Not Meant To Be - Chapter 26

 

Chapter 26

Song:  Something’s Missing – John Mayer

A full year had passed since I moved to Los Angeles, California.  Gone were the rainy, overcast days I had grown up with in the Seattle area.  I was a California girl, with the tanned skin and famous pals to prove it.

As promised, Rosalie was back for the summer, and I was thrilled.  I missed having her in my everyday life, so I wanted to make the most of our time together.  While my bedroom became “our” bedroom for the ten weeks she was scheduled to stay, she rarely slept in there with me anymore.  More often than not, she spent her nights in the bed down the hall…with my dear cousin Emmett’s room.  Maybe that would have bothered other people, but not me.  I loved them together.

It had taken a grand total of two and a half days after Rosalie’s arrival for her and Emmett to start openly making out in front of all our friends.  Everyone expected it, no one cared.  Well, until the groping would begin, then we would verbally abuse them until they stopped or took it elsewhere.

I didn’t hide my smug, told-you-so attitude from either of them.  Not that they minded.  They were both so happy floating around on their new love cloud that nothing I said fazed them.  They hadn’t quite put it into words yet, but I could tell.  Once it happened, I knew Rosalie would gush about it to me.

The summer so far had been such a great time.  Nights off were sparse, of course, but working at a trendy club made up for it. Rosalie was a great bartender, as usual, and she helped Emmett and me with much of the day work around the club.  The extra assistance meant fewer hours in the office for all of us and more time to spend at the beach. 

We were like one big happy family. 

Always my partner in crime, Rosalie took it upon herself to amp up my social life.  It wasn’t as though I couldn’t take care of that myself, but I still had very little interest in anyone I met.  Perhaps a part of me was still too hung up on Edward to move on, especially with as close as we had become, but I preferred to think that it was because I had higher standards than in the past.  Most guys had very particular expectations – of the sexual nature – and I had yet to meet any man in L.A. who made me want to jump into bed with him.  There were times when it was difficult to go without, but after waiting for so long, it almost felt as though I should continue to wait until I met someone worthwhile.

Rosalie and Emmett struggled to understand my rationale.  They couldn’t see my choices as anything other than waiting on a relationship that would possibly never happen.  I told them that as long as I continued to do my job, hang out with my friends, and meet new people, I saw absolutely no problem with continuing my friendship with Edward.  I knew they just worried about me and wanted me to be happy, but sometimes, it got to a point where I just didn’t want to justify or explain myself anymore.  Even if they didn’t necessarily like my choice of not dating casually, they were my two closest friends, and I needed them to accept it.

Nonetheless, I indulged Rosalie a few times by hanging out with guys and doing something that resembled flirting, even if it was hollow.  It wasn’t as though Rose didn’t want me to be happy, she just couldn’t see a way for me to be with Edward.  Her thinking had always been fairly black and white when it came to my relationships and interactions with men.  She meant no offense to Edward or our circumstances; she was simply looking out for me the best way she knew how.

It was during those summer months that Edward revealed his complete history with Carissa to me, including how it tied into what had happened with Julie and the son he never met.  We had recently tried video chatting, which was truly wonderful because we got to see each other while we talked, but for these conversations, we mostly stuck to the phone.  I couldn’t blame him for wanting to hide as he provided me with even more details of his past.  It was bad enough to hear his voice crack or those deafening pauses while he was telling me about his past; it would have been anguishing to see him upset and not have the ability to reach out and comfort him.

“After I signed away my rights to the baby, I transferred into the auto mechanics program at the local vo-tech school,” he told me during one of our late night phone calls.  Rosalie no longer slept in my bed at all, so these had become a regular occurrence for us.  “It was a beneficial choice for several reasons.  It let me get out of my school for half of the day, and although there were still people who knew me there, it was less to deal with that way.  Most importantly, I’d be able to start working as soon as I graduated from high school.  It was a fast track to my career, and I could work and complete school for other certifications I needed at the same time.  I was never quite the same person I used to be, but life gradually improved.”

It still hurt me to hear Edward share details from such a difficult time in his life because there was nothing I could do to change it or make it better for him, but I appreciated every word he said.  I always felt closer to him when we had these deep conversations.  He didn’t struggle as much as he did when telling me about Julie, but I still had the sense that not many people in his life were privy to these details of his past.

