Disclaimer: I own nothing but Copward's weapon.
My lungs are burning, coiling tighter with every inch of space I put between myself and the store. Each pound of my feet against the pavement sends a shock of pain through my body. I don't know exactly whom, or what I'm running from. Hell, I don't even know why I'm running.
The sensible part of my brain is telling me to stop and turn right back around, that avoiding is the wrong answer. I know I'm stronger than this. Since my arrival in Washington, I've learned how to overcome the weak part of me that disappears at any sign of trouble. But my instincts are pushing me toward the easier choice.
My sides begin to ache, muscles pinching and squeezing from the exertion. The foolishness I felt all those weeks ago, when I came here and found out I'd been lied to, is churning inside me. Only this time, the weight of it seems stronger.
It's not my mom who's hurt me this time – it's Edward. The one person I thought I could trust... just the idea that I was wrong about him is something I'm not sure I can handle. I love him and I'm sick and tired of being betrayed by the people I love.
My feet slow as I round the corner and the sound of Edward, who's still in front of the store calling my name, grows softer. I pause and debate turning around to go back, to demand that he tell me exactly what's going on.
I look behind me and then face forward again. I can't do it.
Adrenaline courses through me and pushes me to start running again, faster this time. Though it's tangible, the string that connects me to Edward feels like it's stretching to the breaking point. Like it's going to snap at any second.
Along with my heart.
The roar of an engine echoes through the narrow street behind me when I'm halfway down the next block. I think about that flash of gold speeding away from the store before I attempted to leave work earlier.
If my mother wasn't the one who broke into my house and messed with my truck, that means someone else could be after me. Someone else could want to hurt me. Tires squeal, brakes screech and then a door slams. Footsteps sound out and fear spikes in every part of my body. My heart pounds faster, a disjointed rhythm that isn't only from running, and I force myself to move away.
I'm scared. Scared it's not who I expect it will be… and even more frightened that it is.
Before I can get far, hands wrap around my shoulders and pull me to a stop, holding me in place. Unfamiliar arms restrain me and my survival instincts kick in. A scream breaks from my lips and I struggle against the stranger's grip, trying to break free.
In a complete fit of desperation, I bury my nails in the skin I can reach and try to pump my legs to maneuver myself away. The person holding me grunts and I cry out in frustration – it's a male sound, but not at all familiar.
His hold is too strong. I want to fight, but I'm afraid I have no fight left.
"Stop." A voice says into my ear and my heart feels like it might jump out of my chest. "Bella, stop."
It takes a moment for me to discern that the voice that's said my name is recognizable. It's not a stranger, but it's also not Edward. I'm filled with simultaneous dread and relief because heisn't the one who came after me.
Jasper has, though.
Above everything, the idea that Edward might not want to come after me threatens to break me apart.
My body goes limp in his arms as I struggle to catch my breath. Tears burn in my eyes. "Let me go," I plead weakly. "Just let me go."
"I will when you tell me you're not going to run." He's panting and just as out of breath as I am. "You're crazy if you think Edward's just gonna be okay with me letting you run around the streets alone. Don't make me handcuff you, because I will."
I ignore the biting tone in his voice and take a deep breath. My chest fills with relief at Jasper's words, but I don't like being trapped. Hands scrabbling at his, I make another weak attempt to peel him away from me, but he isn't budging.
"Let me go," I try again.
He doesn't answer. Several minutes pass with only the sound of our combined heavy breaths. Ever so slowly, Jasper's hold on me loosens. Testing, I guess, to see if I'll run.
It's still a possibility; for the time being, I stay put.
Jasper's hands slide away and I take a step forward, struggling to catch my breath. I bend over and place my hands on my knees and try to steady myself.
"Jesus, woman," Jasper says. "You're just as stubborn as he is."
I spin around, looking up at him with a glare. He raises his palms in front of him and shrugs his shoulders to placate me, I guess. I stare at him, and though it's dark, the trail of blood running from his nose is unmistakable.
I gasp and point toward his face. "Did I do that?"
Something tells me I didn't. I'm afraid to hear the answer.
Jasper grimaces and shakes his head. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, wipes his mouth, and then winces in pain. "No. " He licks his lip. "Your boy did."
"Oh no…" I clench my eyes closed as a fresh set of tears begin. The rest of my words get stuck in my throat.
"Hey," Jasper reaches out and squeezes my arm. I open my eyes and look up at him. "This is how guys settle shit. It's all good. He's got a couple of his own he'll need you to kiss later."
"Is he—" I start, but fail to finish once again.
The idea of Edward being hurt doesn't sit well with me. The sick feeling in my stomach grows. My eyes ask the question my lips can't seem to form.
