Righteous and Wicked by cherry.blossomz.pdf

Righteous and Wicked by cherry.blossomz

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6219181/1/

"I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I

learn by going where I have to go."

~Roethke

Is this some sort of sick joke? This can't really be happening. The constant

exhaustion she feels never really lets her go, but she rolls over and looks out the

window in an effort to identify the source of the noise that woke her. Bella rubs

her eyes, almost unwilling to accept this disturbance in her precious routine. The

house she lives in is the only house on this street, and there are never any

noises. Eventually, her eyes catch a glimpse of the answer she is looking for. Am

I asleep or awake?

The dense woods next to her house are occupied by what sounds like a bulldozer.

It uproots trees and moves the earth. The trunks crack in protest, and stubborn

boulders push back against the machine.

Thud. Slam. Sreech. Crack. It leaves a path of destruction.

More importantly, it wakes Bella up—on a Saturday. She wonders who has

purchased the neighboring plot of land. This house has stood alone and isolated

for as long as she can remember.

She sighs and stretches and succumbs to the fact that her only day to sleep in is

ruined. But Bella is no stranger to disappointment. She rises from her squeaky

bed, dresses, and then goes downstairs to make breakfast for one.

A man steps off a plane and is greeted by familiar sights. Things that are

constant and never change. It should be comforting. He looks out of place. A

striking face in a sea of faceless strangers. A designer suit among flannel shirts.

He wonders if the choice he has made is the right one, but will allow himself to

feel no regret. He gets into a limousine and stares out the window at the endless,

blurry green. I'm not running, I'm moving on. He lies to himself and he believes

the lie.

"Rose, I don't want to go out. I just don't have the energy," Bella speaks softly

from behind her newspaper.

"You're thirty, Bella. Not eighty. You can't stay locked in this house forever. It's

not normal."

She puts down the paper. "Normal, Rosalie? Did you really just say that? Nothing

is normal about me," she mumbles and returns to her reading, absentmindedly

rubbing her thumb against her empty ring finger.

"You know what I mean, Bella. You need to get out of here. Meet people. This

house is crumbling around you."

"This is Forks, Rose. I think I've met everyone there is to meet," she states flatly,

dismissively.

"I don't know about that, Bella. A lot changed when you were away."

Bella pushes her chair from the table and tosses the paper in the trash.

"Tell me about it."

"You're getting married? Seriously?" he asks. He is no longer in a limousine. He's

wearing jeans and dragging his hand across his unshaven face. He looks more

like a man who belongs in a small town.

"I know. It's hard to believe. I never thought I could be tied to just one girl, but

wait 'till you meet her. She's amazing. " Emmett cracks open a beer for his

friend.

A friend that he hasn't seen in ten years, and who he has barely spoken to in that

time. Not because he didn't miss him, but because Edward is a failure at

correspondence, and had no real desire to connect with the people from his old—

now seemingly ancient—life.

Bella walks out of her father's house—her house—and gets in her father's truck—

her truck. Sleep still has its arms around her, and she tries to shake them off as

she backs down the driveway.

She looks down the street and spots it, her enemy, the bulldozer that woke her

up on Saturday. It now sits quietly at the side of the road, resting. She narrows

her eyes at it, revs the engine, and shifts the truck into drive.

The truck rumbles into the town gas station, as it has every morning for the past

six months. Only one thought repeats through Bella's brain- coffee coffee coffee.

She walks toward the glass doors, and then strikes her palm against her

forehead. Wallet.

She turns abruptly to fetch her purse, and stumbles directly in to the person

behind her. She steps back and rubs the tip of her nose. It burns from banging

into this man's chest. "I'm sorry, excuse me," she says.

But the man says nothing.

She looks up at him. He has short, mussed-up hair, and a slight beard has grown

across his chiseled features. His fingernails are dirty, and his eyes…

Bella is frozen in the storm of this mans eyes. A cloudy blue, like a sky that's

waiting for rain to come. They cut into her, and she can't look away. Neither does

he. Her heart pounds, and the moment is infinite.

He touches her arm, and she takes a sharp breath. Am I asleep, or awake?

