Word Prompts: Paradise, paralyze, paranoid
Choose one word and write what your imagination dictates. For an added challenge, include all three words in your entry.
Something True
Paradise
This Spring
In the blue light of morning Bella slips into a black dress. She brushes her hair. She colors her lips and cheeks a soft pink. She applies mascara.
And then she sits on the living room sofa.
It's still hard to believe that Mrs. Cameron is gone. It's easier to believe that Bella will be visiting her later, watching the woman's face brighten up, watching her pull a basket of yarn from the closet.
Here, on the sofa, dressed and ready to go after a wakeful night of tossing and turning, Bella lays her head back, closes her eyes, and falls asleep.
...
Edward had slept with his arm around her six nights ago, and her dad hadn't said a thing about it. In the morning, the three of them had a quiet breakfast of cereal together, Edward holding Bella's fingers under the table.
She stayed home from school.
That afternoon, Bella checked her phone. Even though she didn't feel like talking about what happened, she returned calls to her friends, and to her mother. The calls were short; she listened to condolences and said thank you.
At school, her friends huddled close to her between classes and at lunch. She invited them to the memorial service.
The memorial service is at ten at the Veterans'Hall, the luncheon reception at noon at Mrs. Cameron's house.
Jared and Kim set out finger sandwiches, fruit, and vegetables with dip on the kitchen table. Someone else brings pie. Another person brings cookies. After that, Bella loses track. The people and the food keep coming.
There's a large photograph set on an easel in front of the wall next to the table. Sepia. Marion Cameron in her wedding dress. Daniel Cameron in his cutaway, holding one of her hands in both of his. Smiles.
Her hair was dark brown back then, though hard to see in this picture, worn up and mostly hidden under a veil.
Bella looks closer. She looks for so long that it's as if Mrs. Cameron will start moving.
If anyone has a soul, this woman does, Bella thinks. She has to imagine Mrs. Cameron in a paradise now with her soul mate.
On the refrigerator, under a magnet, Bella finds Mrs. Cameron's list of charity projects. She takes the list down and asks Edward to keep it in his pocket for her. He folds it up.
Rose is on the other side of Bella, looking down, and like Alice, Lauren, and Jessica in the living room, she seems unsure of what to say or how to act. Bella thinks something like knowing the right words to say at a time like this is hard to learn, if even possible.
Pete's here, too. He comes up and squeezes Bella's hand. She's too tongue-tied so Rose introduces him to Edward. They shake hands.
Most of the time, Bella can feel Edward's fingertips at her shoulder. Sometimes she doesn't even notice until they're gone, and she turns to look for Edward who's still beside her, and he moves his hand back to her shoulder.
Bella's mother maneuvers between two elderly women and then passes Pete to get to Bella. She hugs her for the second time today. The first hug was at the memorial service. It's one more of many hugs. Bella lets anyone hug her, almost as if she's a robot.
Her embrace with her dad lasts the longest though, her arms around his waist, head against his chest.
He kisses the top of her head and rests his cheek against it, and in this moment she feels more than the loss of Mrs. Cameron. She wishes she could have her childhood back for moments like this, in her daddy's arms. He was always ready and willing to give her hugs, but her own guilt had kept an arm's distance between them—Bella always quick to pull away.
She'll never get that back.
"I love you, Dad," she says.
"Love you too, Bella girl." She can hear the tears in his voice.
"You're the best dad."
"And you're the best daughter."
She knows that isn't true but she doesn't argue.
In the living room she smiles at her three girlfriends anchored together on the sofa.
"Thank you for coming," she says to them. They reach for her hand and each squeeze it one at a time. There is a lot of chatter around them, but all of her friends, even Alice, are eerily quiet.
Bella motions for Edward to sit down in a chair that was brought in for extra seating. She sits on his lap, pressing the side of her head to his.
He runs his fingers up and down her arm.
It's strange being in Mrs. Cameron's house without her. It's even worse remembering what it was like the last time Bella was here a week earlier.
"I wish we could leave," Bella whispers.
"It's a free country," Edward whispers back. "We can go whenever we want."
"Can we go to your cottage?"
He nods and kisses her and tells her she tastes like punch. He does too, and his lips are a little red. She says she'll meet him outside, she's going to say goodbye to her dad.
