AN: OMG, I am so sorry this has taken so ridiculously long to post. Work was insane the last few weeks, and then this just got longer and longer and longer . . .but well, you get the point.
I also failed at review replies, but then I thought you might appreciate an 8,000 word chapter instead of a 200 word teaser :)
This chapter Bella starts working on her blog again, and part of this chapter includes her second post that she writes, which is based on Taylor Swift's song, "The Best Day." Playlist is updated with the song. I really recommend you listen to it, it's a lovely song and will help you "get" the post that Bella writes better.
Thanks to my pinch-hitter beta, Izzzyysprinkles, who rocks my world.
Chapter 30: The Double Standard
Bella
When Rosalie's publicist and her entourage descended like a storm into Esme's house, I hid. It wasn't my proudest moment, but I still hadn't come to terms with the fact that my mother's fondest wish had finally happened—I was the lead story not only on the gossip blogs, but on People and Us Weekly. I should have known that becoming involved with someone as famous as Edward meant the inevitable publicity, but I still wasn't ready for it when it hit.
So I hid from the army of stylists and hairdressers and makeup artists and photographers—and from Renee, who I was sure was right in the thick of things, giving her own, unwanted, opinion of everything from the style of Rose's hair to the lighting in the room. Because God forbid, if there was photographer within a mile of her, Renee couldn't resist the opportunity to show off.
We hadn't really spoken yet, which was definitely on purpose, though Esme kept sending me these slightly reproachful looks, as if she could guilt me into talking to my mother. And if Renee, who had emotional blackmail running through her veins, couldn't guilt me into it, then I was completely immune.
Edward had gone to the studio again, and today was the first day I hadn't accompanied him. Truthfully, as much as I liked sitting in the producer's booth, watching him through the glass partition, it had begun to feel as if I was intruding. Besides, Victoria was driving me to distraction, and I hadn't been able to get much done on any of my new blog entries when she kept asking me pestering questions about my relationship with Edward.
I'd told her that we were professional acquaintances, but her curiosity hadn't seemed satisfied by this answer—she wouldn't even have to be that much smarter than I thought she was to see right through this flimsy explanation. I knew that despite Edward's general terror of a "relationship," we didn't look like just friends.
He might have missed it (and since this was Edward, it was quite likely), but we'd grown into a couple. We'd been on dates—not necessarily traditional dates, but dates nonetheless. We'd even had sex in the backseat of a car. Technically it was a limo, but I'd decided that the spirit of the rule was what counted.
It was hard not to get my hopes regarding Edward up when he'd been so sweet. There had only been a handful of hiccups over the last few days that had even come close to setting us back, though I had a feeling that this was the calm before the storm.
And once the pictures hit the internet, I knew it was the calm before the storm.
I hadn't been able to resist seeing myself plastered all over the blogs, so I'd logged into the computer that Esme had graciously offered to lend me and browsed through the sites. I discovered a few things during my intrepid exploration:
Rosalie and her publicity team weren't exaggerating the damage to her public persona. There were some truly nasty things being said about her in conjunction with Edward and Emmett. My heart ached for her, but I knew that things could only improve from here. Breaking ties with Edward had been the healthiest thing she'd done in years.
Though Rose seemed to be the main target for the venomous gossip, I wasn't exactly immune from their poison. They'd called me everything from a starfucker to a groupie to a opportunistic, heartless whore. A few had even unearthed my identity and I felt sick as I flipped through some particularly cruel comparisons to Renee in her heyday. I'd known that she'd plowed through men the same way that farmers did a field, but I hadn't wanted to see the nasty evidence laid bare in front of me.
The consensus seemed to be that I was the new Rosalie Hale—though more than a few blogs had apparently decided that I was an upgrade. One had even proclaimed me a "classier, more tasteful" version of Rose. I hoped as I clicked to the next link that Rose didn't end up reading that particular article. She resented me enough as it was.
Edward, of course, was lauded as a combination of Hercules and Don fucking Juan. I'd always been aware of the double standard between men and women, but I was disgusted by the extent of the leniency shown to him while Rose and I were judged without mercy. Even Emmett was applauded universally for snatching an A-list celebrity like Rose.
Finally, I shut the browser down and opening a blank word document and pulled out the legal pad I'd been using to jot down ideas for future blog entries. I wished that I could lay the inspiration for the re-envisioning of my blog at my own door, but I couldn't credit anyone but Edward. His music had always had a strangely influential effect on me, but this felt different-as if I was a piece of molding clay and he'd been permanently imprinted into me, until I couldn't deny the enormous impact that he'd made on me and on my writing.
