September 2006
Seventeen/Nineteen
By the end of her first day as a high school junior, Bella had had a crushing realization. Edward had been like a bulwark. Without him, the dam broke. Bella had never known high school without him. Even when they hadn't spoken much - early on, when he pretended that she didn't exist - Edward had been protecting her.
It started with snickering when she raised her hand in any class, despite teachers shushing - and she had always been an enthusiastic student. Was the laughter triggered because she said something stupid? Because she always trembled slightly when she spoke, with light spasms? Because she lisped sometimes when she was nervous?
Between first and second period, a freshman boy gawked at Isabella in her forearm crutches - eyes popping, mouth wide. With an incredulous laugh, the boy started to mock her gait. He didn't have to exaggerate much: knees bent inwards in a scissoring gait, slightly flexed. Weaker right leg dragging after the left. Slight tumbling from side to side. Back bent at an angle, never fully straight. Arms doing all the work to drag her crippled legs, despite support from her KAFO orthoses.
"Last year, Cullen would've beaten you to shit."
"Who the heck is Cullen?"
"The kid that went to Harvard? Played quarterback?"
Tell an adult. Talk back. I don't care how bad you are at the beginning.
Mustering all her courage, Bella approached the mocking boy - slowly, painstakingly. Click, thump, drag.
The two boys turned white with fear, even a hit of embarrassment. Edward was right.
"Hi," she managed to say. She fought to keep composed, enunciating every letter carefully. Edward understood her when she spoke, even when the spasming and the trembling became very aggressive.
As if on cue, her left knee spasmed when her left foot made an impact with the floor.
"I have cerebral palsy," she said sharply, peeking at them through her eyelashes. "It's not funny."
"Dude," boomed one boy at the other.
"Sorry, man. Sorry," said the mocker kid, looking ashamed.
Eric Yorkie was in third-period Trigonometry. Almost bat-like, he sat in the furthest corner of the room. In flashes, she caught the things Edward had always mocked: his greasy curtain of black hair and his bad case of acne. There was a shining pustule between his upper lip and his nose, embedded in some peach fuzz. Bella. could feel him, gazing at her almost with fixation
That, Bella thought, was a monster of her own making. She spent half the class debating what to do. She waited for the class to file out, wanting to show her goodwill.
"Hi, Eric," Bella said politely at the end of class. "Did you have a nice summer?" At this, she smiled toothily, all dimples.
"Cunt," Eric spat under his breath.
His tone made Isabella's eyes water with tears, even though she had no clue what the word meant. She felt her nose stinging. Acutely, in that second, she missed Edward like an ache that slit her open. Everything she knew about the adult world - bad words, drugs, alcohol, movies that were in, songs that were X-rated - she knew through Edward. If she asked Edward what the word meant, he would probably have a stroke.
At lunch, Gilberto - her friend from the janitorial staff - helped her with her hot lunch tray. Without Edward, it felt raucous and cavernous. Boys roughhousing terrified her. Though she rarely had a big appetite, she scarfed down her lasagna and a bread roll. She spent the entire lunch period curled in a bean bag in the library, pretending to be invisible.
When she came home, she found Edward had sent her a bouquet of sunflowers, and she missed him like an ache.
By the second week of September, the hell that high school had become had fallen into routine. Every morning, Isabella begged Esme for a packed cold lunch. When it wasn't drizzling, she ate her sandwiches on the bench of her oak tree. When it was, she ate her sandwiches in a corner of the library she claimed as her own. Mrs. Davis, the school librarian, took pity on her and turned a blind eye.
"And lunch, darling?" Edward had asked her, and she'd considered lying through her teeth.
"You should be focused on school," she'd said, before caving and explaining the arrangement.
Nobody ever disturbed her on her oak tree, but she was a walking target in the hallways.
"Can you blow?"
"Pardon?" Bella asked, feeling dumb almost on cue. Edward bemoaned that she was so unfailingly, impeccably polite at school.
"Can you blow?"
Brow wrinkled in confusion, Bella brought her lips together as if to whistle, blowing hot air.
At this, the asking boy - a Kevin Scotty, who hero-worshipped Edward - thrust his pelvis outwards, three times. The other boy with him, and Lauren Mallory to boot, roared with laughter, and Bella felt a pang of pure terror. She wondered if that was how rabbits felt before being hunted by a pack of dogs.
That night, Bella had a nightmare featuring their laughter. The next day, on her birthday, Edward texted in the morning. Happy birthday, Bee! Surprise in the mail. By mid-afternoon, she got a package - a huge box that weighed well over 30 pounds.
Isabella pried it open, and out spilled a trove of mismatched souvenirs. Postcards that he picked out, scribbled on in his doctor-like cursive, and never mailed. A tin box of toffees shaped like a red telephone booth. A stuffed black bull from Spain, and a hair brooch. Books. Swiss chocolate bars and hard candies. Bookmarks from museums across the continent. Cartoon drawings. A perfume bottle from France. Sunglasses from the Gucci store in Rome. A doll from Bruges.
Picked this shit out in Europe thinking of you. - Edward.
Esme worried intensely for her during the rest of the week, because Bella wept over the box like somebody had died. She called to thank him, but felt relief that the call went to voice mail. She left a string of texts, dissapointed in how poor the characters would be at conveying her gratitute. Thank you for hauling the presents all over. Thank you for paying for extra baggage. Thank you for thinking of me.
