Shedding
XxX
Bella's fist flies through the air, never touching wood.
Edward stands in front of her, so tall, with an arm in the sleeve of his jacket, and clutching a cell phone in the other.
They're both surprised. His eyes hold relief, hers hope.
He shrugs on his jacket and slips his phone in a pocket. "I've been calling you, but it keeps going to voicemail. Where's your cell?"
"The battery must have died."
He nods, worrying his hair into stiff cowlicks. He finally looks her in the eye. His tone rides on neutral. "Look, I shouldn't have let you leave like that. I'll give you a ride. I can shovel out and we can take the main roads."
Oh, he still wants this over. She bites the pulp inside her cheek, suppressing the impulse to give in but she's here now, and he's dressed, not smiling – resigned. This morning, she would have interpreted it as indifference, but she's not ready to believe that. Not now.
"I don't want to go," she says, squaring up, getting taller. He runs both hands through his hair and across his face, shaking his head. His eyes are rimmed red and his clothes are rumpled like the worry lines around his eyes.
That gives her a little hope, but he's yet to invite her in. She can't have that.
She pushes past him and takes off her coat.
He's astonished. "Hey, what are you doing? We can't do this. I can't do this," he pleads, but her face is stubborn.
She holds her hands up to him. "I'm not asking for anything. All I ask is that you hear me out."
"Hear what out? You're married," he spits out impatiently. "What more do I need to know?"
In the context of these four walls, his words are accusation. They puncture her with a dose of shame for withholding the truth.
Her mind is made up.
She paces in the main room where the bed is made – crisp cotton folded neatly at the corners and tucked in. He's picked up, the coffee table is righted, the bottles missing, and the floor swept.
The yesterday is gone.
This sets her right on the inside, too, but he wouldn't know it from her face, painted in ire. Her pale cheeks are flushed red as if poppies have burst under her skin.
He falters.
"You need to know me from the beginning."
"You. Married. That's the beginning, the middle, and the end. No past, no present, no future. Don't you get that?" His voice rises like he's trying to be heard from drowning in the only absolute he knows.
She has never seen his face utterly distressed. She put that there. She has to take it away.
"No, that's not all of it." She moves closer as he hesitates by the open door. "Edward, please, just hear me out. Close the door. If you want to end this afterward, fine," she lies.
He's never been so frightened in his life. He saw her not long ago, but her face holds a lightness he can't recall ever seeing. She is terrifyingly stunning.
Mute and guarded, he closes the door. He feels caged.
She sits on the edge of the coffee table with her back to the weather channel. He sheds his jacket slowly, settling on the couch.
"We've never brought up our pasts. But we need to now."
"I don't really want to know."
"You don't know anything." She's tired of her voice and heart getting locked out before she can explain herself. She continues quick and clear, "I was born in Washington, too. Forks, actually."
The name sounds oddly familiar to him. "What?"
"Forks. It's North of Seattle," she explains.
"I'm from Seattle."
"Yeah, I know. You told me once," she says, smiling softly to an image he painted for her, once, of visiting the Space Needle when he was five years old. He used to balance his belly over the guard rail in the observation deck, and pretend to fly like a float plane into the Cascade Range, over the snow-capped beauty of Mt. Rainier. All the while, he wore a Superman costume that he donned for a year (to the frustration of his mother).
The little red cape, he said, made him feel safe.
"Go on," he urges, listening now.
"Forks. That's where I met my ex – "
"Don't say it," he interrupts, retreating and running hands on his thighs, wanting to be elsewhere. "Don't say his name. Not here."
Chastened, she tries again, bringing her tale into focus.
"Okay. Alright, then. When I was growing up, it was just me and my dad. My mom died when I was a baby. " At the saddening of his eyes, she hurries on. "No, it's okay. It's not the story I want to tell you. I hardly remember her anyway." She shrugs out the awkwardness of her confession. She is self-conscious of how detached she must sound to him.
"My dad was the Chief of Police, and everyone knew him. It's a small town, all blue-collar. Not much happened. I guess you can say we were all pretty sheltered. He was popular with everyone. Even the PTA ladies, who had a thing for a man in uniform and a mustache, would run out to his cruiser and pass him cookies."
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
Edward listens, inert behind his wall, waiting.
"Anyway, even the waitresses at the diner loved him. He went for breakfast every morning and when I was out of school for the summer, he'd take me with him. They even knew my order."
"Let me guess."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't yuck my yum. I hate yolks when they're runny. Now, you know. I didn't have many friends and I was close to my dad. It never bothered me. He fished a lot with his friend, Billy, and it was through Billy that I met him. One day my dad brings home this scrawny kid to our house and leaves him for me to babysit. He was only two years younger than me. We grew up together. He was my best friend."
Edward's no longer looking at her, trying to keep away from her eyes, afraid of what he'll see. He stares past her but she waves into his face and gently tells him to stick with her.
How much he wants to, is an increasingly heavy load. "Go ahead."
"He was no more to me than a friend, at least, not until Dad died from a stroke. I was 19." She pushes out the last part because she's working on one heart ache at a time. Her short nails leave crescent marks on her palm.
It tears at him that he can't be the one to comfort her. "I'm sorry, Bella."
