do not have to worry about that as they have been having lunch and coffee together on a regular basis.
I should be worried mom is starting to like Bella more than me. I wouldn't blame her; Bella is amazing after all.
"What ya' thinkin about, Handsome?" Bella asked, smoothing out the wrinkles in my brow with the pad of her thumb.
I hadn't noticed her coming in and now I had to take a dubble look as she was wearing the new dress. "How beautiful my girl looks."
I pulled her close to me and she smiled. "Liar, you didn't even notice me come in." she teased, kissing my chin. I chuckled and kissed her back.
"Okay, you caught me, but I do think you look beautiful though. You always look beautiful, Beautiful."
She blushed as she adjusted my dark blue tie. "You look rather.. aristocratic yourself, mister Cullen."
"Aristocratic? What does that even mean?" I laughed, grabbing my wallet and phone.
Bella got her purse and walked towards the front door. "It means handsome or proud or proud to be handsome or something along those lines."
"Well I think you look.." I thought for a moment. What was the most difficult word I could come up with? "..pulchritudinous." I said, smirking at Bella's open mouthed expression.
"W- what? That is Latin, that doesn't count - You speak Latin?"
I nodded and opened the door for her. "Well, I can read it."
"Wow.. you learn something new everyday." She mumbled.
I walked her to my car and helped her get in. "And I can't wait to learn all of you."
As we got there I could see that we were the last ones to arrive as my brother and Jaspers cars were already parked there.
I helped Bella out of the car again and laughed as she cussed at her heels. "Why did you put them on then?"
She scoffed. "Your sister can be very persistent."
I laughed and walked her up to the frontdoor. "You have seen nothing yet. I've known her her whole life and she can be way worse than what you've experienced."
"Great. I can't wait," she mumbled, but I laughed at her teasing tone of voice. "I'm kind of nervous." she confessed, blowing a loose strand of hair from her face.
I looked at her and put my sparekey in the lock. We never knock at mom and dads. We just.. come in. Like we always did. "Why is that? You have nothing to be nervous about, Beautiful. It's not like you haven't met them before."
I took her coat and closed the door. "I know, but it all feels so formal. The dinner, the dress, the tux.. I just don't want to dissapoint anyone." She said, turning to me. Her lovely brown eyes filled with worry.
"Hey.." I cupped her sweet face into my hands and kissed her cold nose. "You are. Nothing. To be. Dissapointed. About. Okay?" She giggled and nodded. "You are amazing, Bella. And if you've been invited by my sister to come shopping with her? Then she likes you too."
"Okay.. I hope you're right.." She sighed.
I gave her playful nudge with my elbow. "I'm always right-"
"I beg to differ, brother," I was interrupted by Emmett who greeted us with a big smile from the hallway. "You are in fact not always right, but merely almost never always right. Not even close to Always."
"No way! If I am not always right, than I'm at least almost always right. I won't settle for less." I joked. Emmett gave me a hug and moved over to Bella who gave him a polite smile.
"Oh no, Bella! You're with us now. The Cullen family is a hugger!" He picked her up in one go and spun her around the hall until she squealed in joy.
"Emmett Cullen! You put that poor girl back to the ground!" Mom scolded her oldest child. "and let me give her a hug," She pushed him aside with a smile and made a beeline for Bella. "Bella, dear! Glad you made it! Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Hello, mother.." I said, trying to get a reaction from her. She blushed and hugged me too.
"Hi, Edward. Come in, everyone is here already. I hope you two are hungry because I had to fight Jasper and Emmett away from the food a few times now." She side-eyed Emmett and he gave her a big pout.
"Come on, ma! We were hungry! Everyone would be here at 6! It's 6:18!"
"Bella!" Alice pushed herself through all of us to get to Bella and admire her in the dress she most likely picked out. "Oh, doesn't she look wonderful?" she gushed.
I got myself away from the fangirling women and went to the livingroom to find my dad talking with Jasper. "Hello dad, Jasper. Happy Thanksgiving you guys."
They wished me the same and we all walked back to the main room with the big diningtable that was set for all of us.
"It looks amazing, Esme," Bella said, looking at the fall decorations scattered along the plates and cutlery. "Did you make this yourself?"
"Well, I had help." She nodded over to Rosalie who was still busy in the kitchen.
Dad pulled back moms chair for her to sit and me and Jasper did the same for our ladies. Emmett went into the kitchen to help Rose with the last of the food and came to the table a few minutes later.
"I want to make a toast," dad began, standing up and holding his glass of wine. His eyes scanned around the table to look at each and every one of us. "for another wonderful year of happiness and joy in our family and to a new member who has come to join," He winked at Bella and she blushed, hiding behind her hair. "Cheers!"
A round of 'cheers' went round and we all took a sip of our drinks. After that, we dug into the wonderfiul meal mom and Rosalie had made. "This is really good you guys." Bella said, before I could.
"Thanks," Rose said. "It took me 2 hours for the turkey alone.."
Bella rolled her eyes. "I know right? This one year, I had to leave to go to the groceriestore because I forgot something so I left my mom in charge of the turkey, and left it in the fridge! The turkey wasn't even close to being undercooked! That was the year I had to drop out from college.." she trailed of from her story, but no one really seemed to notice. I did though.
"You okay?" I whispered. She nodded, but played with the edge of her napkin.
After a few minutes of no eating and silence from her she excused herself and I followed her with my eyes out of the room. "What is wrong?" Alice asked me as everyone looked at me.
I shrugged. "No idea. Excuse me," I searched for her and found her at the end of the hall. "Bella? What's wrong? Are you not feeling well?"
She shook her head and leaned into me. I hugged her tight and made her look at me. "Then what is it?"
"I.. I feel.. I don't know.. guilty?"
My confusion must've shown on my face as Bella gave me a small smile. "I don't know. I feel this heavy feeling in my stomach and I kind of feel guilty when I know I shouldn't be. This is the first Thanksgiving.. hell, the first ever holiday not spend with or at my parents and I can't help but feel I'm to blame for breaking that tradition."
I nodded. Okay, now I got it.. My hands wrapped around her hips and she tucked her head under my chin. "Bella, you have nothing to be guilty about. If anyone should feel guilty, it's your mother. She was the one who choose to be unreasonable with this, so you did what you could and worked with what you had."
She sighed and played with a strand of hair that fell infront of her face. "I know.. I know!" She pushed away from me and started pacing down the hall while wiping her face from her mascara tears. "And I'm sick of feeling this way! I just want them to stop to try and control my life in some way! And I want to stop feeling guilty for stuff I didn't even do! It's just.. hard to do." she mumbled, her eyes sad.
"I know what'll cheer you up." I said, grabbing her hands and pulling her to the livingroom. I put some soft music on and pulled her to me.
"Edward," she giggled. "I can't dance in these shoes!" I gribbed her hips tight and swayed her through the livingroom. I could hear everyone else talking in the diningroom and appreciated that they left us alone for a bit.
"Feeling better?" I asked, skimming her neck with my nose and leaving a trail of kisses up to her ear.
She hummed as her body gave into the sway of the music. "With you? Always."
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