An entry to The Second Season of Our Discontent Anonymous Angst Contest
Received the Judges' Award: Honorable mention, and Judge's Individual Pick by Rochelle Allison. :')
Picture Prompt Number: 4
Pairing: Bella/Edward
Warnings and Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended.
Thank you for reading and thank you to the hosts and judges of the contest, without whom this story never would've existed.
Also thank you to my friend and beta myimm0rtal, and my friend and pre-reader Thimbles! Their close reads and honesty made this story way better than it would have been without them. No. Doubt.
Missing Pieces
For me, it started with a late night phone call on September fourteenth, the day after my fourteenth birthday. The ring had woken me and I lay on my back, covers loose over my body, listening to my parents' hushed but frantic voices. Their tone stole like spirits through the walls from their room to mine, as sharp as death. And it held me there, hovering over me, locking me to my bed as if I were paralyzed. Even though I couldn't make out a word of what they were saying, I was still too scared to move.
In the following months I noticed odd behavior in them. One day their voices turned to whispers as soon as I entered the room. Another day my appearance stopped their conversation dead. My dad had started walking away during certain phone calls, a few times going out back, turned away from the door. I couldn't even read his lips or his expression if I wanted to.
In March, over breakfast, my dad announced to me that Edward Cullen was coming to live with us for a while.
Why and For how long? were my questions. Indefinitely, was the answer my dad gave me. I thought it sounded a lot like infinitely.
They didn't tell me much about him before he moved in. He was my dad's good friend's son. Sixteen years old. Apparently I'd met him when I was little, but I couldn't remember. He was trouble now, they told me. Stay away from him, they said. For your own good. His sister had died and I wasn't supposed to mention her under any circumstances.
My parents had renovated one of the sheds in the cherry orchard, turning it into a bedroom. It reminded me of a jail cell with its cement floor, its twin bed, and its tiny bathroom. At the end of the curved stepping-stone path that began at our kitchen door, the shed sat under the three big oaks, past rows of cherry trees that bloomed like cotton-snow in spring. I watched my parents bring him through the house like he was a criminal, his head bowed, hair matted, T-shirt wrinkled, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His steps were heavy like he walked around with stones in his shoes. With a hand on his shoulder, my dad was guiding him.
Edward lifted his head, green eyes glaring. "What are you looking at?" he said.
My gaze fell to the floor, staring at tile. So many shades of brown in our tile I'd never noticed before.
"Hey," came my father's voice, firm and serious, but not quite angry. "You're welcome in this house as if it were your own, but you'll speak to Bella with nothing but respect. Understand that."
"It's okay," I said, eyes still on tile.
"No, it isn't. Apologize, Edward."
"Sorry," he said, sounding just like it was forced out of him, like he was speaking a foreign language, repeating a word he should have known the meaning of but didn't.
My mom draped an arm over my shoulders and sighed.
"The best thing for grieving-" my dad said when he returned from showing Edward to his shed, his cell "-is work. We can't let him sulk, we can't baby him." He said Edward would work in the orchard.
It was just a family orchard, an inheritance from my dad's grandmother, and while it was nothing big, it still required tons of work. My mom sold some of our fruits and vegetables to a few of the local restaurants. I helped her deliver them sometimes.
"What happened?" I asked there in the living room. "How did she die?"
Nobody would tell me. I was sent to my room for bringing it up. "I'm fourteen!" I said, stomping away. "I'm not a little kid!"
"You're a kid compared to him," my dad said.
Edward came in for meals and sometimes to watch TV, always sitting in the same corner of the sofa as if it was his spot. He'd pull a throw pillow over his lap every time. He rarely said anything to anyone. I couldn't help but look at him, and he hated it. If he caught me, he'd give me narrowed eyes that demanded I stop. I wanted to ask him what I'd ever done to him. I wasn't the reason his sister had died. It wasn't my fault he was living here. But no way. I'd have been grounded for months, I was sure.
Edward didn't go to my school. He was in an independent study program, which made me a little bit jealous until I thought of my friends at school. My dad paid him for the work he did in the orchard: aphid control, harvesting fruit, pruning trees, fixing equipment. I'd look from my window. Sometimes he'd take his shirt off revealing slim-muscled arms and a trim chest. My hand would meet my own chest or my throat. I was spying on him, I knew. But I couldn't stop myself.
In my room at night, when I got ready for bed, I imagined he was spying on me, too. Like he'd climbed the tree outside my window just to watch me. I never checked, afraid I might be wrong and he wouldn't be there. But I left my blinds open when I changed out of my clothes.
...
By fall Edward had been living with us for six months and as far as I was concerned, the ignoring had gone on long enough. As we sat on the sofa, staring at a blank TV screen, I asked him what he wanted to watch. He didn't answer me.
"What's your problem?"
He looked at me.
"You can't answer a simple question? I know you speak English. I know you can hear."
"I don't talk to Daddy's Girls."
"Well, I don't talk to Mama's Boys."
"I'm definitely not a Mama's Boy. You can believe that."
"Fine. Then I don't talk to assholes." I kind of smiled because I thought the swear word made my statement more powerful.
"Now you got it right."
Aiming the remote at the TV, I flipped to the History Channel—some program about the Ice Age—and then I smiled big and sarcastic at him.
"My favorite," he said, settling back into the sofa.
...
Every May, my job had always been strawberries. I was squatting out there, picking them, putting them into my "keep" basket, my "throw away" basket, or my "save for jam" basket. This was the time of year when our kitchen counters were like rainbows with all the bowls piled high with color. Rubbing a few strawberries off on my shirt here and there, I popped them into my mouth. As strawberry juice slid down my throat, I went back to my picking. I was pretty sure I had dirt all over me. Edward was well behind me up a ladder, picking cherries, his shirt hanging from his back pocket. I was very aware of him, even if he couldn't have cared less about where I was.
He'd been with us for over a year now, and even though we'd talked on occasion, we still hardly knew each other at all.
A bird swooped down near my head and I ducked. I watched it swoop back up, another one following, and then the one in front turned around and went after the second one. They seemed to be playing.
