'Bella is back!'
Rosalie yelled it at the top of her voice as I shakily stepped inside the door of the coffeehouse. It was five minutes until closing, and empty of customers.
An instant later a boy who was incredibly nice to look at was speeding toward me.
He stopped, abruptly, an arms length away, his expression showing anguish and relief. Behind the counter, Carlisle appeared too. He conferred silently with Rosalie, then they both retreated into the kitchen.
'Bella,' Edward breathed. 'What… where…' He shook his head slightly. 'How… how are you?'
I ignored the question to blurt: 'I'm sorry.'
His eyes swept down my damp clothing to my feet, then back to my face. 'What are you sorry for?' he asked softly.
Where to start? For lying to him, for disappearing on him, for underestimating the strength of his feelings for me.
'Everything,' was all I managed to say, before I burst into tears.
Edward had somehow eased my backpack from my shoulders and got me into an armchair without discernibly touching me. When my gulping sobs subsided, Carlisle came over and passed me, handle first, a mug of hot chocolate. They thought I was cold. Perhaps I was, but my shivers were nothing to do with the temperature.
They'd begun that morning, when I'd woken to hear a radio announcer trilling that it was seven AM on Saturday the fifth of January. My stomach had done a cartwheel of glee because Saturday meant work, which in turn meant good coffee and burgeoning friendships and laughing with kissable Edward… and then the girl whose clock radio had just woken up the whole dorm apologised and I'd remembered, and begun to shake. I was in a bunk in a youth hostel hundreds of miles away from work and friends and Edward…. from home. I'd refused to let myself think about them all week, but now it was Saturday, when I usually worked, and suddenly I yearned to be back there.
I'd taken my SIM card from my phone and destroyed it before leaving Seattle, because that number was a direct link to Renee. I'd known I could still connect my handset to WIFI, to check my email, but hadn't dared do so, fearing an angry reply from Edward, or, even worse, no reply at all. Quivering, I typed in the complex mixture of letters and numbers that formed the WIFI password, then opened my email application. I paused to close my eyes and send a plea up into the ether. Part wish, part prayer: let me see evidence that I have something to go home to, right here, right now, in my inbox. Please.
'Bella,' Edward said, pulling an armchair to immediately in front of the one I was in. I was still in a daze from my memories of that morning, when I'd seen more evidence than I could have dared to imagine that I was wanted, and begun the long trek home. 'Bella, can you hear me?'
I focussed all my attention on him. 'Did you mean it all?'
'Mean what?' He caught on, and his eyes cleared. 'Everything I said in my emails? Yes, ma belle, I meant every word.'
Ma belle. Relief flooded through me. The affection was there, after all. Why then, wasn't he touching me?
'What about you?' he asked, his voice trembling as much as my hands. 'Did you mean it?'
Mean what? I wondered. Then I smiled. He was holding back because he wasn't sure how I felt. I placed my mug down on the side table, then returned my gaze to Edward. 'That I love you? Of course I did. Of course I do.'
He seized me then and hugged me. I hugged back, my arms tighter than his, finally not shaking.
A/N: Just the beginning of the end, still lots to tie up and resolve.