Chapter 4
Bella
"Just a little further. No peeking!" Renesmee insisted as she guided me by the hand outside to a detached garage. Jacob and Edward trailed behind us, chuckling amusedly amongst themselves.
"Has your father told you how much I just love big reveals in garages?" I asked in a flat, sarcastic voice. The motorcycle…the missile-proof monstrosity Edward replaced my truck with. The Ferrari. I sighed with nostalgia remembering my beloved, deceased Chevy.
"Well, you're gonna love this one," my daughter told me confidently.
From behind me, Edward chimed in. "She's right. I only wish I'd thought of it myself," he added with a good-natured laugh.
"This is from me and Jacob. Happy Birthday, Mom. You can look now," Renesmee instructed in a voice that was buoyant with excitement and anticipation.
I peeled off the black cloth napkin that had been folded up and tied around my eyes and blinked twice, letting my eyes focus on the source of the new scent in the garage, the mixture of steel, rubber, and gasoline.
I stared open-mouthed, stunned, and speechless. Parked before me was the exact make and model of my old truck, a 1953 Chevy, but with a glossy new red-orange paint job and one of those oversized red bows taped to the windshield.
"What did you do?" I asked in a stunned whisper as a huge smile started to spread across my face.
"It's the Beast 2.0, and now she's built for speed, just like you," Jacob grinned. Then he popped the hood to show me the entirely rebuilt engine before strutting around to the rear of the truck where he showed me the beefed-up exhaust, all shiny and chromed out. Apparently, that would "give it the rumble I wanted without the dinosaur engine weighing it down." Jacob went to list off a bunch of other performance modifications that made little sense to me, but I had a feeling his little performance wasn't entirely for my benefit.
"Not bad, Fido," Rosalie nodded with begrudging respect from where she was leaning against the door.
"Thanks for letting me use your tools, Blo–I mean–Rosalie. Sure made the restoration a helluva lot easier than it would've been using my old hand-me-down tools that I left on the Rez," Jacob admitted in an equally admiring tone.
"Thanks for taking care of them," Rose replied.
Then after a brief pause, she turned to me and added, "Bella, just make sure you let me look it over before you take it out for a spin. We wouldn't want that antique to kill you a second time," Rosalie snarked, then turned on her heel and left. Evidently, her ability to be civil with Jake only extended so far.
Jake just shook his head and rolled his eyes, with a look on his face that inferred he was flipping my sister-in-law off in his head. Edward tried to hide his laughter behind his balled-up fist which pretty much confirmed that theory, or something like it.
"Holy crow, you two! I don't know how you did this without my finding out!" I marveled with wide-eyed astonishment. "You were right, Renesmee. I love it! This is just the best thing ever," I beamed, throwing my arms around both my daughter and Jake before returning to Edward's side.
He squeezed my hand, and I know what he must have been thinking. That I was impressively gracious about getting such an extravagant gift. Over the years, I had to get over that little aversion for my daughter's sake, who loved to give me gifts as much as her father did.
"It certainly helps that you vamps don't need car lifts or tow trucks because you're so freakishly strong. You'd be amazed how silently you can move a 2-ton truck when you can just pick them up and move them around like they're Hot Wheels," Jacob muttered to no one in particular.
"Are you finally willing to admit that we vampires have you wolves outgunned, dog?" Edward asked with an easy smile, without any real malice in his tone.
"It'll be a cold day in hell, bloodsucker," Jake returned with an irreverent smirk. "On that note, I know you three have a family hunt planned, so I'll just see myself out. Happy birthday, Bells. Love ya," my old friend told me giving me a bone-crushing hug and dropping the keys to the truck in my hand.
"Thanks, Jake! We'll try not to be long," I told him considerately, knowing that it was hard for him to be away from Renesmee, even for short periods of time. I remembered the feeling well, back when Edward would leave me to hunt when I was still human. Though, Jake's humanity wasn't the reason why we left him behind now. He frequently hunted with Renesmee in his wolf form. It actually worked out rather nicely when he did, because he ate the flesh on the carcasses she had no further use for, so nothing was wasted.
But it was a special occasion, and as Edward reminded me and Renesmee over and over, we had to have some kind of boundaries.
Edward broke in, and in a firm but gentle tone, corrected "We'll take as long it takes. It's your birthday, love. If you want to hunt big game across the Canadian tundra until you're bursting at the seams, then that's what we're going to do."
I smiled appreciatively at my husband. He never turned down an opportunity to spoil me. Even so, while the prospect of gorging myself on bears and cougars was tempting, it would be hard for me to fully enjoy myself knowing that my friend was hurting back at home and that Renesmee was longing to get back to him, too.
After all, I thought wryly, who was I to stand in the way of true love? Besides, a birthday wasn't particularly special when you had a neverending supply of them. But I held my tongue, humoring my husband.
