Disclaimer: I don't own Edward or Bella, or anyone else from Twilight or New Moon, but I do own Brendan March. Too bad he's not a vampire...

History Repeats Itself

The much bothersome pinging sound of the windows deflecting the pouring rain outside our house prevented me from drifting to sleep. As a matter of fact, I was wide awake not only because of the multitude of water droplets, but also because I was listening to a conversation. Well, half of one at least. My wife Bella was soundly sleeping, an undecipherable mumble escaping her lips every now and then.

Slowly, her murmurs became more pronounced and I was able to understand a few words. "I love you," she was saying.

"I love you, too," I responded, smiling, though my sincere words fell on deaf ears.

"Please don't," she said, a little louder than before. She sounded like she was pleading with someone.

Suddenly, I felt sick as a horrible realization dawned on me. I should have known she wasn't talking to me in her dream. She never did. She was having a nightmare about him again.

"No!" she wailed and started screaming.

"Bella," I called her name in an attempt to bring her back to our bedroom. She was waking up like this in the middle of the night more often, screaming and thrashing, and it broke my heart every time. I knew that her nightmares were unlike those of most people. She mainly tossed and turned during the nights, mumbling his name. Oh, how I hate that name.

When I met Isabella Swan we attended the same college, the University of Washington. Our first conversation, a rather short exchange of words, was during biology when we were lab partners.

"Hi," I had said timidly. "My name is Brendan." I paused to control my wavering voice. "Brendan March."

"Bella Swan," she mumbled, not even bothering to look at my face, which was a good thing seeing how it was probably beet red. I was always a little awkward around women, especially women as beautiful as Isabella. Her brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, were as dark as her hair, which came down to the middle of her back. her thick hair set off her very pale skin and thin frame. I had the impression that she wasn't just physically fragile, but emotionally unstable as well. I wondered what could have damaged her so.

After five years of marriage, I still wondered at how much pain this Edward caused my sweet Bella. Every day, I showered her with my love, hoping it would bring her out of the zombie-like state she was stuck in, like a car in a ditch, and as the days passed I watched my efforts go to waste. She had explained to me before our marriage, in a voice that was monotonous, yet full of sorrow, that she loved Edward as a teenager and that he left her, confirming her doubts that he never loved her and leaving her forever broken and useless. She warned me that loving her was like loving an inanimate object and that she could never love me fully, as she was once was able to. But she cared enough to tell me, and that was more than enough for me to stay with her.

"Bella?" I asked. By now she had stopped screaming and her silence made me doubt whether she had ever actually woken.

"I'm sorry, Brendan. I just…I'm sorry," she whispered. Her eyes, which I could only see by the faint red light radiating from the alarm clock on our bedside table, revealed a plethora of emotion: guilt, misery, and a hint of happiness upon seeing my face. It was this last bit that I lived for; if I could bring Bella just an ounce of joy every so often, I could fulfill my heart's desires.

She lowered her eyes and buried her head in my chest. I held her to me tightly.

"It's okay, honey. It's over now." Of course, this was a lie. I lied to her out of kindness, to soothe her fears away for the moment. This usually worked, but now, as I felt her newly shed warm tears on my skin, new worries arose. What had changed? What exactly had she meant by "I'm sorry?" I pushed her shoulders back a little to get a better look at her face. She kept her eyes down and sniffled quietly.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Don't be sorry, Bells. None of this is your fault." My mind strayed to who, or rather what, for no human could be so callous as to desert Bella, was actually responsible for Bella's current state. "It's that bastard who destroyed your life. If he hadn't left…" I trailed off because I could see the anguish displayed on her face, twisting her beautiful features until they were almost unrecognizable. Clearly, she still remembered that fateful day. Tears pooled again in her sad eyes and I regretted verbalizing my hate and frustration. I still believed that Edward, disgusting creature that he was, should go to hell, but I mentally kicked myself for causing Bella more pain. I resumed my original argument.

"You have nothing to apologize f—" I began again before she cut me off.

"Yes. Yes, I do. Don't you see? I'm destroying your life! Just like…like he did to me." We both knew who the "he" was. I figured it would hurt her to hear his name out loud, and much more from her own lips. "Almost every night I wake up screaming and scared, and you…you just pretend it's a normal part of marriage. I can only imagine the thoughts running inside your head. You probably think I'm a nutcase!" Here she closed her eyes, hiding herself from me.