Don't mention it, darling. Literally.
Worried that he'd worry, worried that he'd know how much she needed him, she never called.
The next day, as the protection that Edward had left withered away, somebody knocked into her for the first time in months. Boys again, tossing footballs. It happened outside. Both of her knees scraped against the gravel, making her knees gush out blood. She injured her wrist when she fell, because her forearms were threaded through the grip.
November 2006
October and November were like an exercise in pathetic fallacy, Bella thought miserably. As if on cue, the sky darkened, and the weather dampened. With the worsening weather came a cold that stuck around stubbornly. It started to take courage for her to speak out in class, even when she was certain of the answer. She grew skinnier in her sweaters: felt fabric that had once been snug, hanging. Sometimes, she did venture out into the cafeteria - both because she felt emboldened, and because she convinced herself it could not be as scary as all that. Her grades went up even further because she spent her lunch breaks working on homework.
On the first week of November, the first snow fell. Her sandwich felt cold and unappetizing. Like a rabbit venturing out of its hole, Bella wheeled into the library. Eric glowered at her from their former table, surrounded by two boys. Bella recognized one boy from Trig. At eighteen, the boy in question already had a bald spot in between locks of wispy, greasy hair.
With growing dread, she scanned her surroundings and realized there was nowhere else to sit. She set her tray on her lap so that it rested on the armrests of her wheelchair. She was stuck with a tray of hot food, and nowhere to eat it.
What was more pathetic - to leave without eating, to eat it from her wheelchair, or to look for a spot?
She angled her chair, aiming for the spot that had always been hers.
"Can I sit here, guys?" she asked softly, mustering her last reservoir of courage for the day.
Eric leered at her with such hate that Bella almost cried.
"Let the lady sit with us, Eric," one of the boys said, and Bella smiled weakly.
Then the unimaginable happened.
Esme had always been certain that Eric had some kind of disorder - and was, as a result, terrified of him. Bella had always dismissed her instincts.
"I said no," Eric snarled. "Get away."
Tears were stinging her eyes. "Fine," she spat.
But her moves to comply with the request were not fast enough for Eric Yorkie. With the heel of his hand, Eric hit her squarely in the shoulder, to shove her back. Nobody had ever physically hurt her, and Bella cried out - more in shock than pain.
Bella had never been punched or otherwise injured, and she felt the whiplash on the tendons in her shoulder before the skin started to burn. With Bella strapped to it, the wheelchair tumbled backward. Her head slammed against the floor, making her ears ring and pop. Her vision blurred.
When she vomited several hours later, Uncle Carlisle diagnosed her as concussed.
There was a collective gasp that turned into deafening silence.
Isabella missed the remaining days of that week because that was what she - and her parents - wanted.
She missed the second week of November because of illness. The cold she'd been nursing turned into a low-grade fever and a violent cough. She spent the second Thursday of November like a groundswell of snot and phlegm, surrounded by used tissue. On the second Friday of November, she coughed so hard and so relentlessly that she couldn't breathe. When her fever spiked, Carlisle called her in for examination. Pneumonia.
She was admitted on Saturday midnight. They hooked her to an IV and put her on oxygen therapy. A line of plastic tubing hooked to her right hand, under gauze, administered antibiotics. From that moment onwards, time bled into a blur. The exhaustion weighed on her bones so heavily that she slept as if comatose.
"Keep your voice down, Edward. You'll wake Bella."
"You're supposed to take care of her!"
"Taking care of her is my entire life," Esme said cuttingly, in a voice like ice.
"Then how the fuck did she get pneumonia? You're doing a hell of a job," Edward snarled viciously.
"You're such - You can be so - " Esme spluttered tearfully. "Don't you dare, Edward Anthony."
"You're a grown-ass college man, Edward," Carlisle barked roughly. "Apologize to your aunt."
"Sorry," Edward said. "Sorry."
There was a stony silence, followed by a deep sigh.
"The pulmonologist and I were being overcautious, son. I didn't want to take risks with Bella. I know it's hard to see her like this - "
"No shit," Edward said, so sorrowfully that the adults didn't scorn him.
"She'll be fine, son. She'll be released before Thanksgiving."
Edward scoffed. Isabella stirred, feeling like her eyelashes were keeping her eyelids anchored shut.
"Esme? You should get dinner."
"I've got no appetite."
"Edward?"
"Later."
"I'm on call until 10:00." The door shut.
A kiss to her knuckles on her right hand. The kiss was feather-light and achingly gentle, but the skin felt scratchy against the back of her palm. Another hand - her mother's hand - touched her forehead, a sensation so universally comforting that Bella let herself sink into the black lead of her exhaustion.
"I fell in love with her, you know," Esme murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. "From the minute I saw her. And I never stopped loving her after that. Right after my divorce from my first husband."
"You were married? Before?"
"I was so young. Twenty-six. My second marriage – I was almost 40. I got married to – ironically, actually – another Charles. Chuck Brandon. We had a baby girl."
Bella heard the moment Edward's breath caught; she herself, dozing in and out, wondered if she was hallucinating.
"Alice. She was born many years before you were. I went into labor too early, and she was a preemie. Weighed 2 pounds and 6 ounces. Just like – "
"Just like Bella," Edward breathed.
