Chapter 37: illusions... Edwards's interlude
As I lay here staring at the ceiling slowly drifting off, thinking...but nothing worth thinking about, just waiting for sleep to pick me up.
Though most of the time it's the best part of my day. It's my time out... a break to catch my breath. My moment of silence, a place I can find some space to feel real. When sleep comes I can unhook myself from life. Then without any reality, I get to live my own for a moment...in my dreams. And while fading into the last moments of this summer night, these are the last thoughts of this day. I'm still on the wrong side of my life wondering if a leopard could ever really change its spots. The spots gives it an identity.
Will there always be fiction in the spaces between? Maybe it's a truth we
all deny, choosing to exist in the grand scheme of this abstract reality we call life. And it being so gigantic how does one overcome this illusion.
BELLA: So when did you decide it was time to come home.
JACOB: Well I was done with a project that I was working on and my boss had nothing else for me to do for a couple of weeks so I just thought I take this time to see everyone. My family especially my mother. And I must say that talking to you on the phone, just catching up on everyone's lives and what they are doing it only made me more anxious to come back.
BELLA: We didn't think we'd ever get to see you again. I am sure your mother must be very thrilled to have you back.
JACOB: Yes she is. I like to believe that she is not the only one. (pause)
BELLA: No she isn't. (pause) but you're happy there, I mean you're not talking about moving back here anytime soon.
JACOB: I've thought about it a lot lately but I guess I wouldn't do unless I had a really good reason to you know and so long as you don't give me one.
BELLA: Don't! You don't get to complicate my life like that right now. You're back, yes and I am very happy to see you again but I still have my own life... one that you refuse to be a part of all those months ago.
JACOB: You were pregnant with Edward's baby and you were begging me to stay, I have no idea how that would have worked as well as you wanted it too.
BELLA: Well you left and Edward and I stayed. I can't just ignore the life that I have had when you were not here. It matters too.
JACOB: But you're not happy.
BELLA: Oh we use to be. It's just when I lost the baby all these things started happening, all these things we couldn't fight against and all these other issues we were not aware we had...
JACOB: Like what?
BELLA: Like the fact that we moved here and I quit my job so that meant that Edward had to work for his father who happens to despise me and everything I am. He despises me because I am black, because I am a writer, because I like tennis...
JACOB: (Laughing)
BELLA: I know it's crazy but that's how it is. And all this time I had myself convinced that it didn't matter because it didn't matter to Edward.
But when Richard starts proving his influence by making sure that he's got something to do all the time to make sure he makes it late at home yet another night then you realize just what you are up against.
JACOB: But I suppose it's a matter of choice as well. He doesn't have to obey his father, he's a grown man who can make up his own mind.
BELLA: Yes but I know where he is coming from. None of this comes easy of cheap. You know after I stopped working, I moved in here with him and got used to this lifestyle. I had my own credit card with no limit, this big closet with all my expensive clothes and shoes, my car installments; he's working to make sure that we maintain this lifestyle.
JACOB: Oh come on Bells, Edward has money, he always had money and just because he's suddenly started using it doesn't mean that he's going to run out because of you.
BELLA: I know that but it doesn't mean that his father is going to hand it to him on a silver plate. Yes I get that he has to work but then I lost the baby and then I started to see just how much I missed my husband and the life we shared when he still hated his father and adding tattoos in his honor. (Jake smiles) You must think I am terrible.
JACOB: No I think you're great. (Gently touching her face)
BELLA: I shouldn't be talking to you about all this.
JACOB: You're right. We should be talking about us and how we can figure out a way to be together.
BELLA: You're just determine to be impossible right now.
JACOB: Well I am not a two time loser, I learn from my mistakes and I don't wanna have to wait to tell you what it is I truly feel about you and then lose you like I did that first time around. This time I am making my feelings clear, to you and to everyone else... even Edward. I love you and I am here to try and make you see that marrying Edward was the greatest mistake you've ever made because you know as well as I do that I am the one you've always wanted and not him.
BELLA: (Taking a deep breath)
JACOB: Well I love you too. And people who love each other should be together instead of apart, I seriously believe that.
He's given me a new look at things, something to think about. I toss and turn that night thinking about both men. It seems I have a decision to make. I just wish that there was something that could make it easier. Just a couple of days ago I was ready to welcome my husband back in my life but as Jake had done before he left, he has underestimated the bond that Edward and I share. It's proven strong yet again that morning when I call him at dawn.
