A/N: This author is thrilled to have received so many lovely reviews over the past few days. Reviews make writing.
June 2011
Twenty-One/Twenty-Four
The next day, Rosalie burst into Isabella's bedroom, slamming the door open. "Jane is gone," Rose cried out as if the house was on fire. "Jane and the old bat."
Isabella rubbed the sleep from her eyes. It wasn't a surprise. Jane and Edward had one last explosive argument. Some of Jane's shrieking, and his furious return roar, had been almost perfectly audible in Bella's room. Some of Jane's comments had speared her, as if Jane had reached into her heart of hearts and articulated her greatest fears. Hell is wrong with you. You love her and you fuck me. You're fucking sick. You're a sick fucking pervert. Is that what you're into? Cripples? Don't call her that. Don't you dare call her that.
Isabella could have sworn – but wasn't entirely sure – that Carlisle had cut the fight short. The walls were thin enough that some of Jane's shrieks were perfectly intelligible, but they also weren't made of paper.
"She and the old bat drove off an hour ago. Or a chauffer drove them. I don't know and I don't care," Rosalie said delightedly.
In the style of the Grinch having a wonderful, awful idea, Bella's lips contorted into a twisted smile.
"You know what Em told me?" Rosalie said eagerly, with the relish of someone enjoying delicious gossip. She sat on the bed besides Bella's curled frame. "Edward's a dumb dipshit, you know? Em says he didn't think he had to break up with Jane, because they were never dating." The last part was said in air-quotes. Rosalie rolled her eyes so far back Isabella could see the whites in her eyes.
The information sat very poorly with Bella, like bad fish on the stomach, so she changed the subject.
"What time is it?" she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"It's almost noon, Swan. I would've woken you sooner, but Doctor Prince Charming said you needed rest." Despite everything, Isabella burst into butterflies every time Edward was caring like that.
"I need coffee," Bella muttered. She tugged on the frame of her wheelchair and inched forward to transfer. The most intimate part of transferring to her wheelchair was using its belt, but Rosalie had seen Bella belt herself in many a time.
The two of them headed to the kitchen, with Rose rushing ahead while Bella used the wheelchair lift. While Bella rolled into the space that had been cleared for her wheelchair, Rose poured herself drip coffee and set the carafe next to Bella so she could pour it herself.
Unlike Isabella, Rosalie was not a very expressive person. When they had first met at a Politics 101 class, Isabella – who was expressively incontinent with perpetual squeaks, blushes, and smiles – had been terrified of Rosalie. Rose's default expression was one of unamused indifference.
It was impossible not to notice the silly green on her face. Because it was so rare, it was luminescent.
"I need to tell you something," Rose beamed in a low voice. "Now that we're basically alone."
"Yeah?"
With a conspiratorial, playful whisper, Rose inched forward. "Emmett ate me out."
The image of Emmett with his head between Rosalie's thighs flashed in her head, and Isabella snorted out her coffee. It burned her nostrils. Her wrist spasmed, and warm coffee spilled all over her tank top.
In a testament to her mood, Rose giggled like the twenty-one-year-old she was. Typically, she had the temperament of a particularly indifferent middle-aged cat.
Feeling a little awkward, Bella looked into Rose's bright blue eyes. What did one say to that? "Was it...uh, was it nice? Were you comfortable?" she squeaked blushingly.
"It was mindblowing shit," Rose said, assuming a more clinical, pensive tone. "He's such a great guy, and he does this thing with his tongue – "
Isabella screeched like a little mouse being squished. Her entire body felt like a furnace, as if she had felt a man's head between her thighs, touching her there. "I don't need to know," she cringed, uncharacteristically firm. Emmett and Rose made a gorgeous couple in many ways, but Bella didn't want the cruder specifics.
And then she melted. "But I'm so happy for you," Bella squeaked, echoing Rose's silly grin.
"I love that you're happy," she added earnestly.
Rose bent over to kiss Isabella's cheek. "I know you do, sweetie," she said lovingly.
"On that note," Bella asked sheepishly. "Sorry to ask, but uh - could you help me with making a – eggs or something? I'm starving."
In essence, Wharton Bay was one of the great Gilded Age mansions of the East Coast. The kitchen, while remodeled to modern standards, was as accessible as a rock-climbing wall. The counters were too high for Bella to access from her wheelchair, even though she'd had occupational therapy and typically knew how to make do.
