Hi. So, this is it. The introduction of dark subject matter.

Warning: the topic is sexual abuse. It is not graphic and is mostly implied; there are a few direct mentions of it beyond this chapter. The story is really about how to deal in the aftermath, not something meant to shock with description. I don't do that. Please do not read this story any further if this is a topic that upsets you, and I'm truly sorry if that is the case.

Chapter ten

Later, I'd see on my phone that we had stayed like that for forty-six minutes and eighteen seconds, but it only felt like one.

I'd heard Esme's voice in the background, and he quietly said goodbye.

I cried into my pillow until I passed out at dawn.

Not sad, not happy, not relieved...just releasing tears.

My dad came in later that morning looking exhausted, but he had this sleepy smile plastered to his face, before I pounced on him, anyway.
"I can't say anything that would compromise-"
"Dad, are you serious right now?" I asked, hands on my hips, following him into the kitchen.
"You don't want to mess anything up for him, Bella," Charlie said, and I felt guilty for wanting to pummel the guy when he was clearly ready for sleep. "Legally, I can't tell you anything about his case, anyway."

"Look, was he…" I trailed off, not knowing exactly what I wanted to know because I wanted to know everything. "Dad, please. Just... tell me anything you can?" I was right on his heels as he lifted the coffee pot, giving it a couple shakes and sighing resignedly when he heard a few weak splashes.
He sighed once more and leaned against the counter, pot in mid-air.
"By the time I got to the station, he was already sitting with Marks. I walked in and he stood right on up and asked to call his parents. We did-"
"How did that go? Did they freak?" I asked, grinning.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Charlie beamed. "I made the call and he spoke to them briefly, just so they could hear his voice…and then, you know. It was crucial we spoke about what happened right away."
"Someone took him." I had to say it.
"Bella."
"Did they hurt him?" I asked softly, and Charlie turned and hunched over the counter, his head bowed over the pot.

"Oh," I said, taking a step back. "But he's okay now. He's fine. I saw him walk on that tape…"
"Bella. Let things unfold and if you see him…don't bug him to talk about it. The kid has been through hell."
I knew the next words out of my mouth would be selfish, wrong and so not socially correct, but fuck it. Edward was home.
"Did he ask about me?"
His mustache twitched and he sighed.

"He asked if you were still around, yes." He paused before continuing, fidgeting with the coffee maker before turning to look me right in the eye. "Bella," he said softly. "We're not so sure he's got a handle on how much time has passed."
I blinked and suddenly, this cold reality hit me. Our lives, mine and Emmett's and Jess's and Rose's and Jasper's and all of Forks's, may not have gone on normally, but while we were here living, he was somewhere else, and God only knows what had happened to him. Time had passed for Edward, too, and I had no idea what went on during that time.

"Bell?"
"Hm?"
"When something like this happens, well. You know. People change. He may not be himself for awhile. Or ever again."
"Me neither," I whispered. Charlie looked like he was going to try to be comforting, like by patting me on the shoulder or chucking under my chin or some other unfamiliar, un-Charlie like thing, and I suddenly couldn't take it anymore. I turned and stalked out of the kitchen, completely unprepared for a whole new reality.
My phone was buzzing with two new messages when I picked it up in the living room.

Meadow—now! XO—Jess

Meadow behind cull. house—srsly-rose

Without a word or goodbye to anyone, I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. Hopping into my truck, I put her in gear as soon as the engine rumbled to life.
The problem with having no expectations is that you have no idea what to expect, either. So I just drove there, fast and on autopilot, just exploding, just so, so ready for this reunion. Problem was, as soon as I parked the car, I could barely make myself get out.
I should've brushed my teeth, combed my hair, put on make-up. And what? High heels and a prom dress? I sighed and shook my head at myself, then slid the seat belt off before pausing again.
What the hell was I expecting, anyway?
A kiss hello?
A high five?

What if he didn't even know me anymore? Did he know me anymore? Would I know him?
"Bella," I whispered, "this is your dream come true. Get the hell out of the truck."
I took a gulp of dry air and got out, swinging my shaking legs and stepping into the marshy ground. I kept my eyes on the mud and grass as I trekked through the familiar property, my legs remembering the way, until I heard them.

