Wow, I got a better response to this story than I thought I was going to have! Already about six people have put this story on their alerts or favorites list. I think I've fallen in love with this story and the plotline anyway, because nonstop every day I'm thinking about this thing. It's really scary, actually. I have a whole plan for this entire story already, and I'm happy because I've realized that there are a whole bunch of things I could do with it to make it long and interesting for you guys. It makes me happy, as I've already said once or twice. XD
Anyway, I'd like to make another disclaimer that Stephenie Meyer's characters are not my own. You know who those characters are, because I really don't want to list them all out. Thanks, and here's the second chapter of Three Wrongs Make A Right. Oh, and in this chapter, there will be two parts. One section from Bella, one section from Riley. A lot of these first few chapters are going to be informative about their past. There are a lot of flashbacks. =]
X-x-X
Chapter 2: A Meeting Like No Other
Bella
It was a dream. I knew that, but that didn't stop it from continuing.
I sat at Riley's bedside, my eyes wide as I watched my brave little three-year old daughter struggle for survival. Her breathing was uneven and shallow, and her entire arm was wrapped in bandages. Her face had been cleaned, but it still bore marks of fear and uncertainty. Her eyes were closed, and I longed for them to open again.
Which the doctors had told me might not happen.
After James had been driven away in a police cruiser, the medics rushed me and Riley to the hospital. The policeman, who had introduced himself as Officer Embry Call, had been extremely informative. Though my attention was almost entirely on Riley and the medics surrounding her, I heard what the kind officer was explaining and listened with only vague interest. I completely ignored the medics attending to me and my broken leg.
"We received a call from one of your neighbors, Miss Jessica Stanley. She's a college student at the university, who confessed over the phone that she'd been hearing things from your apartment for some time. She said tonight was different, because she heard screaming instead of just crashes. We said that we'd investigate, and so we did. We asked Miss Stanley to stay on the phone in case something else happened…"
I phased back to the hospital room. My leg still throbbed horribly, and it was wrapped in a plaster cast. The top of my head was bandaged – apparently James had hit me pretty hard with his beer bottle. But that still didn't compare to Riley's condition.
Riley had lost a lot of blood – too much blood for a three-year old like her to lose. The doctors said that her brain was also permanently traumatized from what she had seen and heard that night. Her heartbeat was weak because of the blood loss. And just a few minutes ago, the doctors had told me that there was a chance that it wasn't strong enough to wake her back up. That I would never see her chocolate brown eyes flicker open again. That I would never hear her tinkling laugh again. That she wouldn't ever turn four. Because there was a chance that Riley was going to die.
"Miss Swan, there's some people here to see you," the nurse kindly told me from the doorway. Before she could say anything more, my brother was standing in the doorway, Alice at his side. I turned my head to see them both, my eyes vague and dead.
"Bella," Jasper said, his voice thick with relief.
I slowly rose from my chair, feeling like a ghost. Jasper closed the distance between us in seconds, giving me a tight hug. I melted into his embrace, beginning to cry. I heard Alice say something to the nurse, and the nurse dipped her head and closed the door to our ward. Jasper kept me tightly in his arms, murmuring comforting things in my ear. Alice joined our hug, wrapping her tiny arms as far around us as she could.
"Officer Embry called us," Jasper murmured into my hair as I sobbed onto his shoulder. "He told me Riley had been shot. Oh, God, Bella. I'm so sorry."
"Don't t-talk like that," I blabbered out between sobs. "R-Riley might live. She isn't d-dead. Not y-yet."
"Of course she isn't," Alice cooed, patting my back. I couldn't see her, but I knew that she was looking at me with sympathetic green eyes. Though she and Jasper had not been going out for very long, Alice was already a part of the family. "She's a strong young girl. She'll pull through, Bella. Riley will live."
I wanted so badly to believe her.
Jasper sighed, kissing the top of my head the way he always used to when we were younger. "Bells, it's going to be okay. James is going to jail for what he did. He'll never hurt you or Riley ever again. I'll make sure of it, I promise. And Riley isn't going to die. She's going to be okay too." He released me and looked to the three-year old lying on the hospital bed, and he bit his lip. I could tell that he too was having trouble picturing Riley never opening her eyes again. He had loved her right from the start too. Alice took his hand, and I felt a pang of jealousy. They at least had each other. The only person I had was dying on the hospital bed beside me. I couldn't believe this.
