Word Prompt: Slate
Audio-Visual Challenge—Musical Mastery: "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons
Something True
Slate
This Fall
Late October mornings might have most Forks residents keeping their windows closed. Not Bella. Even wrapped in a towel and her hair wet from the shower, she slides her window open.
Sinking to her bed, she combs her hair out as she calls Rose.
"How's it going?" Bella asks.
"Okay, I think. So far. I mean, I'm not missing him."
"Good."
"Emmett and Angela are gone."
"Where did you sleep?" Bella feels a tinge of guilt because it isn't only her concern with where Rose slept that drove her to ask the question.
"Not with Emmett, if that's what you're thinking. He was on the couch. And I couldn't sleep in Edward's bed because Angela was in there."
Bella swallows, closing her eyes. Sometimes the dark is better.
"So I slept in the studio. If you could call it sleeping. Edward kept me up all night making music with his headphones on. Click, click, click, click, click."
"All night?"
"It was the noise I fell asleep to and woke up to."
Rose tries to coerce Bella to come to the cottage. Normally she would love to escape there, but Edward isn't the one who asked her. She decides that today all she wants to do is sit and draw, not face any world but the one she creates in her sketch pad.
She doesn't see Edward until Wednesday when he shows up on her doorstep with Biter by his side.
Bella bends to scruff the puppy up. She can kiss his head now without the fear of getting her nose bit.
"You're staying away again?" Edward asks.
She straightens up. "Maybe I'm tired of going to other people. Maybe, for once, someone could come to me." She knows she isn't talking simply of "people," but of guys, one man in particular, she isn't supposed to be thinking about.
"I came to you."
"After four days." She steps outside, closing the door behind her just in case her mother or Dad are close enough to hear.
"Bella." Edward tilts his head to the side, one eyebrow raising just about a quarter of an inch. "What happened to you?"
"I don't - I don't talk about it."
"Why not?"
"It was my fault. My stupidity."
"It was bad? Because-" he ducks his head to meet her eyes "-you went to someone? He didn't come to you?"
Her eyes burn, her vision blurring, a knot forming in her throat.
Edward places his hand on the side of her shoulder. "Okay. You don't have to talk about it." He rubs her upper arm over her sweater, squeezing as he goes, kind of massaging. "You want to take a walk with us?"
Under an all-white sky, they stroll toward the woods where they stop just inside for Biter to pee near a tree. Bella sits on a big rock, a tiredness—an ache—in her legs that she understands isn't from walking, but from the recent conversation.
"I've thought about what you said," Edward says. "I don't want to lead Angela on. When she was apologetic and sad and just, like, begging, it was hard to turn my back. Not on her, you know? But on what we had—what we used to be like. At first it was easy. I was pissed off. But after a while it changes a little in your head. You start remembering old times, good times. It's hard to walk away from that. Am I making any sense?"
"Your mind plays tricks on you when it thinks you're in love or that you're loved. So yeah, it makes sense."
"Bella," he says with an almost-smile. He sits next to her and bumps her shoulder with his.
"You think I'm wrong. But look what happened to you. Look what happened to Rose. And my parents. It's everyone. Not just me."
"What about your parents?"
Biter comes over and sits by their feet, looking up at Edward. He pats his head, scratches under the dog's chin and collar.
"They don't love each other. It's fake. My dad thinks he loves my mom, but twenty-two years of marriage and he doesn't even know her. And my mom definitely does not love him."
"How do you know?"
She turns to Edward, looking him in the eye. She wants him to believe her warning about love so she tells him. "Eight year affair. At least."
"Ouch." The heel of his hand digs into his chest. "Does he know?"
She shakes her head, eyes on the ground. She wishes to anything that her dad had known eight years ago, that she'd mentioned something about going to the client's house, that she didn't think it was supposed to be kept secret, and thereby kept the secret. It was so huge now. Bigger than any of the trees in this forest. It was probably bigger than the town and the state.
Edward stands. Bella, not feeling like moving, remains on the rock. He brings a foot up next to her, resting his forearm on his knee.
He tells her he's going to Seattle on Friday.
"I wanted to tell you I won't be back until Sunday. In case you wanted to come over. And that I'm not going there to see Angela. I'm meeting with a director. Angela won't be there."
"If you were going to see her, that really isn't my-"
"She told me she wanted me to stop being alone with you." He laughs. "I told her there was no way."
"Why?"
"You're too important."
Bella hears the clack of her teeth as her jaw clamps tight. She searches his eyes, for what, exactly, she's unsure. She's only sure that he's looking right back at her like what he's saying is fact.
