Alrighty, we're almost there.
Only Angel- Harry Styles
Treehouse- Frances Forever
We were unaccompanied going to therapy in the morning, with Alice and Charlie having left before Edward woke up. Edward was beyond disturbed by Alice skipping therapy, and emerged from the office after an hour with a drawn face and slumped shoulders.
I had hoping that, with the steps forward we had been taking, I might be getting to experience what Edward had asked if he could so sometime, but apparently 'sometime' was not within the next few days.
He wasn't angry or upset with me, not even with the fact that it was all my fault. I should have been more careful, more mindful, and because of me, he hadn't spoken to the twin he had been inseparable from their entire lives.
And it only got worse.
Alice did go to their next therapy appointment- I figured if she skipped it again, their social worker would probably hear about it and cause problems. Because missing two therapy sessions would be the worst thing to ever happen to her in the foster care system, of course.
She was dressed in an oversized sweater and plain jeans, her hair unwashed and dull. She looked wholly unlike herself. She popped in headphones to an old portable CD player and huddled by herself in the back seat, folding into herself in the corner and making herself as small as possible.
Edward stared at her for most of the drive through the rearview mirror, frowning deeply with the smell of salty tears prickling his eyes.
Edward's appointment was first, leaving me with Alice alone in the car. I drove into town and pulled into an open space in front of one of her favorite boutiques, hoping she would be lured out with the temptation of shopping, but she wasn't. She barely even moved, holding her knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around her legs.
I didn't know what to say. Apologize? For myself, or on Edward's behalf? It was all worth a try.
I turned around in the front seat, drawing Alice's attention. I tapped my ears, hoping she would take her headphones off, and she did.
"What?" she said shortly, the bite in her tone making her sound very much her age.
"I want to talk."
"Well, I don't," she huffed, putting the headphones back on. I plucked the CD player from her lap and unplugged the headset from it so she had nothing more to listen to.
"I need to apologize," I started, and Alice's expression remained unchanged. "Edward… You know he didn't mean to yell. You just surprised him, and he regretted everything the second he said it. He's been torn up for days-"
"Yeah, it looked like you were both real torn up the other day," she snarked.
"Alice," I sighed, biting at my bottom lip while searching for words. "You, of all people, should understand. Don't you want to be happy for Edward?"
Alice stared at me, blinking as she digested my question. She swallowed heavily and looked away, down at the center console I was leaning on.
She breathed deeply and straightened her posture, her shoulder back and her head held high. "I don't like hypocrisy," she said simply. I then let her grab the CD player from my hands and pop the headphone back in, music blaring into her ears. I sighed and looked back at her, but she closed her eyes.
I didn't understand Alice. Of all humans, she was a mystery to me. She looked defeated- dressed blandly, purplish bruises blossoming under her eyes from not sleeping as well- but she was still so stubborn, so unwilling to capitulate.
Time had ticked away and I drove back to the office to exchange Alice for Edward, who shuffled out of the building and nervously avoided making eye contact with his sister.
"Are you okay?" I asked once Edward was in the car and Alice was safely settled on the couch inside.
He shrugged, looking at our clasped hands. "Alice is… I d-don't know how to explain it, but she's more angry about s-s-something else than she is m-mad at us."
"What?" I asked, unthreading my fingers from Edward's so I could drive away, needing to give Alice a safe distance so she could have privacy from my acute hearing.
"Whatever's b-been b-bothering her for the past few months, w-with the nightmares and the attitude, th-that's what's making her s-s-so angry. She's j-just t-taking it out on us."
"Did your therapist tell you that?" I asked, confused.
"N-no, of course not, she c-can't t-talk about anything Alice s-s-says with me. I just… I g-got the feeling. I know th-that she's worried about s-something. I j-just d-don't know what."
"You 'got the feeling'?" I asked.
Edward groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb, and I was immediately flashed back to his hand on my breast with something else between those slender digits. I snapped my eyes back to the road. This was a beyond inappropriate time to be reacting like that.
"It's l-like, I told you once, how s-s-sometimes I just know s-something? Especially with Alice?"
"You shared a womb," I agreed. "Twins are actually pretty interesting. It hasn't been explained why twins share such a connection. Even twins separated at birth have been shown to lead similar lives, marry similar people, share interests and tastes."
"I th-think you were right. Alice just needs s-s-space, s-so that's what we'll g-give her."
I agreed that she needed space, but it all seemed to only get worse. Alice was wasting away before our eyes, and I didn't know what to do. Edward kept insisting that we give her time, but I could tell it was wearing on him as well.
Alice finally took the driver's exam with Charlie and passed, and started taking the truck wherever she needed to go, so she no longer relied on me or tagged along when Edward and I went somewhere. She even drove herself to Port Angeles for therapy once a week, and I found myself idling around while Edward was inside, wistfully wandering through clothing stores.
I knew it had to be impacting Edward more, but I missed Alice too. She was an absolutely unique human. I ran my fingers across a silky green blouse and wondered what Alice would say about it. She'd probably just throw it in a pile in my hands while telling me about an article she had read on microcredit loans with low interest rates designed to help the impoverished in the global south. I would nod along and be able to pepper in a comment every several sentences as she raced through a righteous economics speech, always talking a mile a minute.
I missed having Alice tell me what to wear or how to do my hair- something I never thought I would admit. But she had such an impeccable sense of style, and I found returning to my shapeless long-sleeved shirts and plain jeans more difficult than I thought. But I looked through the more flattering tops and cardigans in my closet and couldn't bring myself to wear them, especially when even Alice wasn't dressing like herself anymore either.
Even when she was tortured every night with nightmares, she still rolled out of bed and donned a pair of butterfly wings or mismatched striped leggings and somehow made it look like she was just strutting off a couture runway. But now she was dressing more like me, in baggy hoodies and shorts. But she couldn't hide from my sharp vision. I could see the hollows of her cheekbones deepening, her skin looking sallow and dry. She pecked through the food she did bother eating, but usually just stayed sequestered away in her room.
Charlie was at a loss, too. He and Alice were close, and she still joined him down at the reservation every few days, but I knew that Charlie wasn't able to broach any kind of emotional subjects with his foster daughter, no matter how much he loved her. He just wasn't the kind of man to be able to have those kinds of conversations.
She had barely spoken five words to me in a week, and hadn't so much as looked at Edward since she caught us on the couch, so when she skipped down the stairs and smiled brightly at me, I was more than a little caught off guard.
"Good morning, Bella!" she said brightly, pouring herself a bowl of cereal. I almost cracked the mug of tea I was holding between my hands I was so surprised.
"'Morning, Alice," I said cautiously, waiting for the punchline. Edward was upstairs in the shower and Charlie had left for an early shift at work, muttering under his breath about teenagers starting the weekend early, but I hadn't been expecting Alice to make an appearance. She had been sequestered in her room but to pick at food during mealtimes and the briefest trips to the bathroom, but here she was, in the kitchen and smiling widely in front of me.
"I was thinking we could have a spa day, if you're interested?" she asked, head tilting friendlily.
