Merry Christmas Eve, to those who celebrate!
Chapter Eight
Edward tried to never ask for help from anyone, because, in his life, when you needed help, people either screwed you over or made your problems worse. When he had needed protection, he'd been pulled into a world where he spent half his life dodging bullets. And the foster care system, which was supposed to provide help of the most basic kind for kids, placed those kids in houses that… sometimes didn't exactly work out. So he was a little nervous about having Bella tutor him.
Carlisle got Edward excused from practice that day so he could take him down to the nearest police precinct to file a report about James, then dropped Edward off back at the house before he went back to work. Emmett was still at school for football and Rosalie, and Esme's last class on Fridays didn't break until five, so Edward was alone in the house until practice broke. He went out to the backyard and crouched by the pool, dangling his fingers in the water. He'd never been in this pool. He didn't want to admit that he didn't have a suit, because then Emmett would give Edward one of his, and then Edward owe him. More than he already did.
The sandstone was hot from the sunlight it'd absorbed, but Edward shifted anyway so he was sitting on the ground and looked up into the sky. In this part of town, so far away from the center of the city, there wasn't really any smog, and the sky actually looked blue. A couple of fat white clouds drifted across it. Edward remembered learning in eighth grade – in an overcrowded classroom surrounded by other AG – that when clouds were moving, it meant that there was a wind higher up in the atmosphere that people couldn't feel down on earth. It had seemed like a cheap trick to him at the time. The guy next to him, whose name he couldn't remember now, had whispered why the smog stayed so low over the city, then. Edward thought back to Tucson – his last foster mom's apartment had been in a complex right next to the twelve-lane freeway, and the smell of smog was always there.
How had he gotten from there to here? And how did he feel so comfortable here, in a place so far from what had been his real life for seventeen years?
Maybe it still was his real life, he thought wryly, remembering what had happened at the precinct. With his past experience with police stations, it really wasn't surprising that the same fight-or-flight instinct kicked in. Edward had swallowed it, though, and reminded himself that he hadn't done anything wrong. But it didn't help that everyone – from the lady at the front desk to the guy who took Edward's statement – had looked at him like he was nothing. Just a punk, part of the brown trash they had to clean up from their streets.
Carlisle had stayed next to Edward the whole time, which was something Edward had never had before – someone on his side when he was around cops.
Which got Edward back to Bella. The whole time they'd been at the station yesterday, half Edward's mind was wondering if any of these cops had been her dad's partner, had been with him when he was gunned down. A chill crept over Edward as he realized something: he could've known the guy who killed Charlie Swan.
He shook his head. Doubtful. The only gang he'd ever run with had been in Tucson, and Phoenix wasn't their territory. Still, though. He'd probably been killed by someone like Edward – or at least how Edward used to be.
How much status was a cop-killing worth to the AG?
Edward jumped as the glass door behind him slid open. He turned around as Rosalie seated herself beside him, taking off one sandal and dangling her leg in the water. "Hi."
"Hey." Edward didn't know how much Emmett had told her about last night. He looked back at the water, waiting for her to talk, and mostly kind of wishing that she'd go away.
"So what's up?"
He glanced at her suspiciously. Did she really want to just talk? "Nothing," he answered warily. "I mean, someone's coming over to help me with homework in about half an hour…."
Rosalie nodded, reaching up to mess with the ribbon she had wrapped around the base of her ponytail. "Yeah, Bella told me about that. Emmett and me are gonna leave so it'll be easier for you guys to concentrate. He's in the shower now, but as soon as he finishes, we're leaving."
"Okay," Edward mumbled. This is weird….
He looked up to see her staring at him, and he noticed for the first time how piercing her blue eyes were. Like she was trying to read him. "All right, then."
"Rosalie…."
"Yeah?" She turned back expectantly.
"Why's Emmett in foster care?" Edward blurted. He didn't know where the question came from, but he really wanted to know the answer. He knew he should've asked Emmett before now, but he hadn't, and Rosalie probably knew the answer.
She laughed. "Have you asked him?"
"No," Edward muttered. "At first I didn't… didn't care, and now it'd just be kind of weird. And something he said last night…." He cut himself off and just stared at her.
Rosalie studied him for another second before turning away. "Where do I start?" she asked herself, looking out across the pool. "Okay, so his parents were never married, and he lived with his mom because his dad's a trailer truck driver – he's all over the country all the time." She looked up at Edward, and he nodded. She continued, "His mother couldn't hold a job to save her life, 'cause she apparently didn't like getting up in the morning or talking to people, and most jobs that don't require a college diploma need at least one of those skills. When Emmett was eight, she just kind of left him alone in their apartment. The super noticed, and he called CPS."
