Set Fire to the Rain, a twilight fanfic

A/N: I came up with this last night and just couldn't get it out of my head. This one shot is set in New Moon. Bella wakes up from the nightmare that's been haunting her ever since Edward left. I thought Adele's 'Set Fire to the Rain' was perfect for this! I recommend listening to it while you read this song fic! Enjoy! Please review if you liked it and please review if you didn't! I always strive to get better.

I posted this story late last night and I didn't realise that the formatting had been screwed up due to my not looking at it again after I posted it! I'm sorry for that!

Disclaimer: I neither own Twilight nor Adele's song 'Set Fire to the Rain', I am just borrowing both!

SET FIRE TO THE RAIN

I let it fall, my heart

And as it fell, you rose to claim it

It was dark and I was over

Until you kissed my lips and you saved me

The nightmare wouldn't go away.

—

I woke with a start, my t-shirt damp with cold sweat, and through myself around almost automatically, pressing my face into my pillow to cut off the inevitable scream. Charlie hadn't come running for a very long time now, but I didn't want him to hear my pain, didn't want him to worry. He deserved better than that, deserved a daughter who wasn't damaged, whose heart hadn't been shattered into a million pieces, so that only emptiness and pain remained.

I'd been having the same dream—no, nightmare—for months. It never changed. It was always the same. The forest, silent and dark—the fading daylight was never strong enough to penetrate the canopy of leaves high above me. The air strangely charged the way it was before a thunderstorm. Shadows lurking behind the trees, underneath the bushes, in the branches above me. Everywhere.

And him, of course. Always him.

I sat up, switching on the lights, hoping they'd chase the last fragments of the nightmare away. But they never did. Nothing could make me forget that horrible, horrible dream.

Why couldn't I forget? He'd promised I'd never see him again, but he'd lied. He was always there, was always on my mind, haunting me. "It's not normal," Charlie had said. No, it wasn't normal. The darkness that had wrapped itself around the pieces of my heart and my soul, the darkness that was my constant companion wherever I went, waiting for a moment of weakness, so it could slash at my soul, could destroy what was left of me, wasn't normal.

But it was always there.

Maybe it would never go away again.

—

My hands, they're strong

But my knees were far too weak

Stand in your arms

Without fall into your feet

I couldn't cry anymore.

—

I had no tears left, had shed them all. I covered my burning eyes with my hands, trying to ease the pain. I felt so drained, so empty. During the day it was never this hard. It was so easy to pretend that everything was fine, that I was getting better. Charlie saw the changes in me and he'd stopped talking about sending me to Florida.

I didn't want to leave. I was afraid that if I left Forks, that if I left the place where we had met, where I had loved, I would lose my mind completely. I already was. He'd taken everything away from me, had only left my memories behind, but I knew that if only he'd been able to, he'd have taken them away from me, too. Those memories were the only thing I had left, the only thing I had to convince myself that he'd really existed, that I hadn't been caught in a dream that was too good to be true.

—

And that's why I stayed, why I wouldn't leave.

But there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew

All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true

And the games you'd play, you would always win, always win

But it had been too good to be true, hadn't it?

—

He'd told me that he loved me so many times and every single time he'd lied. Every time he'd told me how much I meant to him, would always mean to him, he'd lied. And I had believed his lies. I should have known that he was too good for me, that someone like him would never fall for someone like me, but I hadn't. If I had, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much, wouldn't have torn my soul apart. If I had, if I hadn't allowed myself to fall in love, my heart wouldn't have been shattered into a thousand cutting shards.

—

But I set fire to the rain

Watched it pour as I touched your face

Well, it burned while I cried

'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name

And then he'd left me.

—

Deep down I'd always known that he would eventually, that it was only a matter of time until he realised that I wasn't good enough for him, that he didn't love me as much as he thought he did. But I hadn't been able to bring myself to admit that, had given myself over to the illusion that maybe, just maybe he'd stay, wouldn't leave me after all and I'd have a fairly tale happy ending.

What a fool I'd been.

—

When I lay with you I could stay there

Close my eyes, feel you here forever

You and me together, nothing is better

I didn't allow myself to remember very often.

—

I was afraid that if I did, I'd lose myself, would lose what little was left of me. But sometimes the memories were simply there and I couldn't run away from them. Sometimes I didn't want to run away. They were always the same, just like the dream. My room, me curled up against his side as we lay on my bed. The meadow, his skin sparkling in the sun like tiny diamonds. The birthday party that had destroyed everything.

No, that wasn't right. It hadn't destroyed anything, because we'd never had anything. He would have left no matter what, would have realised sooner or later that I wasn't for him, that I wasn't strong enough to be in his world, was only a fragile and plain and clumsy human.