"The boys will be back any second," Rose said, almost apologetically. "They ran out to get us lunch."
That day, the day Jane left, a heatwave struck Maine, raising the temperatures from a comfortable summery breeze to a furnace-like 104 degrees.
"We should go to the beach tomorrow," Rose commented through a mouthful of coleslaw. "It's too damn hot." Edward had run out to get them fish burgers at a famous eatery. The four of them were eating on the terrace. At the height of the bluff, the ocean looked majestic and blue.
"Where you can swim," she elaborated. One could descend a huge staircase from the bluff to the rocky coastline. Sometimes, one could see the mosaic of tide pools because the exposed tidepools shimmered. Victoria had explained why on a long conversation with Jane. Isabella had thought it the most interesting tidbit: "Edward Cullen I built the estate. He was rather eccentric and fancied himself a marine biologist, which is why he made the unfortunate choice of building on rocky beach."
It had been one of the rare moments where Isabella had ached, wishing for Victoria's approval.
"Fuck, yeah, I'm down," Edward said cheerfully, stuffing his mouth with crinkle cut fries. "I'm roasting my balls off."
"Thanks for sharing, your Royal Grandeur," Emmett deadpanned. Edward clocked him in the shoulder.
Ignoring Emmett, Edward continued. "The tide pools are cool, but there's some really great sandy beaches downstate."
Bella's stomach flipped.
"Swan?" Rose asked, her voice softening. "How does that sound?"
"Oh, uh," Bella said, forcing a smile that became genuine. "I think – I think I'll skip it. Sorry, guys. You know. I have to work on my thesis. You guys have fun."
It was a bald-faced lie. The fact of the matter was that Bella felt more physically insecure than ever before in her life. Her legs – which were thinner and flaccid than able-bodied people's – were completely crisscrossed by scarring from surgery to treat the CP. There were also new scars on her hips and ribs from bone harvesting, from surgeries she'd had over the last two years. Edward had not seen her in a swimsuit in years: that meant, thankfully, that he hadn't seen the new ones, and probably didn't remember the old ones in detail.
Isabella didn't want to flash the reminder in his face. Besides, going to the beach with all her paraphernalia was a production in and of itself.
Rosalie was looking at her knowingly. She opened her mouth to protest, but Edward cut to the chase.
"Are you worried about logistics?" Edward asked Bella gently, and his voice achingly sweet – in that way that made her think that she wasn't insane. Somehow, impossibly, he was in love with her, too. "Sweetheart, that's not a problem."
Bella's eyes were swirling with emotion, and she averted her gaze. Now that the admission of love was out there, she couldn't bear to look at him. "I mean, a little," Bella admitted, looking at the pattern of flowers on her pants. "You know it's like a whole production, and –"
Edward tucked wayward hair behind her ear, almost stroking her cheek. "It's not a problem," he repeated firmly.
"Work on your thesis," Rosalie snorted, rolling her eyes fondly. "It's the middle of June, for fuck's sake. That shit is due March of next year."
Sticking out her tongue, Bella blushed. "Rosenbaum gave me a recommended reading list, and I want to get a head start."
"Bella's vacationing in a mobile library," Rose told the boys, rolling her eyes.
The morning after, the four friends headed out early. Purposefully, Isabella picked out a pair of wide-legged, linen palazzo pants. She also wore a white halter top that showcased the features that Bella could tolerate in her own body, while hiding the crudest evidence of what Victoria Cullen had once called "her crippling condition."
"I'm taking the chair, I think. Not the crutches," she told Edward warily, peeking through her eyelashes, before they left. "Is that OK? Can you – can you carry me? I don't – you know, I don't want to do a rental beach wheelchair. That'll just ruin everyone's time, and inconvenience everybody." There was no way in hell that she could take her orthotics – it would get too uncomfortable, and without her orthotics, using the crutches on uneven ground.
Edward took her hand and kissed the back of her palm. His eyes flashed with pained anger. "You are not an inconvenience."
Bella's heart fluttered.
Exactly like Bella anticipated, it was a production to take her to Scarborough beach. Without Rose, she would have melted out of sheer embarrassment. They had to find handicapped parking. The spots, if any, were all taken. They had to figure out how Bella could get from the parking lot to the beachside. They had to get Bella settled. Was it better to set up before getting Bella in the sand? Would it be worth it to take the wheelchair out of the trunk?
