Have a great fourth advent!
Chapter 21
Already the Ankle Again
Bella
The day went much too slowly. Peter and I finally had a much more interesting job than in the weeks before, but still the day just wouldn't go. Every few minutes I looked at the clock and was angry at the hands, which hardly moved.
"I didn't see your bike," my boss noted during some small talk, and I told him about my minor injury that prevented me from taking it.
Peter told him how I had gotten the sprain.
I always wore comfortable sneakers in the lab because I had to run back and forth a lot and knew my sense of balance. After all, I didn't have to encourage him to let me down. Not that he did that normally.
Peter started describing, in great detail, how insecure I had looked in my high heels yesterday. Seeking a foothold everywhere, more carefully plodding than gracefully striding.
I continued to work while the men enjoyed themselves. I twisted my mouth when I remembered something Peter had once told me.
He already knew he was gay when he was a teenager, and had a phase where he frequented the clubs in Portland on weekends in drag and high heels. He could probably run better than me on these instruments of torture. Better than most woman.
It was closing time when Peter rose from his chair, very snappy.
I was standing diagonally behind him and was putting something back into the cupboard. His chair rolled the short distance into my already damaged ankle with a lot of force.
"Ahh ..." I cried out and buckled. "Crap, dammit!" I swore.
I wrapped my hands around my foot as if that would do any good.
"Oh ... Bella. Sorry!" Peter apologized immediately, but I waved it off. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't see you standing right behind me."
"No problem. I'm okay," I lied. Damn, that hurt.
I hobbled over to my table and sat on the edge.
Why did this always have to happen to me? ... But this time it wasn't my fault! Damn-it!
Peter quickly misappropriated some of our dry ice and wrapped it in a towel around my ankle.
I winced from the stinging cold. The numbing from the cold came soon and I let it work a little.
"You said you're getting picked up?" he inquired, slightly doubtful, when we were finally outside.
There was no car to be seen.
The company parking lot was inside the cordoned-off area and led down another street.
"Yes, I will. He'll be here in a minute," I said with conviction, clinging to the lamppost. I knew Edward was at school until four o'clock, so he couldn't be here yet.
I had just finished thinking when the dark blue Audi came driving down the street.
The walk from our lab to here had apparently taken longer than I had suspected.
Reassured, Peter said goodbye to me. He had to hurry because he had something to do with Stan.
Edward came as close to me as the road would allow.
Still, it was a considerable distance that I had to overcome, because I was determined to go alone.
Edward got out of his car with a graceful movement as soon as the car was parked. With a charming smile, he approached me, placing one hand at my side and the other gently against my cheek.
"Hello, Bella," he whispered, as if singing, and gave me a kiss on the other cheek.
How outrageous he smelled!
"Hello, Edward," I croaked - compared to his voice.
For a wonderful moment I sank into his eyes until his hand slid naturally from my side to my back to escort me to the car. At the first step I buckled, but Edward immediately held me up.
I had completely forgotten about my foot.
"What have you done now?" he asked worriedly.
"This time I am absolutely innocent. Peter ran into me. With his office chair," I defended myself immediately. I wasn't sure if Edward believed in my innocence, but he had already briskly lifted me into his arms and carried me to the car. I thought it was silly. I had injuries like this all the time and should know by now how I can move around with them.
"You just magically attract danger. No matter how insignificant it may be," he smiled at me as he lowered my legs to open the passenger door.
I dropped down on the seat and tried to prop up my leg so that it didn't hurt. In vain.
Edward was squatting beside the car, watching me. He noticed my useless attempts and turned me in his direction, shaking his head and smirking. Carefully, he rolled my sock down a bit and looked at the joint, which was already starting to swell. Gently he put his fingers by it and I heard my innocent little heart beating way too fast again.
But it felt so good. I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, relaxed and sighed.
"It seems to have hit your ankle worse than yesterday," he noted, and I felt him turn my joint slightly.
I squinted my eyes together as the stinging began. He stopped immediately and instantly covered it again completely with his long slender fingers.
That was better.
"Sit in the back, Bella," he said quietly after a moment. "Then you can lay your foot down in front here and I can keep you numb," he explained in response to my undoubtedly questioning face.
I nodded and he helped me to change my place.
He drove home carefully so that nothing could shake my foot more than necessary. He also switched to automatic transmission, so he didn't have to take his soothing cool hand off my skin.
Spurred on by the numbing coolness, I immediately scrambled out of the car when we arrived at my house and hopped along the car toward the front door, the front door key already in my hand. I didn't get far before I was back in Edward's arms.
"You weren't going to hop all the way to the front door, were you?" Edward teased. "Besides, you really should have a doctor look at that!"
"Mmm ... mmm ... I could call Carlisle!", I replied defiantly, at least partially agreeing with him.
He looked at me in offense.
"You're questioning my skills?" he said, humiliated, and slumped his shoulders.
I rolled my eyes at his acting.
I unlocked the front door and Edward carried me up to my bedroom. He gingerly set me down on my large armchair and quickly disappeared into my bathroom. I paused for a moment until I remembered that my medicine cabinet was there and that he had already inspected it yesterday with Jake. Ashamed, I hid my face in my hands.
He was a doctor! He would have recognized at once that of all those things were for me. Almost everything. In my head I briefly cursed my clumsiness when Edward returned.
