Truth be told

I've been there, I've done this all before

I take your gloom

I cut it up and puff it into plumes

Gooey - Glass Animals

April 14, 2005

Bella slipped off the balcony and into the woods much later than she should have. Charlie was already awake by the time she got home. she unfurled the slip of paper Jasper left on her pillow with a reminder to call him if she needed him. She was just lucky that Charlie hadn't checked in on her when he first got up, the way he sometimes did, and found her bed empty and cold.

He was still home by the time she got dressed and scribbled out a few pages of homework in her elegant, looping script. She put on a show of pouring out a bowl of cereal and stirring the spoon in the mushy oat derivative, but Charlie didn't make any show of leaving. He was seated at the table, pouring over the newspaper with a cup of coffee almost untouched in front of him.

"Are you working today?" Bella asked needlessly, because he was dressed in uniform and his belt was on the counter and ready.

"Going in a little later," he said. "Been working some long hours, thought it might be nice to have breakfast together."

Bella smiled and made a show of chewing and swallowing every bite she had served herself, regretting filling it as much as she did.

"Haven't seen too much of you lately," Charlie started. "What have you been up to? You've been making friends okay, school's been fine?"

"School's great," she said. She forced herself to swallow her last bite and left the table to rinse her dish in the sink. "Jessica Stanley and Angela Webber have been really nice. And Alice is amazing, I couldn't ask for a better friend. Her brother's actually picking me up this morning."

"Something wrong with your truck?" Charlie asked. Bella kept her back to him, making a show of very thoroughly cleaning the singular bowl and spoon that she used.

"No, nothing," she said quickly. "It's just… ah, Edward and I are kinda… well, dating?"

Bella waited for an interrogation, the third degree. Her hands clenched the countertop and she had to force herself to release it before she left indents of her fingers.

"He's the boy who was so concerned about you after the accident, right? The one who went with you to the hospital?"

This wasn't exactly how Bella remembered it, but she nodded anyway.

"Dr. Cullen is a good man. We're lucky to have him."

It seemed like a hint of approval, and Bella was stunned. But she shouldn't have been. Charlie worried for his daughter every second of every day since he heard about the fire. He thought he would be relieved when she came back to Forks and he could hold her again, but she felt more distant than ever before. She looked different, sounded different, and he was too scared of losing her to scrutinise too closely. But he worried that her difference would set her too far apart from her peers. She was so smart, and he wasn't stupid enough to not hear the whispers that followed her. She lost her mom and her home and he feared that she would never find a real place in the world, especially not in a small town like Forks.

Charlie liked the Cullens. Carlisle was brilliant and could've easily found immense success in a major city, and the whole blended family was nothing but polite and well-adjusted. He didn't know much about their new addition, the new boyfriend, but Charlie was sure that he had to be just as fitting as the rest of the family. His banal paternal concerns about dating were far, far outweighed by the attainment of normality and stability for his daughter.

Bella remained silent, eyes wide, as she heard the Volvo pull into the driveway, and she found herself following Charlie out the door. She was filled with dread, trying to see if he had his gun clipped on yet and trying to picture how she could alleviate the situation because she couldn't imagine Edward meeting Charlie in his new capacity and anything going well.

To Bella, Edward didn't belong anywhere normal. He seemed out of place under the fluorescent cafeteria lights, or sitting on her shabby couch. Edward opened his car door and emerged looking like he walked off a runway, his hair effortlessly messy, collar turned up on his sleek coat. She cringed, watching as everything unfolded in slow motion and feeling powerless to the expectant trainwreck.

Edward extended his hand. "Chief Swan."

"Charlie, please. It's good to see you again, Edward," Charlie greeted affably, shaking Edward's good hand but noticing how his left was tucked in his pocket. "Nice of you to drive Bella to school."

"It's nice of her to let me," Edward laughed, and Charlie joined. Bella felt like she was watching an episode of The Twilight Zone.

"You take care of my girl, alright?"

Bella groaned, but they ignored her.

"She'll be safe with me, sir." Charlie didn't doubt it, sincerity rang true in his every word. There was maybe something about the boy that was a little off-putting, a wildness in his eyes or a hardness to his face. But he was nothing like the friend who came to visit Bella, the tall man who looked like he would've been perfectly at home in a Hell's Angels clubhouse. Charlie could see how softly Edward looked at her, the way he practically tripped over himself to run around the car and open the door for her. And she looked up at him with the most adoring smile, like he was the only thing in the world that existed. Maybe it scared Charlie, and maybe it scared him a lot. But he also took great solace in his earlier reflections of normalcy and connections for Bella. And he had no qualms while he watched the Volvo pull away with Bella murmuring something to Edward in the front seat.

