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Love's Blue Flowers - Part 3

I was looking forward to Sunday so much I was like a mexican jumping bean. How long and boring can a Saturday be? I did lots of cleaning, I cooked things to put in the freezer, I sewed a couple of buttons on shirts for Charlie, I had a long bath, and I tried to read. Then, how long can a Sunday be? I'd already done everything there was to do on Saturday, so on Sunday I lay around in bed far too long, listening to music and still trying to read. Reading eluded me entirely - I'd get to the end of a line and not know what it had said.

Tanya couldn't expound any longer on her conviction with regard to Edward's sexuality. He and I had kissed, properly. Our tongues were now intimately acquainted.

"He didn't try any groping, though, did he?" she needled, but it was a desperate shot that went wide of the mark. Edward wasn't going to try any groping when there was an armed man a few yards away, guarding my virtue with bullets.

"He couldn't possibly kiss you like that if he likes boys," Angela assured me. "There's no need to worry about it any more. Jessica was just being a jealous trouble-maker, and you can forget the whole thing. You'll see him tonight. More kissing! Go you!"

Quite a few of the town's doomed turned up at the party, either to avert eternal damnation, or for the free food. We all milled about, munching on little sandwiches and sipping juice or soda, and made small talk with people we saw every day at the supermarket or on the street. I kept catching Edward's eye but whenever I tried to move in his direction someone would get in the way. Dad had found his mate Billy early on and the two of them were sitting in a corner, no doubt talking about baseball, and I was just itching to get out of there.

When I found my opportunity I took it. Edward glanced at me and then indicated the door with a gesture involving his eyebrows and a tilt of the head, and as soon as I could decently excuse myself from agreeing with the lady who ran the diner that I'd grown a lot since I was a little girl, I followed him outside.

I just wanted to kiss him and kiss him. Like, lots of times. Kissing him was a previously unknown world of pleasure and little eruptions, and worked unexpectedly as a dieting aid. I'd been barely able to eat since Friday night, not that I wanted to lose any weight.

We strolled along the graveyard wall, looking purposeless and nonchalant, or that's what I was aiming for. I was so excited that it took me a while to register that his hands were punched deep into his pockets, his shoulders stiff and his head down, eyebrows drawn in a worried frown. There was something wrong.

"What's up, Edward?" I said, putting a hand on his arm, and he leaned against the wall with a heavy sigh, finally looking at me.

"Friday night was good, wasn't it? You had fun?"

"Yes," I assured him. "Plenty of fun. At the stupid dance, talking to you all night was all I wanted to do, and then later, when we said goodnight... that was fun too." My voice faded shyly to a whisper at the end.

"Bella, I have to tell you something. I'm a bastard and a liar. Well, I wasn't lying, oh God, it's complicated, and I don't know how to say this or where to start, or anything."

He was visibly upset, and I was feeling concerned. What had he said that he'd been lying about? Or not lying?

He sighed, and he sniffed and rubbed the back of his hand over his nose, and he cleared his throat, and finally he raised his head and looked away, right through the tree that was on the grass verge in front of us.

"I asked you to ask me to the dance because of Jessica," he began.

"I know," I answered.

"Well, I wanted to go with you, believe me. I wanted everything that happened, everything, but the truth is, that when Jessica asked me first and I refused her she got really nasty. She said - she said that she knows I'm gay, and she knows who my boyfriend is, and she said she was going to tell everybody. I laughed in her face, and told her that I was already going, with a girl. With you."

My stomach felt like it had lead in it. Something about the way he was saying this wasn't right. I waited for the words that would refute Jessica's claim, and they didn't come.

"But she's just an idiot, isn't she, Edward? ... Edward?"

"Bella, I like you so much. So much. I can't even describe how much, and it almost scares me. I feel jittery when I think I'm not going to see you, and I feel so fucking glad when I look up in the car lot or classroom or lunchroom, and you're there. Right now I'm freaking because it's going to be vacation and I won't get to spend time with you five days a week. And on Friday night when I kissed you, it was beautiful. So beautiful. But... what Jessica said... I don't think she's right. She's not fucking right. It's just that... I don't know for sure that she's wrong."

"You're gay?" I managed to whisper. "You've got a boyfriend?"

