Chapter Text
August was coming to an end, its flowers withering and its sweetness wasting away, when Bella first showed signs of awareness that something about my behaviour was off. And it had been admittedly my fault. Because against my better judgement… I slipped.
It was one of the few evenings we spent away from Forks, with her father's permission. If it hadn't been for Alice's persuasive talents, he might not have agreed to allow his only daughter to go all the way to Port Angeles to watch a movie with me. Bella and I were waiting in line for popcorn, and I had one arm wrapped tightly around her as she was telling me about her day.
"You'd think Charlie would give me a warning by now," she sighed, shaking her head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't mind when Billy visits and brings his son along, I just… I wish I'd know beforehand so that I can have an excuse to leave early."
"I thought you said it wasn't so bad today."
"Well, Billy skipped the boyfriend talk this time, so that was some progress. But Jacob… I don't know, he's still looking at me with those puppy eyes of his."
"Did he make you feel uncomfortable in any way?"
"No, he didn't say anything bad, it's just… I wish he'd get over this… crush, or whatever you call it."
"I see. But perhaps it's not the worst thing to have other options too, Bella."
She appeared conflicted, but she gathered herself quickly enough. "What do you mean?"
"I mean finding a partner who isn't a constant threat to your very existence."
The silence that followed was not only pressing, but ominous too. A sign that my honesty had been too much, too soon, too inappropriate. I wished to take back what I had said, but there was hardly a proper way to do it. I felt Bella wilting away under my arm.
"I don't need other options," she said, visibly upset. "I have made up my mind already."
"You're only seventeen."
"As if being older would somehow change what I want. Or, more importantly,whoI want."
"There are better,saferoptions, Bella. Trust me."
"Do you really believe that, or is it your way of telling me I'm just not enough for you?"
Taken aback, I didn't know what to say. As usual, she had it all backwards when it came to what I felt for her. She couldn't comprehend the magnitude of my love, how all-consuming and never-ending it was. Yet again, her insecurities were creeping back to the surface, mocking all of my past efforts to banish them for good.
"That's not what I meant, not even, close," I said in the end. "I'm sorry, but you've got it all wrong, love. You are all I want, all I need, there's no—"
"Save it, you've made your point."
I didn't get to focus my attention on the movie at all that night, mostly because Bella didn't quite recover from the blow of our argument, and having a front row to her pain—pain thatIhad caused—was taking up all of my attention. It made me aware, yet again, that my plans of leaving were going to cause her a great deal of trouble. Even later on, when our lips moved together before she fell asleep, there was a hesitancy covering her usual enthusiasm, a hesitancy that sent chills down my spine. I consoled myself with the idea that maybe she suspected a break-up was imminent, but it didn't help much.
Nothing helped when I knew I was about to lose her—my entire world. But I had to lose her if I wanted to save her. If I wanted to keep her safe, where the claws of my demons could never reach again, there was no alternative.
For the longest time, I believed I had come to a certain closure with all of these musings. Not the kind of closure that ended the need to mourn, but the kind that allowed me to understand that the right decision could hurt worse than being thrown into the cauldrons of Hell, and there was nothing I could do about it. But after slithering my way back into Bella's life, even for a few fleeting moments, I realized how surface-level my closure was.
Deep down, I was still an ugly tangle of regrets, pain and 'what if's.
Now, more than ever, I couldn't keep myself from wondering what would have been if I had found Bella's letter in time. Would I have caved, crawling back to her and begging for forgiveness? Knowing myself, most likely. I hated Alice for keeping me in the dark, but I also didn't. Because by not telling me about the letter, she had done me the greatest favour—she allowed me to let Bella fall in love again without interfering.
It was too late to change anything, which was oddly reassuring, because it prevented me from being too reckless. However, it wasn't enough for me.
Because the longer I stared at the letter in front of my eyes, the more I understood Istillcouldn't leave. The money accompanying the letter was of no use to me, and knowing the bills belonged to Bella made me feel uneasy, as if I had stolen directly from her. I had no right to own those bills, especially when she needed the money more than I ever could.