Back and forth they went. I watched. I laughed. I caught Edward's eye—his feet were on the ground then—and he was laughing, too. I wasn't sure I'd ever even seen him smile before. Whatever had gotten into me, I couldn't say, but I went over and pushed his arm and said, "Tag!" and ran away. I turned back. He was still standing by the tree, against it now, arms crossed at his chest, a smirk on his face.
"Come on," I said.
"You're weird."
"Come on."
He stared for a few seconds and then ran after me. We played like the birds.
When we were out of breath, he took me to his shed for a drink, reached into a mini fridge, pulled out a water bottle and tossed it at me. "Think fast," he said.
I drank it down, catching my breath after. With the taste of strawberry lingering on my tongue, the water was sweet. "Do you like California?"
"It's all right." He was from a small town in Washington that I heard was usually really cold. Here, tucked about forty miles east of the bay, it was much warmer and less foggy than San Francisco, and way less rainy than what Edward must have been used to.
"Do you like living out here?" I scraped some dried up dirt on my thigh and swept it away.
"It's okay." He sat on this high round stool that looked like a work stool, his feet resting on the metal base. Tilting his head back, he drank his water and I watched his bare chest and stomach move as he swallowed.
With his arm held the way it was, I noticed a scar, almost from his elbow to his wrist.
"What happened?"
Water bottle in hand, he turned his arm and looked at the scar. "Why do you ask so many questions?"
I walked over to him, took his wrist and held his forearm up. "Can I touch it?"
He shrugged. I ran my finger along it, up and down. The skin there was rougher than the rest. Harder. After a second he jerked his arm away from me.
I met his eyes. They looked like they were watering. I felt my brows pull together and I swallowed. "What's wrong?" Another question, I knew, but I couldn't not ask it.
"You wanna know how I got this?" He raised his arm. I nodded. "A knife. From when I was a pirate."
"A pirate?" I shook my head at him.
"Yeah. Yeah." He told me this bogus story about piracy. I went to his bed, lying stomach down, perched on my elbows, my chin on my fists, and I couldn't stop listening to his story. When I was little my dad used to tell me stories like this as I lay in bed. His were always about a horse name Coraggio who could do amazing things. He could climb to the top of the highest rocky mountain. He could rescue one person or entire villages. He wasn't afraid of water or fire or ice. "A horse can't do all that," I'd say sometimes, and he'd say, "Why not?" My dad would kiss my cheek at the end of the story, his scratchy mustache and whiskered-chin scraping me. He smelled like bark and aftershave. When I was eleven I still asked for stories about Coraggio. And even sometimes when I was twelve. I missed them.
"You better go," Edward said before reaching the end of his story. "Your dad'll kill me if he finds you in here. And on my bed."
"I can do whatever I want."
He scoffed at me with the mouth of his water bottle to his lips. "Not with the dad you have. You're not even supposed to talk to me." He took a sip.
"That was when I was fourteen. I'm fifteen now."
"And do you know how old I am?" He set his bottle down on his dresser. "Almost eighteen, so go on. Go home, little girl."
I stood up from his bed. "But I thought..."
He stood, too. "Thought what?"
"I thought..."
"We were friends? Because we played a kid's game together? Right."
My nose and eyes burned. In that moment, I hated him. I left his shed determined to show him what he was missing out on by dismissing me.
I invited my friends over and at night we hung out on the side of the shed by the wildflowers, laughing, being noisy. We didn't even have to fake the laughing with the way Rosalie had trouble following the stepping-stone path in her heels, stumbling along, practically spraining her ankle. Lauren had stolen cigarettes from her mom and so there was plenty of coughing as well, only adding to the racket. Angela coughed the loudest, announcing that her throat was scorched, probably forever, and that was absolutely the first and last cigarette of her life.
"It's because they're menthols," Alice said. "Next time steal from your brother."
Edward never came out.
When they left I knocked on his door.
"Were we too loud?" I asked, monotone, folding my arms.
"Not afraid of noise." He closed the door on me.
I brought a boy over on Friday. Mike Newton. With the moon looking down at us, I leaned my back against the wood wall of the shed and told him to kiss me. Of course, he did. I felt tongue for the first time. He put his hands under my shirt, but I stopped him before he got where he wanted to go. "Come on. Lemme just." He reached up again.
I caught his hand. "Stop."
"Come on. Just one. Let me feel it."
"No."
"Why not? You brought me here."
The shed door opened. "She said no, Asshole." Edward tugged me by my arm and shoved at Mike's chest. "Go home," he told Mike. And not letting go of my arm, Edward brought me into the shed.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Eyes glaring at me, his hand slid through his hair all rough, like he'd had enough of this little girl.
"I'm doing what I want."
"Really?" He nodded at me, eyebrows raised, like I was crazy. "That's what you want?" He pointed at his door. "Because I kept hearing no and stop. How old is that guy?"
"Seventeen."
"What's wrong with you? Why can't you go for a guy your age?"
"Why do you think you have any say in what I do? You're not family. You're not even my friend." That was how I left it. I went home.
Edward and I didn't talk for weeks. At meal times, I didn't look at him, but I could've sworn, at times, I felt his eyes on me, lingering, bringing chills to my arms. How could he do that when I wasn't even looking at him?
...
My mom was showing me how to keep the soles of my feet nice and smooth. "They can get really rough in the summer when you wear sandals all the time," she said. Sitting on the carpet in front of a movie, while Edward munched on popcorn in his sofa-corner, we rubbed cream on our feet and between our toes and then slid socks on.
Edward teased us and my mom grabbed some popcorn from his bowl and tossed it at his face. He opened his mouth like he was trying to catch a few.
"Ew," I said. "That hand was just all over her feet."
Edward quickly made a face like he was gagging, then just as fast his features relaxed and he grabbed another handful of popcorn from his bowl.
After the movie was over and Edward left, my mom turned to me. "He can be sweet, huh?"
"Sometimes," I said, not really sure if I meant it, but I thought I did. I'd seen glimpses of sweetness, but he kept it well-hidden.
…
August brought with it an irrigation problem. My dad and Edward had been out back all Saturday replacing some piping. It was evening by the time they'd finally finished working. My mom sent me out to let Edward know dinner would be ready in a half-hour. I found him closing up the tool shed and passed my mom's message along. He had soil all over his jeans, his shirt, and some on his face, and he looked really sweaty, red-faced, overworked.
