Chapter 69 Chapter Notes

Edward drives Bella to Seattle to shop for wedding stuff. On the way, she has some interesting questions about life on the other side of reality.

The chapter title belongs to Tracy Chapman

Chapter 69 Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution

Bella spends the next week in a state of advanced agitation. I help her with her studies because she can't concentrate on anything. I breeze through my classes, distracted only by her raging hormones. She eyes me speculatively, wondering, I'm sure, about our upcoming sexual relationship. I've been thinking about it, deciding to take Alice's advice and to go slow. But the time is speeding toward us like a train, since we'll be married on Sunday.

Saturday, December 9th Wedding Prep Day

Bella wakes up slowly, stretching seductively in her silky blue pajamas. I put aside my book and kiss her. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me down to face her. "Get up, lazybones," I say with a smile. "We're going shopping."

She frowns. "Shopping? For the house?"

"Not for the house. For you. C'mon. Seattle is a hike and we have a lot to do before tomorrow."

Her chin elevates ever so slightly in defiance. "Would you rather shop in Port Angeles? They have that one department store." I grin at her. She knows I'm joking. With a shiver and a smile, she throws back the covers and grabs her clothes. I catch a glimpse of an alluring length of bare thigh, which makes me shiver and smile. I make the bed and straighten the bedroom while she performs her usual ablutions in the bathroom. Downstairs, she grabs a yogurt and a bottle of water, and we're off.

Seattle is several hours away, but we pass the time talking about everything. Our families, our past, our future. "Bella, tell me exactly what Maya said to you when she came over to pick up Charlie's stuff."

Bella shifts in her seat to look at me. "I heard a knock on the door and when I answered, Maya was standing there, looking uncomfortable. She said in her soft voice, 'Bella, you know that I've brought Charlie to my house to recuperate. After some careful thought, he's decided to move in with me permanently. He says that you and Edward are adults now, and in light of the fact that you've been intimate, he doesn't see any reason to continue pretending.'"

"Wow."

"Yeah. I could feel my face burning. I said, 'Maya, I am still a virgin. So is Edward. But I respect Charlie's decision.'" She didn't say anything else to me right then, just fetched some boxes out of her car and we packed up all of Charlie's stuff. I think I was more stunned than anything else. When Maya got ready to leave, she said it was the wrong time to talk to Charlie about any of this, as he was having a hard time with his shoulder and the fact that I'd told him I was going to join your family. So I didn't call him, and we haven't spoken about it."

"Do you feel let down?" I ask. "Like you did with Renee?"

Bella is quick to shake her head. "No. He's right. I am an adult. And I can't say that I am the least bit unhappy about how it's all turned out. The house is so beautiful, and it's ours. Yours and mine."

I think about this, but Bella has moved to a different topic. "So, onward and upward. Tell me about how I'll feel after transformation," she says.

Hmm. Not a subject I would have chosen, but I comply. "When you wake, you'll need to hunt right away. Your throat will burn and ache, and it will only be partially soothed by animal blood. Your eyes will stay red for about a year, until all your human blood is metabolized. During that time, your body temperature will slowly cool."

Until you're no longer warm. Until your flesh is cold and hard, like mine. Words I can't say, not today.

"Well, how long until I'm safe around people again?" She's thinking of Jasper, I'm sure. He's been an Immortal for one hundred thirty-nine years, and he still struggles.

"Depends. A few years, at least."

"What are the odds that I slip and…kill somebody?" She says the last bit as a whisper, but I hear it loud and clear.

"That depends on who you're exposed to. If we stay above the reservation where the only people are the Indians, you might not slip at all. But don't focus on that, Bella. It happens."

"What about your family. How did they do?"

"Rosalie has never tasted human blood, and Carlisle, only when he changed us. Neither of them has ever fed on a human. Emmett had a few lapses during his first couple of years. Alice and Jasper didn't live with us when they were newborns, so I have only Alice's word to go on. She slipped several times until she got her thirst under control, and then never again. And, of course, you know about Jasper. The last time that he had a lapse was in Alaska, not quite three years ago, which was the reason we came back here when we did."

"What about Esme?"

I was hoping she wasn't going to ask about Esme. "Carlisle and I lived in Ohio when he found Esme. She'd lost her baby and had thrown herself off of a cliff, but was still clinging to life when she was dumped in the morgue. Carlisle recognized her, because he'd treated her for a broken leg when she was sixteen. He bit her to save her life. They were married shortly thereafter."

"Wow. So, how did she cope during her early years?"