He shook his head. "I don't have a boyfriend. I've never touched another guy, or kissed one. You're the only person I want to kiss. It's just that I have doubts. It's tearing me up. I have thoughts about guys. I've never acted on them, but they're there, and I want them to go away, but they always come back."

"Seth Clearwater?" I asked, feeling devastated.

"No! Oh, fuck, Jessica already said something to you, didn't she? Seth is a fifteen year old kid! He's a nice guy, and he's a friend, and do I want to stick my hand down his pants? No, for Chrissake! Do I want to stick my hand down your pants? Sorry to be so crude, but yes, I do. I can't though. I can't do any of that stuff without being sure. It's not fair. I don't want to ever hurt you, Bella, and I see that I've already done it."

"But Friday?"

"I wanted us to have a date. A perfect date, with talking and laughing, and then making out. I thought about telling you then, but I wanted us to have had that one night. I thought about not telling you at all and waiting for it to sort itself out, but it's not going to. I need therapy or something. I don't want to be a fucking queer."

He was so bitter and angry with himself that right now his pain was hurting me more than his tortured confession.

"And you know what really, really sucks?" he asked. "I feel like the only person I can talk to about this is the person I'll most hurt. You. You're the closest person to me. I admire you and trust you and I'm telling you this shitty thing."

He was still glaring at the tree. "If I smoked I'd light one up right now. Fuck, I'd light up the whole fucking packet."

"Edward, um..." I started, inadequately. Did I know the right thing to say? Did I heck.

Then Edward smacked himself on the forehead, turning to me with a look of horror. "Oh, Jesus, I just realized something else. I'm such a dumbfuck. All this woe is me crap I'm putting on you... I'm just assuming that you like me too. I'm taking it for granted because you sit next to me and talk to me, and you let me kiss you outside your father's house - God my self-pitying ego is out of control! You might not even give a shit! If you didn't that would be a whole lot better for both of us. Please tell me you don't like me!"

I was saved - or prevented - from having to reply because voices suddenly sounded from nowhere, and a bunch of people from school walked up to us.

"Swan and Cullen, eh? What are you two up to out here in the dark?" someone from the group said. It sounded like Mike Newton.

"We're plotting to overthrow the regime, and install a horse's ass as president," I said.

"We've got a hitlist, dumbheads, and you're all on it," Edward continued, and they scoffed and moved on.

Edward and I couldn't take up where we'd left off though, because my father's voice came from behind us, calling me.

"Shit," Edward groaned. "Can we talk about this more later? Are you even going to still talk to me?"

"I guess," I shrugged, reeling.

If Dad noticed I was quiet on the way home, he didn't comment. I was often quiet. He was on shift that night, and he got ready for work, then did his usual round of checking the doors and telling me to call him if I needed anyting.

Once I'd goodnight to him, and gone to my room though, I had to tell the cloth twins what had happened. If Tanya could have let out a long whistle she would have.

"That explains why he never made any moves! Ooohh yuck. He said he's never touched a guy. Did he mean, like, just with his hands? Where's his mouth been?"

Angela, of course, took a softer tack. "He says he's not sure about himself. He says he really likes you. If you just hang on in there, maybe he'll get over it. Everybody must have one or two gays thoughts, after all. Everyone must wonder about themselves. Mustn't they?"

"I never have," Tanya asserted. "And you don't get over being gay. Plenty of people have tried it, and they get married and live a lie for years and then they crack, and it turns out they've been going to those horrible clubs for years, where you stick your dick through a hole in a toilet door and someone on the other side sucks you off. And then your wife and kids find out and everybody dies of the heartbreak and the shame."

Edward said he had no-one talk to except me. Well who did I have? A doll. A fucking doll. What a joke. Some of the wool eyelashes were loose and hanging free so it looked like the dude from the Clockwork Orange poster, a seam had burst along one arm and stuffing had come out and I'd never even tried to fix it up, so there was one thin arm. There were all sorts of smudges from when I'd had the thing next to me at the meal table and gotten jam on it, or ketchup or who knows what, and I'd dabbed at it ineffectually because I had no mom around to tell me how to do that stuff, and Dad just shrugged regretfully. My therapist was a tatty, crappy doll in a grubby pinafore, and could only offer me insights that were inventions of my own brain.

