PROLOUG
Light flows into my vision as the door to my room opens. Through my tears I look up, hopeful. Maybe he's changed his mind. Maybe he's coming back to me.
He hasn't and he isn't. It isn't him in the doorway; it's a man in a wheelchair. He rolls in with an apologetic smile.
"I saw the lights were on, and figured you could need some company," the stranger says. His voice is raspy and low, not at all like a young man's voice should sound.
My feet are prickling from sitting in the lotus-position too long, my face is tearstained, but no tears are falling anymore. The ugly hospital-gown is scratchy at the base of my neck, but I don't reach up to scratch it, the hospital bed uncomfortable now that I've been sitting too long in one spot.
"I could, thank you," I say in a whisper. My voice sounds foreign, distant. I can't make out what the change is.
"Why are you in here?" asks the new friend.
"Pregnant," I say carefully, tasting the painful word. "Shouldn't be, because I have fibroids. Needed surgery. You?"
"Car-accident," is the answer I get. "When do you get out?"
"Tomorrow," I say. Realising that we both are talking as if we are in prison. In some ways I feel like I am. "You?"
"Same," he says, his voice still raspy and low, as if it hurts to speak. "Why have you been crying?"
"Because he chose her," I say. This time I realise why my voice sounds strange. It's completely void of any emotion. "You?"
"Memory-loss," he says, and now his voice cracks slightly. Maybe his vocal-chords were hurt in the crash. "Who's he?"
"The father. He left us, not just me, us." As I speak the words I understand that most of the pain lies within the fact that my child isn't good enough to make him stay. "What you forget?"
"My fiancé. She's leaving me." Now his voice is void of emotion as well.
There is a silence that stretches between us, and I don't know how to break it. My mind wanders back to the scratching that should be done at the base of my neck. I can't summon the powers to actually reach up and do it. Indecision breaks through my mind. To scratch or not to scratch. His voice pulls me from having to make the choice.
"How does it feel? To be left by someone you know you love?"
It's the longest he's spoken so far, and it catches me off guard. I can hear his voice go weaker at the end of the question and realise that I was probably right. Maybe this man before me is hurt beyond repair.
"Like every feeling and memory I ever had with him is pulled out of me, from under my fingernails, through my eyeballs. No, scratch that." My own wording makes me want to scratch my neck again. Damn it. "Like he's made an incision in me, pulling the memories and feelings out of me by hand and cutting them out. With no anaesthetics."
A new long silence, but it's comfortable. Not awkward. This time I reach up and scratch my neck gently. God, that feels incredibly good. And I almost fall over from exhaustion.
I speak before I think.
"How does it feel? To be left by someone you know you should love?"
"Like.." He traces of. After a while, with both of us staring blankly into the air, he says: "Nothing. I feel nothing. And I cry because I know I should feel something, but I can't."
He coughs slightly at the end of this sentence. I will have to make sure to ask him easier questions.
"What are you going to do?" His next question is the only one I know.
"Sit here," I say. "And wait until he's done doing open-heart surgery on me. Until I'm like you, and feel nothing. You?"
"Nothing," he answers again. I believe he is fond of that word.
We sit again. For a long time, just being in each other's company and it's so peaceful. Somehow I don't feel like puking now.
"I don't know how to continue," I say, softly; like a whisper I'm not sure I want anyone to hear. "How am I, fuck-up extraordinaire, going to raise a child on my own?"
This is not a question I want an answer to; this is the question I fear.
He sits there again. Not moving, I fear that any movement hurts him now. Maybe the painkillers they would have given him earlier have subdued? Maybe we should call a nurse for him. Then again, maybe the pain he feels is more like mine. If it is, it can't be handled with painkillers.
"You're not alone," his voice startles me. Almost as if he has been saving all he's got to say those three words; his voice is not raspy and it's not weak. It's strong, firm and golden. And more importantly: filled with emotion.
"Who are you?" I ask, looking at his eyes. He is not looking in my direction. His gaze is falling to the window behind me, and out into the dark night.
"Jasper Whitlock," he says, his voice back to normal. Or should I say; not normal. I refuse to believe that the voice he speaks with now is his real one. There is no comparing it to the voice I heard just a minute earlier. "You?"
"Isabella Swan." I notice my voice is fading as well now. And my eyelids are falling, drooping heavily. I am tired; I have just felt too much over the last couple of hours. My mind has been on a rollercoaster that should belong in outer space. Suddenly I feel all my physical pains. My head is reeling and my body aching.
He senses it, or maybe he also is starting to feel something again. Carefully, and excruciatingly slowly, he starts to wheel himself out of the room. I don't feel like I have to speak anymore; we have an understanding, and it's all good.
While watching him leave, on his way back to his own room, the scratching at the base of my neck returns. Now its spread, and I want to throw something, but I fear that all that motion will kill me. My every muscle aches: I have never been this tired before. I have never needed to fall away this badly before.
There's just one thing more I need to know. I have no idea why, but I really need it. A name, something hard and real.
"What's her name?" I ask to his retreating form. He stops in the doorway, the light from the hallway illuminating his silhouette, but he doesn't turn around.
"Alice Brandon." He speaks out into the empty hallway, but I hear it clearly enough. "You?"
I speak to the back of his head, but it is fine, because I don't want him to see me as I speak the name.
"Carlisle Cullen." I still wince in pain just saying the name. I still feel the tingles in my belly at the thought of him. God, how contradicting. He still causes me all this familiar pleasure, but now it's mixed with an unfamiliar pain. I love him; I hate him. I want him; he repulses me. I need him; I never want to see him again.
Jasper nods and rolls out of my room. Maybe I'll see him again. Maybe we'll bump into each other one day, when we're both healed and moved on. When I no longer mourn over someone I love, and he someone he doesn't love. Maybe we will be friends sometime. It might happen, but it might not. Maybe she loves him, and maybe he starts to remember. Maybe they get back together again, and live happily ever after. I hope for the best for him, even if I never see him again. And maybe, one day, I will have the privilege that he has – but doesn't want. Maybe one day I'll forget.
It takes all my power to lay back down into the bed and close my eyes.
I fall asleep without scratching the base of my neck.