You and Me part 2 (Twilight: Bella/Edward)
You and Me
also on FFn | The Writers Coffee Shop Library and Twilighted
Summary - A tale of two who were, and weren't, and are.
Length - 4k ish
Warnings - le full of le angst, no really. AH
After MUCH cajoling about where I left this (GLARES AT KIYA AND WEARINGWORDS AND NERAC AND LISALOVE83 AND JAIMEARKEN) and Edward Part II was born...
DISCLAIMER: SM owns the recognizable's, and my beloved KiyaRaven and Wearingwords and LightStarDust own me. (and just quietly, I've been watching a TON of Friday Night Lights... and this Edward may have a LOT to do with Tim Riggins - oh Taylor Kitsch I heart thee)
Part One here
Me and You
"This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."
"Goodbye, Edward."
The words were the sound of the heart I hadn't thought I had breaking apart.
"Goodbye, Edward."
And like that, she was gone.
#8#
A knock on the windscreen startled me out of a sleep I hadn't realized I'd fallen into. I blinked and tried to focus my eyes, still blurred and itchy from exhaustion.
"Son?"
A familiar yet, different umber stare from a life-worn face gazed in at me through the dew-covered window. His mustache twitched.
"Son, I think it'd be best if you moved along. Two weeks of sitting here ain't helping anyone."
Two weeks? It felt like two years.
I blinked and sorted through the jumble of reasons and words I wanted and needed to say. Before I had struck upon one to use, the click of his tongue against white teeth-too perfect to be real-stopped me.
"She's moved on, kid. So should you."
#8#
"Stop calling here. I'm not going to tell you anything, Edward."
I was getting far too used to her slamming down the phone.
#8#
"This is excessive even for you, Cullen."
I shrugged and placed a bottle of Jack on top of the case of beer I'd already lugged onto the counter.
"Did I hear that your girl left-"
I cut him off with the hard slap of my hand, filled with money I couldn't afford to spend, onto the cracked wooden surface.
"Keep the change."
#8#
The world was spinning. The world was spinning and it shouldn't have been a bad thing because I hadn't felt anything in so long. I didn't want to feel. Not when the last time I'd actually felt, it had only been a part of me breaking that I hadn't known still worked.
I let my hand drop to the side of the couch, feeling my way over empty cans and bottles that jostled together noisily until I found one that echoed a sloshing sound when I shook it.
I swallowed and swallowed, ignoring the way some of it dribbled down my jaw and pooled in the hollow of my throat. There was no burn, no satisfying warmth when the liquid hit my stomach. There was nothing; I was nothing.
#8#
It was the coldest winter on record for fifty years, yet it still felt warm to me.
#8#
I heard her. I didn't know when it started, but it did; she became the whisper of a chill that curled around my body. Her laugh-something far too loud for someone her size-echoed from the kitchen. Her soft sigh when I'd said something obtuse (which was far too often). Her deep, hoarse moans when I'd touched her just right.
I saw her everywhere and nowhere. I saw her when my eyes were closed. I saw her when they were open, gritty and aching.
I saw her walking from my bedroom to the front door. I saw her stumbling because she'd just been fucked seven ways from Sunday and her balance was off. I saw her wiping a tear from her cheek because I'd been a bigger ass than usual. I saw her fuming, hands clenched into tight fists because I'd opened my mouth one too many times about things that should have been left in the past.
A past we shared. A present we'd had. A future we had no longer.
I got up and cleaned.
#8#
So close, so close!
My hand shifted up and down my aching dick, my eyes squeezed tight and I could almost pretend that she was above me and meeting me thrust for thrust. I could feel her warm breath on my neck, on that place she knew made me groan. I could hear her stilted sighs and the grunts she'd refused to acknowledge she made in the bedroom.
When I came, I didn't feel anything but sticky and hot. There was no perfect release for me. Not when I was lost in this hell hole.
#8#
"What makes you think you'd be good for this position?"
I stared a beat too long and his brow lifted just the tiniest bit. He was thinking he was better than me. He was thinking that the hit I took in college -a too-high tackle that caused swelling in my brain and eventually left me with short term memory loss - meant that I was simple and didn't understand.
It was fucking flipping burgers.
My stare turned into something malevolent and the metal chair fell to the floor just a shade quieter than the bang of the hurriedly slammed door.
"Hey, Cullen. Long time no see-"
I glared at him too, paid for my vodka and left.
#8#
It was a good/bad day.
Good: in my drunken haze I smelled her on my skin. She was tangerine and chocolate.
Bad: the fruit had since gone sour and the flavor was bittersweet.
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I think the cat misses you.
#8#
"You're a fucking drunk."
…
"Will you take a look at yourself, Edward? You're wasting your fucking life and all of this over what? That girl?"
…
"Look, the only reason I came was because Mom was worried. Mrs. Cope has been looking after your cat because she thought you had died in here, Edward. The town's fucking cat lady thought you were dead."
…
"You're a selfish son of a bitch. No wonder she finally grew some cahones and left your sorry ass. You treated Bella like sh-"
"Get the fuck out."
"It speaks!"
"Leave. Leave now, Emmett, or I swear to you-"
"You swear what, little brother? You coul--I see your aim is still shit. That bottle missed me by a country mile."
"GET. OUT."
