Made of Glass Chapter 12

A Chapter by Charlie

A peace offering leads to a startling realization!

I was right he didn’t show up. Not the next day or the day after that. An entire week slowly crept by and everyday was harder. I depended upon Eddie to brighten each of my days up a little so that I wouldn’t have to depend on my crutches to limp through the days. Now they were all I had and I was still dragging along. Life like this was not going to work. I needed a plan.

So a plan was formed. It was only a couple of days before Christmas when I determined a peace offering was needed. Something that said I don’t care that you’re a freak.

I never had much occasion to give gifts to anyone. I rarely got presents for my birthday or Christmas when I was younger and I didn’t ever have many friends to give them out to. I didn’t know what the proper amount of money was to spend on a “thanks for saving my life” gift. Not to mention I barely had two pennies to rub together so it wasn’t like I could buy him a new car and call it even.

It didn’t matter that I had all these obstacles to overcome though. I was going to see him again and I didn’t care if I made a fool out of myself in the process!

I practiced my gift giving skills on my coworkers first, buying and giving them presents, then gauging their reactions to see if I was doing a good job. I bought Bucky a fancy chef hat and one of those white coats they wear. It was cheap, basically made out of paper but he put it on immediately and wore it all day. I could tell by the proud look on his face he felt like a real chef. For Lauren I got a shot glass that said “Badass” for her collection. She displayed it at the top of her pyramid behind the bar. And for Monica I got a pair of earrings she had admired on another girl who had come in which she also immediately put on Elaina was the tough one. She very rarely talked about herself only gossiped about other people. I considered getting her something that would force her to focus on herself for a while like a trip to the spa or a mirror. But those seemed too expensive or something she wouldn’t actually like. If I were to get her something she liked, something like the Gossip Girl box set it would only be encouraging her bad habits. In the end I didn’t spend any money on her just gave her the one thing she wanted most in life: to be a waitress. For one day I worked behind the scenes in the kitchen while she took my job as a waitress. She wasn’t very good at it but I sneaked around and asked my regulars to give her extra tips just this once. I even convinced a few guys to ask her out so she could get a couple of points. Ashley was furious because she knew I was cheating but I told her to take a chill pill. Then I presented her with wrinkle removing crème as her present. She was absolutely taken aback by the action. I would have been offended if someone told me I had a wrinkle that needed to be taken of but she seemed moved almost to tears before storming off.

In the end I thought I did a fabulous job. At the same time I was worried that people just always seemed super excited about your gifts whether they were good or not. I figured most of them wouldn’t wear them if they didn’t like them, right? And clearly Elaina was in heaven. It set me back almost sixty bucks but I thought I did pretty well in the end. There was no more preparation time. I just had to dive into the real task.

Before work the next day I borrowed Elaina’s car to take the long drive up the twisty road to the exclusive Cullen mansion. Once I got a clear view of it I doubted that even a car would have been a good enough present for him. It was a sprawling old Victorian with three levels and cute little gardens full of well trimmed bushes that were even green in the dead of winter. They were spread out across their yard which might have been a full acre on its own. The backyard was overtaken by a deep green forest so full that it reminded me of Fangorn Forest. The house itself might have been mistaken for a castle in an early age. It was complete with round extensions like towers on both sides and pointed roofs ready for gargoyles. I just about lost my nerve.

I didn’t have any idea where to park the car. Their drive was just a gigantic U that came up from the street and curved around the front of the house and then exited back out to the street with nowhere to turn off so I just parked right in the middle of it in front of the gigantic front door.

I couldn’t figure out the door bell either. Clearly I was not meant to live on such an estate. I banged on the front door with as much force as my spaghetti arm could muster but I barely made a slight thud. I didn’t think anyone would answer but it only took a couple of seconds until it swung open and revealed a gorgeous woman with a shocked and unhappy expression on her face. She had short dark hair done up in a playful array and the same eyes as both Eddie and his father. Only she was about the same size as me and her small features were just as different to Eddie’s as his were to his fathers. I don’t know what was in the water of these rich people, but these Cullens were just too freakin beautiful. How was any of this fair?

I definitely hadn’t thought through the scenario where Eddie wouldn’t be the one to answer the door. I was not prepared for this goddess of a woman to be at the house. I prayed that it was just his sister. Of course it was his sister. Nobody else hung out with the Cullens so why would he know a beautiful woman that would come to his house and answer his door?

“Hi,” I said meekly.

She tilted her head confused. I took it they didn’t get too many visitors.

