A/N: I love the new rush of adds. Enjoy. xoxo
Thanks to Patrizia for pre-reading and Frannie for the edits. Last time, he found an ominous image in Bella's cabin, pinned to her photo. A monumental one. Go read.
Chapter 23 - She's Beautiful
Edward lets the image of a child on a dark photo occupy his mind.
He sleeps, and a dream comes to him. He sees his mother holding a little boy by the hand. The boy looks very much like his brother Emmett at his age.
His sister appears, and she looks different. Her face glows, and she's not sick anymore. The syndrome is barely visible in her features, and she's introducing him to her son. The father is a friend she'd acquired in her young years. Everyone, even Emmett, stands byto watch Edward meet the child as he falls to his knees.
Edward feels sadness in his heart. In the dream, he knows he's been away, and it has hurt his sister more than any of his brothers. He lets his nose redden and his throat bob, tears pool his eyes as the boy touches his bearded cheek.
Edward is torn. His clothes barely fit him, but for the belt keeping them on. His skin is filthy, bruised, proof that the harsh winters have finally caught up to him. He can't help but feel this loss as he holds his nephew tight. He's missed out on so much of his family's life.
He wakes for the first time in years feeling the tears trickle down his temples. That hasn't happened since he was a child. Not since he cried for his mother as storms thundered out his bedroom window. He still fears those thunders at times.
He sniffs through the silence to clear the remnant feeling of a vivid dream.
For days he can't shake the discomfort, the unease.
What is it? What's changed him? He doesn't have the guts to answer those questions honestly. He knows what the answers are. It's her. The girl who made his perfect, solitary world vulnerable.
He looks around his camp, and it's not what it used to be, how it used to feel. It was his sanctuary. Now the ghost of Bella's presence takes over, walks around the edges, sits by the boulders.
She invaded the air of privacy and left a void to be filled.
It taunts him.
He fights with himself. He kicks at bins; he cracks at the bark of a tree with anything he gets his hands on, angry that this consumes him. There should not be a void. This is his place. He takes up all the voids and makes them his. It always worked that way.
Eventually, with time, he settles. He calms. He takes all the days of rest he needs and doesn't think of those dense feelings connected to this place.
But that creeping plan looms. He thinks of the backup, the one he buried at the far corner of the clearing. If ever he decided on an escape, or if he was found, he would find the bag with everything he'd need to start over someplace new.
He thinks and thinks about that bag buried there.
She won't come back now. Her life has also changed. It's what he wanted; for her to keep away. Yet, he keeps away from that escape plan.
He procrastinates. He works, finds, and gathers, but subconsciously he's finding and gathering for an imminent move. Everything is portable and easy to pack in a bag. He piles up the necessities in a corner. He sits and watches the pile grow larger every day.
He hikes. He watches Spring bloom. The trails are all his during these months. He feels the relief of a tough winter, but the dismay that the silence is over. Birds chirp. Leaves grow and move. Everything is in motion now. A starting engine, revving up; his muscles the same.
The cabins in the surrounding area are still empty. He figures he'll poke around and see what he missed back in Fall. He parks a canoe by the lakeshore and sprinkles leaves inside when he tucks it back in place. No signs it's been used to cross the lake.
He makes his rounds, looks through windows, and leisurely decides if he should go in and investigate anything that piques his curiosity. The camp kitchen center he knows is empty. None of these campers are leaving anything behind. They're cognizant now. They plan and pack away anything they know will be gone over the winter.
He's disgruntled. This place has been immunized. They know about him, what he does. They work to keep him from taking things.
What is there left of this place? Nothing. He can't live here anymore. Soon there won't be any food to find.
Gravel crunches under the wheels of a car; suddenly, there's human life.
He crouches low, dodging behind a cabin. Adrenaline surges through his body, knowing he's been caught in this predicament. This never happens. He's careful. This is an odd moment that would never occur on a month like this.
