This is the final chapter of relief before an epilogue. I felt suddenly inspired to finally, FINALLY finish this, and I really really really really hope that you all haven't given up on the story. I tried really hard to end this appropriately, and I think I'll go back and revise everything else to fix the things I'm not completely happy with. I skipped around with POVs to give a taste of everything that Relief has been about: Alice, Edward, Bella. Thank you to everyone who has stuck through with this and put up with all of my bullshit. I hope that this final chapter ends the right way. I think it does (:
Keep your eye out for an epilogue coming soon. Please review! I love you guys.
song: to build a home by the cinematic orchestra
EPOV
Radiation.
Radiation stops cancer cells from multiplying and spreading and growing.
Radiation is used for lymphoma in an early stage, when it's still in an area small enough to be treated affectively and pointedly.
Often, radiation is used along with chemotherapy.
Carlisle was stage three. It was too late. But they were still trying.
They were treating him under his arms, in his neck, and in his chest. His skin grew paler and his head was now so shiny that I almost forgot the mane of blonde hair that used to grow on top of it.
But it was kind of weird now-no one was sad, no one cried, and Carlisle seemed...better. It was pretty much amazing. I couldn't piece together the reasons why everyone was better, and whenever the thought that maybe it was Bella making me happy again that helped the overall mood crept into my head, I jammed it into the back of my brain so I wouldn't let myself feel guilty. I know it might have sounded selfish, but I was just so fucking tired of blaming myself and everyone else that, for once, I just wanted there to be no blame at all. Everything was how it was, and nothing was going to change that.
"You okay?" Bella asked softly, breaking me away from my thoughts.
She rolled over to look at me as I lay on my back, the sheet gathered under her armpits and her hands pressing it against her chest.
I stared at the ceiling, nodding my head against the pillow. "Yeah," I answered. "I really think I am."
I heard her laugh quietly before she pressed her cheek to my chest. "You don't know how happy it makes me to hear you say that."
My hand wound itself into her wild hair. "I just feel better," I said, surprising myself at how true my words were. "I feel like everything is how it's supposed to be."
"What do you mean? Like, with us?" she asked, lifting her head to meet my eyes.
"Well, yeah. Having you here like this was something I thought would never happen again." That was true, and I was a pretty lucky bastard.
"But..." she prompted.
"But everything with my dad, uh, it's good," I replied, pinching my eyes closed. "I understand that this had to happen. Him being sick...it was meant to happen like this. I just have to let it."
She pressed her lips to my collarbone, turning to press against me.
"I am so proud of you," she whispered, her lips moving against my skin. "And I love you."
"And I love you," I whispered back. That was true, too.
Sometime into the evening, Bella and I had decided to go out for dinner for the first time in a long time. It was still so weird for us-we had been together for what seemed like forever, even before everything, but we'd hardly even been on a normal date like a normal couple. It had been a little over three weeks since our reunion, and everything was right again.
I liked to watch her as she put her makeup on in my mirror, pulling a brush through her tangled mess of hair that I had helped complicate. She met my eyes in the mirror every so often, and it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around her waist and pull her back into bed. The best part was that if I really wanted to, I could now. I smiled to myself.
"What are you so happy about?" she asked playfully, slicking some cherry-flavored chapstick on her mouth.
"You," I answered, and I knew it was fucking cheesy. But I just didn't give a shit.
She walked slowly towards where I was perched on the bed, her hips fucking screaming at me in the jeans she was wearing. I sighed as she wrapped her arms around my neck, my hands instinctively winding around her as she leaned into me.
"Ready to go?" she murmured.
"Not yet." I grinned, palming her lower back and pushing her between my legs. Everything was going great for me until I heard a soft knock on the door.
Immediately, Bella pushed away from me like a child caught eating dessert before dinner and adjusted her sweater from where I'd pushed it up.
"Come in!" I called, ignoring the huskiness of my voice and the fact that my dick was pretty much throbbing. Cock block.
Emmett pushed his way into the room, a crooked grin on his wide face. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows like the dumbfuck that he was.
