Bella
It had been a great couple of weeks, I passed my GED test and I enrolled in some photography classes. Everyone was so proud of how far I had come, Jasper and Alice gave me a camera as my graduation present, and Esme and Carlisle found me a second hand car to drive.
Edward had sent me a long letter answering all the questions I had asked in my last letter. I was proud of his honesty and couldn't wait to go and see him. We would get to see each other for the first time since his sentencing next Tuesday. Edward's lawyer was able to work with the warden to allow me to come and see him on Tuesday instead of Saturday due to my advanced pregnancy. He said it would give us more time to talk without all the interruptions of the other families plus it would be safer for me. Edward was all for it; this way we would be able to meet in a little room by ourselves with one guard watching through a window and not out in the open with all the other people there, it helped put me more at ease about the visit, knowing that we would be on our own would give us more time to talk about things that we couldn't talk about on the phone or in letters.
Tuesday finally arrived and I was so damn nervous. I worried about how I looked. Edward had never seen me pregnant. I worried about how I was dressed and how my makeup looked. I worried if I had the directions written down correctly. I just worried.
Esme made me breakfast, and packed me a snack to take with me, just in case. Alice and Jasper both called to talk me down a little. Carlisle kissed my forehead as he left and asked me to tell Edward that he would be up this weekend. Grand and Poppy gave me a kiss to give to him. I made my way to the car and pulled out of the driveway. Finally on my way to see Edward.
I arrived at the jail, gave my ID to the guard and was ushered into a little room where I sat and waited for Edward to come in. After a few minutes another guard came to tell me that Edward was in the gym working out so he ran to shower before he came in. I told him that was fine and began to wait again. Once again the door opened and the guard stepped in. "Ms. Swan I need to tell you the rules first before I can bring him in, okay?" I nodded. "You can touch but nothing sexual. He can hug you but nothing more. Both of your hands must remain on top of the table at all times. You can sit side by side but you must face this window. You may not give him anything such as letters, books or anything like that. He may not give you anything. I can hear you both but I will not be listening. I simply have the speaker on for your safety. If you need me for any reason then you may ask for me. The warden says you may have two hours." He stepped back a few steps and I nodded my understanding. "Then please have a seat right here and I will bring him in."
I sat and waited, I could hear the shuffling in the hallway and the guard relaying the rules to Edward as well. I heard Edward ask if he could kiss me. I didn't hear the response and it didn't matter because they opened the door and brought Edward in. He immediately pulled me close and hugged me against him. I could feel the way my new body fit against him and liked how it felt. Now I see why the no sexual touching thing was brought up, because at this point I really wanted to sexually touch Edward.
Edward's hand came up to cup my face and he held me at arm's length. "My God, Bella, you are beautiful." His hands went to my stomach. I was embarrassed and tried to pull my jacket around me to cover it but Edward pushed my hands away, he ran his hands all over me and held them in place once he reached a spot he liked. I moved his hand lower and he stood stock still when our baby kicked his hand. His eyes wide with shock. The guard cleared his throat over the speaker and Edward shifted his body so that he could see through the window that we were clearly not sexually touching. I heard a faint murmur of 'okay' and we got lost in our bubble again. Edward stood for quite a few minutes with his hands on my stomach feeling it move. Each time his eyes lit up brighter.
I finally shifted to sit. We chose for me to sit at the end of the table and Edward immediately to my right, that way both of us faced the window. Edward grabbed my hands and held them in his. "I can't believe that you're here."
"Me either. This was the longest week ever." I joked.
"Who drove you?" He asked tentatively.
"Well, see when I passed my GED, your dad took me to help me find a car. It's a piece of crap but it's my piece of crap. So I drove myself. I wasn't ready to be with anyone else today. I wanted today to be about me and you." I whispered the last part but Edward still heard me. His grip tightened on my hand and I knew that I'd made the right move. "What about you though, look at you." I say this in amazement. He looks great. His hair is cut shorter than he likes it but it looks hot, he has filled out and has a slight tan. I marveled at the man before me and shook my head at the fact that the women that just can't help themselves.
"I got clean, healthy and I am living right. It's amazing what a little effort can do. I see that it's been working for you as well. You're beautiful."
