Many, many thanks to BeLynda, who is so kind to beta this story for me. I appreciate you so much! 3
Thank you to everyone still reading! I read every review with a little song in my heart.
All of this belongs to Stephenie Meyer, and I love her so much for it!
My stomach was in knots as we traveled from the office to the Cullens' home. I gripped the sides of my legs, my fingernails digging through the thin fabric of my dress, through my nylons and into my skin.
Edward's hair was flying all around as he focused on the road ahead, his fingers flexed on the wheel. I took a breath and forced myself to look away. The sky was wrapped in sunset, a riot of violets, oranges and pinks. The Chicago skyline was lost in the receding distance as we drove further away from the concrete and chaos and further into the green, quiet suburbs. For once, I would have preferred to stay in the bustling city.
I was given a year, so why was Carlisle asking to meet with me already? Surely he didn't expect a weekly update! And what would I tell him?
"I hadn't even tried."
"Edward deserves better."
"He doesn't really want me."
If I could just get my hands on my shoe box. If I could just have something to my name to fall back on...
I needed more time. I needed a plan.
"Tell me a lie," Edward said once he parked the car, and the clanking and sputtering of the engine stopped. The lessons he'd begun at the office had morphed into a new game of truths and lies. I was grateful for the change, because it meant he didn't have to stare at me so intently, but this new "training" still required too much of his attention. Instead of thinking of any logical answers, my mind drifted to all of the inappropriate things that I could say.
A lie: I don't fantasize about the times you've kissed me.
A truth: I'd like to run my fingers through your hair to see if it's as soft as it looks.
A truth: I'm not sure I'm going to be fine with leaving you once this is all over, and I worry that you will be.
I want to leave. I want to stay.
I wasn't just a stupid girl, I was a complete, utter twit.
"I love onions." I said quickly, and he chuckled. HIs hand raised to his hair, his fingers raking through the tangles. I wanted to lift my hands and help him. Instead, I attempted to fix my own wayward hair and the fly-a-ways that had escaped my braid that was wrapped in a bun at the back of my head.
We both still wore our day clothes from the office; there had been no time to change before we'd made the drive. I'd mentioned it to him before we'd left the city and he blew it off.
"Do you think Carlisle is going to blow his wig?" he'd said, almost sounding hopeful that that would be the case.
I answered yes, and gave me a wide smile.
I thought Edward looked nice in his plain white collared shirt and woven gray pants - better than nice - but he definitely would not match Esme's fancy filigree china. As we walked into the house, he handed his jacket over to the male servant at the door and began to unbutton and roll up his shirt sleeves. I gave him a waning look. He had the nerve to wink.
We walked past elegant marble top tables with flowers carefully placed in crystal vases, and pointless designer baubles that had been placed up and down the hallway. It seemed wrong to spend so much on knickknacks so close to a starving city. It was all a beautiful, wasteful extravagance.
"Tell me something true," he said, as he leaned down closer to my ear. His deep voice was so close, it gave me chills.
I don't belong here.
With you.
My mind drifted to the one place I ever belonged, with Charlie, who had died because I was too cowardly to take action. I thought of Edward who thought I was a sweet girl, when just this morning, as I lay beside him, I wondered what would happen if I went along with Carlisle's scheme. I thought of the shoebox of money that I'd let go, of the secret bank account that came to light because of my carelessness, of the agreement I'd made to Carlisle due to my own fear.
"I always do the wrong things." I said absently. He stopped walking and jerked his head in my direction, his eyebrows raised. His hand reached around my elbow lightly, his touch raising goosebumps on my arm.
"That's not true." he said. "You're the most moral, honest person I know." his lashes fell to his cheeks as he looked down and his hand slid from my elbow to my hand. His was warm, comforting and unsettling. Every touch felt like it would be the last. Every memory of his touch haunted me.
"It's not as though you've had a choice in anything, Bella," he said, "Don't be so hard on yourself."
He leaned in closer and for a split second, I thought he was going to kiss me, right there in the Cullen's hallway. My entire body stiffened. I stopped breathing.
"You've done nothing wrong," he whispered, his warm breath against my face.
His hand dropped to his side, and he gave me a small smile as he moved slightly away, but his touch lingered. He watched me longer than necessary, his generous words and eyes full of kindness in complete juxtaposition to his profession and of the atrocities I knew him to be capable. In that moment, I thought, This is the real Edward. Stripped of the pretenses and lies, he was good. He was a good man.
I wanted to bottle up that look, to hold it close when the world around us fell to pieces, to save it as a souvenir when our marriage was over and finished, and all I had left were memories.
"Thank you," I said softly.
But you're wrong.
You just haven't known me long enough, yet.
