Post by elphabacullen on Sept 25, 2011 16:37:57 GMT
Chapter 1
Bella collapsed backwards onto her bed, her body finally letting go of all the tension the last few hours built up in her, although her mind was just as much of a swirling maelstrom of anxieties, fears and worries as it ever was.
“Thank god that’s over with… it can only get easier. Right?” she said out loud, partly in relief and partly to try and convince herself.
For the last two hours she had worked up the courage, and Edwards, to tell her father that she was getting married. It hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped, and she hadn’t held any hope it would have to begin with. Her father’s feelings towards Edward came out in full display tonight. Normally Charlie was happy with little passive aggressive comments, rolls of the eyes and the not-so-subtle body language that all but screamed ‘Get your hands off my daughter before I shoot you and call it self defense - I’m the Police around here and nobody would bat an eye at me son.’, however tonight none of that was good enough.
Her throat was a little sore from all the yelling between her and her father, thankfully Edward stayed as cool as ice — pardon the pun — and never raised to her father’s bait. Although a few times, she wouldn’t have blamed him.
About thirty minutes ago, Edward had finally left when it was clear that there was nothing more he could say or do to help the situation, and whilst he couldn’t read Bella’s mind, nonetheless he was aware that he was at a good strategic point in the evening to withdraw and let the two Swans battle the rest of it out together. With a small look and a head shake he had offered to return immediately to her room to wait for her, but she didn’t want him hearing any more of her and her father’s argument and needed the time to decompress so she signaled that she’d rather be alone tonight, and reluctantly he acquiesced to her wishes.
About ten minutes had passed since they had come to an understanding that neither was going to change the others opinion or mind in this matter and so she retired up the stairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom. As she lay on the bed she looked around at all the history in the room, and not for the first time she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that even without the wedding, very shortly all of this was going to change forever. She was just about to graduate from High School and ‘officially’ go off to college, however with the deal she’d made with Edward, marriage in return for immortality, she knew that college wasn’t on her todo list for some time.
Only to herself would she admit she was nervous about the future. Of course, the idea of growing older while her surrogate family stayed forever frozen in time was so soul shatteringly mortifying that she still had nightmares about it, but that wasn’t the main reason for her nerves. In that small dark, silent and guarded part of herself, the one that even she rarely recognized or acknowledged, she knew that she still feared the Cullen’s leaving her. That fear, born the day Edward shattered her very core, had never really gone away. It had happened so fast… so easily and she never took one moment foregranted anymore, because just like that - in the blink of an eye, she could lose everything again.
Just what that ‘everything’ consisted of, she never examined to closely. Some things just shouldn’t be known - and she was happy with that. Call her ‘ostrich-girl’ all you like, but after years and years of not fitting in and feeling like the outsider to her family, her schoolmates and even the world around her, it was her cloak of protection and she was quite attached to it thank you very much.
A knock at her door startled her and she jumped up off the bed a little.
‘Oh no, please not round two…’ she thought.
“Bella? Can I talk to you?” Charlie asked hesitantly from the other side of door.
“Haven’t we said everything we need to say Charlie. You’ve made your feelings crystal clear.” Bella replied, with not a small touch of snideness in her voice. It wasn’t like her to talk to anyone in such a manner, lest of all her father, but things had been said tonight that would take more than a little time to stop stinging, for the wounds to close and hopefully heal over with no lingering scars.
A small cough came from the other side of the door and Bella could imagine the embarrassment on her father’s face as he fidgeted from one foot to the other as he tried to summon up the words he so often found so hard to say.
“Bella, I don’t want to fight, please… can I come in?”
With a cross between a sigh and a huff, Bella sat up, straightened her hair and her top and sat on the edge of the bed. With one final deep breathe she released it and said. “Sure… come in.”
The door opened slowly as if the normally tough Police Chief was expecting to be assaulted the moment he became visible. When the door opened enough that he could see his angry and defensive looking daughter sitting on the side of her bed closest to him, a timid looking smile formed on his face.
Bella saw this and if she wasn’t still so annoyed and hurt she’d probably laugh at her father looking so timid and contrite, but now wasn’t the time for that. She steeled herself against what she felt was coming next.