I stared at her as if she had grown a second head. Was I dreaming? Had time somehow reversed by two weeks? But for the weightloss, Alice looked like her old self, dressed in a gauzy skirt and knee-high socks and all chipper and excitable in the morning.
"Maybe you could even see if Rose wants to come?" Alice added, still acting as if nothing had happened.
"I thought you were mad at me?" I asked, confused.
"Don't be silly," Alice laughed, brushing me off and straightening up the counter, then turning and crossing her arms expectantly. "Well? What do you say?"
"What did you have in mind?" I was skeptical. This was completely out of the blue. If it had been a few weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought twice. Alice had always been spontaneous, going so far as convincing my brother to throw a graduation party with a few hours' notice.
"I don't know, I haven't thought that far ahead," Alice said, blinking rapidly like she hadn't even thought beyond asking me.
"Did you want to go today?"
"Absolutely! We need to go today because this weekend is when we go to Seattle, and I want to be all exfoliated and primped for that. And then, of course, school starts soon, so I'd like to put a good foot forward in the new year. I mean, last time we started school, we came to Forks in the middle of the semester. And that was with me just getting out of the hospital and Edward living on the street for months, so we weren't exactly a put-together pair or anything. Edward will be fine, of course. He has you, so let's be honest, he doesn't really need or want anyone else. And you would like him if he was wearing a paper bag and hadn't washed his hair in a week, right?" I didn't understand how she had time to breathe, but her question was obviously rhetorical because she didn't give me even a second to answer before continuing, "But I want to make a good second impression. You or maybe Rosalie can do those fingerwaves in my hair for the music festival, and if I can pull them off maybe I'll try and style my hair like that permanently. I mean, anything's better than the mess my hair is now."
I just nodded as Alice prattled on. She was obviously making up for weeks of silence and ignoring me by not even breaking eye contact with blinking, and speaking so fast that if I wasn't a vampire I wouldn't have been able to follow.
Edward was downstairs before long, and stood in the door of the kitchen with his mouth open in surprise. He stared at Alice as she kept on filling every moment of silent with a rapid-fire commentary, whirling around the kitchen and organizing the silverware drawer, then the drink cupboard, and finally opening the refrigerator to seemingly tackle her next task as she told me all about the potential benefits and risk-management challenges of the global over-the-counter derivative market. It seemed like she was most summarizing a speech she had heard from the chair of the Federal Reserve, but I honestly wasn't wholly familiar with the inner working of economics, and Alice was surprisingly well-versed in it.
"Good morning?" Edward said, voice raising an octave at the end of the greeting so it sounded like he was asking a question.
"Alice and I are going to have a spa day today," I told him, still trying to process the one-eighty change. Edward seemed just as surprised and looked at Alice for confirmation, but she wasn't paying attention to him. She had pulled out a giant, ancient yellow phonebook from under the sink and was studying the tiny listings under the leisure section.
"Really?" Edward asked.
"She even asked me to invite Rosalie," I told him.
"Rosalie?" Edward repeated, sounding- to be cliché- dazed and confused.
"Yeah, Rosalie," Alice said sarcastically, "You know, Bella's sister? Tall, blonde, and gorgeous?"
"Alice," I warned. Just because she was maybe still angry with him didn't give her credence to be rude to him beyond the bounds of sibling snark.
"Don't you n-need appointments for things l-like that? Massages and s-s-such?"
"I don't actually know," I admitted, looking at Alice. This really was very last minute, but maybe Alice had something up her sleeve. She always seemed to have some kind of plan- a method to the madness.
"There are some places that don't need appointments. This one, for example." She pointed to a name in sleek script with an addendum welcoming walk-ins.
"That's in Olympia," Edward said.
"What, did you think we were going to find a spa in Forks?" Alice said, again snide and nasty, and Edward shrunk back.
"Alice, seriously. You need to back off."
"Fine, fine," Alice rolled her eyes, throwing her hands up in surrender. "Sorry, twin. I didn't mean to be so mean to you. It's almost like I yelled at you or something."
Edward was taken aback, and I had to hold myself back, gripping the counter as hard as I dared, to keep myself from doing something I would regret.
"Now, if we're going to get to Olympia, we better get on the move. We should stop by your place first, see if Rose wants to go. And you probably want to drop Edward off to be babysat by Emmett, right? I'll make a quick call to the spa, and you two go get a move on so we can be ready to leave in a few minutes," Alice directed, spinning out of the room and grabbing the cordless kitchen phone on her way out.
"Huh," Edward huffed, nodding and pouring himself a bowl of cereal as well. "Do y-you think she's s-s-still mad at me?"
"I guess I've been forgiven," I wondered, staring at the doorway Alice had just vacated through. She was on the phone with the spa in the living room, confirming that they had plenty of availability and would be ready for us whenever we got there.
"Can you even g-go to a s-s-spa? Humans touching you and all?"
I shrugged. "A massage is certainly out of the question, but a manicure and pedicure are fine. Rose used to get them all the time when we lived in larger towns and she could rotate between salons every few days. The polish doesn't last very long on our nails, and then we run and hunt and it gets chipped from activity."
Edward nodded and squeezed my fingers demonstratively, then swallowed down the last bite of his cereal and got up to deposit the bowl in the sink. "Maybe this is a g-good thing," he said, rinsing the milk out and watching as it spiraled along the metal and swirled down the drain.
"Why?" I asked. I thought it was probably a good thing, too. Alice had been genuinely depressed for too long, and any return to her normal bouncy and spontaneous nature was probably a very good thing.
"I need to t-talk t-to Emmett," he said simply.
"What about?"
"He sh-shouldn't have teased you." Edward looked at me seriously, his eyes surprisingly dark in the foggy morning light.
"Oh, please don't," I cried, but Edward shook his head dismissively, and Alice twirled back in before I could say anything more without drawing her attention.
"You don't look ready," she said accusatorily to Edward, hands on her hips. He apologized and excused himself back to his room to change, and I was bound by human constraints from following him and begging him not to say anything to Emmett.
Chances were, it would only make things worse. It had been a snap-reaction from Emmett, and I was already supremely embarrassed. Not only had Emmett smelled my reaction to Edward and found humor in it, but I had been forced to explain it to Edward. And now he wanted to talk about it even more, just not with me but with my brother.
Ugh.
I thought of the potential confrontation all afternoon. Esme had been surprised to see Alice, and Rose even more so at being invited out with us, though she did accept. Esme hadn't even thought Alice would be going with us to Seattle anymore, and she had only been coordinating with Charlie about Edward accompanying us into the city. She had made it very clear that Edward would be in a room with Emmett- a blatant lie, but such was the essence of our existence- and assured that Charlie had nothing to worry about.
Rose was mildly amused by Alice, and I did my best to not be totally distracted by the distance from Edward. We got out nails done first, with Rose and I both sneakily warming our hands in the sink before letting the manicurist touch us. Rose did her best to put all the humans around at ease, keeping her gaze affixed on her lap and leaning away harmlessly, but even still there were elevated heartbeats all around. And of course we had to excuse ourselves from the massage Alice headed into, though Alice herself didn't seem surprised, and didn't push.
