The first days went past in a strange, fast forward motion. I could barely go a few hours without hunting, and Carlisle told me it was likely because my instincts and cravings need to be sated by something more substantial. He said we could go hunting for something more fulfilling after a few more weeks when I had gotten a better control of myself. I learned to understand why Edward had insisted on opening the door for me—upon trying to open a different door I wasn't being careful enough and I reached right through it and broke a hole straight to the other side. My body seemed to be ready and willing to take its new strength and speed, but my mind had not adjusted yet. It didn't know what I had been, neither did it truly understand what it currently was. I was still trying to figure out to how to use my body, let alone sort through my mind, which was something that I found I had unending hours to do.
Not being able to sleep was for more troublesome than I thought it was going to be. I couldn't get away from my own thoughts, and they were more than troublesome. When my new strength or speed wasn't confusing me or making me bump into things or break them—something Emmett told me was only possible through my magnificent and profound lack of coordination, a problem he had thought would be cleared up when I changed but had miraculously remained—or my newly heightened senses weren't driving me insane with their acuity, I was buried deep under layers of thoughts and unspeakable ideas and a lack of memory that was more infuriating than anything else. The thirst I could manage. It took me over with a physical need, a primitive instinctive thing that I had come to recognize and was able to understand. But my thoughts and feelings, the damn feelings were a different story entirely.
They came from nowhere. They didn't exist and then the next minute it was like being struck, and there they were, being shoved at me from all sides, infecting me and making me feel weak, weak of all things, the very last thing I was. I didn't react quite so violently as I had when I had first received the memory, but it wasn't as though it didn't continue to affect me. And it wasn't as though I felt particularly interested in talking to anyone about it. I wasn't sure how you would broach such a subject with someone. So I didn't broach it. I suffered through the long hours by myself, secluded for most of it, unsure how to interact, and trying to figure myself out.
It was only a few days before I got a hold of my physical self. I didn't break anymore doors and I had learned to be accustomed to my senses without them running havoc on my already preoccupied mind. What I did not get a hold on were my memories. Carlisle had told me there would be few. I had thought for sure he meant a handful, five or six perhaps, maybe a dozen if I was lucky. But by the time I had been changed for a week I had already had ten memories of my human life come back to me. Half of them were things that I didn't fully comprehend—a dark haired man and I picking berries in some strawberry patch, the same women I had a vision of before talking to me in a sitting room, a bunch of boys and I sitting outside in the sun, handing that same dark haired boy a ring hung on a silver chain. But the others were memories I wasn't sure I could handle having.
The first was of Edward, just him, not me. But I still felt that uncomfortable swell in my chest in this memory. He was playing piano, seated in the all with the piano in this very house, playing and ever so often glancing back at me, with that same look in his eyes I had tried so hard to banish from my mind. It was the one that told me he loved me every time he looked my way, the one that was so full of tender affection but also careful distance it made me sad just to see it. He was still so connected to me and I was torn between the unfamiliarity with him and that strange, unstoppable feeling that seated itself in my stomach that made me just want to reach out and touch him.
The other memories were incredible. One was of the two of us, running like fools out into the night, laughing as we went along, Edward's hand securely twined with mine, his soft, urgent voice ushering me along. But again it was less the seeing and hearing than it was the wild emotion I was privy to. There was something so wanton and free about how I had felt that night with him. It was an emotion I didn't mind indulging in.
But there were two that were intense in an overwhelming way, so like the first I had of the two of us. The first was a moment of clarity, a moment when I saw his face—those golden eyes, the bronze hair that was swept across his forehead, obscuring his vision, the inhuman radiant glitter of his pale skin in the sun light, that ridiculous giddy smile and I watched his perfect hands take mine and slide something small and glinting onto my ring finger. He was saying something about how he could get a different one if I didn't like it but then the memory faded out. But in my mind I paused it and looked down at my hand, saw the ring there. I had forgotten some things about human tradition, but not that. There was only one reason a man gave a woman a ring like that and slid it onto her finger in such a way.
We had been engaged. He and I had been so in love we were going to get married. That had sent me reeling. I hadn't known it was so serious, that he had wanted me that way. I suppose it should have been obvious with the way he talked to me, the look he gave me, positively everything about us, but I had failed to see it. I also failed to see a ring on my finger now, which only led me to believe that Edward had taken it off of me and put it somewhere until there was a time he would need to explain.