Emmett's unmistakable laugh. Jessica's incessant, vivacious chatter and Rosalie's throaty guffaws. And then a mutter, clear as day.
They looked up as I approached, Jess pushing off from the old fence post to run to greet me. I smiled this weird smile and my cheeks felt painfully hot, the pulse in my ears drowning out whatever she was saying, but I couldn't bring myself to make eye contact with Edward, though we were quickly approaching him. My insides didn't feel like mine at all. I felt sick and floating, shaking.

I held my keys in my fist, right over my throat, between my mouth and my chest. I walked on ground that I wasn't even sure was there.
"You saw that shit? Dude, I thought the Sox had it-"
"Bases loaded," Edward said- Edward! Said!- "no one could've called that."
"Right?" Emmett interjected, like it was all normal conversation, but there was this glow all about Em, wonderment in his eyes as we approached…and then there was Edward.
Edward in his red, hooded jacket, his new shaggy hair hanging just above his eyes, unruly all over.
The thing is, I guess we'd all changed a bit, in our own various ways, I mean. It happens. You get older. You just don't see it in the people you look at every day.

But Edward looked older. Not old. Just older.
Anything left from boyhood was gone. His jaw had stubble, and it was squared impossibly more, more angular, sharper; he may have even been taller, but there was something more than that, something glaringly not obvious.
It was as though something other than time had aged him, too.

They both abruptly looked over when we approached and then, unlike before when I couldn't look, now I couldn't look away.
One corner of his mouth turned up and his head cocked to the side, watching me as I watched him.
"Hey, Bella," he said softly, his voice deep and quiet.
And then I did exactly what I didn't want to do.
I clapped a hand over my mouth and cried, one arm wrenched around my stomach, watching him through tears.

From the periphery, I saw the others move, dispersing quietly. Jessica may have even made a swoony noise, and my knees were definitely going to give.
He started walking toward me and I started running for him, my arms out and my eyes squeezed shut. I ran and I didn't stop until he caught me. I was swooped up tightly, in the one place I'd wanted to be for so, so long.

"I finally found you," I sobbed into his chest but he said nothing, his heart thundering under his shirt, which oddly smelled of cigarettes and himself. I started crying harder, clenching my fists into that shirt, into that smell, determined to never, ever let go again.
"Jesus," Edward breathed, his arms going tighter around me for a few moments before he set me down and took an abrupt step back, causing me to lose my grip.

I didn't know what the hell to say or do. It was like trying to grip onto quicksand in a panic. It was like trying to be in the past with no fucking way to get there. It was confusing and it was thrilling, and all I could do was stand there and stare.
Edward let out a nervous, short laugh and turned his back for a moment. When he turned back around, the back of his hand was covering one of his eyes, his other hand holding on to a pack of cigarettes.

"Do you want me to go or…"
"No," Edward said abruptly, sticking a cigarette in his mouth. He stopped and stared at me, his hand cupped around a Bic. "I just…I'm…I thought of you all the time." I watched the quiver of flame as he flicked it a couple of times before making purchase. He took a huge drag of the cigarette and made it a point to blow a thin plume of smoke above my head.
"Me too," I breathed out. "And I want you to know I never…I never stopped wanting you to come home. I have so much to say that I don't know what to actually say." My laughter was weak, but at least it was laughter.

"People are saying I left on purpose, that I ran away or some shit. That didn't happen, Bella. Know this. I mean. I didn't leave on purpose. I just need you to know that. It's been on my mind for…uh. Almost two years, I guess. I didn't just take off on you."
"I always knew that," I told him, quick and sure.

"That's so dumb," he said with a brush of a laugh. "All that time I was thinking, oh, man. I hope Bella doesn't think I dumped her. How's that for fucking stupid? Like life wasn't going on because I wasn't here."
He smiled a smile I'd never seen before, jaded and not even a smile, before taking another massive inhale on his cigarette.

