Chapter Text
“You should be sleeping, love.” Edward murmured.
“Yeah, I should be.” Bella wasn’t tired. It was Sunday, so of course Bella had awoken of her own accord at 5 in the morning. “I can’t though, I'm not tired.”
“Well, what do you want to do then?”
“Hmm.” Bella could think of some things she would like to, but knew Edward wouldn’t approve. “I guess I can start the day. I do have some work I need to do before school tomorrow.”
She could feel Edward nod. “Whatever you want, I’ll be right here.”
Bella sat up and turned to look at her boyfriend. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. As the sunrise shown into her room, Edward began to sparkle, and she could never get over how beautiful he was.
She admired him for a little while, before getting out of bed and collecting her clothes for the day—blue jeans and black sweater that Alice had bought her. It was one of the few things Bella did like out of whatever Alice would semi-occasionally dump into her room. It wasn’t her first choice. She wanted to wear her favorite green sweater, it was probably still in the wash. Wait. Did she do laundry yesterday or the day before? Bella swore she was folding clothes in the living room watching the game with Charlie.
“Hey, have you seen my green sweater?” Bella asked, moving to the threshold of her room.
“What green sweater, Bella?” Edward replied.
Confusion and—to be honest—exasperation washed over Bella. “Th-the green one. The one I always wear?”
Edward offered her a remarkably human shrug. “I haven’t seen it love. Did you donate it by mistake?”
He had a point. Bella did get rid of some old clothes in an attempt to squeeze Alice’s purchases into her closet, but in the end she had given most of Alice's clothes back to her.
“Maybe you’re right.” Mourning the loss of a sweater well loved, Bella went to take a shower.
She ended up meeting Edward in the kitchen, wanting a moment to herself to go over and over again the clothes she had donated. Her old gray Keds, some t-shirts..surely not her green sweater?
It was momentarily forgotten when Edward grinned at her and planted a kiss on her forehead.
She blushed, looking away. “Morning.”
“Morning again, love.”
She smiled and went to the cupboard. She wasn’t hungry just yet, it was too early, but sometimes she liked tea. She would never be a coffee drinker like her dad. It was just too bitter. Maybe she could go with Jess and Angela to the coffee shop and they could give her some pointers?
She got out her favorite mug from the cabinet—a novelty Arizona themed ceramic mug, complete with images of cacti, the sun, and the yellow sand of the desert. It real life it had more of a red hue, though. Bella didn’t mind. Her mom bought it for her as a little parting gift, and it always made her smile even though they were never that close.
“I’ve been informed tea stains your teeth, Bella.” Edward said with a disapproving tone.
“Then I’ll be a vampire with yellow teeth.”
That shut him up. Edward hated when she brought up the V word. At least he was quiet this time, and didn’t launch into his tirade about her immortal soul, or whatever.
Her tea finished boiling on the kettle. She finished pouring it and turned to sit at the kitchen table.
Suddenly, too quick to see, a white blur shot over in her direction. One moment her mug was in her hand. The next it was on the floor, in a dozen pieces.
She looked up at Edward standing a little too close than before, smirking.
“That was my favorite cup!”
“Sorry, love.” He didn’t move, just stood there with that stupid grin on his face.
“Why did you--”
“It was an accident.”
“Uh-huh, sure.” She didn’t see his hand reach for her, for her mug and swat it out of her hand to know that he did it. Bella knew she wasn’t that clumsy.
She kneeled down to pick up the ceramic, piece by piece.
“Would you like any help?”
“You’ve done enough, just leave me alone, please.”
“C’mon Bella, don’t be like that.” No emotion tied to the words. Theatrics, she could tell.
She sighed, and continued to pick up the shattered remains of her favorite mug off of the kitchen floor. I need to sweep again, she noted absently. After she mopped up the tea, of course. He would tell her it was just a mug, and maybe it was, but she had gotten it before she moved here to live with her dad, one of the only keepsakes from her home state that she still had, and he had just..bumped her. Let her drop it. Who the hell does that?
“You did that on purpose,” she finally mustered.
“No idea what you’re talking about.” Of course. The words came out too fast to be genuine. He was standing, any prospect of sympathy gone out the window.
“Then leave me alone and let me handle it.”
“So you can push me away?”
“What? No! So you can stop breaking my shit.”, she retorted. “Accident or not, when was the last time you broke something of yours? Oh, that’s right. Anything you break with your stupid vampire strength doesn’t matter, because there's always money to replace it!”
“I dropped my phone yesterday,” he offered.
Bella rolled her eyes. “Did it break?”
He shrugged. “It cracked a little, I can show you if you don’t believe me.”
The spill cleaned, she returned to the cabinet and reached for another mug. Instead, she poured herself a glass of tap water.
The thought of any of the Cullens still carrying something around that wasn’t perfect nearly made her laugh. “I believe you,” she lied softly. “I just really liked that mug.”
It had been like this a lot recently, she realized. Bickering. A lot of bickering.
Today it was over her mug, and now her sweater was missing.
The window had been open the other night, while Edward was hiding from Charlie...
No, wait. Edward had come from the closet on Thursday. And her sweater hadn’t been in the laundry on Friday..
So why had the window been open? Did..did one of the Cullens really take her sweater? Was it Alice? Did she think it was that ugly?
Bella knew she felt an extra gust of wind that night.
“What are you thinking about, love?” Edward crooned.
“Nothing,” Bella didn’t dare look at him for fear of being dazzled. She wasn’t in the mood to have her heart flutter and for her vision to swim.
She heard him chuckle, but Bella didn’t find anything about this funny. She stood and put the collected ceramic into the trash, then went to the cupboard for some extra paper towels and spray cleaner.
“Love, I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re upset.”, suddenly he was behind her, icy arms wrapped around her waist, and she sighed, breathing in his citrusy scent.
“Are you sure you want me to leave?” he said.
Bella sighed again. She couldn’t help taking such huge breathes sometimes. Afterall, Edward smelled so good. Bella guessed she could brush it off. It was only a mug after all..she could go shopping with Alice and get another one..
Suddenly Edward was gone, and she heard Charlie’s cruiser pull into the driveway.