Bella's POV
As we made our way towards our relaxation room, I went over the events of tonight, smiling at how well it all went. The crowd here loves us, so I was hoping other cities and towns would as well. It was a pretty good show, other than the fact that I began sweating on stage. I laughed to myself at the hysterical thought of dripping sweat on the stage. Yuck.
When I entered the room, I immediately saw our cousins, Seth and Leah. Leah is a tall girl, and has tan skin skin just like my half-brothers. Seth... well he's... Seth. "Hey guys! That was awesome! Great job!" I smiled and I laughed at myself again due to my previous thought. I was so out of breath that I had to lay flat across the couch and breathe in and out heavily, and my brothers were doing the same thing.
It was about ten minutes later that we all wanted a snack to eat so all of us went and got our individual ice creams from the freezer, and not to long after that, we heard a knock on the door. Sam got up and answered the door, "Yes?"
"The guests Mr. Swan." Sam fixed to stance behind to door to open the door.
"Oh yes, come on in, hey guys, the guests are here, one girl and three guys." I smiled and just continued eating my ice cream. I know it might have been selfish of m, but... my ice cream was what was most important to me at the moment. I stood up and walked towards our guests with my pint of ice cream in hand. The coldness of the pint, cooling my hand. I used my free hand to shake her hand.
"Hello, and who might you be?"
"My name is Angela." She said, meekly. I then really looked at the girl, beautiful. She was an amazing 6'1, with light brown hair with streaks of honey and brown eyes that spoke the words, "always-gentle." Her eyes are framed with white, elegant glasses. The guy next to her was 6'3" tall and has honey blond hair that falls just above his collar. He is muscular, but lean, unlike the man next to him. "Hi, what is your name?" I asked.
"Jasper Ma'am." Whoa... ma'am. I liked that. Next to him there was a man whom was very tall, very muscular, and in my mind, very intimidating. He was an outstanding 6'5", he is taller than the other people, although he is very handsome with dimples and slightly curly, dark brown hair that almost looks black, this hair gave him a childish look. "I'm Emmet miss." He said before I could even ask. I looked next to the burly man, and immediately... I was in a daze. This man was gorgeous... the most gorgeous man I had ever seen.
He was extremely attractive, his appearance could easily be associated to the mythical Greek god, Adonis. His facial features were perfect and angular, he had high cheekbones, a strong jawline, perfect eyebrows, a straight nose and full lips. His untidy hair showed a mix of an unusual bronze shade that seemed like his natural hair color and black. His eyes were an astonishing emerald green, as beautiful as liquid emerald are now described as topaz or liquid gold, he was about 6'2", and had a thin and lanky, but muscular body. Yes, he was oh so beautiful. "H-Hi." I stuttered. "A-and... who might you be?" I asked, and in my voice you could hear my awe of his beauty.
"Hello Izzy. My name is Edward." His was was as smooth as velvet and as beautiful as Alexander Desplats musical piece called "The Meadow." And shook my head quickly blinking... Edward... such a beautiful name.
Edward's POV
Excitement rushed throughout my body as we made our way towards backstage. Before we left for backstage, each of us were given a free copy of their first CD. My thoughts kept rushing back to Izzy. Her beauty was so outstanding to me, it's like her image was burned into my mind, but I didn't mind it being there. Izzy was extremely beautiful with her pale ivory skin tone, but that ivory color seemed to have a little bit of peach, she also had straight Black, Blue, and Silver waist-length hair. Her hair had a special bounciness to it at the top. She was only 5'4'' but her shortness made her, ever so adorable. I was also looking at her tattoos while she was on stage. There was one on her right arm that I noticed covered her whole arm... I looked closely at it, and it looked like a mural of a bunch on anime characters. She liked anime to? This woman was a dream come true.
When we reached the door of the backstage room, my nerves went out of control, so as we waited, I took slow deep breaths, and those helped a lot. We were still standing there, waiting patiently when the manager turned around to look at us. Slowly and clearly he recited four rules, and I made sure to remember them. After finishing telling us the rules he once again congratulated us on being chosen for backstage, then he turned around and knocked on the door. The door opened slowly, and I heard the sound of a very deep, pretty low voice. I looked around Emmet and recognized him as Izzy's brother Sam.
"Yes?" He asked.
"The guests Mr. Swan." Swan? Izzy Swan... that was a pretty cool name, but when I looked at Sam, I laughed... Swan didn't really go well with his appearance.
"Oh yes, come on in, hey guys, the guests are here, one girl and three guys." Sam said as he politely shook each one of our hands. "Welcome. It's a pleasure to meet you four. We are happy to have you here with us." Sam said. I nodded with a polite smile, as Emmet, Jasper, The girl, and I got into a single file line, not sure why... but that's how we entered the room. As we stood here, we looked around, seeing the band people put down their snacks and drinks and walked towards us. But.. then I spotted Izzy. I chuckled quietly to myself when I saw her refuse to put down her snack and walk over to us while eating it.
