EPOV
December 12th
By the time I got off the phone with Rosalie, my shaking hands barely able to put the receiver down on the right place on the wall, I was late for my shift at the hospital. Somehow I managed to chug a cup of coffee while fixing my tie as I flew out the door. Traffic was light but it didn't stop me from speeding in time with the thoughts in my head.
I pulled into one of the spots reserved for employees and interns still tying my tie with one hand and slinging my ID badge around my neck with the other. Breaking into a jog I made my way through the parking lot in time to see Felix sailing through the sliding doors with his leather jacket slung over his lab coat.
"What's with the perma-grin?" he asked with a yawn. "I just got off a triple and even I don't look as happy as you."
I pulled him into a bro-hug before he could say another word.
"She had the baby."
Saying it made it real for the first time. Bella had her baby. She did it. She was so scared of labor but she made it and I was so fucking proud of her. I didn't know if it was a boy or a girl and Rosalie wasn't talking. It was for Bella to tell, she said, and I needed to call her. And I would. I would definitely call her. Knowing how taxing labor is on the body, especially someone as petite as Bella, she'd be sleeping or in various states of exhaustion for the next six to twelve hours so it would be best to let her rest. I contemplated sending a text but after the way we left things the last time I was in Forks, texting would be a pussy move.
"She?" Felix crinkled his brow, waiting for me to elaborate. I smirked and the curtain lifted. "Ohhhhh, sheeee, the One. Well," he looked at his watch. "She went a little early, didn't she. But nothing too serious I suppose. Lemme guess, you're heading out there to be with her and you need everyone on the floor to cover your shifts right before the holidays. Am I right? Well no fucking way that's gonna happen, pal. You'll be eaten alive if you try to pull that shit. And you're a noob? Even the 'But I'm a Cullen' card won't win you this hand when it comes to coverage over Christmas break. Sorry. Send a gift."
"I'm not going."
Felix took a step back blinking repeatedly and dramatically with his hand over his heart.
"Really? Wow, Cullen, I have to say I'm shocked. Shocked is what I am."
"That's not all you are," I muttered.
"Do I want to know why you're not leaving on a jet plane to be with your lady love?"
I cleared my throat and made my way into the lobby. This was exactly the part of the conversation I wanted to avoid having with my gossip-obsessed friend.
"Like you said, I can't get the time off and I'm on thin ice here as it is. And anyway, last time I was out there..." I rubbed my eyes with my thumbs. "Yeah I'd rather not relive it right before my shift."
"Fair. See you at the bar tonight?"
"Ugh I really shouldn't. Every time I go out with you I spend the next day apologizing to everyone I know."
"Erroneous. It's when you're left to your own devices without me to protect you that you are easily led astray. I promise that will not happen tonight. You. Me. The table way in the back by the dart board for a much needed bro gossip sesh." He waggled his eyebrows while he waited for an answer.
"How are you such a good doctor?" I laughed, shaking my head as I headed inside. "Fine. See you around 10. First round's on you."
The day went by in a blur of ER calls, never-ending pages, vomit, blood, you name it. The emergency room was short-staffed so my rounds were covered by an intern while I covered for another resident. There were no bathroom breaks, no lunch, no smokes. I took a five minute catnap standing up against the water cooler. Thankfully my relief arrived on time and there was no need for me to pull a double.
I was just badging out for the night when I heard my name over the intercom paging me to the nurse's station.
"Phone call, sweetie," said the charge nurse, handing me the receiver.
My heartbeat sped up at the thought that it might be Bella. The thought of the sound of her voice in my ear sent chills down my spine. I'd tell her right away that I loved her, that I was sorry for everything I needed to be sorry for, that I would do and be anything she wanted me to be. Everything would be alright. Everything would be perfect! But my heart stopped just as quickly when I heard the voice on the other end.
...
Racing down the sidewalk I took the stairs to our apartment two at a time. The elevator was too fucking slow and by her tone, every second counted. Down the hall and calling out her name as I pushed through the already open door. Tripping over the kitchen chair laying on its side, the crackle of broken glass under my shoes. I called her name again.
"Tanya!"
"In here," came a weak response. In here? In where? The sight of pasta sauce getting cold on the kitchen table. Empty beer bottles on the counter. Sauce on the floor, smear stains on the wall. The smell of anger and fear and cologne. We'd been robbed. That was the only explanation. Jesus Christ we'd been fucking robbed!
The bathroom door was locked.