"He was eight?" Edward repeated.
"Yeah." She shrugged. "His dad didn't want to take him, I don't think he could afford to, and there wasn't any other family. So he got put into the system. When he was thirteen, everybody in his foster family was a user. He started out on just marijuana, but eventually got into the hard stuff. When he was fifteen, he was arrested for possession. Since it was his first offence, he just had some community service, and then he was moved to the Cullens. Lucky for him."
"Damn," Edward whispered. "That sucks. Not the last part, but everything before it."
"It does, doesn't it?" Rosalie asked conversationally. "I think he still hears from his dad on occasion – he sends birthday cards, and calls every few months. Emmett said he got married a couple of years ago."
They both looked up at the sky for a while before Edward said, "You don't have to leave. It's Emmett's house."
She stared at him for another minute, and he wondered if she was going to say anything else. But she just nodded, stood up, and replied, "We're going anyway. There's some stuff I want to get from the mall, and Emmett already said yes."
Before Edward could answer, she put her shoe back on and went inside, sliding the glass door shut behind her. He stared at it, seeing his reflection in its dark surface. He looked so out of place here, in the middle of suburbia. But he couldn't picture where he did belong. Up until a couple weeks ago, he'd have said he belonged on the streets of Tucson, or in the AG warehouse. But he couldn't see himself in those places anymore.
He sighed and got up. The house was quiet again when he reentered it, and all his movements sounded really loud as he shifted his school stuff to the kitchen table. Just as he went to the fridge and pulled out a couple bottles of water, he heard a car pull up in the driveway. He glanced out the window, then moved to open the front door as Bella got out of her car.
"Hey!" she called as she came up the porch steps. Edward nodded and let her in.
It occurred to him then that he had no idea what the correct social protocol was in tutoring sessions. He shifted.
"Uh. I thought we could work in the kitchen," he muttered, leading her down the hall and back to where he'd left his school stuff. The two water bottles he'd taken out and left on the counter were going all condensation now, and little puddles of water had formed around them.
But Bella seemed to know what to do. "Cool," she smiled, and placed her bag on the table next to his. Edward was glad she sat down without him needing to offer her a chair or anything. "So get out that test."
"Why?" he asked, even as he sat down and handed it to her. "The material's over."
She shook her head. "This isn't like English. You don't just finish the novel and then forget everything you learn so you can go on to the next one. Math builds on itself. You have to understand everything that went before to understand what comes next." She swept her hair up and pulled it over one shoulder, letting it fall between us. A couple of the curls brushed his hand, and he moved it away. He didn't think she noticed.
"So what we're going to do now is look at all the questions you missed, and work through them again." She chose a pen and motioned him to get out a fresh sheet of lined paper. "Here." She pointed to number two, the first one he'd gotten wrong. "What did you do?"
He tried not to be distracted by the smell of her hair as he took the test from her and picked up his own pencil.
It didn't go like he thought it would. What he'd expected was something like class, where she'd lecture him and make him do practice problems until he got it right. Instead, she kept him working on the same problem as long as it took, and she didn't tell him how to do any of it. She just pointed out steps and options, and let him pick. An hour and a half later, Edward realized that he'd not just fixed his whole test (which made him really proud and really frustrated at the same time) but he'd gotten through the homework assignment for that night.
"Damn." He put the pencil down. "Thank you. How'd you do that?"
She laughed. "I'm not doing anything. This is working because you want it to. Congratulations." She pulled the sheet with his homework towards herself, checking it, as she asked, "Is there anything else you want to go over? Like, for chem or anything?"
"Nah, I'm good," he replied, even though he really wanted her to stay. "Besides, I've eaten up enough of your own homework time, haven't I?"
She waved her hand. "Don't worry about it." He thought she was about to say something else, but Esme came into the kitchen just then. She'd gotten home half an hour ago, but had just smiled and left the two of them alone. Now, she asked Bella if she could stay for dinner.
For the first time since she'd gotten there, Bella glanced at her watch and apologized, "I'm sorry, I can't. I need to get going. Thanks, though." Even though she'd just told Edward to not feel bad about taking up her time, he felt a lock of guilt. She saw, and smiled at him. "Don't worry. My lowest grade at the moment is a ninety-two in calc. I'll survive." She handed his homework back to him, and his hand brushed her fingers as he took it. He swallowed hard and put it down before standing.
"Yeah," he rejoined as he walked her down the hall, "but I'm guessing your grades are so good because you bust your ass every night."
She glanced down over her shoulder. "Well, my ass is still there, so I don't think that's it."
He laughed out loud. "See you tomorrow. And thanks," he repeated, as he opened the door for her.