"Hello, and who might you be?" Izzy asked after shaking the girls hand.
"My name is Angela." She said, almost in a quiet shy voice. I figured that she must not talk munch around people. Izzy nodded and then shook Jasper's hand.
"Hi, what is your name?" I asked.
"Jasper Ma'am."
"I'm Emmet miss." Emmet said, with pride in his voice causing me to smirk. Then... she came to me, and her eyes finally met mine. Her eyes were a beautiful dark chocolate brown.
"H-Hi." She stuttered. "A-and... who might you be?" I smiled, was.. he... no, she couldn't like me... could she? I mean I wasn't handsome like most men, or anything.
"H-hello Izzy. My name is Edward." I blushed at me obvious stutter. I gave myself away, damn it! A blush immediately made itself known on the apples of her cheeks, and I couldn't help but want to gently place my hand on her cheek, and rub her cheekbones. What is wrong with me? Nothing is wrong with you! You're just getting a serious crush! My thoughts rang loud, and that made me feel better.
"You're pretty cute when you're nervous you know." She said, giggling. Was it that obvious that I was nervous? "Would you like to sit with me? Sorry about my eating in front of you, I'm just starving and we won't be eating or another two hours or so." I nodded, happy that she wanted to talk with me... but... why did she want to talk with me? Was I interesting? Cool? No... it couldn't be any of those things. I'm not interesting, I'm not cool, I'm not anything, I'm just regular old Edward.
After getting myself situated on the couch next to her, she ate some ice cream and looked at me, "So Edward, where are you from?" She asked casually.
"Forks." Her eyes widened.
"Really? I'm from forks as well, but my brothers and I moved to Seattle."
"May I ask why you moved? If you mind me asking."
"Well, you see, my brothers, are really my half brothers. My youngest siblings before I was born are the twins Embry and Quil. There is a five year different between us. Their mother,... she didn't stick around. But, when I came around my mother died of childbirth, and with my five brothers, and then adding me on five years later, you can pretty much do the math on how many years our father spent raising us, so we thought he deserved a break. So we all pitched in and moved in together in Seattle." Wow, her story was not overly horrifying, but it was still sad. Her brothers suffered abandonment from their mother, and then Izzy's mother died in childbirth. I felt bad for her, her mother, and her half brothers. "I can see the worry in your eyes Edward, but don't worry. It's ok. We've all learned to move on from things like that." She shifted uncomfortably for a moment. A question came to my mind.
"Izzy.. if you don't mind me asking... what's your dad's name, may I know him?"
"My father is Charlie Swan, Chief of Police in Forks." Really? Izzy, and her brothers are the children of Chief Swan, wow. Man, I was starting to sound like an overly obsessed gossip girl. After that we spent a good two hours doing nothing but asking questions, and getting to know each other, and it made me smile. Bella was a great, and very bright person. Sam then stood in the middle of the room and whistled.
"Well guys, it's been fun hanging out with you all. We will be heading to dinner soon and then back home, so if you would like, you may join us for dinner." I liked that idea. I looked around the room, just to see whom Emmet and Jasper were talking to. And of course Emmet was talking to Rosalie and Jasper was talking to Alice... and that girl... what was her name... Angela? She was sitting with another boy who looked like she could be Izzy's brother as well.
"Hey, Izzy. Who are those two over there?" I asked.
"Oh. That's Seth, and Leah. Those two are my cousins. Leah is about three years older than me, and Seth in three years younger." After that explanation, everyone got up, helping the band put all of their equipment away in their large band trailer attached to the back of their large, almost FBI looking Cavalcade GTA 4. After that was finished we all headed out towards a local restaurant called "Dynasty Chinese Restaurant." And it was funny seeing all of us walk in and sit down. Emmet and Rosalie decided to share a two seat table, Jasper and Alice decided to share a two seat table, Bella's brothers, friend, and her two cousins shared a large party table, and of course Bella and I shared a two seated table.
After all of the questions that we had asked, there was a question I did have, "Izzy, If you don't mind me asking, what are your two tattoos supposed to represent? The one around your neck, and the one on your arm?" She looked at me and smiled.
"Well, the one around my neck, the white tiger symbolizes serene strength and the Bengal tiger symbolizes the anger that is within and ability to trust. I chose these symbols only because... well... I have to have strength, or everything, everyone does. Then the ability to trust because I am someone that people can trust. Then... the anger is towards myself..." She stopped and breathed in deeply. How could this kind-hearted, beautiful goddess before be angry with herself?
