The week of Bella's high school graduation arrived. To the rest of my family, it was the week of Rosalie's high school graduation. Rosalie had refused an Alice party—an option I was thrilled to learn I had with my birthday coming up—so Esme planned a mandatory family dinner the night before. Like any other family function, Bella was invited to join us. And for the first time since Alice's birthday party, Bella said yes.
With a daughter to celebrate and an adored girlfriend in attendance, Esme spent the entire week fluttering around the house in barely-contained exuberance. The night of, she handed me a new tie and pair of socks and told me to look my best.
"Of course, you could never look more handsome than you do now," she couldn't resist adding as she squeezed my cheeks in her hand.
Acquiescing to my mother, after I showered and shaved, I pulled on slacks, a button-down, and wound the tie around my neck. When there was no other way for me to prepare and still thirty minutes before the family was set to leave, I went over to Alice's room where Bella was getting ready. From down the hall, I could hear the upbeat pop music playing from Alice's speakers. An appropriate soundtrack for my sisters, I supposed, but not my usual taste. The door was open, but I learned the hard way that sometimes that didn't mean anything when there was a group in there. Right outside of view, I knocked on the door molding. "Is everyone decent?"
"Come in," Alice called.
Despite the welcoming words, I still used caution as I peered around the door and into the room. Everyone was fully dressed. Alice was done-up in her typical Alice fashion—bright colors, sharp lines, bold patterns. All expertly coordinated to create a pleasing final effect. Rosalie sat in the chair in front of Alice's large mirror, softly instructing Alice on exactly how she would like her hair to look. Her soft, pink dress and golden curls in her hair made her look like a princess out of a storybook.
My princess sat on the floor across the room, struggling with a ribbon on her shoe. Bella scrambled excitedly at my arrival, but the half-tied shoe had her back on the ground before she could properly stand. Chuckling, I sank to the floor beside her. I hoisted her legs up and over mine and began tying the ribbon up her dainty ankle. After I had the first tied, I held her foot in my hand, getting a good look at the shoe. The shoe had a heel. A small heel, but a heel nonetheless. I thought about my clumsy girlfriend and grew concerned with how these shoes would negatively affect her nonexistent balance.
"Alice," I dropped the first foot and started working on the second. "Are we sure these shoes are a good choice?"
"Wow, Edward," Rosalie said in a dull tone. "You're going to come in here and judge your girlfriend's footwear while wearing those?"
I looked down at the only pair of dress shoes I've ever owned and saw nothing wrong with the choice. "I don't think Bella's ever worn heels before." I clarified.
"Bella was the one who picked them out."
I quirked an eyebrow at the culprit. She beamed up at me, her confidence not assuring in the least. She clearly did not share my concerns about the heels. In fact, she seemed thrilled to be wearing them. She held up both feet and rolled her ankles in all directions to admire them from all the different views. I opened my mouth to talk some sense into her but closed it. I could never ask her to change out of something she looked so excited to wear, no matter how worried I was. Besides, all it meant was I was going to have to hold on to her a little tighter throughout the night.
"They look pretty on you," I complimented instead. She gave both feet one more wiggle in the air for good measure before placing them back on the ground, her legs still over my lap.
"Did you pick out your dress, too?"
She nodded.
"Very pretty." Small straps exposed her delicate shoulders. The neckline traced the curves of her chest—somehow still dangerously tantalizing despite the fact that I had seen all of her body multiple times. The blue-green fabric gathered at her tiny waist and draped down to her midcalf.
"You look so beautiful in this color." I pinched the piece of fabric that started at her waist and fell away from the dress, creating a slit that exposed her perfect legs. "I love it." My hands continued down the length of the dress. "And these lovely, lovely flaps at the bottom."
"It's a tulip hem, Edward," Alice said, not looking up from Rosalie's hair.
"Tulips?" I repeated, tracing Bella's two lips with my fingers.
Catching my pun, Bella giggled silently. She was so sweet. How anyone could think there was a malicious scale on her tail was beyond me.
"Two lips," she signed back.
"I love tulips," I said, my fingers still brushing against hers.
"They're my favorite flower," she signed.
"Mine too," I whispered, inching closer.
"You have your own room, you know." Rosalie's voice broke apart our kiss before it even started. I was sure my face was as red as Bella's. The embarrassment didn't wipe the smile from either of our faces.
I cleared my throat, "Sorry about that, Rose. So, um, UCLA, huh?" When Rosalie announced she would be attending UCLA in the fall, Esme screamed with joy. Our dear mother couldn't bear the thought of the most perfect of her perfect children moving across the country.