"If she'd lived, I often wonder… I think she would have also had cerebral palsy. That's what the doctors told me. And that's how I met my Charlie, and my Isabella, actually. I volunteered with the Cerebral Palsy Foundation in Seattle, with the preemies and with the parents. Took me many years after we buried Alice. I – I couldn't. And Isabella was just so… such a beautiful baby. And – "
Esme's voice filled with bitterness. "The so-called birthmother was in no shape to take care of a baby with special needs. Couldn't even take care of herself. She was just – a selfish, immature girl."
"The model or whatever?"
"Who told you that?" Esme half-snapped, her voice saturated with disdain. "Yes, whatever the hell that meant. She is – was - completely sick in the head."
"And she left?" Edward asked, his voice growing dark with an imprint of a long-familiar rage.
"Yes. Yes. That's what we've told Bella when she asked," Esme whispered as if sharing a secret, and Bella felt her mother's fingers on her forehead, caressing her face. "It's… could be more complicated than that. The point, Edward, is that I stayed. I haven't been away from her for more than 48 hours in fifteen years. She's mine. My entire life. I fell in love with her, and Charlie and I – Charlie knows that. We built the marriage for her."
The room fell into an absolute silence, punctuated by the whirring of the oxygen concentrator and Esme sniffing away her tears.
"I'm sorry I ever said anything," Edward said softly, remorsefully. "You've been a great mom. The best. And I'm thankful to have you. I just – I freaked the fuck out. She's never been so sick before."
"It's been so hard for her, these past few months. She missed you," Esme said softly. "I – that – She probably doesn't want you to know, but – "
"But what?"
Esme's voice trembled with anger. "It's.. I.. Charlie and I want to pull her out of that school. That Yorkie boy –
"What did he do?"
Esme took deep, steadying breaths, huffing outrage. "He called her a cunt. Bella obviously didn't know what that meant, but she's no idiot. And then, last week, he knocked her over. On purpose. He hit her on the shoulder."
The ottoman Edward was sitting on scratched violently against the linoleum and crashed against the pullout bed Esme had been sleeping on. Bella could hear his hot, furious breathing.
"Edward," Esme yelped loudly, standing up.
And Bella finally opened her eyes.
Bella opened her eyes slowly, in flutters. The oxygen flowing through the mask felt so icy that it burned. Her throat felt as if it had been abraded with sandpaper.
"Fuck, no. Go back to sleep. Fuck, Bee, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."
For a minute, Bella blinked at him. Edward's voice was hoarse, and his eyes were rimmed red. His jaw was covered in a thick layer of stubble, and his hair was completely disheveled. Esme, who had been rooted to Bella's hospital room for days, did not look any better.
For the first time, she felt gagged by the oxygen mask, dizzied by laying flat. Like a worm, she started to wriggle.
"Bella, no. Baby, go back to sleep."
"Sweetheart? What do you need? Mommy's right here."
In slow, drowsy motions, Bella shook her head, then edged her hands towards the controls of her hospital bed. As she sat up, Edward groaned, and Esme glared at him furiously.
"Careful, darling," Edward said, wincing.
Bella breathed a few, wheezy breaths. The oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth. She blinked at Edward with her doe eyes. She moved her right hand towards the oxygen mask, wanting to pull it away from her face. Understanding dawned in Edward's eyes, and he panicked.
"No, Bella, don't. Are you fucking crazy?"
Feeling like the Little Mermaid under a spell, Bella shook her head and tapped her mouth.
"It's OK to take it off for a bit," Esme explained, helping Bella remove it.
"Hi, angel," Edward finally croaked, smiling weakly.
"Thank," Bella hoarsely. "You. For." A wheezy breath. "My gifts."
Edward barked an incredulous laugh, then kissed her hand again with great tenderness. "Don't be stupid. Don't thank me for that again."
"When did ...?" Bella croaked in a tinny voice, feeling better.
"I get back?" Edward guessed. His voice never rose above a murmur. "My flight got in at 2:00, and we came straight here. After I showered and shit."
"I missed you," Bella said, despite her better judgment. The past five months weighed on her heavily, and her eyes filled with tears. Impossibly, Edward's eyes filled with concern, and he looked ten years older as two tears fell down her cheeks.
"I missed you more." A kiss to her hand again, this time to the back of her palm. "So fucking much."
"Everybody is an idiot at Harvard," Edward added, sitting back down on an ottoman he dragged towards her bedisde. He gently drew his thumb over Isabella's knuckles.
Bella's brow furrowed, and she cocked her head to the side as if looking at him from a different angle would make things clearer. It was a gesture that always made Edward smile.
"You're hanging out with the wrong people," she said croakily.
"You're probably right."
"Always am," she croaked.
Again, Edward grinned weakly with his lopsided grin.
"We should put this back on, love," he instructed, sternly. For the first time, she saw how his pianist hands could turn into a doctor's. With his long, capable fingers, he cradled her head tenderly, stretching the cord that held it together over her mouth.
Edward left that night at 10:00 and came back diligently until the day Isabella was released. The first morning - Tuesday, Bella was told - he arrived cartoonishly overloaded. There were helium balloons tied to his wrist, a bouquet cradled by his ribs, and a giant teddy bear on his other arm. The sight made Bella laugh for the first time in weeks, but the laugh got stuck in her throat and turned into phlegmatic coughing.
"Is that a pumpkin?" she asked, astonished when he set the bouquet by her bed. She touched the pumpkin that served as a vase.