Jasper, more than likely reading the discomfort on my face, says, "He's fine. Actually, I shouldn't say that. My fist didn't hurt him half as much as you running away did."
His voice is so soft, like he knows what telling me this will do. I turn away to hide the pain in my face. Desperately, I want to believe that. But Edward kept something from me, something big, and I'm sick to death of being kept in the dark about my life.
"If that's true, then why are you the one coming after me?"
"Because he needed a time-out to cool the hell down." Jasper reaches out to touch my shoulder. I accept the comforting gesture he's offering with a sigh. "Let me take you home."
I cross my arms over my chest and nod, turning to face him once more. As we walk toward the cruiser, my gaze lingers on the empty street for a second. I turn to look at Jasper.
"He's okay, right? I mean... he's..."
Jasper shrugs one shoulder and puts his hand on the roof of the car. The clacking sound of his wedding band against the metal of the cruiser hums through my ears. "That's up to you, Bella."
Lowering myself into the car, I contemplate what he means and I think I know what he's saying. Physically, Edward will be fine... but it's up to me to fix the rest. The question is whether or not I'll let him tell his story.
I shouldn't have run away – I should have listened to his explanation first and then decided if I had a right to be mad. I just don't know if I'm ready to hear it yet. He kept something from me that I should have known... Maybe if he had tried harder we wouldn't be in this confusing mess.
Jasper is quiet beside me. The only sound in the car is the crackle of the CB radio in the dash. I stare out the window as my mind continues to go in circles. The car slows to a stop and from the corner of my eye, I see a large sign: Red Lion Hotel
My breath catches and I bite my lip in contemplation. It's like someone is telling me something, telling me that, to get on with my life, I need to face the past, too. Suddenly I don't want to wait the few days that have been suggested – I want to go there now and resolve this. I need to talk to her.
It's time.
Once this is done, I can focus on figuring out what comes next with Edward and me.
As Jasper accelerates, I put my hand on his shoulder. "Wait."
He slams on the brakes and looks over at me. "What the hell, woman?"
"I don't want to go home." I point out the window at the hotel sign.
Jasper stares beyond my hand and then looks at me. He frowns and then shrugs as he turns on his blinker. "He's already punched me once tonight. Can't imagine I'll be able to piss him off much more."
Jasper stops near the entrance to the lobby and stares at my face. I avoid his gaze, looking down at my lap as I reach for the handle on the door.
"You're sure you want to do this?" he asks.
I shake my head. "Nope."
"You want me to wait for you?"
I consider the question. What if she won't see me, or slams the door in my face, too? She's obviously angry. If it's true what Jasper said outside the store, that someone else is responsible for breaking into my house, I can't blame her.
And if she didn't do it, there has to be a reason she's still here in town. I owe it to myself to find out why.
I open the door and give him a thankful look. He really surprised me tonight. I didn't think he liked me very much based on past interactions.
"Just for a little while?"
He nods and puts the car in park. "I'll stay for a bit."
"Thanks, Jasper. For everything."
He waves me off. "I wasn't kidding when I said other people care about you, too. You're important to Alice, and well, what's important to her is important to me."
I smile at him and climb out of the car, taking a deep breath as I walk inside the hotel.
The clerk at the front desk looks bored. I smooth out my clothes and hair and approach him. "Can you tell me what room Renee Dwyer is staying in?"
"Are you a guest?"
I shake my head. "No, I'm her daughter."
He stares at me for a while, probably trying to figure out if the scary, sweaty girl in front of him is an axe murderer. I guess I pass his test, though. He checks his computer and then pulls out a map. "She's staying in one of our Premium King suites. If you walk through here and make a left, you'll find it. Room three-oh-five."
"Thank you."
My heart beats faster as I make the short trip toward her room. I'm not entirely sure what the hell I'm going to say. It's not like we're in the stage of our mother-daughter relationship where I can just knock and be casual. Things have changed.
I've changed.
All too fast I'm on her floor and, before I know it, standing in front of her door. I stop and suck in another deep breath, steeling myself for the possible outcome. I lift my hand to knock, but falter. What if she's really hateful again? My fingers curl into a fist and I squeeze, watching as the skin of my hand turns a bright white.
"You can do this," I whisper to myself. "You can do this."
I knock.
A minute passes and there's no response. I knock again, harder this time, but there's still no answer.
When I raise my hand to knock for a third time, the door flies open. I blink twice, stunned.
