Do we sense a shift? Just me? ENJOY!
"I need to sleep, Edward."
Victoria isn't lying; she's simply exhausted and doesn't hesitate to let her brother know. Ignoring the grunt of frustration he lets out in response, she closes her eyes and faces her body toward the wall, away from him. After a minute of heavy silence, Victoria feels herself sink into her mattress from the weight of him suddenly sitting at the bottom of her bed. She feels the heaviness in his words before he even speaks them.
"I need your help," Edward says, hesitation in his voice. She rises and sees him leaning with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
"You need my help?" Victoria asks in disbelief. The man sitting on the edge of her bed is not the Edward she knows. That Edward has looked danger in the eye and walked into it anyway.
Despite her perpetual anger towards him, he always has an answer for everything. A plan. He has always managed to find a way out of every corner she has trapped herself — them — into, and now that their roles are reversed, she isn't sure how to feel. Feelings of anger, resentment, frustration, and even abandonment have, at times, surfaced in her relationship with Edward. But useful? Is that the right emotion to describe how she feels when he tells her he needs her help after depending on him for everything for almost her whole life?
One thing she is sure of.
She is absolutely speechless.
"I don't know what to do," Edward admits, ignoring her attempts to tell him to leave.
"What makes you think I do?" She sits up in bed, resting her back against the wall. Her thin blanket rests upon her skinny body, and Edward resists the urge to wrap it more tightly around her to keep in whatever warmth he can muster.
Sighing, Edward crosses his arms across his chest, his eyes looking back to the uneven wooden floor. "You know Marcus in ways I don't."
"Thank you for the reminder," Victoria spits back at him despite how tired she is.
"You know that's not how I intended it," Edward says softly, somehow calm. Maybe it's defeat she hears in his voice. "Marcus has disliked me since the day I came home from the war. We've managed to keep our distance as best we can. Until now."
"I thought your decision to marry Isabella was working," Victoria says.
"Marry?" Edward whips his head to her at her words before shaking it clear again. She is right; his relationship with Isabella has helped keep Marcus at a distance, though Edward can feel him hovering in the shadows. Sighing, Edward rubs a hand down his face. "I feel like it goes deeper than that. Like Isabella isn't his only problem where I am concerned."
"Which is what brings you here," Victoria realizes with a slow nod. "Your feeling of me keeping something from you."
"I never said that. But yes, I think you know more than what you're willing or ready to admit right now."
"What if I am?" Victoria poses to him. "Afraid to tell you. Or anyone, for that matter."
"Are you safe?"
She nods and shrugs her shoulders. "There's always the possibility of danger doing what I do. Whether it's from Marcus or any of the men I work with."
"This is not the life I envisioned for you," Edward says softly after a moment of silence. "And every day that goes by, I feel like we're walking closer to a place we can never come back from."
Victoria has lived in this other space Edward speaks of since the moment James died. What makes today any different than all the others? Every day of her life is as dark and dismal as Edward fears his will become. "I wish I could help you."
"You can, Victoria," Edward replies, almost to the point of pleading. "I know you hate me for leaving you, and I hope one day you can forgive me for it. But you know something I don't. You have the power to change things around here. Otherwise, you never would have come back."
"I need to sleep," Victoria mumbles, sliding back into the place she was in before Edward came to her room tonight.
She doesn't say anything more.
He doesn't expect her to.
——-TLK——-
Dear Isabella,
As always, I hope this letter finds you well. I speak for both myself and your father when I say we did not expect you to stay in Port Angeles for as long as you have. It has been over a year since you left, and we miss you terribly. Your letters help pass the time until we are able to see you again. The thought of us going to the city where your brother was killed is not something we are able to do. We miss him every day, and we fear we have now lost you to the temptations of the city, as well. We pray for the day you'll come home, even if you must leave without finding out what happened to James. We have already lost one child; we cannot bear to lose another.
I do apologize for starting off this letter with such sadness, however, these winter months leave me with such an ache in my heart, I know you understand well. Based on your last letter, I am pleased you have found yourself with company who can help alleviate some of the pain in your heart. I find myself wishing that was a possibility for me. Even though James had left us a long time ago for Port Angeles, days on the farm are hard for your father without him to help. Michael has been of great use here, and he has been taking on a lot more responsibilities to help your father. We are grateful for everything he has been able to do for us in both James' and your absence.
Even if I can't make you stay, perhaps a visit home can be arranged. I miss you, darling girl.
Love,
Momma
As if the bitter winter outside weren't harsh enough, her mother's words hit Isabella in the face like an icy snowball. She isn't completely blindsided; she had noticed the change of tone in the last letter her mother had sent. Isabella hadn't been sure if it was because they were coming up on one year since Isabella had left Forks for Port Angeles for answers or if it was because the reality of James' death was finally settling into her mother's heart. Nonetheless, the letter she holds in her hands comes as no surprise to her.
Surprise or not, it doesn't take away the crippling guilt that leaves her numb and motionless as she sits at the table in the kitchen at Rosalie's. She had gotten ready early for her shift at The Lost Key, hoping to see Edward for a few quiet minutes before the hecticness of the night began, when she had wandered into the kitchen to grab the pair of warm gloves Edward had gotten for her to keep her warm on her walks to and from work. Unbeknownst to her, one of the girls in the house had kindly placed the letter from her mother next to her gloves in hopes she wouldn't miss it. Now, the letter rests loosely in her hand as she sits at the table and stares distractedly out the window.
