Stolen Dreams

Disclaimer: It's the same as always. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I own Stolen Dreams and Ryan. K—now that's out of the way.

A/N: Wow! Such a fantastic response this week. Welcome to all of my new readers! Thank you to Jenny Cullen for her fabulous beta duties. On to chapter 5!

Chapter 5

Our senior class had really gone all out for our reunion, at least by Forks standards. A catering company was brought in from Port Angeles; they had a buffet set up along the back wall of the gym. Large, round tables draped in white linen surrounded the makeshift dance floor. Bowls full of water with small votives served as centerpieces. Though we hadn't actually gone to the Prom, Edward and I had seen the pictures, and it hadn't looked anything like this.

Jessica Stanley, now Newton, and Eric Yorkie manned the check-in table by the door, handing out name tags and greeting all of our old classmates.

"Bella Swan, is that you?" Jessica shrieked. She jumped up and hugged me tightly. We'd been friends for years, but as soon as it got out that I was pregnant, she'd pulled away. To her credit, I'd never heard her bad-mouthing me, but it had hurt that she'd abandoned me when I needed my friends the most.

"It's good to see you, Jessica," I told her. "You look good."

"Thanks! I know you won't remember, but this is the same dress I wore to Prom. I had to have Betty let it out a little, but I was so pumped that I could still get into it," she jabbered.

I held her at arm's length and looked at the dress she'd squeezed herself back into. Betty, the owner of Fork's only dry cleaner and a professional seamstress, was a miracle worker. Jess wasn't nearly as trim as she'd been ten years before, but the once tight dress flowed gently over her body.

"Let's get you checked in," she said. "You brought a date?" Her eyes flitted to Edward, and then did a double take.

I fought a grin. "You remember Edward Masen, of course."

Jessica's mouth hung open, and she tried several times to speak, but only a squeak came out. Eric took up the slack and held out his hand. "It's good to see you, man. It's been a long time."

"It has," Edward agreed, returning Eric's handshake.

Edward plastered the name tag onto his lapel and held mine out for me. I did my best to hide my mirth at Jessica's reaction. She'd liked him for years and had only begrudgingly supported our relationship back in the day. That, and he looked damn good tonight.

"You can sit anywhere you want," she called out to us as I looped my arm through Edward's and we walked through the gym door.

Rosalie and Emmett were already seated, and there were six empty seats at their table. Edward led me over to them. Rosalie and Emmett stood up to greet us when we got close.

"That dress is stunning," Rosalie complimented as she hugged me and retook her seat. "How did it go with the Chief this morning?"

Emmett leaned closer to hear the answer, obviously already having heard the first part of the story.

"The Cullens are very nice. They adopted their son, Ryan, as a baby. I think Dad's got a few more questions, but we're leaving those for tomorrow," I told them.

Emmett looked at me, and then Edward. "Whatever you need, man, just let me know." He held out his fist for Edward to bump.

Rose and I just laughed at their boyish display. Leave it to Emmett to turn a serious conversation into something more fun.

Alice finally made it through the doors and plunked down at our table. Her eyes kept darting toward the back of the room, and she seemed to be using Edward as a shield.

"Is there a problem, Alice?" Edward asked, deliberately ducking away from her with a grin.

"Get back over here," she hissed, pulling on the sleeve of his jacket and cowering behind him again. "Peter and his wife, Charlotte, are over there by the drink table."

"You and Peter parted on good terms, didn't you?" I asked. In all the years I'd known Alice, she'd never mentioned any bad blood or lingering feelings for her high school, sometimes boyfriend.

"Maybe a little too good," she groaned. "Charlotte's heard all about me and wants to get to know me better. Biblically." Alice shivered and screwed up her face in disgust. "Hide me."

Rose's expression was a combination of awed and appalled. "She said that?"

Alice leveled her with a glare. "She said that Peter's told her all about the fun we used to have and that 'we should get together soon' so she could judge that for herself. You know that all we ever did was screw around!"

Emmett wasn't able to hold in his laughter anymore, and a snort escaped. Soon, it turned into full blown belly laughs that had us all joining in. I carefully wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face, just in time to see Angela Weber step up to one of the three empty seats at the table.

"Please tell me these aren't taken," she begged.

"Angie!" I shouted, jumping out of my seat to wrap her in a warm hug. Angela had been one of my best friends, next to Alice, but we'd grown apart when we'd gone to different schools. She'd sought out sunny California, instead of rainy Seattle.

"It's good to see you!" she said with a smile. "Are you still in Seattle? Please say yes, please say yes."

"Yes?"

She made a little noise of excitement. "Good. I got a job offer up there, and I took it yesterday. The Director of Programs position opened up a few months ago when the woman that led it went on maternity leave. She decided not to come back, so I got the job. I was hoping you'd still be around," Angela reported. She took the seat next to Emmett, and I returned to mine.

