Space
I had sat watching in complete astonishment. My mouth hanging open and brow raised.
The sudden transformation in Bella had been a lot to take in. She appeared with the ring of her cell.
Apparently, Bella was just fine. Her injuries weren't that bad, and she preferred her mother not to come.
She even convinced her Renee that we were going to some facility to Sweden.
That it would be pointless of her to make her way here, when everything was taken care of.
She promised to answer her mother's calls.
She promised to keep her informed.
She would have promised her mother absolutely anything, as long as it kept her out of Forks.
As she ended the call, the mask was removed, the costume was put away.
From there we had started a pointless back and forth. Pointless because I'd had this conversation with Bella ten times over since Charlie's death and we never got anywhere.
It was exhausting.
"She's your mother, Bella". I reasoned.
"I don't want her here Edward" she told me flatly. Trying to hide what festered inside of her.
"Why?" I begged. Wanting some kind of an explanation from her. Anything.
This one-sided feud Bella seemed to be having Renee was senseless to everyone.
She just couldn't be around her anymore.
One parent had died, and the other was exiled. But only Bella knew why.
She shook her head. "You wouldn't get it."
I sighed heavily and sharply, trying to settle my frustration with her.
"Then explain it to me". I asked her, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Bella's jaw tightened in protest.
Shirley suddenly came in, far to cheerful for the tension that was flooding the room.
She noticed it.
She didn't care.
"The doctor says it's time to sit you up. Give you something else to look at other than this ugly old ceiling" she chimed as she made her way through the confined space.
Bella said nothing.
Shirley didn't care.
Our eyes were locked tightly. Stuck in stand off, both waiting for the other to give up. Both failing.
Slowly Shirley readjusted Bella's bed. She flinched and grimaced at the movement, before looking back to me.
Shirley inspected Bella's position, then swiftly nodded to herself.
"You two be good now" she said with a smile before leaving the room. Suddenly Bella weakly smiled back at her, shaking her head at the woman.
The familiar click of the door landed us back into our conversation, but the air around us, suddenly wasn't so cold.
"I just want to understand." I told her sincerely.
She breathed heavily and looked down to the blanket. Her fingers began fidgeting with the fabric. Pinching and pulling at it nervously.
She frowned and bit her lower lip.
After months of asking the same question of her. She finally gave in.
She shrugged, shaking her head. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the bundle of woven threads between her fingers.
"I couldn't fit in this room with her" she confessed to me.
I could see that those words, that were a mess of confusion to me, were pulled from something very clear to Bella.
I froze, watching her struggle to make sense of her own feelings. Trying to find a way to help me see something I was blinded to.
"Everything about her is so big. She takes up every bit of space of every room she's in." She explained hopelessly.
Her fingers stopped, she drew her hands together on her lap and squeezed them together tightly, before she began pulling at fingers aimlessly. Anxiously.
"I can't feel anything because there's not enough room for me too. And I just can't do it for her Edward. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't."
And finally, I understood. Her eyes lifted and found acceptance. How could I argue with something like that?
She'd spent her life somewhat raising Renee. She'd taken a backseat in her mother's life, always putting her first.
And I don't think it had bothered Bella before. But now she just simply didn't have it in her.
She shook her head regretfully.
"I'm not mad at her. I just don't have the space for her."