TLS Angst Contest Entry
Word Count: 8,309
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Title of Story: Chasing My Demise
Story Summary: An asteroid's path toward the earth is almost certain, but Edward doesn't wait around for it. He runs after a devastating force much stronger, a girl he once fled from.
The whisky bottle in my hands gurgles as I pour its contents down the drain. It plummets the way I did a long time ago, receding until only mere drops remain. I grip the neck of the bottle, choking it in my fist as I lift it up and smash it down in the sink. With a loud crash, it breaks into smithereens. The remains just sit there because like everything else, there's no going back once the damage is done.
Despite my outburst, my anger is not yet depleted. Slamming my fists against the laminate counter top, I cause shards of glass to tinkle a wind chime melody against the stainless steel. My head falls back. A deep, throaty, humorless laugh rustles my chest.
Wind chimes.
I kick the cupboard door over and over until its wood splinters, and the usefulness is as devastated as the glass and my errant life before it.
The last thing I want to hear is the reminder of metal tubes clanging together as if they were some sort of music. I grab my keys off the table, squeezing so they can't create a metal vibration induced harmony. It's a sound I can't escape even when faced with an apocalypse that was previously only an actuality in cheesy sci-fi movies.
I have a million other things to worry about. Our existence is about to be ripped right out from under us, or likely, straight through us. It's a force I can't comprehend. It's an overwhelming shock. I should be mourning the future I'll never have or seeking comfort in my final hours; instead, I'm stuck on something that should have been buried a long time ago.
The pain of the keys digging into my palm matches the pain of the memory that the wind chimes resurrect. I see her in an ivory dress with a touch of sunburn on her cheeks, spinning around as the wind picks up, and her front porch orchestra plays a unique symphony.
Maybe I should have seen her "quirky" as "crazy" all along.
I have to get out of here.
The flimsy screen door slams shut behind me, but I don't close the main one. There's no point now. If someone wants in, they can have at it. Goodbye house. Goodbye mediocre life I hid away in.
What a waste.
Quiet stillness fills the streets, like the dead of night in the middle of the day. There is no rioting like a film might depict when all hope is lost. This is a hard reality.
Sunshine still lights the Earth, and clouds still move across the sky. There is no sign of the rain that Seattle is known for. My coffee pot and sprinkler system both turned on this morning the same as they would any other day. If the media would have kept its mouth shut, we'd be none the wiser to our impending doom. I'd be out on the construction site now. The mix of sweat and grease that I loathed before would be a welcome alternative now.
Fuck this day and every worthless day before it.
I get in my car, slamming the door shut and sealing the outside silence with it. My hand shakes as I struggle to get the key in. It's like I have the jitters of withdrawal, but I don't have an addiction. With every blink I see her. In flashes, I remember. She's shrieking and beating her fists against my chest. In that moment, I don't know who this monster is. She's the farthest thing from the girl I adored. I rake my fingers down my forehead, down my temples, and down my eyes, pushing on them until my vision blurs enough to block the image from my mind.
I steady my hand, get the key in, and press the pedal to the floor. The wheels spin out, squealing against my careless force. Tension ripples through my muscles and doesn't let go. My heart rate accelerates as fast as my vehicle. Adrenaline drives me as my brain fails. Hope for this world has been diminishing by the hour. There's no point to anything anymore.
I speed through deserted streets and don't look back. There isn't much to see in my rear view mirror anyway. I'm grateful for my family, but I put off the important stuff. I dropped out of college, and I never settled down. I worked a job I didn't like and only one time did I fall in love. What a sham that was.
Traffic near the airport is nonexistent. All planes are grounded. I look at the now pointless structures as I leave the city behind. The world is doomed. For miles, large trees line the road. How easy it would be to drive straight toward them. I'm going fast enough. Death can come from a head-on collision, or I can wait it for it to come to me. Images of my crumpled vehicle after it hits the trees fill my thoughts: a smash, a jolt…release.
Closing my eyes, I breathe deep. My thoughts are murky as the fog rolls in. My fingers relax on the steering wheel. I open my eyes, ready and accepting defeat, but the road is no longer lined with trees. My eyes burn, but not with disappointment; it's the prickle that comes after numbness—relief.
I shake it off and drive.
My phone rings as I fly down Interstate 5. As I lift my body off the seat to get my phone out of my pocket, my foot presses the pedal down farther.
"Alice," I say into the receiver.
"Edward." Her voice is a low whimper, causing a leaden sob to catch in my throat. "We're heading to Mom and Dad's. You're coming, right?"
