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Chapter 132

Even More Disputes

Bella

I had not slept long, but I felt new strength inside me.

A force of outrage. Of indignation.

Carefully I rose from the bed and put my hand on my Knob.

"Let's go to Daddy!" I said bitterly, grabbing the test and setting out.

A long way, because the strength was only a disdainful illusion, but I could keep it up long enough. The hallway, the stairs, jacket on, front door, the driveway, the sidewalk, until I arrived on the front door.

I rang the bell and looked back the way somewhat incredulously.

Maybe a hundred meters, but I had taken what felt like eternities.

Sonya happily opened the door for me.

I made an effort to put on a similar face.

It seemed to work reasonably well.

I went up the stairs and fixed the door at the back right. David's study. Without knocking, I entered.

"Bella," David greeted me, surprised but in a good mood.

He sat behind his desk and smiled at me.

I carefully closed the door behind me and walked towards him. I supported myself with my hands on the tabletop so that I looked more determined than my body just admitted to me. With a jerk, I wordlessly slammed the test down on the table.

David picked it up, recognized it, and smiled until he looked at my face. He bristled.

"Congratulations?" he asked more as if he actually wished it.

"Thank you!" I hissed between my teeth.

"You don't seem as beaming with joy as one might expect from an expectant mother," he meant cautiously, almost questioningly.

"Edward can't father children!" I sparkled at him.

"Then why are you pregnant? ... Were you in bed with someone else?" he now asked acidly.

"You tell me!"

"How am I supposed to know who you're cheating on Edward with!" he retorted irritably, standing up from behind his desk and propping himself up on the tabletop as defiantly as I was.

We stared at each other.

He was angry. That was the reaction I was kind of hoping for.

I gave up my posture and dropped into one of his armchairs.

"I didn't cheat on him," I muttered, fighting back tears as I realized again that Edward really thought I was capable of that. No matter what he said, he doubted my love! This knowledge hurt me.

Immediately David squatted in front of me and took my hands.

"But if you haven't had anyone else, how can you be pregnant?" he inquired.

"That's what Edward asked, too. And he even had an answer to ... you!" I stammered indistinctly.

David's eyes widened and he recoiled as he understood me in an all-encompassing way.

"Me?" he ran grouchily with his fingers through his hair. "Where does he come up with this bullshit?"

Horrified, he walked through his study. Back and forth. In between, he cursed softly to himself.

Edward would be out of his mind. How he had come up with it. What an ass he would be to imply it to him. And me ...

I stopped listening. I gently stroked over my Knob with my fingertips. It soothed me.

"Wait a minute!", I then listened again, and David looked at me challengingly. "You came in here so angry! ... Do you believe that crap?"

I shrugged my shoulders indecisively.

I didn't know what to believe anymore.

"If WE had a child together, he would be so old that we would have already enrolled him in school twice," he stated.

I smiled weakly.

That's how I thought it would be.

He knelt in front of me, took my hand again and gently placed the other one against my cheek.

"What makes you think that Edward could be right about this nonsense? After all, you would have been there! I could hardly have done that on my own!"

"Well. There are a few evenings when I can't tell how I got to bed ... And some of them had to do with you," I mumbled, feeling pretty stupid about it.

"What kind of evenings?" he wanted to know.

I took a deep breath and sifted through my memories for really concrete possibilities.

There was, for example, the evening shortly after they moved in, when Sonya invited us to dinner. Roast beef, I remembered. David and I drank red wine with it, and we had emptied a few bottles. While Sonya had gone to bed at some point, Edward had picked up the twins from a little frustration party on the occasion of a lost game of Leah's. I remembered being mad because they had been drinking during the week, but Edward placatingly said they weren't too drunk. They just didn't dare drive anymore and even wanted to do their wolf rounds. And that Edward would accompany them. I had not noticed when he came back.

"We just fell asleep. You were stretched out on the sofa, and I was in the armchair across from you. Edward woke me up and carried you in his arms at home," David smiled at me.

But there were other evenings. In the five and a half weeks that he had lived here in the meantime, we had started some evenings at least as a foursome, but ended them as a twosome. Sonya had made a friend in her yoga class and was hanging out with her, meeting other parents from the boys classes, or going to bed early compared to us. Edward was hunting, accompanying the twins, or was with his parents or siblings. David and I sometimes drank more alcohol, but usually less.

We recapitulated all those social evenings, pieced together scraps of memories, and came to one very clear conclusion: Never!