The genesis for my new blog had actually been our first real conversation—when, during one of those horrible days with the Red Hands, he had asked me which songs I would use as a soundtrack for this particular scene of my life. The concept hadn't struck me initially, but after we'd escaped to safety, it hung with me, haunting my thoughts during the day, and my dreams at night. Then when Edward had asked me to go with him to the studio, claiming I needed to find my connection to the music, I'd suddenly understood what it was that I needed to do.
For the entirety of my blog's existence, I'd maintained a fanatically rigid distance from the material I wrote about. I'd fooled myself into thinking that if I could keep my feelings and emotions and deepest, darkest desires locked away, hidden behind a wall of my objective indifference, then nobody could see them.
Ultimately, it had worked, but it had also been as boring as fuck.
What I needed to do was tear the wall down brick by brick until I was able to bear my soul and reveal exactly what music played there. It wasn't going to be easy—there was, after all, a reason I'd kept it all locked away, but I knew that not only would I be better for it, the blog would be, too.
The first post I'd written had poured out of me in a steady stream of painful recollection and damp sweaty hands. It was nearly word for word a transcript of the conversation that Edward and I had had about Nine Inch Nails, and how their music had affected my life. I wrote about my father's death and about the hopelessness of ever seeing the light again.
It hurt like hell, as if I was literally jabbing my pen into my flesh and letting the horror and the blood spill out of me like ink, but afterwards I'd felt surprisingly better. Better enough to seduce Edward in the limo, even.
The second entry I had decided to tackle was Bat for Lashes' song, "Daniel." I'd felt an unusually strong personal association with the song almost from the beginning, but it now doubled as an emotional road map of how I'd come to feel about Edward. Of course, I couldn't say who the post was about, but the name wasn't what was important; instead I'd decided to focus on the little details that comprised the music and the lyrics and my nearly visceral reaction to them.
But before I could start the entry, there was a knock on the door, and I called out, "Come in," only to see Esme's face appear in the doorway.
"Oh, you don't need to knock," I mumbled, blushing. "This is your office, Esme. I'm just borrowing it."
"It's alright, dear," Esme said, shutting the door behind her with a click. "Edward told Carlisle how important it was that you had access to a computer to work on your blog. I don't mind sharing mine, especially considering that I almost never use it."
I didn't miss the bitter edge Esme's voice took when she mentioned that it had been Carlisle that Edward had issued the request to—even though it was Esme's house and Esme's office that I would be using. I knew Edward still hadn't spoken to her, but I didn't know that things were this bad between them. I didn't know that he couldn't even ask for a simple favor.
"I don't mean to bother you," Esme continued, "but what you said to Rosalie at breakfast . . .I confess, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it."
"I'm sorry if you thought I was rude to her," I said in a rush, afraid that she was upset by what I'd told Rosalie.
"No, no. She needed to hear that." Esme paused, and looked up at me with beseeching eyes. "I needed to hear that."
"He still hasn't talked to you," I stated wryly. "I'm sorry. I thought he would have by now . . ."
"I'm not surprised," Esme said matter-of-factly, taking the seat across the desk from me. "He hates me. He's hated me for years."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she stopped me before I could. "No, he does. And don't tell me that you feel differently about Renee. I know you do. You haven't exchanged one civil word with her since you returned."
"My history with Renee is . . .complicated," I confessed, trying to find a word that could possibly describe the previous fifteen years of deliberate misunderstandings, misery and guilt.
"As is mine with Edward," Esme sighed. "I haven't been the mother he needed, just the way that Renee hasn't been the mother you needed. Did you know that when Carlisle, Emmett and Marcus went up to Canada to rescue you, they found the house empty? For an hour or two, Renee and I believed the worst had befallen you two. It was a time I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Like you, I've had my own difficulties with Renee in the past, but there's no denying it-she was truly devastated by the possibility that you could be hurt or even killed."
I would have denied it if I could, but Esme's word was law. If she said that Renee had been upset by the idea, then she had been, yet before this moment, I never would have thought so. When Charlie had been killed, Renee had been forced to return to Manchester and collect the physical representation of the past she'd been trying to escape since she'd tired of it. I'd always felt like an obligation, a burden, an annoyance that Renee had never wanted and couldn't understand.
"I'm sure it was a difficult time," I phrased carefully, my voice neutral. "I'm sorry that you had to experience that."
"No, you're not," Esme contradicted with a wry smile. "You think we—at least Renee—deserved it. And you're probably right. We did. But you, and Edward too, for that matter, need to decide when you're going to stop punishing us for all our failings as mothers."
I wanted to tell her that there was no end to the punishment; that there was no amount of retribution that either I or Edward could inflict that would make up for the pain that our mothers had caused us, but with Esme looking at me with eyes rimmed in bruised shadows, I found that I couldn't destroy her hope completely. Maybe Edward would eventually be able to forgive and forget.
