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WitFit Jan/Feb 2013

90's Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll

Word Prompt: Scald

Plot Generator – Binding Blurb: everything going wrong at once.

-PoM-

Edward's gesture of giving me his journal cleared up some things, but there were still parts of our disagreement weighing heavy on my mind. I felt like if we were going to try and repair this we should talk face-to-face. Giving me his words the way he'd done wasn't a magic fix.

It felt strange to still be holding on to my mad. Edward and I had been able to squash most of our differences of opinion over the course of our relationship pretty quickly in the past. The fact that I was still this upset let me know that it was something that was probably important, and that I needed to take my time in coming to whatever conclusion I did. But the anger sat in my stomach like a weight, and I didn't like feeling that way—we did need to talk, and it needed to be soon.

I felt like I understood him a little better and that was great, but the road he'd been heading down was a scary one. We'd all witnessed firsthand how bad things could get if left unchecked.

Rose had thrown herself back into the grind of band life this week, only popping in every once in a while to grab a change of clothes or to let me know how things were going. From her words, I gathered that it was going better—there were some issues they all needed to work on as a group, but practices had at least gotten underway and Leah was really killing it.

That made me ecstatic—Ty wasn't someone who could ever, ever be replaced, but I thought Leah might bring something new to the table that would hopefully reenergize them.

Friday was a short day of classes for me so I headed to the paper after I was finished, ready to lose my head in something else besides the thoughts that had been plaguing me for days.

Marcus was at the copy machine across from my desk when I arrived. I sighed and tossed my bags in a drawer, stared at the pile of proofing left for me.

"Why the long face? It's not that much work to get through."

I spoke without looking up. "Shockingly, I don't care about your leftovers today. I've got some stuff on my mind that has nothing to do with work."

He made a sound. "Figured. Guy problems? Told ya it was only a matter of time, kid."

That got my attention. Looking at him now with a stare that I wished would singe his eyebrows off, I said, "That's not really your business. And you don't have to be so smug."

He held up his hands. "Sorry, didn't mean to pry."

There was something about his words that finally settled in: he actually didn't seem smug—he seemed genuinely nice, maybe even worried.

Realizing that I was overreacting, I slumped in my chair, rested my head in my hands. "No, it's okay. I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. Didn't mean to snap at you."

He parked his rather rotund butt on the edge of my desk. "So, your thing with the singer didn't work out?"

I pulled my hands away from my face. "I . . . don't know, actually. We're not having the best time of making it work, lately."

My eyes welled up and I looked down, not wanting to show weakness.

"Look, we don't always get along. We're coworkers, not friends, but I get it, Bella. Loving someone with a different lifestyle than yours isn't easy. But let me give you a word of advice from someone who fucked up and knows it: if you think there's any hope at all, fight tooth and nail for it. I didn't, and I regret it."

"Not to put my nose in where I shouldn't, but isn't the situation between you and Heidi . . . kind of contentious?"

"Unfortunately, yes, and it only got that way because we let it go too far. There are some hurts you just can't undo."

"Thanks, Marcus," I said. "Some words of wisdom there for me to think about."

He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, well . . . don't think about them while you're finishing up the proofs. I need them on my desk before you leave."

And with that he walked away, and I was left shaking my head in amazement. Our talk felt like I'd been on a seesaw, swinging from low to high to low again. Who knew, maybe he reached his empathy quota of the day. However, his words stayed with me throughout the rest of the afternoon.

Because . . . I was holding on to my anger like a shield of armor. My concerns weren't invalid, my anger wasn't exactly misplaced, but if I meant what I'd said about working through it, holding the talk between me and Edward at bay until I deemed it time was just me hiding. Forgiveness should come from a place of strength and not weakness, and it was time to start that process.

I picked up the phone before I left and dialed the number.

"Turn it down! Hello?"

His voice, soft over the sound of a blaring television, made me ache.

"Hey, it's me. Are you free tomorrow afternoon?"

He didn't say anything, and then there was the sound of a door closing. "I can be. Did you . . . what'd you have in mind?"

"Can you meet me at Gasworks tomorrow?" I hesitated a little. "So we can talk?"

"What time?"

"Is three okay? You don't have practice or anything, do you?"

"No, that's fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll see you then."

-PoM-

Arriving early, I hung out in the parking lot of the park. The sky was gorgeous in spite of the crisp autumn day, blue and nearly cloudless; boats meandered around Union Bay in the distance.

He arrived not long after I did, silver Nova pulling into the parking lot next to my car. He got out of his car and came around to my door, a couple of coffees in his hand.