Frighteningly quickly, my mind had already decided the next step, having rationalized all the possible outcomes. The conclusion was clear.
I wasn't leaving. Not just yet.
Bella was going to get her money back, even if it was the last thing I did for her.
If there was a God above, he was probably shaking his head in disappointment over my actions on an hourly basis. But neither him nor my family could stop me from going through with my plans. I had a new mission now, and I had to accomplish it the right way.
I would hand the money back to Bella face to face, as soon as I would get the chance to do so. I had already done the unthinkable by showing myself to her in the woods, which meant that some damage control couldn't hurt. If I had one more chance—onelastchance—to make amends with her, maybe the pressing feeling of having left unfinished business behind wouldn't bother me so much.
As the shadows of the evening fell over Forks, I found myself hiding between the branches of the tree in front of the Swan house once more. With the curtains of the bedroom closed, there was no chance of peeking inside, but I could still hear everything. Jacob was cooking dinner—something with a lot of tomatoes, going by the smell—with Bella instructing him what to do in the background.
"I used to take this for granted, you know, Bells? You made it look so easy."
"Itiseasy."
"Look, all I'm saying is I'm counting the days until your ankle gets better."
She laughed a nervous laugh, and I couldn't prevent myself from rolling my eyes at the objectively bad joke. As if Bella needed pressure when recovering. I wished to get a direct look inside the kitchen, to at least see with my own eyes that she was no longer hurting from her accident.
More than that, I ached to know what it was that she told Jacob. He didn't seem mad, and I was willing to bet he wouldn't have been in such a cheery mood had he known I stepped foot inside their home earlier today. He had never been my biggest fan, so it wasn't entirely crazy to assume my barging in wouldn't be a well-received gesture.
"It serves you right for placing that cupboard so freaking high," she retorted, once her nervous chuckle faded.
"I figured I'd always be around when you need something from it."
And there went the answer to my curiosity. For whatever reason, Bella didn't share what actually happened with Jacob. Naturally, a story in which she tripped and fell while trying to get something from a cupboard that was placed too high up sounded credible, and it had the absolute advantage of not having to reveal anything about my absurd return. I couldn't blame her for going down a lying path, but the weight of knowingIhad led her towards it was crushing.
She wouldn't have had to be dishonest if it weren't for me.
"Anyway, I'll just be more careful next time," she replied. "It's not that big of a deal anyway. I mean… I can walk. Kind of."
"If you say so."
"I can," she insisted. "Just wait and see me on Monday."
"Don't be ridiculous, you're not going to work."
"I am. I have no more sick days left and I can't afford to skip one day. Especially now that the bathroom pipes are broken again. We need to have them fixed."
"Yeah, but I've got some good orders in line. You know, McCleary next week, then Port Angeles, Bellevue… Maybe Seattle too, if all goes right in Bellevue."
"I know, Jake. But it's my responsibility too. So I'm going."
He didn't contradict her further, and their conversation soon shifted. He did most of the talking, with Bella intervening every once in a while. She struck me as uncharacteristically non-talkative, and I wasn't sure if it was the result of guilt pressing down her shoulders for having lied to Jacob, or if she was simply having a bad day. I felt terribly inclined to find a way to console her, but I didn't know how to do it—not to mention that it was none of my business anyway.
Still, selfishly, I pictured myself setting up the DVD player in her living room, putting on her favourite rendition ofWuthering Heights, bringing her a steaming cup of hot chocolate, and taking her in my arms, until her worries softened and her mind was at ease again. It was a small thing, but once upon a time, it used to make her happy. These days, it probably would have freaked her out, to say the least.
As the evening stretched further, things got quieter, as Jacob chose to watch a soccer game with a bottle of wine to keep him company, and Bella headed to the bedroom, telling him she was tired and needed to sleep. He didn't believe her, but he didn't care enough to fight her either, not when her ankle was hurt. I didn't know what to make of their dynamic—particularly ifshewas pleased with it since Jacob didn't exactly seem to mind—but something about it gave me pause. It was almost as if they were too tired to get closer; although I knew for a fact, considering Jacob's loud thoughts, that he very much craved the physical closeness.
