Re-posted chapter. Once again, SM owns everything important.
Think…
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The drive home is long. Rain, traffic, and an endless barrage of memories make it even more so. Bella feels tempted to pull over and rip open the envelope Edward gave her at least a dozen times, but manage to restrain herself.
Heaven knows if she'd even be able to make it home after reading it.
Her door slams open too fast when she finally get the lock turned. She drops her bags and reach up to steady the mirror on the wall behind the door, holding her breath to see if the nosy neighbor across the hall from her will emerge to see what the sound was.
He doesn't, thankfully, so she grabs her bags and shut the door, cringing again when it slams closed. She knows she really needs to get the damn thing fixed.
A bottle of water, two Tylenol, and a shower later, Bella finally grabs the letter out of her purse and sits down on the living room sofa. Placing it on the table in front of her, she looks at it and thinks for a moment.
Do I want to do this now? What's the rest of my week like? If I have a complete and total breakdown will I be able to take a day or two off? What makes me think I'll have a complete and total breakdown? I didn't have one when I saw Edward. Or when I talked to him.
But then, she thinks, she wouldn't let him apologize to her either.
Why?
Would it really be so bad to hear that he's sorry? Would it be so bad to read what she knows is already true? What she could see clearly when she sat with him face to face?
She knows that he really is sorry. So why doesn't she want to open the letter?
Frustrated at her self-psychoanalyzing, she takes the throw on her sofa and wraps it around her before opening up the balcony door to the night sky. It's a cool evening for August, but the white noise of the city is comforting, so she curls up on her Adirondack and lets it soothe her.
With the hum of electricity and the buzz of traffic in her ears, Bella's mind wanders. It wanders to blue eyes and green meadows. To biology labs and English homework. To prom nights and, God help her, wedding nights.
It's then that she realizes whether or not she reads the letter, it's a moot point. The lid she put on that part of her life has been blown to bits and there's no undoing that.
All she can do now is pray she's strong enough to deal with it. That, and that she doesn't give herself a paper cut in her hurry to open the envelope.
Dear Isabella,
It feels like I've started to write this letter about a thousand times...
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