2. Long Night
"I miss you already."
Immediately I felt a sense of chivalry wash through me. Another way to prove myself to her!
"I don't need to leave," I promised. "I can stay…."
"Mmmms." I couldn't interpret the moan, but let it slide as the world became silent save for the thudding of her heart and the smooth slide of skin as it hit breath and our lips caressed each others. Her smell was barely a temptation any longer—the temptation laying solely in the protection of her so she could be mine so soon, in one more day, just one more…I ran my lips across her face, her lips, her skin, her throat. It was only the burn—but one cannot light the fire and expect not feel the heat of the burn.
I opened my eyes, staring at her beautiful face, feeling as though I had just won a marathon. I stared at her face as her own eyes opened and she stared at me in the same way. I was grateful. I cherished the fact that she had chosen me even though I did have a rather unfair advantage over her. Though I was the same in one way: I couldn't read her mind. I had to take her word that she loved me and wanted me over the rest of them. I had a trust in Bella that I didn't have in others. Though I wished awfully to simply know sometimes. It would be so much easier to predict the stupid things she said or did, and I would be able to stop her, keep her safe, pull her towards me, in my arms, nobody else's friend.
Bella pulled me closer again.
"Definitely staying," I murmured against her lips a few seconds later.
"No, no." Her protest seemed feeble even in my own biased ears, though this could have been the fact that I sensed I would have to break her hands to unlock them from my golden-brown tresses. "It's your bachelor party. You have to go." I began stroking her face possessively and tried to keep my voice even.
"Bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldn't be more eager to have mind behind me. So there's really no point," I reasoned logically.
"True," replied Bella, distracted, apparently, by my manly physique as she began breathing softly on my throat.
I fought the temptation to moan, knowing Charlie lay passed out in his room down the hall. We were curled up on her ridiculously small bed—don't parents consider that their teenagers might want a bigger one, eventually? Bella was mummy-wrapped in a North American afghan reminiscent of the 18th century and though she hated it, I wished I could tell her not to worry because my imagination filled in the blanks of where she was covered.
However, it was a fair trade: because she was covered up, my body was bared. She began insistently tracing my sixteen pack, in awe of its perfection. I thought of how perfect she was and shuddered as the cool thrill of soon it would be mine swept through me. Quickly my mouth connected with hers again, and she her tongue began venturing towards my lips.
I immediately tensed and began to pull away. I was not used to this. It was new to me. I didn't wish to do the wrong thing, and I definitely did not wish to kill her the night before our wedding. The night before…
"Wait," Bella said desperately, leeching on to me. She managed to loosen one leg from the imitation afghan and wrapped it around me. "Practice makes perfect." I laughed at her eagerness. All in time, I thought.
"Well, we should be fairly close to perfection by this point, then, shouldn't we? Have you slept at all in the last month?" I smiled, trying to stay light-hearted, though I felt where this conversation was headed.
"But this is the dress rehearsal and we've only practiced certain scenes. It's no time for playing safe." She smiled as though it was a joke, but it was not funny. I supposed she'd have to laugh alone. I was immediately stiff and immobile in my heartbreak at the situation, at the pathetic thing I promised.
"Bella….," I whispered, with a long, dramatic pause for full impact.
"Don't start this again," she commanded. "A deal's a deal."
"I don't know," I replied, trying to take back the most ridiculous promise I had ever made in the heat of the moment, and realized that if I took it back she might not marry me tomorrow—imagine! Me, abandoned at the altar. "It's too hard to concentrate when you're with me like this. I—I can't think straight. I won't be able to control myself. You'll get hurt." I wished I were human and that this "getting hurt" had more to do with virginity and less to do with Bella's head being torn off and thrown across the room in a blood-lustful passion.
"I'll be fine."
"Bella…" I repeated the dramatic pause, hoping she saw the effect her words had on me. Terror, not unlike the kind I had experienced earlier in the afternoon, welled inside me. She kissed me, and I felt the obligation to kiss back, but I was too bothered by this point by the image of her bleeding to death that captured my mind.
"How are your feet?" I asked since I was busy obsessing about her well being.
"Toasty warm," she replied. I decided to get more specific in case she thought I was really talking about her feet.
"Really? No second thoughts? It's not too late to change your mind."
