And now back to our regularly scheduled programming:
I'm in the only place I want to be. In Edward's arms. In the stable loft with the warm end-of-summer breeze blowing softly and fragrantly through the open window over our heads. More importantly, Edward's talking to me. Talking. He's been talking non-stop for what feels like an hour but is more like ten whole minutes straight. And if I thought that the feeling of him pulsing inside me moments ago as he groaned my name and bit into my shoulder begging me to come with him was all I'd ever need to feel alive, then the vibration of his tenor voice rumbling deeply in his broad chest with my ear pressed against it is a close second.
"All my father ever wanted was for me to have the best possible education," he says, stroking the back of my arm with his fingertips.
"Learn, Edward Anthony, he used to say. Read and write and listen and enjoy everything this world has to offer. And I did. I studied and I read just like he told me to and I was accepted into the University of Chicago." His body tenses at the sound of his own voice saying the words and I kiss his chest to tell him it's ok.
"Pritzker School of Medicine," he continues. "And that's where I met Tanya. She was working at a bar in town while she saved money to go to college. She was a runaway but she was working hard to get her life together. I liked her right away."
He's quiet for a few moments, and I let him go to the place where he needs to go to find those memories.
"We'd been going out for a few months into my freshman year when I got a call in my dorm room one night that my parents were killed in a car accident."
"Edward - "
"I couldn't afford to pay for school. My father's debts ate up my entire inheritance. I had no money of my own. When the collection agencies came calling, we took off running."
He sighs and drapes his arm over his eyes. "Sorry."
"No. Please. Keep going."
"She's been dead for six months." He takes his arm off his eyes and rests it on the small of my bare back.
"That's why I was stealing, Bella. I haven't had a relationship with anyone since. Shit, I've barely had a relationship with myself. After she died I drank and gambled away everything we saved together. I didn't want any of that money. It made me sick to think where it came from, how we got it, how we dreamed of spending it. So I blew it all."
He starts laughing and I lift my head in question.
"I thought for sure you'd tell me that I was an idiot for doing that," he smiles.
"Mmhmm," I nod and rest my head back in its comfy spot on his chest. He takes a deep breath and keeps going.
"Tanya was diabetic. I never knew. She never told me. And she obviously wasn't getting her prescriptions filled. When her parents were told of her death her father pressed charges. He said that since she was in my care that I was responsible for her, that I had brainwashed her into running away from home and her death was my fault. All accusations without proof but for a parentless fuck up like me they could easily keep me in jail while his claims were investigated. ...It was your father who bailed me out and convinced her dad to ease up."
"What? My dad bailed you out of jail? I thought you stole his horse?"
"Oh I did that too. And I killed his best friend's daughter."
"Best friend? Are you talking about Arthur Denali?" I've heard the name several times growing up but never met the man in person. All I know is that he runs the operations arm of a large farming machinery company in the Pacific Northwest.
"So you can understand why I owe him my life?" he asks, raising his eyebrows and holding me tight. "I'll take whatever your father gives me. I won't argue. I won't fight back. Do you see now? He saved me. I ripped him off and he still helped me. He doesn't want you to know all these things because he doesn't want you to fall for me."
"Too late for that," I murmur and press my lips to his heated skin.
"I never respected Tanya's family. I won't do that again. I won't make the same mistake with you. Not with your father. He's a good man, Bella. I'll pay him back for everything, even if it takes the rest of my life. Which it just might," he snorts sarcastically.
"Thank you."
A slight laugh shakes his chest and I know he's smiling. "For what?"
"For sharing that story with me."
...
It could have all been a dream. Edward opening up and exposing his deepest secrets to me under the cover and safety of darkness and sex. It was something I'd only dreamt of. And like all dreams, you have to wake up.
"Are you out of your mind?! I don't need to tell you how incredibly stupid, not to mention monumentally dangerous, this is. Especially if the boss were to find out!"
"Listen Carlisle, will you -"
"Is she up there? Answer me!"
"Yes."
"Christ. Go put some clothes on."
"Don't rat me out. Please."
"This is my job on the line. You wanna get your rocks off, fine - "
"- Don't talk about her like that."
"I've known Miss Swan a hell of a lot longer than you, so I think I will use my seniority in that department to negate your physical familiarity with the bosses's daughter."