I blushed and lead him towards a conversation about our child. I told him the due date and he blanched again, I'm guessing the fact that it's so close and he certainly won't be able to be there was making him feel guilty. I reached for him and attempted to soothe him. He allowed me to put my hand on his face and turn him toward me. I realize that this is something he would never let me do before. I marvel at his progress. "Hey, it's fine. We knew this right?"
We sat in silence for a few minutes, each of us absorbing the details that we knew we would face without each other. I realized that it was now time to talk about our pasts and get them out of the way if we ever had any hope of making a future with each other.
"Can I ask you a few questions? Things that I have thought about often and I need to know." He sat back and almost pulled his hand away. At the last second he reached back to pull my hand back into his palm and curled his hand around mine. The tension in his body was clear and very easy to read.
"I guess we had to do this sometime, so shoot." He said on an exhaled breath.
"I need to know about the time we were together." I sat in silence trying to find a way to not be an asshole about it but still be totally honest. "I mean, were you with other people? At all, cause there were a lot of rumors and some of them were hard to ignore." He grabbed a cigarette and lit it, his hand slightly shaking as he pulled it out of his mouth. I had never seen Edward so shook up and worried about the depth of the bad news that he was going to deliver to me.
"I'm going to be totally honest with you okay?" I nodded my head at him. I didn't want to break this little bubble that we were in by speaking. "I wasn't totally faithful. And at the time that it happened I wasn't real upset by it. But now I see that it was the drugs or the alcohol talking to me. I knew that you would be hurt by it and yeah I tried my damnest to hide it from you." He drew the cigarette back up to his mouth and took a ragged draw off of it. "I just didn't care at the time, usually it was when we had one of our biggest fights and it was real easy to say 'fuck you' and go out and do it. I wish I had a different answer to tell you but I know now that I was in too deep. I was too wrapped up in myself and my own bad habits to pull away." His eyes met mine. "I'm sorry Bella, really sorry." He leaned his head away and blew the smoke away from me. I was touched by the small amount of caring that he had shown to me at this moment. It didn't take away the sting of what he was saying but it did show me that he had changed.
I sat back in my chair. I wanted the answer to be different but I knew deep down inside that it wasn't. I knew that he was going to say the things he did. And while I understood them, they still hurt me. I drew in a shaky breath and willed myself to talk to him about it. "I guess I knew this all along if I'm being honest with myself." He turned his head away but nodded at the same time. "I need to know who and when." His head jerked back to look me dead in the eyes.
He stuttered, "Who and when?"
"Edward, we need to say it all. Get it all out; drop all of this baggage while we still can. That is the only way we can move on with each other. I need to know that you were honest with me and I was honest with you, so we can work towards rebuilding the trust." His head didn't turn away but it didn't hold my gaze any longer either.
"Looks like your therapist knows my therapist." He murmured. I smiled, happy that he was being told to do the same thing. Inside I was hoping that this would make it easier for him to talk to me about this sensitive subject since he had pressure on both sides.
"I won't lie, this is a push from Jasper to know this, but if I'm being honest with myself, I have needed to know for a long time. Now, if you had told me this before," I waved my hand around to indicate his current situation, "then we might not still be together. But now, we are in a totally different place. We are trying to make this work for our sanity and for the sake of our baby." I grabbed his free hand again and squeezed it. "I need to know." I begged him with my eyes.
"I'm just so fucking scared that you want to know now but when I tell you then you will leave and never come back, you'll think less of me and run for the hills. I mean I have nothing but you right now. If I don't have the hope that we can fix this and be a real family when I get out I have nothing!" His voice slightly raised and I heard the squawk of the speaker turning on so that the guard could ask if everything was okay. I waved at him to indicate that I was fine and he turned it right back off.
"Edward all we ever have is hope. We take risks every single day, every hour. Some of them are returned and some are not. I don't know what to tell you other than I'm here now, after all we have been through and yet I am still here trying to work things out with you and I still haven't run." His silence let me know that he was thinking this over so I pushed forward. "I could have and several times I wanted to. I went through fucking detox with you. I mean not with you with you, but I knew you were going to go through it alone in jail. So it made me feel closer to you to do it at the same time." He pushed my hair back behind my ear and gently rubbed his thumb along my jaw line. I was getting through to him; I saw in his eyes that he was breaking down and processing everything in his mind as I spoke. "I need to know where our relationship stood so I could see the progress that we had made, Please."