"You're too sweet," he'd said earlier.
I wasn't, though.
I was a liar.
I was a coward.
I gave him a wan smile as I walked past him and through the doors held open by male servants in black suits and crisp white shirts.
Carlisle's place was not set at dinner.
I tried not to show my relief, to pretend it wasn't something that I cared about. My eyes betrayed me, and I looked over at his designated place as Edward pushed my chair into position at the table. The meal began without him, and with no comment from Esme. Perhaps she'd stopped making excuses for him now that I was officially family.
In his absence, the tension that normally filled the room seemed to have vanished, and Esme prattled on to everyone, her bubbly attention alighting like a spotlight on each family member. The conversation was less stilted, more animated.
It was far too long before I realized I hadn't heard from Mary-Alice. I looked around the back of Jasper's chair and found her in her usual seat, her plate untouched. She was staring into space, her hands laying palms up in her lap. Her hair was pulled back into a neat updo, much like the one Esme had given to me on my wedding day. Her small face was fixed in a blank gaze, staring at some far off place the rest of us couldn't see. I watched as Rosalie and Emmett took turns studying her with quick eyes before they answered a question from Esme.
I put my utensils down. Edward touched my elbow. I jumped slightly in my seat.
"What's wrong?" he asked quietly as Esme turned her spotlight to Jasper to ask him a question.
"Do you want a truth, or a lie?" I whispered, making the mistake of looking up into his eyes, green and troubled.
He frowned.
I needed to tell him the truth. Soon.
"You're worried about Alice?"
I nodded.
"She had an episode this morning." he said, his warm eyes slipping over to where she sat, motionless and numb.
"What does that mean?"
He sighed, and I looked away, convicted for speaking about her as though she weren't in the room.
"Would you like one, Bella?" Esme asked from across the table, interrupting our conversation.
"Yes, thank you," I said quickly, uncertain of what it was that I was agreeing to. Edward gave me a small smile.
No one says no to Esme.
At the end of dinner, the Cullens servants began to clear the table and my plate half full of food was added to a bowl of scraps. It felt wrong to throw it out when there were families begging for food in the streets. I picked up Edward's plate beside me and began to help clean up. The young girl who served us had kind eyes, her smile genuine as I laid the plate on top of the stack on her tray.
"Oh, there's no need to do that Bella." said Esme as she walked down the length of the table, "The help can take care of it."
From the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper flinch. Edward stood beside me and began gathering his utensils, following my lead. "Thank you, Maya," he said. The maid curtsied and blushed, as she walked away, unable to put together an entire sentence. I understood how she felt.
Esme appeared at my side and grabbed my wrist, "Well, let's go, then," she said. "To the Garden Room!"
I looked back at Edward over my shoulder, who stood at the door, his hand in his pocket. He shrugged at me and smiled, leaving me with a slight wave as she began to drag me down the long hallway.
I looked over to Mary-Alice, who still sat at her place at the table, seemingly unaware we'd finished dinner and were leaving. Jasper walked over to her as we rounded a corner, Esme's hand still wrapped around my wrist.
"Did you get my note?" she asked me quietly, though the rest were no longer in hearing range.
"Your note?"
"The one I left in your desk? I wasn't sure if you'd get it, so I made up this excuse to get you alone." The corners of her mouth turned up in a tight smile.
Esme had left the note - not Carlisle. It made more sense now, the scrolling letters obviously too feminine for a man's handwriting. It took me a second to regain my speech.
"I did." I said, relieved and then curious as to why she would need to speak with me alone in secret.
"Is everything alright?"
"Oh...well," was her reply as we walked past gleaming paneled walls and doors of rooms.
I spotted Carlisle's office, the only one in the long row of doors installed with multiple locks. Behind that door lay piles of possessions - claimed and stolen - briefcases, papers, a flannel hat, a teddy bear, a doll, a baseball - and a white shoebox from a fancy store that I would probably never be able to afford to patronize again. My stomach turned. I'd sold my soul for the money I'd collected in it. I'd tossed aside every life lesson Charlie had ever taught me about doing the right thing. When I'd discovered what kind of business the Cullens were running, I didn't report them. I was complicit with every sin that my great aunt had tried to warn me of. I witnessed a murder and said nothing.
I always did the wrong things.
"Esme?" I said, as I stopped walking suddenly, my heart in my throat. "Would it be alright if I grabbed something from Carlisle's office? I left something of mine in there when Edward and I were signing the wedding paperwork."
Wrap a truth in with a lie, then it's not as much of a lie. Isn't that what they did?
