Chapter Nine

. . . Forgiveness . . .

.

.

.

Dear Mom,

You used to say that I was such a joy to you, and I wonder what I did to make you stop feeling that way. I know you didn't want me to leave you, but you left me first. Plus, you didn't seem unhappy that day. You said you'd be right back. How could you do that to yourself, when you know I could have found you like that? Because you know what? I DID!

I haven't cried over you since the funeral. My therapist, Ms. Evans, said I'm probably going through the final stages of grief. She also said it's okay to be really, really mad at you for what you did. And I am. She had me screaming myself hoarse about it the other day. My throat hurt and I couldn't swallow right for hours, so I won't be doing that again, but it's all your fault anyway.

Everyone looks at me funny now. People whisper behind my back. They don't know what to say to my face. They don't like to look at me. That's your fault, too.

I don't want to think about you anymore. Leave me alone. I hate you. I hate what you did to us. I hate it so much, I can barely stand it.

. . .

My therapist wanted me to write down any thoughts I might have about Mom every day. When I told Ms. Evans that I couldn't seem to forget the sight of my mom's gray face, her protruding tongue, or the way her head flopped to the side when she was finally cut down, that's when she told me to scream.

"Scream it all out," she said. "Don't leave anything back."

I'm not sure if it helped or not. Those horrible images still replay at odd times during my waking moments and always, always in my dreams. She told me they'll never, ever go away, but that I'll think of them less and less as time passes.

For days, I was just numb. Unbelieving of what I'd seen, what I'd heard, and how to cope with it all. Mom was fine one day, then dead the next. It just didn't seem possible. No one I knew had a mom or a dad who had died. Parents were supposed to be like teachers—always there for you in their precise role. Always. There.

But it's not true, because I'll never see Mom again. Never, ever, ever. Even if I did, I'm not sure if I could have kept myself from screaming at her, or hitting her.

What did people do when they lose their mom?

The first thing I did after it all sunk in, after I knew Mom was never coming back, was to destroy all the bracelets she made, all the origami hearts and flowers, and the collage I'd spent so many hours making. She'd wanted to be gone. Now I wanted her gone. It was scary, because I'd somehow lost myself in the destroying part. I remembered gathering the bracelets, hunting down the origami shapes that were in every nook and cranny in my room, and pulling out the 8-by-10 artwork. And that's it. Next thing I knew, Edward and Dad were there and I was shaking, and my hands were torn and bleeding.

I felt like I was falling slowly into the worst of everything. I didn't know if I'd ever smile again.

I slammed my head against one of the kitchen cabinet doors one day and saw stars. It made me forget everything but the painful moment I was in, and it was . . . different. That was the first time I think I discovered how one pain could help to lessen another.

. . .

I'm at the kitchen table doing shots of chocolate milk when Edward comes in. Dad might be pissed that I've drunk almost half a gallon already, but we don't have juice, water is tasteless, and I'm not allowed to have beer.

"You dang chocoholic," he says and scoots the glass and milk jug away from me.

"Give those back," I growl.

He walks over to the cabinet and pulls out matching juice glasses. Then he pours a drink for himself, and another one for me. When he comes back over, minus the milk jug, he holds up his glass in a toast to me.

I flick my gaze to the counter behind him, then just glare.

"This is the part where you raise your glass and touch mine," he says.

"What is there to cheer about?" I grouse, but raise mine anyway.

"Well, I won another fencing bout today, and now I'm number one."

Fine. Great.

I clink my glass against his and toss it down the hatch. Another shot and I'll probably puke, so I stand to go pour myself another shot.

Edward watches me do it, then takes the glass from me. "What's wrong?"

I can't stand the look in his eyes—I can't be bothered to feel anything right now. "Nothing, except you've got my glass. Give it back."

He levels his gaze at me and moves it even farther away. "Bella."

"Edward."

"Bella."

"Edward."

Guess we know who we are, then.

"You look green," he says.

"You look ugly."

Which is a lie. Edward never looks ugly, he got all the beauty genes. And he knows it, too, because he's been spending more time in front of the mirror lately.

"How much longer are you going to mope?"

"Well, how much longer are you planning to hold my glass hostage?"

"She's not worth you still feeling like this, you know."

I try to grab the glass. "Shut up!"

When I don't give up trying to grab my glass, he flicks his wrist and splashes me in the face with it. It's a cold, wet shock against my chest and face, and I can't see at first, but then I'm filled with rage. I scream and dive at him, trying to hit at any part of his body that I can. He easily dodges me, but he lets me come at him again and again until I'm out of breath and crying.

"What is going on in here?" Dad's angry voice.

"Bella's trying to learn how to fence," Edward says. "She sucks."

"I hate you!"

I don't realize what I've said until I see his face freeze and then fall.

