Happy holidays! I couldn't stop writing.

TW: hazing, politics, war.

December 2006

For an entire week, Isabella did not reply to any of Edward's messages. It was the longest they had gone without speaking since Edward had become a fixture in her life. Even at the beginning, when Edward was – at best – irritated by her presence, he would at least scoff one biting remark at her every week. It was, incidentally, the longest week of her life to date. Every text he sent her sent her stomach into a spiral of giddy, lovesick glee – tempered with crushing disappointment.

Despite that, Edward never stopped calling.

Isabella wasn't an idiot. Edward had not been chaste as a high schooler: Bella reimagined the catalog of girls that had slept with him in High School, recasting them as young women across Europe. During the months of his absence, she imagined him – gorgeous, charming, romantic, and even slightly Byronic – walking around cities that Isabella would only ever see in books. She felt her jealousy as a physical ache that hung on her lungs, glumly sucking her into a morass of self-deprecation.

Isabella had never been the world's most verbose texter. Pressing down on the little keys on the board of her keyboard took more manual dexterity than she naturally had. As a result, Edward was not immediately suspicious when her responses to his texts were emoji hearts and emoticons.

On the first Monday in December, Edward finally called. Isabella let the call go to voicemail, holding the phone in her palm until it went to voicemail. Like a dieter caving before Christmas cookies, she caved. An hour later, she composed the wordiest text she had sent him in months. She spent minutes agonizing over the wisdom behind the last sentences of her text.

So sorry I've been so bad. Ive been flng bter. Bt of a cough. Nt going to skool is gr8. Pls focus on finals. What finals do you have?

Jesus fuck. You are back. I thought you'd been fucking abducted Bee.

R U OK?

Stressed as fuck. Really want to do well.

"Can we send Edward a care package?" Bella asked Esme the following morning. Esme agreed, delighted to take Bella to the supermarket. It spoke to Bella's self-imposed isolation that Esme would ask. Bella had not left the house in weeks. She went on crutches, to use one of the motorized carts. Esme and Bella left the supermarket with a hand-picked trove of snacks. Salted peanuts and cashews. Trail mix. Sour Patch Kids. Skittles. Oatmeal packages. Mac and Cheese. Instant coffee. Tea boxes – black and peppermint tea because Edward hated "drinking perfume." Bella finalized the package with thick wool socks and a very simple Good Luck Hallmark card.

"Do you want to sign, Mom?"

"You should write on the card, sweetheart. It was your idea," Esme said, in her most doting, encouraging tone.

"I don't want him to think it was," Bella admitted defeatedly, breathing glumly into her scarf.

"What? Why?"

Bella shook her head dismissively, mumbling excuses. Then, scrunching her nose, she focused hard on the task at hand. Writing by hand had not come easily to her in grade school, but when she focused, she had a lovely, cursive script. At first, she had only wanted to sign her name. Then she decided it would be a parting love letter: everything she wanted to etch into his heart. A single tear fell from her cheek as she swore to herself that she would start to let go.

Despite the ugly bursts of ego, wart-like eruptions on her favorite person, Edward was like his father at his core: kind to a fault, a gentleman to the marrow, passionate and down-to-earth. Isabella wrote as much in her letter. You're worthy of everything good, especially when you believe you are not. After the care package reached its destination, Edward's calls – and texts -- rained down as abundantly as snow.

Heart shattering, Bella let herself listen to one recorded message, left on her a rambling voice mail. Edward's otherwise deepening voice sounded stuffy. "Fuck, leaving voice messages is so fucking awkard. Hey, Bee. Thanks for the care package. It was fucking adorable, love. Every asshat was getting these in my dorm. Even my roommate got one from his parents and - they don't have – they're a family of limited means. Take care of yourself. I feel like I got the plague. Nobody washes their fucking hands. It's gross. But I'm fucking fine as long as you are fine. It'd be great to fucking hear your voice. So, could you please fucking call, Isabella? I'm getting worried."

On the last Monday before Christmas, Bella's phone exploded with messages and missed phone calls. The texts grew increasingly antsier as the day went on. Bee, what the fuck, are you OK? Answer the fucking phone Bee.

That same night, Esme went into Bella's bedroom. Her mother's exasperation was etched into the outburst of white hair that sprung around the crown of her head.

"Carlisle's mother is insisting that he and Edward spend Christmas in New York."