"Get out," I ordered, pointing toward the door. "Seriously, Em, not the best time." No use being subtle.
Bella was looking awkward as hell, yanking on the hem of her little red sweater like it was a lifeline.
Emmett guffawed. "Relax, baby brother. Dad wants to talk to you for a little while, so I'd suggest that you postpone your dinner plans for the time being. He says it's important."
I sighed. Great. There was no way that I wasn't going to go to my father, and Bella and I both knew that. She looked disappointed, but I knew from a glimmer in her eye that she understood.
"I'm sorry, B," I said, crossing the room to her. I leaned into her to kiss her cheek, and her skin was so warm that I had to fight to try and forget what Emmett had interrupted. "You can just hang tight and I'll be back up when we're finished."
She shook her head vehemently. "No, Edward, I'll go home, and you can come over when you're ready. I'm not going to just sit up here so you feel rushed. Take your time."
God, she was the best.
"Okay," I agreed, leaning in to kiss her lips one more time before she gave a little wave and walked out the door. I followed soon after her, padding down the stairs and into the office without a door.
Carlisle sat at his desk, facing me. He smiled when I entered the room, lifting himself carefully out of his giant desk chair and walking slowly to one of two armchairs across from the fireplace and gesturing towards the other, indicating that I was to sit there.
I followed him, plopping into the big leather chair as I waited for him to speak. The fire crackled.
I looked up from my lap to see my dad watching me, his eyes content and his lips curled up into a grin. "Son," he acknowledged, still smiling.
I laughed at his expression. "What?"
"I figured that this had to happen some time, and the moment feels right," he said, a hint of finality in his tone. It worried me before I reminded myself to relax.
"I hadn't realized Bella was here until I saw her leave," he continued. "I'm sorry to mess up your plans. I would have come up to your room to talk to you like I normally would, but my knees hurt today." He winced. I could tell he felt weak, and he didn't like that.
I waved my hand dismissively. "It's no big deal," I said. My voice sounded very small, like I sounded when I was eight.
Carlisle cleared his throat, sweeping a hand over his clean head. "Okay, um, I'm not sure where to start this."
"I'm here all night," I replied, my chest tightening. I knew what was happening.
"I...I am so proud of you, Edward," he said after a few quiet moments, hesitating before speaking. "I am so proud of everything you do, everything you've said, how you're handling all of this. I'm so much more comfortable now than before."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that...I mean that I am more at ease with leaving you. I'm more at ease with leaving everyone."
I furrowed my brow, confused.
"What I mean to say is, I feel safer. I feel like you and Emmett have grown and matured into men, Edward, and the two of you aren't just boys anymore. I know you can look after your mother and your sister and take care of our family. I trust you." He studied me carefully to make sure that he hadn't said anything wrong. When I was silent, he continued.
"This doesn't mean that I want to leave. I didn't choose this. But when do we choose anything in life? We can't always choose love, and we can't choose family or destiny, so life just gives these things to us. And we have to take it. Do you understand that?"
I nodded heavily. "I do," I answered. And I meant it.
Carlisle chuckled darkly. "We've come a long way, my son," he said, still laughing in clipped, labored sounds. "From you destroying my study door to you sitting here with me now, it really is remarkable the journey we've had together. And I want you to know that you impress me with your strength everyday. It makes us all strong. It makes me strong."
"I'm not really that tough, dad, you don't have to be nice," I said, my cheeks getting hot.
"I'm not flattering you. I mean what I'm saying. I mean it when I tell you how proud I am of you and I mean it when I say that I know you'll be just fine when I'm gone."
"So that's it then?" I asked. "Is it...are you really...is it ending?"
He knew what I meant. He ducked his head in a nod, his blue eyes flickering closed. I fisted handfuls of denim in my palms as I fought to keep my face composed.
None of this was anyone's fault.
"They did all that they could," he said. "It's still a bit crazy for me to think about. I guess that with my being a doctor, I foolishly never thought that something like this could happen to me. But it did, and it is my destiny, and there's nothing I can do to go back and change anything. So it's finished. I have maybe a month, maybe two. But that's pushing it." He was quiet, contemplating something. "I think I'm ready," he added in an almost whisper.
