February 23, 2013 – Word Prompt: Inch.

. . .

The song shifts to another slow one, and Edward doesn't release me from the band of his arms, doesn't step back. Instead, he inches closer, eyes watching carefully for my acquiescence. I give him a small nod, and he exhales, as if in relief.

"Can I say it now?"

"Say what?" I ask, wondering if he's come up with anything besides "I'm sorry." He frowns, and I have my answer. We turn in silent circles for a few verses before I sigh into the tiny span of space between us. "Edward, here's the thing: in the grand scheme of things, if you look at it on paper, what happened between us wasn't all that dramatic. It was what it was, you were just a teenage boy and I was just a teenage girl, and our story probably isn't even all that original. And it took me a while to realize that it wasn't about what you did. It was about what that did to me." I take a deep breath and conjure up the words that have been swirling around inside me like a maelstrom since the first night I saw him in the bar and he unleashed a torrent of memory. The flood of thoughts and realizations that have come to me in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by memories and unanswered questions. "It was about the fact that you were the person I trusted more than anyone else. I trusted you implicitly, completely, with every part of me even if you didn't have all the parts of me you wanted." I can see he wants to protest that, but I keep speaking before he can interject. "When you broke my trust in you, you also broke my trust in myself. And that took a really long time for me to understand; for the longest time I just felt utterly destroyed, and I didn't understand how high school heartbreak could hurt so badly. You were the first boy I ever loved, and I thought that if that was what love felt like when it ended, I never wanted to put myself through it again. I didn't realize that the reason it hurt so badly was because it was more than that. It made me question everything about myself, too, and that was really hard to do with a broken heart. I didn't just lose you…I kind of lost me, too. And over the years, I've been really pissed at you for doing that to me. And I'm really pissed at myself for letting you do that to me."

For the first time, he drops his gaze, and the tips of his ears are pink with shame. I feel a nearly-forgotten sensation rise in my belly like dough: I want to comfort him. I haven't felt that desire in so many years, and it's the first moment I feel like coming here was actually a good thing, that I'm finally actually making peace with the lingering heartache I've been carrying around, grasping like a hot coal to my own detriment.

"Edward, what happened between us cost me a lot, but not all of that is your fault. A lot of it is because of how I reacted to what happened. But until recently I haven't been able to separate your actions when you were eighteen from everything that I went through and felt afterward." I blow out a breath. "I'm working on that now. I should have worked on it before now, but…" I trail off and shrug. "I've been putting it off, apparently."

"I wish I could find words to tell you how beyond sorry I am," he says, and while I no longer know all of his looks, his expressions, I can see the complete truth in his eyes. "You're the word girl, so maybe you can help me with that. I know it doesn't help, but I want you to know that I spent a lot of time afterward questioning myself, too." He swallows. "The difference is, I never questioned you." He shakes his head. "I can't imagine how much it would hurt to think you were a stranger I'd never really known; I'm so sorry I made you feel that way about me."

I sigh, feeling something inside me loosen slightly at his words, at his validation of things I spent years feeling. "Thank you for that."

He nods, and a new sadness darkens his features. "I wish I could have been there – I wish I could have split myself in two and been the friend you needed when your jerk of a boyfriend broke your heart. I think I missed being your friend almost as much as I missed loving you." He swallows, and I battle the bubble of tears that wants to crest at his words. Because in this moment, as much as I loved my boyfriend, I realize how much I've missed my friend. "Bella, I know it might take time, but I really would like it if we could be friends. I've really missed you. I'd like to be able to…be in touch."

I turn this over as he turns us in a slow circle. "I think I do need some time. I know it sounds silly because it's already been years, but I do. I thought I was healing all this time, but it turns out that I wasn't. I was just pretending it didn't hurt and expecting it to fix itself. I thought time and distance were healers, but I was wrong."

"I can understand that," he says quietly.

"But I'd like it if we could get there someday, too. You have so much of my past. It's so wrapped up in us, and I feel like I've spent the past few years trying to erase that part of my life because it was too painful to think about. But I don't want that. I don't want a gaping, black hole in my back story. I just…I want to be able to remember all of the wonderful moments and not have every single one of them be painful because of the way everything ended."

He's silent for a long time, and the song changes again. This one is slightly faster, but he still doesn't release me. Finally, he heaves a sigh. "Alice and Jasper are going to get engaged."

I'm momentarily surprised, but I realize I shouldn't be: Jasper is his brother. Of course he knows. "I know," I say finally. "Alice told me."

"I'm going to be his best man." Off my surprised look, his eyes move to somewhere over my shoulder. "I…couldn't be Emmett's. We agreed years ago, before any of us even had serious girlfriends, that we'd all be best man once – I'd be Emmett's, Emmett would be Jasper's, and Jasper would be mine. But the minute he told me he was going to propose to Rosalie, I told him that I couldn't be his best man." He shakes his head. "I felt badly about that. I felt like I was letting him down but I just…I couldn't. He was angry. Said that whole thing with Rose was ancient history, and I'd better make my peace with it because she was going to be part of our family, and he was right. The problem was, it didn't feel like ancient history because I still felt so ashamed of it. I've felt ashamed of it every day, and I feel even more ashamed of it because of how it affected the people I love. Emmett, Jasper, Alice, my parents…you." It takes me a beat to realize that he's included my name on a list of people he loves. Loves. Not loved. "I think maybe I could move past it, for Emmett, but I can't do that knowing that it's still hurting you."

"I'm working on that," I say. Then, off the hopeful look in his eyes, I clarify. "Not for you. For me."

