I don't own Twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
Thanks to my Beta MadMooey18 for her constant support and help in making this story what it is today.
Bella reads over the comments on the 'Get Ready With Me' video she just posted on her YouTube channel. She replies to some of the thoughtful comments, and reacts with a laughing emoji to the ones that are funny. Occasionally, she will come across a comment that mentions her personal life. Those ones are the comments she ignores, not because she hates them but because she doesn't think her personal life is up for discussion.
"When will you show your boyfriend's face in your videos? At least, it will be a video worth watching."
"When you die," Bella mutters to herself, bothered by one of the more rude comments. She hears her phone ring to her side and reaches it to find Edward calling her.
"Talk about the devil and he shall appear," she states as soon as she answers him.
Edward barks a laugh then replies to her, "Excuse me, but was there a greeting in what you just said?"
"I'm sorry. I was just reading a comment on one of my videos that mentioned you and thought that that was an appropriate greeting," Bella tells him in an apologetic tone as she shuts down her laptop and gets off her chair. There is no point in being seated in front of the computer when she won't be doing anything on it for the time being.
"It was a funny one, so I am not that bothered," he confessed, still chuckling.
"Phew," Bella replies in an exaggerated tone pausing for a moment then continuing, "Thank god. Had you been hurt, I would have needed to make it up to you and I don't have time for that."
Edward is silent for a second before he jokingly accuses, "Now my feelings are hurt."
"Ohh! Poor baby, how can I make it up to you?" Bella asks him as she sits on the comfy couch in her living room and puts her feet up.
"That's easy. Go on a date with me," Edward answers quickly.
Bella laughs and asks him, "You had that one prepared already, didn't you?"
"Well, you promised me a date five days ago and you haven't delivered," he tells her defensively.
"It's been five days, not a year," Bella mutters sarcastically. "But because I am a good person I want you to know that we can go out tomorrow night if you have nothing going on."
"Perfect. You will love our date so much. I gotta go. I have a date to prepare for. Bye," and with that he hangs up the phone.
"Bye," she replies, amused by his enthusiasm. She hears the dial tone, and pulls her phone away from her ear. She decides to take advantage of the fact that Peter is sleeping and Adam is in school and lays down for a bit. She hasn't been able to sleep over the last couple of nights. Her sleep is plagued by these recurring nightmares she keeps getting. In it she finds herself running up the stairs to Alice's place, then she breaks into her living room, but her relief is short as she finds Carlisle shooting Edward. She always wakes up. It makes no sense. Why would Edward's dad shoot him?
She turns to her side and closes her eyes tightly but she can't seem to sleep, so she finally resigns herself to staring at the bookshelf opposite the couch until the doorbell rings. She gets up and shakes her limbs to get rid of the lethargy she is feeling, walks toward the door and opens it.
"Hey, I just found out about what happened," Seth tells her as soon as she opens the door and hugs her.
What is going on?
Before she could ask him what was wrong, Adam hugged her legs and tells her, "Mummy, I am so sorry for your friend."
She runs her fingers through his hair as she tells him in a confused tone, "It's okay, baby."
She waits until Adam drops his arms from around her legs and runs to his bedroom then she turns to Seth and asks him, "What is going on?"
Seth frowns at her and asks her, "You don't know?"
"No I don't," Bella tells him, twisting her arms across her chest waiting for his explanation.
Seth puts his hand on her shoulders then tells her, "I am going to tell you something and I need you not to freak out. Okay?"
She pushes his hands off her shoulders and takes a step backward and looks at him and asks in a worried tone, "What happened?"
"Edward is hurt," Seth tells her.
She bursts into a giggle at his comment. "Of course not, that is impossible."
It's just a stupid dream. No need to freak out.
"I am so sorry, Bella," Seth tells her in a remorseful voice.
She takes a step back feeling around for the kitchen counter until she finds it and leans both hands on it from behind. "What happened?" she inquires, her voice shaking as she tries to make sense of what she is hearing.
That can't be true, can it?
Of course not. He is just playing a practical joke on you.
Seth takes a deep breath then exhales and tells her, "He was shot in his office."
"By Carlisle?" Bella asks quickly, her stomach clenching as she remembers the nightmare she had.
Seth nods his head.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck" she curses as she feels her breath come out in gasps. She quickly steps to the fridge and takes out a bottle of water and tries to drink it, but her hand shakes so bad that half of the water gets spilled on her.
A hand steadies hers and helps her drink the water slowly. "There you go. How did you know it was Carlisle?" Seth asks her after he helps her drink the water.
She opens her mouth to answer him, but she feels a lump in her throat and closes her mouth to swallow and then tells him in a shaking voice, "I had a dream that Carlisle shot him."