"Oh," Bella said, and she made an effort to control the despair and relief that flew through her, so intensely that her body trembled after she spoke. Desperately, in her heart of hearts, she wanted to have a good cry in Edward's arms -- almost as much as she wanted to confront him. What are we? What is this? What is this love? Do you feel the same kind of love that I feel? I'm so in love with you.

"Edward wants to come home," Esme continued explaining. A knowing glint sparkled in her eye as Bella perked up. "But, apparently, his roommate can't afford to go home for Christmas. So he's a bit conflicted. Asked if we could help. Host him, maybe. But then we'd obviously need to help with the plane ticket here, which is the same as a plane ticket to Nashville for that young man, but the boy wouldn't hear of it."

"His name is Emmett," Bella piped immediately, and she crushed a stuffed animal to her chest. "I think we should help."

"In any case, Emmit – Emmit you said? – aside," Esme said, huffing irritably, "She called. I think it was a last-ditch effort to get Edward to spend Christmas with her – it's absurd to try to get cross-country tickets at this time, frankly. But there's an open offer for us to spend Christmas at the Cullen cottage in Nassau County."

Spiraling with dread, Bella thought there was no greater place for her to feel her flaring inadequacy than the Cullen estate in Nassau County. "I spent Christmas there once," Esme continued, understanding Bella's apprehension. "When Carlisle and Elizabeth got engaged, their first Christmas as an engaged couple. It's not really a cottage. It's a sixteen-bedroom mansion. Carlisle's other grandmother was still alive at the time, and she said her grandparents called it a cottage."

Turning slightly green, Bella stared glumly at the patterns on her bedspread. Without meeting Esme's eyes, directing her question at her knees, Bella mumbled a question. "What's best for Edward?"

Esme switched so quickly from mundane logistics to the deeply personal that Bella was caught off-guard.

"You really love him, don't you?"

At this, Bella's face flamed with blush, and she curled into herself. "As a friend," Bella said, her voice growing squeaky with a mix of forcefulness and nonchalance. Voicing the idea made her entire body recoil, and another of her tremors shook her from head toe.

Bella could feel her mother's smirk.

"Edward wants to be with you. He's been very insistent about that."

Esme's statement made Bella feel that familiar jolt of agonized ecstasy.

"I don't know, Mom," Bella said finally, slapping her hands against her face. "I – It – Is the Cullen house even accessible?" At this, she gestured vaguely at her wheelchair.

Esme sighed. "Probably not, sweetheart. Sleep on it, OK?"

Esme stood, kissed Bella on the forehead, and turned down the light. Shifting in bed, Bella turned to her flip phone. Cringing, she held it in her palm, as she considered breaking her last firm resolution. As the tinny dial tone continued to ring into nothingness, Bella felt her stomach twist with both disappointment and relief. She put her phone aside and lifted her latest novel to her nose – The Secret Life of Bees.

Then her phone started to ring, and trepidation made her stomach flip when she finally took the call.

"Fucking finally, Bee," Edward barked, sounding unusually rough. He was still sick: Bella heard him sniffle. "What the hell are you doing? It's like you're actively avoiding me."

"Hi," she said stiffly, attempting to sound dry. A tear rolled down her eye. If you truly love him, you'll help rid him of this love he thinks he feels. "Are you OK? You sound awful."

"I told you, I caught the fucking plague," Edward snapped grumpily. Edward's volcanic temperament flared when he was sick, but Bella knew, intuitively, that that illness made him miss his mother the most.

"I'm sorry," Bella crooned dotingly. "Are you taking care of yourself?"

"I really can't sleep as much as I like, but that box you send was a godsend."

"Esme helped," Bella pointed out quietly.

"Yeah, no shit. But it's not like she picked out the good stuff, darling."

"The Sour Patch Kids?"

"You know it," Edward replied, before coughing up.

"If your throat is hurting you should put honey on your tea," Bella suggested softly, soothingly.

"Isn't that girly?" Edward said distastefully.

Giggling, Bella smiled. "Yeah, Edward. Men that drink tea with honey see their balls fall off," she said sardonically into the phone. "Obviously."

Edward snickered into the phone, laughing. "OK, smart ass, point taken," he said.

Exasperation seeped into his voice in the next. "Anyway, I was trying to get a fucking hold of you because – " At this, he blew his nose. "My grandma's been up my ass about spending Christmas in Oyster Bay but – "

Bella cut in immediately. "If you want to, you should," she said, as forcefully as she could despite how meek her voice sounded. "You shouldn't feel obligated to come home."

"I feel obligated to the old bitch."

