Alright guys, this took me a while... I'm sorry about that, but times just got way too busy again. Hopefully, the next update will be a little more prompt than this one. Thank you to everybody for the nice words, follows, and favorites. I really appreciate it!
What on Earth Was She Thinking?
Tuesday, 11-19-2011/7:15 p.m.
Hauptsee, Switzerland
Elisabeth's Pov.
Esme Cullen had appeared to be a decent and kind-hearted woman. She had sounded genuinely eager to talk to me and help me make sense of all of this. I could see why Bella seemed to like her so much. It had been obvious that she was also worried about my daughter's wellbeing and I appreciated that tremendously. I was sure that she was both a good mother and a great teacher. Esme Cullen might not have given me any tangible information during that short conversation, but she had somehow still managed to calm me down and helped me keep a cool head.
Still not exactly relaxed, but much more composed I summed along to one of Chopin's nocturnes as I reached the parking lot if the ballet school. Abigail was already skipping towards the car as I pulled into my normal spot and she hopped right in her booster sit. I just had to make sure that she was strapped in safely, she was still too young to do that entirely herself.
Abigail didn't stop talking about the ballet lesson during the entire drive home and I was actually kind of glad that she took my mind off of other things. I enjoyed listen to her chattering; it reminded me of Bella when she was younger. They both felt very passionate about dancing (and so had I when I was younger, but over the past years, I had to accept that I simply no longer had enough time to keep up with practicing and that I was well past my prime years as a ballerina). Looking at her gleaming eyes and listening to her enthusing about the instructor in a way put me back in time. I knew exactly how she was feeling.
She was the cutest little girl. Quite mature for her age, but still a child through and through. Every day was an adventure for her, and she couldn't wait to see more of the world. Life was exciting and she was never sad for more than just a few minutes. Childhood could be such a blessing. Her biggest enemy was the neighbors' mean dog and her biggest hero was her mother. The worst pain she knew was a scraped knee and she still couldn't wait to grow up. I wished she could stay this little and innocent forever, but I knew that adulthood was inevitable. And hadn't we all wanted to grow up as quickly as possible?
Suddenly, I heard a giggle from the back seat. I turned around to see what Abby was laughing about. "Don't you want to get out of the car? We've been here forever!" she asked me, obviously amused about how deep in thoughts I had been. I had, in fact, parked this car a couple of minutes ago, but I was so busy thinking that I had never even thought about getting in the house. I smiled at her. "That's right, sweetheart, I probably should do that." She giggled again. A wall of damp frigid air hit me when I opened the driver's door, so I hurried up and got Abby out of her seat as quickly as possible.
"What's for dinner?" Abby wanted to know. "Pasta and salad. Why don't you put your bag in your room while I finish cooking?" She ran up the stairs. I had been planning to make pasta casserole, but Bella had messed up my plans. The already chopped carrots and bell peppers would now go in the salad instead and a jar of tomato sauce would have to do. I doubted that Abigail would care. I quickly put some water on the stove to boil, then I set the table.
Just when I poured a bag of pasta into the pan of boiling water, the front door was opened, and Charles stepped into the house. I immediately went over to him. "Lizzie? Is everything all right?" he asked, clearly worried. I ran straight into my husband and wrapped my arms tightly around him. He hadn't expected that, and he stumbled for a second, but then he carefully rubbed my back. "What happened?" he wanted to know. I started shivering. So far, I had done a pretty good job at keeping a straight face, but now I was starting to struggle. Crying was not an option now, though, I had to stay strong for a little longer.
"Bella's here" I whispered. Charles was obviously just as taken aback as I had been. "But…" he started, but he didn't get any farther. I kissed him to stop him from talking, as I could here Abby's little feet on the stairs. She squeaked with pleasure when she saw that my husband had finally arrived back at home and ran towards us to hug him. She wrapped her arms around his lower thighs because that was simply the only thing she could reach. I left them alone to finish my dinner preparations. The pasta was probably just about ready.
I strained off the water and put the food on the table. "Dinner's ready!" I called and the others joined me in the dining room. It looked like they were hungry. The atmosphere was pretty tense while we were eating, it was obvious that Charlie and I would have to have conversation as soon as Abby was out of earshot. Luckily, the girl was very eager to get upstairs and play the piano after eating, so we didn't have to keep up this farce for too long. She ran upstairs impatiently, we could hear her get on the stool and just a couple of seconds later we could the first few measures of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star resounded.
