Thank you everyone for the reviews (those who managed to get one in since FFn was on the fritz yet again) and recent adds.
Thanks to Stratan for the beta work; thanks to stephk0525, claireoth, and twilover76 for prereading. Best team in the world right there.
Chapter 24
Edward
I jerked awake and scrambled toward Bella's headboard. My pulse pounded in my ears, my breaths loud and wheezing.
My eyes darted around the room. Familiarity, the sound of Bella's deep, undisturbed sleep beside me. It was a nightmare. Another fucking nightmare. Different than any dream I'd had before. In those were memories. Things I hated about myself. What I tried so hard to forget.
This was unrecognizable.
New.
"What the fuck?" I managed out loud.
Bella shifted with the sound of my voice, and then burrowed herself down in the covers as if she were ignoring me.
Not that I blamed her.
I dragged my hands though my hair and made a sound of disgust at how sweaty I was. I gently slid out of the bed, careful not to wake Bella up any more. Sleep wasn't happening for me tonight - I actually hadn't gotten used to it - but there was no reason for Bella to lose any along with me. Which I knew she would. No way would that girl let me stay up alone. It was just her nature to sacrifice something to help me out.
Fuck if I was letting her do that anymore than I had to.
I took a quick shower and practically fucking tiptoed back into her bedroom to snatch Maggie's information off of her desk. I spread it all out on the kitchen table and made a pot of coffee so that I didn't find myself face down, drooling over it all in the morning.
Coffee poured and mug in hand, I went and sat at the table just... looking. Unable to touch any of it for the longest time. I'd been avoiding it for these last few weeks. For this reason exactly. It was fucking overwhelming. All of it. Trying to be better for Bella and not wrecking our relationship before it even got off the ground. Working through all my issues while keeping up with my classes.
Learning more about Maggie and why I didn't remember her, had become the least of my concerns. And that was...
Breaking my promise to Bella, myself. We had so much to talk about - learn about each other - and I'd just skirted around the majority of it lately, too happy with Bella to change it.
Shit.
I took a sip and scowled when I realized I'd let my coffee go cold. I got up to dump it out and pour myself a new cup when Alice came into the kitchen, squinting against the bright overhead lights.
"What are you doing?" she whisper-yelled. "It's three in the morning!"
"Did I wake you?"
"No."
"Then don't worry about it."
"Fine, crabby pants, I won't."
My lips quirked a little at her name calling.
"Are you okay, though?" she asked. "Because Bella would kick my ass if I l went back to bed and let you have some sort of breakdown."
"Christ." I nearly rolled my eyes. "I'm not having some sort of fucking breakdown, Alice."
She pursed her lips and studied me. Apparently content with what she saw, she nodded and went to the fridge. The girl barely came up to the freezer door she was so small, and it was nearly comical watching her fight to get ice out of the drawer.
"Need help? A stool, perhaps?"
"Fuck off."
I laughed. She was a feisty little thing. "Kiss my brother with that mouth?"
"I don't kiss him at all," she retorted.
"Not what he said."
"Just the once," she amended. "And you can't count it since he wigged the hell out on me."
I debated that. "Yeah, okay. I'll buy. You still want to, right?"
She simply looked at me.
"I see. Wish you'd fucking hurry up on sealing the deal then. He's becoming a pain in my ass."
"Are you noticing this 'pain in the ass' problem now that you're not so douchey yourself?"
"You mean since I have sex on a regular basis?" For the most part.
"Of course."
"Then maybe. I don't think so, though. He was cool as fuck till you, you know... came into the picture."
"Yeah," she grumbled. "Tell me about it. I repel Jasper Cullen. It's the weirdest thing."
"You scare him."
She eyed me. Her hair was fucking all over the place, and I wondered if that's what mine looked like half the time.
Huh.
"No, really. Trust me on this. That's what's going through his head. You scare him."
"Why?"
"Because what if he's not good enough? He's never had to face that before."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"That's the Cullen way," I answered dryly.
"Still stupid."
"Yep."
She took a deep pull of water. "Bella's a goddamned saint."
