CBWR? Chapter 56

Author's notes:

Yeah, the kids shared too much of their candy, so I think I've been writing on a sugar buzz.

Enjoy!

”I’m a guy!” I blurted out.  “I always want that!”

Chapter 56

I didn’t kiss her back.

She pulled back away from me, and her hand dropped from my face. 

“Don’t do that again,” I said.  My voice was so quiet I could barely hear it.  I didn’t want to hear it.  I didn’t want her to hear it.  I didn’t mean it, and I wanted to take the words back. 

“Why not?”

“It’s just not right.”  Whatever was going on with my mouth, there were a bunch of parts of me that did not agree with the decisions at all.  One part in particular seemed to be planning a mutiny with a couple other parts within close proximity of the first part.  I focused on her eyes in order to stop myself from looking at her lips.  If I looked at them, I was most certainly going to want to kiss her.  Every muscle in my body constricted – aching to reach out to her – to touch her, to comfort her. 

“Who says it’s not right?” she asked.

“Anybody from the outside looking in,” I replied.

“What if I don’t care what they think?” she said.

“Maybe you should.”

“Why?”

“Because!” I cried out and stood from the couch.  “Because doing that was fucking crazy.  I ruined your life!  Why in the world would you do something like that?”

I crossed my arms in front of me and waited for her answer.  My chest felt like it was caving in again, and I figured when I got back to the states I was definitely going to have to talk to my doctor about an acid reflux prescription.

“I wanted to,” she finally said softly.  “I’ve wanted to for a while now.”

“That’s just…it’s just…Bella, that’s nuts!” I finally said.  “It’s fucking Stockholm Syndrome or whatever.”

“It is not,” she yelled back at me.  “You don’t dictate what I do or how I feel, Edward!  Not anymore!”

Those words pretty much hit me right in the gut.  Not that I didn’t deserve them, because I did.  I deserved a lot worse, too.  Then there was the bit about how she was completely, totally, one-hundred and seven percent correct.

And there was that little piece of me that really, really wanted it to be okay.  It was the part I had shoved down and off to the side, because it was so fucking wrong I couldn’t even stand to think about it.  It was the part that wouldn’t let me get off in the shower, the part that desperately wanted to drag this trip out as long as possible, and the part that was completely and totally, head over heels…

Oh fuck.

I couldn’t say it, not even inside my head.

“How?” I finally blurted out.

“How what?” Bella questioned.

“How can you possibly…why…I mean…you just…kissed me.”

Her face turned red and she looked down at her hands.

“How could you want to do that?  I’m dangerous, Bella – don’t you see that?  Haven’t you seen enough of that?”

Her head turned back up and she looked at me.  It was nearly dark outside now, and we hadn’t turned on any of the lights except in the kitchen.  I couldn’t see her well, but I thought I could see the reflection of the lights in her eyes – off of her tears.

“Dangerous, yes, but you aren’t bad,” she spoke quietly.  “You’re not bad.  It’s just that…no one’s ever shown you how to care about someone else.  No one’s ever cared for you, and you’ve never cared for anyone else.”

But that wasn’t true…not anymore.  There was someone I cared about.

“I care about you,” I told her.  “I want you to be able to put all this shit behind you.  I want you to be able to keep going.”

Bella’s eyes dropped to the floor and she seemed to think for a while before looking back to me again.

“I think I will,” she said, though she didn’t sound completely convinced.  “The nightmares are better at least, aren’t they?”

“Not as often,” I agreed.  “But just as bad.”

Again, she went silent, and I thought better than to speak up.  For a while she looked from me, to the floor, and then back to me again.  I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat back down on the couch, but I kept my distance.

“When I have them,” Bella said, “and I wake up and feel you there with me…I know I’m safe.”

I met her eyes and was sure there were tears in them again.  My heart was pounding and my chest was tight.  When she would have those dreams, she would cling to me for the rest of the night, but if I was holding her, she never had the same dream again.  I might have killed all the ones who hurt her, but I couldn’t take them out of her head.  The very least I could do was try to make her feel protected from them when she did wake.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I swore to her.  “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I know,” she said.  “If there is anything I am sure of about you, that would be it.”

Her words calmed me a little, and I settled back against the cushions of the couch again.  I wanted her to feel safe.  I wanted her to know that there was no way I would ever let anyone ever hurt her again.  If anyone tried, they would never get a second opportunity.

My mind conjured up the feeling of her lips on mine again, and I thought about what she said –t hat she had wanted to kiss me.  I didn’t understand.  I didn’t understand it at all, but that mutinous part of me wanted to understand it better.

“You really wanted to kiss me?” I heard myself ask.  Bella nodded and her cheeks darkened.  My hand reached out to touch her, but I brought it back close to me again before it could.  Bella looked up, and she seemed confused and maybe even disappointed.  I didn’t want her to think I didn’t want it when I did.  I figured it was still stupid to say, but I needed her to know.  “I want you so much.” 

Bella smiled ever so slightly.

“I think that was apparent the first day we met,” she said. 

“Not like that,” I said.  “I mean…I do, but I didn’t mean that was what I wanted…I mean, yeah ‘cause…well…I mean I do want to…with you…I mean the kiss was…I just didn’t want you to think I didn’t…”

I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to dig myself out of the instant hole I had created, and though I looked frantically around the room for a ladder or some rope or something, I was unsuccessful.  What do you do when you dig yourself in that deep, and there’s no way out?  Make the hole deeper, of course!

”I’m a guy!” I blurted out.  “I always want that!”

I cringed at my own words and waited to see what she might throw at me.  She didn’t throw anything, so I looked up to see her covering her mouth to keep from laughing.  Her eyes were so beautiful and so full of life, I had to smile.  I shrugged a little, but I was too captivated by the light in her eyes to say anything else.  I shifted a little bit on the couch, and this time I let myself reach out and touch her.  My hand came up and cupped her cheek, and I ran my thumb over her cheek bone as I looked at her. 

“It’s not the same now,” I told her, wondering how I was going to explain that my physical desire for her would probably always be present, but that wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I looked at her.  I wanted to hold her hand, help her with the dishes and keep her safe.  Now how did I say all that shit without sounding like a total ass?

“I know,” she said simply.

“You know?” I responded in disbelief.  My eyes dropped down to her lips and the brief memory of how they had touched mine came back.

“Yes,” she replied.  “Believe it or not, it’s pretty obvious what you are thinking about most of the time.”

“It is?”  My eyes met hers again.  This was definitely news to me, and not what I would consider good news.  If she knew what I was thinking, then all the dumb-ass shit in my head I didn’t allow myself to say was still known to her.  I hoped that wasn’t really the case.  Did she know I was mentally at the bottom of a little sandy hole in the ground, tossing more and more dirt over my shoulder with a plastic toy shovel?

“Like right now,” she said as she shifted a little closer.  “I know exactly what you are thinking right now.”

“What am I thinking?” I asked, a little terrified she was going to say something about the tiny green beach shovel I was using inside of my head.

“That you want me to kiss you again.”

Oh.  That.  Yeah, I was thinking that, too.

But that was obvious, right?

Chapter End Notes:
Can't you just see Doofus and a plastic shovel, digging himself in deeper and deeper?
Typical Edward - he's trying to "do the right thing" and Bella just wants to make everything...hard for him.