"Mom? Mom!" Someone was calling me. It sounded so much like Riley.
Riley. Her chocolate brown eyes flickered open, and the tiny three-year old weakly reached for my hand. Jasper's head snapped up, and he stared at the awakening Riley with amazement. Alice smiled, taking his hand again.
"Mommy?" came the little voice I had been longing to hear for the past twelve hours.
"Mom! Wake up!"
I jerked awake, the dream ending as quickly as it had begun. I was in my bed, the sheets tangled around me. Riley was crouched over me, her eyes that were the exact same as they had been twelve years ago looking worried and anxious. As soon as my eyes met hers, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Geez, Mom," Riley said with a rolling of her eyes. "You were shouting enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. Tone it down a little next time, will you?" She backed away from me, hopping off my bed. "It's almost eight. We have to be at the theatre at nine today. And we're going to meet Uncle Edward too!" Oh, she looked so excited. It was infectious. I grinned as I stood, pulling the covers away from me.
I followed Riley in her blue polar bear pajamas that I had bought for her last Christmas all the way downstairs to the kitchen, where it looked like she already had breakfast made. A plate of eggs and bacon awaited me at the table, and Riley's looked like they were already half-finished. I sat down, watching my daughter suspiciously as she sat down across from me.
"What?" she asked, seeing my expression.
"What's with all the pre-cooked breakfast and the waking me up at eight?" I asked. Normally Riley would wake me up around seven, because she knew I liked being early to work. She was almost always up at seven herself, unless I woke up before she did and had to wake her.
"Actually, I slept in this morning," Riley replied bashfully, her face turning a faint pink in embarrassment. "You didn't come wake me up, and I'd figured that you'd be grumpy when I did wake you up, so I made breakfast. I was about to come up and get before I heard you shouting and groaning in your sleep." She fixed me in a look that was rather protective – it was a look that I probably should have been giving her instead. Sometimes I felt like we switched roles. "What kind of nightmares were you having? More about… well, about whatever?" She hated mentioning James or any of my other past boyfriends aloud.
"Yes," I answered back truthfully, after I had swallowed a bite of the eggs. Riley was a good cook – almost as good as me. "It was about you, after that… well, after that night with James. How the doctors were telling me that you wouldn't wake up."
Riley's eyes softened again as she set down her cup of chocolate milk. "Well, I'm here now. I woke up."
"Yes, you did," I agreed, thankful for that turn of fate. Without Riley, I probably wouldn't be where I was right now. "I'd better hurry up with this breakfast if we plan on getting to work on time. Go get dressed while I finish up. Don't worry about the dishes. I can do them when we get home."
Without a word, Riley scrambled away from the table and up the stairs to her bedroom. I practically gulped down the rest of my eggs and tossed the rest of Riley's breakfast into the trash can, except for the two strips of bacon. Riley loved bacon, and she loved eating in the car. Nibbling on things helped her to relax, and I knew she was extremely excited about meeting this new Uncle Edward of hers. Like her Aunt Alice, sometimes my daughter got excited over the silliest of things. This wasn't really even that big of an occasion – who knew if this Edward would stay this time or not?
As I went up the stairs to my room, I passed Riley's room. The door was halfway open, so I caught a glimpse of my daughter in her room fully dressed already, pulling on a pair of her favorite sneakers.
Riley's room hadn't changed since we bought this place about nine years ago. Riley had been six, and had spent the majority of her life living between her Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper's houses. Though now of course the engaged couple lived together, but back then Riley and I moved between place to place because we had no place of our own.
It still had the little maple work desk in the corner, which was covered in Riley's drawings. My daughter was a talented artist – something she had inherited from her father. The carpet was a fluffy white, the walls were a comforting sky blue. Even at night, this room was like a safe haven – it was so peaceful. Riley's bed was in one of the corners, the nightstand just beneath the window looking out onto the suburban street. We lived in the outskirts of Chicago, in a small neighborhood that we shared with Jasper, Alice, Emmett, and Rosalie. We all liked living close to one another.
