Chapter 26

~Edward~

The eye patch stared back at me, black, angry, and accusing. It taunted me with every look in the mirror and reminded me every second I deserved all I got. But the last week, it told me I was a coward, hiding and cowering behind the pity I've let fester within me. She bared her soul, told me all her darkest secrets, and I gave her a box of cameras.

I meant it though. I wanted her to have them. Wholeheartedly and without a doubt in my head.

It took me all of five seconds to figure out a solution to something that had been crippling me since I put them in that box in the first place. My cameras needed and deserved a new home, and she was the perfect place to abandon them.

I truly believed she had a natural eye for it. The few pictures we'd developed were exactly what I would've done. With a little practice, she could do some really beautiful things—so, why not let her do it? I had no use for them. None. Zero. It wasn't something I would ever do again, and she seemed to need something in her life. Something beautiful and happy and a reason to leave this goddamn place and all the people that fucking did her wrong.

And if I was honest, if I was a good man, those people would include me, because soon enough, she'd see me as a monster as much as she did her mother.

Life was fucked up. There's no doubt. Horrible things happen to people every day. I'd seen it, documented it, been a part of it. But I had people that loved me even though they shouldn't, and it didn't seem as if Bella ever had that.

Maybe that's why she hadn't let that deer go yet. Hadn't made it find its real mother.

And maybe that's why she hadn't let me go either. Persistent from the beginning—always there, always needing something. In my pond. Broken porch. Ride to town. Meltdown.

But I'm the one who took from her, took all she seemed to want to give, until I didn't feel so empty anymore. She crawled into my skin like the ivy poking through her window sills. Punctured my exterior like the sharp nails on her porch. Burned my skin like the sunspot on the fucking picture that turned the whole day upside down in my soul and ended with me taking her to bed so I could feel just a little bit more, ache a little bit less, and maybe take some of her pain away.

My fingers played over the black cup of leather as I contemplated what it would feel like to pull it away for good. Relief? Anguish? Disgust? My insides stabbed, and I decided I wasn't ready to feel anything but the burst of light Bella had seared into me, right there on the crumpled blue sheets that smelled like her and us and what we'd done every night since I got my first taste of her.

She'd gotten up and out of my bed early to shoot again, as she had every morning this week. This time trying my second-oldest camera. The one we'd loaded film in last night while the sex-filled sheets pooled around our naked bodies, still pressed together like one couldn't survive without the other. She didn't tell me where she was off to, just that she'd be back, and it was all I needed to hear.

Those three words filled me with more hope than any other three words had ever done.

The sun stretched out overhead, hot and heavy, with no clouds in sight as I stared at the unicorn-painted side of my house.

"So, what exactly is going on here?" Sam asked, a curious look on his face and his hands on his hips. He'd dropped off the twenty-foot ladder I asked to borrow to reach as much as I could before having to go up on the peak of the attic window ledge to reach the very top.

"Not sure I know, exactly. Couldn't decide on a color and… well, there you go." It was a lie. But I was used to telling them. Sam didn't need to know about the boyish rush I got when I painted it, when I looked at it, like a statement that I was done with reality and the monotone beiges and greens sprinkled with red that got me here.

He didn't need to know that once upon a time, I was so full of art and life, I bled in technicolor.

"Are you planning on this for the whole house? You'll need more paint."

"Nope. Just this side, I think."

He looked at me with a quirked eyebrow. "You might want to freshen up the rest of the white. You know, so it doesn't look so shabby next to this… birthday cake."

I smiled, a real one. I liked this guy. So far, he'd been okay to me, and he seemed to like Bella. "Pick a white. I trust you. Call me when it's in." I hesitated, watched Sam nod his head and pull his truck keys out of his pocket. "Or you could come by with the bill and paint when you get it— stay for a beer or a burger or something." I felt like a tool, like a second-grader asking for a play date.

If Sam found the invite weird, he didn't let on. "Sounds good; I'll throw in the cigars." He left in a cloud of dust down the driveway, nearly hitting Bella who was running at a fast clip towards me. She looked excited and waved at Sam as she jogged around the truck and kept coming towards me before flying into me and wrapping her arms around my neck. My own grabbed her instinctively, and my camera pressed hard between our chests.

"Hi." She was breathless, radiant, sweaty at the temples.

"Hi."

"I took so many pictures, I'm not even sure of what. I went through town and took pictures of people without them seeing, I hope, but I wanted to see if I could do what we discussed. Capturing moving things besides the deer."

"How'd it feel?" I let her down and grabbed her hand, pulling her with me to the porch.

She thought a moment, something I realized I really liked about her. Bella took her time to think about what she really wanted to say. It made me hang on every word like they were going to disappear, poof, into the sunlight and never come back.

"Being behind the camera made me feel invisible." She sat on the step and poured a glass of tea from the floral pitcher. "I felt like I wasn't being stared at because no one could see me. I'm sure that isn't true, but it made me feel anonymous." She took a big gulp and "ahhd" after. "Is it like that for you?"

