Author Note: Wow, quite a response to the last chapter! Most of you are expecting something akin to a car crash.
Thanks again to moosals for pre-reading. Stephenie Meyer owns all characters.
Chapter 6 – What Happens Tomorrow
I'm awakened by the most obnoxious buzzing ever. Reaching my hand out blindly, I try to shut off the damn alarm clock, but I have no idea where the OFF button is. I sit up with a groan, grabbing the clock in my hands until I finally find the correct button in the dim light.
Yawning, I set the clock back on the table, then slowly turn toward Edward, certain that the ruckus must have woken him up. Sure enough, he's sitting up beside me in bed, scrubbing at his face with his hands.
And when he removes them, he gawks at me like he's never seen me before in his life.
"What the fuck?!" he yells, scrambling out of bed so fast he nearly falls flat on his face. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, still completely naked, as he glares at me. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"What do you mean, what am I doing here? Don't you remember?" I ask in confusion. "I helped you up the stairs after you had too much to drink and you asked me to stay. You kissed me."
Lifting his arms, he presses the heels of his hands into his temples and squeezes his eyes closed. I almost want to cry; doesn't he remember our night? Why does he seem so upset by the realization that we had sex? This is not at all how I expected this morning to go.
Keeping one eye on Edward, I slowly slide out of bed, picking up my clothes from where I'd left them on the floor and setting them on the spot I've just vacated. As I slide my legs into my jeans, Edward begins walking around the bed, stopping to pull on his boxers when he finds them.
"I don't know why you seem so upset. You're the one who seduced me."
"I thought you were my wife!" he screams, turning so I'm left staring at his naked back.
My stomach falls to my feet. He… he didn't realize it was me he was making love to? I flash back to last night, to the look in his eyes after he joined us together. What a fucking idiot I am to have not seen it then. Why would that look have been for me?
And why would he have looked like that at his ex-wife? Unless…
A shiver runs through me as I start to put the pieces together, but I need to be sure before I freak out. "Your wife… she's d-dead, isn't she," I state more than ask.
At his slight nod, I swallow thickly. Moving as if in a trance, I finish buttoning my jeans then shrug my shirt over my head. I'm opening my mouth to apologize when Edward speaks.
"Please tell me you're on birth control," he begs, turning around to face me. The desperate look on his face brings tears to my eyes.
"I'm on the pill," I assure him — though I'll need to take last night's when I get home — and he exhales heavily in… relief? My face burns in mortification.
"I know you regret it," I choke out. "But I'm sorry — I can't."
Not wanting him to see me cry, I rush out of the room. My tears are flowing freely by the time I've reached the bottom of the stairs. I hurriedly unlock the front door and step out onto the porch, breathing in the clean morning air.
Once I've let myself in my back door, I head upstairs to shower and get ready for work. As I stand under the hot water, I allow myself to cry it out for a few minutes, but then I have to rein it in so that my eyes aren't all red and puffy by the time I get to the school.
I thought, I honestly thought, that last night could've been the start of something great. The sex was so far beyond anything I've experienced before. But then, of course it was… he thought I was his beloved wife — his beloved late wife.
How stupid am I that it had never once occurred to me that Edward could be a widower? It makes so much more sense for him to have custody of his baby son if there's no mom in the picture! Something never felt right about the situation, and now I finally understand why. Should I have seen the truth sooner? Should I have known that last night wasn't about me at all? Especially since it was his anniversary!
"Get it together, Bella," I chant to myself as I shampoo my hair. I can't look like there's anything wrong when I get to school, unless I plan to avoid Angela and Jessica all day. If my eyes are red, they're going to ask questions that I'm not ready to answer.
As I step out of the shower, I wrap my wet hair in a towel, then begin drying off. I rub away the condensation on the mirror then stare into it. Not good. Not good at all.
