Chapter 9 – Sty in my Eye

I left Jake in charge of the pool house and told them to stay for as long as they liked, and then I quickly said goodnight to everyone and went inside to find Edward. I found him in the hallway outside his room, banging on his bedroom door. Apparently, the next set of hormone-crazed partygoers were utilizing his room for whatever debauchery they saw fit, as loud grunting and moaning could be heard through the door, as well the sound of his headboard rhythmically banging the wall.

"I'm sorry, Edward," I said, as I came up behind him. "I didn't mean that like it sounded out there. It totally came out wrong." He kept his back to me for a long moment before turning around to look at me remorsefully.

"It's okay, Bella, I overreacted…to the truth. For too long, I never gave you any reason to think anything about me other than being a jerk, so why should you think favorably of me now? I truly am sorry for being such a nightmare before, you never deserved any of it," he said sadly.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly, trying to convey my forgiveness and show him just how much he did mean to me. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stood like that for a few minutes, but we were interrupted by another intoxicated couple looking for a room to defile.

Someone was locked in my room as well and ignored my banging on the door, so I took Edward by the hand and led him through the crowd. Several of the drunken girls tried to pry him away from me, as we weaved through the sea of bodies, but he just pushed them away and gripped my hand tighter. We made it upstairs to the attic room, where Esryl was still sleeping soundly in the crib. We entered quietly and closed and locked the door against the loud racket downstairs. It was almost midnight at this point, and Edward and I were exhausted, but I realized I didn't have any pajamas up here to sleep in.

"Can I use your t-shirt?" I asked, as I peeled off my jeans and sweater. Edward was frozen for a moment, his eyes wide, before he nodded silently and pulled his sweatshirt off, then his t-shirt, handing it to me, leaving him in just his jeans. I couldn't help but stare for a moment at his body as well. His shoulders were broad and strong, his chest pale but muscular, covered with a light smattering of reddish-brown hair. I had never realized just how maturely built he was.

I quickly slid on his t-shirt, working my bra off from underneath it. His shirt smelled like him, warm vanilla and cedar, and fell to my knees. I was comfortable now, but I doubted he would be while sleeping in his jeans.

"You aren't going commando, are you?" I asked, pointing towards his jeans. He shook his head no, so I motioned for him to take them off. I pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed, scooting back and making room for him.

"This is about the only place left in the house that isn't already in use or still has a fit surface to sleep on at this point, I'm pretty sure, so you might as well join me." He slid off his jeans, leaving him in a pair of dark gray boxer briefs. He tried to stay turned to preserve his modesty, as he slid under the covers with his back to me. He clicked off the light on the side table, and we settled in, the muffled sounds of the party downstairs still faintly audible.

We lay there silently for a few minutes before I cuddled up against his back and draped my arm over his waist. "Goodnight, Edward," I whispered.

After a moment, he finally whispered back, "Goodnight, Bella."

Sometime just after dawn, there was a bright flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder. It preceded a burst of heavy rain that pounded hard against the roof and windows, waking Esryl up and scaring her. She started crying, so Edward got up and brought her back into the bed with us. She cuddled up on his chest, and I stroked her hair until they went back to sleep. I was awake now, so I propped up against the headboard a bit, looking down at the two of them. I marveled at how small she looked on him, and how the two of them were so adorable together with their same-colored hair.

Edward's eyes fluttered open, and we stared at each other for several moments in the dim light of the room. He half smiled and mouthed good morning to me, and I reached out and brushed the hair from his eyes, continuing to run my fingers through it, while gently scratching his scalp. I silently giggled, as his eyes rolled back, and he moved to lay his head on my stomach, while I continued playing with his hair with both hands now. I guessed he liked that. We lay together like that for more than an hour, with me gently running my fingers through his hair and Esryl sleeping soundly on his chest.

Esryl finally woke up and was in a playful mood, so we had a bit of a tickle fight, until she announced she was starving.

"Bewa, you maked wabbles?" she asked in her sweetest little voice. Edward's eyes lit up, and he grinned at me like a two-year-old himself.

"Yeah, Bella, wabbles sounds great! I'm starving, too." They both gave me their best puppy eyes, and I couldn't say no to such a sweet request for my homemade waffles.

We showered quickly, and Edward and I threw our clothes back on from the day before, while I dug into the small closet for some of my old toddler clothes for Esryl. He helped me dress her and straighten the room, and then we let Honey out of her kennel before making our way downstairs. However, we stopped at the bottom in utter shock, as the aftermath from last night came into full view. That was also the same moment when Elliott finally made it home. He walked in through the garage door off the family room and stopped in his tracks. We all stood there, looking around in total disbelief. It was Esryl who broke us out of our stupor.

"Ooh, day maked a mess!" she exclaimed loudly, pointing around the trashed room. "Days gonna gets a timed out!"

