Something's gone terribly wrong, you're all I wanted. Come on, come on, don't leave me like this. I thought I had you figured out. Can't breathe whenever you're gone, can't turn back now I'm haunted. ~ Taylor Swift, Haunted
BPOV
It was no secret that the last year had been difficult, to put it lightly. Our son had found out things about Edward and I that I never wanted him to know. All of those things drove him to using illegal substances to cope with everything, leaving him with an addiction he would have to deal with for the rest of his life. The entire thing put more strain on my marriage than I was comfortable with.
Today felt like a fresh start. We were going to start finding our new normal, whatever that was. I wasn't going to dwell on all of the shit that got us here in the first place, I was going to move on. It helped that it was finally my favorite holiday season. We were going to be bright and fucking merry if I had anything to do with it.
I had always liked the winter; blankets and sweaters and warm drinks were some of my favorite things, but it wasn't until we had Aiden that my love for Christmas came around. I spent an ungodly amount of money on decorations and trees and presents every year, but we both loved it. Edward tolerated it because he loved us, but I heard the grumbles from the front door every night when the garland hanging around the frame got sparkles on him. He never complained, though.
Maybe it was the idea of decorating the house for the holidays, or maybe it was the mind-blowing orgasm from the night before that put me in such a good mood. Either way, I was going to enjoy it.
Edward was still sleeping as I got dressed. Comfortable red sweater. Worn jeans that were nearly as old as my son, but too comfortable to get rid of. Boots for the three inches of snow already on the ground. All winter ready.
It was early, the sun wasn't even fully up yet, but I was on a mission. I knew exactly where our mountain of winter decorations was in the basement, and started bringing up all of the boxes I could myself.
"Do you need help?" Ben asked from the stairs.
"No," I grunted, grabbing the box in the most awkward way possible and trying not to let him see how heavy it was.
"You're going to hurt yourself," he said, grabbing the box too easily from me.
"I don't need you to –"
"Being mad at me doesn't give you the excuse to hurt yourself," was all he said before carrying the box upstairs.
It wasn't so much that I was mad at him. I was more sad, I think. It was just coming out as anger. Because Ben had been a constant in my life since I was twenty-one, and last night he told Edward and I he was retiring. It was stupid to be this upset because I should have seen it coming. But I didn't and, for lack of a better word, it sucked. A lot.
So, as per usual, I was going to ignore the issue and focus on something else. I was an hour into wrapping a garland around every banister for every set of stairs we had when Edward showed up.
"I thought we weren't decorating this year?" he asked, smirking down at me from the top of our grand stairway. I saved the biggest for last.
In the middle of the whole debacle, around the beginning of November when I would usually slowly start to bring out decorations I was too impatient to wait to put up, I had said I didn't want to decorate like I usually did when Edward asked about it. Things were different now, though. Better.
"I changed my mind," I shrugged, focusing on the work in front of me.
"You know tonight we have dinner with –"
"I know," I sighed. I wasn't going to think about dinner right now. That was a whole new shit storm that I didn't want to deal with.
So, I didn't. I spent the day putting out every little holiday trinket we owned with my son and husband. We went and picked out a tree and set it up in the corner of our living room, covering it with every ornament we had collected through the years. It wasn't one of those trees that looked perfect with everything in the right place. It was a bit of a chaotic mess, but it was our mess.
"Do you think you'll ever release another album?" Aiden asked out of the blue as I made us some homemade hot chocolate once we were done for the day.
"Probably not," I shrugged. Career questions were Aiden's topic of choice the last few days. The subject changed every week or so. Sometimes he wanted more information on Edward and the Cullen legacy. Then there were days when he wanted to know more about the trial and what really happened back then. Now, I supposed we were moving on to my job.
"Even though you just bought the label? You could do whatever you wanted."
"I made your father an album of songs just for him before you were born. And I just put together that soundtrack. I've always been able to do whatever I wanted," I told him with a smirk, pouring three cups of hot chocolate and sliding his cup over to him.
"You made dad his own album? Of what?"
