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.
Dear diary,
I got home from a date I had with Edward in his office. We talked about kids and how he doesn't want any. I think he needs to grow a backbone and get from under his father's thumb. I can't help but think that if he doesn't decide now that enough is enough, by the time he realizes how deep he is, it will be too late. I don't want him to go through what I did. It's one thing to lose a parent while they are still alive but it's another to realize that the parent you lost is a monster. I don't know how bad Edward's parents are in comparison to Charlie, but I am really worried for him. I think I will visit Alice tomorrow and subtly get as much information out of her as possible.
"I wish you would call me more. It feels like there is a distance between us," Alice tells Bella as she pops a piece of chocolate in her mouth.
Bella rolls her eyes and reminds her, "Phone calls work both ways." To say that Bella has been disappointed in Alice would be an understatement, and it has nothing to do with who she is dating. Initially, Alice was calling Bella to invite her to bars and night clubs, but once Bella made it clear that bar hopping multiple times a week does not fit with being a good parent, the calls and hangouts dwindled up.
Did Bella have high hopes for her and Alice before she came to New York? Sure, but Bella has also learned long ago that a person won't get everything they want and they will have to live with it. People change and that's okay. It doesn't make the pain of loss less painful, but it makes it a pill easier to swallow.
Alice frowns remorsefully and apologizes, "You're right. It's partly my fault too, but you have to admit that being a mum has put a strain on our friendship."
Bella opens her mouth ready to attack Alice for her self centered statement but Alice continues and clarifies what she meant. "I don't mean that you being a mum is a bad thing. It's just that with you being one, I'm not sure how I fit into your life. I always imagined that as adults we would go clubbing, get drinks together, spend hours watching our favorite shows until the wee hours of the night, but you are a mum and we can't do that and I'm not sure what we can do together."
Bella opens her mouth to reply, but realizes that she has nothing to say and closes her mouth. She leans back into the couch and stares at Alice trying to make sense of what she heard and figuring out what to say.
"Alice, that's such a superficial idea of what we can do together," Bella finally tells her.
Alice nods her head and laughs nervously looking away as she tells her, "That is true, but I just struggle to figure out when I can call you or what we can do together. How much of my presence in your life can you handle and how much of me is too much?"
Bella is surprised by Alice's question to say the least. Maybe because Bella is so used to letting go of people in her life, it didn't cross her mind to try to see why their friendship wasn't there, or try to fix it. Bella had gotten too used to being disappointed by people that she would rather leave people before they leave her. She always has one foot out of the door ready to bolt.
"You ask, Alice," Bella finally answers her.
Alice laughs sarcastically then tells her, "Like it's that simple!"
"I can be that simple. You are complicating it," Bella advices both Alice and herself.
Alice looks skeptical as she asks, "You think?"
"I know."
"Okay," Alice replies shrugging, then leans back and asks her excitedly, "So, how are you and Edward? Is there anything to report on that front?"
Bella hides her smile happy that Alice brought up the topic on her own, and feigns a disappointed sigh and tells her, "I don't know. We have hardly been hanging out recently with all the time he spends working with the family business."
Alice smiles sympathetically and pats Bella's jean clad thigh and tells her, "The hours he pulls are crazy, but you can't tell me you are that surprised since you knew he was the CEO before you started dating?"
Bella shakes her head and reminds her, "This isn't the family business I'm talking about."
"What business are you talking about?" Alice mutters in confusion then pauses as soon as it dawns on her what business Bella is talking about. "How come?"
Bella raises an eyebrow at Alice's question then slowly answers her the way one speaks to a child, "Since he is part of the family and they have a mole within the ranks, he has been doing a lot of work for the family."
Alice is silent for a moment then tells Bella in a confused tone, "But the mole has been caught."
Bingo
"Exactly," Bella pauses then leans forward and continues, "I want you to answer me truthfully. How far is Edward's family willing to go to get him to be part of the family business?"
Alice opens her mouth, but then closes it and shakes her head as if having a conversation with herself. "Let me think. Hmm…I don't know," she tells her shrugging her shoulders and Bella feels her heart drop. This is what she has been worried about. They want to force him into the family business. She can't be the one to try and talk some sense into him because she doesn't want to get between him and his family, but more importantly, he wouldn't believe her if she tried. Their relationship is not at a point that he would believe her over his family. Edward might be deeply wounded by them, but he is still the child that craves their approval. He still wants them to care. What way could he have their approval, if not by doing the very thing they have been trying to coerce him to do for years?
"Edward wouldn't budge," Alice finally tells her.
"Edward doesn't want to disappoint his family," Bella replies.
Alice shakes her head and says, "Sure, but only to a certain extent. Edward could never handle the family business long term. He is bound to have enough. You do not know how strong the Cullen's teachings are. If Edward managed to not cave under pressure as a child, he wouldn't cave now."
"You think?" Bella questions her friend skeptically.