"You want to see something?" I asked.
"What?"
"Something."
He brushed his hands off on the back of his jeans.
"You'll like it." Motioning for him to follow me, I led him past the vegetable garden and beyond the cherry grove, through a trail of trees and up a hill of dried weeds. "Hurry," I said, afraid we'd miss it. The hill was so steep in places we often had to use our hands in our climb to the top. There was only one tree up there and we leaned against its huge trunk. We made it in time, the sun just beginning to set.
I watched Edward watch the sky, the view. I'd seen it enough times to memorize it, gold running through hundreds of native trees below, making the leaves shine. The sky above would be nearing periwinkle by now. The sunlight played colors over Edward's face, too, his skin almost glowing. His squinting eyes were intent, staring straight ahead, his mouth slightly parted. He did like it. I smiled.
"My mom and I found this place when I was a little girl. We used to come here a lot. She says that anyone who can't appreciate a good sunset isn't truly alive."
Without looking at me, Edward said, "I thought it was a heartbeat that proved you were alive." He headed back down the hill. I watched him go, wondering what had made his mood change so quickly. It must have been what I said because before I spoke he'd really seemed entranced.
Behind me the sun continued its sink.
...
On my sixteenth birthday, overhearing my parents talking in their strange tone, I paused in the hall just outside the kitchen.
"Should we worry?" my mom asked. "About the anniversary? Last year-"
"I talked to him," my dad said. "He seems to be dealing with it better this year."
Last year? On my birthday. An anniversary. I thought back but I couldn't figure out anything. Cake. Friends. Smiles from both my parents. Edward, nowhere in sight that I could recall.
I headed out to the shed. He opened the door, leaving it open and walking away. The place was filled with smoke.
"What is that?" I asked, pointing to the joint in his hand.
"If you have to ask, you don't need to know."
I went over to where he sat on the stool and snatched it from between his fingers, took a hit, and passed it back.
"It's legal for me," he said. "Just so you know. I have a club card."
I didn't ask him if the way he got the card was legal.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Having no answer to that question, I changed the subject. "It's my birthday." I moved closer to him again, taking the joint, taking another hit, putting it back between his fingers.
"Happy Birthday," he whispered, his fingers brushing mine as they closed over the joint.
I looked into his eyes, glassy. Anniversary, I thought. Of what? His sister's death? Was that it? On my birthday? My eyes began to sting and my body got hot as I realized that must have been it.
His hand came to my hair, pushing it back, away from my face. His scar was right next to my head. "What is it?" he asked.
I took his hand. Touched the scar.
"I'm sorry," I said, unsure exactly what I was sorry for, other than that I knew he was feeling pain I wished he wasn't, the kind of pain that made a person hate sunsets.
"Gunshot wound. From when I used to be an assassin." He told me a story of scaling walls, of being lowered to rooftops by helicopter. I lay on his bed just like that time he'd told me about pirates, and listened.
This time he didn't cut it short or tell me to leave. He came over and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Bella," he said. It was the first time I'd ever heard him say my name. I liked the way it sounded on his lips, low and deep, the "a" barely audible. "Come here."
I scooted up and sat next to him. He put one arm around my back. After a few minutes, his other arm circled me and he tucked me under his chin. I wrapped my arms around him too, and just as if it were the most simple, normal thing to do, we were hugging. His waist was slimmer than I thought it would be.
As we sat with our arms wrapped around each other, something was beginning inside of me that felt like the warmth and the shine of the sunset, only it didn't feel like it was sinking. It felt like it was rising.
His hand on my face turned me to him. "Do you have a boyfriend?" His lips were right next to mine. I shook my head.
I thought he was going to kiss me, my eyes closed, waiting, but his lips didn't come. His fingers wove into my hair. I opened my eyes. In my peripheral, his scar was a blur.
I turned my head to kiss it. "Can you tell me? What really happened?"
He shook his head, his eyes filling up. "Have you ever lost anyone close to you?" Tears escaped down his cheeks.
"No," I whispered. I wanted to hold on to him and make him feel better, but I didn't think I had that kind of power. I thought it took more than a touch and a hug to truly make someone feel better. It was like a part of your soul had to mix with a part of theirs, and I didn't know how to make that happen.
"Stop asking about it. Don't bring it up again. Okay?"
I nodded, hugging him close, doing my best to put my soul into his. "Whatever it is. I'm sorry."
His head bent down, his lips meeting my shoulder, my shirt. Then he kissed the side of my throat and my cheek, followed by my lips. His kisses were light. Just lips. Lips and lips. But still this was a kiss that took up the whole room. It made me melt against him. His heartbeat under my palm was my only clue that I had my hand on his chest. He shuddered and I could feel his pain inside me. Maybe not to the extent he felt it, but it was lingering, somersaulting with my insides. It made my eyes tear up to feel this. But it was his tears that were meeting my cheeks. This was the kind of kiss that could alter the path of a person's universe.
I felt his thumb on my jaw by my earlobe, his fingers curving around my neck. His lips parted, mine following. And as he pulled my face closer to his, tilting his head, we were more than lips then. We were breath and hands sweeping, reaching, grasping. Bodies moving, searching out a closeness that might be impossible to achieve. We kissed ourselves to panting. We kissed until his chin and cheeks had scratched my chin and cheeks all up. When he pulled away, I rubbed my face where it must've been red. He touched me there.
"Sorry."
"I liked it." I smiled.
"Me, too." He didn't smile. "But... I'm not myself today."
"I can tell."
I didn't want to leave him like that, vulnerable, swollen-eyed, but I had to. I had my birthday party to attend. I invited him, but he said my dad wouldn't want that and he'd rather be alone, anyway.
I stood, and moved between his legs. Bending down, my hands on his damp face, I kissed him before I left.
"Hey," I said, turning around at the door. "Do I have a boyfriend?"
"No." The single, quiet word met my insides like a whip. I bit on my lip to hide a tremble.
"Okay." My voice cracked, couldn't hide that. If one light kiss could fill up a whole room, how could I have been the only one of the two of us who felt it? You don't imagine something like that. You don't.