Her father entered the room and pushed the door almost closed - never block off an exit, his Police training demanded. He took in her face, he could see that she was still angry and more than a little hurt by the words they’d both thrown at each other. Honestly, he probably felt the same, but he hadn’t come here to continue the fight, nor had he come to try and change her mind with some new strategy. It was much scarier than that. He’d come to bear his soul to his daughter. To talk about things he’d spent a lifetime keeping inside. He finally realized that he owed her that.
“Mind if I sit down?” He asked politely and more than a little uncomfortably.
Bella took a little pity on her father. The anger and bluster from before was no longer present in his eyes. ‘Maybe he’s come to apologize and grant us his blessing?’ she thought before she swiftly rolled her internal eyes at even thinking such nonsense.
Her complexion softened as she looked at the man who for so much of her life had been a stranger, yet in the last few years had come to mean so much to her. She moved back up the side of the bed towards the headboard and patted the larger space next to her.
“I won’t bite. Promise.” she said with a slight rueful smile. ‘At least not yet I won’t.’ she finished silently.
Charlie started to move, then stopped, a questioning look on his face. “Pinky promise?”
Bella, despite herself laughed out loud. “Goof.” she said affectionately and for the first time since earlier in the afternoon when she and Edward were in the field joking about telling her father their marriage plans, she actually relaxed and smiled with real sincerity at her father.
For all his gruff nature and tacit silence Charlie Swan was a good man. A good father. And now and again he let that playful side he kept so closely hidden out and when he did Bella always felt warmed by it, like a Cat basking in the heat of the midday sunshine, and it never failed to make her feel better.
“Look Bells. I’m… I’m sorry about before - Not about what I said about you and… him, but about the way I said it.”
“Charlie!” Bella interrupted, disappointed that she had read the situation so wrong and fully expecting a continuation of the argument.
Charlie brought his hands up in a defensive and placating gesture. “Wait! Bella, please hear me out… this is very hard for me to say, but I promise. If you just hear me out, really listen, and if you still feel the same way… well I guess I’ll support whatever decision you choose to make. Okay?”
Bella was shocked. She hadn’t expected her father to back down so quickly, and if all she had to do was hear what she felt was his final attack on Edward and then that would be it, then she was happy to bear the brunt of another attack on the man she loved more than life.
After a few moments she took a deep breath, looked her father right in the eyes and said. “Okay. But please don’t just hate on Edward. Okay?
It took a moment for her father to work out what she meant, and whilst it still went against his very nature he agreed.
“Fine. Look honey. I know I’ve not been there for you. I’ve missed so much of your life and for that I will never forgive myself. I was there when you were small though, and I saw you start to become your own little person. Then I lost you. I’m not blaming anyone. The situation with your mother and me wasn’t anyones fault but our own. I regret more than I’ll ever be able to say or show you, just how much losing you… hurt me. When you stopped visiting… I know you didn’t intend it that way Bells, but it felt like you were rejecting me. Like I had no part in your life. Like I… like I didn’t matter.” Charlie’s voice broke a little.
Bella gasped and threw out her hand and clung onto her fathers larger, rougher but soothingly comforting hand.
“…Dad…”
Charlie took a breath, held up his other hand whilst closing his hand tightly but not too tightly around his daughters and continued.
“Please, don’t interrupt.” He coughed and cleared his throat before he continued. “I’m not saying this to hurt you honey. I’m not saying this because I expect or even hope for anything from you. I’m saying this because it’s important and because it has a huge bearing on what I’m about to say next. Please listen to me honey. Okay?” He looked affectionately into her eyes.
It took all of her inner strength and composure not to blush, cry or throw herself into her fathers arms, and with a shuddering breath she nodded for him to continue.
“Being a parent - even a pretty worthless one like myself is hard. You’ll find out one day. You spend half your time in near panic that you’re doing all the wrong things, and the other half spent worrying you’re not doing or saying enough. Your mother, well she hasn’t been the best role model for you. I know what it’s been like. I know that you spent most of your time looking after her, even before you were a teenager, and I know the real reason why you came to stay out here with me.”
Bella’s jaw dropped open. Sure she’d told Alice, Angela and Edward but she hadn’t expected her father to know the truth. She really should stop underestimating the man.
“It’s okay Bella. It was a very kind and generous thing you did. I knew you didn’t want to be here, or be with me, and ordinarily it would speak very highly of your character that you would do such a thing for your mother, but it’s not right - and I’ll come onto that.”
Bella went from shocked to confused. Surely he wasn’t implying that she’d been treating him with such little respect. Sure she hadn’t wanted to move here, but that wasn’t really about him. Was it?
