Part 3
The Present
Edward and I are about to find out exactly how effective ten years of foreplay can be.
Where Edward and I are now, in a push-pull battle away from his desk and towards the only bed that he's ever owned in his life, was inevitable.
It wasn't my intention that morning when I woke up to end up here, but I knew that it wouldn't be long before I found myself in this situation.
Complain, I will not.
His lips don't leave mine abandoned for long, but when they leave to trail down my neck, my collarbone, the heaving rise and fall of my chest, complaining is the last thing that I'm doing. His lips find mine again, our breaths mingling together before they're swallowed up in another kiss that has me on my tip toes with Edward's fingers on the back of my neck holding me in place.
It's not long before his fingers leave my neck to skim down my back, effectively pulling me flush against the front of him, my arms sneaking up to wrap around his shoulders. I run my fingers through his hair, the fresh cut from earlier today prickly against my fingertips. It ignites a soft sound out of Edward, putting an end to the torrent of his lips and tongue and mouth, but I want more. So much more that I bring his lips right back to mine again, breathing and oxygen be damned, kissing him like I had in my dreams that I had denied for far too long.
I forget just how magical it is to kiss Edward. He wasn't my first kiss, and he hadn't been my last since we had parted ways, but my God, his is the kiss that always matters. His is the kind that sets the bar for all others; the kind that invents the measuring tool that no other kiss could, or would, ever measure up to. I spend the next several minutes allowing myself to enjoy this moment, enjoy the feel of his tongue rolling with mine, a combination of soft and gentle and then hard and purposeful. His lips take the time to memorize and move with mine in a way that makes me cling to him even more.
It's a struggle to remain upright as his hands roam my body, not able to stay in one place for too long, falling for the temptation beneath the fabric of my dress. He manages to find the zipper in the back of my dress, and tugs it down impatiently, and I don't think I could care less whether or not he ruins the dress in his haste to take it off of me.
Without breaking our kiss, he peels the lace sleeves from the shoulders down to my wrists, and eventually I break free from its hold on me. It rustles against my waist, and in my need to feel Edward's skin on mine, I pull the rest of the dress down my legs and move to step out of them, but Edward's arms wrapping around my waist and lifting me into the air has thoughts of my dress long forgotten.
I squeal in delight, the first time a sound other than desperate longing emerges from his bedroom, as he tosses me playfully onto his bed. I disappear into his pillows, my head sinking into the heavenly puffs, but I change my mind when I see Edward's clothes disappearing before my very eyes. Needing a front row seat for this performance, I sit up and kneel in the center of his bed, patiently waiting for him to join me.
He doesn't make me wait long, leaving him standing in black boxer briefs at the edge of the bed. Edward reaches one arm around my waist, and pulls me roughly against him, and I can feel the heat of his skin through my bra. We stay in the middle of his bed, on our knees, our bodies lined and pressed up against one another without an inch of distance between us, until a mutual need surges us forward.
Tipping back towards his pillows again, I bring him with me this time, and when I feel the weight of his body on top of mine, something switches inside of me and all of a sudden this needs to happen now. I feel he's as ready as I am when he presses all of himself against all of me, my head rolling back, his head falling to his chest as if he's in prayer.
Somewhere between my bra being removed and thrown across the room and his boxer briefs quickly joining them in an aerial descent, we understand that this right here is not a marathon. This is not an exercise in stamina or endurance; this is a sprint where we both know the finish line isn't far from where we stand now.
I can't say much. It's as if my mind has lost all ability to form anything coherent, so I stop trying. His hands worship every inch of exposed skin, his mouth following the same journey seconds later, until neither of us can hold off any longer.
"Now," is all I can muster before my voice is muffled by Edward's mouth again, his hands intertwining with mine as he returns to a place where his ghost never left. We still for a moment, everything we have done since I first kissed Edward by his desk what seems like hours ago, leading us to this. He fills me completely, my body stretching to his like it was meant to, and I deliriously remember something Edward had said about muscles and memory.