"Tanya open up. Unlock the door. It's me. It's Edward."
I tried the knob again. Nothing.
"Tanya?"
With my ear to the door I heard the tiny sounds whimpering children make when they know they're in trouble.
"It's Edward, sweetie," I said softly into the crack. "Open the door, Tanya. There's no one else out here. It's just me."
"Are you sure?" she squeaked.
"I promise."
Thirty seconds passed and I didn't speak again. Finally the click of the lock and she stood in front of me with her head bowed.
I took a step closer. She took a step back, her hand on the lightswitch.
"Look at me, Tan," I said tenderly. The florescence of the bathroom light hid her face. I took a deep breath and steadied the shake in my voice.
"What happened? Let me see. Tanya. Let me see. Are you hurt?" I took her by the arm and pulled her towards me but she cried out in pain and sunk to the floor.
As gingerly as I could I lifted her chin to the light. Light purple bruises wet with tears were forming on both cheeks. She flitted her eyes away from my open-mouthed stare but I could still see the evidence that she'd been struck several times. Her bottom lip puffed out unnaturally.
"My god," I breathed in disbelief. My eyes scanned her body. Her stockings were torn. The strap of her dress snapped and broken. Her knees were bloody, leaving streaks of red on the tile. I pushed her hair out of her face and she fell into me, her body shaking with the force of her sobs.
"Everything's going to be ok," I whispered. "I'm calling the police. We'll find out who did this."
"Jason," is what I thought I heard her eke out into my shoulder.
"What?"
"Jason," she repeated, sniffling.
"Jason?" She nodded. "Jenks?" She nodded again. My jaw flexed. "You're saying Jason Jenks did this to you?"
She covered her face with her hands and nodded a final time.
My memory is a little foggy after that.
BPOV
March 5th
"This online class is kicking my ass," I sighed shuffling into the kitchen to check on Matthew's formula. "But you couldn't wait, could you? You just had to start in the spring. As if you don't already have enough on your plate. Maybe one of these days you'll get around to taking the decaying Christmas tree down."
I laughed out loud at that and it echoed around the kitchen, reminding me of how alone I was.
It's amazing how much people want to be around in the beginning when a baby first comes home. You can't shove them out of your house once they get in, with the cooing and the holding and the baby-babbling and the incessant photo-taking. And when they finally leave it's all, Just call if you need anything, anything at all, a sitter or an extra pair of hands. And yeah they mean it at first. It's the right thing to say. I just wanna eat that precious baby up. Right. Until that precious baby throws up all over you for the last time. Or refuses to sleep for more the ten minutes at a clip. Then where did everybody go? Sorry, sweetie, I got called into the office, I have to work late, I have a cold, can't be around babies when you're sick.
This must be a bad months for colds. Sitting alone at the kitchen table I took inventory in my head.
Charlie lasted until after Christmas before his cold came on. Extra shifts, investigations in Seattle and Portland, rookie training courses.
Renee showed up on New Year's day and lasted til the end of the week before her cold came on. She's been battling it ever since.
But that's ok because in a few weeks Matthew and I are getting colds of our own. We're packing up and saying goodbye to Forks for awhile. We're leaving this frigid cold behind us and we're going somewhere warm. Somewhere I have been meaning to go for a long time.
I'm taking Matthew to see his father and grandfather. That's right. We're going to Phoenix.
Irina's moved out of the house Jake and I shared during our brief marriage, leaving it empty, leaving the bills piling up, the yard unkept, the taxes needing to be paid. Plus, our belongings...mine and Jake's. Our things. His clothes. The furniture. Sell? Keep? I haven't decided. I'll figure it out when I get there. So far the only people I have told about the trip are Maggie and her mom. They've been great. Always offering their help, always meaning it. And I've taken them up on their offers to babysit a few times when I really needed to get some food shopping done or get in some quality time at the coffee shop with Rose and Alice whenever they're in town. Or the time I agreed to go to the movies with Mike.
Yes, Mike. ...Oh well, I don't feel like talking about Mike right now. As for Rose and Alice...our meet-ups are always fun and filled with laughter, chatter at a mile a minute. It's difficult to keep up with them when they're both going at full speed. Their lives have skyrocketed in a direction that's difficult for me to fathom. In what seems like minutes Rosalie has become one of the most sought after designers of high end, high fashion women's wear in the world. She and Alice opened the store in Seattle days after Matthew was born and the attention her clothing line received has been remarkable. She sold out all the pieces on the rack within the week and has been drowning in custom orders ever since. Requests to dress entire celebrity weddings, movie premieres, gala events, rubbing elbows with Vera Wang and Marc Jacobs. Target even approached her about creating an "affordable" collection for their stores alongside Issac Mizrahi. Alice keeps their schedule updated and organized in her iPhone and together they go over design ideas on Rose's iPad.
