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told him that sometimes she was mad at her father for allowing her mother to
divorce him. "If she'd been in Forks, she'd be alive now." Then she had looked at him
and her smile was tender. "But then I wouldn't have met you, so..." She had shrugged
and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. She liked doing that, he had noticed. Edward
accepted her kiss with dazed bemusement.
The mere possibility that she would feel knowing him might make up for, in any
small way, the loss of her mother, stunned Edward into silence. It took him days to
really find his tongue again, but Isabella never pushed it, perhaps sensing what her
words had meant to him.
On Monday mornings, Janice would ask him how his weekend had been, even though
she had seen him and Isabella the day before. Then she would present him with a
small package of baked goods and ask him, "Could you give these to Bella, please?"
Soon, it was customary for him to drop by Isabella's house on Monday evening to
make sure she got her package in a timely manner. Invariably, there would be some
delicious treat that Isabella would share with him. They would moan and groan and
promise each other that this was the last time they would overindulge. That was the
one promise they broke over and over again.
He liked being able to assure Janice on Tuesday morning that he had delivered the
goods as promised. And to tell her how delicious they had been. For some reason,
that always made Janice smile. Edward also discovered that Isabella's desire to hug
had become contagious. Janice and Midge and Sharon all now felt compelled to give
him a hug when he saw them. He didn't understand it, but he wouldn't say he hated it
either.
On Tuesdays, Edward and Isabella ate in the diner. Soon Midge was getting their
order prepared ahead of time and almost as soon as they walked in, the food would
arrive at the table. They took turns paying, getting into friendly tussles every now
and then just because they liked teasing each other. The experience of being teased in
a friendly way by someone who genuinely liked him was such a novel experience for
Edward that at first he wondered if Isabella was trying to disguise unkind words and
thoughts behind her gentle banter. But it hadn't taken him long to realize that
Isabella was exactly as she appeared to be. She had no time or need for subterfuge.
She was simply herself.
Sometimes, Midge would surprise them with a piece of pie which they would share.
Edward noticed that the pie always tasted better when he had Isabella to share it
with him.
Wednesday evenings would still find Edward taking an extra long run, after all he had
been eating quite a bit more and he had to do something to keep in shape. Except
now, he ran with a companion. Isabella could keep up with him; in fact, she could
outrun him if she put her mind to it. If the weather was bad, they would meet at the
gym and run on the track there. Edward's treadmill was sadly neglected and had
been relegated to being an expensive ornament. It didn't bother him in the least.
Thursday mornings, they would go to the dry cleaners and Isabella would always
have an item or two that he would never remember seeing her wear. Isabella and
Sharon would talk for a few minutes and then Isabella would go home to write and
Edward would go to work.
Every day of the week went smoothly.
But Edward found that it was on Fridays that they were forming their deepest
connection. True, there was the problem of the underlying sexual frustration on
Edward's part. It was a low buzz just beneath the surface of his skin, but it was
bearable. A man who had spent half his life developing his sense of control was more
than capable of going without sex for a few months. It had taken him two decades of
life to work up the courage to find refuge in a woman's body for the first time. He
could certainly handle a small drought. It was all in the name of spending time with
Isabella and so he considered it a negligible loss.
He had learned to accept the fact that every now and then his hand would find that
turgid flesh between his legs and he would stroke himself to a short-lived relief, all
the while ignoring the shameful harvest of his weakness. But better that
embarrassing slip of control than to give Isabella a glimpse into his sordid little
trysts.
For some reason, she saw something better in him, something more than he what he
knew existed. In his loneliness, he allowed her to think he was the man she saw when
she looked at him. She couldn't know the terrible and secret fears he harbored. She
didn't suspect what he knew to be true. One day, she would see past the mask and she
would leave.
But until that day, he would bask in her acceptance.
So on Friday nights they danced.
And danced. In their movements, he found another kind of release. It wasn't sexual,
and they didn't do it twice. They danced until they could hardly stand, until their
muscles twitched and ached with sated fatigue.
Isabella no longer allowed him to refuse when she tugged at his hands and pulled him
onto the dance floor. One Saturday night, as they had shared cookies and chocolate
milk and watched Bruce Willis kicking ass, he had told her that one of his fondest
memories was of watching his mother dance. Even when she cooked or cleaned, there
was music playing in the Masen household and invariably his mother would be
swaying in time to it. He did not tell her that sometimes his father would sweep his
mother into his arms and they would dance cheek-to-cheek, or that his mother
always blushed and smiled a secret smile full of feminine knowledge when they did.
No, Edward preferred to remember only his mother, moving in time to the strains of
music, her face alight with the joy she found in it.
Ever since Isabella had uncovered that memory, she had been dragging him out to the
dance floor of whatever bar they happened to be at that Friday night. Sometimes the
dance floor was tiny and dark and crowded and they moved to the sounds of Irish
folk music or covers of country classics. Sometimes the dance floor was spacious and
crowded, lights flashing over their faces as they moved to the latest techno craze. It
didn't seem to matter to Isabella. She wanted to dance, to move, to immerse herself in
whatever music was playing.
Edward found himself embarrassed at first. Then he was enchanted, taken along on
the currents of Isabella's magic. Her body moved with carefree grace, no hint of
awkwardness or self-consciousness. Her hands would flutter over his body as she
pulled him into her own little sphere. Isabella created her own world, and by some
miracle she invited him into it. If he proved reluctant, she simply tugged him inside of
it, giving him no chance to refuse. He found he didn't really want to deny her that
simple pleasure. It took so little to make her happy, and Edward found, for once, that
he could reciprocate. He could do for her.
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