The first time he retreats, and the first time he returns, makes my head spin; I wrap my legs around his waist and lock my feet together to tether myself to the world around me. He buries himself in the crook of my neck; his breath beating against my skin matches the rhythm and pace he sets for us. I can't keep my hands in one place. I need to feel everything, all of him, all at once. They rest on the muscles in his arms when he holds himself above me. They reach around us to dig into firm flesh, pressing to keep him in the same spot that makes me cry out in the dim light of his room.
A flick of his tongue turns a corner in our race to the finish line, and I can almost taste victory as our pace quickens. I'm chasing after it, opening my eyes to take in one of my favorite sides of Edward.
This side of Edward, the primal side of a man that has all of his guards down as he surrenders to desire, is almost my tipping point. He kisses me hard before a whimper from his throat breaks us apart.
Even after all this time, I know. I know he's as close to falling as I am, holding it together for my sake, unaware that his own destruction is my undoing. Watching Edward fall apart in my arms has always been my weakness.
"Now?" I ask, noticing that word has been the only word that either of us have been able to speak. His eyes flutter open, lost and dark, finding mine before shaking his head. I watch his lips and tongue slide down my body, and I protest at the void he leaves me with when he sinks further down his bed.
When his tongue is level with the place he just vacated and I have to hold on to whatever I can get my hands on to remain conscious, I know that him watching me fall apart has the same hold on him that it has on me.
It does not take long. His tongue and fingers remember me well, and I welcome the reunion with a celebration of the brightest fireworks. I'm grasping, my back arched off the bed, Edward's hands trying to hold my hips in place, or maybe bring me back down from the stars.
I barely have time to prepare myself for the Grand Finale before he's back again, and I'm reaching for his kiss like I'm parched in the desert for water, and he whispers against my mouth before sliding back right where he had been.
"Now," he says, and it's happening again before the first was over, except this time Edward joins me in my celebration. It's the kind that tingles the nerves in my toes and back again, makes me forget that anything exists outside of this room. My name coming from his mouth on repeat as he succumbs to the feelings he had deemed himself unworthy of for so long will forever be imprinted on my mind.
I don't know how long time drifts around us as we settle ourselves back to one another, picking up and putting together the shattered pieces of ourselves. Eventually Edward moves and finds his place next to me, my legs barely able to move as he lifts them to slide us under his blanket.
I revel in the silence, the raised bumps of his flesh as my fingers swirl lazy circles on his stomach. I rest my head on him, not caring about pins and needles or cramped legs or anything other than the rise and fall of his chest and the beating of his heart in my ears.
"Bella, you know I didn't bring you here expecting this from you," Edward says, his voice low and honest. Even my fuddled brain can hear the male satisfaction in his voice and I smile in the darkness.
Turning to look at him, I feign annoyance. "Now that you mention it, I never did get to see those damn raccoons you were going on about."
He points towards his security screens again, "Once I can walk again, I'll show you!"
"I believe you," I say, turning back around and settling into his side again. "I guess I owe those raccoons a thank you."
"A thank you?"
"Absolutely. If it weren't for those raccoons, why else would we be here?"
He sighs, "Great. Now every time I see a raccoon, I'll think of this." I laugh until he stops me with his lips on mine again. "Seriously, though. I know things just ended with your fiancée – "
"Shhh." I interrupt him, placing my fingers against his mouth. He nods and removes my fingers, kissing them lightly until he rests them against his chest crushed with his own.
"I didn't want to push you into something you're not ready for."
I shake my head. "You didn't. Besides, wasn't I the one that pushed you in the first place?"
"More like pulled," he adds, briefly flashing to a snapshot of me pulling him towards me with his tie.
There is no denying that Edward and I have been on a trajectory that's pulled us from one direction to the next since we were kids. Another pull could not do us any more harm than what has already been done.