But even still, Alice wasn't normal. And by normal, I don't mean conventional standards. Sure, she was bouncy and bubbly, but there were moments I caught her staring with a glazed look in her eyes, like she was caught in a daydream that she couldn't escape.
With fresh nails, exfoliated skin, and tender muscles, Alice skipped out of the spa excitedly asking Rose to do those finger waves in her hair, and what kind of products they would need to do so.
And Rose was surprisingly happy to play along, and even seemed to enjoy shopping with Alice. With me, she had to drag me along, and even then I often ended up following Rose around with my nose in a book, absentmindedly giving monosyllabic impressions of clothing. And in the past few months, I tried my best to humor Alice when she took me shopping, but she often huffed and just made me carry the bags.
Rose pulled bottles, combs, and sprays off shelves at the cosmetics store in the mall in Olympia, and Alice listened intently as Rose explained the purpose of each product.
But, and this is where I became truly concerned, when Rose asked us if we wanted to dip into a department store and find something special to wear for the festival the following day, Alice simply shrugged and hummed ambivalently.
"You don't want to shop for new clothes?" I asked incredulously, trailing behind Alice into the store. Rose had already swept through the first floor, scouting out appropriate items that she wouldn't be offended by.
Rose was a bit more discerning than myself, or even Alice, and rarely wore anything more than once, and she was almost always in designer brands. I knew she had offered to go in for Alice's sake, and probably already had the perfect dress selected and set aside for the festival, and outfits packed for whatever other occasion she could need for over the weekend.
"I just don't think I'll get to wear anything like this again outside of tomorrow."
"What about prom? Or homecoming? I'm sure you could fashion one of these into a suitable formal dress if you wanted to, you're already so stylish," I complimented honestly, pulling a beaded purple dress from a rack. I could see Rose dramatically shiver from the corner of my eye, making a show out of being horrified by off-the-rack clothing, but only behind Alice's back. I refrained from rolling my eyes, though I did whisper quickly telling Rose to shut up.
"Oh, thank you," Alice said, admiring the beaded fabric and running her hands down the pleats. "I just don't think I'm going to make it to any dances this year."
"Alice, you can't skip your senior prom," I argued, draping the dress across my arm for her to try on. "I'm sure plenty of people will ask you to go. But if you don't want to go with any of them, you can go with Edward and I. He's a surprisingly good dancer, you know."
"Oh, I know," Alice laughed. "He practiced with Esme for weeks when he was planning on surprising you. And then in his room, twirling around like a ballerina."
"It was sweet," I defended, remembering the bliss of being wrapped in Edward's arms under a blanket of clouds, swaying to a gentle melody of an acoustic arrangement. "So there, you'll go with us if you don't want to go with anyone else. I'm also a good dancer."
"Didn't used to be," Rose muttered under her breath, and I shot her a glare, grateful that Alice was restricted by the constraints of human frailty and couldn't hear very well.
"That would be nice," Alice sighed, picking another dress from a rack- this time a dark red, the color of dried blood. "I just don't think it's in the cards for me right now. Not this time."
"I don't know what you mean," I admitted, and Rose quietly agreed, though she was keeping her distance and giving us space.
"I don't quite know either. I will soon, I think," she said mysteriously, and then the darkness in her expression cleared as she lit up and ran two aisles over. "This!" she half-shouted, thrusting a hanger at me. "This is perfect for you."
Rose peered over appraisingly, brows raised, and surprisingly nodded. "That would look great on you," she agreed. I took it from Alice cautiously, raising it to rest along my torso, the fabric soft and silky on the bare patches of my skin it brushed.
We left Olympia with only a few shopping bags in the trunk, the lights of the city fading behind us as Rose sped down the highway. If she was going to hang around a human who wasn't Edward and spend a day around other humans, she was most definitely going to take advantage of the distance and drive her M3.
Alice took the front seat- not that she asked me if it was alright. It gave her total control of the radio, and Rose was more than happy to be listening to a Top 40s station rather than the "mopey classical shit" or the occasional too-loud and too-angry heavy rock.
Alice had convinced Charlie that she and Edward needed to stay at our house so we could leave for Seattle in the early morning with no delay, so we headed straight home. I still had no idea how Alice had changed so quickly, but we all easily adjusted. Two spare rooms were turned down and Esme had set up beds in each- to keep up the appearance that both Edward and Alice had their own respective rooms.
Alice zipped inside to peck at the food Esme had cooked, though Emmett proudly announced that he helped. Alice seemed to appreciate it, and gorged herself on more food in a single sitting than I had seen her eat in days.
Edward had gone upstairs when he heard Rose peel through our gravel driveway. I guessed he was still avoiding Alice, and I didn't blame him after how she spoke to him in the morning, before we left. He didn't want to hear his twin, the person he had loved for his entire existence, show him just how forceful her anger was.
I excused myself from dinner with the excuse of putting the dresses away so they wouldn't wrinkle and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Emmett chuckled at my eagerness, but Rose smacked his arm, gently so that their skin wouldn't crack together with the impact.
He was lying on the full mattress in the spare bedroom, limbs spread out and obviously bothered by the heat seeping into the room from the open windows. A wet tendril of hair stuck to his forehead and the hair at the nape of his neck was darkened with sweat. I thought maybe he had fallen asleep- his breaths were slow and steady and the beat of his heart was a constant rhythmic melody.
His hand was on his stomach, the soft skin just above his hand blotching with heat and turning the scars there a burning red. His scent was darker and blanketed the room, saturating with the humidity so I was cocooned in a swaddle of sunshine and honey.
"Well?" Edward said suddenly, startling me. "Are you just going to s-s-stare, or are you going to c-come here?"
"I don't know, it's such a lovely view," I joked honestly, but was already at his side, kneeling next to him on the bed.
"How was Alice?" Edward asked. He was unmoving, even as my weight shifted the mattress. I brushed the lock of hair from his face, each strand individually silky and soft. Transfixed, I watched as his chest rose and fell. The skin on his torso was creamy but for the flowering of blush and the scarred marks that marred it, the shadow of his navel and the gentle curve between his hip bones laid bare for me to see.
"Fine. She got her nails done, had a massage. She shopped and talked about hair products. It was largely uneventful," I recounted, delicately tracing one finger down the center of his sternum. His skin pebbled in goosebumps under my cold skin, and he clenched the muscles in his abdomen, but he laid still under me, his eyes still closed.
"Do you like my fingernails?" I asked softly, letting my fresh manicure very delicately scrape his skin. A deep sigh escaped from his lips, and a delicate flush started to creep up his chest, suffusing his neck and face.
"Very much," he breathed.
"But you're not even looking," I said, faux-crossly. "I spent all day away from you, getting this lovely manicure, and you don't even want to appreciate it?"
"Oh, I appreciate it," he sighed, but his eyes popped open and he sat up, catching my hand in his. I elongated my fingers and wiggled them in front of him playfully, and he laughed but studied them intently in the grey light of the shrouded moon.
