Summary: The later parts of New Moon from Edward's point of view. Begins with Rosalie's phone call.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the Twilight characters. Some speech taken from the New Moon extras section on Stephenie Meyer's website.
A/N: I'm writing this by request for a friend. Hope you like it, Custard!
Searching for Ecstasy
Chapter One: The End of His World
Since leaving Forks, I had discovered that memory is both a blessing and a curse. I can't remember much of my human life. What I do recall are blurred pictures viewed through dull eyes that perceived less than half of all that was in the world. For my kind, memory is so much more than a series of images that fade and crumble over time. We recall the moment exactly as it happened. Every word, and the inflections they were spoken with; every slight change of facial expression; every breath.
Memories were the closest I would ever come to dreaming. Sometimes, when the urge to return to Bella became almost unbearable, I would permit myself to become lost in one of my happiest memories. Just to make my struggle a little easier, I told myself. Just to get me through another day.
In my mind I relived one of the many perfect days I had been granted over the summer. We were in our meadow. How wonderful it was to think of something as ours. For so many months I had denied myself any sort of claim on Bella, but occasionally I weakened and allowed myself that indulgence.
It was a day that would normally have kept me confined to the house, but as I was confident of the seclusion of our meadow I had decided to risk the sun. It was worth the very small danger to see Bella lift her face to the cloudless sky and smile. I knew that she wished she could walk freely with me in the sun, although for fear of hurting me she would never have admitted it. That was one of the many reasons I had left her, so that she could have a normal –
No, I pleaded with myself. Reality was creeping in on the memory, and if I allowed that to continue I would be dragged away from Bella.
Instead I forced myself to focus on the minutiae of the day. Esme had packed a picnic for Bella. Although she protested against what she perceived as people taking too much trouble over her, my mother had persisted in cooking meal after meal until she knew exactly what Bella liked. When I opened the hamper I found just the right amount of food; enough that she wouldn't go hungry, but not so much that she would force herself to eat everything so as not to hurt Esme's feelings.
Although there was a small stack of sandwiches, Bella dived straight for the slice of fresh strawberry cheesecake. I opened my mouth to gently scold her (she had barely touched her breakfast) but was stopped by the simple happiness in her face as she plucked a strawberry from the top of the cake and popped it into her mouth. She repeated the action until all the strawberries were gone, and her eyes were half closed in pleasure and the corners of her mouth were lifted into a serene smile.
The smile faded as she looked at me. Unknowingly I had edged closer to her, leaning towards her and drinking in the sight of her pleasure.
"What?" she asked. Her hands flew to her face, checking that there were no stray flecks of food. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes; of course she would think that I was staring at her in disgust rather than delight.
Slowly, I raised my hand and touched the tip of my index finger to her bottom lip, reddened by the strawberries. "You are beautiful," I said simply.
The blush that crept over her cheeks wasn't a surprise. It appeared whenever I pointed out the obvious fact of her beauty, and enhanced both her loveliness and her enticing scent. What was a surprise was that she didn't argue as she normally would have done. Perhaps the sincerity in my voice stopped her. Whatever the reason, instead of protesting she placed a tender kiss against my finger.
A dazzling smile, one that I knew made her heart flutter, crept over my face. "I love you," I murmured.
But because I couldn't escape the fact that I didn't deserve Bella, that as much as I wanted her I could never have her, the memory changed. We were plunged into shadow as the sky clouded over. Rather than reaching out for me, her arms were wrapped around herself in a defensive posture. Her clothes suddenly seemed too big for her; they hung off her body, making her look frighteningly vulnerable. Love and trust no longer shone from her eyes; instead there was only the terrible pain I had seen written on her face when I left her in the forest.
"You're lying," she moaned, unshed tears glistening in her eyes.
I desperately wanted to comfort her. I would have given anything to pull her into my arms and make her believe that my heart, my pitiful excuse for a soul, my very being belonged to her and always would. Fate, or my subconscious, however, isn't that kind. I had caused her this pain with my disappearance; it was brutally fair that I should be forced to watch it, and be torn apart by it.
