LL Chapter 37

The Date and the Talk pt 1

I was starving by the time that I arrived at Bella's house for our date. I had been too nervous today at lunch to eat much. Luckily, Bella had not been there to witness it. She had left right after Biology to take Tanya for her well baby checkup. She also insisted on cooking supper for us tonight but refused to tell me what we were having.

Seth and Sue were getting their coats on to leave when I knocked on the door. They were heading up to the reservation to pick up some girl that Seth had a date with tonight. It reminded me of how thrilled my friends and I were to final turn sixteen and did not have to rely on our parents for rides everywhere. Sue smile at me as she passed me on her way out of the door, "They are in the living room, go on in."

I nodded and continued into the house to find my two favorite girls. They were lying on their stomachs face to face. Tanya was testing her arms, trying to push her chest up off the floor, and attempting to roll over with Bella cheering her on. I dropped my bag on the couch, went to lie down next to Bella, and kissed her on the cheek, "How was her appointment?"

"It was great. She's just slightly below average in regards to her size but developmentally she's actually a little ahead of the curve."

"She's smart like her mama huh?"

"Yep!" Bella giggled getting Tanya attention again. She stopped her attempts to roll over and started cooing with her mom. Tanya looked so much like Bella, especially in moments like this. I loved that they had the same smile. I love Bella's smile. She has such a beautiful smile. I laid there staring at her until she looked over at me and started to blush, "Why are you staring at me?"

"Why wouldn't I stare at you? You are too beautiful for me not to stare at you. That makes me sound creepy doesn't it?" I asked in return causing her to blush more.

"Not creepy exactly, it's more that you are making me self-conscious."

"So Seth didn't seem all that thrilled about his date. Is it a blind date or something?"

"The date he's thrilled about. He's had a crush on Mary for ages. It's just the fact that Mary is already sixteen, has her license, and her own car but Dad and Sue have strict rules against us riding in cars with licensed drivers under seventeen. Well, mostly it is Dad's rule. He says that one year of experience is extremely important for safety. The more experience the driver has the safer he or she is bound to drive. Dad went on and on about the high rate of fatal accidents where inexperienced drivers had a car full of friends. Leah had to live with the rule and so did I. Mom agreed with him and I wasn't allowed to ride with my friends even to school. I hated it then but now..."

"But now you can see his point now though."

"Yeah. I—shit that's our dinner." A buzzer sounding from the kitchen got our attention and Bella jumped up to go check on it. Tanya started fussing immediately after Bella disappeared into the kitchen so I scooped her up and walked into the kitchen to keep Tanya as calm and happy as possible.

"That smells amazing, by the way."

"It's eggplant parmesan. You can put her in her swing if you want while I get the salad out of the fridge."

"Is there anything that I can do to help?"

"Nope, I got it all under control. Just sit back and relax."

"Hey, where are your dad and Leah tonight?"

"Dad is working and Leah is with Sam."

"So we have the whole house to ourselves tonight."

"Yeah, I thought we could eat while we talk about college stuff."

"That sounds great to me," I agreed as Tanya let out a squeal from her swing, "and she agrees too," I said with a laugh.

Five minutes later, I was digging into one of the most spectacular meals ever. "I'm going to have to resort to begging you to cook for me more. I mean, my mom is a good cook but you are missing your calling by studying architecture."

"You are not the first to tell me that. But I prefer to cook only for people that I actually like not strangers."

"So you're saying that you like me huh?" I teased her.

"Maybe just a little bit, but not much," she teased right back.

After a few minutes of eating, Bella broke the silence, "What schools were you thinking about applying to?"

"I have a lot of places on my list in various parts of the country. How about you?"

"Same here. For the first time I am considering Seattle to be closer to my family. The two that I really want to go to are University of Southern California or Columbia. But they are really expensive."

"That's odd because they were on my list too, as well as UCLA, NYU, and Northwestern was on the list too."

"I would have thought that you would go for schools like Dartmouth or Cornell."

"Nah, I want to be in a big city like New York or Las Angeles. Which one are you hoping for more though?"

"California. I am having trouble adjusting to the cold after living in the desert all my life. This week I've been considering adding Hawaii to my list. So you want go to Chicago huh?"

"I have some cousins that still live there. It's where my parents grew up. But, I really don't think that I would or could choose that now. I have to be honest with you here Bella, I really don't want to be that far away from you and Tanya for months on end for years while we get our degrees. I don't think that I'll be able to cope with that. I would miss you two too much. I want to be wherever the two of you will be."

She opened and shut her mouth several times before getting up and grabbing our empty plates and walking them to the sink. I jumped up and followed her. I was tempted to wrap my arms around her waist and pull her to me but I did not want to scare her. So I wrapped my arms around her shoulders instead, "Are you ok? I didn't scare you with that did I?"

"No. Not really. I am really more shocked that scared. This is all happening so fast. I thought that I was going to be alone for years, that no guy my age would want to be involved with a teen mom and here you are wanting to be with me. What shocks me most of all is that you were the poster boy for kind of guy that runs from a girl like me."

"I thought that we already covered that I was an idiot before I met you and you showed me how incredibly stupid my mindset was."

"If I hadn't been raped and had gotten pregnant by sleeping around, would you still be here right now?"

"I don't know, Bella. Because even if I have changed my view on teen moms doesn't mean that I have changed my mind on teen sex. I know that I am not ready for that in our relationship and want to wait. And if you were a person that slept around, I don't know that we would be able to bridge that gap. That is definitely not the type of girl that would attract my attention."

"I get that. You have no idea how relieved I am that you are not ready to have sex. The whole idea terrifies me. I was talking to my therapist about it because I am scared that when I do decide to have sex it will trigger some memory or some shit from the attack."

"What did she say?"

"That no one will know for sure until it happens but it is unlikely because I was unconscious for the attack and it is not a case of repressed memories. So that gives me some hope."

"So, we have decided then, New York, California, or Hawaii as long as the three of us are together?"

"Right, the three of us, together sounds great to me."

A/N:

Ok. I have to apologize again for the delay. I somehow managed to hurt my shoulder and was put on Hydrocodone. I can see why people get addicted to it, it is some strong shit and it keeps knocking me out and making me very loopy so please forgive me in anything strange ended up in the chapter.

A reminder that I am donating an outtake for fandom for texas wildfire. You can find the link on my profile. I was going to do a one-shot called Undeniably Yours BUT that is turning into an actual chapter so I am going to write and post that separately. I have decided to do an outtake from when Bella wakes up in the hospital right after the attack. I just need to decide whether to write it from Bella or Charlie's POV. Let me know in your review if you have a preference.