The hours trickle by, filled with soft kisses and conversation, intermittent dozes between rounds of questioning. We take the time to fill in the gaps of each other's lives that we had left out before tonight, the details too intimate to share between two long lost friends and lovers. I learn that he had been in a serious relationship with a girl while I was in New York. In ways similar to what I felt about Tyler, he had ended it when he realized that he couldn't love her the way she had needed him to. I tell him that when I got to New York, I put off seeing my real mother for so long that eventually the dream died altogether. I had been in such a weak state of mind, a new city across the country with a broken heart, and I knew that the only thing I needed was to cling to familiarity and comfort. That was my mom, my Renee.
Our talking continues into the night, and we skirt around that night we broke up in the driveway. Right now, as we rest our bodies and reconnect our souls, the last thing we want to do is break this bubble we have made for ourselves.
"At the risk of sounding domestic, should I set an alarm for tomorrow? I know you have to be at Alice's early."
My heart threatens to burst at his kind gesture, and it dawns on me that no amount of time with Edward could diminish his ability to amaze me.
We agree on a time, noting that it was only a handful of hours from now, and eventually we drift into a restful sleep.
We end up not needing the alarm clock, and Edward flings it across the room when it blares the time for us, but we are already awake. I rise above him before sinking down again, Edward's hands on my hips guiding me towards our completion. We take our time now, and every downward stroke is met by his every inch, by the words that leave his mouth in gasps and whispers. With the rising sun as our backdrop, we come apart and come back together again, not knowing how our mornings could ever go back to anything other than this.
-tr-
We wait until the last possible minute to leave Edward's bed, a look in the mirror telling me that a shower was the first thing I needed to do before heading over to Alice's. He had offered me clothes to change into, which actually looked a lot worse than donning on my dress again to perform the Walk of Shame.
The only difference is that I feel absolutely no shame; I am giddy as I use an extra toothbrush and slide it next to Edward's in the bathroom tucked into the other corner of his bedroom. Turns out there were a lot of little things I had overlooked last night here in Edward's room, and in the light of day, I see the little intricacies that make this a home.
The only thing I can do with my hair is pray for the best, so I try to detangle all of the knots from Edward's fingers into a respectable bun. My dress from last night looks far better on Edward's floor, so I reluctantly slide it over my body that echoes in slight soreness from recent activities. The reflection in the mirror tells me it's well worth it, and nothing can wipe the smile off of my face.
Until I walk out into Edward's room and see the look on his face.
He's staring at his phone, having found it tucked within his pants pocket that had been disregarded.
"Everything okay?" I ask, sliding over to him slowly, not ready for anything to disturb this peace that I have so desperately been craving.
He shakes his head, and nothing can prepare me for the words coming out of his mouth.
"It's Emmett. Tyler's here."
-tr-
"This is not how I pictured this day going," Edward says as he slowly pulls into my driveway and brings his car to a stop.
I am frozen, unable to answer him as the shock at what my eyes are seeing has taken over all functions of my body.
"What is he doing here?" I hear myself whisper after what seems like an eternity of silence. My voice is weak with uncertainty and guilt, and I shake my head in horror and disbelief as my biggest nightmare readies itself to take center stage on my parent's front lawn. I drop my eyes to my lap, squeezing them tightly in hopes that everything and everyone, namely the man on the porch steps, would disappear.
"Edward, I am so sorry. I had no idea -"
"You don't have to apologize, Bella." His voice is as low as I feel, so different than how it sounded moments before we turned onto my street and into my driveway.
"Yes. I do." I can't look up at him. I know the tears will start the minute I do. I keep my eyes closed but the tears come anyway. Two big drops slide out of my eyes and down my cheek before I can stop them. I wipe them away quickly. I whisper, "I don't know what to do."
"I think he does." I can hear the disdain seeping out of his words, and I look up and see him staring at Tyler. He is still sitting on the steps but Edward is right. The look on Tyler's face says it all. Without words, Edward and I both know why Tyler has left New York and is sitting on my parent's porch in Forks.
"I have to talk to him." I try to gather the courage for the shit show that is about to happen. I have no idea what I plan on saying, and I already know that whatever words I do manage to say will not help the current situation at hand.
I'm staring out the window imagining the different scenarios in my head when Edward breaks the silence in the car.