"You're not scared?" I asked, my voice breaking.
"No," he answered. "No, I don't think I am. I've been preparing for this for a while now. And I'm not scared anymore."
That was all I could ask for.
"But son, I need you to know that it's all up to you now," Carlisle went on. "I look at where we were a few months ago and how you were, and how you are now, and I feel so certain and so sure of you and what you're capable of that I know you're in charge of yourself more than you ever have been. But I need to know that you're going to be okay."
Shit. My face felt wet. "I'll be fine, dad, I promise." I wiped my cheeks with the backs of my hands quickly as I waited for him to keep going.
He watched me for a moment with his milky eyes, the fire lighting up one side of his face as he looked at me with an expression that was so crazy and terrifying and caring at the same time that it scared me.
"You need to keep the things that make you feel right, Edward," he said soberly, leaning toward me to show that he was serious. "You need to take the things that make the world the best possible place for you and you need to hold onto them. I think you and I both know what the number one thing is."
"Bella," I said. It wasn't really a time for me to play any guessing games with him, and I knew that what he was saying was important.
"Yes," he agreed. "I saw how you were without her. You were dealing with all of this, but not fully. Not properly. But she came back to you. She came back like I told you she would. And now look at you." He gestured toward me, smiling weakly. "You're ready for anything now. You're strong."
"Stop saying that," I said, laughing quietly and trying not to cry like a fucking girl. Carlisle didn't want that, and I didn't want to show him that weakness while he was telling me how strong I was.
"Well, it's true," he insisted.
I took a deep breath, my stomach flipping as I fought the irrational fear of impending doom.
"Something else," Carlisle added. "I'm, ah, I'm leaving you some inheritance of course."
"I don't care about any of that shit," I said quickly, my voice hard and slicing. I didn't care about Carlisle's money, or anything that I had to gain, and I was almost offended that he even said anything about it.
"Relax, relax," he said calmly, his palms out to me. "I'm only telling you this for a very good reason. Something that is very important to me."
"Which is?"
"The house," he said, cocking an eyebrow when I didn't immediately understand.
"I thought the house was paid off," I said, confused.
"No, no, not this house!" he laughed, a bit exasperated. "The white house. The one in the woods. I want you to have the money to do whatever it takes to make it yours."
I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me. "You...you what?"
He pressed his fingers together, grinning. "It's always been yours. Even though it's also Emmett's, he's agreed that it's more yours than anyone's."
"I can't accept this," I choked, my eyes wide and my heart pounding.
"I think you can," Carlisle protested, a smile in his tone. "Maybe when you're there, you'll think of me."
I dropped my face into my hands, trying to gather some composure. My father was dying, and he was leaving me his legacy. That was enough. But a home...my home...a home that had always somehow been mine even without proper ownership. It was amazing. It was perfect. I had to fight against the shallow breaths that were raking through my throat.
"Now I want you to make me some promises," Carlisle said evenly, trying to reign me back in and to act seriously even though I still heard the happiness in his voice.
"Anything." I meant that.
Carlisle cleared his throat, closing his eyes again. "Esme," he began. And I saw a tear escape, but I ignored it, because I knew he didn't want any crying, either. I waited for him to pull himself together.
"I want you to take care of her," he said. His eyes opened. They were bloodshot, and he couldn't keep it back. I carefully kept a poker face for him, nodding soberly.
"She's strong, like you. But I'd like to think that she needs me as much as I need her, and I need to know that she'll be alright. So watch out for her. Don't leave her out her alone too much. When you leave for college, come visit her. Come back for holidays. Give her some good grandkids. Remember her favorite color and remember her birthday."
"I promise," I agreed, my voice rasping out as I tightened my grip on the armchair.
"Now Alice," he said, chuckling softly. "She's your twin sister. She's loopy and spacey and completely in her own world. But you need to love on her, you understand? You might want to smack her, but you have to love her. I didn't love her the right way for so long, and now that she finally got my full and undivided attention, it's one of the hardest things I have to do to take that away from her. So watch her, okay? Don't let her down."