Look convincing, I told myself. I smiled reassuringly. I stayed solid on my feet. I didn't fidget. My voice didn't crack or go too high. I wondered if Edward would be proud of me. It was dismaying that two of my lies recently were toward this sweet woman. I hoped she'd forgive me, if she ever found out. I wondered if that's what she did with everyone else: offering them all grace when they gave her half-truths and outright lies. Or maybe she just never noticed them, just assumed that her sons were all telling her the truth when they gave her details about their days, carefully omitting the parts that involved illegal activities and violence.
"Of course," she said, and I hoped my smile wasn't as eager as I was on the inside.
"We'll do that on the way back. I know I promised you a fern," she wrinkled her brow and smiled, "But that apartment needs some sprucing up! I'm going to give you some succulents and flowers also."
"Thank you," I said, wondering how I was going to carry both plants and my box back to the dining room.
"Here we are!" she said as we reached the end of the long hallway. We stopped at a large set of double pocket doors, stained the same warm, polished brown as the paneling on the walls. With a proud little smile, she pushed them open. The air filled with the smells of soil and flowers, of growth and decay.
A curtain of green stretched from one end of the massive room to the other, partially covering the floor-to-ceiling windows that took up three walls. Lush leaves and vines crept up window frames as though they were trying to leave the confinement of their clay pots and escape into the outside air. Interspersed with the green were dotted colors of roses and flowers and plants lined along tables: a few I could name from my years learning from Charlie; most were a mystery. It was magnificent - and completely insane. She and Carlisle had one thing in common at least, only Esme's out-of-control collection was full of life and not death.
I stepped into the room after her. The space was bigger than Edward's apartment.
I had memories of visions such as these: lush shades of green that covered everything - except the plants that I remembered had grown wild and free, cultivated by the wind and rain and sun that came with nature instead of nurture. There was a slight sadness to their beauty, and the way the towering vines seemed to cling to the windows that surrounded the room, as though they were all reaching for the outside, for freedom.
I understood that feeling.
It occurred to me, I was only seeing it in the darkness of night: In the daylight, I imagined the outside would look as though it were trying to come in.
"It's beautiful," I marveled sadly, tipping my head back to look up at a long limb of ivy that was tangled with another plant covered in pale blue flowers. They'd crept across the chipped crown molding and along the ceiling, partially obscuring some intricately carved ceiling tiles.
"Do you like it?" she asked, turning toward me, "It's my favorite place in the house. This room is supposed to be a guest suite, but I find I like the plants more than having long-term guests," she said as though she were sharing a secret.
"It's amazing!" I said, "Did you grow all of these?"
"I did," she said, more than a hint of pride in her voice. "And not many people come to see it, so I'm glad you've agreed to. I know it's a little bit crazy - you don't have to say it - but it makes me happy."
I smiled, but found I couldn't relate. I tried to think of a hobby, or something I was even remotely good at, that I did for my own pleasure. I always had a sense of satisfaction when figuring out a complicated equation, but that was always work and somehow also brought an inexplicable sadness along with it.
I enjoyed lying on Edward's couch, reading his books, but that wasn't so much of a hobby as it was a distraction. If I was occupied with a story, I was less prone to stare in his direction.
It wasn't easy being the avowed wife of Edward Cullen - and also having eyeballs.
"This reminds me of home," I said, swapping from one unhappy thought with a better one: "My dad used to take me traipsing through the woods, showing me different plants and teaching me their names. He used to tell me which were poisonous and which could be eaten."
It was a memory I hadn't thought of in so long. I wondered if I went into the woods, if I'd even remember any of it.
"It sounds like we would have gotten along well," Esme said.
"I think so." I turned my head to admire plants while I covertly blinked away tears.
"I wanted to give you this also," Esme said as she walked across to the front of the room. A framed photograph sat on a table beside the door. Esme's face shone with the light of a hundred suns when she looked down at it. She handed it over to me as though it were a treasure.
It was my wedding photo.
I barely remembered it from the day, the whole ordeal eclipsed with uncertainty and fear, guilt and then finally longing during a ceremony that I wanted very much to be real.
Looking down at the photograph, though, the only thing I could remember was the longing. It was an unconventional wedding portrait - with my long dark hair surrounding my face - but also because of the groom: The photographer had captured every bit of his good looks, even though it was typical black and white with shades of gray, but instead of looking at the camera the way you're supposed to when you're having your photo taken, he was looking down at me.
Carlisle had told him he was giving him exactly what he'd wanted?
I couldn't even continue the ridiculous thought. I looked at Esme with surprisingly wet eyes. "It's beautiful," I said.
"It is," a large smile across her face. I couldn't stop staring at it. It was like looking in on someone else's life. My smile somehow looked genuine, though I hadn't chosen any of it, not the wedding, not the groom. The only thing I'd had a part in was the dress and my own hair.
