Raum

A Good Liar

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight. But you already knew it.

Chapter 4: "Tapestry Threads"

Bella hung her skirt back in the closet and took a pair of jeans. The only concession she made to fashion was a dark green button-down shirt in lieu of one of her usual sweaters. She brushed her hair and pondered using some make-up, but she avoided it. After all, she had told Charlie that she would be spending the day in Seattle to visit some bookstores, not to go on a date. Was it a date? She pushed away the turmoil of questions and scenarios that had occupied her mind for the entire week. Hopefully, in a few hours she would get her answers.

In the early morning, Charlie was still sleeping, since he was going to work a double shift in the afternoon and at night. Bella left him a note, telling him that she would pick up a book of fish recipes for him in Seattle, and slipped quietly out the door. Just a year before, her father had objected to Bella driving so far alone, worrying about car trouble. Now, as long as he saw his daughter coming back to life, she could have planned a trip to the moon and he wouldn't have objected.

Bella drove until she reached Montesano, where she stopped for fuel. When she arrived in Tacoma, she bought gas again, since she wanted to have enough for the return trip. She had an early lunch there—a small sandwich and a soda to calm her fluttering stomach. The directions she had for the Space Needle allowed her to get there in good time; her truck had behaved better than expected. She was excited to see that there were so many bookstores in walking distance of the tourist attraction. Hopefully, time would pass more quickly while flipping through novels – although she knew that, for every book she picked up, she would wonder if Edward would have enjoyed it.

She parked her truck and walked along the avenue running north toward the Needle. When she came close to a red brick building with green awnings, her attention was caught by a shop sign on the window: Inner Chapters Bookstore and Café. She entered the shop and found a cozy escape among shelves overflowing with books from floor to ceiling; among them she found not only the promised book of fish recipes for Charlie but also a wide selection of novels. On the cover of one of these was a drawing that resembled the bookstore she was visiting. Flipping through the book, she was struck by a passage:

"Every few minutes, the door swung open and there was a visiting American scholar searching for original translations of Zola, an ornithologist with a question about a rare 17th-Century birding guide, a lost Australian physicist wondering how to get to the Pantheon so she could pay homage to the Curies. It was akin to hosting a running talk show with a never-ending series of eccentric guests, all of whom wanted to stay and talk for at least a little while."

The story was about a bookstore in Paris, and the writer's words seemed to describe how Bella had often felt while reading – as if she were traveling through space and time; as if the people she got to know in the books could become her actual friends. Sometime she had felt closer to fictional characters than to the people she knew in real life. She wondered how she would look among the characters described in the novel. As she lazily caressed the cover, a question slipped through her thoughts: Has he ever been to Paris?

The book ended up among her other purchases. The roar of the traffic startled her when she walked back outside. The time she had spent in the quiet bookstore had been like a sweet dream, but now it was time to face reality.

She walked with her head down until the Space Needle came in sight. At the top of the building, she could find more than she would have dared to dream, or...

She didn't know anymore what to wish for.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Bella merged with the flow of tourists crowding the base of the tower. She retrieved her reservation from her purse and walked toward a girl at the reception desk. When she showed her the reservation, the girl eyed her, repressing a frown. Bella wondered about what kind of social events were hosted in the banquet space at the top of the tower and surmised that she didn't seem like the kind of person who would receive an invitation there.

"Follow me," the girl told her politely. "I'll escort you to the Lake Union Room."

They stepped away from the tourists waiting to purchase their tickets. When they arrived at the top of the tower, the girl motioned to a door. The walls were covered with wooden panels – behind them, could Edward already hear her heart pounding in her chest?

The receptionist graced her with a polite smile and a "Goodbye," before taking her leave. Bella swallowed hard and crossed the threshold of the reception hall.

The floor was covered with a thick carpet in shades of brown, but a generous portion of it had a shiny covering in what resembled granite. She moved toward the windows and cringed as her shoes squeaked on the polished surface. Although the day was cloudy, the view was breathtaking and ranged not only over the city but over the Elliott Bay Marina. Her eyes followed the huge line of windows, but suddenly it wasn't the landscape she was watching anymore.

She blinked as quickly as she could, fighting to keep the tears from blurring her vision and preventing her from seeing the person who had joined her in the room.

In the opposite corner, Edward smiled at her.

Bella felt even smaller and more out of place in the ample hall. She drank in his features as if she were a dry plant which had finally gotten some water; the depth of his gaze told her that he was doing the same. For the longest moment, neither of them moved. She was considering how he resembled a statue in his frozen perfection when Edward put a hand in the pocket of his dark jeans and shifted his weight. His words broke the spell.

"You came," he murmured. A sigh of relief accompanied the caress of his warm voice.

Bella pulled herself together and started toward him – this time she didn't even notice the sound of her steps on the shiny floor. She hadn't finished two steps before Edward had already run to her, his heady scent telling her that this time he was real and alive. Alive. Because life was what she saw when her eyes met his. The tenderness in them wrapped around her like a delicate embrace, a prelude to the moment when he actually gathered her into his arms.

