Y'all sure know how to put a girl's anxiety at ease.
Thanks for all of the love, even if some of you are worried! I gotchuuu.
Also, yes, this is all BPOV.
2
- summertime sadness -
As a photographer, I always used to love shooting weddings the most. Capturing someone's happiest day. Documenting their unwavering love for them to cherish for years and years.
I enjoyed the candid intimacy of observing a love story unfolding before my eyes.
The thing about other people's happiness is that it's painful to see when you're so fucking miserable.
If I could avoid shooting weddings altogether, I would. And for a while, I did. Unfortunately, they're too hard to pass up because there's good money in weddings. Easy money. The other upside is that my summers are busy, every weekend booked with multiple jobs during the wedding season. The distraction is welcome and necessary.
It was summer when he fucked her.
It was summer when our marriage blew up.
At the first wedding I photographed after I left Edward, I nearly had a panic attack in the bathroom. The only thing holding me together was knowing I couldn't let the couple down. They were relying on me. It was their day. This wasn't about my failed marriage. So I sucked it up and put on a brave face despite how much I was dying inside.
I've come a long way over the last year, but of course, weddings still sting. It's why I hired Peter, a second shooter. He takes all of the shots I don't want to. The shots my heart can't take.
The first-look.
First dance.
He captures the groom's face as the bride walks down the aisle.
That one hurts the most because I always think of Edward's face when he saw me walking toward him.
Glassy eyes.
Softest smile.
Unwavering devotion.
Yeah.
That photo of him was my favorite.
It still might be.
I deleted all of our wedding photos one night after washing down a Xanax with wine. I felt vindicated, but in the morning, I panicked. But of course, the only way I was able to let myself delete them at all was knowing our photos existed in a private online gallery that never expired.
We had the ability to cherish our wedding photos for years and years, even if we no longer cherished each other.
Those photographs would always exist, even if we were no longer married.
The thing is, we still are.
He's still my husband because he refuses to sign the papers.
Sometimes I get drunk and cave. Cyberstalk. Sometimes I email him even though I know I shouldn't.
When are you going to let me go, Edward?
When you actually want me to, he replied.
He always replies within minutes. Like he's sitting there, waiting for me.
Maybe he is. Maybe sending him an email from an address that still contains his last name gives him false hope. Maybe it's sending him the message that I'm hanging on.
And if that's the message he's receiving… he wouldn't be wrong, I guess.
I tell myself changing my last name is a hassle. My driver's license and passport. Credit cards, bank accounts, and my social security card. It's not worth the trouble or time.
But deep down, I know there's part of me that doesn't want to return to being a Swan because I never truly felt like part of a family until I was a Cullen.
His loving parents became mine.
His sister became my best friend.
It could stay that way. He wants it to. To stay together. To make it work.
He didn't want me to go, and pleaded with me before I left.
"You fucking know me, Bella. You know this isn't what either of us wants."
But he blamed me, too.
"You fucking wanted this," he reminded me.
And maybe I did. But it didn't turn out the way I wanted.
That's the thing about fantasies—they rarely ever do.