Disclaimer: I only own this story.
Chapter Thirty
"Thinking about the times I know I should have taken photographs, something to rely on, sharper than a memory." – 'Vibrations in Air' Josh Pyke
I'm determined after Edward goes on tour not to be the mopey girl left behind.
One week. Seven days. Well, eight and a half, but who's counting. That's how long I give myself to pout and cry, to watch The Notebook and Atonement on repeat, to cling to the thread-bare t-shirt I'd smuggled from his luggage. After that I drag my ass out of bed and force myself into a routine again.
At first it's not easy, trying to find routine when my most of my days leading to the tour revolved around Edward. But after a week or so I find a rhythm, find ways to keep myself busy.
Almost as if it senses the shift, the autumn weather rolls in bringing bright sunny days with an unexpected crispness in the air. The sunlight hours are dwindling, and before long the rain sets in, casting the sky in a constant grey-blue. The mornings are cooler, and the nights close in faster—Summer is over and it's almost as if Clearwater mourns the loss of the boys as I do. But the icy wind and steady rain feels welcomed, like a balm for my sun-scorched insides, a cleansing reprieve for the half-soul that sits waiting for the sun to warm it again, for him to return and make us whole again.
Today the steady sound of rain pitter-patters against the windows and roof, while the sky is morose and dark outside my lounge room window. My hair is still damp from a morning in the frigid surf, the ends curling limply around my shoulders and smelling of sea-water and fresh air – a smell I never seem to either get rid of or tire of. Alice and I sit on the floor of our living room, while Rosie is draped across on the sofa behind us. There are university course guides and programs spread out over the carpet beside a half-eaten bag of fun-size Mars Bars and a little stack of 'Tracks' and 'Surfing Life' magazines. Emmett's face practically leaps from one of their covers, his cheeky grin and bright blue eyes losing none of their dazzling effect even in print. Ranked in the top five, he's been a presence in more than one of the magazines, his no nonsense attitude and Aussie larrikin vibe making him a clear favourite. There are a few smaller pictures of Edward inside; a couple from the Bells Beach Pro, and some from the Gold Coast, but nothing major, and nothing really worth saving since I have better ones. Still, we devour every last article and photo, every sports report and five-second glimpse of them on the news. We take everything we can get but it's still never enough.
"What about psychology?" says Rose. "Vic Uni has a good course you could do part-time."
With her legs dangling over the back of the couch, her head hangs over the edge of the sofa cushion, a VU course guide in her hands, her hair tumbling onto the floor beside me.
I shrug, not particularly interested in analysing people's crazy when I can barely decipher my own.
"I think you have to do your Masters to do anything good with Psychology," says Alice, flipping through the TV channels. "Which makes it four years of studying, plus interning or whatever. You'd be thirty before you could even think about earning decent money again."
She whispers the word thirty like it's a bad word.
"What about journalism? I could write stuff."
Rosie agrees, searching the couch for something. "Melbourne Uni has a good journalism course apparently."
"You'll need a portfolio." In response to my silence, Alice turns, her green eyes flickering between me and the TV. "A collection of writing to show them before you can be accepted."
Something I neither have, nor have the ability to put together.
"Ugh, this is stupid," I groan, my fists slamming against the carpet in frustration. There's so much to look at, so many courses, pathways, options—I don't even know where to begin. "Just forget about it. It's not like working at Mint-"
"No!" interrupts Alice, tossing the remote onto the couch where Rosie retrieves it and continues to flick channels. "You need to stop being so scared to start your life, Bella. Pick something. If you don't like it you can change. It's not that big of a deal!"
For a girl who looks like she weighs about thirty kilos, Alice sure knows how to drive a point home.
"Show me what else you're looking at" she urges, sliding across the carpet until her hip is flush with mine. She peers over the top of the book, reading. "An Arts Degree?"
I shrug, nodding slightly too.
Her eyes flick side to side as she skims the course outline, and after a moment she smiles. "I like it."
