What If?

I stared in shock at the scene, my brown eyes flickering over everything. It was beautiful, like something you’d see in one of those sappy romance movies, with the table set up like one of those fancy restaurants and lights strung up around it.

“Alice… you’re not serious.” I said quietly, shaking my head and biting my lip harshly. “I’m leaving before-”

I turned and went to walk away, when Emmett forced Edward in. His hair looked it’s normally messed up look and Emmett had forced him into nice clothing.

“Yepp, definitely leaving.”

“Noo, neither of you are leaving.” Alice protested, gripping my arm before I could start towards the door again, turning me around.

The two forced us to the seats. I pursed my lips, crossing my arms and glaring between the two of them and then peeking at Edward. He was glaring at the table, his arms crossed.

“Alliccceee,” I whined out, looking up at her with a pouty look, feeling the hate radiating from Edward. “Please…please let me leave…”

She shook her head, pursing her lips and glaring at me sternly but a small smile had graced her face.

“Now, you two are to stay here, and TALK,” Alice said, looking between us with a serious look on her face. “We have all of the exits blocked, so neither of you can get out of here, and none of us can come in and bother you. You have to talk with each other and get over whatever issue it is that you guys have. Not even Jasper is going to interfere with your feelings. Just…let everything out.”

And then she and Emmett were gone before we could say anything to try and talk either of them out of this crazy plan.

I stared at the table in silence, thinking of how I should have seen something like this coming and cursing Edward my head for not stopping it before they had the chance to actually get this plan in place.

“Don’t you dare blame me for this,” he growled out in a harsh whisper and I peeked up at him, almost shocked. I hadn’t expected him to actually say anything at all, just ignore anything that I had to say or think like he had for the past while.

I’d forgotten how beautifully dangerous his voice could sound.

And then I pursed my lips, sitting back and crossing my arms over my chest, “Why not? You certainly had no problem blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with. How is this any different?”

His eyes flickered up at me and he glared for a moment, “It’s different because I didn’t know about it until it was too late to try and stop it.”

I scoffed and turned my head away, biting my tongue to keep in any smart remark that wanted to come without me thinking about it.

Shortly after, I let out a soft breath, looking at him and saying, “I didn’t ask for this to happen either. But I made a promise not to tell you, and I couldn’t very well break it. I felt terrible about hiding it from you, but I had no choice in the matter.”

“You always have a choice!” He yelled, his eyes glaring at me across the table, and I suddenly felt very small under his gaze. I shook my head, trying not to show how small his yelling made me.

“You obviously don’t understand how my family works,” I said, giving him a look as I crossed my arms, sitting up to try and seem bigger than I was, though, just like when standing, he towered over me by a good few inches. “I listen, I obey what I’m asked. I don’t go against what my dad and brother tell me to do, especially if I know how bad it’ll hurt them. Because I can’t. It’s how my family works. We can’t hurt each other, because we have to be there for each other.”

“You guys aren’t a hallmark card! And obviously you don’t listen very well, or you wouldn’t be here!” he said, standing and I sighed, looking up at him with stubborn eyes.

“What they don’t know WON’T hurt them,” I said quietly, looking at the table as I stayed sitting. “I’m not going to let them know. Especially since Alice is the only friend I have now.”

He scoffed and I didn’t have to look he was rolling his eyes as he said, “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is,” I said, looking up at him with a stubborn look on my face once more. “You have no idea who I have as friends. Bella isn’t my friend because I told her she should tell you, and she hates me even more now that she knows I told you. I barely see the pack because they’re always busy patrolling and everything. And YOU hate me because you think something is all my fault that I really had nothing to do with other than not telling until just about a week or so ago. So really, Alice IS the only person I have outside of my brother and dad. And I can’t do anything that’ll make me lose them, either. Which is why I didn’t tell you before.”

He looked at me with a glare, but it was weaker than it had been before my long speech. I let out a breath and looked back down at the tabletop.