It made me smile. Bella had taught her how to play that song a couple of months ago, before things started going down hill quite rapidly. It was one of only four songs Abby could play on the piano, but she never seemed to grow tired of practicing the same few measures over and over.
There was definitely improvement – the melody was actually recognizable now, which had not been the case a few weeks earlier. There were still wrong notes here and there, but Abigail just kept practicing with an astounding amount of patience – especially for a 4-year-old. I tried to help her whenever I could, but she was dead set on teaching herself.
Playing the piano was another thing that Abby couldn't wait to learn. It was just like reading and dancing and pretty much everything that Bella liked. Bella was her biggest idol and she wanted to be just like her. She was a talented reader and a decent dancer (at least as far as we could tell, it was still a little too early to tell), but she would probably not be the next Mozart. She wasn't bad or anything, just lacking some God-given talent. Of course, we didn't tell her that and as long as she enjoyed making music, we wouldn't stop her.
"What did you mean when you said that Bella is here? She can't be, she's in America!" Charles asked me. I shrugged. "That's what I thought until she showed up at our doorstep approximately two hours ago. I don't know why she came; she didn't want to tell me anything before you got home. She didn't want Abby to see her, so I hid her in the library, in that secret room. I called Esme Cullen, the principal at her new school before I picked up Abby. She assured me that Bella didn't just disappear without any notice and that she had her permission to come here, but she also didn't want to tell me much. It's just… I can feel that something isn't right and I'm worried. Bella looks worse, she seems so confused and Mrs Cullen also sounded slightly concerned" I tried to explain as best as I could. Charles nodded hesitantly.
I sighed. "I'm going to bring her something to eat. Can you get Abby ready for bed? I'll come back and kiss her goodnight, then we can go over to the library and talk to Bella together." I proposed. Charles agreed.
Bella still seemed distraught when I brought her the food a few minutes later. She tried to make it look like everything was perfectly fine, but I had seen the dark shadows under her eyes and the tear she had tried to wipe away as inconspicuously as possible. That tear was maybe what worried me most. It was not like Bella to cry, at least not in the presence of other people. It took a lot to make her lose her composure. Whatever she wanted to talk to us about, it had to be serious. At least she had come out of her shell a little bit. That was a step in the right direction.
On one hand, I really wanted to know what was going on, but then again, I dreaded finding out. I was now positive that I wouldn't like whatever she had to say. Sometimes I wondered if I actually even knew my daughter. I knew that there was so much we didn't know. The sheer amount of worry I knew she kept hidden from us almost drove me crazy. We had spent years trying to get her to talk to us if anything was wrong and I knew that she had gotten a lot better at coming to us with her concerns, but it was still far from enough. I just hoped that the thousands of miles of physical distance that were now (well, not now) would not drive us even further apart.
By now, I was back in our living room. I had just read Abby her daily goodnight story and tucked her in. We would wait another few minutes until she was fast asleep, then we could finally go over to Bella to have a much-needed conversation. Charles was sitting in his armchair. It was ancient and the leather was become more brittle by the day, but we all were attached to that piece of furniture. It was incredibly comfortable and there were so many great memories around that armchair, so nobody wanted to get rid of it anytime soon – well, except for my mother, who had been complaining about the thing for years.
Charles was holding a book, but it didn't look like he was reading. The book wasn't open, and he was just gazing at the cover. I stepped closer and leaned over the back of the armchair in order to be able to see what exactly he was staring at so intently.
Now that I could see the cover, I recognized it immediately. It was a photo album – I myself had glued in the pictures many years ago. It was tightly packed with photographs of Isabella, each and every one was carefully labeled, to preserve the memories. The last picture in this album had been taken when Bella was about 11 years old. We also had an album for the newer photos, but no one ever took that one from the bookshelf to see the snapshots inside. It just made us sad.
This one, on the other side, was fantastic. The first few pages were a little shocking – still after all those years. Bella was much too skinny and always looked so frightened of this world. The beautiful about it was how you could see how she was doing better with every picture.