"I know," Alice echoes the sentiment Bella made a couple of minutes ago with an encouraging smile on her lips. Alice reaches out and squeezes Bella's hand and Bella's smiles at her loving way Alice has been quick to calm her fears, but her smile soon drops as she is hit with guilt.
"What's wrong?" Alice asks, alarmed, still holding her hand.
Bella doesn't meet her eyes as she tells her, "I owe you an apology. The way I have been feuding with Jasper, it can't be a comfortable position for you to be in. I could never imagine being in your shoes."
Alice pulls her hand away then places it on her thigh and tells her, "I don't think that is very bad. It's like your mum used to say. If you are in your comfort zone, you're wearing the wrong shoes."
Bella bursts into laughter and Alice joins her with their giggles filling Bella's house. "About sneakers. My mum said that about sneakers, not life," Bella states chuckling softly. Bella shouldn't have been taken by surprise by Alice's attitude. Alice has always been like that. She can't handle uncomfortable conversations, so she cracks jokes instead. In school, their teachers would refer to them as Pinky and Brain, not because Alice is stupid, but because Alice was always so unserious while Bella was the exact opposite.
Alice plucks a tissue paper and pats her eyes dry as she reminds Bella, "It still applies."
Bella rolls her eyes and says, "Alice, I am serious."
"So am I. Being in your comfort zone isn't good for anyone. I was in my comfort zone and what you did made me realize that it is making me miserable."
"Are you breaking up with him?" Bella asks her unsure if she is asking the right question, or if Alice meant something completely different.
Alice shakes her head sadly and tells her, "But I think I will."
"What happened?" Bella asks her sympathetically as she reaches and takes Alice's hands in hers.
Alice shrugs her shoulders, her eyes glistening with unshed tears and tells her, "Nothing and that is the problem. I mean I know that I am only 23, but we have been together for four years. He should know if he wants to marry me or not. I mean we live together. I do the cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, and I manage our social calendar. I might as will be his wife, but I am not. We might as well be married, but we are not. We act like a married couple, but we don't feel like one. And it's not like he doesn't want to get married. He wants to. He told me that already. I am not expecting him to do something he doesn't want to do. I expect him to do something he want to do, with me. I don't want to wait four more years until he decides to leave me, so he could find someone else to marry. I would rather leave him now."
Bella sweeps away the tears that trail down Alice's face then goes back to holding her hands and asks, "What do you want to do?"
Alice pulls away from her and twists her arms across her chest and tells her, "I am going to wait three months and if nothing changes, I will break up with him."
"You're giving him an ultimatum?" Bella asks, she pushes her bangs behind her ears.
Alice shakes her head and tells her, "If you have to give someone an ultimatum for them to do what you want, they didn't choose to do it because they want to make you happy or because they want it themselves. They choose to stay in their comfort zone. I believe your mum meant that about relationships."
Bella giggles as she remembers her mum saying that to them once when they were in primary school. "I miss your mum so much," Alice tells Bella.
"She was the best, wasn't she?" Bella asks her, smiling sadly.
Alice nods her head and then leans forward and hugs Bella. "I am here for you if you ever need to talk about her."
"My place is open for you if you end up breaking up with Jasper, but just so you know, you will probably sleep in my bed or on a mattress on the floor," Bella replies.
Alice pulls back and giggles as she asks, "Can we have a girl's night and pillow fights?"
Bella rolls her eyes and reaches behind her for a pillow and smacks Alice's face with it.
"And that is how Jonny learned to never explore the forest alone," Bella finishes reading then closes the storybook in her hand and then asks Adam, "Did you like the story?"
Adam shrugs his shoulders and then covers his mouth as he yawns. "With how picky of stories you are, you better become a literary critic," Bella whispers as she leans forward and kisses his forehead.
"What's that?" Adam asks her scrunching his nose.
"It's someone who decides if a story is good or not," Bella tells him as she smooths his nose not bothering to give a precise definition knowing that in his sleepy brain, any complicated explanation will fly over his head.
"Good night, sweetie," she tells him quietly as she stands up.
"Mum, wait!" Adam's hand shoots from under the blanket and latches onto Bella's.
"What is it, darling?" she asks as she lowers herself back on the bed.
"Can I ask you a question?" he asks her, biting his lips.
"Go ahead, sweetie," She replies, giving him an encouraging smile.
He looks down at his blanket as he nervously asks her, "Why don't I have a daddy?"
It comes at Bella like a punch in the gut. She sucks in a deep breath as she wracks her brain trying to decide what to answer him.
It's okay. Let's just give him the kiddy version.
There is no kiddy version to what happened.
Yes, there is. You are just too freaked out to notice. Take a deep breathe, think, then answer him.
She lets out the air she sucked in slowly and visualizes all of her fears leaving with it then asks him, "Do you remember how grandpa Charlie wasn't so nice?"
"He yelled at you and made you sad," Adam replies as he let's go of the blanket and holds her hand.