“You would have done the same thing in my situation,” I muttered quietly, causing him to sigh frustratedly and, when I looked back up, he was sitting down.

“I would have told you as soon as you were my friend what was going on,” He said in a dark voice and I pursed my lips.

“Not if they were the only people you had, the only people who have been there for you you’re whole life and all you wanted to do was make sure that they were happy.”

“I still would have told you.”

I let out a breath and looked at him, shaking my head.

“No, you wouldn’t have,” I said, my voice shaking. “Because your mom didn’t kill herself in front of you because she wasn’t happy with her life.” He went quiet, as though he hadn’t heard me say it in my head, or as though he didn’t expect me to say it outloud. “Because when you hear your mom crying to herself about how she deserved a better life than she had, even though you and your brother and dad tried to make it as good as you could for her, and then you walk in to see if she’s okay, and you see a gun pointed at her head. And she looks at you, tears streaming down her face and looks right into your eyes as she pulls the trigger, you do everything in your power to make sure that none of your other family members ever gets even a fraction of how upset she must have been to do something like that to herself.”

My voice was shaking by that point, and I had to do everything in my power to keep tears from falling. He looked at me, and I can’t quite define the look that he held in his golden eyes, but I knew I don’t like it.

“So yea, I do try a little hard sometimes, and I did hurt you, for which I am SO sorry, because it was never my intention, because I really do care about you,” I said, trying to straighten my voice as I looked at him. “But blaming me because I didn’t tell you that your girlfriend didn’t love you enough to be loyal is out of line. Acting like I don’t exist and hating me when I’m the one that helped you realize something that could have hurt you a lot worse when you went to ask her to marry you again and, maybe even marry her before you found out. Yea, I’m really sorry for just trying not to hurt anyone I care about.”

I wiped at a stray tear, cursing myself in my thoughts for being so stupid as to let it fall, I just let everything lapse back into silence. I didn’t have anything more to say to him, and he obviously couldn’t think of anything to say, which didn’t bother me.

I think I preferred the silence to him yelling at me at this point. Silence was perfectly okay with me at that point, as I don’t think I could handle his yelling after bringing up all of those other feelings. I just… I couldn’t handle that.

“I’m not going to yell at you, Dakotah…” he said after a long while, his velvety voice quiet, and I pursed my lips softly, peeking up at him with hesitant curiosity and biting my lip upon seeing him looking at me with this look in his eyes. “But you can’t blame me for being mad. Especially not since you share the same blood as that…mutt. When I looked at you, I could only think of him.”

“Don’t insult me like that,” I said, half smiling as I looked at his gorgeous face, trying to force myself to be in a good mood. He chuckled softly. “I’m seriousss!” I smiled softly at his chuckle. “He only wishes he could look as good as this.”

I gestured to myself with a sarcastic smirk and burst out giggling after wards. He smiled softly at me and I smiled back softly.

And then I sighed, a sudden thought coming to me.

But, as I opened my mouth to say something, he beat me to it by saying, “No, Dakotah. I don’t hate you. I haven’t been happy with you, but I don’t hate you.”

I looked at him for a long moment before a smile tugged at the corner of my lips. I couldn’t help my mind before it had asked him if he meant it, which caused him to nod. I bit my lip as to not smile to big because of how happy it made me to hear that from him. Especially after all that had been going on in a long time.

He smiled at my thoughts, and I giggled, smiling in his direction and saying in a soft voice, “How about we just completely start over? Like none of any of it ever happened?”

He seemed to think about it for a long moment before nodding, a beautifully crooked smile forming across his lips and he held his hand out.

I giggled and did the same, grasping his softly and giving him a cheesy grin as I said, “Well hello, my name is Dakotah.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Dakotah, I’m Edward.”

And, as we talked, I pretended not to hear the tiny whispers of excitement that I knew most definitely were coming from Emmett and Alice and whoever else might have been standing outside the doors and listening in.