~o~O~o~

Ch 2 – Polaroid

Graduation came and went, and the next thing I knew it was a few weeks later—my birthday. I hadn't seen much of Tanya since school ended, she had been busy volunteering at a summer camp for her church. Job hunting was almost a waste of time in Forks. There were no jobs to be had, unless someone went away to college or died. I only needed to endure two more months and then I'd be gone. As I sat staring out my bedroom window each night—watching Bella's house, her bedroom window, what time Riley brought her home—I knew I could do it. I could last another couple of months.

"Edward?" my mother said as we sat around the table with the cake she'd baked me. "Your father and I have a gift for you. It's not really conventional, and we're a little nervous, but we trust you."

Her words and the look on her face had me worried, but then my cousin Emmett came barreling in through the garage door, a box in his hand.

"Happy birthday, Cuz!" he said, tossing the box onto the table in front of me before dropping into the seat next to mine. "Open it!"

His excitement was almost contagious, and I tore into the wrapping paper, opening the long, slim box and finding an envelope. Inside of it were several maps, hotel and restaurant gift cards, and cash.

"What is this?" I asked, looking up at my parents.

"Well, remember how you used to always talk about going away for the summers while you were in college? How you wanted to see places, tour the country?" my mom asked.

Instantly my thoughts ran to Bella. That had been our plan, our idea. We were going to do it together, get out of Forks and enjoy our lives while seeing places we'd grown up dreaming about.

"Yeah," I said hesitantly.

My father smiled. "Now you can go. You have the rest of the summer and everything you need in that envelope. You can just go and not worry about anything until August when you start school. And Emmett's going to go with you."

I turned to face him, his smile beaming back at me. "I got you something, too," he said, holding up a plastic bag from the town's grocery store.

"Nice wrapping job, Em," I teased.

"Yeah, whatever. Here, open it. Just keep in mind, I'm broke, so...you know."

I opened the bag and found what looked like a 20 year old Polaroid camera and a couple boxes of film.

"Emmett, you know I have a digital camera, right?" I asked, also thinking about the camera in my phone.

"Yeah, but dude, this will be awesome! We can take pictures and have them right then! And we can send pictures to people while we're gone. Like, Rose wants a picture of me at the Grand Canyon, and now we can totally do it!"

I laughed at his exuberance, and shook my head at his lack of skills when it came to technology.

"Emmett, I can take my lap top and we can email pictures back every night if you want. Or I can do it from my phone."

Em shook his head. "No, no way. This is our trip away, and all we're taking are my old cell phone, this camera, stamps, and envelopes. Not computers or digital anything. We're old schoolin' it, baby!"

I didn't think he could possibly be serious, but as we loaded up my car a few days later, I saw Emmett holding every electronic gadget I'd just packed into the trunk. "Put it in the house, or I put it in the trash can. Your choice." His expression left no room for negotiation, and with a defeated heart I returned each of my precious items back to my bedroom. How I would survive nearly two months with no computer, no cell phone, and no internet access, I had no idea.

We pulled out of my driveway early the next morning, and I was surprised to see Bella standing in her doorway, watching us. I hadn't said one word to her since Prom night, but my heart clenched as she lifted her hand and offered me a small wave, then reached back to brush tears away from her eyes.

I turned my head and stared at the road, not even giving her one backward glance as we left. I had two months away from my life, and I didn't intend to spend it thinking about Bella Swan.

Driving with Emmett took some getting used to. From his insistence that we listen to a different type of music every two hours, to his need to continuously play travel games. There were several times throughout the first couple of days, I almost turned around and went home. Then I remembered what awaited me there...nothing. That kept me focused on the open road ahead of us, and soon I found myself relaxing and letting my guard down. This trip was something I would most likely remember for the rest of my life, and I intended to make the most of it.

We drove along the California Coast Highway for several hours, finally stopping just outside of Los Angeles. While Emmett flirted with bikini clad sunbathers, I took the opportunity to wet my feet in the cool ocean water. I watched the surfers as they paddled out and then rode back in on the waves. The beach was full of different kinds of people, and I wondered what it would be like to live close enough that you could just go to the beach anytime you wanted. Of course we had beaches in Washington, but the ones I frequented were cold and rocky. I loved the warm sand of Southern California.

"Isabella!" I heard a woman yelling from somewhere behind me. Suddenly a dark headed little girl in a bright blue bathing suit ran past me, her laughter filling the air. I turned and saw her frantic mother several yards down the beach, trying to catch her daughter. The girl couldn't have been more than three or four years old, and when I looked back in the direction she was headed, I could see where she was going. The water.