"Before he died, when we moved to the apartment above the garage, did you think it was a good thing or a bad thing?" Bella asks him.
Adam replies, "You stopped being sad, so that was a good thing."
"Exactly, because we have to stay away from people who make us sad which is why I am keeping you away from your daddy," Bella concludes.
Adam nods his head in understanding and mutters to himself, "That is better than what Jeremy said."
Bella's eyebrows rise as she asks Adam in confusion, "Who is Jeremy?"
He looks out the window as he answers, "Jeremy is a boy in my class."
"What did he say?" Bella asks Adam, and when he doesn't answer, she takes his chin in her fingers and forces him to look at her as she asks him again.
"It's not important. It's a stupid thing that I don't think you need to know."
"Adam," she says in a warning tone.
Don't be too hard on him. He probably is just trying to protect you.
I am his mum. I don't need him to protect me. I need him to be honest.
"You can't be sad by what I tell you," he tells her in a warning tone sounding too adult for her comfort.
"I won't be sad," she promises.
I won't be sad, I just need to know what that little shit said, so I can have a talk with his parents.
Adam takes a deep breath then tells her, "He said I don't have a daddy because you don't know who my dad is."
Bella rolls her eyes at how expected that answer is, and tells him, "Next time he talks to you, just ignore him."
She hears her phone ring in the distance and kisses Adam's forehead and tells him goodnight, then gets up and turns off the light on her way out of his room.
She picks her phone of the coffee table and finds out that it's Edward from the caller ID and answer him on her way to her bedroom. "Hello mister."
"Hey, Bella," his voice comes from the other end breathless.
"Were you running?" she asks, frowning.
"I just ran two floors up from Jasper's apartment to mine," he answers.
"Aha," she replies, unsure of what else she is supposed to say. Why would he call her before he could even calm his breathing down?
She hears some rustling in the background before he confesses, "I just received a lecture from Alice for not inviting you to the family's Thanksgiving dinner."
Bella rolls her eye at Alice because of course Alice didn't listen as she tells him, "Please don't tell me that now you feel like you need to invite me."
When Alice asked Bella if she was attending Thanksgiving with the Cullen's, Bella made the mistake of telling her that she wasn't invited. Bella tried to tell her that she and the boys were having Thanksgiving with Phil at her place, but Alice had gotten it in her head that Edward had committed the greatest mistake and nothing Bella could say would change her mind.
"Kinda?' he replies hesitantly.
"Don't. It's too early for my kids to meet your family. Plus, I will be the one hosting Thanksgiving for Phil and his sister," she tells him as she puts a sheet mask on her face.
"That's what I figured," he replies to her.
"Then why are you letting her words get to you?" Bella asks him as she lays on her bed and places her phone on speaker beside her head.
She hears more rustling in the background followed by the opening and closing of his balcony doors before he tells her, "She reminded me that we always host a Thanksgiving lunch the next day, and I should tell you to come."
"You should tell me to come," Bella ponders. "That sounds super inviting."
If I wasn't so sure of him liking me, I would be questioning our relationship.
"That sounded bad. What I meant is that you don't have an excuse to not attend, and I would love if you were my date."
"You know, if you give me a couple of minutes, I will give you a really good excuse to not attend," she tells him playfully.
"Come on, Bella," he mutters in irritation.
Bella feigns a sigh then tells him, "Fine, but if you leave me alone there for some work thing, I will leave without saying goodbye."
"Deal."
I know this is the space where I am supposed to apologize for taking so long to update, but I won't.
I don't have it in me to write as I watch my people get ethically cleased. I struggle to do anything but scroll through social media praying and hoping that I will finally read some good news about a ceasefire. This is not okay. What is happening is beyond atrocious and I can't understand how anyone can justify it.
My beta sent this chapter to me four days ago, and I only managed to get myself to post it here now because putting out anything that could get people's eyes off Gaza and somewhere else feels like a crime. I am trying my best to write, but I am trying to act in a way that doesn't make me feel like a psychopath who is competing with a genocide for attention.
Even on my socials, the only thing that keeps me posting my original writings in a semi regular bases is the hope that maybe someone will stumble across my profile via my writing then see my other posts and discover what is happening in Gaza. Even writing this, I feel like a fucking moron. Like I am centering my struggles when I am one of the lucky Palestinians.
I am not centering myself. I just want you to know that I appreciate every single one of you and I don't take you for granted, and I don't want you to think that not explaining why I am taking too long to update.
I had a plan for November, this month. I would do this thing of updating my two stories ten times in total making it so that I am updating one of the them every three days, but things obviously didn't go as planned. I will definitely do that for January, if by then we have a ceasefire.
The genocide will come to an end. It could end the same way previous aggressions ended in Gaza, or it could end the way the Tantura and Deir Yaseen massacres ended. Tomorrow, a month from now, or maybe a year, but what wont end is the shame that will haunt me for the rest of my life, if I don't act in accordance with my moral compass.
So until my next update,
Stay safe