Chapter Text
The rest of the school year flew by and soon enough it was the summer. Edward and I spent many days in the meadow where we had picnics, laid in the sun, and talked. On the days that we didn’t go to the meadow, I usually spent time with Alice. Somedays, we would do our nails, do facemasks, and just relax. Other days we went out to shop or see attractions like the Seattle Space Needle. Most times we went out, Edward would join us whether it was to just hold bags or go to the aquarium. Sometimes Jasper joined us and I made sure Edward was there to ensure that he didn’t use his gift on me again without my permission. I was still pissed - I could hold a grudge like there was no tomorrow - so I simply ignored him whenever he was there. Every day ended with Edward and I cuddling in my bed, with him on top of the sheets so I wouldn’t get too cold.
However as the month of September approached, my mood soured. I have always hated the month of September because that was the month that I was placed with Richard . My nightmares always got worse during September as the memories of his hands and his body became more vivid. I know that Edward noticed but he abided by our previous agreement and never mentioned it. However, he always helped me calm down when I woke up from one of my nightmares and always let it go when I said I didn’t want to talk about it. He also always helped me back to sleep if I felt up to it and when I didn’t want to, he sat up with me and talked.
There was also the matter of school. With my nightmares worsening, I was getting even less sleep than I usually do despite Edward’s help. The lack of sleep made my mood worse and my patience very thin so I was not looking forward to dealing with teenage drama.
School started the first of September and the morning of I woke up from my third nightmare of the night at 5:30am. Channeling my inner teenager, I just groaned and rolled further into Edward, burying my face in his chest. I wanted to ignore the world and pretend it didn’t exist, so I kept my face buried until 6:30am rolled around. Even when my alarm went off, I wanted to ignore it but Edward foiled my plans to just lay in bed all day by getting up and leaving me laying on the bed alone.
“Time to get up, love.” He whispered.
I just groaned in response.
He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “Come on, you don’t want to be late for school.”
Again I just groaned in response but I did sit up in bed.
“There you go, love. Now you just have to get ready.” Edward encouraged.
“Fuck off. I’ll get ready when I feel like it.” I said petulantly.
Edward smiled in response. “But don’t you want to be on time for school?”
My immediate response was no, I did not want to go to school at all. I took a deep breath and let it out and reminded myself that I had responsibilities. One of those responsibilities was school. Unfortunately. I stretched out my back and finally got up. I gathered up the clothes and makeup that Alice had picked out for my first day of senior year. Despite the fact that I was dreading having to go to school again, nothing could curb Alice’s excitement so I just let her do her thing.
Thirty minutes later, I was ready to go and I went downstairs to get a bowl of cereal. Charlie had already left for work so Edward was waiting for me at the dinner table, with the milk, cereal, bowl, and spoon all laid out for me. I usually preferred to prepare things myself but this morning I was happy to have him do it for me.
After my cereal, it was 7:15am and we went outside to where Edward’s silver Volvo was waiting. He must have gotten it while I was getting ready. I was feeling marginally better in the nice clothes that I had gotten with Alice over the summer, the makeup hiding the dark bags under my eyes, and having eaten something.
When we arrived at the school ten minutes early, Alice skipped over to where we parked and thrust something into my hands the moment I got out of the car. I looked down at what she handed me and saw it was a plastic container full of cut up fruits. Upon further inspection, I realized it was full of all my favorites: watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, apples, and bananas.
I smiled for the first time this morning. “Thank you Alice. This actually means a lot to me.”
She beamed in response. “I knew that you were going to have a hard time this morning so Jasper and I prepared this for you.”
I lifted an eyebrow, instantly suspicious. “Jasper helped you?”
Her smile didn’t waver. “Yup!”
I couldn’t tell if she was lying. I guess I could have asked Edward but a part of me wanted to accept the olive branch. “Okay.”
After I said that Jasper came over from wherever he was lurking while he waited for me to accept. He smiled at me as he wrapped an arm around Alice. “Hey.”
I didn’t respond for a moment before sighing deeply and dramatically and extending my hand for him to shake. “I don’t totally forgive you but I’m willing to work on it and try.” I said as he shook my hand.
“I understand.” He kept smiling as he released my hand.
I took a deep breath before nodding. “Okay, let’s go.” I took Edward’s hand and started to walk away when Alice exclaimed.
“One more thing!”
I stopped and looked at her to see her waving four pieces of paper around in the air. “And what are those?” I asked.
“ These are tickets to a Panic at the Disco concert!” She yelled excitedly.