"Of songs," I said matter-of-factly as he followed me into the living room. We had just enough time to enjoy our hot chocolate before getting ready for the dinner from hell.
I handed Edward his cup and sat with my feet up on the table, smiling at the view. It looked like Christmas threw up in here and it was spectacular.
"Can I listen to it?"
"No," Edward interrupted.
"Why not?"
"Because they're mine."
I rolled my eyes and tuned them out. Edward was oddly protective of the songs that he deemed just for him. I thought it was kind of cute.
…Dark…
Usually, I hated being late. It was something Edward liked to tease me about, because I tended to run about twenty minutes early compared to everyone around me. Tonight, though, I had no problem being late. Just before I was set to leave for dinner with Edward and Aiden I got a call from a record company executive that I had been trying to get in contact with for weeks. I was trying to poach him from his current job, and I had to take what I could get from him.
Edward insisted I take it and just meet them for dinner when I was done. The idea of never going to dinner sounded enticing, but when the call ended after a quick twenty-minute conversation, I knew I should bite the bullet and go.
I had been to more than a few business dinner's with Edward, some for business I was involved in and some I wasn't. It had become a specialty of mine to be able to survive the monotonous dinners, but this one was going to be a new level of hell, because it was with Esme and her new family.
Esme was married again. The ceremony was supposedly very simple and done on a whim, but we all knew that wasn't her style. She just failed to invite her children to the wedding and was trying to mend the burned bridge now.
It would have been one thing if Esme's new husband, Alexander, seemed like a good man, an improvement from Carlisle, but he didn't. Based on the information Edward had on him, he was just as vain and selfish as she was. He was practically the same person Carlisle was without the mob ties. The real kicker was that he had kids. Kids that were part of the wedding while Esme's children were informed about the whole thing after the fact. Kids that I knew were going to look at us like we were the scum of the earth.
There was his oldest daughter, Alexandria, who was a doctor and expected everyone to address her as such. I had spent a few too many nights in hospitals, and thankfully never came across a doctor as self-centered and conceited as she. She came by it honestly, though, because she was named after her father.
Then, there was his middle child, Ryan. He had followed his father in his business and been divorced twice because he didn't quite understand the concept of monogamy.
His youngest daughter, Ellie, was a lawyer. Apparently, she had written a thesis about me in law school. It never failed to infuriate me that I was a hot topic in legal courses across the country, and I vowed to avoid her at all costs tonight.
I wasn't sure whose idea tonight was. It was obvious Esme didn't care about her Cullen beginning anymore, and none of us had any desire to see her with her new family either, but somehow we all ended up agreeing to a dinner to get to know one another.
If there was one common trait that most of us in the Cullen family had, it was that we didn't get along well with others. We were the dogs that were always locked up in a shelter because they snapped at everyone who tried to get close, the ones who couldn't even trust the hand that fed them.
We were the skeletons in Esme's closet that she hid away as long as possible, and now she expected us to accept her whole new family with open arms. The entire thing made my blood boil, so my tactic was to keep my mouth shut for the entire evening.
I stopped at the door of the private dining room I knew everyone was in, taking my coat off and handing it to Ben. I straightened out my dress, a black and red sequined piece that flowed mid-calf. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door to hell.
All eyes snapped to me as soon as I entered, but I focused only on walking to the empty seat between Edward and Aiden.
"Sorry I'm late," I said, kissing Edward's cheek as he stood and held out my chair. I couldn't help but notice that every Cullen man stood as I sat down, but Alexander and his sons kept their seats.
"Everything go okay?" Edward asked me.
"As good as it could have. I'll wear him down eventually."
"Lovely to see you, Isabella. I trust you're doing well?" Esme asked, her voice obviously strained. She probably hoped I ditched the dinner as much as I hoped I could have.
"Yes, thank you, Esme," I replied, taking a sip of water to let her see the bracelet I was wearing, the one the original Aiden Cullen left to me. Yes, it was petty, but it was the only dig at her I was allowing myself.
There was a moment of awkward silence before the woman I assumed was Ellie spoke up. "Isabella, I'd love to talk to you about your trial. There are so many things that I've always wondered ever since I studied it. Jenks was a genius, being able to get you acquitted."
