Cupid's Bow
Chapter 22
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Edward's home turns out to be very near the place full of Things, as in, it only take us – what feels like – twenty or so minutes to reach it, instead of a few days.
When the sloping roof and red, red bricks come into view, my eyes widen.
When he said he'd had a home, I hadn't been expecting something like this, something so, well, structured. They were content to sleep under the stars – not that I'm judging that, at least not now – so how could I have expected something like this? But it's not just that. On Earth, our buildings touch the sky. Even at the lower levels, our houses are neatly stacked in long, straight lines, with flat roofs that stand open and bare to the rain and sun. I hadn't really thought about it before, but now, seeing Edward's home, there's an undoubtedly eerie sameness to ours.
Theirs.
My eyes widen as my mind corrects itself.
Next to me, Edward lets out an audible exhale as he stares at his home, eyes overwhelmingly golden in the setting sun. My chest gives a funny little spasm at the unobscured joy in his gaze. I'd never seen anyone look at their house like that. A building's just a building, right?
Until – until it isn't.
Soft eyes turn from red brick to me, and my heart ricochets like a drumbeat when his look doesn't dissipate, but grows warmer.
"Home," is all he says.
OoOoOo
OoOoOoOo
OoOoOo
Inside, Edward's home is even more deceiving.
It's smaller – by a huge degree – than Earth's buildings, and there don't seem to be any stairs or lifts signalling another floor. But its size and height, or lack thereof, are not what halts me in the threshold.
There are Things. Everywhere.
Small Things occupy counters and tables, covering the surface-span so much that if I couldn't see the bases supporting the room's furnishings, I'd swear they didn't even exist; that they were just an amalgamation of Things. Medium sized Things recline against walls and large sized Things are seemingly content to occupy the space without needing help from anything else.
The sheer volume of it all makes my breath skitter, makes me stumble back a step – feet hitting soft – as I attempt to quash down the sudden panic spiralling up inside of me. I clutch the music box to me so tightly I imagine it leaves an impression on my heart.
Edward's back is to me – I think he's placing or fiddling with something on a shelf – so he can't see my little spaz out. I try to calm my breathing, but my eyes won't stop darting to the left and right of me, unwittingly seeking everything out. I'm just about to snap my eyes shut when the sight of something catches me eye and I –
I freeze.
My quickened breathing stalls off into nothing as I try to make sense of what I'm seeing. A small, square shaped book, leaning up against a set of similarly shaped books, sits harmlessly in the centre of – what looks like – a partially obscured window. It's blue and parades a picture of the ocean on the front with the words – "SEAS OF THE WORLD" splayed across it. And I pause, because I recognise that book.
I blink and blink and blink in disbelief.
Edward turns around. Dimly, I'm aware of him saying my name, but I'm too focused on the book to hear him properly. My ears are flooding, rushing, like when I fell into the pool. Like water.
Slowly, my feet tread their way past the threshold, and amid all that clutter I don't even stumble. My vision tunnels, making it easy for me to see past everything else. Then in no time at all I'm standing before the book, and I remember just in time that I'm holding the music box to place it down gently onto the crammed counter.
My hands tremble. I pick the book up.
I turn back the cover and there, on the first page, it sits.
Property of Forks Institution, Earth.
OoOoOo
OoOoOoOo
OoOoOo
I stare into the mirror at the other me, trying to focus both on how different I look, and how much of me seems so unaltered in comparison to the alterations in my mind.
My skin seems infused with a slight touch of golden warmth that I've never had before, and I can see the fading pink of the burns on my neck. I press against them and wince only slightly, watching it flood porcelain-white before reddening again.
But my eyes – and hair – are still the same brown. My skin, while simultaneously more ruddy and tanned, still shows the same blue veins through its surface. Maybe my lips are less chapped – free from the cold winds on Earth – and my body more prominent – shedding clothes will do that – but outwardly, the changes seem so minimal.
Inwardly…
My eyes flick over to the book I'd brought into the bathroom with me, unbidden, and then away again quickly. I let my gaze linger on the sort-of-similar fixings: the bathtub, the shower, the toilet.
When Edward had walked over to me, a question in his eyes as I clutched the book to my chest – frozen – much like I had the music box earlier on, I'd watched his lips move but heard no sound. My mind was too busy stop-starting, clambering around to make sense of what this could mean, what this did mean…
"I need – I need to – " I'd mumbled out, just barely, but Edward nodded like he knew. Like I was making some kind of comprehensible sense right now.
He'd cupped my elbow and walked me through the mess, pulling us through another doorway that I hadn't noticed before. The only thing I could make out was that it wasn't as cluttered as the other room, but that was it. I think he gestured to something in my peripheral, but my gaze was stuck to the book in my hands. And then we were walking through another door, and then he'd said – "Bathroom," while tugging on his hair.
That had pulled me from my musings.
Dumbly, I had taken in all of the features, noticing that while some things were maybe larger or smaller, and weirdly shaped, I still recognised them for what they were.
How…? was my only thought before Edward was saying things like "bath" and "shower" before backing out of the room and leaving me to it.
And so here I am, studiously avoiding the book and staring at the fixtures. They have plumbing here? How do they have plumbing here?
Shaking away my inane thoughts, I back up slightly until my butt touches the edge of the tub. I sit and stare down at my hands, flexing and unflexing my fingers. They look the same, too.
How can my book be here? I think, and then lift my gaze to look around, taking in the bronze-tipped gilded mirror and cool blue tiles. How can it be here?
How did you get here? my mind whispers back in reply.
"They dropped me," I breathe, my gaze falling to the book on cue. "But why would they drop you?"
Why did they drop you?
"To find the Thing." I stand up and walk over to the item I spent so long trawling through back on Earth. The picture of the sea on the front seems harmless enough. "It was what I was supposed to do. Be."
I flip, flip, flip through the pages, looking for any sign of… something. Like the Thing, I don't know what I'm searching for. I just hope that I know it when I see it. "They made a mistake," I mumble to myself. "My whole life was someone else's."
Did they? My subconscious whispers back. Was it?
I frown as I think over that, my fingers flipping more rapidly over the pages. They made a mistake, I think, over and over, but then suddenly I'm back on Earth, where everything is set and monitored and timed. There are systems and policies and rules dressed up as guidelines. And there is the Institution, which resides over us all. And they tell us, every day, in all of this that –
The Institution doesn't make mistakes.
My fingers freeze too abruptly, and previously innocuous edges are suddenly sharp with intent. I gasp as my skin is sliced, and the book jerks from my grasp. Blood seeps to my skins surface immediately before dribbling down my fingertips, landing on the cool tile and clean pages, marring them red.
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A/N: So... that happened. Last bit was totally canon btw (paper can be evil sometimes). Only Bella's probably safe from any hungry vampires. Probably. But there is a sparkling one of Them chilling outside the bathroom, so...