So this next section looks at Edward's rebellious period.
~Part Three: Broken into Pieces~
1926
Edward
We had recently moved back to America – specifically Belcourt, North Dakota. For the first time in four years, Carlisle had begun working in a hospital again. Esme was Carlisle's housewife. I was her younger brother, and yet again re-enrolling in college.
"Remind me again why all three of us needed to come?" I asked.
Because it helps if the humans see us all together, especially doing something as human as shopping, Carlisle replied patiently.
"Right," Esme said, consulting the list she had written as a prop. Esme seemed to actually enjoy these annoying motions of humanity we had to go through. "We need to go to the bakers, then the general store, then the butchers and then the grocers. And we need to stop by the tailors for the clothes I ordered."
"Why don't we separate?" Carlisle suggested. "You can go to the tailors and I'll get the food."
"OK. What about you, Edward?"
I thought about it for a moment. Much as I didn't want to be surrounded by the disgusting stench of human food, Esme would no doubt spend half an hour discussing the latest women's fashions at the tailors.
"I'll go with Carlisle," I finally announced, deciding I'd take human food over standing around awkwardly waiting for Esme.
"OK," Esme agreed. She gave Carlisle the list and a quick kiss before heading in the opposite direction.
Beside me, Carlisle chuckled. "Have you seen this list?" he asked me. I took a look at it. Not only had Esme written an exact list of human food – she had written things like 'For the cake' and 'For Carlisle's dinner' next to them.
Anyone who looked at this would surely think we were human, Carlisle thought, still amused by his wife's behaviour.
We had slowly, over the course of three years in Alaska, got Esme used to being around humans once more. The confidence she had gained in Canada prior to their wedding was ruined by her 'slip-up'. It had taken a lot of coaxing to encourage her to try again. But she had finally gained both control, and confidence in that control, to the point where Carlisle would not argue with us leaving her alone in the middle of town.
The move out of our secluded lifestyle in Alaska had, to my surprise, overjoyed Esme. She was glad that Carlisle would be able to begin his work as a doctor again, and I could return to school. It was just so Esme-like of her, always selfless and thinking of others. She also enjoyed the return of 'normality', or as close to normal as vampires can get, hence her happiness at doing mundane human tasks like shopping. Though both myself and Carlisle had worried she would get bored at home all day, she was more than willing to play the part of loving housewife and sister.
"What's next on the list?" Carlisle asked after we had been to both the bakers and the general store. "Ah, yes, the butchers. Apparently we're having chicken tonight, chicken stew tomorrow, beef on Wednesday, and then casserole on Thursday," he announced, reading from Esme's squiggly notes. He briefly wondered if he should be worried by his wife's behaviour, before deciding he would talk to her tonight.
Once we had finished all our shopping, we went to meet Esme outside the tailors. Just as I had predicted, she was deep in conversation about hemlines.
As we waited for her, Carlisle mused about how happy simple human contact could make his wife.
"Oh," Esme exclaimed, noticing Carlisle and myself. "My husband and brother are here. Do you think you could have that new dress you mentioned ready for me by next week?"
"Of course, Mrs. Cullen."
"Thank you."
"Another dress?" Carlisle teased her as she walked out the shop. She pinned him with her best glare.
"Do you want your wife to be fashionable or not?" she asked jokingly.
I watched on as they both simultaneous moved all their shopping bags into one hand so they had the other free to hold hands.
"I just want my wife to be happy," Carlisle whispered in her ear.
"I am," Esme told him. Carlisle decided to let the matter drop for the moment. If my hands hadn't been full of shopping, I would probably have been pinching the bridge of my nose in exasperation at this point.
Trying to block my parents' gushy thoughts from my own mind, I started to tune into those around me. It was the same old routine human thoughts.
Have I left the stove on?
Why was David so late home last night?
These bloody kids better behave today.
If I save my wages this week, I can take her out next week.
Please don't let him have hurt the baby. Ow, that' s still sore after last night. Please God, let my baby be OK!
Fucking bitch – she better not say anything.
The last two caught my attention. They came from a seemingly normal couple walking just in front of us. The woman was about six months pregnant. Her thoughts reminded me of Esme – she thought about her unborn baby the same way Esme had thought about William, and now thought about myself. A rush of anger filled me, aimed towards her despicable husband.
