Edward
I try to contain myself as I drive to meet Rose at the hospital. I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, my other hand pressing on my horn as I sit in early morning rush-hour traffic to make it there on time.
My peaceful morning on the beach is replaced with car horns and irate drivers on their morning commute into work.
"I changed my mind," Rose had said when I had picked up her call on the beach this morning. "I do need someone here with me now."
She had previously decided she wanted those first moments with her and Emmett's child private, just the two of them, as she grieved Emmett not being there while also reveling in the immediate love of meeting her newborn. But as the contractions worsened and became undeniably closer together, she realized, almost a little too late, that she was tired of doing things alone.
Rose's last-minute decision is what had ultimately brought me off the beach and into traffic this morning, my role in a human game of Tetris on the highway distracting me from my discovery on the beach.
Because fuck…now that I have pieced everything together -
"The fuck are you doing, asshole!" Once again, I lay on my horn, my nerves of discovering my story with Bella and Rose being in labor making me ruthless on the road.
Sighing, I convince myself to slow down; all of this will be worth absolutely nothing if I kill myself on the way to the hospital.
… Right before I meet my new niece or nephew.
… Right before I figure out how I'm going to get to Bella.
Because now that I know, now that I've finally been given the sign I needed to convince myself to follow through on what my dreams have been telling me, it's killing me to be away from her.
Luckily, the crowd of cars disappears as we go through the final traffic light, and soon I'm driving at a fast, safe speed to get to Rose.
Her relationship with her parents severed years before any of us had met; I'm not surprised Rose had decided on me being the one to help her through her labor today. Maybe she thought it would be too hard on my mother to be there in Emmett's place and too intimate to share with my father. It makes sense for me to stand next to her, and I don't consider any of the gross details that most men think of when delivering a baby.
Being there with her for this moment is the least I can do for my brother.
It's my honor to stand there for Emmett and his child. After everything he's done for me, during his time here on Earth, and even beyond when I think about his hand in Bella and I finding each other again, I can't think of any place else I'd rather be than right here by Rose's side.
I can see her visibly calm when I enter her room with the help of a nurse from the station on the maternity floor. She's sitting up in bed, facing the windows as the morning sun grows stronger by the minute. Her eyes are closed, a thin sheen of sweat on her face, her head tilted back to rest on her pillows.
"You made it," she breathes, opening her eyes when she hears me in the room. She reaches a hand to me. Nodding my thanks to the nurse who helped me find my way through the maze of locked security doors, I head over to Rose.
"Couldn't miss this," I answer, taking her hand in mine and squeezing it. "I almost ran over some cars on the highway on the way here, but that's what they get for doing the speed limit."
Rose laughs and closes her eyes again. "Speed limits are overrated, anyway."
I watch as she breathes slowly through her nose and exhales softly out of her mouth. Now that I'm here, it hits me how unprepared I am for what is about to happen.
It's unfathomable to me how Rose wanted to do this alone.
I squeeze her hand again before dropping it to check her pillows. Anything to make myself feel useful. "You okay?"
"I am now," she answers, her eyes opening as she sighs and looks out the window. "I feel him here already."
"Me, too."
The air is filled with his presence as if he knew Rose and I would need each other to get through his loss. My sister-in-law and I were always close, even though Masen liked to keep people at arm's length. It was like Rose was able to weed through all my bullshit and see the man I was underneath all those layers of doubt and insecurity.
She saw the Edward in me before I saw it for myself.
"I'm sorry for the late notice," Rose says, interrupting my wandering thoughts. She shakes her head at herself. She rubs her belly through her hospital gown. "I thought I could do it alone."
"Don't worry about it. I was already up and on the beach, anyway."
"I can see that," she jokes, nodding toward what I had thrown on in the early morning hours, thinking it would just be me and the sun able to catch my appearance.
I laugh. "Well, it was either get here on time or go home and change."
Rose taps my hand in reassurance, the smile still playing on her lips. "I'm glad you're here. Even if you're not matching and in flip flops."
"I'll be sure to wear my suit next time," I solemnly swear, just as a nurse and doctor come in to check her progress. I move from my spot to stand outside her door, giving her the privacy she needs and a moment to collect myself.
I run my hands over my face, my nervous energy getting the best of me as I wait for the nurse and doctor to come out of the room. I knew this moment would come, where I would be face to face with Emmett's child, but now that it's here, I don't know what I should do with myself.
I decide texting my parents to let them know I'm here is the first thing I should do, even though Rose had told them last night she was heading to the hospital. Her labor had progressed nicely through the night, and now that we are entering morning hours, it seemed her body was showing signs the end was closer and closer.