My room was just across from hers. I went in, closing the door behind me. My room was a bit different. Though the carpet was still the same sheep-wool white, my walls had been painted a deep blood red – and the entire room was themed after my walls. My rather large bed took up most of the room – it was on the wall opposite to me when I walked in. To my left was a large dresser Jasper had gotten me a while back. And to my right was the entrance to the mater bathroom of the house. Next to that door was the door to my small walk-in closet that had been installed last year from the courtesy of Alice.
I went to my dresser to pull out a folded pair of denim jeans and a hyacinth blue shirt that Alice had once complimented looked nice with my alabaster-like skin. I put both on in a hurry, glancing at my clock to tell me that it was 8:20. As soon as I had changed, I grabbed my purse off of my nightstand, searched through to make sure I had everything I would need, and rushed out the door to meet Riley.
She was dressed in a pair of khakis, with a deep red sweater that I thought looked really nice with her hair – which was sloppily pinned up in a ponytail. I'd have to fix it when we got to the theatre. But right now, we were going to be late. It took about twenty minutes to drive to the theatre, but I liked being early in order to make sure everything was set up.
Today, however, it was the day before auditions. There wouldn't be much to do except for make sure that our already hired singers would make it on time on their flights, and to update contracts with the lighting and stage crew. Jasper and Alice normally helped me out with that, so I bet that my daughter and I would be free around lunchtime. Which, I bet Alice had already planned to be a catch-up session with her long lost brother – and she probably expected us to come along. Well, sometimes she could be an unstoppable force of nature.
Riley and I together rushed down the stairs and grabbed out coats. I saw that Riley had her typical back-pack in hand – full of things for her to do while I worked. Most of the time Alice gave her homework assignments to do. But today, I bet that Riley wouldn't have anything to do. Alice would be too caught up with Edward to really think about tutoring Riley today. And without even looking at my daughter, I knew that she'd be extremely happy with that news. Nothing bored her more quickly than a load of schoolwork. Something else she had inherited from her father. But I never told her where she got that quirk.
We shot out the door like an automated machine working in sync. I unlocked my red pickup truck (a present from Charlie before I had left James, and it still ran amazingly), and opened up my door. Riley opened up hers and hopped in, buckling herself up before I even had a chance to close my own door. She smiled at me and nestled herself into the car's leather padded seating.
The drive to the theatre was slow, like always. There was traffic on the freeway, of course, so that delayed our trip by about ten minutes. By the time I pulled into my normal parking spot, it was 8:55. I winced. Now there wouldn't be a whole lot of time to meet Edward. It surprised me to find that I was actually incredibly anxious to meet him, even though I knew he had left his siblings here in Chicago for rather selfish reasons. I could tell that Riley was irritated with the cut time that we had too – the scrunched up look between her eyebrows told me that much.
We got out of the car, looking around the parking lot.
Jasper was already here – his blue Saturn sat still in its normal parking spot beside mine. I could also see that Rosalie was already here too. Her flashy red Mustang convertible was easy to spot across the parking lot. Emmett's rather large Jeep was also here. I huffed, irritated with myself. I was the last one to arrive today. Figures.
"C'mon, Mom!" Riley said, tugging on my arm. She reminded me of the way she used to act when she was younger. Her eyes were wide with excitement.
She really was acting as if she were five again.
"Mommy, let's go!" Little Riley shouted. Alice had curled her brown hair for her birthday, and the curls were bouncing around her pale, but delighted face as she tugged on my hand. "Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper are already here!" I smiled and let me lead her forward.
Riley and I went to the theatre side entrance – the staff entrance made for people like me and my daughter. Waiting for us at the door was Jasper and Emmett. It looked like they were having a conversation, but they stopped as soon as they saw me. Jasper smiled smoothly like he always did, and Emmett waved casually.
"Hey! How are my favorite girls?" Emmett asked as Riley and I passed.