My teeth clench, grinding together, and causing my jaw to ache as I think of my little sister and the unborn child safely tucked away in her belly. Clinging to my family as we wait out this life is not a way I can live my last hours. There's nothing I can do to save them. I can't sit back and prolong goodbye. My breathing becomes short and ragged. "No. I'm sorry." I can barely talk.
"I'll see you tomorrow then." She's so sure of herself, even in the bleakest of moments. "Tell her I miss her."
A shaky laugh gives me away. She knows exactly where I'm headed. I have no control. I didn't intend to drive this way. The heel of my heavy boot bounces on the floor. Alice has always known me better than I've known myself. "I love you," I say, but I know I don't say it often enough, so I say it again, choking on the words. "I love you."
"I love you, I love you." And she laughs before she hangs up, a laugh that's followed by a sigh because this is unbelievable, but yet here we are.
Dropping my phone in the cup holder, I hope she's right. Wherever we end up, I'll see her tomorrow. I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. Thinking of my sister, I ignore goodbye.
Whether it's a mirage on the empty road or a memory imbedded in my mind, I see her again. She's a serpent disguised as a pretty brunette. Her eyes never hid that fact. With a pivot of her hips and a purse of her lips, the vixen can get anything she wants. I'm lucky I got away unattached, unmarred—or so I tell myself.
Bella was everything to me once. From the first time I saw her at our old house, sitting in my room with my sister. I'd just come home for the summer from my second year in college. Both Alice and Bella were fresh out of high school, and apparently, they'd been sleeping in my room. Alice sat on my bed, daring me to make them leave. Bella gathered her things in a hurry. She was the hottest girl Alice had ever brought around, and with Alice being just two years younger than me, there were always girls around the house.
"You can stay," I told Bella, cocky as shit because I liked the way she looked in my room. She was exotic with an aura of innocence.
Alice groaned and they left, but Bella brushed against me as she walked by. Her eyes locked with mine, and I could tell she did it on purpose. I flirted with the girl for the next week, before I asked her out, and although she acted shy, her whispered words in my ear had me blushing redder than I'd ever made her.
I didn't go back to school when summer ended. I took some online classes for another semester and then quit. As crazy as I was about the girl, I should have went back to school, but she was going to spend two years at Peninsula College, and then I would have gone with her to UDub.
In the end, I left Forks, but she never did. It should have all worked out, but my perfect world and future got blown away long before this catastrophic day.
When I caught her in front of her house that last day, she denied through seething teeth that she planned to burn my shit as she shoved it into a charred metal barrel.
Why the hell else would someone shove anything into a metal burn barrel?
Pretty and sweet only hid crazy for so long.
I gun it down the road, trying to run from my memories, but I'm heading toward the real thing, heading toward it faster than I fled from it in the first place.
I imagine her beside me as I drive, feet in my lap, smiling pretty, and then it's ruined with a cackling laugh. "I'll never take you back."
I shake my head. Why would I think she'd say that? That's not my intention. My conscious is cloudy. I'm just out to clear it.
It would never work between me and her anyway.
Snakes are senseless, slithering, suffocating, dangerous, yet provocative with hair that flips in the air as she moves over top of me. Hair that I heard she hacked off after I left. I don't need the end of the world to claim me. Once I get back to my hometown, my ex will end me either physically or mentally. An asteroid is nothing compared to her. Somehow, even now, the reality of space seems like a childhood fantasy.
Scrubbing my face with my palms, I resent the years that have passed with my half-assed attempts to move on. She's tainted my views on everything, on everyone. I long for that girl, the one that she was—the one that I loved. It's hard to believe what hid behind the façade.
My phone rings again. I grab it, and accept a call from my older brother, Emmett.
"Dude," He says and scoffs. "Seriously? Man, of all days for you to pull this shit. I wish I could see what happens when she sees you." He snorts.
"Shut it," I say short and clipped, but with a hesitant smile. If it were possible, I'd welcome his presence by my side. I could use a personal shield against the claws—not that I don't deserve them. I'm willing and ready to take them straight on.
He laughs. "Love you, man. Good luck out there." There's no dread between us as we wish each other well. It's a welcome reprieve from the shock.
"Love you, bro, lemme' talk to my girl."
"Hey, Lucy! Your boyfriend's on the phone." Emmett calls out like he's singing a song.
I hear a girly squeal and the phone being handed off. My heart almost stops. I slow down because she deserves my patience; she deserves my best even when I don't have it.
"Edward, Mommy's so mad at you." She laughs, always finding her mother's wrath against me funny. She may be Emmett's kid, but she's the epitome of me.