"So what do you think?" I asked.
"Very b-beautiful," he confirmed, kissing the pad of each of my fingers, then grasping my other hand in his and giving it the same treatment. "Just l-like the p-person they're attached to."
He kissed up my hand, up my arm, and nuzzled his face into my neck, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me down to lay on top of him.
"That's b-better," he sighed, running his hands along my back.
"I don't know why on earth you have the window open."
"I l-like to be hot."
"What?" I asked, pulling off of him a bit to look at his face.
He shrugged as much as he could laying down. "I d-don't know how to explain it. I l-like to be hot, l-like s-s-sweating, burning hot. And I l-like to be cold, like sh-shivering, freezing cold."
"That's a little weird, you know?"
"It c-comes in handy b-being with you, d-don't you think?"
"You don't get to be overly warm very often, though."
"I'd r-rather be cold," he said, his hands snaking up the bottom of my shirt so his palms pressed flat against the small of my back.
"I guess it's lucky you live in the Pacific Northwest," I pointed out, snuggling into him so my face was pressed into the curve of his neck, my mouth hovering right over where his pulse throbbed steadily. "How would you survive in a moderate climate, like California?"
"I guess we'll n-never know."
"You don't want to go to California? Everyone wants to go to California. They have Disneyland and movie stars."
"T-tempting," he murmured. "You know how m-much I l-love c-c-celebrities."
"An absolute fanboy."
"Was Alice r-really okay?" Edward asked quickly, changing the subject. I sighed, cuddling closer to his side and feeling his overheated skin cool where we were joined together.
"I don't know," I answered honestly. I really didn't. I couldn't keep up with her moods, but she had been troubled by something for months. Was this just how Alice existed? Publicly bubbly and bright, but when she was alone, disturbed by nightmares and tortured by some unseen monsters? And if that was the case, and she had been keeping it from Edward as well as everyone else, then maybe it was all catching up to her and the pressure was coming to a boiling point.
"She's n-never b-been actually angry with m-me," he said, trying to vent out what he had been holding in. "N-never. I j-just d-don't understand."
"The reason she was angry with us was pretty obvious, though," I pointed out, smoothing his damp hair back, though the unruly locks just sprang out of place again.
"And the r-reason for ch-changing her mind on a d-dime? Waking up th-this m-morning and deciding it's all b-back to normal, that she'll j-just r-randomly go to a s-s-spa and to Seattle with n-no plans or p-prior d-discussion?"
"I have no explanation for her spontaneous spa trip, but going to Seattle was a joint birthday gift to the both of you. We were just assuming she wouldn't want to come, and you know what they say about people who make assumptions."
"It's n-not that I'm m-mad that she's coming t-to Seattle with us. It's that I d-don't understand." He groaned and threw his arm over his face so that his nose was nestled between the crook of his elbow.
"I don't understand," I admitted.
"She's s-s-so hard to r-read right now. I just d-don't understand." He huffed but wrapped both of his arms back around me, pulling me as tightly as he could manage into his side. "I'm s-s-sorry I can't explain it. I j-just d-don't know how to put it all into w-words."
"That's okay. It's okay to feel lost sometimes, but we'll be lost together." I could feel Edward smile into my hair at the same time Emmett aww-ed downstairs, and I rolled my eyes and snorted.
"What?" Edward asked.
"Emmett thinks I'm overly gushy. I guess he doesn't remember that I can hear when he literally worships at Rose's feet."
Rose barked out a laugh, and I could hear Esme try to unsuccessfully hide a giggle behind a cough as she helped Alice gather extra toiletries for her to use in the spare bathroom.
"He d-didn't s-s-say anything, did he?" Edward asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I told him to s-s-stop t-teasing you. I d-don't want him b-bothering you over s-something l-like this."
"Oh, Edward, no," I reassured, rubbing his arm softly. "It wasn't anything like that. He just laughed. It's Emmett, you know. He jokes about everything like it's his purpose in existence. Just let him have his fun. And when he steps out of bounds," I warned, making sure I had Emmett's full attention, "I can just beat him into submission. I don't think he wants to drink any more milk any time soon."
"Ugh," Emmett shuddered as Rose laughed at him. "Not again."
"That was d-disgusting," Edward agreed.
"But hilarious."
"I'm n-not arguing that," Edward laughed, dropping his frustration with my brother for the time being. But even still, he shot pointed looks at Emmett throughout the weekend, especially on the drive to Seattle.
Rose had decided to join Esme and Carlisle, taking her M3 and getting away from humans for a few hours. I appreciated the enormous effort she was making to be as participatory and welcoming as possible, so I didn't begrudge her a brief respite before a day engulfed in the overwhelming bustle of a major city. But Emmett was more than happy to volunteer to drive Carlisle's Mercedes, with Edward and me in the backseat so Alice could sit in the front. They were a comical pair- Emmett almost hunched in the driver's seat and Alice dwarfed next to him, but they chattered on about a range of topics. They were two of a kind, able to carry on a conversation about any topic and find a way to have a strong, humorous position on every issue. At the slightest innuendo, though, Edward caught Emmett's eyes in the rearview mirror, and somehow Emmett actually behaved.
We were lucky the weather was holding with a dense cloud cover, but no rain was forecasted and the meteorologist seemed to be, for once, correct. Alice had her face pressed up against the glass of the window, looking out as the Seattle skyline came into view once we approached the ferry entrance.
The air was, according to Edward, pleasantly cool, and we stood on the platform of the upper deck, right against the railing at the front of the ferry near a large Japanese tour group. Alice excitedly pointed out the Space Needle as soon as it came into view, and one of the Japanese tourists squealed and jumped next to Alice.
"I know!" Alice exclaimed, leaning over the railing. "It's amazing, isn't it? You know it was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi? It's not anymore, of course, not with the-"
"Alice," Emmett interrupted with a stage-whisper, "I don't think she speaks English."
He had a point. The young woman was staring at Alice with wide eyes, nodding politely, but it didn't appear that she registered a word Alice was saying. Honestly, with how rapidly Alice spoke, I would guess even native English speakers could have a hard time understanding Alice sometimes.
"It doesn't matter," Alice shrugged, turning back to the woman. "We understand each other in a different way, don't we?"
Sensing a question, the woman nodded, and Alice kept pointing out different buildings, and even asking the woman questions. She was unbothered by the lack of response, though, and a few other women from the tour group gathered around Alice and listened to her tell them about the giant Starbucks in Pike Place and how they needed to visit the Sculpture Garden.
I turned around to hide my laughter in Edward's windbreaker, muffling my giggles in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and his chest shook in silent laugher as well. I looked up at him and was suddenly mesmerized.
His cheeks were pinkened with the slap of the cool breeze on the ferry, his bronze hair tossed every which way as if he had flown to earth from the heavens- my own personal angel, sculpted from the finest marble by my long-gone friend and come to life with the breath of some omnipotent and benevolent deity. His full lips were skewed into a crooked grin, the corners of his emerald eyes crinkled in a smile.