The next time I opened my eyes I was back in the attic of the tenement building I had been hiding in. I heaved forwards with a cry of pain, bringing my legs up to my chest and resting my forehead against my knees. As my body shook with tearless sobs, dust shook free from my shoulders and drifted to the floor. I had barely moved in a week. The rats and spiders that had thought I was as inanimate as the rotting wood they lived in scurried to safety.
The memories were beautiful while I relived them, but they made coping with reality that much more difficult.
Go back, you idiot! My mind screamed at me. Go back to her, grovel if you have to! You can't be happy without her, she can't be happy without –
"No!" I whispered fiercely, clenching my fists. "I will not go back. She deserves a better life than I can give her."
I realised that my phone had been buzzing in my pocket for some time. Frightened that I would give in to the almost irresistible urge to return to Forks if I continued the internal argument, I grabbed the phone with relief for the distraction. It was with a vague sense of shock that I realised the number flashing on the screen was Rosalie's.
I snapped open the phone.
"What?" I asked shortly.
"Oh, wow. Edward answered the phone. I feel so honoured."
I ended the call. I was in no mood to deal with Rosalie's acerbity. It began to vibrate again almost immediately and it occurred to me that, despite her sarcasm, perhaps she actually had something important to say. Perhaps something was wrong with Esme and Carlisle, other than the obvious fact that their ungrateful son had abandoned them. Growling, I answered the phone.
"Get on with it," I ordered.
"I thought you would want to know that Alice is in Forks," said Rosalie in a rush.
My fist almost punched through the floorboards. "What?"
"You know how Alice is – she thinks she knows everything. Like you."
I snarled quietly to myself. Alice had promised she would leave Bella alone. She had sworn she would never return to Forks or look for her future. She had agreed, albeit with extreme reluctance, that a clean break from us would be better for Bella. So why had she gone back on her word?
"Edward? Don't you even care why Alice is there?"
"Not particularly," I lied.
"Well, of course, she's not exactly breaking the rules. I mean, you only warned us to stay away from Bella, right? The rest of Forks doesn't matter."
Bella wasn't in Forks? This was… good. She must have returned to her mother. I tried to ignore the small, selfish part of me that said it would be a little more difficult to find her when I decided I could no longer live without her. I couldn't quite ignore the feeling of my heart breaking again when I realised that this must mean she had turned her back on me.
"So you don't need to be angry with Alice," said Rosalie after a prolonged silence.
"Then why did you call me, Rosalie, if not to get Alice in trouble? Why are you bothering me? Ugh!" My finger twitched towards the button that would disconnect the call.
"Wait! That's not why I called."
"Then why? Tell me quickly, and then leave me alone."
"Well…"
"Spit it out, Rosalie. You have ten seconds."
"I think you should come home. I'm tired of Esme grieving and Carlisle never laughing. You should feel ashamed at what you've done to them. Emmett misses you all the time and it's getting on my nerves. You have a family. Grow up and think of something besides yourself."
I felt a stab of guilt. I had known that leaving the family would hurt my parents, but I wasn't ready to return. Seeing me in my current state would hurt them far more than my absence. To Rosalie, who I thought was probably more concerned about the inconvenience the situation caused her, I wasn't prepared to explain this.
"Interesting advice, Rosalie. Let me tell you a little story about a pot and a kettle…"
"I am thinking of them, unlike you. Don't you care how much you've hurt Esme, if no one else? She loves you more than the rest of us, and you know that. Come home. I thought once this whole Forks thing was finished, you'd get over it."
"Forks was never the problem, Rosalie," I said exasperatedly. "Just because Bella has moved to Florida, it doesn't mean that I'm able… Look, Rosalie. I really am sorry, but, trust me, it wouldn't make anyone happier if I were there."
Unusually, Rosalie was hesitant. "Um…"
The hesitance alarmed me, alerted me to the fact that something was wrong. "What is it that you're not telling me, Rosalie?" I demanded. "Is Esme alright? Is Carlisle-"
"They're fine. It's just… well, I didn't say that Bella moved." She paused momentarily before rushing on. "They didn't want to tell you, but I think that's stupid. The quicker you get over this, the sooner things can go back to normal. Why let you mope around the dark corners of the world when there's no need for it? You can come home now. We can be a family again. It's over."
