Bella came round after lunch today. We were going to watch a movie in my blanket fort and wanted some time alone. We started kissing but I could hear the others in my head: Alice and Esme both thinking 'cute!', Jasper thinking 'I hope he doesn't bite her' Emmett singing some obscene rap song about sex and Rosalie internally retching. I tried to block them out, put the volume up on the movie, focus on Bella, but it was hopeless.
She drew back and stroked my face. "It's ok Edward. Ssssh. Don't let them get to you."
"Im sorry. I'm trying. I really am."
She hugged me and stroked my hair, kissing my forehead softly. I curled up and she let me rest my head on her stomach.
"C'mon, let's go for a walk and get out of here. How far do we need to go so you can't hear them? A few miles, right?"
"About that, yeah."
"Well let's get going then."
We walked north and after an hour we were out of their range and my mind was finally still. I felt horribly guilty and was sulking at being interrupted yet again by my family. I can't ask them to vacate the house every weekend but I would dearly like to. I kicked some flowers and Bella told me off.
As we strolled Bella talked about school and college, trying to take my mind off things. Eventually she asked how much land was ours and I explained roughly where the boundaries were. She hadn't realised the property was so large, but said it made sense really, given our need for privacy.
There was a fallen tree so we stopped for a while so Bella could rest. If she got tired I would carry her, but she said she wanted to just take in the scenery for a moment. Taking in the scenery turned into a heated twenty minutes of frantic kissing, moaning and a thorough exploration of Bella's mouth. I can happily report that her teeth are in fine fettle. It was excellent!
"It's so nice to be away from everyone isn't it?" I said.
"Yeah, I feel a bit... well I know your family tries to respect our privacy but I also know they can hear everything when I'm at your place. And Charlie just wants to protect me, but it's a bit nerve wracking wondering if he might burst in on us at my house. I wish we had our own spot."
I said I had considered buying us a house. I could easily afford it. Bella quickly shut down the idea as insane. I explained I already owned several houses, but she said that wasn't the same and she wasn't going to let me buy a house just to make out in. It didn't seem so stupid to me though. I didn't want any of our time together to be disrupted the way it so often had been to date. People might see us if we bought anywhere close by though, so it seemed too risky to try and pursue the idea.
We walked for another thirty minutes or so, enjoying the silence and holding hands, chatting idly about our plans for the next month and discussing when we might get our decisions about college.
As we walked out of a dense thicket I remembered something.
"In the thirties, Emmett built a cabin on our land."
"He did?! Where?"
"Nowhere near here, it's over closer to the east border, we're heading north at the moment."
"Can you take me there?"
"Now? I can carry you."
"Yeah. I'll close my eyes so I don't get too dizzy. I want to see it."
"Ok, it hasn't been used since then though. It might not even still be standing it was in bad shape last time I went past it. Let's go and check though."
Bella let me pick her up and snuggled against me, gripping my shirt and closing her eyes tightly. I sprinted to the spot where the cabin was in under two minutes and softly kissed Bella's forehead.
"It's still here."
Slowly she opened her eyes and I set her gently upon the ground, keeping my arms around her until she was steady.
"Wow! This is so cool." She said heading towards the door.
"Let me go first, I want to check the wood floor isn't rotten. You could hurt yourself if it breaks." I said, lifting off what remained of the old door.
The cabin was in quite a state of disrepair, having been disused since the early forties. I was surprised it had lasted this long, but Emmett had built it well. The roof had caved in in places and the inside was filled with leaf litter and all manner of small wildlife had nested inside it. There was a strong smell of mildew and rotting vegetation.
"How come Emmett built this place?"
"Emmett told you how he was turned before, right? Well when he was a newborn we moved to Forks. It's very difficult for the first year being around other people and though Emmett coped remarkably well he did lose his control a few times. All of us except Carlisle and Rosalie have. We moved here after one of those times.
