Title – You Found Me
POV – Edward
Setting – Killeen, Texas (near Fort Hood, Texas)
Mortality – All human
Time Setting – Sometime in the Future.
Summary – The worst part of being an army wife is not the wait, it is when the wait is over and you find yourself with no husband and son with no father. That's the hardest part and at that point you can only find comfort in a certain person, when does the comfort become something else? Bella is what we call an army wife. She is married to Sergeant Black. He has been in the army since he was 17. He is best friends with Edward Cullen, a guy who is dedicated to the army but doesn't realize that it's taking a toll on his life. Tragedy strikes and soon there are two people left and they must depend on one another to get through it. Can they get through it without making a sinful mistake?
A/N – Part 3! Jake's 17 and he get's his own POV.
I believe in memories
they look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now, and when I wake up,
you look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time,
There is no, no song I could sing
and there is no combination of words I could say
but I will still tell you one thing
We're Better together
–Better Together, Jack Johnson
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Better Together
10 years later…
BPOV (Bella)
"Hey are you okay?" I murmured over lunch.
Edward flashed me a crocked smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've just realized that ten years of bliss goes by quickly, I must say."
"Bliss? So we're not counting our very many fights where pillows have flown?"
"Who needs to know that?" He replied with a smile.
"Of course, so are you picking up Aimee and Charlie from Rose's?"
"I…don't think I am, I can't, there's an event at the Gallery." Crap, I totally forgot about it. Edward's art school had a Gallery adjoined to it and they had an event tonight for the students going in this fall. He worked at this small private Art School, he worked in the visual arts departments but the school offered, dance, vocal, and music training along with visual arts.
"Ah! I can't either, I have a shoot today and editing." I had cut down my hours at school, I was only teaching 3 days a week, during the year and then I was doing ads for this agency. I was working full-time at the agency this summer. "I'll just get Jake to do it, he'll pick them up and bring them to me."
"No it's okay, tell him to bring them by the school and they can hang out there."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah, it's fine I'll get them to do something there. They'll be easily entertained." He assured me.
"I'm so sorry."
"Bella it's fine, we're busy people." He said with a sigh.
"This just takes up so much time."
"But you love doing it, its fine Bella. It'll be okay."
"I barely see Jake, he's never home when I have chance to see him. There are days I'm there and I don't see him. I don't ever see Charlie or Aimee."
"Look, Jake's not two anymore. He just turned eighteen; he'll be okay on his own."
"Aimee and Charlie aren't though and you. I don't see you often, I just feel selfish."
"Bella, love, we're fine."
I failed to believe his convincing words. He was a great liar but I wasn't, I couldn't even lie to myself. For the past couple of years I had picked up more jobs and I had been neglecting my family. I didn't want to be that woman, the woman who forgets anything and everything regarding her family. I glanced down at my phone and jumped up. "Ah! I have to pick some stuff from school and I have to tell Jake to pick up Aimee. I'm so late. I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "It's fine." He'd said that so many times that it just came out, he didn't even have to think, and I don't think he realized he was lying anymore.
I quickly but shamefully, picked up my purse and my phone then ran out to my car. By the time I was at my car I realized I hadn't even given him a goodbye kiss or anything for that matter.
EPOV (Edward)
I watched her hurry out of the restaurant. What had become of us? After so long, had I lost myself, had we lost ourselves? I guess after so many years we've sort of gotten a bit distanced.
"You look so lonely." I looked up to find the waitress. She was a youngish blonde woman.
"I'm fine."
"I guess you're used to it. She kinda just walks away every time."
"How would you know?"
"I guess you don't notice the fact that I serve your table every time you bring her here. I watch you let her go every time. You're a good looking man, you're sweet, pardon me for what I'm about to say but you deserve better. She's so caught up in her work that she blows you off and you kinda just take it."
I had no idea why I kept talking to her, she was a complete stranger but it seemed as if she saw me when Bella didn't. It's sad that a complete stranger sees you more than you're wife. "I don't get what you're saying." I lied.
"Okay, you're that guy."
"What guy?"
"Never mind, just forget it." She picked up the plate Bella had left and went on her way.