“Bella. I’m what I suppose they call a ‘Man’s man’. I like sports, fishing, beer. The simple life, but I’m also a Police Chief and I have spent my lifetime watching people. I may not always be able to practice what I preach but I have tried my best to be fair. Before you were born, I prayed to god that you would be a boy. Now that’s not to say that you were a disappointment or that I would change anything, but honestly, things are easier with boys. It’s a man’s world honey. It might be wrong, but that’s the way it is - at least for now.
I’ve watched how men, how the world treats women. Hell I’ve treated women and girls just as poorly when I was a young man. Don’t think I don’t know that if you were a boy I wouldn’t be expecting to come home to a clean house or to a prepared dinner. I know this, and yet it’s a pattern we all fall into. I’m not saying it’s right. Hell I know it’s not right, but its… easy even when it’s so wrong.
I’m just as much to blame as anyone, but I can tell you this… when I first held you in my arms I swore to myself that I would make this world a better place for my daughter. That nobody would ever hold you down, prevent you from reaching her full potential, especially not because of your gender.
I cried when I held you… I cried because I knew how hard things were going to be for you and how much I wanted for you…” Charlie broke off. His eyes glistening.
Bella had no such control and tears were freely falling from her eyes as she gripped her strong fathers hand even tighter. She wanted to say so much, but she couldn’t - not just because of Charlie’s request but because if she unclenched her teeth to speak she might start sobbing and never be able to stop. In all her life, nobody - including Edward - had ever opened up as honestly or as deeply emotionally as her father was. And the fact that it was him just blew her mind.
After taking a few more moments to compose himself Charlie continued.
“You’ve always been a quiet kid. You never even cried much when you were teething, but not once Bella,” he shook her hand and stared deeply into her eyes trying to convey the depth of his feelings and their sincerity, “not one single time Bella, did you ever as a child let yourself be controlled or contained. Your spirit would fill the room. Even when you were sat in your high chair, drawing or coloring or even playing with your food, your mother and I would get this sense that you were everywhere. As quiet as you were you took everything in, you thought about things before you said them. You weren’t one of these kids that just demands answers or stubbornly refuses to do anything their parents say. Your mother used to call you an ‘old soul’. It was like you were watching us, watching the world and taking it all in. You’d smile a lot then. When you were a little kid. You almost never stopped smiling. And you know what Bells? You were never afraid. When you fell over - which you did all the time, and you grazed your knee or skinned your hands, you’d never cry or fuss. You’d just pick yourself up and carry on with whatever you were doing, you never let that stuff get in the way of enjoying yourself or just being yourself.”
Charlie took a deep breath and gave his daughter’s hand another gentle and affectionate squeeze.
“But that changed. It changed when I lost you. The young woman that turned up almost two years ago was nothing like my little girl. Now, I am fully aware of how hard the teenage years are - I’ve been there myself back in the day, and I’ve spent my lifetime around every teenager in this town. I know it’s confusing, scary, and it’s a time to start cutting those apron strings and rebelling against school and your parents. It’s a time to find new boundaries and experiment. But as much as it’s a beginning it’s also an end. It’s an end to childhood and childish things. But you know what I’ve seen in the years I’ve been looking after the people of this town?”
Bella shook her head, completely engrossed in her fathers words.
“If you strip out all that angsty teenage rebellion crap, you can still see the little kid they used to be in there deep down. And you can just start to see the adult that they will be for the rest of their lives. We all keep that little kid inside us, when all the growth spurts, the changing bodies, new… desires and experimentations all peter out, it’s that core kid we used to be that becomes the foundation for who we’ll spend the rest of our lives becoming.
But I can’t see her in you sweetheart. It’s like… it’s like she died…” He paused. “No, actually that’s not true… I know you’re not going to like this, but if I think about it, she’s still there, alive and well, and I’ve seen her - brief flashes.” Charlie started to feel excited even as sad as he was, new images coming into his mind and giving him hope. “And do you know when?”
Bella shook her head.
“When you’re with Alice… I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!” he paused. “I know you don’t see it honey but it’s like… it’s like he sucks the very life out of your, like everything that makes you you just… disappears. And Alice is the only one I’ve seen that brings it back.
With him you don’t laugh, you don’t smile. You’re so serious. You cling to him, you watch his every move like a hawk. You ‘defer’ to him in almost every decision. And it makes me sick.