"Are you insinuating that I was guilty?" I asked, taken aback at her forwardness.
"Well – "
"We won't be discussing my wife's trial," Edward interrupted, squeezing my knee softly beneath the table.
"We're here to get to know the family," Alexander piped in. "It seems to be a big part of your family history."
"The Chicago police department created a bogus case against me. They allowed me to be attacked by one of their officers and let someone sneak into the precinct to attack me –"
"See, that always seemed a little far-fetched to me. Your medical records don't show any defensive wounds on you. You could have -"
"It's hard to defend yourself when you're handcuffed."
Before anyone could reply, the door opened again.
"Oh, Sulpicia, so good to see you!" Esme gushed as Aro's widow walked in, her daughter and another man with her.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I muttered under my breath, looking at Edward who looked just as frustrated.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Aiden muttered beside me.
I frowned at him. "It's not that bad," I said, thinking he was nervous about them being related to Aro. "They'll just – "
"No, Mom, that's – that's Tony."
Tony.
Tony.
My head snapped in the direction of the man I didn't know. There was something familiar about him, but maybe he was just one of those people that had familiar faces. His hair was dark and ruffled, his eyes dark in the dim light. He was definitely years older than Aiden, but years younger than Edward and I. The way he smirked in Aiden's direction made me nauseous.
"Edward –" I croaked.
"Who's this?" he asked Tanya as Sulpicia talked with Esme.
"This is my son, Anthony," Tanya smirked, gripping Tony's shoulder with her acrylic claws.
"You have a son?" I blurted out before I could stop. When I started approximating ages my blood went cold.
I stood from the table, pulling Aiden with me. "Go home with Alice and Rosalie," I told him, gently pushing him in their direction.
"Hey, kid," Tony said, smirking as Aiden walked past him. He tossed him something and Aiden reached a hand out to catch it. "For the road."
I grabbed the tiny bag immediately, recognizing it all too well from the stashes of them I found in Aiden's room months ago.
Somehow, Edward had Tony pressed into the wall, an arm twisted behind his back. He was saying something to him, but I couldn't hear it. I pushed Aiden away from the commotion and toward Alice, Rosalie, and Delilah.
They were all nearly out of the room when the words I had been dreading were spoke. "What's the issue… Dad?"
It wasn't our son calling Edward dad, though.
It was Tony.
The crowd around us wasn't important to me anymore. I watched as Edward's grip on the man loosened and Tony pushed his way out of it. Tanya looked at me with a snide smirk, but my attention was focused on the man that was supposedly my husband's child.
They had a few similar features, but weren't as closely matched as Edward and Aiden. My heart stopped when I thought about how familiar he looked when he first walked in.
"When did you have him?" I asked Tanya, trying my best not to let my voice shake.
"About seven months after you came into the picture."
Fuck.
Edward was talking, but I wasn't listening. An overwhelming feeling of helplessness washed over me as I looked at him, standing next to people that could have been his family. If Carlisle and Esme had ever found out that Tanya had his child, they would have forced them to get married, no doubt about it.
The little voice in the back of my head, the one that always told me my worst fears, told me things might have been better for him if that had happened.
My ears started ringing as I looked around the room at the faces surrounding us. Esme and her new family, staring with slacked jaws, looking at us like we were zoo animals.
"I… I should go," I whispered, mostly to myself. I was out of the door before anyone noticed. I made it out of the restaurant, onto the cold Chicago street before Edward caught up to me.
"Bella," he sighed, blocking me from walking forward anymore. I folded my arms across my chest, shivering as snow flurries started falling. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Ben holding out my coat, but I shook my head.
"You should go back inside, Edward."
"I'll fix everything, I promise."
"I know you will," I sighed. "I'm fine," I lied. "I just need some fresh air."
"No, you're not."
My lips pulled up in a sad smile. I took a step toward him, leaning up to press a kiss to my favorite spot, just on his jawline. "I love you, Edward Cullen."
He finally let me walk past him. I knew he could feel it though, that the life we had fought so hard for was slowly crumbling around us. That was probably why he let me walk away.
