CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE PROPOSAL
The Country
Before
I am going to be a father. I'm barely a man.
It's positive. The words are pressed against my neck. I try to speak but nothing comes out. It wasn't supposed to be positive.
I hold her by the forearms and step back because I need to look at her. I need to see. She looks the same. She looks like the girl with shiny hair who sat in front of me in chemistry last year.
"Say something."
But I don't know what to say. I never know what to say.
"It's going to be okay," I tell her. I want to mean it.
She's pacing now. I've never seen her pace. "We can't have a baby, Edward."
But she's wrong.
"We can't."
"I don't know what that means," I try to tell her. Explain to me what that means.
"I'm not a mother and you're not a father and we can't do this."
"People do it every day."
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she doesn't look like a mother. She looks like a frightened child. And it's because of me.
I kneel down in front of her and press my face to her stomach.
"Do you hate me?"
She doesn't answer. For what seems like forever, she doesn't answer and I'm sure she hates me more than anyone has ever hated another person.
"Why would I hate you?"
For so many reasons.
For seducing you. For getting you pregnant. For being a loser. For tricking you into loving me.
If only she could ever love me as much as I love her.
"I don't know. I just thought."
"Don't ever say that again. I could never hate you."
I wish I believed that.
"Besides, this is as much my fault as it is yours. I can't believe we were so stupid."
She thinks we were stupid. But it didn't feel stupid.
"What are we supposed to do?" she begs me, as if I'm the wise one.
I don't know. I don't know anything.
A tear runs down her cheek and I want to cry too.
"Will you take me?"
"Take you where?"
"To get rid of it."
I'm suffocating.
She wants to get rid of it.
"Right now?" I ask her, trying to keep my voice steady.
She covers her face with her hands. I wonder if she knows I can still see her.
"Am I supposed to take you right now?" I don't know what's happening. I refuse to know.
"No," she finally says.
"Okay." Okay.
"I don't know if I can. If I can do that. What if I can't do that?" It's like she's begging. Like she's begging for me to be the kind of man who could be a father.
I want to be that. For her.
"Marry me, Bella."
I think I'm supposed to be on one knee instead of two.
Her face goes white. "Edward, be serious."
She wants me to be serious. But I've never been more serious about anything.
"I promise to love you forever."
"You can't promise that," she whispers.
"I just did."
"You just did," she repeats back.
"Marry me."
When she doesn't answer, I take her face in my hands. "Marry me, Bella."
She only blinks, staring at me with the widest, desperate eyes.
I kiss her cheek. And then the other. "Marry me." I kiss her lips.
"Marry me."
She grabs at me, pulling me onto the bed with her, pulling me on top of her.
She's laughing and crying and kissing me stupid. "You can't just do that. You can't propose to me on the floor of my bedroom in my parents' house."
"Say yes."
I pull back slightly so I can see her face. She is smiling wide.
"Marry me."
She nods, slow and steady, the smile cemented on her face.
But I need to hear her say it.
"Marry me."
"Yes!" She screams it.
I swallow the sound with my mouth. I kiss her like I'm going to destroy her entire life. But she kisses me back the same way.
There's a knock and we both freeze. I'm across the room before I even have a chance to think.
Mrs. Swan stands in the doorway. She looks at her daughter but doesn't comment on her tear-tracked face or messy hair. "Bella, I think it would be best if your door stayed open when Edward is here."
Bella looks away, refusing to acknowledge her mom.
"Of course, Mrs. Swan," I say for her. Because she wants the door open and I got her daughter pregnant. It's the only thing to say.
She keeps opening and closing her mouth like she wants to say a hundred other things, but she says nothing. She turns around and closes the door behind her on her way out.
I practically sprint across the room and open it.
"What are you doing?"
"Your mom said."
"Yeah and then she closed the door."
"Come on," I say, taking her by the hand. Because I can't be in her parents' house right now.
She doesn't have to ask where we're going. She plays with my fingers as we walk. And she's going to marry me. She's going to marry me. And we're having a baby. We'll be a family. A real kind of family.
I lift her up over the fence and I try to be careful with her.
We walk the rest of the way hand in hand and I just stare at her.
She stops abruptly as we approach the willow and I have to look away from her face to see what she sees.
"What the fuck?" Our tree is covered in hundreds of caterpillars. I try to swat them away but there are too many.
"What are you doing?" she shouts, grabbing my arm.
"Trying to get rid of them." I thought it was obvious. "We should spray them with oven cleaner. That shit kills everything."
"Oh my God, Edward!" She smacks my arm and it kind of hurts. "In a couple of weeks they'll all be butterflies."
I look at her like a scolded child. I've never felt so stupid in my entire life. I know that caterpillars turn into butterflies. I've known that since kindergarten. But when I see a tree full of caterpillars, I don't see butterflies. I only see what's right in front of me.
"Just leave them, okay?"
"Okay."
She can see it on my face. How stupid I feel. "Kiss me until I can't breathe?"
And so I do.
We lie under the willow tree, surrounded by branches, until we have to pull apart.
On our backs, both trying to catch our breaths, it feels like we will have this forever.
"Edward, why do you want to marry me?"
Because you're carrying my baby.
Because I've loved you since before I knew your name.
Because I'll die if I don't get to be with you forever.
"I'm sorry I didn't get a ring."
"I don't need a ring."
"I still want you to have one." I want everyone to know that you're mine.
She holds up a thin branch and strips it of leaves. I watch as she twists it into a tiny circle. She holds it up between her fingers before pressing it to my palm.