"No problem." She smiled as she walked out into the orange light of the setting sun. Edward waited until she was in her car before he closed the door. There was something weird about the guilt in my gut, he noticed. It wasn't going away….
Shit, it wasn't guilt. It was disappointment. He didn't want her to leave.
Shaking his head, he went back to the kitchen to move his books and set the table for Esme. She'd pulled her reddish-brown hair into a knot at the base of her skull, and she smiled at Edward. "It'll just be us and Carlisle tonight. Emmett called, and he and Rosalie are going out."
"Okay." Edward put one of the place mats back.
"Edward…" she started, and he cringed a little, worried she'd ask him about Bella. But instead, she said something that was almost worse. "Can I just say that I'm really proud of you? You're putting a lot of effort into everything you're doing."
"Esme–"
"Let me finish." She held up her hand. "You've come a long way in a short period of time. I respect you for that, especially because I know it can't be easy."
He didn't know what to say, so he just nodded and went back to what he was doing. The thing about coming a long way is that you have to be really messed up to begin with, just so you can catch up to everyone else. So maybe it's not a compliment at all.
As they carried their gear out the back door of a club, the name of which Bella already forgotten, at around one thirty on Saturday morning, Alice asked Markus, "How much exactly were we being paid for that? 'Cause if you sold us short again, I'll be slightly irritated."
"Alice," Jasper and Bella both said, in matching warning tones, but Markus cut them off.
"Enough to pay for that tech support that we need for the website," he snapped. "And I'm sorry if you can't afford that new set of eyeshadow or whatever the fuck–"
Alice's eyes flashed. "Hey, just because I don't stuff every single penny I earn into the bank doesn't make me a shallow dumb girl, Markus. Get off my back. All I wanted to know is if you're still taking whatever damn job comes up, rather than anything that pays enough to compensate for the lost study time."
"Enough," Bella barked, adjusting the guitar strap over her shoulder and overriding Markus as he opened his mouth furiously. She wondered, ignoring the beat of the canned dance music that reverberated through the wall of the club behind her, if there would ever come a day when they could pack up after a late night show and not really just want to strangle each other. "It's been a long day, okay? Can we just go?"
Nobody answered her, but Nick nodded handed Markus the keys to the van. "Meet you back home?" he asked, and Markus nodded. Nick, Jasper, and Alice turned and got into Nick's car, and Bella slipped into the passenger seat of the van.
Once they got on the freeway, she put her feet up on the dashboard, because she knew Markus would let her get away with it. He glanced at her and asked, "We've got another show on Wednesday night. Do you want to call an extra rehearsal this week?"
Bella sighed, tilting her head back. "Markus, it's just a half-hour set for recurring clients. Nobody cares. And anyway, I can't. I'm tutoring someone, and we've got the Homecoming dance to plan. And then there's this little thing called homework."
He waved his hand impatiently. "Homework doesn't matter. Not really."
Bella smiled. "Some of us don't have the luxury of senioritis. Or of knowing that we've got guaranteed acceptance into our parents' college."
"Still, though. Do you ever get the feeling you're working too hard?" he asked, eyeing her speculatively.
"Constantly. Why?"
He shook his head, grinning. "Nothing. It'd bother most people, is all."
"I'm not most people."
"Oh, I know."
An occupational hazard of spending so much time with someone who looked like Edward Masen, especially when there was an entirely one-sided attraction on your part, was that you had to deal with other girls' infatuation with him and speculation about what, if anything, was going on between the two of you. Monday afternoon, Bella's butt had been in her seat in English for exactly three seconds when it started.
"Oh, my God," she heard Taryn, a blonde girl from Advanced Dance, squealed to her friends. "You guys know Edward Masen, the new guy? Like, he's Emmett Hastings's foster brother or whatever?" Once she'd gotten the little noises of acknowledgement from her friends, she continued breathlessly and with some weird kind of perverse pleasure for gossip, "Chris Janssen's going around telling people that Edward tried to jump him after practice last week."
Bella sat up straight, but picked up the book on her desk and pretended to read.
"What happened?" asked one of Taryn's friends.
"Well," said Taryn with unnecessary relish, "my boyfriend was there, and he said that Edward didn't try to jump Chris – Chris, like, came over to him and started talking smack about Bella." Her voice dropped to a stage whisper, and Bella could almost feel that entire group turn to face her. She kept her eyes fixed on her book, even as her ears strained to pick up their lowered voices.
Another girl, Mia, gasped. "So he hit him?"
"Yeah," Taryn said, her eyes sparkling. "It was, like, super-dramatic. I would kill to have two guys fighting over me. I'm sure Edward totally wants to be with Bella. How weird would that be, right? She'd so never go for him. It'd ruin her perfect reputation."
