Adult-FanFiction.org : Books

The Practice of Love	By : belladonnacullen Category: Twilight Series > AU/AR > Het > Het Views: 2642 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or make any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
EPOV
I checked the clock for the tenth time in thirty minutes, as if keeping track of the time would put an end to all my worries. It was 7:54. I didn’t feel any better. That strategy wasn’t working.

I picked up the remote and tossed it back and forth in my hands, before chucking it back onto the coffee table. I thought about heading to the gym downstairs, but I’d already been there twice… before two thirty this afternoon. Just the fact that I was thinking about exercising again made all of my natural impulses suspect. I didn’t want to slip back into that place where I was counting calories and keeping the remote at right fucking angles with the lines on the coffee table. I lined up the remote anyway. And then knocked it to the floor.

Countless therapists had tried to knock sense into my skull over the years. Controlling everything in my life would not guarantee that the cancer wouldn’t come back. To make them all happy, I kept my habits in check so they didn’t turn truly bizarre, but I’d kept trying anyway, on the sly: from spotless floors, to the perfect body mass index, to a 4.0 GPA, to being the best damn family law attorney in Philadelphia. And now the lump on my ball sack sat there mocking me. It hadn’t made a difference at all. Fucking therapists were right all along.

I probably should have gone back to the office. Throwing myself into my work was usually all it took to block out the outside world. It was never wrong to work too hard, according to good old dad. And as much as I’d loathed the bastard, his work ethic was the one thing I’d seemed to inherit. But for some reason, after the visit to the doctor’s office, taking that tack didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

After Dr. Swan confirmed my worst fucking fears, I’d immediately called Lauren and had her cancel my afternoon and set up an emergency appointment at the nearest lab. Then I went to the gym and pushed myself on the treadmill until I thought I might pass out. And now I’d been back home since three, trying to figure out why I hadn’t gone back to the office, and what the hell I was supposed to be doing with myself instead.

Dr. Swan’s question echoed in my mind. “Do you have someone that could help get you through the next twenty-four hours?”

The answer should have been yes. Hell, the answer was yes. I had a family. And walking into that office today, I fully expected to be surrounded by them within minutes of my admission, patient confidentiality be damned. I guess that was to be expected when your uncle was your doctor. I guess. At least it was to be expected when your uncle was Carlisle Cullen, the same guy that took you in at seventeen, and again at nineteen because you were such a hardheaded fuckup.

To be honest, though, I was relieved that Carlisle was out of the office. My family had already given enough, loved enough… they didn’t deserve this shit now, after everything I’d put them through.

And I had Tanya, of course. But I never had any intention of telling her what I discovered in the shower. Unless, of course, it was cancer. I was self aware enough to know that if and when I was forced to tell Tanya, I would have to build a bigger wall between us. One she couldn’t knock down. And god knew, she’d try her best to get through. The girl was persistent. Hopefully, it would never come to that.

Oddly enough, after Dr. Swan asked if there was someone I could turn to, my first impulse was to tell her that I’d already turned to her. With just a few kind and clinical words on her part, I felt that she’d gotten more out of me emotionally than anyone had… in many, many years.

And then, even though I told her I’d be fine, she offered me her time in case I needed to talk, like she’d seen right through me. Or like she knew me better than I did. That’s when I realized that I must have been more of an emotional mess than I’d guessed. Fuck, I was a grown man. I shouldn’t need her to figuratively hold my hand. But, honestly, it felt fucking wonderful when she’d actually held it. She let go, I didn’t.

And right now, as I stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows in my Center City loft, my only impulse was to take Dr. Swan up on her offer. I actually glanced at my cell, and contemplated calling the office. Chances are, she’d left long ago. Even if she were in, the answering service would pick up. Could I have her paged? What would I say when she called back?

The impulse was ridiculous.

No doubt she was just being kind when she said I should call her. And she certainly didn’t mean that I should call her at all hours of the night. What had she meant, though? Why would she offer something like that? Had she been serious? To be honest, I didn’t know.

I usually prided myself with the ability to read people well. It came in handy in my line of work: the ability to know when people were telling the truth or not, to know what they wanted and what they would believe. But all I could come up with, with regard to Dr. Swan’s offer, was that she pitied me. That didn’t sit well with me. But still, the only thing I could think about with some consistency was picking up the phone and dialing.

“If you need to talk today, you could always call the office.”

I picked up my cell and scrolled to the number for Carlisle’s practice.

