I planned to write a sweet and smutty little rumination birthdays here for you, but it accidentally turned into ... something different. Which if you know me means something kind sad and smutty and maybe bittersweet. I hope you like it anyway.
Warning: This is canon Bella through and through.
Which, of course, is yet another thing Stephenie Meyer owns and I don't.
Extra special thanks to antiaol for beta'ing in spite of her little wussperv heart and her delicate stomach and to bmango for the pre-read.
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I don't know exactly when it is in the evening that I realize he's gone.
All night, I've been watching him, my body moving to mirror his position in the room without even realizing that's what I'm doing. When he shifts, I find myself shifting. When he leaves, I find my shoulders slumping, some energy sapped from my mind and my spine, and when he comes back again, it's like I'm whole.
Only he hasn't come back this time.
Not in a long, long while.
I don't know what made Edward decide to come home for his birthday this year. I didn't even find out until his sister, Alice, told me at work the other day. She'd been busy planning his party for weeks now, and my stomach dropped when I realized I wouldn't even have known he was coming if she hadn't accidentally let it slip.
There was a time, back years ago, when I would have been the first one he called when he was planning a trip back to Forks.
That time isn't now.
I showed up at their parents' house earlier in the evening full of apprehension and nerves, draped in a green dress like the one he used to like back when we were in a place where he would have told me what he liked to see on my body. I handed his mother the requisite bottle of wine, exchanging cheek kisses and sad looks, before venturing in.
When I saw him for the first time, mere moments after arriving, my eyes took in twisted locks of red and brown and gold, soft eyes and a sad, sweet smile, and it was like no time had passed at all.
Except that in another time I would have run to him, wrapped my arms around him and kissed him until I couldn't breathe anymore.
Instead, I just tried not to stare, darting my eyes from his to the ground and all around, my hands twitching nervously, my feet itching to run to him or to go.
I did neither, finding a drink and an acquaintance and feeling my heart break just a little bit more with every moment he didn't notice me and come over to say hello.
When he finally did see me, our eyes connected across the room, his whole face consumed with this burning look of want and wasted years and silence.
And it was the first time I ever saw the beginnings of age lines around his eyes.
Our stare lasted for what felt like hours, something burning inside of me, too. It was only interrupted when a younger woman tapped his shoulder, a woman with alabaster skin and big blue eyes, and his attention was diverted.
And I looked away.
As the party began to fill up, I managed to avoid staring at him, for all that I still felt him. I felt him in the air and in my bones and in the hole he had left in my heart when he had gone.
But now he's gone all over again, and there's a panic in my chest that maybe he's left with that beautiful girl that was tapping his side or that he's avoiding me or that I may never get a chance to see him again.
Nodding distractedly to the people I am talking to, I move to the side, smoothing my dress down my legs and refilling my wine glass and trying to clear my head and my treacherous, blurring eyes.
It's only as I am refilling my glass that I see a glint of copper, the highlights of his hair glowing so warmly under the light of paper lanterns in the darkness outside. Peering through the window, I watch him moving across the deserted patio, long fingers in his hair and his face gazing skyward as if he's searching the stars for a sign.
He looks so alone, out there in the darkness, and I want to go to him, to clasp his hand in mine the way I would have years ago. I want to reach beneath the sad smile and guarded eyes to find the man who always felt so alone in a crowd, his solitude and his silence his most constant companions. I want to wash them all away with my lips and my hands again.
I want to find the man who who was always so easily adored, and yet who always adored only me.
Until he didn't anymore.
As I stare out the window, he paces one more time from the house to the edge of the lawn again, his hands clasping and unclasping, his motions distracted. He takes one more look back toward the house and for a moment I imagine he can see me, but his eyes pass right over me and my heart and face fall.
Picking up a half-empty beer bottle, he turns away again, drinking in long pulls as his throat moves and I can't seem to tear my eyes away. Silhouetted in moonlight and the soft glow of the lanterns, he's beautiful. As beautiful as always.
And as always, I am watching him through glass.
With the bottle still grasped between his fingers, he glances up and then begins to move across the lawn, and I almost stop breathing when I realize his destination. He climbs the rickety wooden ladder with just one hand, ascending into leaves and memories, disappearing inside the tree house for a minute before stepping back outside, sitting on the edge and staring still at the motion of the sky.
I remember him sitting there. I can feel it in my bones, a flush in my face and across my skin as I react to the memory of him, clad in a t-shirt and jeans then instead of a sweater and dress pants. Younger looking. Freer.
