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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.
Chapter 16
The morning after.
"You did the right thing, Bella," Rose assured me, as she had been telling me a million times over the past couple of days. "What else were you supposed to do? Stand by and watch while she hurts Charlie and contradicts every single parenting decision you guys have made?"
"She's right," Emmett agreed with a steady, calming voice. His hands took over my rolling pin before my anxiety destroyed the batch of filo-pastry I was trying to make for the baklava. "You know I'm all for handling this amicably but when one of the partners goes too far…that just fucks shit up even more, you know?"
"There's a fine line between wanting to avoid a confrontation and letting someone walk all over you," Rose agreed with him. "It was about time you made a stand."
"I know." I sighed, leaning my tired, worn down body against the edge of my workbench. "I know I did the right thing, and I know that a lot of people would have put their foot down a lot sooner than I did, but that doesn't make this situation any easier, does it? I mean...what the hell am I supposed to do now? How am I going to make this work?"
I shook my head, the killer migraine that had been plaguing me ever since I managed to drag myself from the car flared up again. "And taking him to court? How in God's name am I ever going to find a lawyer I trust that will have Charlie's best interest at heart? And what if it all fails? What if the court sides with Edward; the doctor who has a kindergarten teacher by his side? What if I end up in an even worse position than I'm in now?"
"You can't be serious about that?" Rose fumed. "There's no way a judge is going to side with Assward when Charlie doesn't even want to live with him!"
"Would it be the first time something like that had happened?" I cried, already feeling the tears burn in my eyes. It had been the nightmare that had haunted me throughout the night. And the fact that I'd gone online to look at my options didn't help either. The internet was swamped with stories of heartbroken parents who'd thought they'd stood a chance at protecting their kids via the court route and ended up losing them after a bitter custody battle.
A strong arm wrapped around my shoulder, my body and soul were so in need of reassurance and affection that I never even stopped to think for a moment about the fact that my employee was hugging me. And besides, over the past couple of weeks Emmett had become more of a friend than an employee anyway.
"Where's Charlie now?" he asked, the timbre of his voice vibrating through his chest like Morse Code.
"At school," I muttered, the soothing comfort doubling as Rose joined our huddle, hugging me from behind as her hands tenderly brushed the hair out of my face. "I offered to keep her home today but she didn't want to miss her classes. I think she wants things to go back to normal as fast as possible but…but how is that even possible?"
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Emmett assured me, though I had no idea where his confidence came from. "As strange as it may seem, you've come through this with flying colors, so far." Chuckling at my look of incredulity, he added. "Seriously, Bella, I admire your ass all the way to the moon and back! You, my lady, have more class in your pinky than Voldemary has in her whole body! I think this time she'll learn that she's gone too far."
I grinned as Emmett used my nickname for Angela as if it really was her name.
"Cheers to that!" Rose chuckled, the sound of the bell on the shop door forced her back out to the front but not before she turned back and sneered. "How about we get the whole town up in arms and send that bitch back to Seattle covered in good old tar and feathers. I mean…she's all about the cute, furry animals, isn't she?"
"I'm sure my dad would lead the angry mob!" I snorted, even though it wasn't exactly a joke. Judging from what Mom had told me, Dad was pretty much on the war path, which meant that the Cullen/Weber camp would probably be on the wrong side of a police smack down.
Not that I felt the least bit sorry for them.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Emmett asked as I slowly disentangled myself from his hold.
"I'm not sure." Sighing, I picked the discarded rolling pin back up, my hands back to their usual gentleness as I went back to work, needing the comfort of normalcy and repetition as I pushed the rolling pin forwards and backwards until I was happy with the result. "We'll take it one day at a time, I suppose…Edward's coming over this afternoon to talk to Charlie and make his apologies."
For a moment, something dark and powerful flashed inside Emmett's eyes before he was back in control, his voice too cool, though, as he spoke, "That's the least he could do."
I nodded. "He would have done it yesterday but Charlie wasn't up to it yet."
"It's good that you guys are letting her set the pace for this," Emmett remarked, putting the dough he'd been working on aside to let it rest. "That's what I wished my mom and dad would have done back in the day…keep in mind what was important."
"It's so easy to lose sight of that." I frowned, remembering how, for a moment, the more irrational part of me had wanted to keep Edward away from his daughter indefinitely, but that wouldn't have worked. I knew that after my talk with Charlie. Because as disappointed as she'd been in what had happened, and as much as she never wanted to see Angela again, the same thing didn't go for her dad. She loved him and wanted to spend time with him—if he would listen to her and keep her best interests in mind. "It's actually what you said to me a few weeks ago about parents fighting so hard they forget they're actually parents—that kept me from doing something radical…something that might have ended up hurting more people than just me and Edward."