Then I glanced at the clock. 8:07. It was no longer ‘today.’ I couldn’t call. I went back to staring at the clinic’s phone number on the screen of my cell. When I looked back at the clock it was 8:17. Fuck. I’d spent ten minutes thinking about calling a doctor. I was more fucked up than I knew.

Truthfully, I hadn’t been thinking clearly since my shower this morning. In my desperation, I’d completely forgotten about Carlisle and Esme’s mini vacation. I knew he’d hired someone new, but I hadn’t paid attention to the particulars, only barely hearing at that last family barbeque that he was pleased to find someone brilliant, with a genuine interest in family medicine.

So when a thin young woman with long, brown hair and enormous eyes walked into the lab room, I was completely taken off guard. I temporarily lost the filter between my brain and my mouth.

“You’re not Carlisle.”

Well, no shit, Sherlock, the beautiful woman in front of me was certainly not my uncle.

And she also, momentarily, made me forget why I wheedled the appointment out of Gianna in the first place. I just felt glad to be there, in the fucking lab of all places, with her. Until she asked why I was there, of course. But there was something about her, or the way she asked, or something. Because when she asked a question, it was as if she’d breached a dam, and the words just came tumbling out of my mouth. It took actual energy to stop myself from speaking.

The only thing I didn’t want to confess to was my fucked up relationship with my girlfriend. I’m sure I could have answered Dr. Swan’s question about my libido, or however she’d phrased it, and she would have thought nothing of it. But I didn’t want to. And she let it go, like she just seemed to know. She was good.

But the one thing that rubbed the wrong way was how she kept calling me ‘Mr. Masen.” Mr. Masen would forever remind me of my father. Perhaps I should have considered that when I made a point of keeping my last name after he died. Over the years I thought to change it, but I was stubborn, and now I was thirty-two. I couldn’t exactly change it now, I wasn’t P. Diddy or Sean Jean, or whatever the fuck he called himself these days.

So, Dr. Swan started calling me Edward, like I'd asked.

“Edward.”

Holy fuck. To be blatantly honest, I’d spent some time this afternoon thinking about Dr. Swan calling me Edward. I did find a few things to do with my day off.

I had tried to reign myself in after she said my name. I knew the exam was coming. I thought of my dad. I thought about detox. I thought about the squat off Baltimore and fifty-second where Alice found me, fucked up and near dead. But I couldn’t get away from the fact that this woman had called me Edward in a way that made me hear my own name for the first time. That made every fiber of my body know that I was called Edward. And no matter that I was naked from the waist down because I thought my fucking cancer was back, of all the fucked up shit, it was still her warm hand that was very firmly, very thoroughly, rolling my balls back and forth…

With my hand on my dick and her hand on my ball sack, it was inevitable. It took about two seconds before I was standing in front of her with a raging hard-on. She blushed and tried to hide her face, and I had the ridiculous desire to brush her hair behind her ear. I had a little bit of good sense left, though, and didn’t try a stunt like that. I certainly didn’t want her to think that she’d done anything to give me any ideas. She hadn’t. But fuck, after I’d gotten hard, she said my name again, and it was all I could do not to cum right there.

She nearly pushed me over the edge without even trying. I think she was just trying to make me feel comfortable. She’d asked where I worked. Fuck.

“What do you do for a living, Edward?” That was all it took.

Really though, I wondered if she’d never encountered a man with a hard-on. Normal, everyday conversation was difficult to maintain in that state. But I would have tried to recite the Pledge of Allegiance if she’d asked.

Instead, before I could muster an answer of some sort, she felt the lump.

Motherfucking cancer.

At that moment, I’d resisted the primal urge to crawl into Dr. Swan’s lap and cry. That would have been one for the history books. Instead, I attempted to deal with things as I usually do, and usually, I handled things very, very well. That first time when I was nineteen, when I’d woken up to see Esme sitting next to the hospital bed, I’d overheard the doctor say to Carlisle that I was a cool customer.

But today, and now I’d gone full circle in my thinking, Dr. Swan asked if I had anyone to turn to. I had many people, but in that moment, I felt like I had no one at all.

And maybe, I was dying, again. And it all seemed like such a fucking waste.

The cool customer had vanished this morning after my shower, and I think in that moment, in Dr. Swan’s presence, maybe she erased him forever.

The front door shut quietly, distracting me from my thoughts, and I heard the quiet click of heels on the hardwood floor. Shit.

“Edward?”

I took a deep breath. More clicks in my direction.

“Edward? Edward, why didn’t you answer me?”

“Sorry, hun. I was distracted.”