She then launches into the pros and cons of starting an arts degree, convincing me more and more with each minute that she's going to make a killer lawyer. Of course, even after her rousing speech, I can't help but be unsure about it all. Maybe she's right, maybe I am scared.
"Isn't an arts degree what you do when you don't know what you want to do?" says Rosie, absentmindedly as she watches TV.
Alice rolls her eyes slightly, but pushes on. "That's why it's perfect! Look-" She points to the book, tapping the paper. "You can major in creative writing and then pick a bunch of other stuff that interests you. Cultural studies, political science; you should totally do this."
"I guess."
Edward. Work. Money. My future. Edward. A million things tumble through my head at the prospect of going back to school. Am I too old? I don't think I even remember how to study, let alone sit exams or assignments. Will I have to cut back at work? How much is this course going to cost me?
"And, you can stay with me in the city when I go back to school! Plus, there's like three months holidays over the summer, so you and Edward can spend the whole time together!"
Gnawing at the inside of my cheek, my nerves start to kick up a notch. "But what if I'm no good at it? What if I fail?"
Alice nudges my side with hers. "What if you don't? And what's more, what if you love it?"
Sighing, I pick up a handful of Rosie's hair, playing with her saltwater-curled hair as it tumbles over the sofa between Alice and me.
"I need to think about it a bit more."
I really wish Edward wasn't halfway around the world. Times like this I'd really like his advice, or just to know what he thinks of the whole idea. In fact, at the moment, I'd just settle for a hug.
Staring at the booklet in my hand, I realise that Alice is right – I'm so busy worrying about the future that time is passing me by and I'm still no further along than I was six months ago. Has it all been a waste of time? Am I where I'm supposed to be at this point in my life? As hard as I try though, I can't bring myself to regret a single thing I've done. Not moving to Clearwater, not spending an entire summer bumming around the beach with new friends, and certainly not meeting Edward.
Alice is right, now isn't the time for fear. If watching Edward follow his dream has taught me anything at all, it's that you have to do things that are scary sometimes.
Rosie turns to me, and I can feel her blue eyes boring into the side of my face. After a moment, she speaks quietly. "You okay?"
Forcing a smile, I nod.
Clucking her tongue, she tugs her hair out of my fingers and turns onto her stomach, her face resting on my shoulder. "Talk to me."
Moving the focus to the carpet beneath my legs, I scratch my short nails through the worn pile, shrugging. "Do you ever think about going on tour with Emmett?"
Her brow furrows and when I turn to look at her she's looking at me with eyes that are so like Jasper's sometimes that I forget who I'm talking to. "Sometimes. More this year than ever before. You?"
"I don't know. Maybe. How do you keep doing it? Saying goodbye all the time?"
Rosie sighs sadly, resting her head on my shoulder gently, her cheek pressed to mine. "We're getting pretty good at saying goodbye, I guess." She breathes a quiet chuckle. "God that sounds sad."
I wrap my arms around my knees as I bring them to my chest. "But I don't want to be sad all the time. It's tiring and-" I press the heel of my hand to the ever present empty ache in my chest "-it hurts."
Her long, golden brown arms around me, Rosalie's scent of vanilla and coconut envelops me as she holds me tightly. "I know."
Sometimes I think that's all you need; someone to understand, to empathise with the way you're feeling. Knowing she's hurting the same hurt has this profound effect on our relationship that makes me feel like maybe I can get through this with her by my side. Sighing, I hug her back, incredibly thankful to have her in my life.
The two of us talk quietly, still pressed together, while Alice fills out an application form for me, her brows pulled together in concentration as she writes. When an iPhone trills somewhere in the house, its source hidden in either mine or Rosie's bedroom, both she and I scramble up off the floor, almost tripping over Alice in our attempt to stand. Rose bolts down the hallway, bouncing of the wall like a pinball as she runs to catch the call. But I reach my room first. Flashing at me from my desktop is my phone.
Breath held in my lungs, I pick it up.