I nodded again, and we both laughed as we thought of teeny, tiny Alice and her enormous temper.
"Emmett can take good care of himself," Carlisle said nodding. "He'll be fine, just like you. Just make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. Make sure he stays in line and finishes school and makes a good husband. I think I like that Rosalie girl. Is she good for him?"
"Yeah," I replied. "I think she's really good for him."
Carlisle liked that. He was almost beaming, his eyes red-rimmed. "I'm so amazed," he said thoughtfully.
"About what?"
He chuckled with more effort and happiness in his voice now. "You are all going to be perfect!" he exclaimed, laughing again. "You have everything, don't you understand? You don't need me anymore."
"We need you always, dad," I insisted. "We'll be alright, but don't think for a second that you're not needed."
He smile leveled out, and his face became serious again. "I appreciate that, Edward."
We looked at each other for a while, the fire flickering and the large clock downstairs chiming.
"I love you, son," Carlisle said slowly. "And I'll miss you."
"I love you too, dad," I said, my voice breaking.
And we both got up from our chairs, and we hugged one another, and I went up to my room and cried into my pillow like the bitch I tried not to be until I felt two warm hands circle around me. I smelled strawberries, and I knew it was her.
APOV
The summer came quickly, and it was time to move all of my winter clothes to the guest room closet and bring all of my summer clothes out of storage. It was a toiling task, and thank God Bella was over to help with everything. She had said that it was part of my birthday gift since I'd been putting cleaning off for a while, I was taking her up on her offer.
Jasper sat on my bed like a bump on a log drawing mustaches over all of the models' mouths in a copy of Vogue. I threw him a lot of desperate and exhausted looks hoping he'd get the hint and help haul the boxes of shoes and bins of jackets up the stairs for me, but the kid was semi-retarded and thought nothing of it. I thought about making a big deal out of it, but he looked content, and the boxes weren't really that heavy. Maybe I just wanted his attention.
Actually, I knew I just wanted his attention.
"Are we finished yet?" Bella whined, wiping a hand dramatically across her forehead to wipe the sweat that she and I both knew wasn't there.
I inspected the closet, admiring the rows of sandals and shorts with satisfaction before nodding. "You're free," I decided, throwing my arms around her. "Thanks for your help, I couldn't have done it without you."
"Sure, you could've," she laughed, returning the hug. "If only your boyfriend wasn't such a waste of space and actually did something thing every once in a while."
"Tell me about it," I sighed, turning to look at Jasper. He was so engrossed in his mustache-drawing abilities that he didn't even register the fact that we were talking about him. It was so pathetic and made me so irritated that it was almost funny. Almost.
I heard Edward before I saw him.
The boy walked so heavily that he sounded like heard of elephants rather than a skinny eighteen-year-old boy. He leaned against my doorframe, smirking as he surveyed our afternoon's work.
"Looks good," he decided, wrapping an arm around Bella and planting a kiss to her temple. She giggled, swatting him, which of course prompted more squealing and kissing and touching to the point that I was literally rolling my eyes.
"Feel free to find a room," I scoffed, smiling in spite of myself as I adjusted some picture frames on my desk.
Edward mocked me for a while as Bella laughed, much to his pleasure. "Calm down, Al, it's my birthday," he said, prompting more eye-rolling on my behalf.
"It was your birthday last week, Edward. And just in case your forgot, it was my birthday too."
"Then you should know just as well as any that whenever I had a birthday, it lasts all month," he said matter-of-factly, flashing his teeth in a cocky grin.
Bella giggled again for no apparent reason as Edward said something else that I'm sure was witty and charming before the two of them wandered off into the hallway being noisy and stupid. I sighed as I crawled up the bed and took the magazine out of Jasper's hands, tossing it across the room and nuzzling into his neck.
"Hey!" he complained, "I was reading that!"
"Yeah, yeah," I droned disinterestedly. "I can think of ten things we can do that would be more interesting."
