All recognized characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.
This chapter has been beta'd by the ever amazing: Strae
Bella and I took a seat in a secluded corner and I sat close at her side, retaking her hand in mine. She was closer to the table with the magazines, so I leaned over her digging through the pile. She leaned back in her seat and I looked up at her. I was turning into Emmett with this lack of respect for personal space. She just seemed surprised, not adverse to my closeness, so I winked at her and continued searching for something good.
I settled on an old issue of Time and returned back to my seat. "Should have brought your new book," I told her.
I flipped through the magazine bored already. I turned to an article on the world's most influential people and decided just to browse that. Bella leaned in slightly and I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.
I was surprised when my name got called. I closed the magazine and tossed it back to the table then urged Bella up with my arm still around her shoulders.
"Oh, I'll just wait out here," she said.
I looked around. The waiting room was predominately male, especially on the half of the room we were sitting in. No.
"I want you to come in," I said.
"Oh, well, okay."
We rose to our feet and I crutched my way to the old, gray nurse waiting for me. "How are you doing, Edward?" she asked me.
I remembered this one, not her name, but she was friendly. "Good, great. Losing the crutches today, hopefully."
"Congratulations."
"Thank you," I said.
She opened a door for me and I stopped for Bella to enter first. She grinned at me as she walked past.
I knew the procedure; I walked to the examining table, rolled my jeans up my leg, sat on the hard, uncomfortable table, removed my brace, and waited. The nurse did some things on the computer, then again I heard, "The doctor will be right with you."
I nodded and she left, giving Bella a polite smile. I sighed and laid back onto the hard table and turned my head to look at Bella. She smiled at me and I instantly felt better.
"You're so beautiful." She went bright red and I had to grin. "You have no idea how happy it makes me to be able to tell you that."
"I wish you wouldn't," she muttered.
I scowled and sat up but didn't have a chance to say anything as there was a light knock on the door before the handle turned.
"Ah, well hello there," he said to Bella before greeting me. "Edward, how are you?"
"Never better," I said, throwing Bella another wink.
"Fantastic. Let's get right to it then."
The doctor approached the end of the table, lightly grasped my ankle, raising my leg, and pulled the extension out to keep my leg straight. He moved around the side then and started manipulating my knee.
"Any soreness, tenderness, swelling?"
"No," I said.
"Have you been doing your therapy?"
"Yes."
"No injuries?"
"Nothing serious."
He nodded then turned back to the desk. He grabbed the brace he had brought in with him and started putting it on my knee. "Okay, I want you to wear this whenever you'll be on your feet. Stand up."
He pushed the extension back into the table and I got to my feet. "How's it feel?" I nodded. It felt fine. "Walk."
I was suddenly very nervous. I hadn't walked without crutches in a long time and with Bella watching I felt like an idiot. I was hesitant, slow to put my weight on my knee but it felt fine.
"Does it hurt?" the doctor asked me. I shook my head, it didn't hurt at all. "Then stop favoring your leg. The brace is going to support you and keep everything in place, just walk normal."
I tried. It felt weird to not have the crutches or hinged brace anymore. He started speaking to Bella as I continued walking back and forth across the small room.
"You're going to have to watch him. Point it out when he's favoring the leg." She nodded. He addressed me again. "You'll get sore, but that's just everything regaining strength again. Absolutely no running, no jumping, don't stress the knee. Don't put any more weight on it then necessary. Re-teach yourself to walk. Keep up your therapy. If you have any questions or problems, call. Use the brace until you think you're ready. I recommend at least a good couple of weeks, longer doesn't hurt, but don't rely on it. You need to re-strengthen that leg. It's still healing, do not overuse it. When you feel you're ready to lose the brace, you can try some light jogging – don't push yourself too fast. Got it?"
I nodded.
"Avoid stairs for these first few days, start to take them a few at a time. When you can jog up and down a few flights of stairs at a time, you know you're ready to lose the brace, but that's a few weeks out yet, Edward. You had a lot of damage, we did everything we could, but I don't know that you'll ever be able to do 60 meter hurdles again."
