A/N: I've loved hearing everyone's thoughts on forgiveness; thank you for sharing them with me. I think it's one of the harder things in life; as much as we'd sometimes like to erase the bad things that have happened to us, they shape us. For better, for worse, but almost always for good.
. . .
February 9, 2013 – Word prompt: Mantel
. . .
It's funny how sometimes the absence of a thing can be nearly as conspicuous as its presence. In this particular case, it's the presence of the silver photo frame on Charlie's mantel and the absence of the photo that I remember it holding when he first bought it. I always hated the photo itself, simply because there's never actually been a photo of me that I really liked, but I secretly loved the photo for what it meant. It was the portrait-style picture that I ordered from the Homecoming dance Edward's senior year: a dapper boy in a dark tuxedo with his arms around the waist of a dark-haired girl in a glittering dress that looked like the ocean at night, the white rose on his lapel a perfect match to the one around her wrist. It was the first time I saw myself in his arms from the other side of the lens, and it was the first time I realized that, to the outside world, it actually looked like what it felt like on the inside: that I belonged to him.
As I note the photo that's in the frame now – a shot of me at my first book signing – and wonder idly what happened to the other one, I remember for the first time in years the anxiety I felt during that time in my life. The insecurity that grew from the knowledge that he'd be leaving me, starting a new life at college while I was stuck in Forks for another year. It never occurred to me back then to consider the possibility that I might lose him before he ever left.
. . .
His tuxedo jacket is draped over the back of my desk chair, white rose slightly wilted and hanging heavily from the lapel. My strappy heels are beside my bedroom door, his shiny dark shoes next to them, and his socked feet rub gently against my bare ones on top of my floral bedspread. His shirt collar is undone, and I don't know if the goose bumps on my skin are from the slight chill in the air or from the familiar yet exhilarating feel of his lips moving against mine.
His kisses taste sweet, a combination of him and the gum he was chewing in the car, and the steady stroking of his tongue against mine is making me giddy. My skin is alive with sensation, as if there is a fire burning beneath the surface, flames leaping up to meet the gentle brush of his fingertips against my cheek, my jaw, my neck. Suddenly his mouth is gone from mine, and I'm breathless as my eyes pop open to stare unseeingly at the ceiling. Then I feel his tongue and teeth pulling at my earlobe and my eyes fall closed again as I gasp, a new and foreign thrill rocketing through me.
"Edward," I pant.
"Bella," he moans, his mouth finding the skin of my neck as his hand moves to the back of my dress, dragging my zipper down slowly. Involuntarily I tense, and he pulls back to gaze down into my face. "It's okay," he murmurs, equally breathless. "I just want to touch your skin. I won't go anywhere."
"Okay," I say, and he gives me a soft smile before lowering his mouth to mine again, his palm tracing that same fire along the flesh of my bared back. I can't concentrate, my focus flying from the taste of his tongue and the press of his lips to the gentle rubbing of his thumb against my spine. I'm trembling and wanting and terrified by the sheer intensity of the foreign fire racing through my body. When I reach the point where I fear I will be engulfed, I pull away, gasping for breath. Edward's heaving breaths match mine, and I curl into his side as we come down together, my head on his chest. I revel in the reassuring intertwining of his fingers with mine, the gradually slowing thud of his heart beneath my ear.
. . .
Thanks for reading.
Please bear in mind that, as mentioned in chapter 1, this story is crafted around WitFit prompts. The thing about these prompts is that, as the writer, you don't know what the next day's will be, so you're writing blind. This is, in part, responsible for the pacing of this story. (I say "in part," because a gradual and steady build-up is sort of my style, anyway.) xo