"Rosalie is your favorite girl, Uncle Emmett," Riley protested with a giggle. Emmett could be a bit of a charmer, and he almost always charmed Riley. "You can't be going around saying things like that."
Emmett winked again. "True that, Riley," he remarked with one of his booming laughs. "Don't tell Rose I said that. Don't want to be punished in bed tonight. She does that a lot. But it makes her so damn-"
"Emmett!" I warned him, fixing him in a threatening glare. I didn't want my daughter hearing those kinds of words or implications. Though we'd had the Talk, Riley and I still hadn't discussed anything about 'kinky' sex. And in my opinion, she still didn't need to hear about it. Jasper too looked like he disapproved of Emmett's wording, and he ran his fingers through his wild hair.
"Is Edward already here?" I asked, raising my eyebrow and pretending that Emmett had never said anything in the first place. Riley looked confused, and I intended to keep it that way.
Jasper shook his head. "Alice went to pick him up at the airport. They won't be here for another half-hour or so," he remarked. Whenever he spoke of Alice, I always caught the reverence he said her name with. I was glad they had each other, because without Alice, Jasper probably wouldn't be who he was today. They were so madly in love, and the wedding was going to be sometime next summer. I couldn't wait personally, since I would be Alice's maid of honor. Riley was going to be the ring-bearer (though that position was typically meant for a boy half her age). But Jasper had insisted on his niece being on his side of the altar.
Riley's face seemed to fall with this news, however. She looked like she had really wanted to meet him now. "What are we going to do until then?" she asked, downtrodden.
I laughed at her tone and gave her a swift hug around the shoulders. "Well, you can follow your Uncle Jasper around backstage, if you want. I have nothing for you to do, unless you want to mess around with the things you brought," I told her with a smile.
Riley sighed, and handed me her coat and her things. "Sure," she said. "Since it looks like Uncle Edward won't be here for a while."
X-x-X
Riley
It wasn't like following my Uncle Jasper around wasn't fun it was just… I wanted to meet Edward now. From everything Alice told me, he was a really nice guy who just was wayward when he was younger and went off to live his own life. I recalled the conversation I'd had with my aunt about him very clearly.
"Sometimes your mother reminds me of my brother Edward," Aunt Alice sighed as I helped her fold an old costume up for storage keeping.
I handed her the dress I had been folding and blinked, confused. "Edward?" I asked. "You have a brother named Edward?"
"Mm," Alice replied, looking suddenly preoccupied as her hands fluttered around the dress I had given her. "I guess your mother didn't tell you about him. I doubted she would, what with… well…" Her eyes flickered to my messed up arm – the one Jacob had broken a few months ago. It was still wrapped up in a cast, but whatever the doctors tried to do, my mother and I knew that it wasn't going to heal right. Jacob had shattered the bone in too many places. Alice pretended like she'd never looked at it and continued. "You have another uncle. His name is Edward."
"Tell me about him," I prompted. I loved hearing stories from Alice – she was so good at telling them sometimes. She told all kinds of stories. So I guess it was kind of a natural reaction to want to hear about her brother.
Alice stared off into space for a moment, as if she were trying to remember something. "Well, he was born here like me and Emmett. He was two when I was born. Emmett was four. He was always nice to me, unlike Emmett. Once, when I was two, Emmett pushed me down the stairs to see if toddlers were as tough as he was. Edward caught me halfway down and yelled at Emmett for doing something so stupid. I'll never forget that.
"He has a good heart, but sometimes his mind can get in the way. When he was seventeen…" I flinched. I had been born when my mother was seventeen. "Edward wanted to go somewhere. He didn't want to stay in Chicago like the rest of us wanted. He wanted to be famous.
"So as soon as Edward graduated high school, he told my parents that he was leaving. When Emmett and I tried to convince him to stay, well… Edward said some rude things to get us to let him go. I wished he hadn't have said some of those things, but you can't change the past. So he left. But he called me a while back to apologize. Of course he was forgiven. I mean, how can I hold a grudge against my family? That would have made me a horrible person. And I knew Edward's heart was in the right place when he left. He's a very good person, Riley."