"And she... isn't. Anymore."
"You told her she wasn't important?"
"Well, not exactly." He glances down at Biter. "I told her you were important." He lifts his eyes. "I'm telling you, she isn't."
He pushes himself off the rock with his foot, taking a few steps back.
The wind blowing through tree branches fills their silence. The puppy sniffs at the ground, sniffs at Edward's shoe and up to his jeans.
"That dog is in love with you," Bella says.
"So animals can love, but people can't?"
Bella is taken aback. She knows he's right. Her logic isn't adding up with her statement. "Maybe it's just infatuation."
"Right." He holds a hand out for her. "Let's go."
She takes his hand, but once she's standing, he doesn't release her fingers. His thumb traces over the backs of them. "Can I put my arm around you?" He raises his eyebrows in question. Or hope.
Her answer barely comes out. "Yeah."
"Both of them?"
She steps toward him, rises to her toes and reaches up, one arm lying on top of the other behind his neck. His arms are strong, his chest, too, as he holds her tight around her waist.
It must have been his shaving day. She can smell his aftershave, and when his face brushes against hers, she can feel how smooth it is. The touch of their skin jars a memory of a time when Bella wondered what Edward's kisses were like. She remembers wondering if he kissed soft or rough or in between. She finds herself wondering again.
Edward must feel it on his shoulder when she shakes her head at herself, shaking her thoughts away.
The dog beside them, maybe not used to seeing this kind of human to human affection, whines.
They pull away from each other. Edward looks down at Bella, a small smile on his face. He picks up some strands of hair that have been blown over her face and moves them back where they belong.
Caring is one thing, she thinks. They can care about each other. It doesn't have to go beyond that. Caring about him, it feels warm in her stomach.
...
At her desk, Bella's sketching out a picture of the rock where she sat with Edward three days ago, the four trees surrounding it as if standing guard, protecting it from the elements above. She thinks about Edward, who's in Seattle right now, and how he wanted to make it clear that he wasn't going to see Angela. Bella highly doubts that Angela will let an opportunity like she and Edward being in the same city slip by. Bella's convinced they'll see each other whether Edward wants to or not.
Her mother's burst through the door makes her pencil fall from her hand and Edward's face evaporate from her mind at the same time.
"Where are they?"
"Who?"
"Not who. The books, Bella."
"What books?"
"What are you doing?" She throws her hand on her hips like she has authority. "Taking library books is stealing. It's a crime. Get them for me now. Or you'll pay the two-hundred dollar fine."
Bella scoffs. "Shut up. They're not worth that much."
"Shall I show you the statement?" She holds it out.
Bella pulls a box out from the back of her closet. A box full of too many things she wants to forget.
"Is that my dress?"
Bella lifts out the black silk sheath and tosses it on her bed. "Take it. It's disgusting.
"And these, too." She lifts the books out. "I can't take them back there."
"You can use my car," she says.
"I'm not going back to that library." Bella keeps her gaze locked on the box.
"What do you have against a library?"
"My ex-boyfriend's ex-wife." She scoffs again, this time for even referring to him as a boyfriend.
"Bella. What is the matter with you? You can't go on disrespecting me this way. I know what I've done- "
"You mean what you're doing."
"I told you I ended it."
"Did you tell Dad?"
No answer.
"Then you're still doing it. Every time you smile at him or tell him you love him or tell me you love me, you're lying."
"It's not a lie. I love you both. I do love your father. It's just a different kind of love. I'm not sure you would understand."
"You're right. I understand a lot of things, but I don't understand you or your excuses or that look on your face right now. All I think of when I look at you is lies. Can you really live a lie for the rest of your life?"
"Now that it's over would you have me tell him? Break his heart that way?"
She glares at her mother. "I would have you let him decide if he wants to be with someone like you or not. I would have you free me from this secret that's been like a prison since I was ten years old. I would have you stop making me a liar just like you are." Tears fall from Bella's eyes. "Okay? Because I know." She forces the words out. Maybe they're not even distinguishable through her sobs. "With this secret... every time I tell him that I love him, I'm lying to him. too." She knows this is not the way family treat each other. This is not the way that she and Mrs. Cameron would ever treat each other. Bella sniffles and struggles for a breath. "That's what I would have you do. I don't care if it's selfish. I want to be free of this! You don't know what it's like because you don't care."