"Sorry," Bella squeaked repeatedly, at every hassle. "I'm so sorry."
"Bella, sweetie", Rosalie said lovingly, after Bella's fifth apology. "Shut up."
Like he had so often, so many years before, Edward gave her a piggyback ride. As ever, Bella couldn't hop, so Edward had to crouch low. With his arms, Edward secured both of Bella's rigid, spastic legs around his waist. As ever, it was uncomfortable but not painful once the muscle gave way. The greatest difference between this moment – in their mid-twenties, not in their late teens – was that Edward was not struggling at all.
"You OK?" Bella asked, midway to the spot Emmett had staked out.
"I'm not seventeen anymore," Edward said cockily. "And you've gotten skinnier."
Bella grinned crookedly into his neck. "Are you saying I was fat?" Bella challenged him teasingly.
"You've always been gorgeous," Edwrd said lightly. "But you know. You're gorgeous-er now."
Bella was smiling like an idiot. "I don't think that's a word," she said tartly.
Once Edward stripped down to his swim trunks, Bella understood why he'd lifted her so effortlessly. Her mouth went completely dry. Edward had always been well-built – for an eighteen-year-old boy. Now that he was a full-grown man, his stomach looked like a washboard and his muscles – from head to toe – were thickened.
Blushingly, Bella also noted that he'd become impossibly hairier. There was a swathe of hair dusting his chest and even his stomach.
"Swan? You want help changing, sweetie?" Rose asked her softly, in a whisper. Despite how much she loved Rose, Bella felt burning jealousy. Embodying the phrase legs for days, Rose could pull off a strapless, cherry-red bikini flawlessly. Like an overeager puppy, Bella shook her head. She shifted on her beach chair to pull her long hair up with a spider clip. "I didn't bring a swimsuit."
Rose eyed her with a knowing expression, tinted with a kind of sad-sympathy. Fortunately for Bella, she was quickly distracted by Emmett's bulging, Superman-like physique.
Bella, whose attention shifted to Edward every waking minute, did notice Edward ogling Rosalie appreciatively, but he averted his gaze quickly. "Bee, baby?" he asked Bella attentively. "Do you want anything to drink, love?"
Wet, sandy, and coated with sea salt, Edward kissed her temple. Startled, Bella spasmed. She was so engrossed she had not heard him approach. They were alone. Roselie had tanned for what felt like an eternity. When Edward approached, she had run off for a walk with Emmett.
Edward sat across from her.
"What are you reading?" he asked her – eager, and interested, and Bella loved him. Edward was the one person in the world who always indulged her reading.
She pinkened slightly even as she lit up. Using her arms to shift her hips, she inched closer. She snapped the book shut. The title of the book was Development as Freedom, by Amartya Sen.
"It's a classic in developmental economics," she explained. "That's actually my major."
"You told me last year," Edward said, inching forward. He popped open a can of mineral water and offered her a sip before taking one big gulp. "I remember I was a little shocked. I always thought you'd major in English."
"I mean – I did for a while," she said, eyes sparkling. "But I – I'm good at Economics. It's math, applied to the social sciences, and I thought that was really cool." Growing embarrassed at her notion of cool, she finished her statement with a bashful squeak.
"It is cool, sweetheart," he agreed. "When you talk about it, anyway."
Isabella's faint smile widened. "Anyway. I'm doing my senior thesis in development economics specifically. I understand Macroeconomics, but I never liked it. My thesis supervisor recommended Amartya Sen – that's the author – " Bella tapped the cover in illustration. "He pioneered the shift away from thinking of economics as just …"
She drifted off. "Tell me to shut up if you get bored," she offered.
Edward shook his head, and Bella beamed. "Right, so Amartya Sen, he basically says that economics should be about human welfare. Here, I just… I just loved this."
Feeling a little silly and overeager, Bella opened the book. Despite how much she hated dog-earing, the book was marked all over. She opened the last page that had blown her mind. Hesitantly, Edward took it. With a trembling finger, Bella pointed to a passage she loved.
Edward blinked, confused, once he had finished reading. "I understood the figures and the statistics," he said shyly, "but I don't quite get the point."
Bella had brightened with enthusiasm. With anybody else, Bella would be embarrassed. "What he's saying there is that we – governments and communities - can achieve better societies by educating women," she explained, bright-eyed, in love with the idea. "That investing in women can dramatically expand quality of life for entire societies."