"I don't need a fancy ring." And the way her eyes shine. Like she already has everything she wants.
"Marry me?"
She holds her left hand out to me. And when I slide that willow ring on her finger it feels like the most real moment of my life.
"We can do this, right?"
"I promise."
I kiss her goodnight while she sits on the fence post, her legs wrapped around me. It seems unfair that I have to kiss her goodnight at all.
The entire walk back to my dad's house I just want to run in the other direction. I want to pick her up in my arms and run away with her.
But I have no job and no money and nowhere to go.
I sit on the deck, my feet in the pool with no water, until all of the lights in Bella's house are off.
And when I finally decide to go to bed, the sliding glass door is locked. I walk around to the front, only to find that locked too.
I pry the screen off of my bedroom window and climb in, grateful that I didn't have to ring the doorbell.
I listen for my dad but the house is silent. I walk through each room, turning the lights off as I go.
The fridge is empty, except for a ton of beer on the bottom shelf. I open one can and drink it in the dark kitchen. He'll never notice it's gone.
Second beer in hand, I turn the light off in the family room.
"Where the hell have you been?" My father's voice echoes in the dark.
I wait for my eyes to adjust. There he is, slumped in a chair in the corner. He looks like a corpse.
"Bella's pregnant."
He doesn't flinch or answer or even look my way.
"Dad?"
I watch him run his hands over his eyes and I know he's heard me.
"What is she on, Edward?"
"What do you mean what is she on?"
"Don't be smart with me. What kind of drugs is she on?"
"She's not on anything."
"Your mother was a liar too."
My stomach feels like it's filling with stones. "I don't want to talk about her."
"I don't care what you want to talk about," he slurs. "She was a junkie and a liar and a whore and it's about time you knew."
"I don't want to know." I want to shout it but the words barely come out.
"You were in the hospital for weeks."
"Shut up."
"You were so small, you barely looked human."
"I said shut up!"
He disappears into the kitchen and I stand frozen. He's back before I've moved a foot, cracking open another beer.
"Bella doesn't do drugs, Dad."
"You think I'm a fucking idiot don't you?"
"Maybe because you are a fucking idiot."
I see his hand but it's too late. The pain is instant as he smacks the side of my head with a closed fist. I hold my ear as he stares. And when I pull my hand away, I expect to see blood but there is nothing.
I stare at him, my mouth gaping, wanting to hit him back or cry or shove him to the ground.
"I'm sorry."
I don't ask him which part he's sorry for.
I watch him stumble to his room before I empty the rest of my beer down the drain.
I unlock every door in the house before I walk down the steps of the back deck in the direction of Bella's house. And when my feet hit the dirt, I'm running. I can't get there fast enough.
I sneak in through the window in their downstairs den. It's always left open. As quietly as I can, I make my way through the house and up the stairs to her room. I don't know what I'd do if her father caught me.
Safely in her bedroom, I stare at her sleeping face. Until the sight of her sleeping isn't enough.
"Bella?"
I don't want to scare her. When she doesn't stir, I take her hand in mine. The hand that wears a ring made from a branch. She mumbles as she wakes and then sits up suddenly when she realizes I'm here.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I just want to sleep next to you." That part is true.
"You have to be quiet."
She moves over as I undress. Once in her bed, I wrap my entire body around her and try to ignore my sore ear.
My hand keeps finding her stomach.
"You smell like beer."
"I just had one."
"Edward, it's okay if you're freaking out. We can talk about this."
I run my fingers over her belly button. "I'm not freaking out. I just wanted to be next to you. That's all."
"Okay," she mumbles, already half asleep. I hold on to her and try to tell myself that we can do this.
I spend most of the night lying awake in her bed, listening to the sound of her breathing.
And when she wakes in the morning, I want nothing more than to stay in this bed with her forever. I want to stay here and slow down time and just be with her.
We lie awake without talking for what seems like eternity but it's not nearly long enough.
"Promise me it's going to be okay. Promise me. Even if it's not true," she begs.
"I promise." Even though it's not true.
That's when I hear it. The angry screaming of a chain saw.
I throw on my pants and run down the stairs, making Mrs. Swan jump as I run shirtless through her kitchen. But I don't fucking care. I run as fast as I can across the Swans' back patio and over the fence. But it's too late. It's already been done.
I can see my father in the distance attacking the willow tree with the spinning blades, branches and leaves flying everywhere.
And when it falls to the earth, I can feel it under my feet.
Our willow tree lies in the dirt. The limp branches draped all over the ground, the trunk severed with jagged edges. Carnage everywhere. And all I can think about is all of those caterpillars that I wanted to kill with oven cleaner.
With my knees in the star thistle, I look up into the glaring sun and expect to see vultures circling overhead.
The sky is empty.
Bella stands on the fence, her hands covering her mouth. Her mother stands behind her, looking at my father like he's a madman.
And then Bella is running towards our fallen tree in nothing but her tiny sleep shorts and a tank top.
She's in my father's face, breathing fire as the chainsaw still spins in his hand.
And then I'm the one who's running towards them, Mrs. Swan on my heels.
Bella won't stop screaming. About things that have nothing to do with this tree. She's using words that I don't even know, like negligence and malice.
She's in his face and when my father tries to push her away, I want to murder him with my bare hands.
Mrs. Swan shoves past me. "Get your filthy hands off my child."
He turns to her, a wicked grin on his face. "Your child's pregnant."
-HL-