AN: I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am for the delay in this chapter. Everything has been a bit up in the air recently and my memory is like a freaking strainer and then there was complications with my beta so yeah...sorry.
I sighed and closed my eyes as the sun shine down on the bench I was sitting on. It was too early for anyone else in the house to be up and I had decided to take my dogs for a walk to clear the mess that was my head. The dew shone and glinted on the grass and I thought about the last week. I had been meaning to show Bella the journals I kept, but the day after we came back we had been too busy putting away bags and getting back into the flow of things.
I told Alice about my desire to show Bella them and she had told me to wait until the opportune moment. A time for which I was dubious enough to think that it most likely didn't exist. When exactly is the time to tell your loved one, or show as the case may be, the very depths of your soul written down on paper? My every thought, my every sin and confession, splayed along the pages in black ink.
After Tanya had died I had devoted hours to writing down every feeling and thought that entered me. Nothing was hidden in the words I wrote, it was me laid bare.
The subsequent arrival of Jasper and Rosalie had pushed any and all thoughts of my journals to the back of my mind. I would need a separate time, a time when it was just me and her, to show her it. I wasn't sure what her reaction to the journals would be, let alone the room that they had been stored, hidden away, in.
I opened my eyes and stared out around me to see that the world was coming alive. The sun had lit up the once darkened sky and the birds chirped in greeting of the new day.
"Edward?"
My head whipped to the left to see Bella walking towards me. My heart constricted and left in my chest, nerves mixed with happiness dominating my emotions. She was already dressed for the day, even though it couldn't have been more than six in the morning. She clutched her shawl closely around herself as the wind brushed to and fro through the trees. Even though the sun was out, it did little to stop the sting of the autumn wind.
"Bella, what are you doing out here? You should be resting inside." I admonished. She simply shook her head and took a seat beside me.
"I woke up and you were gone. It worried me. You've been acting distant and I wanted to make sure you were all right." She always saw through me, no matter how hard I tried to conceal things. I sighed again and looked over at her, "I've just been doing a lot of thinking." I said vaguely. She frowned, "About what?"
I paused for a second before tilting my head at her. I think this was the time that Alice had been talking about. I doubted anyone would be up this early and the likeliness that they would disturb us was slim.
I took a deep breath and stood up, offering Bella my hand, "I want to show you something." I could sense her confusion, but thankfully she didn't question me, she just put her hand in mine and stood up. I whistled to the dogs and they came bounding over as we made our way back to the house.
I could feel the trepidation pushing at my chest, the niggling doubt pressing me to not do this, but I ignored it. I had to do this, not just for Bella, but for me also.
When we entered the house I didn't waste time in climbing up the stairs and walked down the long corridor until we came to the door near the end. I felt up on the top of the door ram until my fingers brushed against the metal of the key. I took it down and unlocked the door before replacing it.
The door creaked from disuse as I turned the doorknob and opened it to reveal a staircase. I took hold of Bella's hand again and pulled her up the staircase behind me.
"Where are we going Edward?" she asked, but I just shook my head.
"You'll see."
I opened the door at the top of the stairs and stepped into the dark, musky smelling room. I hadn't been up here in months, yet it still looked the same as I had left it. I let go of her hand walked across the room, navigating it easily despite the darkness of it, and went around flinging open the curtains so she could see the room in all its glory.
She gasped loudly and I didn't dare turn around to look at her. I wasn't sure I could take her reaction to it. I kept my back straight and stared blankly out of the window. This room was where I kept a part of me hidden. A part of me that I knew I would have to revisit. This room held the last piece of Tanya in it. This was the nursery we had set up for our child.
I could hear Bella's hesitant feet move across the floor as she moved the heavy sheets covering the furniture away.
"You've kept this locked away all this time," she whispered, "since..." She trailed off, knowing that we both knew the end of that sentence.
I nodded slightly and turned around steeling myself for the sight that greeted me. She had uncovered the crib and a rocking chair that had gifts from my parents. I let out a shaky breath, had it really been so long since it had happened?
"The last time I came up here was a few months before I left for the army. I kept a journal after her...their...death and when I left I stored them up here." I could still remember that day like it was yesterday.
It was just after the last of the things I needed had been packed up and I had placed the journals that I had been writing in since she died on the dusty, empty bookshelf. I had sworn to myself that I would leave this all behind when I left, that I would focus on my life now, not on my past.
My feet felt heavy as I moved towards the bookshelf and picked up the thick, bound journals. I walked back over to Bella and offered them to her.
"I brought you up here so you could see the side of me that I always hide. In these journals are every self-depricating, selfish, guilty thought that entered my mind between the time Tanya died and when I left for the army." She looked down at the journals that I was offering to her and then looked back uo at me with tears in her eyes.
"Oh Edward, you don't need to show me this," she murmured and I shook my head wanting desperately for her to understand.
"You don't understand Bella. I do need to show you this. I want to be completely honest with you. I hold so much of myself back because I'm afraid to get hurt again. What I felt for Tanya doesn't hold a candle to my feelings for you. If anything ever happened to you it would kill me, but not as much as the fact that you never got to know me properly. I want you to know me, every flaw, every shortcoming, everything. I need you to know me as I am and I can't do that if I hold so much of myself back from you. This is the only way I know how to show you the real me."