"Why don't you run away? Leave all this behind and go to Renee? It's her turn, isn't it? It's not like you're going to stay here forever, anyway. What's here for you? Being the receptionist at the Police Station? 'Hello, Forks PD. There's a litter situation on North Avenue? I'll put out an APB. Thank you for your call. Hello, Forks PD. You think your neighbor may have stolen your tennis ball? That sounds like a matter for the Chief. I'll see to it that he gets straight down there'. I have seen the future, and your horizons are way low."

Yeah, right. I'm in my senior year of high school. A really good time to uproot myself and go cross-country. Tanya and her knee-jerk reactions. She didn't know how close she was to being chucked in the garbage. Shelf-life - approaching an end.

"Bella, just concentrate on school. That's what's important right now. It's a shame about Edward, but there's nothing to stop you two being friends."

And Angela, the most half-assed personality ever to inhabit an inanimate body. She lived in constant denial, with a rosy worldview that eveything would work out for the best, and you must never take any action, or assert yourself, or rock the boat, or want anything. The two of them were manifestations of myself that I wanted to shed. I wanted to find a me in the middle. Not wimpy, not over-reactive. A happy medium? Oh, please, Bella, make yourself medium and happy.

The sound of my window sliding open nearly gave me a heart attack, and Edward's graceful hands, followed by his long thin body came into view.

"What are you doing here?" I snapped. "Do you want me to show you my tits so you can see if you don't like them?"

"Christ, no!" he exclaimed, and I realized I was channeling Tanya. Calm down.

"I'm glad you're mad at me. It helps," he added. "And there's nothing I can say about your tits without confirming myself as a pervert and a loser."

I sighed, heavily. "Yeah, I'm mad because you feel bad about yourself. But I don't like you like that, you freak. You have dumb hair and dumb clothes, and your taste in music is awful, and you don't know your ass from your elbow. And I should add, you're a terrible kisser."

"Am I?" He sat on the edge of my bed. "Don't answer that. Look, tell me to bugger off if you want. I will. I'll get out of your face, and I'll stay out."

He looked around my room as he had done the last time he was here.

"I'll leave you to talk to your little friend," he added, seeing Angela and Tanya propped on the dresser.

My heart stopped.

"What?" I gasped. "How long were you at the window?"

He snorted. "Oh, I was hanging there by my fingernails for a good twenty minutes, and I was using my bionic cochlear implant to listen to you talking to yourself in the mirror... hey, you've gone a really interesting color. What's up?"

I was gulping like a fish, and fighting down the sudden waves of nausea and mortification that threatened to submerge me. He'd heard me talking to Angela and Tanya? After about thirty seconds, it occurred to me that not only did I not speak to them aloud, they didn't speak to me aloud either. I hadn't been caught. But I was still the most embarrassed I had ever been in my whole life, and I was still the color of a ripe tomato.

"Swan, let me get you an ice pack before you burst into flames. Are you having a fit? What's the matter?"

He was concerned now, and came up to me curiously. "Oh my god, you were talking to yourself, weren't you? And you're worried that I heard you. Well, relax, I didn't. You've seen my biceps. I couldn't hang from anywhere for twenty seconds, never mind twenty minutes."

I grabbed the bottle of water I had on my dresser and took a sip. It went down the wrong way and I ended up spluttering, and some even came out of my nose, and I went pretty quickly from pathetic to disgusting.

"I don't talk to myself, you twerp," I told him.

"Hey, whatever. You just went infra-red for no reason. Fine. But actually, I did hear your voice. Who've you got hiding up here? Is there a boy in your closet?"

He was evil. Striding across my room he flung open the closet dramatically, and of course books and papers and sweaters and socks fell out, but no boy.

"Fuck off," I hissed.

"Oh, this is getting better," he said. "Seriously. Tell me what's going on." He thought he was so brilliant. His gaze fell on Angela and Tanya again, and he held them up with a flourish.

"A-ha! You said this was spying equipment! It has a microphone, doesn't it? You were sending back your latest report on the nefarious goings-on in the dark underbelly of Forks!"

I snatched them off him and huddled on my bed, ready to cry. Not only was the guy I had a crush on not sure of where his sexual preference lay, he was a pain in the ass and a jerk who was mocking me. My hair fell over my face and my shoulders shook as the tears came.

"Are you laughing?" he asked.

Then his voice came from much closer. He must have knelt on the floor. "Are you crying? Oh, Bella, I'm so sorry. What is it? Can I do anything? Should I leave?"