I remember how he'd sat there the first night we made love.
We'd given ourselves to each other at the age of sixteen, naked and sweating in a sleeping bag in a tree house, sharing something new and sharing touches and sharing skin that had never been seen before. In the moments after, my body glowing and my heart thrumming, we had told each other we loved each other again and again, kissing and holding each other and letting the darkness take us.
When I'd awaken, still naked and covered in a sleeping bag, he had been sitting there, dressed again.
No words had been needed.
I'd known him then. Known his silences and his moods, known his quiet moments and the turning of his mind. So instead of talking, I'd just wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and my hips and stepped to the edge to sit beside him, letting my head fall to his shoulder and taking his hand in mine.
And he'd let me.
And through his darkness he'd smiled at me.
A noise behind me reminds me where I am, and I am aware all over again that I am staring and that I should let memories be memories.
Only I can't.
I take my wine glass with me as I turn to find Alice near the door, packing bottles into boxes even as the party is still carrying on within. Unsure what to do after being caught mooning out her window, I smile apologetically at her. She returns the smile with a soft one of her own, asking me quietly if I'm having a good time.
When I tell her that I am it's only half a lie. I have always been a masochist for him, and the pain of remembering my joy with him has its own pleasant sting.
She glances out the window and I realize she can see what I see - that she knows her brother is brooding again. A look of recognition dawns on her face but it's covered smoothly as she returns her attention to the bottles again, ducking low to grab the ones that have fallen and to mop up whatever has been spilled.
Speaking quietly, as if to no one, she says, "Mom and Dad were going to tear it down, you know."
"Hmm?"
"The tree house," she explains, still staring down intently. "Only Edward wouldn't let them."
My head whips around to look at her, wondering if she knows what happened there.
All of it.
Not just the love-making but the heart-breaking.
For a moment it's all I can see, Alice and the kitchen all washed away beneath a bright crimson haze of pain, Edward's hand in mine as I cried and cried and cried.
We'd been drifting apart for so long, so many miles between our colleges and phone calls that just didn't seem to get made. Only I'd still loved him, and I'd thought he loved me, too.
It had been winter break of our senior year. Until I'd seen the look on his face, I'd been smiling so widely, thinking we might be nearing the end of our long separation.
When really we were just beginning it.
He'd told me he wanted to stay in New York.
And that I should stay in Washington.
And then I'd known.
Feeling the sharp pain of my fingernails tearing into my palms, I jerk myself away from the memory of the last time he held me, trying to focus as Alice continues.
"He wanted to see you, you know."
I chuckle mirthlessly.
"I'm sorry I invited you so late," she says, "but I'd thought it best not for you to have to see him. Then he asked, and he told me he wanted you here. That he wanted to talk."
She pauses for a minute as I bite my lip and stare.
"This would be a pretty good time for that, don't you think?" she asks quietly. There's a clink or two of glasses and I feel her hand, warm and soft on mine, and then she's gone.
The door squeaks slightly as I let myself out onto the patio, the dim lighting and the silence a pleasant relief after the commotion of the party inside. The grass tickles my ankles, dampness seeping through thin-soled shoes.
I hesitate for just a moment when I reach the tree, wanting to knock or ring a bell or ask him if he wants me. The only thing that gives me courage is the knowledge that he must have seen my approach. That he must know I'm coming for him.
And he's had plenty of time to tell me to go away.
The little planks nailed to the side of the tree are smooth beneath my hand, each one feeling so familiar to curve my fingers around and yet so strange. Somehow I manage to climb them without spilling my drink or slipping, and I can only attribute it to so many years of practice. To the many heady nights when I snuck up here to see his face and kiss his mouth and hear his voice.
I emerge through the hole in the floor, spying him immediately. In all the time I've been approaching he hasn't moved, his back still rounded, his elbows on his knees as he faces out into the open night.
There are no words. No greetings or beckonings.
But I go to him anyway.
The wood slats are cool on the undersides of my legs as I lower myself gently, leaving too much space and not enough between us, clutching my glass in both of my hands once I am settled so I will not be tempted to use them. So I won't try to touch those tousled waves and curls or feel the texture of his skin where his smile lines meet his eyes.
For a while we sit there, sipping and star-gazing. The noises from inside filter in quietly, and the night feels all the more still for knowing we are not a part of it.
For knowing we never have been, really.
His settles his bottle loudly on the ground and I hear his sigh, feeling his eyes on me for the first time since we almost connected across the crowded room.
And then I hear his voice for the first time in years.
