Time passes differently in the real world than it did in the room, or in the strange little bubble Edward and I created to help us deal with everything that happened. Each individual moment doesn't feel as heavily weighted, and doesn't feel like it takes an eternity to move on to the next.
Out in the real world, time is flying past us, leaving me feeling slightly dazed by just how quickly things are changing, and will continue to change. I no longer have to chase normality, because I have it now.
We both do.
Of course, things still flare up occasionally. Someone will make a shitty joke about a taser or something equally as stupid and I'll slip, just a little, into that dark place that I've very nearly closed up completely, but on the whole, things are good.
Between Edward and I, they are better than good.
The trial is still running, but our involvement in it is over. I still see Garrett, but we talk about other things for the most part. My future, what I want from it, and ways of making sure that wherever the world takes me, my past won't cast a shadow that I can't get out from underneath. Edward still sees Marcus, and Demetri, although I suspect the latter is mostly out of sheer vanity.
Not that I have any complaints about that.
He's even got me exercising with him, although I'm not sure he realises that my motivation lies predominantly in watching the way his muscles tense and flex as he jogs alongside me.
While our lives are settling down into a pattern of school, home, occasional fooling around and general normalcy, a whole new set of challenges awaits us. Things that, those months ago when we were in that room, I thought would never again be an option for me.
We have futures now... and it's terrifying.
Before it all happened, I'd considered my love for literature to be the only thing about me that could translate into a profession. Now, I'm not so sure that liking to read is really a big enough part of my life to necessitate hinging my entire career off of it.
I'm a smart girl. While I excel in humanities subjects - history and english for example - I'm definitely science and maths literate, and the more I think on it, the clearer the picture becomes in my mind.
If I studied my ass off, I could help people who have been through what I went through. I could do what Garrett does, pull people from that darkest place they can see no way out of. I'm probably more equipped than most, considering just how dark that blotch on my past is.
I knocked on the door to Edward's father's home office, leaning my ear against the cool wood as I awaited his response.
"Come in!"
I turned the doorknob all the way around, pausing to take a deep breath, because for some ridiculous reason I was nervous. This man had seen me sobbing, clutching onto his son like a crazy person while trying to protect him from nonexistent demons, but a simple conversation about my future had me terrified.
Probably because I suspected he might just laugh in my face when I told him what I wanted to do. I know I'd found it more than a little ridiculous at first.
"Carlisle? Can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Bella, honey!" he looked up, surprised but welcoming. "Of course you can, take a seat."
He gestured to the leather armchair on the other side of his desk, and I quickly walked over and perched on the edge of it, fighting back to urge to curl up in a ball and, in so doing, put my dirty shoes on what I'm sure was a very expensive piece of furniture.
"What can I do for you, sweetheart?"
"I think I want to be a doctor."
He leaned back in his chair, obviously a little surprised by my admission.
Naturally, I began speaking, trying to make myself sound like slightly less of an idiot and more or less doing the exact opposite.
"Obviously, I know I can't go straight to medical school, I have to do my four years of undergraduate study, preferably with a science major, then four years of medical school, then another four years of..."
I looked up to see him fighting back laughter at my nervous rambling, so I immediately cut myself short.
"Four years of what, Bella?"
I grimaced, a little shy to admit to another person what I was thinking about.
"I was thinking... four years of psychiatry residency."
He paused, his brow furrowing then unfurrowing as he quickly picked through my ramblings for the important information.
"Wow... Bella, that's amazing!"
He didn't laugh in my face... in fact, he actually sounded kind of impressed.
"I just... I wanted to talk to you, because you're a doctor and you've obviously been there and I need you to tell me if I'm being an idiot or if I'm clearly not smart enough, or doctor-y enough to be able to pull this off."
He couldn't hold back his laugh then.
"Bella, I'm not entirely sure what being 'doctor-y' enough entails, but I am sure beyond a doubt that you are smart enough to handle what this academic track holds for you. And believe me, if you aren't, you'll learn it very quickly when you get into organic chemistry during undergrad."
He winked playfully at me, and I leant back in my chair, feeling immediately better that he didn't burst out laughing when I told him what I was thinking about.
"So," he went on, "psychiatry, huh?"
And I was bashful all over again.
"Yeah," I said, fixing my eyes on the leather top of his antique desk, noting that it matched the chair I was sitting in. "I just... Garrett really helped me, and maybe, if I could help other people, the whole experience - all the crap we went through - might not have to be for nothing. I know it's silly, and maybe not a good reason to do this, but I can't help but feel like -"
"Bella, that sounds like a brilliant motivation. Turning what was, beyond a doubt, a more negative experience than most people can comprehend, into something positive, for both yourself and others, sounds like an amazing thing to do."
"Oh... uh, thanks. It just kind of occurred to me one day that this could awesome."
"You do realise that this is a very big undertaking, don't you Bella?"
