CHAPTER 26 –
I didn't know where to go from here, and I stayed in the gas station parking lot for nearly two hours crying and trying to figure out my next move. Alice called me twice and left voicemails each time that I didn't listen to. Rosalie called me once and texted me about five times. Emmett called me three times. Even Jasper texted me twice, begging me to let someone know that I was okay. Apparently, Edward had spread the news that I was gone, but he didn't reach out. I didn't know if I wanted him to or not.
There was a sudden knock on my passenger window, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned my head, and my jaw dropped when I saw Esme standing there. She pointed at the lock with a soft, sad smile.
I swallowed and unlocked the car. I looked at her in panic as she got in, and I locked it back when she was comfortable in her seat.
"Honey, are you insane? You can't just hang out for hours at a random truck stop. Do you know how dangerous that is?"
I was still in shock and speechless that she was in my car and not threatening to kill me for what I had done. She seemed like the Momma Bear type.
Esme sighed and smiled gently. "You share your phone location with your brother. He saw that you'd been parked here a while, and Rosalie told Alice. She called me and asked to come check on you. Luckily, or unluckily, I'm not really sure which is the right way to put it at the moment, we made it here before you decided to leave."
I couldn't stop the sob that escaped me. After everything I'd done, these were still the most selfless people I had ever met. I was once again reminded that Lizzie was right. I wasn't good enough for Edward or his family. Though, Lizzie didn't belong with them anymore than I did.
"Oh, my girl." Esme consoled as she brought my head to her chest and softly combed through my hair. I cried harder at the specific term of endearment she chose to use.
After about ten minutes, I managed to calm myself down enough to take a deep breath and talk. "I'm so sorry. For leaving them. For you coming down here. For being a trainwreck." I rambled. "I'm just so sorry."
"Well, it's a forty minute drive back to the house. Carlisle will drive your car, and you can come with me and tell me all about it."
"I can't…" I shook my head.
I wasn't going back to the house with them. I couldn't. I just walked out on her son. Nearly four amazing months together, and I was going to just high tail it in the middle of the night. I couldn't tell her that. She'd just kick me out of her house when she found out what happened.
"Miss ma'am. You can, and you will. You've been sitting in a gas station parking lot, obviously crying, for two hours. You've been driving all night. There's no way else you could've been here this early. I'm not letting you get back on the road. We can either go back to my house in my Suburban, or I'm shoving you in the backseat of this car and driving your ass back to Fort Worth myself."
I couldn't help the sad, halfhearted laugh that came out of me.
"So?"
I sighed and wiped more of my tears before unlocking my doors.
"Good choice."
Carlisle greeted me with a warm smile as we switched vehicles, and I tried my best to return it.
Once Esme got back onto I-20, she looked over at me for a moment. "You can come with me to the garden or with Carlisle to the pasture when we get back. That's how these early morning pickups work in our house."
Again, I couldn't help the surprised laugh that escaped me. "I actually get a choice?"
"Carlisle's turning soft in his old age." She giggled.
I smiled and looked down at my lap. "Gardening sounds nice."
Esme returned my smile and nodded once.
We had been driving for about ten minutes when I spoke again. "Mrs. Esme?"
"Yeah, honey?"
"Why are you being so nice to me?" I asked softly.
She looked at me for a moment with comforting eyes before turning back to look at the highway. "I should probably tell you that Alice told me quite a bit about you before Edward brought you home. It was just so close after his break up with… the other one that I didn't really know what the situation was. So of course, I called my daughter to get the inside scoop." She teased. "And after I talked to her, I was even more apprehensive. A twenty-one year old bartender and musician? I just didn't know. Honestly, I thought, 'Well, maybe he's just going through a quarter-life crisis'."
I snorted. "So did I."
She looked over at me and smirked. "But then I met you, and I saw how the two of you were together. The way you two look at each other and take care of each other. It warmed my heart… But you know what I also saw? A little girl that was scared as hell. And call it mother's intuition or just being a pessimist, but something just told me that you still needed a lot of time before you could really see what you had in front of you. Either time or hitting your rock bottom." She said softly before sighing. "And that's the same damn thing I told Edward on the phone last night. I knew you weren't ready to meet that woman. He should've known better than that."