#8#
I ran my hand over my face, my jaw nearly indistinguishable under the layers of growth that covered my cheek. I forced my eyelids to open, ignoring the way the orange glow of a dawn or dusk felt like someone was shining a small torch into my skull. I didn't wonder what day it was. I didn't even care about what season it was anymore.
All I knew was that everything I touched turned to shit. Nothing was worth fighting for.
#8#
I ate. I drank. I passed into unconsciousness. I woke. I drank. I filled my body with the least amount of fuel it needed. I fell into darkness once more.
#8#
There was a hollow in my chest that I couldn't ignore. It pulsed with every breath I took. It ached even as I slumbered. It burned when I walked into my room just to find clean clothes before returning to the couch. There were too many echoes of her and us in that room.
One particularly lucid night (I'd run out of mind-numbing liquids and it was too late to buy more) I curled myself up in the sheets where we'd lain; the bed that had been more than just a place for push and pull and moan. I'd watched her come apart with me. I'd watched her walls crumble as she'd fallen in too deep. I'd watched her indifference turn to like and then to something that I'd thought we'd lost when we'd been much younger. I'd watched everything change between us and I'd let her believe she was the only one who'd felt it.
I deserved to be alone.
And she deserved more.
#8#
I'd grown to despise the cat and his need to be let out in the morning. I put in a cat door.
#8#
The house smelled of bleach and that weird shit they used to hide the scent of vomit in high school. My nostrils burned as I breathed in, but it was satisfying.
I will try this time.
I will.
#8#
"And you believe you'd be a great addition to our team, why?"
"I'm good with numbers. And it'd finally put my finance degree to good use."
"The pay's not that great. In fact, it's shit, but my Dad always thought you would have gone professional if it hadn't been for that hit. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to know we had the Edward Cullen working here."
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and shook the dickwad's hand, smiling like I was supposed to.
I walked past the liquor store that afternoon.
#8#
I sat at the bar and sipped my coke. Ben had been good to me tonight, not asking questions, not being chatty, pretty much just leaving me alone. It was fairly early on a Sunday, so the place was quiet.
Then Jacob Black walked in the front door.
I remembered to call in sick by Friday, but it was too late. I didn't have a job anymore.
#8#
** Outgoing Text**
Why did you have to fucking go?
#8#
"Is he awake yet?"
"The doctor said he should be coming around soon."
"I don't know if I can do this again, Emmett. My heart-"
"I know, Mom. I know. If he doesn't get his shit together after this, I may just kill him myself. Finish the job he's apparently doing half-assed, just like he's done with everything else in his sorry life."
I concentrated on the beep of the machines and felt much better drugs pull me back into the abyss, like the warm embrace of an old friend.
I didn't belong here anymore.
#8#
Apparently, I'd totalled my car.
Apparently, I'd been lucky no one else had been out at that time of night.
Apparently, I'd nearly given my mother a heart attack.
Apparently, they'd had trouble waking me out of the anaesthesia and they'd had been worried I wouldn't come back to the living at all.
Apparently, Alice had come to see me.
Apparently, she'd asked if I was alive. She.
I told myself this was the last time, that I'd never touch another drop.
I'd do it this time. For me.
#8#
"Edward, would you like to share at this time?"
I fixed him with a steel-eyed gaze until he cleared his throat uncomfortably and moved on.
I didn't want to be here. Not for the judge who'd taken away my license for being well over the legal limit. Not for my mother who'd threatened to disown me if I didn't come to my senses and at least try to live my life instead of throwing it all away. Not for my brother who'd told me he'd have nothing to do with me if I didn't clean myself up this time-a warning that I would have taken seriously if they hadn't been the same words he'd used when I'd first left college and found myself a friend in booze.
Not for me.
And definitely not for her.
#8#
My phone was ringing and I was ignoring it.
I ignored it today like I had done every day since I'd hung up on some reporter vying for a story on the 'downfall of the Edward Cullen.'
When I found my cell a few days later to order out for pizza, I noticed that all the calls had been from one number.
An unknown.
#8#
I begged Alice for her information. I pleaded with her to at least tell me where she was. The Mustache escorted me off the premises.
At least he might tell her I still cared. It had only been six long months.
#8#
Mrs. Cope looked at me with pity when I asked her to keep my cat.
#8#
I found myself sitting at our table in the diner more often than I should have. I found myself ordering the food we'd ordered back then, and yet I mostly pushed it all around. I just sat and stared out the window and wondered how I'd let it all go so wrong.
"You know she loved you." A voice aged with time and the help of endless cigarettes breaks into the past I find myself lost in. I sighed.
"She did, you know. And you loved her. I could tell back then and I can still tell now."
"It doesn't matter," I choked out. My throat was suddenly too tight, bands around my chest were squeezing and my eyes stung. The room felt far too small.
Her laughter was wet and filled with scorn. "It always matters, kid. It always does."
She left me alone with a slice of cherry pie, just like she always had when I'd eaten there more often than I'd eaten at home. The clink and clatter of plates and cutlery didn't stop me from tossing around her words. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was true back then, until the day all my lies unraveled and I broke the flimsy hold I'd had on all my secrets. Angela had laughed in my face when I'd apologized. She'd known all along. She'd thought it was fine, letting me 'sow my seeds' because I would come back to her. We were perfect, she'd said. She could 'let me' have my fun, as long as it stopped when we were married.
