A/N: Short and depressing. Yay?
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When she is at home, she never is really happy.
She kisses her husband because it's what you're supposed to do, because the vows are solemn even when "till death do us part" will never come.
But when her lips move, her heart does not jump with them. It doesn't stutter or flow, and her cheeks don't burn red anymore.
She never thought that love wouldn't exist in death.
She wonders sometimes how he does it. How he loves her. Because even through her fuzzy human memories, she remembers feeling excited and anxious, watching every movement on his flawless face, tasting the honey in his words when she kissed him. But the moment his teeth sunk into her skin, it was gone.
Maybe love isn't eternal.
She tries to shove the thoughts away from her head—thoughts of legends and tribal myths, the stuff that twelve-year-old boys kill for: a destiny, a purpose. When she manages to choke out his name (always her Jake, like a title, like he a belonging), she knows that he has a destiny. He will fall in love and he will forget her. He will realize that he was young and stupid and she was not worth it, and when he does, his new love will be forever. Not the same forever that she is in, but a special kind—where love doesn't stop with the beating of a heart.
Even when they are making love, it does not touch her. She goes through the motions like a routine, like brushing her teeth or taking a shower—easy, simple tasks that never really require much thought, that never spark emotion. He sees it in her eyes and she wishes she could say that she loved him, that she's sorry, but she doesn't: she's not.
His face enters her head when she is staring into space, imagining a different world. Some place where love made sense, where she could have life and love, or love and death. She was wrong to think that she could have it all.
It's his words that rip through her dead heart when she is shaking, when she is hunting, when she forgets to search through her broken thoughts like old belongings: I don't love you. I never did.
He bares his teeth, a low growl ripping from deep inside his sun-brown chest.
"Jake," she whispers. "Jake, it's me. It's Bella."
He shakes his head and his cropped hair glints in the sunlight.
"No," he says, a look of disgust filling his aging features. "It's not."
Her face contorts with unshed tears.
"I'm sorry," she breathes. "I made a mistake."
"Yeah, well," he turns away, but not before she catches the sadness in his eyes. "I told you so, didn't I?"
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END
