Chapter 70 Chapter notes

This is the type of conversation that every couple should have before they get married. Tell it all, brother. Now, before you sign the marriage license.

The chapter title belongs to Kenny Rogers and The First Edition

Chapter 70 Tell it all Brother Bella POV

"I know you're still dealing with residual feelings about my defection," Edward says gently, "so you go first. Like you said, we need to clear the air. Be totally honest, Bella, no matter how brutal."

Edward keeps his eyes on the road as I drum my fingers on the dash. I take a deep breath and say, "All right. I want you to imagine something for me. This should be easy for you, as you have an Immortal mind with its capacity to see further and think faster than a human one."

He sighs. "All right. Go."

"Imagine that you're a nondescript, geeky teenager, who's been preoccupied with keeping a roof over her head, because your mother is flaky and irresponsible. It's exhausting. You don't have time for a social life, but nobody really pays attention to the quiet kid who's always reading a book when others are hanging out.

"You're awkward. You have to take P.E. but it's embarrassing not to be able to swing a badminton racket without clipping your own head. And every year, you begin your summer holiday with the humiliation of field day, when nobody ever wants to choose you for their team. One year a fist fight broke out over who would be stuck with you.

"Your reckless mother announces that she's getting married to the baseball player she's been dating. He's like, twelve years younger than she is. You overhear her telling him that if it wasn't for you, she could go with him to all of his away games." I grit my teeth and take a deep breath.

"This is why you came here," Edward says. Not a question. "This incident started it all." His mouth has grown small, and he's gripping the steering wheel very hard.

"Yep. That's exactly what she told him. If it wasn't for me, her daughter, she could go with him to all of his away games." I feel that stab of betrayal again. I've tried to put it away, but it's still there.

Edward doesn't comment, but reaches out and grabs my hand. "You call your dad and tell him you want to move in and finish up high school. He's thrilled, and wires you money for your ticket, which you buy. You transfer out of school and pack up your stuff. All while your mother carries on about how much she'll miss you while at the same time is packing her own stuff to go on the road with her new husband. She packs a bikini. You pack a parka."

I can't believe the bitterness in my voice. All these months later and it still stings. Edward squeezes my hand gently but still doesn't say anything.

"You get off the plane to a sodden sky. It's cold. You try to make small talk with your father, but you and he don't really know each other. You're feeling sad, and hoping that this wasn't a mistake, and then something miraculoushappens. A family friend roars up in a beautifultruck, and your father says he's bought it for you. This single gift has touched you more than anything anyone has ever given you before."

I glance up at Edward and see him wince. He'd always hated my truck, and I could never make him see just how important it was to me. Charlie couldn't afford to buy me a new car, so he did the best he could for me.

"Bella, I'm sorry," he blurts out. "I had no idea how much your truck meant to you. I know you tried to tell me, but I had this prejudice about it because it was so old and slow." He shakes his head angrily. "It's like I didn't even try to understand your devotion to the thing."

"Thank you," I say. "Finally." He strokes my hand with a cool finger and I continue. "On your first day of school, something weird happens. You see a guy walk into the cafeteria, and everything just clicks. You can't put your finger on it, but you're drawn to this guy, who then acts like he wants to murder you in your shared Biology class. Later when you're faced with sudden death, your eyes meet, across the parking lot, and then in a split second he's there, saving your life.

"You press him for an explanation and he stops speaking to you. When you hear about the treaty and all from a friend, it begins to make sense. And when he shows up to rescue you from a gang of guys, tells you he's tired of trying to stay away from you, then confirms your suspicions, it all begins to solidify.

"You're part of something bigger, and it's out of your control. You realize that you're in love with him. Your life begins to mean something. Every day feels like a gift. And you know he's dangerous; you've listened as he's tried to warn you away, but you just don't care. Because he makes you feel alive. He makes you feel wanted. And you're willing to give it all up to stay with him, because a normal life, after the fairy tale, seems even emptier than it was before."

Edward glances at me and says, "I feel so ashamed of myself."

I go on. "It all feels too perfect, and then out of the blue, he tells you that you've been careless, hurting yourself, putting him in the position of trying to resist your blood. Before you can even sort it out, he's gone. And you're alone, with a big gash on your arm, which has to be restitched twice in the period of one week.

