What's that? Did I hear you say you all want a long, Edward over-thinking and drawing the wrong conclusions chapter? No? Well too bad...
Edward:
An inch of snow covered the ground where I had pulled over by the side of the road. I had been driving the fastest, and was now too far ahead of everyone else. I had hoped that Rose would be keeping up with me, but now I was left to assume that she had chosen to enjoy the drive more leisurely.
I wished Alice were here, as I often did when I was left to wait for something. My impatience had always been an issue, and having Alice check the future for me had become a quick fix I relied on way too much. I wanted to know how long it would be before someone would catch up, and who it would be that made it first. It felt spineless of me to sit here and wait for another member of my family before carrying on, but I very much didn't want to be the first person to arrive. I already wasn't in the best of moods; I missed Bella, and as much as I loved my Aston Martin, the long drive had worn on me. Though I was excited to see our extended family up north, I wanted to arrive alongside some of the others as a buffer. I especially didn't want to be the target for all the inevitable questions about the newborn. They knew of course, the bare bones of the information about her, but it wouldn't be long before they all would be made aware one way or another of the complicated situation between Bella and myself. Still, ending this long journey with a Spanish Inquisition was not something I hoped to experience.
For now, I tried to pull together some patience and listened for one of the cars of my family. I hoped gently onto the hood of my Aston and leaned back against the windshield. I idly wondered if Alice and Bella would be the first to catch up to me. I hoped they would, though it seemed unlikely. Being away from Bella for the last two days after the time of tenuous, possible friendship reigniting left me feeling unassured about what kind of terms we would be on when I saw her again. After she joined me at the piano the other day, I had wanted nothing more than just a minute alone with her to talk. I wanted to know what she was feeling. I wanted to know where she stood. I was so afraid that the affection she had shown me was another mistake, and that she might pull herself further away because of it.
If Bella had taken this long drive with me, we could have had the opportunity to talk about it already. We could have talked about so many things. It felt like it had been so long since we'd had an easy conversation, though in reality it hadn't even been a week yet, and I missed it. I didn't realize it until I was trapped in my car with only my thoughts as company for forty hours, but I truly needed to work out some sort of system with Bella that would allow me to be with her without confusing or scaring her. She could come up with whatever rules she wanted, and I would follow them. If she didn't want me to touch her, fine. If she didn't want me to stare at her longingly, as I knew she'd caught me doing a few times already , okay. If she didn't want to ever share another sofa again, or if she needed a personal space bubble that was ten feet wide, I could deal with it. But not the silence! The silence was killing me.
I tried to relax. The air up here was sharp and fresh, and it felt cleansing to take deep breaths of it. I reminded myself that taking this car ride without Bella had been the right choice, mostly because I had no idea what Bella's reaction to being alone with me would be, and trapping her alone with me for forty hours wouldn't be the best way to find out.
I heard a car coming towards me from a few miles off, and listened as closely as I could to see if I could catch the internal voice of whoever was in it. I sighed in disappointment a few seconds later when I recognized the minds of Carlisle and Esme instead of Alice, but I was glad enough it was anyone from my family. I got back in my car and started the engine. The two of them were surprised when they came around the bend in the road that allowed them to see my car idling in the shoulder, but Carlisle quickly reasoned that if I'd wanted them to stop, I'd have been waiting outside to flag them down, and drove past me. I followed them the last few miles, and we arrived at the house together.
Our cousins heard us coming when we turned down their long driveway, and were all gathered outside to greet us when we arrived. It seemed I had worried in vain about being bombarded with questions about Bella, because instead, we were bombarded with questions about the wolves. They all already knew about the first pack of wolves we had met years ago, and they knew of the treaty we'd made with them.
"But I don't understand," Eleazar said, "You told us when you moved back there that the wolves were extinct."
"We thought they were," Carlisle responded. "I can only imagine that the gene must skip generations, or that it was recessive enough to only seem gone until now."
Eleazar frowned, not liking the uncertainty of Carlisle's response, but Carmen smiled.
"Well," she started, "They'll never find you here!" She clapped her hands decisively, hoping to close the subject. "Why don't you tell us about your youngest?" she suggested to Carlisle. Both his and Esme's thoughts immediately turned to me, and I pretended not to notice.
"Bella is a shy one," Carlisle said, hoping to hedge around explaining my situation. Carmen and Eleazar noticed the evasion in his answer, and a glance passed between them as they silently agreed not to push for information that wasn't readily shared. I could kiss them for their respectful release of the topic, but before I could feel too relieved, Kate's voice cut in.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, having also noticed Carlisle's tone.
"Kate!" Irina scolded. "I'm sure she's lovely," she said to Carlisle in the tone of an apology.
Kate frowned. I want to know! She whined internally. Suddenly remembering I could hear her thoughts, she turned look at me. You'll tell me all about her later, right Edward? she asked, but before I could try to get out of promising anything, Irina glanced between us and caught on.
"Come on, Kate," she said, exasperated. "We'll meet her within the hour. Show some dignity, you gossip."
Kate narrowed her eyes at her sister, mentally accusing her of ruining her fun, and poked her gently in the ribs, shocking her lightly when she did. Irina jumped a little, and scowled back while Tanya laughed playfully.
Another car turned up the driveway, out of sight through the trees, but within easy hearing range for us all.
