A loud crash woke Bella from her nightmare. She blinked her eyes open, breathing heavily. The clock read 2:14. She began twisting in her blanket, trying helplessly to find something, but nothing was there. Then she heard a knock on the door.
"Bella?" a worried voice asked.
"Y-Yeah, Dad?"
The doorknob turned, and the door opened slowly.
"Bells, are you all right? I heard a crash," he said.
She put her hand to her forehead tiredly and blinked at him.
"Um, yeah. I accidentally, uh, knocked over…something," she told him in the darkness. "I'll clean it up in the morning. Go back to sleep, 'kay?"
"Well, if you say so. You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, Dad."
He closed the door, and Bella fell back onto her pillow. She turned the light on and glanced down at the floor. There was broken glass everywhere. Bella had knocked over a crystal vase Edward had left her before she arrived home last night. Tons of red roses were scattered over the glass.
"Edward…she whispered to herself."
A broom caught Bella's eye in the corner of the room.
"Alice. Figures," she thought.
Tonight, like every night Bella spent without Edward, was dreadful. She couldn't go back to sleep, she missed him too much.
She put on a pair of grey slippers and cleaned up the mess.
It was now 2:42.
It was Carlisle's three-hundred-something birthday, and Alice, of course, had insisted on celebrating tonight, since he was busy during the day. Bella, selfishly, wanted Edward to ditch the party, and stay with her. But he told her it'd be better for them if they didn't spend every night together anyway. But Bella knew that wasn't it. No one could turn down a begging Alice.
She picked up her copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She'd been rereading the series for the third time. She was very fond of the character Cedric Diggory.
Forty minutes, five chapters, and three hundred snores from the sleeping Charlie across the hall later, she put the book down and sighed.
Bella decided to stay up all night. Once Edward sees her the next morning, he'd see what he'd done to her by not coming over.
Looking for something else to do, she took out her old notebook and began doodling.
"Edward + Bella," she wrote.
"R.I.P Cedric."
She drew little hearts and stars and squiggly lines all over the page. After three minutes, this was getting a little boring.
"Mmm…" she said, sniffing a red rose she salvaged.
She glanced at the clock. It was 3:29.
Bella put her notebook back in her night table drawer and pondered.
She kept herself somewhat busy for the last 3 hours until it was time to get ready for school. She read some more, drew some more, braided her hair, un-braided her hair, took some Tylenol for her headache, read some more, drew some more…
She was beginning to regret it now. She was tired and the makeup wasn't helping the circles under her eyes.
"Planning for the future," she told herself.
"Oh, Bella! What happened to you, love?" Edward asked her on the way to school. A smile was playing on the corner of his mouth.
"Never leave me alone at night ever again," she told him.
He retrieved a crystal vase filled with pink roses and handed them to her.
He kissed her forehead.
"Never."