He cocked at eyebrow at me, grinning like a fool. "You mean it?"
I laughed, my insides warming. Jasper was ridiculous, but he sure was cute.
Just when we were about to start fooling around, the door to my bedroom swung open. Fucking typical. Emmett and Rosalie were on the other side, and I rolled off of Jasper like he was a hot plate. Rosalie scowled. Emmett laughed.
"You could at least knock," I spat, raking my fingers through my hair.
"You could at least shut your door all the way," Emmett shot back, laughing all over again.
"I'm going to pretend that I didn't just see that," Rosalie added, making a face.
Jasper just lay against the pillow, his ankles crossed and a lazy smile on his face.
"Are you going to tell me what you want or are you just going to stand there?" I asked, irritation clear in my voice.
Emmett laughed again, a loud, booming bellow. "You kids ought to get decent. Dad wants us all to go to the house with the contractors to supervise the plans and stuff."
"Dad really shouldn't be leaving the house," I said with a furrowed brow.
"We all have to go?" Jasper whined.
I swatted him, and he grinned like an idiot.
Carlisle was at his all-time worst now, and we were all trying to enjoy our time with him and not count down the days. He had insisted that we all go about life normally, and although it was difficult, we all wanted to make him happy. And although I knew that looking over the plans for the house that he'd basically willed to Edward was one of his lasting wishes, I also knew that it was a really bad idea.
"Would you calm down, Alice?" Emmett said, suddenly serious. "Just get your ass downstairs so we can all leave. Now's not the time for you to get all knowledgeable and act like you know what's best for dad. This is what he wants. So stop complaining and come on."
With every fiber of my being, I wanted to protest, but I knew he was right.
Jasper and I were in the car and ready to go in three minutes.
At the end of May, after Emmett graduated, Dad had the path from the main house to the white house cleared and set with gravel. It had been a gift to Emmett and Edward both, for both graduation and our birthday, and it had meant a lot more to Edward than an empty card.
I drove Esme's car with the lot of us jammed into the seats with Emmett in the trunk, driving beneath the shade of the leaves and the rare bit of sunshine peaking down on us through a green film. Carlisle rode passenger beside me, and I swear he smiled the entire drive. I found the clearing easily on the new road, revealing the old ramshackle house that I had seen for the very first time only a couple of weeks ago. I still couldn't understand what the big deal was, but the way Edward's eyes widened and Emmett's grin stretched impossibly was indicative of how much the structure meant to the both of them.
Esme was on the porch with one of the guys from the contracting company, Edward and Bella wandering and dropping off into their own little world on the end opposite from Esme swinging on the porch swing that looked ready to break. I chuckled at the mental image that that thought had inspired as I jumped out of the car.
"No one's lived in the house for quite some time, obviously," I overheard one of the workers saying to Esme as I sauntered up the steps. "No one even knew this place was out here anyway. It's the craziest thing any of us has ever heard of. And technically, the house in on your land. So what I'm trying to say is that the house belongs to you, Mrs. Cullen."
Esme touched her hand to her chest and gasped before breaking out into a huge smile.
"It's ours, Carlisle!" she called to my father, skipping down the steps and wrapping her arms around him. He smiled and kissed her lips, and my stomach twisted.
Jasper slid his arm around my shoulder, watching my parents as well. "It's all working out, Al," he said quietly, ruffling my hair.
"I know," I said, smiling. It was.
The day was long, and Carlisle got tired really quickly.
He sat on the porch swing beside Edward, and the two were talking so softly and looking at each other with such great understanding that we all left them alone on the porch and started cleaning up old, rickety furniture inside the house so the contractors could start work the next day. An architect had drawn plans for a new stairway and to completely refurbish a majority of the second and third stories whose floors were unsafe to have more than fifty or sixty pounds on at a time. Emmett packed away some of his things in the house so quietly and with such reverence that none of us bothered to disturb him. By the time everything was cleared out, Esme had managed to save some of the old chandeliers and found some silver that the old tenants had apparently left behind. We walked out of the front door with a million full trash bags to leave against the railing to get the next day, and Carlisle was clapping Edward on the back with a broad smile.