There isn't a spare second during our brief meetings over spiced lattes for me to ask them about him. And they never bring it up. It, meaning, him.
But he's never far from my mind. Each day there's at least one moment where I think of him, where I imagine what he might do or say in an everyday situation I find myself in. How he'd eat the burnt toast so I wouldn't feel wasteful. How he'd finish the last of the milk even if he wasn't thirsty just so I could put the container out with the rest of the recyclables in time for that weeks pick-up. Like the time I found a pimple on Matthew's bottom. At first I was horrified, then I started laughing at what Edward would think. Would he find it funny or gross or clinically significant? Yup, all three.
I never did find out why he never called the day Matthew was born. Rose said he would. She said he said he would. But he never did. And I never knew why. And I hated him ever since. I swore I'd hate him forever.
Until that first day in April, when Alice let it slip.
April 1st
Alice and I sat at a table by the window sipping our lattes while she thumbed through some preliminary designs Rose had sketched out in a notebook. She mumbled to herself while making notes in the margin with a mechanical pencil.
"These are great," I commented, pointing to a rough sketch of a pair of stilettos. "Is she getting into the shoe business?"
Alice smiled brightly. "Aren't they great? I told her she totally should. Clients are always asking. It's inevitable. If she does, I think she might put me in charge of the entire line." She flipped the page and pointed to a pair of fur-lined boots. "I drew these. Rose loved them. I think they'll be included in the collection." Alice's eyes blazed with excitement.
"I'm so happy for you, Al. This is so, so great."
"I wish you weren't moving," she said with a frowny face.
I broke the news to everyone last week. Kind of had to, what with the U-Haul trailer I had hitched to my truck just sitting out in the driveway.
"I'm not moving. I'm just...going for awhile." I forced a weak smile and squeezed Alice's hand.
In truth I didn't know how long I'd be or what I'd find once I got down there. I pushed the thoughts from my mind.
"Anyways on the bright side I finally used my Christmas gift cards to get one of those newfangled phones like you and Rose have. And you have my new number and it has that Skype thing built into it. Damned if I'll ever figure out how to use it, but hey, I could move to Tibet and we'll still be able to keep in touch." I giggled and pulled Alice into a hug. Her shoulders began to shake and I knew she was crying.
"Don't cry, sweetness. We'll always be together. We've been through rougher waters than this."
She shook her head, her lips trembling as they fought against the words that were about to come out.
"I know, Bella. It's not that. It's just...I'm so sorry...about Edward. So sorry...so...so..."
"Sorry? About Ed- Why are you saying this?"
"I should have said it ages ago," she whimpered, her dainty features contorted with regret. "I always thought about it. Thought about you and wondered if you were thinking of him and hating him for what he did to you, just leaving you like that...and then when all that shit happened with Tanya, I didn't know how to bring it up or if you'd even want to talk about it..."
"Talk about what, Alice? What shit with Tanya?" I yelped, nearly jumping out of my chair. I hadn't heard Edward's name uttered out loud in my presence in months and now this?
"See?" she cried, loud hiccuping whines. "I knew I should have said something to you, you're my best friend...but Rosalie said not to, because Emmett made it sound like it was really bad and anyways there was nothing you could do, you had a newborn to worry about. Matthew was feverish, remember? He wasn't sleeping and you were always so tired. You didn't need to deal with more shit."
"What shit, Alice? Matthew hasn't been feverish since he was six weeks old. Tell me what's going on!" I was yelling. Customers were looking but I didn't care. Alice kept talking, unstoppable, hysterical. The cafe employees were staring, inching closer.
"He tried to kill her, Bella!"
"What? Edward tried to kill Tanya!" I jumped up from the chair. My body shaking. My head fucking spinning.
Alice waved her hands in front her face. "No. Not Edward. Tanya's boyfriend. Jason. He beat her. He trashed the apartment. Edward came home and found her in a bloody ball on the bathroom floor. When she told him who did it...Edward...he lost it. He snapped or something, I don't know. It must have been just awful...seeing Tanya like that. He called for an ambulance and then he left."