"It's mine," I yell, exhaling. "It's just my dad."
I hear a soft thump as Rosie throws herself onto her bed in dismay.
"Hi, Dad."
"G'day, love. How are you?"
His low, throaty voice washes over me, and a sense of familiarity and calm settles into my bones like only he can bring. "I'm okay. How are you?"
He answers with the obligatory, "Fine", and continues on. Life on the farm is the same as it always is; something which I think my dad likes - that sense of routine and normality that would send me through the roof. Cradling the phone between my shoulder and my ear, I pick my bikini top up off the floor and toss it into the corner where my washing sits.
"So how's Edward? You spoken to him lately?"
And there it is again; that little tightening in my throat, the physical reminder of his absence. Swallowing around the lump, I bend to pick up another dirty item of clothing and send it sailing across the room. "He's great. I spoke to him yesterday. He and Emmett are doing really well. Emmett came second in Bali, which is really good. Edward reckons he'll sweep Teahupoo—"
"Te-what-poo?" chuckles Dad. He thinks he's so funny.
"Te-a-hupo, Dad. It's a beach in Tahiti. It's where the next leg of the competition is."
"Tea-hippo-poo, huh? Doesn't sound like a nice beach to me."
I can hear his smile from the other side of the phone; imagine his eyes sparkling with concealed laughter.
"You're such a dag."
This makes him laugh, his bass-filled chuckle reverberating through the phone.
"So is Edward catching any gnarly waves?"
My arm hovers mid-air, a patent leather heel in my hand. "Gnarly?"
"I've been Googling. Your mum taught me how to Google."
It's my turn to smile. "Wonders will never cease."
The idea of my Dad sitting behind a computer is absurd. He'd be a one-finger-typer, scanning the keyboard looking for the 'G' key, then the 'N'. It must have driven my mum batty.
"Yeah, Dad, he's catching some pretty gnarly waves."
Listening to Dad and his Googling exploits, I turn the shoe over in my hand, rubbing my fingers over the glossy black surface.
"Well, I better put your mum on. She's called you, you know. You should try calling her back."
Guilt rushes over me, and I drop the heel to the carpeted floor with a thud, plopping down onto the edge of my bed. "Yeah, I know."
Dad murmurs his agreement quietly before saying goodbye and handing the phone to my mum.
"Hey, sweetie!"
If she's upset that I haven't called, she doesn't let it show, and the warmth of her voice soothes the ache in my chest, makes the swollen feeling in my throat abate, even if just for a moment. The reprieve from the longing is welcomed, and I lie back on my bed, phone at my ear, listening to the familiar cadence of my mum's voice.
"How are you and Rosie doing without the boys around?"
I shrug, knowing she can't see it, as I pick at a loose thread on my doona cover. "I'm doing okay. I talk to him almost every day, and he sounds really happy."
My mum's answer is a beat of silence followed by a quiet, mh-hm. "I didn't ask how he was. I asked how you were."
"Yeah, I said I'm fine."
She sighs, and I imagine her brows creased with worry. "You're too much like your dad sometimes. You know it's okay to say that you're sad."
"I'm fine, Mum. Don't worry, okay?" It's a little snippy and completely forced, but her worry just makes me feel silly. I can deal with this.
"Okay, I was just asking. Calm down. Did you get those pamphlets I sent you? They were with your phone bill. Did you pay your phone bill?"
"Yeah, I paid it last week. I haven't really looked at the course guides yet."
I'm a terrible liar. I just want to make sure that this is really what I want to do before I go any further.
"Okay, well, I just thought maybe you could find something that interests you. Did you look at Vic Uni?"
A rush of noise; thongs on the tiles, laughter, Alice's giggle, tells me that Jasper is home and that the boys are with him.
"I gotta go, Mum. I'll call you next week some time."
She answers me with a sarcastic uh-huh. "Just make sure you call your nan. It's her birthday next week."
"Yeah, okay. Love you."
"Love you too. Give Edward our best when you talk to him."