I'd already accepted this. I nodded.
He held up his hand and ticked on his fingers. "R.I.C.E. Rest, ice, compression, elevation. Your father knows this, you know this, do it. You will get sore. No more oxys, toss them out. If you are in unbearable pain, call. Do you got everything?"
"Use, don't overuse. Soreness is to be expected. I got it, Doc."
"Good then, I don't want to see you in here again." He gave me a friendly smile.
"No disrespect, but I never wanted to see you in the first place."
He laughed. "Nobody does. I'm used to it."
He pulled the door open and I offered Bella my hand. She smiled and stood, we walked out the door and down the hall hand in hand. I couldn't keep the shit-eating grin off my face.
I very purposely left my crutches in that examining room, as well as the old me. To be able to walk past the appointment desk and not have to set up a next one was a great feeling. Hell, to literally walk was a great feeling. And then there was the fact that Bella was with me, holding my hand.
"Thank you," I told her as I pushed the down button for the elevator.
She just smiled and nodded. The elevator behind us dinged and opened and I lead Bella into it. It was completely empty, which was a bad thing, yet an oh-so good thing. I'd been dying to kiss her again since the moment our lips had parted in the car more than a hour ago.
As the door closed, I turned towards her and she looked up at me with questioning eyes. Not letting go of her hand, I stepped towards her and gently brushed my fingers along her cheekbones. They turned red as my fingers swept over them and I grinned at the beauty of it.
I was interrupted again as I leaned in to kiss her, this time by the elevator dinging before the door opened. I let my hand fall from her cheek and stood at her side. The door opened and more passengers got on the lift to be taken down to ground level.
"Where do you want to go to eat?" I asked Bella.
"I'm not really hungry," she replied.
I frowned. "Bella-"
"I'm not really hungry, yet," she corrected. "I'm sure I will be by the time we get to Port Angeles, we can go to that Italian place you mentioned before."
I sighed, but nodded. I wasn't really hungry yet either, but I'd wanted to take her some place real nice here in Seattle. La Bella Italia may have looked gourmet compared to McDonalds, but it was second rate to the Seattle restaurants.
Walking. God, how I had taken the simple task for granted. It was so good to walk. We crossed the street and I felt the urge to jog as I normally would have, but reminded myself not to.
The car ride back was filled with simple easy questions about each other. There were so many things I still didn't know about her, even after all these years. It was after we took our seats in a sheltered booth at the back of the restaurant that the tougher questions started.
"Where did you go when you left?" she asked me after our waitress took our orders.
I felt the urge to recoil from her and her question. Was this it already? "LA," I answered. I'm sure she could see, feel, and hear my tension. I kept her hand lightly in my own, trying not to nervously squeeze the life out of it like I wanted to.
"You don't talk about LA much. What made you decide to go there?"
I ground my teeth together. She deserved the truth, no matter how afraid of telling her I was. She deserved the truth and I really didn't want to tell her.
"I don't think I decided, I just went," I said.
"Hmm, there must have been a reason."
It wasn't a question, it didn't need an answer, she was just speculating. "Yes," I answered anyway.
We were silent for a few moments and my hand started to tighten around hers. I couldn't let her go, I didn't want to lose her, she couldn't go, I can't be without her. Yet she still deserved to know the truth. I held securely onto her hand.
"There's someone," I started slowly, "down there. A woman." Her hand flinched in mine, and I know she saw what was coming. "I went to my uncle's, and she is his neighbor. I had a relationship with her." Bella's hand tried to pull away from mine but I wouldn't let it. "I don't love her, at all." She succeeded in getting her hand away this time.
She sat there, her eyes closed, her jaw tight, her hands down on her lap, shaking slightly. "Bella, I was so stupid. I shouldn't have left, I shouldn't have done what I did. I have no excuse for myself other then I'm a terrible person. I'm so, so sorry. Please, Bella, look at me."
She didn't, but she did speak. "You… you slept… with her?" Her voice was broken, choked up and I wanted to hit myself.