"Smoker, huh?" I asked with a laugh, hating that this had turned so awkward.

He smiled lamely at the cigarette then looked back up at me.
"You can ask, you know," he said with that not-really-a-smile and a knowing tone.

"Ask what?" I knew.

"You know." He knew I knew.

"Okay," I said, and I had to steel myself for it because I was suddenly three thousand percent certain that I didn't want the answer to the one question I had been asking myself for two years now.

"What the hell happened?" I finally whispered, folding my arms across my chest in an attempt to stop the tremors wracking my body.
"I left your house that night. I was going to meet Emmett here, right here," he said, waving an arm to indicate the meadow. "I was a little early and… this guy, he had a gun. I tried to give him my keys, my wallet, even my necklace, whatever, but. Uh. That's not what he wanted. And…that's all."

"I should've held on to you," I said, shaking my head. "I should've never let you leave. We should've just…I shouldn't have let you go."
"Who could've known? This is Forks," he said with a flippant shrug, then his gaze shifted and I noticed the others closing back in, listening with concerned faces, trying to make sense of it, of everything.

"So," Edward said, speaking up and clearing his throat. "They're gonna put this guy on trial, probably pretty quickly. Two weeks or so? My dad said they're trying to keep the whole thing closed to the public because I was a minor when…just. But things could get out there? Like. Details, I guess?" He didn't look at any of us as he said this, just kept watching his cigarette burn between his thumb and forefinger, occasionally flicking it with a tap from his middle finger.

"They'll nail that motherfucker," Jasper said assuredly. "That piece of shit is gonna rot in prison before he burns in hell."
Edward didn't respond to this; he just caught his upper lip in his teeth before looking back up at all of us.
"It'd be cool if…uh. I don't want you guys to be there, in court and shit. Or really listen to the bullshit on the news, you know? It's…"

"Whatever you want," Emmett said quickly, looking at each of us with a "you'd better" look of meanness that for once, I knew we'd all follow. "It's whatever. No one gives a fuck about that. We're just glad that you're back, man." Edward shook his head then ducked Emmett's hand before it could ruffle his hair.
"You need a haircut, beauty queen," Em laughed.
"Seriously," Edward said. "I wanna cut it all off. Wanna buzz me?"

"You sure?" Em asked.
"Yeah. I hate it," Edward said, and his voice was kind of cold. It wasn't hyperbole; he hated it.
We stepped into Edward's house, a place that had become familiar to me over the past year and a half in a whole different kind of way. It felt like going to Esme's house.

Esme.
Esme, who was at the door when we all trudged in, a hopeful smile on her face, a new kind of light in her eyes.
"Are you hungry?" she asked Edward, and I noticed that maybe that wasn't a glow in her eye, it was a hopeful gleam, more than a bit tinged with a whole new kind of worry.
"No. Thank you," Edward said politely, his mouth pulling into a smile, his tone kind of almost formal, as though he was speaking to a stranger.

"Okay," she said, rubbing up and down his stiff arm. "Let me know if you need anything."
"Okay," he repeated, shuffling past, the group of us at his heels.
"Mr. Cole will be here in twenty minutes," Esme said tentatively to Edward's back, which tensed and briefly paused.
"Okay."

He kept walking and everyone followed, but I stopped short and looked at Esme for five full seconds before we both burst out with huge smiles and hugged so, so tightly.
She pulled away, her hands over her mouth before putting them on her forehead.
"It was the best day of my life," she whispered through her toothy smile.

"Mine, too," I said. She pulled me in again.
"Thank you, Bella. For not giving up with me." I hugged her tightly and thanked her back before she wrung her hands again and looked at me.
"It's like I don't know what to do with myself," she said with a laugh. "I wanted to plan a big welcome back party, but Carlisle said that's almost morbid and Edward just…didn't want that."
"What does he want?"

"He wants to act like nothing ever happened, which is understandable," she said, then leaned in and lowered her voice, "but he's not the same boy and I think that if he expects everything to be the same it could…be bad."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"It'll be a long road," Esme said, bright again. "But God. It's the road I want. After the trial, we'll all just have time to rebuild and forge something…fresh."