I ease off the gas and turn on my blinker without thinking. No one else is on the road. "You're mommy's always mad at me." I pull over and listen to a piece of my heart giggle. It touches me to the core of my being. Not even the end of the world could diminish such a bright light.
"She says you're a selfish asshole," she whispers, drawing out the curse word she's not supposed to say.
I laugh and tease her before we start a round of twenty questions about where I'm headed.
"Will it be an adventure?" she asks. Her excitement is evident in her voice.
It's more likely to turn into a horror story, but I'm inclined to lean to the one-percent chance that it will be another genre entirely. "I don't know what will happen, so it's bound to be an adventure."
"Do you have a map? Which way are you going?" I imagine her dirty-blonde hair twisted up in her usual ballerina bun as she looks up at the ceiling and goes over her mental checklist.
I don't need a map. My amused smile overtakes any other feeling. "Toward the ocean."
"Do you have enough supplies? Do you need my compass? I hope you don't get lost."
I can't get any more lost than I was. "I won't. Don't worry about me."
I relax, leaning my head against the window as I discuss plans and try to recite my needed supply list from memory. There's no fooling Lucy, though. She's quick to figure out that I don't even have a pen.
"Okay geesh," Lucy says, muffled like she's talking to someone else. "Mommy has to talk to you."
For the first time in our conversation, the dread starts creeping back up my spine. I don't want to let her go. I press my forehead against the steering wheel. "Okay, baby girl. I love you to the moon."
"I love you…um…all the way up a tree and around the house and up to the stars and over a rainbow and…"
"Lucy!" Rose yells from nearby.
"Gotta go," Lucy says, followed by a rustle of the phone.
"Edward…" Rose lets out a string of half curse words, and I envision her trying her damndest to hold her words until she can get away from Lucy.
I know Rose is about to scream at me once again, but I pull back on the highway and continue on my journey. I don't have time to waste. I have somewhere to be and taking ridicule has never been one of my strong points.
"Where are you?" she asks, demanding.
I can't stand the way she talks to me as if I'm so vile I don't deserve a place in her family. Today, I don't have a retort. Today, I have only enough strength to keep my foot pressed on the gas pedal. "I'm almost to Olympia."
"Fuck!" Even if she did make it to another room, it's likely the whole house heard that one.
"Rose, look…I'm sorry. Whatever I did to piss you off this time or any other time, I'm sorry."
"Then turn around. There's nothing for you out there." Her breathing is heavy.
Rose hates me, so her request hits home. I feel myself buckling along with her. She's the only one in my life who calls me out when I'm wrong. Usually, I'd fight her on it, but what I'm doing now is fleeing, fleeing from reality, fleeing toward the impossible.
"Okay? If you need me to come back, I'll come back." I look ahead for an opportunity to turn around, but with a median in the way, I'll have to wait four miles for the next exit.
"Okay. Yeah. We need you here." Through her strong façade, I can hear her tears. I know the bravery it takes for her to admit she wants me there. Any other time, I would have something smart to say. Any other time, she wouldn't have said it in the first place.
I should be there for my niece and my brother and sister, and for my brother's wife who maybe never really hated me at all. I can't even begin to think about my parents.
"Okay, Rose, okay. I'll turn around as soon as I can."
"No. You go," she says, her tears clouding her voice. "You fix it, and make sure she knows she better be worth it." Overwhelmed in her crying, she pauses. "But I'm telling you, if she can't get over it, you bust your ass to make it back home."
She hangs up without a word of goodbye, but when I pass the next exit, and I think of Rosalie, all I feel is the love and support of my family as I leave them behind. The world ahead of me is a murky fog. The light of my family makes it bearable, but every mile into the darkness has me questioning my sanity.
A random sprinkling of rain slaps against my windshield.
Bella.
Her worn-in Converse slapped against the hardwood floor when I picked her up for our first date. She ran all around the house and up the stairs, leaving me standing in the doorway to wait with her dad, a cop, but he didn't intimidate me the way she did. He knew her well. When we left the house, he warned her to be careful with me instead of the other way around.
I drive through the rain and then it's gone, as gone as I was the last time I drove this route going the opposite way. All those good times are why I've been so lost. It's hard to take the two sides of Bella and meld them into one.
It's another hour of mindless driving before my phone is going off again.
Mom, I guess before I grab my phone. A quick glance at the screen proves me right. I take a deep breath. This will be a hard goodbye.
"Hi, honey," she says. "Everyone else has arrived. Are you almost here?"
I'm almost somewhere, but not there. No one had the heart to tell her I'm not coming. I almost don't either. Composing myself, I say, "Ma, I'm not gonna make it. I've got something I have to take care of."