Yet when you’re with her its like you’re a different person. You laugh, hell Bells I’ve even heard you giggle!” He smirked at her trying to lighten the mood. “You come alive with her, I know you don’t think I know what’s going on, but I listen. I see things. You don’t always let her get her way - you stand up for yourself, you show spirit and character and backbone, you concede to her only when you want to, despite how entirely and disarmingly charming that girl can get.” He smiled again and this time he was met with an equal smile as Bella silently agreed with him on that point.
“But with Edward you… you’re a shell. It’s like your dying a little every day Bella! And its like every one of the fears I had for my baby girl coming to life right in front of my eyes. Tell me, and tell me honestly - whose idea was it to get married?”
Bella said nothing. What could she say? She had spent most of her life utterly against the institution, especially teenage wives! Yuck! How 1880’s! And yet here she was, engaged to be married before she’d even hit her nineteenth birthday. But surely she couldn’t tell her father. It would only give him more ammunition against Edward.
But could she lie? Here he was opening up his very heart and deepest feelings, being as honest as one human being can be to another, what right did she have to not reciprocate.
“His Dad. I… I didn’t want to get married - at least not yet, but… we, we made a deal.”
“A DEAL?!” Charlie’s voice rose.
“Please Dad, it’s not whatever you’re thinking… honest. Please, just let that go for now.”
With a deep breath and against his better judgement he continued.
“You see? The little girl I knew wouldn’t have done something like that. She was her own person. But this… this isn’t you. Or if it is I… I feel like I’m losing two daughters.”
“Oh…” Bella cried.
“Look, I know you say you love him. I know that regardless of what I say you’re going to marry him and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Maybe if I hadn’t failed you as a father, maybe if I’d been there when you were growing up - giving so much of yourself away to everyone else… maybe then I could have done something.
But I’m trying now. I have to believe that my Bella is in there, and that she’ll fight off these shackles and this submissive, compliant and docile girl and grow into the strong, independent and self valuing woman I always expected her to become.
Will you promise me something? When you spend time with Alice just try and be objective and watch yourself. You come alive sweetheart. The joy in you lights up the room so much it’s dazzling.”
Charlie, with a last squeeze of his hand, let go and got up off the bed.
“Whatever it is about Alice that brings out that strong woman who respects herself and those around her, please try and hold onto that when you’re around… him. Because each time I see that light snuffed out, it’s like a piece of me and my hopes and dreams for you dies.”
He turned around and opened the door. He paused and looked over his shoulder at his daughter still sat motionless, with her face covered in rivulets of tears.
“I’m not saying this because I want to hurt you honey. I love you more than you will ever know. You’re the best of me. And when you’re with Alice, the whole world can see how utterly wonderful, beautiful and strong you are. Please hold onto her. For your old man? I love you Bells.”
And with a sad smile he turned and with reverence quietly closed her door.
Bella sat staring at the closed door unable to move or even think, her heart breaking as she heard her fathers footsteps slowly make their way downstairs. She heard him open the fridge, a glass clinking noise shortly followed by the sound of the fridge door closing, and then the sound of the TV - louder than usual ‘I wonder why?’.
Was she really like that? Nobody had ever spoken to her or critiqued her very being so thoroughly before. It was like her soul had been stripped bear, back to it’s very core and each layer, each aspect of her personality her very being poked, prodded, measured, weighed, catalogued and deemed of worth or not.
And how had she been judged? Was she some simpering self-less shadow of a women whose only value came from belonging to a man? Or was she a twenty-first century woman. A woman with rights and respect born from the suffering and struggles of countless generations of women before her?
Who was she?
What was she?
What was it about Edward that made her seem - at least to her father - as if she’d all but disappeared? And more importantly what was it about Alice that brought her, to paraphrase her father, back to life?
Bella’s mind couldn’t stop twisting and turning on itself as she examined her life, both before and after moving to Forks trying to find an answer to the only question that mattered to her anymore…
Is my Dad right?
She turned away from the door, and wrapped her arms around herself as she laid down on the bed facing the window. Her sore red eye’s closed, but the tears still streaming down her face, sobbing quietly as her heart continued breaking and her mind continued whirring.
She fell asleep almost two hours later, the light still on and never having opened her eyes or resolved the question to an answer.
And she never saw the two black eyes staring at her from the branch outside her window.