But even that one hadn't been the worst.
I was happy I was by myself when I got most of these memories back, but never so happy as when I got the last one.
It was Edward, lying on the ground, sputtering, breathing through a film of blood, dying there in my arms and I could do nothing but sob. Pain ripped through me like nothing I had ever known. The change had been excruciating, but this had come from somewhere else completely. It originated in my center, not my skin, and radiated out with sick agility and complete hold over me. But this memory was not over yet. It was broken, I could tell that at least, but it was not over, far from it in fact. I had then watched as Carlisle bit his son, much as he had bitten me and changed him to save him. I had felt a sort of sick relief then, knowing at least he would be alive and then eventually we could work things out. But then Carlisle had told me, and these were the only words I could clearly make out of all the talking that went on, that I couldn't see him and that he might not remember me. My stomach had bottomed out then and my heart split in two. And then, mercifully, the memory ended. It was by far the longest memory I had, but it was also the worst.
I had lain on my floor, gasping for breath for a long time, trying to make the residual hurt in my body go away before I was able to get up and be anything like productive. I sobbed silently, my body shaking, my eyes clenched against tears that didn't come, trying to hold myself together against something that had a mind of its own. I had no control over my own body, an all too familiar feeling, but this time it wasn't something so innocuous as breaking a hole through a door, I had just had a figurative hole ripped through my body.
"I can't take it anymore, Edward! Go talk to her, please, her emotions are driving me insane!" someone called, and I could tell it was Jasper by the sound of his voice. The door to my room was thrown open and Edward peeked inside. It was the first time he and I had really talked since the first day I was changed. I had been too confused, my thoughts and feelings and everything else so muddled that I didn't really want to talk to anyone, let alone a man who loved me and had no qualms about telling me so.
Edward's face was confused as he looked at me, sitting on my floor once again as he shut the door so quietly behind him, leaving Jasper to mutter about getting some semblance of peace. Without a word he crossed the room to me and extended his hand to help me up. I accepted it gratefully, not really sure I was able to do it on my own anyway. I had never imagined emotions could manifest so physically, but there it was, staring me in the face how wrong I had been about things I did not know.
"Jasper says you have been up and down so often lately that he thinks he might very well go crazy with your emotions if you don't get a handle on them," he said with a trace of amusement.
"I keep…remembering," I told him. He nodded as though allowing me to stop if I wished or continue if I so chose. For a moment I said nothing and then as though I had been waiting to, I told him about all of them. With each memory I told him about, he explained a bit more about my past. He told me who the dark haired man was, who the other boys were, more about Emily, the scarred woman, and about the events that had led to his and my first meeting—my arranged marriage, his father being a doctor and everything he had been told by both his father and I at separate times.
He told me as much of the story as he knew or remembered himself, which was not complete of course, his human memories were as scattered as mine, and some of them had nothing to do with him and so he could not fill in the blanks to me. But the ones that did include him were ones he had no trouble telling me about in detail so far as he was able to remember. The one of him at the piano he remembered clearly enough, it occurred when he was a vampire. The one I remembered when we were running together was something that had happened when we were both human as far as he could tell, he certainly didn't remember it. But he asked me to describe it to him anyway and he smiled when he heard me talk about it.
"That doesn't sound half bad. I can't imagine it was those memories, any of them in fact, that had Jasper so up in arms," he said quietly, slyly drawing answers out of me without truly having to ask. It was that damn charm. I hated and loved him for it.
"There were two that were slightly less…innocuous," I admitted. I told him first about the one in which he gave me an engagement ring. I couldn't very well explain the one that was still resonating about my body, at least not that very moment. He listened to me tell him about a moment he already knew about, about the ring I no longer had on and when I was done I finally met his eyes and he grinned at me.
"I took the ring off of you before you changed. It wasn't a good idea to have it on in case you scratched yourself with it while you were changing and I didn't want you to have to wonder about it when you awoke. You were already confused and I was enough to perplex you as it was, let alone an engagement ring. I hope you aren't angry with me for that," he said. I shook my head. Of course I wasn't. He was right. I couldn't imagine what I would have done if I had awoke with a ring on my finger and then seen beautiful Edward.