"How is married life treating you?" she asked.
"Fine," I said quickly, realizing too late I'd given her the wrong answer. "Fine" was reserved for couples who had been together for many years, or possibly on the brink of collapse but not wanting to admit it. Not a newly married couple.
"I mean, he's been very kind." I said. Also the wrong answer. I clamped my lips closed.
She watched me intently, long enough to make me uncomfortable. By the time she finally spoke, I was ready to bolt from the room.
"I was married once before," she said. "It's not something I speak of to anyone. The children don't even know about it."
I nodded as though I understood, but my stomach clenched, my fingers gripped the heavy frame in my hands. It was flattering that she chose me to share it, but I didn't want one more secret to keep.
"He wasn't kind," she said.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. It was hard to imagine anyone being unkind to Esme, deplorable.
"When I first met him I was very young and very naive."
She turned to her tables full of plants, picking up a few and setting them to the side.
"I was younger than you are now, just a girl, and he had a beautiful smile, a boisterous personality and I fell in love with both. People seemed to flock to him, but he chose me, and treated me like I was the only woman in the whole world."
Dread filled me before she'd even spoken the word, "but…"
"But after the honeymoon, he became a completely different person. Civil War was breaking out, and he wanted to be a part of the revolution. He became obsessed with it, with the notion that he was going to be on the front lines - a hero - no matter what it cost him. And then he was injured in a stupid, careless accident. It ruined everything for him. Instead of taking his rage out on the opposing soldiers the way he'd wanted, he turned to me."
I flinched.
"It started with black eyes and bruises, which then became broken bones. And I stayed with him, because I loved him and I thought I could fix him, make him the man I'd fallen in love with."
She took a deep breath, "And even to this day, when I think about him, I somehow blame myself and his accident." she said musing to herself. "It wasn't that, though. Tensions were high in Ireland, and there were hardships, but… if a man is a good man, he'll continue to be a good man no matter what he's going through."
Beautiful Esme, with her soft words and kind spirit deserved much better than what life had handed her. One unkind husband after another. It was unfair.
"When he brought you in here that night, injured, my first thought was…"
"No," I said, interrupting her, "That isn't what happened."
She nodded.
"Did he ever tell you anything about the time we came to the states?" Her words were careful, quiet, as though she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the answer. The sudden subject change threw me.
"No," I said. I'd forgotten that neither were actually from America. I thought of the night at dinner that he'd lapsed into an Irish dialect. His accent seemed to be lost in normal speech, and Esme's was just barely there, lingering in random consonants and errant vowels.
She sighed, "I often wonder how much he remembers from back then. He was very young," she turned back to her table, her gaze toward the dark window and she reminded me of Mary-Alice, sitting at the table and seeing nothing.
"Edward and Mary-Alice came over with their parents." she said, "I didn't see them on the boat, I didn't even meet their mother, she died on the journey over. I was only supposed to be on that island for a week and then Carlisle was coming to get me to bring me home.
"We happened to be put in the same old lodgings, one room beside the other. I was skittish of men back then, after my husband, so I kept my distance and left a wide berth. Edward and I would exchange smiles every so often when we saw each other in the hallway."
She blinked, and tears fell onto her cheeks. I contemplated walking over to hug her, but stayed where I was.
"He was a beautiful little boy," she said, "but there was something haunting behind each one of those smiles. I recognized it in his face and in the bruises that dotted his arms, and I ignored it, because I was afraid. I told myself he was dirty because he was little and boys play in the dirt, but even I knew, he barely left his room."
She fidgeted with another potted plant beside the first, and I thought of my childhood when I lived with my mother, how she'd never take me outside, and didn't even like me being at a window. My mother had never hurt me, though. Not physically.
"His father was possessed by the Devil, was the rumor that went around by those who had met them on the journey," she said. "He would fly into fits of rage and take his anger out on anyone who happened to be around. They said he'd killed his wife on the boat and made it look like she'd drowned, but no one could prove it and no one tried to. They all avoided their family, same as I did. I would go by their room, and I could hear him yelling, sometimes screaming, at them.
"And I would pause and then keep going. I was weak, I was nobody. I hated myself, but I did nothing. For three days." She sighed and sniffed, "Despite what I'd been through, I turned a blind eye and allowed it to happen.
"But on the fourth day that I was there, I heard little Mary-Alice crying. It was sudden and high-pitched and a few minutes later, there was a loud bang. I stormed into their room, not even thinking. I don't even know what I thought I was going to do - he was much taller and bigger than I was. I just knew that those children were in danger, and I just reacted."
She placed both hands on the table in front of her. She said nothing for a very long moment, and I set the frame down on the table nearest me and walked toward her. She wasn't crying now. She was taking deep breaths, her eyes closed.
