Chapter fourteen
The trial dragged on and on. They wouldn't shut up about it in the news- daily updates, all kinds of expert testimonials, pictures of the people involved flashing by in an ever-revolving slideshow. I stopped watching at any mention of it, even when they started throwing around the words "death penalty."
Emmett said that there was no way Vouch would get off. Then he stated with smug finality that he wouldn't live too long, not in prison.
I had no idea how I felt about that one, but the thing was this:
Aro stole a boy and murdered him. Maybe not in the conventional sense, but he did.
That boy would never, ever come home.
We would never know what Edward Cullen could have been. His course was cut off, stolen by something wrong and off and sick and evil. Edward's sentence was for life, too.
It was important to remember that even though I might think I saw him around town or at school, that boy was gone. That's what I had to tell myself when we'd pass by each other and give polite smiles or the occasional "hey"s.
We were seniors and graduating soon, but Edward was still technically a junior. I heard from Renee who heard from Esme that he probably wouldn't stay in school for much longer. Whatever that meant, I didn't know. All I do know is that as sublimely beautiful as it was to once again catch glimpses of his profile whenever I rounded certain sections of locker or caught the errant flash of his teeth as he talked to Emmett or Mike or Jasper from across the campus... it was equally devastating. Seeing him there, in a place so familiar as freaking school, it wasn't the same. A year ago, I would have given everything I'd ever had and everything I will ever get to watch Edward hop up onto the lunch table and sprawl out eating the sandwiches Esme packed for him. Well, now I got to see just that, but. Seeing what I'd envisioned and prayed for and hoped for and just demanded to experience left me feeling like someone had stuck their hand in my chest, grabbed a handful of whatever slippery, throbbing gore they could find, and then yanked upward.
At any rate, I wasn't so sure he was ready to come back to school and I totally questioned why he was there, but I had to shrug it off and trust that the adults in his life knew what they were doing.
He went to classes, but never any games. He wore a backpack and kept
to himself in the junior wing unless Emmett or Jasper or Jessica or Mike or Rose would sidle up to him.
It was easy for anyone, much less me, to see he wasn't the same; he was no longer the loud-mouthed star he used to be. Not at all.
That is how time passed; little and big moments along the way, sometimes full of light and hope, sometimes desolate and dark. Sometimes, gray.
I got a thick envelope in the mail, the contents of which congratulated me on my getting off the wait list and accepted to Dartmouth. I stuck it in the bottom of my underwear drawer without a word to anyone. I was undecided on whether it was a moment of light or dark, but the moment like all others passed nonetheless.
xxxxx
Close to the end of the last quarter is when high school caught up, as it always does.
See, at first, people were all over Edward, wanting to be close, to make conversation...but he held most of them off, not willing to put forth the effort, and initially, people respected that.
He'd told Emmett he just wanted the hell out. He wanted to get out, leave Forks. To just... go.
I heard his parents were considering moving to Chicago for a fresh start. I don't remember where I heard it, I just did. It's not like anyone ever actually spoke to me about Edward, but I'm sure I heard it somewhere.
I hated that, but wouldn't let myself dwell on it.
I spent the days repeating to myself that he's already gone, he's already gone.
The first time he showed up at school drunk, no one pointed it out, not even faculty.
But things explode. They just do, and it's never in the way you think, like with some big announcement on the loudspeaker and everyone's heads swiveling in unison to look at the big spectacle.
Or maybe that's kind of how it happens. When it's something truly horrible, something really juicy- it happens with wagging tongues in a small town in a high school. Things just ...explode. When so much attention and silent scrutiny is placed on one person in one school, it will eventually turn into negative attention.
It was outside on a rare, sunny day during lunch. Edward was hanging out near the benches on the far left with James Sutherland, a junior who'd had the k-9 unit bark at his locker more than twice. Jess and I sat picking at our lunches and Rose was trying to catch up in the AP bio lab, having skipped the day before.
