I don't own twilight. What I own is my character's, personality, background, and the plot of my story.

Author's note below.

Like an inflated balloon that is pathetically losing its air, Edward falls on the couch. His shoulders hunch and he leans forward as he places his elbows on his knees and looks on the ground. She can't see the expression on his face, and for once, she is thankful that she can't.

She can't handle seeing her Edward upset. Angry? She is used to that. Upset? No, and if she had to wager a guess, it would be that he is extremely upset. It's natural. Edward isn't so good at handling criticism. All he needs is one critic to go back to being the six years old kid who had just fallen while riding the bike, and instead of being held, he was told it was his damn fault for not being good at it.

"Every time I think to myself, there is nothing else I don't know about myself. There are no more terrible things I have done aside from the ones I already know of. There are no more things that I need to make up for. It's like life is like, surprise motherfucker. There is more."

Bella looks at him and notices that he isn't even looking at her. It's like he is talking to himself, or a force she can't see. He seems to be lost in a bubble of his own and for minutes after that, all he does is sit in silence staring at his shoes as if they held the answers to all of his misbehaviors.

Minutes stretch by and the clock above Edward's head signals the minutes as they pass by.

Five.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty.

Twenty-five minutes; is how long Bella willingly sits in silence.

"Why did you do that?" she asks in a voice hardly above a whisper. The slight twitch in Edward's bicep shows that he heard her anyways.

"I didn't want to," he replies his voice a whisper too, and then he looks up to meet her eyes and continues in a louder voice, "They weren't interesting tasks to do. I think I never did them because I figured that you would always do them eventually."

Her shoulder jerks at his last sentence. There it is, the part her hand played in orchestrating her own misery.

"Why did you never stop and think that I don't want to do them?" she asks him in a stiff voice as she feels her eyes water.

"You never stopped doing them," he answers her simply. She swiftly swips away the tear that rolled down her cheeks despite her best efforts.

"What would you have done if I stopped doing them?" She asks not bothering to hide the tremble in her voice.

He shrugs his shoulders and then tells her, "I guess gotten angry?" It comes out as more of a question than a statement.

She sniffs and swipes away more tears as she asks him, "I never stood a chance, did I?" But it's not really a question when the answer is out in the open. You don't ask the person in front of you a question that you already figured out its answer to.

He shakes his head in silence and then gets up and goes to the kitchen. He returns moments later with another bottle of water that he uncaps and places on the coffee table in front of her.

She shakes her head and tells him, "Take it. I haven't finished mine yet."

He takes her old bottle and tells her, "It's already warm. I will drink it while you drink the one I just got. I know you prefer cold water to warm one."

She tries to smile at him in gratitude and thanks but all she manages is a grimace. "Everyday, I wake up thinking to myself I will make it up for you and fix everything g that I broke, yet all I manage to do is make you cry."

As if the statement flew over her head, she raises the bottle to her lips and drinks a third of it then places it on the table, and tells Edward, "Go and sit. Now that I have gotten the crying out of my system, I am ready for us to get our shit together."

She sits straight and rolls her shoulders back as she watches him slowly walk to the couch and the moment his butt touches the couch she fires at him. "Why have you not tried to handle any responsibilities when it comes to Cece? Don't you want to have a say in how things go forward?"

"It's not because I am feeling lazy, not consciously anyway," he tells her shaking his head and pausing for a second to think before he continues, "I would like to say that it's because I want you to feel as much in control in this as possible, but the truth is that most of it has less to do with that and more to do with the fact that I don't want to mess up."

"Edward," she calls to attract his attention. "Yes."

"Messing up is part of being a parent," she states calmly.

"But I don't want to mess up," he huffs throwing his head back against the back of the couch.

She rolls her eyes and replies, "Tough luck. That is one thing you will mess up."

He crosses his arms and eyes her while saying, "You look awfully happy with that." it's not a question. It's a statement.

She smirks as she answers him, "I will enjoy watching you get knocked down a pig, or two, or ten."

"You think I will be that bad!" he tells her incredulously. She doesn't think that low of him, or does she?

"All parents are that bad," she answers him simply as if it's a universal truth, like the sun rises from the east and sets in the west.

"I am not going to have a lot of fun, will I?" he asks her resigned to his fate of messing up his child.

"Sometimes. When you work really hard at deluding yourself into thinking that you didn't fuck up your child," she answers him after some thought. Every parent fucks up their child in their own way. It's a given. Even the parents with the best intentions do.

"So, are you ready?" She asks trying to inject as much excitement into the question as she can and sitting up straight.

"Do we have to do it now? I am tired?" he whines laying on the couch.

"Would you like me to do it on my own?" she asks him, her voice dripping sarcastically.

The sarcasm seems to fly over his head as he closes his eyes and tells her, "You are a life saver."

Bella just sits in silence and raises an eyebrow at him waiting for him to realize what he just did.

After a couple of minutes of silence, Edward looks up to see what is going on around him, and the expression on her face makes him realize his mistake. "Sorry. I am doing it again, ain't I?"

"What do you think?"

"Okay, okay," he tells her and sits straight before telling her, "Okay lets do it."

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