I wanted to meet Edward so badly, and Uncle Jasper seemed to sense it as he led Emmett and me backstage to his booth. There were plans spread all over it, and I wondered how long he had been here.
"He'll be here soon, Riley," Jasper told me reassuringly. "The world isn't going to end in five minutes, so just relax." His voice was really soothing, so of course I believed him and I relaxed. Uncle Jasper was the best person I knew at calming someone. And he was almost always right anyway. So I followed him over to his booth and stood with him as he and Emmett began discussing things again.
"So tell me again what the scheme needs to be," Jasper muttered. "I didn't hear all of it with Bella coming in and all that."
"Well, for the first scene change, you need a bit of the lights on," Emmett was telling him now in a business-like tone. I loved listening to them speak about theatre. In fact, I loved theatre in general. "'Cause we can't run over whoever's playing Anastasia, and she's going to be laying right in the middle of the damn stage. Second scene change is normal, and third and fourth scene changes are done in half-light. Fifth is just switching the roll-around, so no lighting changes… I think that's about it."
"And what's the coloring scheme?" Jasper asked, jotting this down onto the plans with a mechanical pencil. I watched him in fascination – I loved watching him work. He was so serious sometimes.
"Well, for the most part it's plain old lights," Emmett answered with a shrug. "I haven't gotten any specifics yet, because the director isn't here to make those decisions."
"Who's the director for this production, anyway?" I then asked curiously. It was then that I realized that my mother and I had absolutely no idea who this person was. My mom was someone who liked knowing what was going on, considering as she had been assistant director for a few years and liked having solid information under her feet.
Emmett and Jasper exchanged glances, and I frowned. "What?" I asked them, feeling a secret coming on. I loved secrets, even if I kept none of them from my mom. Except for one. "What is it? Who's the director?"
Jasper sighed in exasperation, running his fingers through his hair again. "Well… since I suppose you'll go running to your mother as soon as I tell you this… ugh, alright. Alice told me not to tell you, but who cares? Alright, Alice's brother, Edward, is supposed to be the director for this production. Alice wanted to keep it a secret, for reasons unknown. Go run off to tell your mother now, I guess. Alice is going to kill me."
"If she can get those tiny hands of hers around your neck," Emmett snickered.
"Dude, that isn't cool that you're insulting my fiancé," Jasper snapped in reply.
"'Dude'? What are we? In like, fucking high school?" Emmett retorted.
I laughed – sometimes my uncles could be complete and utter lunatics. That was probably a reason that I loved them so much. Uncle Jasper was about to respond to that comment when I touched his arm lightly. "I won't tell my mom until I see her, if it makes you feel any better," I assured him. "Which probably won't be until Edward arrives anyway. I'm following you around instead. You get to put up with me for another fifteen minutes until-"
"Jazzy?"
That was the voice of my Aunt Alice. I turned my head, and jumped to see that she wasn't alone.
A tall man stood beside her, looking slightly out of place in his designer jeans and nice red button-up shirt. His skin was pale, like my mom's and mine, and I could tell that there was muscle underneath it. It wasn't obvious like Uncle Emmett's muscles were, but I could tell they were there. His hair was bronze-colored and a little messy as if he had just gotten out of bed. And his eyes were a sparkling, emerald green. In other words, he was the most beautiful middle-aged man I had ever met in my life. He smiled at Jasper, Emmett, and me. Alice had a tight hold on his hand, and she was a good foot shorter than he was.
"Jazz, Em. You know Edward," Alice chirped.
Emmett looked at his younger brother with disdain for a moment, obviously observing Edward's choice of wear, before he smiled tightly. "Hey, Ed. It's been a while," he greeted him, not coming forward like Jasper did.
Jasper came forward and shook Edward's hand with a smoother and more natural smile. "It has been a while. Welcome back, Edward," he said politely.
"It most certainly has." His voice was like the smoothest of velvet, and I found it much more calming than Jasper's ever had been. Which was definitely saying something, since my uncle could practically calm anyone in any situation. I stared at him. He caught me looking, and I looked down at my feet, embarrassed. "And I suppose that you're Riley?"