If I hadn't been so upset, I would have laughed at her declarations. Every surface in the room was covered in…something. I was not sure what had happened after we had gone to bed, but apparently, the party had gotten wildly out of hand. It looked like there might have been a food fight, an orgy, a pig stampede, and a riot that had happened in our house, all at the same time. All I could say was, "What the heck…?"

"What happened here, guys?" Elliott asked in wide-eyed horror, as he moved further into the room, stepping over food and things on the floor. He reached down and picked up a pair of girls' underwear with one finger. "Do I really want to know?" he asked dubiously.

"We have no idea, Dad, we just came down," Edward answered, looking around in shock. "Emmett, Alice and Rose's party was in full swing when we got back to the house from the Humane Society benefit. When we came in, there were so many people in here we could barely get in. The music was too loud, and it scared Esryl and Honey, so we took them upstairs to sleep. Then, we went out back and spent a while in the pool house with Bella's friends and the guys from class. When we came back in, people were holed up in our rooms with the doors locked, so we escaped to the attic with Esryl. It was starting to get a little messy then, but the place wasn't totally trashed like this. This all happened after we went to bed."

We continued walking through the house, every room just as bad if not worse than the one before it. Every piece of upholstered furniture was destroyed with spills from the red punch and covered in food and other questionable substances. I was very thankful now that mom and Elliott had decided to put down the hardwood flooring instead of carpet throughout the house, given the mess on the floors everywhere. There were a few spots, though, that looked like they might have to be refinished due to the strong alcohol left puddled on them.

Mom and Elliott's bed had obviously been defiled, their room had been trashed, and someone had thrown up all over their bathroom floor, toilet and vanity. The partiers had even finally gotten into Esryl's room, too, leaving used condoms and wrappers lying all over her floor around the bed. When Elliott and Edward saw this, both were barely able to contain their rage.

We were standing outside my bedroom doorway now, in shock that my room looked like it had been ransacked and was the scene of a bloody murder. The room was actually a second master suite, so it was quite large, affording lots of space to do damage, and it was totally devastated. Red punch had been slung all over my walls, blinds and curtains, and it had been poured into and over every other surface in the room. My white furniture was permanently stained, and the paint had bubbled from the strong alcohol in the punch.

Someone had pulled out all my shoes and every piece of clothing I owned and damaged them in some way, leaving the mess strewn all over the floor. They had then poured more of the sticky red punch over every article, leaving what I was sure would be permanent red stains everywhere it had landed.

All the bedding from my previously made bed had also been stripped off and thrown all over the room, and it was similarly stained and ripped. There were obvious and questionable stains all over my exposed and ripped mattress as well. Miraculously, the only place that hadn't been touched by the red punch was my ceiling, and that was probably only because it was twelve-feet high in my room and hard to reach. The hardwood floor had also been spared because of all my clothes and bedding strewn around on it, but everything else was a total loss. This went beyond just drunken shenanigans. Whoever had done this had done it maliciously and with pure rage. I had to wonder if our homeowner's insurance would cover teenage stupidity. Probably not.

"There were people locked in our rooms doing…stuff…so we couldn't even get in to stop this," Edward said with disgust. I had started crying in earnest by now, and Elliott put his arms around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest, as Edward gently stroked my hair and held my hand. "If you want to know what happened, ask Emmett, Alice and Rosalie. This is all on them."

We ended up in the kitchen, and that was where I completely lost it. The scene before us was unbelievable. Cups and plates of food were spilled and splattered everywhere, dripping down the fronts of the white cabinets and puddled on the floor. The refrigerator and freezer doors had been left standing wide open, and everything inside that was left had defrosted or warmed and was most likely spoiled. Food was left out and dumped all over the cooktop, countertops, appliances, and island.

It looked like someone drunk had tried to make mixed drinks or something in the blender and had given up when it had spattered all over the kitchen, leaving all the sticky mess dripping from the top cabinets and down the backsplashes. The canisters on the counters were tipped over and had spilled, and the pantry shelves looked like they had been ransacked and everything on them raked off into the floor as they foraged. Dried dirty dishes were stacked everywhere, the broken ones kicked to the side in the corner, and it looked like more than one person had lost their stomach contents on the kitchen floor. My beautiful, bright white kitchen had been completely destroyed.

I felt sick and couldn't stand it any longer. I pushed through the patio door and ran out onto the deck and took several deep breaths of the cold, damp air, unable to control the sobs and the tears flowing down my cheeks. Thankfully, the SHAGNICs and the guys from the band had completely cleaned up out back, leaving nothing out of place. They'd even cleaned the fireplace, tidied up the pool house and arranged all the patio furniture back into place. I knew I could count on Jake to be in charge out here.

I felt Edward's arms wrap around me. "Come on back inside. You don't want to miss this," he whispered in my ear.

Oh, I wanted to miss it alright. I wanted this to all just be a very bad nightmare, where I'd wake up soon and not be about ready to decapitate my irresponsible siblings. I was so angry I could have killed all three of them and not batted an eyelash.