Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 53 (Eclipse 12)

I had no clue how long Bella would be out, so I hauled myself up off the hallway floor, dusted myself off, and slumped onto the couch. I put on some hockey highlights in an attempt to drown out the thoughts banging around my skull, but they were relentless.

It troubled me not knowing where Bella was. Especially given that she was out there somewhere with Edward. Renee wasn't much older than Bella is now when we had our own fortunate mistake. I'd been careless, trusting that Renee had been more regimented with her pill than any 19-year-old should be expected to be. That particular lapse in judgement was entirely on me – one single bit of latex and our young lives would have been set on an entirely different trajectory.

Not that I was necessarily regretful of the child that resulted, or the lives we now lived, but teenage pregnancy was pretty much always best avoided. Now that Bella had some newfound freedom, now that she would be going on a trip with her equally as young and (assumably) inexperienced boyfriend, I knew that there was a whole new brand of hard conversation I'd have to have with her.

I volleyed words, sentences, arguments back and forth in my mind for a while, trying to plan out exactly what to say to make her understand the gravity of that particular situation. I knew it was pointless. I'd had a million conversations in my head with Bella over the years, and none of them ever turned out the way I'd expected.

It was then that I heard the sound of the door creak open, and soft footsteps in the hall.

"Could you come in here, Bella?" I called to her, trying to keep my voice even, gentle.

"What's up, Dad?"

"Did you have a nice time tonight?" I asked, hoping to put the whole moving out conversation behind us.

"Yes," she said, and nothing more.

I pressed.

"What did you do?"

She shrugged. "Hung out with Alice and Jasper. Edward beat Alice at chess, and then I played Jasper. He buried me," she said, smiling at the memory. Well, at least she hadn't spent the whole evening in Edward's bedroom...

"Look, there's something I need to say."

"What is it, Dad?"

I sighed. "I'm not good at this kind of thing. I don't know how to start..."

Everything I'd thought up prior to her arrival seemed to have flushed clean out of my mind. I was driving blind, here.

"Okay, Bella. Here's the thing," I got up to pace, as that usually helped me think. "You and Edward seem pretty serious, and there are some things that you need to be careful about. I know you're an adult now, but you're still young, Bella, and there are a lot of important things you need to know when you... well, when you're physically involved with —"

"Oh, please, please no!" Bella jumped to her feet, looking horrified. "Please tell me you are not trying to have a sex talk with me, Charlie."

Charlie. I always hated it when she called me Charlie. "I am your father," I reminded her. "I have responsibilities. Remember, I'm just as embarrassed as you are."

"I don't think that's humanly possible. Anyway, Mom beat you to the punch about ten years ago. You're off the hook."

"Ten years ago you didn't have a boyfriend," I noted, positive that Renee hadn't explained to her then-eight-year-old the intricacies of STDs, or ovulation cycles, or the need for enthusiastic consent, any number of things that are important for any sexually active adult to know.

"I don't think the essentials have changed that much," she mumbled.

"Just tell me that you two are being responsible," I asked, realizing that Bella, in all the immaturity of an 18-year-old girl, was not yet capable of having these adult conversations without blushing, or without trying to avoid avoid avoid.