"Are you trying to ditch me?" I laughed, though the pain of that accusation pierced my heart. I had, once.
"Just making sure," I chuckled over the dire sadness in my soul. "I don't want you to do anything you're not sure about."
"I'm sure about you. The rest I can live through." I paused, considering her dead, then considering her as a vampire.
"Can you? I don't mean the wedding—which I am positive you will survive despite your qualms," here I paused, wondering why it was that I was convincing my fiancée that she wouldn't die from the awful embarrassment of marrying me, then continued, "but afterward…what about Renee, what about Charlie?"
She sighed. "I'll miss them," she admitted.
"Angela and Ben and Jessica and Mike," I added, listing off her friends.
"I'll miss my friends, too. Especially Mike," she added, smiling, laughing about the boy obsessed with her, still. "Oh, Mike! How will I go on?" Instantly upon thinking of Mike I was drawn to an image he had dreamed of in Math class two months, six days, and fourteen hours ago. Of him and Bella. But this is not what caused me to growl. It was the thought that Bella would be so much safer with an alternative such as Mike, and I was killing her, I, this awful being, lower than the dust she walked on. How could she seem to worship such dirt, such filth? I was mud—no, mulch, cow dung. I was disgusting.
She laughed, but was then serious. "Edward, we've been through this and through this. I know it will be hard, but this is what I want. I want you, and I want you forever. One lifetime is simply not enough for me."
I felt again as though I was robbing her.
"Frozen forever at eighteen."
"Every woman's dream come true." She was teasing me at such a desperately serious time.
"Never changing…never moving forward."
"What does that mean?" she asked, perhaps finally grasping that I was mourning for her.
"Do you remember when we told Charlie we were getting married?" I asked slowly, hoping not to endanger her delicate emotional system. "And he thought you were…" here I gulped "…pregnant?"
"And he thought about shooting you. Admit it—for one second, he honestly considered it."
I didn't bother answering this irrelevant fact. What would it have even done?
"What Edward?"
"I just wish…well, I wish that he'd been right," I finished quickly.
"Gah," she said, and I didn't bother attempting to retreat into my photographic memory to look up in the Encyclopedia Britannica whether or not the word "gah" had any origins. It probably didn't, which only made Bella more of a genius in my eyes. She was so ahead of the times. I continued
"More that there was some way he could have been. That we had that kind of potential. I hate taking that away from you, too." She paused, perhaps fully understanding what an awful person I was. I prepared myself for the ultimate dumping.
"I know what I'm doing." I decided that I should argue with her some more in a desperate hope that she would dump me. The only way to do this was confess to yet another fault.
"How could you know that, Bella?" I decided to bring in a few examples for emphasis. "Look at my mother, look at my sister. It's not as easy a sacrifice as you imagine."
"Esme and Rosalie get by just fine. If it's a problem later, we can do what Esme did—we'll adopt," she replied, and I beat myself up mentally for not considering that she would answer like this. I decided to continue, however, not giving up until she threw me out.
"It's not right! I don't want you to have to make sacrifices for me. I want to give you things, not take things away from you. I don't want to steal your future. If I were human—"
She placed her entire hand over my mouth. I considered licking it. "You are my future," she said prophetically, and I felt as though my entire world was shining brightly. "No moping, or I'm calling your brothers to come and get you. Maybe you need a bachelor party." Immediatlely I felt a pang of sorrow and felt incredibly stupid and mentally retarded. Here, in the presence of this Athena-esque live statuette, and I had the audacity to not be incredibley joyous.
"I'm sorry. I am moping, aren't I? Must be the nerves."
"Are your feet cold?" I felt another pang—leave it to my precious Bella-bunny to jump to that conclusion. I quickly tried to explain before she never spoke to me again.
"Not in that sense. I've been waiting a century to marry you, Miss Swan," I took a deep breath, prepared to give her a long soliloquy on my undying (no pun intended) love for her. "The wedding ceremony is the one thing I can't wait—"
Eddie! We're heeeeeeeeere!