"I can't believe that went well," Bella whispered, as if Charlie could possibly hear her from outside the car and over the sound of the engine and radio.

"I'm not surprised."

"Oh yeah? You have a lot of experience impressing the fathers of your girlfriends?"

Bella looked so tense and her face was so drawn. Edward let go of the wheel for a moment to grab her hand and put it on his knee, needing to feel her but his left hand was too tender to use it to drive. "I'm just as new at this as you are. I've met your dad, now you'll have to come home to meet my family."

"Edward," Bella huffed. "You're being silly. I know your whole family already."

"Not as my girlfriend," he pointed out.

She sighed again, but he knew she wasn't actually upset with him. Her lips were slightly upturned, and she had left her hand on his leg. They pulled into the parking lot beside Rose's Mercedes the way they had so many times before, but it felt starkly different. In just the matter of a few days and three words exchanged, everything had changed. Bella waited in the front seat for Edward to cross around the front and open the door for her. He took her hand easily, without thinking about it.

Emmett was leaning on the hood of Rose's car, animatedly talking about alternators with Tyler Crowley and Eric Chan with his booming voice and wild gestures. Bella could hear Alice and Rose already inside, seemingly finding common ground in a discussion of fashion that mostly revolved around the upcoming dance and what Alice was going to dress everyone in.

"You look like Count Dracula with your collar turned up like that," Bella teased, falling in step beside him as they navigated through the busy parking lot.

"Well, it certainly has something to do with vampires," Edward said as he reached around with his bandaged hand and flipped his collar down, revealing the perfectly round lavender bruise on his neck.

"Oh no," she groaned, throwing her head back.

"Hey, let's not make it a one-time thing, okay?"

"Edward!" Bella squealed, bumping into his shoulder playfully because there was something about his carefree, crooked grin that was just irresistible. They had spent far too long steeped in angst and tension to not relish the sweetness of freedom when it finally came. It was why she found it so easy to ignore the whispers that swirled around them, the heads whipping around to stare. It was nothing like the first few weeks, where every word of gossip stuck out individually and was ingrained in her memory. All she could hear was an amalgamation of chatter because she was far too intune with the even beat of his heart to focus on anything else. When they had to part ways for the morning- Edward to get to class, Bella to rush to the bathroom to choke up her cereal and slip into her homeroom, she was still listening in on him. Edward shared two classes in the morning with Alice, and they were badminton partners in Gym which gave Alice plenty of time to lay into Edward about ditching her in the morning and forcing her to ride with Emmett and Rose, which quickly transitioned into forgiveness because she was excited about Bella.

"She looks so pretty today, don't you think!" Alice shouted, loudly enough that Bella wondered if she'd be able to hear from her Spanish class even without her enhanced senses.

"She always looks beautiful," Edward said quietly, and Bella couldn't help but grin to herself. Jessica, sitting beside her, gave her an odd look.

"She'd look even better in a dress, heels, and an updo, don't you think!"

"You keep asking me if that's what I think, but I have a feeling you're not really asking my opinion."

"Come on," she whined.

"Ask what you really want to know, Al."

"Well, do I have one more person to play personal shopper for? I need to know now, so I can prepare, especially since I don't have her measurements."

"That sounds like it would be a question for Bella, don't you think?"

Alice ignored his mocking. "Well, have you asked her yet? If you haven't, I don't want to ruin the surprise!"

"I did ask."

"Perfect! Okay, so I've never actually seen Bella in anything other than jeans and a sweater, but I have a feeling she's got the body of a mudflap girl under there. So I'm thinking silk or satin, something that will really cling-"

"Are you forgetting something?" Edward interrupted.

"What do you mean?" Alice asked, not at all bothered by pausing her babbling.

"You don't know if she said yes."

"Oh," Alice giggled. "Of course she said yes, my dearest brother. I don't think she could say no to you."

Bella didn't see what happened next, but it turned Edward bright red. Alice snatched off the Band-aid Edward had haphazardly slapped on his neck, since he couldn't very well keep his coat on during Gym. He clapped his hand over the spot and chased after Alice as she danced away into the girls' locker room, cursing at her and pushing his way into the boys' side.