"Your only friend is the water, and it calls to you. You very nearly answer it, because the firethat burned in you is gone." I blink away the tears, brimming in my eyes.

"How did you feel when I showed up in front of Jacob Black's house?" he asks softly.

I take a deep breath. "I couldn't believe it. Just…I was in shock. So thrilled to see your face again. It was as if my prayers had been answered. Then I was angry, because I felt betrayed. You'd professed your undying love for me, not once, but hundreds of times. And I felt let down, because you left Charlie and me defenseless against Victoria. You left me broken and sobbing after telling me that you didn't want me anymore. That I was too much work."

The perfect face that I see in my dreams at night is twisted in agony. But we have to say these things now and get it all out in the open. "How did you cope after I left?" he asks.

"Oh, I didn't. I stopped eating and had to go to the hospital because I was dehydrated. They threatened me with something called a feeding tube. The cut on my arm got infected and had to be restitched again. Charlie was beside himself. School was out because of the storm, and when I woke up from a week-long crying jag, the snow had melted. I went to school, quite aware that I was a complete mess, and my friends laughed at me behind my back. I couldn't get a comb through my hair for weeks, until it was snarled so bad that I thought about shaving it off.

"One evening, when I was driving home from La Push, I heard the water." I look out the windshield at nothing. My eyes lose focus and I say, "It called to me. I turned around and found myself on the beach. A minute later, I was standing in waist-deep water, having walked out without realizing it. A big wave nearly knocked me down, and the mouthful of salty water brought me around. I finally slogged back to the truck, knowing that the only thing that kept me from walking into the surf was the vision of Charlie's face when my body washed up on the shore the next day."

"Not what it would do to me?" Edward's voice is soft and he glances over to me.

"I thought I would never see you again! You made that quite clear. 'I don't want you any more Bella. It's too much work.' How dare you say such a thing to me!" I'm quite aware that I'm screaming at him, that tears are streaming down my face. I feel all the emotions that I felt back then: betrayal, grief, desolation. And it is shitty.

Edward winces but says nothing. I swallow and gulp, trying to calm myself, when a hand reaches out.

"Bella—"

I wave him away. "As I drove home, all the mistakes I'd made just flooded back to me: Getting lost in Port Angeles; paper cut at my birthday party; escaping from Alice in Phoenix. And then it all made sense. I was a foolish mortal. You'd gotten bored with all the near-death experiences and had just moved on. It made me feel less than worthless. It never occurred to me that you might have been forced to leave." I swallow, feeling like I'm about to puke.

Edward glances at me but I don't look at him. After a couple of deep breaths, I say, "Might be something to consider, Edward, that in your your misguided attempt to protect me, you nearly killed me." Talk about irony.

Edward looks horrified. Good. He has to hear exactly what he did to me. After his return, I was spun out by the attack in front of Jacob's house, and then Charlie was hurt. But now, it's time to talk this out and try to put it behind us.

"Bella, I am so sorry. I'll spend the rest of our existence together making up for that. I promise. The thing with the Quileute aside, by the time I returned, I was set on spending my life with you. I was going to find a way to change you. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I saw that we couldn't live apart. If that turned out to be impossible, I planned to live with you for the entirety of your human life. But the fact remains that I never wanted my presence to interrupt the flow of that life."

I scoff. "Flow. Is that what it was. Well, with your infinite capacity to think things though, why couldn't you have seen that I was desperately, hopelesslyin love, and that I was willing to sacrifice a mundane future for a few months of true happiness? And that it would have been my decision, and not yours, either way?"

"I see now that I drastically underestimated you, Bella." His voice is soft, his expression, bleak.

Before he can apologize again, I reach out and place my hand over his. "Thanks. I've forgiven you. In fact, I forgave you the minute you walked out."

He blinks, then gives his head a minute shake. His lips move, but he's momentarily speechless. Now, that's something I haven't seen before. He's gripping the steering wheel very hard, and finally says, "If you knew how many hours I've spent trying to decide to do the right thing, and not even knowing what that was."

"The right thing being to leave me, correct?" I sigh, wondering if this issue will ever be totally resolved in his head.

"Yep." He finally turns to look at me. "How can you say you forgave me, after what I said? After what I did?"