I looked up to see Tanya staring down at me. Her long strawberry blond curls framed her face, and I couldn’t see her eyes because she was still wearing her sunglasses. She had on a white silk tank, and a little pink skirt, her feet encased in strappy high-heeled sandals. Tanya hardly left the house without wearing a mini and heels, because she said her long legs helped her close deals. I had no doubt about that.

Tanya took off her sunglasses and looked suspiciously at the blank T.V. screen and the lack of any reading material or electronic devices within arms’ reach. But she didn’t ask what I was distracting myself with. She knew better.

“How was your day, Edward?”

“Fine. And yours?”

Tanya threw herself down on the couch at my side and began kicking off her heels.

“You wouldn’t believe what Kate and I went through getting a camel for that kid’s party this Sunday. I mean, I told the mom that we don’t do birthdays, but she was insistent, you know? She said it would be like a bar mitzvah, so we should do it. And well, she paid like a bar mitzvah, so what the hell, right? But it’s all last minute. She lives in one of those big old places up by your parents. And I’ve somehow got to get a camel up there! Turns out camels don’t do Philly in August. I might have found one in D.C., but it’s gonna cost like a thousand dollars. You better believe I’m adding a commission on for that. A camel commission.”

The stream of words spewing from Tanya’s mouth dried up, and Tanya glanced at me to see if I was listening.

“Hmm,” I replied, noncommittally.

“Which makes me wonder why we’re doing Philly in August. It’s like a swamp out there,” Tanya whined.

“Don’t you have events planned through the end of the month?”

“Here and there,” she answered, scooting closer, rubbing the back of my neck. “We could sneak to the shore for a few days. Kate and I could cover for one another. We could probably get Alice to help, if we needed it.”

I don’t know why Tanya’s idea was alarming, but it was. I had to put an end to it before she went too far. The neck rubbing, the shore, Alice, everything.

“I can’t think about all that right now, Tanya,” I growled, pushing her hand away and standing to my feet. I stalked into the kitchen, avoiding her eyes that I knew were watching me like a hawk. She was a smart girl, and I’m sure she knew something was wrong. But after five years, she also knew she’d get about as much out of me as she would from that animal she was trying to book for her party. I rifled through the refrigerator, but came out with only a bottle of water, slamming the door shut. I couldn’t think about food. Just the thought of chemo made me ill, and suddenly angry.

“Well, when can you think about it, Edward? There are like fifteen days left in the month of August.”

“Sixteen,” I corrected. “Thirty-one days in the month.”

Tanya scowled. She hated when I did shit like that. I knew the length of the month wasn’t the point. “Jesus, you’d think I was talking about oral surgery. I just want to go away with you.”

“Why the hell would I want to do that, Tanya?”

I heard the air whoosh out of Tanya’s lungs, and she froze where she sat, a look of shock painted on her face.

“I’m not arguing with you,” she murmured, standing to her feet and smoothing her skirt before making her way toward the hallway. “I just got home, for god’s sake.” Her eyes were glittery and I knew she was trying not to cry.

“Shit, Tanya, I’m sorry,” I said, crossing the room and gently taking her hand. I was momentarily shocked into some kind of awareness. I looked down at my hand holding Tanya’s. It was just a hand; it wasn’t reassuring, it was just a thin, damp hand in mine. I looked at Tanya’s face, and it didn’t look like she was comforted by the contact either. She eyed me warily. But she still couldn’t bring herself to ask what I could sense was on the tip of her tongue. Probably something along the lines of, “What the fuck is going on with you?” Like I said, she was smart. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that I didn’t answer questions like that. Unless your name was Dr. Swan, I guess.

And for the first time in a while, I felt really bad about what I was doing here, with Tanya. She may have known what she was getting into when she ended up with me, but she didn’t deserve the shit I was throwing her way.

“Are you okay, baby?” she asked. Was I okay? I’d just jumped down her throat. I should be the one asking her. Why was everything suddenly backwards?

That was easy. Two words: Possible. Cancer.

For a second, I tried to imagine what would happen if I opened up to Tanya and told her what was going on. But I couldn’t even imagine what that would look like. And, after that second, I didn’t want to give it any more thought, because I knew that no matter Tanya’s reaction, it wouldn’t make me feel any better.

“I’m fine. I have work, though. I’m going to go lock myself in the office for a while.”

I squeezed Tanya’s hand, leaving her in the hall.

“Did you eat?” she called out.

“Yeah, babe. Sorry. I, uh… I picked something up on the way home.”

