Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the rights to the Twilight characters. The author of this particular story is not Stephenie Meyer. You do the math.
The next day went by quickly, Renesmee and I worked hard to finish packing everything up in her room. It was a lot easier to pack and move as a vampire. I really enjoyed never getting tired. I didn't miss sleep at all.
We were shipping the majority of our belongings tomorrow. My car, Edward's Aston Martin, and Emmett's Jeep were already on their way across country. The day after tomorrow we were getting in the rest of our cars and driving ourselves across country to Astoria, Oregon- the cloudiest city in the continental United States. Astoria was also only 180 miles from Forks, Washington. I loved Forks but it was still much too early for us to move back there without causing a scene. My father, Charlie, was getting older and I could tell that he missed me and Renesmee a lot. So we made the decision to make our next stop back near our former home. Astoria was a nice, small town very similar to Forks, and it was right on the water. Jacob was the most excited of all of us about the move. It had been hard for him to leave his home in La Push to travel to New Hampshire, but he wouldn't have been able to survive without Renesmee- Edward and I understood this more than we would have like to. Jake also missed his pack- although the entire dynamic had changed. There wasn't a need for so many wolves and they were gradually learning how to become human again. Leah was currently acting Alpha with Seth, Quil, Embry, Paul and Collin in the pack. Sam's pack had basically dissolved, with the two left joining Leah's pack. Sam wanted to grow old with Emily, as did Jared with Kim. Brady was the most recent to return to humanity just last year. I think some of the others were trying but it was proving to be more difficult than they realized. Poor kids, I thought to myself. We were hoping that we were moving far enough away that no more Quileute children would become werewolves.
"They're he-re" Emmett called out, mimicking the movie quote from Poltergeist. Renesmee and I rushed to look out the window in her bedroom. Sure enough I could just make out their shapes coming up the long drive. Renesmee pouted, her vision wasn't quite as good as mine.
"Let's go meet them." I said, to take her mind of it. Sometimes she got really down about only being 'half-vampire.' She grinned and took off. I ran off after her, keeping a slower pace so that I wouldn't run past her. My eyes immediately sought after my favorite face as we got closer. Once I found him, I forgot about staying with Renesmee, and ran as fast as I could to meet him. I tackled him and he fell to the ground laughing.
"Mmm Bella, how I've missed you." Edward said as he lifted me off the ground and cradled me in his arms. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Renesmee make a gagging face. I laughed. Edward set me back on my feet very gently and turned to Renesmee.
"What, no hug?" he asked her. She grinned and jumped up on him to hug him too. He caught her, keeping his balance, and set her back down on the other side of him. "My two girls." He said happily with his arms around the two of us. Renesmee wiggled to get free, and he let her go, using his now-free arm to envelope me in another bear hug. He leaned in and kissed me passionately, until Emmett said "Geez, go get a room." I looked up abruptly to give him a look, and remembered his comments from the day earlier. I relaxed my shield to let Edward see for himself the comments Emmett had made. Edward raised his eyebrows at me and grinned. I nodded and he immediately took off to tackle Emmett. The two of them ran off, playfully attacking each other. The rest of us headed into the house.
"Hello you," a beautiful velvet voice whispered in my ear. Edward had come back from his tussle with Emmett and was standing behind me, with his arms wrapped around my waist. I was in the kitchen with Esme, helping her to wrap up some of our more breakable items. "What's with the silence?" he whispered. I knew he would wonder. I had learned to manipulate my shield very easily and I usually kept it off so that he could hear the majority of my thoughts- especially after a trip- so that I could fill him in. I enjoyed it, there were no secrets between us, since he told me everything he was thinking as well. "Renesmee wants to talk to you and Jacob, and I already know what it is so I don't want to spoil it for her." I wasn't very good at keeping secrets without my shield.
"Oh." He said thoughtfully, I could see him trying to figure out what it was. He looked at me curiously.
"Please" he begged as he slowly and deliberately kissed the back of my neck, working his way down towards my shoulders. I shuddered involuntarily.
"No!" I hissed, trying to ignore the sensation building up in my body. "I promised her."
"MOM!! DAD!! JACOB!!" Renesmee yelled out from just the other room.
"Will she ever learn to use an inside voice?" Edward muttered to me.
"I think that was more for Jacob's benefit." I told him.
We walked into the living room where Renesmee was standing on top of a moving box. Edward smiled at her, bemused. Jacob came barreling through the front door.
"What's wrong?" He asked quickly.
"Nothing," she frowned at him, "I just wanted to talk to you about something…" she trailed off, looking nervous. She looked at me for support and I nodded to her.
"I don't want to be a teacher," she said after a pause.
"That's fine, you can do--" "that's not a big deal, we can find--"
She cut both of them off, "I need you both to be quiet and let me finish before you say anything else, ok?"
They both nodded, chagrined. I smiled at my daughter taking charge.
"I want to go to college. Pacific College, actually. Its just an hour and 45 minutes away from Astoria. I want to major in biology and then go to P.A. school. Physician's Assistant," she clarified for Jacob's benefit. Edward was as still as a statue. He could read her thoughts and knew that she meant going away to college, Jacob hadn't figured that out yet.
"That's a long commute, Renesmee, don't you think you'd rather just do an online college? It's dangerous to commute that much anyway, I mean, I guess I could drive you there and pick you up at night after work. But that would be a really long day." Jacob frowned. "But we'll make it work" he added hurriedly as he looked up and saw her face.
"No, Jake" she said a little more softly, "I want to live there, in an apartment or dorm, and actually have the college experience."
Jacob thought it through and he smiled after a short moment, "We could do that. We could get an apartment there, I could commute to Astoria since the business is already set up there. This could be good."
"NO!" Edward snarled. "Absolutely NOT!"
He whirled around to me, "You actually thought this was a good idea??" he said furiously. I blinked in confusion. Did Edward just yell at me? That stirred up some angry feelings in me.
"Yes, I did." I said slowly. "Are you implying that I am ignorant when it comes to parenting OUR daughter?" The hurt and anger was welling up inside of me. How dare he yell at me like that.
He paused, and his eyes flashed, like he was unsure of what to say. It had been a long time since I had seen him so angry. "No. No, no, no. I absolutely forbid it. It will not happen" he said, completely ignoring my outburst.
"Well, I think it's a good idea. And I fully support her decision." I said tartly.
"It doesn't matter, I said no. End of story." He said back, glaring at me,
"How is that the end of story? What gives you the right to make that--" he cut me off,
"because I am the head male of our particular family unit."
He turned to look at Renesmee and then to Jacob, "No," he growled one last time and stalked off.
I was floored, our relationship had always been a partnership. He had never acted like this, in fact, we had never fought like this. It was unnerving. I looked up at Renesmee, glad I could no longer cry, and she looked scared.
"Don't worry, he will calm down, you just caught him off guard. We will discuss this more rationally later." I said reassuringly, although I really wasn't that sure at all. "In the mean time, Jacob, you better stay away from him. And the two of you should go make yourselves useful in the last bit of cleaning and moving." The rest of the family had made themselves scarce for our family fight and I wanted them to return and see that it was alright, even though everything felt completely un-alright to me.