Time had mattered least to Edward while he was, technically, still alive. It was counterintuitive, but evidence suggested it to be the truth. Whenever he tried to recall human memories, casting his mind back to the beginnings of an expired century and grasping at fragile images like reflections in an unstable pond, the only common thread he was able to stitch between them was an overall impression of impatience. He had been a privileged, ignorant child who regarded time as a sluggish line leader he desperately wished to shove out of his way.
Dying came as something of a shock to his attitude. During those precious few years when he was capable of moving forward, his carelessness hinged upon the assumption that his time in the sun would span decades. He treated his life like a cross-country highway, never suspecting it was actually a dead-end street.
Or it ought to have been. It was supposed to have been, before Carlisle intervened and severed Edward's relationship to time entirely.
"This is overkill, Edward," Bella was saying. She was standing in the kitchen, stooped over to inspect the contents of the refrigerator. "You always get too much food. There's no way I'll eat everything here."
Edward savored the sound of her voice in the air. His interest in music meant he was well versed in the world's most renowned vocal talents, and he had his particular favorites and appreciated their achievements to a degree that might border on obsessive. But no voice captivated him as completely or effortlessly as Bella's, even—perhaps especially—when she was chastising him.
He felt the urge to cross the room and place himself beside her. He denied the impulse, stamping it down. It was an indiscriminate reflex. "I wanted you to have options. I couldn't be sure what you'd like."
"We could've just had a pizza delivered. That would have probably lasted me the whole time."
"Delivery may not be the best option. Officially, I'm not here, and it wouldn't make sense for you to be either. If you want pizza, though, I could take a run out of town and—"
"Edward, no. Stop it." Bella straightened with a strawberry yogurt in her grasp. She elbowed the refrigerator door quite roughly, and it slammed closed, the various glass and plastic containers on the inside clinking and clunking against one another.
She turned to open a drawer which once held silverware exclusively for her use.
The ease with which she did so was heartening to see. The more time they spent apart from each other, the more Edward worried about the impact the prolonged distance may have on her memories. He knew she would not forget him very much. Not without suffering some sort of traumatic head injury, at least, which wasn't at all outside the realm of possibility where Bella was concerned.
But Edward had hands on experience with the raw materials of the human mind. Recollections were bendable as a rule with alarmingly little tensile strength. He tampered with remembered versions of events often in order to safeguard the true nature of his family, and something as slight as a gesture or a phrase could inflict damage on the accuracy of a person's interpretation of reality.
Bella frowned upon realizing the drawer was empty. She looked to him in askance. "Um..."
Edward moved at a natural pace to the sink—much too fast for her eyes to follow his progress—and snatched a spoon off a towel laid out on the counter. He extended it to her. "Freshly washed."
"Oh." Bella blinked at him, her eyes a bit wide. She accepted the utensil a beat late. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
She picked at the yogurt, struggling to peel back the foil lid sealing the container. Likely because her fingernails were virtually nonexistent. It looked as if she had been biting them.
Edward wondered why. Was she feeling anxious? Stressed? He probably shouldn't have fetched the spoon quite so quickly. He decided he would conduct himself within human parameters for the remainder of her visit. The human way was what she had chosen, after all.
Bella tossed the shreds of her uncooperative yogurt lid in the trash. She seemed to start toward the dining room but paused and changed course.
He trailed after her. "Don't you want to eat at the table?"
"No, that's okay." She continued on into the living room and resumed her seat on the couch. "It's just a yogurt. I don't really need one. And sitting here I won't feel so… watched."
That stung a bit. "I won't watch you eat if you don't want me to, Bella. Of course I won't. I never meant to make you uncomfortable."
"You don't make me uncomfortable. Not at all," Bella said, facing him immediately. Then she glanced at her spoon, her cheeks reddening. "Well, not uncomfortable in a bad way anyway. It just feels strange, being the only one who's stuffing their face."
Edward swallowed, abruptly aware of the venom in his mouth. In a good way or a bad way. She had used those phrases in the past to differentiate his revolting craving for her blood from his, frankly, equally disturbing yearning for her heart, mind, and body. He could ignore the flames lashing his throat. The thirst was worse after a substantial time apart, but he'd spent the better half of a hundred years with that searing dryness as a constant companion. Even though Bella heightened it to a point no one else ever had, the unparalleled intensity was a characteristic of her presence, and that made burning perversely pleasurable.
