10Stephenie Meyer owns all things twilight, I just own the plot, as usual.
Unbetad OS, because I cannot stop the effin plot bunnies when I listen to songs. So all mistakes and typos are mine.
" And it feels like I am just too close to love you,
There's nothing that I can really say.
I can't lie no more, I can't hide no more,
Got to be true to myself.
And it feels like I am just too close to love you,
So I'll be on my way. "
Alex Clare, Too Close.
Since an early age, I could tell I was different. I didn't feel attached to anything. I didn't miss my mother on my first day of school, I didn't care if my older brother wanted to play with me or not, I didn't honestly care if my father had to work a 72hs shift. But then it all changed, it all changed with her.
Isabella Swan, Bella or simply B to me, came into my life to make it jump, and turn, and conflict every single feeling I had ever felt.
Sixth grade, washed shorts and purple t-shirt, creamy legs and smile that shined way too bright for a Monday morning was all it took for me to get attached. She was a pretty girl, but most importantly, she was funny and smart. She was girly, but not overly so, enough to make a boy hitting puberty look at her but not too much as to make him run away.
I had friends, a few, not close enough, mostly people with whom I could play video games. I had friends because I had to. It wasn't a need, it was required by society and it gave me benefits. I could get rides to home, have them share their games. I had no shame in admitting to myself that they were mostly the tools I needed to live a more comfortable life.
But Bella, she was different.
Two weeks, it was all it took for her to become special. Her way too happy comments whilst the sun wasn't still high up in the sky, her carefree laugh and flat tone replies when I behaved like an ass made me like her almost instantly. I wasn't used to it, to the way she treated me. I either got ignored for not being overly social or had my ass kissed, she was a breath of fresh coconut smelling air.
We began hanging out, found we had quite a few things in common and it surprised me she didn't get on my nerves. I wasn't annoyed around her, more like the contrary. Bella's presence in my life was pleasant.
By ninth grade she was officially my best friend. I had given her the nickname B because it was shorter when texting and honestly the better nickname I could come up with, it had just stuck. She was also off limits to every jerk around two miles of her. Bella had changed from a cute pretty girl to an appealing looking teenager. I wasn't the only one who had noticed though, but I sure as hell would be the only one close enough to her, none of the boys in our shitty town deserved her.
I had grown too, going from a lanky boy to a rather muscular yet slender teenage boy. I was growing fast, my voice had changed, my jaw seemed to be more defined and the female population seemed to be rather pleased by it. So much that by the end of ninth grade I gave my first kiss to a girl who was already sixteen and much more experienced than I was. Her mouth was fruity sweet, warm and oh so very experienced.
From then on, it was like a switch had been turned on my brain. I began noticing my classmates, how much their bodies had changed, how much curvier and feminine they looked. How badly I wanted to caress soft skin and kiss every single curve. I wanted to devour them, like a starved panther to its prey, I wanted to consume them.
My first time was with Bree, a really nice, sweet looking girl with whom I shared a couple of classes. It wasn't her first time, so I could be as needy and rough as I needed. As rough as you can be when no have no experience whatsoever besides your own hand. Bree was a giving lover, quite on the kinky side and a patient teacher. We slept together more than a handful of times until she moved to Seattle due to her father getting a job offer he couldn't refuse. I wasn't sad to let her go; as per usual I wasn't attached to her.
To B, to B I was attached though.
B was officially a more than desirable girl now. It was getting harder and harder not to notice how my body reacted to hers every time we touched, every time her chest would press against my chest or her hands would softly caress my neck when hugging me.
Touching her became a consuming need. It was consuming me, and also scaring the hell out of fifteen year me. I didn't get attached; I didn't need, not like this. I could sleep with anyone, I didn't have to ruin our friendship just because my hormones were out of control, I was much better than that - or so I thought.
I began sleeping around, trying to make the fire burning deep into myself subside. No girl came nearly close to make it stop though. The need, the all consuming, heart wrenching and guilt triggering need to sleep with my best friend and take her virginity. I wanted, I needed to be her first, but it would also be a first for me. It would be the first time I would sleep with someone I had feelings for. My best friend, the only person I sincerely needed in my life for the pure sake of having her in it and not by the things I could get from her.