"If I may ask... why?" She looked at me, deliberation in her eyes. After about three minutes she sighed and smiled sadly at me, "well I'm angry with myself because I feel responsible..." She paused.
"Responsible for what?"
"For... for my mother dying while having me. For some reason, when I found out what happened, I just became angry with myself, I feel that it's my fault that she isn't here right now." She didn't need to think this way, there was no way for her mother to survive this and her mother wanted her to live.
"No, Izzy, that's not true at all. It's not your fault. She gave herself up for you, because to her, you were a blessing, to everyone here, you are a blessing. It was never your fault and never will be." She looked at me.. shocked by my kind words. Tears began to surface in her eyes, Oh no! I had made her cry... I needed to fix this. I grabbed a napkin and walked to her side of the table and gestured to give her the napkin, but instead of taking the napkin, she jumped up, and wrapped her arms around me, sobbing silently, gently clutching the back of my shirt. It felt warm in my heart.
"Thank you Edward... I needed that. No man that I'm not related to has ever told me that... thank you." She whispered. By instinct I wrapped my arms around her back and slowly rubbed my hands up and down her back. This was... soothing.
"You're welcome Izzy." She shook her head. I looked at her to see her blushing, "What is it Izzy?"
"Please... call me by real name, Bella." Bella... So beautiful.
"Ok... Bella..." I said, it sounded like an angels name. She sighed into my chest and then she sat back down in her seat and I did the same. Smiling at her as I handed her the napkin she needed. She slowly wiped her eyes, and as soon as she finished doing we get up together to get our food. And we began to feel uncomfortable as we were being stared at by Bella's friends and family on the way towards our seats.
"Ok.. sorry.. now, anyways.. the tattoo on my arm is just a mural of my favorite anime characters. Do you recognize any of the characters?" She held out her right arm for to examine it for any characters I might know.
"Well, I see Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippo, Songa, Miroku from Inuyasha. I see Nagisa, Tomoya, Ushio, Akio, Sanae, and Sunohara from Clannad. Then Kyo, Yuki, Shigure, Ayame, Haru, and Momiji from Fruits Basket." Bella smiled.
"Impressive, so I take it you are a fan of anime?"
"Oh yeah, what about you?" I sad laughing.
"Of course." I looked around as I finished my last bite of food and witnessed as Sam looked at the watch on his wrist, got up, and walked towards the counter and paid for the meals, then he came back towards all of the tables and sighed.
"Hey guys, I'm sorry to say this, but it's time for us to head out. Say your good-byes and we got to go. And again, thank you to the special guests, and we hoped that you enjoyed your time with us."
"Oh hell yeah we did!" Emmet yelled, making all of us laugh at him. "Aw, why are you all laughing at poor Emmy..." He whined. Causing us to laugh once again. I turned towards Bella then, and nodded.
"Well... I guess this is farewell fair Bella. It has been fun with you, and to be honest... I will miss you." She blushed again... where the hell did that come from? It just rolled out of my mouth... but I was happy that I had said it.
"Well you know Edward, this doesn't have to be the end. We can stay in contact. I would like that very much." She reached into her purse and pulled out a small envelope and she placed it in my hand. "This is for you. Thank you for hanging out with me tonight. It was well appreciated. " She reached forward and hugged me, then got on her tippy toes and planted a warm, soft kiss on my cheek. I was so shocked, that I placed my hand on my cheek. Warmth immediately went to my heart and as she got into her car she said, "Bye Edward, hope to see you again." And that was it... and to be honest I was kind of sad now.
I felt a very heavy strong arm hit my shoulder, "Way to go Eddie. That was quite romantic there bro, Look, I even snapped a picture of you two, I wish it would have been a make out session though." I mock punched his shoulder.
"Shut up Emmet."
"Well Edward, we should probably get back to the dorms." Jasper suggested, and I agreed, because I thought that maybe the sooner I got myself to bed, that perhaps I would dream of her later. And right I was.
I dreamed that we were in a park, taking a walk, and she turned to look at me and said, "Edward, I love you." Just as the sunset came upon us and the wind picked up, letting her hair flow free.
Bella's POV
I didn't want to leave Edward. He was so kind and sweet, and mature, unlike a lot of college men. Even now, four hours later, I could still feel the phantom sensation of Edward wrapping his arms around me, to comfort me, and... I could swear I was falling in love.
Rosalie and Alice didn't cut me any slack, and neither had my brothers or Laurent. They all questioned when happened, and I told them every minute detail of it, and they all seemed happy.. I'm not sure if it was happiness for me, but... it was something like that.
I walked upstairs and laid down with my friends and began to reminisce in my memories of Edward, and I smiled, thinking of and remembering the whole night. And slowly, I began to dream of Edward.
To Be Continued...