"Yupp," she said easily, popping the "p".
"What swayed your decision?" Last I heard, she had been juggling several acceptance letters.
"You know, family and friends and stuff."
I had a feeling I knew what that meant. Playing my role as the annoying little brother, I pushed the subject. "Any friends in particular?"
A knowing smile flashed across Alice's face for a second before Rosalie could catch the reflection in the mirror. For someone who loved to be in the middle of everybody's business, Rosalie enjoyed her privacy. Unfortunately for her, the rest of her siblings were equally nosey. If I knew about Rosalie's crush on her friend Leah Clearwater, so did everyone.
"No." Her cool and casual demeanor was already cracking. The way it always did whenever thoughts of Leah danced across her mind.
"It doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Leah Clearwater decided to attend Ottis instead of CUNY?" Alice teased.
"No," Rosalie tried to hide any emotion in that single syllable yet again.
"Ottis?" I feigned surprise, "Last I heard, she was going to Cornish up in Seattle."
"What!? No!" Rosalie whirled in a panic, causing Alice to tug on her hair with the curling iron. Alice squealed; Rosalie hissed in pain. "Where did you hear that!?"
I couldn't keep up the ruse for very long. I immediately burst into laughter at my sister's crazed reaction, and Alice immediately joined in.
"Very funny," Rose seethed, crossing her arms as she turned back forward in her chair.
Not paying attention to the conversation around her, Bella scooted closer until she sat up on my thigh. She ran her fingers down my tie, just like I had done to her dress.
"Keep laughing, Edward." Rosalie snapped, loathing her current status as the butt of the joke, "I'm not the one who needs to put on a play to get hard."
I did keep laughing. The lie Alice told about my sex life to explain away my odd behavior was old news. Rosalie's crush was far more entertaining.
"No offense, Bella," Rosalie added, quickly and quietly.
Remaining out of the loop where she wanted to be, Bella's fingers had moved on from my tie and were smoothing any wrinkles in my collar. She missed the snub thrown at us entirely.
With one aggressor down, Rosalie's eyes met with her next victim's in the mirror. Alice was laughing so hard at both me and Rosalie, she had to put down her curling iron. "I wouldn't be laughing either, Alice. I didn't need my parents to pick a partner for me off the streets."
I expected Alice to laugh off Rosalie's insult as I had, but her mouth snapped shut. Eyes blank, mouth in a hard line, Alice stiffly reached for her curling iron and went back to curling Rosalie's hair. I wondered at her reaction; Alice was more resilient than that. I waited for the shadow to pass from her face, but it stayed in place as Rosalie started a new subject. "Do you know where you're going to school, Bella?"
Bella started at the sound of her name. I repeated Rosalie's question for her, and she shook her head.
Though she was nothing but kind, Rosalie struggled the most out of anyone in the family at casual interactions with Bella. Though it was a thorn in my side, I didn't blame her. She was the only member of the family who knew Bella as the freak of the school first and my perfectly normal girlfriend second. She struggled a little longer than the others would have to decide how she wanted to phrase her next question, "I bet you have some good options. You were my biggest competition for Valedictorian. Half the class thinks they only gave it to me because you couldn't—." The sentence stopped there, as Rosalie bit her lip.
"Give a speech?" I finished for my sister.
Rosalie glared at me for using a tone with her for a second, but immediately softened her expression. "Yeah."
"There's no need to tiptoe around it, Rose. She knows she can't speak."
"I know that," Rosalie snapped. Then, spoke to Bella again. "What schools are you choosing between?"
Bella shook her head.
"None?"
I waited for Bella to sign her response, then translated for Rose, "She's going to work on her dad's boat." It was common knowledge among the family that Bella lived on a boat with her father. There was no need for them to know she only lived in that arrangement for a few hours a week.
"That's probably for the best," Rosalie decided.
Bella nodded with agreement, but I wasn't sure I liked the implication of Rose's response. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well… I imagine most professors aren't going to be as…" she struggled for the right word, "accommodating as the teachers are at school."
As if ignoring Bella rather than adjusting their curriculum to include her could be considered accommodating. "Of course, they would."
As Rosalie's hardened eyes met mine through the mirror, Alice remained intently focused on the curl in Rose's hair she was working on. "I just meant, there's going to be larger classes. With so many students, professors might not remember Bella's special needs."
"Not if she goes to a smaller school."
"Which are more difficult to get into," Rose countered.
"Good thing she could get into any school she wants."