My eyes widened in surprise as a bright smile lit up my face. “Really?!?” I practically yelled.
Her smile grew larger in response. “Yes, really!”
I bit down on the urge to scream in excitement. Yes I was happy but there was no need to cause a scene. I took a deep breath with a smile still firmly on my face. “This is amazing. Thank you Alice. What’s the occasion?” I said in a much calmer voice.
Her smile turned a little melancholy. “I know that you’ve been down recently and I thought this would be the perfect way to cheer you up.” She said gently.
“Well you’re right. This has definitely improved my mood.” And even if it didn’t help in the long run, I would at least try to keep my dower mood to myself from now on. It wasn’t fair to Edward, Alice, or the others to inflict my misery on them.
The warning bell rang then and so we left to go to our first class. We got our schedules the week before and conveniently , we had all the same classes. However, whenever I asked what he did to ensure this, he denied it. I’m sure if I pressed, he would tell me but I was fine with letting it go.
After we sat down in our first class, Jessica, of all people, came over to where we sat. “Is that jacket Prada ?” She asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.
I narrowed my eyes at her. Last year, we had completely ignored each other after my outburst at Lauren when I told her to stop being nasty to other students. Why was she talking to me now? Was she trying to be my friend? Well that was too bad because there were way too many times where she joined Lauren in her hate. I could hold a grudge like no tomorrow so there was no way Jessica or any of the others from her group were getting in my good graces without a serious change of attitude.
I glanced over at Edward and saw that he looked like he had swallowed a lemon. That probably meant that Jessica had not changed so I had no problem brushing her off. “And why is that any of your business?” I said with a raised eyebrow.
She seemed shocked by my attitude. “I was just wondering.” She huffed before turning and walking back to her own seat.
The class started then so I took out a piece of paper and wrote. Why do you look like you swallowed a lemon? And passed it to Edward.
When he read it, a faint smirk appeared on his face. He wrote something down and passed it back to me.
Lauren and her friends have concocted a plan to befriend you and then embarrass in front of the whole school.
I pursed my lips in anger before taking a deep breath and letting it go. They were just stupid teenage bullies. I had encountered them before and I never let them get me down. I wasn’t about to let them now.
Let them try, I wrote, I’ll show them it’s not that easy to embarrass me. Unlike them, I’m not a hormonally charged teenager. I passed the note back to Edward.
Edward smiled but didn’t get to respond as the teacher called on him.
Throughout the rest of the day, people from Lauren’s group kept trying to approach me and each time, I shot them down. I had no problem being an absolute asshole knowing what they had planned.
When lunch rolled around, I sat with Edward, Alice, Jasper, Angela, and Ben. When Jessica approached, it was Alice that shot her down. She left in a huff again and nobody bothered us for the remainder of lunch. I had missed Angela a little. She was a very kind person and we had only exchanged phone calls over the summer. I decided to change that going forward. Angela and Ben deserved to have happy memories of their senior year. I decided to ask Alice if she could get two more tickets to that concert and see if we could make it a weekend trip. The concert itself was on the ninth, which was a Friday. What if we skipped school and headed out for Portland, Oregon that morning and stayed throughout the entire weekend and headed back Sunday night? That would be a fun memory for Angela and Ben. I looked over at Alice to see if she had seen any of my plans and she turned to me with a bright smile and nodded her head.
Alright then, time to ask Angela and Ben. “Hey Angela and Ben, would you guys like to come with Alice, Edward, Jasper, and I to Portland next week for a concert?”
They both seemed to consider it before Angela asked. “Who’s playing?”
“Panic at the Disco.” I answered.
She smiled. “That would be fun but Oregon is a long way away.”
“Well I was thinking that we head out Friday morning, the concert is on Friday at 7:00pm, and we can stay at a hotel for the weekend and head back Sunday night.” I said.
At that, Angela looked hesitant. “I don’t know about that.”
“It’ll be a fun senior year memory.” I tried to encourage her when I had a thought. “And it’s for my birthday.”
“Really? When’s your birthday?” She asked but she did seem more inclined towards agreeing.
I scrambled to remember when Bella’s birthday was. “The 13th.” I said confidently even though I wasn’t sure about that.
“But are you really going to skip school?” Ben asked.
Alice decided to be the one to respond with what I’m sure were the magic words to convince them. “We’re all model students and it’s only one day. It’ll be easy to make up. Call it a vacation.”
Ben and Angela looked at each other and then both nodded. “Okay, we’ll have to ask our parents but if they say yes, we’ll go.” Angela said.