I didn't allow myself to get hopeful over that, reminding myself of the ever-changing nature of human relationships. What I was witnessing now was probably nothing more than a result of that. A temporary shift, that was subject to change—hopefully for the better—at any given point.
With yet another made-up conclusion to keep me in check, I kept listening. Bella's steps—their usual pace a little off-beat as she persistently ignored her injury—wandered around the hallway, until the door of the bedroom opened and she stepped inside. With the curtains closed, Bella was out of my sight, and maybe that was for the better. There was, however, one problem; now that she was so close to my hiding spot, her perilous perfume was also closer. The thick walls did a great job suppressing it somewhat, but it wasn't nearly enough to temper my thirst.
My throat throbbed with cursed desire, and I could do nothing but accept it.
One particular step made the floor creak under Bella's feet, triggering a memory I hoped I had managed to suppress. But the very fabric of my being made it impossible to forget such things. There was no erasing the hopelessness I felt when, not long after Bella's failed birthday party, I hid the proof that I was ever part of her life under the one floorboard that had always been a little wonky. It had been a childish attempt to leave a part of myself behind, safe with her, despite promising her the very opposite. I wondered if she ever stumbled upon the small treasure under her floor—and if she did, what did she do with it? Did she throw it away? Did she burn it? Or maybe she was never aware that the pictures, the expired plane tickets, and the CD had always been right there.
I heard the scraping of a chair, and then the softer sound of her body making itself comfortable in that chair. Then, a small drawer opening, papers rustling, and Bella sighing. Not quite understanding what was happening, I almost longed for Jacob to be there too so that I could watch her through his eyes at the very least. But he was busy watching the soccer game and texting his friends, not really wondering what she was doing.
So between her sighing every once in a while and the less ominous noise of paper, I felt trapped. I wanted to know more, to understand what was the reason behind her defeated breaths, but the constant awareness that I was not privy to such knowledge—not anymore, at least—was always there, lurking, keeping me in my rightful place.
It took her an entire half an hour to leave her desk and finally go to sleep. However, I still remembered the pattern of her sleeping breaths, and it was nowhere close to what I was hearing. The calm regularity was missing, and my ego wondered if I was partly to blame for her mood. After all, she had a seemingly restful sleep the night before I bulldozed my way back into her life. Lord knew that ifIcould sleep, all of my nightly thoughts would begin and end with her.
No, no, no.
I had to stop indulging myself like this. Thinking that she still cared about me in any capacity was going to destroy me—and it was going to be my fault alone, no one else's. Just becauseIwas designed to be unable to move on didn't mean that she was too.
Hell, shedidmove on. She was getting married to a man who was soon going to wrap his arms around her.
A man who, for the time being, was still mindlessly watching the game, not even faintly aware ofhisfiancée's restless attempts to sleep. A shiver traveled down my spine as soon as I allowed myself to think of Bella like that; the word itself made her even more unreachable, our ill-fated history together even further away than it was moments ago.
She didn't get a lot of rest that night. But then again, neither did I.
Things got progressively worse as the night melted all around me. Once Jacob got into bed with Bella, I was instantly aware of how pleased with her warmth he was, how crazy it drove him to grab her hips and pull her ass towards him, so that he could press the excitement in his pants against her. She didn't react, which only got him to reach for more, feeling encouraged. He was getting fired up as he slid one hand over her shirt, skipping her waist and heading straight for her breasts, marveling at their softness.
I felt my insides getting colder than the core of an iceberg.
"Jake…" Bella's voice was groggy, and I surmised that she must have managed to fall asleep not long before he woke her up. "Hmmm… What are you doing?"
"I'm just getting cozy, honey."
"You've got to stop doing that," she mumbled, sounding a little incoherent.
"What?"
"You know… touching me in my sleep… it's…" A small yawn interrupted her already muddled speech. "Not cool."
"Not a damn chance. It was worth a shot though. One of these days we'll get somewhere." Jacob's thoughts were getting repetitive, and I was surprised to discover not only that my hands were tightened into fists, but my instincts were also itching to send him to sleep with a punch. Because sure, I could deal with him being intimate with her; such things were to be expected, regardless of how my heart was breaking as a result. But to witness the way he tried to force himself on her?