I left. His tears were still on my face.
...
Later that night, after my party hat was off, after dinner out with my closest friends, after my mother kissed me with tears in her eyes, patted my head and said, "You're growing up," red and blue police lights flashed outside our living room window. Before my dad would open the door he told me to go upstairs. I went to the stairs, but stayed there on the third step watching Edward walk in, listening to the police officer talk deep-voiced about a fight that Edward had allegedly started, only he hadn't fought back.
Our eyes met as Edward passed down the hall on his way out back. His hair was a mess, there was a cut near his eye, and his nose was red and swollen looking. My hand sprung to cover my mouth as I wondered what other wounds he had that I couldn't see. I shook my head at him. He looked down.
When I was ten, my dad taught me how to tie all kinds of different knots: slip knots, overhand knots, square knots, cat's-paw knots, and now at sixteen, as I watched Edward pass all banged up and hurting, I was tied up in all those different knots. Every one.
...
At Edward's father's request, my dad made Edward get rid of his car. They put a For Sale sign on the window.
"You'll get the money it sells for," my dad told him, putting a hand on his shoulder out by the road, and I could tell, even from where I stood in front of the lawn, that my dad felt bad for Edward.
"There are some people you just can't help," my mom said to my dad during dinner. They were disappointed that they couldn't talk Edward into joining us.
Why not? I wanted to ask, the same way my dad once asked me when I told him Coraggio couldn't do certain things.
I snuck out to see Edward later that evening.
Even though all I did was look into his eyes, he seemed to know what I wanted to say.
"It's right." He nodded over and over as if trying to convince himself just as hard as he was trying to convince me. "I shouldn't have anything. Nothing." He swished his hand out in front of him, parallel to the floor.
"Edward." I held his upper arm, but he stepped back.
"Stop, Bella. Don't be good to me, okay?"
"Why not?"
"Just don't."
I stared up at him, waiting until his eyes met mine, and still I didn't look away. What had begun to rise inside of me was swelling to my heart. Our shared gaze seemed sewn together. And then fast, as if someone had pulled the thread that linked us, his hands were holding my face and his lips were on mine and his breathing grew heavy. He said my name against my lips in a strained voice that I was starting to recognize as his pain taking sound.
I kept going out to see him at night. I didn't like the cold I felt in my chest when I was away from him. Sometimes we argued like that had become a part of us, a part of what we did. But sometimes we laughed, and in those moments, I wished that we could always be that free together.
Even on the hottest summer days, the type of days where you could practically see the heat simmering on rooftops, the shed was kept nice and comfortable under the shade of the oak trees, but it was freezing out there in the winter. Sometimes Edward would make us hot cocoa in his microwave, and there was a space heater that smelled kind of like a skunk, but warmed the place up.
I wasn't cold at all as he lay on top of me on his bed, kissing me, his hand breezing under my shirt, my bra open. We often ended it there, but not tonight.
"Edward," I whispered. "I want more."
He lifted his face from mine, peering down at me, into my eyes. He unbuttoned my jeans, tugging them over my hips and off my legs. Through my panties he touched me. I bent my knees, my feet flat on the bed, and I inhaled deep, arching my neck, my head burrowing into the pillow. I raised my hips. He tucked a finger under my panties.
"More?" he asked, his mouth next to mine. "Still?"
I nodded. He gave me more. His fingers teasing me and teasing and pushing inside.
My eyes closed up tight as he touched more of me, as he kissed my stomach, as his mouth swept up to my breast. My heart, I was sure it stopped. For a little while, there was no world. When I came back to life, his lips were on mine, his hips between my legs, pushing up into me. He pulled his pants down and came back, kissing all over my lips and my throat, grinding against me, breathing hard, his underwear and mine, meshing together. He kept going until groans came from his throat and he fell flat on top of me, chasing his breath.
"Bella," he said. But that was all. He took off his boxers and we fell asleep, me with my back to him, his arms around my stomach.
It was really late when I woke up and stole home. I slid the back door open as quietly as possible, and tiptoed inside. As I passed the kitchen into the hallway that led to the stairs, my dad's voice made me jump.
"Where were you?" He was standing in the little nook by the stairs where the coat rack was.
"Outside." My heart pounded fast. I worried about what my clothes looked like, my hair. But if I smoothed anything, he'd know for sure. I stood there, nearly shaking.
"Outside where?"
"Just outside."
"With Edward?"
"We were talking. We talk."
He told me that I was not to be alone out there with him. I nodded and told him goodnight.
The next day Edward was different. I'd practically run to him, throwing open the door, wanting to feel his arms around me again. But he stood statue-stiff. Not even a smile. Not even a hello.
I was afraid to ask what was wrong. Afraid of the answer.
Without the question, the answer came anyway.
"I messed up," he said. "I let things get too far."
My breath left me, all of it. "No," I barely said. I meant it probably more than anything I'd ever said, and he might not have even heard it.
"I should've stopped things before. I tried." He rubbed a hand over his head. "I tried."
"You have to stop doing this," I said louder. And then I raised my voice even more. "You keep doing this!"
"Bella." His eyes were half-closed, his brows knitted, his lips pulled into his mouth. He was hurt by this too. I could tell.
"Did my dad talk to you?"
"He's right."
"Why?"
He tilted his head at me, his shoulders slouched. "Sit down." He sounded hollow as he gestured to his bed. "There's something you need to know. About my scar."
I sat and waited.
"You want to know how I really got it?" His voice hardened with every word.
"Yes."
"I killed my sister." He said it angrily, and while he must've felt remorse, he must have, he didn't sound remorseful. He sounded malicious.
My eyes widened.
He pushed his arm with the scar to my face, too close to see anything. "I got this. She got death."
I stood up and walked toward the door, barely able to breathe.
"That's right," he said. "Go."
I ran to my house. I'd never run faster. I called to my mom, yelling, practically screaming. She came down the stairs in a panic, finding me in the living room.
"What's wrong?"
"What happened to Edward? What happened to his sister? He said he killed her!"
"Honey."
"I didn't ask him about her. I swear I didn't. I asked about his scar. He said he'd never tell me, but today he did. Tell me what happened."
