Good Morning. Thank you so much for reading along! (And yes, other updates are coming. Ones that are actually beta'd.)
SM still owns her characters, the typos and grammar issues- those are mine. ;-)
A Broken Hallelujah
Turn Around…
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She's not surprised that they cause a traffic jam. Despite the light changing, neither of them moves.
Not until the horns blare, that is.
Reticent, they both lurch forward and then pass each other. Bella keeps her eyes focused ahead, but it bothers her not knowing if he glanced at her when she passed.
It shouldn't bother her. She should be used to walking away by now. Shouldn't she?
Of course she should. So, she should just keep going. She shouldn't let that nagging voice in the back of her mind win. She shouldn't pull into the gas station and park in front of one of the pumps as if she needed the fuel. And she definitely shouldn't turn around and head back into town.
But she does.
She finds him right outside the coffee house, leaning up against the side of the shiny Volvo with a far off look in his eyes. She's relieved to see it's not one of the many haunted expressions he wore in darker times, but she still wonders what he's thinking.
She only hopes he's strong enough to deal with this now. Strong enough to watch her walk away again, because she's only here to say hello.
Then she's going again. She has to.
"Edward…" she begins, approaching him from the side.
His head whips up, his blue eyes wide and… smiling?
"I thought you'd gone."
He's smiling.
And Bella's speechless.
"I…" Her mouth freezes open. She can only stare helplessly at the joyous blue-grey eyes in front of her, the color so much like Puget Sound on an overcast day, but the emotion in them reflecting the sunniest of sunny days.
He's happy.
Happy to see her.
"It's good to see you, Bella."
"It's… I… It's good to see you, too."
He lifts a hand and rubs the back of his neck. "I knew you were around this week, and I was hoping…" His hand drops. "I guess, I was being a coward about it, but I hoped I might bump into you."
This confuses her more. "Really? Why?"
He blinks. "Because I wanted to see you."
She's stunned at his admission. Stunned that there's still a trace of a smile on his lips, that there's humor in his voice as if it would be obvious he would want to see her. She doesn't understand it.
She didn't expect it.
She expected Edward to have written her off just as thoroughly as she'd done to him. She expected him to harbor some kind of grudge, or guilt, or hate, or… anything!
Anything except wanting to see her.
Why would he?
He clears his throat. "If I'm making you uncomfortable, I can go. I'm glad you stopped, though." His smile falters a little.
"I almost didn't," she admits.
Blue eyes search brown. "What made you change your mind?"
She thinks it over, first frowning when she can't think of a reason, then laughing. "I honestly don't know. I think I just didn't want to be rude, seeing you like that, and knowing you saw me, and not saying hi."
He smiles again. It nearly steals her breath away. "Do you want to get a cup of coffee? One for the road?"
Her heart races in a mix of fear and anxiety but she can't think of a single legitimate reason to say no. He's sober. He's happy. And as she takes her time making her decision, he holds her gaze steadily, unafraid. He's waiting without expectation, and it's then she realizes he'll be just fine if she says no.
So she says yes.
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