Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight and all its characters.

Bella

When I was little, my mom would read me bedtime stories, her soothing voice eventually lulling me to sleep. The stories were always from my favourite books; princesses in locked towers, beauties in danger from wicked queens.

I never got scared, never became worried—a prince would always save them.

Nevertheless, I'd listen, riveted, as she sat in the rocking chair that had once belonged to Grandma Swan, a chair she'd tried to get rid of many times—years before I was born—to no avail. Then she found out she was pregnant with me, and Dad would find her rocking back and forth with her hand protecting her belly, lips moving with silent words. She said the rocking motion had calmed us both.

The removal of the chair soon became forgotten.

One night, she gave me a speech about independence. I hadn't really understood it at the time, but I nodded along, wanting so much to show her I was grown up, that I could talk about these things with her.

"Don't always wait for a man, Bella," she said. "Sometimes a woman has no alternative but to save herself."

I didn't disagree with her, even if I did think it was silly. Hadn't she just heard the same words I had? So I once again nodded along and held out my hand, catching the kiss she blew me every night from the doorway before repeating the action back.

That night I slept with 'Sleeping Beauty' clutched to my chest and dreamed of happily ever afters.

I now understood what she'd meant. And the books... they'd been thrown out years ago.

XXX

I watch night give way to dawn, stars replaced with muted orange and diluted purple. My eyes sting, lids still refusing to close—I haven't moved from where Edward left me last night.

My back aches from lying on the sofa, but I don't care. It's a distraction... something else to think over instead of almost kisses and I don't know yous.

He's always found me hard to read, that's why he always uses his eyes instead of talking. He used to trace my skin with his fingertips, invisible words drawn on arms and hands and face, that way he'd always have a part of me.

But memory fades, and words that were invisible in the first place are impossible to find again.

I hold out my arm, trying to see what he saw, what he wrote. There's nothing there but pale skin.

I shift, just ever so slightly, and the ache in my black flares, and I momentarily linger on the pain... the distraction.

But I should realise by now, that even these types of diversions eventually lead me back to Edward.

~CitP~

"What are you doing?" he asks against my shoulder. His breath tickles my skin, causing me to shiver. I feel his smile against the back of my neck.

"What does it look like, Einstein?" I tease, holding up one of his shirts.

"Umm... stealing my things?" he teases right back.

I laugh. "Well, if you'd rather wash your own clothing from now on..." I step away from the washer, leaving his wet shirt in the basket.

"Let's not be hasty," he smirks, moving quickly to trap me against the machine, arms on either side of me. "I never said I minded you taking my things."

I roll my eyes. "Lucky me, then." I bite my lip, watching his eyes dip to my mouth.

He makes some humming noise in agreement, stepping closer until his chest brushes mine.

"No, really, I think it's about time you learnt-"

And I'm silenced, his lips pressed tightly to my own.

His fingers frame my face, tenderly stroking my cheeks, such a comparison to the way his mouth is moving. I grip his arms for support, losing myself.

"I love you," he whispers, his eyes so earnest and bright. I want him to look at me like this always.

"I know," I tell him, trailing my fingers across his jaw to this throat. Now it's his turn to tremble.

"You don't love me?" he questions, and I go to smile, thinking he's joking, but he isn't, and it makes me pause. He's being serious.

I've told him so many times. Haven't I?

I reach up to wind my arms around his neck, trying to bring myself eye-level. "Always," I say shakily, playing with his hair. "Sometimes so much it hurts."

He studies my face. "I don't want you to hurt."

This time I do smile. "If it didn't, it wouldn't be worth it."

And I'm once again met with his mouth as he lifts me up and carries me somewhere else. I don't open my eyes. I don't care where he takes me. As long as I'm with him, I'm happy.

My back meets the sofa as he settles himself over me, and I keep my legs wrapped around him, pulling him in closer, unwilling to let him go. He moans into my mouth, hands teasing me under my shirt, which soon gets pulled off me.

His mouth descends, lips and wet and too much. My breath is so loud to my own ears, and embarrassment creeps in, but then his tongue makes me gasp and suddenly I don't care anymore.

My chest is rising and falling so, so fast as his mouth comes back to me, lips brushing my collarbone. He pauses at the corner of my mouth, teasing me with fleeting touches.

"The very first time I saw you," he voices, biting at my lip, "I thought you were the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. You knocked the breath straight out of me." And I want to tell him that he does that to me with a single glance.

He looks so much like the boy I fell in love with in this moment—scared, intense and passionate about the things he loves.

He is the boy I fell in love with.