I could lie, I could have lied all along and she never would have known, she never would have had to feel this pain. I was hurting her again. "Yes, but I don't love her, Bella. It was so stupid. I was upset and I wasn't thinking and I did a terrible, stupid thing."
"You slept with her even though you don't love her?" Her jaw was shaking, but her words were hard and cold, strong.
"Yes," I said, shamefully.
"You lied to me, you said it was me, always me," she said brokenly, the coldness gone from her voice and now replaced with hurt.
I leaned desperately across the table. "No, Bella, I haven't lied. It was you, it is you! I love you, I've always only loved you. I've always only wanted you and what I did was so stupid. It was you, even then, with her, it was you."
She shook her head. "Please, love, I'm not lying. I'm telling you the truth, I'm telling you… I should have told you right away, but I was so scared. But I'm not lying, it's the truth. You, Bella, I said your name."
And I had. More than once. I never said Tanya's name while we…did it, but more then once I had said Bella's. I may have been trying not to think about her at the time, but I couldn't stop, Bella was the only one I had ever wanted to be with. I had no excuses.
"Stupid, sorry, I… can't… please. I love you," I fumbled for words.
"How could you do that, Edward?" she asked.
It hurt so bad. The disapproving disgust in her voice cut me. "I don't know. I didn't think, I just…I was hurting and I just did it. I'm sorry."
The waitress showed up with our food then. I couldn't eat, no way could I eat now. We were silent for a few moments after she left, then Bella spoke.
"It was my fault," she said. And somehow that hurt worse than everything else. The pain in her voice as she said it, the tears on her face, the shaking of her jaw, her hunched shoulders. "It was my fault, I pushed you to her."
"No, Bella, no," I said. I shoved myself around the partition separating us and caught her hurt, tear-stained face in my hands. "Don't, Bella-"
"I hurt you. You thought I didn't love you, I pushed you away, and you slept with her because of me."
"No," I begged of her. "Please don't. Blame me, Bella, I did it. I slept with her, I made that choice, it wasn't your fault."
"You slept with her and I can't be angry because it was my fault," she sobbed.
"Bella, no. Be angry at me, hit me, slap me, please just be angry at me."
This was probably worse then anything else. This was torture, to see Bella putting this on herself. For what I had done, for the terrible disgusting mistake I made, she was blaming herself.
Her tear filled, hurt eyes locked on mine. "I'm so sorry, Edward. I hurt you so much, but I love you. I'm sorry."
Her arms flung around my neck and her soft, tear salted, wet lips connected with mine. "Bella," I mumbled against her lips. I gently pushed her away. "Love, no. You can't put my mistakes on your shoulders."
"It was my-"
"No," I cut her off. "Listen to me, you're going to be angry at me. You can call me names, you can hit me, just don't blame yourself. I did it, Bella. I ran away from you, I slept with another woman to try and comfort myself, I screwed up. Me, Bella, I did all the wrong things. It's bad enough that I hurt you the way that I did, you can't hurt yourself over this too. Stop blaming yourself, and then say what you want to say."
She was silent for a few minutes, staring at her lap and when she looked up at me, there was a fierceness in her eyes that I'd never seen before. "I'm angry at you," she said. I gulped and nodded, waiting for it. "You're so stupid, Edward," she told me. "You're an idiot. Do you know why you're a stupid idiot?"
I nodded grimly. "Do you?" she asked. I nodded again. "Tell me why, Edward."
"Because I left you without telling you how I felt. I ran away because I'm an immature idiot and then I had sex with someone who meant nothing to me trying to stop the pain I'd inflicted on myself."
"No," she said.
What? "No?" I asked, confused.
She shook her head. "No. Those things make you human. We all make mistakes. You're stupid because you didn't realize then and you still don't realize now how much I love you. You're stupid because you think that I'm capable of being mad at you, even for doing something terrible. I love you and you're stupid." She gave my shoulder a shove with her hand.
No. She can't just let me off the hook. "Bella, you can't just let me get away with what I did."
"You said yourself you didn't love her, which is terrible in itself, but you love me, right?"