Tossing my phone to the side, I sit up on the side of the bed, toeing the black heel that lies at my feet. I can't even remember the last time I wore heels, let alone that pair of neck-breakers.
Two minutes later my bedroom door flies open, banging against the wall. "Oi."
Riley stands in my doorway, a ripped singlet falling off his tanned shoulders, a pair of well-worn boardies on his hips.
"Oi yourself. You should knock," I tease. "I could have been naked."
He laughs, scratching a hand through his shaggy, chin-length hair. "I can come back if you're going to be naked."
I toss the shoe at him, which he dodges, laughing. "Nah, just kidding. Mase would rip me a new one if I copped an eyeful of you naked."
"Hey, Bella, you want a drink?" yells Jasper from the kitchen, his voice followed by the clinking of bottles and the telltale hiss of an opening beer.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I look around my messy room, and at the pile of washing I was about to start. There are definitely things I could be doing that are more important that spending time with my friends.
Riley moves tentatively into my room, looking equal parts scared of being in a girl's room, and of feeling the wrath of a certain best friend.
"Come on," he says, offering me a hand.
I check the time on my phone; six-thirty here means it's only just four-thirty in the morning where Edward is. Riley grins down at me from beneath a mess of shaggy hair and beard, wiggling his fingers at me.
"Yeah, alright."
"What's with your hair?" I tease, brushing a hand across Jasper's head as I slip into the chair beside him.
Swiping my hand away, he rubs a hand over it, smoothing it back into place. "I'm growing it out."
I snort. "Why? You look like a zebra."
"I dunno," he says, looking very interested in the label on the neck of his beer bottle. "Alice said I should."
A mouthful of beer almost chokes me. "So, what? You'll be blonde? Cos of a girl?"
He nods, rolling his eyes.
I try my hardest to imagine him with blonde hair like Rosie's. For as long as I've known him it's been dark, and combined with the ink and his piercings he's definitely got a "look" going on. The idea of a blonde haired, blue eyed, poster-boy look-alike just doesn't sit right. "How long has it been since you were blonde?"
Jasper takes a swig of his drink. "Fucking ages. I'm just going to shave it so it doesn't look so stupid. It looks stupid doesn't it?"
He sighs when I answer with a nod, looking really kind of put out at the fact that his beloved hair will get the chop, and I wonder why he agreed to it in the first place.
"You love her."
His head whips sideways and blue eyes meet mine. "You're drunk."
I hold up a half-empty bottle. "I've had three beers. You love her."
Jasper screws up his nose, looking away as he takes a drink.
He might act flippant, but I can see right through him; especially when he can't take his eyes off of the short, dark-haired babe that's just walked out the back door. Good for him though. To go from the kind of guy your girlfriends tell you is bad news, to this loved-up guy who's cutting his much beloved hair just because a girl told him to, is shocking and romantic all at once.
When the boys and Alice decide to move on to the pub, Rosie and I bow out, left instead with a kitchen full of empty beer bottles and pizza boxes. It's after one-thirty by the time I get to bed, stripping down to my undies and singlet top before I slip under the sheets. With Rosalie sneaking into my bed of late, I've taken to sleeping in clothes again. Edward would not approve.
I cradle the phone against the side of my head, smiling when he picks up on the first ring.
"Hey, you."
"Hey." I settle on top of my sheets in the dark, my feet hanging off my bed.
"What are you doing up? What time is it there?"
No matter where he is, Edward just can't seem to grasp the time zone thing. I glance over at my radio clock. "Almost two in the morning."
"You work tonight?"
"Nah, Jasper had the boys over. We had a drink." My foot taps a beat as my eyes start to droop closed, the dark of my bedroom and the soft sheets beneath me pulling me into a sleepy state.
"Yeah?" He sounds kind of sad.
"It was alright. It's not the same though."
His voice is quiet. "Yeah, same."
I take a deep breath in, letting it out slowly. The touch of alcohol in my system has made me drowsy and a little fuzzy inside. "I miss you."