"Was that the bad one?" he asked. I looked at him, perplexed.
"Well, first of all, no it wasn't the bad one. And second, who said there was a bad one?" I inquired.
"Jasper, he almost dropped to his knees downstairs. He didn't have to tell me per say, I got it well enough from his thoughts as he was trying to block out your emotions. They were pretty intense," he explained. I swallowed hard and tried to get past the lump in my throat.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he assured me, as though he was afraid he was making me tell him even though I didn't want to. I shook my head. That wasn't it at all. I wasn't sure how to explain what had happened to me. So I started from the beginning and hoped it would make sense.
"I saw…you die. And you change. And I heard Carlisle telling me I couldn't see you and that you might not remember me. And it was just like the others. It wasn't so much the memory in and of itself, heartbreaking as it was. It was…feeling the emotion in it, stored there. It's like my emotions, the human ones, got preserved in the memories themselves and when I remember what happened I can't help but feel what I felt then. And human Bella…she was absolutely heart broken, she was dying right there with you, and so was I. And I don't understand it, I don't know why I can't stop this from happening. I know you all told me about regaining your memories and even yours specifically and how it hurt to see me, but Edward did you feel them this way?"
Edward shook his head.
"I didn't, no. at least not to the degree you are. But also didn't ever regain memories of such emotional magnitude. Mine were of snapshots of you, and a few of us being…intimate…but nothing like watching someone you love die, or feeling that kind of loss. I wish I knew what to tell you to make it better, Bella. I cant take away that hurt, or change how you felt about it, because as you have already said, they were the emotions that were tied in those memories, not the emotions you had in relation to them. If that were the case then we could take about them and maybe I could make you feel better, but as you called her 'human Bella' already felt them and now you experienced them through her."
"It's so strange, feeling like we are two separate people, and knowing that we aren't," I said. He nodded, and I could tell he understood.
"Bella, you could rumination who she was and who you are and whether you and she are the same or different or both or neither, but really, in the end, it doesn't matter. She is you and you are she and her memories are part of who you are and you couldn't be without her, but you are also different. Never forget that just because we knew you as a human doesn't mean we won't accept you as a vampire. You changed to be a part of our family, Bella, not to be left out of it," he said. I looked away. I didn't know how much my seclusion had been noticed, or not noticed
as the case may have been. But Edward had found a way to subtly and unassumingly tell me that they had of course noticed my absence and didn't want me to think I had to be a recluse.
"I'm not doing it because of any of you, believe me. But you must understand what its like to be in a place full of people who know you when you don't even know yourself yet," I said. He nodded and raised his eyebrows as if to say, tell me about it. I had forgotten momentarily that his family and he had been in this same precarious position after he woke from his own change.
"Well if there is anything we can do, please tell me," he said earnestly.
"I appreciate the offer, but I'm not sure what I would even ask for," I said lightheartedly. He nodded in understanding.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he inquired, his voice softer. I looked at him for a long moment.
"I don't know why you are so glutton for punishment. Being around me is only going to remind you of what we don't have anymore," I told him. He shrugged.
"How can I make you fall in love with me again if I don't spend any time with you?" he asked in return with a grin plastered upon his perfect face. I could tell he was trying to joke around but I also knew he was serious. He wasn't just going to give up on me.
"Edward…after you were changed and we met again…how did it work? I mean, how did you operate knowing that I loved you so much but not feeling the same way about me?" I asked.
"I don't really know how to explain it to you in words, Bella, but do you trust me?" he asked. I nodded in an unequivocal yes. I did trust him. I had shown that when I jumped out of a damn window after him even though I hadn't known why or if I would even survive the fall. And now talking to him I was telling him things I wasn't even sure should have been spoken, let him in to what I was thinking, how I was feeling and it was as though he understood each and every thing I told him.
"Then let me show you," he suggested. I nodded again, slightly more hesitant.
He stepped in my direction and I remained still, completely unmoving. He watched me with careful eyes in the silence and when he was close enough that our bodies were almost touching he stopped and looked down at me. I was still motionless, not sure what I would do if I even had the slightest clue how to react to Edward's proximity. As it was my insides had tied themselves in knots at his mere propinquity. I knew he was supposed to baffle humans, it was a trait we all held, unearthly beauty to mystify them for when we hunted, but it wasn't supposed to work so well on other vampires. But something about him made my muscles tense and my palms itch. I bit my lip, hard, not knowing what else to do.