"Oh, for the love of all that's holy!" I exclaimed as though I were in a Southern Baptist church and not with my semi-religious fiancée who believed that I was going to heaven even though I continually questioned it for attention. To be honest, I simply enjoyed hearing her tell me that I might go to heaven after being shredded and burned here on earth. Though I believed that I was going to hell, I still willingly turned her into a vampire. If I was going to hell, I was bringing a piece of heaven with me…
"What's wrong?" she asked. I gritted my teeth awkwardly. "You don't have to call my brothers. Apparently Emmett and Jasper are not going to let me bow out tonight." I was pissed. Now I couldn't prove to her my undying love one more time. She clutched me closer as though she was going to fight them for me—I was in awe of her vigilance and bravery for a few seconds—and then released me as though giving up when she remembered Emmett's size, and yet again I was in awe, this time of her brilliance at not challenging an abnormally large vampire. "Have fun," she said.
Emmett began dragging his nails across the window, hoping to scare Bella with a disturbing noise that my own perverted mind enjoyed immensely. I felt like a loser when Bella shivered, and I squeezed her tighter.
"If you don't send Edward out, we're coming in after him!" hissed Emmett, still attempting to scare Bella. I rolled my eyes. I could take him.
"Go," she laughed, "Before they break my house," and I tried to find a piece of her voice that was going to miss me. I rolled my eyes again as Emmett made another word, but leaped to my feet and shoved my shirt on so fast she didn't see me struggle with the buttons for a second before giving up. I turned and gave her forehead a kiss.
"Get to sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow," I commanded her in my usual domineering fashion.
"Thanks!" she said, chipper and sarcastic. "That's sure to help me wind down."
"I'll meet you at the alter," I told her.
"I'll be the one in white."
I chuckled, not telling her how much I enjoyed the idea of this, and she smiled. "Very convincing," I replied, and then I heard Emmett. If he doesn't get out here right now… I quickly sank into a crouch and launched out of her window, landing right on Emmett's chest. Emmett swore as Bella's voice wafted gently out of the window like a summer breeze.
"You'd better not make him late." Even her threat was immensely sexy. I began to sink into the depression of how much I didn't deserve her as Jasper leaped up to her window and looked into her window. It reminded me of my own pleasurable peeping-Tom days.
"Don't worry, Bella," he reassured her. "We'll get him home in plenty of time." I was jealous that not only was he the one comforting her, but calming her as well. Jasper could control emotions. I could simply get into people's minds. Bella shifted and spoke again.
"Jasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? You're not taking him to a strip club, are you?" Explicit images of The Caged Club arose in Emmett's head before he could think of something else, and I was intrigued.
"Don't tell her anything!" growled Emmett and he pinned me down, covering my mouth with his hand. I laughed. I wasn't saying a word.
"Relax," Jasper told her calmly. "We Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out."
"Thanks, Jasper," she said, sounding relieved. If only she knew. Jasper threw her a wink and leaped down. Emmett stood up and we ran off into the darkness silently. Even though I was faster than them, I still had to follow them, which annoyed me, because I wanted to run fast, faster, leave all of my insecurities behind.
"Get ready for the night of your life, Eddie!" shouted Emmett, whooping. I smiled, but doubted it would be better than tomorrow night. Silently I followed, until we finally reached it. The Caged Club. "Where the Wild Life Begins" read the caption below the words, and pictures of animals were painted across the dark windows. I smiled and walked inside.
It was a zoo inside, quite literally. There were women in cages, sure, but I had seen this before on daytime television. These women were dressed up from any animal from mouse to elephant—but what a beautiful elephant!—to, yes, a mountain lion and a bear. But the most insane piece was the animals roaming around on the floor—real animals, wild cats, and birds chained to their trees. The whole place literally sounded like a calming rainforest CD.
It didn't smell very great in there, so I stopped breathing promptly and just let myself be taken in by the scene because while the scent was atrocious, the ladies were beautiful. Emmett walked over to a young man near announcing different shows that would be coming to the stage—Longest Tusk Contest! Who Eats Beef Best? Heaviest Animal Dance-Off!—and whispered towards him.
"And we have yet another bachelor tonight, ladies and gentlemen! Edwin Codan is getting married tomorrow, so let's show him and his brothers a great time! Can we do that?" Immediately the women gave out their respective animal mating noises.
