Let me be next to you/ I want to understand/let me next to you/and we can watch the band/let me be next to you/under your ceiling fan/I can hear every song better/when I'm next to you
Song: Next to You by Tim Easton
"Bella?" He called out to me from the back door.
"Over here."
He peeked at where I was near the edges of the woods. "What are you doing? It's cold outside."
I smiled. "Warm me up then."
Even in the dark, I can sense him smile. "I can do that."
I snuggled up against his body, breathing him in. We stood in the darkness with our arms around each other. I knew he was waiting for me to explain why we were outside while our family was inside, celebrating.
"Rosalie called."
Months before, he would have gotten tense, defensive, but now he merely gave a sound that indicated that he heard.
"She just wanted to tell me that he's okay, how every body was fine."
I waited for his questions but the only one he asked was something that I didn't expect. "Isn't Rosalie the one that didn't like you?"
I lifted my face from his chest and tried to see his face. "How do you know that?"
I felt him shrugged. "I don't know. Just the way you guys were around each other, I guess. What's up with that anyway?"
I pursed my lips, wondering how much I should tell him. "Rosalie…has issues."
He snorted. "We all have issues."
I snuggled up to him again when I felt his hand brushed my back. "Are you okay?"
I took a second to deliberate. "Yes. Feel a little guilty but either than that."
His hand slowed at my back and I knew he was trying to figure out how to ask me a particularly personal question. "Bells, I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything—I'm honestly curious."
I smiled against the soft worn material of his blue T-shirt at the familiar words.
"You never told me about… what happened."
"You didn't want to know before."
"I guess, I was afraid." His arms tightened around me.
"Afraid of what?"
"Afraid that you'll change your mind. That you realize that this was a mistake."
I raised my head. "Are you still thinking that way?"
His eyes drifted to mine slowly, as if he was just back from some distant place in his mind. They swept over my face in one lingering sweep. "No, not anymore."
I saw my smile mirrored on his. "Do you really want to know?"
He tilted his head in thought, his eyes still on my face. "Only if you want to tell me. It's not important to me anymore now that you're here."
He lead the way to a few lawn chairs at the back yard and sat me on his lap, I tucked my chin on his shoulder. "I think…it started as early as when you disappeared, and when you showed up at my house and disappeared again. I was…upset to say the least."
"Still sore about that, huh?"
I thumped a fist on his chest that made him chuckle. The rumbled in his chest tickled my ears. "He saw how upset I was and he offered to delay the wedding, until you came back."
"Hm."
The noncommittal sound made me snicker. "Not to rub your face in it but to set my mind at ease. So I wouldn't feel guilty for worrying about you when I have other things to worry about."
"I refused. I just wanted to get things over with." I smoothed my hand on his chest. "It was stupid and careless of me but, well, that was how I was back then. He found me crying in the dressing room after you left and he decided to end it for both of us. I fought him of course, telling him that he was crazy, that I did love him. He said that he knew that I love him, the trouble was that I loved you, too. He didn't blame me, didn't cast judgments, he was willing to accept that my heart was divided but he knew that I couldn't live with both of you in my heart. So, he left."
"Just like that?"
I shook my head, even with how much bad blood between them, even Jacob couldn't believe that Edward would leave me so easily.
"No, he made a deal with me. If I moved on, straighten my life, accomplished something for myself, he'll be back for me in two years. I moved back to my mom's determined to win the deal. Two years pass by so quickly because I was so busy and in my attempt to lose myself actually made me found myself. I rediscovered my love for cooking and for books. For the first time, I was alone, standing on my own two feet and actually having fun."
"Then as he promised, he dropped by the café I was working in." I sighed, remembering the day where I saw him again after two long years. Perfection, staring at her from behind the counter. "Still as beautiful, as unreal…as young and my chest felt like it would burst. I realized that I still loved him and he—amazingly—still loved me."
"Then what happened?"
I knew the frustration leaked out of my voice. "It was wrong. It felt wrong."
"What?"
"Me. How I was. How I am. I was different and although I loved him, I loved him so much, we couldn't…we didn't feel like a matched pair anymore. Like a piece that connected us back then was missing."
"He knew it, I knew it. We broke each other heart's again."
I wrapped my hands around him when he held me tighter, responding to the pain in my voice.
"He stopped by sometimes after that but never long, we talked about our family, our lives. A year passed, then two and I was just about ready to turn my back on that part of me that kept telling me that something was wrong."
I looked up at him. "But then you came bursting through my door, angry, frustrated."
"About to be clobbered by a mop." He said wryly.
I laughed and marveled at the way it echoed in air. "That should teach you to never sneak on a girl with a mop."
He grinned impishly. "Dangerous things, mops."
"The look on your face." I laughed again, remembering.
He joined in my laughter. "Well, I was sort of confused. I thought it was my turn to be angry but you sort of caught me off guard. You do a mean mopping, you know."
"It was in the middle of the night. You could've waited till morning to surprise me like that."
"No, I couldn't." The smile of his face faded. "I couldn't wait, well, I did wait for Embry to go home, I didn't want him to know that I came to see you just in case it didn't go so well."
I reached for his face and smiled into his eyes. "Lucky it did."
He swept his fingers over my cheek and smiled back. "Luck had nothing to do with it."
Laughter broke from inside the house, in contrast with the peaceful stillness that covered us. I burrowed against him, searching for his warmth and he kissed the top of my head. "What happened with us?"
"What?" I asked, drowsy with contentment.
"Not that I want to question your decision, but what made you finally chose me?"
I smiled against his neck. "Well, that was…you'll laugh at me."
I sensed his eyes on me as I stared at my fingers that were playing with the collar of his T-shirt. "Why?"
"It's hard to explain."
"Bella, I found a loophole in an injunction for you."
I grumbled. "I knew you'd use the werewolf card. I'm banning you from ever using the werewolf card."
He laughed. "Explain."
"The closest thing I can give you an example is, it was sort of like imprinting."
He grinned at me. "Are you saying you've imprinted on me?"
I shifted my weight until I sat straight on his lap, my two arms crossed in front of me. "I said sort of."
He stifled the grin. "Oh, okay. What's that like?"
I eyed his still grinning face with narrowed eyes.
He laughed. "All right, I'm sorry. I apologize." He pressed a kiss on my lips and kept kissing me until I softened in his arms. He chuckled when I gave a soft mewl of protest when he pulled away. "I'll be glad to continue, Bells, but I don't want to give them a preview."
I blushed when laughter and wolf—ha ha—whistles erupted from the kitchen window that looked over to where we were. He looked at me, tilting his head. "So?"
"It was silly really, you remembered when you picked me up at the weekends I was to spend it at Charlie's?"
"Yeah."
"I was running late and feeling very frazzled. I threw whatever I need in a bag and was having a really bad day so I stopped to have a few temper tears which of course made me even later."
He smiled at me, brushing my hair away from my face.
"I passed by my window that looked over the road and you sort of screeched to a stop and parked your motorcycle right down my opened window. Then you took off your helmet and looked up as if you knew I was there and smiled at me."
In my mind I could still remember the day, the annoyed feeling I had over running late, the stinging pain that I felt when I stubbed my toe on the drawer, the shadow of a tantrum that I wanted to unleash, the ripple of relief I felt when I heard the sound of his motorcycle, the brightness of happiness when I saw that it was him, the slow, liquid slide that my heart made at his smile and the way the Earth seemed to tilt at its axis.
"The world changed for me that day and I knew that you were the one that I'll spend my life with."
I touched his face and it seemed that he couldn't find the right words to say, so he merely pulled me into his arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment