Chapter 30

~Edward~

Tell her the facts.

That's the advice Rose had for me. She'd proven to me over the years that she was usually right, but to tell Bella—this pure, innocent, and trusting girl—about the horror of what lived inside me every day? What clung to me and eroded my insides like a coal miner's black lung? Why would I do that to her? She had her own shit in life for sure, and I wasn't downplaying that, but could I really add more to her already fucked-up life and build on the corrosive spot in her heart that already existed?

But when I thought of not telling Bella, of living here for the foreseeable future and unable to give her everything in me because of what lay over my soul like tornado clouds, I didn't see how that would ever be possible. How we would ever be possible with my secret heartache between us. It wouldn't be long until she was sick of it, of me, of all the things that woke me up screaming. The questions that met her with nothing but silence.

A third choice, the smart choice, was to leave. Without a word. I'd take my few belongings and hitchhike down the road until I didn't know what state I would end up in, all in the middle of the night, leaving her with nothing but an attic full of camera equipment she could do whatever she wanted with.

Maybe she'd be so mad she'd throw it all out the window like she did her own belongings. Maybe that's the way this all should end anyway. A pile of broken nightmares stretched out across the field, waiting for the earth to swallow them whole and drag them to the pits of hell.

Despite the solid plan forming in my head, I sat there, looking over the field, sipping from my bottle of whiskey, and called her to me soundlessly. Willing her to forgive me, willing her to come back and ask. Because if she asked, I don't think I'd deny her.

Another good reason for me to just go. I laughed bitterly and held my head in my hands. Save her now, before it was too late.

Because I knew.

Bella.

I knew I needed her.

Bella.

And I knew I loved her.

A rustle in the grass sounded as soon as I'd admitted that to myself, and I closed my eyes and dropped my chin to my chest.

I didn't have to look to know it wasn't the deer.

She said nothing as she walked up to my porch tentatively, like she was trying not to wake a sleeping animal. Her dress rustled slightly as she sat, and her hands tucked themselves underneath her thighs, pressing against the wood.

"You don't scare me," she said. "I understand anger. Better than anyone."

I dragged my hands over my face, through my hair, down the back of my neck and sighed. "It's not just anger."

"It's pain."

"It's pain," I agreed. "A pain I brought on myself."

"Let me share it." She took the bottle from the step and took a swig. I took my own and placed it back down, resting it between our feet.

The fact she had the courage to approach me—to want to know after the anger she'd seen from me—made my thoughts of running away shameful. I stole a look at her, her face open and waiting. I wanted to kiss her one last time before she decided I was not someone she could live with, but I turned away, instead, and looked out over the black field.

"You've seen the pictures on the wall, in the attic. Mountains, flowers, rivers. You've seen the happy people going about their day, smiling for my camera." She nodded next to me but said nothing. "That's how I started my career. You know those books you have in your room? The pretty ones with the places most people only ever dream of going? That was me. That's what I did. I was a photographer. And I was really, really good at it. I bet some of my pictures are in your books."

Her eyes were wide when I glanced at her and pulled the bottle back to my lips. I knew it sounded impressive, dreamy, a wonderful way to make your way in life because it was. And I should've stayed in that world and never looked for anything else.

"The money is in the beautiful and the joy. Money is in the pictures in those glossy books that lay on coffee tables and get framed for walls. But the fame," I took a swig, "the fame comes from the grit. And I wanted the fame more than anything."

"You don't seem the type to want any attention at all."

"I don't, not now, but then? I wanted to play with the big boys. The photographers who were getting front page placement. The ones who were getting the glory and the press. The guys making the covers of important magazines who were looked up to like they were rock stars. So I started going after the human interest stories, then the freelance war correspondent gigs."

"Sounds scary."

"It was thrilling." Part of me still felt it thrilling down to my bones, my heart jumping at the memory of adrenaline rushes while walking through clouds of concrete dust and gunfire. "I felt like I was a part of things. Remember how we talked about just observing? Not getting in the way of a moment?" Bella nodded. "Well, this was completely different. I was right there, in the middle of it all. I ran side by side with the troops. I jumped out of airplanes. I dodged and ducked and fought with the best of them. My weapon, however, was a camera."

I picked up the bottle but didn't sip, just started picking at the corner of the label. "I photographed war-torn Croatia, Iraq, Lebanon—anywhere there was strife and battle, I was there. I became the number one guy to call because I never said no, and I got the shots they wanted. I thought nothing about risking my life and got the harrowing, the brutal, the inside look at what was really going on in the battlefield."

I laughed bitterly and took a long drink. "I got my covers, my front pages. But it wasn't enough. I wanted to be on every cover. Every front page. I wanted to be considered the best photojournalist that ever lived."

Standing, I took the three steps down the porch and stopped, my bare feet in the dirt. Bella was still and quiet, waiting as I paced in a circle.

"Emmett was US Army, 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, First Lieutenant, stationed out of Fort Worth." I'd read it so many times in all the casualty listings I couldn't stop reading. I'd never forget his role.

"When I got the call to cover his area in the Zabul province of Afghanistan, I jumped at the chance to go since I hadn't seen him in months, and I missed him, but really because I knew it was the hottest assignment going. I was working out of the same base, so we spent a lot of time together for a few weeks. Some of those… pictures you saw were from that time. There was a lot of 'hurry up and wait,' so we had a lot of downtime. We'd get drunk, bullshit about everything, and when it was time to work, we worked hard.