I'd turned and run.
I'd seen Angela around a few times. Her husband (a poor henpecked and slightly bowed man) always followed two steps behind her. She still smiled the same saccharine grin.
#8#
"Anything to share tod-"
"No."
#8#
I stood on the corner-under the same tree that I'd waited for her to sneak out after her curfew-and watched her window. The curtains were the same. The paint was peeling a little and I wondered for a moment why the Chief hadn't had anyone come around and fix it for him, like he used to do every summer.
I leaned back against the bark, enjoying the familiar feel of its roughness through my thin shirt. I remembered how great her ass looked in jeans as she'd shimmed her way down the drainpipe to the ground, and then to me. I lived for the moment she landed. She'd turn around, her dark hair tied back into its usual ponytail and she'd smile my smile, looking up at me through impossibly long lashes. She'd run the few steps to my side and I'd sweep her bangs behind her ears, just so I could see her eyes better.
I ran my fingers over my lips, the skin tingling with shadows of first kisses that had long turned cold.
The front door creaked as it always had and he nodded his head at me while taking out the garbage.
No words were spoken, but I felt as though I was forgiven for something I hadn't yet apologized for.
#8#
The vodka was on special. The bourbon wasn't too badly priced either. There was even a two-for-one on the rum that she'd preferred.
It took all my strength to turn around and walk back to my house. The trip was made even longer knowing that it was those exact thoughts that had left me without vehicular transport.
I'd never wanted a drink so much.
#8#
"Hi, my name is Edward and I'm an alcoholic. This is my 56th day sober and this is my first time speak…"
#8#
The way I came upon my job was strange.
I hadn't really worked much before, content to live off the inheritance a long-dead father had left me. I'd never thought much about my future, considering I hadn't really figured I'd have much of one at all. When football had been taken away from me, I'd completed my studies, but that had only been to keep on my mom's good side. When I'd moved back to town, it had been easy to find somewhere cheap to rent. It had been easy to fall back into habits that had worked so well during my teenage years.
Then I'd found out she was back in town, working at the same school where things had started for us, and it had felt right. Complete. Like all the pieces of the puzzle I'd lost myself staring at were suddenly shifting into place.
I'd thought I'd had it all. I'd thought I'd had my good times. I'd had a girl.
My girl.
Then a new ache in my chest and twist in my gut made me rethink it all. She'd let guys touch her at the bar. Our bar. She'd go home with them and I'd make sure to mark her the next time she was under me. I'd refused to believe it was jealousy. She'd never said anything when I'd kissed other girls, but I'd noticed how she'd be a little more aggressive slamming my door.
She hadn't known that I'd never taken any of them home either.
It had always been her.
My home, my bed, me.
Always hers.
Only hers.
When I pulled myself out from under my new Chevy I'd been working on, I was honestly surprised to see the Chief standing there. He'd asked me if I was busy. I licked my lips far too often to be normal. I'd never had a talk with her dad before. Sure we'd talked, but I wasn't sure a 'hello,' and 'I'll have her home by ten' really counted as anything more than polite conversation.
He wanted to know if I was any good at painting. The siding on his house really needed to be done. I asked why he didn't want a professional. His mustache twitched.
"Do you want the job or not?"
It took me two weeks to get one side of the small house done. He never said if he was happy with my job, but he did leave a pot of coffee for me every morning. When I was done with the painting, he left me a note about redoing the deck before the rain came in the fall.
It was about then he started bringing me dinner.
He didn't look at me when I asked him why. Why dinner? Why the job? Why me?
"You just loved her wrong."
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I know you don't get these. But it helps. It helps.
#8#
The reception I got when I walked into Black's store was confusing. I never expected his smile (albeit stiff). I never expected his hand or mine to shake. I never expected the apology to tumble from my lips, only to be stopped by a shake of his head.
"We were kids. We were stupid kids and I should have known better."
"But I-"
"You've said what you needed to say, Cullen. Let's leave well enough alone."
A few weeks later he drove past me as I stood waiting for the bus, his nod was more acceptance than I could have asked for.
#8#
My mother called and wished me a Merry Christmas. I hadn't even realized it was that time of year. She told me Emmett would come around and pick me up for dinner. That he and Rose had something to tell me that I'd want to hear.
I figured out their news on my own.
I saw her face when she'd thought we'd fucked up. I saw her face crumple when I'd had said nothing but a 'thank god' when it turned out she'd been wrong.
Just another moment to add to the list of ways I'd fucked us over. I had to wonder why it had taken her so long to let me go.
#8#
"You treated her like shit, you know. You made her cry more times than I care to count and I hate you. I hate you for making her feel like she had to leave here to get you out of her head. I hate that you pushed away my best friend and I'll never forgive you for that, Cullen."
At least she opened the door to scream at me this time.
#8#
Chief had me fixing the tap in the kitchen one particularly cold winter's morning. I knew it was something he could have done himself, but I didn't question why he asked until I saw the yellow legal pad with an address in Arizona underlined twice, lying on the counter.
For a week I did nothing.
#8#
"I'm sorry."