Edward caught my stare and looked down at me from Alice's still-babbling form, and just then a camera clicked and flashed in our direction. I looked to my side to see Esme standing in the middle of the platform, a sleek digital camera at her face pointed towards us.
"It's a mother's job to take the pictures," she defended, turning the lens to Carlisle and Emmett leaning against the rail beside Alice, with Carlisle quietly translating her speech to Japanese for the ever-growing crowd of tourists somehow enraptured by my best friend.
Still mid-morning, we stopped at a café on the drive to the hotel for Edward and Alice to grab something for breakfast, and unfortunately Rose, Carlisle, and Esme all got out of eating by escaping to their separate car. Emmett took one for the team, though, and ate an entire breakfast sandwich and even downed a coffee under Alice's watchful eyes in the front seat while I passed Edward my muffin in the back.
Alice and I were sharing a room at the hotel. It was unavoidable, since Esme had promised Charlie that Alice and I would be together, and Emmett with Edward. Of course, that part was a lie. There was no way Emmett wasn't going to be spending the entire night with Rose, likely racking up a hefty bill for repair charges, just as they did in most hotels. It was the reason we usually bought homes most places we travelled, even if just for a short while.
I dropped the bags on our respective bags, but before I could get a word in, Rose had whisked into the room with a box of cosmetics and a bag of hair products, setting to work on Alice's hair.
"Bella, go steam the dresses," she ordered, and I followed her directions immediately before I could get yelled at, though I did mumble my complaint that we could just wear jeans and blend in with the rest of the crowd to both Rose's and Alice's displeasure.
Alice almost cried while Rose trimmed her hair, sniffling about how it would never be this long again. I almost rolled my eyes, but then Alice threatened with scissors in her hand to cut my hair in retaliation, and I quickly hid in the bathroom where it was safe. It wasn't possible to cut my hair, but the last thing I needed was Alice trying and the scissors failing like that scene with the cartoon Fates in the Hercules movie from Disney.
"Alice, you look amazing!" I gasped when Alice emerged in her finished look. Dressed in a fringed lavender dress that matched the shade of her eyeshadow exactly, with her dark hair curled into elegant fingerwaves, Alice looked to be the picture of a twenties-era flapper heading to a jazz club.
Rose and I were dressed a bit less ostentatiously, though with Rose she was never going to be unnoticeable. Given the daytime hour, our skin was more covered, with me in a cardigan and Rose in a long-sleeved dress of crushed champagne pink velvet that contrasted perfectly with her cream-colored skin. Alice had delightedly helped Rose sweep her hair to the side to match the dramatic hairstyle of Veronica Lake, and both forced me to sit under their fussing hands to curl my hair. Nothing was ever going to truly help there. It was thick and soft, but still a plain brown that would never be as compelling as Rose's golden blonde.
Edward seemed to agree with me. "Wow," he exclaimed. I couldn't be too jealous, of course. Not with Rose next to me, though she was soon swept into Emmett's arms so he could dramatically dip her. She objected, but the smile on her face was enough to tell even the most obtuse onlooker that she loved his attention.
Everyone had seemingly dressed up, which I found silly but the trip wasn't for me. And I certainly wasn't going to complain with Edward at my side in tailored black slacks and a starched white button-up, though he had to roll up the sleeves to help with the heat of a Seattle morning in the summertime.
The actual music was indoors- thank goodness, because even on the walk inside Edward had started to perspire. As we waited in line, I rested my hand on the back of his neck where the dampness was gathering in his soft hair, and he smiled down appreciatively at me.
It was a funky little venue in Capitol Hill, with one large music hall and a few small adjoining rooms where smaller artists would be playing all at the same time. In the outdoor corridor, artists had set up booths selling their crafts, and food trucks and vendors were lined up in the parking lot, already churning out charred meats and sugary concoctions despite the early hour. And Edward was one of their first patrons, dragging me over to purchase a complex looking sandwich while Esme, Emmett, Rose, and Alice lined up inside the large music hall to listen to the first performer.
Carlisle waited with us and asked Edward about his knowledge of jazz music, which was limited according to Edward. Edward then asked about our personal experience with the genre, given that we were alive during the heyday, drawing a curious glance from the woman just in front of us in line who had to do a double take when she saw Carlisle. He naturally looked out of place, as he did just about everywhere he went. I could blend in just a bit, though not as easily dressed as I was, but Carlisle was just too stunningly perfect to not stand out.
Carlisle laughed as if Edward had been joking, soothing the suspicion of the eavesdropper, but quietly told Edward about being in Tennessee in the 1930s, just after I had changed Rose. We had been sequestered, given that we had to be isolated to care for a newborn, but Kansas City and their big swing bands were just a state away. He and Esme used to sneak over there every once in a while to just get away and go dancing for the night.
I followed behind Edward and Carlisle while Carlisle explained the musical elements of that Kansas City-style of jazz, detailing bar structures and improvised riffs from particularly notable tunes, and Esme found us and sidled into Carlisle's side, swaying to the whine of the saxophone.
It was a surprisingly wonderful day. This was… not my idea of fun. Unnecessarily dressing up, standing out in a crowd of people in jeans, humans amassed and sweating and dancing close together and even worse close to me.
But while all of that was true, I couldn't stop smiling. For hours, while Edward pulled me into his arms to swing us around one of the smaller music rooms while one man plucked the out-of-tune strings of a guitar and another blasted a trumpet. Alice laughed and tried to pull Emmett out to dance with her, but he kept his hands firmly ensconced in his pockets. Carlisle acquiesced, pardoning the cool skin with our standard excuse of poor circulation, and spun her around while Esme snapped a few pictures of them.
Even Rose seemed to be in good spirits, though she didn't outwardly show it. She stood with her back to the wall, golden eyes monitoring every passerby as she watched over Edward and me. Not even Emmett could get her to budge, but I could see it. I had created Rose. It was the venom from my mouth which coursed through Rose's body, and that created a connection that I knew in my bones was unbreakable. Progeny, best friend, sister- whatever I called her, I knew that despite the harsh set of her mouth and pinched expression, she was actually having fun.
Even Emmett eventually loosened up, and by the end of the night he was twirling Alice along the sidewalk like a ballerina in one of those music jewelry boxes, the green fringes of her skirt flowing around her and catching the light of the streetlamp so she sparkled.
"Why don't you two go get a late dinner?" Esme suggested, already starting to shoo us away.
"Yeah, I know Bella's hungry," Emmett boomed, then laughed by himself.
"Emmett," Edward warned, glaring at Emmett. He threw his hands up in apology and backed up, almost as if he was afraid of what Edward was going to do with him- laughable, because Emmett was scared of no one and nothing, even if he maybe should be.
"Oh, a date night in the city," Alice sighed dramatically, one hand over her heart. "One day."
"I'll take you on a date in the city, Little Masen," Emmett offered, drawing a glare from Rose. "Platonically, of course," he corrected quickly after noticing his mate's stare.
"You play darts, Big Cullen?"