BELLA: Am I the only one?
EDWARD: The only one who what?
BELLA: Who sometimes hears him cry at night, so hard in fact that I crawl out in bed, walk to his room just to give him the attention he needs. It's the only dream I ever have since I lost him. It's funny right because we didn't have a room for him yet.
The guilt that Edward feels about his affair is now fuller than it was before he had this story. So full in fact he wanted to die from it. The only just punishment for what he has done to the woman he loves.
BELLA: I just miss him. I miss the excitement we had for our lives because of him. The joy of endless possibilities that came with knowing that we feel for each other was finally going to be real, you know what I mean...
EDWARD: Yes I know.
I didn't expect myself to be crying but I am touched by the strength of this moment. I am doing what I haven't been able to do with Edward since the miscarriage; I am sharing with him my pain. He's the only person who should know this side of me.
BELLA: And I saw you changing too, believing in us more...
EDWARD: I've always believed in us.
BELLA: Yes but that baby secured you, made you... how did you say... believe in us a little bit more. The first time since we were together that happened. (pause) And I took that away because I couldn't guard it as well as you wanted me to.
EDWARD: This wasn't your fault Bells.
BELLA: In my brain yes I know that but in my heart I keep feeling that I've messed us up, that I robbed our relationship of its growth and evolution.
EDWARD: You are not the one at fault, I am. If anyone is to blame for getting us here in this manner it's me.
BELLA: Why? Cos you were working? You were doing what was necessary to make sure that the baby was taken care of, provided for. Youhave been nothing but patient with me...
EDWARD: Don't say that!
BELLA: And now this Jake thing. (Crying) How did you even know. How could you even tolerate me after that. I have treated you so poorly.
EDWARD: Because I have done so much worse to you. My sins pale in comparison to what you're counting as your own. I am not the good man you think you married Bella.
BELLA: What are you talking about? You will always be that man...
EDWARD: Bella you don't understand. What I have done to you is the ultimate betrayal, disloyalty of the worst kind...
He's starting to alarm me. Something tells me that we're not just talking about the baby anymore but something that he thinks will make me see him in his true light. He doesn't want to tell me over the phone but I can't wait either so he's going to drive over here.
It's a 15 minute drive to get here from where he is but for some reasons it feels longer. I am drowning in assumption and killing myself with insecurity that it's effect is dizzying. I pour myself a glass of brandy to just try and give this blinding intoxication a host. I keep thinking of his words... the ultimate betrayal. I can only think of one thing and I don't believe Edward would ever hurt me like that.
BELLA: He loves me right. He wouldn't love me and then hurt me like that would he.
And if he was capable of such a crime, who would she be. Who could she possibly be? A blonde girl, the most beautiful girl that ever lived because that's the girl I always thought he should be with. If he has indeed shared his life with someone else, it means that he has finally come to his senses and saw me as the mistake I always thought I was. But I was the one he married, the one he promised to be true to, the one who cannot turn the blame upon herself if this in fact does turn out to be the truth he wants to reveal to me.
BELLA: No, no I am driving myself crazy for nothing. EDWARD loves me, he always has. And I am just projecting my feelings for Jake onto him, he
could never do to me what I've thought about doing to him over and over. Because if he did...
I'd have every right to be angry with him.
He doesn't knock, he comes right in to the bar upstairs which I have chosen as the scene of this dramatic encounter. I am into my 3rd glass already; it's definitely an affair at this point. I have thought of everything to convince myself that it couldn't be anything else.
And handling such a betrayal isn't light, it needs me at my strongest but I am afraid just the mere small confession from him will knock me off my feet. I have such a good looking husband. His looks are so arrogant that even with the lights off, and at his worst as a human being, they dominate the room annoyingly.
He does nothing but look at me for a while. We are both gearing up for the fight of our lives.
BELLA: Is it another woman?
There's no settle way to approach such subjects. And although I have always been very careful with my words, tonight I can be let off the hook for not being so careful.
EDWARD: BELLA!
BELLA: don't fuck around with me Edward, just tell me the truth. This secret you want to confess to me, this 'ultimate betrayal' you want to confess to me, is it another woman.
EDWARD: You have to let me explain.
BELLA: (With a sigh) There's an explanation for it. An explanation for why you are having an affair. Really there is? Because I am not interested. Nothing that you say or do can make me be okay with my husband... my husband sleeping with another woman.