She nodded wordlessly and gently took them out of my hands. She brushed her hand of the first one's cover almost reverently.
"Are you sure?" she asked, searching my eyes for the sincerity that she needed to open it. I nodded and gave her a small smile. The weight that rested heavily on chest balanced precariously on the tip of a knife. It could wither crush me or be lifted off me and as she opened the journal to the first page I found I didn't want see her reaction. I couldn't bare it if she rejected me.
I turned away from her and walked back to the window, staring aimlessly at the scenery as the world woke up.
"May 1st, I don't know what I'm meant to be feeling. Pain, anger, sadness, grief? It seems that right now all emotion escapes me. I feel paralyzed in my own skin. Merely drifting in a life that no longer seems my own..." My fingers dug into the windowsill hard enough to draw blood and my jaw clenched tightly as she read it aloud.
Just hearing my written thoughts spoken from her mouth was enough to make me knees weaken.
"Alice think that somehow writing down my feelings and thoughts will make me feel better, but how can I feel better when I don't feel at all. Maybe if I had someone other than myself to blame then I could face it. They keep telling me that it it wasn't my fault, that it happened to many girls because they were simply to young and small to bear children. If she was too young and small why did they make us marry so young, why did they let me put my seed in her if they knew she wasn't ready to carry it. I can't really blame them though, they didn't know she would die. They weren't the ones who put the wheels of her death in motion. The responsibility of that lies solely on me. I can see it every time I close my eyes. There was so much blood, it looked so red against her pale skin. I can feel the weight of her lifeless blue eyes searing into me, blaming me for her demise, accusing me of not giving her enough, not loving her enough..."
Bella trailed off and I turned to see tears falling down her cheeks. Her fingers shook as she closed it and held it close to her chest almost reverently. "Edward..." Her eyes stared into mine imploringly and I couldn't take it any longer.
No matter what her decision was, whether she rejected me or not, I had to take her in my arms and just hold her. I strode across the room and took her in my arms gently as she sobbed against my shoulder. I rocked her gently and placed a kiss in her hair.
"Don't cry love," I whispered, closing my eyes from the onslaught of my own emotion. "Not for me, or for what I wrote. It isn't worth it, I'm not worth it." She recoiled away from me like I had slapped her and stared at me in disbelief.
"Do you actually believe that?" she asked tears still streaming down her face. I sighed and looked away. The rawness of the wound that had been re-opened weakening me. "Edward Anthony Cullen, you look at me right now and answer the question." I looked back at her to see anger flashing in her eyes.
"Bella..." I started, but she cut me off. "Don't 'Bella' me Edward. Answer the question. Do you believe you aren't worth my tears?" I clenched my jaw and raked a hand through my hair before slumping into the rocking chair and letting my head fall back.
"I don't know. I look at myself, my life and see every mistake that I ever made. Maybe I deserved every folly and pain that befell me. I don't know what I do and do not deserve..." I trailed off. I was too emotional exhausted to carry on this conversation. The thoughts in my head no longer made sense as they muddled together and tripped over themselves trying to gather in an orderly fashion.
I closed my eyes and let out a sigh as I felt Bella's hands cup my face.
"You do deserve my tears. Every one that falls. Whether they be angry, hurt or sad. Every one belongs to you and I wouldn't have it any other way. You showed me how beautiful the world can be if you look at it in the right way and no matter what, you will always be in my heart." I opened my eyes slowly and drew her into my lap. I placed a hand at the back of her neck and drew her head down so that I could mold my lips with hers. How did she always know what to say to me to make me feel better?
She let out a small moan as she fisted on her hands into in shirt, pulling me closer to her.
"You show me such passion Edward, such love," she murmured between heavy kisses as her hand pulled my shirt from my trousers and dipped under to touch the hard plains of my chest. "What are you doing to me woman?" I groaned into her mouth feeling the need in my trousers bulge as my desire grew.
Just then I heard the stairs creak and my head immediately shot up as my eyes widened. Bella looked at me with an equal amount of panic and tried to climb off my lap as I hurriedly pulled my shrt back into my trousers and straightened out my hair. I quickly yanked her back into my lap shaking my head and motioning to the erection protunding in my lap.
She blushed but stayed put as Alice and Jasper came up the stairs.
Alice smiled warmly as she looked around, "So you showed her the nursery...I think with a bit of redecorating that this place would be perfect for the little one on the way." Jasper eyed me cautiously, having been in the family long enough to know my reaction towards anything that had to do with Tanya was generally not positive.
Neither commented on the intimate position they had found us in.
I loosened my grip around her waist nodding slightly, telling her that it was safe to move now. Bella moved off my lap and brushed out any creases from her dress that had formed from our impromptu kissing. She moved effortlessly to where she left the journals and picked them up.
"I think anything you do will be lovely Alice," she commented causing Alice to beam. I leaned forwards in the chair placing my feet firmly on the ground so the chair wouldn't rock. I leant my head on my elbows and looked around at all the old memories in the room. Maybe it was time to start making new ones.
Jasper came over to me while Alice and Bella started talking about ways to make the room pretty without it being for a specific gender.
"She's really started to heal you, hasn't she?" he said quietly. I let a small smile tug at my lips,"Yes, she's turned my whole world upside down and I wouldn't have it any other way."
AN: There we have it! Review!