But my lips parted of their own accord when he brought his hands to my face, holding it between them lightly that same soft smile on his lips, that look I hated and loved so very much in his ocher eyes. He didn't say a thing only stood with me that way, a mere inch between us, his hands on my face. I don't know how long we just stood there, staring at the other. I didn't want to look away.
Eventually his hands dropped down from my cheeks and caught my own hands, bringing them up to his own face and planting a kiss on the back of my knuckles. Without a single word he nodded to me and then walked out the door before I even had the courage to breathe.
I didn't know what he had meant to do by that other than drive me crazy, but he had accomplished that at least. There was a feeling, another damned feeling, squirming inside of me, making my stomach feel like it was doing back flips. I didn't move from the spot he had left me in until I needed to hunt.
After that day things were different. I was still trying to sort things out, but it was so much easier. I finally realized what Edward had been trying to tell me—even though he hadn't loved me consciously, he had a connection to me that was unshakeable. He had proved that point in making me feel like my skin was the only thing keeping me together when all he had done was touch me, and only barely. I didn't know what I felt, for anyone at the moment, let alone Edward, but I did know that there was something about him my subconscious recognized.
I tried to integrate myself more thoroughly into everyday life with the family, tried spending time with people. And at first it was difficult for me, not remembering things that had happened or knowing what my previous relationships with people had been. But as days turned into a week and a week into two I seemed to meld more effortlessly into the dynamic.
Alice and Rosalie, Edward's sisters, and my sisters as far as the two of them were concerned, spent the most time with me at first, and then of course there was Emmett, gigantic as he was, he was the living definition of a teddy bear. They took me hunting one afternoon, Edward staying behind this time. He was determined to give me space and not pressure me into something I was not ready for, for which I could never have accurately thanked him. And so I thought I was just going to go for a hunt with a family, my family as I was coming to think of them.
I was wrong.
We hunted without any particular challenges. It was nice to have something to actually hunt instead of deer. I took down a wolf without much trouble and felt better than I had in days. I knew that the bigger prey I took down the more satisfied my thirst would be. If I only hunted deer I needed to go once a day at the least. But I could go two or three days on something bigger like a wolf or the occasional mountain lion or black bear we found in these woods.
The four of us convened back where we had started, about an hour's run from the house. I didn't mind running a bit, it was nice to finally be able to put my speed to some good use. It made me feel more natural and gave me a way to let loose some of the tension that built in my muscles from feeling like I wasn't really moving.
I was just about to start up running home when Emmett's hand caught my arm. His fingers were able to wrap all the way around my upper arm. I looked at him, bemused and he smiled in a tired kind of way and nodded toward the girls. Alice was giving him a satisfied smile and I narrowed my eyes in her direction.
"I think we should have a quick talk while we are out here, Bella, and away from the house," Alice told me. I looked at her with suspicion and puzzlement in my eyes but sighed and spread my arms in front of me as if to tell her to go ahead.
"It's about Edward," Rose told me. I sighed. Of course it was.
"What has he told you, Bella, about the two of you?" she asked me.
"That when we were human we met and fell in love, and then he got hurt and was close to death so Carlisle changed him. After a few years he came back for me and I left the place I was living to come stay with you. Of course my being human and his being a vampire made our relationship difficult, but he tried his best. And we were close again, in love like we had been and then things happened and it became increasingly obvious to just about everyone that my being human was not the smartest path and that's when I was changed. Does that about sum it up?" I asked.
I knew there was a bit more to it, I knew about my arrange marriage and about my almost dying outside his house after I had fallen and Jasper had gotten the scent of my blood, I knew about our nightly trysts and about Emily, the woman that had helped me keep my secret and about her death at the hands of vampires that Edward and his family, along with a pack of werewolves had subsequently destroyed. But the details were not necessary to the basic line of the story. But after my perfunctory telling all three of them looked at each other and sighed.
"Bella, while your story is…accurate, it is also missing things," Alice informed me. "Edward doesn't remember a lot of things from your human lives, and he would not want to tell you things that he deemed to be 'too much' for you. He has informed us all that we are supposed to be understanding of your current relationship―"
"Or lack thereof," Emmett inserted. Alice rolled her eyes but continued.