"Don't be awful like that," Bella said seriously, as her disappointment flared up. "Don't call her that."

"Sorry, sorry, love."

Bella sighed. "So, what do you want?"

"That's the thing, darling. Um. My roommate, Emmett, couldn't go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and he's gonna hang out in the dorms, which is fucking depressing."

"And he's a nice guy?" Bella inquired quietly, suddenly burning to know that Edward would be OK.

"We don't talk a lot, but he's a good guy, and everybody else around me is an insufferable fuck."

"Eugh," Bella said, cringing. "Why do you say that?"

"There's this asshole. Jamie Hunter. He's a junior. Lives up my ass, the entire time, to join social clubs, and they're not even officially recognized. Frats and final clubs."

"But there's other cool people?"

"Yeah, but that's – I don't know. It's awkward to meet new people. Usually, I make friends without really… trying." Edward sounded so vulnerable and sheepish sharing this with her, so very far from cocky, that Bella melted.

"That's going to change, Edward, I promise," Bella said softly.

"Yeah. Well. Anyway. I wanted to offer that Emmett stay in Oyster Bay, but I really told my grandma she had to invite you and my mom's family."

"Is that what you want?" Bella insisted edgily.

"Christ, Bella, that's what I just fucking said," Edward snapped.

Bella rolled her eyes. "OK. Fine. Just focus on finals, Edward."

"I've been studying like a fucking library rat, I swear," Edward muttered grumpily. "I've been invited to like 10 parties and I declined all of them. Even though I swear to God there's this asshole trying to haze me."

"Edward," Bella whispered, horrified, heart fluttering in her throat.

"I'm fucking fine, Bee, I promise," he said roughly. "Better now that you fucking took a call."

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I'm sorry, I just…"

"Just what?" Edward asked, his voice gentling.

"I'll see you at Christmas," Bella said dismissively.

"In New York? It would fucking make my year if you flew over."

Bella sucked in a breath. "Are you sure?"

It was Christmas Day, and three momentous things were going to happen to Isabella. First, she would enter the viper's nest, in all her crippled glory. Second, she would meet Edward's roommate, catching a glimpse of his world as a college man. Third, she would be reunited with Edward and strengthen her resolve to stay distant.

Unfortunately for Isabella, her mother chose that very day to go insane. "Look at what I got at Bloomingdale's," Esme crooned dotingly. She raised a long-sleeved, dark blue sweater with a cartoonish reindeer print over the front. A signature of Esme's taste was dressing her daughter in Peter Pan collars, and that sweater was no exception.

"Oh, Mom," Bella said, cringing.

"You don't like it?" Esme asked, looking so personally offended that her eyes watered and glistened.

Bella's resolve weakened.

"It's adorable," Esme insisted, seizing on that moment of weakness. "And you look lovely in anything."

That day, Isabella looked very much like her mother's five-year-old doll. With her thick dark hair cascading down her back in waves, partially twisted into a half-updo, Isabella wore a ribbon in her hair. She also wore her reindeer-themed, collared sweater. She wore her sturdy KAFOs on top of a pair of jeans, coupled with some of her sturdiest tennis shoes.

When they caught sight of the house, Charlie whistled and cursed.

"No wonder your old man thinks I'm a poor bastard," Charlie said, chuckling humorlessly. Senator Masen had flown to New York, at Victoria's personal and heartfelt invitation. The Swans had followed after, though flying led to great anxiety for the trio.

Flying involved being separated from Bella's wheelchair for the duration of the flight, which always filled Bella with trepidation. Once, when Isabella had been younger, they had mishandled Bella's wheelchair so badly that the contraption had to be replaced.

"It's a Tudor revival," Esme explained quietly. "It was built by the Hockleys in the 1880s. Carlisle's father bought Victoria's brother's share in the sixties."

"Jesu – Cheese on a cracker," Charlie said, casting a sideway glance at his awestruck daughter. Isabella's doe-eyes were huge as she took in a huge, iron-wrought gate that opened automatically. There was a gloomy fountain in the driveway, dry for the winter. In her shock, Bella counted 14 arched windows facing the front, encrusted on a white-stone façade. In the shadow of the mansion that Edward would inherit, she felt crushed like an unworthy insect.

Cutting a lonely figure in jeans and a sweatshirt, Carlisle looked strikingly adolescent by the entrance. With his hands in his pockets, slightly hunched, Carlisle looked endearingly like his son.

"Hey, guys," Carlisle said awkwardly, almost with a hint of embarrassment, and Bella wanted to hug him.