I just wasn't sure that I ever could—and not just for myself, but for Charlie. She'd treated him like a disease-like a tumor she couldn't wait to rid herself of.
"Bella," Esme said again, the sad edge of her voice telling me that she understood every bit of my hesitation, "I know how you feel. I know how Edward feels. I just wish that maybe he would . . .try. That's all I ask. Rosalie was right when she said that it might go over better if it comes from you. We all . . .well. . .we all see the change in him since he's met you."
I was surprised that a woman as intelligent and intuitive as Esme could honestly believe that Edward's "changes" were due to me.
"It isn't me," I said flatly. "Edward changing—if he's really changed and this isn't some weird version of PTSD—doesn't have anything to do with me." I wanted to believe that she was right, but I knew better. He was still the same guy, underneath it all, just a trifle less caustic and not quite as self-destructive.
"I don't understand," Esme said, sounding flustered. "He's different."
"Edward had a life changing experience. He got the answers that he's been searching for his whole life. To him, he's been defined almost entirely by who his father was, and what little he knew about him. He found out a lot of things that changed the perceptions he'd built up in his mind."
"Tell me. Please, tell me more about what happened. Edward won't," Esme begged, abandoning any pretense of pride. I believed, in a way that I'd never believed about Renee, that Esme did love her son, and for the first time, I felt sorry for her.
"I can't," I said softly, wanting to tell her, but knowing that Edward would never forgive me for breaking his confidence—especially to Esme. "I'm sorry, but it's not my story to tell."
"I know," Esme sighed, rising to her feet and walking to the door. "Bella, I do understand. And not only about Edward and his secrets, but about Renee. A mother is supposed to be the one person who understands and loves her child above all else—what children don't understand, and I don't think they necessarily should, is that sometimes that love takes different forms. I made terrible decisions because I loved my child too much." She paused, her hand on the doorknob. "Promise me you'll try to talk to Renee. She misses you and it hurts her that you're under the same roof as her, yet you avoid her. And your story is yours to tell. You should share it with her."
I considered telling Esme that what I shared or didn't share with Renee was none of her business—also that she herself had admitted that Renee was a difficult person to talk to—but in the end, I couldn't. So I just nodded, surprising even myself that I'd agreed to try.
But just before Esme turned to leave, I said, "You should corner Edward. He really wants to talk, he's just scared." She turned back, a look of shock on her face, and I was sure she could see a similar one on mine. I couldn't believe I'd just said that, but she only gave me a tiny smile and closed the door behind her without saying a word.
After Esme had left, I looked back down at the blank computer screen, thoughts of the conversation I'd just had echoing through my mind.
And instead of writing about "Daniel," like I'd intended to, I started a completely different entry.
Entry #2: The Best Day
I hate Taylor Swift.
Not because she's a bright-eyed nineteen-years-old, is oozing bright, sparkly talent from her teeny tiny pores, or is ridiculously successful at what she loves to do. I don't even hate her for her twee, country-pop songs. In fact, I rather like a few of them.
I hate Taylor Swift because of one song: "The Best Day."
"The Best Day" reminds me with every sickeningly, saccharine sweet word, every lovingly-strummed chord that girls like Taylor have everything—including an adoring family that she can sing about in a completely non-ironic way.
Taylor opens up the song talking about a pumpkin patch she and her mother visited when she was five years old. When I was five, I was living with my dad year-round in Manchester. He was a full-time detective at Scotland Yard and there wasn't any time for him to take me on excursions. He didn't like it, but his job was his life, and I didn't have a mother at home to take care of me. Where was she?
My mother was off screwing a succession of high-end fashion photographers to further her modeling career-not driving me to a pumpkin patch so that I could have a lovely, autumnal memory a la Taylor Swift.
Taylor then segues into a description of when she was twelve and her mother distracted her for an afternoon of window shopping after she'd become a target for some mean girls at school.
I was 12 when my father was killed when he interrupted a robbery. Renee forcibly removed me from Manchester and everything I knew, and plopped me down in her big empty house in Beverly Hills. By this time, she'd married my stepfather, Dr. Phil, a rather famous plastic surgeon, and she didn't have any time to be a mother. If I had a bad day at school—if I was made fun of because of my thick, north England accent, then too fucking bad. She didn't have the time or the inclination to wipe away the tears. She definitely didn't have time to take me window shopping to help me forget that everyone at my new school hated me.
Taylor sings, "Daddy's smart and you're the prettiest lady in the whole wide world." My daddy was smart—until he stepped in front of a bullet. Renee is still one of the prettiest ladies in the world wide world, but it doesn't make her a mother. It just makes her pretty.
The first time I heard this song, I envied Taylor for her memories, for her happy childhood, for her complete and supportive family.
But most of all, I envied her for being able to write the following and mean it:
I knew you were on my side, even when I was wrong.