"Whatever, Edward." Then, back to Bella, "I think it's a smart choice, Bella. It's good for you to stick with something familiar."
I knew Rosalie was only trying to be kind and supportive of Bella, but her remarks were so entitled, so dismissive, they might as well have been insults. I tensed up, ready to fire off at my sister, but Bella trailed her fingers up my neck and pushed them into my hair. Her touch was an instant balm—and one I greatly needed. With her other hand, she signed an "O" and a "K", the elementary way of telling me it was okay. Then, she touched her bottom lip with the tip of her finger and moved her flat hand towards Rosalie. Rose recognized that sign and nodded her acknowledgment.
"I can handle myself," Bella reminded me.
I took a deep breath. Of course she could. Bella handled these sorts of things before she met me with grace and confidence. She didn't need me lashing out every time I thought someone looked at her funny or said something to her that I didn't like. Alice thought Bella was dangerously protective, but I was the one punching people in the face and getting into petty arguments with my sisters.
The chatter died out after that. The room was silent except for the pop music and an occasional instruction from Alice on how she needed Rosalie to hold her head. Bella stayed on my lap while we watched Alice finish Rosalie's hair. Her eyes were fixated on the curls, like it was the most riveting thing she'd ever seen, while I watched Alice, searching for anything in her stoic expression. But her face remained carefully devoid of any emotion, making me wonder if Rosalie's comment about Jasper had actually affected her, or if her mind was on something else entirely.
Alice had released the final curl when Esme's voice called us downstairs. Our family was too large—both in numbers and by physical height—to fit into one vehicle, so Bella and I drove separately. All my attention was spent on keeping my clumsy girlfriend upright on the walk to the car, and I didn't catch which cars Alice and Jasper ended up in. If anyone could bring Alice out of whatever funk Rosalie put her in, it was Jasper.
The graduation dinner itself was lavish, but otherwise uneventful. The hostess addressed Esme with warm familiarity. The head chef came out to our table to serve Esme a meal he had prepared specially for her. A standard dining experience for Esme, I had explained to Bella, having seen this very same occurrence during my Welcome to the Family dinner months ago.
Bella's eating habits—or lack thereof—went unnoticed. There was nothing raw on the menu for her to try, so we ordered two separate meals. Bella pushed her food around on one plate while I ate from the other. Then, halfway through the meal, we swapped, like any other adorable pair of lovebirds sharing their meal, and did the same to our second plates.
Throughout the meal, I kept my eyes on Alice. Her usual chatter had returned in the presence of our parents, alleviating my concerns, but the fact that she and Jasper sat on opposite sides of the table raised them back up. I signed my concerns to Bella, wondering if anything had happened to Alice while they were getting ready. Bella admitted she didn't know any more than I did.
The dinner concluded with an enormous chocolate sculpture brought out to Rosalie. The sculpture was of Bruin the Brown Bear—UCLA's mascot. We gawked at the towering, intricate thing too afraid to touch it and ruin it, let alone eat it. All of us, except for Emmett, who sucker-punched the stomach and revealed the creamy mousse inside.
Bella was offered the second scoop of chocolate mousse as the other graduate at the table, but she refused, claiming she was too full from dinner.
As I had expected, Bella was done with her heels before we were done with the meal. She braved through them on the walk from the car to the restaurant over the uneven, brick sidewalk, pushing my hand away each time I reached over to steady her. She allowed herself to briefly cling to my sleeve every time she lost balance, which was every fifth step or so. The walk back to the car was a different story. The shoes were in my hand and Bella was on my back for her first ever piggy-back ride.
"When you try heels again tomorrow, am I going to have to carry you across the stage?"
The answer to my question was the tip of her tongue pressed into my ear. I yelped. My whole family turned warily at my exclamation and watched my fruitless attempt to shove her away. When their gaze shifted to Bella, I knew exactly which sweetly innocent smile was stretched across her lips.
She tried to goad another reaction out of me for the rest of the walk. Tickling my neck. Flicking my earlobe. When I finally stuck Bella in the passenger seat of the car, she beamed up at me. "I want to go everywhere like that."
"Damn shame you've lost your privileges."
Her smile stayed in place. We both knew that it would only take a pouted lip or a single bat of her eyelashes for me to cave and give her whatever she wanted. As if to prove that point, she tilted her chin up for a kiss that I dutifully gave her.
Witnessing the entire interaction from outside his car that was parked next to mine, Emmett gave me a playful shove. "Whipped," he teased.
"Yeah, yeah."