"It's all yours now," he said with pride, his voice breathy and unstable.
"All thanks to you," Edward replied, rubbing his hands together with contentment.
"Let's go home," Emmett said, allowing Carlisle to slip his arm around Emmett's ribs to steady himself as he climbed down the steps.
I looked up at the house behind me as we left, my hand in Jasper's. Edward had said he'd had a lot of history here. It was the place he'd come to when everything else was pretty fucked up. It was where he'd always wanted to live, and where he'd brought our father when we learned that he was sick. Maybe I did understand why this place was so important. And maybe I was jealous that I'd never had a place like this.
But maybe I never needed one. Maybe it was just Edward, maybe it was just Emmett. Maybe they needed that house because they'd needed a father that they didn't have.
But we had Carlisle now. We had him, and we needed him, but we had to let him go.
And we also had to be okay with that.
Carlisle passed away in our home sometime between three and four o'clock that morning.
I was asleep, and he had been too. I heard Esme crying around four thirty and rushed down the stairs to her.
Edward was already there. Emmett was right behind me.
Jasper had been sleeping in Emmett's room, and Rosalie in mine, but they hung back. I think they were scared.
Esme said she had sensed something different. She couldn't explain it later on to us when she was calmer and less hysterical, and I will never ask her to try and explain it ever again.
All that she said was that she felt something different in the room, something different enough to wake her in the middle of the night to place her hand on her husband's chest and to realize that there was nothing beneath her palm. No pulse, no beat, no nothing.
I can't remember if I cried or not.
We already knew it was over even before they came to move him. Jasper did nothing less than sob when he spoke with the funeral home as they straightened my father's body out before his joints could stiffen, explaining the circumstances and answering any other questions they had. It was horrifying, watching strangers handle Carlisle like that. I was even more horrified when I realized that Jasper was speaking to them so none of us had to.
I felt him grab my hand as he spoke to Dr. Gerandy on the phone, notifying him of what had happened so we could get a death certificate. The doctor arrived to the house twenty minutes later, walking through the open door and embracing my mother as they both cried.
Carlisle had been his friend.
Everyone knew my dad wasn't exactly on the mend. For some reason, I half-expected an ambulance to come and whisk him away to the hospital for them to try and revive him, or something dramatic like that. But we already knew it was over, everyone did. It was just too much to watch everything happen and not being able to stop it. I couldn't stop anyone from taking his body. I couldn't have stopped him from dying in the first place.
It was like standing on a railroad track when a train was coming and not being able to move.
I think I blinked maybe twice for an entire two hours. Somehow I wound up on Rosalie's couch, Rose on one side of me and Jasper on the other, their arms around me as they stayed awake and I slept.
My brothers stayed with my mother. I didn't want to think about them. How could they go back to that house? How could they ever go back?
I woke up soon after I drifted off with two of the most important people in my life beside me, but I felt completely alone.
It was going to be like that everyday for a long time.
BPOV
I didn't look at the speedometer once as I drove to him.
He was alone, on his front steps, just sitting there.
His mother was gone, and Emmett had gone with her. She had gone with Dr. Gerandy to declare the cause, time, and place of her husband's death so it could be properly pronounced. Rose and Jasper were with Alice, he said. But he was alone.
I asked why he hadn't gone with them.
"Because I knew you'd come here," he answered, his small voice cracking.
"You didn't need to wait for me," I said, feeling guilty and also wanting to scold him at the same time.
He shrugged, sniffling and wiping under his nose with the back of his hand as water leaked over the brim of his eyelid. "It was already done, Bella. There's nothing that I can do about it anymore. So I waited for you. I waited because you're here, and he's not anymore. There's nothing I can do about it."
His voice didn't waver, which surprised me. When I cry, I sound horrendous. He sounded normal. He sounded sad, but he sounded okay.