If she had, she would also have seen another heart breaking.
Bella collapsed backwards onto her bed, her body finally letting go of all the tension the last few hours built up in her, although her mind was just as much of a swirling maelstrom of anxieties, fears and worries as it ever was.
“Thank god that’s over with… it can only get easier. Right?” she said out loud, partly in relief and partly to try and convince herself.
For the last two hours she had worked up the courage, and Edwards, to tell her father that she was getting married. It hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped, and she hadn’t held any hope it would have to begin with. Her father’s feelings towards Edward came out in full display tonight. Normally Charlie was happy with little passive aggressive comments, rolls of the eyes and the not-so-subtle body language that all but screamed ‘Get your hands off my daughter before I shoot you and call it self defense - I’m the Police around here and nobody would bat an eye at me son.’, however tonight none of that was good enough.
Her throat was a little sore from all the yelling between her and her father, thankfully Edward stayed as cool as ice — pardon the pun — and never raised to her father’s bait. Although a few times, she wouldn’t have blamed him.
About thirty minutes ago, Edward had finally left when it was clear that there was nothing more he could say or do to help the situation, and whilst he couldn’t read Bella’s mind, nonetheless he was aware that he was at a good strategic point in the evening to withdraw and let the two Swans battle the rest of it out together. With a small look and a head shake he had offered to return immediately to her room to wait for her, but she didn’t want him hearing any more of her and her father’s argument and needed the time to decompress so she signaled that she’d rather be alone tonight, and reluctantly he acquiesced to her wishes.
About ten minutes had passed since they had come to an understanding that neither was going to change the others opinion or mind in this matter and so she retired up the stairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom. As she lay on the bed she looked around at all the history in the room, and not for the first time she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that even without the wedding, very shortly all of this was going to change forever. She was just about to graduate from High School and ‘officially’ go off to college, however with the deal she’d made with Edward, marriage in return for immortality, she knew that college wasn’t on her todo list for some time.
Only to herself would she admit she was nervous about the future. Of course, the idea of growing older while her surrogate family stayed forever frozen in time was so soul shatteringly mortifying that she still had nightmares about it, but that wasn’t the main reason for her nerves. In that small dark, silent and guarded part of herself, the one that even she rarely recognized or acknowledged, she knew that she still feared the Cullen’s leaving her. That fear, born the day Edward shattered her very core, had never really gone away. It had happened so fast… so easily and she never took one moment foregranted anymore, because just like that - in the blink of an eye, she could lose everything again.
Just what that ‘everything’ consisted of, she never examined to closely. Some things just shouldn’t be known - and she was happy with that. Call her ‘ostrich-girl’ all you like, but after years and years of not fitting in and feeling like the outsider to her family, her schoolmates and even the world around her, it was her cloak of protection and she was quite attached to it thank you very much.
A knock at her door startled her and she jumped up off the bed a little.
‘Oh no, please not round two…’ she thought.
“Bella? Can I talk to you?” Charlie asked hesitantly from the other side of door.
“Haven’t we said everything we need to say Charlie. You’ve made your feelings crystal clear.” Bella replied, with not a small touch of snideness in her voice. It wasn’t like her to talk to anyone in such a manner, lest of all her father, but things had been said tonight that would take more than a little time to stop stinging, for the wounds to close and hopefully heal over with no lingering scars.
A small cough came from the other side of the door and Bella could imagine the embarrassment on her father’s face as he fidgeted from one foot to the other as he tried to summon up the words he so often found so hard to say.
“Bella, I don’t want to fight, please… can I come in?”
With a cross between a sigh and a huff, Bella sat up, straightened her hair and her top and sat on the edge of the bed. With one final deep breathe she released it and said. “Sure… come in.”
The door opened slowly as if the normally tough Police Chief was expecting to be assaulted the moment he became visible. When the door opened enough that he could see his angry and defensive looking daughter sitting on the side of her bed closest to him, a timid looking smile formed on his face.
Bella saw this and if she wasn’t still so annoyed and hurt she’d probably laugh at her father looking so timid and contrite, but now wasn’t the time for that. She steeled herself against what she felt was coming next.
Her father entered the room and pushed the door almost closed - never block off an exit, his Police training demanded. He took in her face, he could see that she was still angry and more than a little hurt by the words they’d both thrown at each other. Honestly, he probably felt the same, but he hadn’t come here to continue the fight, nor had he come to try and change her mind with some new strategy. It was much scarier than that. He’d come to bear his soul to his daughter. To talk about things he’d spent a lifetime keeping inside. He finally realized that he owed her that.