The last sex we could remember was the weekend he met Sonya. On Saturday, April 6, 2013, as David knew quite well. He handed me a little picture frame that was sitting on his desk. A photo that had a date on the edge. Exactly one week later. When he had made up for the date with Sonya.

"Bells, we've ended up in bed a few times completely drunk and we've always been able to remember it afterwards. I don't think we drank ourselves into such a coma that we wouldn't remember," he explained calmly, putting the picture back in its place.

He was actually right about that, I had to admit. Even on the before mentioned 6th of April I could remember it, although we had drunk a hell of a lot. I had been frustrated and in a really bad mood and had already drunk sparkling wine with Zoey in the afternoon. Then we switched to beer when David arrived and after Zoey had left, we had also emptied a started bottle of his whiskey. The headache the next morning was also still familiar to me. Despite everything, we nevertheless knew what we had done that night. Until now, I was on the verge of being ashamed of my own doubts. But one night I couldn't remember for the life of me.

"And what happened last weekend?" I therefore asked. The last thing I could remember about that Saturday night, before I saw golden eyes in front of me in the morning, was that the teenagers had gone to bed. But what had happened in between? Somehow, I must have gotten into bed. And in it I had lain only in a scanty pair of panties, whereby David had also not more on.

He looked at me with a smirk and stretched his index finger towards me in a reproachful and played indignant manner.

"You made the sauce for the Pulled Pork with my whiskey. An insolence! For that I chased you all the way into the bedroom and tickled you ... And you thanked me for the day with a harmless little kiss that rather accidentally hit my mouth," he smiled.

I looked at him in confusion.

Little kiss? Accidentally?

"We drank so much that your coordination worked even less than it normally does . You fell more on top of me and scared yourself about it ... Then we fell asleep."

Yeah, that sounds like me.

"And then?" I asked though.

"What? And then?" David paused. "Nothing and then! We were asleep. Until the morning."

"But we were almost naked," I reminded him.

"Uh ...", he only made and ran with his fingers through his hair indecisively. He slowly rose from the floor, but continued to hold my hand. "We didn't sleep together!" he stated seriously.

His expression was not nearly as confident as his voice tried to be.

"How do you know that?" I hooked up just as seriously.

He hesitated and began to walk up and down in his study again. He pondered and went through the evening step by step for himself. It always ended up that we fell asleep on the bed fully dressed.

But something had to have happened by the next morning. Otherwise, we would not have been almost naked.

"We agree that it could only have happened - if at all - that night," David began to say concentratedly.

I nodded.

On the other nights that were basically in question, I was - or we were - asleep, but we still knew everything up to that point, with David also always knowing how I got to bed. Mostly through Edward. On one occasion, David had put me to bed. So to speak. According to him, he put me on the bed, took off my shoes and jewelry, and then waited for Edward. We were not drunk off our asses every night. We usually drank one or two glasses of wine with dinner and then just emptied the started bottle. Or he treated me to a sip of his whiskey. Very far from an alcohol blackout.

"But that was only four days ago. Your body shouldn't know anything about it yet," he meant openly.

"Maybe I'm sensitive," I speculated.

David was certainly right somewhere. Without having studied medicine, four days really sounded quite insignificant. The small bulge on my abdomen could in fact only be there from eating the past few days. From when was one of these quick tests even possible? However, I remembered a woman who was in the room with me in Atlanta waiting to go into labor. She said she knew right away. When she woke up the morning after a romantic evening, she had just known. She would have gone to the doctor every day to have her blood drawn, for a week, until the values finally confirmed the pregnancy. That I was in fact expecting a child and that it was growing somewhere inside me was, however, beyond any doubt. The test and my complaints could therefore perhaps really be doubted, but one thing could not be denied in any case.

"Edward heard the baby!" I specified, fighting back new tears.

That moment when we had stood so quietly beside the window, Edward kneeling in front of me and listening to my belly, it had been so powerful. So beautiful. So intimate ... So fleeting. Now it was all over!

"But shouldn't Edward have picked up on that somehow if we had slept together? I mean, even if I can't remember it, so my thoughts weren't a clue to him, he would surely notice it on you, wouldn't he? With his sense of smell? And as early as he was there? Since it would have been only a few hours before, after all," David asked, still pacing the room.

"The whole bedroom must have reeked of alcohol, but also of you. After all, you were lying next to me all night," I reflected.

He trotted on, whispering to himself what I didn't understand, running his fingers through his hair again and again.

"I can't for the life of me imagine it. That you cheating on Edward and me cheating on Sonya. No, Bells. I don't believe it!" he said firmly, arms folded in front of his chest.