"Nothing I don't already know there, arm rest."
She smiled and shook her head. "See you in the morning, asshole."
I waved her off. Sat back down.
Stared at the shit some more before finally convincing myself to search for what I'd come out here for: information about Maggie's accident.
I couldn't put it off forever.
Quickly, I rifled through all the paperwork and pictures until I'd found it all. My breath caught when I saw the blue wreckage that was once her Cavalier.
"Oh, fuck."
How anything was salvageable on the girl was beyond me. The car had flipped until it hit a tree, was crushed in more places than I could count. My fist was in my mouth, teeth digging into my flesh to counteract the emotions coursing through me as I looked through the police report, the investigation, and the manslaughter charges.
I abruptly shifted gears and started looking at what little of her medical charts Charlie had been able to retrieve.
But it was enough.
A beating heart cadaver. Killed only by a bleed in the brain while all her other organs functioned perfectly on life support. I reached up and rubbed my temples, my thoughts immediately going back to the dream and how fucking much my head had hurt, how it made my entire body react like a live wire.
It was the last conscious thing my sister knew.
My head snapped up with the sound of Bella coming into the room. Her eyes widened, and her movements faltered at the doorway.
And then she was racing toward me.
"Oh, my God," she said on a gasp. "What are you...? Are you...?"
Her hands cradled my face, thumbs traced over my cheekbones as she checked me over.
How fucked up was I over this?
I answered my own question with a shudder and took hold of her, clinging to her and burying my face into her neck. "Fuck, baby. It was awful. Why didn't you tell me how awful it was?"
"How?"
"She was hurting when she lost consciousness," I mumbled. "Jesus fucking God, she hurt..."
She shook her head. "The doctor told the Carrs that she didn't suffer. The bleed in her brain was-"
"The asshole was wrong," I interrupted.
"You don't know that."
"That's why I got up. I... I swear to fuck, Bella, I just dreamed it."
She stopped breathing for a second. "You what?"
"It woke me up. The pain." I shifted and laid my ear against her heart, listening to the steady beat for a moment. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know," she said quietly. "Are you sure it wasn't something-"
"Bella, that was not something that happened to me."
I didn't know how I knew that was true.
I just fucking did.
"But maybe it was just a regular dream..."
I glared up at her.
She sighed. "Yeah, okay. What was it about?"
"I don't know. I can't remember any of the details. Just that my head felt like it was being fucking pried open."
"Maybe it was your subconscious' way of saying stop screwing around and start dealing with it instead," she offered, biting on her lip uncertainly.
A bleak laugh bubbled out of me. "Of course it is. I'm always looking for new ways to fucking torture myself."
She giggled and moved so that she was sitting sideways in my lap. "Come on. We're both up. Might as well go through this some more."
"I don't... I mean, Bella, I..."
Her brows snuck up to her hairline as she waited for me.
I groaned. "You're not letting it go, are you?"
"Not this time, Sparky."
I huffed.
"Okay, so what are we looking at tonight?" I paused. Shook my head. "Wait, I need a fucking aspirin."
She bent down and kissed my forehead. "I'll get it."
I sat there motionless and stared at the wall while she went to the bathroom and retrieved a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water, too afraid to look at those pictures anymore. Too afraid of having that same reaction I did.
Because I didn't know what the fuck it was, whether it was a response to how Bella got the heart or to my sister's death.
It was too goddamned complicated for three a.m.
"Here," she said quietly as she handed it all over to me. "Are you okay?"
No.
I nodded tersely and took the two pills.
She flipped open her journal and pulled out her letter.
"So maybe we should start with this. With me."
I exhaled slowly and closed my eyes. I didn't need to read the entry to know what it said. I'd read it a dozen times before, had it nearly memorized.
You make me feel... I can't describe it. Alive. You make me feel alive...
Fuck. Yeah, she did.
"Tell me everything."
"I was sixteen when I was diagnosed. No one knew there was anything wrong with me until it was almost too late."
"Why?" I asked, just to keep her talking. I already knew this much.