It amazes me now that my mind didn't leap to the conclusion that Bella was hurt, but she had promised me that she would take care of herself. I was so utterly certain that she would never break her promise to me that it didn't occur to me that she was hurt – or worse. Instead I floundered in confusion, trying and failing to guess what Rosalie was hinting at.
"Edward?" prompted Rosalie.
"I don't understand what you are saying, Rosalie," I said slowly.
There was that hesitation again, so unlike Rosalie.
"She's dead, Edward. I'm… sorry. You have a right to know, though, I think. Bella… threw herself off a cliff two days ago. Alice saw it, but it was too late to do anything. I think she would have helped, though, broken her word, if there had been time. She went back to do what she could for Charlie. You know how she's always cared for him-"
I hit the button to terminate the call, cutting her off mid sentence.
It was a joke. A sick, twisted joke that only a mind like Rosalie's could invent. Didn't she understand? Didn't she have the slightest comprehension of what a world without Bella would mean to me? She would have been furious if I had joked about Emmett's death.
Selfish, cruel creature. I almost crushed the phone to dust in my hand. A small, logical part of my mind that wasn't blinded by rage restrained me. Although Rosalie's news had to be a lie, I had to be certain. One quick phone call and I could resume my existence, such as it was.
The voice that answered the phone was unfamiliar, and I had to fight down a wave of disappointment that it wasn't Bella. I wasn't scared, not yet; I was still too confident of Rosalie's spite. I had just wanted desperately to hear Bella's voice. Even though I would not (or so I told myself) speak to her, I wanted to hear her calling to me, wanted that tenuous connection to her. In my own way, I am just as selfish as my sister.
"Swan residence," said the unknown voice.
When I spoke, the voice that came out of my mouth was my father's. "This is Dr. Carlisle Cullen. May I please speak to Charlie?"
"He's not here." The voice was suddenly hostile.
My brows snapped together in annoyance. "Well, where is he then?"
"He's at the funeral."
I dropped the phone.
Bella. My Bella. The source of all that was light and good in my world. She was gone. She had died two days ago. How had I not realised before now? The world should have become a darker and colder place for her death, as it was now.
I saw Bella in our meadow. Bella in class, absentmindedly twisting a lock of hair around her finger. Bella lying next to me as she slept, my name a loving whisper on her lips. Bella with her clear, trusting eyes, so unwisely offering me her heart.
Bella broken, lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of a cliff. I had no trouble imagining it because I had seen her like that once before. I had been terrified then that she would never open her eyes again, but she did because I saved her. I sucked the venom from her veins and brought her back to life. But there could be no last minute rescue this time. Her eyes would never flutter open again, blood would never rush to warm her cool skin again, because I hadn't been there to save her.
The stranger had said that Charlie was at the funeral. Were they burying her now? Were they shovelling mounds of dirt onto her coffin, hiding her beloved face from me forever? The thought of Bella, who belonged in the sunlight, in the cold ground tipped me over the edge.
A high keening pierced the air. It wasn't a human sound, but the agonised howling of an animal. It grew in volume until it shook the wooden rafters around my head and penetrated every room in the building. I heard the cry repeated in dozens of different minds. Children clung to their parents, who could offer no explanation or comfort. Those who were alone seemed to shrink as they stared in fear towards the ceiling.
Their terror broke me out of my haze of grief and silenced me. I no longer feared exposure, but the word reminded me of something I knew I must do. My usually quick mind was astonishingly slow to make the connection. Exposure… Punishment.
I realised what needed to be done, and the knowledge filled me, not with relief because I could never have that while I lived and she didn't, but with a sense of purpose.
Even though I had dropped the phone, I had not damaged it. That small piece of rationality had restrained me once again. It had known, before the rest of my mind had caught up, that I would need it again.
Moving slowly, as if weights had been attached to my limbs, I scooped the phone up. I noticed, because it is part of my nature to notice everything, that only a minute had elapsed since I had ended the call with the stranger. My grief for Bella had rendered me insensible for only a minute. My mouth twisted in an ugly grimace.
"I will give you an eternity," I promised in a fervent whisper.
I punched in a new set of numbers. A woman answered within seconds, asking politely in Spanish what she could do to help me. With a staggering effort of will, I forced my voice into a semblance of normality and said, "I would like to book a seat on the next flight to Volterra."