"I don't know, but if he thinks he can just give his number to that skank at Perfumania and-"
"Jess. You two need to stay away from the mall," I cut in.
"They were having a buy one get one at Hollister," she said, her eyes widening. "Anyway. How's Jacob?" she asked.
"Good. He thinks he's the next big wake boarder."
"Who's the big wake-boarder now?" Jess asked, wrinkling her nose.
"Right? I don't think there even is one. Whatever. He swears it's him," I laughed, thinking of Jake and his ever-huge personality.
"Taking him to prom or what?" Jess asked.
I shrugged. The kids at La Push didn't have a prom, and ours was months away.
Jess had a thing about keeping us all coordinated, though, and wanted details on everyone's dress color.
"You guys should come with me and Mike to Northland. We're going on Saturday-"
"Hell no. I'm not getting on your mall drama train again. Last time, I ended up sitting in front of the center fountain, bored out of my head. And I didn't have enough Mrs. Fields to make it worth my while watching you two bicker," I snorted.
"Ugh. Please? I'm thinking it'll save us from a fight."
"I am not your neutral zone, Jessica."
"You're so unsupportive," she balked. "If I...what. Is that?" she asked, her eyes snapping across the yard. I looked up as I bit into my apple.
Edward was bounding over to near where we were, his eyes focused on Tyler Crowley, class weasel.
Edward was saying something we couldn't make out, but he looked pissed, practically shouting at Tyler. Crowley looked relaxed with a smug smile, but he was backing away slowly.
My pulse started to race as people started to gather and Edward advanced, an audible F-bomb thundering from his mouth.
"What the hell?" Jess whispered under her breath. In the same second we were both on our feet.
Emmett came sailing in from God knows where, doing nothing but standing beside Edward, a cautious look on his face.
"Try it...cocksucker," Tyler said loudly, grabbing a hold of his junk in gesture.
My jaw locked around the bite of apple in my mouth and Jess's face went white beside me.
No one's face looked quite like Edward's.
And Tyler's face would never look the same again, because next thing anyone knew, he was flat on his back from a punch right to the center of his face from a kid who used to have the fastest, strongest pitching arm in the region.
Edward pulled him up by his shirt only to hit him again. Emmett, who'd let him at it, finally broke in.
"You don't know me!" Edward shouted into Tyler's face while Emmett tried in vain to pull him off, but at that point, many others had joined the fracas, including Mr. Victor and Mr. Banner.
Girls shrieked and guys didn't move, watching this schoolyard fight that was anything but typical.
"Let him go, ease up!" Emmett shouted at Edward, putting his arm around his neck.
Edward bucked underneath Emmett's not inconsiderable strength.
"Knock it off!" Emmett shouted, rearing back. He finally managed to pull Edward off, then caught him again when he scrambled toward the limp and still form of Tyler Crowley.
Edward breathed heavily, so intense and upset that he didn't seem to notice that he was still restrained by Emmett while hovering over Tyler. The whole yard was quiet, aside from the sound of an approaching siren. Eventually, Emmett's hold eased and Edward stepped back. He spit on Tyler then let Mr. Victor yank him away.
As it turned out, Tyler had a concussion, a broken cheek bone and a busted nose. He returned to school the following week.
Edward did not.
The Crowleys didn't press charges. Apparently, Edward's lawyer threatened to press a sexual harassment suit against Tyler if they did.
Charlie tapped on my door the day after that fight.
"You okay?"
"Yes?" I uttered, pulling my earbuds out and quirking an eyebrow.
"I just got back from mediating a pretty intense discussion between the Crowleys and the Cullens." His eyebrow mirrored mine, another reminder that I was so much more like my dad than my mother.
"It was Tyler's fault." I know I sounded defensive, and I didn't even care. I figured if there was one time my dad wouldn't mind a little violence, it had to be this one.
"His old man was a jerk-off when I went to school with him," Charlie finally said, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing his arms and ankles.
"Must run in the genes."
"Usually does. It's why you're so charming."
"Dad."
