One last "Easter Egg" for ya today. Things are starting to get...interesting.
And nothing I did now would ever, ever change that.
Chapter 55
I really, really didn’t want to talk about this. Not at all. But when I looked at Bella and saw the earnestness on her face, I couldn’t deny her anything.
“I don’t think I’ll ever know,” I finally said. “I mean, not really. I have enough of an idea that I feel like…well, I’d say I feel like shit, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Bella bit down at her lip and kept her gaze on me.
“They took me because of what you asked for,” she said, and I nodded in response. She already knew, so it was only confirmation anyway. “If you hadn’t asked for someone who looked like me, what would have happened?”
“They were there to pick up another girl,” I told her. The conversation with the one hostage at Aro’s place ran through my head. “If it wasn’t for me, they would have picked up someone else, not you.”
“Did they ever pick up that other girl?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He said they were full and drove back after getting you.”
She sat back a little and seemed to contemplate that information. I wondered what she thought about that other girl – the one that was targeted but not picked up. Did she wish the other girl had lived through what she had? Or was she glad the other girl was okay?
I wanted to say I wished it was the other girl, because then Bella would never have had all that shit happen to her. But if she hadn’t, I never would have known her. When it all came down to it, I was still a selfish bastard.
“Do you know why you did it?” She asked quietly.
“I’m a selfish bastard?” I tried to smile, but it didn’t work. I wondered if I was going to get the chance to go back into silent mode. Ever since Bella figured out she was going to go home soon, she had been peppering me with questions I felt like I had to answer. For every one I answered, two more unanswerable ones would show up in my head.
“That’s not why,” she said. Her tone was completely serious.
I felt her hand reach out and trace over my cheek. I looked over at her for a second, but I really didn’t have an answer for her. I wanted sex, but I had told her that before. I wanted someone who would obey me and do whatever I wanted. I still wanted all that…at least, I think I did. Sort of.
I wanted her. I wanted Bella. And the idea that I could ever have her – really, really have her, was as ludicrous as thinking your love life could be fixed by buying a sex slave. Because the only way I could – the only way I would even want to – was if she wanted it as well. Its why I couldn’t even masturbate to thoughts of her, because every time I did I felt like I was forcing her. Every image in my head would turn into her tears, and crying for me to stop.
Even though she never did – she never told me to stop.
I knew there was a lot of shit I was pretty inept at doing and understanding, but I wasn’t so stupid that I thought it made any difference. She couldn’t tell me to stop – she wasn’t allowed to.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I said. I wasn’t trying to make excuses – I just…wanted her to understand. “I never would have done it if I had known. I should have known – all those fucking questions. I should have known and thought about it and not been so fucking stupid.
But I didn’t.
And nothing I did now would ever, ever change that.
“I’m sorry, Bella.” I moved sideways on the bed so I could face her. “I’m so, so fucking sorry…I can’t make it right. I can’t ever take it back. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t…I wasn’t thinking, not at all…I just wanted…I wanted someone…someone who…who…”
I didn’t know how to finish. My head hurt, and everything inside of it was so jumbled up, I couldn’t think straight. I kept seeing that little toy piano smashed on the patio, and Mom’s car askew on the driveway. Then they were taking the trailer away, and when I went into my room inside, there was nothing to try to keep before they hauled the rest away. Then Tanya was walking away from me, telling me not to bother to ever call her again…and then it was Bree…and then it was Irina…and then it was Jessica…and then it was Zafrina…and then it was Kate…
“You were always left alone, Edward.” I looked away from her, no longer wanting to meet her eyes. I could still feel the tips of her fingers along my jaw, though. They felt like a line of tiny fires on my skin. “No one ever stayed with you. Not your parents or the teacher you liked. Not the women you’ve dated. You don’t have any friends to speak of. You wanted someone who couldn’t leave.”
“Why would they,” I heard myself mumble. I shoved myself up and out of the bed, grabbing the pack of cigarettes on my way out the patio door. Bella came out and stood behind me, and I remembered I wasn’t supposed to smoke. I cursed and threw both the pack and the lighter against the brick wall before I dropped down into the plastic chair with my head in my hands.
“You aren’t all bad,” Bella said.
I let out a sharp laugh. I leaned back in the chair and looked over to her. My breathing wasn’t right, and I could feel my heart pounding hard in my chest.
“Yeah, at least after I fuck someone’s life up I try to fix it,” I snorted, then back-pedaled. “Actually, even that is a first for me. Usually when I fuck someone up they end up in the morgue.”
“Edward,” Bella sighed my name.
“What, Bella?” I snapped. I didn’t just snap at her verbally – I actually felt like something inside me had snapped completely. I started yelling at her. “You going to tell me how it all would have happened anyway? Tell me how you could have been sold to someone else, someone worse? Worse than me, the fucking arms dealer with a thing for oral? Because we both know that isn’t true. If no one ever eats the fucking burger, the cow gets to live!”
I punched the brick wall, and besides the serious scraping of my knuckles, I was about ninety percent sure I cracked a knuckle.
“Fuck!”
“Edward!” Bella was at my side an instant later, taking my hand between hers, then dragging me into the house and washing off my bloodied knuckles.
“Don’t do this,” I said over and over again. I didn’t try to stop her, but I didn’t want her helping me out when I was being a jackass, either. “I’m fine. It doesn’t fucking matter.”
Bella’s eyes swiveled quickly from my hand to my face, and the fire in them actually cause me to step back a little.
“Shut up,” she said. I flinched again. “I mean it, just shut the fuck up. It does matter. You matter.”
“Oh yeah?” I growled back. “To who, huh? Who gives a flying fuck?”
“I do!”
I laughed again – a short, sharp and humorless sound. Bella’s eyes continued to glare at me, and I couldn’t hold her look for very long. She went back to cleaning up my hand, and I didn’t protest any more. After she washed it all off, she put some ice in a little baggie, dragged me to the little couch and held the ice against my hand. As we sat there in silence, her eyes lost their fire and eventually she was looking at me with what I guess was just…I don’t know…pity or something. I preferred her anger.
After the required twenty minutes, Bella lifted the bag of ice from my hand and examined it. It seemed okay, though it still hurt like a mother when I tried to make a fist. Bella ran her fingers over mine, stroking them slowly up and down and over my hand. It felt…nice.
Then she pulled my hand up and kissed the back of it.
I froze – completely unable to move. Bella dropped my hand into my lap as she looked up at me. Her fingers reached out and traced over the edge of my jaw, reminding me that I hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. Still motionless, all I could do was watch as she closed the short gap between us. Her fingers twitched, scratching slightly over my jaw as she moved. I watched her tongue dart out and moisten her lips as she paused, barely an inch from me.
“You aren’t all bad,” she repeated, and then her lips touched mine. I kept my own eyes open as I watched hers close. Her lips were touching mine, and they were warm and soft.
And they were willing.
She had to be out of her mind, right?
Chapter End Notes:
As if this shit wasn't complicated enough already!
Poor Doofus...you just about experienced an actual emotion there.
Stop by the twilighted thread and say hi and/or post your theories.
Next update will probably be tomorrow. I dunno. I'm kind of on a roll.