"Well, he did ask me if I wanted to go." I said, trying to defend him. She really shouldn't have been mad at him.
Esme shook her head. "As if you would've said no to him. You're too sweet, and he knows that. I told you. You gotta put him in his place sometimes."
I pursed my lips to the side and looked down at my lap. "I still shouldn't have left." I whispered.
"No." She agreed softly. "But you stopped. And you didn't keep going, and I think that's a real good place to start."
"Do you think he'll feel that same way?"
Esme thought for a minute. "I think that's very dependent on a lot of factors. I'll just say that if you do think my son is the one for you, you probably shouldn't sleep on finding a reason to go back to Fort Worth as soon as you can."
Well, you could definitely pop in and drop off his guitar that you stole, couldn't you, Isabella?
I frowned to myself and nodded in response to Esme's advice. It was quiet again for a few minutes before I asked the question that had been burning in my mind since dinner last night. "Can I ask why you think your brother is with that woman?"
Esme sighed. "Because he's a workaholic and never sees her anyway. She used to be tolerable. She's gotten old and bitter and ornery, though."
I scoffed. "Tell me about it."
"So, you wanna tell me what happened?" She asked.
"She cornered me after I went to the bathroom, and she just got in my head. I can't believe I let her get to me. I just…" I shook my head at myself.
"You just what, my girl?"
"She did her own research about me before dinner, but she didn't go to Alice." I said coldly.
"Well, who'd she ask? She's too sneaky and underhanded to go straight to Edward."
"Yeah, she's underhanded as hell. I'll give you three guesses who she went to, and I'll give you a hint. 'She's the best thing to ever happen to your son'." I said, mimicking Lizzie's snooty tone.
Esme looked at me with an open mouth and wide eyes. "She fucking didn't!" In any other situation, Esme dropping an F bomb would have made me laugh out loud.
"They keep in touch." I replied snidely.
She gripped the steering wheel, shaking her head. "Are you sure you don't want me to take you back to Fort Worth? I'll stop in Dallas and take care of two problems on the way."
I giggled. "Actually, I'm not against it, but I don't want you to go to jail over pecan pie and two women that don't even know how to find their right shade in lipstick."
Esme looked at me and smiled proudly before her face fell serious again. "Did you tell Edward that she keeps in touch with Tanya?"
I shook my head. "No. I didn't really talk to him before I left. Just hauled out. Typical Bella." I admitted shamefully.
"Why?"
"Because part of me was mad at him, too."
"What did he do?" She asked.
I sighed. "Well, the things Lizzie knew… it was just so specific. And it's not like Tanya and I were exactly besties. She couldn't have known anything about my past relationships without someone telling her. And there's only one person that I've told all the nitty gritty details to."
Esme glared at nothing. "I swear that boy don't use the sense God gave him sometimes."
I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm sure they were still dating at the time, and it's not like Edward and I were getting along well at that point, either. And I mean if you can't talk crap with your significant other, who can you talk to, ya know? Besides, spreading a little bit of gossip pales in comparison to all the shit that I put him through at this point."
"Yeah, but getting along or not, if you trusted him enough to tell him about your past, he should've known to keep his mouth shut and not to tell Tanya." Esme exited the highway and turned into the driveway not long after, and after she parked, she led me into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. "Why don't you go clean up? I'll bring your bag to the room when Carlisle comes in."
I nodded and went up the stairs to the guest room Edward and I had stayed in last time I was here. I went into the bathroom, started the shower, and quickly undressed before getting under the warm water. I took my time in the shower, giving Esme a little extra time to bring my bag back up and for the coffee to finish dripping. When I finished in the bathroom and went into the bedroom, my bag and Edward's guitar were placed on the bed. I dug out a pair of jeans, a tank top, and my duck boots and got dressed.
Esme was still in the kitchen when I came back downstairs. She handed me a thermos coffee with a smile before leading me to the back door. She grabbed a baseball cap that was hanging on a hat rack and gave it to me before getting one for herself.
"We have to save ourselves from the premature sun aging." She said as she put her hat on.
I laughed and put mine on as well. "Yes, ma'am."
Her garden was right beside their backyard shed, and she had me picking the ripe bell peppers while she picked cucumbers. We stayed out there all morning, talking a little but mostly working in silence. By about eleven in the morning, I couldn't stop yawning, and Esme looked at me with a knowing smile.