Esme was the first to descend from the car. Motherly, Esme hugged him. "Thanks for having us."

"Thanks for coming," Carlisle muttered.

Esme helped her out of the rental car, and Bella almost fell, standing unsteadily on what fell like a mountain of gravel. Even the crutches offered little support, and she wobbled unsteadily. Akwardly, she leaned against the car door.

"Sorry about the gravel, sweetheart," Carlisle said, looking genuinely stricken with shame. "This place is more trouble than it's worth, I swear. It takes a fortune just to heat up in winter. It's really quite a money hole." Bella got the distinct impression that Carlisle was apologizing, and her heart swelled with affection. Sweetly, she smiled.

When Edward barreled out the double doors of the house, Carlisle woke from his reverie. Edward was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie in the biting cold, with a five o'clock shadow on his face. Like his father, he had his hands in his pockets.

Edward stuck his hands in his pockets, but his face cracked into his usual lopsided grin. Noticing her discomfort, he walked up to her carefully.

Inadvertently, against her every resolution, Bella lit up. But then her stomach twisted, and an unusual sense of awkwardness settled into her bones.

Isabella's picture was in the dictionary under the word "spazz," cruel as it was. But Isabella did love Edward. So insanely much. And he was so obviously confused, lonely, starved of simple affection. All Bella wanted to do was protect him.

But he looked so gaunt, Bella thought: exhausted, pale, with wrinkles around his eyes. Bella lifted a hand from her crutches, leaning heavily against the car door. "You look so tired," she blurted immediately, touching his cheek.

"Christ, Bee, thanks," Edward snorted.

He bent slightly at the knees to kiss her forehead – a gentle kiss that lingered a moment too long. On instinct, she kissed his cheek. "Hi, you," he said softly.

Bella's eyes sparkled. "Hey, you. Merry Christmas."

Watching them with hawkish intensity was Edward's grandmother. Clad in an all-white cashmere ensemble, she reminded Bella of the Snow Queen from the fairytales of her childhood. She spread her arms in welcome, and Bella was reminded of a Maleficent. "Esme, Charlie," she said graciously, a crisp smile on her face. "Thank you for accepting our invitation." At this, Victoria looked pointedly at Edward.

Esme stepped forward with a box of nougat and an extravagant poinsettia arrangement that had cost three days' worth of groceries. "Thank you for having us," Esme said, with a glittering frosty smile. There was no hint of nervousness in her smile, and in that moment, the glint in her eye was lethal. "It was very gracious of you."

"Carlisle, dear, take the poinsettias inside. The arrangement is just darling, isn't it?"

Victoria's son gave his mother an eye roll. The minute Carlisle took the bestial flower arrangement, the two women kissed in greeting. Looking just as furious, but sharp, Charlie held out his hand and shook Victoria's wordlessly.

Doe eyes wide, Bella looked up at Mrs. Cullen through her eyelashes. Mustering every reserve of courage she possessed, Bella spoke, making an effort to be as articulate as ever.

"Hello, Mrs. Cullen. Merry Christmas," Bella said carefully, offering a half-smile.

"Merry Christmas, Isabella," Mrs. Cullen replied, without a trace of iciness in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah. Deck the halls with holly, or whatever. Let's go, Bee."

Somewhat uncertainly, Edward cast a glance at the gravel. He frowned, arms flailing awkwardly. "Are you going to - What do you need me to do, darling?"

Conscious of Mrs. Cullen's frigid leers, Bella took an uncertain step, and then another. Wobbly atop the mass of pebbles, her crutches became useless -- and without crutches, Bella could not stand.

"Shit," Edward hissed roughly, as Bella plunged foward, face first. Edward thrust out both hands, grasping at the air near her waist before she fell completely. Bella fell chest first, cheek hitting the gravel.

Bella fell often. It was just a fact of life for her.

But that was two times she had fallen on her face in front of Victoria Cullen. Through strands of hair, Bella could see the expression of disgusted pity in Victoria's eyes.

"Bella," Edward groaned.

"Edward!" Victoria whimpered, a lone voice in a chorus of concern for Bella.

Esme and Charlie had crowded around her. Charlie picked up the crutches. Mirror images, Esme and Edward had fallen to their knees. "Oh, sweetheart. Sweetheart," Esme chanted, as if in a litany.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Bella said pleadingly at Edward, when he managed to help her turn. His hands were shaking almost as roughly as Bella, as they held her.

"You scared the shit out of me," Edward said roughly.

