Red Room ₪ Breaking Dawn Fanfiction

𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞

Chapter Twenty-Three —— 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞

When I'm with you, I feel a kind of calm I've never felt in my life. I'm tangled up in you and you're tangled up in me and it feels right. Like it was meant to be. ~ Rachel Gibson

A month after the Volturi confrontation, the world had quieted. Or at least, our little piece of it had. No more visions of destruction, no armies gathering at the edge of the forest. Just normalcy. As much normalcy as two people like Edward and I could manage.

We were sitting at a small table outside of an old café tucked in the corner of Port Angeles, the kind of place that smelled like roasted espresso beans and worn wooden floors. The early spring breeze brushed past my face and tugged gently at the ends of my hair. The air was crisp, scented faintly with salt from the nearby water, and the sky was beginning to blush into late-afternoon gold.

Edward sat across from me, a half-smile playing on his lips as he stirred a cup of coffee he wouldn't drink. I watched him, as I often did when I thought he wouldn't notice. But of course, he always did.

"I'm still surprised you agreed to this," I teased. "A first date? With me?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You say that like I haven't spent the last month trying to find the right moment."

I laughed softly and looked away. I still wasn't used to this version of him which was calmer, gentler, and a little more uncertain. It was easier to think of him as the stoic vampire, the mind-reader who always knew what to do and say. But here he was, quiet and human-like in a way that made my chest ache.

An older couple sat at the table next to us, leaning into each other with the ease of a love that had endured decades. They'd been stealing glances at us for a while now, smiling in that knowing way only people who've lived long enough can.

Eventually, the woman leaned over. Her voice was warm with nostalgia. "You two remind me of us when we were younger. Starting our life together. We had our first child when I was barely twenty-one."

Edward looked at her with a soft smile and said, "That's beautiful."

"You're glowing, dear," the old man said, glancing at me kindly. "You're going to be a wonderful mother."

I blinked, momentarily caught off guard. My hand instinctively dropped to rest on my stomach, and I offered them both a grateful smile.

"Thank you," I said. Edward nodded beside me, his expression unreadable.

We didn't correct them. We didn't say we weren't together in the way they imagined or that the child growing inside me wasn't his. For that moment, it felt right. Or maybe we both just wanted to pretend it could be.

After they left, silence settled between us again. Not heavy, but thoughtful.

Then Edward spoke, his voice quieter than before. "How are you planning to co-parent with Embry if you and Kayla still can't stand each other?"

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, staring out at the waves crashing in the distance.

"The same way Embry co-parents with you," I said, not looking at him.

There was a pause. "Nonexistent," he murmured.

I nodded. "Exactly."

Edward frowned and leaned forward, lacing his fingers together. "That's not sustainable, Althea."

"Kayla knows Embry is going to be in this baby's life," I said firmly. "She has to accept that I don't like her. I don't trust her. And I don't have to, as long as she keeps her distance and doesn't try to get in between me and my child."

He studied me for a long moment. "You think that's going to work long-term?"

"I think that woman would breathe fire down my throat if she could, but she knows better," I said, with a small smirk. "She knows Embry will choose this baby over her any day."

Edward shook his head slowly. "We have to figure something out."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "We? Since when did this become about you and Kayla?"

"No," he said with a sigh. "I mean we as in, we all need to find better ways to parent around these... complicated relationships."

That was rich, coming from him.

"You want to talk about parenting?" I asked. "Have you figured out your co-parenting situation with Bella? Because from where I stand, you haven't seen Renesmee in a week, Edward. A week. And you act like Lape is her father and you have no responsibility to that little girl."

His jaw clenched. I watched the guilt flicker in his eyes before he looked away.

"I just don't feel fatherly toward her, okay?" he said finally. "I try. I do. But when I see her, all I see is Bella. I see Lape holding her and being more present than I've ever been."

I scoffed. "That's not right, Edward. You don't get to disappear because it's uncomfortable."

He flinched at my tone, but I didn't care. I was tired of watching people run from their responsibilities because they didn't fit into some perfect, tidy narrative.

"She still asks for you," I continued. "She looks for you when she paints. She hums your lullaby in her sleep. And all you can think about is how seeing her reminds you of a mistake."

"She's not a mistake," he whispered.

"But you treat her like one."

That shut him up. His face crumpled slightly, and I saw the war behind his eyes of the eternal conflict between who he wanted to be and who he was.

"I know I've failed her," he said after a long pause.

"You haven't failed her yet," I said, my voice softening. "But you will if you keep disappearing. Lape's not her real father, Edward. You are. And she deserves to know where she came from."

He nodded, slowly. His hands trembled slightly as they rested on the table. The weight of everything was finally settling on him.

"I don't want to be like my own father," he said.

"You're not," I said gently. "But you will be, if you let fear define your relationship with her."

We were quiet again, watching the sky turn tangerine and mauve as the sun began to dip below the horizon.

"I want to be better," Edward said.

"Then be better," I said. "Show up. Love her. Even when it's messy."

He looked at me, and for the first time in a long while, I saw clarity in his eyes. Not certainty, but resolve.

"You'll hold me to it, won't you?" he asked.

"Every damn day."

He laughed, low and warm. "You're really something, you know that?"

"Yeah," I said, cracking a smile. "You're not too bad yourself."

The waitress came by with the check, and Edward took it without hesitation. The old couple was gone now, but their words lingered. *You remind us of us.*

I watched him as he stood up, holding my jacket for me as I slipped it on. Maybe they weren't wrong. Maybe we did remind them of something real.

As we walked back to the car, Edward slipped his hand into mine.

"I'm glad we did this," he said.

"So am I."

And for a moment, under the pastel sky with the ocean humming softly beside us, I believed it, believed that even the most broken people could figure it out, if they just kept trying.