My heart feels weak against the surge of adoration I feel for him, and emotions that are meant to overwhelm, threaten to pull me under. I want to say all these thoughts to him, so he doesn't always have to wonder and search so hard to find them, but when I open my mouth, it's as useless as trying to speak under water.

So instead I show him. I place his palm over my heart, letting him feel how fast it's beating for him, always for him, and as the rest of our clothing falls away, I trace my fingers over his skin—back, arms and face.

And when he fills me, I stop. I don't have to trace the words, because surely he can see everything I'm feeling in my eyes?

I don't look away until I arch and fall apart beneath him.

~CitP~

The sound of the door closing snatches away my memories, puffs of smoke left behind from a wish granted. Or in my case, never made.

My heart is beating just as fast as it was back then—I push the blanket from my legs, and run, throwing the door open to stand on the steps in bare feet. He's already in his car, hands gripping the wheel as he stares ahead through the glass to where I'm standing.

Then I immediately pause.

We took this car to his parents last night. There's no way Emmett could have driven this back and walked all that way at that time in the morning. Someone else was with them. Someone else was driving his car.

I go to take a step forward and the engine starts, as if he was waiting for me to make that very move just to pull further away again.

I don't take any more steps after that. I won't play into this game.

He carries on watching me, waiting for... something, and I want to reach down, grab a handful of gravel and throw it at his car until cracks appear in the glass.

But neither of us makes a move.

My legs are bare and I don't care if anyone can see me right now. I push my hair from my face and hold it all in one hand over my shoulder—I don't want anything to break this stare down.

The engine still runs and I want to write messages on his windshield, so that when he eventually drives off, which I know he will, he'll still see me.

That's when I feel the first drops of rain against my skin.

Inside... inside I want to laugh—laugh until I cry—and look up to the heavens with the fake tears of rain as it continues to pelt against my face.

The downpour is almost a warning, a scoff at a stupid idea. It's only then I notice that the engine is no longer running.

I let go of my hair and simply stand there, defeated.

And here we go again.

My eyes squeeze shut, lashes thick with rain, and I turn my head to the side, the first to break this stupid, stupid battle of wills—this stupid battle of the heart that should have been conquered a long time ago. It wouldn't have mattered who came through triumphant, we both would have been winners.

A door opens. "Go inside, Bella." And I almost think he cares.

I don't say anything, I don't look back, I simply close the door behind me and sink to the ground.

I don't know how long I sit like this, but I'm cold, icy shards pulsing through my veins, under my skin, sharp and painful. I look to my hands—everything is pink where I expect to see blue.

My breath hitches, choking gasps, desperate...afraid, and I exhale quickly, trying to push my thoughts from my mind, but they refuse to budge; visible mist hovering above land on lifeless mornings.

Everything is numb, frozen fingers on winter days—the only person who can take this feeling away is the same person that caused it.

I look to the stairs, hearing nothing; silence that coheres to your skin. My eyes close, my fingers cling.

I'm waiting for a sun that won't emerge.

The storm continues.

XXX

I eventually move to shower and change, and as I flip through the clothes on the rails, I'm reminded of days where I'd worn them: yellow sundress for a Fourth of July picnic, green skirt that has a little tear at the bottom after catching in on barbed wire, blue sweater that Grandma had knitted for me a few Christmases back.

I carry on going, pushing through item after item, nothing good enough. Then I stop at a once-favourite plaid shirt that doesn't belong to me but is hung amongst my clothes. I don't remember putting it there.

The cotton is still soft between my fingers, and I instantly reach for it, not caring about trousers or anything else. Underwear and fluffy socks, and now this shirt, is all I need. I have to roll up the sleeves as they're a little too long, and the hem reaches just above my knees, but I finally feel like I can breathe.

I crawl into our bed, and instead of stopping, I move that little bit further until I'm on Edward's side, my head safely on his pillow.

Only then do I sleep.

XXX

The TV is playing back some movie, but I don't register who the actors are or what they're saying. It's just background noise. My eyes keep drifting to the clock, panic settling in my chest every time I see that the hands have moved. Every tick creates a pang that ends just as quickly until the next one begins.

Edward still isn't home, and I start to wonder if he's even coming back at all. He left as soon as light fell, and now darkness has resurfaced, and there's still no sign of him.

I know he's probably at his parents, enjoying the meal Esme has cooked to celebrate the start of a new year, like she does every year—another excuse to do what she does best. But the worry won't dissipate, condensation left to cloud the windows and the views beyond.

They'll share family stories and then rattle off aspects of his life that I only ever got to hear from his parents—I hate that outsiders will be hearing parts I'll probably never get the chance to find out about now.