His face was a mask. He probably wanted to look indignant and convinced. But it seemed rather the opposite.

"But how can I be pregnant then?" I asked bitterly. And naked, I added in my mind. We hadn't worked that out yet either.

He squinted his eyes and let his head hang.

Just like I did mine.

Silence.

I was desperately looking for another solution. Well. If David was not the father of my baby, there was only Edward. Therefore, any solutions were very limited, because Edward had made his opinion on the subject very clear when he left me. Once again!

A rumble startled me.

David had slammed his forearms against the near wall. He gave up. He surrendered himself to the facts and I began to cry.

If he had no other explanation to offer, neither did I. What had we done?

I hid my face in my hands.

I felt ashamed.

How could I have cheated on Edward? The man who was everything to me? My angel? Without knowing it? With my best friend?

My thoughts circled incessantly and barely paused to be able to really grasp and complete one of them.

I was gently moved a little to the side in the armchair and held by strong arms.

"How sure can Edward be that it's not his?" asked David softly after my silent sobs became quieter.

I lifted my head from his shoulder and looked at him through eyes wet with tears.

Immediately he wiped away the tears on one of my cheeks with his thumb.

"So sure that he left," I muttered.

"He skipped out on you?" asked David in dismay and at least an octave too high.

I shrugged my shoulders indecisively and ponderously.

"He said he needed some space. Time to think about how to deal with it," I explained with difficulty, crying again at the thought of not knowing when I would see Edward again. Whether I would see him again.

David drew me back comfortingly into his arms and stroked over my back.

"He can't be without you. He will come back!" whispered David.

He just held me tight. For a long time.

Until I released myself a bit from his arms and took a deep breath. Very slowly, my composure returned to me. I stood up, which he followed suit.

David handed me a handkerchief, with which I wiped away the last tears and blew my nose.

"You want to have the child?" he asked tentatively.

Startled, I turned my head in his direction and my hands lay protectively over the Knob. Hissing, I sucked in the air between my teeth. While I was still trying to think of an appropriate comment, something along the lines of whether he had lost his marbles, he began to smile faintly.

"Good, then I don't have to talk you out of it!" he stated with that satisfied.

We smiled.

A little. After all, neither of us had that much reason to laugh right now.

"Are you going to tell Sonya?" I asked.

He ruffled his hair for the innumerable time in the past hour.

"I guess I'll have to," he admitted, hiding his face in his hands for a moment. "I promised her I absolutely would not keep any more secrets from her. That was enough for her with Daniel. I can't lie to her again. Besides, she might run into Edward before I said something to her. That would not be fair. She deserves that I tell her myself," he considered seriously. Then he smirked slightly, but it wasn't genuine. It seemed rather tortured. "Besides, today is a good time for that. That way she can be mad at me for two days without me noticing."

I looked towards him questioningly.

"I'm flying to Philly tonight and won't be back until Friday afternoon," he explained.

"I completely forgot," I admitted, leaning against the table next to him as I happened to glance at the clock on the desk.

Actually, I should leave soon. School was almost over and since the twins didn't have practice today, like every Wednesday, they would be home soon.

"I don't even know how to act toward Sonya," I reflected resignedly at the thought of the walk to the front door that I still had ahead of me. She would hate me, and she would be absolutely right about that.

"Neither do I, to be honest ... After all, neither of us planned it this way. We didn't betray Sonya and Edward on purpose ... Actually, even now I can't believe it ... We've known each other for so long, Bella, and right now both of our lives are going almost perfectly ... I mean, you finally have Edward by your side, you're overjoyed with him, and the twins love him like a father. I moved here with my family, and everyone likes it. The house is great. Sonya and the kids are comfortable. Daniel is close by ... Why should we of all people have come up with the idea of going to bed together now? Why should we put all this at risk? For just one night? About which we don't even know anything yet? ..." David explained and paused to look at me.

All his words were true. Why should we? Neither of us had any reason to.

He put one hand gently on my Knob.

"What does your instinct tell you, Bella? Whose baby is it?" he asked meekly.

I covered his hands with mine and listened inside myself.

Silly. There was only one answer to that, even though I knew how impossible it was. It was the first thought I had.

"Edward!" I therefore said directly.

David nodded as if to confirm it.

"Whether it is really my child or his: I will not leave you alone with it! I will be there for you, even if Sonya will not like to see that or will interpret it as an admission of guilt," he promised me. "If you don't want to run into her, you should take your chances," David said as we heard the soft beeping of a radio clock.