And I love you for giving me your eyes, for staying back and watching me shine.
From the moment she collected me from Manchester, Renee didn't care what I wanted. She only wanted a daughter she could remake in her own image. And guess what? I'm not beautiful like her—certainly not beautiful enough to be a model—but that didn't stop her from trying, even when it was the very last thing that I wanted to be.
She wasn't supportive when I told her I wanted to be a writer. She derided me when I choose to go to college, instead of staying in Beverly Hills and New York and attending a frantic round of parties and galas and shopping.
Renee was never on my side, even when I was right, and especially not when I was wrong.
She didn't give me her eyes, and she's never let me forget it. She didn't stay back and she never let me shine—at least never the way I wanted to.
The concept of "the best day" makes me hate Miss Swift because I've never, not one single damn time, had a "best day" with my mother. Sometimes she'll fly to Boston, and those visits are generally comprised of lunches of inedible salads and conversations full of reprimands and reproaches and demands that I do something else with my life.
So maybe I don't really hate Taylor Swift; maybe I simply envy her with a bone-deep, exhausted resentment. Someone asked me today if I could ever forgive Renee for the pain she's inflicted on me—if I could ever forget long enough to stop punishing her for her behavior.
I can't. Not when girls like Taylor are out there, detailing every single ounce of motherly love that I never received.
Edward
I was honestly fucking relieved that I had the airtight excuse of going to the studio to avoid the legion of stylists and hairdressers that Clearwater had no doubt dragged in to fix Rose. I didn't want anything to do with the article, or with this stupid pseudo-engagement that Rose had decided could save her reputation.
I knew Emmett would go along with it, because he loved her, and that apparently meant you'd do whatever pussy thing that your woman wanted you to—but I also knew he'd fucking hate it. If I was a good friend I would have stayed back to help him through the ordeal of the interview and the stupid fake engagement photos, but we all knew what kind of a friend I was. So instead, I'd escaped.
I'd seen Bella's hesitation when I'd asked her to go with me to the studio again, and though I couldn't help but be a little sore that she didn't want to be with me as much I wanted to be with her, I knew her blog was important to her. I'd even made sure that she could use Esme's computer while I was out, though I hadn't gone as far as speaking to Esme to do it. The one benefit of Carlisle being involved with my mother was that I no longer had to even talk to her—he was able, though not exactly willing, to relay messages.
Carlisle had come with me to the studio this time, and though he ostensibly said it was because he wanted to hear the new music me and the boys—Athair, I reminded myself, we were Athair now—were working on, I knew he'd heard enough worrisome noise about Victoria that he wanted to check her out for himself.
When I slid back in the limo after another productive day, he was waiting for me, his head tipped back on the leather seat, his eyes closed.
"Did you get it?" I asked brusquely, toying with my cell phone, wishing like a fucking moron that Bella would text me and tell me how her day had been. I'd missed her reassuring presence today, though it had been freeing to not worry about her and Victoria.
"I got it," Carlisle rolled his eyes. "You really believe in going all out, don't you?"
"I don't know what you mean." I played dumb and stared out the window as we drove out of the city.
"You know exactly what I fucking mean," Carlisle said, a tinge of annoyance in his voice now. "Why the fuck are you pretending that she doesn't mean more than all the other girls put together?"
"You don't see me going out and fucking anyone else, do you?" I demanded, still refusing to look at him. It was stupid and silly, but I was afraid that if I did, he'd see straight to my core, right to the place that was irrevocably changed, not only by the Red Hands, but by Bella herself. It was too sensitive and new and fresh and I was afraid if anyone saw it, it wouldn't be the same anymore.
"It's more than that," Carlisle said so reasonably that I wanted to smash his face in. I hated him for bringing this up and even more, I hated that he was right. "She means something to you."
"She's smart," I tried explaining, but it was so much more than that. Bella was intelligent and strong, sexy and sweet. I tried to pretend that I didn't, but I liked her so god damned much it was terrifying.
And then it hit me. I could finally admit it. I liked her.
I glanced down to make sure that I wasn't growing tits. Nope. Not yet, anyway. It was still early. I'd have to keep a close eye on my chest to make sure they didn't start sprouting.
"That she is," Carlisle agreed. "I have to tell you, Esme's thrilled that you've finally met a girl that you don't seem to want to destroy."
"I didn't destroy Rose," I snapped. "She fucking destroyed herself."
"I suppose that's true, if you believe the argument that you were a human cyclone and she never tried to run away."
"Who cares what anyone believes," I said, annoyed that we were talking about Rosalie. As much as I tried to bury it, I couldn't deny that a vague ribbon of guilt streaked through me every time I saw her or talked to her or she told Bella that she needed to save herself before I destroyed her too.