Without thinking, I answered. "Yes. Not because I wanted to be invisible but because it let me feel like I wasn't intruding on the moment. Wasn't going to ruin it."

"Tell me."

I hesitated. I'd shared so much about this side of me, already more than I was comfortable with. More than I ever thought I'd share with anyone. But Bella made me feel like I could maybe tiptoe in the shallow end, if only for a minute. "When I would look at something with my naked eye, it always felt to me like I was taking something from the subject. Whether it be a person, a plant, a butterfly—hell, even a brick. Like just me seeing it made it act and appear differently. So when the camera was there, it felt to me like a privacy screen. It allowed my subject to reveal the inside, to act the way it wanted to with no fear of anyone seeing its true self. Everything seemed more alive to me through a lens." I glanced at Bella and shrugged. "Sounds dumb when I say it out loud."

"It's not dumb. It's beautiful." I just hummed, lost in thought as Bella gave me a moment. "Why was Sam here?" she eventually asked.

I nodded towards the side of the house. "Ladder. You want help developing?" She didn't need it; she'd been doing it herself for a week now with me just hovering over her shoulder.

"No, you paint. I want to surprise you anyway." Her smile was big and bright and everything I hoped the cameras would bring her. With a quick peck on my cheek, she ran off towards the darkroom, and I physically felt the emptiness she left.

Funny how you don't know you want something until it's just out of reach.

A couple of days later, I'd gotten as far up the house as I could. I'd been thinking idly of whether or not to do the other side of the house to match, but I didn't want to decide without getting Bella's opinion. The fact I sought it out was surprising, but I rationalized that she'd have to look at it; therefore, she had every right to have an opinion.

Thinking of her made me miss her, so I washed my hands as best I could under the spigot, the blue, red, and yellow paint stuck on my fingernails and in the creases and crevices of each knuckle.

She had the small fan on, its head oscillating lazily and ruffling anything that got in its path. Her hair was up, stuck through with a pencil to keep it in place. Her neck was sweaty, and I stood looking at her for what felt like an eternity, until she felt my presence or looked around longing for me to be there as much as I wanted to be.

"Whatcha got?" I asked, smelling her flowery scent mixed with the chemicals she was using.

"Sit down! I don't want you to see yet." She sounded nervous, like I wouldn't approve of what she'd done. She hadn't shot anything yet that I didn't think was pure beauty, even her hated house photo, but I did what she said and collapsed into the rickety chair two feet away. "I… think I like them. I used the black and white film you loaded, but I'm not sure…"

"Did you adjust the aperture and make sure the ISO was set low if you were outside?"

"Yes and yes."

"Then I'm sure they're perfect." She ducked her head from me but not before I could see the smile growing on her face. Like you, I wanted to say but couldn't quite get my lips to form it.

I continued to watch her work—her hands dipping in and out of the stop bath, her arms and torso reaching above to clip the paper to the clothesline, the meticulous way she measured everything, and how she cleaned up around herself as she went.

Another delicate, floral dress flapped in the fan breeze around her calves, right above the rare pair of sneakers she had on. Those few inches of skin were seductive, reminding me of how they'd been wrapped around my waist just this morning.

Her legs parted as she stepped up on the milk crate she used to see into the enlarger, her dress pulling taut against her thighs, the fluttery fabric rising bit by bit. Her lips pursed as she moved the dials up and down, securing the part of the picture she felt was worthy of printing.

From where I sat in the squeaky desk chair, her waist was at eye level, the elastic holding that dress close to her fresh, pale body but loosely enough that I knew I could get a whole hand up under it if I wanted to.

Her hand was poised, about ready to push the buttons that would cement her choice, but before I gave her a chance, before I knew what had come over me, I'd dropped to my knees in back of her and exhaled, my hands landing on either side of her thighs pushing her skirt up slightly. My breath moved that flimsy cotton, and her hand reached behind to land on my shoulder as she gasped lightly, gripping my sweaty, paint-splattered shirt.

I watched my hand move to the bobby socks she had on like it wasn't attached to me, skimming the cuff and rising slowly up the outside of her leg, soft and silky and so fucking young, even though I knew how much of a woman she truly was. The enlarger she was about to use skidded slightly against the table, a sure sign that I was probably making her nervous, but the hand digging into my shoulder told me a different story.

"Hand off the enlarger," I instructed, and wordlessly, she let go. She gripped the edge of the table as my paint-splattered hands slithered up, up, pushing the hem of her dress a bit with my wrists. The fine hair on her thighs was soft, and I kept on going, pressing my forehead against the back of her knee and circling the backs of her thighs in soothing ripples.

A low moan escaped her before I felt her hand move through my hair, the gripping of her fingers on my shaggy new length made me want to lose control. She didn't press, push, or guide—she allowed, so I nudged that dress up with my head, my mouth making contact with the silk of an inner thigh.