"A dream? Never thought that dreams could predict the future," Seth replies in a joking manner, but the joke doesn't land and Bella understands it in the worst possible way.
"It's my fault. I did It. I should have told him what I dreamed," she mutters to Seth as she shakes her head at her stupidity.
Why did you not tell him? What were you thinking?
I was thinking that my dream was stupid.
Now you know what your hesitation did.
"Oh my god! What have I done?" Bella mutters to herself as she steps away from Seth and shakes her head while clutching it.
"Bella, what are you talking about? It wasn't your fault!" Seth exclaims beside her but she ignores him as she steps back followed by another and then another until her back hits the cabinetry behind her and then she slowly and ungracefully slides to the ground with her head in her hands.
She hears Seth's footsteps as he steps closer and feels his breath on her hands as he tries to talk sense to her, but she shakes her head and refuses to lift her face up.
"Bella!"
"Bella!"
"Bella!"
"Mummy, what's wrong?"
She hears in the distance followed by the soft steps of her son's small feet.
"Mummy!"
"Bella!"
"Mummy!"
"Bella!"
"Mummy!"
"Bella!"
"Mummy!" Adam exclaims as she feels a slap land on her shoulders.
Suddenly, she opens her eyes and finds herself lying on the couch in her living room.
"Mummy! What's wrong?"
She hears Adam's question. She moves her head slightly to the right and finds Adam staring at her.
"What's going on?" she asks in confusion.
How did I get from the kitchen to the living room?
How would I know? I'm just the cynic in your head.
"You weren't waking up. Seth said I had to wake you up for dinner," Adam tells her.
Dinner?
Bella lowers her feet to the ground and slowly lifts herself into an upright position as she asks Adam, "How did I get to the couch?"
Adam just shrugs.
"Answer me, Adam!" Bella snaps at Adam, her nerves too much to notice her son's wince.
"We found you like that," Adam tells her, sounding hurt.
Fuck! What is wrong with me?
You're worried sick over Edward and Adam is giving you useless answers. What does 'We found you like that' even mean?
"Where is Seth?" Bella demands, telling herself that she will hug him and apologize once she figures out what happened.
"Here!" Seth calls from the kitchen. "I told him to wake you up for dinner. When Adam and I got back from his school and found you sleeping we decided to not wake you up," Seth continues from the kitchen.
Was it all a dream?
Ask him for yourself.
"Did you hear the news?" she asks as she slowly walks toward the kitchen.
Seth stops stirring the pot and turns to face her. "What news?" he asks her, frowning.
Bella almost sighs in relief, but just to be sure she doesn't and instead holds her breath and asks him, "The one about Edward."
Seth raises an eyebrow and asks her, "Are the two of you going out this week?"
Bella sighs in relief and tells him, "Yes, that's the news."
"Cool. Awesome. Just tell me when so I can make sure our dates don't overlap and one of us can stay with the boys," Seth tells her and then turns around and goes back to stirring the pot.
"You seriously didn't have to do this," Edward tells her as he dips a French fry in the ketchup. Bella rolls her eyes at him. This is his third apology since she showed up at his office with dinner in tow.
"Stop! Between my schedule and yours we will never be able to meet up unless we make some concessions."
He takes a bite from his burger, chews then swallows and tells her, "Usually, I am not this busy ever, but with the hours I have been pulling with the family's business, I am always doing things last minute here. I have even had to limit the number of songs I work on."
Bella frowns at his statement. The words Jasper told her keep coming back to her or to be more specific, the way he said them. It was almost like he knew the mole wouldn't be found or even worse, there is no mole. Bella feels a keen sense of foreboding when she realizes that she hit the jackpot.
Noticing her expression, Edward frowns in concern and asks her, "What's wrong?"
Bella shakes her head to rid it of those thoughts and sticks them in the back of her mind until she is alone and tells him, "Nothing, it's just that your work with your family rubs me the wrong way."
Edward sighs and tells her, "Tell me about it. I hate every second of it, but they are my family. I can't let them down no matter how much I disapprove of what they do."
"Let's hope they find that mole soon," Bella tells him, forcing a smile.
"From your lips to God's ears!" Edward mutters. He is silent for a couple of minutes before he gestures his burger toward her and asks, "Are you sure you don't want to try my burger. I don't think your salad can be as good as my burger. You can eat from the side I have not bitten into yet."
Bella rolls her eyes at him then lifts her salad up and explains, "I am more than good. I am only allowed two junk meals a month and those I typically reserve for my kids so I think I am good."
Edward smiles in amusement and asks her, "Do you have any traditions around junk food?"
Bella shakes her head as she stabs a lettuce piece with her fork and bites then swallows before telling him, "Not exactly. It's more along the lines that we do one take out meal per week. When it's my turn or Peter's turn, I pick meals and they tend to be more along the lines of healthy. When it's Adam's or Seth's turn, they pick the most unhealthy crap you could think of, and that is typically my two unhealthy meals."