"What happened?" I asked in a voice so low, I wasn't sure if she could even hear me.
"He killed him." she said softly and cleared her throat.
I was perplexed. Edward wasn't dead? If he'd-
Realization hit me as she spoke again.
"Edward killed his father, just before I walked into the room." she sucked in another deep breath, letting it out slowly. "He was just protecting his sister," she said quietly, as though she were speaking only to herself.
"How?" I asked, cringing even as I asked the question. If his father was so much bigger, how would that have even been possible?
"A knife," she said, barely getting out the words.
My mind reeled, showing me revolting images of how a child could possibly kill a grown man with a sharp object.
"He was young," she said, "I don't know if he even remembers any of it. I don't know if he even remembers his real last name. He's never spoken about it.
When he'd handed me his handkerchief, the monogram had read "EM," not "EC."
"I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to do all of the talking in the family," she said with a slight laugh, her eyes still damp. "None of my boys are forthcoming on how they're feeling, or what they're thinking." she sighed. "I have to try to pick up on clues like a blasted gumshoe."
It struck me how cruel it was, that they told their father, who was cruel and manipulative, everything and told their mother, who only wanted to know them, nothing.
Could I speak to Edward for her? How would I even begin that conversation? If he truly had forgotten it, why would I bring it up and cause him even more hurt? I doubted a person could forget such a thing, no matter how young their age, but I wouldn't say that to Esme. She seemed comforted by the thought.
A question burned at the back of my throat. "How? How did you leave?" I asked.
She turned toward me, her eyes locked with mine. Before she spoke, I felt her answer. "Some men understand nothing short of violence, Bella." she said and turned away. "I did what I had to do." Her mouth quirked up on one side as she fought back more tears. "Even though I knew I could never go back home."
Secrets were piling onto secrets, the heavy weight of them a stranglehold. I looked to the towering plants reaching for the window. Even in the bright sunshine, even in the light of day, they were still trapped inside. They didn't care - they were plants - but the image of it bothered me. I shivered and looked back at Esme.
"Edward is a good man," she said, "He's not like his father, I know that." she swiped the tears from her face, "When he brought you in here, though, bruised and cut up… I just had to make sure."
I thought of how I'd watched him kill Torrin so easily and I knew it wasn't the first time he'd done it. I'd tried to tell myself that it was just, because he'd had a good reason - as though there was ever a good reason to end someone else's life. I thought of all the logs that I'd written in, all the lives represented by horrible letters and numbers in a book, and how I'd justified it because I had no choice - as though there was ever a good reason for hiding murders. I thought of Esme, and how she was kept in the dark about so many awful deeds and wrongdoings and how her husband whom she loved and trusted to be a good father was leading her entire family down a path of destruction, and how it didn't matter if Edward had forgotten his first transgression, because his father had made sure that there had been many more.
I didn't think it was possible to hate someone as thoroughly as I hated Carlisle Cullen.
I couldn't tell Esme any of it. I stood in front of a poor, grief-stricken mother who was worried that her own son was abusing his wife, who saw the evil just below the surface but was unable to acknowledge it out in the open. I saw a beautiful woman who had experienced so much tragedy and heartbreak, who had been beaten and abused and then married a man who was just as abusive, though just not physically.
I couldn't tell her anything that I wanted to say.
I gave her the only truth I could, the only one that was mine to freely give:
"He would never hurt me," I said.
Satisfied with my simple answer, she wiped her eyes once more, and wrapped me in a warm hug. I leaned into it, grateful for it, something inside me breaking a little, wondering when the last time I'd been hugged. And then I followed her away from her favorite place in the house, where she'd told me her darkest secret.
I left with a small potted plant in one hand and a photograph in the other. Esme put others aside and placed them by the door for servants to take to the car. I quietly apologized to each, knowing they were leaving her loving care straight to their demise.
Esme stopped in front of Carlisle's office and turned the doorknob, opening the door easily. It felt wrong to go in on the pretense I'd given her, after hearing so much of her past. I hesitated, though my fingers itched to grab what was mine and leave.
"Be careful," she said, turning to leave, "There's too many things to fall over in there. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself or the baby."
My stomach clenched painfully. I'd completely forgotten I was supposed to be pregnant.
"Next week, I want to take you shopping for things. Tell Edward he's going to have to give you an entire day off work"
I smiled half-heartedly, unsure of what to say. Another lie. Thankfully, she walked away without an answer, and I quickly ducked into the office to prevent further incriminating myself.
The lightswitch was difficult to find. I sat my things down on the nearest chair and ran my hands down the wall, cursing at all the panels and notches carved into it that made a small round button difficult to feel. Once it was finally flipped, I closed the door behind me.