We finally arrived back at the Cadillac - I kept telling Carlisle we needed to purchase a newer car. Automatically, I began loading the bags into the boot of the car. The couple had stopped a short distance from us. I zoned in on my mother's thoughts, but she hadn't noticed anything, thankfully. She was wondering if Carlisle would let her keep some of the ingredients to make some meals to send to a local orphanage. A flood of affection for the caring vampire I had the luck to call my mother washed over me. Across the road, the man and his wife began an argument. I tried my hardest not to cringe at the thoughts in the woman's head; unfortunately there was nothing I could do to help her.
"Are we off?" I asked, trying to hurry up. The woman's thoughts were becoming increasingly hard to listen to, not helped by the fact they reminded me of my mother's human memories.
"Ow! John, you're hurting me!" The woman's whisper was too quiet for the humans to hear, but it was perfectly clear to vampires.
"You keep your darn mouth shut, Lillian, unless you want to walk into another door tonight," he snarled at her.
Both my parents had noticed them by now.
"You know better than to say anything, right, Esme? Unless you want to be making another trip to the hospital tomorrow as well. Not that anyone would believe you anyway." The voice of Charles Evenson threatened Esme in the now blurry memories. She remembered the feeling of helplessness she had felt, day in and day out, at his hands. She wished to be able to help the woman, but how? Her eyes settled on the woman's protruding bump. That could have been me. Thank God I got us away, even if it did William no good in the end. Another image flashed into her mind, this time it was not an actual memory, merely the memory of an imagined scene. In it, Charles hit her mercilessly while their son watched on, and once he was finished with Esme, he turned on their son, while Esme was helpless to stop him.
Carlisle tightened his arm around his wife's waist. In his memories I saw the women, Lillian, at the hospital. He had only seen her in passing, had never actually treated her himself, so he had never given her any thought until now. If she had been my patient, what would I have done?
"Let's go," he announced gravely. I give the couple a last look – surely they had to be something we could do to help her. I heard the same thought in both of my parents' mind. But they had both reached the same conclusion as I had – it was out of our control. Though Carlisle had decided he would say something to her if he saw her in the hospital again.
It was an uneasy ride home. None of us said anything as Carlisle drove - one hand on the wheel, the other clutching Esme's. The same thought kept going through Esme's mind. I'm safe with Carlisle now. I'm safe with Carlisle now. She repeated this over and over again; using the same technique she always did when there was something she wished to block from her thoughts.
I didn't help with the shopping once we finally arrived back home, storming straight into the house and into my room. I settled down at my piano, trying to use the familiar soothing activity to calm me. I tried to employ Esme's distraction technique, concentrating on the music rather than what I had heard today.
Men like that deserve to die. I gave up with the piano then, finally allowing myself to think the thoughts I had been trying to prevent. There was no doubt in my mind that men like John or Charles deserved to die. Of course, Carlisle did not agree. I never understand that. I understand his dedication to saving human life as a whole, but why save those who did not deserve to be saved? Why protect those that did nothing but sully the world with their existence?
Edward. Carlisle's mental call took me by surprise. I had been so wrapped up in my own thoughts that his and Esme's had been pushed to the back of my mind for the moment. Can I come in, son?
"Yes," I replied.
Are you OK, son?
"Just fine," I replied. It was supposed to come out sounding nonchalant, but instead it came out bitter and sullen.
What's wrong, son?
"That man, that despicable man. How can we have just left her with him?"
What other choice do we have?
"I've told you before, Carlisle. Men like that don't deserve to live."
We are not killers, Edward.
"Maybe we should be."
It is not our place to decide who lives and who dies, that is God's decision alone.
"And yours," I spat at him. "Have you not twice saved those who God deemed ready to die? How can you tell me to leave decisions in God's hands when you have yourself done the exact opposite?"
It's different, Edward. I knew I had hit a sore spot now. That Carlisle was now trying to persuade himself just as much as he was I. Usually I would have stopped at this point, not wanting to hurt my father any more, but I had reached my breaking point. I'd had it with his holier-than-thou attitude, when, on this at least, he was nothing more than a hypocrite.
"How? How is it different, Carlisle?"
I interfered to save your lives; you wish to interfere to end lives.
"What about the woman, Lillian, and her baby? Would I not be saving their lives by removing the scum that calls himself her husband off this earth?"
It is not our decision, Edward. It is not our place to interfere. We must entrust their lives to God.
"Like you did. And look how will that turned out." That was a low blow and I knew it. But I couldn't stop myself. How could Carlisle be so calm and collected about all this? How could he not see I was right? Why was he so stubborn as to not accept that perhaps there were shades of grey in his unbending moral code?