Jacob dropped a chaste kiss on top of Renesmee's head, murmuring to her that he'd see her as soon as he could. And then with one last wave, he showed himself out of the garage, leaving me alone with my perfect little family.
Edward
Leaving the island as we typically did to hunt, it was a simple task to jump over the narrow straits and canals that separated Vancouver Island from the rest of British Columbia, a western Canadian province that was lush with pristine forests and rich with wildlife, making it an ideal hunting ground.
We fed with more abandon than we normally permitted ourselves since it was a special occasion. Bella drained two black bears and a large elk bull. I let Nessie have the cougar we found because just like her old man, big cats were her favorite. And I cleaned up a foursome of black-tailed deer.
With a puckered brow, I noticed Nessie wasn't obsessively checking her phone like she normally did whenever she was apart from her beloved mutt. I briefly wondered if maybe she was angry with him and giving him the silent treatment. And if so, why?
Her mind was filled with images of a forest, but not the one we were hunting in. The shades of green were different, more yellowish, and vibrant. The trees and foliage were tropical species, like brazil nut and rubber trees and they were populated by brightly colored toucans.
I thought maybe Renesmee was remembering some of the scenes that Zafrina had shown her during the time The Amazonian coven traveled to Forks to stand with us against the Volturi. She had gotten quite close to Zafrina, captivated by her "pretty pictures." And when the images kept flashing through her mind like a slideshow, I started to suspect she was trying to control her thoughts around me.
Luckily, I wasn't left to puzzle over this for long. Just before we started our return trip back to our home on the island, Renesmee bit her lip (a habit passed down from her mother that I was rather fond of) and hesitantly asked, "Can I ask you both to do something for me?"
Renesmee had such a troubled look on her face that Bella and I immediately gave each other a worried glance.
Bella
"What is it, honey? You can ask us anything," I answered automatically.
"I was thinking I could use a change of scenery…" she began, averting eye contact.
My brow furrowed, trying to decipher her meaning. "What did you have in mind? I'm sure our cousins in Denali would be thrilled to have a visit.."
Renesmee grimaced at the mention of our closest relatives, but I couldn't understand why. So I followed up with, "Do you suddenly have something against the Denalis that I'm not aware of?"
Digging the toe of her sneaker into the mulchy earth and pine needles blanketing the ground, Renesmee answered, "It's not that I have anything against them. It's that they will always have something against me. If it weren't for me, Irina would still be alive. Do you think Tanya and Kate can forget that for even one moment when they look at me?" she asked in a pained voice.
"That's not true!" I rushed to deny any implication that Renesmee was somehow to blame for what happened to the mercurial Denali sister. "Irina is to blame for her own demise," I argued hotly, and was about to say more, but the look on Edward's face stopped me.
"If Renesmee has picked up that vibe from Tanya and Kate, it's not without reason," Edward reluctantly admitted, giving our daughter an apologetic look. "Even if they don't blame her directly, there's still some…lingering resentment."
A validated Renesmee motioned to her father with an open palm, rhetorically muttering, "See?"
Renesmee did not seem surprised in the least by her father's admission, but I could've been knocked over by a feather. But before I could dwell on that for too long, Edward asked Renesmee, "The Amazon, though, Ness? Is there some reason for this intercontinental expedition all of a sudden? It seems a bit impulsive" he asked dryly, trying not to sound overly judgmental before he had all the facts. "And I assume you mean you want to go with Jacob?" he probed further, a definite edge in his voice now.
"No, actually. He's sort of the reason I want to get away. It's just been kind of weird with Jacob, lately. He…he doesn't know how to be with me now that I've reached physical maturity. I can tell he feels weird about my age. And it doesn't help that he's scared to death that you will murder him if he so much as breathes on me the wrong way," she added in a harder voice, glaring at Edward.
I looked at Edward with a disapproving frown. In response, he held up his hands defensively and retorted, "I won't apologize for that. That's my right as a father. Grandpa Charlie regularly threatened me with bodily violence when I dated your mother, and I will in turn terrorize Jacob. It's a rite of passage." Edward shrugged impassively with a stubborn set of his jaw.
Like a true teenager, Renesmee sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Anyway," Renesmee interjected, "You did promise Zafrina and Senna that I could go and visit them, and that was almost seven years ago."
"That's like a month in vampire time, but I see your point," Edward replied mildly. "Just so I'm clear, you want to visit Zafrina, Senna, and Kachiri in the Amazon, without Jacob. For how long?"
"A few days. Maybe a week. Not long. I know Jacob will lose his mind, but, ugh, I just need a little room to breathe. I'm so tired of feeling like jailbait. Like there's something…perverse about loving me," she answered in a high, tight voice that threatened tears.