His hand was stroking my hair and his fingers tangled in the strands, accidently pulling some. I whimpered, and he was still whispering sorry to me as he climbed onto the bed too, and curled around me, leaving my hair well alone and stroking my arm. My heart was nearly breaking at his attempt to comfort me, and how sincere he was.

Tonight he'd told me a secret that must have been weighing heavily on him for a long time, maybe even years. It had taken a lot of courage, when he thought the telling of it might cost him his best friend. I had a secret that wasn't anywhere near as enormous, it was just little and silly, and wouldn't cost me anything, but it was still an offering.

"Edward," I mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"I know you didn't hear anything and I know you were just teasing, and you're a creep really, but can I tell you something?"

He was still.

"I talk to my doll. My dad gave it to me when my mom left, when I was just a little kid, and I got into the habit of talking to it every night when I went to bed. I told it everything. I told it how I wanted my mom to come back, but she'd gone because I wasn't a good girl, so it was my fault. Then I blamed my dad for not loving her enough. And then I expanded a bit and talked about school and things that were going on in my life. And then stuff I was thinking about, like death, or God or whatever. I've never really grown out of the habit. I've tried to - I've taken it downstairs so that it's not in my bedroom any more, because obviously I'm not going to talk to a doll in front of my Dad, like I'm a crazy person. But then something will happen, and I'll bring it back up here because I need it. I've told it all about you. Everything, from months ago when we first started talking, to Friday night, and then tonight."

He sat up and reached a hand through the veil of my hair, finding my chin and tilting my face up to him.

"You know your mom didn't leave because of you, don't you?" he asked gently, searching my eyes.

"Yeah, I suppose," I answered.

He gave a brief smile and touched a finger to Tanya and Angela's blanched almond cheek. "So this little Raggedy Ann knows all about me?"

"Yep."

"You'd better introduce us then. What's her name?"

Uh oh. "Um, Tangela."

"Tangela? You win the prize for coming up with the worst name ever."

"Actually she has two names. Tanya and Angela."

"Tanya as a first name and Angela as a middle name? As in Tanya Angela Swan?"

"No. There are two distinct and separate identities living in the body of that doll. They each have their own name."

Edward let a loud breath out of his nose. "Two points I'd like to raise with you. One - you just said "living". Two - I don't really need to spell it out, do I? You can't give your doll two personalities. It's not normal. You should have just got another doll. And three - you are a total nutjob."

Yeah, well. Like I didn't know that already. Thanks Freud.

"Oh, and four?" he said.

There's a four?

"You're not a nutjob. I don't care if you've named your furniture and you pick up transmissions from outer space on your toothbrush, you're the sanest person I know. If it helps you to sort out your thoughts and feelings by giving voice to them, more power to you. Maybe I should try it. Can I borrow Tangela?"

"No you can't. Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

We sat in silence for a while, but it was fine. In a funny way, I felt unburdened. Tangela had been the recipient of my insecurities and ramblings for ten years, but in confessing her to someone else, I'd liberated myself. She had outlived her relevance.

"Hey, can we go for a drive?" I asked Edward suddenly, having reached a quick decision.

"It's eleven o'clock at night, Bella. What madness is this?"

It was madness, and got madder when I decided we'd both have to leave by the window, because if I went out the door the spyqueen down the road would surely know about it. Edward rolled his eyes at me and pulled silly faces, but he climbed down first and instructed me in a low voice, and we snuck to his car, tree by tree, snickering and laughing silently. I'd stuffed Tangela in a backpack as soon as his head had disappeared beyond the window frame, and before I slung my leg over it.

"Where to, milady?" he asked in a very bad English accent.

"Sol Duc bridge," I answered.

Clearly mystified, he drove out there without comment. We parked on the grass at the roadside, and wandered over to the bridge, leaning on the railings and looking down to where the dark water rushed beneath.

"Why have we come here, Bella?"

"It's a nice place. It's peaceful. It's green - well, it is in the daytime anyway. Did you ever send wishes downstream? So that when they reach the ocean they'll come true?" I asked him.

"No, but I like that idea. I might try it. Are you going to send a wish down now? What are you wishing for?"

"You know that thing that says "When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I grew up I put away childish things?"

"Yes, although I don't think you've quoted it exactly."