Renee stands there, looking absolutely nothing like the well dressed woman I've listened to my entire life. The high heels and red lips have been traded in for a ratty pair of sweatpants and a threadbare tank top. The perfect hair and disdainful looks are missing, too, taken over by a lank ponytail and even duller skin. She looks haggard – tired, like she hasn't slept in days.
She stares back at me quietly as I look her over, and then surprises me by stepping back and opening the door wider. I take it as a silent invitation to enter and step inside.
The room is big. And it's a complete mess.
Dirty clothes are strewn over chairs and across the bed. There are empty food containers and water bottles on a table near the window.
I frown and turn in a slow circle to take everything in. Crumbled tissues lay on the nightstand next to the bed and there are newspapers on the floor. It looks like my hotel room did when I broke down a few months ago.
At least I know now where my habit for hiding when things get rough comes from. Maybe it's a genetic trait.
A brief flash of regret flows through me. What if this is my fault?
The television is on some crime drama, volume low as if it was only on for company and background noise. Renee closes the door and steps around me, returning to the bed where the imprint of her body seems like it's on its way to becoming permanent.
I turn away from her to face the window, looking out at the ocean and trying to collect myself. Now that I'm here, I have no idea what to say. Where do I start?
"Are you going to say something?" she asks when I'm quiet for too long. Her voice is rough, like she's been crying.
"I'm working on it," I bite back.
She huffs. "How could you send those police here, Isabella?" Her voice more the tone I remember from last time we spoke: sharp and full of spite.
I run my fingers through my hair and turn around to face her, crossing my arms over my chest as I take a deep breath. "Can you blame me?"
She doesn't answer, which only serves to make me madder. She owes me an explanation because it's my life with my father she's taken from me. I start to tell her so when she sighs. It's a long, drawn out sound, something so very different from the bravado of just a few moments before. "No, I guess not."
Shock fills me at her agreeable response. This is a side of my mom I've never, ever, seen before. I'm not accustomed to dealing with this withdrawn and submissive version of her. I almost yearn for the domineering aspect of her personality because at least I know how to deal with that.
Even though I'm not exactly feeling strong at this moment, I somehow feel like I'm not as weak as her. Sadly, I don't know how to handle being the strong one in this situation.
"Why are you still here?" I ask.
She stares at the television like it holds the answer to the question I've asked. In anger, I step in front of it. Her eyes lift to mine and narrow. There she is. I feel like I need to remind her that I'm not going to settle for any lies this time.
"I want the truth," I tell her. "About everything."
She takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. I brace myself for the coming arguments, but she seems to inflate before my eyes instead. "I suppose I owe you that."
"Yes, you do." Truthfully, she owes me a lot of things. Like twenty-four years of lost time with my real father.
"I have no idea where to start."
I roll my eyes in exasperation. "Why not try the beginning?"
"Fine. You want to hear it, so here it goes. I met Charlie when he was in the academy. It was hard to resist the young men in their uniforms back then; especially him. I was out with my girlfriends at some dive bar in the city..."
Renee smiles softly at the memory and closes her eyes. Something about this softens my anger toward her a bit. I wait for her to continue.
"I was just a kid. And he was... very charming. I fell hard and fast. But he was from here, and I was from Seattle. I knew it would never work out."
I frown and take a few steps closer to the bed. She believed their relationship was destined to fail from the start. For some reason, this doesn't surprise me.
She sighs and her expression darkens. "When it came time for him to go home, he asked me to come with him. It would have never worked."
"You don't know that."
She's silent for a beat and then turns her gaze to the window. "No, I don't. But I told him no anyway. I thought it was a foolish thing for him to offer. We'd only known each other for a few weeks... Nobody meets the man they're supposed to be with in a bar. I wasn't ready to uproot my entire life on a whim."
"So you just walked away from him?" I ask, pain searing through my chest for what she put Charlie through even before I was in the picture.
"Yes. Of course, I didn't account for how much it would affect me."
"What do you mean?"
"After he left, I was devastated, and then I found out I was pregnant. And I was angry at him... and at myself for telling him no."
"Then why didn't you go back?" I ask. "Why didn't you at least try?"
"Because I was young and stupid," she says. Her voice breaks and a tear rolls down her cheek. "There was never a doubt in my mind about whether I would keep you, because even if I couldn't be with him... at least I still had a piece of him."
I shake my head in confusion. She makes no sense – two seconds ago she told me she willingly gave him up, but she didn't fight to make it right with him? "Then why did you keep him away from me?"
"I guess, in part, I didn't tell Charlie the truth about you because I didn't want to hurt him."
"That doesn't make any sense! You did hurt him."
"I didn't want to hurt either, okay," she insists. "I knew if Charlie knew about you he would try to get me back. I wasn't prepared to handle seeing him. I was trying to move on and make a new life."