He was still flushed when Bella met him outside the gymnasium, but she thought it was just from the lacklustre exercise or heat of the showers. She took his hand happily and hummed at his side as he dragged her through the cafeteria line and loaded a shared tray with one of everything.

"I'm not letting your sister dress me," she said quietly as they walked to their lunch table.

"What?"

"You really think I wasn't listening?"

"Ah," Edward scoffed, dropping the tray on the table and pulling the chair out for her. Bella sat down graciously and placed a hand on his knee again, to leave his good hand free for cutlery. It was a safe location, especially under the cover of the table. The gossip was already vicious, so there was little need to fuel the fire any more. "She dresses all of us, you know?"

"Don't you think I might not be comfortable with what she has in mind."

Edward laughed so hard he choked on his pizza and Bella watched on in worry, wondering if she could measure her strength enough to perform the Heimlich. It was unneeded, and he eventually swallowed his food and gulped down a lemonade.

"You should hear her out, at least," Edward said finally.

"You're only saying that because you have a vested interest in undressing me."

"Only in private, though," he argued. "She's your best friend. She won't do anything to make you uncomfortable."

"Just to make everyone else uncomfortable," she grumbled. Edward opened his mouth to argue, but Alice skipped over and slid into the chair across from them. Rose and Emmett had forgone lunch with their siblings, choosing instead to lunch with their senior friends at the picnic tables outside, though it was still almost-raining and a storm hung with heavy promise.

"Now, now," Alice sang, "What are we fighting about?"

"No one's fighting," Bella said quickly.

"We're talking about the dance," Edward said honestly, shrugging off the glare Bella shot in his direction.

Alice squealed in a pitch only dogs could hear, clapping her hands together excitedly and drawing even more stares than were pointed their way in the first place.

"I'm! So! Excited! I can't believe my two best friends are going together! Now, Bella, I was talking to Rose and Edward earlier. The dance is, of course, important, but our after party, I know you've never been to one, but that's the main event. We're getting into the outfit selection a little late in the game, especially since you didn't buy a dress when we went to Port Angeles with Jess and Angela, but that's okay. I ordered some options for Rose, we can just adjust from there-"

"Alice, breathe," Edward said.

"I can't wear one of Rose's dresses," Bella whispered, peeking over at their other sister through one of the windows. She was lounging at one of the tables, picking at her fingernails while Emmett tossed a football around with one of the senior boys. Her golden hair fell in effortless waves around her delicate face. Her lips were naturally red, blue eyes framed by long thick lashes. She was the height of a supermodel but had the body of someone who should've been on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

"I mean, she's taller than you, but that's an easy enough fix!" Alice said brightly.

"She's -er than me in a lot of ways," Bella said. Her voice was low enough that both Alice and Edward had to lean in to hear her, and she took her hand off Edward's knee to fold her fingers together. Edward's expression darkened with anger, both at the loss of her touch and her self-deprecation, but Alice beat him to reply.

"Oh, Bella. I think you're being ridiculous, of course, but I also have a few of Esme's dresses that she won't be wearing anymore. She won't mind if I tailor one of them instead of donating it. Come over tonight and we'll get started."

It wasn't a request but a direction, and it was how Bella found herself in Alice's bathroom with a pile of clothes on the sink and the door firmly closed between her and Alice.

Bella was in her bra and underwear and stared at herself in the mirror. She was inhumanly pale, almost disturbingly so. Any darker colour would simply emphasise that, so she discarded all but two of the dresses. The first was white, a drop waist with a pleated skirt that fell to just below her knees and looked very chic and classic. The other was the one she would go with- cream coloured with little flowers stitched into the soft fabric, long sleeved and high-necked with a conservative A-line and a skirt that swished at her ankles. She emerged from the bathroom anxiously, but Alice was ready with her pins. She hurriedly pulled the fabric here and there, making no judgement about her choice but also leaving no room to argue when Bella wanted the dress looser and Alice insisted otherwise.

"I have two days, Bella! Two days! You really left me with no time, but you and my hard-headed brother just had to be stubborn and draw this thing out. So now you have to put up with it! Now take it off so I can start sewing!" Alice shooed Bella back into the bathroom and snatched the dress from her the second the door opened again. Bella was dismissed back to Edward, and the sewing machine whirred under the firm direction of Alice Cullen.