"Why don't you go rest? You need some sleep." She said.
I nodded, not even having it in me to insist on continuing to help her. I didn't even make it inside. There was an extra-comfy looking hammock set up between two trees in the backyard, and I hopped in and quickly curled up for a nap.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun was just beginning to set, and I stayed on the hammock for a while, enjoying the quiet. And in that sweet serenity, it was still hard for me not to feel restless.
I was so fucking homesick, and I wanted nothing more than to be curled up on the couch with Edward and Winnie watching old sitcoms. I wanted nothing more than to listen to one of his in depth lectures about the aging process on different types of whiskeys or just to hear his laugh.
I didn't know if I had burned my bridge with him or not. I didn't know what he'd do or say when I showed up on his doorstep tomorrow morning with his guitar in my hand. At this point, the only thought in my head was to get back to Fort Worth as soon as possible. I'd figure everything else out on the way or when I got there.
After a while longer outside, I got up out of the hammock and went back into the house. It didn't seem like Carlisle and Esme were home, so I just went up to the guest room and sat on the bed to kick off my shoes and socks. My phone was on the nightstand, so I reached over and picked it up. I had one more call and a text from Emmett and the same from Alice. I left those alone for now before going to my contacts list. I stared at Edward's name for nearly ten minutes, contemplating if I should call him or not.
Should I warn him that I was going to be coming back into town? Should I just show up? Both options seemed wrong to me, but I figured option one would probably be better.
They both seem wrong because you shouldn't have left in the first fucking place, Isabella.
I took a deep breath and before I could talk myself out of it, I pressed the call button before standing up from the bed and tiptoeing into the guest bathroom. I didn't know how this conversation was going to go, and I wanted all of the privacy I could have in case Carlisle and Esme came home somewhere in the middle of it.
It rang four times before he finally answered, and his voice was reluctant and cold. "Hello?"
"Hey… can we talk?"
"Yeah, sure... Where are you?"
I leaned my elbow onto my knee and turned the baseball hat I was wearing backwards to rest my forehead in my hand, trying to figure out how to explain to him how I ended up at his parents' house.
I must've taken too long to answer because he sighed heavily. "We can't talk if you aren't even gonna answer the easy questions, Bella."
I felt a lump in my throat. "I'm at your parents' house, E." I replied quickly and softly.
"What?" He sounded confused and slightly agitated. "Why would you go there?"
"I didn't mean to. I just… got in the car and drove until I needed to stop for gas. I ended up a little east of Shreveport parked at a gas station for a couple of hours while I was trying to figure out what to do next. And then before I knew it, your parents were knocking on my car window and dragging my ass here to their house."
It surprised me when I heard Edward chuckle softly, and his voice lost some of its tension. "My parents kidnapped you?"
"Yes. They did. Your mom even threatened me if I didn't come with them."
"I bet she did." I could still hear a smirk in his voice. "How did they know where you were?"
"Emmett checked my phone location. Rosalie told Alice. Alice called your mom."
I heard him sigh after a moment. "Baby, why'd you just leave?"
I thought for a moment. "Do you remember our first date? You told me I belonged in that dress drinking expensive wine just as much as I belonged in old boots and any old barroom?"
"Yeah…?"
"I never believed you." I admitted softly.
"What are you– Bella… Fuck." I heard rustling, and it sounded like he was moving around a good bit. "Do you think you could stay put for four hours?" Keys jingled in the background.
I sat straight up. "Edward…"
"I don't want to talk about this over the phone, and I know my mom well enough to know that she's not letting you leave her house after sundown."
"You don't need to come all the way out here. I'm going back to Fort Worth in the morning."
"Are you?" He didn't sound convinced, and I didn't blame him.
"Yes. That's why I'm calling in the first place. I wanna go home. I shouldn't have even left. Lizzie just… ugh. Her voice just got into my head, and I couldn't get it out. And then when I actually stopped to think and then when I talked to your mom… I just realized how insane I was being."
He let out a breath. "I should've known better than to think she wouldn't corner you like that. But I thought... I don't know. We'll just… talk about it tomorrow when you get back, alright?"
"Alright." I whispered.
