Did I want Bella to be attracted to me, a woman to a man?
That was the wrong question. The right question was should I want Bella to be attracted to me that way, and that answer was no. Because I was not a human man, and that wasn't fair to her.
With every fiber of my being, I ached to be a normal man, so that I could hold her in my arms without risking her life. So that I could be free to spin my own fantasies, fantasies that didn't end in with her blood on my hands, her blood glowing in my eyes. My pursuit of her was indefensible. What kind of relationship could I offer her, when I couldn't risk touching her?
I hung my head in my hands.
It was all the more confusing because I had never felt so human in my whole life - not even when I was human, as far as I could recall. When I had been human, my thoughts had all been turned to a soldier's glory. The Great War had raged through most of my adolescence, and I'd been only nine months away from my eighteenth birthday when the influenza had struck... I had just vague impressions of those human years, murky memories that faded more with every passing decade. I remembered my mother most clearly, and felt an ancient ache when I thought of her face. I recalled dimly how much she had hated the future I'd raced eagerly toward, praying every night when she said grace at dinner that the "horrid war" would end... I had no memories of another kind of yearning. Besides my mother's love, there was no other love that had made me wish to stay...
This was entirely new to me. I had no parallels to draw, no comparisons to make. The love I felt for Bella had come purely, but now the waters were muddied. I wanted very much to be able to touch her. Did she feel the same way?
That didn't matter, I tried to convince myself.
I stared at my white hands, hating their hardness, their coldness, their inhuman strength...
I jumped when the passenger door opened.
Ha. Caught you by surprise. There's a first, Emmett thought as he slid into the seat. "I'll bet Mrs. Goff thinks you're on drugs, you've been so erratic lately. Where were you today?"
"I was...doing good deeds."
Huh?
I chuckled. "Caring for the sick, that kind of thing."
That confused him more, but then he inhaled and caught the scent in the car. "Oh. The girl again?"
I grimaced.
This is getting weird.
"Tell me about it," I mumbled.
He inhaled again. "Hmm, she does have a quite a flavor, doesn't she?"
The snarl broke through my lips before his words had even registered all the way, an automatic response.
"Easy, kid, I'm just sayin.'"
The others arrived then. Rosalie noticed the scent at once and glowered at me, still not over her irritation. I wondered what her problem was, but all I could hear from her were insults.
I didn't like Jasper's reaction, either. Like Emmett, he noticed Bella's appeal. Not that the scent had, for either of them, a thousandth portion of the draw it had for me. I was still upset me that her blood was sweet to them. Jasper had poor control... Alice skipped to my side of the car and held her hand out for Bella's truck key. "I only saw that I was," she said - obscurely, as was her habit. "You'll have to tell me the whys."
"This doesn't mean - "
"I know, I know. I'll wait. It won't be long."
I sighed and gave her the key.
I followed her to Bella's house. The rain was pounding down like a million tiny hammers, so loud that maybe Bella's human ears couldn't hear the thunder of the truck's engine. I watched her window, but she didn't come to look out. Maybe she wasn't there. There were no thoughts to hear.
It made me sad that I couldn't hear enough even to check on her - to make sure she was happy, or safe, at the least.
Alice climbed in the back and we sped home. The roads were empty, and so it only took a few minutes. We trooped into the house, and then went to our various pastimes.
Emmett and Jasper were in the middle of an elaborate game of chess, utilizing eight joined boards - spread out along the glass back wall - and their own complicated set of rules. They wouldn't let me play; only Alice would play games with me anymore. Alice went to her computer just around the corner from them and I could hear her monitors sing to life. Alice was working on a fashion design project for Rosalie's wardrobe, but Rosalie did not join her today, to stand behind her and direct cut and color as Alice's hand traced over the touch sensitive screens (Carlisle and I had had to tweak that system a bit, given that most such screens responded to temperature). Instead, today Rosalie sprawled sullenly on the sofa and started flipping through twenty channels a second on the flat screen, never pausing. I could hear her trying to decide whether or not to go out to the garage and tune her BMW again.
Esme was upstairs, humming over a new set of blue prints.
Alice leaned her head around the wall after a moment and started mouthing Emmett's next moves - Emmett sat on the floor with his back to her - to Jasper, who kept his expression very smooth as he cut off Emmett's favorite knight.
And I, for the first time in so long that I felt ashamed, went to sit at the exquisite grand piano stationed just off the entryway.
I ran my hand gently up the scales, testing the pitch. The tuning was still perfect. Upstairs, Esme paused what she was doing and cocked her head to the side.
I began the first line of the tune that had suggested itself to me in the car today, pleased that it sounded even better than I'd imagined.
Edward is playing again, Esme thought joyously, a smile breaking across her face. She got up from her desk, and flitted silently to the head of the stairs. I added a harmonizing line, letting the central melody weave through it.
Esme sighed with contentment, sat down on the top step, and leaned her head against the banister. A new song. It's been so long. What a lovely tune.