Wide awake

Chapter Six Caramel Comforts

E.P.O.V

The rest of that week went by in an amazing blur of gazebos, cookies, and damp brown hair. The nights were always the best. It was kind of fucked up how night used to be my least favorite time of day, and now it had completely changed.

I had taken time to set some ground rules with myself regarding this entire arrangement. First and foremost, I could not make Bella uncomfortable in any way. With her strong aversion to men, I knew even the slightest mistake would upset her. The second was that I couldn’t acknowledge Bella at school. This was a given, but it was a rule I had to set regardless. The third was – where I could protect Bella without inadvertently giving this whole thing away and facing the wrath of Alice and tons of other people – I would.

That Tuesday night, I had ushered Bella into the twisted symphony that was my world of music. She would take an ear bud, and so would I. Then I would show her my favorite tunes while staying a very careful distance away from her, as to not be the reason for “Weird Random Emotional Breakdown Number Five”. I started out with the lighter stuff, of course. A little bit of classical before easing her into more heavy genres. She seemed oddly curious about everything I showed her, like she had never fucking ventured into the outside world before. She always surprised me by her reactions to songs. Sometimes I’d play something and hold my breath, waiting for her to grimace in disgust, when instead she would turn one side of her mouth up and bob her head along to the tune playing. My girl had good taste.

Eventually she turned to me with a cautious expression. “Did I see you with Mike today?” she asked in a tone insinuating disapproval. I panicked a bit, not knowing she had seen us together, and as such never coming up with an appropriate cover story.

I grimaced. “I just needed to speak with him about something that happened at the party Friday.” It wasn’t a lie. Technically he did approach Bella at the party, and technically I did speak to him. She looked like she was going to question me further about the Newton situation, so I conveniently changed songs to something hard and loud. Which to my extreme surprise, Bella seemed to almost enjoy. She never brought it up again.

And the next day at school, Newton kept those devious eyes of his trained on the blackboard when Bella entered Bio. I was thankful one day had gone by without me receiving any news of “Weird Random Emotional Breakdown Number Five”. And thankfully, Jazz kept his fucking mouth shut about Bella, instead focusing all his attentions on what Brandon was doing. Good boy.

Wednesday night greeted me with a slightly distraught Bella. It was something I was starting to notice though. She had fallen asleep. I could always tell the way she darted her eyes around the yard with an air of tension around her. Instinctively, though I had been trying to keep things light, I knew she needed to get it off her chest. So I just cut the shit. I put on my best concerned and soft Edward look and hoped it was comforting to her as I took my seat at the bench.

“What was it about?” I asked softly while grabbing a cookie. She looked slightly taken aback at my question, likely not expecting it to be so noticeable. And to others, it probably wasn’t. But she let me see the Real Bella, like I let her see the Real Edward. Reluctantly she began recalling the events of her latest dream. It was much like the last. Exactly like the last as a matter of a fact. But this time she didn’t edit. She went into excruciating detail. Noting the sound of her finger breaking when she tried to resist, and how much blood came from her lip when he punched her. She told me about how she could hear the screams of her mother through the walls in the dark silence of her closet. And then at the mention of her mother, Bella did something that completely fucking stunned me. She cried. Not hard sobs or anything, just trails of tears soundlessly pouring down her pale cheeks. It fucking broke my heart to see her cry. I was itching to comfort her, to do something other than just sitting there on that bench like a statue. But I knew better. The best I could do was listen. So I did.