"Fuck me, that is a fucking pumpkin," Edward said, so befuddled that Bella giggled again. "Actually, it looks like a fucking squash. It's ugly, Bee. Sorry."
She laughed again, this time without choking.
Very gently, with painstaking care, Edward leaned over the rail of her hospital to kiss her forehead.
Edward looked older. Less teenaged, and more like a young man. The stubble around his jaw, which had become impossibly sharper, was thicker. He'd joined the swim team, Bella had learned through a quick text. His body had become harder, leaner, stronger.
As the hours dragged on, Bella worried that he was supposed to be resting, sleeping, or doing homework. She said as much several times.
"Will you stop worrying?" Edward said irritably, when she inquired after his homework for a third time. They were watching Shrek 2 on his computer. "Watch the fucking gingerbread Godzilla. You're ruining one of the greatest movie scenes of all time."
And she laughed again, in peals.
Isabella was discharged on the third Wednesday in November, into a sparkling blue – but frosty – afternoon. Esme had wrapped her daughter tightly in several elements, then cringed when they reached the car pot. Carlisle escorted the Swans to their car, having accompanied Bella at discharge. As Carlisle helped Charlie lift Bella into the SUV, his phone started ringing.
"Ugh, my mother is calling," Carlisle said, and in that second, his expression of disgust made him look exactly like his son.
"Sorry, man," Charlie blurted out apologetically.
Bella buried her giggle into the knit scarf she wore, making Carlisle smile and wink.
"Esme, are you sure you're still OK to host?" Carlisle asked his sister-in-law, having answered the phone without putting it to his ear. Esme had gone white as a sheet with dread and realization.
"Yeah, of course," Esme said, forcing on one of those brittle, glittering smiles that everybody knew were a lie.
Carlisle looked at his sister-in-law uncertainly before putting his phone to his ear. "Hello, mother," he said stiffly. "It's not a good time." Bella snorted gleefully, knowing it was a good time if there ever was one: Carlisle was about to start a lunch break. Carlisle stroked Bella's hair and shut the car door. He looked exasperated as he spoke into the phone.
Esme climbed into the back of the car, wrapping an arm around Bella, who burrowed into her warmth. Gingerly, Esme stroked her daughter's hair.
With his wife and daughter in the back of the car, Charlie drove away.
"I invited Carlisle's mother to Thanksgiving dinner. Back in May," Esme admitted, in sheer dread, as the realization struck her.
Charlie groaned a long-winded groan. "Honey, why?" Charlie demanded furiously. "Why would you do that? Not even Carlisle wants to spend Thanksgiving with that woman. Honey, why?"
"She's Edward's grandmother," Esme hissed. "She paid for his entire Euro trip."
Charlie scoffed. "So? That woman has money to burn. That's like me buying someone coffee."
Esme ignored him.
"We need to stop at Costco. Somewhere. Anywhere. We need a turkey."
Charlie groaned indignantly. "Honey, this late in the season, it'd be easier to get a turkey hunting out for it in the wild."
Bella was giggling between phlegmatic coughs.
"And I need to put up decorations," Esme continued fitfully. "And take out the china."
"You don't need to take out the wedding China, for Pete's sake," Charlie whined gruffly. "Just feed us rotisserie chicken on our regular plates, Esme."
Bella was laughing hard, phlegmatically, into her scarf.
"Let's go drop Bella off, and then get ready for tomorrow," Esme insisted, ignoring Charlie's earlier statements.
"Esme, honey, you're exhausted, too. You need a hot shower and a nap."
"I'll go to the goddamned Costco," Charlie muttered furiously. "I'll fight all the other poor bastard husbands for the last turkey. Anything else?"
"I'll write you a list," Esme said, pleased with herself. "You know how I like my place-settings."
Charlie grunted noncommittally.
Bella could feel Charlie's rage as he helped his daughter into her wheelchair. Once inside the house, Esme helped Bella change into pajamas and tucked Bella into bed. "Welcome home, sweetheart," she said warmly, stroking Bella's cheeks. "You scared the hell out of me."
"I – " Bella's eyes filled with tears. "Mom, I'm done."
Esme sat on the bed, by Bella. "What do you mean?"
"I can't anymore," Bella managed to say, tears ricocheting down her cheeks. "I tried to be brave, but I can't."
Esme's eyes were burning with tears of her own. "School, you mean?"
Doe eyes huge, glistening with tears, Bella nodded. "Please don't make me go anymore."
Esme's lips hardened into a tight, unforgiving line. "What that boy did is unforgivable, Bella. Daddy and I are thinking about pressing charges – "
The color drained from Bella's face. "Was it really that big of a deal?" she asked, burrowing under the covers.
"Yes, it was," Esme said bitterly, in a voice so steely it frightened Bella.
"But it's more than Eric," Bella admitted, then broke into a hard, breath-stealing sob. "I don't have any friends, Mom. I'm – I feel so alone, all the time."
"Oh, baby," Esme murmured, voice trembling. "Oh, honey. OK. We'll figure out what to do. You don't have to go the rest of the semester, OK?"
Bella nodded, sniffling wetly. "Or ever again," she said in a croak, her voice breaking. She clung to her mother's sweater as she sobbed wetly.
"Or ever again," Esme agreed, gently rocking her back and forth, shushing her.
On Thanksgiving Thursday, Isabella was woken by the buzzing of her flip phone. It was barely 8:00 AM, and she had a text from the only person who ever texted her. Did you go to the pumpkin patch this year?