That was a blasphemy worth an excruciating punishment.
I didn't relax, not even when Jacob begrudgingly turned away from her and fell asleep, and especially not when, later on, she started sobbing quietly, not quite managing to succumb to the oblivion of sleep again.
I couldn't, for the life of me, understand what kind of chaos I had walked into. When I made my decision to return to Forks, I made it promising myself that it was only a way for me to see Bella's happiness with my own eyes from afar, to witness a version of her that had truly moved on after I ruined the very concept offirst lovefor her. But so far, I had been witness to a strange mass of irritation, frustration, and bad luck, that did nothing to assure me that she was, in fact, pleased with her life. Even worse, I had failed to deliver on my promise of staying far away from her, and it took me less than twenty-four hours to do so.
And now, I was hiding in the tree by her house, with her letter tucked safely in the inner pocket of my jacket, pressing against my chest, and her money stuffed in my wallet, waiting to be returned to her. I was nothing but a sad caricature of a man, that was worth nothing. Not even pity.
The only thing that made me move was the inevitable daylight looming in—this time, the morning didn't bring another deluge of clouds. The air was pleasantly warm, announcing a sunrise that would surely not be disguised by the omen of bad weather. I would have despised it for the way it forced me to leave my branch behind and head to my car if I didn't know how happy Bella was going to be upon waking up and realizing there were almost no clouds in sight.
The morning sun was starting to paint the sky a pearlescent blue by the time I passed the bridge over the Calawah River. I wasn't incredibly enthusiastic about the prospect of heading back to the place I once called home, but I had nowhere else to go. A seemingly endless day of waiting stretched ahead of me, with nothing to fill its nothingness. I couldn't return to Bella's house while the sun was up in the sky. And maybe staying away after sunset wasn't a bad idea either. I had already stepped too close to something I was never supposed to see, all for the sake of satisfying a self-serving curiosity at the expense of Bella's intimacy.
In a way, I wasn't that much better than Jacob was when he touched her against her will. I was also an intruder—but my encroaching was different, slyer, harder to evade, which made it noticeably more perverse.
The only good thing about it was that it wasn't going to last much longer. Ihadto leave again.
The profound emptiness of the old house hit me again, as soon as I went past its threshold. Between last night and this morning, no one had taken advantage of the broken-down door I left behind. It wasn't like breaking and entering had ever been a problem in Forks, but I could imagine Esme's disapproving glance over knowing the damage I had caused to her beloved house.
At least I had a purpose for today, after all.
I looked around, feeling responsible for the barren walls and the desolate floor and picturing everything that was missing in this place. I could still see my parents playing chess in their corner. Jasper and Alice were also there, in the emptiness, having wordless conversations with their eyes. The sound of Rosalie playing the piano was filling the silence, while Emmett marveled at her with childlike innocence.
And in the middle of this spectacle of memories, I was utterly alone, my wounds bleeding with ghosts of what once was.
A pang of nostalgia almost got me to turn my phone back on. However, I knew all too well what awaited me if I did. I hated being at the centre of their attention, even if their intentions were anything but malicious. For a long time, my family understood my need for solitude. They even respected it to the best of their abilities. So why did it have to be different now, as if simply being in Forks made me unable to operate properly? I was a functional wreck before, things had not changed much in this regard. Their pestering wasn't going to make things better, only worse if they kept at it.
Begrudgingly, I left the house just as quickly as I had arrived. An hour and a trip to the hardware store later, I was back with a new set of door hinges, a chisel, a hammer, a drill, a box of screws, and a new lock.
The day passed slowly, flowing in solid, bulky waves, as I repaired the door and replaced the old lock with a new one. It was admittedly more interesting than what I had been doing for the better part of the last two years, but it still didn't get my mind off why I was even here. My brain was still very much filled with thoughts of Bella—was her ankle better? Were the events of last night still upsetting her? Did she smile when she woke up and saw the sun's warm light filtering through the curtains?