Everyone laughed as Emmett snorted and rubbed his palms together excitedly. "You are so on. There's a sports bar just down the street. Anyone else wanna play?" Emmett and Alice didn't even wait for an answer, just scrambled off in the other direction while Emmett asked if she had ever played pool because he was something of an expert. I could still hear Alice chattering about playing darts with a car thief in a group home when Edward turned to me expectantly.
"Well? Dinner?"
"Oh, yeah," I shook my head, remembering the original prompt of the conversation. "Of course! Let's go."
"We'll meet you back at the hotel," Carlisle said, sending us off with a nod to Edward. He smiled back quickly, like they had just had a small, silent conversation that the rest of us weren't privy to. Carlisle took Esme's hand and followed after Emmett and Alice, with Rose reluctantly trailing and mumbling under her breath about more humans and even worse, human food.
That wasn't something I totally minded, not anymore. With our hands threaded together, we wandered down through downtown, skirting past Pike Place where tourists were still bustling through with burnt coffee and flashing cameras, and found a little restaurant in a corner front at the top of a hill.
We were still in the heart of downtown Seattle, but there was a surprisingly long line in the foyer inside the restaurant. I waited for Edward to decide if he wanted to find a new place, but we stood behind an older couple at the hostess stand. They decided to leave and try to make a reservation for another night, and the older man took his wife's equally wrinkled hand and kissed her knuckles gently before they walked out together.
Edward circled back behind us to hold the door for the couple, so I stepped forward to the hostess. "Table for two?" I asked.
The hostess didn't even look up from her looping doodles of flowers on the reservation book, and I was distracted by the way her makeup caked in her pores and the black mascara glopped and clumped on her bottom eyelashes.
"Forty-five to an hour," she said in a monotone, and I turned to Edward for his decision. After all, I wasn't the one eating.
"Nothing earlier?" he asked, quickly at my side. He leaned on the bannister of the wooden stand, and from his hand a bill dropped on the top of a page of the open reservation book, obscuring the names of Jesse Williams, Jenna Ban, Tony Owens, Allan Heinberg, and Krista Vernoff.
The hostess quickly slid the bill from the table into her pocket, pursing her lips so the dry red paint on them creased and cracked off, leaving a miniscule speckling of red dust on the cream-colored page. She collected two leather menu books from beside the stand and nestled them in the crook of her arm, then looked at Edward and arched her over-plucked brow.
"Follow me," she said, spinning around so the curl of her ponytail flicked behind her. Edward laced his fingers through mine and we followed her behind the glass display gas fireplace that blocked the entrance from the rest of the restaurant.
It was the very definition of comfort chic inside- an eclectic mix of rustic and modern, with exposed brick and fake ivy crawling up the walls, but sleek black marble tile and an exposed metal ceiling. Besides the annoying buzz of chatter that came standard in every city and the obnoxious smell of tomatoes that was only made stronger when the hostess sat us at a table nearest the kitchen, it was all quite lovely.
The hostess placed the menus on the table and I shifted to move around her to sit, but the crinkle of the cloth of money again stopped me. Edward pulled another bill from his pocket and placed his palm on one of the menus with the money folded subtly between his index and middle finger. The hostess swallowed and reached between Edward and me to grab the menu, the money along with it.
"Right this way."
We followed her again, weaving through the small dining room and behind a partition to the hallway that, by smell and sound, led to the kitchen. I was momentarily worried we were being taken to some kind of chef's table, where we would be forced to sit in a noisy corner of a clattering kitchen with a bombardment of the smell of human food, but the hostess turned and pushed open a swinging door to lead up to a set of spiraling stairs.
"What was that?" I hissed once the hostess was far enough up on the stairs that she couldn't hear me. Edward's hand was warm on the small of my back as he walked up a step behind me, shrugging nonchalantly.
"What w-was what?"
I actually stopped and turned, finally face-to-face with the extra height the step up gave me, but even if I had been two feet or twelve feet tall, I still would have caught the impish crooked grin playing along his full lips.
"Oh, come on!" I exclaimed, swatting his shoulder gently and turning to walk back up the stairs, the hostess several steps ahead of us, though she wasn't so much as glancing back.
"S-s-so you bought it?" he asked.
"You were very convincing."
"It w-was Carlisle's idea. Or, at least, his s-suggestion."
"Smooth man, that Carlisle," I mumbled, surveying the small enclave the hostess had brought us to. It was just a small room with an old dark wood bar, but the French doors were swung wide open to a large balcony with twinkling lights woven around a wrought-iron rail and tea light candles burning on the handful of small metal tables. There were only two other couples eating, but they were so consumed in their partners they didn't even cast an instinctive glance in our direction as the hostess led us to the corner table.
"Is this suitable?" she asked not affably. Edward nodded, but I caught the returning smile from the dimpling in his cheeks, though the hostess didn't stick around long enough to catch our all-out laughter, quieted behind our hands as we sat side-by-side at the little table.
"I can't believe you pulled that off," I shook my head, making a show out of opening the menu. The attentive waitress took our drink orders and listed off the specials quickly, leaving us to fetch the appetizer Edward ordered along with the beverages.
"I don't really feel like going back yet," I said, sighing as the wind carried the ocean up to us.
"S-s-so let's not," Edward suggested, pulling me by the hand to the stairs on the sidewalk that led down to the street below. I let him lead, and we jogged down the stairs to the street that led us right to Waterfront Park. It was so late that we were alone but for a runner panting as his feet pounded on the sidewalk. Water lapped at the rocky shore and the breeze licked at the fresh cut grass, whipping up dew into the wind.
We were quiet, meandering down the sidewalk with our hands loosely clasped between us. Edward kicked at a stray pebble, the move slightly scuffing the shine of his black dress shoes. We followed along the path up to where it turned into the boardwalk, then up where the wooden pier stretched out over the bay.
"It's s-s-sad we can't s-see the st-stars out here," Edward commented, settling next to me at the end of the dock, swinging our legs over the black water swirling beneath our feet.
"Maybe you can't," I joked lightly, looking up to where the blanket of stars were clearly visible, if somewhat dimmer as they competed with the pollution of the city lights. "That's Arcturus," I said, pointing to a particularly bright twinkle right in front of us, just above Bainbridge Island. "Can you see that one? It's the brightest star in Boötis."
Edward squinted in the general direction of my finger. "Boötis?"
"The herdsman," I clarified, then pointed just a little north. "I'm surprised you can't see it, it's one of the brightest stars in the sky. And that's Ursa Major."
"I c-can s-s-see it!" Edward defended, though my the way he was wrinkling his nose and the puckering between his brows suggested otherwise.
"Okay, how about this?" I asked, turning entirely around to face Seattle behind us. I could see it, peaking out behind the tops of the towering buildings, but that didn't mean Edward could. "That, right there, is Jupiter."
It was a buttery yellow and shining, though I could see a slight glow of a soft blue along the upper outline of the planet. My gaze quickly dropped, however, to the only other people out on the dock with us.
