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And special thanks to CoppertopJ for her amazing beta skills!
I never considered myself to be a particularly great son or brother. Perhaps it was due to the unfortunate combination of my inability to fully come to terms with my own nature and the cursed gift of hearing every single thought around me, which made me less than an ideal person to be around on a daily basis. But when I forced my family to uproot itself and then went to live on my own, I knew I had hit one of the lowest lows as a family member—even for me.
They never judged me for it—most of them, at least. Apart from Rosalie, who craved the comfort of knowing she was part of a whole, picture-perfect family, the rest of my brothers and sisters had shown a great deal of understanding. Even Carlisle and Esme proved to be incredibly empathetic to my cause, regardless of how it was breaking their hearts
However, I was afraid that the overall consensus had shifted once I made the rash decision to enter Bella's life again. Witnessing my self-destruction was not exactly something either of them had asked for, so naturally, they were concerned. But to the point in which they considered it would be a good idea to pile up on me for an intervention as if I was a petulant child who needed to be guided on the right path?
Now that was insanity.
I quietly accepted their hugs, only half-returning them, as I was too busy trying to decide on which mind I needed to focus. There were too many voices overlapping.
"He doesn't know what he's doing. No clue whatsoever."
"His feelings are all over the place, I wouldn't know where to begin."
"And of course, he reeks of her."
"Now if any of this would start making sense, then I'd know what to tell him."
"I wish I could take all that pain away and bear its weight for him."
"It's been too long, I'm never leaving my boy's side again."
It was painfully overwhelming to be subjected to this mental storm, even if there had been a time when that used to be a daily occurrence. To make matters worse, their disordered thoughts only added to my already fragile state; I was already a walking heap of anger and distress after having witnessed the awful spectacle of Bella being actively touched by her future husband just so that he could prove to himself that she belonged to him. In the heat of his erratic passion, her hesitation meant nothing to him.
Useless. That was how I felt since I had been unable to intervene in a meaningful way when it mattered the most. Ripping off a branch just to shift his attention enough to get him to stop? That was nothing. I should have ripped his limbs off, one by one, forcing him to stay awake through every step of the process.
If what Bella thought didn't matter to me, I would have done it. Slowly. Happily. Enjoying each second of his pain.
In the wake of my terror, the last thing I needed was to explain myself to anyone, especially my family, as there was no sane way of decoding what was happening inside my brain. Hell, I didn't even know what was happening, and I had had more than a week to get a hold of myself. If anything, things were a thousand shades more confusing now, compared to the day of my return—and getting progressively more so with each new occasion I spent time with Bella.
"I really wasn't expecting company," I grumbled, once the wave of embraces ended.
"Well, if you answered your phone, you would have known what to expect," Alice snickered.
"And I don't need an intervention, so feel free to leave me alone."
I was aware that I sounded like an ass—in fact, that was precisely my intention. If there was a chance for me to find an easy way out of whatever my family thought was happening here, I was willing to take it, even if it implied acting less than pleasant.
"Son, you are better than this."
My father's mental voice juxtaposed with my attempt of chasing everyone away, and the weight of guilt that overcame me was not only sudden, but monumental too.
The last time he and I talked was when I told him about my decision to take one last glance at Bella's life from afar, after finding out she was getting married. He had shown a great deal of understanding, allowing me to proceed with my lunacy—so very trusting that I would do the right thing. Perhaps to a fault, he always trusted that I had what it took to be an upstanding man. And more often than not, I didn't want to disappoint him; not only because I valued his opinion, but also because I genuinely liked that idealized picture of me he had painted.
Strong. Honourable. Calculated. Worthy.
Clearly, all adjectives that could no longer be attributed to me.
My metamorphosis into the most pathetic version of myself started about the same time I stepped out of the shadows, revealing myself to Bella. It only continued to get worse after that—the more I was stretching the limits of our friendship, the further I was slipping into my delusions that not everything was lost. That she and I still had a meaningful bond. That she still somewhat cared for me. That we could find new—and appropriate—ways to be close.
But as soon as I stepped away from my biased perspective, I knew how screwed up it all was. Because while friendships between men and women were most certainly a fact of life, what Bella and I shared transcended that. How could our connection be acceptable when I couldn't spend one moment with her without my senses boiling with the impending excitement that only lust and thirst could bring? Even if I never acted on it, the need to love and caress every inch of Bella's body was always there, much like the need to drain her dry. There was nothing ethical about that.