4:00 p.m.: End of school.

"She is picking up the boys," David followed up explanatorily.

I decided to get out of Sonya's way today and thus go home.

I had to let this whole day sink in before I could talk to Sonya. She, too, would need some time to herself first, when David told her he was going to have another child. His sixth child!

He escorted me down to the front door and hugged me tightly.

I wished him good luck with Sonya and that it wouldn't be quite as bad as he feared.

"I'll be back in two days. Please don't get into mischief in that time. Stumble, for example. If I can help you in any way, you can call me. No matter when! And you stay strong, Bella!" he said emphatically, gave me a kiss on the temple, and I nodded.

I trotted home. Indecisively, I stood in the hallway.

Even though the kids would be home soon, it was still a little early for dinner.

I went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water, and looked in the fridge to see what would be for the meal anyway.

Actually I had wanted to go to the supermarket on the way back from Portland to get ingredients for it. But there would probably be lasagna. I personally, on the other hand, somehow felt like ice cream. I was lucky. The ice cream stood in the way of the frozen minced meat for 'emergencies'. So I ate it. Absorbed in thought.

Fact: I was pregnant! A reason for joy! But the fate destroyed exactly with it my life. Edward had left me about twenty years ago, in part because he didn't want to take my future children away from me, and Carlisle had ruled out fathering children for medical reasons. If there was even the slightest chance that this child could be Edward's, Edward would have clung to it. Of that I was sure! But now that he was gone, this last straw broke. Everything spoke against me! There was only one option left. David! And if it was David's baby growing inside me, why would Edward come back to me? He had no reason to. This baby was ruining everything! And yet the thought of an abortion was far from my mind, because the baby had earned its chance at a life. The unborn child could not help my fault. Edward would not come back. I would have to live with that. No idea how I was going to cope with that prospect for even one day. Just the thought of not knowing if I would see him again made me painfully feel every fiber in my body. But I had to persevere. Every day anew. For the unborn life.

The little bowl of ice cream was not yet empty when the twins arrived.

I shook my thoughts away.

They too were innocent.

They greeted me as usual with a kiss on the cheek.

"Where's Becky and Marcus, then?" I asked.

"Marcus has to work and then he drives to his ma. He hasn't seen her since the weekend," Leah gave as an answer, a little remorseful.

Well ... yes. Young and in love. Who needed parents then?

"Becky was going to study for an exam," Jake muttered to himself rather frustratedly.

"If Becky has to study, doesn't that mean you should study too?, I dug deeper. After all, their schedules were now almost identical.

"Probably," Jake mumbled almost inhumanly softly, avoiding the eye contact. "Where's Dad? We thought he'd be here after he took off in such a hurry during lunch break," he asked a little more boldly, and my heart abruptly tightened again.

I turned away from the children so they wouldn't see me fighting against renewed tears.

In vain.

"Mom?" asked Jake anxiously, and Leah stood immediately at my side.

"What's wrong, Mom?" she wanted to know, putting an arm around me.

I lost the fight against the tears. They just gushed out of me.

Leah held me, even propped me all the way to the sofa, and Jake carried tissues over to me.

It took me a moment to speak through my constricted throat.

A moment when Jake was running through the house to find his father. I had not managed to say that it would be useless. I had pushed that aside in all my thoughts today. The fact that Edward was gone affected not only my life. Edward left two children behind. Edward had left his family. Because I had done something he would not forgive me for. How could he forgive it? It was inexcusable!

"He's ... gone," I stammered.

That was all I could get past my lips.

"How gone?", Jake looked at me confused. "You mean he's out shopping or at David's or something?" he enquired.

I shook my head.

"His car is outside, isn't it," Leah tried to reveal.

"He ... has ...", I mumbled. I didn't want to say it. It hurt too much inside me. If I said it, it would be true. It would be final.

"What, Mom?" Jake shook me a little.

I lifted my head. Looked alternately into the eyes of my twins.

The hint of fear was in her gaze. Incomprehension. Confusion. I had to tell them. Whether I wanted to or not. I had no choice. They deserved the truth. Her father was gone, and he would not come back. They had helped me through that time once. They would do it again. I was their mother, no matter any guilt I had brought upon myself. Just as they would always be my babies.

"He left ... me!" It sounded so unreal. Had I actually said it? I was not sure.

"WHAT?" they asked at the same time.

They looked at each other, shocked for a moment, but then as if I were just teasing them. They smiled bittersweetly.