"Yes," I agreed vehemently.
"You love me and I love you, we both made a mistake, we both have to forgive each other. I forgive you for sleeping with that woman, but don't ever do it again."
"Oh god, Bella, I won't, ever. I'd never cheat on you, I don't want to lie to you. And I'm so sorry, so much more than I can express."
She nodded. "Am I forgiven?" she asked.
"For what?"
"I made mistakes, Edward, and I'm sorry too."
"You made no mistakes. All of this is on me."
"No," she said. "Edward, I'm sorry. I'm going to assume I'm forgiven and that you still love me. Thank you for telling me… I don't want you to lie."
"I won't lie, and I promise I'll never screw up like that again. I love you, so much, Bella, more than anything. I forgive you, but I can't forgive myself yet, even if you do. What I did deserves so much more punishment, but thank you, for forgiving me."
"Is everything alright here?" The waitress asked us as she came back to our secluded booth.
"Uh, can we get these warmed up?" I asked. Our food was cold after sitting there while we talked.
"Okay, sure thing," she said, taking our plates.
"No more apologies," Bella told me, point blank. She knew me better then I thought, I was just going to apologize again.
I sighed. "But Bella, I-"
"No Edward, no more. We made mistakes, we apologized, now we're moving on. No looking back, okay? I love you, that's all that matters."
She's good. "If I agree, will you tell me something?"
"Sure."
"What did I do to deserve you, Bella?"
She scowled at my question. "What you did was wrong, but we weren't together, Edward. It still hurts, but we weren't together. We loved each other, but we didn't know it yet. I can't be mad at you for making a mistake then. If you did it now…" She gave a very pained expression at the thought.
I took her hands in mine. "Bella, I know I don't deserve it, but I want you to trust me. I will never, ever hurt you again, it will kill me if I do. I wish I could be perfect for you, like you are worthy of, and I will try to be. I don't want to make any mistakes with you, I want to be with you forever. It's a poor excuse after what I did, but I love you, Bella, and I want you to trust me."
"I do, Edward. I love you too. I know you didn't do what you did to hurt me and I know you didn't tell me to hurt me."
She leaned up and kissed me again and I kissed her back this time, trying to convey my love for her, my apology for what I did. I wanted her to know that I wanted her more than anything or anyone else. I don't know if even one of those came through in that one kiss, but I tried.
Our waitress interrupted rudely with a loud throat clearing. Our lips separated with a loud smack and I peeked through my heavy lids to see Bella's eyes still closed and her cheeks burning red. I unwillingly released my hands from her sides and slid back to my side of the booth. I muttered a thanks to our waitress, not meaning it one bit and stirred my dinner.
Bella centered herself with her plate and started gently mixing as well. She stopped unexpectedly and put her eating utensil down. "You know," she started. Then she looked around us, including over her shoulder. I was confused. She started again. "One of the reasons I trust you is being illustrated right now."
"What do you mean?"
"That waitress has been flirting with you all night and you haven't even looked at her."
The waitress? Huh…. "Bella, I don't see anyone else when I'm with you. Hell, I don't see anyone else even when I'm not with you. You are my life, my everything. You're the center of my universe."
I took a bite of my dinner while she considered that answer. She smirked at me and said, "I thought you were the center of your universe."
I chuckled. "Not anymore, now eat."
She picked up her fork and took at stab at her supper. I laughed and reached across the table to twine my fingers in hers.
It was starting to get late, so we both ate fairly quickly and I called for the check after Bella insisted she was stuffed.
I hated driving slow, but the slower I drove, the more time I got with Bella. But it was also already getting close to ten o'clock. Such conflict. Parting from her tonight was going to be the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.
"Stop here," she said.
"What?" I asked. We were like two blocks away from her house. Even questioning it, I still did as she asked.
"Put it in park."
"Why, Bella?"
"Edward, I can't kiss you goodnight if my dad is watching."
Oh! I smirked and threw the car into park. "You're going to have to tell him sometime," I said, leaning in for the kiss.