"I care. I care." She puts her hand on the back of Bella's head, pulling her close. She rubs her forehead against her mother's chest. Bella's shoulders, her whole body, her bones, are shaking. "I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. Both of you. I never knew you were keeping this secret for that long. Had I known..." Her mother breaks down in tears, but they have no effect on Bella.
She pushes away from her. "Mom! It's too late for sorry. There isn't a word in any language that can make up for everything you've done or make me forgive you. Just go away!" With a hand on her mother's arm, she pushes her out of her room.
"I'll talk to him tonight, sweetheart. I'll do whatever I can."
"I'm not your sweetheart!" She slams the door with a bang she hardly hears.
She swats at her tears, rubs her hand under her running nose, yanks on a jacket, throws her sketchbook and pencils in a bag, and takes off. She thinks she'll go to her old place, even without the fallen tree, and draw. She'll think later. Not now.
She roams past her place, though, ending up in view of Edward's cottage. She misses Biter. She can almost hear him barking. In fact, she realizes, she is hearing him. He's running toward her. He jumps on her leg.
"Down, baby Biter." Big or not, she picks him up. He licks her cheek. Only a month ago he could fit easily in her lap, but now he's too heavy to hold in her arms for long. She lets him down.
Focusing in on the cottage, she sees that Edward is next to his tree, peering up the hill at her, the cloud-veiled sun low in the sky behind him.
"I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow," she says, nearing him, Biter leading the way.
"Finished early. I tried to call you three minutes ago."
"No phone."
Recalling why she left in such a hurry, she feels her expression fall, her lips quiver.
"What?" Edward asks, his eyes round with concern. "What?"
She covers her face, her hands pressing hard. This is why she wasn't supposed to think. Just draw. But his presence caught her off guard.
"What, Bella?" With one hand on her back and one on her elbow, he leads her into the cottage.
She won't say it. She can't.
"Tell me something," Edward says. "One thing. Please. This. Tell me what's wrong."
She's still covering her face. He's been leading her the whole way. He lowers her to the couch.
He moves her hands away, keeping hold of her fingers. They're eye-to-eye, his remaining full of concern or worry. She notices creases curving around the edges.
"I just ended my parents' marriage."
He frowns, turns his head like he's about to shake it, but stops. "How?"
She tells him what she said to her mother and how she said she was going to talk to him tonight.
He tugs on her wrists, pulling her into his arms, a hand on the back of her head the way her mother's was, only this she accepts. She turns her head, her temple to his T-shirted shoulder. Soft cotton. She closes her eyes as he rubs her back underneath her jacket. She can feel his palm and his fingers, each of them as he rubs.
"Something like this isn't your fault," he whispers.
She isn't crying now. She thinks she should at least be crying for her dad, for the shock he's about to get. But the truth is she wanted this to happen, just not right now, not orchestrated by her. She wanted it to have been over and done with years and years ago.
She takes a deep breath and pulls away from Edward.
"Okay?"
She can feel the lie in her nod and wonders if he can see it.
"How 'bout a drink? Not beer. What do you like? There's vodka, and I have some orange juice. You like screwdrivers? I think there's a can of pineapple juice, too."
"I don't know."
"Want to try one?"
She says she will and follows him around the corner into the kitchen. All Biter does is lift his head from his paws and lie back down.
As Edward gathers his ingredients she stares out the back window. The dock, the boat, the water, the sun beginning to set. While it's too loud in her head, it looks so quiet out there. Peaceful.
Edward is mumbling about pineapple juice being expired. "Just O.J. it is."
Visions of her father's face flood her mind. Soon he'll know that she knew all along. Will he look at her differently? He'll think she doesn't love him, and he has every right to think that. Maybe they'll both be kicked out, Bella and her mother.
She hears the clinking of ice cubes over glass. In her jacket she begins to sweat. She takes it off, eyes still on the lake, the orange-y water.
Even with her jacket off she's hot. And though she's pressing her fingers to her temples, her head won't stop.
"Be right back," she manages to say.
Tossing her jacket on the couch, she wanders out the back slider and down to the dock, crosses it, feeling it sway with her steps. She walks all the way to the end of it, the toes of her shoes peeking over the edge. She stares into the water.
It's so calm, hardly any movement. The water shines. She can see her silhouette, but nothing beneath the surface.
Even though it's exactly the quiet she seeks, the water seems to speak to her of life. Truth. She can hear it. It tells her things she already knows. "Welcome to reality, little girl. Ignore it all you want. It doesn't go away. It doesn't forget. No clean slate here."
She steps off the dock. The lake swallows her.