Once I'm dressed, I head downstairs to start the coffee pot for my morning coffee. I look through the vegetable drawer in my fridge, sacrificing a cucumber to try and help the puffiness around my eyes. I must look a sight, sitting at the table with the slices over my eyes. I remove them just long enough to pour myself a cup, then go right back to it, drinking my coffee blind.
By the time my mug is empty, I've got a lot less time than I'd like to get to the school. I hurry upstairs, deciding to put on a little make-up to cover any residual effects, though I rarely wear make-up to school. It's not like a bunch of first graders would notice either way.
Once I'm as presentable as I'm going to get, I find a pair of shoes and dash outside to my car, hoping I can keep my mind far off of Edward until the final bell rings.
I see no sign of Edward when I get home on Monday night — or the rest of the week. I'd really like to talk to him, to apologize if nothing else, but I think if he'd wanted to talk to me at all, he would've shown up at my door.
I'm vegging out on the couch after work Thursday evening when my phone dings with a new text message.
Where are you?
Shit! It's Thursday, I'm supposed to meet Angela and Alice at the diner. I've done well at avoiding Angela all week — thank God each grade has their own lunch period — and I'm really not sure I'm ready to face my friends. On the other hand, I'm making myself crazy going over the same thoughts again and again. Maybe it would be nice to get another perspective.
I quickly text Alice back to let her know that I lost track of time and will be there in just a few minutes.
"There she is!" Angela calls with a wide grin as I slide into my spot at our usual booth.
"Sorry I'm late."
"We just ordered your drink a minute ago," Alice informs me. I look over the menu to avoid looking at them, and we place our orders when the waitress brings my drink.
"Spill," Angela orders as soon as she's stepped away. "I could tell there was something wrong from the moment you sat down."
I sigh, chewing on my lip for a moment. Might as well just rip off the Band-Aid. "Edward and I had sex." Two pairs of eyes widen almost comically.
"Then why do you look like someone died?" Alice asks, brow furrowed. "Oh my God, was he bad in bed? Or… tell me he's not three inches like that football player you almost slept with senior year."
"It wasn't at all bad," I reply, rolling my eyes at Alice for bringing up my previous most embarrassing moment. "It was… the best sex of my life."
"Then what's the problem?" Angela asks.
"The problem is… he thought he was making love to his dead wife," I state bluntly. This time their eyes do widen comically.
"Edward's a widower?" Alice questions, speaking slowly as she wraps her head around the idea. "You know that for sure?"
"I do," I nod. "I asked him, when he freaked out in the morning."
"OK, I think you need to start from the beginning," Angela suggests.
I sigh, nodding before diving in. "Edward didn't come over for dinner on Sunday, but then when I was putting the trash out, I saw him outside on his porch trying to drink his weight in beer. I sat with him for a little while, then helped him inside. He stripped out of his clothes while I was checking on Masen. I thought he was asleep, so I pulled the covers up, but he grabbed my wrist and asked me to stay.
"It was like a dream from that point. He kissed me and started taking my clothes off… yadda, yadda, yadda. You two don't need the gory details," I add to their best pouty faces. "He fell asleep afterward and I didn't feel right about just leaving, so I set his alarm and spent the night."
"And he freaked out in the morning?" Angela prompts.
"Yeah, he asked me what I was doing there and then he told me he had thought I was his wife." I run my hand though my hair. "He'd told me when we were outside that it was his anniversary. I feel like the biggest idiot for not realizing sooner that nothing that happened that night was about me. It had never occurred to me that his wife could be dead."
"None of us thought about that possibility," Angela says, and Alice nods in agreement. "It seems so obvious now — why he's got custody of their son. But… Edward can't be over 30. Women that age aren't supposed to die!"
"It might not happen often, but it's not like young women never die," Alice points out. "Still, it never occurred to me either. Do you know what she died of? I mean, it could be an accident, I suppose. Or maybe she died in childbirth; that still happens."