He missed his family and wanted time alone with Rosalie to come to terms with everything. He wanted to stay near us to help him stay on the right path, so built this cabin to have a space that was just for them. They needed to get to know each other without having a lot of other people around. Also Emmett has always been an open book and loved us dearly, but it drove him a bit crazy having me around. He doesn't have the kind of extra sense I do, he wanted his thoughts to be his own.
Situations like just now, back at the house with you has made me realise much more what a typical person might feel like having someone else in their head all the time and I'm just hearing them, they can't hear me. I can empathise far more with him now, thanks to you."
"I see. So did you all help build this place?" Bella havered near the doorway taking in the mouldering cabin with a thoughtful expression.
I laughed a little "No, only Jasper would have known how anyway. Emmett had grown up far poorer than the rest of us. He had a big family by today's standards and they'd built their own home in the woods, so though he couldn't remember it in detail, there was some residual intuition about it. He's so strong and fast that he bought a load of seasoned wood and built the whole place in a few hours."
"Woah! And it's still here. Amazing."
We looked around a little more. There were three rooms, a bedroom, a living room and one more I think they had used for storage. They didn't need a kitchen or outhouse of course, but there was still a cast iron stove that had fallen through the rotted floor in one corner. It was a rusted heap now but perhaps could be salvaged.
"So what do you think? Is there any way to save this place and make it habitable?"
"I'm not sure. Where the roof has survived some parts look like they could be used or the timber might be repurposed, but the living room is beyond repair."
"Could we build a new one from scratch?"
"We definitely could. If I bought a kit from somewhere I'm confident I could put it together in an afternoon, even without having done it before." This idea seemed like it could be the answer to our prayers. A little love nest! With my Bella! It would be a dream come true.
Bella held out her hand for me and I snatched it up greedily, kissing her knuckeles and nuzzling her wrist, she asked "Would you want to? I mean, would you want to build a cabin with me? Just for us?"
I smiled widely, "Absolutely, it's a perfect idea. You'll be close enough that I can get you back to the house in a minute if you need anything and Charlie would never need to know if that would be preferable. I doubt he would like the idea. Is that bad though?"
"Whatever Charlie's worried about us getting up to is easily stuff we could be doing in my room before he finishes work, or in the back of your car, or in my truck. It'd just be a lot more comfortable in a cabin."
"True. And the privacy would not make it any more or less likely. I wouldn't want you to feel I was building somewhere to have my wicked way with you."
She wrapped her arms around me and looked up at me "And what if I want to have my wicked way with you, Edward?"
I froze for a moment. Was she proposing what it sounded like? Surely she knows that's a terrible idea. My recent forrays into sexual education have enlightened me to a variety of possibilities for us, but that one is far too dangerous. Especially with my wayward loins. Even assuming I didn't give her some kind of internal freezer burn, I fear I should accidentally launch poor Bella into the ceiling.
"I don't think we should Bella. I don't think I could ever risk your safety like that."
"I know doofus. I was just kidding." She smiled. I was relieved at having sidestepped that landmine.
We talked more and eventually headed back to the house. We both agreed it would be nice to have a place to just be together in peace and have some privacy. I would finally be able to escape the thoughts of others and relax and she would be able to stop feeling the pressure of being overheard all the time.
"So are we gonna do this?" Bella nudged me playfully with her shoulder, but kept her eyes fixed on me. She wasn't just playing around.
"Yes, if you want to."
"I do!" She grinned and threw herself at me in a warm hug. "This is so exciting! I can't wait to get started. How are we going to raise the money?"
"I already have the money. Bella, I thought you knew, I am really quite wealthy."
"I don't know how much a cabin costs, or how wealthy you are, but of course I know you are, yeah. I don't want you spending college money on me or whatever though."
"Bella, I should have told you before. I didn't know when the right time was. I have enough to give every kid at Forks High a full ride to out of state college for four years without really putting a dent in my savings and I dearly wish I could, but it would draw attention that would risk all of our lives."
She stopped walking, fell silent and gaped at me, puzzled.
"I have around $10 billion in savings and investments."
Her jaw dropped "What the fuck?!"
"This is why I didn't mention it before. I didn't want you to be angry with me."