“Carissa was my saving grace.  She was the one person besides my parents who knew about the pregnancy before the rumor mill hit.  Never once did she judge me or look down upon me for that horrible situation.  On the contrary, she was there when I needed a friend,” he explained, and I paid close attention.  His wife – or almost-ex-wife – had been a mystery to me for a long time, so I always listened carefully when he revealed anything about her.  He had told me many stories about their friendship and camaraderie as they grew up, but I never got the sense that it was more than platonic.   I wanted to understand what eventually drew them to one another romantically and thus led to their marriage and what had created the fundamental, irreparable divide between them, aside from my part in Edward’s decision. 

“Carissa attended a different high school and she didn’t know Julie, so she was outside the chaos.  I could find peace and comfort in her presence.  She listened when I needed to talk, whether about the Julie situation or anything else that was bothering me.  When I needed to sit and say nothing at all, she was quiet at my side.  If I needed a distraction, she talked or got me out of the house for a while.  I’m not sure how I would have turned out if she hadn’t been there for me.”

“Do you guys still talk?” I asked.  “I mean, other than about Finn.  I can tell how close you were, and I can’t imagine it’s easy to just give up your best friend after so many years.”

“You honestly have no idea how much it means to hear you say something like that to me, Bella.  It’s not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re doing all right.  We talk about Finn, our families, and trivial things, but we don’t have the friendship we used to.  Maybe in time, but there’s too much that has changed.”

“I’m glad you can at least do that.  You said she was upset when you told her that you’d cheated.  I didn’t know if she would hold that against you.”

He sighed, and I tried to imagine what he was doing on the other end.  Rubbing his forehead?  Pulling at his thick hair?  Pinching the bridge of his nose?  “I think it still hurts her, but she’s not spiteful.  We’ve both accepted that there was a rift in our marriage before I ever met you.  I think she’s actually started seeing someone recently, but she hasn’t said anything about it to me.”

“Have you ever told her about me?” I asked.  It was a question I was quite curious to hear the answer to, but it also made me extremely nervous.

“No.  She only knows the bare bones of that situation, and anything I’ve shared was done with the marriage counselor present.  She tried to ask me early on who you were, but once I told her that it was someone she didn’t know, she didn’t press for details.  Before you ask, she doesn’t know that we still talk.  That’s not open for discussion with Carissa,” he added with a note of finality.

“Wow, well, now I know,” I said thoughtfully.  “Thank you for sharing with me.  Do you think you want to tell me more about you guys?”

“Sure, baby, if you’re all right with hearing how we actually got together.  I can’t tell you much more without going there.”  In his carefully chosen words, I could tell how concerned he was for me. 

Would learning the truth about his relationship with Carissa upset me?  Yes, it probably would, in some ways, but if there was ever a chance for us to move forward, even just as friends, I needed to know.

“It’s fine,” I reassured him.  “We’ve both come to terms with the fact that we had pasts before we met one another, so go ahead.  It’ll be good for both of us to get it out there, right?”

“Well, let’s see then… Almost two years after graduating from high school, I was working in Seattle on a full-time basis.  Up until that time, I had been commuting from my mom’s house in the suburbs and I decided it was time to get a place of my own.  I found a reasonably priced studio apartment and moved in with only the contents of my childhood bedroom. 

“As I was unpacking and organizing my belongings, I came across a stack of loose photos tucked in the back of a photo album.   I rifled through them, smiling at the faces of old friends and memories of simpler times.  Five or six pictures into the pile I froze at the sight of one particular snapshot,” he explained, and I heard him take a nervous breath.

“It was the fifteen year old versions of Julie and me on one of the Friday nights in her parents’ basement,” he said slowly.  “We were both smiling widely, eyes glimmering with this fucking…youthful joy and innocence.  We were nestled together on a tan sofa and I had one arm wrapped around her waist, while my other hand ironically lay across her stomach.  It was long before the pregnancy, but the symbolism of it struck me hard.  I was flooded with flashbacks of the day she told me.  I remembered that after recovering from the initial shock and allowing reality to sink it, I had timidly placed my hand on her still-flat abdomen in a similar manner.