"Bella." He stopped his self-congratulatory laughing and eyed me up and down. A veiled look passed over his face before switching to his standard affable dad countenance. He cleared his throat twice before speaking again. "You okay?"
"Do you think he's getting better?" I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Do you think he's going to be okay?" Charlie looked down at his feet and shuffled, moving one shoulder and then the other, looking for all the world like he was trying to get comfortable while leaning against a door jamb and getting difficult questions tossed at his head by a daughter who probably wasn't okay and he knew it before asking. He opened his mouth once then closed it fast, looking to the side. I wondered if Mom was standing there, just out of view, but I knew Dad wouldn't do that to me.
Finally, he looked up at me, and the bleakness I saw there, the worry- the glistening heat of a dad trying not to break his daughter's heart just... broke his daughter's heart. When he spoke, he looked like he was choosing his words very, terribly carefully.
"Bell, What I think is that he's got a long road ahead of him, and he's walking it better than most would. I think you have some heavy decisions to make, and I know you'll make them wisely. But right now, I just want to hear if my kid is okay."
"I'm okay, Dad."
And life went on.
Xxxxx
After a totally fruitless study session one Friday night, Jess and I went to go grab a basket of fries at Blaine's Diner. She and Mike were back on again and she was wearing his old lacrosse jersey, babbling about having to go to dinner at his grandparents' house.
"I know she can't help that she smells like pee, but I'm like, damn Gramma Newton, I can't eat these lumpy mashed potatoes with your leaky Depends odor lingering in the air," she said, dipping a fry in ketchup.
"I have no idea why you stay in this relationship," I said, shaking my head fondly.
"Well," Jessica said thoughtfully, "She makes really good pie." I put my forehead in my hands and laughed at the absurdity that is her life.
"You guys are so messed up."
"I know, right? I love him."
"There's that," I sighed, toying with the straw in my milkshake. I looked up when Jessica sat up straight against the vinyl booth and held a fry up in the air, her arm straight out and to the side. Mike came bounding up; he grabbed her wrist and took the fry from her hand with his mouth.
I looked over my shoulder to see Em and Edward—with Tanya under his arm—saunter in, vestiges of their laughter rolling down the narrow aisle of the diner toward us.
This—the other side of this fence—was normal now, to a degree. But sometimes, if it caught my attention and my eyes just the right way, it shocked the hell out of me. It was so alternate universe, what a stranger my only love was. How he was with the girl who used to be the stranger to the both of us.
Mike slid in the booth right next to Jess and started in on the fries, pulling her close to him. She got quiet, a soft smile reserved just for Mike on her face. He whispered something to her and that smile grew. It was such a soft, sweet moment that I assume they must have a lot of—something is keeping them going, after all—but at the same time, their moment hurt my heart.
"What's up?" Emmett asked, swiping my shake, discarding the straw and taking a big gulp.
"What are you guys doing here?" I asked, my eyes only on Emmett.
"Tanya needed the bathroom and Mike needed a blowjob," he said, then grunted when Jessica kicked him from under the table.
"Hey," I said to Edward and Tanya with a slight smile.
"Hey."
That was all he said. Tanya looked bored and Edward looked anywhere but down at the table before he said, "So, we're not gonna stick around. Later."
The two of them walked out together, the whole world unbalanced.
"Is it weird?" Emmett asked me once they were gone.
"What about any of this isn't weird?" I asked with a shrug.
"He meant does it suck so much to see him with her," Jessica clarified.
"Thanks for that," I said with a laugh. "Yeah, it sucks. It fucking blows. But…how many miracles can you expect? I wanted him back. We all wanted him back, and he's back. And…like…it has to be enough," I said, and God. I hoped it sounded like I meant it. I wanted to mean it, anyway.
Emmett put his big bowling ball of a head on my shoulder and stuck a fry in my shake while I tried not to cry.
"Does he ever say anything about me?" I blurted out, because I'm some kind of masochist. Thing was, if Edward would ever say anything personal at all, it would be to Emmett. Emmett went to the trial. Emmett was let right back in Edward's personal world. I had a feeling Emmett knew more, was closer to this than I had ever been.