"You should apologize to her. If you're sorry."
"That sounds like one of your loaded statements," I said. "Like you want me to argue and say, 'oh yes, Great Carlisle, you're so right. I feel like fucking shit for having crapped on Rose for so long.'"
"Do you?"
"You sound like a fucking shrink. Stop it or I'll have the driver throw you out."
"If I go, so does Bella's present. And I know you care about it—and her—because you asked me for it specifically. You almost never ask me for anything. Except for booze and women, though that hasn't happened in awhile."
"Maybe I should make you procure me a bottle of Jack and a hot blonde tonight. You're probably getting out of practice."
"You have a hot brunette in your bed. Why would you need a blonde?" I turned my head, and caught the ghost of a smile on Carlisle's face.
"Good point," I muttered. "And she'd chop my balls off I brought a blonde to bed."
"Which we all admire her for," Carlisle said.
"You seem to like Bella an awful lot," I said, testing him. "Do you think I should tell Esme about your sudden partiality for brunettes?"
Carlisle laughed then and I couldn't help but smile too. "And you think Bella's a ball-buster. I wouldn't like to imagine what Esme would do to me."
"Esme? She'd kill you," I predicted sarcastically.
"You should talk to her, you know."
"Bella?" I asked in a bored voice.
"No. Your mother."
"Not interested," I said coldly, turning back to the window, sick of Carlisle's constant harping. I didn't feel the least bit prepared to talk to Esme. I had no idea what to say to her, yet I couldn't keep my mind from thinking of the dozens of questions that I was secretly dying to ask her.
Questions about the Red Hands, about Niall, about Jane. About my father and his death.
"Alright," Carlisle said casually, though I knew better than to actually believe it was okay I didn't talk to Esme.
"You aren't fooling me. I know you're desperate to force me to talk to her. What did she do?" I asked with a sneer. "Kick you out of her bed until you brought me to her throne, ready to be sacrificed on her altar?"
"No," Carlisle said in a soft voice. "I just know she loves you and this attitude of yours is hurting her. Imagine if Bella was hurting; wouldn't you want to stop whatever it was that was causing it?"
"It's not the same," I insisted without really answering the question. I knew the answer, but Carlisle didn't have to. I'd already experienced what it felt like, and I knew I'd do just about anything to keep Bella safe.
"Right," he answered, sounding completely unconvinced.
"I have a headache," I snapped. "I need quiet."
"Fine," Carlisle murmured, turning to his own window.
We were silent the rest of the way home. Finally, the limo pulled into Esme's drive, and I had my door open almost before it came to a stop.
"Wait," Carlisle said, climbing out of the car, and walking around to where I paused on the front steps. "You forgot this." He handed me what I'd asked him to pick up for Bella.
"Oh. Right," I said self-consciously, weirdly uncomfortable about this gift, when I'd been totally fine with the booze and the groupies he'd always brought me in the past.
"It was a thoughtful choice," Carlisle began to say, but I didn't want to hear it. If he spouted off any more horse shit about how Bella had neutered me, I wasn't going to be able to give it to her at all.
"Thanks," I snapped, climbing the rest of the steps to the house. I entered the quiet, dark house, and was glad to see that it appeared that Clearwater's brigade had vacated the premises before I returned home.
I walked through the shadowed foyer and into the back the house, reaching the stairs that led up to the bedrooms on the second floor.
"Edward," Esme said in a low, steady voice behind me. I turned and saw her sitting in a chair in the hallway, her legs curled up beneath her. Her hair was mussed and her makeup smudged, and it looked as if she'd been waiting for awhile.
A sense of apprehension flooded me. She'd been waiting for me. I didn't feel ready for this; instead I felt cowardly and terrified, like a little boy who'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was now awaiting some terrible form of punishment.
"I have to go . . ." I started to say, but she cut me off.
"No," she said steadily, looking at me straight in the eye, "you don't. You're going to talk to me. We're going to talk to each other."
"I don't have anything to say to you," I said defensively, but just like Bella, Esme looked straight through me and saw the reality—which was that I had too much to say. Too much to ask. Too much swirling around inside me. I wanted to turn back time to when I'd felt dead and empty and hollow, because it had been so much easier existing that way.
"Let me be the judge of that," Esme begged, and I wavered, physically and emotionally, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, torn between the past and the future.
I could only take so much indecision before I broke. "Fine," I grumbled, picking up Bella's gift, walking past Esme towards the kitchen. "I could use something to eat anyway."
I knew she was following me by the footsteps on the hardwood floor, but she didn't say anything, which surprised me. Hadn't she just ambushed me so she could talk my fucking ear off?
"I believe there's some leftover pasta," she finally said quietly, as I yanked the refrigerator door open.