Edward laughs at the expression on Bella's face.
"You think it's funny, but wait until you have kids and it's your responsibility to keep them alive and healthy when they are so hell bent on giving themselves a heart attack," Bella tells him shaking her head and letting her frustration seep into her tone.
Edward smiles at Bella. It's clear as day how much she loves them despite her frustration with them.
"Seth isn't your child," Edward tells her, not in an accusatory or judgmental tone, but more of a matter of fact.
"He is like a younger brother, so he might as well be," Bella replies softly.
"You are really good to him. It's admirable," Edward tells her. Edward's family isn't the kind of family that takes the baby into the swimming pool and gradually teaches it to swim. They are the kind to throw the baby into the water and then judge it for dying. God knows neither of his siblings tried to ever be there for him and it only got worse once it became clear that he wouldn't follow in his family's footsteps. Edward could never understand taking anyone under his wing or taking care of someone the way Bella is. The closest he ever got to supporting someone is by giving new artists some advice on the industry, specifically telling female artists of all of the predators they need to avoid.
"He has done a lot for me. The only reason he is even here is because I pushed him too far and he needed to get away from what I pushed him to do," Bella replies, picking her words carefully. It's not that she wants to lie per se, but more along the lines of deciding what he needs to know and what is pretty useless to him. He doesn't need to know how crazy her dad and the kind of company he kept is. He has enough of a reason to hate him as it is.
Edward watches Bella as she answers him and sees the amount of gratitude and respect Bella has for Seth and it intrigues him. "You don't just love him. You also feel indebted to him."
Bella looks down at her salad as she tells him, "No wonder you are such a great producer. You can read people's emotions like an open book."
Edward knows when someone is trying not to answer a question when he sees it. "Answer the question, Bella."
"I wasn't aware that there was one," Bella answers cheekily. Bella knows that she can pull up her walls and tells him that it's personal and she doesn't need to answer him, but oddly feels like she wants to answer his questions to a certain extent.
It's probably because you want him to admire Seth like you do.
"Do you know the first time?" Bella pauses, then shakes her head and continues, "Scratch that, do you want to know what Seth did the second time I met him?"
At the shrug of his shoulder, Bella answers. "He knocked on the door and when I wouldn't answer, he dropped a bag of drugstore makeup with a note inside that said I shouldn't let anyone think I am weak by letting them see the scars they left on my face. He was only 14 when that happened. Can you say that you had that wisdom when you were 14?"
Edward shakes his head and tells her, "Heck, I don't have this wisdom now. Good thing I don't have to worry about passing my wisdom and lack thereof to the next generation." Edward ends his statement with a joking tone.
Bella leans her head to the side and asks him, "You can't have kids?"
"No, no, nothing like that," Edward mutters, shaking his head and continues, "I just don't want to have kids."
"Why is that? If you don't mind me asking," Bella tells him.
Edward puts down the remaining piece of his burger and gets up to rummage through his drawers as he tells her, "I think children are a huge responsibility and you can only be a parent if you can give your kids the best and I don't think being born into my family is good for anyone."
He finally finds what he is looking for and waves around the pack of tissue paper in his hand, "Do you want one?"
"Yes, please," Bella tells him as she pushes the salad plate away from her showing she is done with it.
"Thanks," she says to him as she pats her lips with the tissue paper.
"I don't want to have kids who are pressured to be part of the family business," he tells her.
"But as the parent you will be able to shield them and put up boundaries," she states.
Edward laughs sarcastically and tells her, "You don't know how difficult it is to please my parents and how hard they pressure you when they want something."
At the unconvinced look on her face, Edward tells her, "Look, if this is a deal breaker, I understand. I have made peace with the fact that I will always be a stranger around my family, but I will be damned if I have kids and I end up being a stranger around them too."
"You don't want them to join the family business and think less of you for not joining," Bella states, finally understanding his discomfort with the entire thing.
Ignoring her statement, Edward asks her, "Is this a deal breaker?"
Bella shakes her head and tells him, "No. Is me being a mum a deal breaker?"
"Of course not," Edward answers her dismissively. It's actually a perk for him. He can be a parent to kids that his family will never have any claim over.
"Then we are good," Bella states, smiling at him. They are both happy with the things that others might think of as a dealbreaker, so what could go wrong.
Hello lovely eople,
I am back. The updating plan I had set up for October didn't go as planned, but given what has happened this month, I am very thankful for what I have and will be more grateful when we have a ceasefire.
Tell me your thought on this chapter. What do you think of Bella's dream? What are the Cullens up to?
You can find me as Aseel Ayelia on Instagram, substack, and Tumblr to read my original writing.
Until my next update,
Stay safe