AN: I take no credit for the characters of Bella, Edward, or the Cullen family. With that said, let me say that I'm sorry this has taken so long, but it is now coming to the close of the school year and things are even busier than usual. I will try to post again in May, and then in June I will be incapacitated because of two surgeries I will have to undergo. Hopefully, after my second one, I will be able to spend a little time writing again before school starts in the fall. With that said, here is the next chapter.
Journal Entry Thirty-Eight – You'd Do What! [1959]
My mind rapidly played out the existence I was prepared sacrifice as I watched Bella approach me. The little girl's mother had arrived and taken her, supposedly home, after thanking Bella for playing with her daughter. Bella smiled while replying, "It was my pleasure."
'Her pleasure' I thought, 'should be playing with her own children. Can I steal that from her without confessing the truth about what she would forfeit by becoming one of us?'
I detested the idea of being noble and self-sacrificing, and part of me railed against such bereavement, while another part of me confirmed the validity of doing the right thing for Bella's sake. 'For Bella,' those were the key words. I don't think I could have uttered one word had it not been for those two words. Everything I chose to do – at least I always hoped that was my main motive – I did for Bella.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" I should have kick myself for asking such an obtuse question, but I knew I was evading the pain I knew would occur when she discarded me.
"Oh yes, that was fun." Her face shone from the flush of pleasure and exertion. "It seemed such a shame that no one else would play with her, but then boys at that age don't seem to like little girls," she explained with a wistful look on her face as she sat down beside me.
"What are you thinking?" I asked. I recognized that expression, and it revealed to me that she had either thought about something or remembered something. Once again, I regretted that I couldn't hear her thoughts, but my frustration was her relief; for whatever reason, she had thoughts that she really didn't want to share with me.
I could only guess that most people felt that way, but Bella was the only person free from my invasion. I just wished she trusted me and felt free to share everything she thought with me. Of course, I then realized that I did the same thing. I had thoughts that I felt were not right share with her, but it wasn't that I didn't trust her. Most of the time they were thoughts I knew would upset or hurt her, like my feelings of jealousy about Aleksey Kuchin, which she deemed irrational, or my reoccurring idea that I should allow her to live a normal life without me; that one I usually banished moments after thinking it, except for that particular moment in the park. I had to give her the option, but I wondered if she chose having children over me, would it hurt her as much as it would hurt me when she left?
"I could ask you the same thing," she replied while scrutinizing my face. "You seem to be in deep thought about something, although you are aptly more capable of thinking faster than me. Still, you have the look of someone who has deep, possibly troubling, thoughts racing through his mind."
"Fair enough," I offered, "I'll share with you if you'll share with me." I would force myself to share anyway because I wanted to give her free choice. Well, that was not exactly true, I didn't want to give her a choice of leaving me, but it was unfair, possibly even cruel, of me not to.
Bella moved closer to me before beginning. "Well, it wasn't much. I was just remembering a time when I was about five years old. I wanted to play with some other children, but I wasn't allowed to leave the yard. I could see the park across the street from my front yard, but my dad would not allow me to go by myself, and my mom always seemed busy with housework. One day I decided I would sneak over to the park anyway. It was easy really, and I was excited to see two boys about my age. I asked them if I could play with them, but they said, 'Boys don't play with girls cause they have cooties.' I went home in tears." Bella's look turned lost and wistful as she spoke about the rejection. "When mom heard me, she came out to see why I was crying, and I asked her what cooties were and if I had them. She laughed and said it was only a word, but then asked where I had heard it. I had to tell her about sneaking over to the park and about the boys." She smiled as she admitted her disobedience. "She wiped away my tears and told me she would play with me. I always remember that day because it was the first time my mother realized how lonely I was, and from then on she would take time to play with me. My mother must have felt the same way I did when I saw that little girl by herself with no one to play with. I wanted to share something special with her like my mother did with me." I could see the joy in her eyes as she shared those feelings with me, and I knew that she would choose children over me. She then turned her eyes on me and asked, "Okay, so what were you thinking?"