The other pain, the empty aching which epitomized every moment of her absence, was vastly more intolerable.
Edward knew what good ways and bad ways meant in reference to him, but what did they mean for Bella? He thought he had an idea. However, his ideas about her were often wrong, and, when he was wrong, it always hurt her. The ground on which they stood was rocky and cracked. If the past several years had taught him anything, it was that he could not afford to make any assumptions about their relationship.
Their love had deep but knotted roots and transient dressings, like an old oak standing dormant through winter only to blossom with the warm onslaught of spring.
"Before I ask this, I want to be sure you understand there is no answer you can give that will upset me in any way. I am glad to be in your company, regardless of what form it takes. I adore you unequivocally."
Edward waited for a clear response.
Bella had begun 'stuffing her face,' as she put it, but at his words had frozen with her spoon captive in her mouth. She promptly removed it, dabbing at her unsullied lips with the back of her hand. Her voice was thin, as if it had been deprived adequate support from her lungs. "Uh huh. Unequivocally. Got it."
"Are we friends, strictly speaking, at present? That is the term we've been using for awhile now, but..." He raised a hand to his face, recalling the radiating heat of her palm there and wishing he could still feel it. The memory, though forever preserved in his excruciatingly unalterable, immortal brain, was less than satisfying. "Your earlier actions seemed to suggest you wanted something more."
"No, I don't know. Ugh, you're completely right! I'm sorry. Like I said, I have no idea where that came from."
"It's not a problem, Bella." Edward stared deliberately into her eyes, willing her to believe it. It was impossible not to be bothered by how upset she still was with herself, despite all the precautions he'd taken to avoid that outcome. "I'm only asking to gather some sort of guideline. I'd like to know how closely I should sit to you, if my touch would be welcomed or not, what sorts of sentiments I ought to share with you and if my feelings would be best kept to myself."
She continued to eat, slowly and without enthusiasm. Her eyes seemed to become wet, to glisten more brightly, but the tears never overflowed.
"Friends, then?" He pressed, striving for a lighter, gentler tone.
"Friends is better," she confirmed at last. "For both of us, I think."
Edward nodded. "Very well."
The acceptance may not have been freeing, exactly, but it was a relief to have a more precise idea of what she wanted from him. He looked about in search of something that might improve her mood, something that friends typically did together and that he and Bella had enjoyed in the past.
The television in front of the couch sat silent and blank. He smiled, though carefully, mindful of his teeth. "Would you like to watch a movie?"
Bella sank back into the cushions, returning the expression. "Sure. You pick."
The selection of films was limited to what his family had abandoned in the entertainment center. After much deliberation, he settled on a black comedy, a genre which had always appealed to his personal sense of humor. The film was released just a few years after Bella was born. He inserted the disc in a subpar, nearly obsolete player, one that not even Emmett had valued enough to keep, and returned to her.
He did not have to stamp out the urge to be beside her now, only temper it a bit. He sat a friendly distance away, ensuring they were perched on separate cushions but not confining himself to the opposite end of the furniture either. A median. A compromise.
It was relatively dim in the room. There had been little sunlight filtering through the clouds even at noon that day, and it was approaching night. He glanced out the window. The old (but new to Bella) truck still looked green to him, but he could imagine how it might be construed as black, if someone were viewing it in the shadows. And if that someone did not possess a vampire's uncanny ability to see through the dark.
Edward watched the movie with Bella, and, out of the corner of his eye, he also watched Bella watching the movie. The colors of the scenes doused her skin, bathing her features in lights of blue, white, amber, and magenta. She had expressive reactions to the narrative, frowning, exclaiming, and squinting intently at the screen.
On several occasions, they laughed together.
He hoped the poor weather would not spur her back to Phoenix sooner than she had planned. He missed her so desperately, but he did not say that. Everything that had been so jagged and empty inside him while she was gone felt right and healed with her at his side, but he did not say that either.
It startled him when, approximately three-quarters through the film, Bella reached for his hand.
His body's instinctual response to any sort of unexpected sensation was to lock in place. He went rigid.
Bella twisted toward him, a little halfheartedly, shyly. "Friends hold hands."
"I suppose they do," Edward said, and helped her draw the hand she was holding into her lap. His fingers seemed to thaw as she laced hers between them.