Unsurprisingly, submerging myself into her world again only made my inquisitiveness soar. Knowing the vague outline of her life was no longer enough, now I needed to absorb every minute detail. Much like an addict needing a little more each time he had a dose of his favourite drug, I was getting hooked, hopelessly so—and it had taken me frighteningly little to get there.
I promised myself, time and time again, that I would keep away from her, at least for tonight, if only to get a proper grip on my emotions. I needed to be somewhat in control if I wanted to face her tomorrow and give her money back without losing myself. But the self-imposed withdrawal had a much more commanding hold on me than my reason had.
Staying away, while knowing she was so close, so easy to reach, was a torture I was not sure I could endure for long. It was much easier to keep the distance when I was wasting my days thousands of miles away from her—at least then I could use those miles as an excuse meant to reinforce my good intentions and be a better version of myself.
But not in Forks. Here, I felt a dangerous pull to be the precise type of monster I had tried not to be for so long.
So when the night fell, I was back in my tree, the spineless stalker that I was.
Bella's sleep didn't sound particularly restful tonight either. She tossed and turned by Jacob's side, and I inferred that she was stuck somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. She only started to calm down two hours before dawn, but her irregular breaths made me fear that she was dealing with some kind of nightmare. I longed to wake her up from whatever it was that haunted her and sing her back to a more peaceful sleep, where the trials of the night could not reach her.
The morning came with a delicate blast of rain that made the summer air more fragrant. Bella was the first to wake up, upon hearing her alarm ring. Jacob followed soon after, and I instantly understood why—in my absence, they had reached an agreement for him to drive her to work while her ankle recovered completely.
By the time they got in her truck, I was already making my way down the street, heading back to my car through the thin layer of rain. I had no foolproof plan for what was going to come next—all I knew was that Ihadto get to her and give back what was hers.
I waited an appropriate amount of time before setting off—the last thing I needed was to accidentally come across the two of them together and create any kind of trouble for her. Sure, she had every right to tell Jacob about my temporary return, but it was her call to make, not mine. And since he was still unaware of what actually happened on Saturday, while he was gone, I figured that Bella had her reasons for remaining quiet.
More than an hour had passed since the opening hour of Gossamer Grove when I finally parked my car on the other side of the road. Had my body been anything other than an annoyingly inhuman prison, my hands would have been shaking right now. The anticipation was searing, almost exquisite in the way it worked to bring every feeling alive. If anything, it was a surprisingly welcome change from the bleak nothingness I was used to.
But it was also a symptom of my selfish ways. Icouldjust leave the money on her desk when she had to take a bathroom break, then disappear. But I craved one more—really, justonemore—interaction with her. I wouldn't cross any boundaries. I knew how to behave if I absolutely had to.
With a new burst of courage in my veins, I stepped out of my car, into the humid warmth of June, and jaywalked straight across the empty street, too exuberant to care about human laws. I stopped for a brief moment in front of the door, to observe her from the outside once more. Just a few feet away from the books stacked behind the front window, Bella sat at her desk, going back and forth between reading a book whose title was obscured by her dainty fingers and clicking the mouse of her computer, frowning.
She was absorbed in a world of her own, and I was completely absorbed by her. From where I was standing, her scent was as appetizing as ever, but still kept under wraps by the enclosed space—enough for me to think with something other than my ardent desire to devour the blood pulsing in her veins.
I can just leave now, I thought to myself. I still had time. It wasn't too late to backtrack.
But the hazard seemed to share my idiotic wants because immediately after, a thunder boomed from far away. I didn't even expect her to hear it, but her eyes flew up from her book without hesitancy, as soon as the sound ended, and instantly met my gaze. She gasped, jumping up from her seat, and I heard the crunchy noise of her book falling on the floor.
"f*ck," she whispered, disappearing under her desk to retrieve her book, before resurfacing with it in her hands and placing it face down on her desk.
Brilliant. Making my entrance with a jump scare.
I pushed the door aside and walked inside, already feeling like an ass.
"Hello," I said, stepping forward with care. Inside, all scents perished, but one. The lignin of the old books was nothing compared to the delicious-smelling aura of Bella. It was like the air had been imbued with her molecules, the nitrogen and oxygen successfully replaced with candied lavender. "I apologize if I startled you."