A chorus of, "That's great, Ang," and "Congratulations!" echoed around the table. We spent the next few minutes catching up. For the first time in a long time, I felt at ease and almost at home. These people knew me, as I was then and now, and they loved me anyway. I should have known that the peace wouldn't last. I just didn't expect it to come from the direction it did.

Jessica stepped up to the microphone and announced that it was time for dinner and that the buffet line was open. As always, everyone scraped their chairs against the floor and stood at the same time. Edward and I walked together, his hand on my back, through the crowd and stood in line for our food. No sooner were our plates filled than I heard the voice of one of Edward's closest friends and teammates.

"Dude! Ed man, you came," Tyler crowed.

"Hey, Tyler," Edward said with a smile. "How are you?"

"Good, man. Good. Working in engineering now. Say, where's your date? Mom showed me her picture the other night, and I cannot wait to meet her."

Edward froze. I just stared at the two of them, not really understanding. "What are you talking about, Tyler?" he asked.

"Tina, Tanya . . . whatever her name is. Your mom sent mine that picture of you all last fall. They still talk all the time. She said you all were real serious and that she was glad you were finally settling down with a good woman." Tyler sounded confident in his information.

My heart sank into my stomach. Edward and I didn't talk much, other than the obligatory conversation, about our exes, but I knew that he and Tanya had been engaged before he left to move back to Seattle. According to him, he'd asked her to marry him because they'd been together for two years and because his parents were pressuring him, not because he'd really wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. When she refused to move with him, saying that her job back East was more important, he broke it off. That was months ago.

Edward cast a worried glance in my direction and took a deep breath. "Tanya and I broke up almost nine months ago, man. She's . . . well, you can have her if you want her. Sometimes, it's all a pretty face, you know."

Tyler apparently didn't get Edward's subtle glance and continued on, "Really? Mom just got the email from your mom a couple of weeks ago. Seemed to think you'd be bringing her this weekend."

That one statement told me all I needed to know, and I walked off, leaving Edward standing there with Tyler. For months, we'd been getting closer, finding love again, but it wasn't what I thought it had been. The two people closest to Edward didn't even know that I was back in his life, that his ex-fiancée didn't hold any place for him anymore. For all I knew at that moment, maybe she did. I didn't know when he would find the time, since he was always working or with me or Jasper.

I left my plate on the table and excused myself to the restroom. Alice gave me a searching glance, asking wordlessly if I needed her to come with me. I shook my head and left the room alone. It was fitting, I thought, for how I felt inside—once again, I was here in Forks, alone and crushed under the weight of a breaking heart.

Years before, when Edward and I first started 'going out,' his parents were always willing to provide their house for us to go, since we couldn't drive and there was nothing to do in Forks anyway. Elizabeth, his mother, made us snacks and checked on us periodically in the den, where we watched movies and made out. They saw it as young love, no doubt, and a passing fancy.

When we had to sit down and tell them and my parents together that I was pregnant, Ed hit the roof. It seemed like hours that he yelled at us, telling me that I'd ruined Edward's future and how he knew I'd never amount to much. My father gave as good as him, though, countering that if Edward had kept it in his pants where it belonged, we wouldn't be there. Ed had called me a whore and said that I'd ensnared Edward, and if it hadn't been him, it would have been some other poor sap. I'd cried over the harsh words for days; each time, Edward held me, told me that his father hadn't meant it and that he was just upset. Edward would reassure me that he loved me and that we were in this together for the long haul. Naively, I'd believed him.

I shouldn't have been too surprised when they moved him away from me after we lost the baby.

I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering where the strong and confident woman that I'd become had gone. The weight of this weekend was pulling me down bit by bit. Zafrina's words echoed in my ears. "No one can drag you down without your permission, Bella. This is your life; take control of it. Show the world what you are made of and that you can handle whatever it throws at you."

With that reminder, I straightened my back and decided that whatever this trip brought me, it wasn't going to bring me down, no matter what. I washed my hands and ripped open the bathroom door forcefully. Edward was leaning against the wall, watching me warily.

"Bella, about that . . ." he started.

"Edward, did you tell your parents that you had ended your engagement?" I asked. It had never occurred to me that he wouldn't.

"I . . . yes, I told them I was moving to Seattle and that she wasn't coming with me," he answered, a little bewildered.

"Did you ever tell them that you didn't love her and had no intention of marrying her?" I pressed.

His brow creased, as if he'd never thought of that until this moment, but he remained mute.

"You talk to your mother at least once a week. Did you ever tell her that we were back together?" I asked, though in my heart, I knew the answer.

"My relationships are not my parents' business, Bella," he insisted. "Who I choose to spend my time with isn't their concern."