"No, I-I didn't stick around to ask questions. But based on something he once said, I think she died several months after Masen was born.
"I was just so shocked and so… I don't know, it was really great sex," I stress again. "Here I was, falling asleep to dreams of how this could be the start of something, and then I wake up to find out that in his head, he wasn't with me at all."
Alice grimaces. "Yeah, I think I'd get the heck out of Dodge too if that had happened to me."
"Have you talked to him since?" Angela asks.
"No," I shake my head. "I haven't seen him. Maybe… maybe he'll still come over for dinner on Sunday. It's not like I really know what to say to him beyond 'I'm sorry'."
"Why should you apologize?" Alice asks. "If anything, he owes you an apology for treating you like that."
"He was drunk," I remind her. "I'm the one who should've noticed that something was off. It's not like he'd ever expressed any attraction for me before. And then to suddenly want me on what he'd told me would've been their sixth anniversary?" I shake my head. "I had this brief thought about his motivations right at the beginning. Like, what if his wife had cheated on him and he was trying to stick it to her or something by having sex with me on their anniversary. I almost wish that's what it would've been."
"Still, he shouldn't have freaked out and yelled at you in the morning. Especially since he was the one who started it."
"Maybe," I allow. "But I shouldn't have let it get that far. I should've trusted my instincts."
"Pssh!" Alice dismisses with a wave of her hand. "If that hunk of man had kissed me, I wouldn't have cared why he was doing it either."
"I thought we were friends, you know? What if I've messed everything up?" I lament. "What should I do?"
"If I were you," Angela begins, "I'd give him a chance to calm down and then try to talk to him. Make his favorite dinner this weekend and text him with an invite."
"And if he doesn't want to come over?"
She shrugs. "Then you wait a bit longer. I know I said that men are quick to move on, but Edward being widowed and not divorced does kind of change things. It may be months before he's ready to even think about starting a new relationship."
I wave my hand. "I'm not even concerned about that right now. I just don't want our friendship to end."
Alice gives me a small smile, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand. "Don't give up hope. I just have this feeling that it's all going to work out."
"You and your feelings again," I chuckle, rolling my eyes.
I still haven't seen or heard from Edward by Sunday morning. After buying all of the ingredients for lasagna at the Thriftway, I send him a text to let him know it'll be ready by 5:30.
He never responds. And by 5:45, my eyes are tearing up as I realize he's not going to show.
And so I eat alone, putting half of the leftovers into the freezer.
Curling up on the couch later that evening, I try to look over my lesson plans for the week, but I toss them aside when I can't concentrate at all. I know Angela's advice was to wait until Edward is ready to talk, but how long will that take? I've always considered myself to be a patient person, but I'd just really like for us to talk things out and clear the air.
It doesn't help that every time I close my eyes, I see that look of love that he gave me — and that disgusted look when he woke up to find me nearly naked in bed beside him. Then there's that look of desperation as he waited for me to confirm that there was no chance he could've gotten me pregnant.
A part of me is hurt by the way he treated me Monday morning, but I remind myself that he lost his wife less than 10 months ago. He's obviously hurting, but that's all the more reason he needs a friend. I haven't seen him reach out to anyone else. I'm not even sure he's spoken to anyone in Forks besides my friends and Carolyn Brandon.
I just wish I could understand that man. And then inspiration hits — Edward has written a book. I don't know the title, but he did tell me his pen name. Moving to my computer, I easily find it and place an order for my Kindle. Maybe reading his words will help me to understand him better.
With a long sigh, I sit down and pick up my notebook again. I will be patient a little longer. Maybe if I repeat that enough times, I'll actually listen.
A/N: So, one big answer in this chapter — Bree is dead. And now Edward is avoiding Bella. She's taking more responsibility for her actions than her friends think she should, but then they've only heard her side of the story. Where do they go from here? And do you think Bella is right that Bree didn't die in childbirth?
Next update on Monday.