Chapter 12: Memorabilia

Edward.

--

“That’s the last of it, I think,” Emmett announced loudly as he unceremoniously dropped the box he was carrying in the middle of the bare room. I sighed, annoyed, and rubbed my temples in a vain effort to relieve the headache that was quickly developing.

“Thanks, man,” I said gruffly from the couch where I had thrown myself a few moment before out of exhaustion.

“You know that’s what I’m here for,” he replied, heading to the kitchen to grab a beer. “When are the girls coming back again?”

I shrugged. I had been knee-deep in boxes when Bella and Rosalie had announced they were going to grab dinner. I just hoped they would come in time so I could avoid most of Emmett’s questioning at least.

“So, how are things going?” he probed after hunkering down with his beer in the couch next to me.

I sighed, tugging at my hair and nursing my own beer contemplatively. How were things going? Did I even know?

“They’re going,” I decided neutrally.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Emmett asked, frustrated.

“It means I don’t want to talk about it,” I answered shortly, setting my beer down with a clunk on a nearby box. Emmett fell into a sulky silence, giving me a few moments of peace. I looked around my new, bare apartment with little enthusiasm. It would take literally hours to sort through the boxes that we had piled up in here even though they were relatively few.

I was just contemplating getting started on the unpacking when a loud laugh announced Rose and Bella’s presence in the hallway. Sure enough, a moment later, the door swung open to reveal the two women with their arms full of food.

“Hungry?” Rose quipped dryly at Emmett who had hopped up almost immediately to meet them at the door. I stayed put, keeping my eyes trained on the boxes in front of me and trying not to feel depressed about the whole thing. I had wanted my own place so badly here so I wouldn’t have to deal with bad memories, but now that I had one, I was feeling less than pleased about it.

Emmett and Rose shuffled off to the kitchen with dinner, leaving Bella standing awkwardly in the doorway. She leaned against the jamb, obviously unsure of where to go.

“Hey,” she said softly, unmoving from her position. I looked up to her and nodded to the empty place next to me Emmett had just vacated. She walked slowly over to the couch, narrowly avoiding tripping over a few boxes before sinking down next me.

“Hey,” I finally replied once she had sat down and I quirked a small smile in her direction. Tenderly, two of her fingers came to brush my hair from my eyes before she let them fall to her lap.

“How are you doing?” she asked, swallowing visibly and looking away from me.

I breathed out a soft laugh and shook my head before answering.

“That sure is the question of the day, isn’t it?” I deflected as best I could.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, laughing nervously.

“Don’t apologize.” I shook my head with a sigh and grabbed my beer to take one last swig before I pulled myself up from the couch. “It’s my problem, not yours. You ready for dinner?”

“Yeah,” she agreed readily, taking the hand I extended to her to help her up.

I led her into the tiny kitchen where we found Emmett already feasting on the chicken they had brought back. Rose was watching him with a half-disgusted, half-amused expression on her face while she fixed her own plate from the food Emmett hadn’t claimed as his own.

“You two better hurry and grab some before he gets to it,” she commented, shaking her head with a smile. She leaned against the counter with her plate to watch as Emmett blew through a huge portion of food. Bella giggled and threw a glance in my direction before grabbing some chicken for herself.

We ate in relative silence, just enjoying the food and standing around the bare kitchen that was still devoid of even a table. Bella pulled herself up to sit on one of the counters while the rest of us leaned against the counters.

After everyone was finished, Rose cleared her throat and crossed over to where Emmett was rubbing his stomach happily. She kissed him quickly before stepping into his waiting arms. I watched with a prick of jealousy at their easy intimacy - something Bella and I had yet to recover. In fact, we’d almost regressed in the way of physical intimacy since the night I’d refused sex with her.

“Hey, you two, get a room or stop it,” Bella teased, seeming to catch onto what I was thinking. Emmett laughed throatily and playfully pushed Rose away. I threw Bella a grateful glance, walking over to where she was perched on the counter. She smiled in return, diverting her attention from the happy couple to me.

She held out both her hands, which I grabbed eagerly, and then pulled me closer to her so I stood in between her legs which were swinging over the edge of the counter.

“Uh hey...I think we’re going to get going anyway, Edward,” Emmett informed me, but his voice sounded farther away than it should have. I nodded absently, more concerned with the girl in front of me whose hands were gripping mine more tightly by the second. I was busy studying her worried features when the door closed quietly behind my brother and his girlfriend. Their abrupt departure wasn’t unusual for them anyway.

I leaned forward to rest my forehead against hers and she sighed, letting up on her grip on my hands but not releasing me altogether.

“You know earlier...” I started, then cleared my throat. “When you asked me how I was doing?”

“Yeah,” she answered, a soft light of confusion dancing across her features.

“I’m okay,” I said and then leaned forward to kiss her tenderly. She smiled against my mouth and pressed her mouth against mine in return.

“That’s good to hear.”

--

Three hours later, Bella and I were wading through the boxes slowly and my new apartment was at least beginning to look a bit more like a livable space instead of an asylum. At the moment, I was re-positioning the bookshelf while Bella sorted through the books that would go on the shelf.

“Where are you putting all these CDs?” Bella asked as she came upon a box stuffed full of cases.