"This trial-"
"Will be hell. I don't know how I'll keep myself from killing that son of a bitch myself. When someone puts their hands on your child-" Esme said on a croak before cutting herself off with a wave of her hand, her eyes filling with tears. "Go. Go on upstairs. I want to yell at you all for making too much noise again," she said with a small smile. "I can't wait."

I found everyone in Edward's room, which was exactly the same, aside from two things: the stuff I'd shifted around during the time I spent there and the bottle of expensive-looking whiskey that was half full on top of his dresser.

"So your parents just let you smoke set?" Jasper was asking, picking up the bottle from his dresser.
Edward shrugged, plugging in a set of electric clippers at the outlet near his bed.
"I mean…it's not like…" he started his eyes narrowing in thought, and that was new. I'd never seen him unsure in this way, hesitate in this way, not with any of us, anyway.

"It's cool, you know? You don't have to explain anything," Jasper said, then took a swig from the bottle and passed it to Jess.
Edward shook his head and leaned against the dresser for a second, and my mind took a picture of him right then and right there, like it knew that at any moment, he could just disappear again.

"I know it looks like trash," he finally said. "But it's like…"
"Edward, dude. Forget it," Emmett said, grabbing the clippers.
"He made me start," Edward finally said with a simple shrug, before pulling off his shirt and grabbing the towel over the back of the desk chair.

We all froze in place while Edward quickly slipped the towel over his shoulders, covering a huge black and purple bruise on his right shoulder and back...but it couldn't cover up the small, perfectly round scars on his torso and arms.

"Come on, dude. This shit is growing by the second," Edward said with a forced laugh, tugging at the ends of his hair.

Emmett cleared his throat and turned the clippers on while Rose ran out of the room with Jess tagging along behind her, their mouths screwed up, anguish and tears threatening to pour out.

But I stayed.

Jasper took another sip of the whiskey and sat on the edge of the bed.

"There goes the shoulder, right?" Edward said, rolling his eyes as he bowed his head so Emmett could start.

"You don't have to say anything about that shit," Emmett said, a tuft of Edward's hair puffing and tumbling down to the towel.

"Can I try?" Jasper asked after a few minutes of strained silence, standing and holding his hand out for the clippers.

I reached up to scratch an itch at my chin, but I was really wiping away a warm and silent tear.

It was just... all of it. Watching them together again, after realizing for so long that there was a probable chance I'd never see that again.

Because some terrible, hateful, awful things had happened to the one boy who least deserved it...and he was just trying to breathe through it with a shrug and a laugh.

And for some awful reason, one I knew that I knew but refused to say, I couldn't just crawl up on his lap and hold his face in my hands and tell him that I need to be close to him.

Somehow, he felt farther away from me than ever before.

Jasper worked the clippers around the nape of his neck with steady concentration and the room fell silent again until Edward shifted in his seat and leaned over and grabbed the whiskey bottle from the floor.

"You want?" he asked, holding it out to me.

I shook my head and bit my lip, hoping like hell no one would say anything about my tears, and mercifully, they didn't.

Edward sighed and took a drink, then held the bottle close to his chest, like it was his only friend in the room.

"Sit up, beautiful. I'm about to make you uglier," Jasper said.

"Can't get uglier than you," Edward quipped back, swinging his good arm back to swat at Jasper.

"Suck a dick, bro," Jasper mumbled, dodging Edward's hand.

"Never again," Edward said dryly, then he tentatively looked around at all of us as the oxygen left the room in one suffocating whoosh.

"It's coming out anyway," he said tiredly, like he'd already talked about it a dozen times, only I couldn't imagine him ever having to say those words out loud to anyone. I wasn't even sure I had just heard it. "So. That's what it is. That's what happened. A ton of other shit, too. But. Now you don't have to wonder. These are cigarette burns, by the way. The bruise is from when I broke the door down to leave. So. Now you know."

Jasper said nothing, he just resumed cutting hair, his motions less hurried, his face grim.

It was Emmett who took a shaky breath and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, shaking his head.

