(Fifteen)

Snow has flooded the city with silence. It makes every moment with Bella louder.

We haven't left my apartment for two days. My phone died yesterday; I haven't bothered to charge it. Though it seems everything has come to a standstill outside of our bubble, I know my voicemail will be full—Emmett, Mike, and if I'm unlucky, Alice. But Bella is making french toast, her legs bare, dressed in my old vintage T-shirt, and the thought is forgotten.

Flashes of her bent over my couch, riding on top of me, under me, on her knees, skin red-raw from my floorboards, set my mind back on the only track it seems to run. I try to pull her back to me, but she swats me away with a laugh. "Time out."

It's not a concept I know.

Later we lie in twisted sheets, trapped in a snow globe. She rolls over, pulling the quilt over her nakedness, tucking it between her thighs. She fixes me with that stare of hers. The one that always preempts an observation I won't like.

"Why don't you sleep?"

"I do, just not for long."

Her fingers find the rings around my eyes, press as if her warmth will turn blues to pink. "What do you dream about?"

"Isn't that something you do when you're asleep?"

"Not always."

"Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine," I say, bouncing it back to her.

"Do you have nightmares?"

"Why do you ask that?"

She shrugs further under the covers, further away from whatever it is she's really getting at.

"What?" I ask.

"I read one of your stories ... pieces. I hope that was okay?"

I feel like the one with red-raw burns for a second. I'm so far from what I was I don't recognize myself anymore. But I can't distance myself when the words are in black-and-white, my name tagged to their edges.

"Which one?"

"The one about the last village. The boys and their guns. And what happened to them."

I try to separate the story I told and the memories I have. One is manageable. The other doesn't belong anywhere near Bella in this bed. It doesn't belong anywhere but in hell.

"That one," is what I say.

She nods, only her eyes above the covers now. Her hands reaching for me. I try not to move away.

I think the snow is settling over me. It's cold. I need warmth. Her body helps but only one thing has enough heat to burn memories like that away. I remember now why I drank. What it could do. Why it wasn't always the worst thing. I swallow back the desire.

"Those things must have affected you."

"I wouldn't be human if they didn't."

She's looking at me now like she understands me. Like she's adding my time in a war zone with my time in AA and getting the result she wanted. It's only part of the equation.

I fight the urge to escape and instead bury myself against her skin. "Now tell me about one of yours."

She takes so long I think she's fallen asleep when she finally speaks. "I have a recurring dream. About my dad."

"A bad dream?"

"Yes and no." Her cold toes bury themselves under my legs as she curls herself closer to me. "It's ... he's there which makes it a happy dream until I wake up. Then it's a nightmare."

"What changes?"

She skips to the next question. "He was in a car accident. Ice, worn tires, and hundred-year-old oaks don't mix."

"I'm sorry," I say, knowing how useless those two words are.

"I dream that he's at my graduation. I'm so nervous about going up on stage, but then I see him in the crowd, and he does this thing he always did, like a wink and a salute, and then I'm okay. I go up, and it's fine because he's there. Ironic, really."

"Because he died before then?"

"Because I never graduated."

She looks right at me then, trying to spot something in my reaction before she continues. It's the closest I've been to understanding out what this girl in my bed is made from, so I find where her hand rests on my chest and cover it with my own. It's all she needs.

"I failed my senior year, but I guess that makes it sound like I tried." She rolls over onto her back, faces the ceiling. It's an easier audience. "I didn't try. I didn't even turn up."

"At all?"

"Not at the end. Before that, I was popular and part of the track team. I had good grades and went to every party."

Exactly the kind of girl I would've made her mine if she were at my high school. I would have fucked it up, and then this would be a very different story. "What happened?"

"Nothing, really. There wasn't a reason. Or maybe there was, but it's nothing you can pity me for."

"Why would I pity you?"

"If I had a reason to fuck it all up, like trouble at home or school, you might try and understand or tell me it was the best I could do. But I wasn't unhappy. My home life was good. My Dad worked then spent all his free time with me or at the bowling alley. He had a few girlfriends but none ever stuck around. I think he was happy, but I didn't look close enough to know any better. I was too wrapped up in myself, and then I started to get bored. I wanted more than to be popular and to get good grades. Then Sam moved to town. He had his own rules, and I wanted to live by them. By the time he graduated, school held nothing for me. No matter what my dad and my teachers begged, yelled, and pleaded. I didn't hear them. I couldn't see that if I wanted more for myself, all I had to do was listen."