Don't blush. Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush…. Bella squirmed, trying to ignore the implied insult. Thank God Alice wasn't here.
"Taryn, come on," Marissa hissed. "Do you even know him? I mean, beyond a casual word here and there? Because I have chem with both of them, and I'm pretty sure they're just friends. I don't think he dates."
"Uh, yeah I know him." There was now a ring of authority in Taryn's voice. "In case you haven't noticed, he's hot. Like, every girl in cheer and dance made a point of talking to him the first week of school. But, like, thank God Rosalie Riverton's going out with Emmett. Otherwise, we all know she'd get him first. Lucky me."
"Don't you have a boyfriend?"
Taryn snorted. "I may be taken, but I'm not, like, dead or anything. And like I said, Bella would never go for him anyway. So maybe he'll need comforting after that final rejection."
Bella's near-choking on her own spit was covered by Mrs. Wolberg standing up at the front of the room and telling the class to flip to the beginning of part three of Heart of Darkness, otherwise known as the most evil piece of print ever published since the death of Johannes Gutenberg. Which was just as well, because Bella realized that Taryn was wrong. She was wrong, and Bella was just beginning to realize that herself.
Because she did want to be with Edward. And what was stopping him was the oldest reason in the world. She didn't want to give him the chance to reject her. Even if she was sure that sometimes, she felt something the same from him, she still wasn't willing to open herself up like that. She had already exposed to him a part of herself that she never shared with anyone except her two closest friends. Granted, he hadn't laughed, and Bella was sure that he hadn't told anyone, but he hadn't spoken to her about it since. She didn't know if it was because she had made him feel uncomfortable, or if he was just respecting her space. She could have just asked him. But she didn't.
It was cowardice, she knew. She wasn't proud of it, and if it had been Alice in her situation and Alice had come to her for advice, Bella would have told her to go for it. But Bella wasn't Alice. She didn't have Alice's confidence, or her strength. If Bella was shut down by someone as important to her as Edward had somehow become, she didn't know that she could deal with it.
And as for those rumors about a fight in the locker room, Bella dismissed them. Of course Edward hadn't gotten into a fight for her. She wasn't worth it to him. She shook her head and placed her fingertips to her temple. But, God, she wished it was true.
But the subject seemed to follow her over the next few days. Edward was waiting for her at the door Wednesday morning before chemistry; with a huge grin she'd never seen on his face, he handed her a pre-calc quiz he'd taken the day before. She smiled at the eighty-eight percent at the top of it, and hugged him in congratulations, but let go very quickly. He held on a beat longer than she did; there was this weird little dance as they tried to pull apart. The air between them was awkward for the entire rest of the class and Bella blessed providence that Miss Somerset was giving lecture notes all period, so she didn't need to talk to him. When Rosalie saw the two of them coming out of the classroom together but not talking, Bella still red in the face, she shot her a significant look, which Bella ignored.
Bella was so out of it that she had completely forgotten about another one of her problems until fourth period, when she saw Sean again in physics.
He slapped a manila envelope onto the lab table. "Homecoming tickets. One for you and one for a date."
Bella eyed the envelope. "You mean the game, right?" she asked. She didn't have a good history with school dances.
"No," said Sean, "but we all have to go to that, too. Those are for the dance."
"Oh, no," Bella shook her head. "Why do I have to go to the dance? I don't even have a date."
Sean looked at Bella like she'd just informed him that the moon actually was made of green cheese. "Hasn't anyone asked you?"
Bella flushed. "That's not the point." She had been asked – and she'd said no.
"So ask someone yourself, then." He waved a hand impatiently. "It's not like it matters who does the asking. Your tickets are already paid for."
"Let me clarify," Bella told him, sitting up straighter. "I don't have a date because I don't want to have a date! I don't want to go!"
Sean sighed as Mr. DeWitt started collecting the homework. "How about this," he offered. "You stay for two hours, just so people see you, then you can leave. Okay?"
"You're not asking me because I have a choice, are you?"
"Nope." He grinned, and turned back around.
"Yay!" Bella lightly clapped her hands together as Edward put down his pencil, grinning at the pre-calc homework in front of him. He was a quick study; the most she'd ever needed to explain something to him was twice. Privately, she wondered why he understood her lessons and not his teacher's.
Almost like he'd heard her thoughts, he asked, "Why is it easy now? Why can't I get it in class?"
Bella shrugged, unfolding her legs and placing her feet on the tile of the Cullens' kitchen floor. "Some people need repetition, is all. Alice's like that with chem."
