Chapter Text
It should have been peppermint.
That was the flavor that lingered on her lips after a kiss. Not exactly the flavor of peppermint, but the same wintery sensation. The space between pine trees. The chill in the air right before the first snowfall. An exquisite taste she could never quite place.
Bella did not recognize the taste on her lips. It was wrong. Spicy. Like the time she added too many cloves to a gingerbread recipe. It overwhelmed her senses.
Jacob Black overwhelmed more than just her senses. Bella had spent the last twenty-four hours scared and shivering. Desperate, she sought the familiar warmth of her best friend. But she found a different Jacob. A harsh ray that left her burnt, instead of a warm sun. A Jacob who threatened to kill himself if she did not kiss him.
So, to save his life, she asked him to kiss her.
Bella sat on the cold ground for a long time after Jacob loped off into the woods, heaving. She wanted to throw up, but there wasn’t anything in her stomach. She hadn’t eaten any of the food Edward packed for her.
Edward.
Her telepathic vampire soulmate. Who would hear about this kiss from too many people, with too many details. Who would experience the kiss through Jacob’s mind. Jacob loved to exploit Edward’s gift; often used it against him. This scorching, blaring, desert-sun Jacob would revel in his triumph. He always liked it best when Edward suffered.
Back at the campsite, she searched through her belongings. She found her water bottle wedged in the corner of the tent and downed its contents. The overwhelming taste of peppercorn and anise lingered. Bella ran her tongue over her lips and spat. One final effort to get the foreign taste out of her mouth. Scrubbing it with the heel of her hand, Bella emerged from the tent and stumbled back.
Edward stood in the center of the clearing. How long had he been standing there? And why hadn’t he come into the tent?
Those were not the right questions to ask. She knew why he waited outside the tent. And why he took an involuntary step back. The question she needed to ask was: what happens now?
“Bella,” he began. Not sweetheart, or love, or even her name with the charming, old-fashioned tenderness with which he spoke. It might as well have been the name of someone else. “It has become increasingly clear that you need some time for yourself.”
His skin sparkled like the snow at his feet. Every time she saw Edward in the sun, his dazzling beauty wiped every thought from her head. She could not recall what he was referring to. She didn’t need any time for herself. She wanted to run her fingers across his smooth, glinting cheek. And Edward would have to be present for her to indulge that urge.
“Consider yourself untethered, so your ties to me don’t weigh on your decisions. You owe me nothing.”
Bella blinked. The loveliness of the way his lips moved did not match the tone of his voice.
“I would ask for the engagement ring back, but…” he licked his lips and looked pointedly at her hand, “we couldn’t risk the news getting out, I guess.”
Bella curled her fingers into a fist and tucked the hand behind her back, just so his honey golden eyes would look back at her face.
The meaning of his words caught up to her, forming complete thoughts in her dazzled mind. But they couldn’t be right. If they were, it meant Edward was in the middle of the world’s most courteous break-up speech.
“You can’t do this.”
He pressed his lips into a hard line. “This will not be like the other time, I swear. I am giving you space to think. Until then, I will not stand in your way, just as I promised.”
“There is nothing to stand in the way of! You’re the only way. You’re everything I’ve wanted.”
Edward’s hand twitched at his side. Bella knew he would have pinched the bridge of his nose if he weren’t trying so hard to remain neutral. He didn’t want his impatience to show.
“Bella,” his voice was painfully, horribly void of all emotion. “I know personally what it means when you risk your life to be in someone’s presence.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Maybe not, but it’s close enough.”
“It’s nowhere close. It’s on different continents. Different galaxies!”
“God, I cannot believe I have to convince you that you have a crush on another man,” irritation flashed across his features. “You’re going to regret your decision to be with me because of your own stubbornness.”
Bella ground her teeth together. She had heard this argument before. “Maybe you both should stop putting desires into my heart.”
“And maybe you should start listening to what your actions say!” he snapped, completely unlike himself.
Bella drew back. For the first time since their first trip to the meadow together, she found herself afraid of the vampire before her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, holding out an apologetic hand before he brushed it through his hair. “Bella, step back and think about what you’ve been telling me lately. You’ve been pushing me away for weeks.”
