Chapter's kinda late notice. I've been typing this at the dead of the night while trying to keep myself awake. Sorry for the late chapter, I just had my best friend back recently and due to the crappy behavior I've treated him before, I needed to make it up to him so I decided to take some time off for a while but now I'm back and though the creative juices are barely flowing, it's still giving enough.

I apologize in advance if the grammar's quite bad or something doesn't make any sense. I've tried to proofread but I don't know if I missed some things.

Chapter Five- To have and to hold, I'd fight to the very end

Change comes in surprise packages. You sometimes feel it coming but something still catches you off guard or you don't expect anything and everything in your life just blows off course. I've experienced both kinds of changes- both the good and the bad –but nothing else strips you vulnerable than the change you encounter which you didn't expect at all.

It was a typically ordinary day- busy day from school, practice with the team, met with my girlfriend for a while and then my mother called out of the blue.

When I get phone calls like that from my mother telling me to go home early; it could only be one of two things, it's either a) there's been an emergency or b) my mother had missed me that she decided to call me to tell me to come home early. Since Esme didn't sound frantic or at a loss of words and she seemed in control of herself, I could only gather that she missed me which was totally farfetched because the last time she called me because she just plain missed me was back in Grade Three.

The first thing I noticed when I got home was that my parents were waiting for me at the living room, both wearing an odd expression on their faces which was strange in itself because the last time both my parents were home that early in the afternoon was when Grandma Cullen died.

"What's going on? Did someone die?" I asked as soon as I dropped my bag on the sofa seat.

"No, someone didn't die this time," Carlisle said. "Take a seat, Edward."

They waited until I had taken my seat before proceeding. "There's something that we believe it is time for you to know," Carlisle announced.

"What is it?"

And then I was told about my arranged marriage and how it was my duty to unite our company with another's by marrying some anonymous girl; a girl without a face. I won't say that I didn't shed a few tears because I did. I was angry, I was miserable, I felt cheated; I was a mix of emotions that I couldn't describe all at once. I wanted to save my relationship with Bella. I craved a happy ending with her; I wanted it all: a family, the children, the house with the picket fence and the two pets. I wanted my day to end with my wife who will greet me with a kiss after I enter our house who will ask how my day went and who I could share my work's burden with but I wanted it all to be with Bella.

I got angry with this girl who was probably in the same helpless situation like I did. I wasn't some 18th century person who needed marriage to secure my position in the society and yet I felt like one. I didn't even know how to tell all of this to Bella. My parents told me that this was all to be kept confidential because the only the lawyer who made the contract and the parents were the only ones in the know. And now it was my turn.

I don't know if the girl knew this as well. All that I thought at first was to get back at my parents for keeping this from me for a long time, for not telling me sooner but then sanity returned to me before I could of calling to tell Bella. Whatever they might have done to me, they're still my parents, right? So instead of doing what I first thought I ought to do, I settled to get myself wasted…

Which pretty much resulted to the worst mistake I've ever done in my life.

x

The place where Bella and I first dated was my choice for our date. A trip back to the past, was what I first thought when I booked for our date and I thought that it might help soften her when she saw the familiar surroundings but she hardened her resolve when she saw the building.

She was sitting on her chair across from me with her shoulders hunched forward as a way of defense and the frequent glares she sent at me where far from the way she used to look at me. I was about to tell her to relax herself because I wasn't going to bite her but she interrupted me before I could say anything.

"Look here, Cullen, I know we have two weeks to get to know each other better but we both know that it's all just a bunch of crap. We already know each other more than enough. I know you're an unspeakable, conniving and manipulative cad and you know I'm an ignorant, foolish girl you tricked so these two weeks is futile. It's laughable and the only reason why I agreed to it is because I still have some score to settle with you."

Some score to settle? From what I could remember, Bella had left after Tanya had told her the story she had cooked up. She had been in a hurry to leave that she hadn't managed to hear the news that Tanya's story was a fake not that it wouldn't have made any difference with what I did.

"Like what?"

"First, I'm not going to give up. I know there's a chance that I won't get to marry you if I try hard enough. I don't want to be tied down to my tormentor, dammit!" She ended the sentence with another well-delivered glare.