A feeling of shock coursed through my body. How could she think I felt that way? I didn't, couldn't understand what she was going through, but I didn't consider her crazy.

Her lips parted and she spoke again, eyes still closed. "You don't need to stay here because you feel sorry for me. I'll make it on my own, somehow."

Her voice cracked on the last word. The collecting tears brimmed over the rims of her eyes, spilling onto her pale cheeks as she paused to recollect herself. She opened her eyes and there was a spark of something unreadable. Determination? Relief? "I can't let myself drag you down any further. I'm not good for you, Brendan." She inhaled deeply as if using the air around her to deliver her next statement with the force necessary. "I…I want a divorce. And I want you to leave."

"What?" I managed to choke out. My heart stopped for a second and then started back up again, pumping out a quick disjointed rhythm. Maybe I had heard her incorrectly. I refused to believe my ears.

She sighed, seeming deeply troubled. "You heard me correctly. I want a divorce and I want you to leave." This time she spoke with more conviction. Her carefully articulated words pierced my heart. Wasn't it painfully clear that I needed her and she needed me? Or at least I thought she needed me. Didn't she understand that she was repeating Edward's actions? I couldn't understand her reasoning. At the moment, I couldn't really understand anything. My world seemed a swirling tornado around me, a blur of colors and shapes and emotion, all threatening to overwhelm me. And I let it.

"You can't ask me to do that!" I yelled. The alarmed and slightly frightened look in her beautiful eyes, probably caused my the intensity in my own eyes and the volume of my voice, brought me back to my troubled senses. I already knew I couldn't deny this beautiful creature anything - but I could beg.

"I can't...I won't leave you." There were no longer any traces of the harsh tones that formerly invaded voice. I was pleading now. "I love you, remember? Don't you remember our wedding. Till death do us part..?" Through my tear-blurred eyes I could see my wife silently shaking her head in refusal.

"You're forgetting one thing Brendan," she said, a watery smile on her tear-stained face.

"What?" Where was she going with this?

"I'm already dead, Brendan."

"No! You're not dead to me Bella. I'm still here for you. Don't do this. Please Bella, don't. I love you."

She tried to free herself from my hold, struggling to lift my hands from her shoulders. Realizing her wishes, I unwillingly moved my hands away. She sent me a small apologetic and grateful smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Even under these circumstances, her weak smile stirred something within me.

That was when I realized it was in fact not true happiness that I felt when I looked at her, but just a delusion, a weak phantom of delight that I had unknowingly created. It didn't make any sense, but it seemed as if I deluded myself into feeling happiness. I still wanted it; I desired happiness for myself, but more importantly, I wanted Bella to be happy. If this made her happy, if my leaving brought her contentment, I would leave, regardless of its effects on me.

"When do you want to do this?" I asked, sentencing myself to a future without the woman I loved, the woman I love. My flat voice shocked me. I wondered if Isabella heard the sudden change in my tone and if this was how she felt from the time Edward left her when she was eighteen. I wondered if this was how I would live out the rest of my life. If you could call this living, that is.

Now, twenty-three years after Isabella broke my heart, I am no longer confused about how she felt, or perhaps how she still feels now. I am experiencing it first-hand. It's as if I am a modern Prometheus and an eagle tears at my heart, rather than my liver, every time I think her name or recall a memory from my younger days. There's a constant feeling of emptiness in my chest that never seems to disappear.

Perhaps the only beneficial result of our separation is a change in my perception of Edward Cullen. If he left Bella for the same reason why she left me, he can't be that bad, can he?

Please review. Right now, I'm desperation incarnate - to the point where I'll accept flames. I just want to know what you all think; even if your thoughts aren't pleasant. This is my first fanfic ever and I personally think it's mediocre, but with all the fanfics I read daily I figure I should submit something. Also, one million apologies if the writing is scrunched together. I read somewhere about double-spacing or something so that dialogue doesn't get mushed, but since I'm a beginner I'm not sure if I did it properly.

XOXO, Tree1