"It couldn't have been easy, though," Emmett agreed. "Especially in a case like this when I imagine your whole being is telling you to keep that fucker and his bitch away from your kid."
"Yeah," I acknowledged, "but as long as she wants to keep seeing him, I'm not going to stand in the way. No matter how much part of me wants that. As for the bitch, though…"
"I guess this kind of killed all your plans for the two of you to get back together, huh?" Emmett joked, winking as he started to mix the filler that went in between the cookies of our homemade Oreo lookalikes.
"They'd been put on hold a few weeks ago, when he started pissing me off more than he set my heart aflutter, but yeah…" I sighed, chuckling wryly as I started to melt an unholy amount of butter into a pan and kept one eye on the process while swiftly assembling all the other ingredients for the baklava on my workbench. "At least this whole thing makes it that much easier for me to pick between Liam and whatever feelings I had for Edward before he messed up…again."
Emmett shrugged. "As long as you're sure about it."
"I am." My voice sounded a lot more certain than my heart was but, even in its uncertainty, it knew that things could never go back to the way they were. Not after everything that had happened.
The past was a closed book and the outcome of the sequel was, as of yet, very undecided.
Emmett didn't comment.
Over the past couple of weeks, I'd found he liked to keep himself out of relationship problems, which had proven to be quite a chore when it came to Rose, since she always managed to have guy problems.
Actually….now that I thought of it, things had been pretty quiet on the Rose front lately. Hmm….remember to ask her about it next time.
We worked side by side quietly for most of the day until, somewhere late afternoon our peace and quiet was disturbed by a door slamming and rushed footsteps pounding into the bakery; a book bag hitting the floor right before a small body slammed into me from behind.
It was a good thing I'd gone through this process countless times before or the meringues I was piping onto a baking tray would have been ruined.
"Mom, I'm home!" Charlie called out as her wiry, ten year old body collided with mine.
"Really?" I chuckled, awkwardly hugging her with one arm as the other gently put the piping bag down. "I would never have noticed!"
"Was that a tornado that just came through the door?" Emmett chimed in. "Oh, my bad. It's Miss Charlotte!"
"Charlie!" my daughter corrected him, her face scrunched up in disgust at the sound of her full name. "Nobody calls me that…well, except for her."
I had to stifle a little smile of triumph, noticing how since the previous day Charlie had taken to referring to Voldemary in a way very similar to mine ever. I bet she would have called her 'Voldemary' too, if she'd have known about the nickname almost everyone in Team Bella had adopted.
"Did Dad call yet?" she asked, her eyes widening as I pushed the small tin of baklava I'd saved for her down the table towards her while she ran to grab a glass of milk. "He said he'd call, right? When he was done with work?"
I nodded. "I think he might still be stuck at the hospital. Do you want me to send him a message?"
"Yeah." Charlie pensively gazed out in front of her. "I kinda want to talk to him now. Is that weird? I mean, I didn't want to do it yesterday…"
"It's not weird at all," I reassured her. "You probably just needed time to sort out your thoughts and rest a bit after what happened. There's nothing weird in wanting to be ready to meet with someone."
"Even if it's my dad?" she pressed, sipping from her drink.
"Especially when it's your dad," I was quick to answer. "Sometimes the people we love do things we hate…things that make us feel sad or angry. It's important that when it happens, you don't lash out in anger, but stay calm and try to explain to them why they hurt you and how their behavior made you feel. Sometimes people need a little time to get to that place, and if they don't take that time—"
"They say things they don't mean and make things worse," my smart kid finished for me.
"Exactly!" Feeling so incredibly proud of her, I leaned in to kiss the crown of her head before I finished the last row of meringues with a sure hand, my breath coming a little easier when I'd slid the tray into the oven.
Shooting a quick text message to Edward, telling him his daughter was at home and ready to see him as soon as possible, I left the cleanup of the bakery in Emmett's capable hands as Charlie all but dragged me up the stairs. She was clearly in need of some diversion; the tension in her little frame rising as we both feigned interest in mindless shows until the doorbell rang.
Edward looked a bit ruffled when he came up the stairs; me standing idly in the hallway with my hand still hovering over the button that opened the door. "Emmett let me in," he cleared up both matters of confusion.
Right. And Emmett probably had a thing or two to say about fathers throwing their kids to the wolves.
"Charlie's in her room," I managed to squeak out after a few minutes of awkward silence. "I'll just go get her…she wants me to be there when the two of you talk."