After hanging out with me for the grand total of two minutes (a record, really) Emmett and Jasper walked to their own respective places in the club—Emmett towards the woman with extremely long legs impersonating a stork—ciconia ciconia is the scientific name, I believe, and Jasper walked towards the young lady imitating some kind of lemur. An allocebus trichotis, if I was correct about the resemblance.
Personally, I was drawn to a woman who was dressed as some ungodly creature—an alien. It was obvious her character was something of a joke, but I could not help myself. She was beautiful and reminded me of my own Bella, innocently resting at home. This young lady wasn't tearing at her bars or leaping around; rather she fluidly slunk about her cage and acted, well, normal. But of course, she was completely silver, and completely naked.
It was so like Bella—portraying her ethereal beauty, her nonchalant attitude and yet her alien-like personality that was so completely easy to read—that I felt a pang of sorrow, and made me regret feverishly what I had plans to do within the week. I had plans to change Bella into a monster. What wouldn't I give to have it the other way around? To turn into something for her? And yet she sacrificed for me, what a sacrificial beauty, willing to do anything for me, a bloodthirsty fiend with a hidden (and yet, now not so hidden) agenda.
I felt the beginnings of emotion which prompted me to kneel in prayer in the middle of the floor. Dear Heavenly Father, I began, the tremors of remorse rushing through my body. I am so sorry. Why must it be this way? Or at least, why must I be too weak to do a thing about what I am about to do? Was I always destined to be a monster, through all past lives, even perhaps as I sat in Heaven with you, once, long ago?
Was Bella always meant to do such horrors? To become a horror? Was this the end you had in mind when you created her wonderful self so few years ago?
"Aiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiaiai!" I heard someone scream, and I looked up in time to see the Howler Monkey Lady leaping from rafter to rafter above our heads. I was about to shed a tear. Honestly, how could the world be so cruel? Why, she was so normal? I wished to be normal as well. I wished to be like one of the other men in here, so able to take one of these ladies home for the night with no fear of tearing them apart—Bella decapitated, Bella torn to shreds, Bella dead, Bella's dead!—but no! This was not how it was supposed to be! There should be no monsters!
Why, Father? Why? I plead incessantly, wishing for a brilliant shine of revelation, wishing for my prayers to be answered as in the Tales of Old. Father, I beg of you, help me make the right decision! I begged, but the shadows of doubt that always clouded my hopes and dreams caressed my soul. You idiot! You complete loser! Talking to God as thought He loves you. As though you have a wink of a chance! Do you really believe that you would be able to tally up enough "good" to overrule the fact that you're a monster? By turning Bella, you're throwing away any chance you ever had!
"No!" I moaned aloud. "Please, no!" Yes! Bella is losing her chance as well. Are you okay with that, Edward? Are you okay with that?
"No, I'm not!" I cried. "But I am weak!—there is no other way!" Of course not, my inner voice sneered. There's never another way when there's something you want. You disgust me, you ogre.
"Lord, save me from this hell! My life is a graveyard of buried hopes and dreams!"
"Um, sir?"
"Ah! I know! Call me all the names you wish! I know! I have sinned…"
"Sir, I am sorry, but—."
"You, sorry? But it is I who shall kill her, in a sense. Take away everything that she needs, that she doesn't know she wants yet! Not a child. I can't give her a child, but she says she doesn't care now. How long will this last? Ten days? Ten years?"
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave," the voice persisted, and I looked up, and found myself staring at a scantily clad older woman, though she was very attractive. I narrowed in on a small nametag on her disproportionate breast. "Candy" it read. Figured.
Suddenly a rough hand grabbed my neck.
"Gosh dang it, Edward, you're so embarrassing. I can't take you anywhere without you breaking out into an awkwardly religious scene. Seriously, you should have become a god forsaken preacher or something." Emmett was livid.
"You're incredibly dramatic," Jasper agreed, and he didn't bother trying to calm Emmett down, though clearly my immortal existence was in danger. Jasper yanked me to my feet and pulled me out the door as Emmett tried to cop a few more feels before completely exiting.
"Here's my username on ," he said, enlightening the young woman in the grizzly bear costume. "Look me up."
"Poor guy," a man near the bouncer was explaining. "He's sterile." I remained silent until we reached the outside then, rather than hearing them yell at me some more, I sprinted off into the distance, to the safety of Forks, perhaps for one more lurk in Bella's bedroom before it became legal.