LOVE AND DEATH, edward cullen

Eight

━━ love and death. (2024)
edward cullen x fem!oc
chapter eight

Beau and I were standing side by side at the kitchen counter trying our best to make the greatest pot of spaghetti our father would ever taste. But truth be told — I was the master chef and my brother only knew how to boil water no matter what he tries to tell you.

I was chopping up peppers, tomatoes, and onions to add to the sauce once they were done cooking on a separate pan. Beau was stirring the spaghetti noodles and Charlie was sitting at the table with a can of beer at his side trying his best not to snack on anything before dinner.

My rule of the house was no snacking before dinner because it ruins your appetite as well as completely changes your palate. But there are times I may hide a pack of oreos in my bedroom for late night cravings — or Charlie and I would subconsciously meet in the kitchen in the middle of the night for a bowl of cereal.

"Beau, I thought you said you knew how to cook?"

I smirked at our father's comment while Beau anxiously kept checking the noodles to see if they were done but the water hasn't had a chance to boil yet.

"I know how to cook for mom," he clarifies. "Mom is easy to satisfy and Phil cooks most these days."

Charlie hummed to myself. "She's seems happy — happier. Phil seems like an alright kind of guy."

My brother nodded. "Yeah, he's cool. I think it's the happiest mom has been in a while."

I kicked my brother's foot lightly with my own, sending him a quick glance but all he did was shrug. When I looked back at Charlie, he was reading something out of a magazine — one of his monthly fishing subscriptions we get in the mail. He seemed unbothered by how happy mom is with Phil, but Charlie was pretty good at hiding those kinds of emotions.

Charlie never complained or asked for anything around me. He was really good at respecting boundaries and even laid down a few of his own to keep peace under the roof.

It's like we both understand although we are father and daughter by blood, we're still human and we should be treated as equals. Not have any superiority complex like most parents do with their kids.

I think that's what helped me grow more as a daughter, let alone as a teenager. If I wanted to do something crazy and experience something for the first time, I would at least make Charlie aware of it.

And if things go wrong — I would still tell Charlie in the end. I don't keep secrets from him and it's helped expand our relationship as father and daughter.

Beau and Charlie were still getting to know one another again. I think Beau told me the other day at Charlie invited him to go fishing one day over the weekend. Beau has never fished in his life but he sounded excited that it was even offered to him.

"I have an idea." I brushed my hands off after preparing the vegetables and sauce, gesturing Beau to sit at the table while everything simmers for a few minutes. "I still have that box of old photos in my room — we haven't looked at them in years."

"I hardly think your brother — "

"No, no!" Beau began to laugh with a wave of his hand. "I go through mom's pictures all the time. I want to see the ones that I've missed."

I grinned from ear to ear and quickly ran upstairs to snatch my box of memories. It was full of photos, old birthday cards, trinkets, and things from my childhood that I wanted to remember.

When I came back to the kitchen, Beau was sitting beside dad so I took the chair at the opposite end of the table and dropped the box in the center. "Dig in! I have some real goodies in there."

I started combing my fingers through my hair lightly and twisted it up in a high bun to give myself more visual room to look through the photos.

The first picture Beau picked up was the four of us going on a camping trip in the mountains. Mom and dad stood side by side with large smiles on their faces and my brother and I stood in front cheesing as hard as we could.

The small memory had little bubbles of happiness popping in my stomach as I reached for another one. "Oh! I remember this." I flipped the picture over to show the boys and grinned wide. "Dad bought the fancy lawnmower you could sit in and tied a sled at the back to drag us around."

Beau began laughing while picking up a few more. "My old school photos — I didn't know you had all these."

One of the photos was from six grade — Beau had a buzzcut and his front tooth missing. "I wanted to see if the tooth fairy would come twice so I purposely knocked my other tooth out to get more money."

Charlie took a quick sip from the beer can and smiled. "Yup. Your whole mouth was bleeding and your mother ended up calling 911. She wouldn't stop panicking for hours."

"Mom was always crazy in that way," I laughed softly. "She has the tendency to be over dramatic — like one time I was climbing the tree in the backyard because Beau did it and when I fell I broke my ankle."

"— Mom thought you needed to get your leg amputated because of how swollen and bloody it was from the fall." Beau laughed harder while running his fingers through his hair. "You mopped around school to get sympathy but the moment you turned around you were completely fine."

"Aspen." Charlie scolded me from across the table but couldn't hold back his chuckle with a shake of his head.

"Come on! I was like nine," I laughed softly.

Beau dug deeper into the box and pulled out a large handful of photos, which had splattered across the table and the one that fell in front of me was a photo of him, me, mom, and her last boyfriend. It was a Christmas card to dad.

All I did was stare down at it silently while my brother and Charlie laughed about another piece of memory, completely oblivious to what was happening across the table.

Rather than acknowledging it any further, I quickly grabbed the photo off the table and crumbled it underneath with my hands. I then stood up and tossed it in the trash before checking on dinner.

"Hey! Pen, you remember this?"

I glanced over my shoulder as my brother waved another picture around. It was a photo of me, Beau, Julie, and another little boy I couldn't recognize at the moment.

I squinted my eyes at the photo before reaching out to get a better look at it. "I think so — let me see." I pulled the photo closer and suddenly remembered the other little boy was Embry Call. "Oh yeah, I do remember. This was when we were all making mud pies in the dirt."

I haven't seen Embry almost a year I believe. We used to be close friends but as we got older and went to different high schools, I haven't seen him around as often.

I see Julie more than anybody as she comes over a lot to hang out when our dads are watching a big game on the tv. I should probably go visit them one of these days — drag Beau along with me so he could really start making his own friends.

Maybe I can rekindle with my old friends and find peace in something different rather than continuously seeking out a friendship with Edward Cullen. It was officially getting nowhere and after our conversation at the greenhouse I don't think I wanted anything else to do with him.