Every year, Esme took Isabella – and then Edward, who at first whined that he was a grown man – to the largest pumpkin patch in Seattle. Afterward, Bella lighting up with enthusiasm, they made Jack-O-Lanterns and used the stuffing for pie. As with everything, last year he'd been achingly sweet, carving a kitten into a pumpkin with those hands of his. Bella's secret lifelong ambition was to own a cat, but Esme thought they were a hazard for Bella's asthma.
Bella was slow and clumsy with her texting – clumsier than with writing - because it took dexterity she didn't naturally have. Wasn in thd mopd. Srill pdn? As with he was with her speech, Edward was patient and understood exactly what she meant.
You're asking if it's still open?
Ys.
Closes this week, love.
Bella dozed until midday. Esme woke her then, wearing a wine-colored knit dress and looking impeccably coiffed for a woman who had spent a week in the hospital. "Wakey, wakey, sweetheart," Esme sang. "Edward is here, my love." Esme helped Bella take a hot shower and blow-dried her hair. Then, when it was time to dress, Esme stood for a solid five minutes in front of Bella's hanging clothes, an internal battle raging.
"Mom, not a dress, please," Bella begged. "Please not a dress, mom."
"But – " Esme said fretfully. "Mrs Cullen is coming."
"Something comfortable, Mom."
"You look gorgeous in anything. But let me do your hair?" Esme said, negotiating.
Using her wheelchair, Bella emerged from her room in her favorite, white turtleneck sweater – thick and made of wool – wearing equally thick sweatpants. Over her feet, she wore scratchy woolen socks. Esme fashioned her daughter's hair into her preferred half-up-do, with a white ribbon in her hair. Edward was in the kitchen, equally casual in a pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved shirt. He wore a Turkey-themed apron as he stirred a pot with one hand, looking stressed. In the other hand, he held a cutting knife.
"I did your place settings with the turkey-napkin-fold thing, which was fucking difficult, by the way," Edward grumbled, sounding slightly breathless. "And took out the Baccarat glasses. And I chopped celery for the stuffing. And now I'm stirring the yams and – "
Both Esme and Bella giggled. Esme kissed his cheek.
"Hey, Martha Stewart," Bella teased weakly.
"Shut up, Bee." Edward said, wielding his spatula, but his voice sounded light and playful. "I got you stuff from the pumpkin patch."
"You did?" Bella said, lighting up. The love she felt for Edward – in all its varieties - swelled so intensely that she wanted to cry. Lovingly, he bent over to kiss her forehead. Bella lifted her chin, rising slightly in her wheelchair to kiss his freshly shaved cheek.
"Yup," he said, popping the P. "I left a little pumpkin on your nightstand. And then I went to a Blockbuster and got us the Nightmare Before Christmas and like two Harry Potters."
"Edward," Bella said, her eyes shining with poorly hidden adoration.
He suggested they go to the den, and Bella wheeled over, feeling slightly breathless. Feeling weak already, she transferred to the couch, where Edward wrapped her up in a comforter. Once she was settled, he came back with a mug of steaming hot apple cider "straight from the pumpkin patch."
"You're still wearing the apron," Bella noted teasingly. He took it off as if it were burning, and Bella coughed out phlegmatic giggles. As she took sips of the hot, spicy liquid, he put on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Midway through the opening song, she crawled on top of Edward, butt on his lap, body sprawled across his chest, head nestled between his shoulder and his neck. Underneath her, she felt what she had noticed. Edward's body was leaner and harder after just three months on the Harvard swim team.
She didn't finish the cider, or even the movie. By the time Jack discovered Christmas Town, Bella was deeply asleep with Edward's arms wrapped around her.
"Edward! Sweetheart, look at you!"
"Shush," Edward hissed furiously, sounding almost motherly. "Bella is sleeping."
"Oh. Sorry. Come say hello to your grandmother, darling," Victoria half-cooed, in a loud squawk that negated her apology.
"Mother," Carlisle snarled.
"Oh, sorry. Sorry."
As she started to stir, Bella felt his hand cradle her head gently. Her eyes fluttered open slowly.
"Go back to sleep, Bee," Edward coaxed gently. Through her glassy eyes, Bella could see Edward was glaring at her grandmother, wearing a stiff-shouldered blazer and pearl earrings that reminded Bella of Nancy Reagan. Victoria cut a sharp profile in the otherwise homely den.
Tenderly, Edward nuzzled her nose with his. "I'm going to move you, OK?"
"Mmmh" Bella managed to say, in a voice thick with sleep and phlegm. Her eyes fell shut again. As gently as if he were handling a newborn baby, Edward cradled her body to move out from underneath her. He laid her gently across the couch and pulled up the covers. Bella felt him squeeze a pillow under her head. Carefully, he kissed her temple, then the tip of her nose. "Sleep, angel," he whispered.
"Hi, grandma," Edward said stiffly.
"You look so handsome, sweet boy. So very, very handsome. I heard you made the swim team! You should have told me, Edward! I had to hear it from your father. I told my friend Charlotte Barker. Her grandson was also on the swim team at Princeton."
"Grandma, shush."
"Isabella's not going to say hi?" Victoria asked, sounding affronted.
"She needs to sleep," Edward growled. "She's exhausted. She was just hospitalized, Grandma, for fuck's sake."
"Carlisle, are you going to let him curse around me?"