"I didn't say I wasn't hurt, Edward, or that I wasn't, on some level, really pissed at you. But I love you, and that's never going to change. Since I didn't have any anger about your departure to begin with, I tried to come to terms with the differences between us, and chalk it up to that."

"It totally backfired," he says, shaking his head. "I'd hoped that you would be angry! And instead, you were devastated and sad. And of top of it all, you forgave me."

A lot of emotions play across his face and I take his hand in mine. "What you said to me was the worst thing anyone has ever said to me, but I'm ready to move on from it. Okay?"

Tense silence. We've been suffering through a lot of those lately. I pat his hand gently and he looks out the window, then glances over to me. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Um, now we'll reverse that game and play it the other way around. Now it's your turn to imagine. Ready?"

I nod. "Imagine that you are an Immortal being, and this heady reality makes you a little contemptuous of humans. Because you can live forever, but you can't go out in the sun, you decide to settle in a place with a rainy climate, and then, since you don't want to be stuck at home, decide to re-enroll in high school. Imagine how boring it is. You've done it dozens of times. You have perfect recall, due to your Immortal status, but you're subjected to classes that you memorized the first time you took them.

"Now, you're just marking time, because as odious as high school is, it's better than General Hospital. You can't make friends, or play on sports teams, or let anyone get to know you. You just go every day, do your work, and come home. Hunt when you're thirsty, spend money, look at TV."

This is an insight into his family. I'd wondered why in the world anyone, for any reason, would go through high school even a second time, much less over and over and over. It finally makes sense.

"To top it off, you live with six other Immortals, but they're mated, so you're left out. They don't purposely exclude you, far from it. But since you can read their minds, they're always thinking about sex, about what they're going to do together, what's next in their lives. And you're just existing on the periphery, not really experiencing anything new or exciting. Just marking time.

"That's all your life has to offer, until a girl comes to school from a distant state. And even though you can hear the thoughts of every single person around you, her thoughts are hidden. To top it off, she walks into your Biology class and when the heater blows her scent around the room, you are so overcome with desire for the sweetest blood you've eversmelled in over eighty years, you plan to kill her, then and there.

"You run away, try to regain some perspective. When you come back, your fascination only grows. This girl is beautifulto you. Enigmatic. Mysterious. And beguiling. You can't keep away from her, so one night, you shamefully scale the side of her house, slide open her window, and watch her sleep."

This last bit is said with some bitterness, like he can't believe he did that. I was always okay with it, but looking back, I'd put Charlie in danger. It hadn't occurred to me at the time.

"She mumbles your name in her dreams, and you fall into a love so profound, it's like falling into a deep well with smooth sides. You're there forever. No climbing out. Whether or not she loves you doesn't enter into the equation. Your love is an overwhelming, permanent thing, and suddenly, you become obsessed with her safety.

"She notices that you and your siblings are different. After a trip to La Push, where she hears rumors that you and the family are vampires, you confirm this. You spend a little time together. Then your sister tells you that the date you've planned is very dangerous because she's seen into the future. And you're going to kill the girl. Your body is going to take over, your instincts will prevail, and you'll overpower her, there in the meadow. You'll drink her blood, with no one to see and nothing to tie you to the act."

I open my mouth in outrage but Edward puts a hand up. "You beg the girl to tell somebody that you're going to be with her, to hold you accountable. But she refuses. She doesn't seem to see that you'll be utterly destroyed if you slip and kill her, because you want her life to mean something. To herself, and not just to you."

And now it's Edward whose voice is getting louder. It's like these are things that he's wanted to say, but since he'd walked out on me, felt he couldn't share.

"She seems to think that you have unlimited control, and nothing you say convinces her. Your sister sees you burying the girl, sees your family discretely moving away." A bitter undertone has crept into this tirade, something I've only ever heard when he talks about Rosalie.

"Her father goes out of his mind, but her body is never found."

"Wow," I say with some asperity. "Was it that close? I knew you had lost control there for a minute, but it looked like you recovered fairly quickly."

He gives his head an anxious shake. "We should have discussed this when it happened! I reached for you, and very nearly had you in my grip, before I sprinted away. Remember?"