"Hi." She sounded just a little out of breath and her heart fluttered like the wings of a Colibri bird—which was to be expected, considering her peace had just been disrupted out of nowhere. "It's fine. I'm fine. Wow, I just… I didn't expect to see you here or… well, anywhere, really. Especially after you left so abruptly the other day."
It sounded like an accusation. A completely plausible accusation, to be fair.
"I'm sorry," I apologized once more. "I was in a hurry that day. How is your ankle anyway?"
"B-better, I guess. I can walk." Another step, and we were face to face at long last, only the desk separating us. The chocolate in her eyes was deep and melting, complimenting the rosiness of her cheeks in a comforting way. As always, she was beautiful. It hurt to know she could never be mine again. So lost in perusing her face, I had missed the fact that I was supposed to say something in return. Bella used my silence as a way to voice her own question. "How did you know I work here?"
I shrugged, composing a good enough excuse. "It's a small town, Bella. It's not exactly difficult to find out."
"Right. Of course."
"Am I interrupting something?"
She looked to the side, to the computer monitor, and I noticed, from an angle, that a game of Solitaire awaited on the screen. "Not really. Hardly anyone comes here, anyway."
"People have other means of distracting themselves these days."
Bella nodded and looked down, her fingers fidgeting on the back cover of her book. I saw her engagement ring yet again, and I had to look away when the sight began to hurt too much. "What are you reading?" I asked, unsure of how to further the conversation without stepping on a landmine. Asking her about books sounded like a safe bet.
She seemed puzzled for a moment, but she recovered quickly. "The Book Thief. Have you read it?"
I felt too ashamed to admit not only that I hadn't, but also that I had not been reading anything else since we broke up. Escaping to other worlds seemed pointless when I had no world worth returning to. "I haven't," I confessed, already making a mental note to break my new, bad habit of ignoring books and check this one.
"You should. It's really good."
"I'll keep that in mind," I promised, meaning it. At this point, any little thing I could get that could bless me with a glimpse of her, I was willing to get. Getting to read a book she enjoyed was more than I could wish for right now.
"Actually, I have a few copies around here," she stated, waving around with clumsy, abrupt movements that sent her perfume spiraling my way. My jaw clenched instantly. "I can get you one."
"Don't I need a library card for that?"
"Yes, but don't worry, I can use mine."
Before I could argue, she was already walking away from her desk, heading to one of the many shelves surrounding us, and I was surprised that she wasn't limping. I consciously avoided marveling at the sway of her hips, which in turn only made it easier to obsess over her delectable smell.
Perhaps I had chosen the wrong battle.
She grabbed a heavy-looking book and returned to the desk, handing it to me before sitting back on the chair. I studied the domino pieces on the cover, trying to understand their meaning. Even if she had not held the book for longer than half a minute in her hands, the warmth in her palms still lingered on the cover. Greedily, I traced my fingers all over that warmth, trying to soak up its remnants.
"You didn't have to do this, but thank you," I said, more touched by her gesture than I was letting on.
A smile started to bloom in the corners of her lips, but it perished quickly. "It's nothing. Although you do have to return it in three weeks maximum."
"That won't be a problem", I assured her. My caresses turned the cover cold after a while, ruining the heat that Bella had left behind. I missed it already. Disheartened, I placed the book on the desk, reminding myself that my visit had another purpose. I reached for my wallet. "But to be honest with you, I'm not here for books. I wanted to give you something."
"Oh." I was willing to bet she had no idea what I meant. And maybe I was right, at least at first. But as soon as she saw me taking out the ruffled three one-hundred-dollar bills from my wallet, she turned completely pale. "Wait, that's not—"
"It's yours," I rushed in, not allowing her to finish. "I wanted to give your money back."
I stretched my arm forward, handing her the bills, but she didn't react. She just stared at me with unnervingly wide eyes, not even gazing at the money. Dismayed, but not willing to back down, I placed the bills directly on the desk.
"I can't take this," she whispered.