I took my Raggedy Ann out of the back pack and held her in front of me. "I'm letting go of Tanya and Angela. I'm setting them free. My wish is that I won't have to rush home to a toy to confess all my worries to. I'm not going to be that Bella any more."

Edward put a hand on my arm.

"It's a bit drastic to throw them away, isn't it? They've been a comfort to you."

"Yeah, exactly. They hold all my sorrow."

I could only just see him shaking his head in the dark. "It's not only that though, surely. You've told them loads of good stuff, too, haven't you? Things you were excited or happy about - dreams, hopes?"

"Yeah, well you for instance, but hey, let's not dwell on that."

I tried to raise the arm holding them, but Edward held it. "Please Bella, don't do it. You could regret this. Give them to me, and I'll keep them until you want them back. They've meant a lot to you and they've seen you through all sorts of things... Do they remind you of bad stuff? I'll put them somewhere safe, and you can talk to me instead."

"You're part of it! If I get rid of them, things will get fixed!" I started to yell. I don't know when it became all about me. I don't know when his struggle with his sexuality became the catalyst for me cutting loose the safety net of an inert listener with a fixed expression, I don't know what skew-wiff system of illogical thought prompted that comment, but I wrenched my arm away and tossed the sacrifical doll over the rail. It hung momentarily, a black angel, before plunging into the waters.

"God, Bella, God, why did you do that? You let me in, you told me something so deep and close and personal and real, and that doll contained a part of you, and you chucked it in the fucking river?"

"It was a wish," I answered. It was my wish that Edward would be my boyfriend, with no reservations on his part. I'd told the girls that, and now I was sending them to sea.

Edward slumped beside me, his back to the railings. He was upset, but although I'd told him part of my secret, I couldn't tell him the whole thing, the real wish. I wasn't that brave.

We got back to his car and he leaned against the door, saying, "What a night. What a fucking night," and to my horror he started to cry. At first it was a sniffle, but then he put his face in his hands and started to really sob, with his shoulders heaving.

"Oh, Edward - please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said, desparately, reaching to pat his shoulder, although I didn't dare hug him. He ignored me and I fumbled for something, anything, to alleviate his anguish.

"Is it the doll? Is it what I did? It'll be okay - I just outgrew it, that's all. Maybe someone will find it, and they'll give it to another little girl, and she'll love it and... Is it not the doll? Is it me? Is it what I said to you? It was just stupid and I didn't mean it, and just forget it. Is this about what you've said to me? It's all okay, that stuff, honestly, it's okay. I don't care, you're my best friend, nothing's going to change that..."

He dropped his hands. "I don't want to be your best friend, Bella," he said. "Don't you get that? I do not want to be your fucking friend. And you just threw your best friend off a bridge. This is so messed up."

He was damn right it was messed up, it was awful. We were out in the middle of nowhere, Edward was falling apart, I felt like I should give him some space, but it wasn't like I could walk home. And I didn't really want to leave him alone in the state he was in, anyway.

And what did he want from me? He'd just said he didn't want to be my friend. I didn't know how I was going to make it through the rest of school without him to confide in, and snark with and compete with. God, when I'd withdrawn from him and tried to get by without his constant presence I felt like I'd cut off a limb. I'd only functioned on half-power, or something.

"Shall I drive us back?" I whispered. "Do you need to be - away from me? I'll take us to my place, and you can go home, and then, I don't know, at school we'll sit apart and stuff, or I can say I'm sick and not come to classes so I'm out of your way... Maybe we just need a little break..."

It was killing me to say it, but I had to make the offer.

"Jesus, Bella, how fucking dumb are you?" he suddenly roared at me. "You are so fucking far off understanding this for a bright girl..."

I stood there, stunned, and he continued to rant.

"I like you. I want you. I think I even need you. I also think I'm a fucking sexual deviant - so if we got together I couldn't be all you need and all you deserve. I'd let you down. All this was bearable, just, if you were indifferent to me, and didn't want me the same way. What you said earlier tonight was such a relief. I wanted to hear "Edward, you ugly motherfucker, piss off and don't bother me with your wasted romantic attention". But this business with the doll - with your wish... Is this what you want?"