"He told you he killed her?"
I nodded.
Her hands landed on my shoulders. "He said that?"
"Yes!"
"It was a car accident. He was driving. Drunk."
"That's what the scar's from?"
"I didn't know he had a scar."
"Why couldn't you tell me about the accident before?"
Her hands moved from my shoulder to my face. "Carlisle and Esme asked us to keep it to ourselves for Edward's sake. And your father and I also agreed that you didn't need such a horrific image running around in your mind."
The whole time she was talking, I was only partly listening. The rest of me was wondering what was running around in Edward's mind in that moment.
I raced back to the shed, again opening the door without knocking.
He was standing with one hand on the wall, shaking the other one, blood on his knuckles. His eyes were watering.
"What did you do?" I rushed to his bathroom, grabbed a hand towel from the shelf, soaked it under the faucet, and then went back to him, dabbing at his knuckles. There were drops of blood on the floor.
"I'll do it." He took the towel from me, and wrapped it around his hand. His crying was silent. But tears were all over his face.
With my fingers flat, I pushed the tears away. "You didn't kill her."
He jerked from my touch.
"It was an accident."
"They called it manslaughter, Bella." With his undamaged hand he rubbed hard over his eyebrows and then his eyes. "That's what it is."
"You were my age."
"She was eight."
"It was an accident."
He covered his eyes and shook his head like he was trying not to see something, but whatever it was he was trying not to see, I was pretty sure it was in his mind. No amount of eye-covering could block it out.
"Edward..." My hand fell to his shoulder and he pushed it off.
"Don't. Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you care."
"But I do care."
He wasn't looking at me and it seemed he wasn't going to say anything else. I pulled him down to my shoulder, hugging him tight, maybe choking him. I didn't care about that, but I did care about him, more than I'd cared about anyone else outside my own family.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry about your sister."
His arms circled around my waist, and he put so much of his weight into it that I stumbled backward a few steps.
He was crying on my shoulder, tremors in his breath. "I'll never see her again, and that's okay. You know? I shouldn't get to see her. But the thing is, she doesn't get to see anyone. Ever."
Not knowing what to say, I said his name again, and maybe that was a mistake because he pushed me away. It was like he hated the sound of his name.
"Bella." He sounded irritated.
"What?"
He only looked at me, his eyes narrowing.
"What?"
"Why can't you just stay the fuck away from me?"
"You're just going to keep saying things like that to me. They'll get worse and worse, won't they? Until you say something that makes me hate you. And you'll regret that, Edward. And I don't want to hate you, so guess what? I'm going to stay the fuck away from you." I didn't move. I knew I should have. I should always follow through with what I say, or else why say it? But I didn't. I just folded my arms over my chest and froze.
He walked out of the shed, leaving me standing there, eyes on his bed.
I didn't see Edward for the rest of that week. I stayed away from his shed and the orchard. He stayed out of the house, at least whenever I was around.
One afternoon, out my bedroom window, I saw him walk under the cherry trees toward the trail that led to the hill. I was sure he was going to watch the sunset.
The next weekend, his parents came to visit. It was one of those deceiving sunny days. The sky was bright blue and cloudless. Through the window it looked warm but when you stepped outside you were chilled to the bone. Edward and his dad shook hands in the foyer, no eye contact. His mom hugged him, wrapping her arms around his neck, crying. Edward's arms lay still at his sides, but when she let him go, I saw him wipe his eyes. It made me look away.
At dinner his dad started in on him.
"Drinking?" he said. "Still? After what you've done?"
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Something must have gone on that I never knew about because I'd never seen Edward drink. Smoke weed, yes, but no alcohol.
Edward eyed his plate. His lips twitched. I wanted to reach across and touch his fist. I wanted him to just look at me, just look and see that even if we fought, I still cared. One person cared.
"And this last time you took a drink right in front of a police officer. You're purposely getting into trouble."
"Think of what you're doing, Edward," Esme said, her voice soft. "Think of where you could end up."
Carlisle spoke over her. "You're worrying Renee and Charlie. Do you need to come home?"
"I'd rather live on the street," Edward said, examining his fork.
"I'm sure that can be arranged."
My dad's voice was quiet when he said my name. "Bella, go to your room."
I glanced at him and back at Edward, whose head was still down.
"No."
Edward's eyes snapped to mine and I held them there.
Before my dad could say anything else, Carlisle interrupted. "This is a conversation better meant for privacy. I apologize, Bella."
I wrenched my eyes from Edward's to glare at Carlisle. "Or how about a conversation for not ever?"
All eyes were on me then. Edward reached across the table and touched my hand. I turned my hand over to grasp his fingers but they were already gone.
I faced Esme. "Don't you know he doesn't have anybody?" I pleaded with my eyes. Tears fell from hers, her fist pressing against her mouth.
"Stop, Bella." Edward stood, his chair scraping a groan against the tile. He walked out. I followed him. In the shed, I shut the door behind me.
"You can't do that," he said, pacing. "You can't do stuff like that."
"Stuff like what?"
He stopped in front of me. "Stick up for me."
"Why not? Why can't I say how I feel?"
"Nobody wants to hear it. I don't want to hear it."
"You can't try to shut me up. I can see you, Edward. You're..." I shook my head and then my voice shook, too, barely audible. "You're - like - dying." I meant on the inside, but he took it literally.
"If only."
"Don't wish for that."
"Can you go?"
When I didn't move, he gestured toward the door.
"Sometimes," I said. "Sometimes I want to just slap you."
"That's better." He stepped forward, lifting his chin like he was testing me or tempting me.
I raised my hand but instead of slapping him, I pressed my palm against his cheek. He let me do it for a few seconds. His eyes even closed and he leaned into my hand, but then he snapped back, crossed in front of me, and opened the door. "Go."
Outside, I faced him again before he closed the door. "I know what you're doing and it isn't fair."
"Yeah? What am I doing?"
"You're trying to get me to treat you just the way everyone else does. But by trying to get me to treat you like they do, you're really, really mean to me."
And I left.
With no intention of going back.
...
On the night his parents went home, Edward found me in my room, sitting on my bed, bent over school work. His arms folded across his chest, he leaned against the door jamb, looking down at his shoes or the floor.
