I do not own Twilight.
Each silent second ticks by with the sound of the clock in the corner.
Edward doesn't respond to my assumption and in turn, I stay staring at the table. I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to break. If he won't speak, I won't look.
But I catch movement in my periphery and I glance up quickly, involuntarily, thinking he is standing to leave, but he's only leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his face buried in his hands.
I sit motionless, staring at the backs of his hands.
It's stupid, because they're just hands, but they make me feel strange like I can remember the exact feeling of them in my own hands, on my body, in my hair. Like I know exactly where each tendon lies, where they lead, how long his fingers are against mine. My own hands feel numb with the memory and I press them together on my lap, waiting.
Eventually he lifts his head and his eyes meet mine and I think it's the first time he's looked at me, actually looked at me, since the first time I visited him here.
"She told you to say that," is all he says.
I stare, confused.
"Who?" I ask.
He shakes his head.
"Beth?" I guess.
He looks at me again and his silence is a nonverbal yes.
"She thinks I ruined your life?" I ask.
He doesn't answer, but I can see it in his eyes. The sessions she's had with him alone consist of turning him against me, instead of the other way around. It must be how she's trying to get him to move on; to see a different side of me, but the knowledge has my next question burning like acid in my throat.
"Do you think I ruined your life?"
He glances away from me for a second and I can see the last six months of our relationship all over again. His misunderstood anger, his misdirected attacks, his lack of communication. He was always angry, always on edge, and I would never know why because he wouldn't speak to me.
He has always been good at this, the silence, but I am not.
I don't know if it's the sudden tears that have popped into my eyes, or the fact that I begin to berate him for not speaking to me, for keeping everything bottled up, for making me guess again, but he leans forward, almost conspiratorially, his fingers clenching in frustration.
"No," he hisses, "I think you ruined our life, the life we could have had together, the life we would have had together. And I think you left because you were afraid of where we were heading."
I'm speechless for a moment because I haven't heard him speak this much in years, much less air his frustrations and anger so readily, and I stare at him, frozen until the blood begins to pump through my veins.
"What are you talking about?" I demand. "What do you mean where we were heading?"
There's a spark flying across his eye and he's suddenly so animated, so Edward, that I'm surprised Emmett hasn't come running to the room just to witness the moment.
"I told you I wanted to marry you, and you told me I was delusional," he says, his voice hot with contempt.
I scoff, because of course he only heard what he had wanted to hear. Of course he replayed the conversation in his mind until it became bruised and crumpled, stretching into something else, some other meaning.
I know this is taking a horrid path because if Beth were here, she would have shut down this conversation ten minutes ago. She would have turned it in a different direction, one that I cannot find at the moment.
"I said you were delusional because you wanted to get married right out of high school," I rebuke.
Edward's response is so fast, so certain, so exasperated, that I know he means it from the bottom of his heart.
"How else was I supposed to keep you with me, Bella?" he demands.
He winces like my name on his tongue has left a bitter taste; it's like I've burned him and, with his words, him, me.
We stare at each other, confused eyes on bitter ones and I sigh.
"This is about your mom, isn't it?" I ask softly. I'm not sure if it's my question or the tone of my voice that makes his face crack just a bit. He looks away from me quickly, his brow furrowed, his gaze trained again on the floor.
"Right after your mom left, you wouldn't let me out of your sight," I say, my voice still quiet because I'm not trying to attack. I'm trying to understand. I'm trying my hardest to understand, because lord knows he won't tell me to my face. With Edward, it's always a guessing game. The only thing I never had to guess at was how much he loved me, how much he needed me.
But for Edward, it is always a guessing game. Because of his childhood, because of his dad, his mom, he always had to guess and I think he always greatly underestimated how much I loved him, how much I needed him, and he overcompensated that guessing with overbearing nearness, with a mind and body that was ready to fight on a moment's notice.
"You thought I was going to leave you like your mom left," I finish and my voice breaks.
He answers so quietly that I almost miss what he says, but the words will ring in my ears for the rest of my life.
"And you did," he says.