AN: i wanted to post a Christmas story, so here it is. it takes place the December after Edward and the Cullens left Forks. it is kinda depressing, but anyways............
The Nightmare of Christmas
Summary: (During New Moon) Bella never had a worse Christmas. No one's cheer could get to her through her numbness. Mike's mistletoe, Charlie playing Santa, Jessica's hostility.... What could Christmas be without him?
I just sat there, staring into the malicious crowd. I stared, without thought, without caring, without really seeing....
I wasn't sure why I came to the town party I the first place. Maybe it was because Charlie was going to play Santa Claus for the little kids, or because Mike had talked to me for the first time in two months to invite me, or because Jessica had scowled and sneered at me when she learned of his invitation. Or maybe I just didn't know what else there could possibly be.
I saw Mike at the far end of the room. He was jokingly holding a mistletoe over their heads as he leaned down—
I looked away instinctively, out of courtesy for them and the unusual will to not pain myself further. I saw Charlie in the center of the crowd, sitting the town's children on his knee, pushing their hands away when they attempted to pull at his long white beard.
Angela and Ben were in the peripheral of everything, talking and laughing with each other. This was one of the few times that I envied them and their easygoing relationship. They clicked together so perfectly, genuinely enjoying each other's company.
I pulled my legs up to my chest, my heels resting on the edge of the chair. I couldn't fall apart, not here, not with all these people. No tears came to my eyes, no frown to my nonchalant mask. But my torso, how it ached. I could feel the hole I had worked so hard to patch up ripping open once again.
We had never had a Christmas together. I had come to Forks in January, and he left in September. How I wish it could have been different.
Christmas had never held much of my interest, even when I was a child before I came to Forks. But this was nothing compared to all those other years. I would rather live every other Christmas a hundred times than be here, tonight, with all these strangers.
But...I would live this night a thousand times, if I could only see him when it was over, hold him in my arms, know he was real. When one's memories begin to fade, they feel more like dreams, watched by someone on the side. When they are old, the no longer feel like reality. They feel like they were lived, watched, from the outside. Because no one can belong in a dream.
And this tortuous night was passing before my eyes, the present moment, but already looking like a dream.
I didn't belong here, bringing my misery into all this cheeriness. I was on the outside looking in. it was like a two-way mirror: I could see them, not too well, but enough to see the big picture. And no matter how hard, how long, how much I looked, they could not see me.
He had made me belong, made me be a part, rather than apart.
What could Christmas, this night, this life, be without him?
It couldn't.