I felt a cold shudder rush through my body knowing this would be the hardest confessions I would ever make to her, but I decided I would begin with the truth. "Bella, what if I told you that I can't give you children?" I had looked down at her hands as I spoke, and I feared looking up at her reaction. I watched as she reached out a hand toward me, and then moved it up to my face so she could tilt my face up. I was tempted to close my eyes in dread of what I would see on her face, but Emmett's voice suddenly sounded in my mind saying, 'Be a man.' I almost scanned the area to see if he was in sight, but then I realized it was only a memory of his voice.
"Edward," she spoke softly, and I saw a slight smile play across her lips. "I already knew that."
"Alice." I didn't need to ask; it only figured that Alice would share all the negatives of this existence.
"No, Alice did not tell me; I asked Carlisle about this." She looked deeply into my eyes searching for something, but I had no idea what she was looking for. "Edward," she began hesitantly, "What if I had told you the same thing? Would it make a difference to you?"
"No, but it is not the same thing. There are others who could give you children; they could give you something I'm incapable of giving because of what I am." I reached out and caressed her cheek. Her face was so lovely, and the light played across her hair causing slight bronze highlights to blaze forth, and for one single moment, the sun shone in such a way, that it looked as if she had a halo behind her head. 'My angel,' I thought, for that was exactly how she looked.
"Would it make a difference to you, Edward, if I couldn't have children?" Her voice had taken on a slight tremor as the tone turned serious.
I knew she was trying to make some point, but I wasn't sure what it was. "Why do you ask?"
"Edward, if our roles were reversed, and you were the human and I wasn't, and I told you that I couldn't give you children, would that matter to you?" She fixed her gaze on me causing my eyes to lock on hers.
"No Bella," I surprisingly replied in all honesty, "It would not matter to me at all." Her eyes watched me digging into mine seeking the truth of my answer. I could tell it was important to her, and I felt there was more behind this than I saw at the moment, but the question had surprised me. I had never thought of our situations being reversed. 'Maybe,' I thought, 'she wants me to see this from her point of view.'
"Why wouldn't it matter Edward? As a human, wouldn't children be something you wanted?"
I hadn't expected that line of questioning at all. "Bella, I haven't been human for a long time, and I have become accustomed to the fact that I'm incapable of fathering children."
"Think beyond that Edward. Put yourself in my place, and tell me truthfully how you would feel."
She did want me to look at it from her point of view I realized. It had never occurred to me to look at things from her perspective before [okay, I know that appears dense of me, but it really had never occurred to me that I needed to see from her perspective in order to understand her]. At the time, I had to ask myself could I see this from her side of the issue. If I were human, would I care if Bella and I could not have children if she were the one incapable of having them? It took all of two seconds to know my answer.
"Bella, it really would not matter to me because you are more important to me than anyone else, even any children I might sire." Saying that made me begin to comprehend that maybe, just maybe, she felt the same way.
"Why am I important to you?"
Staring into her eyes I questioned how she could ask that. Didn't she see my love for her; didn't she see how important she was to me? Then I remembered something Esme once told me. 'Edward, a woman wants to be told that she is loved not just shown,' it was something she said one day when I asked why Carlisle would say 'I love you' so often. At the time, I had thought that she didn't believe him, even though her thoughts seem to tell a contrary story.
I decided I would tell Bella just how I felt about her; I would take Esme's advice. "I cherish you Bella; the 'you' inside, not your outside, not what you look like, but who you are inside. That is the Bella I love and cherish. If you were the vampire and I was the human, I would still feel the same way."
"And with me as the human, do you still feel the same way?" Her eyes glistened as a touch of moisture began to form in them.
I didn't want to make her cry; I didn't want to push her away from me. "I love you Bella, with all my heart. Even as a human, I still love the 'you' inside. All your scars and imperfections are not who you are; your extraordinary pull to all things dangerous is not who you are; they are part of you but not you. Please understand Bella, I fell in love with you," as I spoke, tears slowly slid down Bella's alabaster cheeks but I couldn't stop until I told her exactly how I felt, "the caring, selfless, giving person that is the real you. You always think of the other person first and yourself last. Even now, you are willing to sacrifice your humanness to be with me, and you are even willing to sacrifice a normal life to make me happy. But just for a moment, think of what you want rather than what I want, and tell me if you really want to give up everything you know and all those you care about to be with me forever." If I had a beating heart, it would be thumping loudly trying to break out of my chest; it was probably a good thing my heart didn't beat or its thunderous pounding to escape my chest would have told Bella how much I feared rejection by her.