"Do you love him?" Gone is the whispered gentleness of his words from last night and this morning, and it is replaced with blunt and gruff tones that break my heart into pieces all over again. His childhood shield is back in place and I hate it. All of it. The shield, the wedding, the ex-fiancé that decides now is a great time to show up unannounced.
"It's complicated." I tuck my hair behind my ear and keep my eyes focused on my lap, knowing that my words aren't going to be good enough for Edward right now.
"It's only as complicated as you let it be."
"It's not that simple."
He runs his hands through his hair in frustration and then his hands land on the steering wheel roughly, causing me to jump at the sound as it slices through the air. "Not that simple? Since when have you let anything in your life become complicated, huh?"
This is the first time since we arrived at my house that he has looked at me, and I wish to God that he didn't. Whatever resolve I'm clinging to is reduced to shambles when I look in his eyes and see the years we were together as kids, the years we spent apart as adults, and the night we spent together last night. They all blur together on a relentless continuum in my mind.
He wants to talk complications? Now I'm angry.
I want to shove him and tell him that the only complication that I've ever had in my life was him.
I want to tell him that he is the only part of my life that is messy and chaotic and out of control.
I want him to know how much he drives me crazy.
I want to tell him how he is the one thing that has been missing from my life for the past ten years.
I want to - no – I need to tell him that this situation with Tyler has been complicated since the day we started dating two years ago, to when he proposed to me last month, to when I panicked and left him a week later, my finger still tingling from the ring that sat upon it for six days too long.
I want to tell Edward that all my relationships have been complicated since we broke up when we were stupid teenagers, and not because they weren't great guys or because they didn't treat me well.
They were complicated because they weren't him.
My heart knew that, and held onto it for ten long years, while I was hoping against hope that maybe I would wake up one morning and not wonder where he was or who he was with or if he had finally found where he belonged.
But I look at him now in the car, and I don't tell him any of it. I can't yet. Edward being back in my life is still too new. Too raw. Too overwhelming, but I guess I should expect it by now.
Anything involving Edward in my life is all-consuming. I don't know how to be around Edward and not feel everything, all the emotion the world has to offer, without it blinding me and leaving me powerless to stop it or even control it.
I just fall. Head first. Every time.
It is déjà vu. The night The Rec closed and he sent me off to college with a hole in my chest where my broken heart should have been.
"You don't get to pick and choose when you want me around. You were the one who gave up on us."
I can't hold back the anger that has remained dormant since I was seventeen. I point a finger towards Tyler who is staring at Edward and me in the car, waiting for one of us to make a move. "Do you know why he's here? He's here because he's not giving up."
Edward shakes his head hard. "I never gave up on you. I gave up on me holding you back from a better life."
"A better life?" I ask him incredulously.
"I had nothing back then, Bella. Absolutely nothing besides the clothes on my back. You had scholarships left and right, a family that supported you, a house to come home to. I had nothing to offer you. I thought by stepping back and letting you do all the things you were meant to do that you would eventually realize that us not being together was better for you."
I shake my head and hold my hands up in surrender, begging him to stop. It takes me a minute to get my thoughts together as every emotion filters throughout my body. "I would have chosen you, Edward. You know I would have."
"And that was the problem. We were seventeen years old. Kids. I couldn't let you choose me over all of the other amazing things you had worked so hard for. You would grow up to resent me."
We say nothing for a few minutes. We say nothing because there is too much to say. When I see Tyler stand up from his spot on the porch and begin to make his way over towards us, I look at Edward for the last time.
"You're right. We were kids then. And you gave me exactly what you wanted me to have. You gave me a chance to grow up."
Without another word, I open the car door and slam it behind me, not caring for anything else Edward has to say.
One look at Tyler and I know that whatever fight I have left in me is gone.
And it's not fair to him.
I've been completely awful to him and he doesn't even know why, although judging by the look on his face, he has a pretty good idea as to why I never could have married him.