I shook my head and scoffed. "Where do you see this going?" I motioned between the two of us. "Is this some casual fling to you?"

"No!" he cried, finally stepping forward and closing the gap between us. "I love you, Bella, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You know this."

"So, what? You're just going to call up your parents one day and invite them to our wedding? Or did you think I'd be content to just live in the moment for the rest of our lives so your parents never had to find out?" I challenged.

He looked as though I'd slapped him. "God, no. That's not it at all. I just . . ."

What he was, I didn't have the chance to find out, because Lauren Mallory chose that moment to step into the hallway and greet us in her fake, high pitched voice.

"Fancy seeing you two out here together! Reconnecting after all these years?"

"Lauren," I said through gritted teeth. Not only had she interrupted an important conversation, but she'd tried for years, even during the spring of our senior year, to split Edward and me up.

"Actually, Lauren, Bella and I are here together. It's good to see you again," Edward said in measured tones. "Our dinners are probably getting cold, though, so we should get back." He steered me back into the gym with his hand on my back.

"I promise that we'll finish that conversation, but this probably isn't the best place for it," he whispered into my ear.

I nodded my agreement, plastered a smile on my face, and retook my seat. Tyler and his date, Kim, had taken the empty seats at our table. He didn't look surprised when Edward held my chair out for me or slung his arm over my shoulder to pull me close, so I assumed that Edward had told him at least that we were a couple for more than just the weekend.

It took most of dinner, but the knot of tension in my stomach finally loosened, and I let myself enjoy the reunion. Everyone had funny stories of what they'd been up to over the last ten years, and we moved between tables with ease as we caught up. I was surprised to find that most of my classmates were still in the area. Jessica had married Mike and was a stay at home mom to two little boys, while Mike ran his parents' sporting goods store. Lauren was a manager at the Shop-n-Go. She'd made fun of me for getting pregnant in high school, only to do the same in her first year of community college. The dad hadn't stuck around, so she'd come home to raise her son. Eric had gone to Hollywood and was working 'behind-the-scenes,' as he put it, on movies. I suspected that it was in a rather infamous industry, since he avoided telling us what films he'd worked on, but I wasn't about to call him out.

If anyone suspected that I was barely holding my shit together, they didn't show it. The DJ put on some music, and we danced in large groups, laughing as we would have at Prom, had I gone. Edward even pulled me into his arms for a few slow dances, though the tension between us was almost unbearable. At the end of the last one, he kissed me softly and the look in his eyes told me he feared it would be the last one he'd ever get. I wasn't sure how we'd gotten here from the happy couple we'd been just two days before, but I was hurting, and I wasn't willing to let him get away with it again. He was the only man with the power to break me, and he'd almost accomplished it the first time.

At the end of the night, we said our goodbyes and loaded into Edward's car. The ride back to The Lodge was stifling, as neither of us spoke. As soon as we got into the room, I changed my clothes in the bathroom and reloaded my suitcase.

"Bella, please," Edward begged. "Don't do this." He stilled my hand as I fiddled with the sticky zipper on my bag.

"I think it would be best if I stayed at my dad's house tonight, Edward," I said evenly.

"If that's what you want, I'll take you over there after we talk," he bargained.

I mulled it over in my mind and set my purse down. When I worked with married couples, which wasn't often since I didn't feel I had the necessary experience to advise them, I always encouraged communication. "Never go to bed angry," was one of the main rules I set for them. It was time to take my own advice.

"What do you want me to say, Edward? I feel like your dirty little secret. For God's sake, your mother still thinks you and Tanya are getting married. How am I supposed to feel?" All of the hurt and anger I'd felt earlier came rushing back.

Edward sank down onto the bed next to me and took several deep breaths. "Did you know that I didn't talk to my parents for almost two years? Even after that, it was only when absolutely necessary."

"When?" I asked, disbelieving. Edward was about as close to his parents as it was possible to be.

"When they made me leave you. As soon as I started school, I left home and never went back. I stayed on campus during breaks and took classes over the summer so I didn't have to go home." His expression was sad as he remembered. "I sent them a graduation invitation in the mail. Hell, I didn't expect them to even come at that point."

I reached over for his hand, knowing how much his touch always comforted me. "What changed?"

"I got my orders to ship out to Iraq. I couldn't just leave and let the last real conversation I had with them be me telling them how much I hated them. What if I never came back?" He ran his other hand through his hair.

I waited patiently for him to finish.

