I do not own Twilight.
"Explain to me again why we're here?"
I spin on my heel, glaring up at Rosalie—up because, with her three-inch heels, she's five inches taller than me.
"You wanted to come with me," I retort.
Rosalie makes a sound in the back of her throat that is far from attractive and flips her long blonde hair over her shoulder. She falls into habitable silence again, as we stare together, staring at the large brick building before us.
It's the first time she's been back to the jail since she brought me here the very first time I visited. It feels like a lifetime ago, like my entire life has transitioned and grown since then. Secretly I'm grateful she insisted on coming with me. Emmett had to work, and so could not accompany me today. I don't know if I am ready to come by myself yet. It seems too intimate, too real if I'm by myself.
Although, the reason I'm here today is going to make this more intimate, more real.
"Are you still going to tell him?" she asks, watching as an immaculately dressed lady moves towards the glass doors before us. I watch, too, my mind a flurry of uncertainty. I don't answer, waiting for the entrance of the lady to act as my savior because I still haven't decided if I'm going to tell him for certain.
A buzzer sounds, the lady's voice coming through a small golden box to the right of us.
"Do you have an appointment?" she asks, though her tone is friendly enough.
I press the buzzer to answer negatively.
"Are you related to one of the inmates?"
I pause, because no—I'm not related to an inmate, but what am I to one of the inmates?
Rosalie presses her finger to the buzzer.
"Friends," she says and I'm even more glad she decided to come along.
"Name and county," the woman states, in her arm a dark orange tablet. She's poised, ready to look up his name, probably to see if he even exists in the jail. This is much different than every time I've come with Emmett, even the first time I came by myself. It seems weird…illegal, almost to appear without an appointment. Without any guards.
"Edward Cullen, Clallam," I say quickly, wanting to get inside the building before I lose my nerve.
There's a few taps on her tablet before the doors are sliding open, allowing both of us inside.
The lady reads from the tablet, "low level," and then she glances up at us. "I'll need the two of you to sign in. Identification will be required, along with your current address and phone number, just in case." She looks up. "Will you both be entering the common room?"
Rosalie shakes her head. "Just her."
She smiles kindly at me and holds out her hand. I shake, embarrassed by the clamminess to my own. She must be used to it because she doesn't comment. "My name's Clara. I'll bring you down to the visitation room once Mr. Cullen is notified. I do have to warn you," she pauses, raising her eyebrows carefully, "inmates are allowed to reject visitors."
I nod once, trying not to let the surprise of that fact show on my face. He had told me he wanted me to come back…but would he want it this way? In the common visitation room? Every other time we've been in the private rooms, with a therapist, or Emmett, or guards. Every other time has been scheduled. Would he rather I not pop in on him like this? Before I can further question myself and what I'm doing here, Rosalie puts her hand on my shoulder.
"He won't refuse her," she says to Clara who smiles at Rosalie and, though Rosalie has never before met him, she speaks with authority as though this is mere fact.
"All right," Clara says and reaches behind her to the desk. She hands me a clipboard, a page attached with a pen dangling off the end. "Have a seat and fill these out," she hands an identical one to Rosalie, "and we'll be with you shortly."
With a final smile, I listen to her heels clip down the hallway and out of sight.
I turn on Rose, but she's already shaking her head.
"We didn't drive down here for two and a half hours for you to back down now," she insists and then backs up to the polyester chairs a few feet behind us.
"What if he doesn't want to see me?" I ask quietly.
She raises an eyebrow.
"What if he's busy?" I try again.
This time, she laughs. "Busy with what, Bella? Counting the tiles in his cell? Flipping through the pages of a worn book? I'm sure this will be a grateful distraction for him." She looks at me knowingly and I think I blush, but the room is too warm to tell.
Quickly, I fill out the paper. Name, birth date, address, phone number, inmate name, inmate birth date. Easy answers. Then, the harder ones—relation to inmate, reason for visitation.
A man behind the counter stamps both of our slips with a time and date, and motions us back towards the chairs. It's not long before Clara is back, buzzing herself back into the reception area where we wait. She looks over the papers we've filled out and then glances up at me.
"Isabella?" she says and I stand, my legs unstable. "Come right this way, honey."
"Does he know?" I ask as I walk quickly alongside her, glancing around the hallway that Edward has called home for the past few months. But, then again, I don't even know if inmates are allowed down this way.
She nods, pulling out her card of identification and scanning our way through another glass door. This side is less bright, less warm. It looks more like the inside of prisons I've seen on television and I can already hear the gentle hum of conversation. We must be close to the visitation center—and then, we're there.
The guard from the inside opens one door and then another, allowing us to step inside.
The room is rather large, tables splattered randomly around the room and, as I look closer, I can see that each one is stationed to the floor, along with the chairs. There's a few other inmates sitting at tables, surrounded by family, or friends, or lawyers. I bite my lip, fretting the sudden change in atmosphere. It seems even more intimate, almost. No one listening in to the conversations, the guards standing by the door are merely there to make sure nothing terrible happens.
In here, though surrounded by others, we will be more alone than we've been in the other room.
"We tell all inmates who is here to see them, in case it's someone they'd rather not visit," she answers. She shows a slip to another guard standing on the other side of the door who nods towards a table at the far end. There's a large 12 written on the surface. She leads me to the set up.
"A few rules," she says, pointing towards a sign against the opposite wall. The rules are limited, nothing like the rules in the other room. Here, it seems none of the inmates are cuffed. "Basically, don't talk to the other inmates—though this is more for them than for the visitors." She points to the second bullet, "No passage of items, and…" she skims the list to the bottom, "Limited touching. Hugging, hand holding, light touches are fine. No kissing, anything like that."
She grins, places her hand on mine. "You'll have an hour. Enjoy your visit." And then she's disappearing back through the door she came and I sit, feeling smaller than myself as I wait.
Limited touching allowed.
My fingers ache.