If I just wanted to tease them, I probably would have done everything right. But my attitude proved to them that it was not a bad joke.

"Why?" knelt Jake in front of me. "What happened? ... You were more in love than Lady and the Tramp."

"Especially in the last few days? You've almost gotten on our nerves with your murmurs of love. And that's supposed to be over now?" Leah couldn't understand the world anymore.

I swallowed and nodded. My hands crept to my Knob.

"I'm pregnant," I said quietly, my gaze lowered.

"You're ..." Jake began haltingly.

"... pregnant?" finished Leah.

I nodded again and squinted my eyes.

Single parent. That was me.

Jake's hands, which had been on my knees, slowly withdrew.

So I opened my eyes again and looked at him.

I didn't know what the both would say about it in general. Whether they would look forward to a little sibling. Whether they would think it was a little late because of their age. Or my age. Whether it would irrelevant to them more or less.

"Edward dumps you because you're having a baby?" thundered Jake, stunned, furiously running his hands through his hair. "What is he a jerkoff?" he cursed right after.

Leah didn't say anything at first and just looked at me indecisively. Then she stood up, put a hand reassuring against her brother's chest, and exchanged a silent glance with him before looking down at me.

"By whom?" she asked in an accusing tone of voice.

Jake turned his head in her direction, startled.

He didn't understand the question, one could see that in his face.

"Vampires can't have children!" Leah tonelessly stated the generally accepted thesis.

"You cheated on Dad!" Jake suddenly yelled at me.

No! it screamed inside me. I could not do that!

But I couldn't get a peep out of me.

"With whom?" he wanted to know, but the realization flashed angrily in his eyes before I could squeeze a sound from my throat. "David!"

It sounded threatening, and my son quivered with anger.

"How could you do that?" asked Leah contemptuously.

I couldn't say nothing.

Where were my babies? I realized how the control over my body and my feelings slipped away. Everything was wrong!

"How could you do that of all things to Dad, Mom? To David? Dad trusted you! And you're trampling all over his trust!"

I hid my face in my hands. I tried to collect myself.

Yes, they were right, but ...

"We can't remember how it happened," I defended myself. A weak excuse. I knew that myself. Actually, it wasn't an apology at all.

The kids looked at me. Surprised for a moment and as if they didn't know what to say. But all too quickly their look became contemptuous again.

"You could probably make Emma believe that!" declared Leah harshly.

"No wonder Dad took off!" sneered Jake in approving disgust.

"I didn't mean to," I found back to my voice, even if it was only a whisper. "Neither David, nor I. I love Edward. He is my life! Do you really think I would do anything to risk losing him? I know what my life was like without him. I wouldn't have survived this without you two!"

"Maybe you should have thought about that sooner!" Jake said, narrowing his eyes deprecatingly.

"Sonya is having a baby with David and you guys have nothing better to do than go behind her and Dad's backs!" Leah accused me.

"No ...!" I wanted to contradict, but Jake interrupted my labored attempts to speak.

"Did you at least have the decency not to do it with each other at home?" asked Jake.

"No," I whispered, letting myself fall against the back of the sofa and hid my face in my hands.

"You're a real bitch, Mom, you know that?" hissed Leah, pausing meaningfully so her words really hit me deep.

Startled, I looked at my daughter, who had never dared to be so spiteful to me before. I swallowed hard.

She was serious.

She and Jake took hands after a creepy moment of silence had passed where I just continued to huddle up.

"You can cry all you want. It won't make it better!" said Leah surprisingly calmly.

"You broke our family!" Jake took the same hard line, and the two of them headed for the patio door.

Without turning to me, they left the house, undressed in the freezing cold and ran away. And I could only look after them wordlessly.

For a few minutes I just stood there and looked into the forest. As if stunned, without the flood of tears being interrupted.

But out of nowhere, a seemingly invisible figure boxed against my stomach. With full force.

I put my hand over my mouth, cramped up, and then ran as fast as I could to the guest bathroom down here.

Much of the food Edward had made for me today found the wrong way out of me.

I felt completely exhausted. Limp and powerless. I only wanted to go to bed.

I staggered to the stairs, clawed at the banister and crept further into my bedroom. With difficulty, I brushed my teeth and changed my clothes.

Edward's pajamas. They were way too big for me, but I didn't care. That was all I had left of my angel.

But as knocked out as I felt, I was apparently not. I lay awake for a long time, huddled, crying a lot, and mentally trying to sweep up the wreckage of my life.

Thanks for reading!