"What are you doing here?"
His voice was a raspy whisper, almost like he couldn't get it louder if he tried. He asked me to come with him. "Please," he said when I hesitated.
He took me to his shed, held the door for me, and closed it behind us. Silence took over the room, stretching on and on until it turned into tension. Just as I began to wonder if he was having second thoughts about bringing me here, his words erupted like they'd been held back too long, like they'd been waiting at the cusp of his throat to be released. They came out fast and almost seemed to echo through the room.
"My dad hit me."
"What? He, like, smacked you?"
"He socked me, punched me. In the face."
"When? Today?"
"The night. The night it happened. The night I-"
I put my hand on his arm to stop him from going on. He didn't need to say it.
"I've never told anyone about that. Not even my therapist."
I frowned at that, not knowing he even had a therapist, and I realized there was no end to things I didn't know about Edward.
He sat at the edge of his bed and I stood, looking down at him.
"That wasn't the worst. I could take getting smacked around. I wanted it. The worst was the quiet. Worse than being yelled at or beat down. By the day after, nobody in our house talked. None of us."
"How did you end up here?"
"You don't want to hear about it."
He was closing up on me again and I didn't know how to get him to continue talking to me. "What else?" I asked, trying.
He reached out for my hand and I gave it to him. He squeezed my fingers. "I'm sorry, Bella." He pulled me to his lap, his forehead to my shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I am."
I lifted his face and kissed his lips. He kissed back. "Will you be nice to me?"
"Yeah, Bella." He kissed me again.
"Promise?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
"For as long as you let me."
I started kissing the base of his neck, up his throat, over his chin to his lips. His mouth opened, he kissed me hard and deep and flipped me over, and everything was so fast. Tears and lips and tongues, hands, up my shirt, pulling it over my head. I unfastened my bra and let it go. His shirt was off, my fingers caressing up and down his stomach. He inhaled, unbuttoning his pants, pushing them down, mine off, too, and he was on top of me, between my legs. He slid his lips lower, down my chest, over my breasts, one then the other.
His mouth slipped down my stomach, fingers tucked into the straps of my panties, pulling them down and off. He kissed his way back up my body, but when he met my lips again he slowed.
"No," he said, his weight on mine, his hand pushing into my hair. "Not like this. Not now."
"Okay," I whispered.
Both of us naked, he pulled the covers over us and tucked my body into his, holding me from behind, fingers brushing my stomach. "Just this," he said. "Just this."
His hand moved from my stomach, trailing all along my skin. Just moving. Just feeling. Every once in a while he kissed my head. His touching turned to inching, his arm crossing over my chest, holding my opposite shoulder. I could tell his scar was resting right over my heart. Could he feel my heartbeat against it? I bent to kiss his hand.
We must've fallen asleep.
I awoke to my father's shout. I sat up, holding the sheet tight, fabric knotted in my hand above my chest. I'd never seen so much anger in his face. There was no mistaking what he thought he was seeing. My clothes were on the floor, my bra, my panties. I felt Edward's hand grip my waist.
"Get dressed," my dad said. "You have two minutes." He went outside, where I was sure he was waiting by the door, timing us by his watch. We dressed fast. I smoothed my hair down, Edward helped me out, and I hugged him.
My dad barged in again. "The age of consent here is eighteen. I could have you arrested. This is not why I invited you here. This was not part of the deal. Everything we've done for you... One rule. I gave you one rule. Hands off my daughter! You broke that rule. You're out."
"Dad, no. It's not what you think."
"Don't mistake me for stupid, Bella."
"I'm not. We fell asleep together, that's all. Don't make him leave."
My dad looked at me like he might've believed me. "It's only a matter of time, isn't it? He's close to nineteen and he can't stay here forever. I have my own family to consider."
"He's not leaving," I said.
"It's okay." Edward put his hand on my arm but when my dad looked, he yanked it away as if my arm had caught fire. "I'll go," he said, looking at my dad.
"Three days. You can have some time to figure out where you'll go."
Edward pulled a duffel bag out from under his bed. "I'll be on the next bus out of town."
"No," I said. "No!"
"I can't stay where I'm not welcome. This isn't my house. And your dad's right. I broke his rule. I didn't plan it." He looked at my dad. "I didn't."
My dad ordered me to go back to the house with him while Edward packed. Taking hold of my arm, my dad practically dragged me. I turned back to Edward. "Don't go without saying goodbye. Don't." Tight-lipped and round-eyed, he nodded at me.
In the kitchen my dad turned on me. "You think you're special to him? Carlisle's told me stories. I've had men here demanding that I keep him away from their daughters. He uses girls. Uses them. He's not using you. I won't let him."
"It isn't like that. I know it isn't."
"You think the other girls didn't think the same thing you're thinking right now? He knows what he's doing. He's experienced."
"You're really making him leave?"
"I can't trust him with you."
"The accident happened and his parents just kicked him out and now you're doing the same thing, while his own guilt is killing him!"
"His parents didn't just kick him out. They were all grieving. Edward was getting in trouble. Drinking heavier. Fighting. This was his only option. Here, no drinking, therapy, all part of the deal with the judge to keep him from being locked up."
I flew up to my room, searching, digging like crazy through an old souvenir box. I found it. A postcard I'd bought in Hawaii because I'd liked the picture of the sunset over the ocean. I went out the front door and all the way around the house so I wouldn't have to pass my dad. I opened the shed door. Edward had just finished zipping his bag closed.
"Where will you go?"
"I have friends who go to school down south."
"Here." I shoved the postcard at him and he took it. "When you get wherever you're going, write to me. Or just, if you don't want to write, just send that back with your address on it and I'll write to you. I promise. I'll write even if you don't write back. But you have to send me this so I know where to find you."
He slipped it into his back pocket and then took me by the arms, gathering me up, holding tight over my shoulders. I couldn't move an inch if I wanted to. It was like we were wired together. Crying on his chest, I wished we were. Wrapped with wire. His hand drifted down my hair.
"When I said I'd be nice to you, I meant it. But this is probably the best way I can. Bella..." He pulled back, cupped my jaw and kissed me, one kiss. And I felt his hot tears like melting candle wax. "I'm not good for you. It's better like this. Me leaving."