His office was foreboding during the light of day, and it didn't get better at night. I shuddered and made a wide berth around the shelf where a gentleman's hat lay, and made my way to the only thing in the entire office I wanted. It was in the same place as before, sitting beside items that would seem completely random and strange to most. He'd placed a file folder on top of it. I picked it up gently and placed it on the corner of his desk, listening for any noise from the other side of the door.
I decided to take out the money and leave the box behind. Carlisle might miss the box, but not the contents. It could be weeks before he noticed I'd taken the money, and by then I could be long gone. I hesitated as I reached for it, my hands trembling. Where would I go? If I was smart, I could get on a train tonight, travel as far as I could until I ran out of money. If I left before Carlisle came home, I could get a head start. Maybe Edward would cover for me, not tell them I'd left until there was no way they could find me again. I'd have to use my maiden name - or a fake one. I thought of Esme and how brave she had been, travelling all alone to a completely different country. I tried to not think about how brave she had been to leave her husband. It was an image I'd rather not have of her. I knew that was brave as well, even more so, but I wanted my memories of the last time I saw her to be of kindness and flowers.
Was I really going to leave? I thought of Edward and how green his eyes had been that morning when he looked at me. In my imagination, it meant something when he looked at me. It was foolish. I was foolish.
With a resolute sigh, I picked up the box. It seemed lighter than I remembered. A thrill ran through me as I pulled it down from the high shelf and clutched it in my arm.
I'd put it all back exactly the way he'd left it, complete with the file thrown haphazardly over the top.
The door opened behind me. I spun toward it, my fingers gripping the box. My hip knocked into the desk, knocking the file to the floor. Papers scattered across the carpet. My heart was in my throat, as I tried to think up a single, sensible lie. Shock turned to relief and then worry as my eyes fell on Mary-Alice, who swayed slightly in the door frame.
We stared at each other, one in surprise and the other hazy, and listless. She clung to the doorknob. Her eyes were only slightly more focused than they'd been at dinner.
"Mary-Alice," I said, when I could finally breathe again. My feet were rooted to the floor in shock. A thin pile of papers covered the green carpet, like a small dusting of snow. I thought about going to her, but I was afraid to step anywhere. "Are you alright?"
Her speech and the way she blinked, was incredibly, eerily slow. I shuddered.
"I knew you'd be in here," she said in her soft voice. "You shouldn't be, but I knew you would be."
"Alright." I said softly. My eyes darted to the hall behind her, hoping someone would show up, but also afraid they would. "I was just getting something I'd forgotten," I blurted out, hoping she wasn't as skilled at detecting lies as her brother. "Do you need help?" I asked. "Does someone know you came this way?"
"I told Edward to meet me here in a few minutes."
"Alright," I repeated, looking hopelessly around at the mess. I was running out of time. I kneeled on the floor and began picking up pages. Mary-Alice dropped heavily beside me to help, her movements clumsy.
I glanced at a page and stopped, realizing it wasn't business papers that I'd dropped, but drawings. I gathered them more carefully, afraid to smudge the charcoal and pencil that covered the surface. Each portrait I gathered was a variation of the same person: a young woman with beautiful curls and full lips. The drawings had no color, but I imagined if I saw her in real life, her lovely face would. I was in awe of such talent, convinced that whoever the artist was must have truly loved this woman. No one with just a passing interest would have created something so breathtakingly beautiful.
My chest ached. Selfishly, I wished for something like this: a love that was so strong that it needed to be expressed in art on many, many sheets of paper.
"Who drew these?" I asked. Alice looked up at me slowly, blinked and answered,
"Jasper."
"Jasper drew these?" The answer surprised me. I'd had no idea he was so talented. Each drawing was a work of art, beautiful and detailed, some even showing slight flaws, like a small chicken pox scar on her right temple, a freckle above her full top lip.
"Who is she?" I asked.
"Ruth," Mary-Alice said, "Always Ruth." She smiled sadly, "I told him he needed to send her away… when." She frowned, picking up a piece of art and kissed it. "I told him when it was going to happen, but he didn't listen. He never listens."
"You told him what?" I asked, my eyes darting to the door and back to Mary-Alice, where she was touching the drawing, her fingers making smudges on the page. I carefully plucked it from her hands, adding it to the bottom of the pile and hastily put them all back in the folder. Maybe no one would notice they'd been touched. I hoped I'd have time to put everything back before Edward found me here, snooping in Carlisle's office, rummaging through files. Would he be angry with me?
"I told Edward too," she said, and I reached for the shoe box, pulling it from the shelf. It was lighter than I'd remembered.