"And that we aren't supposed to push you into things. He believes that things will fall naturally into place."
"You don't?" I asked.
"Bella," Rosalie interjected, "it isn't that we don't believe that you two will eventually work things out and that you two are meant to be together, regardless if you are willing to hear that just yet. But…you don't see him when he isn't with you. He is miserable. He hates being without you. And believe me, we all remember this adjustment period, how confusing it is, and I can't imagine what it must be like, in a room full of people who knew you for years and now you have to meet them all over again, but Bella…he misses you. And none of us can make it better. He's not whole without you."
"We aren't saying you should make yourself uncomfortable in order to cheer him up," Emmett told me.
"Far from it," Alice agreed.
"But could you try? Maybe spend some time with him? You act like he's a pariah instead of a man who loves you, Bella. It hurts him."
I looked at Emmett. I had no idea Edward felt this way. And of course he wouldn't tell me, he wouldn't want to upset me. But if he was hurting I couldn't just let it go on. He had given up a lot for me. He had fought and tried day in and out for me.
"I don't mean to do that, you know," I informed them, staring at my feet before gaining a measure of confidence, enough to look up. "It is just that whenever we talk I feel…so weak. It's the absolute strangest thing and it's like he knows it. I can't help how my body reacts to him or the fact that in my memories I can feel what it would be like to love him but…if I fall in love with him, I want him on my terms, not on ones that existed before. Things were different then, I was different then."
"Understandable," Alice said. "Will you at least spend some time with him? Jasper can't take his moods on top of yours." She grinned at me. I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, I will spend time with him. But…never mind," I said, stopping myself short. Alice and Rosalie exchanged a glance and then shrugged and set off for home. I stood there for a moment and then was almost off before Emmett said my name and made me stop. I turned and looked back at him.
"But what, Bella?" he asked. I glanced around, back down at my feet, and then back at Emmett, who was still just standing there, waiting.
"He tells me he loves me, Emmett, but how can he? I hardly know who I am," I confessed.
"He knows who you are, Bella. Even if you are unsure," he said. I shook my head.
"He knows who I used to be, Emmett, but who is to say that I am the same as I used to be?" I asked. He smiled and shook his head slowly.
"Bella, you seem to be under the impression that who you are and who you were are very different people, let me inform you of something, they aren't. Your personality hasn't changed a bit. You might not remember how you were, but you are not any different. You aren't going to disappoint him being a woman he doesn't know. Because you are just Bella to him, you always were and you always will be no matter what happens. None of that will change," he told me.
"Emmett―"
"You don't have to explain it to me, Bella. I understand the feeling of not understanding who you are. Just remember that he loves you—we all love you—for who you are, not who you were. No one sits around saying 'man, human Bella was so much more fun', I promise."
"You sure?" I asked sourly, noting my behavior of late had been in a slight attempt to be social but that didn't negate the weeks I spent by myself.
"Positive. Personally, I think I like you better now. You're just as ridiculous and amusing but I don't have to worry about smelling your blood and wanting to eat you," he informed me with a chuckle.
"You know, I think human Bella would have thanked you for not ever mentioning that to me when I was in mortal form," I replied. He laughed and then informed me he was planning on racing me back home before taking off.
I beat him home.
I was waiting, leaning against the side of the house with a smug grin on my face when he finally got there, about ten seconds after I did. He looked happy with triumph, as though he was sure he had won but then his expression flattened. I smiled at him brightly.
"Good thing we didn't bet on that or you'd owe me big time," I teased.
"Yeah sure…I let you beat me," he said.
"I'm sure."
"You coming inside," he asked, motioning to the door that I wasn't making any move to get any closer to. I shook my head.
"It smells fresh outside today. I like it. I think I'll sit out here for a while, enjoy the sunshine."
"Have it your way," he said, and reached down to me, his massive hand ruffling my hair. I could feel it prickling in the wrong direction. He knew it drove me crazy and he did it anyway. I glared at him.
"Must you?"
