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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

30.

8:30

Edward had been awake since six in the morning, his nervousness off the charts as he went for a lengthy run through the park, picked up a cup of coffee and then spent the remainder of the time trying not to think about how much he wanted a fix.

He'd failed.

In the thinking part, at least. Where his mind was contemplating a million ways to get what it wanted, the rest of him was still firmly on the wagon.

With a new recording contact in his pocket and an appointment to view an apartment nearby later that day, he felt like his life was finally starting to get back on track again; a good track as opposed to the pothole infested dead end dirt road he'd been on before. The record company had been very understanding of his apprehension to go back on tour immediately, giving him as much leeway as the recording of his new and improved album would take to rebuild his strength and confidence.

Edward knew, though, that as soon as his old songs would have been given their new lease of life, he would be back on the road, touring every venue between New York and LA that would have him.

It excited him.

It scared him to death.

For all the risks that being back on the tour would bring, the gig he'd played at Stinky's had really reminded him of everything he loved about performing. The energy the crowd gave off, the rush of taking the stage amidst the darkening house lights, the satisfied emptiness when he came off stage…

It was everything.

But in this case, he couldn't just be selfish. On the one side he had to make sure he stayed the course. His new record company had put a lot of trust in him by taking him on and, of course, Aro and his new band were depending on him for their livelihood. They weren't stupid, though. Signing an ex-addict and all-round wild guy came with its own set of hazards and they'd done their best to make sure that if things would get out of hand again, they'd be able to drop him like a bad habit without any repercussions.

So he had a task ahead of him, showing the company's executives that they hadn't stuck their necks out for nothing, and he intended to do that by making a slammer of a new album and taking it on the road to show his fans and everyone else who might be interested that he was still there.

On the other side, though, there was Bella to consider. Even if their meeting would be about nothing else but giving her closure, he had to consider her when recording songs that were pretty much all about her. It had been a relief to him when she told him she didn't resent him for playing them but Edward wasn't anywhere near as naïve as to take a simple text message as fact. He wanted to hear from her directly and truly know she would be okay with those songs going public.

But then again, any excuse to see her again was a huge bonus.

Finishing his umpteenth coffee, he leaned against the solid stone of the Central Park Bandstand, remembering the open air concerts Esme would take him to when they were young. They were magical; the darkness slowly enveloping the crowd, the lights illuminating the artists on stage and the fireflies dancing through the night sky like illuminated ballerinas.

Though Edward had never contemplated going the classical route, he knew that those nights had played a big part in deciding his future. Watching those musicians, setting a magic scene by playing their instrument made him want to be on that stage, too. Only he wanted to make the kind of music his mom had played for him; the unpolished, modern versions of the same enchanting songs.

"You're here!"

He jumped at the sound of her voice behind him, chuckling nervously as he turned with one hand running through his hair as he squinted against the sharp springtime sun. "You're early."

"It's New York," she shrugged, acting like she'd never lived anywhere else in the world. "Anything can happen between 116th and 72nd streets, so it's best to be prepared."

"Well, look at you, all grown up and cosmopolitan!" he grinned, plopping his Ray Ban's on his nose as he leaned backwards against the podium with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Does your father know how street smart his little girl has become?" He was well aware that his words could get him smacked again but at that time, he was so desperate to retrieve some of their old, playful banter that he was willing to risk it.

And she went with it, a little flash of annoyance dancing in her eyes before they softened again. "I'll have you know he was very proud of me for slapping you."

"I bet he was," Edward mused, pushing away from the stone structure. "So where do you want to do this?"

"Over by the benches?" Bella suggested, indicating towards the wooden seats that were wrapped around the shrubbery. "Unless you have a better idea?"

He shook his head, taking his place next to her—close but still respectably far away.

And awkward silence ensued as Edward knew he had to open the game and speak. It was why they were there…what she had been waiting for.

He just didn't know where to start.

"I was there when my parents died," he finally started, his eyes closing from the heavy pain as he remembered that day. "I was young; too young to grasp the enormity what was going on but not so young that I didn't realize what was happening."

"Edward, you don't have to…" Bella started, her hand reaching out for his.

"No, I do have to," Edward replied monotonously, trying to fight through the pain. If there was anything therapy had taught him, it was to no longer run away from things. If he wanted to be a man, he had to face his demons head on and exorcize them from his system. "I could sit here and give you the bullshit short version of why I left that day but it wouldn't be the truth—the whole truth—that you deserve. If you really want to know what made me leave that day, we have to start there."

Bella nodded, her hand still holding his but her body relaxing against the seat. "Okay."

"The car hit a patch of ice on the road and crashed into a tree. I was safe in the backseat, strapped into my seatbelt, but they…they weren't." He sighed, the scent of leaking gasoline, mangled steel and death filled his nose again. "The thing is, though, what I've never told anyone, they didn't die right away."

"Oh, Edward!" The pressure of her hand increased as he fought to keep himself together.

"They talked to me…told me not to worry…that they loved me…that everything was going to be okay even though all of us knew things would never be okay again." He closed his eyes, trying to expel the image. "It took hours for emergency services to reach us and by that time they'd grown silent, leaving me all alone in some godforsaken forest." He swallowed, remembering the fear, panic and loneliness he'd felt when his cries had no longer been answered. "I relive that day almost every fucking night. It's always there."