"I need to sit down." she mumbled. The colour was draining from her face fast. I looked around for fallen trees but there were none close so I sat on the forest floor and gently moved her onto my lap so she wasn't touching the damp ground.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sure this must be a shock."
She nodded slowly. I was worried, she needed a blanket and a sugary drink, neither of which I had to hand. I knew I should have put a butterscotch in my pocket! I shall not be caught out like this again.
"Will you let me carry you back to the house? I think you should stay warm."
"Just give me a minute. I'm just trying to process it." She took a few measured breaths. "I have a lot of questions about all of this Edward and it's probably better not to ask them where your family can hear."
"We could go for a drive? I want to get you something to eat first though. You look a bit pale."
She nodded. "How far is the house walking?"
"About half an hour."
"Can you carry me and run?"
"Of course." I cradled her and stood up while she closed her eyes. "Ready?"
"Just go."
I raced through the trees and reached the house in under a minute, taking her immediately to the living room and setting her down on the couch across from a confused looking Emmett who was furiously mashing the buttons on his X Box controller.
"Hey Bella! Are you ok? You look a bit green. Did Edward get a boner?"
"Shut up Emmett!" I called from the kitchen. I handed Bella a glass of juice and pulled a blanket from the back of the couch, wrapping Bella in it and watching her for signs she might faint. She drank the juice, watching the video game on the tv screen and the colour slowly crept back into her cheeks. She batted me away as I repeatedly checked her temperature from different angles with my infrared thermometer gun and tried to convince her that she should have a CT scan to be sure there was no lasting neurological damage from the shock of finding out how wealthy I am.
"I'm ok now. Stop fussing. Let's go."
"What?! You gonna leave me hanging like that?" Emmett whined.
"Edward just told me how much money he has."
"Ohhhhhh dra-ma!" Emmett's mouth hung open as his eyes flitted back and forth between the two of us, eager for the scoop on Bella's reaction.
"Are you that rich too?"
"Richer." Emmett grinned. It was a high score to him and he really liked beating me at it.
"Right." Bella grumbled. She sounded disconcertingly like her father and I had a lingering image of her with a luscious moustache that I shall now be cursed to remember for all the rest of eternity. Damn you brain!
"We're going for a drive so we can talk. We'll be back later."
"Make him take you shopping!" he yelled as I held Bella's elbow to make sure she didn't stumble on the stairs and zappedc her again with the thermometer gun.
"Shut up Emmett!" We both said in unison. I smiled at her tentatively. I was very worried this would drive a wedge between us, money had a way of doing that even when the disparity was far smaller.
In the car Bella immediately duped me with a kiss, then grabbed the batteries from my thermometer and secreted them in her brassiere. After a fruitless search in the glove box for more batteries, I gave up and drove out of Forks and headed towards Lake Crescent. Bella started to talk. She asked question after question about where the money came from, why I hadn't told her, why I didn't just buy a private island and live there, why I was going to high school, why Carlisle worked and if he kept his salary, if we paid our taxes and made donations, which charities we supported, how many houses I owned, where they were, how extravagant they were, if I helped the poor and homeless, if I owned businesses. She finished by asking how I felt about having so much money. I admitted I was used to it now and that it was very convenient, but wasn't something I craved or felt pride about. My family had been wealthy in my real life before the change, so I was accustomed to having not only what I needed but also what I desired for the most part.
"Have you ever worked?"
"Yes, I've been a doctor, well, I assisted Carlisle but I have been through medical school twice. I couldn't control myself around blood enough to practice as I had hoped to. I've been a sound engineer, that was in the fifties and sixties. It was fun for a while, until all the artists started getting too strung out on drugs after a few years. I produced jazz records mostly and worked live shows. I worked in the sound booth on some late night radio shows as well for a while. I also worked the night shift in a photographic lab for a newspaper, getting the journalists' shots ready to print for the morning edition."
"Bella, you have to remember we all lived through the Great Depression and both world wars. There was such an unprecedented amount of economic uncertainty that we were genuinely at risk without a serious financial buffer, just having a house and a salary was no longer safe enough. So we began investing. We did quite well as our investments were long term with modest returns, but long term works for us.