—

'Cause there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew

All the things you'd say they were never true, never true

And the games you'd play, you would always, always win

Everything we'd had had been a lie and yet I couldn't let him go.

—

I had to. I knew that. If I wanted to get better, wanted to be happy ever again, I had to let him go. Just as he'd wanted me to. But I didn't know how, didn't know how I could banish him out of my soul without losing part of me, too.

—

But I set fire to the rain

Watched it pour as I touched your face

Well, it burned while I cried

'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name

—

And that nightmare that wouldn't go away.

That dream that kept reminding me of that horrible night, the night where part of me had died.

—

Sometimes I wake up by the door

And heard you calling, must be waiting for you

Even now when we're already over

I can't help myself from looking for you

—

Sometimes he was there, in that dream.

When he was, he was always standing in the shadows like a ghost, watching me as I scrambled frantically after him. I'd try to reach him, would try to be fast enough even though I knew I'd fail, just like I'd failed to find him that horrible day so many months ago. He was always out of reach even when he was standing right in front of me, was just a mirage my mind had conjured up to mock me.

—

I set fire to the rain

Watched it pour as I touched your face

Well, it burned while I cried

'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name

—

It was three in the morning.

The night was black as pitch, the light of the moon not strong enough to penetrate the clouds, just like the light of my soul wasn't strong enough to fight the darkness that held me captive. Maybe Jake was out there somewhere in the trees, watching over me, making sure I was safe. He always was. But even he wasn't strong enough to keep the darkness at bay.

Nobody was.

I got out of bed and stumbled to the door—maybe a glass of warm milk would help me go back to sleep. My toe caught on something, just as I was halfway to the door. I tripped, crashing head first into my closet with a bang so loud I was sure Charlie would come charging into my room any minute.

He didn't.

I sat up, rubbing my forehead and inspecting my toes to make sure I hadn't broken them. I didn't relish the thought of spending the rest of the night in the ER. I let my eyes travel across the floor, looking for whatever it was that I'd tripped over, and found the source of my latest accident immediately. A floorboard had come loose. Leaning forward, I picked it up to put it back where it belonged—and froze when something silver caught my eye. Dropping the board back on the floor, I crept to the edge of the little hole and peered inside.

I gasped. For a moment I couldn't breathe, couldn't even think. My brain was refusing to process what my eyes were seeing. It was there. It was there. Everything. Everything I'd thought he'd taken from me. The CD he'd made me. The pictures I'd taken, the pictures that had disappeared from the scrapbook I'd put them into. Even the vouchers of the plane tickers Carlisle and Esme had given me.

I reached for the pictures with shaky hands. My heart started racing as I turned the very first picture to look at it. Edward in my living room in his glorious perfection, his hair glowing in the dim light of the lamp, his eyes the deepest shade of gold imaginable. I flipped through them one by one. He was there. He was there. It hadn't been a dream. He'd been real. I was holding the proof in my hands.

And suddenly I knew what I had to do.

—

I set fire to the rain

And I threw us into the flames

Well, I felt something die

'Cause I knew that that was the last time, the last time

—

I wrapped my blanket over my shoulders and tiptoed to the door and down the hall as quietly as I could. Charlie's breathing was even, quiet. He was sound asleep and that was good. I didn't want him to catch me. He'd think I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had. I didn't care. I snuck down the stairs and into the kitchen.

I found what I was looking for in the very first drawer I opened.

The night was as cold as it was dark. Wind pulled at my hair, swept it across my face. I wrapped the blanket more securely around myself as I hurried into the forest, paying not attention to the shadow moving about in the trees. If I got lost, I was sure that Jake would find me.

The forest was exactly like it was in my dream, like it had been the night he'd left me. The darkness. The shadows in the trees. No sound but my own beating heart. I pulled out the pictures I'd stuffed into the pocket of my sweats, my heart beating so violently now that I was sure it was close to breaking out of my chest.

It had been raining all day, and while the sky seemed to be done crying for now, didn't seem to have any more tears to shed just like me, everything was still dripping wet. Water seeped into the boots I'd hastily stepped into, cold crept up my legs. I was going to catch a cold.

And yet I didn't care.

I held the lighter I'd taken from the kitchen to the first picture, the one of Edward in my living room. It caught fire immediately, its edges beginning to curl upwards. Black, foul smelling smoke drifted away. I could feel the heat in the tips of my fingers as the flame slowly devoured the pieces of my past. I let the remains drift away on the wind before I lit the next picture, watching it burn. And then the next.

And the next.

Until they were gone.

—

Let it burn…