"Don't ask me that," Emmett laughed, picking his head up.
"Why not?"
"Because even if he does talk about you, and I'm not saying he does, I can't go all gossipy school-girl and tell you about it. Damn, B."
"We're friends, too," I pointed out.
Emmett slid further down the booth and looked at me dead on, the humor suddenly falling away between the two of us.
"Because don't you think he's been fucked over enough? Can't he just have someone to talk to and some privacy? For like, once?"
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, my cheeks heating with shame. "Of course. You're right." I folded my hands in my lap, feeling for the first time like the group asshole.
"I'm glad he's talking to you," I said, and I meant that, it was true. It's just…at first, I assumed I'd be the one he talked to about the heavy stuff, if he did at all.
"Yeah, well, I'm not the only one," Emmett said, stealing my drink again.
"Tanya?" I asked dully.
"No," Emmett said, poking my side. "He goes to therapy at some swanky place in PA like, three times a week."
"He does? Still?" I asked, my eyes widening.
"Well, sure. Of course. That's no secret," Emmett said, shrugging and dipping more fries in my dwindling shake. "He started hardcore after the Crowley beat down. At first, his folks made him, but he doesn't mind so much now. Like, he knows he doesn't want to end up in jail for murder or something. He was pretty pissed, you know?"
"I know."
xxxxx
Days later found us wasting time, whiling the hours away until we could be free from school and Forks and on into whatever our futures held.
"Hey! It's a working man!" Mike said, whipping the ball back to Emmett. I looked over my shoulder from short-stop, a position I had no idea how to play but was assured it was okay to "just stand there and don't get hit in the face with the ball."
"And keep on looking adorably confused!" hollered Mike, who kept swinging the bat around wildly, barely missing hitting his own self in the face, the ass, the ankle, the Jess. Jasper was off in the field, chain smoking and oblivious, his phone attached to his ear. I saw him walk further out, with more purpose, farther away.
Edward was walking toward us through the field on the McCarty property, wearing a newer-looking ball cap— I still had the original.
"He got a job?" I asked Mike.
"It's nothing," Edward said, having jogged over. He caught the ball with both hands when Emmett tossed it to him. Mike took off to chase Jessica around the bases and she was shrieking with utter delight; no one paid them any mind. As always.
"You're looking at the new assistant coach for Forks' Little League team," Emmett said, then snapped his glove in the air, indicating Edward to toss the ball back at him, their old patterns seeming gratifyingly normal. Edward lobbed the ball over, a slight smile on his face.
"Really?" I smiled at Edward. "That's great!"
"It's nothing," he said again.
"Yes it is," I insisted. "I think it's-"
"Great?" he asked with an empty smile. "Coaching Little League in Forks? You know, three years ago that would've been a joke. Great is what I could've been, what I was going to be—just," he smiled with obvious patience and sucked in a deep breath, "thank you. I think it will be a good thing."
"I didn't mean to…invalidate, or…"
"Yeah, well. It's fine," he said. He spit over his shoulder and ran out to the makeshift outfield, snatching Mike's discarded bat along the way and leaving me to wonder if I would ever say the right thing to him.
An hour later found me being virtually ignored while having an extensive text session with Rosalie, who had also found a job, at the local Bookworm. Mike and Jessica had disappeared to probably an empty dugout or the backseat of Emmett's truck, just to annoy him. Edward, Jasper, and Emmett were mid-pickle when I absently told them I was headed home. I didn't even think they'd heard me.
"Hey, hold up a sec!" Edward panted as I walked away, my face still in my phone. I looked up, startled. My heart flopped when he jogged up to me, his cheeks flushed from play, the hair at his temples damp with sweat.
"Yeah?" I asked, keys dangling from my fingertips, realizing in that second that my unguarded expression was stupidly hopeful. I may be able to deal with reality, but I was still hopeful.