Celebrate the start of a new year.

I begin to think that maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. I look around me at the empty room that screams of a couple that has shared so much—pictures with smiling faces that no longer match the ones we wear—and wonder, if I was somebody looking through the window of this home, detached from the situation, where I'd think the boy with the green eyes and messy hair was now—where the man that now dresses in smart suits has disappeared to.

And lastly, why does the girl with the big, brown eyes that tries to hide from the camera, no longer laugh like she does in all those pictures?

Headlights blare through the very same window, blinding everything they touch. I take a deep breath, and close my eyes, relief settling through me, deep into my bones. I mute the TV and simply wait.

I hear him before I see him, and turn my head ever so slightly so I can be sure I'm not imagining things. I don't want to be the first one to speak, not after last night or this morning, but I push it down. Next time, I tell myself.

I go to ask where he's been, even though I can guess, but then I stop, spotting something on his face that shouldn't be there. It's not on the places you'd expect, the places you see in movie after movie: shirt collars and lips. No, it's somewhere completely innocent. The sight tarnishes his face—it takes away any innocence that may have been still there.

His keys jingle in his pocket, tinny tunes ringing through the house, giving music to a room that never used to need it.

He stops at the arm of the chair, his hand worrying through the strands of his hair before pulling it away again to make more music. I can't look away, despite how much I want to.

He sits, and finally looks at me, curled up on the cushions as I physically hold myself together; arms around knees that rest just below my chin. His expression is unnerving.

"You have lipstick on your cheek," I point out, gaze moving from red smudges to green calm. I don't let him go, I don't look away; I feel like I'm sinking, damaged ships and sand that holds, swallowing you until there's no way back.

I don't wear red. I know who wears red.

His lips part. "It's nothing," he replies. He's wrong; it's everything.

I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping for blood. More red. And then a thought occurs to me. Everything thumps and I feel too much. "Did you want me to see it?"

His breath holds, his mouth closes, his chest expands. Seconds pass. "I didn't even know it was there." And I think he's lying.

He doesn't try to prove he's not though; he simply stares back as I continue to find what I'm searching for. Guilt. But I don't know what that looks like anymore, a result of too much silence, too many half-truths: they've confused everything we used to understand about the other.

Falsehood became jumbled... pretty on the outside and meant to placate; colourful flowers in the brightest glass vases.

Lines muddled over time, and sense became lost: silence means there's nothing wrong. Words... words are the part that hurt. Just say nothing—it's better that way. Then no one will know. Most of all, each other.

But glass shatters, and those flowers will fall, rainbows painted across the carpet.

A montage of broken dreams.

Reality eventually has to tumble out. And when it does, it's hard to know just how much damage will be left behind.

"Have you found what you're looking for?" he asks after a while, his voice low and steady. He knew exactly what I was doing. Maybe he can finally read me. But no, because if he did, none of this would be happening in the first place.

I blink heavily, fighting the urge to close my eyes and escape from what I'm about to say. "I thought I had," I answer, meeting his gaze, trying so hard to be brave. I take a deep breath that hurts my chest. "But now I'm not so sure."

And I don't know if he gets the implication, but either way, I'm lying. I want him.

I think I'll always want him, even if sometimes I think I don't like him anymore.

He licks his bottom lip, his focus now on a spot behind my head. "Perhaps you just didn't look hard enough," he says, appearing casual. Bulletproof.

I shake my head. "No, I did."

He doesn't pause this time. "Then what's changed?"

I can't hold it back either. "You."

He looks at me for what feels like minutes. "Does it make it better to think that?"

My vision threatens to blur, scenes painted in watercolour—and still just as beautiful in its hazy imperfection.

"Yes," I whisper, not having the strength to both fight him and hold these tears at bay.

He looks troubled, and I want to crawl into his lap and grab his face in my hands, ask him to just tell me. But there's not enough time for that, as he's already speaking. "Then I'm sorry I've been such a disappointment to you."

Pain licks at my senses like the flame of a candle, and I want to scream no, you've been the best... and the worst, and it's all still here, if you want it.

He stands in front of the mirror above the mantle, inspecting his face with drawn brows.

"The lipstick," he breathes, and I tense, waiting for her name. "It's my mom's. It's just my mom's, Bella."

And I swear his voice shakes, but I can't be certain, because my face is pressed against my bare knees as my own mother's voice races through my head.

Sometimes a woman has no alternative but to save herself.

It's then that I finally let my tears build, then fall, just like our life so far.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 668