That was why she called me. Panicked at the thought of being alone, she called me the minute she started to feel her body shift into the last stage of labor before delivery.
And when I walk back into her room a few minutes later, the look on her face tells me it's time.
"I'm not ready," she tells me as her face begins to crumble. "I can't do this without him."
I'm at her side in an instant, holding her as I let her grieve for everything she's lost right before she gains something to make everything worth it. "Hey, hey. Shh. Shh." I pull her against me and channel my brother now, needing his steadiness to get me through what is about to happen. "Can I tell you what your stupid husband has been up to lately?"
"Okay," she sniffs against my chest, holding onto my shirt as another contraction tightens within her.
"Remember that dream I told you about? How he took me to some beach, and we just sat there and talked for hours?"
"Yes," she pants as the doctor and nurses begin to prep around us.
"Well, I didn't tell you everything we talked about. Some of it was just too private, but mostly, I didn't understand a fucking thing about it."
She nods and moves back to rest her head against her pillows. "Go on," she groans, gripping the bed rails and urging me to continue the whole time. My hope of using my story as a distraction seems to be working.
"He brought me back home to you," I say. "To all of you. And I really didn't want to come back. I fought it. Fought him."
I'm quiet as I think back to the heartache of learning, through Emmett, that I would have to leave Bella behind in Willow Creek to rejoin my life in Jacksonville.
"Fighting? You two? You don't say," Rose laughs and wipes the sweat off her forehead.
"No surprise there, I guess." I laugh, pausing before I go on. "He made me go. He made me leave her." My throat tightens as it all comes rushing back to me again.
"There's a her?"
"It's always been her," I admit with a sigh, the smile on my face unable to hide. "We just needed to find the best of ourselves in order to find each other."
I fill her in on everything I've kept silent about for too long. I tell her about my accident, how I didn't just lie there dormant for a month while everyone waited for me to wake up. I tell her about our perfect world, the one Bella and I created while we were sleeping.
I tell her about our love. I tell her leaving her behind was the hardest thing for me to ever do and how Emmett understood my sorrow, for he had lived through it as well.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" Rose asks, bewildered as she tries to wrap her head around all the information I'm throwing at her.
"Do you know how crazy all of this sounds?" I ask. "I needed proof this was real before I told anyone about it."
"And did you find it? The proof you needed?"
I nod, smiling to myself as I reach into my pocket. "I did. A few minutes before your phone call this morning."
I place the object I found in the sand this morning on the beach into Rose's hand.
She looks at it before looking up at me in alarm. "Is this - ?"
"Bella's engagement ring? Yes," I answer with a nod. "I was going to give it to her on our trip, but Emmett came before it could happen. I remember throwing it into the sand right before I left that world to come back to this one."
I watch as Rose twists the sparkling diamond between her fingers. "And you found it? This morning on the beach?"
"Like it was there just waiting for me to find," I sigh, shaking my head at how this all came to be. "When I picked it up, everything came flooding back to me. All of it. Every moment, every feeling."
"I have to push," Rose says suddenly, sitting up in bed with a determination I haven't seen since I walked into this delivery room. "Here." She hands the ring back to me, and I tuck it safely back into my pocket.
I don't plan to let it go again, except to slide it on Bella's finger when I finally get to her.
Despite the nurse telling her to wait for assistance, Rose picks up one of her legs to place in the stirrups. Assuming by the way Rose has to pick up her own legs, I think the epidural has made everything from the waist down numb, and the ability to move her legs has gone away as well as all the other feelings beneath her belly button. "Edward?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah." Smart enough to not stand in Rosalie Cullen's way, I help her lift her other leg into the stirrup, no questions asked. The nurse sighs with a laugh and tells Rose to scoot all the way down to the edge of the bed.
"You don't need to use them if you don't want to," she says to Rose, who I'm currently helping into a position on her back.
"It's fine," Rose grits through clenched teeth. "I'm ready."
She's silent as the nurses around her count down from ten for each push, coming up for a deep breath of air between countdowns only to do it again and again until a small cry makes the world stop turning.
Emmett Masen Cullen is born at 8:38 in the morning, with a head full of dark hair and a dimple in his cheek. He's big and strong from the minute he enters this world, just like his daddy, and his arrival brings all of us the closure we need to finally start to heal from losing Emmett. I know Big Emmett had a hand in bringing Little Em to us safely, and even though I think it over on repeat as I'm holding him later that night in Rose's recovery room as she dozes peacefully next to us, I'm at a loss of words.