"Left?"
"He went after him. Edward. He went after Jason."
"Oh my god." I sat back down. Quieter but still shaking. My hand over my mouth. One held against my forehead.
Alice went on.
"He found him. Edward and Jason work in the same hospital, so that's where Edward went first and, can you believe it, he found him. The fucking asshole actually went into work after beating the crap out of his girlfriend. Edward tried to talk to him calmly, tried to get Jason to go outside, but Jason wouldn't leave the floor, even had the nerve to start talking crap to Edward. ...Well, that was it."
EPOV
December 13th 2am
"Hello Doctor Cullen, we thought you left for the night. Is everything... ...Edward? Are you alright?"
"Jenks. Where is he?"
"Oh, yes, well he did come in in quite a hurry-"
"WHERE. IS. HE."
"He's in with a patient -"
"Cullen...fancy seeing you here. Isn't it passed your bedtime? To what do we owe-"
"You bastard."
"Well that seems a little uncalled for. You've hurt my feelings, Cullen. I thought we were friends. What have I done to deserve-"
"You know exactly what the fuck you did, you dickless piece of shit. Your hands are shaking."
"Not here, Edward."
"I know, thank you, Mary. Doctor Jenks is going to accompany me outside so we can...talk...about some things."
"No can do, Eduardo. Got rounds to do, patients to see. The busy life of a-"
"Coward."
"Watch your mouth, noob. Just who the fuck do you think you are coming in here, to my ward, and challenging me."
"Would it be easier if I were a woman? Then you could just beat me down. Like you did to her. Did you even look back when you walked out on her? When you left her! On the fucking floor like an animal!"
"Edward, keep your voice down."
"Do as you're told and listen to the nice lady, Cullen."
"How could you? Huh? What did she do? Not make the pasta the way you like it? Not let you fuck her in the ass on the kitchen table?"
"Jealous? Sounds like it to me. I know you two used to have a thing so maybe you are. I also know that you dropped her for some knocked-up chick from your hometown who pretty much told you to go take a flying leap...isn't that right? That's what I heard. ...And now you're remembering how good Tanya was. And you want that old thing back? Mmm, she'll take it anywhere, won't she. No hole is off limits. And the way she begs for it...delicious. The way she begs."
"Doctor Cullen! Edward! Stop! Security! Please Edward stop!"
BPOV
April 1st
"Jesus Christ."
"After he got the call Carlisle flew out there that same week to post Edward's bail and arrange for representation."
"Representation?"
"Jenks pressed charges."
"And lemme guess. Tanya didn't."
"Not at first, but when it looked like Edward might face jail time, she spoke up."
I sighed heavily and traced the rim of my coffee cup. "You should have told me."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"What happened next?"
"Edward beat Jenks pretty bad. From what Rose said, it took three men to pry Edward's hands from around Jenks' neck. It was touch and go there for about a month."
"A month!"
"Collapsed lung, internal bleeding. God, if Jenks had died...I don't want to think about it."
Neither did I. I was barely holding on to the one shred of composure I had left after hearing all this.
"Needless to say Edward was fired or expelled, whatever it's called, for breaking endless rules of conduct and hospital policy. After everything came out in court..."
"Shit, Alice. You said court. It really was bad, wasn't it?"
She nodded. "But Carlisle and Esme must have gotten him a really good team of attorneys cuz somehow he ended up with a lesser sentence, I think that's what it's called," She shrugged. "Suspension, which is up in June and then he'll be put on probation indefinitely. That's all I know."
Later that day, after saying a tearful goodbye to Alice and giving Maggie twenty bucks for watching Matthew, I brought my baby boy into bed with me and held him close while I cried - cried for hating Edward all these months for abandoning me when it was really me who abandoned him.
I don't know why I did it, or what came over me as I pictured Edward sitting cold and scared in a sterile courtroom, but I reached to the nightstand for my phone and dialed. The other line picked up after two rings.
"Esme? Hi. It's Bella."
A/N: Heyyyyyy. *hides* Ages, yes ages, but I've finished summer school and now finishing this fic is next. I just want to address the above by saying that I HATE the law. Reading about it, I mean. And writing about it, and researching it...ugggggh sooo boring. I hate it when fics get too caught up in the technicalities and specifics. As long as it doesnt sound TOO far out there, I'll believe it. So yeah, I'm skipping all that stuff. two more chapters, I think.
