Edward's Diary

All of me is For All of You - Part 2

Dear Diary,

“What time is it?” I heard Bella’s voice surround me, blending with the euphoria in my mind like
water dissolving into sand.
“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes and looked at her, lying naked by my side in a tangled mess of
sheets and blankets, her mahogany hair strewn about on the pillow that now smelled of us and
sweet love making. “I don’t care anyway.”
She laughed and moved, dislodging herself from my side and straddling me, “You might not care,
Mr. Cullen, but there might be a search party sent out for us if we don’t get back. And besides, did
you forget we have a daughter?”
I sat up so her legs went around my waist, thus cradling her in my arms. My fingers splayed out
against her bare back, and my lips started tracing soft patterns in the hollow of her neck. I was
cheating, I knew. Bella had a weakness when it came to sex.
“She’s a big girl. She can look after herself just for a night,” I murmured, pulling her impossibly
closer.
Bella started to say something, but gasped as the sensations rushed through her, and I cheered
internally at my success. She giggled when I tickled her, and then regained her power of speech.
“Do you really want to leave her alone? Overnight? With Jacob?”
I hadn’t thought of that.
Bella saw the expression on my face and sniggered quietly, running her hands through my hair.
“Edward, relax. I’m kidding. I know Nessie. They won’t do anything.”
I knew that. I trusted them both, but they were teenagers after all. God knows what Bella and I
had done before we got married. It was a surprise that Charlie had slept through it all.
“Maybe we should have the talk with them.” Bella leaned closer, resting her head on my shoulder.
“What talk?”
She pulled back and looked at me with her eyebrows raised.
Oh. Oh.
“You mean the talk?” I may or may not have wrinkled my nose a bit. Come on, what father wants
to talk to his daughter about—I gulped internally—sex?
Hey honey, so listen, I’m gonna tell you how to make babies, ya know? It’s all pretty cool, actually. You’ll find
out as ya go. And in the meantime, don’t end up pregnant and make me a grandfather.
Yeah, right.
Bella nodded as I registered what she meant to say.
“But she’s so young!”
“Edward, she’s going to be fifteen! How long do you want to wait?” She shook her head, because I
knew that she knew what I was going to say.
“I don’t know . . . maybe when she’s thirty?” I gave my wife a sheepish expression.
Bella looked at me with an expression that said, you’re kidding me, right? “Really? And what
explanation do I give her for having a baby at eighteen? Don’t you think that’s just a little bit
hypocritical?”
“Bella, please. I don’t want to think about it, not right now. It’s our anniversary!” I protested
weakly, feeling what every father in the world feels at least once in his life.
Why the hell did we have kids?
Bella smiled at me with knowing eyes. I knew my expression said it all. How the hell did we go
from screwing like rabbits to talking about our daughter and her prospective sex life—which I
really didn’t want to think about, not for about a thousand years—in bed?
“I’m thinking the same things, by the way, but in a very different light than you are.” She
dislodged herself from my lap, and wrapped the blanket around her as she perched herself next
to me.
“Do you know where we were five years ago, Edward?”
“Dancing after getting married.”
She hit me lightly as she tried to hide the smile that lit up her face. “No, a little earlier.”
“Practicing. You were trying to get me to have sex with you.”
“You’re not going to take this seriously, are you?”
I laughed and apologized quickly. “Sorry, sorry, yeah.”
She warned me with her eyes, and I took the hint. I had to be quiet and listen.
“I’m saying that five years ago, things were so different: so tense. With James, Victoria, the
Volturi, our separation, the stint with Jacob . . . It was all so . . . I just . . . it took away something,
Edward. We never seemed to have time to ourselves. It was this thing, or that hunt, or that war:
always something getting in our way of being together. I thought we could never be sure of
ourselves this way.
“I mean, what were the odds, Edward? You were the most perfect guy a girl could find. You could
have had anything . . . anyone. It just made no sense for you to be with me. What was I: fragile,
clumsy, plain, needy Bella Swan? I thought you would get tired of me, that you would one day
realize that there was nothing in me that held your interest, and then we’d go our separate ways.
And I felt afraid.
“I felt afraid because I thought it would have been easy for you, Edward. You had waited a
hundred years. You could wait a few more. I thought that once you’d been gone away for enough
time, you would forget me. But I knew that I wouldn’t: forget you, I mean. Who can forget the
most memorable times of their life? Their first love? First kiss?”
I opened my mouth to interrupt her, not liking the direction she was going, but she held my hand
and silently urged me to listen. The rain outside had picked up speed, and even though the door
we had kept open made way for gusts of icy, biting wind to intrude its way into our home, we
were warm.
“And then,” she continued, “when you actually left, it was so painfully clear. It was so hard and so
easy to believe that you didn’t want me like I wanted you. It became so obvious that you’d finally
realized you didn’t want to be stuck with me for eternity.
“I know things changed after you came back: somehow we’d beaten the odds. But there was
always one thing or another. The point is that we were so unsure. I mean, I know now that it was
baseless—our fear, that is—but there were times when I thought we’d go back to square one. It
was one step forward, two steps back with us. When I kissed Jacob, that day of the battle, my
mind was in complete mayhem.
“How could I have ever doubted myself? How could I ever doubt my love? I’d never felt more
guilty in my entire life. It just . . . for the briefest of all moments, it just made me feel as though
this was . . . a lie. I just . . . I still hate myself for thinking that, even for that one moment.
“Even after the wedding, when I was pregnant with Nessie . . . we fought so much, Edward. We
couldn’t even look at each other without cursing. You were angry, I was terrified and frustrated.
But still, here we are. Here we are, after five years—no scratch that, almost seven years. We lived
through it all. We fought, we loved, we hated, we cried, we did it together. And I want you to
know that I’m so grateful for it: all of it. Every moment—painful or not—that we lived through . . .
this right now makes me believe that it was all worth it.
“This, tonight, is the strongest we have ever been, Edward, and the weakest we’ll ever be. I think
—no, I believe—that we’re only going to move forward after this. Five years ago we were
wondering whether we’d make it through all the crap in one piece, and a few moments ago we
were sitting here wondering whether we should have the sex talk with our daughter—who we
never knew we could have.
“We’ve grown, Edward. This is the only thing that matters to me.”
I looked at her for a long while, wondering whether I should kiss her or kiss the crap out of her.
She was so right. Every relationship was a see saw. There needed to be balance to make it work.
Although we’d had our share of downs, we had enough chances for ups now. No one could change
that.
At last, I decided on kissing the crap out of her, and the sound that escaped her lips sent glorious
sensations through me.
“So, what do you say? Ready for Round five?” I laid her back onto the bed, hovering above her.
“Not yet, Mr. Cullen. I still need to give you your gift.”