…
"I know it doesn't mean much. I know it's just a word, but I truly mean it, Mom. I'm sorry that I've put you through so much, not just in the past year but for so long before that. I know I've said and done things that have not only hurt you, but hurt our family and I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
…
"I don't expect your forgiveness, I just wanted you to know that I realize how my behavior has extended beyond hurting myself. I just-"
She hugged me so hard I swear I heard a bone crack.
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I'm coming, Bella. I'm coming.
#8#
She looked the same, but different.
A year could do a lot of things to a person.
Change a lot. Yet a lot stayed the same.
I hadn't felt this nervous since the day I'd sat down across from her at the diner when she'd been just a pretty sophomore and I'd been little more than the class clown.
On the drive here, I'd thought over and over about what I wanted to say. The words I could use. The way I would lay it all out. But now, standing only steps from her, I had nothing.
Her hair looked curlier, shinier even. It was glossy and fells in waves down her back. She had this red coat on that made the brown stand out all the more. She was laughing, putting her hand on his forearm as if she needed help to stand. My gut wrenched the same way - if not more - lit had back when I'd seen her pull a similar move at our bar. He was laughing too, this average looking guywith dirty blond curls. He was bumping her with his shoulder, and the way he stared at her… I didn't like it.
The old me with his anger issues would already have crossed the parking lot by now and would have had this guy out cold on the ground, a mix of his and my own blood spattering my shirt and fist. The old me would have whipped her away to somewhere half-private before taking her and taking her and making sure she knew that it was me and me alone that should make her smile like that. The old me would have ignored her eyes turning glassy with tears before shutting down completely and letting me do my worst. The old me would have gone home and punched a hole in the wall.
Fuck, I'd been such an asshole.
The new me took three deep breaths and waited for her to turn and notice me where I stood. The new me smiled when I saw her own grin drop for just a second before she turned to her companion and waved him off. The new me had to swallow down a swirl of emotions as I watched her hips sway side to side when she walked. The new me had shaking hands that I jammed into the pockets of my jacket when she stopped, leaving significant space between us.
"How did you find me?" she asked and I stared and stared at her, because she was more beautiful than memory had allowed.
The silence between us grew and filled like a balloon and I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as her gaze deepened from shock to something else. Something I didn't want to name because then it would be real and I would have to stop pretending that she might be happy to see me.
"I asked you a question."
I shook myself and swallowed hard before I answered. "Your dad, I've been working at your old house and he-"
"Charlie… of course," she muttered, her gaze breaking mine as her hand hovered over her purse, presumably where her phone was, with thoughts of the tongue-lashing she would be giving to her father after this.
"Bella-"
"Don't."
"I'm sorry."
She stared at me and I couldn't figure out what the look on her face was. I knew I'd said the words to her before. I'd thought they might have stopped her from leaving me, but I hadn't meant them as much as I did now.
Because now I knew how hard it was for her to go. I knew what it felt like to have lost her when I'd never realized I'd had her at all.
"Why are you here, Edward?" she asked with a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. There was a small sharp breeze from behind her; the scent of tangerines and chocolate was heavy in the air. I swayed from the smell alone. It reminded me all too much of my hallucinations of her, back when I'd been too drunk to discern what was real and what was not.
Maybe I'd never understood that concept too well.
"I needed... I wanted… I just..."
Jesus, it was so hard. It shouldn't have to be this hard.
"I love you. I came to tell you I love you and that I know the way I treated you was wrong. I know what we had was wrong in so many ways, but in among the lies and the hurt-because I know I hurt you, and you hurt me too--but in all of that, there was love, Bella. There was something. And I want that, I want that with you."
Her eyes were glassy and she was fiddling with a loose thread on the cuff of her coat. She hadn't said a word and that balloon of uncomfortable from before felt ready to pop.
"I don't, I don't know what else to say. I just... I needed to tell you that I'm sorry and that I've changed, and although it probably means nothing to you-I love you. I'll always love you and I just, I guess I thought you should know."
In my head, there was a constant running stream of taunts and I berated myself for how stupid I had been to think that anything could come of seeing her. That saying any of these words to her would mean anything.
"Oh."
She said one word, or it could have been a sigh. Just one little sound left her mouth, her lips reddened from the gale that was starting to build around us. It whipped her hair around her head, making the strands look almost violent as they lashed the cream of her skin. My fingers twitched to ease them from her eyes, and without realizing I had done it, I was there, touching the silken mess and her cheek… my thumb ran over the peach soft skin as my fingers slid further into her hair.
"You hurt me so much, Edward."
"I know."
"One apology or a thousand won't help that."
I nodded.
"And you can say you've changed all you want, but I'd have to-"
"See it. I know."
"You can't just expect me to-"
"I don't expect anything."
She was blinking fast and I took it as a good sign that she hadn't told me to leave. Yet.
"You look the same."
I risked a smile that she returned. "You do too, the same but different."
"It's the hair, it's longer."
I nodded. "I noticed."
"I can't believe you're here."
She moved, or I moved-somehow we were closer and I could see the gold that had always been sparkling among the warmth of her brown eyes. I could see the pink of her tongue flash out across her plump bottom lip.
Her hands were on my chest, burning through the thick winter wool and then all I knew was that I was kissing her and she was kissing me back. I tasted her breath and I was lost. Lost to the past, to our present and to a future I wasn't sure we'd have, but I had faith that this kiss meant a chance at something more.