“I thought about the girl who never really belonged to me and the child I would never know.  Julie and I weren’t in love, but for a time, we had supported each other through the consequences of our teenage pregnancy drama.  I thought of what she would have looked like with her belly round with my child; she had yet to show when her father stole away to the East Coast with her.  Did my son look like me?  At three years old, I had never seen a picture of him or even learned his name.  With a flick of my wrist, I had signed away all rights to him,” he said quickly.  “Was his hair the same reddish-brown as mine?  Was it as unruly?  What were his favorite games, foods, and cartoons?  How was Julie?  Did she find someone else our child would call ‘daddy’?”

I tried to decipher the emotion in his voice, but it was just so…numb, but it seemed forced.  It was almost as though he was back on that day, heartbreaking memory triggered, and he was fighting it to maintain composure. 

“Oh, Edward,” I said, on the verge of tears for his loss, just as I had been when he first told me about Julie.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.  It’s not your fault,” he replied.  “Things get a little rougher from here.  Are you sure you can handle me talking about what I did with other women?”

“You’re already warned me.  As long as you don’t go into detail, I think I’ll be fine.  The past, right?”

“Right,” he agreed.  “I was an utter wreck after allowing those thoughts to infiltrate my mind.  I had done so well at keeping them at bay, though they always hung in the periphery of my mind, never forgotten for a single day.  Now they had come to the forefront and taken over my mind, body, and heart.  I cried myself senseless.  I broke things in my apartment.  I got piss ass drunk at every opportunity.  Up until that time, I hadn’t allowed myself to become involved with any other females, but that all changed.”

I wanted to hug him.  I wanted to take nineteen year old Edward and hold him as he wept.  I wanted to be with the Edward I knew and loved so that I could comfort him.  I couldn’t do any of those things, so I sat in silence and allowed him to purge.

“My drinking was out of control.  Upon acquiring a very believable fake ID, I became a barfly.  It didn’t matter what kind of bar or club it was, as long as I could get in, get drunk, and get a woman to come home with me.  Drinking and fucking my way through my misery was doing me no good, but I continued down my destructive path regardless.  It went on and on for months until the night I ran into Carissa at a bar near the UDub campus.  She had been going to school there, and despite our close proximity, she was so caught up in her college life that we didn’t see each other as often as you might think.”

I didn’t tell him, but what he described was so strangely parallel to what I had done after ending my relationship with James.  The circumstances were extremely different and I was trying to have fun, not forget anything, but the twin thread remained.  During a difficult point in our lives, we both chose sex as our drug and tool.  We were both so utterly fucked up, but at the same time, I knew we weren’t those people any longer.  We had both recognized who we were and how that was different from who we wanted to be, and we had changed.  But I knew this wasn’t the time to think about myself; I needed to hear the rest of Edward’s story.

“I barely recognized her when she hopped into my lap on my barstool.  I blinked back the tequila haze that clouded my vision and tried to focus on her face.  I ended up hanging out with Carissa and her friends for the rest of the night, and when I tried to make the forty minute walk back to my apartment, she wouldn’t allow it.  Her place was nearby, and she insisted that I just stay with her for the night.

“She knew something was off with me, and I broke down.  I told her about the picture and how much thoughts of my now three year old son had been haunting me.  She comforted me with the understanding and sympathy that no one else in my life had, and…we somehow ended up sleeping together that night.

“I awoke to the feeling of a warm, naked body pressed against me.  I peaked at my bed companion, and when I realized it was Carissa, the previous night all came back to me.

“I panicked.  I had drunk-fucked my best friend,” he concluded.

It was so much to process.  Too much?  I remembered how I reacted when I read Edward’s email about signing away his rights to his first son, and this played right into how I imagined Edward felt.  He was such a compassionate, good man, no matter how much he beat himself up for his past.  If he were cold-hearted or uncaring, he never would have acted out that way.  The manner in which he chose to cope with his pain was not in the least bit healthy, but it was proof of how hurt he was.

“Still with me?” he asked.

“Mmmhmm,” I hummed.