I don't mean it, and an overwhelming, horrible feeling of remorse immediately fills me from the inside out.

Edward sets the empty glass down. "I'm done," he says and walks out of the room without looking at me even once.

"Don't tell me you're a sore loser," Dad says and his lips twitch as he fights a smile, and it's clear that he thinks me and Edward really were trying to fence.

I shake my head and run after Edward. I reach him at the top of the stairs, just outside his room.

"Edward—"

"No," he says, not letting me into his room. "Maybe later."

And he closes the door in my face, and I stand there feeling like I've just been shot into outer space with nowhere to stand.

I go out to swing. I hate you plays over and over in my mind, and I keep seeing Edward's hurt expression. It feels like my heart is breaking. How could I say that to him? And why, when I've never even felt that way before?

There's suddenly an awful taste in my mouth, and I realize that I'm bleeding, that I've bitten clean through the skin between my thumb and forefinger. The ache doesn't even scratch the surface of what I feel inside, but I'm ugly crying anyway.

I sound pathetic.

. . .

It's almost ten at night when Edward finally answers my text messages.

"Basement. Five minutes."

He won't let me come to his room?

Still, excited dread fills my stomach. At this point, I'd eat an entire jar of mustard if he told me to, or crawl across a bed of dung beetles, or whatever, to show him how sorry I am.

My footfalls coming down the stairs from my bedroom are quiet, but Dad hears the door to the basement creak. "Bedtime in five minutes," he calls after me.

When Edward finally comes down, his hands are shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and his shoulders are hunched. My heart sinks; he won't look at me. So I walk to him and put my arms around his waist, but he doesn't move his hands from where they are in his pockets. I don't care. I understand: I have to somehow make everything up to him.

"I didn't mean it," I tell him. "I'll never say it again, I promise."

He's quiet, and then, "You sound like Mom did."

I gasp and fall away. He's looking at me with hurt, dark eyes, and it's not okay yet.

"She never meant what she said, either."

I bite back the urge to cry, but can't help the tears that fill my eyes. "I'm not like her," I say fiercely.

He stares at something over my shoulder. "You're moody and pouting like she used to."

I shake my head. This is so hard. "It's only been a few months. I just . . . I still . . . miss her."

He shakes his head at me, too, and moves farther away, projecting a don't touch me vibe. "It's more than that. You seem different. It's like she took the best part of you with her."

I inhale loud enough that my chest rattles, and then fold my arms. "She did not."

"You're not you anymore," he says.

"How can you be?" I yell. "Our Mom is gone. Don't you miss her?"

He chuckles, only it sounds dark and empty, and runs a hand through his hair. "I miss who she used to be. Not who she was when she killed herself."

My whole body flinches, but he doesn't stop. "She did and said lots of things to be sorry about. You told me that."

I did, but—

"Well," he says coolly, "You saying that you hate me makes me think of her."

"But I don't—"

"I know you don't hate me. But you said it and it hurt. I can't just forget it."

More tears fill my eyes. I can't forget it either, but I don't know what to say to make it better. All I know is that I was so empty, and then he was there . . . But it doesn't matter, because I don't know how to make this right. Not now, not against that hard look on his face that makes me feel like he's been twice betrayed.

We look at each other for what seems like forever. My body is stiff all over, and it looks like his is, too.

"I won't be like Dad. I won't just forget and forgive you when you say this kind of stuff," he says and turns to leave, and we're still like strangers.

And I get it. I get what he's saying. I get it so much that it's like this exploding black cloud in my gut that comes and fills my lungs, and then pushes its way out to my toes and fingertips, and I'm drowning.

It's all my fault.

. . .

Jasper and I have Mr. Meyer again for art, but we're in different classes, which sucks. I miss him, plus I liked seeing what he was doing. But I'm sitting with Embry again, who turned out to be really cool. He still draws airplanes, although now he's added a cross-section where he shows the captain and co-pilot, and passengers sitting in their chairs. Tanya, thank God, isn't in class this year. Instead, I'm sitting next to Angela Webber and across from Ben Cheney. They're all so quiet, which is maybe a relief since we're sketching facial portraits of each other, and I kind of suck at it and need to concentrate.

I'm working on Embry first. He has a long face, a long nose, and a long chin. It's taking a long time to draw, I think and snicker. He's got an awful lot of eyelashes for a boy, and has eyebrows as thin as a girl's. He is thin-lipped and his mouth is small. It rarely smiles. Right now, it's all pressed together as he concentrates on me.

I wonder what I look like to him.

"Don't forget about the cross-hatch technique I showed you," Mr. Meyer says to me. "That'd be great to use for the shadow on his neck."

