Soul not Included

Chapter 57: Breaking Dawn

I was currently in the car as Edward drove me around so that I could sleep. I got used to it. Spoiled by it. It was bothersome to me, Edward wouldn't admit that it was a little unusual. He liked driving so he said he didn't mind but gas isn't cheap when you're driving around for hours every night and day.

He would make some stops sometimes at random locations. Sometimes I woke up, and he would point out the scenery that he thought I might like to sketch out and other times I stay asleep until morning. 

We were on break from college. We finished two years of it and it was everything I remembered it would be. I couldn't count how many times I got overwhelmed and stressed and snappy because I couldn't keep up. Everything made worse with all the new faces and new expectations. 

Carlisle said that it might be that the situation seemed worse to me because I've spent years avoiding it. He called it avoidance coping in which case doesn't really help a situation in the long run. It just piles on the stress. The way a person reacts to the stress is completely up to the individual, in my case... i get angry. 

Suddenly I couldn't avoid it anymore because Edward is taking me to college and helping me in classes. As were Alice and Esme help with my homework, trying to help me understand what I was learning. Learning how to not avoid certain things, Carlisle said, would be difficult because normally avoidance coping is learned from an early age. 

Regardless, the Cullens were there to help me through it. It was easier with their support but I wouldn't call it cured just yet. Carlisle wasn't expecting me to be cured... he had set a hand on my shoulder and said, we were just trying to teach you methods to make things easier.

In that case, they succeeded. 

Edward had joked that that might have explained why I was so mean all the time and whenever I responded passive aggressively he smiled to himself as if I just said the funniest thing in the world. That didn't help with my annoyance and when I try to shove him away from me he would only laugh more. Eventually calming me down enough with little gesture. He takes my hand and just holds it. Sometimes kisses the ring on it and we just stay where we were for a while. Sometimes he makes me tea and we sit for a moment to take in the silence.

Meeting new people was probably the most difficult part of being in college and even then Edward made that easier for me as well. The engagement ring was like a shield to others. Edward and I were a package deal and not many people approaches the Cullens. They sensed the danger. So, getting to meet people was slow and I was able to do it at my time and when it got to be too much Edward was there.

Alice did eventually throw a Christmas party that first semester, which i didn't appreciate, and invited some of our new classmates, that Rose and I definitely didn't appreciate, and forced some interacting between me and the other humans, which Edward and even Carlisle didn't appreciate. 

Carlisle didn't want to rush me into things.

Alice argued that some people need to be rushed. 

... I fell under that some people in her mind.

When I wasn't dealing with going to classes and wasting time going out with humans, I tried to get as much done at home as possible that didn't include homework and sleep. I sat in Rosalies garage some days as she went about explaining how cars are constructed, what does what, what goes where and eventually she walked me through how to even do car maintenance. Jasper took time, whenever he could find it to take me out and teach me how to use the crossbow. He didn't want to use the arrows Oliver provided for us so he made a purchase of some regular arrows for me to practice with. the hardest part of using the crossbow was setting the arrow. No upper body strength to pull the bow sting manually, so he had to buy a cocking rope. The first lesson was just how to safely load the crossbow until he got that item. It wasn't very practical for hunting super fast vampires, i realized.