He lit another cigarette and I wondered how much longer we had until 'Time' was called. I didn't want to get half way through but yet I needed something today.
"It was only with one girl, the same girl." He glanced up at me again. His thumb nail was tracing the carvings on the table top. "It was Lauren." I stiffened and he leaned forward to bridge the gap between us. His hand came to rest on my face again. "It was her because she meant nothing to me. I hated her, with a passion hated her. It was easier to cheat with her, to feel nothing with her. So yeah I did the act but felt none of the feelings with it. I felt nothing and that is what I wanted at that time."
"How many times?" I asked, trying not to sound pissed but I was.
"Four times. Three times she just blew me, so I guess that counts and then once I fucked her." All of the smug looks from Lauren made more sense now. "You have to trust me when I say it meant nothing. I was angry and that is no excuse but fuck, Bella, I had no idea how to deal with it. None!" He stood and began to pace the small room. I sat back in my chair to give him as much room as possible. "I had the perfect life, my parents loved me, they cared for me and I had every opportunity that Emmett did. But fucking look at me, I'm in jail. I don't know how to fix this or if I can. I just know that I am tired of feeling like the fuck up, the black sheep. For once I want to do something right with my life. Once." He dropped back down in the chair and pulled out another cigarette.
"I get it, baby, I do; me too, that's what we're doing here." I brushed my hand across his face and turned him so that I could look at him. "I'm just as scared Edward. I mean look at me; I'm alone, pregnant and living with your parents. I need to feel like I have my feet on the ground some way or another. We need to know that we are okay." He nodded. "It's only been you." I whispered. He closed his eyes and trapped my hand between his neck and jaw line as he leaned into my touch. "We will make it, I know we will." He nodded against my hand.
We heard the door open and the guard cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Edward but it's time." He stepped back out into the hallway and left us a little privacy to say goodbye. We both stood up.
"We can talk more next time, okay?" He pulled me into him and held me close to his body. I felt the defeat swallowing him up. "Hey, we're good, I promise." He nodded and lean towards me slightly. I didn't know if kissing him was considered 'sexual' but I was sure going to find out. I pulled him down to me and kissed his mouth. His sweet, full mouth.
I felt so needy and wanted so much more from him but I knew that it was a defense mechanism. A way of coping that wasn't healthy. I wanted his touch as a way to assure me I was good enough; but my time with Jasper had shown me that I had to know I was good enough and nothing that Edward did could ever convince me of that.
I did open my mouth and allow my tongue to sweep out to touch his, I craved his body as much as I ever did and could see that this small amount of contact would not defeat my purpose. Edward obviously didn't mind because he pulled me closer and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. His kiss was so sweet and gentle. Nothing like the kisses we used to share, they were always rough and demanding. I liked this new side of Edward, definitely.
The guard wrapped his knuckles on the door and we broke apart. He dropped his forehead down onto mine, his hand still wrapped around the back of my neck. He felt like he was covering me and protecting me, and I loved it.
"I'll be back soon, okay?" He just nodded at me and stepped away towards the door. I heard the guard murmur something about 'touching' as Edward just shook his head and laughed. Edward let it go and so did I. If I thought he was in real trouble I would certainly tell the guard, I mean after all it was my fault and not Edward's. But he looked like they were joking and not really admonishing so I sat back down to wait to be escorted out.
When the guard showed back up, he held his hand out to me and introduced himself. "I'm Eleazar, I'm the shrink around here." He laughed as she shook my hand. "I hope you don't mind that I was the one that stood guard for this but I needed to know how to talk to Edward after this visit." I bit down on my thumbnail and rethought all of the things I had said to him, nervous now that I had said something stupid. "Now, don't do that, you did well. Very well in fact. It was exactly what he needed, he needs to get this off of his chest and learn to move on. I asked him if it was okay for us to talk and he said yes. So if you have a moment I would like to chat with you." He motioned towards the chairs again. I sat down and waited for him to speak again. "Edward isn't out of the woods but he is making remarkable progress. I hope to talk with him about your talk today and delve into that, if you don't mind." I shook my head at him. "He has so much potential and it helps that you still care for him. I was worried that this visit was a duck and run thing."
"I don't understand what that means."