"I won't let you cheapen what she means to me. I love her."
"Perfect. What do you want me to do, Edward? Huh? You're late for morning chores. I think you're sick and I come in here to find you with - shit, I'd rather find you in here with Emmett! That I could explain. This? There is nothing worse than this."
...
"There's a position open at the lodge," Alice cheerily announces, barging into my room already in the middle of a conversation. She flops down on my bed and kicks off her shoes.
"And even though I still have a year left until I get my business management degree I think your dad is going to let me interview with Hollie, the front of the house manager!"
"Heidi," I clarify.
"Duh, right, Heidi."
"And she's floor supervisor," I correct curtly.
"Oh right that's what I meant. Anyways, it would only be an internship to start but anything is better than being in charge of laundry," she gags. "At first I'm sure it will be a lot of that admin stuff that you used to do."
She must see my back stiffen as I pull clothes out of my closet and toss them on the floor because our eyes meet and her mouth falls open.
"Not that - I don't mean what you did - do - isn't - wasn't - I mean you did, do, a lot of other stuff and – "
"It's fine, Al. Don't have an episode. Heidi is really nice, I'm sure you'll get the job." I give her a sincere smile to show her I'm just in a crabby mood and that I still love her.
"I know, right? Okay, enough about me. Let's talk about you!" She bounces to the edge of the bed and surveys the suitcases and various piles of shoes and clothes and toiletries spread out on the carpet.
"Look at you packing! Girl, you are going to college!"
And I know she's trying to be positive, trying to keep my mind off the cold hard fact that I am leaving for the other side of the country tomorrow morning at 6am sharp. Three months ago I wouldn't have cared. I'd be jumping out of my skin raring to shed this woodsy life that has held me for seventeen years (eighteen in exactly a week) and emerge ready to face the big bad world and make it my bitch. Everything had been planned out step-by step for years.
Then this summer he arrived. That tall, lithe elephant in the room.
Things with Edward have been...well, strained...ever since Carlisle caught us climbing down the loft ladder in nothing but our birthday suits. Edward tried to reason with him while I hid under the blankets with my face burning bright red. It seemed to work. Carlisle eventually walked out of the stable and Edward climbed up the ladder and back into bed with me.
"Don't worry, baby. He's not going to tell."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"I love you, Edward."
"I love you, too, baby."
Carlisle didn't rat us out but he did make Edward's life a living hell for the final weeks of our summer together. He kept Edward out in the farthest reaches of the fields, working on projects that took days in a row to complete. The few times we were able to sneak away for a few stolen moments in the trees behind the lodge or the one time we locked ourselves in Emmett's cabin, Edward would whisper his true feelings in poems, what I meant to him, how this was only temporary and how, if I wanted him, he would be mine forever.
We pretended that time wasn't passing - that OUR time wasn't winding down. That the leaves would never turn and the days would never shorten.
Last month every man on staff was flown to the American Ranch Horse Association's National Convention in Bowling Green, Kentucky for two weeks. It had been torture watching the van pull out of the driveway to take Edward to the airport. While he was gone I kept busy with frequent visits to town - shopping and stocking up on college life necessities. I saw alot of movies.
Edward's been back from Kentucky for nearly ten days now and four days ago was the first time I saw him. Not that I hadn't wanted to jump on him the second the van arrived back from the airport. But there was so much to do. I had to complete my placement testing and compile my final grades and then there's confirmation of housing and preliminary coursework syllabi to wade through. There's packing and planning and endless phone calls between the dean and my father where I sit in my father's office and stare out the window until I'm called to attention with an inane question or demand thrown my way.
The one or two times that I managed to sneak out in the middle of the night and creep up into Edward's loft...he wasn't there.
Hey, I came by last night.
Oh yeah?
Yeah. Um, to your loft. I snuck out. But you weren't there.
Oh.
Where were you?
Out, I guess.
No big deal, right? I was busy. He was busy. I pretended like nothing had changed. Like there wasn't an invisible wedge being driven between us.
...
"So what do you want to do for your last night here? Sleep over in my room like old times? Shots of Jager till we puke?"
"Tempting," I snort. "I have to go to bed early. Daddy's having a car pick me up at 5:45 in the morning."
