Devotion 6
For the next two weeks, Bella crossed Edward's line of vision. He tried not to pay attention, but he also didn't distract himself with the things that needed doing to set up a life. He wasn't interested in that—the set-up. The life.
He didn't have television and barely listened to the news. He had a phone. A new one he had gotten talked into on the upgrade, mostly because the kid working there was so eager to sell so Edward let him lead, and he just nodded yes. And now he had music. That and the weather report. He listened to music when he could bear it and turned it off when he couldn't. The windows were all he needed. He looked out of them most of the day it seemed, until even that was too much brown and gray stone, people coming and going, and Bella.
For the first couple of days after his…rejection of her offer, she hurried past, middle finger in the air, never looking his way, but of course, it was for him. Now she ignored him completely.
Every day it was the same. Shanni played in the courtyard, and Alice yelled down. "Lunch." "Supper."
Edward would remember to eat then. He would go to the kitchen, get the bread and the peanut butter. His hair grew long and shaggy. He didn't have a shower, but he took baths sometimes. He washed his clothes in his bathwater, sometimes they would soak for days.
He called his brother. It was a new number. "I'm fine," he would say. "Tell everyone I'm fine."
His brother had a strong personality. They shared a mother.
"You need to call Mom, bro," Emmett said the last time Edward had called.
"I will," Edward said. Just like always. But he didn't call. "Don't give her this number," he reminded Emmett yet again.
"Edward, come on. You're not getting better."
"I don't need to get better," Edward said. "This is who I am."
"It's fucked, dude. You're living in a tenement."
"I told you that," he said, possessive of the scant facts he chose to dole out. "It doesn't matter."
"You want to stop off and beat yourself up for a while, fine. But man, you can't make a life there," Emmett said, exasperated like always.
So it went like that. Never better. Often worse. Edward didn't know why he called. If he let Emmett go, that was the last station connected to the mothership.
It was like that on a hot Tuesday afternoon. Edward sat at the cheap table in his kitchen, the stuff his mother had sent still piled on the small space of Formica beside the chipped sink. He was thinking about Emmett and his ambition. His brother had always been so driven to prove he had what it took. Edward knew they came from the same womb, but whatever McCarty had put into Emmett, Edward's father had deposited a whole other set of rules in the son he'd never met. And all of them were cloaked in shame.
Someone had the ballgame on in the courtyard. A home run and the crowd roared.
Edward got up and walked to the window. Shanni and another little girl were playing with the hose. Alice had just yelled down they should shut off the water. Two boys came along. Twelve or so. That age. They grabbed the hose from Shanni and let her have a blast of water in the face. She yelled and started to swing. Her friend tried to yank the hose away from the boy and got knocked on her backside. She got up and ran into the building. But Shanni hung on, to the hose, and Alice screamed from the window. "Get away from those girls you little fuckers!"
Edward's windows were open. He wrapped on the glass with his knuckle and got the hose turned on his screen for his trouble. He put on his shirt and went into the hall. By the time he got outside the boys were gone. Shanni had turned off the water, and she was pulling her shirt away from body. "I hate those boys," she said to Edward. "Boys are so dumb."
Edward wasn't going to argue.
"Shanni get up here!" Alice yelled. "Get up here!"
For heaven's sake, what did Alice think he was going to do? He was just seeing if the child was all right. That's all.
"Now!" Alice yelled, sounding more frantic than usual.
"Hi Uncle Jasper," Shanni said, looking past Edward.
Edward turned enough to see the guy who had sneaked up on them. Jasper looked like any other sad story off the streets. He was tatted up. Some prison ink. Long blond ponytail. Leather vest Edward could smell from four feet away.
Alice's voice was booming now. She was yelling out doomsday to "Uncle Jasper."
Jasper ignored Edward and looked up at Alice. "Just came to say hello, Allie."
"I got that OP," Alice yelled, along with expletives and various warnings of what she'd do if Uncle didn't get the heck out of Dodge.
Shanni kept watching Jasper, her face in deep study. She'd ignored her aunt's directives for running upstairs. Apparently, the kid didn't fear her like Alice thought she should.
"How's your aunt doing, kid?" Uncle said.
"She's just going up," Edward said. He didn't think about it. He'd just inserted himself in the situation like the old him would do. If he had a kid, yeah this guy would not get access.
"Who the fuck are you?" Uncle asked.
By this time Alice was screaming out so many threats, it was hard to hear.
"Nobody, man," Edward said. "Just want some peace and quiet, and Alice wants the girl to go up."
Jasper looked at Shanni again. He pursed his lips and nodded. "You tell Aunt Alice I'll be around. You do that for me, kid?"
"I don't know," Shanni said, her voice more thin than usual.
"Okay!" Jasper yelled up to the crazy woman in 3B. "Calm down! You're gonna hurt yourself!" Uncle said.
He dodged the box of salt that landed near his feet, and close enough to Edward and Shanni that Edward took her by the hand and quickly walked her into the building.
"Who the fuck are you?" Jasper called after him like he had no right to be walking the girl. But Edward didn't stop, and Shanni raced to keep up. He knew he should slow, but geez Louise, Alice had no call to endanger Shanni by dropping missiles from a third story window.