And I could try to remain a gentleman for as long as possible, but Bella was smart. Soon enough, she would see right through me and she would send me away, where I could not bother her.
I didn't know if I was willing to admit any of it out loud in front of my parents and siblings. However, with Carlisle's plea to be better, I didn't know if I could go through with my mission to get rid of them either. There had to be some sort of comeuppance for my actions—maybe that comeuppance was this very moment.
And maybe facing reality was not the worst thing in the world.
"We only want to talk to you, sweetie," Esme cooed. "We're all trying to understand what your plan is here."
"There is no plan," I sighed lamely.
"Clearly," Rosalie huffed, but quickly looked at the ground when our mother shot her a warning glare.
"You've been here for more than a week, and it doesn't really seem like you know where you're heading," Esme continued. "We are worried for you."
"Not to mention you are turning most of my visions to mush," Alice's quiet complaint followed. For a few seconds, both of us got engulfed by figments of her past visions. Admittedly, none of those figments made much sense, as they were too flippant, too undefined to hold any consistent meaning. I could see myself walking aimlessly through a dark forest. Then waiting under a tree at night. Then, impossibly, Bella joining me under the branches for the briefest moment before disappearing altogether, as if she had never been there.
As if the vision itself knew how wrong that was.
I faced Alice, certain that she could guess the questions I was not asking out loud. She moved her shoulders up and down. "No idea, honestly. It's like she is only half there. I suppose she is undecided about what she wants from you."
"She wants to be friends," I said immediately, not caring one bit that the rest of my family didn't know the entire context behind our exchange. "She made that abundantly clear."
Alice shook her head. "She might not want that either. I think… I think your presence here is taking a toll on her."
The thought of Bella wanting to alienate me completely was so painful it made me physically recoil. The moments we had been sharing together had filled me up with an unhealthy amount of hope, which in turn turned my expectations into a stack of unrealistic desires. Besides, if she really didn't appreciate my company, she would not have bothered to talk to me in the first place, right?
Or to confide in me about her darker fears. Or to invite me into her home. Or to text me for an entire day.
Right?
"That can't be right, Alice," I muttered.
"I don't know. I am trying to understand it myself."
"Look, I think we need to cut to the chase here," Emmett intervened, and I could hear in his mind that he was getting impatient with the half-spoken discussion between me and Alice. "You said you only came here to see Bella once more before she got married, and now you're getting all cozy with her, according to what Alice here has been telling us. So we all want to know: do you want Bella back or not?"
His bluntness attracted various reactions.
Carlisle and Esme both sighed, as they had planned a much softer approach when it came to actually questioning me about my true intentions. Alice and Rosalie were almost relieved, albeit for different reasons; while Alice was genuinely trying to untangle the messy web of visions caused by my actions, ready to use any additional knowledge to piece together the strange puzzle of my life, Rosalie much preferred to get to the root of the problem; because—according to her—the sooner I admitted to my wicked dreams, the sooner I could be convinced to adopt a more realistic outlook and return home.
And Jasper… he knew.
He already knew that there was no universe in which I wouldn't want Bella back. Sure, I would not act upon that wish, especially when she was already building her life with another man, but the true extent of my emotions was still an open book to him. And he could feel my unbridled tension as I was getting ready to lie to them all.
But he also wasn't willing to use his gift against me.
"Go on. Do what you have to do. I won't intervene." His promise was calming, but it pained me to realize that it sprung from his old certitude that he owed me. Even with all the time that had passed—and all my attempts to reassure him that I held no particular grudges against him—he still felt in debt to me.
A debt he was convinced he would never be able to pay back.
"No, I don't want her back," I answered, pouring as much self-confidence as I could into my voice, to make the lie sound credible enough. "I simply think I stumbled upon a moment in time in which she and I can be friends."
"But for how long, sweetie?" my mother checked, so certain under the surface that my stubbornness would be the end of my sanity—which, come to think of it, might as well have been true.
"I don't know, a little while. She thinks I'll leave soon anyway, so I suppose not that long. Why does it matter so much to warrant an intervention?"
Esme stepped forward, one of her arms reaching to wrap around my waist as she guided me to the stairs of the house so that we could both sit there. I reluctantly accepted.
"We are afraid that your being here is hurting you beyond repair."
"And no one wants to see you moping for the rest of eternity," Rosalie added, not filtering her thoughts before setting them free.
"Rose, let me handle this," Carlisle intervened, his voice kind, but firm, just like his thoughts. "Her petulance is not always a gift."