Edward, for one, couldn't fight it when Alice stole Bella away. It was easier to argue with a brick wall, and he learned very quickly that there was little to do but just agree and follow along. He saw Bella for only a minute when they got to his house, just enough time for her to call Charlie at the police station and let him know she'd be staying at the Cullen's for dinner, before she was whisked upstairs for her dress fitting. He wandered up the stairs and found himself panicking when he realised he was wondering what she'd look like in white.

He flexed his hand and knew he needed a better outlet than punching glass and throwing up in front of the goddess who thought she loved him. He rifled through his nightstand and found the meagre stash he kept only for emergencies. It was slower work to pick out the stems and roll his joint with just one hand, but he had plenty of practice and the final product was deft and nifty. Edward grabbed his lighter and collapsed onto the lounge chair on his balcony.

The storm that threatened during the day had shown its face, and wind was whipping on the other side of the house. It kept the rain off him, mostly, but he didn't mind the cold anymore. A few days of sun did little to preserve any idea of summer because in the Pacific Northwest, was there really such a thing? Edward had yet to experience one himself, and Forks seemed to be under a more constant cover of clouds and rain than he had seen in Seattle.

Perfect for Bella. Kismet, really, that her dad happened to live there. Edward wondered what she would have done had Charlie lived in someplace like Florida. And he wondered what she would do when she had to leave. And he wondered what she'd look like on Saturday. And what she'd look like with nothing on. And what she'd look like in a wedding dress. And mostly, he just thought of Bella and let the weed evaporate his concerns and replace it with adoring fixations.

The balcony door opened and Edward waited to feel her cool touch at his side, her lips on his. He closed his eyes in anticipation, head feeling heavy. But it was a warm hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Esme standing over him.

She was dressed in a casual kaftan patterned with monochromatic geometrics. Her caramel hair was pinned up by pencils and there was a smudge of charcoal on her cheek. From this angle, Edward could see the fine lines that framed her mouth and eyes, beautiful markers of a life of laughter and conversations. Once, he'd never thought he'd have the opportunity to age, but now he hoped he wouldn't.

Esme reached down and plucked the joint from Edward's fingers. He thought she would stub it out, maybe give him a stern lecture because yelling wasn't really Esme's style. Instead, she lifted it to her mouth and took a deep, satisfying drag. She held the smoke in her lungs for several seconds before exhaling deeply, not even a hint of a cough following it.

"There's nothing like love, is there," Esme said.

Edward just stared up at her in astonishment, mouth slightly gaping.

"I was married before Carlisle. I don't talk about it often, so I don't know if you know, but it was to my high school sweetheart. I was seventeen, even had to get my dad's permission but I was pregnant so he was forced to sign off on it. Maybe it was a stupid decision, but I've never been able to bring myself to regret it. He was abusive, and it only got worse as I got further along. It ended when he pushed me down the stairs. I lost the baby, and I thought I lost the ability to ever have another one. In the hospital, I met Carlisle. He was only in his first year of med school, but he was so steady and reassuring. He has such a capacity for compassion. I think I fell in love with him right then and there, when he held my hand as the resident told me the baby was gone.

"We didn't start dating then, if that's what you're thinking. I was too young, still married, very much not in a place to start over. I got a divorce, a restraining order, and he ended up in prison anyway shortly after. Drunk driving, thank God he didn't hurt anyone other than himself in that one. And I was free. I went to college, and then one day I found him again. I was going to grab a coffee with some friends and there he was in the library window. I took a gamble and went to grab some coffees, and when I came back he was still there. I tapped on the glass and he looked up, and I'll never forget the smile he gave me because it's the same one I see every morning."

Esme took another drag and returned the joint back to Edward's waiting hand.

"I love you, son," she said, reaching down and kissing the crown of his head. "Follow your happiness and everything else will work itself out."

"I love you, too, Mom," Edward whispered. His throat felt dry and voice raspy. Tears sprang to Esme's eyes, and she kissed him again and draped a blanket over his shoulders before returning to the dry safety of inside. He'd never called her 'Mom' before. He'd never said 'I love you' until two days before. Something had cracked, deep inside of him, and there was only warmth and wonder springing forth. Bella was released back to him soon after, and he threw the unfinished joint into a puddle below his balcony and held her curled up in his arms, relishing in her small form that was steady and firm, until they were called for dinner.