An exasperated sigh. "Let's get you a drink, Mother."
A Frank Sinatra album played low on the speakers, in a counterpoint to a crackling fire. Except for the sound of forks and knives scratching against Esme's porcelain tableware, the only sound was Victoria's chattering at the two Edwards. The two Edwards were the two people she found worthy of her conversation, despite Esme's desperate, tittering people pleasing. When Charlie offered her wine, Victoria employed the same icy politeness she used speaking to waiters.
"Bella!" Edward said, surprised, followed by a chorus of greetings and expressions of concern.
She smiled weakly, as she rolled into the space left open for her chair. Even that effort left her slightly breathless. Her wheezing breaths made her blush.
"How nice of you to join us, dear," Victoria said tartly. The expression she shot in Bella's direction made her feel like a hunted rabbit.
"Hi, Mrs. Cullen," Bella squeaked sweetly. Then she coughed into her paper napkin.
"She was napping, Grandma," Edward snapped at exactly the same time, an expression of disgust on his face.
"What do you want, honey?" Charlie asked. He and Esme had risen to fix her a plate.
"I'm not hungry," Bella admitted. "Just a little bit of butternut squash cream? Just a tiny -" She coughed virulently into her napkin – "Just a bit."
Esme served one ladle-worth of creamy, warm butternut squash soup, which Bella drank with a trembling hand.
"Sweetheart, it's so good to see you up and about," Edward Senior said, in a gravelly voice that sounded genuinely warm. "You scared us."
Bella smiled one of her lovely smiles. "It's good to be back," she said croakily. "It sucked."
Uncharacteristically, Edward Senior smiled fondly. "I bet it did."
Victoria cleared her throat delicately, blue eyes brimming with concern as fake as the sunflowers on Esme's Thanksgiving centerpiece. It was evident she was bursting at the seams to ask. "What – if I may – what was it that you were hospitalized for, Isabella? Does it have to do with your – your illness, erm, your - condition?"
Her spoon clattered to the floor, and she shrunk into her wheelchair with shame. From her peripheral vision, Isabella saw Edward's face transform with rage in an instant. His teeth snapped shut.
"It's not an illness," Carlisle cut in immediately, the angriest Bella had ever heard him, as Charlie turned purple.
"It's none of your business, lady," Charlie said rudely in the same instant, making his father-in-law's eyebrows shoot into his hairline with ill-concealed respect.
Victoria's eyes turned into snake-like slits, "I beg your pardon, Robert," she said in a saccharine voice.
The table fell into a deafening silence, as Sinatra crooned on. Across the table, Bella could see Edward's rage grow, like a bomb about to explode. Glowering at his grandma with vitriolic hate, Edward started tapping his foot, lips pursed in fury. Knowingly, Bella reached out her hand across the table, stretching out her fingers. Instinctively, like a dog trained to heed, Edward took her hand. His leg stilled.
Please don't, she begged silently, looking at him meaningfully with her doe eyes.
Like an appeased bull, he sighed.
"Pneumonia, Mrs. Cullen," Bella admitted, and Edward looked proud at the steadiness of her voice. He knew when she was working harder to enunciate carefully, to keep from slurring. "I was hospitalized with pneumonia. It didn't have anything to do with my cerebral palsy."
"Cere – bral palsy. Cerebral palsy," Victoria repeated carefully as if filing the information for later, blue eyes sharpening into slits.
Charlie grunted a warning.
Isabella felt her skin crawl as Victoria studied the scene with hawklike precision. Isabella looked fragile and pale, but all the lovelier. Their intertwined fingers rested in the middle of the table. Edward, looking at her tenderly and completely lovestruck.
"Goodness," Victoria said finally. "I'm delighted you recovered."
Squeezing Edward's fingers with her tiny ones, Bella withdrew her hand. Another awkward, tense silence befell the table, and Bella pushed her mug away, feeling drowsy and full.
"You don't want anything else?" Esme whispered, tucking hair behind Bella's ears.
Bella sighed, shaking her head.
"You should try the stuffing and the cranberry sauce," Edward told her, his voice brimming with pride. "I made them."
For the second time that day, Bella smiled from cheek to cheek, giggling.
Esme rolled her eyes amusedly. "Edward, you just stirred the cranberry sauce, honey."
"And I chopped everything for the stuffing," Edward said defensively, and Bella laughed.
"I'll try it. Just a tiny little bit" Bella interjected chirpily. "Maybe we have a Gordon Ramsey in our hands."
Edward glared at her playfully, and he snorted when she pretended to moan with delight at her single bite of cranberry-covered turkey. "Your chopping is horrible," Bella gasped out laughingly, as she took a bite of stuffing in her mouth. As ever, her hand trembled slightly with the ever-present tremors. "That's like half a celery stick."
"Fuck you, Bee."
Before the table could descend into another awkward silence, Edward sat up. "There's a penguin movie playing in theaters," he told Bella mischievously. "And I know how much you fucking love those."
"Happy Feet," Bella said knowingly, lighting up. Edward smiled at her tenderly.
"I can take us to see it if you promise not to cry," Edward told her, eyeing her fishily, arching one eyebrow. His expression made Bella burst into giggles, and Edward smiled softly in return.
"I can't promise I won't cry," Bella whined.
"You can't go to the movies, kids," Esme cut in anxiously. "You'll catch something, Bella. All those people coughing out their germs."