I nodded shyly. Man, I had been so excited to meet him, and now I was shutting up like a clam. What was wrong with me? "Yeah. That's me," I said with a timid smile up at him. His returning smile was dazzling.
"Then allow me to introduce myself formally, though I'm sure Alice has already doted about me on more than one occasion." He sent a playful glance at Alice, who giggled and shrugged as if it wasn't her fault. "I'm Edward Cullen, the middle child of the Cullen family, son of Carlisle and Esme Cullen, and soon to be the director of Anastasia." He bowed like a gentleman, and I laughed. I made a tiny curtsy, which was kind of odd for a girl wearing pants. But I suddenly wasn't scared of him anymore.
"Well, then I want to introduce myself too. My name is Riley Swan, um… the only child in the Swan family, er, daughter of Isabella Swan and um… well… and I don't have a job," I announced, wincing a little at the end when I realized I had been about to spill my father's name yet again to a stranger. I didn't like talking about my family, unless it was my mother.
Edward seemed to catch my mistake and eyed me thoughtfully for a moment before deciding to let it go. He grinned around at all of us, as if he suddenly felt at home. "And so where is this Isabella Swan that I've heard so much about – I ought to meet my assistant director as soon as I can."
"She happens to be standing right behind you," came my mother's voice.
We all turned to find my mom walking towards us, a clipboard in her hands that I assumed was probably a bunch of contracts. She fixed Aunt Alice in one of her stern looks and gazed around at all of us. Her eyes stopped on Edward, and something flickered in them that I'd never seen before. "I don't think I was ever told that you were going to be my director," she said with a small, unsure smile. I'd never seen her smile like that.
Edward glanced at Alice, as if that explained everything. Alice giggled again. "Well, then I suppose the fault falls to my sister and all who were in on it." Jasper and Emmett both let out laughs at this, as Edward continued. "I'm Edward Cullen." He turned to smile at my mother in the same way she had smiled at him. Something sparked in my head as I grinned slightly to myself. There was something between them already. I couldn't put my finger on it just yet, but I could feel something coming on. I wasn't sure what it was yet, but I was going to figure it out and make whatever it was happen. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Aunt Alice and Uncle Jasper had made that same exact connection.
"I think I heard that from all of the formal introductions," Mom chuckled, and her gaze went to me for a second. She smiled warmly, and I smiled back, going to her side instantly.
Edward observed us for a moment before the smile returned. "I can see that I've stumbling onto some close families," he chuckled. "Does Chicago do this to everyone that lives here? Maybe it was a good thing that I left to escape all of this sappy matter."
Emmett laughed now. "Yeah well, we're gonna suck you right back in to this sappy matter, little bro," he cackled. Edward chuckled, happy that Emmett had seemed to have gotten over his previous aversion (whatever it was).
"Besides, I already feel some of this sappy matter coming on!" Alice giggled, and I think I was the only one to catch the double meaning behind those words. Perhaps my mother would have heard it too, except Alice had wrapped her tiny arms around her brother's waist to show what she foremost meant. Mom smiled again and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
"Hey," she told me. Everyone turned to look at us. "It looks like Angela's going to take over for me today, so how about a nice lunch break so we can all get to know each other? Rose can come too." She added the last bit when Emmett opened his mouth to protest. Angela was one of my mom's really good friends here, and sometimes she stepped in to help my mom when she asked. "You go get her. I'll take Riley to get her things."
As she began pulling me towards her office, my glance went to Edward. He grinned.
EOC: This chapter was a bit shorter, but you guys forgive me, right? XD I'm actually pretty proud of how I wrote Edward. You guys would let me know if it was horrible, right? I tried to bring how he uses big words in the books into my FanFic. And Riley's section probably wasn't the best – I was so used to writing Bella's POV. Next chapter, there might be something from Edward's point of view, but tell me what you guys think.
So, I have two other things to say. 1) I don't really know if Anastasia is actually a musical theatre production, but if it isn't, I like it anyway. 2) Some of you might be wondering what Riley was talking about when she was talking about secrets and said "Except for one". Well, that'll be revealed next chapter. 'Til next time! Please review and tell me how I did. – Dark and Wild