"This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."
also on FFn | The Writers Coffee Shop Library and Twilighted
Summary - A tale of two who were, and weren't, and are.
Length - 4k ish
Warnings - le full of le angst, no really. AH
After MUCH cajoling about where I left this (GLARES AT KIYA AND WEARINGWORDS AND NERAC AND LISALOVE83 AND JAIMEARKEN) and Edward Part II was born...
DISCLAIMER: SM owns the recognizable's, and my beloved KiyaRaven and Wearingwords and LightStarDust own me. (and just quietly, I've been watching a TON of Friday Night Lights... and this Edward may have a LOT to do with Tim Riggins - oh Taylor Kitsch I heart thee)
Part One here
Me and You
"This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."
"Goodbye, Edward."
The words were the sound of the heart I hadn't thought I had breaking apart.
"Goodbye, Edward."
And like that, she was gone.
#8#
A knock on the windscreen startled me out of a sleep I hadn't realized I'd fallen into. I blinked and tried to focus my eyes, still blurred and itchy from exhaustion.
"Son?"
A familiar yet, different umber stare from a life-worn face gazed in at me through the dew-covered window. His mustache twitched.
"Son, I think it'd be best if you moved along. Two weeks of sitting here ain't helping anyone."
Two weeks? It felt like two years.
I blinked and sorted through the jumble of reasons and words I wanted and needed to say. Before I had struck upon one to use, the click of his tongue against white teeth-too perfect to be real-stopped me.
"She's moved on, kid. So should you."
#8#
"Stop calling here. I'm not going to tell you anything, Edward."
I was getting far too used to her slamming down the phone.
#8#
"This is excessive even for you, Cullen."
I shrugged and placed a bottle of Jack on top of the case of beer I'd already lugged onto the counter.
"Did I hear that your girl left-"
I cut him off with the hard slap of my hand, filled with money I couldn't afford to spend, onto the cracked wooden surface.
"Keep the change."
#8#
The world was spinning. The world was spinning and it shouldn't have been a bad thing because I hadn't felt anything in so long. I didn't want to feel. Not when the last time I'd actually felt, it had only been a part of me breaking that I hadn't known still worked.
I let my hand drop to the side of the couch, feeling my way over empty cans and bottles that jostled together noisily until I found one that echoed a sloshing sound when I shook it.
I swallowed and swallowed, ignoring the way some of it dribbled down my jaw and pooled in the hollow of my throat. There was no burn, no satisfying warmth when the liquid hit my stomach. There was nothing; I was nothing.
#8#
It was the coldest winter on record for fifty years, yet it still felt warm to me.
#8#
I heard her. I didn't know when it started, but it did; she became the whisper of a chill that curled around my body. Her laugh-something far too loud for someone her size-echoed from the kitchen. Her soft sigh when I'd said something obtuse (which was far too often). Her deep, hoarse moans when I'd touched her just right.
I saw her everywhere and nowhere. I saw her when my eyes were closed. I saw her when they were open, gritty and aching.
I saw her walking from my bedroom to the front door. I saw her stumbling because she'd just been fucked seven ways from Sunday and her balance was off. I saw her wiping a tear from her cheek because I'd been a bigger ass than usual. I saw her fuming, hands clenched into tight fists because I'd opened my mouth one too many times about things that should have been left in the past.
A past we shared. A present we'd had. A future we had no longer.
I got up and cleaned.
#8#
So close, so close!
My hand shifted up and down my aching dick, my eyes squeezed tight and I could almost pretend that she was above me and meeting me thrust for thrust. I could feel her warm breath on my neck, on that place she knew made me groan. I could hear her stilted sighs and the grunts she'd refused to acknowledge she made in the bedroom.
When I came, I didn't feel anything but sticky and hot. There was no perfect release for me. Not when I was lost in this hell hole.
#8#
"What makes you think you'd be good for this position?"
I stared a beat too long and his brow lifted just the tiniest bit. He was thinking he was better than me. He was thinking that the hit I took in college -a too-high tackle that caused swelling in my brain and eventually left me with short term memory loss - meant that I was simple and didn't understand.
It was fucking flipping burgers.
My stare turned into something malevolent and the metal chair fell to the floor just a shade quieter than the bang of the hurriedly slammed door.
"Hey, Cullen. Long time no see-"
I glared at him too, paid for my vodka and left.
#8#
It was a good/bad day.
Good: in my drunken haze I smelled her on my skin. She was tangerine and chocolate.
Bad: the fruit had since gone sour and the flavor was bittersweet.
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I think the cat misses you.
#8#
"You're a fucking drunk."
…
"Will you take a look at yourself, Edward? You're wasting your fucking life and all of this over what? That girl?"
…
"Look, the only reason I came was because Mom was worried. Mrs. Cope has been looking after your cat because she thought you had died in here, Edward. The town's fucking cat lady thought you were dead."
…
"You're a selfish son of a bitch. No wonder she finally grew some cahones and left your sorry ass. You treated Bella like sh-"
"Get the fuck out."
"It speaks!"
"Leave. Leave now, Emmett, or I swear to you-"
"You swear what, little brother? You coul--I see your aim is still shit. That bottle missed me by a country mile."
"GET. OUT."
