I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's, personality, background, and the plot of my story.
Author's Note at the end.
Bella parks her car in the parking lot of the park in their neighborhood. She looks through the mirror at Cece who is in the back seat.
"So, Cece, I want you to meet someone today," Bella informs her.
"Who is is?" Cece asks curiously.
"Remember how you told me that you wish we could make the zoo prettier for the elephants?" Bella asks her.
Cece nods her head and Bella continues, "This person that you used to know is helping me make that happen, so you need to be nice to him, got it?"
"Yes, ma'am," Cece yells and Bella laughs at Cece's random outburst before she gets out and helps her out of the car. Bella walks behind her as she runs to the empty swings.
Once Bella settles on one of the benches, she takes out her phone and dials Edward's number and he answers at the third ring, "Hello."
She hears the sound of traffic in the background as she answers him in a sing song tone, "I hope you have gotten somewhere in the litigation process because a certain someone knows you are helping me and will blame us equally if you fail."
"I finished them. You heading the zoo's landscaping is officially governmentally approved," he answers her.
She sighs in relief. When Bella had the crazy idea to try and make the zoo thing happen, she decided to bring Edward into her plan. With her firm approving of her doing it as pro bono, she needed someone who is going to litigate the entire process. Initially, she wanted Edward in because she though that it would be the first step in making him handle parental responsibility and delegating some of hers over to him. Secretly, she was worried that her attempt would fail, and she didn't want to be the only one disappointing Cece, but she needed not worry as she had forgotten that when Edward puts his mind to something, he succeeds.
"Where are you?" she asks him frowning. She is hearing too much traffic when she shouldn't as the route she gave him is traffic free.
When Edward tells her where he is, she replies, "Seriously Edward, what are you doing there?"
At the silence that greets her she continues, "Are you intentionally wasting my time? Do you not want to see Cece?"
When more silence greets Bella, she sighs in disappointment. She truly thought that he had grown up. She arranged this meeting only because she assumed that he has changed. Guess some habits are difficult to break.
"No, no, no, I want to see Cece," he tells her breaking the silence between them.
"Then what is it?" she asks him sounding exhausted.
"I, I am afraid." he tells her after a moment of silence.
"From me?" she asks in surprise. She doesn't want to come off extremely absorbed, but surely he is not afraid of Cece?
She hears him sigh deeply before he replies, "I have spent so much time worrying about you saying no and thinking of ways to make you say yes, that I did not think of becoming a parent,", "And now that the two of you are going to meet it finally dawned on you and now you are afraid," she concludes y.
"Yeah," he responds in a low voice.
Loud giggles make her look in Cece's direction and she feels her heart break for her little girl as she watches her and tell Edward. "Listen, I know that I made you give up your parental rights, and you think that it's about me being able to push you out of Cece's life the moment you step out of line, and that is part of it Edward, but do you know what is the equal important part to it?"
"No."
"The other part is that now that you have no parental rights, being a good parent is your only option to stay in her life. I am not going to pretend that my reasons for my request are purely altruistic Edward. I am not an altruistic person, but I am not a villain either. You no longer have parental rights. You don't have the option of not being a good parent. You don't have the option of being a shitty parent and still seeing your child, so as long as you want to see your child, you will do good by her. Uderstood?" she presses in a stern voice at the end.
"Understood," he lets out her in a voice she can't read.
"Edward, contrary to what you might think, I don't want you to fail. If you fail, it means that my daughter will be heartbroken and I don't want that, so no I don't want you to fail," she tells him in a reassuring voice repeating her sentiment twice.
"Of course, I know that Bella. I would never assume that Cece isn't your priority," he tells her.
"But you think that I am secretly hoping that you will fail," she states. It's not a question. It's a statement.
When Edward doesn't answer her, she takes a deep breath and tells him, "Edward, I understand that you are scared. I am scared, everyday. That fear never truly leaves you, but I make the choice to try my hardest everyday no matter how tiring it gets because I owe it to her. Parenthood isn't a pendulum. You don't get to swing in and out however you like. Cece and I will be staying in the park for thirty more minutes and if you don't arrive by then, we will leave. If you don't think you are ready now, it's okay, we can figure it out another time. Rome wasn't built in one day and I won't judge you if you can't do it right from the first time."
With nothing left for her to say, Bella hangs up the phone and stares into the distance.
Hello lovely people,
One of you guys commented something that may or may not happen, and now they are my favorite person.
I feel like I need to put a disclaimer/apology. I did say that a new chapter will show up every 30 hours, and I try to give you guys an update within an hour of the 30-hour mark, and if I can't, I try to update earlier, like this chapter. But sometimes that is impossible. That said, I am on a strict schedule, so if an update comes late, it won't impact the next update, and it will be as if the previous update came on time. Unless I can't update on time twice in a row.
Please leave a comment in the review section. It could be your favorite part, thoughts, feeling, or even criticism. Any and every comment you leave is read and taken into consideration. Your comments motivate me to update faster, and help me grow as a writer.
Until my next update,
Stay Safe