"Your face, Bee, fuck," he added, pained. Where her skin had landed roughly on the gravel, scratchy abrasions had formed.

"Carlisle," Esme croaked.

"Take her inside," Carlisle instructed quickly, cool-headed.

"May I?" Edward asked, and in a familiar routine, he cradle-carried her after she nodded.

In a procession led by Edward, they entered the house. Edward carried her -- bruised, dusty and trembling in all her spastic glory -- through the threshold. He was shushing her gently, letting her sniffle into his neck. "It's OK. It's OK. You're OK, angel. You're OK," he said soothingly, before laying her on a couch.

"I'm sorry," Bella managed through her tears. She had grown so hot with embarassment that sweat was dampening every crevice in her body.

"Sweetie, let me look at your knee," Carlisle offered. "Edward, there's a first aid kit in the upstairs bathroom -- my bedroom."

"I'm so sorry, Uncle Carlisle," Bella admited, all teary eyes.

"Why? Don't apologize, sweetheart. This house is ridiculous," Carlisle muttered.

"I'm sorry about the couch," Bella explained, fixiated on the stains of blood pooling on the fabric.

"There's a maid for that," Victoria cut in.

Befuddled, Bella turned to her hostess. The glint of triumph of Victoria's eyes was pointed: she was giving Isabella a knowing look, arching a single eyebrow.

Edward interrupted the staring match between Bella and Victoria. "Did you bring your chair?" he asked her softly.

"It's in the trunk," Charlie explained. Polite to a fault, Edward offered to fetch it. As Edwaed left, Carlisle began to lift Bella's tattered jeans, rolling them up. Esme gasped at the sight.

A scab from a fall days earlier had been torn open, and the battered wound was gushing blood.

"Bella? How did that happen?"

"Bella?"

"You just saw how, Mom," Bella mumbled squeakily.

"That scab?"

"I fell on the porch, Mom," Bella admitted pointedly, and Esme cringed.

Calmer than his son, Carlisle wiped the trickle of blood down Bella's ankle, then gauzed and bandaged her knee. Carlisle cleaned up the abrasions on her cheekbone and on her knuckles.

"There we go, sweetheart," Carlisle said brightly.

"Thank you," Bella said earnestly, wrapping her arms around her chest. She peeked up at him through her eyelashes, and Carlisle grinned.

Edward had come back with her wheelchair, and had it open for her.

"I'm so sorry," Bella repeated miserably.

"Why the fuck are you sorry?" Edward asked gently, wiping tears from her cheeks with his fingers. He cringed where the gravel had abraded her cheek. "You didn't do a thing wrong "

Shaking like a newborn foal, Bella transferred her body from the couch to her chair. Embarassment crushed her as she secured the clasp of the belt that kept her securely on it. Forlorn, she wheeled behind Edward, who was walking slowly.

The den in the Cullen mansion, Bella noted, was past two sets of towering french doors, behind a grand staircase. The den consisted of a massive sectional sofa and a mahogany entertainment center with a flat screen.

That was how Bella met Emmett McCarthy. She caught sight of a huge, hulking boy that rose to meet them. He shifted unsteadily from foot to foot. If he was surprised to meet Isabella -- trembling with spasms, bruised and in a wheelchair -- he did not show it.

"Oh. Hi," Bella managed to say, doe eyes huge and teary. "Hi."

Edward straightened perfectly to his full height. His expression shifted, cooling into ice. He turned his back to Bella, as if shielding her from view. In that moment, he was a wolf protecting his vulnerable mate.

"McCarthy," Edward said, his voice a dangerous snarl. "This is Isabella."

He turned to Bella, placing a protective hand on her shoulder. Impossibly, his voice gentled. "Bee, this is Emmett."

Emmett seemed to understand this was a test that he needed to pass. As he approached them, sure-footed and with a blank expression, Edward's hand turned into a fist that made the glassy blue of his veins protrude.

Bella wrapped her hand around his wrist, and he relaxed his fist.

"Hiya, Isabella," Emmett said, his face breaking easily into a grin. "Ed here won't shut up about you."

Bella felt her cheeks growing pink.

"You can call me Bella," she said squeakily, smiling back shyly. She hid behind a curtain of dark, glossy hair.

The recent fall coupled with the surge in emotions had made her spasming harder to control, and she shook and trembled in her wheelchair as if shivering in freezing temperatures. Meeting Emmett, she was freshly aware of how crippled she looked and sounded. Each of her words was punctuated by a tiny spasm.