He joined me and Esme on the steps, choosing to sit down to my right side, so that there was no way for me to escape either of them.
"Look, it is no secret for anyone here that your tie to Bella is unbreakable since you are each other's mates," he began carefully, and it didn't escape me that he had been rehearsing these precise words in the back of his mind for the better part of the last few minutes. "But… you also made a choice to overthrow that tie and let her live her life in peace, with no supernatural interference. Now going back and forth between that choice and what you are doing now is not precisely fair—not to you, and not to her. And I would be lying if I told you I didn't understand why you need to make up for the lost time with her. But you should consider that each time you decide to get closer to her, you are also taking away the progress you allowed her to make in your absence."
"I am not trying to do that. Truly."
"You might not, but at the end of the day it is all the same."
"No, Carlisle, you don't understand. Just two nights ago, she told me she didn't want anything else from me. She specifically told me that."
"Yet she was set on having you in her bedroom."
Alice's mental voice alerted me more than Rosalie's eye roll. Determined to set the record straight, I looked straight at her when I talked again. "You weren't there, Alice. She had just learned the truth about Victoria and her parents, she was a mess. She only wanted someone to talk to until she fell asleep." I glanced around, only to be met with pairs of eyes that held various degrees of mercy—or, in Rosalie's case, disgusted pity—in them. That view was unexpectedly enraging. "Don't look at me like I'm insane! Whatever Alice saw, those visions couldn't possibly paint the whole picture of what actually happened. I never went overboard. I never did anything out of line with her, I…"
"You definitely don't sound like an insane person right now," Emmett winked at me as those words danced in his brain, trying to get me to at least smile in the middle of the bedlam.
I didn't.
"With these things, going overboard is usually a process," Esme murmured. "It doesn't happen overnight."
"Just to make sure you understand, by these things, she means cheating," Rosalie added, and this time no one jumped in to get her to be more tactful. I secretly hoped that the earth would open up to swallow her.
"Good, because there is no cheating going on. Bella wouldn't go there, especially not with me. She knows what she wants and she has chosen her fate, the fact that I am here now will not change that."
Jasper was visibly distraught by my continuous attempts to deny each accusation, feeling damn well that my denial was fraught with doubt at every step of the way. I didn't doubt Bella, of course, for even if the tiniest, inconsequential fraction of lust for me still haunted her mind—which I very much doubted—it still wouldn't change a thing.
But truth be told, I didn't trust myself to be strong enough to ignore the insurmountable force of my feelings for her for much longer. Maybe I could handle one more week. But two? Three? More? How long could I hide the fact that I was not over her—that I would never be? I wanted to be the kind of man who would not put her into a highly uncomfortable position by confessing what I felt when she was already spoken for, but I feared that I wasn't.
I had to learn to be less weak, it wasn't doing me—nor my mission to keep an appropriate level of attachment to Bella—any favours.
"Just forget about this nonsense and come home, Edward," Rosalie pleaded, making a deliberate effort to sound affable. "At the end of the day, you'll still leave. Why drag the inevitable when you could be home and happy with us?"
"If you honestly believe that there is the slightest chance of happiness in her absence, you don't know me at all."
"That's because you are not even trying, moron! If you at least made an effort during these past two years, maybe you would not be dragging your depressed ass through Forks to beg for the tiniest crumb of Bella's attention. But you decided to close yourself off! You decided to abandon us right after you forced us to move to a new place!"
"Having empathy really is a lost cause for you, is it not?" I snickered.
"The only lost cause here is you, Edward! Devoting yourself to a puny human, when there is clearly no future for—"
"I don't need to hear this," I decided. I got up, ignoring Esme's hand reaching to grab me and passingly catching the way Emmett grabbed Rosalie's shoulders tenderly, gently telling her to calm down. I moved away from the group, needing the separation. "You have to leave. And I mean everyone."
Their thoughts cascaded over me before either of them got to voice them.
"If only she would know when to shut up."
"Perhaps coming here was a mistake."
"What is the point? It's a losing battle."
"Of course, I'm the bad guy."
"I've never seen him so broken."
"No. He cannot be alone now."
I felt Esme's arms wrapping around me from behind before I made it back to my car. Her hold was easily breakable, but I felt frozen in my tracks, as she wordlessly asked me to stay.
"Let go," I said calmly.
"No, I am staying. You've been on your own enough."
"And I prefer it that way. I'm not the most pleasant company."
"I don't care one bit. I love you regardless. And we all want to make sure you remain sane here."