"But – "
"But nothing, honey," Esme said, looking apologetically at a crestfallen Edward.
A mirror image of Edward, Bella looked devastated. "We can rent it when it comes out," Edward said soothingly, and Bella perked up.
Desperate to get his mother away from the Swans, face flaming with perpetual embarrassment, Carlisle spoke as soon as he had his last bite of pumpkin pie. "Charlie, Esme, thank you for hosting. Everything was delicious. We should get going."
Bella's face fell as if she had been punched.
Rudely, Carlisle rose immediately. "Come on, mother. Son, help your aunt clear the table."
"I wanted to hang out," Edward protested.
"You said so yourself. Bella needs sleep. And you have a very early cross-country flight tomorrow," Carlisle cut in, apologetically, casting anxious glances at his startled mother. "Help with the dishes."
Muttering obscenities to himself, Edward did as he was told. Carlisle himself took Victoria's plate – quite roughly, Bella noted. Together, father and son took piles of porcelain tableware and silverware into the kitchen. Esme offered to fix several dishes of leftovers. Crestfallen, Bella rested her chin atop her folded hands.
"Victoria," Charlie said, still evidently furious. "Let me get your coat."
"Robert," Victoria said, in an appeasing tone, "I truly meant no offense."
"None taken," Charlie barked, in a tone that contradicted his statement. He stomped to the front door, where he held out Victoria's suede coat. Looking deeply offended, Victoria stalked over, heels clicking. They stood in an awkward, stiff silence. Eyes sparkling with amusement, face otherwise stony, Edward Masen walked to the foyer.
Carlisle came out of the kitchen first, looking eager to leave. With two fingers, he stroked Isabella's cheek. "I'll see you Tuesday for a check-up, OK? I'll come over here. No need to go to the hospital, sweetheart."
Wordlessly, Bella nodded.
The second her eyes met Edward's, Bella burst into tears. Edward knelt by her chair, his eyes swirling with emotion. He made soft, shushing sounds as he wiped her tears with his fingers. "I'll be back by Christmas, OK?" he swore hotly. "I promise."
Bella could barely speak through her sobs. Roughly, Edward pulled her to his chest, whispering heatedly into her temple. "You'll be out of that shithole, OK, baby? You'll be out of that shithole, and nobody's going to lay a single fucking finger on you ever again."
"I tried to be brave," Bella hiccupped into his chest, slurring and trembling so badly it was a testament to his devotion that Edward understood a single word she said.
"And you were," Edward crooned. "You were so brave, Bella. But that place is a shithole."
Bella sniffled a strange, gasping sob of a giggle.
"I'm going to miss you so much," she mumbled wetly into his neck, growing snotty.
"I know, love. I know. I'll miss you, too. I've missed you so fucking much. But I'll be back by Christmas, OK? It'll go by very fast," he said this last part gently, wiping tears from her eyes. "But you need to be strong for me, OK?".
Feeling stupid, Bella nodded wetly, hiccupping and coughing. Roughly, Edward kissed her forehead.
"Focus on school. Please focus on school," Bella managed to say. Her eyes were burning.
"I'll focus on school, love. I promise." Lifting her hand, Edward kissed her fingers. "But you be strong, for me, OK? And I'll make the honor roll, baby, I swear."
Hysterically, Bella sobbed so hard that she gasped for air, between coughing and sniffling. Her fingers were wrapped like claws around Edward's t-shirt. The spasming and trembling of her body grew out of control, and she rattled like an alarm clock. Holding her, Edward grew equally tearfull. "Bella, baby," he said pleadingly, prying her fingers away with the utmost care. "Bella, please."
"Bella," Esme echoed, standing behind Bella, cradling her shoulders. "Bella, you need to let go, honey. Let go. Edward will be home for Christmas."
On his end, Carlisle tugged Edward away by the shoulder. To Bella, it felt like a tearing. Like stitches being pulled from wounds. Edward gave Bella one last, lingering kiss on the forehead, then rushed out.
He could hear her sobbing from the driveway.
The knocking on her door startled her into a spasm. Six, seven knocks in rapid, sharp succession. Isabella had been curled in bed, under a blanket, staring glumly into the ceiling, drowning in her own sorrow. Groggily, she sat up against the headboard.
"Come in," Bella called, heart hammering in her chest.
Sitting up in bed, back against the headrest, Bella spasmed with shock again. Victoria Cullen stood on the threshold between Bella's room and the hallway. She wore a perfect, stiff-shouldered ivory pantsuit. The haircut she wore, a bob for her silvery blonde hair, was as sharp as her blazer. Her eyes, just like her son's, were gunmetal blue: but where Carlisle's shone with goodness, Mrs. Cullen's were pure ice
"Mrs. Cullen?" she squealed dumbly.
"Can I come in?" Victoria repeated.
"Yes, of course," she agreed instinctively, polite to a fault. Every fiber in her being resisted the words coming out of her mouth. Every instinct in her stood to attention.
"You have a lovely room," Victoria said, as she entered slowly. Her eyes, flashing with acuity, fell on the aids Isabella needed. Her wheelchair stood, brakes locked, next to Bella's bed, easily within her reach. Isabella's crutches rested atop a green-colored armchair, next to her KAFOs. Victoria's eyes shot quickly from to the grab bar by Isabella's bed to her dresser. Isabella's stomach twisted as Victoria's eyes raked over a collection of things Edward had given her: Winnie the Pooh, Roo, Píglet, Tigger, Eeyore, and lastly, Rabbit. The doll from Bruges stood at a place of honor. Victoria touched its hair with a single finger.