His heart lurches. He finds the bushes and the weaving of trees and rushes away, far enough where he can't be seen. And if it were any other circumstance, he'd rush off to his tent and wait it out, not leaving for days.
But now it's different. Maybe he isn't thinking much beyond this. Maybe something ebbs. He instinctively hides to wait it out behind the bend of a tree.
The car makes a loop around and stops far off at the last cabin, the one he made a rule not to visit ever again. The swing still hangs, but it's worn with leaves piled beneath it.
He adjusts his glasses over his nose like it'll magnify the visuals. He wishes it would. It just gathers every blurred line through squinted eyes to find the sharp picture. It'll still his heart.
A car door slams from afar. It's the father—Bella's. It's not supposed to be this way. He shouldn't be here. Spring hasn't ended yet. The heat hasn't dried up the dew over the grass, or the dipped leaves that have gathered water after a frosted winter. He could drink from them still, dip them over his lips and let the ice-cold water trickle down his throat. Now he just feels like his throat closes up, locking his jaw on a bite.
Edward watches as the father looks up at the cabin and takes a deep breath. His gaze leisurely makes its way around the property to the trees—his expression of relief.
He pops the trunk and carries out bags loaded with things for the summer. Edward idly wonders if new photos for the wall are among the items.
The father says something. To himself? Edward can't tell. It's inaudible with the distance.
Edward's foot comes off the root of the tree he uses to get some height and steps back. He decides, in an instant, he should move on, leave the man to find routine in his space. There's nothing here to see, but there is the risk of being seen.
Charlie rushes out the door toward the car as if glass willfall out of the front seat. That's when Edward locks his knees. He's not going anywhere. He notices there is more to see. The commotion pins him to his hiding spot to wait.
Maybe he didn't come alone.
It's not glass about to shatter, but a struggling Bella climbing out, one foot at a time. Their hands clasped. He braces her and she makes a face like she'll protest. Charlie overreacts as he guards her every move.
Edward's insides knot up. He watches intently, tilting his head to get a better look. The trunk to the car is open high and obstructing the view a little. Just her shoulder and profile peek over. Then she takes a few steps until he can see her in her entirety.
She pulls at her knit sweater, which wraps over a bump in her midsection. Her back arches and her palm quickly presses there to straighten the knots. The weight she carries is of a perfectly sized bulging belly.
He hasn't seen many; in fact, only one pregnant woman in his life.
Jane was very tiny when she was born. She didn't have a name yet when she was still cooking inside there. His mother phrased it that way. Her hand constantly rubbed over the baby bump, smiling warmly, as she whispered lulling lullabies. She would make a fist against her back like Bella does now, and she'd explain to Edward and his brothers what was growing in her swollen belly.
No, not an alien, not a horror movie like the boys anticipated. It was countless the times they'd joke and wonder when they'd see one protruding out of their mother'sbelly, a gory scene. The giggles were non-stop. Edward and his brothers would stare at the impressions under the surface, right above her belly button; their sister moving around in there; shifting, growing. They'd watch until they were bored. Many times, the warm bump would serve as a pillow for young Edward as he drifted off to sleep on hismother's lap. She'd read to him, all the boys, her fingers twirling his hair.
He remembers now. It strikes him instantly like a bolt of lightning, clear to his own taut belly. The mirrored feeling of his dream—him missing out.
His head rests against the bark, and he blinks slowly.
He gazes.
He almost doesn't recognize her. Her hair has grown long, touching her back. Rose colored lips and cheeks. Her discomfort and annoyance toward her father's hovering could never mask the soft glow. She's matured in features and demeanor. Her hands at work togather things while ordering her father not to forget this or that. She's the planner, the organized one, while he shuffles around uncoordinated, getting all the items.
But she stops. She takes a deep breath. Charlie occupies himself while she takes a moment to look up at the cabin. She wanders toward the woods. Like a compass, his camp is north and her eyes the magnetic needle; she gazes beyond the trees as if she could see the boulders.
He wonders … is she looking for him?
He leaves. He must.
She's … beautiful.
…