I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of my story.
Author's Note at the end
This chapter takes place right before the lunch in which Cece ingests peanuts.
Once everyone is done with their breakfast, they synonymously decide to go for a hike in the mountains. Edward looks in front of him and finds his sister, her husband, a couple of Tanya's friends, and their respective others.
He is not that close to them. Most of them are too pretentious for his taste, which he doesn't have such an issue with per se if it weren't for the fact that he can see through them. None of them truly love Tanya; they just enjoy the perks that come with being her friend. As her boyfriend, he isn't interested run playing nice with people who don't care for her. He might not be able to persuade her that they aren't good for her, but he won't encourage their friendships.
There is Irina and Kate that are great to her and genuinely love her but neither of them could join her which is why instead of spending time with her friends, he persuaded her to have a romantic stroll with him.
Loud laughter filters through his mind. He looks behind him and finds Marco and Bella swinging Cece back and forth as her loud laughter fills the air. He is happy for her. She shouldn't ever be sad. A frown should never grace her face. Initially, she was sad and forlorn when he ignored her during breakfast, but he did what he had to do. He is no one to her; just her mum's ex. What reason does he have to maintain a relationship with her? None. His actions might be harsh, but Tanya is right. He can't get attached to her that way or let her get attached to him either.
"God, she is annoying. Why do they coddle her like that?" Tanya hufs complaining.
"What coddling are you talking about? They are literally playing with her," he tells her while still looking behind.
"Don't you get it? This is all so that she is no longer sad over you not sitting with her. They are indulging her," she tells him irritated and glares at them then takes his chin by the hand and moves it aside so that he is looking at her.
Feeling exasperated with her annoying logic, he tells her, "of course they no longer want her to be sad. No parent wants to see their child sad. I don't want to see her sad and I am not even her father."
"Which would be great if she wasn't acting so childish," she tells him. He stops in his spot forcing her to stop with him.
"She is behaving like a childish Tanya because she is a child. You are the one that invited them, so you don't get to complain about her presence now," Edward tells her. He is dying to know why she invited them but knows that he can't ask her outright. He did it already and it didn't work out. He needs to be smart about it.
"You with this thing again. It wasn't my choice to make. Daddy was the one who wanted her here. He ordered me to invite her."
"Ordered you to invite her? You aren't even making sense Tanya?" he asks her flabbergasted at her new excuse. This whole thing is getting out of line. Eleazar is not a child and he doesn't need his daughter to invite people on his behalf. If she wants him to believe her, she better come up with a more believable excuse.
"You don't believe me? I will show you," she tells him as she drops his hand and bends forward to rumagge through her bag until she finds her mobile phone and air pod, "listen to this," she tells him as she tells him as she shoves the AirPods in his left ear and scrolls through her phone until she finds what she is looking for.
"Hey, sweetie. Listen I want you to invite Bella to the lake house the next weekend. Invite your friends, and Edward too and anyone of his family that is interested. We recently had an argument. You know how headstrong she is. If I invite her she will refuse, so do it for me please," Eleazar's voice sounds in his ear.
He stops in his tracks not sure what to make of what he just heard. He knows Bella wouldn't cheat; that is not who she is, but he can't pretend to not understand why Tanya has reached such conclusions.
He starts to wonder if this entire thing is aimed at him, that Eleazar is doing this whole show cause he correctly assumes that Tanya will tell him her conclusions, but why? Bella was the one who dumped him. He wouldn't have hired her if he wasn't sure that she wanted nothing to do with him, so why is Eleazar so hell-bent on making sure that Edward doesn't try to get back with her? He needs to speak with Seth and Emmett. There is something that he is missing.
He tells Tanya that he isn't feeling very well and that she should go and join her friends while he rests in their room. She is initially worried but after he manages to persuade her that it's nothing a couple of hours of sleep won't fix, he leaves her behind and returns to the house.
He enters the house and looks for Eleazar only to find him in his bedroom sleeping. He does not know why he sought him out. There is nothing he could have told him. He can't have Eleazar think that he is onto him. After he reprimands himself for almost putting himself in trouble, he returns to their room.
He sits in the nook by the window and watches in the distance as everyone enjoys their time, watching life but not being in it. He wonders when will it be enough. What will be enough for him to get over her? What will be enough to get him to be not just a spectator but a participant?
He comes up empty. There is nothing he can think of. He sees as she plays with Cece and chaises her around. He sees her, Marco, and Cece in a tickle war that ends with Bella tackling Cece to the ground only for Cece to get the upper hand when Marco helps her.
He analyzes Marco. Every move, every hand gesture, every facial expression, he tries to find meaning behind it. Maybe that meaning behind it will tell him that Bella is safe with him and he won't have to stay up all night worried sick about her. Maybe that meaning will tell him that she is in grave danger and he will have a reason to swoop in and save her, give her a reason to look at him with half of the love she used to, or even consider him an option in her life out of gratitude. He would be okay with her being with him out of gratitude. He is okay with her not loving him if it means that he can have her back in his life.
A beep on his phone alerts him to the fact that he has been in his room for an hour. He looks up and realizes that during his musing many things happened, including Bella's absence. He looks around frantically worried about her but doesn't find her. He walks to the door of his room ready to start a search party for her and opens it only to see her.
She is sneaking out of Eleazar's bedroom.
Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. First of all, I want to thank everyone who kept saying that there is no way Tanya doesn't know that Edward and Bella didn't date because that made me realize that I have a plot hole that I need to fix. Hope this clears everything up for everyone. Thanks to Awallace10, and fite.me for more recently commenting that.
Now, I know that I typically update at the very least every five days and most times every three days, but you will have to excuse me as I will be making an exception on the upcoming update. I have exams that will start this Saturday and end on Wednesday with only a one-day break on Tuesday. Moreover, my mum is traveling which means I will be taking care of my siblings since one is in middle school and the other is in high school. And on top of that, my dad is in the ICU and will be having an open heart surgery within the next 48 hours to replace two heart valves.
Now typically with the latter two, I can figure things out and update anyways. My mum left me with my siblings three weeks ago, and my dad has been in and out of the ICU more times than I can count over the last six months so at this point it is routine for us. That said, the same can't be said about my exams. I can't put my feeling concerning them aside and write. That is not how uni works. So I am not sure when I will update next especially since I also need to update my other story tomorrow, but I promise that this story will be updated before next Friday.
Until then,
Stay Safe.