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow." I hung up the phone and got up. As I was walking out of the bathroom, I heard a knock on the door.
"It's me." Esme's voice called.
"Come in!"
She poked her head in and smiled. "Do you feel better after some sleep?"
"Yes, ma'am. Thank you for… everything."
Esme entered the room fully with a togo plate of food in her hand. She set it on the dresser and then gave me a hug. "Oh honey, anything you ever need. Just call me." She released me. "You're welcome to come downstairs, but I didn't know if you'd want some time to think by yourself with a clearer head. So, I brought you some dinner."
"Oh, no, I don't want to be ru—" I stopped talking when Esme gave me a motherly glare, and I smiled shyly. "Although, some time to think would be nice."
"Eat some food. Take your time. Don't feel like you need to keep us entertained. We've been empty nesters for a while." She laughed before quietly walking out of the room.
I walked over to the dresser and picked up the plate. I sat on the floor beside the bed and quietly ate the meal that Esme and Carlisle had brought home for me as I finally texted everyone back. When I was done eating, I laid with my back against the bed, and stared at the ceiling for a while. I was exhausted and drained, but I was ready to get back on the road tomorrow. Still, my anxiousness and racing thoughts kept me from getting ready for bed.
Instead, I carefully pulled Edward's guitar case down from the bed. I held my breath as I undid the outside clasps and then flipped the top up. I let out a sigh in relief when I saw that it wasn't the Hummingbird and then picked it up and started to absentmindedly pick through some songs for a few hours.
Eventually, I started playing Vienna without even realizing it, and I sang softly to myself, letting my mind drift to that night in Edward's kitchen. My voice cracked at the end of the second chorus, and I let myself have one last freak out. I gave myself just one more chance to be the drama queen. Because as soon as I wiped these tears and got up off this floor, I was gonna have to have my shit together. It wasn't just at the bottom of the to do list anymore. It was now or never.
At around one in the morning, I finally got up off of the floor with a sigh, grabbed my cigarettes from my purse, and went downstairs barefoot to the front porch. It was raining, but the sound of the rain on the tin roof was soothing as I sat on one of the big wooden rockers. The warm, rainy air and crying fit had given me a different kind of mental clarity, and I thought more about what I had talked about with Esme.
She had been right. I needed to hit rock bottom or I needed time, and as awful as the past thirty or so hours had been, part of me was bizarrely happy that things had gone the rock bottom route. I didn't know how much time I would've needed for it to get through my thick skull that Edward was it, and rules and stupid hobbies be damned. I couldn't force myself to fall for him and let go fully. It had to be organic. It had to be natural. And if it was only four months to hit rock bottom versus the how ever many years just waiting on time would have taken, I was ready and willing to deal with the consequences of that.
Because I wasn't ready to call it. I was never going to be ready to call it.
I'd felt restless since the moment I stepped foot out of Edward's apartment. I'd felt every nerve and signal in my body screaming at me to go back. And I wasn't going to fight anymore. I couldn't. It was useless.
I was putting out my cigarette when headlights started approaching down the driveway. Even over the rain, I could hear the engine as the vehicle approached. That old red truck sped down the driveway and came to an immediate halt at the end.
My feet were moving towards it before I even knew it, and the door slammed just before I saw Edward emerge from the drivers side and start jogging down the front sidewalk to meet me halfway, Winnie on his heels. Once I got off the porch, I ran towards him and jumped into his waiting arms. He held me so tightly that I could barely breathe, but I couldn't bring myself to care.
I clung to him with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist as I pulled back slightly to look at his face through the falling rain. Before I could say anything, his lips crashed against mine. My hands moved to tangle in his hair as his tongue slipped into my mouth, and I didn't pull away from him until I thought I might smother.
"You're so fucking stubborn." I said breathlessly.
He only smiled crookedly before wordlessly drawing me in for another deep kiss.
A/N That last one had some of y'all SPICY. Lord, but I love it. Here's the thing... I read the last few chapters of this story that i had written and am in the process of editing the fuck out of them because I love the chain of events but lowkey hate the dialogue. Anyway, I'm still workshopping them and I'm out of town for work next week so it may be about two weeks until the next one, bebs. I hope the end of this chapter brings you some peace until then.