"What? What do you mean? Where are you?"
"Uh…" I look around for a road sign. I've been driving on pure instinct and memory. "Aberdeen."
"Aberdeen? What are you doing all the way out there?" she asks, and I know if she demands that I come home, I'll be turning around. "Oh…oh… Edward, I swear. Carlisle, your son is headed to Forks."
He laughs and yells out, "Tell him we don't live there anymore."
"You know very well where he's going."
I listen to my mom banter back and forth with my dad, tuning in to the tones of their voices, and trying to avoid the nagging thoughts that I may never see or hear them again.
"Oh, honey," my mom says, choked up, which is nothing new, but causing her pain crushes me.
"I'm sorry, Ma. I'm not trying to hurt anyone. This just feels like what I need to do."
"Oh nonsense. You're not hurting anyone. You hurry out there. You be careful, but you hurry." Her laugh is whimsical. If this trip is a final failure, at least I provided a few last laughs.
"Are you sure?" I ask, looking for an escape route. The closer I get, the more I want to turn around.
"Yes, we're fine. We're all together. You go be where you need to be."
I hear everyone chattering in the background as if it were a normal family gathering.
I tell my mom I love her and she says the same, but the tears in her voice sound like the happiest ones I've heard today.
"Hi, son," my dad says, light-heartedly and oddly cheery.
"Hey."
"Finally decided it was time, huh?"
I tap my thumb against the steering wheel. "Yeah, for all the good it will do me."
"Just do what you didn't before."
"Yeah? What's that?" I was committed, trustworthy—not that she saw that—and would have done anything for her.
"Show her your heart."
It's a weight that presses on my chest. If that's what it takes, I'll pry myself open at her feet, if I can, if it's in me. All I need is for her to forgive me. I tell my dad just that and he's never sounded more proud.
My phone beeps at me after we say goodbye, and I end the call. The one bar left on the battery flashes on the screen. I push the button that automatically rolls the window all the way down, and as I drive over a bridge, I chuck my phone out into the bay. It's useless to me now.
I leave the window down and let the wind blow against my face. For a moment, it masks my shame. As long as Bella knows my regrets, I'll be free and clear. I almost feel it now. My mind is blank. I focus on the road directly ahead and not the end or the beginning of all of this. But that only lasts a while.
Squashed, pent-up nerves release as I approach the old wooden sign welcoming me to Forks. It may just be the only welcome I get. Maybe I'll see her and only feel all the reasons why I left.
My speed slows dramatically. I'm barely hitting the speed limit now. I mock a nod to my ex's father, the Chief of Police; no doubt he'd be proud.
I see her street, but I don't turn down it. She won't be there, not if I know her the way I think I do.
Not turning down her street doesn't keep the memories from slamming at me. I remember her screams, shrieking my name and her fist against the hood of my car as I backed away. I shouldn't have left her there when I saw her give up chasing me. She fell to the dirt with her face in her hands as she sobbed. The vision of her crumpled on the ground is haunting.
The way she was lashing out at me was more than I could deal with. The reason she was so mad was bullshit, but now that I'm back, I think I should have given her a chance to calm down. She was so blinded by her pain that she couldn't hear me out. These last few years, I've missed her just as much as I've wanted nothing to do with her.
When I see her, I don't know what I'll be faced with, but I know I'd rather be met with the fists I ran from than the face of indifference.
I don't have to go looking for her. Everything is closed, but one place is still open. Neon lights flash Jake's name above his bar.
I pull into the gravel lot, turn my car off, but leave my keys in the ignition. My steps are small. Time isn't a luxury I have, but neither is confidence. As I wrap my hand around the door handle, I know this is my final chance to back out. The only thing I have left to lose is the final shred of myself and that will be ripped away from me soon enough.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in to calm my nerves. I open the door quickly, like jumping into a cold lake without dipping my feet in first.
The bar is dark and smoky; the setting sun barely makes its way through cardboard-covered windows.
"It must be the end of the world!" Jake yells over the music and laughs as he wipes down his bar. "How ya been?"
I shake my head and lean my elbows on the damp bar. "I've been better."
"Haven't we all. I should have known you'd be here. Bella's in the back." He nods to her direction. "I'd warn you not to hurt her, but I guess that doesn't matter now." He pours us both a shot, showing off his flair as he flips the bottle up in the air and behind his back. He thinks he's cool now, but I witnessed firsthand how many bottles he broke when he was just starting out.
"To the end." I clank my glass with that of one of my oldest friends and swallow the tequila down.
"Go get your girl," he says. "Let's do this right."