Violets, soap, honeysuckle. Scents that were as familiar to me now as developing chemicals. I was hungry for her, more than I'd ever been for anyone this way, and when she didn't protest, I went further, my fingers rising up to feel the scrap of cotton that was the only thing that stood between me and her under that dress.

I'd had her body multiple times now, but this act was more intimate than anything we'd done, and I wondered if this was something she'd ever received. The way she let me coach her in bed, the way she let me take over, and the way she looked at me—seductive and naive all at the same time—told me no.

Women came and went in my line of work. I was always moving, always leaving, and female company was something I knew from hotel to hotel, not day to day. Having sex was easy, but having intimacy was not, and as much as I was sure Bella had never experienced this before, she'd probably be shocked to know I hadn't either.

"Stop me now if you don't want this," I said against that honeysuckle, and the tug on my hair told me she'd say no such thing. She grew bold then and turned in my grasp, one leg coming up to rest on my shoulder, inviting me to know her like no one had. The pink cotton was rubbish in my strong hands, one side ripping and the other falling to the wayside and down her leg as I tugged, and she let it go. My head was up and under, lips on the part of her skin I was convinced hadn't been pressed against a man this way, so I tried to make it nice, tried to curtail the savage in me, licking and kissing the flesh that grew softer and sweeter the higher I went.

The briefest flicker of uncertainty ran up my spine, telling me that if I did this, if we shared something that was much more than fucking, in my opinion, I'd have her scent and soul swirling in my head long after this was over. It wouldn't just be a good memory—it would be a hole that burned straight through me at the loss of her.

But the selfish asshole in me said "Fuck it." I punished myself every day for the thing I had done. Let another chastisement be a sweet memory instead of a bloody scar.

My tongue brushed up against her heated pussy, and I knew that this was it: I was all in, and she'd better be right behind me.

I forgot about propriety and being gentle, and I licked my deer girl like she was the pure water I hadn't had in months. She buckled, barely able to keep straight, and I pushed her body back against the wood table more forcefully than I should've, so she wouldn't fall.

The response from her was a hungry grunt and tightening of her hand in my hair, driving me on to drink from her like a starved man. I lapped at her, engulfing her cunt, which made her sweet little hand pull at my ear and encourage me on.

I could feel the one leg that supported her giving out as I fed, so I guided her down and off that milk crate until her ass was on the floor, and I was between her thighs, not letting up and not letting go. She started to whimper, long streams of moans that sounded like they were new to her like they were to me. I sucked her hard, moving my hand up between my mouth and her body, trying to hold onto her so I wouldn't float away. This was probably the hottest sexual act I'd ever participated in, and the hardest my cock had ever been in the presence of a woman.

But I knew it wasn't just any woman or because I hadn't done this with anyone. I knew it was because it was her.

My Bella. My fucking weird deer girl, who I might be falling in love with.

She was moving, writhing against the floor with a bare ass, one hand in my hair and the other trying to connect with something. The table leg, the crate, I didn't know what, something maybe to keep her from floating away much like me, but I pulled that hand down and made it join mine against her wet flesh. Her fingers moved against my tongue and I lapped at them as much as I did her until she gave in—an ecstasy I'd not heard before from her that made me feel like a king.

Her stomach heaved, and her thighs shook, knocking my head around, but I stayed there in that honeysuckle until I felt her legs finally give out and slide on either side of me against the dusty floor. She sighed, rasped, purred like a kitten as I panted against her skin, enjoying my own high.

We lay there together until I remembered her photographs, and I pulled her up to stand beside me, flushed and out of breath. Looking at the line of white paper now burned through with what fancied her, my mouth fell open slightly at the images in front of me. Townspeople going about their day like anywhere in America, but her angles and point of view made them jump out, made them alive and moving and somehow much more beautiful than they really were as they gathered their groceries and chatted on the post office steps. There was a haunting sadness that hung on every frame—the way she captured the light as much as the shadow— and I knew Bella was capturing these people as she saw them. As people that had darkened her life and made her feel small.

"These are amazing. Extraordinary." I walked back and forth, looking at them all twice.

"You think so? It was hard to really determine whether or not a shot was worth taking."

"What do you mean? Every shot is worth taking."

"Well, the film. It's expensive, and I know you have to order away for it so…"

"You were worried about wasting film?"

"Yes."

"Unless the subject is me, no shot is ever a waste. It's just not maybe what you envisioned it to be. But definitely never a waste. Don't ever worry about that."

"I didn't want to run out though, either. If I had taken everything I wanted, I wouldn't have gotten that one." She pointed to the last one in the row.

It was a beautiful shot. She'd captured a pair of identical twins, not more than four years old, both with skinned knees, sitting on the steps outside the grocery, licking each other's lollipops.

My next thought hit me like a thunderbolt. It seared my insides and left ash inside me. But I ignored that pathetic dust and pulled on her hand.

"I know what camera you need to learn next. Come on."

Mad love to LayAtHomeMom, Hadley Hemingway, and CarrieZM for making us pretty.

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HB&PB