"I thought you were heading out?"
Victoria's voice makes her jump out of her skin, and she places a hand over her heart. "I was," Isabella answers, her eyes briefly leaving the window to meet Victoria's gaze. "I should be going, actually, but time got away from me, I guess."
"My brother is probably moments away from sending all his men here," Victoria exaggerates but offers a slight chuckle until she notices the blank expression on Isabella's face. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Isabella attempts to plaster a fake smile on her face before lifting her hand from beneath the table. "Just a letter from my mother."
Victoria nods and takes the letter into her hand when Isabella grants her permission. With a sigh, she hands the letter back to her. "She misses you."
"I miss her too," Isabella says sadly. "And I feel terrible about not going home."
"Would you even be able to go home now?" Victoria asks, sitting in the empty seat next to her at the table. She wraps her robe around herself more tightly as she sits near the drafty kitchen window. "We'd miss you too, Bella."
"My brother used to call me that," Isabella gasps, her hand coming up to her mouth in shock. Her eyes fill with tears as she shakes her head at memories of his voice come flooding back to her. "I haven't heard it in so long."
Victoria panics at the sight of her tears. "I'm sorry, I didn't me -"
Isabella raises a hand to reassure her. "No, no, it's fine. I love hearing it. I guess I didn't know how much until now," she sniffles. "I'm sorry. I always end up such a mess after hearing from my family. It makes me think about James and how a year later, I've made no progress in finding out what happened to him. And then I read letters like these, and I don't know what to do."
With a shaky breath and Edward's words from a few weeks ago running through her head, Victoria looks away from Isabella. "I see."
"I should leave. I should go back home – at this point, I'll never know what happened to James. Maybe it's best if I don't. But leaving here, leaving this," Isabella pauses, looking around the room in deep thought. "You're right. Can I even go back to my life on the farm now? Without you or Rosie?"
"And Edward," Victoria adds.
Isabella nods, her eyes closing at the thought of having to leave him behind. "And Edward." Her eyes open as the clock's chime reminds her that even though her family may be torn apart, life must still go on. She pushes back from the table before reaching for her gloves. Sighing, she says goodbye to Victoria. "I'm just full of questions without answers today, it seems."
Hours later, Victoria still can't get Isabella's sadness out of her mind. It's a sadness similar to her own but also very different. Edward is right; Victoria does know things none of them do. Victoria mourns a life she almost had while Isabella searches for answers to help her make sense of the life she did have with her brother.
And in an unplanned chain of events, Victoria holds the answers Isabella and her family so desperately need in order to move on with their lives while still honoring James' life.
She doesn't know why, nor does she leave herself time to figure it out, but Victoria finds herself walking to The Lost Key at the end of the night with plans to make it right.
She thinks.
When Rosalie told her she was heading over to meet Emmett, Victoria didn't hesitate to grab her coat and follow along. She ignores the puddles as they splash beneath her feet, soaking her flimsy shoes. Her head is roaring with a thousand different thoughts; the last thing she thinks about now is how cold her feet are. When Rosalie opens the door to The Lost Key, Victoria's eyes search frantically for Isabella, not moving until they spot her behind the bar with Edward. They're whispering to each other quietly, and it reminds Victoria of how she and James used to whisper their plans of helping her escape from Marcus' grasp.
Maybe all of this happened so he could do what Edward never could — make her believe in the power of herself.
She needs to do this before she regrets it, or better yet before she changes her mind.
"I can't do this anymore," Victoria blurts into the almost empty room. Edward and Isabella look up quickly, finding her near the door, soaked from the rain and shivering from the cold. Rosalie, who was on her way to the back to see Emmett, turns on her heel, with Emmett appearing from the hallway and stopping to stand behind her.
"Do what?" Edward asks, clearing his throat as he moves away from Isabella. He places a gentle hand on her waist as he passes, his brows furrowed as he wagers in his head what Victoria could be talking about.
"Victoria?" Rosalie asks in confusion, unaware Victoria had been carrying such heavy thoughts on their walk here in the rain.
Victoria ignores them all and walks closer to Isabella, their eyes meeting in the dim light beneath the haze of lingering smoke hovering inside the pub. "I'm so sorry, Bella. I should have said something sooner, but I couldn't, and now -"
"Now what?" Edward interrupts, apparently not in the same mood he was the morning he came to her room, begging for her help. His face is serious, hardened from all the years he's had to fix her mistakes.
Victoria's eyes never leave Isabella's, and she sees the moment she crumbles to the floor.
"I knew your brother," Victoria says through tears of her own. "And I know who killed him."
Edward runs behind the bar when Isabella falls to the floor, scooping her into his arms as she shakes in disbelief.
"How do you know this?" Rosalie asks Victoria as Edward carries Isabella to a seat. Rosalie moves him aside and scoots next to her friend, knowing the rage inside of Edward may not be able to be contained within the confines of a booth at the pub. Isabella doesn't move as she sits, unable to lift her head from Rosalie's shoulder as the world around her begins to spin.
Even when Victoria tells them what only she and Marcus Volturi are alive to tell.
"Because I was with him when he died."
It's time. Victoria is ready. Are we?!
See you soon!