We shake hands and pull each other in, and I say, "I'll see you soon."
He chuckles and hands me a Heineken. "Yeah, sure."
I grab a hand full of peanuts from the crate at the end of the bar. "Damn shells!" I yell back at Jake.
"Hey, don't knock it. It's more sanitary."
"Yeah, sure," I reply, mimicking his words.
I walk through the crowd with a smile still on my face from talking to Jake. When I see her, I stop. Everything spins around me. She's leaning over the pool table with her legs spread in a v. Her cutoffs sit high enough up her thighs for her pockets to poke out of the bottoms. Her hair is down, grown out, but not as long as the last time I saw her. She's a beacon to every guy in this place.
Someone must have tipped her off, because she turns around and finds me without even looking around.
When our eyes meet, I don't see an ounce of crazy. I see the girl who sings along in the car even when she doesn't know the words. I see that first kiss she stole from me before she tried to run. After that quick kiss, I grabbed her hand and spun her back and kissed her like I had been doing it for years. As she walks toward me, I see her slender curves she knows how to flaunt and the heels on her shoes she has to hold her breath just to walk in.
This feels like the pitter patter in my heart when I spent three hours working up the nerve to tell her I loved her for the first time.
Hypnotized, I'd tell her again now if she wasn't coming toward me with vengeance in her eyes. I'm lucky she handed off the pool stick to someone, but I'm surprised she left it behind.
"Why?" she asks, shaking her head, gasping on words she doesn't say. "What do you think you're doing here?"
She's a vision before me and I'm lost. "I need to talk to you." She's a stranger I don't get to touch. All I can do is look at her, watching her mouth as she talks.
She pokes my chest. "You're nobody. Do you hear me? Nobody." Her finger jabs at me over and over as she speaks. Her nostrils flare and her breath comes out in a hiss through her teeth.
I nod, accepting her words. A lump expands in my throat and bursts, leaving pieces that garble my vocal cords until they burn. I squeeze the items in my hands and look down to the floor. "Nobody" to her is more than I deserve. She doesn't spit in my face before she turns away, but basically, she does with her words.
She's inhuman. Not once did she blink. Venom runs in her blood, and it's all aimed at me. I stand in the crowded bar, surrounded by people I know, but I'm entirely alone. The music's loud, but all I hear is my own rapid breathing and the words that I'm nobody repeating.
I should turn around now, attempt to make it home, and try to find some piece of mind, but my will has drowned. There's no point in coming up now.
Finding an empty corner, I grab a stool and watch her. Breaking open my peanuts, I pop them into my mouth one by one until the continuous action cuts into my fingers, and the salt starts to burn.
My drink beckons, and I don't resist it. I swig it back until it's gone. A stream of foam runs back down to the bottom. Grabbing a hand full of peanut shells, I toss them one by one at the top of the bottle. I miss because I'm worthless. I miss again because I've failed at everything. I miss them all because I've fallen so low I can't even reach the bottom.
Bella acts like I'm not here as she continues her game of pool. Her shirt is low cut. It's a button up, but it's not buttoned; it's tied in the front. I can see straight down it as she leans over and lines up her shot. I remember what it feels like to run my tongue across her skin. My brain tunes out. I lose all signal but one; the one that knows what it's like to stand behind her and let her pretend I'm teaching her how to play, the one that knows how it feels to have her back up until I'm pressing into her ass, and she knows just how far to lean forward, so I'm turned on higher than any man should be able to withstand.
There's a tingle in my lower lip at the thought of the way she used to sink her teeth into it. Her ass moves right in front of me, and I lose sight of everything that went wrong.
I lean back, content as my dick presses against my jeans. She still has such a strong effect on me. Closing my eyes, I drift from reality in favor of getting lost in a dream. I could go out like this: a loser, alone, a horny bastard wanting something he already had, but walked away from.
When all else fails, why not? If all I have left is this corner, I might as well enjoy the view.
I imagine her walking over, slinging her leg over mine, and straddling me from both sides. I've had this fantasy before, many times. I don't have to be creative; once upon a time, I had the real thing. Thinking of her like this has been my guilty pleasure. In the end, it's always more guilt than pleasure.
There's a warm hand on my chest. "Hey, Cullen."
My eyes meet pale blue ones, surrounded by the fairest hair I've ever seen on anyone. "Janie," I reply, confused by her closeness, but I shouldn't be. She's always been on the sidelines watching me. She's never been my type, even now. She's a simple girl with simple needs, but apparently, crazy's always been my thing.
"It's good to see you," she says, and squeezes her fingers against my chest in a way that may have been friendly, but she doesn't remove her hand.