Soon enough, Carlisle walked forward, where we could be face to face, his infinitely kind eyes keeping me in place. I didn't deserve his kindness. I felt ashamed to let him see this side of me—selfish, unpredictable, despaired—but I held his gaze regardless.
"We're not changing your mind either way. Having your mother here would at least make it easier for everyone."
"Easier for you perhaps," I grumbled in response, feeling the arms around me shifting slightly until they were no longer there to hold me. Esme was still close by my side, but she seemed to trust that I would not attempt to escape again.
"Be reasonable for a minute, my boy," she demanded.
I wanted to retort, but then I heard the wheels of Alice's mind spinning, right as a new vision was developing. I allowed myself to be absorbed into it, even if the edges were too fuzzy. I could make out Bella's face, staring through the top window of the very house we were standing in front of. And she didn't seem happy or sad, just… thoughtful. Perhaps the clearest detail of that vision was the heavy torrent of rain—so heavy it almost swallowed the entire picture into its wet shades. I could hear my voice, under the salvo of the storm, telling Bella that it was time to go.
And her voice, so indistinct it might as well have been the rain talking. "I'm not ready, Edward."
The vision slowly dematerialized, leaving no further explanations in its mischievous trail.
"I've never seen that one before," my sister uttered.
"What does it mean?"
"Maybe Bella wants to pay you a visit here?"
"The hell she wants that."
"I don't know, I'm only working with what I have."
Intrigued—and anxious about a future in which Bella would step inside this house of horrors again—I felt my defenses falling. I didn't know what the vision meant, but I felt a renewed sense of hope washing over me, as I assured myself that I could prevent Bella from ever getting close to this place again.
And I could picture Esme here, with me, for the foreseeable future, making sure I didn't stray too far from the right path. I could picture us existing in comfortable silence for a while, as I tried to make amends with Bella. And I could picture the burden of having to keep in touch with my family lifted; with Esme here, there would be no need for my siblings to bombard me with their questions and worries.
No pressure of having to keep my phone shut. Even better—the lack of pressure would make it considerably easier to text Bella guilt-free.
Esme could be the buffer I didn't know I needed.
The tension that had been building inside my body let up considerably, and the change echoed into a full sigh of relief.
This can be a good thing, after all.
"All right," I said. "You can stay, Esme."
That first night, my mother and I didn't talk all that much. By the time everyone else left, I felt drained and ready to succumb to the fake relief of silence. Luckily, we easily fell back into the old routine of her understanding when I needed to be left alone without having to outwardly express that.
The repose allowed me to obsess over what I witnessed the previous evening. Again.
The memory alone made me hungry to maim and mar Jacob Black. I despised him for feeling entitled to Bella's body just because they were engaged—that could not possibly be a viable excuse. And I despised him for the way he tried to sneakily guilt her into accepting his advances, using my return to Forks as leverage for his insidious act. But then again, I didn't despise him more than I despised myself for invading Bella's privacy to such an egregious extent. Because now I wanted to know how she felt—if she was hurt in any way—but I had no available avenues to inquire about what happened without also revealing my stalking in front of her.
Caught in this limbo of my own making, I watched as the morning fell over the house, filling it with a veil of ivory light. It felt like an omen—as if now that the night was through, there was nowhere for me to hide and grovel anymore. The one good thing was that I had a purpose today—returning the books to Bella, as I had promised, and trying my best to decipher how she was feeling while acting as if I didn't know what happened to her not that long ago.
Esme said nothing as I got into my car, but her mind did. Even with my rushed explanation about the books, she feared that my exuberance was going to be short-lived.
I didn't expect her to be right and my obstinate conviction only became stronger once, after what seemed like forever, I was finally face to face with Bella again. The sight of her made me feel lighter and heavier at the same time—a familiar feeling lately.
She looked tired today, dark shadows resting under her eyes. Even her skin appeared somewhat lighter and sunken, as if she hadn't had a proper meal in a while. Still, she welcomed me with the same sheepish smile I had been growing accustomed to, and my world spun quietly while the wonder of her happy face lasted.
More than tired, she appeared… restless. Twisting the strands of her hair around her fingers and biting the pillowy flesh of her lip, as I got closer to her desk.
"You are a man of your word," she said, not really wasting time with the triviality of greetings.
"I'm only paying my dues, Bella." I paused for a few seconds, as I studied the mysterious universe in her eyes, trying to unravel its secrets. Deep down inside me, the thirst roared, but I decided to ignore it, too preoccupied with more pressing issues. For instance, did she get any sleep at all last night, or had she been too haunted to even doze off? There was only one way to find out. "How are you feeling today?"