“I haven’t—,”
“Fine. You haven’t been pushing me away, but you’ve been pulling Jacob closer. I feel like I am constantly making space for him in our relationship. I let you go to La Push despite my fears, when he could have easily visited you in Forks. I couldn’t get you to accept a present from me until he had given you one, first.”
Bella drew her wrist up to her other hand, clasping the crystal heart between her fingers.
“We couldn’t ride motorcycles together, because… what, exactly? I never quite understood the reasoning, though I acquiesced. He gets space in our relationship, but my presence would taint whatever you have with him?”
“Of course not, Edward. I just… couldn’t,” Bella concluded lamely. Why had she said that?
An incredulous laugh burst between Edward's lips. “You just couldn’t! Of course not. Do you mind telling me what we have that you refuse to share with him? He shares our secret, your lips, and even our meadow.”
The blood drained from her face until her skin was the same color as Edward’s. “How do you know about that?”
Edward smiled ruefully, “Last night, Jacob dreamt of you two in our meadow. I had to assume you brought him there at some point.”
“It was where he saved me from Laurent.”
“Ah.”
Bella didn’t mention the hiking trips she and Jacob took to find their meadow. It didn’t seem to matter that she only wanted to go there to hear Edward’s voice.
Bella set her feet on steady ground, the footing she needed last year in September when Edward tried to do the same thing. If she hadn’t let go so easily, he might have stayed. With that vain hope in mind, she said. “I think you’re overreacting. You’re hurt. I’m so sorry that I caused you pain. It will never happen again.”
“Until Jacob Black twists your heart for another kiss.”
Bella fought a wince. Edward saw it anyway.
“That won’t happen.”
“You’re right. He won’t use the same trick twice. Maybe he’ll threaten someone else’s life on our wedding day.”
“Now you’re just being cruel.”
“I’m being cruel? We went camping in the middle of the woods—where no one but Jacob Black and I would see you—and you could not stand to wear the engagement ring I put on your finger the night before. That’s cruelty.”
“Yes, you are being cruel,” Bella said, shrinking away from his words. Cruelty implied malicious intent. She didn’t mean to hurt Edward. She didn’t mean to do any of this.
“I’m sorry, Bella,” he said again, with candor in his voice obvious despite his anger. “All I am asking you to do is think about what you truly want. I am breaking our ties—you owe me nothing. I will be a phone call away. A single desire from your heart will be enough for Alice to send me back. I can even make sure you aren’t alone while we’re apart. I’ll send Esme up, if you’d like.”
Bella shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to explain to Edward’s mother why her son didn’t want to be with her.
The smallest quirk of his lips revealed he’d read her mind without telepathy. “I’ll tell her that you let me be in the fight after all.”
“Okay.” Bella agreed, “Send her up.”
Edward nodded. For the second time in her life, Bella watched Edward disappear into the trees. Bella clutched at her chest, terrified for the ghost of a hole to return, but it didn’t. She chose to take that as a good sign. Edward wasn’t going to leave her. He was simply giving her space to decide, even though there was no decision to make.
She needed Edward.
The second she saw him again, she would make it known. She would weld the engagement ring to her finger and marry him in front of the entire world. No one would be able to question her choice. Ever again.
Feeling good about her decision, she returned to the tent to retrieve the book she brought and the pen she used for annotating. She flipped to the back cover and wrote down her thoughts, her promise to wed him, so his dazzling beauty would not steal the words from her lips again.
She began to reread her work, satisfied with her imagery, when the frost-tipped leaves rustled to her left. She expected Esme, as Edward promised, but the paw of a werewolf stepped into the clearing. Bella reeled back, worried Jacob had returned for another kiss, after all. How would he twist her heart to receive one this time? Her shoulders drooped when the wolf stepped out of the shadows, and she could see that the reddish fur was actually sandy brown.
“Hey, Seth,” she said.
He nodded his head in greeting.
“Did Edward send you up or Jacob?”
Seth shook his head.
Bella gnawed at her lip. “Then who? Oh, it doesn’t matter. Can you please leave? I really, really need Alice to see me.”
Bella had wondered why Edward hadn’t returned despite her steadfast decision to marry him, and now she had her answer. Clearly, the decision someone made to send Seth to check on Bella was enough to block Alice’s visions. With Seth around, Alice would be blocked, and Edward would not return.