"I forget sometimes how beautiful it is here."
I want to think he's talking about the stars and I want him to be talking about me.
And he's still staring at me.
I can only look at my hands, feeling his warmth across the space and the warmth in my body as a flush passes over me.
There's a breeze and there's quiet and there's nothing I've wanted more in these long, lost years than to be sitting right here, comfortable and longing, and with Edward here beside me.
"So thirty, huh?" I ask in a tone that is meant to be laughing but it's soft and it's mumbling. I'm staring at the stars again, watching an airplane pass across the sky, the blinking red and white making the stars seem all the more distant and out of reach.
He chuckles and I can almost see him moving his hand to his hair, his mannerisms all still the same for everything else that has changed.
"Apparently."
I hazard a glance over at him, his eyes focused somewhere just beyond me, and he's so beautiful in the dim light, older and more guarded but still my Edward. Or at least I like to imagine he is, for all that he's been so far away for so long.
"I supposed I should be mocking you for being an old man, now?" I tease, but my heart isn't in a teasing mood.
"Probably." There's a twinkle in his eyes for the first time, a smile that doesn't seem so sad on full lips that I know would be soft if they were pressed to mine. He turns a bit and our gazes connect again, still all-encompassing and heady and it's dangerous to be staring into those eyes.
"But you know I give as good as I get, Bella. And you've only got a few months left yourself."
"Don't remind me," I mutter as I blush and turn away. My nails pick idly at my skirt for a while before I trust myself to speak again.
"So how does it feel?" I ask curiously. "You know, so I'm prepared and all."
He leans back, resting his hands against the floor behind him with his arms braced and straight and muscular and I want to feel them moving over me.
"Not that different really." There's a frown on his face, a contemplative look I know too well. "Which is kind of the problem. I feel like I should feel older, you know? More settled."
I nod but say nothing, not knowing how to give away that I too feel anything but settled, still living in the town where I grew up and fell in love and where my heart was lost and where I still haven't really recovered yet. And where I still feel like anything but a grownup.
"I thought - I thought I'd be someone else by now," he says quietly and I have to look at him.
"But you're you," I whisper because I still love him and I wouldn't want him to be anyone but the one I've always loved.
"Still," he says, and his voice is tinged with sadness. "Still me. For everything that I try not to be."
It's painful to hear him talk this way. But then again it always has been.
"I've been thinking a lot, Bella. Thinking about who I am and what I am and what I was supposed to be by now. … I've been thinking about regret."
There's a stabbing, freezing twisting in my belly, a turn of a knife and my skin is so cold. Crimson washes across my gaze again, the unpleasant tugs of memory dragging me to places I don't often go to but which I have little choice but to revisit when I'm here and when he's with me.
It's the word he spoke that night he left me. Regret. There were words about opportunities and dreams and then his voice was in my ear, saying how he wouldn't want either of us to look back someday and regret all the things that might have been.
When the only thing I would ever regret was not having the chance to spend my life with him.
He's still talking and I've been missing it and it's unforgivable, but there's only so much that I can bear. Trying unsuccessfully to hide my broken heart away, I turn to him and gasp.
Because there's anguish in his face and I know those eyes.
"Bella," he whispers, longing and hurt and so much silence hanging still on the cool night air. "Bella, I thought I would regret all the wrong things."
He buries his head in his hands, and he looks so old and so small.
Hope and worry are mixing in all the tingling edges of me, and I know what I want him to regret.
And I know what I want.
And I want to be brave.
I put down my glass and shift over, stopping when my thigh would almost touch his thigh, our feet dangling together, his brown shoes and my green ones, and it looks like a long way down.
Dismissing all my fears of falling, I lean into him then.
His shoulder is warm and his sweater soft beneath my cheek. He takes in a shuddering breath when I press my side against his, exhaling with a long whisper of so many things left unsaid.
And then he takes my hand.
There's a rush of dizziness and sensation as long fingers curl around mine, his palm warm and slightly damp but I don't mind. There are scars on his skin that I don't recognize, but the feeling is more than recognizable to me.
It's home.
I don't hear the whimpering sigh that escapes my lips, but Edward does, and I can feel his smile in my hair and in my toes and in my fingertips.
We sit that way for some time, my breath slowing as I become inured to the sheer rush of adrenaline that is his presence and his touch again, my body relaxing by increments as his does until we are leaning against each other fully, warmth lighting my entire side and my smile so wide.
I try to hide the smile, letting my face slide back into a mask of detached passivity as I raise my head from his shoulder, dislodging his from where it had been resting, his ear to my hair. And then, holding my breath, I look up.