"Ugggggh that is soooo early." Alice rolls on her back and plays dead. "But I suppose I can get my tired ass up to see my best friend off." She jumps up and attacks me with tickles. "After all, who loves ya more than me?"
...
I finally find him at The Roadhouse. He's sitting alone at the bar staring into a squat glass half-filled with tan liquid, ignoring the flirty female bartender and her attempts at small talk. He's wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and his hair is so long that it's fluffing out the back and sides. I watch him tuck a tuft of it behind his ear.
The sight of him brings the threat of tears to my eyes. My body shudders. My face heats. Dear God how I love him. How I want to run to him and pepper his beautiful face with sweet kisses. I'll apologize for everything. I'll forgive him anything. There's nothing we can't work out. I will fight for him. He's more than worth it.
"There you are," I say, cooly sliding onto the barstool next to him.
"Here I am." He's wearing that familiar blue grey flannel with the sleeves rolled up his tanned, toned arms.
"I wanted to, y'know, see you. To say goodbye."
He takes another sip and nods, still looking straight ahead.
"I leave tomorrow morning. 6am."
He looks at his watch.
"It's midnight."
"I didn't think I'd find you. I didn't want to leave without - "
"Don't worry about it."
"Of course I-"
"It doesn't matter."
"What?"
"It's fine, Bella." He swirls the melted ice around in the bottom of his glass.
"Why are you being this way?"
"What way?"
"The way you're being. Cold and distant."
"Ahh, sort of like the way you've been acting since I got back from Kentucky?"
Touche.
"Edward, I'm-"
"Don't. Don't apologize. I told you, it doesn't matter. Like you said, you're leaving tomorrow. You don't have to let me down gently."
"I know what you're doing. You're pushing me away to make it easier. I won't let you shut me out." And with that he turns to face me, swiftly knocking me off guard with the pained look in his eyes.
"Me shut you out? Are you serious? I've been back for ten fucking days and you've said a total of three sentences to me. In ten days!"
"I looked for you," I answer lamely. But he's right.
"Before I left you couldn't keep your hands off me. We couldn't get enough of each other. We'd sneak around and lie about where we were going. We'd do it anywhere we could in any amount of time we could find. Remember?"
"Of course I remember." Wet mouths, panting breaths, hushed moans, glances over shoulders, clawing, nipping, standing up, balancing on shaking legs and arms, pulling hair, red scratches on skin for days.
He swivels around and turns his attention back to the glass.
"It doesn't matter. What did you think was really going to happen between us anyway?"
"I - I don't know," I stutter feeling suddenly unprepared for an exam. "I hadn't thought about it."
"You hadn't thought about it," Edward mimicks cruelly. He rolls his eyes and motions for the eager bartender to bring him another round. "You've had all summer to think about it. I know I've thought about it."
"I hadn't thought about it," I repeat, shifting awkwardly. "I never had to think about what would happen between us because there was no us. How could I think about our future when I was too busy thinking about what it took to make you laugh or wondering how to get assigned to the same shift as you in the hopes that maybe you'd say something to me, that maybe I'd find out something about you, like, fuck I don't know, like if you took ice in your soda or...if you liked to rollerskate...or if you'd like me."
He's staring at me now with those piercing jade flecked eyes. His drink long forgotten. Jeziz, Bella, way to bring the drama to the next level. Well, at least I have his attention.
"I'm scared." I shrug and I let the tears come. "I don't know what I'm doing. It's all happening so fast. I thought you being in Kentucky would prepare me for when it was my turn to leave - - but it just made me more realize how much I'm going to miss you and -"
"Hey hey, hey." He sighs and takes both my hands in his. "I love you, Bella. Nothing has changed for me. I won't forget you. I won't stop thinking about you. Wanting you. I already know that after you've gone you'll still live in my every moment. I hope you feel the same."
His lips catch mine and the tang of whisky and mint and cigarettes fill my nostrils, the velvet softness of his lips send my hands winding around his neck to pull him impossibly closer.
"I do. I do. Oh God, Edward."
"Let me take you out of here," he breathes into my mouth.
"Yes," is all I can manage to say.
So Bella's gone. What happens now? ;) I just realized I've been writing this story for over a year. Thank you for your patience. xoxo.