"What did you tell Edward?" I asked, distractedly, as I yanked open the top, looking toward the door once more.
My heart sank as I looked into a completely empty container. No bills, no coins. Even my notepad and pencil were gone. Defeated, I reached up to replace it on the shelf, but her hand caught my arm."
"Dreamers often lie," she whispered.
"Oh, Mary-Alice," I said, placing my hand on her cheek, "What did they give you?"
"Not the right dose, clearly," said a familiar voice from behind her. Carlisle. I froze, my hand still on her face. My eyes flew to the shoe box still in my other hand, and I knew he'd already seen it. Mary-Alice still clung to my arm, her fingers pressing deeper.
"Don't forget," she whispered, her voice fierce, despite her weary grip and drooping eyelids.
It was with relief that I saw Edward walking through the open doorway.
"What are you doing in here, Bella?" Carlisle asked. Panic turned to despair, which quickly became anger.
"Do better," Rosalie had told me, but I didn't need Rosalie's words to fuel my ire. I had enough fuel of my own after Esme's revelations, the objects in the room he held hostage, and the poor, fragile girl who clung to my arm.
"Taking back what's mine," I said, somewhat shocked by my own words. I heard Edward say my name, but I refused to look at him, already knowing what he would say by his warning tone. Did he really not care how the family patriarch was hurting everyone in this family?
My answer seemed to perplex Carlisle. He was silent for a moment and when he spoke, his tone was cold.
"Edward, can you please remind me, who was it that gave Bella the money that used to be in that..." his finger circled in the direction of the cardboard in my hand. "Box?"
Edward took a deep breath, his green eyes serious. He answered on the exhale, "You did, Carlisle."
I gaped at him.
And then recovered myself.
He wasn't my ally, my savior, or my real husband. He was a man who was thrown into a marriage with a troubled woman with a terrible past. I closed my lips, stood up straighter, and refused to look his way.
"Twit" was too mild of a word. I could already feel the moisture building up behind my eyes as I locked my jaw and stared at a corner of a piece of artwork that I'd failed to put away correctly.
"And can you please take her home and explain to her how much money she would have made had she paid for her own room and board over the time she's been in my employ?"
I scowled at Edward, but the look he gave me back wasn't angry, though that reaction would have been better. His look was pleading, sad.
"Fine." I said angrily, throwing the box on the floor. I made sure to put my foot solidly into it as I walked by. The side that collapsed made a satisfying crunching sound. I didn't retreat as rapidly as I would have liked with Mary-Alice in tow. Edward took her from me as we left the room together.
"Goodnight, Bella," I heard Carlisle say as I walked away. I was too angry to look at Edward as we walked out the door and down the hallway.
"You shouldn't provoke him," he said after he closed the door to our apartment.
I crossed my arms and glared. His back was pressed against the door, his hand still on the door knob. He rested his head against the door that was stained the same shade of brown as everything in Carlisle and Esme's home. He looked tired, weary, beautiful.
But I was still angry.
"Goodnight," I said, turning on my heel and closing the room to my door firmly behind me. I leaned back against it, feeling very much like a petulant child. I was justified in my anger, and watching him for too long made me feel other things I didn't want to feel.
Was he just as upset as I was? Or did he go along with everything that was decided for him? Esme's story haunted me. If I were brave, I would leave my room and ask him questions. He had said he didn't want to hurt anyone, and he'd shown me kindness. That was all I knew of Edward wasn't it? To imagine that there was anything else between us was foolish. I wondered if he'd continue showing me kindness after tonight, when I'd defied him, and Carlisle.
I raised a hand to my chest, taking deep breaths. Why did it matter? Why did I care what he thought of me after this? I was simply lonely. If I wasn't so bereft of human interaction, I wouldn't care so much about his hands on my skin when he woke me in the middle of the night. I wouldn't care if he looked over at me during breakfast, I wouldn't want his attention at all.
I didn't belong here.
I didn't belong in this family of murders and liars and thieves.
I thought of Esme and wondered if she knew that her second husband was just as abusive as her first.
And Jasper with his drawings of someone he must have been in love with.
And Mary-Alice who was completely innocent and swept up in the chaos and horror just like I was.
It all made me feel furious, and hopeless.
I wasn't innocent, though. I'd done all the wrong things. If I'd told Edward what Carlisle was planning before the wedding, maybe he wouldn't have gone along with it. Maybe he would have put a stop to everything and put me on the closest bus and told me goodbye. The thought made my heart ache in my chest and that also made me angry.
I was angry with Carlisle for making me feel stupid and inferior, angry at Edward for saying nothing in my defense, angry at Esme for giving me yet another secret to keep from my husband - who was't really my husband - and that made me angry also. Mostly, I was angry at myself.