"So you sacrificed his feelings – and me knowing my father – to protect yourself," I mutter. "How could you?"
"Yes I did, okay? I did. You were enough of a reminder! It hurt every single day. I couldn't handle the idea of him telling me no."
I shake my head. "What about after he saw me at the Space Needle?"
Shock crosses her face. "How do you know about that?"
"I had a little help," I say, thinking of Edward. Of that day. "He knew about me that day. He knew who I was! Why continue to lie? Why not let me make that choice? He obviously wanted to be part of my life. Did you know he came to California to see me graduate? Hell, he left me his house, mother."
She shakes her head, looking contrite. "I didn't know... at the time, I didn't know."
I stare at her in anger. She didn't know because she didn't try. She walked away from him. All of this is her fault.
"Don't be angry with him," Renee says, bringing my attention back to her. "He tried very hard... and it was me who kept him away from you. I can admit that now, I take full blame for it."
"I'm not angry with him," I say sharply. "I'm... I want to be angry with you."
"I deserve that."
There's another piece of this whole thing that still doesn't make sense. "Why did you tell Dad that you didn't know who my real father was?"
Her head snaps up and her eyes fill with more tears. "I should have figured you would speak to your dad..."
"Yes, I spoke with him today."
Her eyes snap to mine and her shoulders fall. "I was only about four months pregnant when I met your father. Phil, I mean... I was trying to deal with the feelings I was having over Charlie, and being pregnant and full of hormones didn't help. He was so amazing and he didn't care that you weren't his."
"So you felt like that gave you a free pass to lie?"
"You don't get it. He was this older, successful guy... and he just wanted to take care of me. Of both of us. He was already pretty involved in Grandpa's construction company at the time and I just wanted to escape from the pain. I wanted a way out. So after you were born, I came with him to California and we got married."
"Jesus Mom, did you even love him?" A pang of sadness hits my chest for Phil.
"Of course I did, Isabella," she snaps. "I'm not completely inhuman." I arch my eyebrow in doubt. "Okay, no, at first, it wasn't the same kind of love. But it grew into that... and I know that even though I made mistakes with a lot of things, he's not one of them. I love your dad."
"But you're still lying to him!" I insist. "And he's home... worrying about you. It's time to stop this."
For some reason, I feel guilty making her face her own demons, though I know I shouldn't. She made her bed without my help. She has to lie in it.
My eyes fill with tears and the weight in my chest grows strong. Not just for Charlie, but my mom and Phil, too. Hell, for this entire situation. I think I get it now... She didn't make the decisions she did because she was vindictive; she made them because her heart was broken.
Of course, it was her own fault.
She was being selfish and only thinking of herself. I know I should be angry that she kept me away, that she lied to me for years and that she behaved the way she did in my house. But I've already been angry, and I just... can't do it anymore.
Now I feel nothing but sadness for her. She's been wearing this hard-ass mask for so long that she had no idea how to take it off and let herself feel.
"I think you should go home. Dad needs to know the truth, and I can't give him any more of it. It's up to you."
She sighs and reaches up to try and tame the mess that is her hair. "And you? Are you really going to stay here?" she asks quietly.
"Yes," I answer confidently. "This is where I belong."
"And the cop? Edward, was it?"
In the back of my mind I can't help but think of him, and to compare our situations. I walked away from Edward too – right after he admitted he loved me. But just like Renee, Edward kept secrets.
It doesn't matter, though, because hearing this has made me determined not to let history repeat itself. I glance at the door as the urge to go back to him storms through me.
"Your mistakes aren't mine, Mom," I tell her, smiling a little. "I want to be with him, and unlike you, I'm not afraid of the unknown anymore. He's my home."
Hopefully I still have a home to go back to...
"And he feels the same?"
"I think so." God, I hope so.
She leans forward and grabs my hand, squeezing. It's one of the most motherly gestures she's ever offered me. "If that's how you feel, don't let him go, Isabella."
"I won't," I say. I move forward and hug her, blinking through tears. "Thank you."
I pull back and she looks at me with confusion. "For what?"
"For finally giving me the truth."
"I always planned to tell you someday," she says, looking sad. "I just didn't know how. I was selfish. You'll never know how sorry I am that you didn't get a chance to truly know him."
For once, I believe her. She's admitted to her mistakes and I truly think she's sorry for the hurt she's caused everyone. Forgiveness is the only step left for me to take with her. If it's what meant to happen, our relationship will heal in time.
Only the future can tell.
"I forgive you," I say, feeling a weight on my shoulders disappear as I do.
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