“Oh, you can just leave that one for now,” I said absently as I pushed the bookcase into place with a grunt. “I have a shelf unit I still need to get from Emmett’s place.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, pushing the box away dismissively and pulling another unopened one over to her. “What’s in this one? It’s not marked.”

I looked over to the box she was standing over and wrinkled my brow in concentration. I didn’t recognize it, but all boxes looked pretty much the same.

“Uh, not sure,” I hummed and walked over to her to pull the flaps open. The contents weren’t immediately familiar to me, but their nature slowly dawned on me when I heard Bella’s horrified gasp right beside me.

“Oh, God,” she groaned.

“What exactly...?” I forced out as I picked up a folded, slightly yellowed piece of paper from the very top of a box full of things I had once given Bella. I recognized my handwriting the moment I flipped the note open and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. I let the note drop back into the box and closed my eyes. I didn’t need to read it; I knew exactly what I had written to her that morning before I left.

“I told Emmett to give it to you a long time ago,” she explained quietly. “It was stuff I thought you’d want back.”

I sat down on the carpet, too floored to do anything else and stared blankly at the suddenly ominous box that sat between us.

“Obviously it never made it back,” I said finally when I had recovered at least some of my wits. I remembered vaguely now the box sitting quietly in the corner of my room at Emmett’s apartment. I had brushed it off as something left there by a friend who had stayed there in my absence or even just some old stuff Emmett wanted to get out of the way. I would never have guessed its real contents.

I leaned forward to look in the box and pulled out the note again. I fingered it with a snort to myself. The words I had written on the page seemed just as forced and empty now as they had when I’d written them. I had known even then I was going nowhere good when I left. I threw it to the side and reached in the box for its other contents, pulling out first a jersey then a CD I recognized as a mix I’d made her long ago. My heart tugged at the memories each item conjured, but when I looked up to see if Bella was experiencing the same she was too busy looking down at the still folded note that she had apparently picked up from where I’d thrown it.

Noticing my glance, she straightened a bit and wiped the visible tears from her eyes. I got to my knees and scooted over to her, throwing the things I’d pulled from the box aside so I could pull her into my arms.

“I never read it, you know,” she whispered with downcast eyes. A few more tears escaped from her eyes and I did my best to wipe them away before pulling her even closer into my embrace. “I don’t why. I just...couldn’t.”

“It’s probably better that way,” I murmured and planted a kiss on top of head. She twisted in my arms so she could look up into my eyes.

“Why?”

“Because you should know by now that I had no idea what I was doing or feeling that day when I wrote that,” I said fiercely, realizing fully for the first time how true those words were. “I knew I needed to leave, but that was it. I didn’t know what I was saying or why back then. It took me a long time to sort all that out.”

I plucked the note from her hand and crumpled it before stuffing it in my pocket. She leaned against my chest with a barely noticeable sigh, her tears still soaking through.

“Come on,” I said softly, cradling her in my arms before picking her up. “I’ll take you home.”

She shook her head against my chest, clinging to my neck.

“I don’t want to go home,” she argued, her voice muffled by my shirt. “Just take me to your bed.”

“Okay,” I agreed, kissing the top of her head in compliance and hiking her up in my arms a bit more before heading down the hallway to my bedroom. I lay her down on the bed gently and she tugged on my shirt to pull me down with her. I kissed her forehead as I disentangled her hand from my t-shirt.

“Sleep,” I ordered gently. “You can change into one of my shirts if you want. You know where they are. I’m just going to finish unpacking a few more things and then I’ll be back.”

She fell back against the pillows with a sigh and I barely caught the roll of her eyes. I smiled despite myself and couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss her again. Her hands ran slowly and languidly through my hair and as she pulled me closer, I hiked a knee onto the bed so I could climb over to her.

“Bella,” I murmured against her mouth and she hummed in response. I pulled away pointedly and she sighed heavily.

“Alright, I get it...I know,” she said. Her throat bobbed visibly and I gave her an apologetic look before I slid off the bed.

“I’ll be in the living room if you need anything,” I informed her quietly before walking out of the bedroom and closing it behind me without looking back.

I headed out to the living room and went straight for the box of CDs Bella had pushed aside earlier, taking care to avoid the box full of memorabilia of our former life together. I must have spent nearly an hour out there, stacking and sorting my CDs before she re-appeared from the bedroom.

“Edward?” Bella’s voice cut through the silence of the room and I jumped to see her standing in dimly lit hallway, wearing only one of my old t-shirts and looking mussed as if she’d been tossing and turning since I’d left her alone.

“Yes?” I answered, beckoning her over to me. I set aside the CDs I had been stacking so I could focus on her.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, crossing the room over to where I was sitting cross-legged by the bookshelf.

“Of course.”

She nodded to herself and sat fluidly down in front of me, her eyes studying me carefully. Her fingers played with the carpet as she searched for what she wanted to say.

“I was just...I was wondering if...” she trailed off, then took a deep breath. “Do you think you’ll you ever ask me again?” Her voice has a desperate hue in it and it took a moment for her meaning to sink in, but when it did I felt the million pinpricks of a salted wound tear through me.

“Ask you what?” I asked warily, hoping to God I was wrong.

“To marry you.”

“Oh, Bella,” I whispered, tortured by her wide, pleading eyes. I took her hands in mine and brought them to my lips kissing them gently before closing my eyes to hide from hers. “I don’t know if I can.”

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