CHAPTER SEVEN

GOODBYE FORKS

Jacob was sitting patiently on the covered couch as we entered the living room from the backyard entrance of the main house. It was a strange feeling walking in with all signs of living being covered up; yet the feeling was strangely familiar. We had done the same at our house, covered all the furniture, and pictures on the walls with white sheets to keep the dust from building up – we weren’t coming back any time soon. The fact that we had replicated this in our house was not the familiarity that I was remembering; the scene of the Cullen house all packed up reminded me of when the Cullen’s had left shortly after my eighteenth birthday, when Edward had left me and had caused the now fully healed hole in my chest to rip open. I remembered the devastation when I desperately ran to the house to see if they had really left, and of course finding that they had. As I took in the room my focus landed back to Jacob, and I smiled to myself as I remembered that he was there for me during that time, that even though he could have never fixed the hurt I felt for not having Edward, he had persisted in trying. I felt for Jacob, and understood the pain he must have been feeling for leaving his father and I wanted to support him this time, like he had supported me.

“You all set Jake?” I asked.

He looked up, and smiled, “sure am!” Despite the enthusiasm in his voice he could not mask the sadness and pain in his eyes.

“Anything you need before we hit the road? You’ve said goodbye to Billy?” I didn’t want him to have any regrets, and I knew that he didn’t always express his emotions properly.

“Yeah!” he laughed, “stop worrying about me. I’ll be seeing him soon anyway.” He was reassuring me now, which I didn’t want as he’d done so too many times, so I just laughed.

“Well, lets go then,” Edward said, every time he spoke over the last few days there was genuine excitement in his voice, which was reassuring.

Carlisle had left us his Mercedes, as it would be more comfortable since there were four of us, and whilst Edward and I couldn’t feel discomfort from sitting in one place and position forever, Nessie and Jacob could. We sat in silence as Edward speed out of Forks.

We had stayed in Forks for an extra few days than we had originally planned, as after Seattle it was clear that Renesmee would be more than capable of holding her own with moving to Seward. Our plan was get to there within two days at the max, as we still needed to stop for Jacob and Nessie’s sake – Jacob still required a human diet, and it would be nice for them to have some sleep in an actual bed. Having the extra few days was great as I got to spend some more time with Charlie - I still wasn’t going to be seeing him for a at least a few months. I was able to get better insight into his and Sue’s relationship; they were exited about moving to Alaska, and it would be good for them. Whilst Forks held a lot of good memories for them both, it also contained a lot of baggage, especially for Sue and the loss of her husband. They were unusually cute together and I knew that they were looking forward to staring a new phase of their lives.

We were well outside of the Forks area; we had left whilst it was still dark so that we could drive fast with no distractions in order to gain some descent distance as two days for getting to Seward, including stops, really was beginning to break the laws of physics. I looked at Jacob in the back seat through the side mirror of the car, he looked contempt and somewhat excited now as the rising light brought with it a foreign area of landscape. I wondered what Seward would look like. Would it be like Forks? We did have to choose to live in places where the sun wouldn’t expose us.

“Hey,” Nessie said, breaking the silence, “can we plug my ipod in? We all should be more familiar with the latest music for High School.” Since Edward had brought this for her, she had become very attached to it, and loved popular music – another trait she had inherited from Edward. I hadn’t really thought about it before but we hadn’t really exposed Nessie to too much music. Edward had an extensive collection, but usually played it when we were alone together, and when Nessie was out.

“Sure, pass it over,” I said. I could see Edward grinning as he kept looking ahead at the road.

We sat in silence again for another few hours longer as we listened to Nessie’s music and dwelled upon our own thoughts. Edward pulled into the car park of a mall a few miles in from the Canadian boarder. The mall was the safest place to go if we were to be out amongst the public as we were in a particularly sunny area, and we could enter the artificially lit building via the underground car park.

“So how about we meet you two back here in thirty minutes,” Edward said, turning around to face Nessie and Jacob. “That way you two can grab something to eat, and we won’t draw any attention by not eating anything;” Nessie preferred blood, but because she was more human than Edward and I she could eat food easily when required.

“Okay,” Nessie said, grinning at Jacob.

As they began to get out of the car Edward stopped them. He pulled out two shiny black credit cards from his pocket, “you’ll both be needing these in Seward, get anything you need.”

“Wow,” Jacob said. He seemed speechless, and I could relate to how he probably felt as I remembered when Edward gave me my credit card. The Cullens didn’t look at money in the same way that humans did – a precious item – they did have over three hundred years of savings and investments, so it was something that didn’t need to be worried about, an endless source.

“Come on Jake,” Nessie’s voice was excited and a little impatient at the same time – eager to leave the confinements of the car for a while, as she began to push him out the door. I was surprised when I caught myself beginning to gush over how cute they really were together, I didn’t want to think about their future together in that way yet, and I certainly wasn’t ready to be accepting it.

“Thanks guys,” Jacob called as Nessie had successfully pushed him out from the car. They were laughing together as they went inside the mall.

As I began to turn my head to face Edward, I was met by his soft lips as they hit my cheek. I sighed as the tingling sensation that I subconsciously always seemed to be craving spread throughout my body. I leant over the gearstick and handbrake of the car as I kissed him back. “I love you,” I mumbled whilst kissing him still.

