The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25 dot com

Prompt: 16

Pen Name: Glitterb1234

Pairing/Character(s): Bella+Edward

Rating: T

Word Count: 415

Photo prompts can be found here:

thetwilight25 dot com/round-eight/prompts

She's staring at it again.

She can stand for hours, just looking at that map.

Memorising all the countries, all their capital cities.

Tracing her finger along the green lines she's drawn all over it.

Imagining following the lines in real life, visiting all the places she's only read about.

She wants to get out of here, get away, and I desperately want to give her that. But we just don't have the money right now.

That's something you hear a lot on our house these days.

When we got married, we were fresh out of college. We'd dated since high school, and would have tied the knot sooner if we hadn't known our parents would disown us both. We thought we were going to be different; we weren't going to get stuck like so many people in Forks, too settled to leave, without the drive to go anywhere further afield than Seattle. And yet, three years later, we're still here, still waiting to have the funds and the time and the opportunity to travel.

We love our home – we have no problem living here for now – and we've built a great life for ourselves, but I know Bella wants more. Honestly, I'd go anywhere she asked me to; she's my life, and I make sure she knows it.

We will go someday. I'm determined. We're both stubborn as mules, and once we want something we usually get it. One of the first things we learned as husband and wife was how to compromise with each other. On this though, we're in perfect agreement. But until we can afford it...

I cross the room so I'm standing behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and laying my head on her shoulder. She's jumps a little – she obviously didn't hear me come in – then relaxes and lays her hands on my arms.

"Where are we off to today?" I murmur in her ear.

She debates for a moment; out of the corner of my eye I see her purse her lips and frown in concentration.

"Mozambique." she decides. "We haven't been to Africa in a while."

I grin. "No we haven't. Let's go."

And so, we dream. We play pretend. We make tents out of the sheets like we're little kids, and have the most exotic dinner we can extract from the limited contents of our fridge. We laugh and talk and imagine all that we'll see.

And for now, it's enough.