"I think so, yes." I rolled my eyes at him. "Remember what I said, Bella," he reminded me. I nodded and then we went our separate ways, he to the inside of our house, me to the middle of the front yard. I flopped down upon the ground, ignoring the way it shook when I did so. I lay there, my eyes closed, basking in the warmth of the sun. It felt so strange now, sunlight. Not that I particularly remembered what it felt like to have sun on my face as a human, but as a vampire it was like being comforted.
"Mind if I join you?"
I didn't have to open my eyes to know who had spoken. I heard the uncertainty in Edward's voice and could almost tell that Alice and Rosalie had sent him out here with me.
"Sure thing, Edward," I said, keeping my eyes closed to the bright sun. It wasn't as though it hurt my eyes to open them, but I seeing Edward's skin shimmering in the light would only make my stomach twist in those oh so familiar knots. It was already half way there just because he was here, let alone if I had to be literally faced with such splendor.
It occurred to me then that I wanted to love him. I wanted to feel like I remembered feeling, utterly overcome with that emotion. As Edward sank down to the ground, a motion that was graceful and would have been inaudible if I hadn't been graced with such acute senses, I couldn't tell if I was heartened or distraught by knowing this about myself. It was so odd, knowing that even though I hardly knew him anymore, even though we had a past, even though I knew that I had loved him once, I didn't know if I did right then but I wanted to.
I smiled slightly and just lay there waiting for Edward to say something or see if he was waiting just like I was. When minutes passed in silence I opened my eyes and turned to my left, where Edward was. His face was turned exactly as mine had been, eyes closed up to the sun and he seemed content.
You act like he's a pariah instead of a man who loves you, Bella. It hurts him.
I hadn't realized what my seclusion and my aversion of Edward, if only to avoid disappointing him, was doing to him. Obviously he had confessed some of this to at least one of them—my guess was on Alice—and she had decided to take the matter into her own hands. Somehow, even though I obviously couldn't be sure, I had a feeling that was very classically Alice.
"Edward?" I said quietly. His face perked.
"Yes, Bella?"
"I think I need to apologize to you."
At this he opened his eyes, which had darkened considerably, but were not quite black yet. He was gong to need to hunt soon.
"Whatever for?"
"I'm sure you aren't going to be happy with them, but when we went hunting today Alice, Rosalie and Emmett found it necessary to have a…chat with me. I didn't realize how much how I have been acting has been affecting you, Edward. I feel horrible that I've been hurting you; I never meant to do that. But why didn't you tell me?" I asked. His face had contorted into one of distaste as soon as all of my words had left my mouth and instead of feeling like I should have retracted them, I felt more justified in saying them. That reaction meant that I had been right about what I said.
"I didn't tell you because there was no need to saddle you with my emotions as well as your own. You had other things to think about. It wasn't necessary to tell you something that wasn't going to change anything," he explained. I sat straight up and Edward followed suit, his face perplexed. I must have looked at him strangely. I felt strange. Why would he think that? Why would he assume that if he told me how he felt that it wouldn't change a thing, that I wouldn't want to make it better?
"I don't understand why you assume that nothing would change if you told me how you felt," I said. He opened his mouth, but took a moment to respond.
"Bella, why would I burden you with such a thing as my happiness?" he inquired.
"Why do you think I would consider it a burden? Edward, just because I can't define what you make me feel doesn't mean that I want you to be unhappy," I told him. My words made him smile.
"I appreciate it. And, well, if you had to try, what would you describe the feeling as?" he asked, changing the subkect with more timidity than I had ever witnessed in him.
"I honestly don't know, I can't…I can't make myself feel on command, Edward."
"Should I remind you?" he questioned. Before I had any idea what he was talking about he leaned over to me and whispered "Close your eyes."
I had told him I trusted him not long before and that still stood true. But as I remembered what had happened last time he had decided to show me something I felt the familiar nervous energy build in my muscles. Regardless I closed my eyes slowly and breathed out a slow breath I hadn't realized I had been holding.
"Thank you," he whispered, the smile he had on evident in his voice. I felt nimble hands pick up my fingers from my lap and lift them, bringing my palms to his lips where he blessed each one with a gossamer kiss before putting them back down. Those same hands traced the outline of my face ever so slowly. I felt him lean in again and place his cheek, warmed like mine from the sun, against my own and breathe in slowly.