#8#
I ran my hand over my face, my jaw nearly indistinguishable under the layers of growth that covered my cheek. I forced my eyelids to open, ignoring the way the orange glow of a dawn or dusk felt like someone was shining a small torch into my skull. I didn't wonder what day it was. I didn't even care about what season it was anymore.
All I knew was that everything I touched turned to shit. Nothing was worth fighting for.
#8#
I ate. I drank. I passed into unconsciousness. I woke. I drank. I filled my body with the least amount of fuel it needed. I fell into darkness once more.
#8#
There was a hollow in my chest that I couldn't ignore. It pulsed with every breath I took. It ached even as I slumbered. It burned when I walked into my room just to find clean clothes before returning to the couch. There were too many echoes of her and us in that room.
One particularly lucid night (I'd run out of mind-numbing liquids and it was too late to buy more) I curled myself up in the sheets where we'd lain; the bed that had been more than just a place for push and pull and moan. I'd watched her come apart with me. I'd watched her walls crumble as she'd fallen in too deep. I'd watched her indifference turn to like and then to something that I'd thought we'd lost when we'd been much younger. I'd watched everything change between us and I'd let her believe she was the only one who'd felt it.
I deserved to be alone.
And she deserved more.
#8#
I'd grown to despise the cat and his need to be let out in the morning. I put in a cat door.
#8#
The house smelled of bleach and that weird shit they used to hide the scent of vomit in high school. My nostrils burned as I breathed in, but it was satisfying.
I will try this time.
I will.
#8#
"And you believe you'd be a great addition to our team, why?"
"I'm good with numbers. And it'd finally put my finance degree to good use."
"The pay's not that great. In fact, it's shit, but my Dad always thought you would have gone professional if it hadn't been for that hit. I'm sure he'd be tickled pink to know we had the Edward Cullen working here."
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat and shook the dickwad's hand, smiling like I was supposed to.
I walked past the liquor store that afternoon.
#8#
I sat at the bar and sipped my coke. Ben had been good to me tonight, not asking questions, not being chatty, pretty much just leaving me alone. It was fairly early on a Sunday, so the place was quiet.
Then Jacob Black walked in the front door.
I remembered to call in sick by Friday, but it was too late. I didn't have a job anymore.
#8#
** Outgoing Text**
Why did you have to fucking go?
#8#
"Is he awake yet?"
"The doctor said he should be coming around soon."
"I don't know if I can do this again, Emmett. My heart-"
"I know, Mom. I know. If he doesn't get his shit together after this, I may just kill him myself. Finish the job he's apparently doing half-assed, just like he's done with everything else in his sorry life."
I concentrated on the beep of the machines and felt much better drugs pull me back into the abyss, like the warm embrace of an old friend.
I didn't belong here anymore.
#8#
Apparently, I'd totalled my car.
Apparently, I'd been lucky no one else had been out at that time of night.
Apparently, I'd nearly given my mother a heart attack.
Apparently, they'd had trouble waking me out of the anaesthesia and they'd had been worried I wouldn't come back to the living at all.
Apparently, Alice had come to see me.
Apparently, she'd asked if I was alive. She.
I told myself this was the last time, that I'd never touch another drop.
I'd do it this time. For me.
#8#
"Edward, would you like to share at this time?"
I fixed him with a steel-eyed gaze until he cleared his throat uncomfortably and moved on.
I didn't want to be here. Not for the judge who'd taken away my license for being well over the legal limit. Not for my mother who'd threatened to disown me if I didn't come to my senses and at least try to live my life instead of throwing it all away. Not for my brother who'd told me he'd have nothing to do with me if I didn't clean myself up this time-a warning that I would have taken seriously if they hadn't been the same words he'd used when I'd first left college and found myself a friend in booze.
Not for me.
And definitely not for her.
#8#
My phone was ringing and I was ignoring it.
I ignored it today like I had done every day since I'd hung up on some reporter vying for a story on the 'downfall of the Edward Cullen.'
When I found my cell a few days later to order out for pizza, I noticed that all the calls had been from one number.
An unknown.
#8#
I begged Alice for her information. I pleaded with her to at least tell me where she was. The Mustache escorted me off the premises.
At least he might tell her I still cared. It had only been six long months.
#8#
Mrs. Cope looked at me with pity when I asked her to keep my cat.
#8#
I found myself sitting at our table in the diner more often than I should have. I found myself ordering the food we'd ordered back then, and yet I mostly pushed it all around. I just sat and stared out the window and wondered how I'd let it all go so wrong.
"You know she loved you." A voice aged with time and the help of endless cigarettes breaks into the past I find myself lost in. I sighed.
"She did, you know. And you loved her. I could tell back then and I can still tell now."
"It doesn't matter," I choked out. My throat was suddenly too tight, bands around my chest were squeezing and my eyes stung. The room felt far too small.
Her laughter was wet and filled with scorn. "It always matters, kid. It always does."
She left me alone with a slice of cherry pie, just like she always had when I'd eaten there more often than I'd eaten at home. The clink and clatter of plates and cutlery didn't stop me from tossing around her words. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was true back then, until the day all my lies unraveled and I broke the flimsy hold I'd had on all my secrets. Angela had laughed in my face when I'd apologized. She'd known all along. She'd thought it was fine, letting me 'sow my seeds' because I would come back to her. We were perfect, she'd said. She could 'let me' have my fun, as long as it stopped when we were married.
I'd turned and run.