"Maybe I'll get to meet her sooner than you think," Kate said to Irina, briefly sticking her tongue out at her at the end.
I wasn't getting my hopes up. I knew the purr of Rosalie's car's engine. She kept it so finely tuned it was impossible to mistake for the Volvo.
The girls were just as excited to see Rose, anyway. She had always been the closest with the younger of our cousins, with perhaps the exception of Tanya, who insisted on being closest to me. As if to prove it, when her sisters went to greet mine, she danced closer to me with a smile.
"It's been a while since you've been up here," she accused, remembering when we last parted ways, and trying not to think of my refusal to her various offers. Though her sentence was innocent enough, and her tone spoke of nothing but small talk, her thoughts betrayed another meaning. I had been gone so long, that maybe I'd had time to change my mind about our relationship to each other.
"It hasn't been that long," I discouraged.
Tanya laughed at my answer. Well you can't blame me for wondering, she thought. A few steps away from us, Kate was already trying to pry some sort of information about what made the newborn so strange from Rosalie, and Rose, God bless her, was defending Bella.
"There's nothing wrong with her," She insisted, somewhat affronted by Kate's insinuations. Irina was rolling her eyes.
"Well, Carlisle said she was shy, but it sounded like he meant something else," Kate argued.
"She is shy," Rose confirmed. "She didn't speak at all for the longest time when she woke up, and then for weeks it was one word sentences only. But she's past that." Rose stopped for a second, frowning, then amended, "She's mostly past that." Kate didn't know it, but Rose was thinking about how Bella still seemed uncomfortable talking to me, and she was wondering if meeting new people here would make her retreat back into her shell.
Kate was only unhappier with the ambiguity of Rosalie's answer, but Irina was itching to change the subject.
"We'll have to wait and see, won't we?" Irina said, ignoring Kate's huff, and sidestepping another static poke. "But anyway, Rose, have we got some stories for you!"
Rose grinned, and I gagged. This was why Rose was the favorite; a house full of succubae, and only one of their cousins wanted to trade too-detailed stories of conquests and experiments. Tanya, noting my discomfort, hooked her arm into mine and started to pull me towards the house.
"We've done some renovations since the last time you were here," she said. "Would you care to see them?" And get away from the stories about to be shared, she added mentally.
"Don't you have some of your own to add?" I challenged, though I began to walk with her away from our sisters.
Tanya laughed. "Of course!" Then, loud enough that her sisters would know they were meant to hear, she said, "I'm just not rude enough to discuss them in front of the guests!"
Kate turned to us and stuck out her tongue, and Irina crossed her arms over her chest at the accusation.
Before either of them could argue, another car turned onto the drive. Kate turned towards the noise zealously, and hoped that this one would contain the girl she so desperately wanted to meet.
It would. The car coming around the bends of the driveway was definitely not the Jeep, and I could hear Alice's thoughts. She was looking ahead for when Jasper would arrive with Emmett. Apparently, the two had stopped at some arcade on the way up, but they were now speeding through the snowy northern roads faster than any of the other cars had been able to, trying to make up lost time. They would be here soon too.
"I've never seen Kate so desperate to see a girl," Irina said to Rose, then turned to her sister. "Are you thinking of batting for the other team?" she teased.
Kate grinned at her sister. "You're just jealous that I can attract any woman I want," she quipped back. I frowned. Even though they were only kidding, I still felt a tiny pang of jealousy at the idea of anyone else trying to attract Bella.
Rose and Irina laughed just as the Volvo pulled up next to Carlisle's Mercedes. I met Bella's eyes through the windshield. When she saw me, she froze. Her hand hovered over the door handle, like she was about to get out, but now realizing I was here, had decided against it.
So, back to avoiding me it was, then. It seemed my worries about scaring her away weren't as ridiculous as I had tried to convince myself they were. I wondered what the two days apart had meant for her. Had she missed me like I missed her? Had she missed me even a fraction of that? Or had she realized that I wasn't as important to her as she'd thought. Maybe she'd barely thought of me at all– 'out of sight, out of mind' and all that. I raised my free arm to wave at her, hoping to elicit a response, but she continued to gape at me, looking shocked and something akin to offended.
Alice had gotten out of the car, but stalled too. She was confused about a new version of the future that had sprung up. It was a blurry vision of Bella going for a hunt with Carlisle, and she seemed very unhappy about it. Alice, too, seemed unhappy about the change, though her thoughts were too focused on the future for me to catch why. I considered trying to tag along on Bella and Carlisle's hunt, but I didn't want to make anything worse, so I dropped that idea.
Without my realizing that she had gotten so close, Tanya's voice was suddenly in my ear. "Quick, let's get out of here before Kate jumps the girl!" she whispered, glancing at her sister who was staring at Bella, trying to work out what the big secret was.
I turned to Tanya and forced a smile as an agreement, unable to put together words but unwilling to stand here and gape back at Bella. I put a step of space between us as Tanya returned to standing flat on her feet, and as she pulled my by our linked elbows into the house, giggling at the idea of Kate scrutinizing the poor, shy newborn, I cast one last glance at Bella over my shoulder. Her expression hadn't changed.
It's funny how two people can be a part of the same situation and interpret it so differently...
I don't want to jinx it, but I think I may have nipped this whole cold business in the bud. I was already feeling better this morning, and all the miserable stuff is gone except for an itchy throat. Hopefully it stays gone!