"Do you remember now?" he asked in a low, quiet voice. I nodded, not remembering how to speak at the moment. The texture of his skin as it touched mine was something I was unfamiliar with. I didn't touch anyone often, but then I realized I wish I had. My sense of touch was just as acute as my others, but I had yet to particularly indulge it. But that single moment, with his skin against mine ignited that same need in me that I had experienced only when I was around him.
"Care to share or are you going to torture me with your silence?" he inquired. I felt him draw away and for a second I felt myself starting to shake. I didn't want to lose contact with him. There was something in me that had brightened when he had gotten so close. I felt like I was going to just shake to pieces if he moved away from me.
So acting out of instinct and nothing else I propelled myself into him, if only to prolong the strange, sunny, ready to surrender feeling that emerged from my chest. He rocked back and caught me with a laugh, steadying me on his lap with a smile. It was only a moment later that I realized what I had done and I looked at Edward and saw my own shocked expression reflected in his eyes. He laughed at me again.
"Whoops," I said, ducking my head in embarrassment. "That was an accident."
"You won't find me complaining," he replied with a grin. I couldn't help but smile in return. We shared a moment then where neither of us spoke but t didn't matter. And then I realized I was still sitting in his lap. I wasn't sure if that was where I belonged—even though I had a feeling that there was nowhere else I should have rightfully been—and the moment of silent compatibility turned into something awkward.
"If this makes you uncomfortable…"Edward began, letting go of me completely, leaving me sitting there in his lap, his legs outstretched behind me. The logical part of me, the one that had been holding me back, telling me that I didn't know anything about myself or him or about what we had been beside the brief memories I had, was telling me then that it would probably be a good idea to get off of him. But it was the emotions, the ones that were illogical, unintelligible, and unwilling to listen to reason that made my decision for me in that moment.
"Do you trust me?" I asked, mimicking his own question. He tilted his head to the side and nodded once. I placed my hands gently on his chest and pushed a bit. He seemed to understand me and let his arms slide out from under him. He looked up at me from where he lay on the ground with a questioning eyebrow raised in mirth. I smiled and then lay down there, resting my head right above where his heart was, though it no longer beat. My hands slid up to his shoulders and stayed there, content to remain where they were as he and I both breathed in a single breath in accidental unison.
I felt his hands, the ones that had been touching my face not so long ago stroking my hair gently, running his fingers through the length of it before starting anew at the top of my head. I felt the sun beat down on my back warming my skin, his chest rising and falling under my cheek, smelled the grass and earth beneath us and the warm air that drifted lazily about along with his scent that was rich with its proximity.
I didn't know what had made me want to be close to him that way, but whatever it was I was silently thankful, feeling whole in a way I hadn't in so many weeks. There was an unperceivable gap in me that had been filled somehow since I had just collapsed into what my instincts had been telling me to do.
Because along with the feeling of discomfiture at being loved by someone I didn't know, not wanting to disappointing him by being someone he didn't know, not being sure who I was in the first place, there was also an ever-present voice in the back of my mind that remembered what it felt like to lose him and couldn't stand that kind of pain in anything but second hand. If I had to feel that for real, instead of being able to open my eyes and see him standing right in front of me I would have gone insane. So instincts be damned I tried to keep my distance, subconsciously or in any other way. But I should have seen that was a futile effort. Now that I knew what this felt like, this wholeness, I wasn't sure I would ever give it up. I didn't think I loved him yet, I would have known and recognized that feeling, but this was something.
"Bella," Edward said quietly. I answered with something like 'mmm' and waited for his words.
"Thank you."
"For what?" I asked, my voice muffled by my position against his chest.
"Being honest, talking to me, making me understand. And I promise, Bella, not even I sit around wanting human Bella back," he assured me. He must have heard Emmett's thoughts.
"I don't know if I believe that," I told him. He chuckled, his stomach shaking with it. I liked the feeling.
"Why not?"
"Because human Bella knew you, she already loved you, you didn't have to wait," I answered with a sigh, reminding myself again of what I could not be for him. Before I realized what was happening, Edward sat up and stared into my eyes his arms wrapped around my back, my hands still on his shoulders.
"I would rather wait a thousand years than be without you. Don't ever think anything to the contrary."
"I don't know where you come up with things like that, Edward, but you sure do know how to charm a girl," I admitted.