"Well, today I'm supposed to receive new batches of books—which may sound exciting until you have to deal with the paperwork."
"Anything I can help you with?"
"Certainly not."
I could tell that she was agitated still, going by how fast her heart was beating and the way her fingers trembled on the covers of the books as I handed them to her. I resisted the urge to grab her hands and keep them safely tucked under my palms—another relic of our past relationship, when something as simple as that used to be enough to soften her mood.
Another relic I had to let go of as I watched her jittery fingers and did nothing.
"You seem rather… keyed up."
"I'm only stressing out about that damn delivery, it's supposed to—" Her phone rang, getting her to stop, and I mentally cursed the device for interrupting us so soon. Motioning me to wait, Bella liberated the phone from her pocket and answered. I didn't recognize the voice on the other line, but I quickly surmised from the short, frantic discussion that followed, that the delivery guy was going to arrive soon and wanted to make sure there was a large parking spot available for his truck.
A few moments later, she hung up, dropping the phone on the table in what could have easily been mistaken for an act of annoyance if I didn't know her better; as it was, I had no doubt that her unsteady hands were the culprit behind the dropped phone.
"Speaking of the devil…" she said, shaking her head.
"Listen, I don't want to get in your way when you've got so much on your plate, so I'll just…" I motioned to the door, even if I didn't want to leave. Not one bit. These fickle minutes we had shared were hardly enough to sate my insatiable need to be near her. To breathe her in. To taste her scent in the air.
These minutes only added gasoline to the already-existing conflagration.
"I'm so sorry, I wanted to talk to you so much…"
Her eyebrows tilted downwards at the sides and my own heart almost jumped in shock at her words. I tried to not let it show. "I wanted that too, but don't worry," I offered gently. "You're at work, I don't expect you to bend over backwards for my sake."
"I know, but…" She frowned and her lip once again became a victim of her teeth. I studied in awe the way the blood rushed to paint her mouth at the site of the sharp intrusion. I wanted to bite that precious spot too… "You know what? It doesn't have to be like this. Are you free tonight?"
Awakened from my reverie, I almost laughed at her presumption that I would actually have plans—she thought too highly of me.
"Yes, I am."
"Great. Do you think you can meet me in my backyard tonight then?"
I had to do a double take. "In your backyard?"
"Yes, and before you start—Jacob knows you're back, so you don't have to feel bad about anything."
She didn't seem startled at all upon mentioning his name—as if what happened last night was a fever dream that she forgot about. I kept my disgust hidden, pushing forward with an important question. "Will he know I'll be in your backyard though?"
"Probably not, 'cause he's still… processing your return, I guess. I'm trying to avoid any potential fights with him, I don't want him to go to a dark place again."
Bella was clearly choosing her words carefully, like she was walking in a minefield. And it was evident that she did not enjoy talking about this too much—if I had to take a guess, I reckoned that she was struggling with the idea of keeping our friendship under wraps. I wasn't vain enough to believe that the struggle came from a place of unspeakable feelings that had been buried long ago. But I was anxious enough to fear that she was probably starting to see through me and my attempts to remain civil despite my various desires. That could certainly be reason enough for her to feel guilty over meeting me in secret.
I didn't want to add more distress to her thoughts—at least not more than I already was. And who was I to say no to another chance to be alone with Bella? Lowering my voice, even if no one but her would have been able to hear me, I talked again. "How will you sneak out anyway?"
"Jake is a heavy sleeper."
I nodded complicitly. "Fine. Tell me when you want me to be there."
"After midnight should be fine."
And while our eyes tenderly sealed the promise of meeting again soon, one clamant thought rang louder in my mind than all the rest.
Rosalie was right. I was very much a lost cause, with no hope of getting better any time soon. But even more surprising than admitting defeat in front of my vain sister's logic was the realization that… it didn't matter to me at all. Because being a lost cause for Bella? I didn't mind it. In fact, I was starting to believe I might just embrace it fully.
I was already going to Hell—the least I could do was do it properly.
That will be one interesting meet up ;).
Do you think that with Esme being there, Edward will be a little more reasonable?
I am so curious to discover your thoughts on this chapter!
As mentioned at the beginning of this month, there will be no update coming on June 23rd, as I will be out of town, away from my laptop. This means that the next update will be posted on June 30th—sorry for making you wait and thank you for your patience!
Until then, stay safe and happy!