"You were young," I say, even though part of me wishes I could have been there to snap her out of it. The other part is jealous of her bond with that fuck. What could he have to offer that would make her throw her life away? How could his draw have been so strong? But I can't talk. I threw mine away for less.

"I was stupid. I got suspended regularly, and my grades were awful. I didn't care, because I was going to move to San Fransisco with Sam and work in his bar. It was our big dream. But then my dad … well, by that time, I'd burnt my bridges with everyone who cared." She looks back over to me as if she's checking I'm here. I don't move. This is the most I've heard her talk, and the journalist in me is biding his time, gathering whatever he can before she realizes I'm the last person she should confide in. Happy my eyes are on her, she continues. "When my dad died, there were a lot of debts. Ones we knew about. Ones we didn't. I had no way to cover them."

"Your mom?"

"I don't have one. Or I only have half an idea who she is. Dad swore he found me on the doorstep in a fruit box." A small smile to the whitewash wall. "From rumors and gossip I've picked up over the years, she was a singer he met at the local roadhouse. Renee something ... I don't care." She stiffens against the lie. "He fell madly in love with her, only she used to open her legs for half the town until she skipped it and left Dad with a newborn." I don't know if she realizes, but her cheeks show how really feels about this. "I used to ask Dad if I was really his." She blinks too fast for her smile to hold. "He said no one else could be to blame for my stubbornness. I have his eyes, too."

"Have you tried to get in touch with her?"

"I don't want to."

I don't want to argue that calling her mom could slow the waves of loneliness radiating off her. It could also kill her. So I change the subject, flipping over on top of her. She opens to me like I'm the sun. "You could always go back to school."

She shifts under me, eyes closing under my weight. "No, I can't."

"You can." I lower myself until I feel her heart thudding everywhere our skin meets. "You can do anything you want."

He eyes flash open. "So can you."

She's too close, so I push her back into the space I can handle. My fingers sliding under the sheets, between her legs, into her. She moves against my hand, feet sliding as they try to steady the tremors. "Why do you make me feel like this?" She whimpers and twists underneath me.

It's easy, I want to say. You're meant for me. But I can't fucking cope with that thought yet. I kiss her, and it's deeper and desperate. More than I meant it to be. My walls are falling down around me.

It could be any hour of the day when I wake up. The white coat the city wears doesn't tell the time. Days and nights have merged into me and her. I'm watching clumps of snow lose their grips and slide down the bedroom window when there's a knock at the front door. Bella stirs beside me. Says my name. The unwelcome visitor knocks again.

"Shouldn't you get that?" She's sleep soft and pink, eyes creased and her hair the clue to what we've been doing. I'm so exhausted, but the pull to her grows. I lean over and press my lips to her shoulder. She smells like sex and sugar.

The knocking ramps up, and I groan into her skin. She jerks away laughing. "That tickles." She pulls the covers around her, reaching down to the floor to look for her clothes. I ignore the door.

"Come back to bed." My request is interrupted by Emmett's shout.

"Edward. I know you're in there! Can you answer the door? We need to talk." There's no humor in his request. I can't deal with him like this. "E, I mean it. Please."

'You should speak to him. He sounds pissed." She's already pulling away from me. I reach out and wrap my arm around her waist, yanking her back until she's pressed against me again. Naked and how I want her. Emmett hears her squeal.

"Fuck you, man. Fuck you." His fist thumps the door, and then it's silence apart from the gasp Bella makes when I take her from behind.

I don't care how he must have crossed the city to get here.

Or how he must be worried about me.

I don't think about calling him.

Or at least sending a text.

I don't care.

I don't fucking think.

And that's a fatal flaw.

AN: thank you for reading. I love hearing your thoughts/rants/love. You're the bee's knees.

Kim, Choc and Cat rock my socks and run-on sentences.

See you soon.

Sparrow x