Chapter Four

Edward sat on the bed in his room, tapping his foot on the ground and drumming on the desktop next to him with his fingers. It was all he could do to distract himself from the cuffs of his stiff blue dress shirt scratching his neck and wrists. If he bent over even in the slightest, the tie around his neck would strangle him. He would loosen it as soon as his father couldn’t see him doing it, but he would have to remember to tighten it again right before he came home. He was in tight black dress pants and a vest. His hair had been dyed blond just the day before�"a decision that Fay wasn’t shy about being wholeheartedly against. Still, he liked it.

                His bedroom was small and only really had a bed and a desk for his computer to sit on. A stack of cardboard boxes sat at the end of his bed filled with everything that he thought was already organized as well as they could be in there. On the shelves sticking out of the wall were a row of plaques and certificates that he had received from school and other clubs. A lot of nerd awards, Fay would tease him, but no sports stuff.

The door finally opened, and Fay stepped inside. She was stumbling on her new high-heels and had to hold onto the doorframe for support. The wedges under the shoes only allowed her to stand on the very tips of her toes. They were expensive, but they were also a birthday present from her parents that she begged for in the store. Fay was too in love with the sequins on the tips to realize how tall they really were.

Usually, Fay’s public wardrobe alternated between black hoodies and bomber jackets with almost always the same pair of ripped black jeans. She would change into a white t-shirt the second she got home, but she refused to let anyone but Edward and their families see her in a colour other than black. The school dance was different. She was wearing a dark blue knee-length skirt and a white lacy bodice. Big blue and black flowers were printed onto the fabric, and she wore a blue plastic flower above her ear. Her hair was curled and went down to her shoulders, showing off that the purple streaks were a lot brighter than Edward had realized. She held the sides of her skirt and tried her best to twirl around.

“How do I look?” She caught his attention back with a lopsided grin and a shake of her head to adjust the hair on her forehead.

Edward wrinkled his nose, feigning frustration. “Can you even walk in those shoes?”

“Are you avoiding the question?”

“Of course not,” he laughed, standing up and stepping towards her. She stood still and waited for his arms around her waist. “You look like an angel.”

“Well thanks,” Fay whispered, nuzzling her face against his shoulder. “Now do you have a pair of sneakers I could borrow?”

Edward turned around and went to the pile of open cardboard boxes at the foot of his bed. After staring down into them, momentarily forgetting what he was looking for, he pulled out a pair of clunky black sneakers with hard rubber soles that he knew were three sizes too big for Fay. His dad had given them to him and told him he’d grow into them, but it seemed unlikely that he was going to. When he looked back, she was already tearing off her heels and throwing them onto the floor with breaths of relief. She figured she’d just grow into them later. She held out her hand and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“They don’t really go with your outfit,” Edward frowned, handing her the sneakers. Fay stepped over her heels and dropped herself down on his bed.

“Tripping and breaking my legs doesn’t go with my outfit either,” she said with a fake growl, breaking up into laughter with Edward as she slipped the shoes onto her bare feet. She tied the laces as tightly as she could, but they still dangled against her heels. It seemed fine. She jumped onto the ground and paced back and forth a few feet from the bed to the door and back, the sneakers barely holding onto her ankles. “Now how do I look?”

“There’s a significantly lesser chance you’re going to trip and break something. I’d call that better.” Edward shrugged, scratching his nose and laughing. “So do your parents just buy you whatever you want?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Wow.”

“Uh, you didn’t complain when I got you that laptop for Christmas,” Fay grinned, her expression fading into a sigh after. She slumped over even more than she was and winced. “Have you ever been super excited to go somewhere but also really didn’t want to go?”

“I don’t think so.”

She jumped back onto the bed and lay on her back with her arms splayed out at her sides and her hair spread in all directions underneath her head. Fay took a breath in and exhaled, imagining that her breath contained all of the strength she had in her. “I just know that Alex and Heather are going to be there. I just know they’re going to make fun of us because we’re too cute and pretty and perfect and awesome.”

“I thought you said you didn’t care what they said.”

“I don’t. They’re just really annoying. I guarantee Alex makes the DJ play some dumbass bagpipe music or something when I enter the room.”

Edward sat down on the side of the bed next to Fay and swept the hair on her face aside. “If you don’t want to go to the dance, we don’t have to go.” Actually, Edward’s father would have been happy if they changed their minds about going. All the television had been playing recently was news about the bank robbery by a street gang that called themselves the Spartans that left three people dead. Since that, he had been strict on anyone leaving the house. It took Fay’s non-stop excitement about the dance for him to finally let them go for a few hours. Honestly, Edward felt guilty about going anyway. His father’s coughing fits had evolved into something that required a doctor’s attention. It was almost selfish of him to put more stress on the man.

“No,” Fay sighed, stretching out the o into a squeak until her voice cracked. “I really want to dress up all fancy and dance with you.”

Edward smirked with his bottom lip out. “Dance? You mean sit in the corner and criticize other people’s outfits?”