Letting out a gasp, he tried to regain command of himself. "My grandparents took us in and, well, if there were ever two people in the world more unfit to be our guardians I'd be surprised." He huffed, bouncing his feet against the asphalt as pain and grief gave way to anger. "They thought the best way for me and Esme to get over our trauma was to send us to private schools and tell us to 'get a grip'." He snorted as he caught an expletive falling from Bella's lips. "Yeah, by their standards they were probably doing great: they moved back to Manhattan to give us the best possible education and to provide us with the luxury most of our peers could only dream of. They didn't care if I was fucking unhappy and scared to death."

"They're assholes!" Bella snarled, before turning pensive. "Is that why you hate Carlisle so much?"

He nodded. "I see them in him; not everything, mind you. If he'd have been just like them, I would have staged a fucking intervention!" Sitting back, he rubbed his forehead. "Anyway, by the time I was seventeen, I was a severely messed up kid, looking for any fucking way out of the chokehold of my grandparents that I could find. So when my music teacher wanted to enter me into some songwriting contest, I pretty much jumped at the chance. For years I'd been tinkering away in my bedroom with an old acoustic guitar Esme got me, but I never knew I was any good. I loved music, though, and those classes were the highlight of my fucking day!"

"And you won, right?" Bella asked, remembering she'd read something about that in a magazine.

"Yep." Grinning proudly, he leaned towards her. "I don't know what I loved most about winning: the recognition and recording contract it got me or the look on my grandpa's face when I told him I was going to make a career for myself in music instead of going to college." Edward laughed, his triumph in that moment returned as he revisited that happy day. "God, he was so pissed off!"

Bella snickered along with him. "I bet!"

"Anyway…" Edward toed the ground, as his eyes followed a squirrel as it raced across the pathway and into a tree. "By that time I was already self-medicating on sleeping pills to chase the nightmares away. My grandparents would have gone crazy if they knew but, luckily for me, the one thing you can always be certain off in the Upper East Side is that your ridiculously expensive private school boasts of at least one drug dealer."

He huffed, remembering how easy it had been to become completely dependent on chemicals. "Recording my first album and feeling the pressure that came with that only made matters worse. A couple of weeks in, I was a nervous wreck, convinced my grandparents were right about me being a total fuck-up but loving it way too fucking much to stop." He sighed. "That's when I started smoking weed to calm me down when the pressure got to be too much and from there on things just spiraled. Especially when James, my guitarist, came along."

"Did you ever use the hard stuff?" Bella asked, her sweet voice breaking through the harsh, self-reproach filled silence.

"Cocaine, yes," Edward admitted, forcing the words out, "but I was more into pills. Uppers to get me going, downers to make me sleep again and pretty much everything in between just for fun. God, I was such a fucking tool back then!"

"What made you realize you had a problem?" Bella wanted to know. "Even last summer you never really seemed to ponder the idea of rehab."

"That's because I thought I had it all figured out back then," Edward explained, ashamed of the smug, spineless asshole he'd been back then. "I thought I was the man for quitting drugs but I didn't realize that booze was as big of a problem as the pills had been…and that's even though the actual drugs might have been out of my system, the underlying problems were still there." He sighed deeply. "Jail shocked my system pretty hard but not enough to make me realize I needed help. After all, I'd been dealing 'successfully' with my demons ever since I was a boy, hadn't I? I'm sorry you ended up as collateral damage, Bella."

"So am I," Bella answered quietly. "So what made you realize you did need it? Help, I mean."

"I wish I could say it was you," he admitted, "but my complete failure as a lover to you only made me sink deeper and deeper until I hit rock bottom the night a woman just like me jumped from the window of my tenth floor hotel room after I'd rejected her. I couldn't even remember how she'd ended up in my room in the first place."

"Oh, Edward!" In her voice, Edward could hear true compassion even for a man as shameful as he was, sitting next to her. Her hand folded around his as her soft voice spoke again, "I'm glad you got help. As much as I may have wanted to hate you at times, I never wanted to see you fail."

"I believe you," he replied, smiling bitterly. "You always had far more faith in me than I did."

"Did it help?" Her voice was strong, with an edge of sharpness, though her hand still held on to his. "Did you manage to contain your demons?"

"I try to live with them, though I don't know if I'll ever get rid of them," he admitted. "I am trying, though, and that's much more than can be said of me before now. I've been given a second shot at my career and I'm determined to live up to everyone's expectations of me, even if it scares me to death."

Bella nodded, her hair falling in front of her face as she angled her head, obscuring herself from his sight as she muttered, "And the rest?"

He took in a deep breath, a shimmer of hope sparking in his chest for one second before he managed to squash it. "I don't know," he answered, his words came straight from the heart as he went on, "I'm not stupid enough to think that I can just sweep through the relationships I've ruined; my sister, her family, and you, and think that everything is going to be alright again just because I say sorry. I want to, though." Sitting up, he looked at her even when she wouldn't look at him. "I want to, though, make no mistake of that. I desperately want to make things right again, even though I have no right to ask."

She stood abruptly, her eyes containing a myriad of conflicting emotions the brief moment he managed to capture them. "I need to think about this, please? I…I'd better go. I'll call you."

It was more than he'd hoped for—much, much more. But still, as he watched her rush away from him as if the devil was chasing her, the urge to run after her was so strong, he had to hold on to the bench to stop it.

No, he would be strong.

He'd give her what she was asking from him.

He'd give her time.

Even if it killed him.

Thoughts?