I did my best not to think as I walked, but images that made me nauseous kept popping into my head.
Edward and Tanya.
Edward and Tony.
Edward without me and Aiden.
My feet stopped outside of a bar and I nodded to myself. Alcohol was a good way to forget my problems.
The place was practically empty, not surprising for late on a Wednesday night. I took a seat at the end of the bar and the bartender was in front of me instantly. He was young, probably in his early twenties, and smiled as he leaned over the bar toward me.
"What can I get you, sweetheart?"
I snorted, folding my left hand over my right in front of me. "You'll get a much better tip from me if you don't try to flirt with me." He nodded, and his smile turned more genuine. "I want whatever is going to get me to forget the last hour the fastest."
Ben shook his head when the bartender looked at him. I rolled my eyes. No matter what I said, he wouldn't change his mind.
"I don't know how to handle all of this anymore," I admitted after finishing my first drink. In the past I had handled much worse, but now it seemed like every little thing that happened sent me into a tailspin.
Ben was quiet, but I could tell there was something he wanted to say. "Just spit it out."
He waited another second before he finally did. "You got soft." I frowned, spinning the straw around in my drink.
"It's not a bad thing. It was good for you, I think. You were too… intense before. You worked too much and put a lot of pressure on yourself to survive in the Chicago lifestyle you were suddenly in.
"Like tonight. If someone had made the claim you were guilty years ago you would have gotten much more worked up about it."
My mind sped through a million different scenarios; screaming fights with Esme and such. I was more confrontational when I was younger, but I thought I was just more level-headed now. I didn't know if I liked the idea that I got soft.
"It was after you had Aiden that I noticed it. You weren't the same. You were cautious and put him ahead of everything else in your life. As long as he was happy, you didn't care about anything else. You and Edward both did it."
"That's… what you're supposed to do as a parent. Right?"
Ben laughed. "Hell if I know. My parents were about as fucked up as yours. Not everyone does that as a parent, though."
We were quiet again and I sipped my drink as I thought. Maybe he was right. I had gotten soft. I let Esme visit my son even though I hated her. I let her new family talk to me like I was a criminal. Scenarios started coming at me and I couldn't deny that I had gotten soft.
"Getting soft sucks," I blurted out, too loud for a private conversation. The people still milling around the bar looked at me for a minute, then turned back to their conversations.
"It's not a bad thing," Ben repeated.
"Yeah, it is. When you're soft, you're a pushover. You let people say whatever shit they want to about you and just what… get over it? That man back there got my son addicted to drugs that could have killed him and I just walked away from him."
Too many thoughts and emotions started swirling around in my head. The bartender, who I now knew was named Josh, set another drink in front of me.
"Edward got soft, too," I mumbled.
Ben nodded. "People grow up, Bella. They get more calm. It's just how life is."
I didn't like the idea of a life like that.
It sounded boring.
…Dark…
"Shh," I shushed Ben as he walked in behind me. It was dark and late and I was pretty sure that the table I had bumped into wasn't there when I left earlier.
"Bella?" Rosalie and Emmett walked down the grand stairway, frowning at me.
Right. That table wasn't there when I left home because I wasn't at home.
"Did I wake you up? It's not that," I hiccupped and then laughed quietly at the odd sound. "That late."
"What are you doing here?" Rose asked, following me as I stumbled toward their living room. There was a cart with alcohol somewhere in there.
Josh had kicked me out. Well, the bar closed, but I took it as being kicked out. I still left him the good tip I had promised, though, because he made me delicious drinks all night and left me alone.
Alone. I didn't want to be alone. Not anymore.
I looked around in a circle, not seeing the cart of booze I knew was usually here. "Where's your alcohol?"
"Are you drunk?" she asked, gently pushing me toward the couch.
"Yes, but it's made me realize a lot of things. Like the uh, what was it, Ben? Oh, soft. I got soft and that fucked everything up. But don't worry, I'm not going to be soft anymore."
An idea popped into my head, and I looked at Rosalie with wide eyes and a smile. "You used to be friends with Tanya! Do you know where she lives now? I have to go kick her ass."