It isn't as easy as that though.
When she finds her dad back in the kitchen, he's hugging her mother.
She stares and waits for them to release each other. Is this what a memorial reception does? Bring people who are almost enemies closer together?
Finally they part and Bella ends up hugging them both goodbye. Her mother says she'll be in touch if that's okay, and Bella says that it is.
On her way out, several more hugs are shared. Perfect strangers who have heard stories about Bella from Mrs. Cameron open their arms to her. Jared, Kim, the girls, Pete, all block her path for short embraces before Bella can reach the front door.
When she makes it out front, Edward is standing by his car with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his slacks and his dress jacket draped between his arm and his body. His tie is open, his hair a little disheveled, his smile small and crooked.
She walks toward him under the three Birches. She wonders if this might be the last time she'll stand under them and looks up through the sparse leaves, squinting into the white sky.
Edward reaches for her hand, opens her door for her, and drives her to the cottage.
...
It seems to Bella that the cottage holds a better amount of oxygen than Mrs. Cameron's house. She knows that isn't true though. It's being alone with Edward and Biter that makes breathing easier.
She bends to hug Biter, a couple of tears dripping onto his fur. Edward straightens her up and hugs her from behind, his chin digging into her shoulder. He sways her.
"You okay?"
She nods and wipes her cheeks.
"I don't remember if I told you I'm sorry."
"You did," she says, but she isn't positive. If he hasn't said it in words, he's certainly shown it.
Biter taps a paw on the sliding glass door, his indication that he needs to go out. Edward and Bella call it his knock. The glass at the dog's level is smeared with his nose prints and saliva.
"Can I take him?" Bella asks.
"You want to go by yourself?"
"Just for a little while."
Edward's eyebrows tense, but he gets the leash for her anyway.
Outside she takes a breath of fresh air, inhaling the scents of damp earth and spring leaves. She runs with Biter. She runs and lets her tears fall, the wind chilling them and whipping at her dress. Even wearing flats, she can only do so much running before her toes start to hurt. She slows down as they come to the dock. They walk to the end of it.
"I've been for a ride in that boat," she tells Biter, pointing to the fishing boat. "Maybe you can too, someday." She walks him back to the shore.
Out of the corner of her eye, to the far right she sees the movement of a tall bird.
It's a Blue Heron. She wonders if it's the same one she saw in the fall. Do they come back to the same spot year after year? If Mrs. Cameron were around, she'd know the answer.
Bella chances moving closer, but after a few steps, Biter lets out a low sound, almost like a cough. It's the threat of a bark. She shushes him, and doesn't move an inch closer to the bird.
She watches the grace of the heron, its long neck, as it pecks at something in the dirt. She's flooded with memories of Mrs. Cameron.
I want love to be real, Bella remembers saying.
I love you. Do you love me? was Mrs. Cameron's reply.
Bella remembers wishing it was that easy.
She knows now that if she opens herself up to it, it can be that easy. The words from Edward, the kisses, the hugs, the hand-holding, the simplest touches, are all like nibbles on her heart. She can feel him in every nerve. Even now. Even when he's miles away.
Most things in life, Bella has learned, she can't predict and has no control over. But there are some things nobody but Bella can control. She just has to be brave enough to do it.
Tugging on the leash, Bella leads Biter back into the cottage.
He heads straight for his water bowl.
"I saw you running," Edward says with a grin, but it falls when he sees that Bella isn't smiling. His tie is gone, his shirt wrinkled and untucked.
He's never looked more handsome.
He lifts a hand to her jaw, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone.
"I love when you do that," she says, holding his wrist.
"You love this? Why?" He lets his thumb meet the corner of her mouth and leans in for a kiss. She feels the warmth of his breath.
"It feels good."
"What else feels good?" he asks against her lips.
"Loving you."
He backs up. "What?" She barely hears it.
She blinks away tears, different tears. "I love you, Edward Cullen."
With a smile framing every word, he says, "How do you know, Bella Swan?"
"Put your hand on my heart."
He does.
She unbuttons two buttons on his shirt and slips her hand inside, her palm to his chest. Then she lifts his other palm to her lips and kisses it. Their hearts beat faster.
"It's easy," she says.
He gathers her close and lowers his head so that they're nose to nose. "And real?"
"Real."