Victoria was wrong -- dead wrong. How could Edward -- this gorgeous, secretly sweet, brilliant, talented boy -- love her?

"What were you guys doing?" Bella asked, working hard to overcome her shyness.

"We were playing Halo," Edward whined, turning to play with a strand of glossy hair.

Bella wrinkled her nose. "Oh. Can we watch Home Alone instead?"

"Fuck, Bee, we're playing, love."

"Can we play Mario Kart? On the game cube?"

Edward grumbled to himself as he changed games and gears.

That entire day, Bella felt watched. Emmett watched with thinky veiled curiosity as Edward helped her -- expertly, efficiently, easily -- move from her wheelchair to the couch. Her legs spasmed with the movement.

Emmett watched as they arranged themselves -- with many softly worded "May I?"s from Edward -- so that Bella was nestled between his thighs, her back to his chest. Tenderly, Edward supported her wrists, steadying them, as they played Mario Kart. He teased her lightly about how much she sucked, but then would glower in warning at Emmett over the crown of her head. Isabella would giggle in his arms, and Edward would relax.

When Home Alone started, Isabella felt watched as Edward wrapped an arm around her, as he played with her hair. Wordlessly, she shifted her head so that it lay on his chest.

Edward relaxed at her touch. The tension he carried ebbed away, and she wrapped an arm around him, cuddling closer. His heartbeat was steady and content under her cheek. A second later, he was snoring lightly, and Bella was nestled under the vice of Edward's forearm.

Hugging Edward's arm, she turned to face Emmett.

Because Bella felt relaxed, and safe, and loved, her spasming had subsided to a languid tempo.

"Edward told me you have a big family," Bella inquired curiously, offering a toothy smile.

Emmett looked relieved. "Yeah, four brothers. I'm the third of five. My oldest brother Justin works at the plant in DuPont. My second oldest brother Asa is gettin' a degree, and well -- " he shrugged, then grinned. "I used to play baseball..."

"You hired a goddamned waiter?" Edward asked Victoria incredulously, helping Bella into her seat. "Thanks, man," Edward added sympathetically, looking at the waiter in question.

Victoria's irritation flared. "People live off the service industry. Now, sit."

"We're staring with parmesan and truffle baked soufflé, followed by roasted tomato cream. There's a wine pairing for each course."

"Fancy," Emmett cried earnestly, and Bella giggled, smiling at him with growing fondness. Victoria arched a perfect eyebrow.

"Everything's fancy around here," Bella whispered in a conspiratorial tone. Reflecting Victoria's sense of value, the former Senator Masen sat to her left, her grandson sat to her right; Carlisle sat to his son's right, in front of Esme. At the farthest end of the table sat Isabella, Charlie and Emmett.

It was the first time Edward Senior saw his namesake since Thanksgiving, and since his grades had been released. Her Edward was tapping his foot anxiously under his grandfather's scrutiny.

"Daddy, Emmett used to play baseball," Bella informed her side of the table, eager to make Emmett feel comfortable.

"Yeah, kid? I used to play baseball, too."

"He's being modest," Bella said. "He used to play for the White Sox."

"Very famous back in the day," Esme added.

"No way! That's hella cool..."

And Bella's attention drifted towards Edward, who looked miserable.

"Your grades were safisfactory," the former Senator was commenting at Edward, in an emotionless voice. "Not enough to keep you in the Ivies as a graduate student. Dangerously low on Calculus -- "

"He got all Bs and one B-, Mase," Victoria said defensively.

"Almost a C, but by the skin of his teeth," the former Senator said pointedly.

"And the swim team. The only commendable thing you've done," Edward Senior continued darkly.

"That was brilliant, Bell," Carlisle cut in loudly, making conversation ebb on the other side of the table.

Mildly startled, Bella jumped in her wheelchair. "Pardon?" she asked shyly.

"The swim team, dear," Edward Senior cut in impatiently, but not unkindly. "Was it not your idea?"

"Oh, uh. Um," Bella said stupidly. "I..."

"Yes, it was," Edward mumbled. "Bee suggested I try out."

"If you hadn't suggested it," Edward Masen muttered darkly, "Carlisle would be paying tuition for Edward to drink all day."

"I don't think that's true -- or fair," Bella retorted immediately, and then, surprised at her own insolence, blushed.

The Senator was too shocked to berate her, leaving an opening for Victoria to pounce on a new target.

"And you, young man?" she asked of Emmett, eyes brimming with thinly veiled disdain.

