To Save Us
Synopsis:
Takes place During New Moon's winter. Convinced Edward was lying, Bella sets out across the country to find the Cullens and confront Edward to gain the closure she needs.
I know that I was gone for a very long time.
To elaborate what happened before I came back is difficult. The first span was so long that I'm not entirely sure of the length of it. Charlie doesn't talk about that time-not any more at least-and it's not a thought I particularly relish. No one reminisces about post-breakup catatonia. It must have been a month or so, a month during which I can't piece together a lucid moment between the nightmares, fits of weeping, and listless hours-on the couch at home, in the shower, in the cafeteria, behind the wheel of my car. But time doesn't stop when you do, and one can only take so much toll before something drastic has to happen, and eventually that piece of me that wept and grieved, snapped and shattered.
That endless shallow pool of misery dried and left me cracked like the desert floor. Dry and damaged beyond repair. I could function on the surface. Work at Newton's. Go grocery shopping. Cook dinner without posing a fire hazard. I know it didn't fool Charlie, but he must have been relieved to see me moving. Talking (if only topically). As the season changed, I fell into a pattern, and this became normal for us. Don't talk about being abandoned. Don't talk about how it hurt. Breathe, move, function. I lived in pieces-bursts of action, moving like a marionette-and I didn't remember the in-betweens, and everything was disjointed and empty, and the world raced past without me.
And then I came back.
"How are the roads?"
Charlie was leaning against the door jamb at the entrance to the kitchen, still in his uniform, slurping a coke, when I opened the front door. I shrugged as I kicked the door closed behind me with a foot. "Not bad," I said. "For Christmas Eve, I mean." I set my bags on the staircase and went to take off my jacket. "I didn't have much to buy, though."
Charlie nodded, pursing his mustached mouth to the side. "I've got to go in for a couple of hours tonight. Finish up some paperwork so I can have the next two days off. You gonna be okay here?"
I wasn't looking at him, and I don't think he was looking at me, but I nodded. "Cool, yeah. It'll give me time to wrap your present." I never minded being alone. It was infinitely easier than trying to make with the happy. I got by alright now, but Christmas Eve-cookies and singing and, you know, togetherness-that was too much pressure.
"You still wanna go to the reservation tomorrow?" he called, moving into the kitchen.
"Sure," I lied. Christmas shopping had worn me out more than I expected. Four hours and ten stores, and all I'd ended up with for Charlie was a hoodie with a beer bottle pocket sewn onto the front. Charlie'd probably think it was a gag gift. I thought it was appropriate enough since we spent so much time on the couch watching TV. Besides, what kind of gift says 'Sorry I'm insane now and put you through the parental wringer every day.'?
I stood, waiting. In the kitchen, there was silence, and then I heard him sigh. He tossed his drink can into the bin underneath the sink and stood for a moment, hands resting against his hips as he bounced gently for a moment, surveying the kitchen walls. He sighed again. Great.
"Well, I'm out. Be back around ten. Pizza's in the fridge." I followed behind him to the door, where he turned around and glanced up at me, and he faltered for a second.
The little that was left of my heart ached.
We were back in the daily routine, but I knew that we were so broken. More than we'd ever been before.
"Merry Christmas, Kiddo," he said with that gruff voice. He meant to rustle my hair, I think, but instead his hand made a quick stroke down from the top of my head to its back. The movement was somehow grievingly affectionate. He dropped his gaze and patted my shoulder once before he was out the door.
Charlie had always been alone at Christmas. This year wasn't going to feel much different, I guessed-just harder. I was making everything harder.
I huffed and slouched against the wall next to the door. In my head, as always, the words swimming in my head. Words that assumed the pain would lessen, or I'd forget or something. Stupid, ignorant words. It will be as if I'd never existed.
I closed my eyes and tapped the back of my skull against the wall. Too hard. "Edward, you lied."
Liar. What a liar. He took the air from my lungs and told me I wouldn't miss it. Fucking liar.
Upstairs, spread out across most of my bedroom floor, I worked slowly and carefully on wrapping gifts. When I was alone, I did things slowly. I concentrated on precision. I found it was easier to set aside other thoughts if I pretended wrapping trinkets in thinly-pressed, glossy rectangular sheets of dead tree was the most important thing in the world to me.
I was nearly done wrapping Renee's gift (a picture frame) when the phone rang. "Swan residence."
"Happy Holidays, Stranger!" The caller's voice was cheerful and familiar, and it took me a few seconds to recognize.
"Jacob. Hey. Happy holidays," I smiled.
"Enjoying the break from school?"
"Oh, yeah. School. Breaks are always nice." I'd just placed a piece of tape lop-sided on the seam of the package. I pulled the tape back off gingerly but the top of the paper tore, leaving a spot of bare paper pulp. I sighed and unwrapped the package.
"Yeah, maybe there. Dad's using me as his work mule. Running errands, cleaning up for tomorrow. You're coming, right?"
"Yeah, totally." Carefully trimmed new sheet of paper. Six strips of magic tape, one inch in length exactly. Beer bottle hoodie boxed and centered on giftwrap.
"Cool." Jacob sounded relieved. "I'm smoking the turkey. Don't worry, it's not my first time. But you eat turkey, right?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Turkey's great." Last piece of tape applied. I didn't see where I'd put the spool of ribbon, and craned my neck around the gifts and scraps of discarded wrapping paper.
"Cool. So ... I'll see you there. Well, I mean here. One o'clock. Right?"
On my knees I scooted around the floor hastily until my knee caught on something sharp and I stumbled forward, catching myself with one palm. "Oof-darn it ..."
"You okay?" Jacob asked.
"What?" The knee of my pants was torn. Fantastic.
"I was telling you, lunch is at one. Best turkey ever, courtesy of yours truly. We'll catch up and generally try to stay as far as possible from our dads ..."
"Definitely. One sharp. Wouldn't miss it."
"Okay, yeah. Well, Merry Christmas, Bella!" I tossed the phone to the bed after wishing him the same, shoving things around on my floor, looking for the offending obstacle. I pushed away a wad of paper to find a piece of floorboard, a slat about six inches wide, that wasn't flush with the rest of the floor. When I scooted towards it, the slat shifted a little. It seemed completely loose. I picked up the edge of the board, lifted it slightly, and dropped it back down with a thud. I picked it up again, more this time, shifting away from it, and, almost missed the glint of shine beneath. How had wrapping paper gotten under there? I removed the board completely, careful not to stick myself with the nails underneath, and peered into the small cove in my floor.
A stack of wrinkled papers. A CD. Some brightly-wrapped gifts.
And, facing me but looking away, his face, beautiful, more agonizing than it was in my mind every second of the day.
Pictures he'd stolen when he stole away. Wait. Pictures he hadn't stolen. Things he hadn't taken. All of it, he'd left with me.
For a moment, there was nothing-no breath or movement-and I think that the world finally, finally paused with me. Then I reached into the hole and held his picture, took in his face, his posture, and the way his hand curved around my waist possessively. I was his. He wanted me. He had wanted me.
It wasn't so much like waking up for me-more like a tape being thrown into fast-forward. I felt as if I was catching up with everything, my soul rising from where it had been left in the forest and charging through the trees, towards my house, up the stairs, and slamming through the back of me, and then-
There it was. Me. I wasn't gone any longer. My seams were pulling back together. For the first time in months, I felt it.
"Edward," I breathed. "You lied."