“That’s why I love you.” Fay kissed the tip of her finger and poked Edward’s nose. He laughed and collapsed on the bed right next to her. They stayed that way for a long time, just looking over to admire each other.

With a wide grin, Fay sat up and jumped to her feet, holding her hand out for him. Just lying down had tangled her freshly curled hair, but she didn’t notice and Edward didn’t want to point it out. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What changed your mind?” Edward sighed, just beginning to get comfortable.

She grinned. “Love, genius.”

That made him smile. He grabbed her hand and the two of them made their way to the door. Out in the hallway, there was a muffled yelling coming from the floor beneath them. It was barely audible, but it was recognizable enough for Edward. Fay stuck her leg out ready to skip down the stairs, but she stopped when she felt Edward’s fingers loosen and turn into rubber. Fay was about to ask why when she suddenly heard the yelling too and understood. The voices were from Edward’s parents. She knew not to say anything to him then. She could guess what was happening from the sound of a door bursting open and hitting the perpendicular wall. The dirty smell of smoke followed a few seconds after.

Even if Edward had heard the voices completely clear, he still wouldn’t have understood. He didn’t know enough of those venomous words to string a meaning together. He was too young. He guessed that some of the longer words were names of drugs.

Fay looked back at him. He was staring down at the emptiness at the bottom of the stairs, steadily breathing, but not blinking. She gripped his hand tighter and it woke him up enough to take a sharp breath in. The moment she saw movement from down the stairs, Edward almost jumped as he suddenly felt her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t look,” Fay said. Her voice cracked into a whisper halfway through, but he understood. She met his eyes and didn’t move. Her thought was that if she gave him something to focus on, she could silently drown out the yelling and the smoke. He knew that, and he looked back into her. For a long time, her crystal blue eyes were the only thing he wanted to see, and the only thing capable of muffling the screaming. After a few long minutes, Fay saw his mother storming out of the house from the corner of her peripheral vision and Edward winced when the front door slammed shut. The floor shook.

Fay waited another few moments to make sure everything would stay quiet before moving. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Edward’s father walking to the door. She gave Edward a tiny smile and tugged him by the hand as lightly as she could towards the steps.

Edward’s eyes met his father’s. The word that he instantly thought of to describe the man’s face was defeated. His father was bent over the stair railing coughing and hacking into his fist like he had been doing much more in the past few days when things got really bad. The tired wrinkles below his eyes made him look like twenty years had passed by in the last half hour. Once he recovered and cleared his throat, his eyes darted up at his son, but then right back down after. It was so hard for Edward’s father to smile for his son that it almost took his hands to help. Still, he managed and looked up at the two coming down the stairs.

“Wow,” he said. Edward knew that he knew, and the two of them silently agreed to pretend it hadn’t happened. “Look at you two. Fay, you look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mr. Montgomery,” she said back, her voice cracking when she spoke.

Edward’s father didn’t comment on it. “Are those my shoes?”

Fay followed his eyes down to her feet and wriggled her toes, even though the size of the shoes made it unnoticeable. “Yeah, Ed lent them to me.”

“I need to take some pictures before you two leave,” he said. He went around the corner as Fay and Edward came down the stairs. They were silent as Edward’s father rummaged around the living room as quickly as he could. He skipped over the camera that Edward knew was in the cabinet at the end of the room. Edward’s father came back to it before Edward could say anything and pulled it out.

The two stood against the white wall near the front doorway out of habit. They had to fumble around with their pose for a bit. The two would have laughed if they could. Eventually, Edward put his hand on Fay’s shoulder, and she put an arm around his waist. Edward’s father aimed the lens and the two of them put smiles on their faces for just a few seconds until the camera came back down. Their photographer looked down at the picture that he had taken and had to grit his teeth to keep another coughing fit in his throat, but nonetheless his lips curled into a tiny smirk. He didn’t have to force that.

“Look at you two,” he said, going up to his son and adjusting his tie a little to the right. “Now, don’t have too much fun tonight. Be back by nine o’clock, okay?”

Edward nodded, “I will.”

“Will you promise me something?” his father asked. Edward only responded with a breathy sigh, and his father continued. “Promise me that you’ll never stop caring about other people, even when it seems like they don’t want you to.”

Without him wanting to, a wisp of air made its way up from Edward’s stomach and formed the word, ‘alright’ an inch in front of his lips.

Fay sighed silently and grabbed Edward’s hand. The two of them waved goodbye and Edward’s dad held the front door open for them. After a short glance to each other, Fay stepped out of the doorway, pulling Edward behind her.

Even though it was the middle of winter, the sun was shining and there were only patches of ice on the ground. The sun was just getting ready to set. Once the front door was shut, Edward felt a hand pulling him back. He looked back at Fay, who eased her grip on him until she was barely touching him. From the glimmer in her eyes, she looked like she was about to cry.

“Listen�"we don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she breathed, not blinking. “We can just hang out at my place or go to Gil’s or�"”

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll have fun at the dance. I’m okay.”

Fay stood on her toes and gave him a kiss through her smile. Edward gave her an airy laugh, and the two started walking down the street to their school.