"Yeah, I miss you heaps."
It's quiet where he is, which isn't normal. Normally he'll call me from a car somewhere, or a beach, or an airport. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Sitting around waiting for Emmett to finish some photo thing for O'Neill."
O'Neill are one of the boys' biggest surf sponsors, and it's part of their contract to do two photo shoots a year for their wetsuits and swim gear. I guess Edward lucked out since he hates that stuff.
"Are you in bed?" he asks, sighing.
I make a humming noise in the affirmative.
"I think I've been dreaming about you lately," he says out of the blue, and my eyes open slowly, as I think about what he's said.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I keep waking up with a massive boner."
A rush of heat pools in the pit of my stomach, but I chuckle quietly anyway. "Oh. So, what ... does it just go away?"
"Sometimes."
We're both silent as the tension between us thickens, the air in my room suddenly increasing a few degrees.
"Do you ... do you think about me?"
I can hear him swallow through the phone, his breath ragged. "Every time."
The heat between my legs builds until it's more of a throbbing. His voice is soft and deep, and for a moment I can feel his words against my ear, his warm breath, the tickle of his to lip against the shell of my ear. The thought sends a pulse of desire through me so deep and hard that my thighs tighten and I can feel the damp material between my legs against the soft skin of my inner leg.
"Do you think about me?" he asks.
"Yes."
"What do you think about?"
My hand slips under the material of my singlet top, and my breath falters as my cool fingertips meet my stomach, moving quickly to the underside of my breast. The touch of my fingertips against my skin makes the words that follow shaky and laboured. "I think about the first time you were here."
"Yeah?" He's silent for a moment, long enough for my fingers to drift up over the small swell of my breast to my nipple. "Tell me."
I exhale a shaky breath, closing my eyes. "I was so nervous."
"You were nervous? Fuck, I thought I was blow the minute you took your clothes off."
We both laugh quietly, but the lightness of his confession does nothing to quell the ache between my legs, the heat that's spreading through my thighs and the pit of my stomach.
I can't believe I'm doing this.
Lifting my head, I make sure my door is closed, and flop back to the bed, my hand back under my shirt, the pads of my fingertips trailing burning paths over my nipple.
"You were so fucking good, Edward. I'd never—the way you kissed me, the way you..." I steel my nerves, "—fucked me."
The ragged breath that answers my words is like a flame to my already overheating insides. My body is torn between its need for release, and the want that sits hot and heavy in my stomach as I wish more than anything that it was his hands not my own. But as my hand moves down my stomach and beneath my underwear, I figure I might as well do this.
"Do you remember?" I ask, imagining him on his back atop a hotel bed, his hand down his pants, his eyes shut tight.
"I remember everything, Bella."
With my legs propped up on the edge of my bed, I can almost feel his hot breath between them, feel his hair tickle my inner thighs.
"Can you remember-" I swallow my fear of embarrassment as my fingers brush against my heat softly, "-what I taste like?"
Edward's answering groan is almost pained. "You tasted like the best fucking thing ever," he breathes. "I miss it. I miss your hands and your mouth and your ... fuck. Hang on."
My hand stills between my legs, my thighs trembling, my fingers slick.
"You there?" he says a moment later.
"Yeah."
"I gotta go."
The elastic of my undies snaps against my hip as I snatch my hand out. "Are you fucking serious?"
He groans. "I really wish I wasn't."
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, trying to swallow around the heartbeat in my throat. "You owe me."
He chuckles. "I think I owe you more than one when I get home. Just think about me walking around with a hard on all day while you're asleep."
I laugh shakily. "That's not helping."
"I'll make it up to you. I promise."
"You better."
"I gotta go," he says with a sigh. "Love you."
"Love you too."
Thank you as always to Shell and Tiff for the beta they did on this a thousand years ago, and to Ink for prereading. I've made quite a few changes so any and all mistakes are mine.
Thank you also to anyone left reading. RL has been crazy, big things that I won't bore you with.
xx Wink