Here is the latest installment.
Disclaimer: Despite my best efforts, the 'Twilight' franchise doesn't belong to me any more than it did in the last chapter. Therefore, Stephanie Meyer still has the rights; I just mess with the characters for fun.
I watched Bella leave, her curiosity to know the answer to the 'missing years' mystery obvious, like the need to know everything about me, the need to have no barriers for privacy's sake. If she had been the one who could read minds... Well, it was better not to dwell on the kind of life we would be leading now. I thought about following after her to wait in the forest where Jacob would turn up sooner or later, but I decided against it, taking to pacing across the room instead. I listened to the soft noise that my feet made as they trod on the wooden floor, no different from a human's.
But I hadn't been human for so long.
If I had been a human, I would be dead. Dead and buried. But thanks to Carlisle, I was more or less alive, so close and yet so far from things like Jacob. Did he notice that when he entered a room in the main house he was almost always the only one breathing? The only body producing warmth apart from Renesme? Every time he had visited, he had represented all the things the vampires had lost.
I ceased my pacing, changed into a grey cashmere turtleneck and dark blue jeans, both of which hugged my muscles snugly, and left the bedroom. I remembered hearing Renesme leave before Bella had, which left me alone in the cottage. Without them it was almost peaceful, but I could see their faces wherever I looked, their possessions, their essence in every corner, and knew that I could never find true peace in the cottage. I wrote a quick note, folded it up and wrote RENESME on the front. And then I left, walking slowly back to where I had seen Jacob stand yesterday, occupying the space he had occupied, seeing the subtle indents his feet had left in the earth by standing there for so long. But if he saw me, he would no doubt leave... Reluctantly, I moved out of his watching spot, climbling elegantly up the tree. Soon enough, there he was. His muscles were barely contained by the t-shirt he was wearing, and his skin looked so warm and soft, his lips much more inviting than Bella's stone-cold lips.
I leapt down from the branch, landing in front of him. He jumped back, stumbling several steps before settling, his hand resting over his heart as if to calm it. "I get it, I get it," he said. "I'll leave."
"No, I..." I what exactly? It had stopped him, but I didn't know what to say next.
"You what, Edward? Oh, forget it, I know you don't want me around. I thought that you might have gotten over our rivalry, you know. You really helped me out getting Renesme that necklace, and even if it was a strain for you, you managed it! But you're even younger than you look. Not even able to share--" I punched him, controlled anger on my face. He was a werewolf, but still fragile; if I had really punched him, I might have broken some bones. But he still went flying, straight into the tree I had been perched in, shaking leaves loose from its branches. And then he flew back at me, the two of us grappling, fists and feet, knees and elbows all mixed up in the fray. And then Jacob shifted, his claws trying to scratch at my face, ruin my clothes. I became aware that we were moving closer and closer to the small lake, but I was too absorbed in the fight, his fangs and fur and breath.
I managed to push him back, noticing vaguely that my back was to the lake. He looked like he was ready to leave, lick his wounds and find another way to watch Renesme. I relaxed my guard.
And then he pounced, sending me flying straight into the deepest part of the lake. He stood on the shore, but when he realised that I wasn't swimming out of the lake to beat the crap out of him, he shifted, his human face slightly bruised and bloody, but the look of tentative concern still there.
"Edward...?"
I flailed in the water, my vampire strength only good for keeping me up above the surface. I hated water, hated any body of water that wasn't found in a cup or in a puddle. When I had been alive, learning how to swim was barely done, and I hadn't been one of the lucky ones that had learned. And then when I had become a vampire, it had never quite happened, the swimming pool not the place I wanted to be, with vapid girls fawning over my torso. I wouldn't die from it, but if I sunk I would stay underwater until I walked out. The murky depths, oppressive and absolute...
An arm slid across my back, grasping me tight. I looked up.
Jacob.
Slack in his arms, I let him tow me like a corpse to the shore.
"I didn't know you couldn't swim, Edward," he said. I coughed once or twice, clearing out the stray water droplets that had managed to go down my windpipe. We sat in silence for a few moments. He took off his t-shirt and squeezed it. I glanced down at my own turtleneck. Slashed and soaked, another top ruined. I removed it, throwing it to one side.
"Listen, Edward..." I looked up at him. "I didn't mean to, well... What I mean to say is..."
I watched a stray drop snake its way down his perfect torso, glimmering in the faint light. I reached out a finger, brushed it away.
"I love you."
He laughed nervously. "Is that a joke? You know I love Renesme. And you've got Bella."
"It's not a joke!" I replied forcefully. "I can't stop thinking about you. Bella's like a disease without a cure, I can't get rid of her. But--"
"Okay, it's really not funny anymore," he said, though his look showed that he knew as well as I did that it wasn't a joke.
"Why won't you understand?" I asked him desperately, leaning up to claim his lips. He pushed me away, wiping his mouth. "I need you, Jacob."
He had already stood up, a disgusted look on his perfect face. "No, you don't need me, Edward. You want me. You want everything that isn't yours, you need to keep it under lock and key so it doesn't get away from you, and when it finally admits it's yours, when you've completely dominated it, you want something else. You're married, Edward. Married! You have a beautiful home, a beautiful daughter, a wife that loves you--"
"Don't you ever say that Bella loves me. The only thing that she loves is her perfect little world, where everything's perfect, perfect, perfect! She doesn't love me, she loves the idea of me, her perfect husband, who dotes on her and keeps her close for eternity. But you--"
"But I nothing. I'm going to see Renesme now. Goodbye, Edward."
"Wait!" He turned around one last time, and that look told me everything.
It was over.
I don't know how long I sat there, watching the water, gently caressing the t-shirt Jacob had left behind in his hurry to escape from me. He knew I wasn't as perfect as I looked, that I had flaws like any other person, that I needed that connection with someone who understood that, who didn't cover it up and pretend it didn't exist like Bella. In a daze, I stood up, still clutching the t-shirt like a prize, trudging back to the house. I passed the cottage, where I could see Renesme and Jacob snuggling together on the sofa. In a rage, I kicked over one of Esme's flower pots, stamping on the rainbow of petals, stamping on all the flowers, kicking and crushing until the only thing that was left was a mess of dirt and plant fragments. An entire flowerbed gone, but it would give Esme something else to do besides maintaining her botanical perfection. But now, rage spent, I felt empty. I had fought my daughter for Jacob and lost. In this perfect farce, it looked like I had so much, but in reality I had nothing.
Not even my own freedom.
"I'm back," I said, walking through the door to the main house.
So ends another chapter. Reviews, positive, negative, or somewhere in the middle, are, as always, welcome. And for the people who think that we've been misleading in our Bella & Edward pairing in the summary, rest assured, they will end up together in the end.