I grabbed his hand in mine, kissing his knuckles and letting a few of my own tears fall. Carlisle had been important to all of us. He played a large part in bringing Edward and I together, and he played a large part in bringing us back to one another when we'd parted. He was the glue that held this family together, that held Edward and I together, that held me together. Everything that had once separated me from the person beside me seemed even more foolish now than before. It felt insignificant, and pathetic, and it made me grasp his hand tighter as we waited for the sun to rise and for everyone to come back to the place where everything had happened only a few hours ago.
Charlie came to the Cullen house as soon as he got off work. Thankfully, he'd stopped by the Thriftway on the way over and came prepared with lots of food and some much-needed cooking spray. Alice had fallen asleep in Carlisle's old bed with Esme, and I'd been in the kitchen all morning doing whatever I could to forget about everything and to maybe help ease their pain. It was definitely the best that we'd all been there so none of them were alone. Maybe the presence of four people outside of the family helped alleviate the realization that their own family was one member short.
Emmett was on the back porch with Rosalie. He was asleep as well. His head was in Rosalie's lap as she twirled his hair around his fingers. I could see the tears drying on her face from where I stood in the kitchen.
The sun was out today. I smiled to myself.
Charlie worked around me, mixing mashed potatoes with a wooden spoon instead of a mixer so the stillness of the house wouldn't be disturbed.
Edward's rust-colored hair was sticking up over the back of the leather chair he was curled up against in the den. I hoped he was sleeping, too. Jasper was snoring quietly from the couch across from him. I was growing more and more impressed with Jasper by the minute. I bit my lip to keep from crying all over again.
As I stirred a chocolate cake mix, staring at the swirls of batter that the spoon made as I whipped it around and around, I reached within myself and found that my chest felt oddly lighter. It was like a weight had been removed from my shoulders, and I couldn't explain it.
I would never know how Edward felt. I could try to understand, and I could listen, but I could never fully know exactly how he was feeling right now. I knew he'd be sad in the nighttime when Carlisle wasn't there on his black leather couch to talk to, and I knew he'd be sad cleaning out all of Carlisle's old things from the study desk that he knew so well. Maybe Edward wouldn't ever touch it. Maybe Carlisle's drawers would always remain full of his things and his pens and files would be left exactly how they were long after his parting. Part of me hoped that this would happen. But it wasn't up to me.
Regardless, I still felt unsatisfied with myself. I felt like I wasn't helping Edward enough being here, because I couldn't ever fully understand. Almost like he was reading my mind, Charlie spoke to me.
"You're doing a great job, Bells," he said gruffly, avoiding my eyes. He wasn't good at expressing emotion, and his presence in the house alone was surprising, "You're doing everything for him that he needs. He's dealing with it, and you're standing back and staying within arm's reach at the same time. You've grown up so much. I, uh, I'm proud of you."
I smiled at him, not daring to speak in the hopes that I could shut down the waterworks and focus on other things other than myself and how I was feeling. Because, at the end of the day, this had very little to do with me.
Charlie covered the bowl of potatoes with some foil and slid it into the refrigerator for dinner when Edward came. My dad awkwardly excused himself under claims of a work call and stepped out of the front door, letting us be alone.
Edward stood there, looking at me with his hands in his pockets. His eyes were a little swollen and his hair was more than a little disheveled, but he was still perfect.
"Thank you," he said, breaking the silence. "For this. It's too much." He gestured towards the giant bowl in my hands, and I blushed.
"It's nothing," I said softly, trying not to wake Jasper or disturb Emmett right through the open back door.
Edward stared for just a minute more before rounding the countertop and placing a hand over mine, indicating that I should stop stirring. "It isn't nothing," he said, his voice so full of emotion that he didn't need to say anything else.
I immediately pressed my face to his chest, smelling his smell and holding him so tight that it hurt. He sighed heavily, kissing my head and rubbing my back, and I knew it would all get better. It was the weight off my chest, the strain gone from my shoulders. My head was clear. My senses were on fire, and Carlisle's spirit was coursing through the house like blood through veins. I felt Edward, and I felt Carlisle's presence, and I knew it would all get better.
I felt relief.