"You too." I'm still groggy in my pleasure-filled Bella haze.
Jane's behind me, leaning down. Her breath is on my ear; its warmth runs down my neck. "I was really, really hoping you'd come back."
I look at her eyes and follow her gaze. My hard-on is still pressing, and she doesn't help when she slowly starts moving her hand down. Maybe it's the years since I've seen her, or the end of the world giving her a final shove, but I've never seen this quiet girl exude such confidence.
Her eyes hold mine. I know exactly what she wants. Once again, I can take the easy way out. I could add this warm girl to my lonely corner and ride out this day of hell.
Her hand reaches my stomach by the time I decide to cover her hand with mine, and move it aside. Easy is worth nothing but wasted time. "I'm sorry. I'm not good company right now."
"Okay." Her lip juts out. "Come find me if you change your mind."
I spare only a glance as cowboy boots and a mini skirt move to the other side of the bar and spark up a conversation with someone else.
My acceptance to sit here is shattered. I look to Bella to find some sense of resolve once again.
She grabs a beer off a nearby table. Her usual bendy straw juts out of the top. She twirls it around before taking it into her mouth, enclosing her lips around it for longer than the small sip she takes. I love the shape of her mouth.
My stare must radiate because as she lets the straw fall from her lips, her eyes lock with mine. She's quick to look away. The subtle tremble of her lower lip, on her otherwise detached face, is not something I was expecting. She brings her drink back to her mouth. Her lips miss the straw. Even through her strength, I can see her fumble, but she doesn't fall.
I plunge back to that day when a single picture tore my world away. A sloppy, drunk girl sits on my knee for thirty seconds, and I'm screwed for years. More than that even, because according to Bella, it wasn't just Lauren; it was a plethora of reasons I'm still unaware of. Her doubt in me was as fierce as her anger, as fierce as her hurt. She jabbered out of her mind in a hysterical rage. I still don't understand half of what she said, but my doubt in myself was almost as bad as hers. After I got out of town and took some time to calm down, I called Lauren to make sure my drunken memory was clear. It was, but it didn't matter—not to me, not to Bella. We were over. Our relationship wasn't severed. It was wounded, infected, and amputated. My presence here is absurd; my personal lighthouse is demonic. If I could go back in time a few hours, I would still end up right here.
Bella bums a cigarette off her friend, Tanya. The only other woman in this place that compares to her, but if she had the choice of anyone here, she'd choose Bella.
Bella lets some fool light her smoke as she holds it between her lips, but I know it's the last time it will touch her mouth. She doesn't smoke. She just needs something to do with her hands. It's a distraction. She'll watch it burn, flick the ashes, and eventually snuff it out. I watch her do just that. She wears composure well. All this time in those heels, and only once does she nearly roll her ankle.
Bella takes a lock of Tanya's dyed strawberry blonde hair and twirls it around her finger. She whispers something to her friend and kisses her cheek. It's a miracle Tanya has survived this long with Bella's constant teasing.
Music blasts through the speaker in every corner of the bar. Tanya grabs Bella and pelvis to pelvis, they start to grind. Bella lifts her hand in the air and arches her back. She's flawless. I still wonder how her father managed to keep her hidden when she stayed at his house every summer. She claimed she spent her days in their backyard hammock lost in one love story after another. With the way she moves, I think she spent all her time dancing in front of a mirror.
The song turns slow and because I've withered away the last few years, because there was only one point in my life that I really lived, because I love her despite of it all, and because I don't deserve her, but I know she still feels something, I go to her.
She doesn't see my approach. I grab her arm and she spins around. When she sees it's me, she tries to pull away.
I let go of her arm. I don't want to make her do anything. "Please, just one song. Give me one song," I beg.
She doesn't respond, but I move in closer, and she doesn't back away.
Tentatively, I place my hands above the denim on her waist.
Her hands rest on my arms, but she presses so lightly that if I didn't see them with my own eyes, I wouldn't know they were there. "What do you want from me?"
I feel every thread of cotton under my fingers. "Nothing. I just want to say I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"No," she says, not looking me in the eye. Her voice is thick with a sadness that is devastating to hear. "You don't get to be sorry."
I take her chin in my hand and lift her face. "I am."
She flinches away from my touch. "Tell me then. If we weren't about to die, would you still be here? If the whole thing was a mistake and that thing is going to miss us by miles, would you leave?" Her jaw is set as she glares at me.
I don't know what would have happened. I can't predict that. Bella pulls away, but I can't let her go again. "I'm here now and that's all I know. I don't want to be anywhere else." Certainty blossoms in my chest. "I'm not leaving."