Hearing the obvious pain in my daughter's voice, I crushed her to my chest in a tight hug. "Oh, honey!" I cried, soothingly sliding my hand down her long, silken hair, and gently rocking her from side to side like I used to do when she was small enough to fit in my arms. "There is nothing perverse about loving you, do you hear me?" I told her fiercely, glaring at Edward over her shoulder.
I pushed my shield away with a furious mental shove.
You WILL back off. I don't care what paternal rights you think you are entitled to, your overprotective 'keep the virgin locked up in her tower' bullshit has GOT to stop. She's hurting, Edward, because you won't open your eyes and see that she's not the child you keep treating her like, I stormily accused.
Edward flinched as if I'd struck him, but with a tightly clenched jaw, he nodded in acquiescence. He knew me well enough to know when I wasn't to be trifled with.
Clearing his throat, Edward offered the alternative suggestion, "If it's Jacob that you need space from, we could always encourage him to go back to Washington for a time. He doesn't visit Billy often enough as it is," he added a bit judgmentally.
Renesmee snorted dismissively. "You say that like Jacob could be convinced to leave my side. No, it has to be me."
"And you do remember that the Amazons don't adhere to our same lifestyle, right? Did you consider that?" Edward questioned in a pointed tone.
"I have no desire or immediate plans to hunt humans if that's what you're worried about, Dad," Renesmee huffed.
I sighed. This was going to crush Jake. Not to mention the week of howling and sad puppy whimpering we'd have to endure in her absence.
"He'll live," Edward ground out through his teeth. My gaze snapped over to meet his steely buttery gold eyes. I had forgotten Edward could still hear me. Oops. I let my shield snap back in place.
Banishing thoughts of Jacob from my mind, I told Edward, "You're right." Then addressing our daughter, I told her, "Renesmee, you shouldn't have to feel like you're tethered to him. Though, I don't suppose you'll let one of us go with you?" I asked in a hopeful voice.
I would go to the ends of the earth with Renesmee at a moment's notice without hesitation if it would lift her spirits. I'd never seen her so crestfallen. But of course, the answer was no because this wasn't just a disagreement between her and Jacob. Any fool could see that. This was Renesmee taking a very vocal stand against the infantilizing treatment she'd been enduring by the people in her life that she loved the most.
Taking Renesmee's hand and kissing it, I relented, "You do what you need to do, precious girl. And then you come back to us."
"Dad?" Renesmee asked then, her tone making it clear she wasn't asking for his permission, but instead, his blessing. "I already booked a ticket. I'm telling you this as a courtesy because regardless of how you and Jacob view me, I am not a child."
"Clearly. " Edward answered in a hard voice, his expression indecipherable. "What do you need us to do?"
With a pained look twisted across her beautiful heart-shaped face, she answered, "Just don't let him come after me."
Edward
"Just wait until the first time she runs away…That's when you switch to whiskey."
Charlie's voice haunted me as I stood powerless and paralyzed inside the international departures terminal of Vancouver International Airport as my daughter walked toward the security line and away from her mother and me with nothing but what she brought with her in her knapsack. Truly on her own for the first time.
My heart willed my feet to move. To stop her. To forbid this insanity. But my more rational side kept my running shoes planted firmly on the waxed linoleum floor.
Renesmee had so much of Bella in her. I knew instinctively that if I tried to stop her, Renesmee might come home with us this time. But the next time she got it in her head to leave, we wouldn't be given the courtesy of a warning. And as much as it hurt to kiss her cheek and watch her walk away from me now, it would absolutely destroy me to one day find Jacob and my daughter missing without a trace, especially knowing the difficulty Alice would have locating them when she couldn't see them.
I was mocked by the trite fortune cookie wisdom, "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it's yours forever. If it doesn't, it was never yours, and it was not meant to be."
What horrible advice! If you love something, you grab onto it with both hands and you fight like hell to keep it forever. I believed that. That's why this was so hard. It went against every instinct I had.
I vividly remembered the gutted face Charlie was making in the rearview mirror the night Bella had left him standing devastated in his front yard, with his hands in his pockets, helplessly watching her truck drive away with his whole heart sitting behind the wheel. I was pretty sure I was making the same face.
It wasn't until Nessie was past the metal detectors and turned down a corridor toward her gate and out of sight that Bella turned to me and asked, "What the hell do we tell Jake?"
Author's Note: What do you think? Did Bella & Edward do right by letting her go? Was Bella's anger justified? Or should Edward have put his foot down? I'd love to hear your thoughts! And as always, come say hey on my discord! Don't forget to sign the guestbook and leave a rec for your favorite fics, or come plug your own on the self-promotion channel!
FF won't let me post the link, but you can find it most easily on my Twitter page. My UserID is MsZ_Fantasy. Til next time lovelies! Thanks for reading and reviewing!