Then Alice and Jasper joined us in the sixties and, well, she has an unfair advantage when it comes to playing the stock market. In the eighties things got a bit crazy and it felt a bit obscene. People were making money hand over fist on the stock market and yet there was the AIDS epidemic, real poverty and such desperation in a lot of the population. I made some donations and I stopped actively investing much, just leaving things mostly to my accountant. It felt dirty to be actively trying to profiteer when I could hear the suffering of so many around me.
In the late nineties I discovered the man I'd entrusted my finances to had been stealing from me for years and making high risk investments with my money to keep the profits for himself. He'd had a bad run and decimated what I'd built up before Alice saw and we anonymously reported him to the police. I still had enough left to rebuild. Alice gave me a couple of company names so I invested again and then sold my shares when I had earned back what had been stolen.
To be safe we need enough money to do things like charter or even buy planes, pay off anyone we might need to, cover our tracks and go underground, all at a moment's notice. It takes more money than you might think to do that.
I'm not justifying the wealth I have or saying I need it more than others. I certainly don't deserve it. But none of it is stolen, unless you count Alice's help as stealing and I always tried to make sure that I avoided the most unscrupulous investments, like buying up debt or weapons companies."
"So the money you have is all from what you earned when you worked?"
"I inherited some from my parents when they passed and their house as well. Carlisle arranged things so that I would get to keep my family home in Chicago and what they had left to me."
"Well, of course that belongs to you."
"The rest is all built off of that and my earnings from the years I worked."
"Have you ever funded politicians?"
"No. I stay out of it. I gave money to the NAACP in the sixties. Aside from that, no. I don't vote either. It leaves too much of a paper trail." I shot her a grin in hopes of lightening the mood, "And I am too young besides."
"Of course." She rolled her eyes and I felt the tension dissipate infinitesimally.
Bella took my hand after a little while and we sat quietly, looking out over the lake as the sky darkened and night fell.
"Do you still want to be my girlfriend? Please don't leave me Bella." I whispered once the suspense and anxiety became too much for me to bear.
"Of course I do!" Bella looked at me and realised how worried I was. "Oh god! I'm so sorry. You were really thinking I might break up with you?"
I nodded.
"Of course I wouldn't want to break up Edward, never, I always want to be with you. Please don't think like that." She held my face between her hands as she said it, then launched upon me and kissed me deeply. I relaxed at the confirmation of her affections and a whimper escaped from me. I had been so frightened.
She climbed across the console squeezing herself between my body and the steering wheel and straddled me to kiss me again and again passionately. Things were getting dangerously heated when she hit the steering wheel and set off the horn which made us both burst out laughing.
"So it turns out women do have butts."
"We do."
"I was right though."
"About what?"
"It certainly is one of the great mysteries of the universe." I winked at her!
"Edward Cullen! Are you flirting with me?"
"Maybe. Just a little bit."
"I like it. More than just a little bit."
"Oh!"
I moved the seat back and she lay atop my chest, twisting her fingers lazily through my hair.
"Do you want me to give it all away?"
"What?"
"The money. I will if you want me to. We could donate it to different charities. We could choose them together."
"No, I couldn't ask you to make yourself vulnerable like that, you need to stay safe and you earned it. I trust your judgment about the risks you might face from the Volturi and if they ever somehow discovered about me you'll need it. We both would and maybe even my parents.
It's yours. I was just shocked. It's fine. I don't know why I reacted so strongly really. I'm sorry. It doesn't change anything at all. I knew you had money, I thought you might have, like, a few hundred thousand or something I guess. I've never had any really, I mean, I've not been dirt poor either, but…we just get by. So finding that out, it just suddenly felt like this incredible power imbalance, but it doesn't change anything. I mean you had it all along. I'm sorry I was so nosy. God that was rude!"
"It's fine. Well we can talk about this any time Bella. I want to share details of my life with you. If you change your mind or have any more questions just talk to me. Ok?"