“Is, um, Eddie around?” I gave her a nervous smile which she didn’t return.

“No.” she said in a voice the angels would be jealous of if it wasn’t tainted with the darkness that seethed out of her very pores at my sight.

“Okay . . .” I took a step backwards “Well I was just going to drop this off for him.”

I held out my brightly wrapped shoebox to her. She looked it over for a moment before taking it.

She didn’t say anything.

“Well, alright then . . . um tell him I said Merry Christmas,”

“Sure,”

For a second, I didn’t think she would tell him. But she would have to give him the gift, wouldn’t she?

I was about to turn around and leave but for some reason I got the feeling Eddie was going to show up despite what she said so I stood awkwardly for a few seconds.

“Alice?” I couldn’t help but let out a sigh when Eddie’s honey voice reached my ears. “What's going on?” he appeared around the door and looked just as shocked as Alice that I was standing there.

Alice stared at Eddie while he stared at me and I stared at the ground. This might have been the most awkward day of my life. No the drowning was more awkward, but this was up there.

I was done with this crap!

I roughly took the box from Alice and shoved it into Eddie’s hands.

“I brought you this nice Christmas gift,” I said crossly. “No need to thank me. You can just be a jerk about this too!”

I turned and stormed back out to the car.

“Hey- well- wait!” he called after me but I didn’t turn around. This was such a stupid idea. It’s been ten long years since I’ve ever needed anyone for anything. I didn’t understand why I was leaning on this one stupid guy like this. He was just like all the other stupid boys in the world. I didn’t need him.

He caught me just as I reached my car and stood in the way of me opening the door but didn’t say anything.

“Well what?” I demanded.

He wasn’t wearing a coat and it was very cold outside.

“Uh- h-how did you know where I lived?”

“What?!”

That’s what he asks me? What is wrong with him?

“It was on your driver’s license.”

“When did you see my driver license?” he asked genuinely interested.

“I don’t know. It was like the first day I was working at the bar and trailing after Ashley. I asked to see your ID because you ordered a beer, remember?”

“That was months ago”

“I have a good memory. Is that all you wanted?” I reached for my door handle again but he remained in the way.

“Um, no. Sorry about Alice. She’s just . . . “

Yeah I wouldn’t have been able to come up for an excuse for her behavior either.

“But thanks for the present. I really love it. Well, I’m sure I’ll love it once I open it because I don’t know what it is yet,” he gave a nervous laugh.

I just shook my head and tried to shove him out of the way to open the door but he wouldn’t budge.

“What?! What, Eddie! Just tell me what you want!” I didn’t know why I was so furious or what exactly I was demanding. I just wanted to understand. I was so confused. I stared up into Eddie’s strange colored eyes trying to pull the secret he was hiding from me from his mind.

And then it came to me. He was a vampire. Almost like I was in his mind and he was just plainly telling me the answer only he wasn’t saying anything just looking at me like he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

Maybe I was going crazy. A vampire? Really? But he was supernatural wasn’t he? A human couldn’t have done what he did.

Whoa. A vampire. They like eat people. I think generally that’s kind of the definition of a vampire. And here I was standing in front of a household of them. It was probably time for me to go.

“Get out of my way.” I demanded fixing a steely glare at him. He took one step away from me and I hopped into the car. I peeled out of the driveway leaving Eddie standing there alone.

Edward:

I watched her drive away with a sinking feeling. Cutting off all contact was so much harder than I had imagined and I thought I was finally getting past it. Now I was going to have to start all over.

Or maybe I shouldn’t. I wanted to tell her so bad. I knew she would understand. She had already seen the wrong side of me and she didn’t appear to care. And I had never felt about anyone in all my many years the way I felt about Dollie. If I could just-

No! No, that was not going to happen. We had already discussed all this and I was going to stick to the advice of my family.

Still there was no reason I couldn’t open the gift she gave me.

I took a step back to the house before I stopped and faced the other direction. Perhaps it was best to do this in private. I ripped the wrapping off the box and found a note in her loopy hand writing tapped to the top of it.

Thanks a ton for saving my life! Really I appreciate that!!! And here are three of my favorites. I promise not to ruin the endings for you! Merry Christmas!!!! - D

She used a lot of exclamation points in her writing much like the way she spoke.

I opened the box to find three books underneath a six pack of apple juice. I chuckled a little to myself. I looked back at the house before deciding that was not the place I wanted to be right now. I took off toward the quiet of my car in the garage where I sat and read all three of the books and drank a six pack of juice.

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