"Isabella, come back! Don't get in the water!" The woman's voice was so panicked that I couldn't keep myself from helping out, and I dropped my shoes in the sand, sprinting toward the little girl. Just as she was about waist deep in the water, a wave came and pulled her legs out from under her, causing her to plunge into the icy blueness. She screamed a bit before being silenced by the water.

I reached in where I'd last seen her and scooped her up in my arms, lifting the sputtering girl from the waves and holding her to my chest as she began to cough and cry. Her mother reached the water's edge just as I stepped out of the waves. "Thank you, oh thank you so much!" she cried, her hands rubbing over her daughter before lifting her from my arms and into her own. "She was so excited to come here, but she can't swim. She just got away from me. If you hadn't been there..."

The woman began to cry, sniffling as she tightly hugged her little girl.

"It was no problem, I'm just glad I could help."

Emmett came running toward us, a worried look on his face. "Everything okay?" he asked.

I nodded, looking at the small girl that was clinging to her mother. She turned her head to look at me and my breath caught in my throat. She had the biggest, darkest brown eyes I'd ever seen. Only once before had I seen eyes nearly that dark, and they belonged to the one person I was trying hardest not to think about.

"Bella, can you say thank you to this nice man?" her mother said. The little girl batted her eyelashes at me, and instantly I was overwhelmed by images of my Bella when we were young, how she would sit next to me on my porch and look up at me, her eyelashes blinking as she watched me.

"Thank you," she whispered.

A smile crossed my face. "You're welcome." Her cheeks pinked up a bit, and I knew she'd be all right. Hopefully her close call had scared her enough that she wouldn't run away from her mother again.

"You ready to go?" Emmett asked.

"Sure."

I watched Isabella and her mother walk back down the beach, toward a man and two older boys that were obviously waiting for them. The little girl's dark eyes peeked over her mother's shoulder and her hand popped up, waving at me as she smiled. Then she turned her face into her mother's neck and I was forgotten.

But I didn't forget. I had come on this trip to get away from my problems, and the first stop smacked me across the head with reminders of the main thing I was trying to leave behind.

"Emmett, you got that camera?" I asked.

He smiled. "I knew you'd come around! Yeah, I'll grab it for you."

He ran back to the parking lot, getting the Polaroid camera, and I took a picture of the pier and the water, determined to remember the first place we'd stopped. The first experience we'd had on our trip.

The first place Bella had always wanted to visit.

After a long night relaxing in our hotel room, Emmett and I headed out for the next stop on our trip. We had always heard about the Grand Canyon and how huge it was. As a child, Bella and I would dig in the dirt, musing over how long it must have taken for the Canyon to be created, and where all the dirt that had once been there ended up.

When we pulled into the parking lot at the South Rim of the canyon, the air outside was fresh and warm—nothing like the air in Washington. Emmett and I spent the day hiking along some of the trails. I laughed at his eagerness to run down them, then whined at my stupidity in following him. It took a lot longer to hike back up the steep pathways than it had to jog down them.

We set up a tent in a campground there, enjoying the scenery around us and playing Uno well into the night. Without our phones or computers, we were often at a loss for things to do to pass the time. Luckily, the gift shop at the main lodge sold several different card games, and I had stocked up.

Before we left the next morning, I grabbed the Polaroid, taking a picture of the different rock colors that made up the canyon walls. In the back of my mind, I knew that Bella would have loved to see it, and for just a split second, I wished she was there with me.

The next several weeks seemed to repeat themselves. Every few days Emmett and I would pull into some new place, spend time enjoying the scenery and getting to know the area, then I would take a picture and think of how much Bella would have loved it. No matter how hard I tried to keep her out of my head, she just kept creeping back in.

Toward the end of July when we called home to let our parents know when we'd be back, my mother gave me some unexpected news.

"I heard Bella started working at the coffee shop in town," she said, her voice a little guarded, like she didn't know if she should be talking to be about my old friend or not.

"Oh yeah? You mean the diner? Why? I mean, school starts in a few weeks. Why would she get a job when she's leaving soon?"

Bella had a scholarship to the University of Oregon and was going to attend their School of Journalism and Communication. She had always dreamed of being a reporter and writing stories that people could identify with and understand easier than many of the stories that were always printed in newspapers or presented in television news programs.

