A/N: So this is after Memory. (I think this makes it a series. I need a name.) The 2nd chapter will be much longer (thanks for the idea, Mirane!), and Carlisle's POV. As always, reviews are lovely and very much appreciated!
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I wasn't quite sure how I had gotten here, but I was willing to accept that this was how my life was supposed to go.
It wasn't what I'd wanted, certainly not, but when had I ever gotten what I wanted? My father had always been clear about that: Esme Platt was meant to marry a man her parents approved of and raise their grandchildren. Nothing more, nothing less. No moving West to teach school, no falling in love.
It was all clear to me, now that my baby, my poor baby boy, was dead. I had nothing else to live for. My marriage had never had a chance – I'd tried, but Charles hadn't – and my baby was gone. The two things I should have done, I was supposed to do, I couldn't.
And the things I'd wanted to do? I had gone west, though not as far as I would have liked, and I had taught school. I'd wanted my baby, too. So I'd done what I really wanted, sort of, and the only thing my parents and I had agreed on, I'd tried. I tried so hard for my baby. I left everything I knew, but none of that mattered now.
So I had let go, let fate decide where I would end up, after my attempts to control my life had failed.
Fate had taken me to the edge of town, to the cliffs. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and a warm breeze ruffled my hair.
A good day to die.
It was the first clear day in a week. Finally, the sky was clear of the clouds that had hovered over my baby's birth… he and I, we had both been born on rainy days, born under a bad sky. So we had lived bad lives, though his had been so much shorter than mine. My poor baby, still and cold in cradle…
I thought I was going to die right there when I saw him, so small and so still.
But I didn't.
Instead, I cried. I wept like I'd never thought was possible, in a fever of love and desperation and prayer. Maybe if I could prove how much I loved him, show by my tears how terribly I needed him, maybe that would bring him back to life.
It hadn't. My baby did not move, did not breathe, and neither would I.
I was done crying now. All my tears were gone, and I was grateful that my last memories of this world would be pretty ones. I thought I deserved it, after the way my life had gone.
Even if I had the strength to hate my life, I knew it wouldn't change a thing. My tears had cleared my vision; my new understanding calmed me. I felt like I'd never felt before… peaceful. This was how it was supposed to happen. This was the way my life would end, with a fall.
A smile ghosted across my face, for the first time in days. This time, there would be no handsome doctor to save me. No parents to fret. No husband, no child. Only me.
I looked around me one last time as I walked the edge. The trees almost glowed, they were so green and full of life, the sky was a perfect dusky blue, the setting sunlight shimmered off the lake in flakes of gold: the world was heartbreakingly lovely.
I closed my eyes, and fell.