I shook my head.
"Listen to me." He held my face like his hands were the frame and I was the picture. What was my face showing him? "You hold out for a good guy. Make sure he treats you right."
Tears fell fast with my blink. My stomach felt empty. I wanted no good guy. I wanted no guy at all. Except for him. Edward. The one about to walk out of my life. The words were in my chest, bubbling, swelling, choking. I wanted to say them so bad. I wanted to hear him say them back.
"Bella," he said, and stopped. He lifted my hand in both of his and pressed his lips to my wrist, sliding my hand until it was my palm against his mouth. His eyes were closed. He kept us there like that for a long time. This was love. I knew it. I felt it just as sure as I felt my ribcage rise with every breath, just as sure as I felt my heart pounding against my chest.
I closed my eyes, willing him to say it. Tell me you love me. Just tell me once. Just once.
He turned away from me, letting my hand go, picking up his bag, and he walked out. I watched him go, the postcard sticking out of his back pocket.
Just as fast as he'd entered my life two years ago, he exited it.
Edward asked me once if I'd ever lost anyone close to me and I said no. Well, now I had.
I slept in the shed that night, naked in his sheets, in his smell. My parents didn't come out to get me, and I didn't care what they thought.
I thought about how Edward and I had spent nights together but had never been in a car together. I thought about how different his bed felt without his warm body pressed to mine, without his hands wandering over my skin, without my name in his voice.
"I love you," I said, my face smooshed into his pillow.
…
The earth rotated like it was leaving me behind, like it had forgotten about me. Was that possible?
I was stuck in place, worrying about him. Was he all alone? Was he okay?
I got the postcard a week after he left, and I slipped it under my mattress, knowing that someday, I'd see him again. Just like I'd promised, I wrote to the address he'd sent me, somewhere in San Luis Obispo. When he didn't write back, I kept writing. Even when I had nothing to say, if I just asked question after question I knew I wouldn't get answers to: How are you? Do you have friends? Do you have a girlfriend? What do you do for a living? Do the sunsets look different there? Are you ever coming back?
And then one day in the fall, I just wrote it. "Maybe I'm only seventeen," I scribbled. "But I can love. I love you."
I checked the mailbox. Hopeful. Daily. Nothing came back. But still I wrote, even with pain he'd never see, bruises from my insides meeting paper through my pen. Because I'd promised.
And love was love. Whether or not you were loved back, it stuck around, it made a home inside you, nestling in. Staying. Even if sometimes it just became a speck, it was still in you. That speck of love that was once everything.
…
The whole first month after Edward left I went without speaking to my parents unless I absolutely had to. The dishes, the laundry, the bathroom cleaning, were all done without complaint just so I could avoid talking to them. My dad knocked on my door one night. He said that he was sorry I was hurt but that someday when I had a teenage daughter of my own, I'd understand. "You'll understand how you are the most important person to me and that your best interests have to be placed ahead of all others'."
I was a senior now. My friend Jane's brother kissed me behind the gym by the water fountain, empty basketball courts behind us. Nobody else was around. He just came up to me and started kissing me.
He shook brown hair from his eyes and kind of laughed. "I've wanted to do that for a while."
I didn't know what to say. I hadn't been wanting it for a while, hadn't even thought about it. But I accepted it. Alec and I started to make out there every day after school. Thoughts of Edward flickered in the back of my mind. But that had become normal to me. He was always there, somewhere.
When Alec kissed me he wrapped his arms around my back. It felt good. I hadn't known how much I missed simply having a set of arms around me, like a warm jacket on a cold day.
In December, I got a new postcard. It was blank, but for a return address. No name. Not mine or anyone else's. Just an address. The postcard was of the mountains, green and foggy. He was in Washington. Was he back home?
It made me smile and hold the postcard close to my chest. It was enough. He didn't want to write, for whatever reason, but he knew I loved him, and he'd sent this to me because he still wanted me to write to him.
In February, rain trampling over the small overhang above us, Alec pushed hair off my shoulder, held my neck, got this look on his face and said, "Bella, I-"
I shook my head, afraid of what he was about to say.
"Let me tell you."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I can't feel that way about you."
"Give it a chance."
I told him I couldn't and ended everything we were doing.
One afternoon after school, as I was syncing my iPod, my mom knocked on the door. "You got a letter," she said.
I hurried to her, my heart pounding, and I grabbed it. She laughed. "Expecting it?"
"No."
I tore the envelope open, dropping it to the floor in pieces, and unfolded the paper.
"Dear Bella," it said. His handwriting. Dear Bella. I closed my eyes and heard his voice saying it. "Dear Bella."
"Who's it from?"
"No one," I said, and then quickly, "Someone."
I read it. Not many words, but still some of the best I've ever read. "I'm coming to see you. I'll be there on March 15th." And then, "Love, Edward."
...
The rain was only beginning when I ducked into my car. Even though it was barely noon, the sky like steel-wool made it look like late evening. I started the engine, pressed down on the accelerator and headed toward downtown. My knee jittered all on its own, unstoppable. I sped up the car, turning up the volume on the stereo. Ten minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of The Main Street Hotel.
With my umbrella overhead, I waited for him where he'd asked me to, out in front of the building. Raindrops splashed rings into puddles at my feet. It sounded like millions of spilling marbles. My shoes were getting soaked.
I heard my name and looked up, watching him come toward me.
"You're all wet," I said. His hair was smashed to his head, his eyelashes held droplets.
"That's all you have to say?"
"I don't know what to say."
He took the umbrella, holding it over both of us, and we stared at each other as the rain drummed its rhythm. When I smiled he circled his arms around me, trying to hold the umbrella steady. I hugged him back. The wind came up, blowing the umbrella to the side and we both got wet.
"What brought you here?" I asked, my cheek to his cold, damp chest.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, why are you in town?"
He pulled back, a gust of wind blowing in his face. He squinted. "You."
Deciding to get out of the rain, I followed him through the lobby and up the carpeted stairs. Down below, a tuxed-out man was playing classical piano.