With a smile that is so impossibly sad, he is staring down at me. For a moment I think he wants to kiss me and it's exactly what I want, but he doesn't move. I wonder if I can bridge that gap, if I can overlook all the heartache of the time he moved and the time he kissed me goodbye.
I wonder if I can afford to let him kiss me goodbye again.
I take a brave step and the coward's way out at the same time, leaning forward to press my lips to the stubbled line of his cheek, feeling the skin warm and rough beneath my lips and he smells different and he smells perfect and he smells the same.
My lips press against his skin for a moment longer than I should allow them to, my eyes open, and I can't help but notice the licks of grey that have begun to appear amongst the red and brown and gold in the hair around his temple and his ear. I pull away at last then, my nose grazing the edge of his jaw before I whisper softly, "Happy birthday, Edward."
He doesn't let me get very far before his hand is closing around mine, his other palm smooth and warm on my cheek as his fingers curl around my jaw to pull me in. I start to gasp or say his name or otherwise express alarm but I can't because it's in that exact moment that I feel his mouth on mine. I freeze and melt and my head is spinning and he's kissing me, his lips softer and more full than I remembered or imagined as I kiss him back, tasting his breath and his tongue, and I'm whimpering because it's everything I wanted and it's everything that can destroy me.
By the time he tears away we are both panting, the skin around my mouth and chin rough and chafed from the unfamiliar feeling of his stubble, my lips swollen and my body on fire. We've shifted and his chest is half pressed to mine, our foreheads pushed together and our noses brushing as we breathe into each other's lungs. I suck in unsteady breaths, staring into deep green eyes as my fingertips still rest on his scalp, all tangled with his hair and he's so warm.
I'm drunk on wine and drunk on him and that's the only excuse that I have for the words that fall out of my heart and my mouth.
"I never stopped loving you," I whisper, and in so doing I know I'm giving him everything he needs to break me in two again. I'm tensing and I want to pull away and push closer, but I'm frozen and I know that this is where it all will begin or where it all will end again.
There's a hard tense moment during which he is silent, those eyes that I have known and that I no longer know probing mine.
And then slowly, finally, he smiles, his lips parting, and in spite of myself I'm smiling too as he whispers, quietly, "I know."
He pushes me backwards then, kissing me again so softly and I want to cry because it's exactly, perfectly, completely how he used to kiss me.
His hand runs up and down my body as I lie back against the floorboards I've made love to him on so many times before, the slats hard and cold beneath my skin even through the fabric of the dress I wore just for him. When his hand hovers over my breast, his thumb rubbing back and forth just beneath the swell of softness and flesh, he begins to kiss his way across my face, his lips hot and wet against the skin behind my ear.
"God, I've missed you, Bella," he breathes and I break, but not in the way I thought I would. He keeps kissing down my neck, moving across the exposed flesh of my collarbone and over the dress to open his mouth and breathe hotly across my breast, and I'm crying. He shushes me as I shake, moving back up my body as my hands grasp too hard at his hair and his neck, whispering over and over how much he missed me and that he's sorry as we kiss again. Softly, this time. Sweetly.
And when I look up at him this time, his eyes are damp and sad and smiling, too.
Brushing away my tears with his thumbs, he kisses my eyes and my nose and my mouth, our lips parting and breaths mingling. I pull myself together by increments, focusing on the feeling of his body instead of the myriad ways I've longed for it and missed it, and before long we move forward into more serious kisses. He hovers over me, just a fraction of his weight on my chest and he's pushing us back and away from the edge and out of view of the house and toward safer ground.
Only I don't feel safe.
"Edward," I whisper, and he's nodding and groaning and I can feel his body, ready and wanting and pressed to my hip as his arms encircle me.
"Edward, I can't. I want to but I can't. My heart can't - "
He silences me with a kiss, his voice low and gruff, and I know he's aroused and I want him, but I don't trust him anymore.
"Bella," he whispers into my mouth, but then he pulls away, his hips shifting so they're not so insistent against me and his face is just far enough away now that I can see him.
"Bella," he starts again, "your heart … " He trails off as his palm comes to rest against my ribs directly over the place where my pulse is thundering for him, the beat of my heart so loud that I can hear it in the open quiet of the not-quite room.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers against my neck. "I thought I knew what I wanted and that this distance was better for me and for you. But Bella - Bella, I have always, always wanted you."
He is so close to me, his lips hot beside my ear as he breathes the words I have longed in all my loneliness these many years to hear. "And I have always, always loved you."