"You're here to say goodbye so you can duck and run away." I immediately began to shake my head no at him but he held up his hands. "It's okay, I see now that it's not that way at all. I may want to have you in later and do some sessions with both of you, when we get to that point. Is that okay?"
"Of course, I'll do whatever helps Edward."
"That's good to hear. I'll be in touch to talk about that when the time is right. Now, let me escort you out to the lobby." He stood and I followed him out.
"Thanks for the helping us. I really do love him and want to make this work." He nodded and pushed the door open for me and I left.
The walk to my car and the ride home was so hard. I felt so empty after sitting with Edward. I knew that this need to be close to him was going to be harder and harder to deal with now that I planned to go and see him more often.
I called Jasper as soon as I got on the highway. "Hey can you talk?"
"Sure, darlin', I thought you might need to talk after the visit. Go ahead."
I put the phone on speaker and laid it on the dash seat beside me. "Well it went well, really well." I grasped for the words to tell Jasper what went on. "We talked about the baby and he felt it move. He was so happy about that. We uh…we talked about our past and if he ever cheated on me." I dropped my right hand off of the steering wheel and it immediately took up residence in my mouth. I peeled at the sore spot that I chewed on while I drove down here.
"Bella, how does that make you feel?" I laughed at Jasper and his therapy words.
"Like shit but I do understand why he says he did it."
"Well, share then so we can both understand."
"He was drinking and doing drugs then, a lot, and while he says that is not an excuse for it but he says that it was all part of the numbing process, he was trying to feel numb again. He didn't want to hurt anymore, to feel like he was once again fucking up." I sat silent for a few seconds. "I guess I understand that."
"I certainly do as well but Bella you both need to make sure that you don't allow the excuses to be your answers. You need to push the excuses and alibis aside and really question yourself as to why you did it. The drugs and alcohol were definitely a contributing factor and certainly led you to believe that you were doing the right thing but it was not the reason that you actually did it. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah it does. I told him that we would talk about it more later. His therapist, Eleazar, came out and talked with me. Eleazar is going to talk about this more with Edward and possibly have me come for a therapy appointment as well, that way we can work on things together."
"That is a great idea Bella, I like it a lot; I think it will help both of you." I knew that Jasper was the person that I could count on to give me the no bullshit answers that I needed. He also forced me to look inside and question myself. He felt that we both had a big part in our downfall. I liked that he wasn't willing to just blame Edward because of his absentee status. It was so easy for most people to place blame on him and sweep what I did under the rug. I wanted to fix myself not turn away from my bad habits or mistakes. I wanted to know what I had done and why. How else am I going to make it right again?
How else am I going to make a good life for our child?
Jasper cleared his throat. I snapped out of my internal monologue. "Bella, I really think that the two of you can fix this. It won't be easy but it sounds like both of you are on the same page and working towards it separately. Sometimes you need to do that in order to meet back at a single point. Keep working, keep talking, and keep asking questions of yourself and Edward. Keep writing things down. Sometimes things that you had no idea were important to you have a way of coming out in that journal. Read over your entries at the end of the week and see where your mind was at. Work on taking care of those things. You're doing great kid, I promise you are." I loved it when Jasper called me 'kid', I felt like he was my brother and he cared for me. I craved the feeling of belong to a family with so many deep parts of myself. One thing I vowed was that our child would never desire for that feeling. They would know it from the moment that they entered the world.
"Thanks, Jasper. I meant it for everything. I can't say it enough."
"Sure darlin', anything for you."
"It's been a long day and I think I'm going to head to bed and think about all of this for a little bit. Would you tell Alice goodnight for me, please." I was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. I felt renewed by the talk and wanted to do as Jasper said, write and think about it.
"Sure thing, sweet dreams."
I lay in bed and wrote down all of my thoughts without putting conscience thought into them. I was really interested in seeing if what Jasper said about my thoughts would actually show me what I wanted to know.
After all of my thoughts were down on paper, I closed the journal and said a prayer that we could fix this. That we could make our lives mean something and no longer be the lost wandering black sheep.
Play list:Photograph- Daughtry, The Mess I Made- Parachute, This Time- Jon Rhys Meyer, Here With You-3 Doors Down, Hard To Say I'm Sorry- Chicago, Need You Now- LA, All We Ever Do Is Say Goodbye- John Mayer
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