"Tyler, please just –"
I don't get to finish my sentence before the car door behind me slams. I turn towards the sound and Edward is standing in front of the car, clearly uncomfortable as his eyes never leave the ground and his hands are jammed into the front pockets of his jeans.
"The last time I let you leave my car I ended up losing you for ten years. I'm not letting you go again, Bella."
If he had said those words ten years ago after I walked out of his car the first time, none of this would have happened.
I wouldn't have broken Tyler's heart.
I wouldn't have lost all that money to a therapist.
My brain is too defensive and my body is too exhausted to think of the past ten years.
Everything about this moment, Edward sitting on the hood of his car, Tyler a few steps behind me watching with caution as the situation unfolds in front of us, reminds me how I have spent so long and worked so hard to do whatever I could do avoid situations like these. Emotions are running high and I am terrified that I am going to say something I regret to either one of them.
My mom's voice somehow breaks through my inner turmoil and reminds me that the only voice I need to follow is my own. I can't avoid hurting either Edward or Tyler, especially now when a confrontation is almost inevitable, but what I can do is to remember that I am the one that has to live my life and with whatever decisions I decide for this life of mine.
This is one of those areas of gray in my life that I try to push back into either those black or white boxes. When I swallow the bile in my throat and turn to face Tyler for the first time, I remember that when I decided to follow my heart and not the rules when it came to Edward, I also decided that my life could not be divided into those neat and tidy boxes any longer.
Edward, and my life with Edward, never fit into those boxes in the first place.
"Just give me a minute?" I squeak out, holding my arms firmly down at my sides, my hands freezing him into his place on the sidewalk. " Please?"
Tyler nods hesitantly, and with a look in Edward's direction, he turns and walks back towards the house, taking his place again on the front steps.
Sighing, I take few steps away and closer to Edward. I can feel, no, practically see the discomfort radiating from Edward's body. It's such a difference from the Edward I was with last night, and this morning, that my heart almost breaks in half right here in my fucking driveway. Again.
"You need to go," I choke out into the frigid air between us.
"I don't think I can," Edward points out, lifting his shoulders in a matter of fact manner.
"You have to." Our eyes meet in a standoff, and I know I win when I see his shoulders drop and a puff of air escapes from his mouth and clouds the air around him. "I'll see you at the wedding."
He nods to me, not meeting my eyes anymore, and when his car disappears down the driveway and out is sight, I wonder if I could survive parting from Edward again.
The hole in my chest is a pretty solid answer.
I take a few seconds to compose myself, inhaling and exhaling. In and out. Count backwards from ten. With a shaky breath, I turned and head towards Tyler, the clack of my heels announcing my return. I motion for us to head inside, happy to see that my parents have made themselves scarce for now.
"What are you doing here?" I don't intend to sound harsh, and even I cringe at the sound of my voice. Panic can do that to a person.
"I didn't mean to surprise you, honestly." He sounds tired, and looks the part, as well. "Your mom said you left your phone?"
Nodding, I confirm my mother's theories. "Yeah, last night before the rehearsal dinner."
"I take it you haven't been home to get it until now," he says, eyeing my dress and my hair. I look exactly like his worst fears imagined.
"It's not what you think," I say in an attempt to spare him unnecessary pain and details.
"It's not?" He can barely bring himself to sound as angry as he should be.
I may be a coward for not admitting my feelings for Edward earlier, but I'm not a liar. "Not exactly."
It is exactly what he thought it was, but it was also so different. I don't think I can convince him otherwise so I don't for now.
After a minute or two of silence, he leaves the table we were sitting at and wanders around the living room, taking in the pictures that decorate our house. Of course Mom has ones of all of us at proms and graduations, and Tyler stops in front of one before turning around to face me.
"Edward, huh?" There is no malice in his voice. Just confidence one gets from landing on a gut feeling.
"What about him?"
"I knew he was part of your group of friends from home. Emmett. Rose. Jasper. Alice. You told me so many stories about all of them." He continues down the path of pictures on the wall. "Never Edward, though."
How could I have brought up Edward to him when until recently, I wasn't even able to bring it up to myself?
