Author Note: After some response from you guys, I felt prompted to write more so thank you! Hope you enjoy and please continue to give me your feedback and let me know what you think! It really does help me write!
That night, after Edward and I obligingly have sex and he has fallen asleep.
I lay awake and wonder.
I wonder what life would have been like if I never met Edward.
There was a time when I couldn't imagine living in a world without him, now I dream of a life where I wasn't so naïve as to think that I could change Edward. He is who he is just as I am, but I cannot help but think that the toxicity of the two of us together pushed him to his extremes as I am pushed to mine.
I have done things that I cannot dream of being forgiven for. My children hardly see their own grandfather because though Edward has said a million times that he has left the things that happened in the past, this is not true. When he see's his father he is not only reminded of the betrayal, of his own father having sex with the woman he loves. He is also reminded of the brother he no longer has. Emmett is a subject that is so very fragile, his name is never spoken aloud.
We have one picture of him on display in our home and that is the group picture of all of us in our club days. Emmett stands tall in the back row, pulling me and Rosalie close to his chest with a broad smile on his face. I can barely think of a time where Emmett was not smiling or laughing. He was good natured in that way. Things bounced off him and his happiness was infectious. I cry silently remembering his big arms pulling me into a breath taking hug, a hug that made me feel so secure and protected that I never wanted to let him go.
Lilly reminds me of her uncle Emmett at times. She smiles like him, she jokes like him, and most of all, she love like him, with her whole heart and soul with no exceptions. Her darker moods I have to take the blame for, I was always prone to bouts of melancholia and Edward has his moods as well.
I wish Emmett could have been here now. He would no doubt have spoiled his niece and nephew rotten, but he would have given them love, something you can never have too much of.
I take my children's lack of family as a fault on me. I have no family to speak of and Edward only has his father. Our real family had been the Bad Seed group. Rosalie distanced herself after Emmett's death, occasionally making appearances at important events but never lingering for long. I suppose she couldn't bear the thought of us without Emmett. She stopped making appearances after Larkin was born. I sent her pictures every year, but never heard a word back from her. I understand though. I would have disappeared if I could have too.
Jacob, Irina, Tanya went there own ways and no one cared, they were never essential to the group. Alice I forgave all her wrongs but never fully trusted her. When Lilly was born, Edward insisted that we let her be Godmother to both the children. Things were hard for her and Edward, even though he hadn't really forgiven Alice thought that being Godmother to the children would help her to be a better person, would give her things to love that she needed so desperately. When Larkin was eight and Lilly was seven, Alice got married. To our shock she married James from our group. Now James had been Emmett's roommate for several years so even though I had trouble feeling at ease with him, I trusted that Emmett had trusted him.
James and Alice seemed to be happy together and the children went on monthly visits with them from then on, coming home with new toys and clothes, their Godmother spoiling them. But I still kept my distance from Alice and James for the most part, not really longing to bring up old wounds or risk Alice bringing up something she shouldn't in front of the kids.
And Jasper. Edward and him had naturally grown apart. After the accident that killed Emmett, it took a while for us to get back on good terms, but we did eventually and I was once again weak when it came to resisting the attention he lavished on me. Edward and I were due to be married soon and I couldn't help the burning feeling in my stomach that I shouldn't be marrying him, so when Jasper gave me console I let it lead to something more and unknowingly became pregnant with my first child. The child that Edward never knew was not his. The child was a daughter that died at seven months in the womb, and I mourn her still. That nameless baby girl that I will never get to know, but believe in my heart that she is with Emmett in Heaven.
Jasper mourns from a distance, traveling for a time. Edward battles with depression over the lost child and scarcely touches me, let alone share my bed so when Jasper appears after a years time, I practically fall into his arms and revel in the feeling of being wanted again. That will always be Jasper's ace in the hole, his reliance that I will always be starved for attention.
Edward I am sure does the math when I am pregnant with Larkin. He must know that the child is not his this time. He must feel and know in his heart who is the father. And when Larkin is born so fair, so beautiful, that there is no possible way to deny who fathered this child, Edward keeps his silence. He loves the child and I believe for a time that he loves Larkin because though he is not the father, I am the mother. I believe he loves my son because he loves me. I am foolish to think this. He loves my son to spite Jasper. He raises the boy and dotes on him at first, only to show Jasper that he will never be this child's father. Later it is because he really does love the boy, how could he not when the baby smiles up at him for the first time? How could he not when he stays up all night with a sick Larkin, so I could sleep, tired with the pregnancy of our second child? Edward may not do things for the right reasons, but his heart is usually in the right place. And though I sometimes doubt his love for me, I never doubt his love for Larkin and Lilly. He would do anything for them, its evident in just one look.
I give Edward immense credit for never treating Larkin or Lilly any different from one another. He could easily hold a bias for the child that is his by blood and the child of his best friend with his wife, but he never does, and I know that takes a certain kind of man.
Jasper never argues or fights with me about Larkin. He knows he cannot possibly win, and he knows he is not around enough to make any difference. He travels on his yacht year round. I get postcards still, from every port he stops at. He never lets me forget him, although I never reply.
His phone calls are rare and shocking, his voice always bringing back a feeling of nostalgia that I cant deny I miss. He brings me back to that girl I used to be. That girl that didn't know what she wanted, and let steady blue eyes lead her away from tumultuous green eyes and was for a time content and safe.
I once wondered if contentment was not the same as happiness and I thought I knew then that it was not the same thing. Now as I think about it, I wonder if contentment could have led to happiness instead of the happiness I had leading to me to a life of barely hanging on.