He retrieved a small pillow from the bed, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me, positioned the pillow on his lap and placed my foot on it. Carefully he took off my shoe and my sock and put his cold hands on the joint. Gingerly he began to touch and examine everything.
I shuddered.
It felt like he was stroking my skin, lovingly. My heart raced from his touch and I was drowning in liquid gold again, which automatically instructed my lungs to become restless.
I started thing about how I had never found his coldness unpleasant. Yes, he was cold. But it wasn't the piercing cold of ice. It made me shiver, but not from the temperature. My skin always longed for his hands, no matter how cold I actually was.
I flinched briefly as the ointment touched me.
It could not possibly be cooler than his fingers. He massaged so gingerly that I felt no pain at all. At some point I closed my eyes and enjoyed every tiny movement of his fingertips, while my heart commented on every change in his touch.
"Bella? Will you tell me what is the story behind this armchair?" he asked calmly and without interrupting his treatment.
"What makes you think there's a story behind it?" I asked a counter question, smirking. Of course, there was.
"It doesn't fit in here. The whole room appears harmonious and in tune with itself ... and then there's this!" he smiled, pointing to the armchair.
I laughed too and told him.
When I moved here, Jake and Leah were four years old and we were still living in a small, cramped, furnished apartment that my company had procured. I didn't have much back then and all my makeshift furnishings for that house were from junk or thrift stores. There had been no coherence in this house. It was very cozy, but also completely without style. Nothing fit together. Esmé would certainly have had a heart attack. To finally be able to really live here, I needed real beds at least for the children, while I would have been content with the sofa. The two of them had seen the armchair in the window of a very expensive designer furniture store and were so excited about it, because it was so pretty and colorful, that I couldn't help but buy it. Although I had actually already planned to use the money elsewhere, it didn't mattered. We slept together in this armchair the first night in this house.
"You'll never give him away!" stated Edward understandingly.
"No ... Never," I confirmed with a small tear of the memory in my eye.
"A nice story ... How did you come here, of all places?" he continued to ask.
"Chance ... and good luck. I wrote my bachelor's thesis on the very topic for which a lab technician was needed here at the Prescott Institute."
"But far away from Charlie or Renée."
"Far enough away from Forks and La Push," I now whispered. It still hurt when I thought back to those two small towns. I'm sure he could figure out for himself why I wanted to get away from Washington State and didn't ask further.
"And how did you get here?" I asked after a moment of silence.
"Also chance. We haven't been to this area in a long time. How Esmé came to Saco, of all places, I can't tell you, though."
"Esmé," I murmured, lost in thought, trying to remember her. I had always liked Esmé. She was so generous and above all motherly, very different from Renée.
"She would be happy to see you again," Edward said softly, hopefully.
"We'll see," I replied noncommittally.
I was not yet sure what I wanted to do. They had all left me. Especially Edward. Actually, I should be angry with him and scratch his eyes out. Throw him out vociferously and reproach him for how much he had hurt me back then. He couldn't just show up here as if nothing had happened. But I had been so surprised yesterday - and also a little frightened - that he was really here. He hadn't changed. He was still handsome and charming. If I wanted to find out what he really wanted here, I had only one option: to allow his company. Not the most awkward way to find out. But I couldn't let him overwhelm me. I wasn't going to let myself be wrapped around his finger. With those eyes, that crooked smile, his tender hands, his kind nature.
There was no way he wanted me! He had expressed that quite clearly at that time. That thought alone was already absurd. I was thirty-seven years old. He, on the other hand, was still young and handsome. What would he do with a comparatively old woman like me and I with a boy like him?
I had to make every effort not to let my thoughts drift in that direction.
We were old acquaintances. Friends. Nothing more. Edward was just being polite. It had nothing to do with me in particular. Most likely, he just wanted to make sure that I would continue not to reveal what they were. Maybe the others even forced him to be here and he would rather be with this Samantha. Leah had said that he wasn't with Samantha, but that wasn't necessarily true. Or it was true, and for some reason he had to change her. Maybe he wanted her, but she didn't want him. I think my thoughts were starting to drive me crazy!
"So where were you before," I pulled myself back together.
"Last year we were in Denali, Alaska. Do you remember that we have acquaintances there?"
"Yes, I remember," I declared proudly. I hadn't forgotten everything. "And before that?"
"Texas," he replied suddenly irritable.
"Why do you say that so ... hatefully? Wasn't it nice there?" I asked more specifically. I couldn't make sense of it. As far as I could tell from my children's reports, he had met Samantha about a year ago - in Texas.
"No," he replied, the gold freezing in his eyes.
Wasn't he supposed to look happier that he met Samantha there?
"Come on. Tell me," I prompted him curiously.
He clenched his jaws and seemed thoroughly angry.
"Ouch ...!" I cried out as his fingers became a little inattentive. More an involuntary reaction than it really hurt.
Immediately he corrected his grip around my ankle and his features softened again.
"I'm sorry, Bella. Please forgive me," he truly asked for forgiveness.
More formally than would have been necessary for this brief lack of concentration.
"Texas?" I tried again, because his behavior really made me curious.
"Please, Bella. Another time," he almost pleaded.
But I just continued to look at him curiously.
"I will tell you. I promise. But not today, please," he asked again and I nodded.
Thank you for reading!