Adamant to give her what was rightfully hers, I pushed the bills closer to where her hands were resting. "Please," I insisted. "I've got no use for it anyway."
More moments passed slowly—too slowly—until she talked again. "When did you find it?"
"A few days ago, when I arrived at the house."
"Oh." I could almost taste the panic in the air, going by the way her heart started pumping the blood quicker. "That means… you found… um, the other thing as well."
It wasn't just that I had found it. I had also been reading it obsessively since then, fully knowing its meaning was expired. But I couldn't admit to that.
"Yes, I did, but don't worry about it," I said, hoping she would believe me. "It was a long time ago, you owe me no explanations."
"I know. Of course, I know." Bella appeared to sink in her chair a little. Her previous paleness started to diminish, as colour returned to her cheeks. My less honourable yearning started to pulse at the sight of blood rushing to paint her skin. "I just wanted to say that I was in a really bad headspace when I wrote that thing. My parents had just died and… I don't know. I was grasping at straws, although I should have known better."
Upon hearing the well-disguised sorrow in her voice, I felt guilty. It was always going to haunt me—the fact that I had not reached Victoria in time, way before she got so close to Bella and her family. If I could erase one memory, it was this one. But then again, I deserved to live with the guilt. "I've heard about your loss. I'm truly sorry, Bella."
"Thank you." A shade of grief flashed across the face, but she blinked fast, chasing it away. "But that's not the point."
"Then what is?"
"Well, to put it simply, can you forget I ever wrote it?"
It would have been more feasible to promise her the moon above. If I had it my way, I would have addressed every minute detail of her letter, down to the most upsetting part.
These words were haunting to the extreme:I only regret not being enough, not being worth keeping. How was I supposed to tell her that it wasn't her that wasn't enough? It wasn't her that wasn't worth keeping? It had always been me.
I hated the fact that I had to be dishonest, but between the appalling truth and an acceptable lie, I knew what was better. "It's already forgotten."
A sigh of relief escaped her lips, right before she talked again. "Thank you. I mean I don't want things to be weird or anything, since you know…"
"Since you're getting married," I completed her sentence, nodding in the direction of her hand. Not just because she seemed to be slightly uncomfortable having to say it out loud herself, but also because I needed to reinforce that information into my brain andreallyget used to it. "I didn't get to say this last time, but congratulations on your engagement."
It was a new level of pain to utter these words to her. It made the crushing reality sink in deeper—even more so than when I saw her with Jacob. She looked down at her ring. "Yes. Thank you. It's… a rather recent thing."
"When is the big day?"
"We haven't set a date yet."
I nodded, having no clue what to say next. Silence fell upon us, filling me with all kinds of fears and the aching need to know what Bella was thinking—if she wanted me to disappear already, or if she could tell how this interaction was laying waste on me the longer it stretched. It was getting difficult to keep looking at her, because the more I did it, the more I was reminded of everything I had lost. The only thing that hurt worse was the certitude that it would never get any easier.
My heart would always be stuck on Bella, wired to never find any solace.
"You know, I didn't get to say much last time either," she murmured, momentarily hitting pause on my mental restlessness. "I wanted to ask how long you were going to stay in town, but then you left."
"It's something temporary," I assured her—that much I knew, at least.
"And if you had to be more specific?"
A smarter man would have had an answer to this question long before coming here. Clearly, I was anything but. However, the pressure was on, and I didn't want her to see how unprepared I was. My answer was hardly well thought out. "A few weeks or so."
Did I imagine it, or had there been a glimmer in her eyes?
"That's good," she stated. "That's… really good."
I wasn't sure if she was mocking me or truly meant it. "I suppose."
"No, it really is. Because at least there is some time to catch up."
If there had ever been a time when I questioned my hearing, it was right about now. "To catch up?"
"Yes, catch up—you know, like…like old friends do," Bella clarified.
I chuckled bitterly, imagining the unlikely scenario she had just proposed. What would I even tell her, if we were to sit down and talk about our lives? That I had been haunting people's attics for the better part of our separation? That I had become a walking ruin? That I loved her even more than when I left? I knew how she had a tendency to place the blame on herself, regardless of who was actually in the wrong, so it probably wouldn't take her long to feel responsible for my state. She wouldn't understand that it was my doing—my stubborn hunger to pursue something that could never be—that had led me in the state that I was, not hers.