Seth shook his head again.
“Please, Seth? This is important.” She studied with the wolf and the careful distance he put between them. Was it merely a precaution, an instruction given to him for her safety? Or did he witness her mistake through Jacob’s thoughts and disapprove? Bella assumed the latter. As Leah’s brother, Seth would be sensitive to heartbreak and betrayal. She let the sheer desperation show on her face as she said, “It’s for Edward. I need to make things right.”
His ears perked up. Bella perked up with them.
Seth scanned the forest, suddenly on alert.
“Yes,” Bella encouraged. “That’s right! It’s for Edward. Go back to the fight!”
The wolf tore into the tree line, flinging snow and debris into the air with his haste. Bella stood, anticipating Edward’s return at any second. She ran her fingers through her hair and winced at the snarls on the back of her head. She grabbed a hat, adjusted the front of her coat, and waited. And waited.
Bella fluttered her eyes shut. Imagined an eternity with Edward so hard she nearly screamed from the effort. And waited.
And opened her eyes to nothing.
“Edward?” she called out into the trees, stupidly.
Bella gnawed at her lip, at a loss for what to do. She wouldn’t sit and wait around—she’d made that mistake before. Perhaps her decision didn’t affect Alice’s vision. After all, Bella and Edward were inevitable. She had never waivered, not once. Alice wouldn’t see a vision of a decision Bella made in a dreary cafeteria over a year ago.
She would have to catch Edward’s attention by other means, then. She knew exactly how to do it. She wandered over towards the edge of the cliff where Edward stored the pile of extra bags under a tarp. The night before, she wanted a pair of mittens over her gloves. The sun had not dipped under the horizon, yet it was already freezing. She couldn’t find them in her backpack or her duffel. Knowing Edward had them somewhere, she went to search through the extra bags.
“Careful,” Edward warned. “Watch out for the edge.”
In his wolf form, Jacob pretended to hack on something. Bella paid him no attention.
“I’m clumsy, not blind.”
Edward scoffed in a way that said the matter was still up for debate.
Bella rummaged through the extra equipment. Which all seemed to be medical supplies. She had expected the ridiculous, oversized first aid kit—Edward had one in every one of his cars and hid one in the truck—but it looked like someone robbed a doctor’s office. Sitting among the rolls of gauze and bottles of ibuprofen, Bella found a neck brace, a sling, and liquid IVs.
“Edward, what is all this?”
“Just a few, normal precautions,” Edward had said.
“An Epi-Pen?” she held the unfamiliar object close to her face. “I’m not even allergic to anything!”
“A life-threatening allergy can develop at any time, Love.”
Laughing, Bella shook her head. Partially incredulous, mostly besotted.
“What do you need?”
“My mittens.”
“Oh,” he pulled two bundles of purple yarn out of his pockets. “You left them in here, remember?”
“So, my hands would be warm in your pockets!” she exclaimed.
Under the bright blue midday skies, Bella peeled the mittens off her hands. She dropped one right onto the piles of medical supplies but—oops—it fell too close to the edge. Bella stepped right up to the edge to fetch it. She wouldn’t jump—she had no desire to plummet into pine trees. Tauntingly, she reached for her mitten, but it slipped through her clumsy fingers and fell off the edge. Luckily, the branch of the closest pine tree caught it. The evergreen tops undulated like ocean waves. Bella reached out over the edge, where her fingers nearly brushed the purple bundle of yarn. She imagined Alice’s exact words as she hissed them into the phone receiver. You should never, ever leave her alone, Edward. What were you thinking? She’s a reckless fool without you. Edward, on the other line, lips tight, eyes wild with desperation, would already be racing to her aid.
Bella shifted forward, onto hands and knees to reach the mitten. She didn’t want it. She would toss it over the edge once she had her hands on it. But Edward would never allow such an overt display of recklessness.
The branch shook as Bella snatched the mitten. The frozen pine needles shed their snowy coating, exposing the thin layer of ice beneath. The needles sparkled in the sunlight. Childishly, Bella batted the branch like a cat to enhance the effect. The tinkling light shifted into rainbows before her eyes. Bella grinned. She let the mitten fall from her hand and reached for it again, bracing for Edward’s delicious fury.