If Emmett felt a trace of panic or offense, he hid it well. "What would you like to know, m'am?"

"Tell us about your family," Victoria said crispily. She speared a pear on her plate -- part of the second course, the most elegant Waldorf salad Isabella had ever eaten.

"I was just telling Isabella here," Emmett said breezily. "My folks, and my Dad's folks, are from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Well, my ma's were peach farmers in Georgia."

"Oh," Victoria said delicately, as if Emmett had admitted to a genetic illness.

"I'm the third of five brothers," he continued, "My brother Justin works at the DuPont plant, and my brother Asa is starting a degree at UT -- "

"How old is he?"

"25, m'am."

"Goodness. A little old to be starting a degree, isn't he?"

"He served two tours of duty in Iraq, Mrs. Cullen," Emmett said, a defiant glint on an otherwise easy-going face.

The table burst into expressions of sympathy and admiration.

"Your family undertook a great sacrifice," the

Senator said gravely, raising his glass as if in a toast. "It's shameful that it was all ... under questionable premises. Our military families deserve our gratitude all the more."

"Questionable premises?" Victoria sqwaked. "I knew the former first lady at Ashley Hall, you know, Mase, and she says she and her husband -- "

"Who cares, mother?" Carlisle said insolently, rolling his eyes so far into their sockets that Bella saw the whites in his eyes.

"And while I'm sure that makes you more knowledgeable than professional intelligence services," the Senator said snappishly. "The fact of the matter remains that there was no evidence. Frankly, we have no business deploying troops overseas without an exit strategy to address a credible threat."

"We can't have these rogue nations harbor terrorists."

"The Taliban is brutal," Bella interjected, "but so is war. On the civilian population in Afghanistan and on our troops."

"You sound like a hippie, Isabella," Victoria snorted derisively.

"You do sound very idealistic, sweetheart," the Senator added kindly, giving Victoria the stink eye. "But I largely agree."

"I don't know why we're talking about politics," Edward interjected whinily, sitting back lazily on his chair.

"You don't care?" Isabella asked incredulously, her stomach swirling with anger and disappointment.

"I -- I guess if something important happens," Edward sputtered, eyes wide.

"Your country's at war," Bella snapped. "That's 'important.' Lots of important things happen everywhere every day."

"I care, OK?" Edward half-pleaded with an angry retort. "I just don't think about it much."

"That's... awful, Edward," Bella said, with evident disgust. "You go to the world's best university, there's a world of interesting events and people, and you can't bother to think about any of it. That's so bratty and entitled and not you. Pick up a newspaper, Edward. God."

Edward had the decency to look mildly ashamed. "Christ, I'll pick up a New York Times once in a while, OK, Isabella?"

"You can do it while you pick up Sports Illustrated,"

Bella said sardonically.

"And what do you read, dear?" Victoria sneered, in her precious grandson's defense.

Isabella turned pink, and the question eviscerated her bravado.

"Everything," Charlie said proudly. "Picks up the Post and the Times before I do, sometimes."

"And I let her read almost any book she wants. She knows everything about current affairs. Who is that author you like, baby?"

Bella turned light pink again, tugging at her sleeves. "Khaled Hosseini," she said softly. "He wrote the Kite Runner."

"Thrilling, I'm sure," Victoria said dismissively.

"It was, actually," Bella mumbled squeakily. "It really is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read."

Three knocks, and Bella knew exactly who it was.

The Cullen Cottage, Victoria had explained crispily, had sixteen bedrooms. Bella and her family were staying in two of them: a musky, dank but otherwise well-kept room with mahogany colonial furniture. Her father, not Edward, had carried her upstairs.

"Can I come in?" Edward asked, subdued. He wore flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt from a Killers concert. In his arms, he bore a tub of toffee nut ice cream and a tin of sugar cookies.

Bella lit up, nodding, feeling stupidly like a Golden Retriever welcoming her favorite person.

"Even though I'm entitled and awful?" Edward muttered grumpily. Despite his evident offense, he offered her a spoon as gallantly as if he were offering her a rose. Then he sat on her bed.

"I'm sorry," Bella said. "I don't think you're either of those things. I really don't."

"I know."

"It's just so... you have everything -- You have access to so many things and people and ideas and -- "

"My mother's dead," Edward said, wounded.

"That's not a pass," Bella murmured gently. "She wouldn't want it to be a pass."

Instead of replying, Edward aggressively spooned a glob of ice cream and gulped it down.