I sat there for a minute longer thinking everything over. I have definitely been ignoring the fact that Bella and I are falling apart and I don't know what to do about it. She spends so much time doing what she loves, shoots. She loves going out there and being a photographer. I simply can't take that from her, I can relate. I teach in a private art school and I love it but I come home every night, I don't forget her or my children. I don't blow her off and concentrate on everything but my family. I don't want to make her feel guilty for it but by doing this I'm helping her distance herself. I tell her its okay but it's not. I try to compromise but it's getting to the point where Aimee and Charlie are noticing. Jake knows, he knows everything he's not a child anymore. He just graduated this year, one year early. He's been out of high school for a couple of months and he just turned eighteen. He confessed that he's hasn't got an idea what he's going to do. Though lately he hasn't spoken much, I sense he's upset because of what's going on. But what can I do? If I tell her, then I fear we'll collapse and part of would rather live together in this lie.
JPOV (Jake)
For about the hundredth time I drove past Fort Hood Recruitment office. There was something about that place that made me want to stop. It seemed like the ideological thing to do. I would join the army after I graduated. That's what I wanted to do, it sounds so practical but I wasn't quite sure what to do.
Without thinking it through I pulled into the recruitment office. As I walked in my phone rang. It was my mom.
"What's up?"
"Where are you?"
I looked around the office and decided she didn't need to know just yet. "I'm….I'm….I stopped at the gas station to get a bottle of water before heading to practice."
"Oh, I need you to pick up Aimee and Charlie then take them to you dad at the Gallery." Figures, she wanted something.
"Okay." I said in monotone.
"You know I'm sorry, Jake. I'm sorry I'm never there." Her apologies didn't have any effect on me. She went out and did her thing all the while knowing that she had a family back at home that needed her.
"You're sorry and I get that, is there something you want me to say?" I asked.
"No." She said quietly.
"Well I'll pick them up. I'll see you at home, maybe."
"Bye, Ja –" I shut the phone before she finished. My mom was so busy, she simply isn't there and at some point I can't ask her to stop, and I would never do that. She'd been through a lot before she married my dad, she'd like to deny it, but she quit because of me. My dad wouldn't ask her either, he was there when she was a mess, this makes her happy and he's not going to say no to her. He'll say no to me but not her, he is so in love with her he doesn't see what I see. No one sees it, Aimee and Charlie are too young, my mom is too busy and my dad is too in love. No one sees that we're slowly falling apart and I refuse to witness that. I refuse to witness their defeat, he's been so passive about it and he won't acknowledge that she's wrong in what she's doing. There's a difference between knowing and not doing anything about it, like I am, and not even acknowledging what going on before you. I fully acknowledge that there's something wrong, I'm not the husband in this so it's not my place to do anything about it, there's nothing that leads me to believe that my dad will consider what I'm saying.
"Hey can I help you?" A guy came over to me, he was a recruiter.
"Uh, nah I got the wrong place." I muttered. "Thanks anyway."
"Are you sure?" He sensed my hesitation but he was right. I didn't know whether to stay here and do it behind my parents' back or ask them. No one knew why I was here or that I was here. I had just lied to my mom, Kate, my girlfriend doesn't know either. She and I have developed a strain in out relationship and it's not going to get better if I lie about this but it's so different now. Kate hasn't been my Kate, a few months back she and I bought into the teeny thing to do, we got carried away and well we went way too far and now she barely talks to me. We had discussed it and we decided we would wait to have sex until we were married, it was the right thing to do but that's out the window now.
Kate, since she was three knew what she wanted to do when she graduated, she wanted to dance. She loved it and she always had a set goal and I didn't. I never knew what I wanted to do. I just went with the flow. I graduated early with her because I wanted it to be over but it's not because I had a plan, because I didn't not until now. I'm eighteen; I want this because if I don't decided, then I don't know what is going to happen. Kate is leaving to Tisch next year for the spring semester, I know we're not going to be together as often but this is my calling. I want to enlist but I'm not going to do it behind everyone's back. It definitely won't help my parents' marriage, I would have to mend that myself because it looks like they have no interest in it then I'll have to suck it up and just tell them. I'm going to enlist in the army.
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SO how did you like, I have a completely different version of this chapter, there are three versions and this one seemed the best. I'll post the other versions later. Please tell me what you think about it?
~Toodles.