He tilted his chair back so that it was balancing on two legs. "Maybe," he allowed, still smiling as he looked at her. "Either that or you're just brilliant or something."
"I'm not," Bella said, even though his comment set her glowing inside.
A lock of his bronze hair fell in front of his eyes. She wanted to push it back. She wanted to reach over and run a hand through his hair, like he was always doing.
Instead she shook herself mentally, stood, and packed up her things. "You did really well this afternoon – you're making me feel bad. I really need to get going and go start on my own homework." Again, she tried not to feel overwhelmed at the thought that she was losing a night of homework tomorrow, because after dinner, she was going dress shopping with Rosalie and Alice. The three of them – or rather Alice and Rosalie – had made plans for it today at lunch after Bella complained that she had nothing to wear to the dance.
Edward let his chair fall to the floor with a bang. "Yeah. I should start on my APUSH reading." He paused, then asked, "You okay? You look weird."
Bella made a face at him, and since she couldn't tell him what was really bothering her, she just talked about how she'd found out she was being forced into Homecoming.
"Oh yeah, the dance." He shrugged. "Emmett's making me go, too. Says it's part of the high school experience I've been missing out on or some shit like that."
He glanced up at Bella; her heart froze, then began pounding. For a second she thought he was going to ask her. But then he looked away and said, "Whatever. I'll just leave early when he's not looking."
Bella forced a smile. "Sounds like a plan." She slipped an arm through the straps of my bag. "See you tomorrow?" It came out like a question.
"Yeah." He was still staring out the window, preoccupied suddenly. "See you."
Bella stared at him for another instant, then turned and left the kitchen. She waved at Rosalie, Emmett, and Riley, who were playing some video game in the living room, and let herself out of the house, swallowing the disappointment that had congealed into a lump in my throat.
Edward heard her leave, but he didn't turn around until he was sure she was out of the house. Then he stood, trying to shake off the feeling that he'd just missed an opportunity. No way would she have said yes to him, if he'd asked her to the stupid dance.
He stuck all his homework back in his backpack, and was going to go up to his room, but then Rosalie strode into the kitchen and glared at me. "Sit," she ordered.
Edward raised his eyebrows – didn't she have her own house to go to? – but he sat. She, however, kept standing, her hands on her hips. "I just heard you guys. Would you care to explain to me what the hell that was?"
"What are you talking about?" Edward asked, even though he thought he had an idea.
"You care about her. Why didn't you ask her to Homecoming?"
"I don't care about her," Edward protested, then stuttered, realizing what he'd said. "I mean, yeah I care about her, but not like–"
"Don't give me shit," Rosalie snapped, and he blinked. "Spill. Is it because of the Tucson gang stuff? You scared she'll judge you? That she'll run away from the big bad Latino–"
"I'm scared she'll get hurt!" Edward interrupted, and he realized he'd shouted. Rosalie stared at him and dropped her hands from her hips. In the living room, Riley shouted a cuss word as he got shot and died.
Edward turned away from Rosalie to stare out the window, as his words caught up to him.
"I can't do it, Rosalie," he said quietly. "I won't do it to her."
"Do what?" she asked, and her voice was as low as his. He heard a chair scrape against the tile floor and knew she'd sat down next to him.
"Get her in all the shit in my life," Edward explained, turning to face her. Her forehead was wrinkled, like she was trying to process what he was saying. "I do care about her. A lot." He made himself stop there.
Rosalie started to smile, but then Edward said, "And that's why I should stay away from her."
"Before we get to that part, what shit, exactly? It's over, isn't it? It's done. You left it in Tucson."
Edward opened his mouth, but then closed it. If Emmett still hadn't told her about James's visit, he'd probably had a reason. Instead, Edward said, "This isn't my life, Rosalie. I don't belong here."
"Only because you're fighting it so hard," she rejoined, getting angry again. "I know you plan on ditching the Cullens as soon as you turn eighteen, I mean, Emmett told me he was the same way. But what good is that? They'd be your family – a true family – if you'd let them. And you've got not only the Cullens, but also a girl who wants to be with you. Explain to me why you want to throw all that away."
Edward shook his head. "You wouldn't get it."
"Yeah? Try me."
It was quiet for another couple of minutes before Edward said, hearing the defeat in his own voice, "Look, it's not worth anyone's effort to fix me. I'm too broken."
"That's not true." She said it simply, calmly, like they were arguing about the weather. "Either part. You're never so broken that you can't be fixed. And it's worth their effort because you're part of their family." She stood and headed for the kitchen. "But it's up to you whether you want them to be part of yours."
Hopefully you enjoyed... What do we think of Edward's motives? Review for me!