The way Edward was looking at her made her feel warm all over.
"This is the part that really gets me," she explained. She flipped the pages. Out loud, she read her favorite line. Sometimes the lack of substantive freedoms relates directly to economic poverty, which robs people of the freedom to satisfy hunger, or to achieve sufficient nutrition, or to obtain remedies for treatable illnesses, or the opportunity to be adequately clothed or sheltered, or to enjoy clean water or sanitary facilities.
Bella took a deep breath, not daring to look up. "Sorry," she squeaked sheepishly. "That was dorky."
Edward was silent, and Bella took a chance, peeking up at him through her eyelashes. In the wake of the tornado Jane had left, Isabella was left floundering. They had been having these moments. Moments when he would look at her, and Isabella would forget how to breathe. Their eyes would meet, and the intensity of looking at him became unbearable.
For years now, Edward had always looked at her with that strange, pained expression on his face: tender, irritated, like he wanted to hug her. Lately, Edward would look at her, and they would both burst into flames.
She was scared shitless.
Purposefully, she broke the spell. "I'm hungry," she said abruptly. "Do you think we could grab a bite?"
Even though she hadn't done much at the beach besides tanning, Bella passed out with exhaustion on the way home. It had been a slumber so deep that she hadn't even noticed being carried to bed. She struggled with fatigue regularly – pain was a constant in her life – but she had been particularly exhausted. Edward had woken her twice with a tall glass of water. "Bee, baby?" Edward asked gently. "Sweetheart, you need to drink water."
When Rosalie woke her up the next day, she smacked a tall glass of water nexto her bedside table. "Doctor Charming says you need to rehydrate," Rose said. "Honestly, he's so besotted it's disgusting."
Isabella still felt a little foggy as she sat up. She could have kept sleeping. She took a sip even though she wasn't feeling particularly thirsty.
"He headed downtown to pick up a prescription," Rosalie explained, with an eye roll. "Otherwise, he would've probably come up himself."
"And Em? Where is he?"
"Taking a walk down the beach," Rose said softly. "We're leaving in three days. He wants to enjoy it."
"We?" Bella repeated, arching her eyebrows, grinning like a lunatic.
"It's not like that," Rose said, but she had a silly grin on her face. "I mean. We're both heading south. I have that internship in DC and Emmett is heading home to Chattanooga by car. We talked about it. The timing is off."
"It could work," Bella said wistfully. "Norwich is just an hour away from Cambridge."
Rosalie smirked knowingly. "You should take your own advice."
"I – I don't think I can."
"Oh, Christ, Swan." Rose looked at her askance. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? You can't what? Kiss him? Fuck him? Date his snobbish ass?"
In the moments between sleeping and waking, her insecurities reared their head. "I don't know if it could work," she said, so earnestly that Rose's aggravation went down a notch. "Rose, he's – I mean, there's no way. He's gorgeous and he's athletic. You just saw him with a bathing suit on."
"Meh," Rose said, wrinkling her nose. "Emmett looked hotter. And Cullen's kind of hairy, you know. I get that not all guys wax their chest, but Christ, looks like the Yetti. I actually think you're a little out of his league."
Bella was torn between laughing and and defending Edward. "I'm not out of his league," she snorted.
"Yeah, you are, Swan," Rose said earnestly. "Edward can be a real piece of shit. He's a snob and a prick, and he knows it. And you're just so… The word Emmett used is angelic, and I think he's right. You're this angelic, beautiful person."
"Oh, Rose," Bella chirped, so moved she squeezed Rose's hand, twinning their fingers.
"Edward knows it, too, you know," Rose continued, smirking. "Em thinks that's why he hasn't made a move yet. I mean, he's loyal to that little shit, so he wouldn't give me any details. But what I gathered is that Edward feels like he doesn't deserve you."
A flare of hope and elation shot up Bella's back, waging battle against her disbelief. Bella snorted derisively. "That's ridiculous," she sniffed, and she meant it. Rosalie seemed content and convinced with this explanation, but Bella was unconvinced.
"He has you on a pedestal and he's completely besotted," Rose said sagely. "That can be really fucking dangerous in the long run, but it is what it is."