"Tormentor?" Now I was really confused… I may have been overbearing because I wasn't supporting her decision not to push through with the marriage but I haven't done anything violent to her or forced her to do anything- other than the wedding, that is.

Couldn't the mistake be fixed? I knew what I did was unforgivable but criminals with a much graver sin had been given pardons, haven't they? I do admit that I wasn't a victim and if I haven't done something to Tanya, Bella wouldn't be like this.

"Yes, tormentor!"

She thought of me as some kind of sadistic person; torturer of innocents? That was ironic because if nothing else, I thought of nothing about myself but a masochist.

"So you think I'm your tormentor, is that it?"

"Aren't you? You want to continue on with our engagement when you know that it would only end in misery. You must truly be a masochist, huh? Do you enjoy seeing other people in pain, is that it?"

I wanted nothing more than to tell her the truth about what I really felt- but for Bella, they might just seem like words I've caught out of the blue from "fishing"; words that sounded great but contained no real meaning. That's what I seem to be for her at the moment: a person from her past bent on destroying her future. That's all I am to her now, a paradox.

"Now stop interrupting me; second, if you tell my plan to anyone of our parents, you're not going to hear the end of it with me. Third, don't use this two weeks as a chance to make a pass at me, I've gotten over you and to tell you the truth, I've already moved on with my life without you. And lastly, if by some chance I failed to make the parents agree on giving this marriage up, then you are going to follow my rules for the rest of our lives while we're married and I won't get to hear a word of protest from you, got it? Do you want to add something?"

She continued to tweak the stick that had lodged in my heart from long ago. I call that stick, the "memory stick" because every time that I thought of Bella, a certain part of my chest aches like someone was continuously piercing a needle, carving out some message I couldn't understand.

But I really couldn't let Bella get away with what she said without trying to argue my side. I have my pride too and it refused to let me take this lying down like some kind of "Welcome Mat" for Bella's insults.

"Just a few. First, I'm not going to give up on you either, Bella, so whether you want the marriage to happen or not, I'm still going to do my damnedest for it to push through. Second, I'm not going to tell our parents because they have much on their hands without having to hear our childish disagreement."

"Childish? There's nothing childish about our disagreement. I detest you and you dislike me, what's childish about that?"

My sweet Bella, I've really missed her so- especially when I'm trying hard not to laugh that she just sounded so childish just now by denying the fact that our disagreement was indeed childish.

"You're wrong. The truth is, I miss you and you just can't accept the fact that you miss me too so while you're trying to break our engagement, I'm going to let you realize how much you have missed me and let's see who wins."

"I don't miss you-"

"Believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe. It's like they say, 'we'll just agree to disagree.'"

"There's just something wrong about that, Cullen, because I don't want to agree with anything you say, whether it's to agree to disagree or otherwise."

"Let me finish my say before you protest. I've waited for you to finish your mini tirade at least show me the same amount of tolerance I showed while you were passionately listing every single one of my flaws."

"Third, if you're warning me not to make a pass at you then that means you just told me a little white lie. If you had really moved on without me, you wouldn't have been worried about feeling anything when I make a pass at you. And for your last statement, I'm afraid you won't get to like my answer because you should know that I don't bend to anyone's will and that includes you. If I wanted to get out of this marriage, I would have done it ages ago and since I want to push through with it, no one could stop this marriage from happening. I'd force you into a wedding gown myself and show up with you to any priest, judge or anyone with power to marry us and be done with it."

"You can't possibly be serious about everything you just said!"

"When I say I'll do something, I don't back down on it."

"Why you-"

"Excuse me, penne fresco and pizza margarita?" Our "fight" was interrupted by the waitress who came carrying a tray of our orders.

I was about to make myself comfortable and eat when my phone suddenly rang and I saw the screen flashing out the name, "Tanya Denali" to me like some kind of alarm bell.

I quickly excused myself and prepared myself for bad news because I've learned one thing from learning to deal with Tanya all these years and lesson number one was that when she decided to make her presence known, she was going to show it while being the bearer of bad news.