“Awesome! Let me know as soon as you find out.” I said with a smile.
We all discussed plans and logistics for the upcoming trip for the rest of lunch. It was decided that we would rent two rooms, one for the girls and one for the boys. Angela said that this was the only way that her parents would agree. We also decided on where we would go other than the concert. We would have some of Friday, all of Saturday, and some of Sunday to explore Oregon. We would take two cars, Edward, Angela, Ben, and I would go in Edward’s Volvo and Alice and Jasper would borrow Carlisle’s Mercedes. I tried to offer my truck for them to use and Alice just had this disgusted look on her face as she declined. I faked offense at her reaction, my truck wasn’t the best out there but it was sturdy and reliable like any good car should be. Jasper, Edward, and Alice laughed rather hard at that but at least Angela and Ben agreed with me somewhat.
With our plans all sorted, I was really looking forward to it. I had done a few trips like that with Amy when I was in high school the first time. I remember having so much fun with her and I’m happy that I get to create similar memories with Edward.
As Edward and I headed over to his Volvo to drive to my house to get our homework done (the teachers had decided to start the year with a ton of homework), Edward turned to me and asked. “Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday?”
“Simple. Because it’s not. It’s Bella’s birthday.” I replied as we got into the car.
He paused for a moment. “Is that why you’ve been down lately?” He asked hesitantly.
I sighed deeply. “No. September was the month that I was placed with Richard and it just brings up bad memories.”
He instantly recognized Richard’s name as the name of the man who raped me when I was nine years old. His face darkened considerably and was silent as he started up the car and drove out of the parking lot.
“Is that what your nightmares are about?” He eventually asked.
Now it was my turn to be silent for a minute. I really didn’t want to talk about this but I figured he deserved to know. “Yes, for the past few weeks, my nightmares have mostly been about Richard.”
“What else have they been about?” He probed.
I pursed my lips. “They oscillate between a few things. Things I saw while I was deployed, things that happened when I was kid, like Richard but also other things, and…” Here I hesitated. I really didn’t want to talk about this but I took a deep breath and plowed on. “Finding Amy’s body.”
“You found her body?” Edward asked, clearly concerned.
“I came home to our apartment one day in January with a friend and found her on the floor. She was covered in blood, there was a giant pool of it around her. She had been dead a few hours but at that moment my only thought was that I had to save her. When I didn’t find a pulse, I started to do CPR on her corpse and even though my friend, Stella, tried to get me to stop, I didn’t. I don’t really remember what happened after that, but Stella told that me that it took four policemen to restrain me because I was screaming bloody murder and I wouldn’t move away from her body.” It was at that moment that I realized that I was crying. Shit. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to cry over my past lover when my current lover was right there. “I’m sorry.” I managed to get out before I started sobbing.
Edward pulled the car over. Then I felt his arms wrapped around me. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He whispered into my hair.
“This is so stupid! All of this happened years ago! I should be over it!” I yelled as I continued to sob into his arms.
“Shh. It’s okay.” He started saying as he held me. “It’s okay that you’re not over it, trauma takes time to heal from.” Then he just held me as I cried myself out.
Surprisingly I felt better when I was done. It had been a long time since I let myself cry like that. I usually stopped myself before I started sobbing. I would push it down and pretend it didn’t exist. Not exactly healthy I know but I had shit to do. I didn’t have time to cry like a baby. But right now, I just felt so safe in Edward’s arms that I let go. It felt good. “Thank you.” I said to him as I wiped my face with my sleeve.
He immediately produced a tissue. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do. It’s been so long since I felt safe enough to just let go like that. I love you so much.” I managed a wobbly smile for him.
“I love you too.” He smiled back at me.
I took a deep breath and then looked forward, signaling that I wanted to move on and get home already. He complied and started up the car again.
Thankfully, Charlie wasn’t home when we got there and so I was able to head up the stairs to my bedroom with Edward right behind me. I told him to stay put as I got changed in the bathroom into something more comfy and wiped the makeup off my face. I came back into the room and grabbed my bag. I pulled my math textbook out of it and said that this is what we were doing first.
The next few hours passed as we completed all of our homework and then Edward drove me to the gym so I could work out. After that, I showered, ate dinner with Charlie and once I was back upstairs, I snuggled into Edward’s marble body and fell into a deep sleep.
Author’s Note
Here is the first chapter of the sequel! I know the summary sucks but I hope you liked it and I’m looking forward to continuing this. Thanks for reading!