They were newly married, that much was obvious from their dress, and from the sound of it they had come from their wedding reception to get a few photos in front of the Seattle skyline while they still had their photographer. She was nestled to his side, her hand on his chest as they smiled widely while the camera flashed. They were young, but gorgeous and so obviously in love. Her face was clear and her dark skin shone with the flash, her hair curled and pinned under the delicate lace of her veil. And he was just as beautiful and grinned wildly for the camera, then spun her in his arms to kiss her deeply, outshining even the cityscape backdrop.
"Is th-that s-s-something you might like to d-do one day?" Edward asked, noticing my attention had wandered from the heavens to earth.
"A photoshoot?" I asked, chewing on my bottom lip. "I guess we could do that. With my skin under a light like that, it's a little exposing. But Esme did dabble in photography a few decades again, and she seemed ready enough to pick it back up again today, so I'm sure we could figure it out."
"I don't m-mean the photoshoot, though I s-s-suppose that's a p-part of it. I mean that," he nodded in their direction as they kissed again for the camera. "You know, a w-wedding."
I drew back to look at him, swinging one leg up to tuck under me so I could face him. "Are you proposing to me?" I asked, venom caught in my throat and keeping my breath back.
"No," Edward shook his head, and I felt it. The venom surged into my mouth, and I fought the urge to spit it out. The muted sweetness was nauseating now, a disgusting and sickening reminder of what I was. Marriage. I was stupid. Of course he wasn't proposing. I wasn't even human, how could he marry someone not human. Just because he had been thinking about sex… But he hadn't touched me beyond chaste touches of my hair and back and dreamy kiss in days. I squeezed my eyes shut, the venom tingling and burning with unshed tears, and I tried to concentrate on anything else- how the gentle waves rushed and crashed into the rocky coast, and counting the cars that passed the parallel of our exact location for the next four blocks, or calculating how many cicada beetles were buzzing at every given millisecond in the lush lone tree in the park. The breeze of a brewing storm over the ocean was carrying the thick cut of salt from the water mixed with gasoline from the ferries, cleansing away all the smells of the city. I was concentrating so hard on everything else that I almost missed Edward's next words. "I d-don't have a ring."
"What?" I asked, blinking my eyes open to see him looking at me, his emerald eyes luminous and reflecting the city lights.
"I don't have a ring," he repeated. "I c-can't p-propose b-because I don't have a r-ring yet."
"Yet?"
"Well, only if th-that's s-s-something you'd like to d-do one day."
"Is that something you would like to do one day?"
Edward shrugged and looked back over to the couple. He was kneeling next to her, helping the photographer adjust the skirt of her silk dress. He looked up with love shining in his expression and brushed his fingers against her hand in a move that was almost reverent, like a man worshipping at the feet of his deity. She smiled down at him and brushed the hair from his face, his dark bangs sweeping up neatly with her quick combing. It was almost tragic the photographer didn't catch the moment on camera, but he was too busy scrambling around the dress, straightening every inch of the skirt while simultaneously readjusting the lens of his camera.
"I'd like to m-marry you."
"Yeah?"
"Well it's m-more up to you than t-to me."
"It is?"
"I just have t-to ask th-the question. You're th-the one who has t-to answer."
"Edward," I smiled, not even bothering to play coy. I twisted a lock of his bronze hair around my index finger and threaded my hand through his hair, and leaned in to kiss him softly. "It's yes. It's always yes, and it's always going to be yes."
"Yeah?" he asked, his mouth turning up in my favorite crooked grin. I cupped the side of his face with my index finger fitting perfectly into the sharpness of his cheekbone and pulled him into me, our lips pressing together like we were made to fit against one another.
"Congratulations!" the bride shouted from the other side of the pier. We pulled away and turned, and the photographer had his camera turned in our direction and snapped a picture, the flash a quick burst of light in the dark night.
Edward blinked rapidly, but smiled and waved back at her. "Thanks!" he called back. I pulled the curtain of my hair over my shoulder to hide my face, ducking my head behind his shoulder so I wouldn't be caught on camera. Edward chuckled and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me back so he could tilt my head back up to him. His fingers clasped my chin and I let him move me, and his lips were so soft and slick as they molded to mine.
His hand moved down to cup my neck, his thumb skimming the curve of my jaw as his tongue slid out over my parted lips. At the first touch my mouth parted, an eager gasp escaping without my thought but luckily Edward didn't seem to take note of the embarrassing sound. His tongue glided into my mouth and took over my consciousness, leaving nothing but the rich taste of honey and lavender to cloud my every thought. My hands curled into the thick, silky hair at the back of his head and my spine curved, pressing my torso into him. It was all I could do to keep my tongue in front of my teeth, protecting Edward from the sharpness and venom as he caressing my bottom lip.
He panted into my mouth, searching for a full breath. I breathed him in, letting the sweetness of him fill my lungs and warm me from the inside, then dragged my mouth away from his to press my lips to his jaw, then his throat, right where his pulse beat so frantically. I laved my tongue over the spot, the rush of blood just barely protected by the paper-thin barrier of his soft pale skin. My hands were clasped together at the base of his neck, holding to me so he couldn't get away. I could almost taste his blood in my mouth, and the venom was pooling in my mouth instinctively.
Under us the water lapped at the pilings that were dug into the hard soil at the bottom of the bay, holding us up over the swirling waves. The bride giggled as her husband dipped her dramatically for the camera, kissing her as the bulb flashed continuously, and then the wind changed.
It was the coming storm, shifting across the water and sending swirls of air that carried the smell of runoff from the cars and fried food from a long-closed hot dog cart that was anchored at the base of the pier. But there was also something else, a familiar sharp saccharinity mingling with the earthiness of the oak tree and damp field of the park.
My growl was instinctive and low, but from the way Edward froze with his breath caught in his throat I knew he could feel it from where our torsos were pressed together.
"What's wrong?" he asked, bracing his hands against my shoulders so I was compressed by the heat of his palms on both sides.
"Nothing," I said quickly. I slowly turned by head to look back at the couple. Just to the left of them I could see the park perfectly, illuminated by the lamps along the sidewalk and the harsh lighting of the city behind it. "Someone's over there."
"What?" Edward burst out. I pressed a finger to his lips to quiet him, drawing only a casual glance from the photographer. I pulled him up to stand with me, and threaded our fingers together so we could walk along the edge of the dock back to land. Edward was staring at the general direction I had been scanning, his brows pulled together so the wrinkle at the bridge of his nose was deep and filled with concern.
"There is one of my kind nearby. I don't know exactly where, but I can smell them," I whispered just loud enough for him to be able to hear me. I hoped whoever they were would be far enough away to not overhear. If they knew that I knew they were watching, it might set them off, might provoke them enough to be more than just curious about a vampire making out with a human in a major city.
Edward's hand tightened on my own, squeezing so hard I knew his knuckled were turning white with the pressure. His steps quickened, and he pulled on my arm to the direction opposite the park, out to where cars were intermittently rushing passed on the street that ran parallel to the coast.
"No," I said, stopping about halfway on the pier, though Edward kept tugging on my arm.
"Bella, l-let's go."
"No, Edward, we can't."