"You're the only person on earth that could get away with saying that, you know."

"I know," Bella said softly, and the shudder that ran through her was blisfully disguised by her cerebral palsy.

"Promise that'll never change," Edward demanded, growing intense. "Promise you'll always give it to me straight."

She confessed her deepest fear as a reassurance, with the intensity of an oath. "Things... will change. You'll make new friends," she vowed. "Friends that'll be better for you."

"What?" Edward asked, sounding completely befuddled.

Quickly, she changed the subject.

"I -- " Bella looked up at him with huge doe eyes. "I got you something. It's not... They're not like ..The things your grandma gets you. But they're useful, I think?"

Blushing, she pointed at a box popping out of her suitcase.

Edward tore the packaging open, then removed the lid from the box. The contents made him grin sweetly. "That's fucking adorable, darling," he said, and he nuzzled her nose. She could feel his smile against her forehead.

Pleased, Bella still blushed. "You said the dorm gets cold."

"And these'll keep me nice and warm. Thank you."

He put on his new Merino wool socks, and Bella sat up against the headboard.

"How have you been?" she asked gingerly. "Really?"

Edward sighed, scraping what remained of the bowl of ice cream. He put it on the floor, and then fell on the bed defeatedly, battlescarred.

Bella listened, stroking his hair back, massaging with her fingerpads. He reminded her of a cat, almost purring as he relaxed into her touch

The words flowed out of him slowly. Graduate students taught the intro classes: most of them thought he was just a legacy kid with no brain cells to his name. One of the teachers, a PhD, liked to pick on him -- pick on him hard, calling him Mr. Legacy. The boys of the oldest legacy club wanted him to join the outlawed greek life. He'd caved in and joined.

Edward hadn't gone through the initiation ritual, he explained, out of sheer birthright. But he had not wanted to haze either, and for that, Jamie Hunter had him punished. A tear slipped down her cheek as she heard what they made him do.

"They all jacked -- " Bella's brow furrowed, her eyes huge with the sheer terror that comes from ignorance.

"That's um... It's an ugly word for... masturbating," he explained delicately.

"Into a red plastic cup, and then I had to...drink it."

Edward closed his eyes, and Bella clapped her hand against her mouth, and gagged into it. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I fucking refused, obviously, and then they beat the shit out of me. Hunter said that if I didn't drink they'd make my life a nightmare, and I ...I caved. I had a sip."

As his story came to an end, Edward sighed deeply, shuddering.

She took his hand and kissed it lovingly, like he had so many times with hers. Like he was precious to her. Because he was.

"I think you're worth fifty of those other idiots, not because both your grandparents were Congressmen or whatever, or you have a big mansion or whatever, but because you refused to hurt other people." When her voice shook, it was out of a mixture of conviction and anger. "Whatever I said before, I -- you're the kindest, strongest person I know."

Edward snorted darkly. "Don't say that," he said. "That makes me feel like all the people you know are trash."

"You're the only person that really sees me. You really see me, really hear me, even though I sound like a morron, and in this body that's ... crippled..."

Edward's temper flared. "Don't use that fucking word, Isabella."

"It's true, Edward," Bella said forcefully, without a trace of self-pity. "I can't walk, I can't talk, I can't even really stand still. You're the only person ever that has really seen me and loved me for the person I am inside, and that's special. Not everybody has the heart or the brains to see what you see."

"And I think of all the times you've protected me, and... All you've ever done is protect me, even when it puts you at risk. You're a good man, Edward."

Bella saw the moment her words truly clicked, and he gave her that expression again. Tender, indulgent, almost pained. Not in love, Bella convinced herself. That was impossible. But the love in his eyes mirrored hers, and she knew, with every cell in her body, that he loved her.

A hater of vapid reassurances, Bella looked at him meaningfully. "Thank you for sharing that," she said, kissing his hand again.

"I can't promise it will get better," she murmured. "But it will get easier."

"That's how it feels about missing my mom," Edward admited, and Bella's eyes met his, steady with trust.

Filled with love, she hugged him tightly. "That's how I feel about a lot of things," she echoed. "That's what it feels like. With my... the birth mom, and school, and...the CP."

Edward pulled her closer, and kissed her forehead. "I hate... I fucking hate it when you fall, or when you're in pain, or when you can't access places in the chair," he said softly, sounding vulnerable still. "And I hate how the world is full of jackasses. But your CP is a part of you, and it's not... You're my

favorite person, exactly as you are."

Is he in love or not? Leave your thoughts.