She clutched his shirt and rested her cheek against his chest. If Bella could have stopped time, she would have done so in that moment. The thought that it might not last, and Edward might leave again in a few minutes, forced her to speak.

"We need to talk," she resolved herself to say, breaking the contact.

"Yes," he murmured, motioning to a table and two chairs set in the center of the room. "Would you like to sit? May I order you something to drink?"

She shook her head. "You were in my room last week," she said.

"I was."

She motioned to the elegant room around them. "So what does all this mean?" For a moment, the disappointment she had felt when she had found her room empty resurfaced. "I came to look for you at your house in Forks, but you weren't there."

"I didn't stop by the house. After I left your room, I came straight to Seattle."

Bella was relieved – chances were that he hadn't met anyone who would recognize him. "I've done something bad," she confessed. "I want to apologize, I didn't think you were ever coming back–" her voice broke before she could complete her sentence.

"Isabella." He pronounced her full name carefully, then lifted a hand and brushed her cheek. She doubted that she could trust what she was seeing, for the affection she could see in his eyes – the love, she would have dared to say – wasn't new. It was something she thought she had lost the day he had abandoned her. "I know what happened. People in Forks believe I died," he went on.

For a moment she wondered if, during the months they had spent apart, he had acquired the ability to read her mind. "How do you know?"

"When I came back, I wanted you to be the first person to know it. But I caught people thinking about me, and they unintentionally gave me an account of what had happened."

She looked down at the potted plant which adorned their table. "Are you angry at me?"

Edward's hand joined hers, and he searched for her eyes. "No," he said. A sad smile crept across his features. "No, Bella, how could I be?" The memory of the signs of distress he had seen on her face when he had come back had never stopped torturing him. Through the minds of the people he had listened to, he had seen how much pain he had caused. And then, there was the note he had read in her room. "I understand," he told her softly.

"You do?" she retorted. "That's good, because I don't. You said it was the last time I would see you, and then you came back, but only to leave again." She forced her tears back. Her voice was strained, but she went on. "And now this invitation. How long before you'll disappear again?"

The hurt she saw on his face stopped the flood of her words. "Do you want me to leave?" he asked.

She rose on her feet. "No!" she almost yelled. "But since when has what I want mattered?" She suppressed a sob. "I'm sorry. I know that I shouldn't have lied, and I'm ready to face the consequences of what I did." The weight of what she had gone through in the last months overwhelmed her. "I thought you would never discover what I had done, because by the time you would have ever returned to Forks, I – and everyone who knew us – would have already died."

Edward winced at the thought of her, still and cold, buried in a tomb in Forks or anywhere else. When Bella looked at him, she didn't see the immortal she remembered. In front of her, there was a boy – a young man who was sad and unsure of himself. He bowed his head, and his hair – the most human part of him – flopped over his eyes. As she reached out a hand and brushed it back, he raised his head and locked his eyes with hers.

"For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind and yours...I've read thousands of minds...I'd known you for months, and yet, I hadn't understood," he said, his voice no more than a whisper.

She came back to sit beside him. "What hadn't you understood?"

He took a deep breath before answering. "How my decision to leave made us both miserable. I considered what humans usually do – time heals their wounds. They forget and move on. I was willing to suffer whatever it took in order to keep you safe, but I didn't consider what you would do, how you would react. When I came back to Forks, I saw."

Bella ducked her head. "You saw?" She had never wanted Edward to know how broken she had been; she felt weak in front of him.

His fingers trailed over her cheekbones and stopped at the base of her neck, over her shoulder, drawing her toward him. "I saw the way people thought about you, and listened to their worries for you," he recalled. "When I was in your room, Charlie couldn't sleep. He remembered how you had spent the last months and how much he'd blamed me for that. And then, he replayed in his mind the moment you told him that I was dead. He thought about Carlisle and Esme and their sorrow over the loss of their son. But more than all this, Bella, I couldn't catch a single word of hate from you toward me. I read your note, the one you left about the reasons why you lied–"

Her cheeks flushed, recalling what she had written there. Once again, on that piece of paper she had declared her love for the man who had told her that she wasn't good for him. She wriggled her way out of Edward's embrace.

"I know how you feel about me," she told him, struggling to keep her voice firm, "and I don't want to delude myself about you changing your mind. But the way I feel hasn't changed, either."

He gently held her hands. "You say you know how I feel," he told her quietly. "May I ask what you know?"

Bella's expression hardened. Her eyes bored into his, and this time she didn't fight against the tears. "Why are you doing this to me, Edward? Do you want me to repeat to you that you don't love me, that you don't want me, that you're tired of pretending? You can think that my memory is a sieve, but I haven't forgotten what–"

Edward cut her off vehemently. "Bella, everything I said that day was a lie!"

If Bella hadn't known that vampires couldn't cry, she would have thought that Edward was on the verge of tears.

"Those words were the very blackest kind of blasphemy," he went on, his voice lower. "I wasn't above anything to keep you safe, to the point that I'd renounce even the life you had given me back, and so I did. Because I love you, Bella. I've always loved you, and I always will. I was thinking of you, seeing your face in my mind, every second that I was away."