EDWARD: I didn't mean for it to happen, it just sort of did. We were just always so hateful of each other, fighting and everything that I think I did the only thing I could master as a reaction out of me
BELLA: ok so then it's okay.
EDWARD: BELLA!
BELLA: No it's fine. Lord knows it was difficult for you to love your own wife you deserved to be with someone else... as a... reaction you say.
EDWARD: You have to understand I died inside all that time we were apart and every time I thought we could work things out, you pushed me back out...
BELLA: So then it's my fault. You're having an affair because of me. Because I was grieving the loss of the child we were expecting together it was my fault. Yes I see how it could be. While I was waiting for my wounds to heal and my aches to subside because of the child that we lost I wasn't there enough for you. So yes then it is my fault.
EDWARD: (Shaking his head) why do you always have to make all these hurtful sarcastic remarks...
BELLA: (Yelling) Because I am bitter Edward! My husband has just confessed having an affair with another woman I think I am entitled to every bitter emotion I can conjure up at the moment.
I need another drink. So I pour myself one.
BELLA: And just to think I thought I was driving myself crazy for nothing, beating myself up thinking that you were not capable of hurting me like this.
EDWARD: It wasn't my intention.
BELLA: What did you think was going to happen once I knew that you had this other life that you were living behind my back that was going to destroy our marriage. Did you think I'd congratulate you on ruining our lives, give you a pat in the back, send you off to conquer the world with a huge grin and a 'good boy'. You knew what you were doing and what it was going to do to us but you still did it, it's a little too late to try and be innocent now.
EDWARD: You think I came here, trying to look innocent. You think I wanted to confess all of this because I wanted to look innocent?
BELLA: Maybe for your guilt, I don't know. You sure as hell didn't do me a favor.
EDWARD: So then I set out to hurt you intentionally. I woke up that morning and thought: heck it's a great day to fuck up the only woman that I have truly loved because well... the temperature is right and sun is shining bright.
BELLA: The only woman you ever truly loved? This is how you treat the only woman you ever truly loved? I feel anxious for those who cross you.
EDWARD: I don't know what got over me...
BELLA: The insanity defense, classic. You're not even going to own up to what you did, are you?
EDWARD: But it's true. I mean I don't even love Victoria...
BELLA: Victoria?
His secretary?
BELLA: You cheated on me with that skinny blonde tramp who calls herself your P.A.? What you don't even love me enough to cheat on me with a decent woman?
EDWARD: She was just there and you and I were having so much trouble.
BELLA: ...that you just had to fuck her.
EDWARD: Stop it! Don't be condescending of my feelings for you; they are the only thing real I feel.
BELLA: And to prove that to me you sleep with another woman.
EDWARD: You really have to understand Bella, she means nothing to me.
BELLA: But that's exactly what makes this worse. You keep saying that to me as if I am gonna take it and feel honored or something...
EDWARD: ...I don't expect that.
BELLA: but it makes it worse because now I certainly don't know what it is I did wrong. If you loved her more than you did me then there would be some lunacy to the whole thing, because now you're jeopardizing your everything... for nothing.
EDWARD: (Quickly) no, no I can't lose you, I don't wanna lose you. You can't be getting ready to tell me that everything we are now isn't because I made one stupid mistake.
BELLA: A mistake? What were you trying to put it in, her purse? A mistake is when you spell out a word wrong on an assignment, or when you transfer the wrong call to the wrong person at work, affairs are not mistakes Edward. They are deceitful, calculated and cruel, so don't you dare tell me that you love me or that you didn't mean to hurt me because that's exactly what you did whether or not you set out to achieve it.
EDWARD: Ok so I messed up, I will own up and it's not because you kicked me out, or because we lost a child but because I'm stupid and I don't know what got over me. I am sorry...
BELLA: Oh please don't apologize. You just told me that you have been unfaithful and as much as I am sure those words will mean something to me one day, this is not the time. Allow me to feel this pain that comes with knowing that you have given another woman the kind of attention that you promised to give only me.
What, Edward was I the only one who said those vows...
EDWARD: No!
BELLA: ...the only one who meant them.
EDWARD: I meant them too.
BELLA: So then why...
Oh Bella you're not gonna start crying now. You're not going to start showing him that with just a confession he has changed your heart forever, filled it with the kind of resentment you always thought would be too much to hold in. You're not going to start showing him that you love him enough to care that you are the only one he holds in his heart.