"Emmett was fearless." I felt a smile begin on my face, thinking of my baby brother jumping out of trees as a kid, picking up the garden snakes and field mice we'd stumble upon in our adventures, holding the rope swing with one hand as he launched himself over the swimming hole. "He wouldn't have a second thought before going down an unsafe foxhole to fish out the enemy or run into a building in the middle of hostile fire. And I followed him every step of the way." The air in our field was quiet as my feet started moving back and forth, mimicking walking over rubble and dead bodies. No crickets sang, no bullfrogs dared to croak—all of them holding their breath like Bella, bracing themselves for the impact sure to come.

"It was a Thursday, about noon. We'd gotten the intel that a pocket of insurgents had holed up in an old pottery manufacturing warehouse. There was nothing unusual about it, but of course, Emmett and I both couldn't wait to get our gear on. Jeeps drove us and his troop out about a mile away from sight of the place, and we hoofed it over sand and dirt and rocks to take cover behind a bombed-out, concrete building." My fingers started moving by themselves, focusing and readying the ghost of a camera. "I remember it clearly. I took a picture of a young kid, maybe nineteen, scared shitless but keeping his game face on, following Emmett, and listening for orders. He looked at Emmett like I did, like we were fucked, but we were trusting this guy with our lives because we knew he was the one who would get us out of whatever we were about to get into."

I hunched my back in memory and stared off in the distance while I replayed snapping away. "I always had to follow carefully, obviously. I had no weapons. I was an observer. But I pushed the limits and got in the thick of it with them. No one ever said Edward Cullen pussied out to get his pictures. No one got the up-close images I did or got better shots than I did. No one." I felt myself drifting, careening towards the hot, unforgiving desert. Lost in thoughts and images I'd woken screaming from for months.

"Emmett gave the sign, and they started raining bullets on the warehouse. Just rounds and rounds of ammo flying out of their guns, shells bouncing off the guy next to you, the noise… I can't even describe the noise. It was like being caught in a metal pipe with rocks being constantly hurled at the outside while an engine roared inside, strapped to your chest.

"It stopped at one point, and we waited. Eerie silence met us for a good two minutes, and next I knew, Emmett and his men were flying across the ground, staying as low as possible, and I followed right behind. When we reached the warehouse, the devastation inside was horrific. Bodies everywhere, bloody parts of hands, legs, heads, things you didn't recognize, just dripping with gore. You could taste it.

"The guys did their recon while I took my pictures. Things no one should ever see, but there I was because it was what I did best, better than anybody." The memory takes over, and I'm there, in the chaos. I hold my hand up to my eye, the one covered in leather. "I'm taking a picture of a child, a boy, his hand still holding a rifle even though his arm has separated from his body, when I hear a 'pop' and automatically duck. The guys scramble, and I've lost sight of Emmett. They start firing at a corner, and a few shots get fired back, but it gets confusing, I'm not sure whose bullets are flying over my head." My body got lower to the ground, and my fingertips trailed in the dirt.

"The baby-faced soldier—the one that looked so scared—he's got blood running down his face, but he's talking, yelling, and pointing at something. I climb over two bodies covered in debris, and I get to the other side, where the kid is pointing.

"One of our guys had been hit. That's always bad, but in my eye, I didn't see him as anyone's brother, son, or husband. I saw him as opportunity." My throat clenched, and my skin burned. "He'd landed perfectly on a piece of one of the American flags the boys always carried, ready to wave in victory for my lens. It was perfect."

I was now crouched over his dead body, bullets flying right past my ear, even though I was still in my Kansas field. "I thought of nothing but the sure-to-be-impressive picture I was about to get." I could smell the gunpowder, the blood, hear the cries and the falling rocks.

"What you saw on that camera was the last picture I ever took."

Somewhere next to me, I heard Bella's ragged intake of air. "I don't have to see it ever again to remember every horrific detail. My brother lying in rubble, eyes blank, and half his neck blown off. I can see the dirt streak under his right eye. I can see the wrinkle in his combats right under his name tag. I can see the old hole left in his ear from a foolish night off during basic training."

My fingers hovered over an imaginary object, their tips cold as ice ran through my veins. This was the moment that was sure to do me in. This would make Bella run screaming from me. I looked her in the eye, still in position on the ground, the sick part of me wanting to see her face change from one of pity to one of horror. "You know what's burned into my brain more than anything else in that picture, Bella? Do you really want to know?"

She looked frightened, nervous, but she was still with me, and with a nod of her head, I let out my deepest, darkest secret. The one only Rosalie knew. "Seared in my memory more than anything is the picture of his wife, Rosalie, that he always carried, peeking out of his right breast pocket. You know why?"

She didn't move.

"Because I'm the one that pulled it out. So I could get the best goddamn picture of my life. The picture that would finally land me the grandest prize of them all. The Pulitzer."

I could feel my face crumple and twist, snarling with the bile of my actions I'd poured over my entire soul and was now letting out onto the dirt and grass. "But you know what's even worse than that?"

I hesitated. My throat was scratched and burned. My voice, dead. "After I took that picture, Emmett took a breath. A gasping, clawing, pitiful gasp of air—and it lives with me every day—the thought that if I'd just fucking helped him, instead of going for that picture, maybe he'd be alive today.

"And that's why I will never, ever take a photo again."

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

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HB&PB