B's eyes became different with each day- from the small flicker of light when first seeing me in the morning to a glassy look that made her brown eyes shimmer. Her cheeks would get a soft, warm to the touch pink that made my fingers tingle with need. I wanted to touch much lower. I wanted to discover the end of her blush and the beginning of her passion. I wanted to touch her dark almost black hair and hold it firmly whilst worshipping her pouty mouth with mine. I wanted to cherish her, and use her, and make her want me. And I felt like an ass every second of it, so undeserving of her.
One night, way too many drinks and a tipsy clumsy girl falling on my lap were my undoing. B felt so right there, on my lap. Well known eyes looking into mine, known yet not nearly explored body over my larger one, a so familiar hand on the back of my neck… I couldn't deny it any longer, consequences be damned. I kissed my best friend, I sealed our fate and tasted her honey sweet mouth, softly at first, devouring it later.
B still smelled like coconut and warm creamy buttermilk and her scent was driving me wild. I followed it from where I could barely smell it to her neck, where it was stronger and sense overloading. I kissed and sucked, and ran my nose against pale skin that felt like silk to the touch. B was exquisite.
Soft moans brought me back to reality and reminded me this was my inexperienced drunk friend. I stopped kissing her neck with a final kiss right below her small butterfly pierced ear and pulled back, just to look at her face. Her eyes were closed, a rounded "o" forming with her parted red thoroughly kissed lips and a pink almost carmine brush adorning her cheeks. She looked beautiful, and when she opened her eyes and the most content smile appeared on her face, I knew I hadn't screwed our friendship up.
We began dating, making a slow but sure transition from friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. As everything with B, it came natural. There were no awkward moments, no need to be any different or display a charm I didn't feel like giving. I was still me, and she was still herself.
Being me also meant I couldn't get more affective overnight. I did need to touch her and bring pleasure to her; it wasn't a want, but a need. I could give pleasure, I was good at it. So I did.
Three months from our first kiss I was undressing a needy yet embarrassed girl on my bed. B was still self conscious about her body, never been naked in front of anyone before I could tell that even though she trusted me she didn't trust herself.
I knew B just as much as I knew myself. Every time she looked at herself I knew she just saw an ordinary girl, with an average almost short height and slightly curvier body type; whilst when she looked at me she had the misconception of having a Hollywood looking guy next to her. She was so wrong and I wanted to prove it to her for as long as she let me.
B's beauty was pure. It was the kind of beauty you would prefer to ignore; it was too good, too natural… so effortless. She wasn't orange kissed skin and filled push up bra. She wasn't bleached hair and fake eye lashes either. She still was the much needed fresh sweet air. A kind of air you wanted to breathe and breathe until you would hyperventilate.
Clothes were slowly falling to the floor and reverent kisses were given that night. I showed her just how beautiful she was. I wanted her to see, to feel, to experience her own beauty and sex appeal. I was gentle, diving into her warm almost iron gripping paradise. Shushing her cries of pain with my mouth and drinking her salty tears from her cheeks.
I caressed and pushed, and pulled, and rubbed until she was all fireworks and constricting warmth around me. And I kept thrusting and giving all I had until it was me who was crying out in pure ecstasy and being blinded by pleasure. And I kept my body over hers until our breathing went back to normal and her legs stopped trembling below mine.
From that day on I knew sex with her would be different.
I cuddled, using B's small body as a personal teddy bear and I wasn't one to cuddle. Whilst she slept over my chest and I could feel my own shirt on her body barely grazing mine with each slow intake of breath, I thought and tried to find the reason as to why I had a cold shiver running up my spine. And I soon found out it was because I cared, because she wasn't disappearing from my sex life the next morning, because she meant something to me and was the most precious thing I had ever had.
Sex with B was more than giving pleasure; it was walking on a thin line between caring and loving. And love… love was something I wasn't sure I could ever give to her.
Surprisingly B didn't get demanding with each passing month and yet to be said four letter word. That was the thing with B, she was too good. Even though some people wouldn't consider her pure after the things I had make her do and enjoy, her heart was by far the purest thing I had ever come across in my short life.
Each loving kiss on my face, each time her hand would softly run over my scalp making my auburn brown hair even more of a mess, each damn time her actions screamed love, I felt guilty.