Rose gently pushed me on the couch and I decided sitting for a few minutes would be a good way to conserve my energy before I found Tanya.
"Did you really like Tanya before, or was it one of those friendships where you were only friends because you kind of had to be?"
Before she could answer, I kept going. "Because I kind of hate the bitch. I hate a lot of people, really, but she's pretty far up on the list."
Rose sighed and sat next to me. "Did you talk to Edward about her and…"
"Tony," I spat out. It infuriated me that she named him after Edward. Another reason why I hated her. "No. I left him at the restaurant." I sighed. "You know what else I hate? The fact that Edward was a bit of a slut before we started dating."
"Yes, he was," Rose said with a small smile. I didn't know what was worth smiling about, but she had a pretty smile.
"I also hate the look I get from women. I can tell, at all of these fuckin' charity or whatever the fuck else functions we have to go to… there are these looks women give me and I figured out what it was. It's the 'I fucked your husband before you came along' look and it makes me want to scream.
At least, it used to. Then, do you remember that whole thing I said before about getting soft? Yeah, then that happened, but I'm over it now."
I sighed, grabbing the pillow from the other end of the couch and setting it in my lap. "What were we talking about?"
"Um…"
"Oh, right, Edward being a slut. Did you ever see him with other women? Did you know he's killed a third of the other men I've slept with? That's unfair. Unless… if I got rid of Tanya, the mother of his child..." My throat constricted when I said the words.
Emmett walked back in then, carrying a mug of something that looked promising. He handed it to me and I took a sip, grimacing as I swallowed. "There's no alcohol in this."
I set the cup down on the table in front of me, tracing the pattern of the pillow in my lap as a distraction.
"Edward will take care of the situation, Bella," Rose said, grabbing my hand.
"I know he will, he always does. That's the problem."
"Why is that a problem?"
"Because… because he can do everything on his own. He doesn't need me."
"Bella – "
"No, it's true. He could do everything on his own, ever since I met him. He has more money than he needs, he takes care of himself and the entire family. The only thing I could give him that he couldn't get for himself was Aiden. I mean, there was the whole issue with us thinking I couldn't do that, you know? But it worked out. Kind of."
I shook my head, getting rid of all of the random thoughts distracting me. "A baby was the one thing I could give him that he couldn't get for himself and now he doesn't need me anymore."
Exhaustion clouded my head and I set the pillow down on Rosalie's lap and laid down. A quick nap before finding Tanya would be fine.
"I miss Edward," I sighed. Rose rubbed my back, but it wasn't the same. Sometimes when he was working and I didn't want to be alone I would lie down on the couch in Edward's office. He would come sit by me and put my head in his lap, periodically running his fingers through my hair or down my arm.
"I miss Edward," I repeated, letting my eyes drift closed.
Arms squeezed between me and the couch and suddenly I was in the air. "I'm right here, Bella."
My eyes popped open and there he was, his pretty face just inches from mine. Somehow, I ended up in bed. Edward set me down and unzipped my dress, pulling my favorite t-shirt of his over my head.
I watched him as he worked, silent for the first time tonight. He ran a wipe over my face, getting rid of the makeup I had applied before going to the dinner from hell. He made me take two pills and told me I had to finish the glass of water beside me before I fell asleep.
"Why are you…?" I asked as he grabbed a pump of lotion I kept beside the bed and started rubbing it into one of my hands, then the other. Kind of like the massages manicurists gave you, but a little less coordinated.
"Your hands get dry and cracked in the winter if you don't put lotion on every night," he said, very matter-of-factly.
All of it; the dinner, the alcohol, and the way he took care of me… it all made me cry.
Edward grabbed my face in his hands, his thumbs rubbing the tears away. "I need you, Bella. More than you'll ever know… I need you."
A/N: I have about four different drafts of random parts of this chapter that I've written over the last two weeks. Everything just felt off. I'm so sorry for the long wait, but I hope you enjoyed this one. We're (finally) back to EPOV next! Remember, check out fragilefanfic on twitter for updates if a chapter is late or you just wanna chat!