Without speaking one single word and tears still streaming down her cheeks, Bella pulled the chain from around her neck bringing forth her engagement ring. Then she removed the chain, unclasped it, and slipped the ring off the chain. My eyes never left her hands as I watched her every move – it was as if time had slowed down, and I would never have suspected time to move so slowly for a vampire. She then lifted the ring up causing my eyes to follow it, and she stopped her hand when we were face to face; then she smiled as she ever so slowly held out her free hand and moved the ring toward it, and finally slipped the ring on her finger. Then she leaned toward me and in a whisper said, "Forever Edward."
Her lips were only inches from mine, and I allowed temptation free reign as I leaned in and kissed her. Gently at first, but them my arms reached out and pulled her closer, and I deepened the kiss still being careful not to allow any contact of my teeth to her skin. I would not, could not allow myself to change her before the right time, and now was not the right time. That fact, however, didn't stop me from wanting her even more than I wanted her before. She was giving up children and a human life for me, and I knew her love was greater than mine because I was not giving up anything for her except my heart, and without her I wouldn't want a heart. The pain of such a loss would crush me in a way no other vampire or other supernatural being could ever crush me. Emmett had been right when he said your true love holds your entire essence in their hands, and you are forever after at their mercy, but being at Bella's mercy was more of a heaven than anything else I could compare it to.
I would have gladly allowed the kiss to last until the last ray of sun slid below the horizon, but it was Bella who slowly pulled away from me.
When I opened my eyes to feast upon her beautiful face, I noticed she had averted her eyes onto an indeterminate space between us.
"Edward," her voice was barley as whisper. "I have a confession to make, but you have to understand why I haven't shared this with you yet." She looked up at me for a fraction of a second before averting her eyes once again. "To me, it doesn't matter about children and not because you cannot father them. It's me who can never have children, not even if I decided to remain human."
I reached out and tipped her chin up so I could see her lovely eyes, but in them I also saw the reflection of alarm. "Are you afraid of me Bella?" I asked softly.
"In a way," she replied, still in something less than a whisper.
"Bella, you are my life. Nothing you say to me will ever make me love you less. Even if you asked me to let you go, I would still love you even as I allowed you to leave me."
"You'd do what?" I wanted a reaction, but not quiet that one. The fright intensified in her eyes and I felt as if I had hit her with my words in a way I never meant to.
It was my duty, I decided, to clarify my meaning. "Bella, if you told me you had changed your mind and didn't want to stay with me, I would let you go because it is what you would want, but I would still love you. My love for you will never change."
"I never want to let you go, but I haven't been completely honest with you. Maybe you don't want someone who holds back important information about herself, who is afraid to share some secrets with you because you might reject her because of them." The tears flowing this time were not because of joy but because of a sense of impending doom. I'm not sure how I knew that, but for one split second, it was almost as if I had a quick look inside of her mind.
I cupped her face in my hands and leaned in close enough so our foreheads touched, "I cherish you more than any world I could live in. You are my universe, and without you I might as well fall into a black hole. If you feel you need to keep a few secrets, I can respect that knowing that when you feel it is time to share them you will. I don't ever want you to be afraid of sharing anything with me no matter how terrible it might seem to you, but I also do not want you to thinking I will hold it against you if you decide you need to keep something secret for awhile, or even forever. I love you Bella."
"Sometimes I think you are too good to me," she murmured, and before she could say more I gently kissed her lips.
"Never, in reality it is you who are too good for me, and I'm sure Emmett would be more than happy to concur."
Her laugh was priceless; it wasn't loud or long, but it was a laugh that seemed to help her recover from her fear.
"Mom has encouraged me numerous times to tell you about something that happened to me shortly after the bull gored me at the fair. I've been afraid because . . . well, maybe if I tell you the story it will help you to understand my hesitation about sharing this." She stared at me as if she were searching for my reaction to the secret she was yet to reveal. "You do have to promise one thing though."