“Oh, okay.”

I didn’t eat. It was a lie. I couldn’t eat. And I hadn’t thought to make anything for Tanya. I was a shit.

In the office, I threw myself into my favorite chair in the world, and rolled across the room to my desk. This chair was better than the one I had back at the office, even. Custom made for my contours. Loved it. Slept in it, from time to time. I noticed it felt more comforting than Tanya’s hand, although if I had any kind of sensitivity at all, I would have realized that, like, years ago.

Staring at the computer on my desk, the thought of work suddenly made me feel queasy. On a whim, I pulled up iTunes, and it only took a couple seconds to have everything my mom ever recorded displayed in front of me: twenty-two reasonably priced electronic downloads.

I chose the last one, and watched it download. I was too little to talk about stuff like this back then, but I knew from the date of publication, that she must have already known about the cancer when she recorded it.

I clicked on the download, and sounds of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 filled the room. I turned down the volume so Tanya wouldn’t hear.

I wondered how it felt when mom held dad’s hand back then. What did she do when they told her it might be cancer? Who did she tell?

My father, probably. Carlisle and Esme? Maybe. She told me, eventually, when she knew she was dying. And she comforted me and told me she’d always be there. But the sentiment didn’t do much good after she was gone. If she were there, she did nothing to make my father act like a father and take a minute to give a fuck about his son. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t hold it against her. She was dead, there wasn’t a thing she could really fucking do. It was sentiments like that, “I’ll always be there for you,” that got you into trouble. Made you rely on feelings when the only thing you could rely on was yourself.

I looked at the time in the corner of the computer screen. After taking the afternoon off, I knew I had work to get through before I passed out. But instead, I pulled up the homepage for Carlisle’s practice, clicking on random buttons, until I got the courage to open the biographies page. Carlisle’s carefully quaffed head of blond hair practically gleamed, even on the screen. I held my breath and scrolled down. Alistair smiled in his droll way, like he was looking right into my eyes.

It had been over six months since Alistair retired; Carlisle needed to get on top of this shit. Of course, he’d tell me that the human interactions between him and his patients are what mattered, that something like that couldn’t be transmitted electronically. In fact, it was only a couple of years ago that he launched a website for his office in the first place. And I guess it worked for him. His practice had been booming for as long as I could remember.

While my mind was off thinking about Carlisle’s website, of all things, my hand had navigated to Google. I hesitated, letting it sink in that, in five minutes, I’d gone from insensitive fuck to cyber stalker. Then typed the words:

“Dr. Swan, Philadelphia”

And there it was, at the top of the list of results:

Meet the Residents at Philadelphia CHOP 2009

I didn’t hesitate this time. I immediately clicked on the link. And there she was. A picture, for fuck’s sake. She had the same thick, wavy hair that seemed to bounce around her shoulders, make-up free, flawless skin, and those eyes. Those enormous brown eyes that seemed to know me through and through, even though we’d just met. God, I had a crush on my doctor. Dr. Isabella Swan.

Isabella Swan
Medical School: University of Washington
Undergraduate: Evergreen University
Interests: cooking, classic literature, and classic cars

There was a knock on the office door and I quickly clicked off the webpage.

“Emmett’s on the phone,” Tanya said, cracking the door open and handing me the cordless.

I smiled absently, pushing the chair back across the room to take the phone. Tanya tossed it to me, smiling, trying to make light of everything that had happened since she’d been home. “Love you,” she silently mouthed. I tried to smile back at her, but I don’t know if it worked.

“Why did you call the house phone?”

“Nice to talk to you too, Edward. Why not the house phone?”

“I don’t know, Emmett. Just call me on my cell.”

“Whatever, dude. Hey, just checking in about lunch tomorrow. We still on?”

Lunch, fuck. Would I have heard back from Dr. Swan by then? Dr. Isabella Swan? Could I even eat lunch? The mere thought of it made me want to hurl. I toyed around with the computer and brought Dr. Swan’s picture back up on the screen.

“That’s the sweet sound of Edward standing me up,” Emmett chuckled.

“It’s not standing you up unless I leave you waiting, without warning.”

“Listen, the game’s on right now, Edward. I don’t have all night here. Are we still catching lunch tomorrow or what?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Emmett. Sushi on twenty-second and Spring Garden?”

“Sushi? Edward…”

Well, chances are I wouldn’t eat a thing. “What would you prefer then, Emmett?”

“Bishop’s Collar?”

“The bar?”