“Bella, I need you to tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m…it makes me sick.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a low, breathy tone.  I could hear the guilt and shame in his voice, and I knew that I needed to clarify. 

“No, don’t apologize!” I protested.  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.  It just turns me stomach to imagine you in that much pain.”

“Oh…”

“Is there more?”

“Oh yeah.  It’s not like we had sex and then got married the next day.”

“Okay, good point,” I said, laughing slightly at myself.  Hearing about him and Carissa together that way was muddling my brain, even though I logically knew that their marriage included sexual history.  “Tell me how that happened,” I insisted.

“I will.  Can you promise me something, though?”

“Anything.  What do you need?”

“Just hear me out until I’m done, okay?” he asked.  I agreed, and he started once more.

“I had absolutely no idea how to proceed, but Carissa was much more laid back about things.  We never really discussed what had happened, nor did she attempt to carry it over into our friendship.  I was completely shocked and surprised.  I questioned if she could really be so cavalier about it all.  We had been friends since junior high – didn’t it change something?

“Eventually, it did, and those changes came with time. I stopped drinking alone and trolling random bars for women.  Carissa and I spent more time together, but only as friends.  A month later, we went to a party, and after more beers than I can remember, it happened again.  Once more, we didn’t talk about it.  In the moment, we enjoyed each other’s bodies, but it ended there. 

“The pattern continued in that same fashion.  By day, we were the same old best friends we had always been, but when we drank, we fucked.  Eventually, the sex moved into sober nights as well, and things seemed to be good.  I no longer felt the need to hook up with random chicks, and there was a sense of trust between the two of us. I never considered it dating; we were just us with a little pleasure on the side.

“Things seemed to be great for a while…until history repeated itself.”

Oh, no.  Finn, I thought. Per his request, I stayed silent, despite my realization.

“We were twenty years old, and Carissa was going to have my baby,” he said solemnly.  “Less than two months later we were married by the Justice of the Peace.  Finn entered our lives not long after.

“’This time I won’t lose my son.  This time I will do right by my child,’ I kept thinking.  ‘I will make it up to my first boy by being the best father I can be now.  I will love his mother and we will be a family,’ I told myself over and over again.

“I cherished my son, Bella, and despite being a young father and husband, I resolved to be with him every single day until he was a man.  Anything less would be unacceptable.  You can see now why this divorce has been so difficult for me.”

“Wow.  Edward, I don’t even know what to say,” I muttered, lost deep in my thoughts.  “I guess I never really put things together.  I knew you were young when you guys had Finn, but you always talked about Carissa being your best friend.  I assumed that you had been together since you were kids and just did the whole ‘high school sweethearts getting married young’ thing.”

“Now you know everything,” he said quietly.  “Are you okay?”

“What?  Are you crazy?  I’m the one who should be asking you that!  You have been baring your soul to me for that past six months and you’re asking if I’m okay?  Do you have any idea how illogical that is?”

He laughed at my statement, and we spent the next hour discussing his marriage to Carissa, as well as my reactions to the finer details of their life together.  Hearing about their life together was insightful.  He was comfortable enough to confide in me about their struggles as very young parents and how they held their life together as Carissa finished school and Edward eventually opened his own business.   It solidified for me how strong of a person Edward truly was, even if he wouldn’t always allow himself to see that.  He and Carissa had gone through so much.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also understood that overcoming adversity didn’t guarantee their future together.  What a tragic fact of life…

More pieces of the Edward puzzle slid into place.  Again, my thoughts roamed back to the time we had spent together in Washington.  His words, once more, held new meaning.  All that time, I had regarded him as the typical guy who was unhappy in his marriage and was just sticking around for the kid.  Now, I could see that everything was so much more complicated.

Edward had lost one child, and when he found out he was going to be a father again, he got married without hesitation.  Carissa was his best friend, so it was reasonable to believe that they could make a marriage and family work together.  There was already a foundation of love and compassion, even if it wasn’t romantic at first.

I had never been through anything as dramatic or traumatic, but I saw the ways Edward and I were so much alike.  We were both good people with good hearts, who just happened to have a proclivity for making poor decisions.  We were both impulsive thinkers.  We reacted to situations based on capricious notions, and then with our heart.  That inevitably left cautious, rational thoughts in the back of our minds.