"The only symptom I presented was dizziness after exertion. I'd run and fall. I'd try to dance, play some sort of sport, and hurt myself. Every single time."
Absently, I reached up and ran my thumb over her scar through her t-shirt. "No chest pain, palpitations, or shortness of breath?"
She shook her head.
"Not once?"
Another shake of her head. "The doctors all tested me for anxiety and asthma. One even tested me for a mitral valve prolapse. Nothing came up so no one really thought about it. Renee is so clumsy herself; we all thought that was the problem. I was just a klutz who couldn't take three steps in front of her without tripping."
"Except it wasn't. Your balance was off because your heart was working too hard and taking your brain's blood," I murmured to myself.
"I love that you get it. I don't have to explain every detail. You already know."
I glanced up at her and frowned. My determination to do something with my life instead of becoming some kind of bullshit statistic was the only reason why I did. Any other circumstance and she'd have to explain the hows and whys of it all, like with most people.
So maybe we were good for each other. I gave her a break from rehashing each individual aspect of her condition. She gave me... me. Whoever I was.
"Anyway, it didn't really make things easy at school. I didn't really fit in anywhere. I couldn't sing, play an instrument... couldn't act, couldn't play sports - obviously. I was book smart, but not smart enough to be included with the geeks and nerds. I sucked at video games; I wasn't all that pretty-"
"Bullshit," I snarled. "Don't start that bullshit."
"Maybe I am now," she conceded. "I don't know. I was awkward before, though, Edward. And Renee was so overprotective... I never went to a party, sleepover..."
She was quiet for a moment. "You know it's funny. Right before I was diagnosed, there was this guy, Alex. I felt off all morning long. Lightheaded. I thought it was because I hadn't eaten breakfast or something, so I went to the vending machines right outside the cafeteria. He... he made me feel good about myself. Showed interest in me for something other than an easy punch line. Finally."
"And then it all went to shit."
She nodded. "I collapsed during gym. Getting ready to serve a volleyball of all things. I hated that for the longest time."
"Why?"
"Got made fun of," she said simply. "People are cruel."
"And now?"
"Now I think it's okay, because it led me to where I'm supposed to be. Here. At this specific university. With you, Alice, and the other friends I have. I can't imagine it any other way."
"How do you do that?"
"What?"
"Be so optimistic all of the time."
She shrugged. "It's all you have when you're lying in a hospital bed after your third unsuccessful surgery. Or when you watch your parents die a little when you're told you have a year left to live unless they happen to find a donor."
"Which they did." I brushed her hair back and kissed her jaw. "Thank fucking God they did."
I'd still be so lost without her.
"It explains a lot of why my dad is the way he is. He thought he was going to bury me. So now, he does whatever he can to make sure I'm happy."
"Including me."
"Including you," she agreed. "And that brings me to the next part."
I tensed involuntarily. "Claire de Lune."
"I was right? It means something?"
"Yeah." My voice broke. "Yeah, it was what Elizabeth would hum to me sometimes before she... before she..."
She snuggled against me. "You don't have to talk about it."
"But I need to."
"Okay, then do it."
I took a steadying breath, though it was pretty much useless. "Bedtime was routine. Snack, bath, brushing my teeth, story. The nights the stories didn't lull me to sleep, Elizabeth would lie down with me and hum Claire de Lune while running her fingers over my face and through my hair. Like this..."
I trembled as I went to demonstrate. Cursed. Shook harder. Then, steeling myself, I let the pads of my fingers trace the lines of Bella's face. Around her eyes, over her cheekbones, nose, lips... I skimmed them over the curve of her neck, the shell of her ear. Into her hair where I was rewarded with the most incredible, breathless moan.
"That feels really good," she said, swallowing.
I shifted underneath her, effectively hard as stone from that sound. "Yeah. Put me to sleep every fucking time."
"I can see why."