I pulled the plastic container out and turned to grab a bowl only to have Esme hold one out wordlessly. "You wouldn't have known where to find it," she murmured.
"True," I admitted. "But it's not like you spend all that much time in the kitchen either."
She shrugged as I stuck the bowl in the microwave and punched a few numbers. "I made a lucky guess."
As the pasta rotated in the microwave, silence fell between us, and I wondered again why Esme had waited up for me if she wasn't going to actually talk to me.
"I spoke to Bella today," Esme said.
Of all the things I'd expected Esme to bring up, this hadn't even been on my radar, though it made sense upon further reflection. After all, Carlisle had brought Bella up too, as if she was the only reason I'd changed.
"She's a lovely girl," Esme continued, as I took the hot bowl of pasta from the microwave. "I can see why you like her." Normally, I would have argued with this, but since I'd finally been able to admit to myself that I liked her, I kept eating.
"Edward," Esme sighed, "are you even going to look at me? Say one word to me?"
Her quiet plea was apparently just enough to snap my determination never to let her know just how much I'd been affected by the kidnapping. I slammed my fork onto the marble counter and looked up at her, my lips curled in a sneer. "Yes," I snapped at her, "I am, actually. Why the fuck didn't you tell me about them? About Niall? About Jane? Why did you let me think he died a hero?"
Esme paled, but once the lid was off, I couldn't stop the words that spilled from me. "If you had just been fucking honest, everything would have been different. None of this would have ever happened." I slammed my fist on the counter, punctuating the gut-wrenching point that our inability to communicate as mother and son had led to this whole clusterfuck in the first place.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her hands gripping the edge of the counter, the knuckles white with the force she was using to hold herself up—or hold herself together, I wasn't sure which.
"It's a little late for sorry," I snarled.
"Maybe," she said, and I was surprised to see the determination in her eyes as she stared me down, "but that doesn't mean I'm not going to tell you anyway."
"Good," I said, feeling like all the wind had been blown out of my sails—the fire of my anger fading.
"Sit down," Esme said, and for the first time in years—maybe the first time ever—she actually sounded like a mother.
Like my mother.
And I realized, as I pulled out a bar stool and did as she'd said, what my life might have been like if she'd been a real mom to me. If I'd had limits, if she'd said no, if she'd stuck to what she knew she needed to do. If she'd made the right choices.
If I'd made the right choices.
"You have to understand I never wanted to hide your father's world from you. I wanted to hide you from your father's world. I didn't want you to mix or to touch it, because by the time Eoghan was killed, I knew the Red Hands would only chew you up and spit you out. And I couldn't bear to lose another person I loved to them. Eoghan was bad enough."
"So you know that they killed him?" It felt better somehow to say it out loud; even though doing so made it real-there was a cathartic truth there.
Esme took a deep breath, her grip on the counter tightening even further, until I was certain the marble would simply crumble under her fingers. "Yes. I mean I didn't know for sure, but the circumstances . . .and well. . .Niall was never," Esme paused, as if she was collecting herself for what had to be said. "He never had the strongest grip on reality."
I thought this was a massive understatement, but decided this probably wasn't the most appropriate time to go for the cheap laugh so I stayed silent and let her finish. "It took a long time, but Eoghan finally realized that you and I would never be safe, not in the life that he was leading, so he made decisions to leave, to move away. He told Niall, and Niall convinced him to go on one final mission. I think I knew that he wouldn't come back—knew that after that, you and I would be on our own. So I came home, came back to the kind of protection my family offered, because Niall had power and he wasn't ever afraid to use it."
There were a million questions, a million thoughts, a million fucking emotions flooding me, but one stood out, above all the rest. "Why?" I asked, my voice raw and demanding. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me this before? Why did you let me go and on and on for years about how my father was a fucking hero? Why did you let me start Athair and sing about the fucking Irish cause?"
Esme just shrugged, her expression helpless. "I couldn't bear you knowing the truth. Sometimes, I guess we love our children too much to subject them to hard, bitter reality. That your uncle killed your father wasn't something that I thought you should ever have to know. It was better that you believed it was all very patriotic and sane and normal. That it was something to be respected and admired. Not the dirty, desperate, grim business it was."
"But you couldn't stand it," I countered, understanding finally beginning to break through the confused muddle of my mind. "You hated it so much you removed yourself from it completely. You told me to fucking change my last name so you wouldn't be associated with me singing about it."
Esme looked away, and I thought I saw tears in her eyes before she could turn her head away. "He wasn't technically my husband," she said softly, "but he was my husband. He was your father. You shouldn't have had to know what he did, or what was done to him. But I couldn't . . . I couldn't bear it. I should have been stronger for you, but I wasn't. Instead, I was weak."