I nod slowly. "If I had grabbed you, with the way you smell to me, I would have fed, Bella. My body would have taken over, because it already knows what you taste like. It knows what it's been missing."

Our eyes meet, and I think he sees that he's scared me. Finally. "We were all at lunch when Alice got the vision. She yelled my name in her thoughts and showed it to me, then came over to meet you. She said we had to leave so I could hunt. What we really did was work through it."

"Can you explain that?" I say.

Edward keeps his eyes on the road. "She saw me holding your dead body, your blood shining in my eyes, smeared on my mouth, Bella. At first, I didn't believe her. I thought that she was just recalling a vision from the past, before I loved you, but she showed me. It wasn't a memory. And it was in the exact place that I'd planned on taking you, the very next day."

A tense silence grows between us. "But you didn't kill me. So…what happened?"

"Alice showed me that our lives were interconnected, and that if I left, I wouldn't be able to stay away. She said that in my desperation, I might lose control. The only way to the other side was through; the only way forward was to face it. And either I would be strong enough or I wouldn't be. And your life was on the line."

"And since I'm a simple human, you didn't feel the need to share this information with me?"

He sputters for a moment and I soften and put my hand on his arm. "I've always known you were dangerous, Edward, and that you might snap and kill me. Even if you had told me, I still would have gone with you. But why didn't you let me make the decision for myself?"

He squirms in his seat. It's a fair question. "Is it because you feel superior to me, because as a human I can't possibly love as deeply, hurt as profoundly, or otherwise feel anything as intensely as you do, simply because you're a vampire? That I can't be trusted to make my own decisions?"

"Truthfully?" he says, his voice clipped. "Yes. I thought that the immortal love I felt, that I feel, was too profound to be matched by a human. And I thought that you'd outgrow me, that I couldn't possibly hope to hold your interest. I didn't realize that you were capable of the same depth of feeling as I am."

I shake my head, finally seeing, just out of the corner of my eye, that Edward's reality and my reality are two very different things. Why hadn't I seen this before? He is an Immortal, for christ's sake. I am a mere human, but he loves me. Why?

"And I did think that you needed me to help you make difficult decisions," he continues, unaware of my epiphany. "I didn't think that you could see the implications clearly enough to make a good choice."

Grrr. I feel my face grow hard. "And now? Do you think that I'll come to regret my decision to join your family? Because I don't want to marry you if you still think I'm a silly teenager." I pause, lower my head and stare at him. "Because, Edward, I have never been a silly teenager."

He responds quickly, as if he's put a lot of thought ahead of time into the question and the answer. "No, Bella. I regret my past decisions to try to protect you, when now I see that you're much more mature and focused than I ever gave you credit for. And I truly believe that you love me every bit as much as I love you.

"I've been keeping things from you in order to protect you, and it's wrong," he admits. "You're right, of course. I did consider telling you, but Alice saw problems if you declined to go with me to the meadow. I thought we might as well get it over with."

I stare pointedly at him and he says, "But yes, I should have told you."

"Thank you. Finally."

Edward firms his jaw. "I'm not going back to the exercise. I'll just tell you, shall I?" Before I have a chance to respond, he says, "I used to look in the mirror and hate myself! I put you in danger every minute that we were together, but I couldn't stay away. I should have left after the incident at the ballet studio, because, Bella, that was the most horrific thing that I've ever been witness to."

"I know," I say softly.

"You don't know." It's said through gritted teeth. "I saw the whole thing, because James was videotaping it. Alice found it and I watched it when you were still unconscious in the hospital. I saw him step on your leg, heardthe bones snap. Sawhim kicking you in the face."

His voice breaks at this, and with his lips parted and the tortured, crumpled expression twisting his features, I see that he's holding onto a lot of guilt about the attack in the now-infamous ballet studio.

I say nothing, letting him say whatever he needs to say. He looks over at me again and reaches out to brush the area where I'd been kicked, alongside my left cheekbone. I clearly remember that, recall with perfect clarity seeing James looking down at me with that ghastly smile, then pulling his leg back, knowing there was nothing I could do, thinking I was going to die.

The impact, while not sufficient to even break a bone, still knocked my head back. Not so much of a kick with the toe of his boot, which would have probably killed me outright, but a push with the sole of the shoe. And Edward watched this on the damn tape. Watched James torturing me. I can't imagine how I would feel if the roles were reversed. I probably would have a hard time forgiving myself for putting Edward in that kind of danger.