Bella gaped at him, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. "So... why...?" she trailed off in disbelief.

He took her by the hand and stood. "Please, follow me." He led her to a corner window. From there, they could gaze out at the city basking in the late afternoon light. "Do you know why I chose this place?"

He didn't wait for her answer and went on. "I came here more than thirty years ago. I was studying medicine at the time and was attending a conference, posing as Carlisle's brother. The Space Needle was already a big attraction, so I went for a visit. When I arrived at the top of the tower, I was impressed by the city below, swarming with thousands of people. Behind each of them, there was a story that was connected to other stories, like the threads of a tapestry. I'd already roamed the Earth for decades, but still, I felt like a thread that wasn't connected to anything else. Then I found you, Isabella, and finally I belonged. You brought the colors to my tapestry. But last September..."

He tightened his embrace around her and shut his eyes; both their minds went back to that day in the woods when he had abandoned her. "I was scared when I told you those lies. Before you, my life had been like a moonless night. You had shot across my sky like a meteor, setting everything on fire. I've already told you that I'm a selfish creature, so I didn't want to lose the brilliancy, the beauty you had brought. But I kept telling myself, it's for her. You should protect her from what you are. She will be safe. Instead I failed." He wiped the tears away from her cheeks. "I'm sorry. Sorry because I hurt you, sorry because I lied."

"You could have talked with me about your concerns. We could have faced them together," Bella countered.

"I know. I took your choices away from you," he admitted. "There's a reason why I didn't stay in your room last week."

"I thought it was a dream," she recalled. "But then I saw that the window had been left open."

He roamed her features with his gaze, eager to take them in after the time he had spent away from her. "Leaving was so difficult. I missed you, but I wanted to give you space and time." He smiled at her. "Do you recall what you told me when I was in your room?"

Bella's eyes widened. "I talked to you?"

Edward chuckled softly. "You did." The smile faded from his face. "I told you that I was back, and you said that I couldn't be. That I was dead."

She would have rushed to explain, but he went on. "I know you were half-sleeping, but your words made me realize that I couldn't stay there, not in that moment. I changed your life when I left, and I promised I wouldn't interfere again. I had no right to show up in your home and turn everything upside down."

"I wanted you to come back," she told him quietly. "I still can't believe that it's real – that you're here, talking with me. But I don't know whether I can trust you anymore. What if you're going to leave again?"

"You think I'm lying to you now?"

"Are you?" she challenged.

"You are everything to me, Bella, and I don't want to make the same mistake twice. I guess that only time will show you how I really feel. If you will allow me, that is."

She was afraid to let hope fill her heart. "So are you going to stay?" she asked.

His eyes lit up as a full smile spread across his face. "I am."

"But after my lie..."

"We'll figure it out," he reassured her.

She closed her arms around him, never wanting to let him go. He tilted up her head, and his fingers skimmed over her mouth. Slowly, he closed the distance between them. Her heart increased its pace to the point that he could feel its rhythm, as if his own still heart had been awakened back to life. His lips glided over Bella's, basking in their softness. She searched for his mouth, hungry for kisses that had been denied to her for too long. Their contact was tentative, as if their bodies had to recognize each other.

When their kiss ended, they didn't break their embrace. They stared out of the window as the sky began to darken, signaling that the day was fading away. "It's time for me to go," Bella reluctantly said.

"May I drive you back home?" Edward asked.

She looked up at him in confusion. "How would you?"

He smirked at her, happy as he hadn't been in months, luxuriating in the emotion. "I still remember how to drive your truck." He toyed with a strand of her hair. "I can drive you to Forks and leave you in the outskirts. I would feel better knowing that you aren't alone on the road."

"For your information, I drove here alone just fine."

His smile broadened. "I have to give credit to your truck," he joked. "But are you sure you were alone?"

Bella frowned at him in confusion.

Edward glanced at her mischievously. "I could have never let a flat tire or any other accident put you in danger or detain you," he told her softly.

"You followed me?" she asked in disbelief.

"Let's say I checked on you now and then during the journey," he admitted.

"Are you going to stay in the shadows, checking on me from afar?"

Edward didn't need to read Bella's mind to know how the consequences of her lie were saddening her. "We'll find a way." He reached for his pocket and retrieved a cell phone. "I have something for you," he told her, giving her the phone. "My number is already set in it, and you can call me whenever you want. There's a place I'd like to show you in a few days."

Thanks for reading!

Notes

The bookstore in Seattle – Inner Chapters – is real.

The book Bella purchases is Time was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co., by Jeremy Mercer. I found it thanks to a recommendation by Inner Chapters staff (on the bookshop's website).

Thank you! to my wonderful friends Camilla10, Miaokuancha, Marlena580, and Jmolly.

Ethelouise, I couldn't reply to your review because your PMs are disabled. Please drop me a line.

The next chapter of A Good Liar is due to be posted in two weeks, while An Italian Winter is due to be updated next Friday.

I'm on Twitter (RaumTweet).

A Good Liar's extras are posted on: h.t.t.p : / / myreadinglounge. blogspot. com/