Out of the blue, he grabbed me. He took me so forcefully by the arms that it hurt, and he kissed me hard. I could taste his tears, and I could feel his teeth. The pressure of his mouth was forcing my head back and one of his hands came up to the back of my head, imprisoning me, the other moving around my back. I tried to push him away but he was against the car, and I couldn't move him. I tried to pull away, but those skinny arms of his had strength I'd never suspected. I even tried to yell against his mouth but I couldn't get a big enough breath through my nose to do it.

All I could manage was whimpering and grunting, until I had the idea of kneeing him in the family jewels. As soon as I shifted my balance he realized what I was doing, and he turned his hip so that my knee only connected with his thigh. It couldn't have actually hurt him, but it was enough to stop him.

Only he didn't stop. He changed his approach. He dropped his hands completely and softened his mouth, giving me the opportunity to finish this whole messy assault. If I just stepped away it would be over, and I could smack him for doing it to me. But I didn't want it to be over. I didn't like him being so rough with me, at least not without warning, but now his mouth was coaxing and gentle and we'd been there before, in this place of tenderness. My lips opened willingly, my tongue sought his and I pushed all thought out of my mind, inhabiting the moment. My hands found themselves in his hair. I teetered forward, as I'd come up onto tiptoes to meet him halfway in this kiss. Chest to chest, we kept going, as if this was all there was in the world, this communion between our mouths.

Then his hands came up to my waist, and I shifted position to get closer, and there was something else. He was aroused, I felt it. He tried to hold my hips to keep me removed from his, but he couldn't go anywhere with the car behind him, and I was off-balance. Without my intending it to happen, I fell into him. He was fighting an inner war and I was aware of it making him hesitate, but then with a groan his hands moved down to my backside. The kiss changed, gaining a dimension it hadn't had before. It became charged with a new energy.

"Get in the back seat," he said hoarsely, and I gladly obeyed. I climbed in there on my hands and knees and turned around as he followed me in. My legs were splayed with one foot on the seat, one on the floor, and Edward between them, heavy on top of me and staring down in the dark interior as we pushed our hips together. Oh, God. This was real. This was the realest thing that had ever happened.

Our hands became involved then as he reached up under my shirt and found my breast. Not content with touching, he impatiently pulled my t-shirt up to my neck, exposing my chest to him and nuzzled me through my bra. I felt the tightening and contraction of my nipple as his lips opened over it, taking it into his hungry mouth. At the same time his hand slid down the outside of my thigh to my knee, then back up the inside. He found where the seams of my jeans intersected, and pressed his palm against the spot before shaking his head.

"Got to get these off, I can't feel you."

It was all kinds of difficult, snatching kisses while wriggling out of clothes, me licking at his chest and running my fingers down his backbone, him with his hands on my naked breasts, then one on my hip, one between my legs.

We were both panting and gasping with the exertion of trying to find positions in a cramped space, and with the overwhelming desire to get closer. To get connected.

It hurt when he pushed into me, but I stifled my cry. He didn't stifle his though, he let it go, loud and rapturous, out over the rushing river and the quiet forest. He was calling out to god and to me as he moved inside me and it burned and I wondered how he could be so oblivious while I lay there tense and stinging, wondering whether to ask him to stop. After what could only have been a couple of minutes though, he stopped of his own accord and pulled out.

"You feel so fucking amazing - you're so warm in there and it's so - I can't describe it, it's pure heaven," he mumbled. "If I keep going like this it'll be all over before I've had a chance to - "

He knelt down on the floor in between the front and back seats, right in front of my parted legs.

"I want to make you feel good too, Bella," he said, and dipped his head.

God, if his tongue felt good on my breasts, this was incredible. I was a little sore, but he wasn't licking me where the soreness was. He was patient and gentle and he made me feel good all right. I came shaking and almost crying, seeing patterns dancing on the insides of my eyelids, my fingers bent into claws, gripping the upholstery.

Edward kissed his way back up my body, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand before kissing my lips.

"You are the most beautiful, wonderful creature in the world," he smiled, collapsing half on me, half off.

"Don't you want to - um, keep going?" I said hesitantly.

"Can't. Too late. I came when you did," he whispered, pushing his arms underneath me to gather me into a hug. "I shot my load all over the carpet. I fucking love you."

I didn't want to say it back in case it was the wrong thing, but I did want to say it because now, with the discomfort having abated, I felt so blissful and complete.

"I love you, too," I whispered into his hair and he squeezed me.