It made sense.  Neither of us ever truly considered the consequences the first night, and now here we were two years later, still trying to figure things out.

I wanted him so much.  We had come so far and he had shared so much with me, but I knew I could never allow him to give up what he had with his son.  Edward and Carissa would share custody of Finn, and that meant that he needed to stay in Washington.  I had a good job and a comfortable life in California.  It still felt as if there was something missing, but time would make that better, wouldn’t it?

I considered Rosalie’s encouragement with new eyes.  Finn was very clearly the most important thing in the world to Edward, so he would remain wherever his son was.  Instead of feeling excited and happy that Edward told me he missed, loved, and wanted to be with me, I felt guilty.  He should not have felt torn between a woman and his son, especially not after everything he had been through.  Perhaps I needed to take a step back and give my relationships here a little more precedence in my life.  If I could find a way to let him go first, maybe he would be able to do the same.  I wasn’t sure I completely believed that in my heart, but I was going to try.  I had to at least do that.

One particularly handsome guy named Hayden had been flirting with me all summer, and Rose noticed.  With her encouragement, I finally took the chance and flirted back.  A few nights later, he asked me out, and I said yes.

Hayden was a really nice guy, which surprised me considering that he was a publicist.  I tried my best to put aside my preconceived notions and give him a chance to prove himself to me.  A number of his celebrity clientele were Rendezvous regulars, which was what brought him to the club so often, but I discovered that there was more to him than work and parties.  We went out sporadically, considering that most of my free time came during the daylight hours, and his work schedule was pretty much the opposite of that.  We still managed, and we had fun together.

We saw each other on and off as fall set in and Rosalie returned home to start attending college fulltime in Seattle.  The first time Hayden kissed me, it turned into a solid ten minutes at my front door.  I was completely caught up in the excitement of actually feeling something - anything – for someone new.  It was thrilling, even if I didn’t know what I wanted from him.  The next time was while watching a movie at his house.  I kept the progress slow, and there was little more than some playful groping on the couch. 

I continued to see him, and our physical relationship progressed a bit more.  When he touched me, it felt good, but it didn’t feel right.  My body was screaming at me to seek more, but my heart and mind couldn’t connect to those desires.  I tried again another night, but I couldn’t follow through. 

There was nothing wrong with Hayden.  Nothing at all.  He was sweet, successful, and levelheaded.  We laughed together all the time and could talk for hours.  I was the problem.  I was attracted to him, but there was no fire.  I liked him, but I couldn’t move past the initial infatuation.  That was why I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with him, even when the things he did to my body made it oh so tempting.

I apologized to him about not being ready, and he assured me it was all right.  Still, I cried when I returned home, not entirely sure why I was reacting that way.  I didn’t want to imagine how awful I would have felt inside if we actually did have sex.

I could not, in good conscience, lead him on any longer, so by early October, I ended our casual dating altogether.

I felt like a total mess, but I knew I couldn’t force myself to feel things that just weren’t there.  My heart was set, even if it was on a man I couldn’t have without extirpating my life all over again.  Even then, would we stand a chance?  The risk was so frightening that I wasn’t sure whether I was willing to try.  Maybe I was destined to be alone.  It certainly felt like a fitting penance for all the mistakes I had made.

I'm not alone
I wish I was
Cause then I'd know I was down because
I couldn't find a friend around
To love me like they do right now
They do right now
I'm dizzy from the shopping mall
I searched for the joy but I bought it all
It doesn't help the hunger pain
And a thirst I'd have to drown first to ever satiate
Something's missing
And I don’t know how to fix it
Something's missing
And I don’t know what it is
At all

John Mayer

E/N:  I originally wrote Edward’s story about Carissa in an EPOV, but adapted it for this chapter.  There was a small excerpt that Edward would not have detailed to Bella, so it is posted as Outtake #13.  It is the conversation between Edward and Carissa once they were back at her apartment that first night together.  Rest assured there is no lemon (phew!) – it is just a closer look into Edward’s mind, and I believe it will help you understand how they ended up “together” that night.

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