“I love you too,” he said.

After a short while of absolute, mind numbing bliss with Edward he pulled away from me. Grinning, he said, “we’d better go and get petrol before Nessie and Jacob get back. How does the penthouse suite sound for tonight?”

I was speechless at this, he was always full of surprises, and really could be so romantic. I just grinned at him. He laughed to himself as he put the car into first gear and screeched out of the parking lot.

We found a relatively empty service station, which had a good roof that would prevent the sun from causing Edward’s skin to glimmer. I stayed in the car, and watched through the tinted windows as the other surrounding customers looked over at us when they saw Edward get out of the drivers seat. Whilst Carlisle’s car was flash, it wasn’t exactly unique. They were steering at the fact that Edward only looked about seventeen. Being a part of the Cullen lifestyle myself made me realise how money-conscious humans really are. They didn’t like it when others who typically shouldn’t have certain things did. As Edward walked back from paying for the petrol at the service counter, I couldn’t help but be completely distracted from my earlier thoughts. He was my personal walking god, my more perfect and walking Michael Angelo’s ‘David.’ My body began to ache for him, as I remembered that we would be spending the night in a Penthouse.

Nessie and Jacob were walking out of the entrance as we arrived back at the malls car park. “Hey guys,” Edward said as they got inside the car. We sped off again and continued our journey towards Alaska. Edward drove well over the speed limit, but slowed down when he heard that a traffic officer was near – his gift was very handy in these situations. “We will be staying the night at a Hotel just inside the Alaskan boarder, we should be there around eight,” he added.
For the rest of the afternoon we were all more talkative than this morning. Jacob had a lot of questions about family dynamics, and how to play his role as boarder with the Cullen family – Carlisle’s friends misbehaving son. He was also very interested in learning about the other towns that the Cullen’s had lived in.

“So how long will we be staying in Seward before we move again?” Jacob asked.

“Well,” Edward replied, “providing all goes well, we can stay until the end of College for you and Nessie. Rosalie enjoys getting married to Emmett,” we all laughed at this, “and its nice to be able to be in the actual workforce for a bit as oppose to always being in school.”

I forgot how old Edward really was, I knew he had repeatedly been through High School and Collage, but it had never really sunken in until he described it like this.

“And where will we be going next,” Nessie asked excitedly.

“I’m not sure,” Edward laughed, “but I think we can worry about that in a few years time.”

We continued like this until we reached the Alaskan boarder, it was dark outside, and our Hotel wasn’t too far away as it was almost eight – Edward was always right with his timings. We didn’t speak until we reached the Hotel, I was unexpectedly nervous as I realised that my thoughts about Seward were rather surreal and that the reality of it all was getting closer – we really had left Forks. Edward pulled up outside of the bronze and granite coloured Hotel entrance, and pressed his window down to talk to a man in a black tuxedo approaching the car with another two mean in matching tuxedos behind.

“Hello sir,” he said, “welcome to Alaska. If you would like to step out of the car I will show you to your rooms and will have our driver park your car for you.”

“Thank you,” Edward said. He pulled his window back up and popped the boot as we all got out of the car. He handed the keys over to the driver, and the other man was already taking our suitcases from the boot for us, and loading them onto a gold trolley.

“This way please,” the man who had spoken to us first said.

We entered a spacious lift, where another man in a black tuxedo was standing to press the buttons to the floor we wanted to go to – ‘penthouse.’ It was at the top of all the numbers. When the lift came to a stop we were met with a short hallway that only contained one set of double doors. We followed the man in the black tuxedo. The Penthouse was absolutely beautiful, the walls were made of large sheets of glass that looked out onto the city below, which was truly beautiful at night time. He showed Jacob and Nessie the way to their rooms, and took Edward and I up a small flight of stairs to ours. The room was larger than I’d thought it would be, and had two walls of complete glass that presented a view of the city that was even better than what was downstairs. As I looked around the room I caught a glimpse of the bathroom and noticed that it too had a glass wall with a view of the city, and was much larger than any bathroom I had ever seen. In front of the wall was a bath that appeared to be full already.

“We took the liberty of getting the bath ready for you,” the man said. He had obviously noticed that I was looking in that direction. “The bath is heated so will stay warm, and you will see the temperature gauge on the wall to make any adjustments.”

“Thank you,” Edward.

The man smiled, “if there is anything else, please do not hesitate to call me,” then he turned and left the room.

I intuitively ran over to Edward, and throwing myself into his arms kissed him passionately. After a short moment he pulled away from me, “wait Bella,” he said. “We should make sure Nessie and Jacob are settled in first.”

“Okay,” I sighed sarcastically.

We went downstairs and both Nessie and Jacob came out of their rooms.

“This is a palace!” Nessie said.

Edward chuckled to himself, “make sure you both get some sleep tonight,” he said.

“Sure,” Nessie grinned.

“Goodnight guys,” I said as they both began to turn back to their individual suites.

“Night,” they both said simultaneously.

In a flash I raced back up to our room, but just before I reach my destination, the bathroom, Edward caught my waist and turned me around to face him.

“I love –“ I started, but was interrupted as he kissed me. We tore each other’s clothes off and somehow found our way to the bath where we enjoyed the gorgeous view, and the company of each other for the rest of night.

© Copyright to Jonathan Cameron