"Then you shouldn't have gone in the first place." She closes her eyes, and I see her vulnerability. This is the girl I ran away from, the one I should have fought for.
I feel every ounce of regret inside of me come pouring out. "I know. Every day, Bella, I know."
Her feet buckle under her, and I catch her under her arms.
She's a rag doll, slack against me. I lift her limp body and carry her outside. She sniffling and breathing irregularly. I hold her together and promise myself that anytime she needs to be picked up, I'll be there to lift her.
"I hate you, I do." The fight is gone from her voice. Her head rests on my shoulder, but her fingers still try not to give in. They tense and bend on my shoulder. "I don't want you here. I don't need you." She shakes her head. "I don't. You mean nothing to me."
It's hard to hear, but she's in my arms and that has to count for something. "I'm nobody. I remember."
I walk for a few minutes down an overgrown path and take her into Jacob's dad's old barn. The doors broke off years ago, and aside from some hay and a few supplies, it's hard to see that this old place was ever more than an oversized shed.
It's dark in here aside from the glow from the bar sign and the street light across from it. I stand her up, let her lean against the wall, and take her face in my hands again. Searching her eyes, I try to find the answer to something. There has to be a secret to fixing this. I don't have enough time to figure it out. "Tell me what you need from me. I'll do anything."
Storm clouds roll through her eyes. "You left me," she says bitter, but lacking bite. "You said you loved me. You said forever. You lied."
"No, leaving was the lie. Everything since was a lie. This right here is truth. Me and you. I panicked. I shouldn't have left, and when I did, I should have come back." I don't let go of her face even though she tries to turn away. "I never messed around on you. You were so adamant that I did. I couldn't get over it…you doubting me, attacking me."
Her eyebrows crinkle together. "How could I not believe it? You never saw me."
"What do you mean?"
"All those summers since I was thirteen, I watched you see everyone else, but you never saw me." The pulse point in her neck races against my thumbs.
I stare at her in disbelief. "I don't know how that's possible. You're all I see."
We look at each other, and I let all my tension fall. I think of the girl I loved and the one I left and then I think about every miserable second I've endured since. I hope somehow, she can see it all.
She smiles as tears glimmer down her cheeks. "You're really back?"
I nod as I swipe my thumbs across the salty streaks.
Her hands cover mine and pull them down. She links our finger tips, but her eyes aren't on me. "You changed your number. I was so embarrassed. I've never felt like that before. I thought I had snapped for good, but I pulled it together. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn't get a hold of you."
"I know. I should have understood. You needed me, and I let you down."
She doesn't deny it. She doesn't need to. It's a truth I have to live with.
"You came back for me. I've thought of how this would go so many times. You're supposed to grovel…make it up to me…earn it." Her sob echoes through the barn. "I want that life. I want the one where you come back, and we fix it, and we're happy again."
I hold her against me as she shakes through the pain. "Maybe we'll be okay." It's the first time I've considered it, but it's true, maybe we won't die. Her tremors continue and over and over I reassure her, rubbing my hand up and down her back.
The energy between us is a pressure that's been building for years. We cling to each other, and when we do break apart, she's the one who steps back first. She leans down and takes off her shoes. They've got to be killing her by now. She leaves them on the ground, but lifts up on her toes. Like that first time, she takes the first kiss, a soft but quick peck on the corner of my mouth.
She chuckles through the tears that won't stop. Her smile aimed at me was something I never thought I'd see again, let alone her laugh.
Fidgeting, she looks around and then at me again. "I feel like we have so much to talk about, but at any moment…we don't know what's going to happen." She looks up as if the direction of her eyes could hold her tears in. "You're right though. Maybe nothing will happen. I just want to pretend everything is fine. Can you just…hold me?"
Pressing my lips to her forehead, I wrap my arms over top of hers. She fists the back of my shirt. The closer she gets, the fuller the void inside of me that's been there since I left.
"I'm keeping you from your family," she says into my chest.
"They know where I'm at. They all agreed that this is where I need to be. Alice said to tell you she misses you."
"I miss her too." She looks up at me with a soft smile on her lips.
How could I have ever walked away from this? I lean down and press my mouth to hers. It's the slowest kiss, a mend to what wasn't repairable, a seal that's indestructible.
Hooking her finger in my belt loop, she pulls me closer. She presses her soft body against me, molding herself to me. My cock is overly sensitive from its earlier up and down, or maybe it's just her.
"I still turn you on," she says, grinding her hips on me, emotions still running high. "Right now and before in the bar."
"You saw that?"
"Uh huh. You turned Jane down." She bunches my shirt up and her hands move under it. Her nails scratch across my skin.