Little Em stirs lightly in my arms, his face turning from side to side softly, looking for his mama as he grows accustomed to living outside his mother's protection. The little sounds coming from his mouth make my heart grow like the Grinch.
"You both okay?" Rose asks sleepily, her voice making me jump in the quiet of the room. I find myself another victim to Little Emmett, who stole the hearts of his mother and grandparents at first sight. She sits up carefully in bed, blinking her eyes to acclimate herself to being awake again. The baby begins to root when he hears his mother's voice.
"I think he wants something I don't have," I laugh and stand up to hand him over to Rose so he can get what he wants.
"Bring him over," she giggles, unable to tire of him even though she's beyond exhausted and has earned her time of rest.
"Can I get you anything?" I ask as she settles him. She shakes her head.
"I'm okay. Thanks," she sighs, content to have Emmett on her breast again. "What about you? Have you thought about what you're going to do?"
Sighing, I plop myself back into the chair next to the bed and run a hand through my hair, my own exhaustion beginning to creep up on me.
"I haven't really had a chance to. I found the ring, got the phone call from you, and haven't done anything since I met him," I smile at the mention of my nephew. It's crazy how your world can shift just from one tiny person.
"Do you know where she is?"
Ahh, Bella.
"I think so," I say without much confidence. "In one of my dreams, there was a lady that appeared behind her in a library. It looked like she was handing her a job application for a library in Forks, Washington."
Rose scrunches her nose in disbelief. "Forks? That sounds like a made-up place."
I laugh. "Well, considering this whole thing walks the line of insanity, it's entirely possible you're right."
She fumbles on the bed with one hand until she finds her phone.
"No, no, it's real. Look," she says a minute later. And sure enough, I'm looking at a poorly designed website for Forks, Washington.
I remember the career I had in Willow Creek, somehow knowing a career in web design would be much more fulfilling than my job now at the insurance agency. I shake the thought away, for now, to save for later.
"There's still the chance I get all the way there, and she's not real," I say with a shrug, not ready to admit that terrifying truth.
"That's a very real possibility." Rose agrees, adjusting herself to bring Emmett up for a burp. The belch that comes out of his mouth sounds like it came from his father himself. "But how will you know?"
"If I don't go," I finish her thought. I stare out the window as I see it all happening in front of me. I can see myself packing and leaving my life here in Jacksonville behind in pursuit of Bella. It's all I see if I were honest with myself.
"I like to think everything that's happened here has some type of purpose," Rose says. "Losing Emmett. Your accident. Your healing."
"Yeah," I nod, the tears swimming in my eyes and the tightness in my throat preventing me from saying anything more.
"Go to her," she tells me, squeezing my hand to let me know she's serious—that she understands … that she believes in all of this. She snuggles Little Em to her, sighing against his plump cheek. "We'll be fine."
-m-
It takes me five states to believe her. My car crosses state lines easily and doesn't look back, though my heart is torn in a million directions.
I worry for Rose and Little Em, though my parents don't let them go a day without seeing them both. I can feel their healing begin from both Emmett's death and my departure from Jacksonville.
It had taken only two weeks for me to quit my job and pack up my apartment. I wasn't taking too much with me, as I had no idea what to expect when I got to Forks, but knowing I'm on my way to her is the only thing that makes any sense.
It's the only thing I listen to.
Logic would tell me I'm crazy. Common sense would tell me to stop driving and turn around where I am and head back home.
But my heart knows my home is wherever she is, and all signs point towards a small town with green pine and a beautiful, brown-haired girl that makes me weak in the knees at the sight of her.
I pass the time with loud music and my voice singing at octaves way out of my range with each passing turn of the car's wheel. I stop when I feel the need to rest, making sure to snap pictures at each of the places I stop.
I end up finding myself along the way, no longer ashamed of my life and the choices that have brought me here.
And here, as my car comes to a stop in a tiny parking lot in the middle of a quiet town, is Forks, Washington.
I open my car door, my feet landing on the asphalt like I'm taking my first steps.
Maybe I am.
Because I know my life begins the minute I open the door to Forks' Public Library.
HE'S HERE.
Rose has had a tough hand, so I let her experience with breastfeeding be an easy one, since it was a nightmare for me with my first son.
I'll be posting Chapter 29 on Wednesday, and the Epilogue on Saturday or Sunday, depending on how things work out on my end. It's all written, and I think I've done their story justice.
Let me know your thoughts! See you soon!
Thanks for my team for everything!