"So uh, anyway," I cleared my throat and brought my hand back to rest on her knee, "one night, she got frustrated with me and left. She sang the next time I couldn't sleep, but got angry with me again a couple weeks or so later. The frequency of her actually being there for me became less. Even her reading to me at night became unreliable. Bathing was nonexistent. Fuck, I think one time I just shoved myself in a cold bath to get the mud off of me."
Bella looked at me strangely.
"It was raining and I was a pain in my mother's ass when I was little. I went outside after I was told not to and played in the mud. Elizabeth was too... high to give a fuck and clean me up, though. She just sat there and stared at the TV."
Damn, I remembered that clearly. The TV had been off, and I'd thought it was pretty fucked up for her to be staring at it like she was.
"That was the beginning. The least of her bullshit, actually, because she didn't hurt me in any way. She was just dead to the world."
"I'm sorry."
"I didn't know what I'd done, you know? I think I was fucking six, and... I watched her disappear."
She didn't say anything else. She simply put her head on my shoulder and ran her hand over my chest.
So I had the strength to keep going.
"Eventually, I learned to take care of myself. Baths, brushing my teeth, getting on the school bus every morning. I ate at school mostly, because there was no goddamned food in the house. Elizabeth wasn't fucking worried about me anymore. She was either manic, passed out on the couch, or out looking for- Fuck."
That first summer, though, without the school system to give me breakfast and lunch... I thought I was dying some days I was so hungry.
"Want to stop?"
I shook my head. "I remember there was this one time she brought a guy back with her. I didn't know my father, but I had this stupid idea that he'd come back to us."
"Most kids do," she interjected.
"I guess. So I ran out of my room excited because I thought it was my dad and was met with this stranger instead. The look in his eyes... Jesus, he scared the shit out of me. He was high as fuck and was just there to get laid. He threw Elizabeth around a few times over me being there, so I hid in the closet. When I was out of sight he must've figured it was okay, and so he and Elizabeth... I thought he was hurting her more. I didn't know what it was and -"
I drew in a sharp breath.
"I'm done. I can't..."
"Okay."
"I'm so fucking tired of feeling like this," I breathed.
"Like what?"
"Panicked," I answered, my mouth trailing along her skin, hoping to ease the tightness in my chest. "It consumes me."
"It used to, yeah. But not anymore," she said softly. Her head dropped as I kept kissing her, touching her, bringing her so close to me that no space was between us. "I see you, Edward. All the time now."
Passion grew between us achingly fucking slow. I pushed all of the documents aside and sat Bella on the edge of the table. I ran my hands over her thighs until I reached the hem of her t-shirt.
Up.
"Edward..." she whispered, her hands moving to my hair.
The shirt fell to the floor.
Nothing but the hot pink cotton of her underwear separated me from her now. They sat low on her hips and had some cheeky fucking saying on her ass.
Which I was currently grabbing, digging my fingers into, pulling her toward me again.
I dipped my head down and kissed her through the cotton, my eyes flickering up to her face to make sure this was okay. This was a promise I could fulfill. One I needed to fulfill. I needed to engage every sense with her, forget. Give Bella another first while simultaneously feeling what I currently had in my arms instead of what was in the past.
I took a breath.
God, she smelled so good.
Knowing exactly what I needed, she dropped one leg to the table. Rolled her hips against my mouth and murmured, "Take me to bed."
xx
Dear Maggie,
I met a guy. He is by far the most attractive person I've ever seen in person, not that I've really met a lot of people. Have you ever met someone like that? Someone you couldn't keep your eyes off of? Someone you could picture as a model or actor? Who is so beautiful, your body physically responds to it? Because that's the kind of hot he is.
Until he opens his mouth.
He's rude. Patronizing. Hateful. But the best part of being introduced to him? I came home afterwards feeling horrible about myself for even thinking he could possibly want anything to do with me. I was determined to find any other job in this town but one that would require me to work so closely to him, only to learn that Charlie had found the name of your brother.
None other than the hot asshole from the garage.
How can he be your brother? I don't understand. From everything I know about you, you two are total opposites. I mean, he doesn't even look like you! He has a permanent frown on his face, his hair is red, his eyes aren't like yours at all. They're green, yes, but hard. Intense. Mean.