"Glad to see its working. Now if you don't protest, before I had to correct your grave misgivings, I was quite comfortable," he announced, and the collapsed back upon the ground. I regained my position as I had been and rolled my shoulders back, stretching slowly before allowing myself to truly relax against his body.
And so we remained until the sky opened up above us and drenched us in rain. I had smelled the shift in the air, the wind blowing in another direction carrying with it a heavy smell, the air itself thicker. I should have known that it as going to rain when the sun stopped shining on me and clouds covered the sky but Edward and I were too happy lying there, talking. If it had just been tiny drops at first we would have had time to get back into the house, but when the rain started it poured down from the sky, splashing down on us as though someone had thrown a bucket down on us. I yelped in surprise and jumped up to my feet. Edward was on his feet right after me and we raced into the house, sopping wet.
I was laughing when we got inside, my clothes absolutely sopping, dripping rainwater all over the floor, my hair plastered to my cheeks just as Edward's was stuck to his forehead. I shook it out, trying to get the slick strands off of my face and Edward flinched as I got him even more wet. I laughed at him and continued to do so if only to pester him. He growled playfully and then smirked at me. He had his shirt off and was wringing it out over my head a moment later.
"Hey!" I exclaimed. He grinned.
"All if fair in love and war, dear Bella," he replied.
"And which is this?" I asked with a laugh.
"Oh, I would guess a little bit of both," he said, holding his limp, damp shirt in his hands.
"Is that so?" I asked. He nodded.
"Well how do we know if someone wins?"
"The only way someone can win is if the other gives up, I highly doubt such a thing would happen," he explained.
"You don't think I could get you to give up," I stated skeptically.
"Obviously not," he said with certainty. I felt the wicked grin spread across my face. I didn't know where I got my confidence from or how I had managed to de so bold, but I took a predatory step in his direction and took the damp shirt from his hands dropping it behind me. I glanced outside at the still pouring rain through the open door behind him. I put my hands as they had been on his shoulders, bare now, and leaned into him, mimicking the position we had been in outside, only now we were standing.
"So determined to lose," he said teasingly. I shifted and wrapped my arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to rest my forehead against his, finding his eyes which had somehow managed to go a shade darker than I remembered them being a moment before. I smiled and Edward gave me a look meant to tell me that I would have to do better than that. But I also noticed he wasn't speaking.
I did similarly as he had, resting my cheek against his breathing slowly and carefully before shifting and doing the same on the other side of his perfect face. I then pulled back some and bit back my ludicrous fear of rejection and timid inclinations, kissing both his cheeks before finding myself so close to his mouth. I had kissed him in memories. I didn't know if I wanted to kiss him right then. Of course there was part of me that was begging for it, screaming to just kiss him and get it over with, feel the way I used to finally. But the rest of me knew I would be happier to wait, to make sure I wasn't just caught up in something I couldn't control.
So instead I inched closer so our lips were all but touching and sighed. I knew Edward would never close the space between us for fear of either offending me or taking it to far and upsetting me and so I knew I was in total control of the situation.
So I didn't move. Edward's eyes were glued to mine and I felt him swallow hard a few times, squeezing gently at my lower back where his hands had come to rest at some point. I hadn't noticed. His breathing became shallower, his eyes blurry.
"This is no fair," he whispered and we were so close I could feel his lips move as he spoke.
"Love and war, remember?" I asked. He groaned quietly, whether it was having his words thrown in his face or having this continued proximity to me I wasn't sure. Finally I moved away from him, giving him some relief. I rested back on my heels as he breathed out a slow breath with his eyes closed.
"Are you okay?" I inquired. He nodded, his eyes still closed and when he opened them again he looked perfectly normal.
"Bella, even though I don't have any sort of hunger for your blood any more that doesn't mean I don't still want you," he explained. I couldn't help the surprised look on my face. He chuckled a bit at it but said nothing more.
"So it was more love than war I suppose," I said.
"It always is with you," he replied. We stood there for a moment and then he gave me a playfully menacing look and I stepped back, breaking our contact, acting frightened.
He chased me into the rain.
awwww adorable Bella and Edward moments. and I also had to include some Emmett goodness, because I'll be honest, I totally love him too! hope you liked this and dont worry, there is more where it all came from!!