I gently pressed my lips to hers and waited. She didn't move her lips, she was still with her perfect pucker. Hmm. I pulled away, putting a small distance between our mouths and waited again.
"Was that it?" she asked.
I chuckled. "Hey, you're the one who said you were kissing me goodnight, I'm waiting here."
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me. Slowly, she leaned towards me and I watched her eyes close as she lined up our lips. Her hesitation was adorable. My eyes closed as her lips touched mine.
It was electric and perfect as ever. Her lips were so soft, like rose petals wet with morning dew. She tasted floral too. Sweet; so sweet.
I eagerly opened my mouth, tasting that full bottom lip directly with my tongue. Rose petal lips and a tongue like velvet, a taste that could only be described as heavenly – she was an angel. Only angels were this perfect.
Her tongue slid along mine and her hands gently came to my face, pulling me closer as she tasted me. I did the same, holding her warm, delicate cheeks in my cold hands, moving my lips and tongue in time with the slow, searching, caressing rhythm that she created. I wasn't worthy of this. No, I'd never be worthy of such beauty and perfection.
Her tongue left my mouth and her lips closed against mine. She kissed me lightly a few times and I assumed that was the end, but instead she tilted her head the other way and started deeply kissing me again.
Who taught this girl to kiss? No, don't think that. Yes, that was definitely a bad thing to think. I got distracted and broke the kiss.
"You're a really good kisser," I told her.
"Uh-huh," she muttered and pulled my lips back to hers.
There was a bit more urgency to this kiss as she flicked her tongue over mine then started tracing my teeth. I bit down softly on her tongue and she made a beautiful moaning sound. Her hands moved from my cheeks to the back of my head and her fingers dug into my scalp as she tried to grab my hair.
It was so unbelievably erotic when she did that. I silently prayed for my hair to grow back fast as we kissed. Our tongues and lips lapped and pushed at each other, tasting and discovering the depths of the others mouth. I really didn't have the lung capacity I thought I did and Bella was breathing quite heavily too.
To be safe, I moved my lips to her neck, allowing each of us to catch our breath, though I couldn't resist having my lips back on this soft, delicate skin. Her head tilted backwards, permitting me better access for my continued exploring.
There was a few moments of panting before out breaths evened out. Bella broke the silence by unexpectedly asking, "What was her name?"
"Huh?" I asked back into her skin.
"Her name, the other girl?"
"Oh…" I hesitated, then with a sigh, I backed away from Bella. Where did this come from and why now? "Her name is Tanya."
She nodded. "Tanya. What does she look like?"
"I don't know… She's blond, tall, she's just a typical, run of the mill, Rosalie type of girl."
Bella blanched, loosing the lovely red flush from her cheeks. "She looks like Rosalie?"
"Not really, just the type, you know. Tan, blond, bitchy."
"Gorgeous?" she asked fearfully.
"Definitely not. You're gorgeous, girls like Rose and Tanya are just…fake."
"I think you should take me home," she said.
"Bella, I don't want to leave you if you're upset." I didn't want to leave her at all. I'd sleep in that wooden rocking chair in the corner of her room if she'd let me.
"I'm not upset, it's just that… you had… relations with a Rosalie, and now you're kissing… me."
"Oh. Okay." I got what she meant. Girls like Rosalie were usually… trashy. I'd had my mouth on a piece of trash and now I was kissing her. She was absolutely right. I had so much to make up for.
I put the car in drive and drove the two blocks to Bella's house. Before she could get out or say goodnight, I started. "I'm so terribly sorry for what I did and I have no excuse, it was my fault and I know you forgive me, but I'm going to be sorry for it until the day I die. I have to make it up to you, I'll do anything. I love you, Bella, and I'm on my knees begging that you give me a chance. I will make it up to you."
"Edward, you don't-"
"Shh, love. Goodnight, sweet dreams, I love you. I'll be thinking of you, nonstop and if you want, I'll pick you up tomorrow?"
"Okay," she agreed.
I sighed. "Okay."
"Goodnight, Edward. I love you too."
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