Not to mention the sure-fire gossip that would ensue if someone saw us together for an extended period of time.
Besides, thinking about us as old friends was certainly not something I had ever done. Because to me, there was no erasing the loving bonds that had once tied me to her. We had always been friends, yes. But we had also been infinitely more than that. In the absence of her love, I wasn't quite sure what we were to each other.
"I don't know about that," I replied, still a little amused by her idea.
"You're too busy or what?"
"No, it's not that. But I don't want to put you into a questionable position."
"What? That's ridiculous, you wouldn't."
"Not intentionally, but… people talk." I didn't add more, hoping that she could understand what I wasn't saying out loud. She had to know that in a town like Forks, it didn't take an awful lot for rumours to spread.
"Of course, but that's because they don't know any better. Besides, it's not like I have people spying on me in my own home."
I tried to hide the shock on my face. More than likely, I failed. "Your home," I repeated, completely perplexed by the possibility.
"Yes. You can come by again."
Her proposition had no right to be this tempting. I didn't have enough weapons to fight against the desire it stirred in me, but I tried anyway. "I'm not sure your fiancé would appreciate this." I pushed further, even though I knew the answer to the question already. "Does he even know I'm in town?"
"I didn't get to tell him yet." She made it sound trivial almost. As if the way she had been lying to him for the past few days was nothing. Was it nothing to her, or had she simply got better at playing pretend while I was away? I inhaled deeply, feeling at a loss, and the impossible strength of her scent reached me again, luring me to lose myself. To lean across the table, pull the long curtain of hair away from Bella's neck and take one single, perfectbite.
That fantasy was too much to bear for my severely beaten senses. It was starting to ruin my already weak defenses, almost getting me to consider her invitation. I had shattered several barriers of common sense by now, one more couldn't make that much of a difference, even more so now, when she was openly inviting me in.
"Maybe he should know," I found myself saying out loud. "IfI were to come over, that is."
"Yes, although… he'll be gone this Wednesday. He's a traveling mechanic, and he's got a client in McCleary he's got to tend to."
"Even more reason for him to know about potential visitors."
"Not necessarily. Catching up with old friends is not a sin."
God help me. I was digging my own grave and she was happily giving me more shovels so that I could dig deeper, better, faster. I longed for my reason to come up with something convincing, something that would force me to sayno. But having Bella so close, while being wrapped in the irresistible blanket of her scent, was far more convincing.
"Is that what we are?" I found myself asking out loud.
"Certainly."
She seemed so sure of herself, so confident. More proof that she was over our dead liaison. I envied her human capacity to move on. Selfishly, I wished I had it too. masoch*stically, I was glad I didn't.
My voice was low when I talked again, even though no one else but her was around to hear my damning inquiry. "Are you sure you want me to come over?"
"I am. So… Wednesday, sometime after eight?"
I could have melted under the torrid intensity of her irises. "After eight it is," I agreed, delightfully inveigled. "I'll be there."
A hint of a smile played on her lips yet again, and this time it lingered. I returned it, a little incredulous at my sudden good fortune. After the heartbreak I had caused her, I expected many things upon my return, and none of them involved the cordiality and lack of anger she was showing me. She had never been particularly vengeful, so I should not have been surprised by the influx of friendliness.
"I'll be waiting for you," she offered back, and the sound of her accelerating heartbeat did not escape me. I wondered if the prospect of being alone with me scared her, considering it had been a while since she last had to worry about supernatural menaces of any kind—hence the crazy throbbing in her chest.
I prayed it didn't.
Later on, while I was walking out of the library with the book she gave me in my hands, I could swear I had a pulse too.
So much for staying away :)...
What were your thoughts on the interaction between Edward and Bella, now that he gathered the courage to have an actual conversation with her? Did you expect her to invite him over?
I am SO excited to read your thoughts on this chapter!
Until next Sunday, stay safe and happy!