"Sorry about snapping at you earlier," he offered after looking down into my face, searching for... I don't know what.
"No," I said, waving a hand, "don't be sorry. I wasn't thinking."
"Yes, you were. You were thinking of me and being nice and I snapped because of my own shitty issues. Thank you for being encouraging. Sorry I got pissy."
Well, if that wasn't the most formal thing the guy had ever said to me.
"Really, don't apologize." I chuckled uncomfortably because... this was my life now. Uncomfortable laughter whenever he and I tried to be civil to each other.
"I have to. I have to be accountable for crap like that. I have to own my anger."
"No, it's cool, really."
"No. I literally have to. I'm supposed to, according to my shrink, so can you please just accept the apology?"
"Oh. Well. If it helps you out, then fine. I am all acceptance and forgiveness."
"Cool," he said before turning and jogging back out to the field.
I stood there, a part of his therapeutic routine, with an apology he had to issue. He was making an effort to overcome everything life had decided to heap on him and for that, I couldn't be too bitter or too hurt. Especially when I watched the way he ran back out there, willing and moving and breathing. And living. Or trying his damnedest to do so.
Time tripped and tumbled along and with time came the understanding that sometimes life just does not go where you intended, or where you wanted or even where you expected because life just happens. Every minute of every day, some thing is there whether you know it or not, whether it's horrifying or great. It changes the course, guiding or pushing or shoving you into who you are supposed to become. Not that we're completely products or victims of circumstance, because of course, there is always the choice of what to do once you land on some monumental decision.
It took a long time to figure out that letting go of what Edward and I had didn't mean he'd slipped through my fingers or that I'd given up. I loved him. I would always love him and truthfully, it was so easy to get bitter and full of rage when I think of how unfair it was. To me, but mostly to him and definitely to us.
We were robbed of whatever would have come naturally. We would never, ever know how we would have turned out, together or individually. I suppose that's true for everyone whose life was touched by Edward. It changed our actions, our perspectives, our future—it changed us. I hated when the curiosity crept up, of thinking what might have been—because I'd never, ever know. That path was now closed off, a dead end.
And because life does end up happening, you have to just go with it. There simply isn't a choice. I didn't choose to let him go, back then or now, but it was out of my control. What was in my control, however, was to accept this new path and be grateful that some parts of him survived, whether he belonged to me anymore or not.
I had learned that the things you love and depend on and count as for sure things can be gone in the blink of an eye. Your world can upend and turn into something different and foreign, for better or worse, and so when you are happy, note it. Revel in it. But you cannot dwell forever if things change, if the rug gets pulled from your feet. You can be sad, you can rage and demand justice, but that can't go on forever. The point, I guess, is that you have to learn to love in a moment and push ahead when you must.
And so I did.
Because these moments could turn disastrous again, and I promised little fifteen-year-old Bella and just-sixteen-year-old Edward to never take a second of okay for granted, never again.
I spent time at the beach and behind Emmett's house with my friends. Occasionally Edward would be there, sometimes with Tanya and sometimes without.
I got to see him laugh sometimes and other times, we'd have surface conversations about dumb things like Jessica and Mike or the car my parents helped me buy and it was almost like…the gradual and cordial good-bye we never got. I suppose the ghosts of what we used to be were always lingering, and the cautious tension never fully disappeared, but we forged on anyway, with pasted smiles and a conscious effort not to touch.
The ache of wanting him and loving him hadn't left, but it was morphed into something different, something blunt; a fact of my life: I will always love the boy. I just would not have him. Most days, that was okay. It had to be. You cannot be there for someone if they do not want you at their side.
Emmett was right. Edward had enough choices robbed from him; he didn't need me trying to force my way in if he didn't want me there, for whatever and any reason. I let him decide when to speak to me and where the conversation would go. He, as always, took the lead. And I followed in his wake, toward graduation and the end of life in Forks and the great, unknown beyond.
Thanks for your continued readingness and reviewosity!
eta: lol if you got this first thing with the typo. A university where you study the Sith!