I grabbed my jacket and slung it over my arm, opened my door. "Hi."

"Hey." He handed me one of the cups. "Be careful with this, I had them make it extra hot. It's fucking freezing out here."

I took the cup, noticed that he was wearing a thick flannel shirt over another heavy shirt. "Oh, it's not that bad. I just thought it'd be quiet here . . ."

The scalding coffee inside warmed my hands and I held onto it for a minute, trying to gather up my moxie, and studied his profile.

His face was cautious, but determined somehow, too. I could understand why he was uncertain about our meeting—I had done little to make him feel otherwise.

"If you say so. At least it's not raining."

I snorted. "There's kids here playing. I know you grew up in Phoenix, but this is not cold by my standards." I looked up, smiled a little. "It's not a bad view, though, right? One of my favorite places in the city."

"I've seen better," he said, glancing my way. "So, where to?"

I passed my coffee back and forth between my hands and shrugged on my jacket. He looked like he wanted to offer to hold it, but he didn't ask. I pointed to a spot halfway down the lawn. "How about down there?"

The silence as we walked the few hundred yards was the tensest I'd ever had around him. I spotted an empty bench and headed for it. There were more people down here than I'd expected; some bundled up against the cold and out for a walk with their dogs; some jogging past on the path nearby; groups of families spread out and enjoying a nice day.

"So," he said when he was seated beside me. "What's the reason behind this clandestine outing?"

He'd put the ball in my court by giving me the journal; it was only fair I tell him what was on my mind.

"I . . . I don't even know where to start. The last week has been confusing and weird, and I've had trouble sorting things out in my head. There are all kinds of questions and uncertainties I'm not sure how to deal with."

He took a sip of his coffee—and it was easy to see how tense his hands were around the paper cup. "I know, Bella. I shouldn't have acted like that, not to you. You don't know how fucking sorry I am for putting you through that."

"Can we hold off on that part for a minute? I need to thank you for giving me your journal. I've always known that you don't . . . um, express yourself like I do. Maybe it's the whole male versus female thing and I'm just naturally inclined to be all 'feely', but you offering your thoughts to me willingly meant a lot."

"You read it, then?"

I placed my hand on his arm for a second so he would see that I was grateful he'd made the gesture.

"I did. It was overwhelming, actually." At his look of consternation, I rushed to explain myself. "Not in a bad way. It gave me some insight on things you hadn't told me, things I didn't notice."

I pulled my hand back and wrapped it around my coffee, gaze wandering to the water. I watched a boat with brightly colored sails bobbing on the water while I put my thoughts in order.

"There were some parts of it that really bothered me, though. Even after everything I'd done to show you that I was in this, you didn't really trust that I wasn't just going to leave. When things got bad you began to doubt I would stay, and that makes no sense. Because I tried my hardest to show you I wasn't going anywhere."

From the corner of my eye I saw him lean forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe I was convinced that because everything was so up in the air, you would be too. Like it was my luck to have shit go bad. And it didn't help when you refused to move in with me."

I turned to look at him. He'd stopped asking that a long time ago, even after I'd decided I was ready and was waiting for him to ask. He also hadn't talked about it in his journal, so I'd had no idea it bothered him so much.

"I wasn't lying when I told you I didn't want to live alone—that wasn't some excuse on my part to not move forward with you. There was so much upheaval going on when we talked about it: you were on the road, then there was the album and more touring. And, for what it's worth, I decided not long after your first tour that if you would ask again I was going to say yes. The subject just seemed to drop, though."

"You could have told me that."

I took another drink of coffee. "When I was younger my mom met this guy. He was a little older than her, had some money. You've never met her, but my mom is this . . . she's spontaneous and she doesn't always think with her head. She thrives on being in love, but she could never find it. So, anyway, she meets this guy who seems kind of stable, right? He has this great big two-level house in one of the nicer parts of where we lived, good job, cool cars."

I shuddered and he scooted closer, offering me some warmth.

"My mom decides that he's what she's been looking for. She pretty much barreled her way into his life, into his home, into a ring and a new last name. I don't know why, exactly, but she decided that she needed to model herself after the mom from the Brady Bunch to make him happy. And it didn't end well—six months later they were divorcing and she was back to looking for Mr. Right. And she kept repeating the same pattern."

"But that's not us."

"I know that. It's just something I've always been conscious of: how inserting yourself into someone's life doesn't always work. It made me timid about moving in together at first, and I freely acknowledge that, but eventually I got there. I hoped you would be the one to bring up the subject again because it felt like it meant more if you were the one to ask."