“Mind if I sit down?” He asked politely and more than a little uncomfortably.
Bella took a little pity on her father. The anger and bluster from before was no longer present in his eyes. ‘Maybe he’s come to apologize and grant us his blessing?’ she thought before she swiftly rolled her internal eyes at even thinking such nonsense.
Her complexion softened as she looked at the man who for so much of her life had been a stranger, yet in the last few years had come to mean so much to her. She moved back up the side of the bed towards the headboard and patted the larger space next to her.
“I won’t bite. Promise.” she said with a slight rueful smile. ‘At least not yet I won’t.’ she finished silently.
Charlie started to move, then stopped, a questioning look on his face. “Pinky promise?”
Bella, despite herself laughed out loud. “Goof.” she said affectionately and for the first time since earlier in the afternoon when she and Edward were in the field joking about telling her father their marriage plans, she actually relaxed and smiled with real sincerity at her father.
For all his gruff nature and tacit silence Charlie Swan was a good man. A good father. And now and again he let that playful side he kept so closely hidden out and when he did Bella always felt warmed by it, like a Cat basking in the heat of the midday sunshine, and it never failed to make her feel better.
“Look Bells. I’m… I’m sorry about before - Not about what I said about you and… him, but about the way I said it.”
“Charlie!” Bella interrupted, disappointed that she had read the situation so wrong and fully expecting a continuation of the argument.
Charlie brought his hands up in a defensive and placating gesture. “Wait! Bella, please hear me out… this is very hard for me to say, but I promise. If you just hear me out, really listen, and if you still feel the same way… well I guess I’ll support whatever decision you choose to make. Okay?”
Bella was shocked. She hadn’t expected her father to back down so quickly, and if all she had to do was hear what she felt was his final attack on Edward and then that would be it, then she was happy to bear the brunt of another attack on the man she loved more than life.
After a few moments she took a deep breath, looked her father right in the eyes and said. “Okay. But please don’t just hate on Edward. Okay?
It took a moment for her father to work out what she meant, and whilst it still went against his very nature he agreed.
“Fine. Look honey. I know I’ve not been there for you. I’ve missed so much of your life and for that I will never forgive myself. I was there when you were small though, and I saw you start to become your own little person. Then I lost you. I’m not blaming anyone. The situation with your mother and me wasn’t anyones fault but our own. I regret more than I’ll ever be able to say or show you, just how much losing you… hurt me. When you stopped visiting… I know you didn’t intend it that way Bells, but it felt like you were rejecting me. Like I had no part in your life. Like I… like I didn’t matter.” Charlie’s voice broke a little.
Bella gasped and threw out her hand and clung onto her fathers larger, rougher but soothingly comforting hand.
“…Dad…”
Charlie took a breath, held up his other hand whilst closing his hand tightly but not too tightly around his daughters and continued.
“Please, don’t interrupt.” He coughed and cleared his throat before he continued. “I’m not saying this to hurt you honey. I’m not saying this because I expect or even hope for anything from you. I’m saying this because it’s important and because it has a huge bearing on what I’m about to say next. Please listen to me honey. Okay?” He looked affectionately into her eyes.
It took all of her inner strength and composure not to blush, cry or throw herself into her fathers arms, and with a shuddering breath she nodded for him to continue.
“Being a parent - even a pretty worthless one like myself is hard. You’ll find out one day. You spend half your time in near panic that you’re doing all the wrong things, and the other half spent worrying you’re not doing or saying enough. Your mother, well she hasn’t been the best role model for you. I know what it’s been like. I know that you spent most of your time looking after her, even before you were a teenager, and I know the real reason why you came to stay out here with me.”
Bella’s jaw dropped open. Sure she’d told Alice, Angela and Edward but she hadn’t expected her father to know the truth. She really should stop underestimating the man.
“It’s okay Bella. It was a very kind and generous thing you did. I knew you didn’t want to be here, or be with me, and ordinarily it would speak very highly of your character that you would do such a thing for your mother, but it’s not right - and I’ll come onto that.”
Bella went from shocked to confused. Surely he wasn’t implying that she’d been treating him with such little respect. Sure she hadn’t wanted to move here, but that wasn’t really about him. Was it?