And then suddenly, it all makes sense. I look up at him with different eyes, more mature eyes, I think. Is that what maturity is? Being able to see things from another person's perspective?

With his lips parted and that tortured look on his face, Edward looks like he still feels wretched about it all. "I knew that four of your ribs were broken, because I heard them break." He shakes his head and grimaces at the memory.

"You used to niggle me about changing you, but I resisted, because I didn't want you to make a mistake. Then, after the horror of the separation, with you here almost killing yourself and myself in a trance for over five weeks, I realized: Alice was right. And when you said that something clicked, that you were part of something bigger? You were right.

"This, what we have between us, isn't the normal thing, and not just because you're human and I'm not. This is…" his eyes roam over the endless trees, to the clouds beyond, massing for rain. To the weak sun, valiantly attempting to break through. "This is different. Higher. Bigger."

I say, "So you've moved past all the angst about it? You're totally okay with it now? With changing me?"

Edward hangs his head for a second. "I still wrestle with it, Bella," he confesses. "We can't be apart, and I acknowledge that, but it's no small thing to deprive the one you love of their humanity."

I feel my breath hitch. Dang it. I don't want to start crying. "I never knew that you'd seen that video. That must have been horrible. But don't forget that you saved me, Edward. And if I reverse it, and it's you on the floor of that ballet studio, getting cut and kicked, and I arrive to find your body bruised and broken, I know how I would feel.

"I think I'm finally starting to see how I kind of blew off the whole 'vampire' thing. I mean, you're right. You begged me to tell someone I was going off with you to the meadow, and I didn't. I never thought to look at the situation through your eyes. I understand now. You were terrified. And I was acting like it was no big deal that you were an Immortal who could overpower me and kill me. I am sorry for that."

Traffic begins to pick up as we near Seattle. Edward pulls into a travel plaza, and parks in the back. We meet behind the car and he takes me in his arms. Finally, the tears I've been holding back for the last couple of hours flow. They soak Edward's shirt, these tears, and he brushes them from my face with a cool, firm hand.

"I think I finally see what you've been trying to tell me," I say through my tears. "I can't see your reality, but I know that it's a lot different from mine. But why? Edward, why do you love me?"

He just chuckles and strokes my hair. His gaze is soft as he says, "Well, why do you love me?" When I sputter, he says, "Yeah. That's what I thought. Love is intangible, Bella. Who knows? I can break down some of what attracts me to you, and you can do the same, but it's more than that." He looks over my head, a thoughtful expression on his face. "It's a lot more."

I put my head down on his shoulder and he envelops me in his arms. "I love you, Bella," he says, "but the fact remains that I can still hurt you."

"If you killed me here and now, it would have all been worth it," I say, my voice thick with emotion. I swallow and look up at him. And here, in the grimy parking lot of a gas station on the outskirts of a large American city, Edward kisses me. He really kisses me. His arms wind around my waist and he pulls my body hard against his. My fingers splay through his hair and the whole world begins to spin, and it's just Edward and me, round and round and round.

Traffic speeds up and down the highway. Cars come and go. Customers file in and out through the double doors, paying for gas and buying sodas in huge plastic cups. Someone nearby foolishly lights a cigarette.

I tip my head back and our foreheads touch. "Did you say everything that you wanted to say?" he asks quietly.

"I did. And I'm never saying those things again. I understand why you did what you did, and now you know how it made me feel. And you also know how I felt about you from almost the day that I first saw you, and that I can't live without you."

He pulls me closer. "And you know just how wretched I've felt about my intervention in your life, how afraid I was that I would, that I could hurt you. But I can't live without you either, Bella, and I'm putting all that angst behind us. And I'm also never mentioning it again. And, I'm sorry for dissing your truck."

He kisses me once more, and I feel a smile grow on my lips. "Now, I'm going into this store to pee and buy a Sprite. Would you like a cup of O-negative?"

That makes him laugh out loud. "No. I prefer the positives. Anything but 'B'."

"Got it." I give a shaky laugh, and in Edward's sigh, I hear that he's at peace.

As am I.