Word Prompts: Battle, rattle, prattle

Choose one word and write what your imagination dictates. For an added challenge, include all three words in your entry.

Something True

Battle

This Fall into Winter

Edward greets Bella at his door with a light kiss, and she's grateful when it deepens, whisking her thoughts away. For now, she forgets about her mother.

Grasping her hips, his lips on hers, he pulls her inside, turning her away from the door. She barely hears it close, barely feels Biter sniffing at her leg. She doesn't even really feel the scratch of the scruff on Edward's face until he moves the kiss from her lips to her cheek to her jaw, and down to her throat. With hands on either side of his face, her fingers just below his ears she pulls back and looks at him. Their labored breath is meeting and mixing between their parted lips.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing." She brings his face to hers, their lips reconnecting, but when his stubble pricks her again, again she breaks away, her mind rattled by memories of Riley.

"Bella? You okay?"

Her eyes flicker between his. "Can you... shave?"

A palm to his jaw, he rubs back and forth. "Now?"

"It's - he was always..." She turns away, bending to pet Biter.

"Who?"

"Nevermind."

"Him?"

She continues to pet Biter, a shudder running through her.

He walks to the bathroom, Biter—attention averted—at Edward's heels.

Bella takes off her jacket and folds it over a kitchen chair. Everything in the cottage looks the same: the heavy golden-wood furniture, the couch with the blue cushions, the big chair beside it, the crazy art painted all over the back wall, the sliding glass door that leads to the deck that leads to the shore that leads to the lake. But it feels different. The walls feel closer, the air warmer. Like a blanket placed over shoulders in the cold.

She moves to the glass door and looks out at the day. It has begun to snow, tiny flakes floating down, drifting, getting caught and carried by wind. She watches.

She watches for what seems like a long time. Edward hasn't come back to her. When she goes to the bathroom, it's empty, water droplets falling from the faucet, a razor at the edge of the sink. The bedroom door is open, that room empty, too. The studio is closed.

She knocks. No answer.

She knocks again and opens the door.

Edward's sitting on the swivel chair, his back to her, headphones over his ears, his fingers hitting keys on a laptop. She frowns. Did he get some sudden inspiration? Why wouldn't he say something to her? She doesn't know if she should interrupt. She moves farther into the room. Biter stands up from beside Edward's feet and pads over to Bella.

"Edward?" She says it quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He looks over his shoulder at her, his face clean-shaven. She smiles small, brushing the backs of her fingers along his jaw. He turns his head away and faces his screen again.

She drops her hand to her side. "Are you mad?"

He doesn't answer. He just shakes his head.

"Are you mad at me? Maybe I - I shouldn't have asked you to shave? I'm sorry."

He swivels his chair around, removing his headphones and setting them aside on the table, on top of some equipment that Bella assumes is for mixing music.

He pulls her to his lap, kisses the side of her face. "It's not that you asked me. It's why you asked me." He turns her face to his. "I don't shave every day. I don't want to shave every day. I don't do that."

"Okay. I'll get... I'll get used to it."

He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes with a "fuck" under his breath. Hands at her waist, he lifts her off his lap and walks toward the door. "I can't talk about this." He leaves the room. Bella follows. She doesn't like this. She doesn't like following. It reminds her again of how she used to be with Riley. Always following.

"What's wrong?" she asks, her voice shaking.

He turns around near the kitchen table and leans forward over it, pressing his palms into the wood.

"Edward? Should I go?"

He laughs, but it doesn't sound like a regular, humorous laugh. "This." He aims a hand in her direction. "I have like this, like this knot. In my throat." He touches his throat. "I know you've been hurt. And I know I'm going to hurt you."

"Why? How?"

"I don't know. But I know I will, not on purpose but because it happens. Like right now. I can see it in your face. And hear it. And it scares the shit out of me. You need to not be... hurt."

"Okay." She folds her lips into her mouth, her nostrils flaring as she tries with everything inside her to keep her eyes from brimming up. They do anyway. She looks away from him. "I don't know what-" She covers her eyes so he won't have to see her cry. She tries, but she doesn't know how to not feel hurt. She can tell herself the pain isn't real, but that doesn't make it go away. This is the problem. It's her. She's too fragile, and she can't even tell him that she's not fragile and mean it. And now she's sure she can't tell Edward about her mom, can't make it all worse.

Arms wrap around her shoulders, his chest against her covered face. He holds her head to him. "You see?" He says, his voice soft. "I'm doing it. And I remember that time I told you I liked your quiet, and now that I know why you were quiet I feel like shit for that."

She removes her hands from her face and slides her arms around his waist. If they could only stay like this...

"Let's get out," he says. "Let's walk the dog."

They walk the dog in slow falling snow, Edward's hand warm in hers.

When he kisses her at her doorstep later, Biter by Edward's legs waiting for his goodbye handshake, it's just a peck. She decides to give him a break from her for a couple of days.

In her room she adds lines to her wall for the recent days missed, forgotten.

She goes to school like a normal person does, tries to act like a regular teenager. Whatever that is, she has no idea. But she walks through the same patches of snow, avoids the same iced-over puddles as everyone else, grinning when she can.

She wonders if there is a way to siphon smiles, ration laughs, for use when necessary.

Rose has turned Royce away, who is now appealing to Bella.

In History before class starts, Royce squats in front of Bella's desk, his arms resting on the wood. "Tell Rose I love her," he says.

"She knows that already."

"Remind her for me?"

Bella tilts her head, her eyebrows pulling together. "Have you ever thought that 'I love you' actually means 'I love you today?'"

He backs his head away slightly. "So I should tell her every day?"

"No, I mean, maybe you love her today, but after a little while you won't love her anymore."

"Bella, I love her every day. And if she hears it from you."

"If it comes from me, Royce, it comes with my voice attached."

"What does that mean?"

"It means..." Bella covers her forehead with her palm. "I'll think about it."

She does end up relaying Royce's message to Rose after school, and she says it in the voice she'd warned Royce about, which is an exasperated sigh.

"I know," Rose says.

That evening, after dinner with her dad, while Bella is trying not to think about Edward, her phone buzzes, lighting with a phone number she doesn't recognize. No message is left. When the same number comes up again, she answers it.

"Bella."

Even though it's been months since she last heard it, his voice chills her; she glances at her coat hanging over her desk chair.

"Are you there?"

"Why are you calling me?"

"You can't send your boyfriend over to my house to deck me."

If she could speak through her shock she would tell him she didn't send anybody. In fact, she thought she had done the opposite.

"It's in the past. It was a mistake. I've moved on, so should you. Let it rest."

It's the same tone he's always used with her but it strikes her now how condescending he sounds.

She thumbs over "end call" and hangs up on him.