"Edward, you have to know that that's not the story I want to tell, either. I'm tired of being sad, okay? I got married young and for the wrong reasons. It seemed like the next step, and I was on my own. It seemed natural.
"I married him when I was 21 and that was six years ago, but it seems like a different lifetime, like it happened to someone else. We moved here after Dad died and I thought that would help. It did. I was lucky to have Rose move here, too. She's my best friend and has shouldered so much of my shit.
"Anyway, it was comforting to have him with me, and uncomplicated, but we became no more than roommates over the years. Life was measured by the sound of alarms for me. The alarm clock in the morning," she started counting off on her fingers. "The bells at school, the oven alarm as I made dinner, all of it was one big noisy room. It drove me crazy. We sought counseling, and nothing came of it. Even when I stopped feeling anything for him, I still tried."
He breathes through his nose, trying to keep his pain from barking out at her, wondering when she'll get to it.
"I was long done with my marriage when I met you."
His face twists like he's lost his place and reached the wrong page in a book. Her body stills.
"What are you saying?"
"The night I met you, Rose and I were celebrating. We'd gone to the courthouse earlier in the day for the divorce papers. I filled them out and that was it. I never looked back. I'd never done anything like that and I'd never wanted anything more. I'm no longer married. I haven't been, actually…"
"Wait. Wait." He pushes up and paces, gesturing that she should slow down. Her words ring in his ear, too fucking loud to understand. She watches him try to piece it together, unsure if this is the end for them. She bides her time, waiting out the storm, and hoping it keeps away from her.
He doesn't look any calmer than before.
The ring, he thinks. Then why? She's not married?
"Since when?" His body is moving, zipping, cranking up the part of his brain that can register what she's saying.
"Since three months ago, around Thanksgiving. That's why I couldn't meet up with you. I was wrapping things up and moving out. I have my own place now, it's…"
"Three months, Bella?"
He doesn't care where she's moved to, he's been living in his own nuthouse since he met her.
She cringes at the unspoken accusation. "I wasn't ready," she tells her shoes, folding into herself for the first time since she returned to him. It is the only excuse she has, however feeble. But, finally, it is true.
He looks at her, this new girl.
"Not ready? And the ring? Why do you still wear that fucking ring?" He's had nightmares over it, visions of it everywhere he goes, or when her name pops up unbidden at the worst moments – with his family, on the expedition, during the dangerous part of night.
Fuck, last night, he thinks back with disgust and shame. His skin feels hot and tight.
This is out of control, he's losing it, she thinks. I'm losing him.
"What ring? I haven't worn it since the night I met you. I put it away, remember?"
No, he doesn't. He thinks back to yesterday morning, to when she first left, but the image of her with a ring on is fuzzy. Shit, he's gone insane.
She's not done talking about it. "I mean, God, I was so stupid to come up to you wearing it, and let's not get into how petrified I was that I'd forgotten it. I didn't plan on going home with you, or anyone, that night. I was going to take it off after the divorce."
"All this time. You could have told me. It would have mattered."
She perks up. "Would it?"
He ignores her question. She wants to hear the declarations he's never been allowed to own.
Or, he doesn't hear it. It's consumed by months of disappointing his family; of hating himself for the madness she's invoked; of resenting her and desiring her all at once.
The news overwhelms him, and he doesn't know what to do with it.
He needs to know. "What do you want then? You got your say, now what?"
"I want a chance, with you. I don't want us to end. I want to start over."
She gets up, moving toward him, wiping sweaty hands on her back pockets.
He retreats, and flops down on the bed with his head in his hands. He's stuck – spinning wheels – and trying to catch up from being left behind in the telling of her story. It's as if he's the last person in the world to know.
Bella watches him wrestle with the news. He looks like a soldier returned home from a war, and having won, is too shell-shocked and jaded to celebrate.
"I didn't know how to tell you before. I didn't know if it would matter to you."
It matters, but he can't speak.
Everything matters: his own contribution to this mess, the time wasted, the stress.
It matters.
No, she doesn't know, but look at him. He's slumped over, his sure posture weighed down and he's never looked so boyish and tender. She aches, but not so much for herself anymore. No part of this day feels like it has anything to do with her.
It's about him.
Instinctively, she reaches out and runs her hand through his hair.
He winces. A shiver climbs its way up his legs, to his shoulders. She pulls back and wills him to come back to her, smile at her, tell her it will be okay.
"Are we…are you okay?"
As Emmett would say, he is far from fucking okay. He wants to be wrapped up in her body. He wants her to step away.
So much has changed since the night he met her, when he sucked on her neck in the cab back to his place, and had her clothes off before they fell into his bed. His thoughts, then, were to devour her for the short hours he was allowed.
That night, he blocked out the concept of more.
So much has changed. Night and day. Black and white. Then and now.
And it's those lost hours, the gray, and the in-between that's burned him going down.
She's not married?
She's so close; if he moves forward, the crown of his head would meet her square in the belly. His eyes are half-open on the seam of her white Henley.
He's too tired to talk. He knows they need to.
He wants to reach out, pull her in, and take.
He wants her stillness.
He wants her.
But he gets none of it.
Bella's belly grumbles.
And someone else is banging at his fucking door.
A/N: props to CM and WriteOnTime for steering me right.