"Doesn't change anything," Emmett finally said. "That doesn't matter to us. It doesn't change shit." Edward looked up at him, his expression unreadable.

"Of course the fuck it does," Edward spat. "It changes everything."

He dodged out of the way of Jasper's hand and stood up, taking his bottle with him, then grabbed the cigarettes from the top of the dresser.

"I don't know what you want anyone to say," Emmett finally said.

"I don't know. Act like something happened. Or don't. I don't give a fuck," Edward said, lighting the cigarette and sitting back down, but Jasper had already tossed the clippers back on the bed.

"Look, this lawyer and his team or whatever is going to be here in like ten. I can't go down there with fucked hair."

Jasper picked up the clippers, but I saw his hands shaking. Emmett lightly punched the closet door once and walked out.

I pushed off the wall and took the clippers from Jasper, who kept his eyes on the ground as he walked out.

"Maybe," I said, clearing my throat, "I'll keep it a little longer on top."

"Okay," Edward said as I stepped behind him.

Quietly, I helped him shed whatever part of this he could right now, neither of us saying a word. Secretly, I relished being able to brush his bare neck with my fingers. To feel the familiar skin of this ghost.

When I stepped around to see my work from the front, he quickly grabbed my wrist, making me jump, but he didn't let go.

"What?" I whispered, searching his face.

"I think he was gonna take someone else," Edward blurted out.

"Why?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. I wanted him to just blurt out whatever he needed to, and I had a feeling we weren't even at the tip of the iceberg, but things would come, over time.

"He had me paint this room in the back of the house...same color as my room," Edward said, and I was struck for a moment.

His room?

He'd just referred to the place where he'd been hidden away and locked up as his room.

I reeled, but didn't say a word. I just waited. I'm not sure if that was for him or for me.

"And then he brought home a shitload of like, white shirts and jeans which is what he had me in...and he told me I was old. He hated that. Sick fuck," he scoffed, grinding his toe in to the carpet.

"And uh. He started going to JV ball games a couple counties over. He'd bring back the programs and highlight names. Like it was office work or some shit."

I stood there, the buzzing clippers between us as he stared off into space and I stared at him.

"So you left?" I softly prompted.

"He used to lock everything. He'd have his girlfriend sit there most days when he went to work, but... he kept guns in the house. And. I don't know. I hit her. Then I broke down the door."

And fuck my mind. Fuck my evil thoughts because the only thing I could think was...

That took you two years?

"He had a girlfriend?" I prompted. "Is she-"

"She got arrested. Her and a few other people that were...around. I mean. He was into a lot of sick shit. I think, I mean, I guess I was just his favorite," Edward said angrily, and then he shoved me back and promptly vomited all over the carpet.

I took a step forward when he was done, already hearing Esme pounding up the stairs. I grabbed the towel from his shoulders, tossing it over the vomit.

Edward stayed hunched over, forearms on his knees, breathing hard.

The door flew open and Esme came in.

"It's okay," she said. "That's okay. We can clean that right up."

Edward sat up, his eyes squeezing shut as he shook his head.

I wondered if Esme realized she was speaking to him like he was five years old, yet he'd survived what luckier, stronger men would never have to go through.

Edward got up and walked to the adjoining bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

Esme put her face in her hands for a full minute before dropping to her hands and knees, mopping up what she could with the towel.

"Should I get something?" I asked weakly.

"No, no. You go on ahead. We've got that meeting anyway," Esme said, without looking up again.

Everyone was gone by the time I got to my truck.

If my warning at the top isn't strong enough, please let me know. I thought I did an okay job warning you all without giving up the farm, but it's hard to tell sometimes.

On a different note: the timeline. Yes, I fucked it up. Sorry! The timing is off. I changed stuff around in the middle of the initial write-up and clearly didn't pay attention in the editing process. Sorry about that! My bad. This is what editors are for.

If you're still with me, I'll see you tomorrow. I look forward to your reviews, even if you're not very happy with me right now. Or even if you're just letting me know you can't read this anymore. I totally understand if that's the case. Thanks for sticking with me up to this point. -TB