“Bella. I’m what I suppose they call a ‘Man’s man’. I like sports, fishing, beer. The simple life, but I’m also a Police Chief and I have spent my lifetime watching people. I may not always be able to practice what I preach but I have tried my best to be fair. Before you were born, I prayed to god that you would be a boy. Now that’s not to say that you were a disappointment or that I would change anything, but honestly, things are easier with boys. It’s a man’s world honey. It might be wrong, but that’s the way it is - at least for now.
I’ve watched how men, how the world treats women. Hell I’ve treated women and girls just as poorly when I was a young man. Don’t think I don’t know that if you were a boy I wouldn’t be expecting to come home to a clean house or to a prepared dinner. I know this, and yet it’s a pattern we all fall into. I’m not saying it’s right. Hell I know it’s not right, but its… easy even when it’s so wrong.
I’m just as much to blame as anyone, but I can tell you this… when I first held you in my arms I swore to myself that I would make this world a better place for my daughter. That nobody would ever hold you down, prevent you from reaching her full potential, especially not because of your gender.
I cried when I held you… I cried because I knew how hard things were going to be for you and how much I wanted for you…” Charlie broke off. His eyes glistening.
Bella had no such control and tears were freely falling from her eyes as she gripped her strong fathers hand even tighter. She wanted to say so much, but she couldn’t - not just because of Charlie’s request but because if she unclenched her teeth to speak she might start sobbing and never be able to stop. In all her life, nobody - including Edward - had ever opened up as honestly or as deeply emotionally as her father was. And the fact that it was him just blew her mind.
After taking a few more moments to compose himself Charlie continued.
“You’ve always been a quiet kid. You never even cried much when you were teething, but not once Bella,” he shook her hand and stared deeply into her eyes trying to convey the depth of his feelings and their sincerity, “not one single time Bella, did you ever as a child let yourself be controlled or contained. Your spirit would fill the room. Even when you were sat in your high chair, drawing or coloring or even playing with your food, your mother and I would get this sense that you were everywhere. As quiet as you were you took everything in, you thought about things before you said them. You weren’t one of these kids that just demands answers or stubbornly refuses to do anything their parents say. Your mother used to call you an ‘old soul’. It was like you were watching us, watching the world and taking it all in. You’d smile a lot then. When you were a little kid. You almost never stopped smiling. And you know what Bells? You were never afraid. When you fell over - which you did all the time, and you grazed your knee or skinned your hands, you’d never cry or fuss. You’d just pick yourself up and carry on with whatever you were doing, you never let that stuff get in the way of enjoying yourself or just being yourself.”
Charlie took a deep breath and gave his daughter’s hand another gentle and affectionate squeeze.
“But that changed. It changed when I lost you. The young woman that turned up almost two years ago was nothing like my little girl. Now, I am fully aware of how hard the teenage years are - I’ve been there myself back in the day, and I’ve spent my lifetime around every teenager in this town. I know it’s confusing, scary, and it’s a time to start cutting those apron strings and rebelling against school and your parents. It’s a time to find new boundaries and experiment. But as much as it’s a beginning it’s also an end. It’s an end to childhood and childish things. But you know what I’ve seen in the years I’ve been looking after the people of this town?”
Bella shook her head, completely engrossed in her fathers words.
“If you strip out all that angsty teenage rebellion crap, you can still see the little kid they used to be in there deep down. And you can just start to see the adult that they will be for the rest of their lives. We all keep that little kid inside us, when all the growth spurts, the changing bodies, new… desires and experimentations all peter out, it’s that core kid we used to be that becomes the foundation for who we’ll spend the rest of our lives becoming.
But I can’t see her in you sweetheart. It’s like… it’s like she died…” He paused. “No, actually that’s not true… I know you’re not going to like this, but if I think about it, she’s still there, alive and well, and I’ve seen her - brief flashes.” Charlie started to feel excited even as sad as he was, new images coming into his mind and giving him hope. “And do you know when?”
Bella shook her head.
“When you’re with Alice… I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!” he paused. “I know you don’t see it honey but it’s like… it’s like he sucks the very life out of your, like everything that makes you you just… disappears. And Alice is the only one I’ve seen that brings it back.
With him you don’t laugh, you don’t smile. You’re so serious. You cling to him, you watch his every move like a hawk. You ‘defer’ to him in almost every decision. And it makes me sick.