“The brewery. There’s a difference. And that Kobe burger they make with the fried onions and mushrooms…” his voice trailed off in mouthwatering ecstasy. My stomach, however, turned violently with his description, reinforcing the idea that I wouldn’t be eating.

“Sure, fine, I’ll meet you there,” I agreed

“Really? Good deal!”

At that moment, my cell buzzed to life. I glanced down at the screen to see a little pixie with spiky black hair grinning mischievously, and I smiled for the first time since leaving Dr. Swan earlier in the day.

“Okay, Emmett. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ve got Alice on the other line.”

“Sure, sure... game’s back on anyway. Night, dude.”

“Night, Emmett.”

I clicked the house phone off, and put my cell up to my other ear. “Alice?”

“Hey, big brother.”

Alice made it a point to call me brother, even though we were cousins. When she did it to my face, I rolled my eyes in response. But in reality, it always felt a little off calling Alice and Emmett cousins, when they were so much more.

“What’s new, pixie?”

“I was calling to see how you’re holding up. I would have called earlier, but I was stuck in a meeting with a buyer all afternoon.”

Alice had a sixth sense about this shit. I didn’t even jump anymore when she asked stuff like this. She just seemed to know when something was up.

“I’m just tired, Alice.”

“You’re never tired, Edward.” There wasn’t a hint of amusement in her voice anymore.

“There’s a difference between not sleeping and not being tired.”

“Then maybe you should go to bed and try sleeping, as an experiment or something,” she suggested.

I glanced at the clock on the computer screen. Tanya would probably be getting ready for bed about now. Most people on the east coast were probably getting ready for bed about now.

“So you called to tell me to go to bed?” I tried laughing, but it sounded off.

“I called to see if you wanted to talk.”

“Well, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, sis, but the answer’s no.”

Alice sighed in frustration on the other end of the phone and mumbled something under her breath that I couldn’t quite hear. “Well, don’t forget about the party on Sunday.”

I’d completely forgotten about the party on Sunday. Alice was throwing Carlisle and Esme a surprise anniversary party, at their house. The plan was to have everyone there ahead of time, waiting to yell surprise when Carlisle and Esme drove back up from the shore. I can’t say it was the best idea; I certainly wouldn’t react well to that shit. But trying to get Alice to back down once she had her mind set on something was like trying to stop the tide, during a tsunami.

“I forgot. But, Tanya would have reminded me. She doesn’t miss shit like this.”

“Just put it into your Blackberry or something, okay?

“Sure, Alice.”

“I mean it.”

“But Tanya will… No, actually, you’re right. She’s got some elephant party on Sunday, or something. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

“The desert-themed party with the camel is right down the street from the house. She’ll make it, she’ll just be late.” I didn’t ask Alice how she knew all that. For your own sanity, it was best not to ask. It was technically possible that Tanya or Kate talked to her about it already. Technically.

“They’ll miss you if you’re not there, Edward. Please just listen to me, and put it in your Blackberry.”

“When have I not listened to you, sis?”

Alice grumbled on the other end of the line, but it was good-natured. “Go to bed, Edward. Sleep. You can’t begin to imagine how good it feels.”

“Goodnight, Alice.”

Alice was right. I never listened to her advice. But I did put the party info into my Blackberry. I heard Tanya throwing stuff around in the bedroom, banging drawers, opening and closing the bathroom door. It was my cue, her subtle way of letting me know she was going to bed. She didn’t ask anymore. She just slammed things opened and closed.

So, I got to work, checked my emails and reviewed my notes for the Hannigan deposition in the morning. I managed to completely distract myself from everything: cancer, Tanya and Dr. Isabella Swan, until I turned off the computer at three a.m.

I crawled into bed quietly, hoping not to disturb Tanya. I could see a hint of pink lace nightgown peeking out from underneath the thin satin sheet. I couldn’t get over the fact that she actually slept in shit like that. Well, it’s not like I was giving her much else to do in it lately.

But, despite my best efforts at being all cat-like and stealthy, Tanya half opened her eyes and rolled over, draping her hand over my bare chest, running her fingers through my chest hair.

“Not tonight, Tanya,” I whispered, moving her hand away.

Tanya’s eyes shot open like I’d slapped her or something; glowing blue, hurt and pissed as fuck. “Well, when the hell is it going to be, Edward? Let me know and I’ll mark it on my calendar,” she snapped. Then she flung herself around to face in the opposite direction, pulling the satin sheet tightly around her body.

I sighed in relief and stared at the ceiling, waiting to get up and go to the gym in the morning.
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Practice of Love