So it makes me wonder: do I even have the right guy?
Yeah. That's him. I feel it in my bones, however messed up that is.
I'm an even bigger idiot than I realized for hoping just once that this would be easier than the reality is actually proving to be. That guy... he despises me already, and quite frankly, the feeling is mutual.
No, it's really not. I'm not exactly Edward Cullen's biggest fan at the moment, but to say that I despise him seems completely wrong.
He makes me feel like I can't breathe, which might be from the smoke he kept blowing in my face while I was trying to get information about the job from him; I don't know. To have to tell him all about you... It's going to be so bad. Worse than probably anything I can imagine.
I should just leave now.
But I can't. God, it's like I'm rooted to this place for some reason. So I'll take it. I'll take it all from him. The anger, the rudeness, the blatant disregard for other people's feelings. I'll feel inferior and ugly and stupid every day that I need to so I can get this off my chest. Because I don't know of any other cure for this obsession I have. I don't know how to move on without doing this.
And I need to move on. I have a life waiting for me now, one I want to make the most of. I want that first kiss, a boyfriend, first love. I want my dream job, friends. I want to see the world. There's so much I get to do now, except I'm hung up on this one stupid thing.
It makes me want to just throw something.
xx
I stopped reading when Bella shifted beside me and yawned. "What are you doing?" she asked sleepily.
I shrugged. "I still couldn't sleep so I grabbed it off the table."
"Haven't you read it enough?" she joked.
"Yeah." She scooted over and pushed the journal out of the way, laying her head down on my chest in its place. "I didn't know you felt that way."
"Felt how? You're going to have to elaborate. There is a lot in there, you know."
"Ugly. I-" I dragged my free hand through my hair. "Fuck, Bella, you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."
"Really? I'd just gotten out of the gym..."
"Really," I said on a laugh. "I swear, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs the second I laid eyes on you."
"You sure didn't act like it," she said wryly.
"No, I... You made me feel something when you spoke to me. I hated it. Wanted to hate you."
"Wanted to?"
"I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried, you made me want to laugh. I felt good when you were around, and as socially fucking stunted as I am at times, I couldn't wait for you to walk through that door every morning, if for nothing else than just to look at you."
"I always liked looking at you too," she said quietly.
"I'd never felt that way before," I admitted.
Her lashes fluttered as she looked up at me.
So I clarified, "No one existed until you."
Her eyes widened. A smile broke out across her face. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." I pointed to the drawing on the page, changing the subject. "A puppet?"
"Marionette, yeah," she answered, moving so she could see it better. "I'd read something about marionette shows in Sicily a few days before I moved back. I remember thinking that was exactly what I felt like: a puppet on strings."
"And Maggie's the girl behind the curtain?" I snorted. "Come on, Bella, get real."
"No, I mean, maybe. But I think it was more that I was supposed to find you. This. Us. Maggie was just... a reason to come here in the first place? I don't know. I stopped trying to figure it out a while ago."
"You been talking to Jasper?"
"No," she replied questioningly.
"He says the same thing. Only in his philosophical bullshit way."
She grinned. "It sucks he's always right, doesn't it? Well, except when it comes to Alice."
"He's stubborn."
"A Cullen trait?"
I chuckled. "It was the only trait our parents made sure we had before adopting us. Otherwise, fuck, we'd have been tossed back out on our asses."
"Shut up," she giggled, smacking my chest lightly.
It went silent. Heavy as I thought about my brothers. Rosalie. I still hadn't had the time to talk to Emmett about her, though I had a feeling that now it didn't matter. I was fucking entangled in Bella; I no longer needed convincing to get here.
So maybe her secret should just stay that: a secret.
"You need to get some sleep," she finally murmured.
"Can't," I responded absently.
She sighed. "I thought you were doing better."
"I am. This isn't about... Hell, I don't know what's wrong with me. I just can't fucking sleep tonight."
Her hand moved lazily over my stomach. "I'd tell you the cure for that, but I have a feeling it wouldn't go over so well right now."