She opens her mouth to speak, but she isn't given a chance. The dreamlike

quality of this moment persists as he takes her elbow in his firm grip. Still silent,

he gently guides her out of his path. Then, he walks right past her into the gas

station.

Bella is dazed. She looks at him over her shoulder and watches him walk away.

He doesn't look back. Still, she watches, as he takes an orange juice from the

cooler and begins to drink it before he's paid.

Suddenly, she feels embarrassed and quickly retreats to her truck. She turns the

key. Her coffee is forgotten as the truck speeds down the country road.

Edward sits, examining his blueprints. He places several calls, checking on

shipments of lumber and steel. He consults with the contractor who will lay the

foundation. Mundane tedium. He wants to let it permeate through him. He runs

his fingers through his hair. All of this work and it's not working.

Deep inside of him, he feels the familiar pang. Nothing can distract him from his

hunger. It's only been a day and he can't stop. He doesn't want to stop. He needs

it.

"Good morning, ladies. Let us begin our day as the Lord would want us to: with a

prayer. In the name of the Father, the Son…" Ms. Swan begins her class the way

she has for the past six months.

She's an actress as she smiles at co-workers and feigns enthusiasm regarding the

details of their personal lives. What is real is her affection for these children. She

cares for them deeply…more than anyone knows or could understand. She guides

them in their education, and tends to their young spiritual needs. The way her

teachers tried to do for her in these same halls. She wonders if their smiles were

fake too.

She dismisses the children to mass, knowing that she herself should attend, but

she does not. She returns to her empty classroom and blankly stares out of the

window until the children return.

He doesn't have to think about it. He knows where to go to find what he needs.

It's easy for him, and that doesn't make it easier. The thin blonde carries

Edward's items to the fitting room and hangs them on the hook. He follows

behind her, watching. "Let me know if there's anything you need," she offers.

He licks his lips. "There is."

Fried chicken…meatballs. Bella takes inventory of her fridge as she contemplates

what to cook. She chooses the latter and begins making dinner for one. It's the

routine that she needs, not the food. She never feels hungry anymore. She

methodically completes the task. Her fingers working independently from her

brain as she gazes out the window.

The bulldozer is gone.

She eats alone, in silence. Upstairs, she grabs the box from under the bed. She

brushes her fingers across the etched wood. She knows she shouldn't look, but

she opens the lid…like she does every night.

Edward hooks the silver trailer onto the hitch of his black jeep. It reminds him of

a bullet, a pill, a prison. But it's not a prison—it's freedom.

He pays the man in cash and he drives to the property. He turns onto the one

lane road, passing through the thick green. He sees the lone house and turns just

before it, onto the makeshift driveway that has been cleared.

He makes himself busy, trampling through mud to unhook the trailer—his

temporary home. He pauses when he hears a truck roar up the street. He looks

to the sound for a moment, and then his attention is returned to his work.

She sleeps, she wakes, she works. She sleeps, she wakes, she works. She looks

in the mirror and wonders who it is that is staring back at her, and remembers

the person she once saw there. A full heart. A hand to hold. A future and a room

to paint. She wakes, she works, she sleeps…alone.

It's black. Pitch black. And sounds that no human ears should hear are seeping

their way through the seams of Edward's trailer to his ears. He can't sleep.

Crickets chirp. A coyote howls. The wind rustles and sighs. Edward rolls over. He

feels it. The pang, the need—it rises through him. He turns in his bed again, but

he can't turn away from it.

On his back now, he stares at the ceiling. A new sound finds its way to his ears.

Bells? No, not bells. It stops, and its starts again. A gong. It stops. He closes his

eyes.

He starts to forget what he's trying not to think of. He starts to let the sounds of

the forest lull him away, to pull him down into sleep…

It starts again, the sound. A chime?

He throws off the covers and opens the door.

She walks out onto the porch, into the sunlight. The floor boards are warped and

slightly sticking up. An untrained eye might not be able to maneuver without

injury the way Bella's trained feet do. Her steps beat a path that she doesn't even

have to think about. But today the path is disrupted. Her feet suddenly stop.

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