Come on Bella he doesn't get to see that he's hurt beyond repair, or that he has made you feel weak and not like the strong woman you use to resemble every time he held you. You have started crying, you have showed him your heart and that part of you he will never deserve no matter what he does from now on.
BELLA: ...why would you let another woman in the same way you let me in when you're not suppose to even look at another the same way.
Why would she be worth of your good jokes and laughs when I thought you put them on just for me. How could you show someone else that man who is so strong willed and committed when it is me you've promised to me all those things to...
EDWARD: Come on Bella.
BELLA: I feel so embarrassed, is that what you wanted to do, to embarrass me and make me feel betrayed, to punish me for losing the child you so wanted in your life...
EDWARD: Bella No!
Oh God I am getting him to cry as well, have I woken the guilt I always knew he'd feel if he did something like this..
EDWARD: ...I am not punishing you, it's not what happened!
BELLA: then what? How do I explain this to myself? You are the only man who has ever loved me and if this is the best that you can do, the best is not good enough because it just doesn't make any sense. I know that we ran into some trouble the last couple of months but I was inside this house every night just trying to figure out my way back to you because it killed me to just be so sad about the miscarriage and I knew I was pushing you away, I knew but I did what I thought I had to do to save us. Because this marriage means everything to me, you mean everything to me. While I was doing that, you were with someone else, trying to solve a problem inside this marriage outside of it. I don't understand how that works, we're supposed to be in this together.
EDWARD: We are!
BELLA: No Edward I am alone. You have left me alone, just as you did every time your father kept you away or that morning of the miscarriage and now you have left me alone in this marriage and there's nothing that could be said or done to fix that. Things have changed.
EDWARD: I can't explain myself, that I realize and I can't apologize because whatever I say just cannot make up for what I have done, how I have wronged you but I can find my way around those things, around many things but I can't find my way around you. I know there's got to be a way
we can fix this.
BELLA: We? So suddenly because I want you out of my life, you're ready to be a team.
EDWARD: I know what I did was wrong and God I would die many times over just to prove to you that I wouldn't do anything without you. To show you that this was a mistake and I wouldn't do it again and that I don't want to lose you...
BELLA: But you have. You have lost me and it happened all the time you touched her, kissed her...made love to her.
He closes his eyes and the tears roll down his cheek. He is right in the middle of his biggest nightmare.
BELLA: I can't stay with you after all this Edward.
EDWARD: (Quickly) no, no... (He rushes over to her) you stay with me because of everything that we have been through. You don't give up because things get a little complicated...
BELLA: This is not a complication Edward, it's an affair. I could never look at you the same way after all this. I couldn't feel the love I feel for you without the resentment that comes from knowing that what you feel for me wasn't strong you enough to stop you from doing this. At that he has no retaliation,
BELLA: I don't know how to forgive you for this.
He feels defeat. He has taken the blame so willingly. He didn't bring Jake up, or Victoria or even the fact that she has betrayed him since the very day they have been together and that her betrayal had been stronger even though she never acted on it. He took the blame on his shoulders not because he wanted to be a man but because he truly believes in the wrong that he has done and recognizes it as his own and no one else's.
EDWARD: (nodding)I know.
I turn away from him, having a monologue that he can clearly hear.
BELLA: Oh Lord it has been just one thing after another. I have to have done something to deserve this. I believed in this, I believed in him but why does everyone I love leave me instead. The only emotion that ever stays is pain. Is this the only emotion that will keep me company till I die? What about love God... (turning to look at Edward.) What about love?
We sit in silence till the sun rises. This used to be so easy. I use to look at him and feel nothing but love but now this very same person who gave me the best memories of my life is the very same person who has given me hate. There's just too much feeling now, it's overtaking me. I feel love, I feel hate, I feel fear, I feel relief, I feel anxiety, I feel reprieve. I am tired and yet I can run miles without stopping just to seek lunacy. Who is this woman who feels all these things? The woman who is capable of losing her mind and staying down forever. I don't know how to overcome her. She is so strong.
BELLA: You're right, you are no longer the man I married.
I step into the shower and as the water runs down on me I let the tears run too. He hasn't stayed in the bar for long, he comes to the bathroom, listening to me cry.
Torturing himself with the knowledge that he was responsible for all of this. And just when he was sure he will remember them for the rest of his life, he left the house to do grieving of his own.
As soon as I finish in the bathroom, I drive to Jake's place. He is alone when I get there, I am so glad, he flings his arms around me and tells me it's ok when I cry. I believe him.