What?
"Esme. When she was sixteen, you prayed for her to have a good life. And what did your precious God do? He threw her into the clutches of a monster."
But He brought her back to me eventually.
"So that's fine, is it? It doesn't matter how much she suffered before because you got her back eventually?"
Edward! I never said that. Of course I regret everything she went through.
"But if you saw Charles Evenson on the street you would simply walk past him?" My father's thoughts faltered for a moment, and though he tried to cover it up, I caught the slip. No. No he wouldn't. Even my pacifist father would like to be able to end Charles' abominable life. He never would, but a small part of him would have liked to.
"You see. You do understand. Give me one reason why we shouldn't go and kill that man after everything he did?"
We should not lower ourselves to his level. If we go after him, how are we any better than him?
"How are we any better than him?" I asked incredulously "We would never do the things he did. You would never hurt Esme."
You're right, son. I would never hurt Esme. I could never go after him for that reason.
"That makes no sense, Carlisle. Don't you want her to feel safe? Aren't you supposed to love her?" I knew the moment the words left my mouth that I had gone too far. For the first time in our eight years together, Carlisle lost his temper.
How dare you, Edward! To even suggest …
He took a deep breath and calmed himself down.
I will talk to you later, Edward. When you have calmed down.
"We should go hunt him down, Carlisle, and you know it. Give me one reason why I shouldn't go and remove the tarnish of his presence from this Earth?"
You'll do no such thing, Edward. The words were not an answer, or a suggestion, but undeniably an order. This only caused to infuriate me more. How dare he order me about when he is being nothing more than a hypocrite? What gives him the right?
He left my room and I heard him head towards his office, his thoughts still churning over our conversation. To no surprise to me, they revealed he was not going to bend on this point anytime soon. He would cling to his belief that God had a plan for everyone, and it was not his own place to interfere, at least not in the violent manner I had suggested. He even tried to persuade himself that I was wrong, that he had not interfered with Esme's and my deaths, merely that God had placed him in the right place at the right time.
Hypocrite.
How stupid to cling to a belief in God when one was a damned creature. How foolish to act to protect souls that no longer existed. He did not want me killing people in cold blood because he believed it would tarnish my soul. How could I tarnish something he had stripped away from me?
Finally deciding I could reside in Carlisle's head no longer, I swapped to my mother's. Hers was no happier place to be right now. Though she had been trying her hardest not to listen, she had gathered we were arguing about Charles. She wondered if he had another wife now, and if he abused this second wife as well. But then I heard something she must have been trying to keep hidden from me until now. A completely irrational fear, but still one that plagued her. What if Charles somehow managed to find her? Of course, she was a vampire now, he wouldn't have been able to touch her, but she seemed to forget that fact whenever Charles plagued her thoughts. He had always made her fearful, and so she still was, even when in her rational mind she knew he could no longer do her any harm.
"Edward? I'm going to take Esme hunting, do you wish to come with us?" Carlisle called through my door.
"No," I replied. I was still angry at Carlisle for our exchange of harsh words earlier. Carlisle walked away, his thoughts full of talking to me later.
A minute later, my mother's timid voice floated through the door. "Edward? Are you sure you don't want to come with us? You haven't hunted in awhile." Esme's thoughts were only concerned for me. How anyone could ever have hurt someone as sweet and gentle as her was a mystery to me. Her kindness and love only made me want to hunt down Charles Evenson that much more.
"No, Esme. I'm fine," I replied gently, I was not angry with her.
I heard the pair of them leave, Esme was fretting over my well-being and Carlisle was still smarting from our argument earlier.
I tried to concentrate once more on my music. But I couldn't push the thought from my head. If I went now I could get there before Carlisle could ever catch up. It was a snap decision, one I wouldn't have made if I had not still be fuming over my argument with Carlisle, and if I'd stopped and thought about it I would not have done it. But I was furious and filled with a desperate need to do something. I had not been able to save the poor woman called Lillian, but I would make sure my sweet mother never had to live in fear again. I would do what my hypocrite of a father was too cowardly to do.
In one swift movement I was out the door.
As for where the Cullens have moved to - I'll be honest, I picked a place near the Canadian border at random. I have no idea if it would be suitable for vampires or not (also I'm rubbish at Geography, I don't even know where half the cities in Britain are and I live here!)
Reviews are always appeciated :)