I nodded.
"Four years undergrad, four years medical school, four years residency, with an additional one or two more if I want to work with adolescents or children," I replied, showing him that I'd done my research.
"Clearly, google has served you well," he smiled, and I looked away, embarrassed by my enthusiasm.
We talked for a while longer, me asking questions about both undergrad and med school, and by the time we were finished, I was more sure than ever before.
I wanted to be a psychiatrist.
Edward, on the other hand, has no idea what he wants to do with himself.
"How can you have absolutely no inkling about where your life might want to go?"
"Err, because I'm 18 years old and a senior in high school? Bella, I rarely think past what I'm going to be eating for dinner, and even then, that's up to my mom."
I roll my eyes, even though he probably can't see it because I'm sitting in his lap. We're cuddled up in an arm chair, a movie going ignored on the huge tv in front of us.
"Whatever. Ok, so what things do you like?"
"I like video games, whaling on my little brother, and your boobs."
He quickly squeezes said boobs before I can smack his hands away, swivelling in his lap so I can glare at his face.
His gorgeous, kissable, so-cheeky-I-kind-of-want-to-smack-it face.
"Ok, so that gives us absolutely nothing."
"Hey!" he cries, pretending to be hurt by my words. "I could be... a video game developer."
I roll my eyes.
"We both know you're not nearly computer literate enough to do that."
"We do not know that!"
"Edward, what do you do when your internet goes down? What's the first step?"
"Swear. Maybe threaten it. Then whine at Jasper until he fixes it for me. Or if Jasper is not available, Emmett."
I gaze at him balefully.
"Ladies and gentleman, the next Bill Gates."
"Alright fine," he huffs, "nerdy occupations are officially out. I'm too ripped for that shit, anyway."
He flexes his arms lewdly, and I elbow him in the chest.
"I barely even felt that," he says smugly, so I lightly smack his cheek.
"Ow, Bella! What the fuck?"
He grabs his cheek and stares at me, appalled.
"Did you feel that?" I taunt.
He scowls until I lean in and kiss his cheek better, than his jaw, then his nose, then his mouth.
As his tongue slides over mine and his hands slide down under the bottom of my shirt to rest on my lower back, I realise that he's trying, and succeeding, in distracting me away from our conversation.
"Ed-" he cuts me off with another kiss, so I put my hands on his broad chest and firmly push him away. Well, as far away as I can considering I'm straddling his thighs on an armchair only designed for one occupant.
"Edward, stop distracting me."
"Isn't this more fun than stupid," he lifts my hand and kisses my palm, "boring," he uses his grip on my palm to pull me to him and kisses my jaw, "completely unnecessary," my ear, "talking?"
His lips are back on mine and for a few moments I'm in complete agreement that this is better than stupid, boring, completely unnecessary talking.
Until I abruptly remember that this is the fourth time he's tried to divert me away from this conversation using the exact same techniques.
This time, it won't work.
... Unlike the other three times, when it worked perfectly.
"Edward," I mumbled, turning my head away and out of reach of his roving lips, "I could end up anywhere from Pennsylvania to California, and if we're going to do this together -"
"We are," he says surely, and I can't help but smile at him like the love struck idiot I am.
"Well then we need to figure this out."
He groans.
"Can't I just be your trophy husband?"
"I'm pretty sure you've got too much money to be a gold digger, Edward."
"I'll be a trust fund baby, then."
"Bored out of your mind is what you'll be."
"Nah, I'll be a stay at home dad, with the kid in a kangaroo pouch while I have lunch with my friends and spend my days fending off MILFS."
I glare at him.
"And who's going to mother this MILF-bait for you?"
"You are, baby," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Which I guess it kind of is, but I'm too irritated by his talk of MILFs to acknowledge that.
I flick his nose.
"Ow!"
"You are such an idiot."
"But you love me, right?"
"Not when you're talking about using our future children as bait to lure other women."
"Well, when you put it like that, of course you're upset," he says like it's thoroughly ridiculous of me to draw that from what he's just said.
"How else can I put it?" I ask, completely unimpressed.
"I'd be MILF-hunting for my friends, not for myself! Did I not mention that?"
He looks nervous now, and I force my laughter back to preserve my facade of being angry with him, enjoying his discomfort.
"No, you didn't."
He puts one large, warm hand on each of my cheeks, making my face feel tiny. He forces me to meet his eyes, and looks at me for a long moment before he speaks.
"Bella, you know that you're the only MILF I'd ever want to hunt."
What. An. Idiot.
"Edward, I'm not a MILF."
"But one day, you will be."
"And how do you know that?"
"Well, because when we have babies, I'm still going to want you every day. Several times a day, most likely. Thus, you will be a MILF. My MILF."
Before I can even begin to protest the ridiculous turn this conversation has taken, his lips are back on mine, and the topic of college is abandoned... yet again.