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February 7, 2013 – Word Prompt: Prize. Audio-visual Challenge – Musical Mastery: "Hall of Fame" by the Script feat. will. .
. . .
I get through the first two pages of my own book before I feel ridiculous and pretentious and oddly exposed, considering I'm reading it in an empty living room. Returning the paperback to its home on Charlie's shelf, I glance around the space once again before I hear the muted sound of my phone ringing from inside my purse. Seeing Alice's number, I flip it open.
"Hey," she says before I can even answer. "I have two hours to kill before I have to go with Esme to the florist, so I'm picking you up and we're going for coffee."
"I'm actually just about to run to the grocery store, Al."
"Bella, you want to meet me for coffee." Something in her tone puts me on edge, sends me back about six years to the last time she had something important to tell me.
"Of course I do," I say as diplomatically as possible. "But Charlie's cupboards rival Old Mother Hubbard's."
"I thought you were a novelist, not a poet." Her words are light, but the thread of gravity isn't entirely gone.
"Rain check?"
I hear her sigh, and I know the volume was on purpose. "Bella, I'd like to hang out before the party."
"The party's in two days."
"My point exactly. You know how the Cullens get with their events; God knows what tomorrow's going to look like."
I laugh, even as her familiarity with "the Cullens" makes something twist in my chest. Once upon a time, she didn't care for them, resented my friendship with Edward and, later, my love for him that too often encroached on the amount of time Alice and I had to spend together. That she wound up falling in love with Jasper while they were attending the same college is something that I would have found funny if it didn't hurt for some reason I've never cared to explore. That she's evidently the surrogate daughter running florist-type errands with Esme makes me the resentful one.
. . .
I see my entry pinned to the board with a collage of other entries: other short stories, photographs, poems, artwork in an array of colorful media. Adhered to the corner of my white page of typed words is a blue ribbon.
"Oh, my God." I'm stunned.
"I told you!" Edward is gleeful.
"Oh, my God."
"I'm so proud."
"Oh, my God."
"Okay, you just won an award for creative writing. Think you can use that considerable vocabulary to find some new words?"
"Oh, my God."
"Bella." Edward's hands are gentle around my biceps. "Bella, congratulations." I look up into his familiar green eyes.
"Oh, my God." A whisper, this time, and his smile softens.
"You're going to be bigger than Hemingway. Bigger than Dickens. The whole world is going to know your name, and I'll be able to say I knew you when you couldn't even spell 'write.'"
"To be fair, I was six, and your status as a second-grader gave you an undeniable advantage when it came to Hangman."
He concedes the point with a shrug before glancing at the small crowd of people standing between us and the board, inspecting the entries. "How rude would it be of me to shove through all of these people and snatch it off the wall?"
"You can't. It stays here in the gallery as part of the exhibit until the end of February."
"I'll put it back."
"Then why do you want to take it down?"
He gives me an odd look. "I want to read it." Immediately, I feel raw and exposed. Writing those words was one thing when they were being sent to a scholarship contest board of judges who were all strangers. To have the subject of the piece reading it in my presence makes me feel as if I'm at the pinnacle of the first hill on a roller coaster in that one moment of weightlessness before the downward plunge.
"I, um…" I shake my head, glancing at the blue ribbon. I know he's going to read it, going to get this free pass to look right inside my heart, but I don't know if I can handle it happening right now, in this moment, when I'm already stunned and off-kilter. "Can you read it later?" I stare at the ribbon again. I've never won anything before, and to win something because I wrote about Edward seems strangely fitting, as if I had the prize before I ever entered the contest.
"Yeah." He gives me a small smirk. "Why, is it about me?" His teasing tone tells me that he expects a negative answer; my actual answer makes his eyebrows jump.
"Edward, even when it's not about you, you're still in everything I write."
It's the first time he kisses me in front of our parents.
. . .