I'm crying all over again, putting my arms around him and letting my heart beat freely.
I know I should be more careful.
I know trust isn't won this easily.
But there's nothing that can keep me from him now.
When our lips meet again it is with nothing short of fire, our bodies aligned so his hardness is pressing into me, his head tilted to the side as I clutch the sides of his face and pull him into my embrace. I find skin and he does too, his hands so hot on my arm and on my thigh, moving up beneath my dress, rough fingertips making tight circles on my hip.
Through all our kisses he keeps whispering, "I love you," and "I want you," and I can feel his desire and mine between my legs. I part them, pushing back until he is lying prone and I can place my body over his, letting his hands push up the fabric of my dress so I can place my knees on either side of his hips.
We do not need to speak of urgency or the practicalities of making love in a tree house with dozens of guests below and our bodies just out of sight.
We've done this all before.
His fingers wrap the fabric of my panties around themselves, tugging until I'm naked below my waist, and I fumble for him too, finding smooth flesh so hot it burns my hand. My fingers grasp at him, stroking at him as he's groaning until he pulls back and pushes me away.
There's nothing but tenderness in those warm green eyes, his hand tracing softly over my face as I continue to touch him, keeping my hand wrapped around him even as he stills my wrist with the lightest touch.
"It's been - it's been a while for me," he says quietly. It makes my heart melt to hear him say this, even as I am shaking my head. I do not begin to pretend that he has been celibate without me, and I know my own desperate moments when I have found others to warm my bed.
But nothing has felt like this in all those years.
Still shaking my head, I brush his lips with mine, swallowing his words.
"I want to know everything," I breathe. "But not now."
He nods and kisses me back softly and I can feel his body giving in, hardening further in my hand as he moves his fingers to my wetness to touch me.
I clench my eyes shut as I whisper the only words I still have to say tonight. "Just tell me you want me for more than one night."
"My Bella. My love. I do."
I sink down onto him and there's a completeness like I haven't known in years, my body stretching and fullness everywhere. The feel of his body moving inside me is almost overwhelming, so much perfection to our love-making as we speak each other's names breathlessly. I open my eyes to take in the look of wonder in his eyes, emotion and desire just brimming there as I rise and then lower myself again and again and within moments the tremors are building.
When the pleasure hits me, it's as if I've never made love before, my mouth pressed so hard to his and my eyes closing as everything in me gives in to our coupling, our bodies moving like they have so many times before and like they were always meant to.
When he follows, it's with a hot, hard pulsing in my sex.
And the entire time, he's kissing me and whispering my name.
We lie together in silence afterward, my skirt righted and the warmth between my thighs a reminder of what we have just done. So gently, we kiss and touch, my hands relearning the things they had never really forgotten or moved past longing for.
His hands seem to be re-memorizing me, too.
"Is it later?" he asks, concern on his eyes and questions on full lips I am still too happy to kiss.
"Almost. But not yet."
His fingers move gently across my face. "There's so much I want to tell you, Bella."
I nod, because I want to hear it, too.
I want to trust him again.
But I want to just fall into this, too. I want easy loving and perfect connection and a way to erase all the years of hurt and loneliness, but I know that there's no way to.
"How long are you staying?" I am almost afraid to know the answer.
"A week." It's more than I would have dared to hope for and not nearly enough. "But it's different now," he whispers, shaking his head against the cool wood planks of the floor. "New York, I mean. I'm not - I'm not wedded to it any more.
"I've made mistakes, Bella. Not known what I wanted. But I always knew where I wanted to be when I was thirty. And it wasn't successful but alone. I know what I want now for real."
I don't respond. Instead I just push his hair out of his face like I always used to do, because if I speak he will know what I want and what I feel.
"Bella," he says, and his voice is so quiet and so beautiful when it's wrapped around my name. "I want you. And I'll do whatever it takes to be with you."
I close my eyes to keep the emotion at bay and kiss him softly one last time, because I know it's time to get back to the party.
And because I know that, while we have some difficult conversations ahead, for all intents and purposes he already has me.
"Happy birthday," I whisper again, but this time with my mouth against his lips.
"Yes, Bella," he says, and this time when he smiles it isn't sad. "Yes, it is."
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Happy birthday, sweetie. Hope it ends up being happier than this story :(
Why do you always try to kill me with your pretty words? Why?
ReplyDeleteBecause I'm a sad little masochist, you say?
True. :)
I loved this so much my dear. Thank you. <3