My anger carried through to my dreams which were just as heartbreaking and bloody as they always were, but this time, as I hid in the little closet, I was gripping the handle of a knife.
The room was dark when I woke up panting, my hands grasping for the larger ones that were placed firmly on my shoulders.
"Are your nightmares getting worse?" he asked. I took a moment to think about his question. Were they? How would I know?
"No?" I said noncommittally. "Why?"
He seemed to fumble with words, "You… sometimes talk in your sleep." he said, "It seems like they're getting worse. There's a lot more yelling than usual."
"Oh no!" I clamped my hands over my forehead in horror. "What do I say?"
I thought of all the times I'd noticed him while I'd lived here: all the pieces of him that I'd tried to memorize and keep record of. If I'd said anything inappropriate, I was going to die.
"Usually nothing intelligible." he said quickly, "Mostly, you're trying to get someone to stop doing something."
"Oh." I said, grateful for once for the darkness. In the cool room, I could feel the heat from my face.
The mattress dipped as he lay down beside me, and I wondered if he could hear the hammering that my heartbeat made in my own ears.
"Tonight, though, you told me to 'put the knife down.'"
I froze. I couldn't see his face, but his voice sounded slightly off, slightly upset, which didn't make sense.
"It was just a dream," I said, but my voice tilted and I spoke far too quickly. I took a deep breath.
"Is it?" he asked.
He said nothing for a long time, and I wished the mattress would swallow me whole. I listened to him breath. I startled slightly when he spoke,
"I have some good news," he said solemnly. "Father O'Connell says it will be difficult, but not impossible, to have our marriage annulled."
My chest hurt again, a strange uneasy ache of hopelessness.
Twit.
"Oh," I said, far too late. I ran my hands down my face. "That is good," I lied, "Wait, when did you speak with him?"
We'd been together all week, with the exception of the short time I'd been with Esme, and then executing my poorly planned heist.
"Before the wedding," he replied.
"What?" I wondered why he'd waited so long to tell me that news. "Well, that explains why the sermon on the sanctity of marriage was so insufferably long."
The bed shook beside me as he laughed quietly, and I smiled stupidly into the darkness.
"I was hoping your good news would be about Mary-Alice," I said, "What did you mean by, 'She had another episode?' earlier?"
"It's hard to explain Mary-Alice." He stopped speaking and I listened to him breath, wondering if he'd fallen asleep.
"When we were children, she'd sometimes come up with these... predictions. I think she used to make them up. Sometimes, though, things she'd say would actually happen."
"She can see the future?"
"No, it's all self-fulfilling prophecies and lucky guesses. Her mind is unwell." he said quickly, "But when she gets like that, she's very excitable. Uncontrollable. Carlisle has her seeing a doctor and she's on medication on the bad days, but when he's away, Esme only gives her half of a dose. The sitting and staring is actually sometimes worse than the hysteria."
I could see that.
"I'm sorry I didn't try to stand up for you tonight. It was partially because I wasn't sure how Mary-Alice would react. Carlisle speaks as though she is not in the room when she's drugged up," he sighed, "I'm not so certain she's as oblivious as he thinks."
"Dreamers often lie," she'd said, "I told Edward when he needed to send you away."
"We should get some sleep." he said. I expected him to get up and leave, but instead he laid his head down on a pillow he'd brought in from his own bed. I didn't mind it.
I nodded, though he couldn't see me.
"What did Esme say to you this evening?" he said finally. "Tell me something true."
Leave it to Edward to ask all the wrong questions - or the right ones. I didn't want to answer. To repeat the whole horrible story felt like a betrayal. My silence seemed to say everything.
He sighed.
"Are you afraid of me now?"
"No," I said quickly. Another stretch of silence followed while I tried to decipher his tone of voice, his mood. I'd assumed, after our encounter with Carlisle, that he didn't care about me at all. Of course he didn't care. I was tired, confused.
Even still, my fingers itched to reach out and hold his hand, to comfort him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him and tell him how sorry I was that he also had a horrible childhood.
"Edward?" I said quietly.
"Yeah?"
I faltered. I was going to ask him if he would ever leave. I was going to ask him if he'd leave with me, not as anything romantic, because clearly that was far from he wanted. I thought about telling him everything I'd been keeping secret. The thought made my heart ache, an evil, festering wound. He wouldn't want to have anything to do with me once I told him. I breathed deep, ignoring the tears that welled up in my eyes.
"What is it?" he said softly. Once everything was said and done, I hoped I'd never forget his voice, and the soft, deep tone he spoke with in the dead of night.
"I'm not afraid of you," I whispered back.
I heard him inhale, and he didn't say anything for a long pause.
"You probably should be."