For a moment something of shock, disappointment and even a slight note of annoyance flashed over his face but just as quickly as I saw them, they were gone again. "Of course." He nodded, his lips pressed into a fine line that could have been born out of anger or nervousness. "Should I wait in the living room?"
I nodded. "Do you want me to grab you something to drink? I've made cinnamon biscotti." I realized I was babbling, my cheeks burned as I turned on my heels, quietly cursing myself for spewing verbal diarrhea like some airhead.
Charlie was already coming out of her bedroom by the time I made it to her room, her hand in mine as we grabbed the drinks on our way to the living room; the pressure on mine growing as she spotted her dad.
Tense was the word that could be used to describe the initial stages of our talk, though 'talk' seemed like a big word for three people sitting around the table. In fact, the only thing that could be heard for a full fifteen minutes was the crunch of biscotti being eaten and the muffled sounds coming from the bakery.
"I-I…I'm sorry, Charlie," Edward finally spoke, my daughter shifting her body so close to mine we could almost be counted as one person instead of two. "This should never have happened. I know that…and I've let you down again."
Charlie bit her lip, her face pale as she geared up to speak. "Why did you leave me alone? You promised me…I don't want to be left alone with her."
"You know what I told you about my job not being like other people's job and how I sometimes can't promise you I'll be home to spend time with you?" He waited for her to nod until he went on. "This was one of those instances where I thought I'd be home all night or I'd never have asked you to come over. It was just…there was an accident and the hospital needed me to help the people that had gotten injured…"
"But you could have told me!" Charlie whispered, anger taking over from disappointment as she tensed up; her body coiled to fight, even if it was against her own father. "I would have understood and…and we would have called Mom. She would have come to get me, wouldn't you, Mom?"
The look in my eyes must have betrayed some of the guilt I felt as I answered my daughter's question but, in this case, she deserved my loyalty much more than he did. "In a heartbeat."
"See!" Charlie snapped triumphantly. "You didn't have to leave me with her if you didn't want to."
"I know," Edward admitted, regret thick on his face, "but I had to make a snap decision and I made a mistake…a huge mistake. I thought I'd be back before you woke up. I didn't want to bother your mom or lose out on the chance to have breakfast with you."
"You should have listened to me," Charlie persisted, making my heart swell with pride. "You know I don't like her and that I don't trust her." The ferocity of Charlie's dislike for Angela surprised even me. Sure, I knew that after the first time Angela had shown her true face, she'd dropped significantly down Charlie's favorite person list, but in all our talks since then—and there had been many, especially those first few times she'd gone back out to her dad's—she'd never shown any sign of the feelings she admitted.
If she had…things would have turned out very differently.
"I hoped things had changed." Edward sighed, shaking his head. "Angie's been working so hard to win back your trust and the two of you seemed to be getting along great the last few times. She promised me nothing would happen."
"And you believed her?" Charlie snorted derisively, voicing my exact thoughts on the matter.
"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty," Edward remarked. "Back when the dress indecent happened, she assured me it was all a misunderstanding…that she'd never intended for you to be hurt and that she only wanted to have you try something you wouldn't normally try. She was really upset about the fact that she'd hurt your feelings and she promised me she'd never do anything like that again."
The slight flash of a look he gave me told me all I needed to know about that bitch's motives. She wanted to put my girl in a dress because she thought I was against it; because she thought I wasn't raising my daughter right.
If I could have hated her more in that minute…I would have. Because it was one thing to hate me and wage war against me; it was another to hurt my kid.
"It was a mistake," Edward meanwhile went on. "I know that now but then…I just wanted everything to turn out right? Do you know what I mean?"
Charlie needed a few minutes to process that thought but in the end, she nodded. "But she wouldn't listen to me, Daddy. I told her I didn't want to go to church with her. I told her I just wanted to go home, but she wouldn't listen, so I had to run away."
"I know, baby." Edward sighed. "I know what she did was very wrong. You shouldn't have been in that position in the first place, but you were. And she should have listened to you. I'm sorry this had to happen…I'm sorry if you feel like you can't come to my place because of that…"
"I don't want to feel like this." The minute the first sob wracked through her slight frame, my arms were around her; my senses shocking into awareness when I felt the nearness of Edward as he crouched down in front of the two of us.
"What can I do to make it right again, baby?" he begged. "Say the words and I'll do it. Whatever you need, love."
Charlie sniffed, her big, green eyes watery as she looked at him. "I don't want her around anymore, Daddy. I don't like her."
"Then it's done." The swiftness of Edward's acquiescence surprised me as much as it gave me joy.
How could a guy who defended his girlfriend almost to his own defeat one day, and give up on her so quickly the next?
I needed to see that before I believed it.
Thoughts?