Yet when you’re with her its like you’re a different person. You laugh, hell Bells I’ve even heard you giggle!” He smirked at her trying to lighten the mood. “You come alive with her, I know you don’t think I know what’s going on, but I listen. I see things. You don’t always let her get her way - you stand up for yourself, you show spirit and character and backbone, you concede to her only when you want to, despite how entirely and disarmingly charming that girl can get.” He smiled again and this time he was met with an equal smile as Bella silently agreed with him on that point.
“But with Edward you… you’re a shell. It’s like your dying a little every day Bella! And its like every one of the fears I had for my baby girl coming to life right in front of my eyes. Tell me, and tell me honestly - whose idea was it to get married?”
Bella said nothing. What could she say? She had spent most of her life utterly against the institution, especially teenage wives! Yuck! How 1880’s! And yet here she was, engaged to be married before she’d even hit her nineteenth birthday. But surely she couldn’t tell her father. It would only give him more ammunition against Edward.
But could she lie? Here he was opening up his very heart and deepest feelings, being as honest as one human being can be to another, what right did she have to not reciprocate.
“His Dad. I… I didn’t want to get married - at least not yet, but… we, we made a deal.”
“A DEAL?!” Charlie’s voice rose.
“Please Dad, it’s not whatever you’re thinking… honest. Please, just let that go for now.”
With a deep breath and against his better judgement he continued.
“You see? The little girl I knew wouldn’t have done something like that. She was her own person. But this… this isn’t you. Or if it is I… I feel like I’m losing two daughters.”
“Oh…” Bella cried.
“Look, I know you say you love him. I know that regardless of what I say you’re going to marry him and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. Maybe if I hadn’t failed you as a father, maybe if I’d been there when you were growing up - giving so much of yourself away to everyone else… maybe then I could have done something.
But I’m trying now. I have to believe that my Bella is in there, and that she’ll fight off these shackles and this submissive, compliant and docile girl and grow into the strong, independent and self valuing woman I always expected her to become.
Will you promise me something? When you spend time with Alice just try and be objective and watch yourself. You come alive sweetheart. The joy in you lights up the room so much it’s dazzling.”
Charlie, with a last squeeze of his hand, let go and got up off the bed.
“Whatever it is about Alice that brings out that strong woman who respects herself and those around her, please try and hold onto that when you’re around… him. Because each time I see that light snuffed out, it’s like a piece of me and my hopes and dreams for you dies.”
He turned around and opened the door. He paused and looked over his shoulder at his daughter still sat motionless, with her face covered in rivulets of tears.
“I’m not saying this because I want to hurt you honey. I love you more than you will ever know. You’re the best of me. And when you’re with Alice, the whole world can see how utterly wonderful, beautiful and strong you are. Please hold onto her. For your old man? I love you Bells.”
And with a sad smile he turned and with reverence quietly closed her door.
Bella sat staring at the closed door unable to move or even think, her heart breaking as she heard her fathers footsteps slowly make their way downstairs. She heard him open the fridge, a glass clinking noise shortly followed by the sound of the fridge door closing, and then the sound of the TV - louder than usual ‘I wonder why?’.
Was she really like that? Nobody had ever spoken to her or critiqued her very being so thoroughly before. It was like her soul had been stripped bear, back to it’s very core and each layer, each aspect of her personality her very being poked, prodded, measured, weighed, catalogued and deemed of worth or not.
And how had she been judged? Was she some simpering self-less shadow of a women whose only value came from belonging to a man? Or was she a twenty-first century woman. A woman with rights and respect born from the suffering and struggles of countless generations of women before her?
Who was she?
What was she?
What was it about Edward that made her seem - at least to her father - as if she’d all but disappeared? And more importantly what was it about Alice that brought her, to paraphrase her father, back to life?
Bella’s mind couldn’t stop twisting and turning on itself as she examined her life, both before and after moving to Forks trying to find an answer to the only question that mattered to her anymore…
Is my Dad right?
She turned away from the door, and wrapped her arms around herself as she laid down on the bed facing the window. Her sore red eye’s closed, but the tears still streaming down her face, sobbing quietly as her heart continued breaking and her mind continued whirring.
She fell asleep almost two hours later, the light still on and never having opened her eyes or resolved the question to an answer.
And she never saw the two black eyes staring at her from the branch outside her window.
If she had, she would also have seen another heart breaking.