In Edward's room, he asked if I was hungry and ordered room service, saying that it would be nice for him to be waited on for once. Over lunch he explained what he'd meant by that. He was going to community college in Washington and working evenings as a server at a nice restaurant. "I have to wear slacks and a tie every night."
"I'd like to see that."
His smile was beautiful but it fell fast.
"Bella." He stood, walked over to me and took my hand. "I have to..."
I stood with him.
"After - after you do what I've done, you're left alone. Completely by yourself. And I deserve it. But you didn't leave me alone. You were the only one."
It was true. I saw it, too. After what had happened with his sister, nobody cared about the shadows he carried around inside him, his scars that couldn't be seen on the outside. All they could see was the tragedy. Their opinions were made and set. They would never truly see Edward's heart. They wouldn't even try. If I were to draw a picture of it, I would color it all pink except for one corner which would remain brown. The corner that held his sister and his guilt. That darkness would be inside of him for as long as he lived. It didn't take anyone else's help to remind him of what had happened. There was no possibility of him ever forgetting.
"I couldn't."
"Your letters. They were pretty much all I had for a long time."
"What about your parents? Aren't you living with them?"
"They still can't even look at me. Either one of them. I live miles away from them."
"How long are you staying?"
"I have to leave tomorrow."
My throat tightened, my body tensing. "I'm glad you're here for now." I reached out to touch his face but he caught my hand before it made it there. Looking me in the eye, he kissed my palm and then flattened it over his chest, his heart. I knew what he was trying to say, so I did the same. I kissed his hand and flattened his palm against my chest and we stood there like that until his forehead dropped to mine.
"I'm sorry I can't say it."
"Why can't you say it?"
He kissed my lips, slow and soft. "I'll ruin it."
"You won't."
"I'm like a Lego structure with missing pieces. I'm not put together right. And I don't know if I ever will be. You deserve more than that. You deserve someone with all the parts. What I'm living with is not something you need to be living with."
I knew he was wrong. No pieces were missing, they were just damaged. He couldn't let himself feel happy. That was obvious to me because every time he had felt even a little happiness, he lashed out in some way. I'd be here for him if and when he needed me, because that's something that love is. Loving Edward taught me that love is a lot of things. Love is as much about friendship as it is about who ends up spending their lives together; it's about giving; it's about wanting only good things for the other person; it's about hoping that he can find his own way, find who he can be; it's looking beneath the skin and behind the scars and seeing the parts of him he can't even see. His sleeves were pushed past his elbows and I slid my hand up his forearm.
"Just one night?"
As my hand came down his arm, he grasped it. "I have to get back to work and school by Monday." He played with my fingers.
"Why did you come here? Explain it in more than one word."
"I wanted to see you and talk to you. Nothing I wanted to say was right for a letter."
I led him to the bed by his hand and we sat beside each other. I brought a leg up, turning to face him. "Tell me." I didn't let go of his hand and he didn't let go of mine. He was looking at them twining together.
"You are the only person who's ever told me they were sorry about my sister. I didn't even realize that until you said it, and now I'll never forget it."
I lifted my free hand to his cheek and brought him forward to kiss his lips.
"She was good at art." His fingers squeezed mine and he shook my hand a few times like he was nervous. "I mean, it was obvious she could've really done something with it, you know? She drew cartoon people with expressions and everything. The details, they were better than I could do." He smiled with one corner of his mouth, looking proud. "She loved little league, played on a boys' team. And her skateboard, even though her knees were scraped up. Now that I think about it, she liked everything I liked." And then he stopped.
I almost said his name to prompt him to continue, but then I remembered how hearing me say his name had affected him in the past.
"Her name was Elizabeth."
"I know."
"We called her Li-Li. My mom started that and it stuck."
"I didn't know that."
"She was starting to hate it. The nickname." He laughed low and quiet. It was a short laugh, but it took the breath out of me. He was laughing about her. Did he know what he was doing right now? How far he'd come? He had to have known. And it was me he chose to share this with.
His tears came then and I caught some before I decided to just let them come, my hand resting against his skin. His breath shuddered, and a look came over his face that had a finality in it.
I told him that it was okay and that he could talk to me as much as he wanted, but he said he was done for now.
"Do you want me to write to you again?" I asked.
"Yeah. If you want to."
"Okay, but you have to write back this time."
"I'm not much of a writer. I never know what to say."
"Anything. Tell me what the sky looks like out your window, what shape the clouds are, or what you watched on TV. Or what made you happy that day, or sad. Whatever. Anything."
"Okay." He brought my knuckles to his lips and held them there.
I scooted closer to him. "Let's say our goodbyes now, so we don't have to say them when you go?"
"Okay."
I squeezed his hand. "Goodbye, Edward."
He kissed me and kissed me until we were lying on the bed on our sides deepening the kiss, moving the kiss over skin as hands searched each other and held on.
"Goodbye, Bella."
He held me close and when I tried to leave the bed to go to the bathroom, his hands gripped my hips until I told him where I was going.
When I returned to the bed, I slipped under the sheets in just my shirt, and Edward did, too. We talked late into the night, sometimes about trivial things, just catching up, and sometimes he told me some more about his sister. He said that he'd gone to visit her at the cemetery. He told her he was sorry and that he didn't expect her forgiveness. He told me how at her funeral he'd overheard women talking, saying they would die if they were Carlisle or Esme, they couldn't survive the death of a child. He said that in a better world he'd take me to every county in California just to compare their sunsets. Our toes were touching underneath the covers, and by the time we fell asleep, our legs were tangled together.
In the morning, just like I'd told him I would, I left first, before he awoke, so there would be no goodbye. From the desk, I pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen, and by the light of the rising sun, I wrote a short note that made my tears fall.
With the way he was lying, his hand turned on its back by his pillow, his scar was in plain view. I kissed it, the rough, hard skin of it. But that was on the outside. On the inside, he wasn't rough and hard or undeserving of happiness the way he thought he was, and someday, he would know that.
Maybe sometime soon would be the time for us, but I understood that now was not that time. We had something, though, that nothing in this world could take away. Love. And right now, it was much more than a speck. It was a million specks trying to make a whole.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and next to his pillow, I left my note.
Know that you are more than you think. Hold out for a good girl.