"Bella," he urged, his lips tightened in a hard line. "We n-need to g-get out of here. You need t-to g-get out of here."
"We can't leave them," I said quietly, nodding my head in the direction of the newlyweds, still smiling obliviously.
"You're not s-s-safe out here."
"They're not either," I argued.
Edward huffed angrily and combed his fingers through his hair, pulling at the roots so a miniscule flooding of blood flushed along the edge of his hairline.
"I don't c-care about th-them. I need you t-to be s-s-safe."
"I'm not going to leave while there's a potentially hungry one of my kind prowling around and I know about it. I can't do it, Edward, and you can't ask me to. We'll stay and make sure they get wherever they're going safely, and then we'll go back to the hotel. If anything happens, which I doubt it will, I just need you to stay as far back as you can and stay safe. Please."
Edward was quiet, still looking out over the park as if he was somehow going to catch a glance of some dark creature lurking in the shadows. The wind swirled again and I could still smell the notes of another vampire, still faint and not trackable, but it was definitely still there somewhere.
"Is th-that th-the right word?" he asked finally.
"What?"
"Hungry. I always thought th-thirsty would be m-more apt."
"Oh," I blinked, adjusting to the turn in conversation. "I guess thirsty is a better word. It's a burning urge that sits in the throat, not the stomach, so it's more comparable to human thirst than hunger."
"Hmm," Edward hummed, nodding his head but still staring at the tree in the park. There was no one in there, just buzzing cicadas and a nest for a blue jay in one of the highest boughs, but Edward was glaring at it as if it harbored the greatest evils in the world.
"See?" I gestured over to the couple, where the photographer was detaching a lens from his camera and packing up, and the groom was helping gather the plain silk of his new wife's skirt to help clear her path to walk. "They're leaving now."
Edward didn't even seem to notice, but I drew him into a hug as the couple walked past us back to land so we looked like we were just embracing under the burgeoning moonlight. Once they were a suitable distance ahead, I threaded my fingers through Edward's and we followed behind them.
It was a quick walk, just to the parking lot right beside the pier. The groom shook the photographers hand and made plans to get prints of all the wedding and reception photos, then lifted his bride off her feet as she giggled, whispering to her about starting their honeymoon as soon as possible.
Edward's hand was still tightly clenched around mine, a pressure that continued as we crossed the street into the thick of downtown Seattle. There were still tourists mulling about and mingling with the first rush of the late-night party crowd, and we wove around them as Edward's pace quickened so I had to make a show of jogging beside him to keep up.
"Edward," I cautioned as he almost ran into a gaggle of college girls waiting outside a seedy bar, carefully maneuvering us out of the way and catching one of the girls when she tripped on her platform heels.
His jaw was clenched tightly and he pulled me with him into a shallow alley next to a Chinese takeout storefront, right beside a dumpster that stunk of old oil and fermented soy that definitely overpowered the alcohol of the bar next door.
"You always p-put yourself in d-danger. You put everyone b-before y-your own s-s-safety and you're always in d-danger. You s-sacrifice s-s-so much of your freedom f-for me, n-not g-going to hunt more than every f-few weeks, not s-seeing y-your family, not t-travelling like you n-normally do, especially d-during th-the s-summer. And then you c-come to Seattle the f-first time, again to p-protect me. And you g-get h-hurt protecting me. And you have to l-leave and put y-yourself in d-danger, again p-protecting me-"
"I wouldn't be me without you, Edward," I cried, interrupting him and uncaring of whether one of the sorority girls overheard, which from the giggling it sounded like they did. "I wouldn't be me. And you keep seeing the negative, focusing on what you think I've lost or how you think I've been hurt but do you know what I see, Edward? Do you know what my family sees? They see me smiling. They see me laughing and happy and in love and that's something I didn't know if I would ever get. So if a little danger comes with that, so be it. There's a price to pay for everything, and making sure a newlywed couple didn't get torn to pieces because I didn't want to risk putting myself in danger was worth it. And going to Seattle, going to Italy, facing an army of a million rabid newborns would all be worth it because you are worth everything. Now if you could stop being so fucking angry when nothing happened, that would be great, because I was kind of riding a wave since you proposed, and you're killing my buzz."
Edward stared at me, his expression blank and face unreadable. He pushed the overly long hair from his face again, locks crossing across the top of his head and glinting metallic in the light.
"I d-didn't propose yet," Edward corrected finally, still staring down at me, and I felt a grin spread on my face of its own volition.
"I'll wait for my ring," I promised, reaching my hands to loop around the base of his head, my fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck.
"I love you," he sighed, pressing his forehead to mine so our noses nestled together. "I'm s-s-sorry. I j-just hate the idea of you b-being in d-danger, but your c-capacity to s-s-sacrifice, your s-selflessness, it's s-something I adore about you. I love you."
"I love you, too," I said, bridging the small distance between us so our lips pressed together softly. He kissed me back, tucking my bottom lip between his so he could gently suck at the tender and sensitive skin, and I sighed and melted into him.
Edward jumped and pulled away from me when two inebriated teenage boys stumbled out of the Chinese restaurant with one carrying a paper bag saturated with grease at the bottom. He smiled when one of them tripped over his own feet and fell into his friend, and I stifled a laugh, though the college girls had no such propriety and cackled loudly.
Edward turned back to me and ran his warm fingers down the side of my face, skimming along the apples of my cheeks and one finger trailing down to my bottom lip.
"As much as I like this glowing lovey kissing," I said, "It smells like Chinese food and alcohol, and while you may enjoy it, it's not my favorite scent."
"Let's go back," Edward laughed, swinging our hands between us and pulling me back onto the sidewalk.
"It is getting late," I pointed out.
"I don't s-suppose you c-can s-s-sneak into my room t-tonight, can you?" he asked. We rounded the corner a block away from the hotel, now in the nicest area of downtown where couture shops lined the streets and the only people out were leaving a long business meeting.
"Not without Alice noticing," I sighed. There was no way I could open the door to the hallway without the light disturbing Alice, and even if I could I could move from one room to the other fast enough in the case that she woke in the middle of the night, which was almost an eventuality given that she had nightmares every night.
"It's j-just one night, I guess."
"We'll survive," I laughed, tucking into Edward's side and falling in step so he could rest his arm over my shoulders.
"I hope," Edward said, sighing dramatically, and I snorted out a laugh. "I love that s-s-sound," he commented, and I scoffed and almost came up with a deprecating retort when I was interrupted by a hoarse, desperate scream.
We were still on the street, just outside the lobby of the hotel where a group of older women were waiting for the valet with their car. I tilted my head and tried to listen closer, over the buzz of hundreds of guests and thousands of people within just a mile of where we stood, everyone speaking or listening to music or watching television.
"Oh, no," I groaned, my teeth instinctively finding my bottom lip to slice down as I followed along with what was happening twenty floors above us.
"What is it n-now?" Edward asked. "A r-rabid werewolf roaming the s-s-streets? Or n-no, don't tell m-me. F-fairies? Elves?"
I couldn't even smile at his jokes, I just sighed and shook my head. "It's Alice. Again."