"This is Belgian, isn't it?"
"From Bruges," Bella gulped.
Cuttingly, Victoria studied the collection of postcards Bella had glued on the strip of wall between her dresser and her walk-in closet. Edinburgh, London, Canterbury, Madrid, Sevilla, Barcelona, Paris, Cannes, Venice, Rome, Florence, Sicily, Vienna, Berlin, Prague.
"May I sit on your bed, Isabella?" she asked tersely.
"Please," Bella squeaked politely, gesturing around her. "Can I help you with anything?"
Victoria's eyes fell on the oversized Harvard hoodie Bella wore, and she grimaced.
"I'm so very glad you asked, dear," Victoria began delicately. "It's… I hate to meddle, but it's imperative that I do."
Bella inched forward, nauseous with dread.
Victoria sighed, considering her words carefully, clicking her tongue. Finally, she sighed in resignation. "No sense in beating about the bush." Incredulously still, Victoria seemed to shake her head ruefully as she spoke.
"My grandson is in love with you."
At first, Bella's heart threatened to burst. Like a pancake in a skillet, her stomach flipped before bursting into butterflies. Her first impulse was to shake her head violently, mouth ajar, her wordless denial hanging thickly in the air.
Victoria smiled icily, raising a slender hand to stop her from denying it. "I don't think he's fully conscious of it himself, dear," she said. "But it's painfully evident to everybody, except Edward himself."
Bella shook her head. "I don't think – "
"Please, dear," Victoria scoffed. "Don't pretend. The terms of endearment, the little gifts, the cuddling? Calling you love, calling you baby, kissing your nose? He's a teenage boy. They're not known for being gentle romantics. Isabella, Edward is very much in love."
Bella's face felt like a furnace. "But we've never – He's never – He has other – "
"I can imagine it's quite difficult to be … sexually attracted…" Victoria said delicately, with a cringe, "…to someone as severely disabled as you. But he is in love nonetheless. You are very pretty. I'd be a fool to deny how gorgeous you are. You're the spitting image of your real mother, and she was famously beautiful."
Bella's eyes stung with tears as those words cut her open.
"Edward's always had too much of his parents in him. My son, well. He never had very many ambitions in life – never cared to look after his own security, financial or otherwise," Victoria said regretfully.
"Carlisle's an oncologist," Bella said accusingly, in the rudest tone of her lifetime.
Victoria's eyes flashed threateningly, but she continued undeterred as if Bella hadn't said a word. "All he wanted to do was 'help others', 'heal the sick'. And my daughter-in-law was no better. She spent her days away teaching music in public schools for a pittance. Not that Elizabeth wasn't an excellent match. But Edward has that same, misguided selfless streak. So he's willing to spend what could be the best years of his life tied to a crippled little girl across the country."
"I – " Bella's eyes were burning with indignation and pain. A single tear ricocheted down her cheek. "Did my mother let you in here?"
"I asked if I could come over for coffee," Victoria explained smoothly, rolling her eyes. "She thinks I came out to look at her winterberry."
Victoria steered the conversation back in the direction she wanted.
"If you won't do it for me, do it for him. You love him that much, don't you? Do you really want him to waste his life away taking care of you? Protecting you? Keeping vigil over your hospital bed? His infatuation is holding him back, you understand?" Victoria continued, in a tone meant to educate - as if Bella were an especially dim child.
"Edward is at risk of being charged with a felony," Victoria continued, and Bella's heart seized with dread. She clapped her hand against her mouth in wordless horror. "On Thursday, after dinner, the night before his flight to Boston, he ran off to beat some boy to a pulp. Carlisle told me the boy came in with three broken teeth, both eyes black, bruised like a peach. The lawyers say broken bones turn battery from a misdemeanor into a felony. Do you know what the name of this boy is?"
Gravely, tears falling down her cheeks and into the crook of her neck, Bella nodded. "Eric Yorkie."
"And do you know why Edward beat up Eric Yorkie, Isabella?"
"Because of me."
"Precisely."
A silence, pregnant with tension, fell between them. Isabella had never felt hate before, but it simmered underneath her veins, underneath her pain and her indignation. It was the first time she felt emotional pain like an ache in her heart, like her heart was being squeezed by an iron fist.
"If you truly love Edward, Isabella, then you'll do your best to help rid him of this love he thinks he feels."
Bella was shaking her head with wordless agony, sparking Victoria's impatience.
"There are things you just can't do," she said, in her kindest tone. "You know it yourself. Edward wasn't meant to spend the rest of his life with someone who can barely walk. Sweetheart, I know this is hard to hear, but you're hard to understand when you talk, for Pete's sake. He deserves someone whole. And I know Edward is a prince. Believe me, I know. I know how hard it'll be to let go. But you're a pretty little thing, and someone will come along. I guarantee it."
The door slammed open, as if with a gust of wind. Esme stood on the threshold, looking ashen. Suspiciously, she glared at Victoria.
"Victoria, the winterberries are over by the pond. I don't recall giving you permission to barge in on my daughter," Esme said acidly.
Standing, Victoria touched a hand to Bella's cheek, making her flinch. "I do apologize, Esme," Victoria said sweetly. "Isabella and I were just having a little talk."