We're listening to Led Zeppelin today—their greatest hits, Mr. Meyer said. I swear he's as much about music as he is about putting pencil to paper. So while Led Zeppelin is singing about a stairway to heaven, I'm trying to get Embry's chin to look right. He's got a butt chin, but what I've got so far just doesn't look right. Thank God he's not smiling or showing his teeth, because the way I draw teeth always looks like I'm trying to prove the theory of evolution.

"Do you want to stay over tomorrow night?" Angela asks me. She's a little overweight, but dark-haired like I am, and wears these cool, purple cat's-eye shaped glasses on her nose. She was also one of the first people at school to say she was sorry about Mom. And she didn't even hardly know me then.

Tomorrow is Friday, so it's likely I'll get permission to stay at Angela's house. "Can Rose come, too?" I ask.

She does this weird-looking face shift to shove her glasses farther up her nose. "Sure. Well . . . I'm almost sure. I'll have to ask, but Mom will probably say yes."

The thing is, Rose doesn't want to go.

"She's too uptight for me," she says.

But I don't want to go by myself. "Pleeeease?"

"No. I'm going to the movies with Alice."

Crap. I'm disappointed, but I guess I understand. Things have changed; I'm not as outgoing as I once was, and maybe I don't mind a low key evening with Angela.

Still hurts, though.

. . .

Dad has to take me to Angela's because she lives too far away for me to bike it.

"So what's going on with you and your brother?"

Wha? He . . . KNOWS?

I shrug and inwardly groan. "Nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing."

"Well, what's it look like?"

He gives me a look. "Smart-alek. You don't think I see when you two give each other the silent treatment? That you're not hanging out together down in the basement like you usually do?"

Sighing, I give in, but I just skim. "He's mad at me. I hurt his feelings when I said that I hated him. Remember? You thought I was being a spoilsport."

He nods his head. "You were."

"But I shouldn't have said what I did."

Understatement of my life.

"Yeah," he agrees. He's quiet, thinking about it, and then, "I don't like seeing my kids at odds with each other. Especially because you two usually aren't, you know?"

I don't like it either. Especially because ever since Edward walked away, I haven't been able to breathe so well.

"He won't talk to me," I say in a small voice.

Dad gives me another look, but this one is gentle. Encouraging. "Then you make him listen. It's been a week now. Time to talk it over and make up, huh?"

"I'll try," I tell him. I'm beyond miserable not being able to talk to Edward. I hate that he's avoiding me. It reminds me of how I treated him last year after Mom got sick, only this time it's compounded by the fact that it's because he's avoiding me.

Because I was awful.

"Alright then," Dad says with a smile. "Have a good time. Call me tomorrow when you're ready to be picked up."

"I will. Thanks, Dad. Love you!"

. . .

I get home from Angela's late the next afternoon. She's really great, but her parents are ultra-conservative and religious. In bed by ten, and grace before dinner, which Angela said lightning-fast as an auctioneer, and rhymed:

By his hands we are all fed, thank you for our daily bread.

Same thing at breakfast, although because her father said grace that time, there were a few thys and and gifts and blessings added in. But wow, did her mom make an awesome breakfast—she didn't use butter, she used cream. And the peaches and strawberries had their own special glaze . . .

My mouth waters thinking about it.

Still, thank God Rose had said no to coming over. She would've went ballistic at the first dear heavenly Father.

Edward's behind his closed bedroom door. Still. When I knock, he comes to the door instead of saying come in like he used to.

His eyes are cool. "So you're home."

"Yes. Can I come in?"

He sighs, then swings the door wide, and my heart leaps.

"Question," I say just inside the door. I'm more than aware that he's not sure if he really wants me here. "What falls but doesn't break, and what breaks but doesn't fall?"

I follow him over to the chair at his desk. When he sits down, I sink to my knees beside him. "It's my heart," I tell him. "Are you ever going to forgive me?"

He scoots his chair back from me so I'm forced to let go of his arm, and a knife of pain shoots through my body. "I'm working on it."

Okay. Fine.

Not fine.

He's not ready to forgive me yet. I thought because he let me in, because he opened the door and talked to me, that he was.

Don't cry, don't cry.

I push myself back up, and the moment's all awkward and I'm embarrassed because I'm emotional and trying to hide it, but I know he knows anyway. As I walk back to the door, I notice through a film of tears how immaculate his room is. Nothing out of place, no clothes on the floor, everything arranged just-so.

Like Mom, because he's like her, too.

My hand's on the doorknob when he pulls me to him from behind. The tears I was holding back erupt like an ugly volcano, and these horrible sounds are bubbling up from my throat. The anguish and relief is overwhelming.

"It's okay," he says into my hair as his arms wrap around my shoulders and hold me tight. "I forgive you."

. . .

The answer to Bella's riddle for Edward is actually day and night, but she changed the answer to fit the situation.