I exhaled loudly. "Yes, Edward's a part of our group. Always was."
"I always wondered why you never talked about him like you talked about the others," he says, turning his back on a picture of us at Homecoming. "I see why now, though."
"Tyler, I didn't leave New York to see Edward again," I add, hoping he sees that what I am telling him is the truth.
"It's not?" He gestures towards my attire again. "You don't exactly look like you're being honest with me."
"You want honesty?"
"I haven't asked you for much, Bella. You broke my heart; you disappeared off to Mexico and never came back. All right after I asked you to marry me, so yes, I would appreciate your honesty!"
Tyler never raises his voice, maybe it was the lawyer in him that allowed him to mask his emotions like a chameleon, so when his voice raises several octaves, I know he is searching for answers that he deserves.
I try to tell him the truth without hurting him, impossible of a task it is. "Yes, I avoided talking about Edward as much as I could. He didn't exactly bring back the best of memories for me."
When Tyler says nothing, I continue. "Edward and I were together for most of high school. Best friends since we were ten but not together until sophomore year, I think. Anyway, we broke up right before I left for New York. Lost touch until I came back home."
"And now you're right back on track."
I shake my head. "I'm telling you the truth, Tyler. When I left New York, I had no intention on even seeing Edward until the wedding, let alone anything else."
"Anything else?" Those two words carry as much weight as his ring had when I wore it on my finger for that short time.
"When you asked me to marry you, I said yes because you made me so happy, Tyler. I wanted to have the life with you that we had talked about."
"Then what happened?"
I sigh, remembering the dream I had of saying yes to Edward, and the tears that I have worked so hard to hold back spring forth from my eyes. I wipe them away as quickly as they come but I'm not faster than all of them. "I woke up one morning, a few days after, and realized that my heart was still here."
"You mean with Edward."
"I'm telling you, Edward and I haven't spoken in years," I sniffle, crossing my arms across my chest. "We just had a lot of history that didn't end the right way."
"Like closure?"
"Exactly. And how was that fair to you? Here I was, hung up on some guy from my past because we didn't get the closure I wanted, and still engaged to you. It wasn't fair to you," I argue.
"Or to you," he says softly, and in that moment I know he knows that whatever I felt for him hadn't been enough.
I hate myself right now, and I let him know it. "I'm so sorry, Tyler. It wasn't meant to end this way for us."
"Is there a right way to end something like this?" He questions rhetorically, sighing and moving towards the door. "I didn't come here to change your mind. I came here for me, actually."
"Really?"
He nods. "I still had my ticket that we bought a while ago for the wedding and the days off from work. Figured getting away for a while may help me figure all of this out."
"You think you will? Figure it all out?"
"Honestly?"
I nod for him to continue.
"Someday I will. Someday I'll know why I'm here and what this was all for," he motions between us, "but until then, I don't know exactly what my plan is."
"That makes two of us, then," I point out.
-tr-
There isn't enough time in the world to find the energy it takes to move off my bed and into the shower. Tyler had left after an amicable parting, taking his ring and our history with him. Mentally exhausted, I had flopped onto my bed and let it all go. Each tear took a piece of me with it; New York, Tyler, my job, sending Edward away, all of it. My parents, who had disappeared to the diner for breakfast, had come home and literally dragged me off of my bed. I cried some more in the shower, surprised I had any more tears left to give, determined to let it all out before Alice's most important day begins.
On autopilot, I grab my overnight bags, making sure I have everything I need for today and tomorrow. I triple check that I have my phone this time, shaking my head at the disastrous consequences that happened all because I left my stupid phone at home.
A fresh round of tears comes on when I remember what those hours without my phone brought me. Those hours brought me a night with Edward that is now tainted with the events of today.
Unable to bring myself to call him, I head out in my mom's car to Alice's house, digging deep within myself to remember just how happy this day should be.
-tr-
This chapter went a little longer than usual but I didn't think you all would mind. Winding it down now, folks. Still working on it, but it looks like two chapters and an epilogue left. Stay safe out there. Praying for everyone and their families!