"I will."
"So, can I buy us a cabin?"
"Hmmmm... it would be yours though, not ours."
"And that's... not ok?" This proved to be a very delicate subject to navigate and I have no experience. I am so scared of upsetting Bella and her changing her mind about wanting to be my girlfriend. I'm sure I should have handled the whole thing far better.
"I want to feel like it's both of ours."
"So no cabin then."
"Not no...But… How about we work and raise the money together? How much would we need?"
"At least $1000."
"We can make $500 each, that doesn't seem unrealistic. I have about $80 saved aside from my college fund."
"You're not touching your college money. Absolutely not."
"No. I won't. I could tutor juniors for the SAT though to make some extra and I get an allowance. If we stay in while we raise the money and I go to friends' houses instead of the diner, or just get a drink there and eat at home when we hang out I can save money."
"You could tutor Emmett, he swears he's going to get a perfect SAT score because I said he couldn'."
"I want to know how his mind works so bad…" she whispered as she looked out over the lake, with a far off look in her eyes.
"Can I drive you to school? You can save gas money."
"Yes! That's a good idea. Wait, what about Rosalie and the others?"
"Emmett can drive them. She'll like it if I'm not there. They can listen to their awful CDs."
"You can teach piano and tutor as well maybe?"
"Of course. How long do you think it'd take to raise the money?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe three or four months."
"That's a long time for us Bella. We only have four months left until graduation."
"Hmm, I don't know how to do it faster though."
"Why don't we set a deadline? If raise whatever we can, between now and then would you let me make up the difference? I want us to be able to enjoy ourselves and not lose all the time we could spend together working until graduation."
"I don't know Edward. How long are you thinking about?"
"A month?"
"Two?"
"Ok, two then."
"And I want to help you build it ok? I don't want you scuttling off in the night and doing it without me. I want to be involved 50/50."
"No scuttling. I promise."
She sat up to face me and we looked into each other's eyes.
"We're really gonna do this?"
I nodded and a dazzling smile crept over her features. "Oh my god this is so fucking exciting!" She hugged me again hitting the horn once more with her butt. We laughed and I hugged her as tightly as I dared.
"I should get you back home soon, it's almost eight. Aren't you hungry?"
"Yeah. I need to use the restroom too."
She moved back to the passenger seat and I drove us to her house. She asked me to stay the night so I dropped off the Volvo, grabbed some clothes and had a quick conversation with Emmett about cabin building and SAT tutoring, he eagerly accepted the chance for alone time with Bella to "get the scoop on youse twose!". Heaven help us all. He told me I could take anything salvageable from his old place and I wondered if the stove could be repaired.
Before she slept Bella and I made whispered plans to pick a site and clear the land this week, put up posters at school to tutor juniors and teach piano and she even designed a flyer on her phone. We are really going to do this and do it together, just as she wants.
I feel excited for the project although I must admit to feelings of frustration I did not share with Bella. We have such limited time together, she will move on, probably as soon as we graduate, and if not then quickly after starting college. To spend precious free hours we could enjoy together working separately goes against all of my instincts.
I know Bella would balk at the notion she would outgrow the feelings and affection she has now, but I have seen it happen to even the most devoted high school sweethearts and to the vast majority of college freshmen I matriculated with who came in confident in the strength of the bonds of their existing relationships. The few who managed to last the rapid growth and trials of college were a tiny minority and tended to hold less romantically idealised notions of their partners than Bella clearly does of me.
I have agreed to this plan though, a compromise with her to make her feel like she is my equal, when I know she is my better. Either way, this is something me buying a cabin and erecting it while she sleeps one day this week would clearly undermine.
I love her so much, I will do anything to make her happy, and even though this is a real sacrifice for me, I promised her and I shall stick to it: no scuttling.
A/N: Reviewers get to build a secret hideaway cabin in the woods with Edward.
Thanks a million to my wonderful betas itsthatkindofanight and wh1teow1, please show some love and read Moirai, a reimagining of Twilight for the new decade!