It had been a miracle how she had made it out of that situation alive and how quickly she had been able to recover. I didn't even want to think about how her life would have turned out if Charlie hadn't found her in time. I was quite proud to have been a part of helping her thrive and grow into a confident young woman – which had made it even more painful to see that development be halted so suddenly.
Charlie's Pov., a couple of minutes later
"We shouldn't let her wait any longer. I think Abby is asleep and I don't feel comfortable with letting Bella sit in the library all by herself. She's not feeling well, and I also need to know why she came here before the suspense drives me crazy." Lizzy sounded seriously concerned. "Then let's go" I replied and took her hand. It was raining outside, so we walked as fast as we could without having to run. The sky had turned a strange orange-grey color and the temperature had dropped considerably over the past few hours. I was cold. The rain was slowly turning into a slushy mixture of water and snow.
"Looks like we've got a snowstorm heading our way" Elisabeth said as she looked up to the sky. I nodded. This would be the first snow of the year; it had been unseasonably warm for some time. Practically everybody around here could hardly wait until the ground was covered in a thick white sheet of snow – it always was that way after a long and warm fall. It looked like they'd finally get their way now. I had read in the weather forecast that they were expecting large quantities of snow to fall in the very near future.
We arrived at the library and didn't waste any time getting to the secret door. Elisabeth hadn't pushed back the shelf (understandable, as the thing was probably simply too heavy for her to push on her own), so we didn't have any trouble accessing the staircase, which we were both glad about. Neither of us really wanted to wait much longer. The steps creaked loudly as we went up the stairs. When we opened the second door, the one that lead to the actual room on the second room, I spotted Bella sitting on the old velvet couch, reading on of the ancient books. She seemed absolutely immersed in whatever she was currently reading – not very surprising as it took a lot of concentration to decipher the outdated fonts and make sense of complicated sentence structures that were no longer in common use.
What I did find surprising, however, was that she hadn't seemed to notice us yet. Usually, Isabella was a very alert person, so this was very atypical for her. It was apparent that Lizzy had made the same observation and she looked seriously concerned. After a few more seconds, I cleared my throat to draw her attention to our presence. From experience, I knew that it could be dangerous to walk up to her if she didn't expect it. Her reactions were unpredictable and sometimes even dangerous. She winced and jerked her head around. Her eyes looked startled.
"Mom, Dad…" she mumbled, almost out of breath. Bella stared at us for another few seconds, then she got up and started walking in our direction. When she was just a few feet away, she stopped abruptly. I could feel my heart breaking just a little bit. The amount of pain and despair in her eyes was unbelievable. She looked broken. It was impossible not to notice that she was doing considerably worse than she was a few weeks ago. Although we had been hesitant when she had first told us that she wanted to change schools, we had all put a lot of hope in this new beginning. It had been obvious that she was unhappy here in Switzerland and we figured that she might just need a clean cut, new friends, a new school, a new country to start over.
Apparently, we had been wrong. I had no idea what had happened, I just knew that something must have gone terribly wrong. I could feel it. I looked back at her as calmly as possible because I knew it would help to get become upset in this situation. Maybe that could calm her down a little bit and give her some sense of stability. Elisabeth and I had spent many years trying to guide Bella through challenging times, so we knew pretty well what could sometimes help and what just made everything worse. She didn't make it easy – we always had to guess what was on her mind because she still wasn't too eager about talking to us about her worries – but we had learned from our experiences.
Suddenly, Bella took a big leap towards me and her hands gripped my arms firmly. She pushed herself against my chest. Although I was confused – this was not typical behavior for her – I put my arms around her and hugged her tightly. Carefully, I rubbed her back and she just started sobbing uncontrollably. That was something I had expected even less. Bella almost never cried, at least not in my presence. Her entire body was shaking, and I just kept holding on to her and gently rubbing her back in the hope that she would find it consoling. It was important that she got a chance to let out all of these pent-up emotions and I would try my very best to provide her with a safe and comforting environment to just let it out.
It took a long time for her to calm down. When, after several minutes, she was finally able to stand on her own two legs again, I carefully guided her to the sofa and sat her down on it. I took a seat next to her and Elisabeth did the same. For a while the three of us just sat there, nobody knew what to say. Eventually, Bella sighed. She seemed to want to tell us something, but she couldn't get herself to actually say it. Lizzie took her hand and squeezed it to encourage her. It seemed to help. She sighed again.