And now we'd come to the harder part. I took a deep breath and slouched into my jacket.

"It wasn't. But then things changed, too, and I wasn't sure I wanted to bring it up. Your drinking got heavier and that scares me. I don't know who you are when you get like that."

"I can see where you're coming from, I can, but you gotta understand—everything just went to hell at once." He pulled a smoke from his pocket. "Being on the road night after night, trying to prove yourself to an audience . . . It's hard work. There were a couple of times we had to even pay to get on the bill. It's grueling and I don't always know how to handle the stress."

He sat back and stared out over the water and I tried to absorb his words. We've had a few crossed lines, that was for sure, and it made me sad to know we both hadn't been as honest as we'd needed to be. Which was why we were in the situation we were in now.

"That's why it made it so much better when you were there." His voice was softer now, sweeter. "Your face just lights up when you're watching us, watching me. It's the best feeling I ever have on stage. I don't need to drink as much when you're there."

"But that's a problem. You shouldn't need to drink, period. I get that what you're doing isn't the easiest life, but it's taking you down a road that only ends in destruction . . . or death. If anything, losing Tyler should have shown you that. And you're not always nice when you drink, Edward—and that's something I won't put up with."

He drained his coffee and crumpled the cup. "Tyler. God, that kid . . . That broke me. I didn't do enough to stop him. He was an addict, and I knew it, and I sat back and let him get in his own way—I kept telling everyone it couldn't possibly get as bad as it did because he was this crazy little fucker who was so fucking cool and he had all these things he wanted to do with his music. I asked him once why he did it, why he couldn't stop, and he said it took him to a place that no one could touch. "

"But why did you push me away? Especially when he died. I wanted to be here for you. I needed to grieve, too."

"I was in this fucked up headspace where I was sure things in my life were so out of control that you wouldn't want to be a part of it anymore. And I didn't want that. At all. And then you found your job and you're so fucking good at it, and maybe I didn't say it enough, but I was proud of you. And I realized how much you didn't need my shit in your life, and that sucked."

That was just . . . stupid. Annoyance coursed through my veins. "How could you think that I wouldn't need you? Work and school is what I do, and it usually makes me happy, but in no way does that replace you in my life. The band is what you do and I completely understood that when we decided to be together. I made compromises and changed things so I could be where you were. If anyone supported you, I did; I can't always drop things on a dime, and I'm sorry for that, but I have to make something of myself, too."

"I don't know. Maybe in my own fucked up way, I was testing you. To see if you'd really stay or not."

If anything, I could kind of see where the 'running away' comment had come from the other night. It wasn't an excuse for him to be so freaking mean, though.

"That kind of pisses me off, actually. I shouldn't have to prove myself to you—I've never asked that of you so why do that to me? You can't treat me like a test subject and expect me to take it lying down. And you can't not talk to me when something is bothering you."

He didn't say anything, so I continued.

"We might not always see eye-to-eye on issues, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about shit that's bothering us. It's how we ended up here today. It was a shot to the chest to hear you telling Tanya about what was bothering you when you'd shut me out time and time again."

"In my defense, I just needed to talk to someone. and then I got drunk. Guess my shitty problems had to come out eventually, and she happened to be the one I unloaded on."

"It still hurt."

"I know. I made mistakes, Bella. I didn't handle things the right way, and I know that. I don't know what you want to do, and I wouldn't blame you if you just wanted to walk away, but I don't want that."

I closed my eyes against the raw pain I heard in his voice. "I am here, now, because I believe we are worth something together."

"You mean I still have a chance?"

I opened my eyes and looked at him, scooted in until our sides were touching. Tried not to let the tiny, hopeful smile on his face make me cry.

I reached up and ran my thumb over his cheek and he leaned his face into my palm. "We have a lot to work out yet. I'm willing to fight for this, for us, but you have to be willing to do the same, and really mean it. I can't do it alone."

"You said that the other night."

"And here I thought you were too bombed to remember any of it."

"Oh, I definitely heard what you were saying." He grimaced. "The words are burned into my brain. I thought I'd lost you for good."

His eyes were so green in the clear afternoon light.

"Not gonna happen, Cullen."

"I love you more than anything," he said, maneuvering us until I was under tucked into his side and his arm was around my shoulder. He ducked his head down, brushed his lips along my hair.

My eyes sought out the water again, calm and peaceful because the wind had died down. I smiled and said, "I know."

-PoM-

Stargazer – Mother Love Bone

I have all of the music on a Spotify Playlist: 'Part of Me' under my FB Luckyirishtart Fanfiction

TY my musical partner in crime. You are awesome.