I loved her, I had loved B for a long time, but I wasn't in love with her. I still cared for her, and made her smile when she was sad or upset by any little almost non important thing that would hurt her big yet fragile heart. I still made her see stars and moan my name with each thrust, and I still smelled her skin as if it was a bouquet presented just for my eager nose. I still did my best to make her feel beautiful and desired. But love, I couldn't love her like she deserved. And I saw it with every day and every action and every yet to be made effort on my side.
The guilt suddenly became suffocating. Sinking deep into my chest and making the air leave my lungs and my heart clench. I felt ashamed for using her, because that's what I felt. Why, if I knew I couldn't give her more, what she deserved, I still couldn't let go?
By senior year it was obvious we were both different people. She had dreams and oh so many aspirations in life, she wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a musician much to my father's dismay. She wanted to go to one place; I wanted to go to a different one. She began pushing, slowly, I knew she was. I knew her so much. And I couldn't breathe.
B told me the first I love you on Valentine's Day; I kissed her back and saw the disappointment in her eyes. I also saw them looking puffy and slightly red rimmed the next day. I felt like an ass. The second I love you was a week after, just as she was coming undone underneath me. I hated it, it made me choke, and want to tear her body apart. I fucked her then, I knew I was punishing her for making me feel that way but I was punishing myself. It had been me the one who had sealed our fate with a kiss.
The sex became rougher, I became rougher. I cared, I cared so much… I was so close, so close to love her. But my dreams involved travelling, taking my music to all kind of places and people; they didn't involve settling and sacrificing and it made my heart ache.
I wasn't that guy, that guy that would leave it all for a girl, at least not now. I couldn't sit by B's side while she wrote and take long walks in the purplish twilight. I couldn't give her flowers and romance daily; I couldn't make love to her. I wasn't what she needed, not romantically, but I was still her best friend and I had to be true to myself and act like the best friend I was.
I let her go. With each day and each small step I took away from her and her love. I began retreating to my friendly self, not to the caring boyfriend and I saw the glimmer in her eyes slowly disappearing. It was torture for both of us; it wasn't fair, not to her. I had to call it quits and break up with her and her love. I had already been accepted in the opposite side of the country, as far away from her as I could get without moving across sea.
"B, we need to talk"
June, almost summer warm and sunnier than it had ever been in our town. It seemed like the weather was mocking me.
"About?" Her voice was soft, barely a whisper breaking at the end, quivering, whilst she sat across from me on a bench.
"Us"
One word and I saw her world falling apart.
Quick, like band aid, come on. Do it.
"You don't deserve this Bella, not half a relationship, not a boyfriend who doesn't love you" I heard her choking sound and saw her eyes fill with tears. "You don't deserve this, baby. We're going separate ways and I just cannot put myself into this right now. I can't ask you or expect you to let me hurt you any longer, you're my best friend, you will always be."
"Why?" She wanted something. I didn't know what.
"Why what honey?" My own voice was roughed, the emotions catching me off guard.
"Why can't you love me?"Her eyes were pleading and she sounded so unsure.
I pulled her body close and hug her tightly to mine. I lowered my mouth next to her ear.
"Because I can't right now, maybe I'm not mature enough, who knows… but never think it's you, if I'm leaving you is because you're the best of us here, you deserve the world and I can't give it to you right now. It isn't you the one who's running away, I am."
She pulled back and held my gaze. She knew there was more but she wasn't asking, she was so much better than I was.
The ride to her house was the first awkward moment we shared, and so was graduating, and moving on without her.
So were my first year of college and the ones that followed.
So was my first email to her and my first text, only form of communication we had.
So were my first signed contract and my first show. And so was my first hit, a song I had written just for her. A song I had dedicated to B on my first album, album I sent to her.
So were B's first book and her thank you note to that boy who had let her fly and follow her dreams and told her she deserved the world.
And as I sat back on stage, after the last show, feeling tired yet satisfied but aching I couldn't not think of her. She knew I was going to be here tonight, I wanted to text her, see her, I wanted to try. It could be too late, but I was willing. I wasn't a boy any longer. I was a man; one who could identify his feelings. One who had questions and doubts and things to regret but also to be thankful for.
But all those regrets and questions and self loathing were silenced as a door opened, and a familiar yet to be discovered body crashed into mine, holding me tightly.
"Edward."
It was just a whisper, right beside my ear and coconut smell involving me.
"You came."
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