"I assume you would like to know why I came back here so suddenly and without informing you in advance. It's not like my stay in America lasted very long." Her voice was still slightly shaky, but it was impressive how much she had managed to calm herself down. Lizzie and I nodded reassuringly. Isabella laughed humorlessly. "Well, the thing is… I… I…" She fell silent again. It was like she couldn't breathe anymore, much less speak. We would just have to give her some time. Trying to rush anything would be counterproductive in this situation.
Elisabeth squeezed her hand again. It was painful for both of us to see her suffer like this. We had spent much of our lives trying to make sure that she knew that she could always confide it us. We cared about deeply and there was nothing she would ever have to hide from us, but Bella had always struggled with those things. We had always had an open ear for her and supported her through everything, but somehow, she still had a hard time sharing her feelings and experiences with us. She tended to keep everything to herself, until the weight on her shoulders got much to heavy for her to carry. We were at the end of our wits and not sure if there was anything else we could tell her to make her change that deeply unhealthy behavior.
"Did you kill somebody? I've got to be honest – I wouldn't love that idea, but I'm sure you'd have an excellent reason for murdering them" I said, trying to encourage her. After all, what could be worse than murdering somebody? It seemed to help. She shook her head and even smiled a tiny little bit. "No dad, I did not kill anybody. It's not – it's just… God darn it, I'm not a single bit better than Carlisle… I tell him that it can't be that hard to just… voice something, but then I can't speak even a single cohesive sentence myself…" she rambled. Bella was usually a very eloquent person and I wasn't sure if I had ever heard her struggle that much.
She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and bit her lower lip. "It… I am pregnant." A tear rolled down her cheek.
I shot up. Elisabeth – though visibly shaken too – shot me a warning glance. Right in that moment, some type of fuse inside of me blew. I was furious like maybe never before and so incredibly disappointed in her. How could she dare…? After all that we had done for her, that's what she did to us. I simply couldn't believe it. The anger inside of me just kept rising and rising. I was seething with rage and saw red.
Then, I started yelling at Bella. "What on earth were you thinking?! You're only 16, kiddo, couldn't you be even just a little responsible? You can't be serious! I really thought that I had raised you to be an upstanding and reasonable young lady, but what do you do? You disappoint me fully and completely. What you are going to do next should be clear. You are a disgrace" I screamed her. Bella got smaller and smaller with every word. She was whimpering miserably. Her lean body was shaking violently with sobs. Elisabeth was looking at me bewilderedly.
"Charles, let her explain for god's sake! I am positive that she has more to say. It's not like I am happy about any of this, but you know that Bella isn't one to become pregnant at 16 through sheer stupidity. Sit down!" she snapped at me. I shook my head and laughed drily. There was nothing Bella could say to me that would make any of this any better. I loved Elisabeth dearly and respected her more than anybody else, but I wouldn't let her make that choice or me.
"Sit down!" she repeated, louder than before, when I didn't show any sign of responding to her. I became even angrier when I heard that, but I eventually followed her orders and sat down in an old armchair. There was no way I was going to sit next to my daughter after this. The same was true for my wife, actually. I felt betrayed by both of them.
"Alright Bella, what else would you like to tell us? There has got to me more" she asked our daughter, now perfectly calm. She had Bella's back completely. I almost couldn't believe it. The fury made me feel nauseous. Bella sobbed again, but this time I didn't feel sorry for her at all. She had brought that upon herself.
"I… I didn't want any of this to happen! This was never how I wanted things to end!" she stuttered between sobs. Another dry laugh escaped my lips. "Not pull yourself together, girlie! Is Jacob the father, at the very least?" I asked acrimoniously. This one sentence seemed to change something within her. It was like I had flipped a switch inside her head. Bella gasped and started breathing much to quickly. Her crying became increasingly desperate and then, suddenly, she started to scream. This had turned into a full-scale panic attack. I couldn't understand it.
"Get out!" Lizzie yelled. I had never seen her be this furious. Her whole body was trembling with anger and face had turned an unhealthy shade of red. Desperately, she tried to somehow calm Bella down. She did not succeed. I turned on my heal and stormed out of the room.
All of this had got to be a terrible joke.