Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

by TheFicChick

"It's the first time I realize that for all of the significance boy-Edward holds in my past, man-Edward is a stranger to me. The thought is at once liberating and heartbreaking, and I don't know what to do with it: how do you forgive someone who no longer exists? How do you hold a man accountable for a boy's carelessness?"

2. Dreary

February 2, 2013 – Word Prompt: Dreary

. . .

When I wake up in my childhood bedroom with a hangover of epic proportions, I'm momentarily confused because I remember leaving the bar last night and driving myself home. Then I remember helping myself to a bottle of Glenfidditch from Charlie's rarely-opened liquor cabinet, and the pair of woodpeckers that have evidently taken up residence at my temples makes more sense. My one-woman booze-fest is even more comprehensible when I recall coming face-to-face with Edward Cullen.

Bastard.

I hear something solid hit the pane of my bedroom window, and my heart flips in my chest. When it happens again, then twice in rapid succession, I glance outside to see gray skies and water-dotted windowpanes. It takes me a minute to realize that the "something solid" wasn't an acorn launched by a teenage boy with a pretty decent pitching arm, but a pebble of sleet. Kicking off the covers, I take a moment to be grateful for the dreary weather. Sunshine would not only make me even more irritable, it would certainly compound my headache. Glancing around, I groan and roll over, smashing my face into the purple pillowcase that I spent countless nights soaking with tears the last time Edward Cullen was in my life.

Fucker.

Another ping against a windowpane, and this time I bury my head beneath the pillow; it drowns out the sound, but the memories burrow beneath it with me.

. . .

I push my locker door shut and jump when Edward's smiling face comes into view where the open door had been moments earlier. "Hey."

"Hi," I reply, hugging the books for my first class to my chest.

"You know where you're going?"

I hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder. "Sort of."

"What do you have first?"

"Biology."

"With Banner?"

"Yeah."

He nods. "He's decent. I had him last year. Room 203?"

I glance at the schedule sandwiched between my binder and my lamentably still-pretty-flat chest. "Yeah."

He nods. "I'll walk you."

"Don't you have class?"

"It's in the same wing. Come on." He pulls me away from the row of lockers by the shoulder of my shirt, and I fall into step beside him. "I looked for you on the bus this morning," he says, nodding hello to a couple of guys leaning against lockers near the end of the hall.

"Yeah, my dad dropped me on his way to the station."

He nods. "Are you busing it home?"

"Yeah."

Another nod, and we fall into easy silence. I feel surprisingly comforted by his presence at my side; I missed him last year, the hallways and buses of Forks Middle School seeming less friendly without this boy I've known since before I could walk. As if he's read my mind, he grins down at me. "High school suits you already."

I roll my eyes. "Thanks, Grandpa."

He chuckles. "Here's Banner's room." He draws to a halt. "What's your next class?"

I make a face. "Phys Ed."

"Just go back the way we came and make a left. Gym's at the end of the hall."

"Thanks, Edward." He nods and heads back the way we came. "Hey, where are you going?"

He turns but doesn't stop, simply walking backward; the students behind him part like a sea. "My class is upstairs."

"I thought you said I was on the way!"

He shrugs, grins, and turns. I step into the first class of my high school career feeling the slightest bit taller than I had when I stepped through the front doors of the building a mere ten minutes ago.

. . .