"So you should, after that."

We slowly put ourselves back together and got out of the back seat. It took a while to get back in to the car because we couldn't stop holding each other and kissing. He drove to the blue house with one hand on the wheel and one hand stroking my leg and squeezing my knee and playing with my hair, and I had a hand all over him too, never mind how unsafe it was to distract a driver like that. On approach he turned his lights off and parked back down the road a bit, so that we could sneak up like burglars.

This time Edward didn't have to climb the tree as I had the key to the back door with me.

"Are you coming upstairs?" I asked hopefully, when he hesitated in the kitchen. "My dad won't be home until morning."

I wanted to get him to my bed, or any flat surface really, and find out a bit more about the mystery of sex. I hadn't even seen or touched his dick! I wanted to lick it. I wanted to wrap my arms and legs around him and I wanted to feel his bare skin against me.

But he didn't come any further in than the door frame.

"I should get home," he said, and his whole demeanor seemed to be changing. There was an air of reluctance about him.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as he simply closed up and shut himself off right before my eyes.

"We shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have been inside you without protection for a start, and with the way things are..."

"Yeah, that was dumb of us, but you didn't come inside me, and... it was fantastic and amazing, and it's changed things, hasn't it?" I said, with a growing dread, because he was looking worse and worse. He almost looked as though he was going to be sick.

"You said you love me," I reminded him.

"I know, and I do. But Bella, I can't promise you anything. Anything. I just can't," he said, almost as though he was pleading, and he turned away, lurching into the night.

I stumbled to a chair and sat watching the emptiness that he had disappeared into, the emptiness that was right now creeping inside, over the floor and over to me. What had just happened? Hadn't everything just got easier, and clearer? We'd made love, and it had been messy and a little challenging and we'd had to be creative - was he disappointed? It hadn't been something out of a romance novel, admittedly. He'd ejaculated on the floor of his car, and now he'd have to clean the carpet - was that why he was upset? I didn't know anything. Or was it because we hadn't taken precautions? Maybe he was pissed off at himself for not being responsible. Maybe it was because he'd pulled out and we hadn't really had proper sex. I hoped it was that, because as far as I was concerned we could do it again and again, over and over, with condoms and he could come inside me as often as he liked.

There was another possibility. Tanya would have had a theory, I could almost hear her in my mind.

"He didn't like it."

I couldn't face the thought.

I dragged myself upstairs and I didn't shower because I didn't want to wash him off me. I didn't undress because I wanted to be wearing the clothes he'd touched. Just before I fell asleep I was in a writhing frenzy on my sheets, remembering his tongue on me, but I wouldn't touch myself there, because tonight that part of me was his alone.

And I refused to entertain the other possibility.

"He'd rather have had a guy."

Edward didn't show up at school in the morning. I struggled through the day, wondering why he couldn't face me, and I debated whether or not to drive out to his place and confront him. I was also scared that maybe he hadn't even gotten home. We'd been through a hell of a rollercoaster - crying, fucking, loving, laughing, and then the awful way he'd left, without even saying goodbye. He hadn't been in a particularly good frame of mind for driving.

But maybe he'd just taken a day off to - what? Have a day off. Maybe.

He didn't come to school on Tuesday either.

I worried all day, and when I got home I busied myself baking. I thought Dad would have been home, since he was on night shifts all week, but he wasn't there and I hadn't heard from him. Probably he'd show up for dinner before he went to work, and I wanted to make sure there was plenty for him to eat. I baked so much there was enough to feed the whole station staff and the fire department as well.

By seven I'd cooked everything in the house and he still wasn't back. When the phone finally rang it startled me, I'd been sitting quietly staring at the wall for so long.

"Be there in ten, babe," was all he said.

I served up a big helping of ground beef pie with a potato mash top, and plenty of peas and carrots on the side. Since I hadn't even managed to peck at anything for lunch I had given myself a spoonful of pie too, though considerably smaller than his.

He walked in, already in his uniform and sat down.

"Looks real nice, Bella," he said approvingly, and he picked up his fork and attacked the pie with relish. I discovered I was hungrier than I expected, and I ate too. So there was our whole family, sitting around the meal table, quiet as anything.