Why she would suddenly take a job in Forks was beyond me. She was getting out, living the dream she'd always had. Granted, when we were younger, I'd hoped we would go away together. We had waffled back and forth between the University of Oregon and the University of Washington. As it turned out, she would be attending one while I attended the other. That's just the way fate worked, apparently.

"Well," my mother said, "she put her scholarship on hold for a year. She's staying here. I heard she's moving in with that boyfriend of hers. Her father's not too thrilled about it. Or at least he didn't sound like he was when I talked to him the other night."

I let out a sigh. So Riley was behind her giving up her dreams. I should have been more surprised, but I wasn't. I was sad about Bella's choice, and thought a lot about her over our last few days on the road. Soon enough we were pulling into Forks and anxious for a few days home before we were packing up and moving on to college.

Bella was no where to be seen, though I drove by the diner several times, parking along the street and just watching her through the windows. She looked sad, lonely, broken. She wore hardly any makeup, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her lips never curved up in a smile of any kind. Seeing her now, I never would have thought she was the happy go lucky girl I'd loved all my life. It was as if she were two different people, and I wondered as I sat in my car, which one had been the real her?

Each time I was there, it was as if she knew someone was watching her. She always paused, turning and looking straight out the window in the direction I was parked. I doubted she could see me, but she watched for several seconds, before finally dropping her eyes to the ground, rubbing her hand across her face, and then turning away and walking through the kitchen door.

I didn't see her again. I left for college and never looked back. Emmett was going to school with me, as well as Rosalie his girlfriend. Emmett and I were both in the dorms, though in different buildings. I didn't see him a lot, but if ever I needed anything, I knew he was there. I made friends, got involved in my classes, and really started to take charge of who I was as a person. I got to know myself, what I was good at, and what I wanted out of life. It was an amazing experience, and I loved every minute of it.

I went to several parties throughout the year, had a few dates here and there, kissed a couple of girls. Nothing more than that ever felt right, and still, each time I was alone with a girl, no matter how amazing she was, my mind always wandered back to Bella...the first girl I'd ever really loved. The one I still loved, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself.

When summer rolled around again, Emmett and I returned to Forks. Rose was spending the summer in Europe with her family, and Emmett asked if I was interested in doing another road trip. After sitting home for two weeks, bored out of my skull, I agreed.

I tried to find out about Bella without really asking anything. Alice knew a few things, mainly gossip that had floated around the high school. Bella was living with Riley in a little apartment on the outskirts of town. She was still working at the diner full time, and also helping out at the town library. Riley did some construction work and was taking classes at the community college in Port Angeles.

It angered me that Bella had given up so much for him. In my eyes, she'd abandoned every dream she had, and I was actually glad that I had no contact with her.

One night, a few nights before I left for my next adventure with Emmett, Tanya called and asked if I wanted to go out, catch up a little bit. I hadn't seen her since Christmas, when I had literally bumped into her at the town Christmas Tree Lighting, so I agreed, anxious to see how she was.

I wasn't too surprised when she pulled into the diner. There weren't that many places in town to go, and since she had just gotten her driver's license, she wanted to drive.

We walked in and took an empty booth along the side of the building. It wasn't long before a waitress stood next to our table dropping our menu's in front of us.

"Hi, I'm Bella and I'll be your wait-"

I looked up, my eyes catching hers, and she stopped.

"Edward."

I swallowed, grunting as I cleared my throat.

"Bella. Hey, how are you?"

I could be civil to her, right? I mean, we'd spent more time in our lives as friends than we had as enemies. I could do that, I could be nice to her.

Her eyes bounced back and forth between Tanya and I, finally settling on me. "I'm okay. How are you? How's school?" Her voice was soft, timid. Not the strong and confident tone she always had in public before.

"It's good. How about you? How's your school going?" I asked, knowing perfectly well that she wasn't going to school.

"Oh, um...I didn't go last year. I put my scholarship on hold, so I'm hoping to go this year. I've been working, saving money and all. But yeah, this August I'm outta here," she said with a little laugh.

"That's great," I said, though I was sure my face didn't show the same expression that my words conveyed.

"So, what will you two have?" she asked, leading Tanya and I to place our orders and her to disappear behind the counter.

The rest of our meal was quiet. Tanya and I talked a lot, each of us telling about the experiences we'd had over the past year. It was good to talk to her again, to enjoy her company. She had been my best friend during my last year of high school, and it was nice to settle into that connection again.

Soon enough we were done and ready to go. Bella was busy with other customers, and I offered her a small wave as I walked out the door. She just watched me, finally waving in return before I turned around and left.

~o~O~o~