"I mean, even if you are right," Bella acknowledged begrudgingly, still battling waves of disbelief and insecurity. She turned bright pink, knowing Rose would understand. "I mean, he hasn't made a move."
Rose shrugged her shoulders. "Emmett has a theory about that, too. If he fucks up – if it goes to the crapper – he loses you. He loves you and trusts you as a friend, too."
"I'm scared of that, too," Bella admitted finally, hesitantly. "But I just… I don't think he finds me… sexually attractive."
Rose sucked in air through her teeth. She sighed.
"First of all, don't say sexually attractive like that," Rose said, to begin. "It makes you sound like a biologist on the Discovery Channel."
And Bella loved Rose because she made her laugh.
"Second of all, I don't think he'd be as touchy as he is if he didn't find you beautiful."
Bella's doe eyes were huge, soulful. "Rose, I really – I was so embarrassed with Andrew." Andrew had been her first real boyfriend, in her sophomore year of college, but it had not lasted. Bella had broken it off. "I really – I – I wanted it, but -"
"Did you want to have sex with Andrew?" Rose asked gently.
Bella blushed. "Yes."
Andrew had been a great kisser, and his touch had opened up a world of longing. Bella touched herself for the first time after Andrew had tried to touch her there. "But I… I couldn't. Not because I didn't want to, but because I didn't want Andrew to see my naked body."
Saying it out loud was gutting. Bella felt like she'd spat out her heart, leaving it throbbing and bloody between them.
"Oh, baby," Rose murmured, her face hit by a wave of compassion, her expression full of love. "Sweetheart, is that why you wouldn't wear a bathing suit?"
Bella nodded, tears slipping free, burning her eyes and dripping down her eyelashes.
Rose's entire demeanor gentled, like it only would when she lowered all of her defenses. She crawled across the bed, sprawling across it so that they were nose-to-nose under the flickering ceiling fan.
Rose, a rape survivor, looked her in the eye. Rosalie had been raped by a senior in their freshman year of college. That had been what cemented their friendship, eventually turning it iron-tight. By a complete fluke, Isabella had been the first person to see Rose immediately after it happened. Bella had supported Rosalie through it with the staunch loyalty of a golden retriever.
"Baby, I'm not going to invalidate your feelings. It's totally valid to feel like that. I mean, the CP. It's a lot of vulnerability on your part. And I know better than anyone what it's like to feel like you can't trust a guy with your body. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say that the, uh, disability isn't a challenge. It is."
"But you're going to have to trust someone eventually," Rose said gently. "And Bella, he's so in love with you. I didn't trust him, actually. I didn't trust him at all. But then, I see him with you, and I know everything is going to be OK."
Bella could've kissed Rose.
"Besides," Rose added, in that crude clinical tone of hers. "You have TV tits, Swan. I've seen them. I'm actually green with envy, but at least mine are bigger."
Flippantly, almost cockily, Rose squeezed her own tits in illustration, and Bella laughed.
The light in Edward's room was still on nearing midnight. The twentieth of June had not yet dawned.
Isabella had stayed up late to give him his present at midnight. She knocked on the heavy wood door with her first. When no reply came, she opened the door. One of the best features of the Wharton Bay mansion was the layout of the second floor. There were no narrow hallways. It was easy for Isabella to angle her wheelchair and maneuver her way through the doors. The problem was the weight of the doors.
Edward's birthday gift was on her lap.
He was asleep on his desk, slumped over a chair. His head was resting on top of the thickest textbook Isabella had seen in her life. Rumpled hair was sticking to his forehead, and Bella was overcome with an urge to hug him silly. He was so adorable.
Next to the textbook, there was a ton of coloring pencils inside a well-worn, Crayola box. Bella eyed them curiously, wanting to giggle. The coloring pencils were explained by a book to his left, and Bella reached for it interestedly. Netter's Physiology Coloring Book.
The footrest of her wheelchair bumped against his legs, and he muttered sleepily. Feeling rather guilty – she was snooping – she flipped through its pages. It was sheet after sheet of diagrams of organ systems, with labels and instructions.
"Bella?" he said groggily.
"Sorry," she said softly. "This is cool," she added with a dorky grin, setting the book back on the desk.
Groggily, he blinked. He smiled at her sleepily, and it was such a sweet smile that Isabella melted into a pile of goo. Tenderly, she ran her fingers through his luscious mane of hair. Life really was unfair. Of all of Edward's privileges, she thought, perhaps his hair was the greatest. Isabella had some unfortunate classmates who had already been battling a receding hairline.