I'd seen Angela around a few times. Her husband (a poor henpecked and slightly bowed man) always followed two steps behind her. She still smiled the same saccharine grin.
#8#
"Anything to share tod-"
"No."
#8#
I stood on the corner-under the same tree that I'd waited for her to sneak out after her curfew-and watched her window. The curtains were the same. The paint was peeling a little and I wondered for a moment why the Chief hadn't had anyone come around and fix it for him, like he used to do every summer.
I leaned back against the bark, enjoying the familiar feel of its roughness through my thin shirt. I remembered how great her ass looked in jeans as she'd shimmed her way down the drainpipe to the ground, and then to me. I lived for the moment she landed. She'd turn around, her dark hair tied back into its usual ponytail and she'd smile my smile, looking up at me through impossibly long lashes. She'd run the few steps to my side and I'd sweep her bangs behind her ears, just so I could see her eyes better.
I ran my fingers over my lips, the skin tingling with shadows of first kisses that had long turned cold.
The front door creaked as it always had and he nodded his head at me while taking out the garbage.
No words were spoken, but I felt as though I was forgiven for something I hadn't yet apologized for.
#8#
The vodka was on special. The bourbon wasn't too badly priced either. There was even a two-for-one on the rum that she'd preferred.
It took all my strength to turn around and walk back to my house. The trip was made even longer knowing that it was those exact thoughts that had left me without vehicular transport.
I'd never wanted a drink so much.
#8#
"Hi, my name is Edward and I'm an alcoholic. This is my 56th day sober and this is my first time speak…"
#8#
The way I came upon my job was strange.
I hadn't really worked much before, content to live off the inheritance a long-dead father had left me. I'd never thought much about my future, considering I hadn't really figured I'd have much of one at all. When football had been taken away from me, I'd completed my studies, but that had only been to keep on my mom's good side. When I'd moved back to town, it had been easy to find somewhere cheap to rent. It had been easy to fall back into habits that had worked so well during my teenage years.
Then I'd found out she was back in town, working at the same school where things had started for us, and it had felt right. Complete. Like all the pieces of the puzzle I'd lost myself staring at were suddenly shifting into place.
I'd thought I'd had it all. I'd thought I'd had my good times. I'd had a girl.
My girl.
Then a new ache in my chest and twist in my gut made me rethink it all. She'd let guys touch her at the bar. Our bar. She'd go home with them and I'd make sure to mark her the next time she was under me. I'd refused to believe it was jealousy. She'd never said anything when I'd kissed other girls, but I'd noticed how she'd be a little more aggressive slamming my door.
She hadn't known that I'd never taken any of them home either.
It had always been her.
My home, my bed, me.
Always hers.
Only hers.
When I pulled myself out from under my new Chevy I'd been working on, I was honestly surprised to see the Chief standing there. He'd asked me if I was busy. I licked my lips far too often to be normal. I'd never had a talk with her dad before. Sure we'd talked, but I wasn't sure a 'hello,' and 'I'll have her home by ten' really counted as anything more than polite conversation.
He wanted to know if I was any good at painting. The siding on his house really needed to be done. I asked why he didn't want a professional. His mustache twitched.
"Do you want the job or not?"
It took me two weeks to get one side of the small house done. He never said if he was happy with my job, but he did leave a pot of coffee for me every morning. When I was done with the painting, he left me a note about redoing the deck before the rain came in the fall.
It was about then he started bringing me dinner.
He didn't look at me when I asked him why. Why dinner? Why the job? Why me?
"You just loved her wrong."
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I know you don't get these. But it helps. It helps.
#8#
The reception I got when I walked into Black's store was confusing. I never expected his smile (albeit stiff). I never expected his hand or mine to shake. I never expected the apology to tumble from my lips, only to be stopped by a shake of his head.
"We were kids. We were stupid kids and I should have known better."
"But I-"
"You've said what you needed to say, Cullen. Let's leave well enough alone."
A few weeks later he drove past me as I stood waiting for the bus, his nod was more acceptance than I could have asked for.
#8#
My mother called and wished me a Merry Christmas. I hadn't even realized it was that time of year. She told me Emmett would come around and pick me up for dinner. That he and Rose had something to tell me that I'd want to hear.
I figured out their news on my own.
I saw her face when she'd thought we'd fucked up. I saw her face crumple when I'd had said nothing but a 'thank god' when it turned out she'd been wrong.
Just another moment to add to the list of ways I'd fucked us over. I had to wonder why it had taken her so long to let me go.
#8#
"You treated her like shit, you know. You made her cry more times than I care to count and I hate you. I hate you for making her feel like she had to leave here to get you out of her head. I hate that you pushed away my best friend and I'll never forgive you for that, Cullen."
At least she opened the door to scream at me this time.
#8#
Chief had me fixing the tap in the kitchen one particularly cold winter's morning. I knew it was something he could have done himself, but I didn't question why he asked until I saw the yellow legal pad with an address in Arizona underlined twice, lying on the counter.
For a week I did nothing.
#8#
"I'm sorry."
…
"I know it doesn't mean much. I know it's just a word, but I truly mean it, Mom. I'm sorry that I've put you through so much, not just in the past year but for so long before that. I know I've said and done things that have not only hurt you, but hurt our family and I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
…
"I don't expect your forgiveness, I just wanted you to know that I realize how my behavior has extended beyond hurting myself. I just-"
She hugged me so hard I swear I heard a bone crack.