"I'm not here for Jane."
Her lips move along my jaw. Feeling her like this, I can't help but to think about all the time we've lost.
"I shouldn't have left you." It's a mantra I can't get past. How did I go on for so long not seeing that I was the one in the wrong?
"Shh. You're here now." She stops my apologies with insistent kisses. "Just be here, right now, with me."
Her mouth is greedy. It pulls me in because I want to give her everything. Our pain mixes, and it feels like she needs to consume me.
Taking the bottom of her shirt, I pull the tie until it loosens. As I lean down and press my lips to her chest, I feel like we're not even real, like we're floating. Her hands fist in my hair, holding me to her as if I'd ever consider moving from her breasts. She's needy pulls and soft skin. She hums and moans as animosity and love, hurt and comfort trickle into one synergy combustion.
I fall to my knees, breathing erratic against her stomach. Her fingers move through my hair lighter than before. All is silent, but her gasps, the click of the button on her shorts as I pull them open and distant murmurs that I ignore.
I push the denim down, following it with my hands as I touch every inch of her legs. I repeat the same action with the dark cotton panties. Taking her ankle in my hand, I lift it up and press my lips against it. I brush my mouth up until I get to her knee, where I purse my lips and kiss her again. Her inner thigh is softer. Lips aren't enough. I add my tongue, tasting softness as if it were its own flavor.
Her leg quivers. "Edward," she says through a heavy exhale.
Closing my eyes, I smile against her. I move higher, between her legs, and it's even better. Her wet softness against my tongue, along with her moans, makes this sweeter than her skin. I place her knee on my shoulder before plunging my tongue inside of her.
I move in and out, up and down until her body's trembling, and I know she's close. I move faster, adding fingers and groaning at her response. Her fingers squeeze my scalp as she comes. Her leg is tense and pushing against my head, but I fight against it and keep working her with my mouth until she's done.
I set her leg down and stand up. She pulls me against her, wrapping her arms around my neck. I return her hug. It's like we never broke up, but at the same time, we know what we lost. We're both out of breath when she slinks a hand down between us. Her hand brushes against my erection as she gets my pants undone, and I'm twitching from the overwhelming pressure. Her mouth meets my neck, and I feel it through my bones. She sucks on my skin until I feel the burn of blood vessels breaking.
With fitful movements, we pull our clothes off as if they're scorching our skin. We manage to not break contact through it all. She grips my shaft, and I stop breathing. She pulls me to her like my dick's a leash.
The sound of voices from outside halts our movements.
"Let's burn the place down!" Jacob yells out.
Bella squeaks. "Let's go." She grabs an old, tattered blanket off a shelf before we run out the back door.
All that is left of us in the barn is our clothes. Bella takes my hand and we run, ignoring the hard ground and debris that press into our feet. She laughs and it's contagious. We stop running and hunch over, laughing together.
"Okay, okay." Bella gasps for air. "If they're burning the barn, they must have heard we don't have much time."
I sober up, leaving our fun and returning to reality. Bella spreads the blanket on the ground. I run my knuckles up her sides. Her eyes glimmer in the moonlight. The catastrophe somewhere above us, it isn't real; her skin under my fingers is the only thing that's tangible. Moving her hair to the side, I suck her earlobe in my mouth.
"Thank you," she says.
"For what?"
"Coming back." She hushes me with her mouth on mine. I'm the one who should be doing the thanking.
We lower down, losing ourselves in each other. Flames begin to grow behind us. Smoke spreads through the air.
I push inside of her, hotter than the fire, her thighs pressing against her chest, her shins pressing against mine. As I pound her into the earth, she moans my name through petal-pink lips. I slow down, gaze at her mouth, and fill the part between her lips with one of mine. She tastes like mercy from my sins.
Rolling over, I pull her on top of me. The light from the flames glows on her skin like the glory of morning that I'll never see again. Her nipples are rock-like, pebbled despite the heat. I cover them with my palms, claiming them.
Her hands grip my shoulders she rolls her hips on me. When she cries out, I jerk up over and over, pumping inside her, coming and then, shutting down because this is the last thing I want to feel, see, or even think.
At some point, I fall asleep. A nuzzling weight on my shoulder rouses me. The sun is rising. We didn't die, but as I watch her eyelashes rest above her cheeks, I'm filled with the ultimate peace.
"I love you always," she whispers. Her eyes flutter open. Her hand curls on my bare chest.
There is still smoke in the air from the burned down barn that took our clothes with it.
I pull her closer, press my lips to her hair, and tell her, "I'll love you all my life and after."