"I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."

John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

32

I imagine Edward couldn't quite believe what he'd gotten himself into. He'd asked me for coffee and taken a chance on a relationship with a girl who was having – or going to have – the most emotional year of her life. In the extreme. I had learned not to underestimate him by now, though. He was unflappable.

At that point, he knew everything there was to know about me – or at least my history and the "me" who was going through this crap. I was looking forward to him getting to know the "me" who wasn't. I was desperate for unburdened happiness and normal couple activities like concerts and vacations and not avoiding movies that might make me cry. I knew I could give him that, but magically shifting the weight of two horrors from me seemed like it would be a slowly nurtured and complex spell rather than a flippant wave of the wand. When Alice and I came out the other side of our analysis of our mother's life and death, Edward of course found the most accurate conclusion.

"She wasn't yours to solve or yours to fix, Bella. You weren't the mother, she was. And no matter how satisfying or not the relationship was, that's all it comes down to. You were her daughter, and you did what you could. She told you she loved you, and no matter the actual strength of her sentiment or yours, you told her you loved her too. That's what she knew. That's what she died knowing."

Again with the perfect words and his extraordinary mind. The greatest joy of Edward was that beyond this beautiful exterior was the most unprecedented interior. I didn't know souls like his existed, and I had known some remarkable people, a number of them I got to call family. But to happen upon this man and find what I found…I knew that would be the greatest discovery of my life. I knew he was my future. If there was any comfort that would show me I would come out of this year with anything to look forward to, it was that knowledge.

By the time Charlie's house had cleared of the small group of wake guests, I was a bit of a zombie.

"What do you want to do, gorgeous?" Edward whispered into my ear, tucking my hair behind my shoulder. He wouldn't have meant it to be seductive, but Edward had a habit of being unknowingly seductive.

"Take me back to your place?"

"Whatever you want." A kiss against my ear.

I woke up entangled in sheets and Edward the following morning. I'd managed a reasonable amount of sleep, only one nightmare creeping in but abated by Edward stirring me awake then holding me tighter.

I needed him when I woke up. I needed to be as close as possible and speak to him via my body when I couldn't give him words. It was gratitude, desire, passion, love. I wanted those things at the forefront, not the rest of it. Edward slept naked and I could feel nothing but skin encouraging me.

I reached behind me underneath the sheets to find him hard against his stomach. I knew he would have tried to ignore it if I hadn't been the instigator. But my tear ducts were all dried out for now, my shoulders still heavy, my head still sore post-crying and shock, but there was this clarity that was all things Edward. I stroked him a few times as an indulgent moan vibrated against me. Pushing him onto his back, I rolled then hitched my leg over his body to cover him with mine. He let me take the lead as I worked him over, showing his support for my movements with hands smoothing forcefully over my hips, before ruining both of us with his hands palming my tits. There were no perfect words said, just perfect breaths, perfect gasps, perfect satisfied moans.

Not long after we got up, there was a knock at the door. I was sitting at the kitchen counter with an orange juice. I hoped it wasn't anyone who would mind my grey sweatpants and tank top, plain face and bed hair. I heard Edward greeting someone at the door, shortly followed by his mom appearing in the open plan living room.

"Hi, Bella. Nice to see you again, sweetheart." Of course it would be his mother: it was the first time I hoped I actually looked like I'd just buried a relative, not been buried in bed with her son.

"Hi, Esme." I was about to apologize for looking like a wreck but decided she seemed so nice she'd probably refute it anyway.

She said something to Edward about where his dad was. I loved her voice, so soft and calming. I was trying to pay attention to more of the details this time around. It took me so many meetings to properly notice all of Edward after Rose died. If I had had my wits about me when I first met him, he would have completely knocked me off my feet, had my jaw on the floor, blown me away, destroyed my underwear…

"So, I consider ice cream to be an anytime food, so how do you feel about a bit of cookies and cream for lunch with me?" She pulled a tub out of a brown grocery bag; her smile was so genuine and warming, I had found where Edward got his good graces.

"Sounds good, thanks." I did my best to match her smile, but the corners of my mouth let me down when they twitched downward from being forced into an emotion they couldn't manage at the moment. Edward kissed my cheek and told me he was going to take a quick shower. I watched the form of his back and ass as he left the kitchen. Esme was smiling a different sort of smile when I looked back to her, and I knew I'd been caught.

She handed me a spoon and popped the lid off the tub, angling it toward me to take a scoop. No bowls, no pretenses. This woman might be as perfect as her son. After we had started to make a good dent in the Ben & Jerry's, she broke the comfortable silence.

"I won't ask how you're doing, honey. But I do want to tell you that, even though you don't know me so well, my phone is always answered, my doorbell always rings, and my car always knows how to get to Seattle. If you need more people to borrow some strength from, I'd like to be one of them."

I'd met Esme for the first time two days ago. Already she was so open to me. It wasn't so much her kindness itself that renewed the tears in my eyes. It was how fucking different she was from Renee. When she moved around the counter and drew me into her arms as if she'd been hugging me for years, it hit me that as much as I had denied my need for a mother, the idea of Esme who fitted and exceeded the mold of being a mother was suddenly more desirable than it ever had been. And I felt so guilty. The soil was still loose and fresh at the cemetery, and I was sitting there thinking of how much better this woman was at fulfilling the stereotypes I had sworn I didn't want or need. Turned out maybe I did want them.