"What's that?" I asked densely.
"You could fuck me again," she said, her voice wavering slightly with uncertainty.
"Shit," I groaned, shifting beneath her, "as hot as it is to hear you say that, I-"
"I know." She smiled up at me. Warmth burst inside me with how understanding she was about it all.
"I don't want you to be sore," I finished, hoping she'd know that I wanted her again. That I was getting over some of my shit.
"Oh." She looked confused. "Edward, I'm not breakable..."
Not the point. She was still new to sex, and I'd been rough with her before. I'd always been a little too rough with her, right from the beginning. Every kiss was a little too hard, too desperate or demanding. Each time we'd had sex was when I couldn't possibly stay away from her anymore - needed something from her - so I dragged her away to hurriedly work my way inside her.
I was going to have to go slow. Just once. Just to show her what it was like.
She should have everything.
"Why did Maggie's parents drop the manslaughter charges?" I asked instead.
"They never filed them in the first place," she answered. "The police department did."
Now I was the confused one.
"You'd have to ask them all the details," she laughed. "I just know that the Carrs told the police to back off on criminal charges."
"Why?"
"That I don't know. I was a little tunnel-visioned when I talked to them." She paused. "I read-"
"Read?"
"I didn't want to... God, I didn't want them to feel any more grief, so I never asked. I've just kept up on the daily Texas news."
"Amarillo, right?"
"Yeah. She was home that weekend from Arizona."
My eyes flew to her face. I swallowed hard as I thought about the composition that gave her the scholarship. To ASU. "Fuck. Do you think uh... Do you think you'd have ever met her? If things were different?"
She answered carefully. "Maybe. I think that in any version of my life, my destiny was to meet you. Whether it was this way, without the disease and Maggie's death, coming to stay with Charlie and running into you somewhere..."
"That seems really fucking farfetched, Bella."
She wasn't deterred by my harshness. "Not really. I'd be a sophomore at ASU if I hadn't been stuck in the hospital all that time."
My heart faltered. "What?"
"It was what I planned with Renee for as long as I can remember. But then this happened, and my plans changed."
"Shit," I breathed.
She smiled a little. "So anyway, I read that he spent ninety days in a rehab facility and got community service. Not the picking up trash on the side of the road kind, either. The Carrs asked that he specifically designate so many hours of his life per year, for the next five years, to helping out that rehab facility with patients, however they need him. And he had his license revoked too. Indefinitely, I think."
"That's... it?" I asked incredulously. "Esme would have made sure he didn't walk freely for most of his life if it happened to one of us."
She shrugged. "The Carrs aren't like most people."
"Obviously."
"Speaking of Esme... I... I kind of miss her," she said shyly.
"Thanksgiving weekend. I thought maybe we could go home that weekend. Together," I responded. "Is that okay?"
"You can take a break?"
"Not really," I said honestly. "But I'll just bring my shit with me or something."
"Edward, we don't have to-"
"Yes, we do," I practically growled. "I've put everything off long enough because I just wanted to fucking enjoy having you. I can't keep doing it. It's not fair to you, my family... Fuck, Jasper's been dodging my mom for days so he didn't have to answer questions about me."
"That's not going to go over well."
"Exactly my point. I'm being a selfish piece of shit again."
"I wasn't pushing you to do anything either. I was perfectly content to stay in this little bubble we'd created at the baseball diamond. No worries, no stress, other than class..."
"Yeah."
She went quiet for a moment. "Well, in any case, Charlie will be glad to see me. You too, I'm sure."
I scoffed.
"He will," she insisted. "Because you make me do this-"
She propped herself up on my torso, her hair falling over those fantastic tits of hers as she did.
Then she smiled. It was bright, happy; the most ridiculous thing I'd ever fucking seen.
So I laughed.
The smile grew wider. Genuine. Transforming into one that made me need to touch her, roll her over so that my body covered hers to channel this soul-shattering feeling inside me elsewhere. I did that to her, made her feel that way, as impossible as it seemed.
Goddamn, I loved that smile.
Because it was mine.