#8#
**Outgoing Text**
I'm coming, Bella. I'm coming.
#8#
She looked the same, but different.
A year could do a lot of things to a person.
Change a lot. Yet a lot stayed the same.
I hadn't felt this nervous since the day I'd sat down across from her at the diner when she'd been just a pretty sophomore and I'd been little more than the class clown.
On the drive here, I'd thought over and over about what I wanted to say. The words I could use. The way I would lay it all out. But now, standing only steps from her, I had nothing.
Her hair looked curlier, shinier even. It was glossy and fells in waves down her back. She had this red coat on that made the brown stand out all the more. She was laughing, putting her hand on his forearm as if she needed help to stand. My gut wrenched the same way - if not more - lit had back when I'd seen her pull a similar move at our bar. He was laughing too, this average looking guywith dirty blond curls. He was bumping her with his shoulder, and the way he stared at her… I didn't like it.
The old me with his anger issues would already have crossed the parking lot by now and would have had this guy out cold on the ground, a mix of his and my own blood spattering my shirt and fist. The old me would have whipped her away to somewhere half-private before taking her and taking her and making sure she knew that it was me and me alone that should make her smile like that. The old me would have ignored her eyes turning glassy with tears before shutting down completely and letting me do my worst. The old me would have gone home and punched a hole in the wall.
Fuck, I'd been such an asshole.
The new me took three deep breaths and waited for her to turn and notice me where I stood. The new me smiled when I saw her own grin drop for just a second before she turned to her companion and waved him off. The new me had to swallow down a swirl of emotions as I watched her hips sway side to side when she walked. The new me had shaking hands that I jammed into the pockets of my jacket when she stopped, leaving significant space between us.
"How did you find me?" she asked and I stared and stared at her, because she was more beautiful than memory had allowed.
The silence between us grew and filled like a balloon and I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as her gaze deepened from shock to something else. Something I didn't want to name because then it would be real and I would have to stop pretending that she might be happy to see me.
"I asked you a question."
I shook myself and swallowed hard before I answered. "Your dad, I've been working at your old house and he-"
"Charlie… of course," she muttered, her gaze breaking mine as her hand hovered over her purse, presumably where her phone was, with thoughts of the tongue-lashing she would be giving to her father after this.
"Bella-"
"Don't."
"I'm sorry."
She stared at me and I couldn't figure out what the look on her face was. I knew I'd said the words to her before. I'd thought they might have stopped her from leaving me, but I hadn't meant them as much as I did now.
Because now I knew how hard it was for her to go. I knew what it felt like to have lost her when I'd never realized I'd had her at all.
"Why are you here, Edward?" she asked with a sigh and crossed her arms over her chest. There was a small sharp breeze from behind her; the scent of tangerines and chocolate was heavy in the air. I swayed from the smell alone. It reminded me all too much of my hallucinations of her, back when I'd been too drunk to discern what was real and what was not.
Maybe I'd never understood that concept too well.
"I needed... I wanted… I just..."
Jesus, it was so hard. It shouldn't have to be this hard.
"I love you. I came to tell you I love you and that I know the way I treated you was wrong. I know what we had was wrong in so many ways, but in among the lies and the hurt-because I know I hurt you, and you hurt me too--but in all of that, there was love, Bella. There was something. And I want that, I want that with you."
Her eyes were glassy and she was fiddling with a loose thread on the cuff of her coat. She hadn't said a word and that balloon of uncomfortable from before felt ready to pop.
"I don't, I don't know what else to say. I just... I needed to tell you that I'm sorry and that I've changed, and although it probably means nothing to you-I love you. I'll always love you and I just, I guess I thought you should know."
In my head, there was a constant running stream of taunts and I berated myself for how stupid I had been to think that anything could come of seeing her. That saying any of these words to her would mean anything.
"Oh."
She said one word, or it could have been a sigh. Just one little sound left her mouth, her lips reddened from the gale that was starting to build around us. It whipped her hair around her head, making the strands look almost violent as they lashed the cream of her skin. My fingers twitched to ease them from her eyes, and without realizing I had done it, I was there, touching the silken mess and her cheek… my thumb ran over the peach soft skin as my fingers slid further into her hair.
"You hurt me so much, Edward."
"I know."
"One apology or a thousand won't help that."
I nodded.
"And you can say you've changed all you want, but I'd have to-"
"See it. I know."
"You can't just expect me to-"
"I don't expect anything."
She was blinking fast and I took it as a good sign that she hadn't told me to leave. Yet.
"You look the same."
I risked a smile that she returned. "You do too, the same but different."
"It's the hair, it's longer."
I nodded. "I noticed."
"I can't believe you're here."
She moved, or I moved-somehow we were closer and I could see the gold that had always been sparkling among the warmth of her brown eyes. I could see the pink of her tongue flash out across her plump bottom lip.
Her hands were on my chest, burning through the thick winter wool and then all I knew was that I was kissing her and she was kissing me back. I tasted her breath and I was lost. Lost to the past, to our present and to a future I wasn't sure we'd have, but I had faith that this kiss meant a chance at something more.
"This estranged organ in my chest still beats for you, it will not rest."