summary: my mans in touch with his emotions, my man won’t touch me with a 20 foot pole, my mans forgotten his devotion, where he’s gone god only knows
content: angst, obsession, neglect
notes: I’ve always wanted to write for Edward!! Nine year old me is screaming even though this is angst and I lowk hate it
It didn’t start with him just talking to you.
It started with him noticing you too many times in one day.
Edward Cullen noticed everything.
But you were different in a way he didn’t know how to ignore.
The first time you really noticed it, you were mid-sentence.
“…and I swear Mrs Cope just hates me for no reason because,”
Because Edward wasn’t listening like someone politely paying attention.
He was watching like he was trying to memorise you.
“You’re staring again,” you said finally.
Then, “I didn’t realise I was doing it.”
“That’s not, reassuring.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You say that like it fixes it.”
You huffed a laugh despite yourself. “Yeah, barely.”
After that, it became… consistent.
Not in a weird, over the top way.
Just in a way that made it hard to pretend it was ever accidental.
You’d leave class and he’d already be outside.
You’d sit down somewhere quiet and somehow he’d end up nearby.
Once, you turned a corner and nearly collided with him.
“Okay,” you said, putting a hand to your chest, “this is starting to feel intentional.”
“It isn’t,” Edward said calmly.
“You were literally waiting there.”
“To the exact same place I was walking to?”
Like your presence there was the most natural thing in the world.
It wasn’t one big moment.
It was a collection of small ones that started to feel impossible to ignore.
Like how he always knew where you were sitting without looking.
Like how he answered you before you finished speaking sometimes.
Like how conversations with him never felt like interruptions, more like continuation.
One afternoon, you dropped your pen.
Before you even bent down, it was already back in your hand.
“I saw it fall,” he said.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
You frowned. “You’re doing it again.”
“Being weirdly… everywhere.”
That made something flicker in his expression.
Something almost like restraint tightening.
You tilted your head. “Can you?”
“I don’t think I want to.”
That should’ve scared you.
Not the way it should’ve.
He walked you home every day now.
Just appearing out of nowhere without prompt.
“I can’t figure out what you’re doing,” you said one evening as you kicked a stone along the pavement.
Edward glanced at you. “Walking you home?”
“Yes, but you know, everything else.”
“I like doing it, all of it.”
You scoffed. “That’s not normal.”
You looked at him. “That’s not an answer either, it’s deflection.”
He didn’t reply immediately.
And yet he didn’t stop walking beside you.
There were moments where it felt almost… soft.
But soft in a way that confused you.
Like when you’d say something stupid and he’d actually smile.
Small. Controlled. Gone too quickly.
“You do that thing,” you said once.
“Like you’re trying not to react to anything I say.”
Edward’s eyes flicked to yours. “I am.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Because if I don’t, I won’t stop.”
That hung in the air between you.
You didn’t ask what he meant.
You weren’t sure you wanted the answer.
And then, slowly, he started changing.
You couldn’t understand him enough to know him emotionally.
At first, you thought he was just busy.
Then it became clear it wasn’t that.
It was deliberate distance.
One day, you turned around in class.
He’d been there every day before that.
The next day, he wasn’t at lunch.
Then he stopped walking you home.
You caught him once in the corridor.
“Hey,” you said, a little too quickly, “where have you been?”
And for the first time in a while, really looked away after.
“You’re never busy,” you said.
Laughing you looked away, “do you ever give straight forward answers?”
You took a step closer. “Did I do something?”
His voice was quieter now.
After that, it was like he had never been there at all.
Just absence so clean it felt unnatural.
You waited for it to break.
“You haven’t seen Edward?” you asked someone casually.
They shrugged. “Not really. He’s just… not around.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s Edward Cullen,” they said. “He doesn’t make sense point blank the end.”
Carlisle hesitated just long enough for your stomach to drop.
“He’s safe,” he said carefully.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He’s somewhere he can… regain control.”
You frowned. “Control of what?”
Carlisle’s expression softened slightly.
That didn’t make it better.
Since when was he good at restraint.
It wasn’t immediate that you missed him.
At first, you just noticed things were quieter.
Then you noticed they were emptier.
Then you realised you were looking for him in places he couldn’t possibly be.
“He’s gone,” someone said eventually.
Like it wasn’t something that should’ve changed everything.
They shrugged. “No one knows.”
Another voice added, half-joking but not really:
“Where he’s gone, God only knows.”
Because it didn’t feel like an exaggeration.
The strangest part wasn’t that he disappeared.
It was that he had been so present before that his absence still felt like pressure.
Like the space around you remembered him even if no one else did.
Sometimes you caught yourself turning your head for no reason.
Sometimes you thought you saw him in reflections that weren’t there.
Sometimes you realised you were waiting for something that wasn’t coming back.
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