I sigh. "I went to school during the day and Carlisle worked nights so one of us would always be with her. We had moved out into the woods, miles from another house. One day, in the fall, I was upstairs repairing some plumbing when I heard someone crunching through the leaves out behind the house. I raced downstairs to see Esme run through the screen door. Tore it off its hinges. She was on the guy before I could stop her."

"She killed him?"

"Not right away. He was screaming and thrashing in her arms as she fed. He died a few minutes later."

"You couldn't have saved him?"

"And told him what? That my mother is a young vampire and she's sorry and promises never to do it again? Once she had revealed herself to him, there was nothing I could do but let it play out."

"Esme?"

"You sound surprised."

Bella worries her lip. "Well, yeah. She seems so…kind. So gentle."

"Yeah, now. But when she was a newborn, she was bloodthirsty. Just like the rest of us."

"What happened…after?" Bella says this as if it's a distasteful subject, but that we'd better get it over with.

"When Esme realized what she'd done, she was hysterical. I washed her off in the stream and had to carry her back into the house, where she locked herself in the bedroom and screamed like she was on fire for three days and three nights."

"That must have been terrible!" Bella sounds shocked, but I sense more compassion for the young vampire than for the hapless fellow whose only mistake had been to wander too near our house.

"Yep. We didn't have phone service, so I couldn't alert Carlisle." I wince as I remember that day. "She was beside herself with grief and I didn't want to make the situation worse by forcing my way into their bedroom. Finally, I had to tell her that I was leaving to dispose of the body, which made her scream even louder."

"You had to carry the guy's dead body away and bury it?" Her expression is pained.

"I did. And I want you to think about that. My mother had just committed murder, and I was required by the 'code' that we live by to clean up that mess. I threw the guy over my shoulder and ran into the woods for two miles, dug a deep hole and tossed him in. Walked away."

Bella says nothing. I glance over to her. "Imagine that, in a year, after you're…one of us." I can't say 'vampire'. And if I can't say it, how in the world am I going to be able to administer a bite to her neck? I shake my head and continue. "I slip and kill a passer-by. I'm stunned by the act, unable to clean up the mess. It then falls to you to dispose of the body in a way that can't be linked back to the family."

I let that sink in for a minute. "Dig a hole, toss in the body. Walk away. Think about it."

She takes a deep, shuddering breath and glances at me. "What did Carlisle say when he came home?"

"He was upset, naturally, but not surprised. She slipped several more times, but every time, she mourned. And she learned."

"Well, is there anything about your past that I don't know?"

"No. I fed on humans, but purposefully." We've already discussed my defection from Carlisle's family, the way I fed on would-be or established criminals, and how the weight of death was too much for me. How I finally returned and was welcomed back into the fold.

"The closest I ever came to losing control was the day you walked into Junior Biology."

"I'm so glad you didn't eat me, Edward Cullen." She tousles my hair and I try not to go there in my mind. It was so close. Soooo close.

I feel my face freeze into a frown, and Bella says, "What's wrong?"

It takes me a moment to properly frame the words. "I've never been able to convey to you how close it was. You'll have to be an Immortal yourself before you can possibly understand the call of blood, and you may never come into contact with blood that so closely matches your physiology."

"I don't understand that last bit."

"Carlisle thinks that it's chemical. Blood smells like blood, and it's all sweet, but some, like yours, is even sweeter. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. My entire family agrees, although it doesn't call to them the way it doesto me." I lick my lips, thinking guiltily about that crimson stream, trickling into my mouth in the ballet studio. I'd never felt satiated before that day. Even though we're baring our souls, so to speak, I can't tell Bella just how perfect her blood is for my body. Totally and completely perfect.

"So, every vampire has been drawn to my blood?" She blinks a few times, as if she's not sure how she feels about this.

I nod my head slowly. "Um, yeah. It's still a struggle for me sometimes," I admit. "My body doesn't know that I love you, Bella. It only knows what it smells. It only knows what it wants." What it tasted, what it knows that it's missing.

Bella discretely powers down her window a few inches. I do the same. She drums her fingers on the dash and I say, "What's wrong, Bella? Last minute nerves about tomorrow?"

She shakes her head. "C'mon," I chide. "Tell me what's on your mind."

"Okay. I'll tell you. I think we're both still holding onto wounds and regrets. We haven't been completely honest with each other about how we feel, and if there's one thing I learned from Renee, it's that you don't enter into marriage without putting everything on the table."

I keep my eyes on the road, thinking that this is not going to be a fun conversation.

Necessary, but not fun.