I stood frozen, watching my mother cry over her dead husband and my dead father. I knew there was something I should be doing, some sort of comfort I should be giving, but I didn't know what. Carlisle would know, Emmett would know, Jasper would definitely know. Instead, I just stood there awkwardly, staring down at the bowl of half-eaten pasta and wishing I wasn't so hopelessly fucked up.
"Esme," I stammered out, not entirely sure what to say after I got her name out. "I . . .I . . .I'm sorry."
She didn't turn back towards me, but I saw her hands loosen their grip on the edge of the counter.
"I wish I could say something else," I said in a rush, "but God, I don't even know what to say. I . . .I wouldn't have done what I did. I wouldn't have . . .I don't know, been me I guess."
"You're not that bad," Esme said with a watery laugh, as her hands finally released and she surreptitiously wiped her eyes, but I wasn't sure what the point of that was, because when she glanced up, they were definitely red and damp.
"Oh, I am," I reassured her bleakly. "Or at least I was. I don't even know what the fuck I am anymore."
"You're not doing half bad figuring it out," Esme said, giving me a wavering, watery smile. And I knew Carlisle would be getting out of the dog house tonight. As for me, I didn't even feel bad about this. I couldn't remember the last conversation Esme and I had that hadn't ended with me feeling angry, frustrated and sick with guilt. It was fucking amazing what a little honesty could do.
"I'm trying," I said, and for the first time I felt like I actually meant it. I was trying. There wasn't any point in denying it anymore. The person I could have been—the person I guessed I might still be able to be—had been revealed to me in little flashes ever since Emmett had kidnapped me and Bella, and I didn't even feel embarrassed about trying to find that person in myself anymore. It felt weirdly good, as if I was stripping away years and layers of destructive, poisonous shit.
Esme wiped her eyes again, but this time it felt different, as if these weren't tears over Eoghan or over their failed life together, but maybe she was happy that we'd finally talked. "Finish eating and go see Bella," Esme ordered with another small smile. "I bet she's waiting up for you."
I picked up the fork and shoved some more leftovers into my mouth, chewing fast. Suddenly, I couldn't wait to see Bella and give her what I'd had Carlisle buy for her. I wanted to see her face when she saw the box. I wanted to see the smile on her face. And, I thought with a smirk, I wanted to see what she'd give me in return.
Finishing the pasta, I set the bowl and fork in the sink, and awkwardly turned to Esme, sure she'd want a hug or something equally strange. We hadn't touched in years. But she just waved me away with a shaky smile. "I know, I know," she said, "things haven't changed that much. You still can't stand me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's fine. It's progress. I know it's not going to be overnight."
"I don't hate you," I told her. "But yeah, progress. It's good. Night." I picked up Bella's gift and was almost out of the kitchen before Esme stopped me.
"Goodnight, Edward. And tell Bella . . . thank you. I wouldn't have done this if she hadn't encouraged me. She's a very special girl, but then you already know that," Esme said and I paused in the doorway, frozen with the implications of what she was saying.
Bella was the one who had told her to force me to talk? Something unsettling pumped into my stomach, roiling the pasta I'd just eaten until I felt almost nauseous. I didn't think it was possible that Bella had done what Esme said—after all, she avoided Renee every single day, and, as far as I knew, had refused to even be in the same room as her mother since we'd gotten back.
I could have asked Esme, but even though we had made progress, I still didn't trust her. She'd spent my entire life lying to me about my father. Who knew if she was even trustworthy at all?
I took the stairs three at a time and burst into Bella's room to find her lying in bed, wearing a pair of my boxer shorts and an old Rolling Stones t-shirt that she'd probably found in my closet. Normally this sight would have had me firing on all cylinders, but I was too preoccupied with Esme's revelation to even feel the slightest bit of arousal at the sight of her in my clothes.
"Edward," Bella said in surprise, sitting up, switching off the TV she'd been watching with the remote in her hand. "Is everything okay? Are you okay? Did Victoria interfere again?"
I brushed her questions away with an impatient wave of my hand, anger and fury pumping through my blood like the most potent drug. "What the fuck were you doing, telling Esme to talk to me? It's not your fucking place."
Bella's face grew dark, confusion knotting her forehead. "What the fuck was I doing?" she repeated, mystification in her voice.
"You fucking told her to talk to me! You knew I didn't want to do that!" I yelled, the grip on my temper completely gone.
Bella sit up a little farther, and this time there was a steely undertone when she calmly told me to stop yelling, but I was too far gone to even notice what she said. All I felt was the cage, closing around me-a cage designed by her, bars and restraints and chains that I had accepted because she'd convinced me to. No fucking woman ran my life; I'd never permit that. Not in a million fucking years.
So I told her that.
"You can't fucking control me," I sneered. "You aren't my girlfriend."