I maintained my smile; I was not about to make her doubt my honestly or sincerity. "Anything you ask," I assured her.
"Allow me to tell the entire story without interruption, and then please, don't tell me how sorry you are about it happening. I can assure you that I have learned to live with this and I really do not want your sympathy." It was amazing how revealing her eyes were when she allowed them to be. I could see in them fear, dread, despair, and a slight glimmer of hope, which implied, to me, that whatever she had to say was definitely essential for me to hear and accept.
How could I answer otherwise, "I promise."
"Oh, there is one other little thing," she shied away from gazing into my eyes and focused on some imaginary spot on the blanket upon which we sat. "You have to promise to be honest with whatever answer you give me."
"Bella," I reached out my hand to gently lift her head so I could see her face. I wanted to say that I was always honest with her, but I knew that wasn't completely true. Just as she had hidden some things from me, I too had hidden a few things from her, and I still hadn't told her everything she needed to know before she underwent her change. Instead, I replied, "I promise to be honest."
"Okay, so I told you about the bull and that it gored me, and the doctor kept me in the hospital a few days for observation and tests. One of those tests was a battery of x-rays to make certain that no damage had occurred internally. I think they did six different shots before they finished, and then it took a few days to develop them. Mom, I think, was slightly more patient than dad about the entire ordeal. He just wanted to take me home, but mom wanted to see the results for extra assurance that everything was okay. As it turned out, the incident with the bull did no internal damage, but the x-rays did reveal something else. It seems, unbeknownst to any doctor I had seen up to that date, I had a growth inside of me, and as the doctor said, this accident was a kind of blessing in disguise, which didn't sit well with my dad. Anyway, if it hadn't been for the accident, no doctor would have thought about taking x-rays and the spot might not have been found until it was too late because the spot turned out to be a tumor. Fortunately, the doctor caught it soon enough that one operation removed the entire infected tissue. The unfortunate part was the location of the tumor which later turned out to be diagnosed as gynecologic cancer. I'm hoping with Carlisle as a father, you understand what I'm saying." Because I promised not to interrupt, I just nodded my head. "Then you understand that even if you could, I cannot have children. It is something I have learned to accept, but my fear is that because of what I no longer have, you will see me as less of a woman when the time comes for us to be married. Maybe this will make a difference to you. Maybe I won't be whole enough for you."
Her eyes move away from mine again, and focused on the spot on front of her on the blanket. I wanted to chuckle at her comment, but knew she would misunderstand, so I waited until she would allow me to speak.
"I will understand if you change your mind about me. My mom says it makes no difference, but I could never be sure of that. It is the one thing I have feared since you first kissed me." She finally looked up at me and pent up resignation of rejections was clearly visible in her deep liquid eyes. "Please, Edward, give me your honest answer. Do you still want someone as damaged as me?"
I felt words could never express my feelings deeply enough, so I took her hand with the engagement ring still encircling her daintily finger and raised it to my lips. I first kissed the tip of her finger, and then the ring. Next, I pulled her slowly toward me until our lips were parallel to each other, and then I kissed her gently, softly, and deeply putting as much emotion in the kiss as possible without losing focus on the fact that Bella was still breakable, and at that moment breakable in more ways than one.
When I finally released her lips, I placed my finger on them so I could talk. "Bella, you must know I love you more than . . . well, I can't say my life or the air I breathe because neither is true for me, but you have to know that my love transcends human words. As for you being broken, it is only you who sees yourself as broken. I see you as perfect; the only thing I will ever consider changing about you is your human existence. I want you to be one of us; I don't ever want to lose you. If we compare what broken really means, it will be me if I ever lose you whether it is from your choice or because I somehow scare you away; then I will be broken, and I will not be fixable. You see, my dearest most precious one, you are part of me now; if you leave for any reason, you will be taking a large part of me with you. It is as if my entire being is entwined with yours and to rip yourself away from me will be to rip me apart as well. Can you understand that?"
Bella simply nodded as tears began to roll down her cheeks.
"Please, Bella, I didn't mean to make you cry," I pleaded. I felt guilty every time I said or did something that caused tears to roll down her lovely rose tinted cheeks. I stared into her face a long time before she finally spoke, but as I looked I analyzed every feature of her face that I cherished. Because she kept her hair pulled back from her face, it appeared as if she had a slightly high forehead, but it also set off her arched eyebrows.