He nods once, and I feel small movements against my lower spine that tell me he's folded his fingers together at the small of my back. We turn in a slow circle, and neither of us says another word. For the first time in years, I have nothing left to say.

. . .

On the night of the Forks High School graduation ceremony, I curl up in my bed and try to read, but the only thing in my brain is the realization that Edward's high school career is over, and that in less than three months, he'll be gone. Really gone, not just gone in the abstract sense that keeps me from holding his hand and kissing him and smiling at him across the lunch table. Gone, as in nowhere to be found in my little corner of the world.

It's been a little while since I cried into my pillow, but silent tears slide from my eyes and across my temples before soaking into the purple cotton, and I let myself give in once more to the grief that has morphed from a sharp, all-consuming pain to a dull, constant ache. At some point in my pity party I drift off, and am later awoken by the sound of my name being bellowed from outside my open bedroom window. I know the owner before I make it to the other side of the room, and when I see Edward standing in a pool of moonlight, something warm and familiar spreads through my chest before the cold, harsh truth squashes it.

"What do you want?" I hiss, wondering what time it is, wondering if Charlie's home, wondering what he's doing standing outside my window like a boy I used to know.

"Bellllaaaaaaa," he drawls, and an ugly suspicion uncurls in my stomach.

"Wait there."

I slide flip-flops on my feet and creep down the stairs, skipping the second one from the top that creaks as I register that the house is dark. Once outside, I realize the evening is cool despite the fact that it's late June, and I wish for a brief moment that I'd thrown a sweatshirt over my tank top. Then I see Edward standing in the grass to my left, swaying slightly, and my suspicion is confirmed.

"You're drunk," I say flatly as I descend the stairs, and the smile that he bestows upon me once I'm standing in front of him is so unguarded, so familiar it hurts. "Go home, Edward," I say, and as I turn to go back inside I see the kitchen window illuminate. The front door opens and Charlie's face appears.

"What's going on out here?"

"Chief!" My father's eyes slide to Edward and narrow as his cop instincts kick in.

"Edward, what are you doing in my yard at two o'clock in the morning?"

"I wanted to talk to Bella," Edward says before he looks at me again. "Beauuuuutiful Bella."

Instincts confirmed, Charlie sighs. "Son, have you been drinking?"

Edward licks his lips and attempts to school his features into something more serious; the effort is so obvious that I would likely have laughed if I weren't trying so desperately not to cry. "Yes, sir." Well, at least he's honest. To my dad, anyway.

Charlie nods. "Do your parents know where you are?"

"No, sir."

My dad sighs again. "Wait here. Don't you leave, hear me?"

"Yes, sir." Charlie vanishes inside, and I turn to face Edward again. He's gazing down at me, and for a moment I'm glad he's drunk because the alcohol has apparently relieved him of his new tendency to look at me like I'm a wounded bird every time he sees me. Right now he's looking at me like he used to before he ever kissed me, affectionate and open and utterly without intention.

"Bella," he says softly, and just when I think that maybe I'll be able to retain at least a glimpse of memory of the boy I knew, his eyes leave my face and dart to my chest, where the chill of the evening air has pebbled my skin and made my nipples visible beneath the thin cotton of my tank. I see his throat bob as he swallows, and I cross my arms over my chest.

"What do you want?"

"I want to tell you I love you, even though you hate me." His words are a gut-shot, and I tighten my hold on myself as I hear the front door open once again behind me.

"Stop it, Edward. You're drunk."

"Yep," he says. "But I still love you, even though I'm drunk."

"From what I hear, you do lots of stupid things when you're drunk."

I'm equal parts glad and sad when my words erase the familiar smile from his face. "Yeah," is all he says, and his lack of response fans the flames of my anger.

"How could you?" I spit, and it's the first time I've had the spine to ask him. When it happened, we were "technically" broken up. "Technically" he could sleep with whomever he wanted. "How could you sleep with her?"

He's still swaying slightly, but his dilated pupils don't leave my face. "I don't know," he says after a moment.

"I hate you," I whisper, and I can no longer stop the tears from slipping down my face as twin headlamp beams split the darkness and a purring engine pulls into the driveway.

Pain steals across his face and he reaches out to pull me to his chest. A part of me wants to let him, yearns for the familiar comfort of his embrace, but I can't, and I pull back. "Bella," he pleads, trying forcibly to pull me in again, and I shove him back before slapping him across the face.

"I hate you!" I say, louder this time, and his hands fall to his sides. "I'll never forgive you." He says nothing. "How could you do that to me? How could you?" I'm sobbing now, and it feels good to do it in front of him, for once. "I hate you," I say again, and I can see he believes me even though I'm not sure if it's the deepest truth I have or the blackest lie.

He tries once more to reach for me, but I shove him in the chest again before warm hands curl around my biceps from behind me, and I spot Esme hurrying across the grass to Edward, her white cotton bathrobe glowing in the harsh glare of her car's headlights. "I hate you," I say once more for good measure, but I don't know if my words were discernible amid the sobs wracking my body. The tears in his eyes are the only indication Edward heard me, and he lets his mother guide him toward the car.

"I'm so sorry, Charlie," I hear her murmur to my father, who pulls me into his arms. This time, I go willingly.

"I'm sorry, too," he says, and the words are a hollow echo where my ear is pressed against the t-shirt covering his chest. Years later, I would wonder why Charlie let me stand on the front grass as Esme guided her son to the passenger seat, rounded the car, climbed in, and reversed down the driveway before driving off, taillights glowing red in the night. At the time, I thought he was processing, and maybe giving me a chance to compose myself. Now, even more years later, I think he wanted that drunk boy to see the damage he'd done.

. . .