"They said they thought they were doing the right thing, that they thought the only reason I was staying with you was because of the baby and that with it gone, they were afraid that we'd both just drag each other down. I told them that if they'd just talked to me, they would have known better, but instead, doing what they'd thought was best had driven a wedge between us that probably wouldn't ever heal. Mom cried for like three hours. When I left their house that night, I told them that I loved them, but I wasn't sure how to forgive them. I deployed two days later. Mom wrote to me every week, regardless of whether or not I wrote back. Eventually, it became too hard to hold onto the grudge while I watched friends and enemies die right in front of me." Edward stopped and took a few deep breaths, something he often did to calm his emotions, I'd noticed.

"When I came home, my training in computer science landed me in Virginia, so I didn't see them all that often. They made the time to come down once a month, though. After my second deployment, I went home for two weeks before reporting for duty." It seemed like he'd gotten to the part of the story that was most important to us at the moment, because his voice got stronger, but he wouldn't look at me. "Mom threw me a surprise party to welcome me home. All of their friends from New York were there, including Irina and Marcus Vasily . . . and their daughter, Tanya. Mom did her best to make sure we were thrown together as often as possible."

He looked up at me then, his eyes wide and earnest. "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I didn't find her attractive. She was—still is. And I had just gotten back from a year in a war zone. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened. Two weeks after I went back home to Virginia, she came down to visit me, and we developed a sort of routine. Every two or three weeks, she would come to me, or I would go to New York to see her, depending who had the time to travel. Eventually, she got tired of the trip and moved in with me. It was comfortable and easy. When I look back on it now, that was probably more because I didn't care what happened, but at the time, it was what I needed.

"Just before my tour was up, they sent me to Afghanistan to set up the operations base. I was only gone for four months. Two soldiers died while I was gone, and when I came home, Tanya started clinging to me. Over and over, she'd tell me that she didn't know what she'd do if something happened to me. At the same time, my mom starting dropping hints about making Tanya an honest woman and how much she'd enjoy planning our wedding. So, I proposed. We'd been together a couple of years by that point, and it was the next logical step. The only problem was that I couldn't see spending the rest of my life with her." He threw up his free hand. "The rest, you know. When my bid was up, Jasper and I decided to open our own firm and thought it would be best to base it in Seattle. Tanya refused to move, saying that her job was in Virginia and that she'd already given up enough for me. Maybe she thought it would make me stay, I don't know. I told her that it was her decision where she wanted to live, but that it wouldn't be with me anymore. She gave me back the ring and helped me pack. When I talked to my mother a couple of days later, I told her that Tanya had decided not to move with me and that there wasn't going to be a wedding."

"Why would your mother think that you would bring her to the reunion?" I asked. It sounded to me like he'd made himself clear.

"No idea. I'll have to ask her," he said matter-of-factly.

I dropped my eyes to our joined hands. "And me?" I asked meekly. It hurt to know that as close as we'd gotten again, as much of my body, heart, and soul I'd given back to Edward, that he was keeping them in the dark about me.

Edward sighed. "It wasn't necessarily intentional, Bella."

"Not necessarily?" I asked, looking at him with one eyebrow raised.

"You have to understand, babe. We go to great lengths to avoid talking about Forks and my time in college. I told them I was coming to the reunion, and Dad changed the subject. When I tell them that we're seeing each other, it's going to bring all of that back up. I guess I was waiting for the right time," he said with a shrug. "Maybe when they come out here for my birthday."

And there was the crux of the problem. He was still hiding my place in his life and had no intention of changing that anytime soon. I needed space to think about whether or not I wanted this relationship under those terms. What would happen if they came out here and expressed their inevitable disapproval? Would he leave again? Would I be able to handle it if he did?

I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed it lightly in an effort to show him I wasn't angry. Hurt: yes. Angry: not really. "I think I'd like you to take me to my dad's now," I told him softly. His eyes, fearful and wide, studied mine. "I just need some time to think."

He swallowed hard, but nodded once and retrieved my bags, pulling the zipper free so my clothes didn't land all over the parking lot. He walked me to the car and helped me in, letting go of my hand only to throw my suitcase in the trunk and get into the driver's seat. We didn't speak all the way there, all eight minutes of it.

"I'll call you in the morning, okay?" he said, his voice rough.

"Please do," I told him, doing my best to smile.

"I love you, Bella."

"I love you, too," I said as I got out of the car.

He joined me near the trunk and handed me my suitcase.

"Will that be enough?" he asked, as if he was afraid of the answer, but I wasn't sure what the question was.

Was it enough to have him love me? Or had he told me enough to make me understand? Either way, the answer was the same.

"I don't know." I kissed his cheek, and then let myself into my father's empty house. My tears didn't wait for his tires peeling from the driveway before they splashed down my cheeks.

Don't shoot! I'm unarmed.

I'd love to hear your thoughts here. Tell me, please! Leave me a review or come talk in the forum! I'll be around to answer questions.

Just a reminder: In November, I'll be auctioning off an outtake or one-shot for Alex's Lemonade Stand.