I had once heard a number of girls talking about how they pluck their eyebrows to make them thinner, and as a result I noticed that it was easy to tell which girls did just that. Their pores looked different and they also appeared redder a few days after hair had forcefully been ripped out. I quickly learned that Bella's eyebrows were naturally thin.
Her eyebrows covered large brown eyes, but the brown wasn't that dark brown that would easily look muddy. Instead, her eyes were more of a milk chocolate color, almost a caramel brown but just slightly richer looking, and as I've said before, her eyes were both expressive and penetrating. In fact, I had noticed that when Bella looked intently at me, as if to see within me, her eyes darkened just slightly, and she shaded them with her eyelids by a mere fraction. Bella's eyes also made her smile more effective. When Bella was extremely happy, she had grin that covered almost half her face, and her eyes lit up in an unusual manner. I once commented to Alice that it looked like a special light shone out of her eyes when she was happy, and Alice just smiled wordlessly at my comment, but within her mind she said, 'He's finally noticing how special our Bella really is.'
Bella's mouth was the first feature that always attracted my eyes. Her lips seemed perfectly shaped for kissing, and they always seem to have a slight reddish tint to them, and then, Bella had this habit of licking them make them even more noticeable. That slight wet look seemed to make her lips shine more, and all I could think about at that instant in time was how wonderful it would be kissing them, and generally that was what I would do. Unfortunately, I didn't always consider the audience that might be observing. Around family, I had no problems. I had witnessed them enough times that I felt it was only fair that if they didn't want to see us kissing, then they could be the ones who left the room for a change. At school and in public, however, a different kind of audience appeared. At school, teachers and administrators frowned upon student's kissing in the hallway. It took me a few months to learn to pull Bella into a hall closet or an empty room at school before allowing my lips to enjoy the heady taste of hers. In public, I had to learn to scan the vicinity for children or disapproving adults before ravishing her lips with mine. Bella's lips have always been a weakness for me, and I still enjoy kissing them and her, but now I don't have to be careful about how much passion I put into kissing her, and my teeth are no longer a danger to her.
Between her gorgeous eyes and sensual lips lay her nose. She has an interesting nose, but if one didn't take the time to really look at it, it would be lost because of the other two focal features. Her nose was just large enough to serve its purpose but small enough so as not to attract undue attention. It was also slightly turned up at the end, again, not much but just enough to make it interesting in its own right. Bella had a fascinating, at least for me, habit of scrunching her nose up when she smelled something distasteful; I notice the scrunched up effect for the first time in the school cafeteria when the cooks served sauerkraut for lunch. It was obviously not a food Bella enjoyed. Later, I also noticed she did the same thing when she smelled blood.
Bella's overall face was not the typical heart-shaped one, but her chin did have a slight hint of narrowness when compared to the average round or oval face. Her chin seemed perfectly designed for her face, but I did begin to notice that when she became stubborn about something, she would purse her lips and thrust out her chin but ever so slightly that the normal human eye might not even notice it. This slight narrowness seemed to add to the effect of her lips; it made them seem slightly larger than they really were, but it didn't mar her looks in anyway. In fact, it actually had the opposite effect – maybe that was why I always wanted to kiss them.
Studying Bella's face took only seconds, but it entertained my mind while I awaited Bella's response to my apology. It was her mouth that responded first by smiling at me, and then she said, "That was beautiful Edward, and my tears are a result of how your words have touched my heart. I do agree with you about our essences being intertwined because I feel that same way about you leaving me. If it ever happened, I too would be figuratively torn in half, and I don't think I would survive the pain. I'm also glad you don't see me as broken, but I have a hunch that many human males would see just that and would never want me for a wife." Her smiled widened and her eyes lit up more as she chuckled softly, "Maybe it's a good thing I fell in love with someone who was just as broken in the baby-making category as I am."
Instead of saying anything about her observation, I kissed her, deciding the kiss would make an excellent conclusion to our conversation. Some famous author should have said 'a kiss is worth a thousand words,' because that one definitely was.