It was bound to be a total contrast to what was happening at Edward's house right now. Was Emmett being loud and rude? Was Alice kicking Edward under the table? Were their parents trying to maintain order or were they just grimacing at their unruly offspring? It could be that Mr and Mrs Cullen fully embraced the family circus carry on and sat at opposite ends of the table laughing.

"I'm leaving straight after dinner, honey. Something came up today," Charlie remarked, breaking the silence. "Edward Cullen's parents reported him missing yesterday."

My fork clattered to the table, landing on the edge, and fell noisily to the floor.

"Seems he never came home Sunday night after that shindig at the church. Some peas, Bella?"

He pushed the bowl towards me but I sat there like a statue.

"This afternoon he was found down river a-ways. His car was back at the Sol Duc bridge. Looks like he must have jumped."

I felt as though I'd been hit by a steam train. Voice shaking, I asked, "Is he all right? Is he in the hospital?"

Dad shook his head. "No, Bella. He's in the morgue."

And that was when I lost interest in everything. Every single damn thing.

I shut down, the way Edward had shut down on Sunday night. I cleared the table, said goodbye to Charlie as he left for his shift, washed up the dishes, and pulled out my homework. Shutting down was the only way I was going to live through this. Being a zombie was all I could be. Amongst the complexity of what I'd felt when I threw Angela and Tanya into the river had been a wish for peace for Edward. A selfish wish, because the peace I wanted him to find was that he was fully heterosexual and that he wanted me and felt no conflict. What had been going through his mind? I'd never, never, never know.

Days drifted by me and I didn't notice them.

His whole family were at the funeral, of course. His parents were gaunt and wasted, like they'd been crying for days. His siblings looked shocked out of their minds. I even saw a young guy there who I guessed was Seth Clearwater, biting his lip but failing to stop its trembling, and with tears pouring freely down his cheeks. The only expressionless person there was me.

The minster gave a stupid talk about Edward being a promising young man who had been beset by a tragic accident. But it's not exactly an accident when you get up on the railings of a bridge thirty feet above a fucking fast-flowing, rock-filled river and then jump the fuck off them though, is it?

"Did you make a wish, Edward?" I whispered, as the coffin was being lowered, and his parents dropped the first shovelful of soil on it. "Did you get your wish, you fucker?"

I hated him too much to ever forgive him.

Back at school, whispers surrounded me in class, and everywhere I went. Lies, rumors, and speculation.

"He was her boyfriend, and she got pregnant. That's why he did it. She lost the baby anyway."

"Did you see them at the Sadie Hawkins dance? They were practically boning each other on the dance floor."

"I saw them outside that night. She was sucking him off in the graveyard."

And Jessica fucking Stanley. That grade A bitch from the darkest pit of hell. "Oh, no, Bella was never Edward's girlfriend. She just wanted to be. Edward was - "

I punched her and broke her fucking nose. I was aiming to punch it right off her fat face, so I failed in my intention, but breaking it sure gave me some satisfaction.

They called the police - funnily enough, my Dad - and I was suspended, but Jessica didn't press charges.

That was last summer. School finished. I flunked. Since my grades had been so good prior to my final exams the principal applied for some kind of special dispensation for me. My exam marks were adjusted to what my teachers thought I would have scored if I hadn't suffered a bereavement. And the subsequent breakdown.

And with Edward gone I didn't know what to do with myself so I didn't do anything. I sat in my room and composed endless letters in my head, as though I had somewhere to send them. The little dried bunch of blue flowers was all I had, along with the weight of sorrow. I suffered nightmares and woke screaming, and Dad would come in and sit with me until I went back to sleep.

Sometimes I dreamed Edward had come back inside with me that night, instead of going to the Sol Duc. Sometimes I dreamed he turned up back at school again, or he climbed in my window. Sometimes I dreamed he was with Seth Clearwater, and I didn't fucking give a damn, as long as it meant he was still alive.

And this summer, I got a job. A job working the till at a shop, not the sort of thing someone with my marks and prospects was expected to do. So what?

And sometimes on Saturdays, only fine ones, I take a walk up Mt Kilimanjaro to Edward's meadow. The flowers are only there for a few weeks of the year. I pick four, and then I get in my truck and drive down to Sol Duc. I don't care what the flowers really are, to me they're forget-me-nots.

They're also wishes. I throw in two together for Angela and Tanya, because somewhere down there is where they are. Then I throw in another two -

one for me, and one for him.

.

.

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