When we returned home, Bella skipped right to the fridge where we stored her food. She peered into her little container and scowled. Then, she tossed the container perfectly into the nearby trashcan without looking at either. "It's bad."
I frowned. She had to be hungry.
"Do you want to hunt?" We had a late dinner; it was past ten o'clock. Even if the grocery stores were open, their fresh fish stands wouldn't be.
She looked up at me glumly.
She hadn't been hunting in the ocean since her sisters attacked her. I still didn't know the reason, and she didn't willingly give one. Alice and I argued what the reason could be under our breaths whenever Bella wasn't within earshot. I knew it had to be fear that kept her landlocked. While being afraid of her sisters was certainly out of character for my brave, bold Bella, it made a lot more sense than anything Alice theorized.
With Bella's unspoken fears in mind, I offered to stay on the beach while she hunted. She considered my offer for longer than I expected her to. Just when I thought she was going to refuse, she nodded and held out her hands so I could help her stand.
She took the lead on our way down to my family's small, private beach, holding onto my hand as I trailed behind her. As soon as we stepped on the sand, she stopped me. Pressing a hand to my chest, she scanned the immediate area. I looked around as well, trying to see what she would be looking for, and saw nothing. When the coast was deemed clear, she pulled me forward towards the water's edge.
She undressed quickly and quietly. In the moonlight, I could barely make out her hands as she signed. "I'm not going far."
"You can go as far as you need to."
She shook her head absolutely.
"I want you to find something to eat, Bella."
Again, she shook her head.
There was no use arguing over something so minor. "Whatever you want." If she wanted to stay along this beach, that was her own prerogative. "I'll be here. See you in a bit." I started to lower myself onto the sand.
Before I could sit, she grabbed my bicep with both hands, pulling me back up to standing.
"What, what?"
"I need to be able to see you."
I didn't understand where the anger in her expression came from. Moments ago, she was happy and carefree. "I'll be right here, sweetheart. Even if you can't see me. There's nothing to be afraid of."
She quirked her head at the word afraid, as if she hadn't expected its usage.
I tried again, this time cupping her cheeks in my hands and pressing a kiss to her forehead before sitting. But, again, she caught and yanked on my arm, with a firm shake of her head. Her expression soured, as if she couldn't believe that I would defy her. Trapped by her dark eyes, it dawned on me. She wasn't afraid to go back into the water at all.
"Stay," she demanded.
As she stepped closer, I felt oddly uncomfortable. Her gentle teasing and playful flirting from earlier in the evening were gone, replaced with whatever this was. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she gripped my tie with both hands, as if she was threatening to pull me down by the neck.
"I'll stay."
Satisfied with my response, she pulled on the tie gently, but only to place a small kiss on the tip of my nose. I was still dizzy from the emotional roller coaster I had been forced to ride as I watched Bella crawl over the rocks on the shore and heard her splash into the sea.
"Goodbye," I called out softly after her.
Now alone in the darkness, I struggled to shake the strange feeling that was still growing in the pit of my stomach. I took her dress from where it was a bundle in the sand and folded it just for something to do. It didn't take long enough to keep me from worrying.
Again, Alice's warnings of Bella's possessiveness played in my head. And again, Bella's actions were easily justified. We had discussed what a worrywart I was. I told her how worried it made me when she went into the water where I couldn't get to her. She was keeping in her line of sight for my own wellbeing.
That was all. It had to be.
There was nothing to fear, I told myself over and over. I knew better than Alice or Lauren or Rosalie. Bella wasn't a monster; she wasn't a freak. She was the girl I loved. Just as I protected her by standing up for her, she protected me her own way. There was nothing dark or sinister about any of it. When she came back, I could explain that it wasn't necessary for her to go to these extreme lengths to ease my fears and that would be that.
A movement in the water pulled me from my thoughts. I sank to the sand and opened my arms. "Come here, baby."
The next thing I knew, a soaking wet mermaid crawled up the shore and into my embrace.
I ran my fingers up and down Bella's tail and continued after it dried up into legs. I allowed my fingers to linger on her scales, reminding me of how I loved every part of her, even the inhuman parts. My love for her trumped any and all fears. Fear over what people would think. Fear of what she was and the mysteries she brought with it. Fear for my own life when I was with her. I loved her more than all of it.
"I love you," I murmured into her wet hair.
On the hand splayed against my chest, I felt Bella curl her ring and middle fingers into her palm, leaving her pinky, thumb, and forefinger sticking out. It was soft, subtle. Almost as if the gesture was a whisper.