"Why are you studying?" she asked, with a touch of concern. "It's the middle of June."
He rubbed his eyes. "I didn't do as well as I wanted on my Integrated Pathophysiology final," he explained. "I didn't do badly. But not well enough to pursue – eh, the specialization I'm interested in."
"Which is?"
His head was still resting on the textbook. He looked so vulnerable when he was sleepy that Bella felt a swell of love. "Neurosurgery," he whispered shyly.
It wasn't an inherently romantic statement, but it felt like it. He was precious to her. He was everything.
"You should go to bed," she said lovingly. It would become a sentiment she repeated day in and day out.
"You're probably right," he said, rubbing his eyes. He kicked away from the desk, in an office chair.
Finally awake, he looked at her quizzically. "Why are you in here?" he asked.
Bella reddened.
"Oh, uh, I – I wanted to wish you a happy birthday," Bella said bashfully. "Happy 24, Edward."
Like an idiot, lifted the box with both hands and smiled stupidly.
Edward brightened and grinned. "You're too fucking cute sometimes."
"It's a just a little silly thing."
"That's so sweet, love. You didn't have to get me anything," he said kindly. "Just give me one second, darling. I need to throw water at my face."
"If you're too tired, I can come back later," she offered.
"No, no. Let's open it together."
Before leaving, he'd opened his dresser. He came back with a fresh t-shirt and a new pair of boxer shorts. When he came back, his face was still damp with cold water. Despite the exhaustion in his eyes, he beamed brightly. He sat on his four-poster bed, always careful to stay at her eye-level.
Carefully, Bella maneuvered her chair out of the narrow space, angling it towards Edward.
She smiled bashfully. "Um, it's – it's a bit silly," she repeated.
"I'll love it," he said. "I always do."
He studied the box with mock curiousity. "It's a square, but it's not a book. Shocker."
Bella stuck out the tip of her tongue.
A touch too carefully, he nimbly removed the wrapping paper with precision – tugging away at the tape, carefully removing the wrapping paper. "It's not surgery," Bella teased. "You can tear it open."
"Smartass," he said, without any bite in his voice. The cardboard box was in sight, and Edward removed and studied its contents just as carefully.
First he burst out laughing, and then he beamed. "It's fucking great," he laughed.
It was a hand-painted mug that Bella had commissioned from her friend Omari, a Norwich student that sold custom hand-painted mugs. It said: Dr. Edward Cullen. Underneath, it had a progress bar filled a quarter of the way, and the word "Loading…"
In her wheelchair, Bella inched forward. She explained how where the mug had come from.
"It's perfect," he said. "You're perfect. And funny. And imaginative."
Bella grinned widely, like a lovestruck lunatic. "You're making me sound like Barney the Purple Dinosaur."
"Barnie doesn't hold a candle to you," he chuckled. "You're gorgeous, and intelligent, and angelic, and – "
The realization hit her like a bullet and detonated like a bomb. According to Rose, Emmett had described her as angelic. But Emmett wasn't one for "high-falutin' words." The word angelic had not come from Emmett.
It had come from Edward.
She made a split-second, foolishly brave decision that would change their lives forever.
Bridging the space between them, Bella pressed her lips to his cheek. With her heart fluttering in her throat, Isabella tilted her head. She pressed her lips against Edward's bottom lip.
Breathing heavily, Isabella pinkened and shifted away. "I – Uh – I," she sputtered desperately, her voice throaty. She couldn't bear to look at him. The trembling in her hands was disguised by the palsy.
It had not been her best kissing technique, either. It had been awkward. Silly. Childlike. A mistake. The footplate of her chair had slammed against his ankles. One of her wheels had slammed awkwardly against his knee when she had shifted forward. It had been a mistake. She lowered her hands, unlocking the brakes of the chair. The brakes clicking announced she wanted to move away.
"Bella, wait."
Foolishly, Bella chanced a glance at Edward.
Dazed, Edward was looking at her with a strange, half-terrified fascination. With one hand, he touched his full bottom lip.
"Bella."
Edward had never manhandled her body or her wheelchair. He only ever touched her with the greatest gentleness. But this time, his hands were clumsy and rough as he pulled her closer. Their knees crashed together like coconuts.