Her face went blank, wiped of everything, almost childlike in its emptiness. And for the first time since I'd known I cared about her, way back when we'd been locked up together, I realized that the hurt in her eyes was my fault. It had never been my fault before now, and weirdly, though I'd used to get off on the way Rosie had groveled during our fights, this just made me feel sick. I'd become exactly the man that Rosalie had warned her I'd turn into, and I could see Bella mentally backing away, mentally leaving me, which was only one step away from physically leaving me.
Maybe it would be better that way, I told at myself, angry that I could be this fucking whipped by a girl.
"Maybe not," Bella said, her voice still eerily calm, "but I was trying to help you, because you sure can use it." I opened my mouth to interrupt her, to spew more venom, but she held her hand up, and the suddenly fierce look in her eyes told me she'd kill me first. "Yes, I interfered, I guess if that's what you call the genuine desire to improve someone's situation. You and Esme had a lot of dirty, fucked up laundry. You didn't just need to clear the air, you needed to fucking disinfect it. You won't believe me, but anyone in this house would have told her to do the same thing. But I knew she'd listen to me, because she knows we're close."
"Does this mean you want me to help with Renee?" I sneered, trying to salvage what was left of my anger, but her words had taken the bite out of my own. I still felt sick with guilt over that hurt look on her face.
"Renee and I are . . .different," Bella said softly, scooting off the bed and walking over to the desk. "Esme loves you; Renee only loves herself." She held out a piece of paper, full of writing, towards me. "Here, read this. Maybe you'll understand then."
I took it and sat down on the edge of the bed, and she watched as I read through what she'd written earlier that day.
The blog entry added another layer to what I knew about Bella—even to what I felt about Bella. I wanted to fucking kill Renee for hurting her, for putting her in the position where she had to write this. To share this kind of emotional trauma. Maybe I should let her walk away, because she definitely didn't any more shit in her life, but the selfish part of me was so fucking desperate to keep her, so I could maybe let some of her goodness seep into me.
I finished reading and glanced up at her. "I . . ." I wanted to apologize, but the words wouldn't come. It appeared that one apology per day was my limit. It was better than before—better than nothing, really—but I wanted Bella to understand, to know how badly I felt about what I'd said to her. She'd been right; she was only trying to help.
"I know," Bella said softly, "you're sorry."
"I fucked up," I said in a rush.
"You did."
"I'm going to fuck up a lot."
"Trust me, I know."
I held up the present, suddenly glad that I'd chosen today to bring this to her. I hadn't known that I'd need an "I'm sorry, I fucked up," gift, but I was lucky enough to have one on hand. "I got something for you today."
"For me?" Bella looked so surprised that I felt even guiltier. Did she not get that she was intrinsically different?
"This was . . .so good," I said, gesturing to the blog entry. "You need to write, to give the world your words. And I hope this can help you with that." I handed her the box, and watched her face light up as ripped open the stripped paper and uncovered the words on the box.
"A laptop? A MacBook Pro? Edward. . .I. . .I can't accept . . ."
"Yes you can," I interrupted, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to me. "You absolutely can. Besides, you need one for your blog."
She smiled up at me, eyes bright and happy, and I felt a little less like the world's biggest asshat. "Okay, you're right. I absolutely can."
"Good," I said softly, leaning down to kiss her. "Now," I paused, brushing my lips over hers, "the question is, what are you going to give me in return?"
Bella kissed me again, a short but sweet affair, then pulled away. "There you go," she told me. "Satisfied?"
"Actually no," I said, surprised that she hadn't taken the bait I'd tossed her. In fact, despite the the gratitude on her face, she still looked very serious.
"Too bad," Bella said briskly. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to set up my new computer."
"I'm confused," I finally admitted.
Bella looked up from opening the box. "Edward . . .no, I'm not mad at you, but I'm not happy with you either. You said some not very nice things not five minutes ago."
"I apologized," I defended, "and I gave you a gift!"
"Thank you for that," Bella said, "but that doesn't change anything. Presents don't always take the sting away. And your words stung."
Guilt and shame swamped me, and I wondered, not for the first time, if this was even something I could do. From Bella's expression, she was wondering the same thing.
Maybe some time apart-an evening apart-wouldn't be a bad thing.
"I'll leave you be, then," I said, only slightly humiliated at how gruff and hurt my voice sounded.
"Goodnight, Edward," Bella said reaching up as I stood, pulling my head down for one more kiss, but instead of the promise that I recognized, it tasted bitter, like she was really saying goodbye.
I gripped her hand, the thought suddenly too awful to contemplate. "Don't leave," I found myself begging her.
She looked surprised. "I'm not going anywhere," she said with a smile. "I'll see you in the morning."
"Okay," I told her self-conciously. "Night, Bella."