Their second kiss of the night was different. It was the sweetest kiss Edward had ever given, and the best kiss Isabella had ever received. Close-mouthed and tender, despite the firmness of his touch. She could feel his trepidation pulsating. He rubbed her nose against hers, silently for permission. Bella's lips parted, and he sucked lightly on her bottom lip.
The intensity of her feelings – her heart hammering, her skin burning – became too overwhelming, and she pulled away, panting, sucking in air like she'd been drowning.
It was too much. She couldn't deal with the intensity of what she had started.
She needed air.
Thinking back on that moment, she would marvel at her own ingenuity. "I'll leave you be," she said breathily. She didn't know if her CP or her soul was making her tremble. She kissed his cheek like she had hundreds of times before: a casual, childlike kiss. "Goodnight, Edward."
She didn't know if she was hallucinating the expression Edward's face: stupefied and hurt. Outside the confines of his room, though, she was able to take a cooling breath. Then she had locked herself in her room and groaned, burying her face in her hands. Like a bat out of hell, she had wheeled towards her room and locked the door.
Even an ice-cold shower did little to quell her jitters.
The emotions she felt were too intense to let her sleep, and too erratic. She felt flashes of elation and despair that kept her awake. Butterflies had burst forth in her stomach and were fluttering all over her. There was no outlet for her energy, but she felt like she could have run a mile and back. Then, as the night wore on, her elation had turned into dread.
What if he woke and realized that he didn't like her like that? Victoria Cullen's old words came back to haunt her. I can imagine it's quite difficult to be sexually attracted to someone as severely disabled as you. The wound had never healed: it festered like an ulcer.
She could not sleep because she feared the morning.
The alarm clock by her bedside told her it was almost 2 a.m. Nothing could hold her attention. She felt too jittery to focus on the more academic nonfiction books she had bought, and she fished out Room by Emma Donoghue. The book managed to hold her attention, and she was engrossed enough that the door opening startled her.
It was a horrible time for her to spasm as if with a seizure – her Moro reflex acting up – but she did. She dropped her gaze.
"I saw the light was on," Edward said. He looked like Isabella felt. "I couldn't sleep."
"Me neither," Bella mumbled shyly. The dread in the pit of her stomach was excruciating. She was certain he was about to call the whole thing off. He did love her, very much. He would turn her down kindly, even lovingly, and that was a small consolation.
He approached her cautiously. Purposefully, Bella kept her head hung, holding herself as stiffly as she could.
"Bella," he said. "Bella, angel, look at me."
She did not.
She felt on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry," she squeaked.
"Why are you sorry?"
If she was going to be foolishly, stupidly brave, she might as well go for broke. "I like you like that," she admitted, her head hanging again. She felt pathetic saying it – trembling with CP as if shivering in the cold. It was yet another one of her life's most courageous moments. "But I – I – if – If you don't – if you don't like me like that, I totally understand and I swear I'll grow out of it and we can just laugh about this in ten years."
The only outcome that would truly kill her was losing their friendship forever, killing it with unrequited love.
Edward's elated relief exploded. "I do like you like that. I'm in love with you," he said, open and clean. "If I didn't make a move before, it was because I was scared shitless and you have always been far braver than I am."
Bella processed the news slowly, like an old car whirling to life, like an old engine starting. She was hit with disbelief, then skepticism.
Ecstasy.
She grinned at him stupidly, and his returning grin – filled with relief, and with love – was so bright it could have rivaled the sun.
Emboldened, Edward tilted his head ever so slightly to kiss her on the lips. It was brief, gentle, and magic. Then he kissed the tip of her nose. Her cheekbones. Her forehead. Bella's skin flamed and her stomach jolted, not with embarrassment, but with love.
"Can I stay?" he asked, and despite his radiant grin, he sounded painfully vulnerable. "Just to sleep. I want to be close to you. I'm terrified that if I walk away now – "
"I feel the same way," Bella cut in immediately, in tacit understanding, and she reached out to grab his hand. She lifted it to her mouth and kissed his fingers.
They had shared a bed before, but this was different. As he spooned up behind her, placing a large hand on her stomach, Bella realized this was different because it was intimate.
In the last moments between sleep and wakefulness, she heard him murmuring into her neck. The next day, she wondered if she had been dreaming.
You're the reason that I smile. You're the reason I play music. You're the reason that I'm good.