The Black Balloon Contest
Title: Satellite
Your pen name: Feisty Y. Beden
Characters: Edward/Bella
Disclaimer: I do not own anything except for the blackness in my soul.
To see other entries in the Black Balloon Contest, please visit the C2 page: http://www(dot)fanfiction(dot)net/c2/78669/3/0/1/
Satellite
Qu'as-tu fait, ô toi que voilà
Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voilà,
De ta jeunesse? [1]
The light filters through the small window, and I can tell, even with that tiny, dingy swatch that it must be a beautiful day. I turn on the thin mattress; I can feel every coil. I was dreaming about her again, and she was so striking, laughing with her head thrown back, not caring who stared because of her loud laughter. She never cared what other people thought. I know today will be just like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. I can see all my tomorrows beginning just like today. I itch to have a smoke, but I know the minute I stand up, my day will begin, and I'd like this moment, this borderland between sleeping and waking, to last as long as possible. If I don't get out of bed, she's still here with me, dancing just behind my eyelids, as beautiful as ever.
***
Sometimes it's like you connect with the something beyond human understanding; you get a message directly from some divine being. Words appear, concrete, in your brain, like plastic alphabet magnets on the fridge, spelling out a truth that you can't possibly know, yet somehow do. That's what it was like the first time I met Bella. It was the first day of seventh grade, and there was this pretty thing with barrettes holding her thick, wavy hair back. She had a new backpack slung over one shoulder, and judging from the way she stood slightly crooked, she probably had just converted from two-strapped backpack wearing for junior high. She clutched a notebook to her chest, and her knees were bony and knocked together, and when I saw her it was as though everyone else ran by her at lightning speed as she stood, immobile, my center. You will love her forever, something whispered in my ear.
My twelve-year-old brain absorbed the message, even if the words were on a level I couldn't process. I probably felt it only as a shiver through me, but I still knew I'd been altered. I wasn't aware I'd walked right up to her until she grinned nervously at me, revealing a metallic smile. It was the first time I'd ever found braces beautiful.
"I'm Edward," I said, and my voice cracked. I tried to cough to cover it up, but I'm pretty sure she noticed.
"I'm Isabella, but everyone calls me Bella," she said, lisping slightly through her braces.
"You new?"
"Just moved here with my dad—he's the new chief of police."
"Cool. I can show you around if you want—I've lived here my whole life," I said, nodding sagely.
I wasn't sure what I was feeling; I just knew that I didn't feel centered unless she was by my side. Away from her, I fidgeted. With her, I was calm, even if we were just sitting side by side, working on our homework separately.
I suppose it was only natural that we'd end up dating. It hadn't been my intent that first day of junior high. I'd just been drawn into her orbit by her gravitational pull. I was her satellite. A planet's moon doesn't expect its planet to love it back. It's just happy to be by the planet's side.
Or maybe happiness has nothing to do with it. Maybe the satellite has no choice.
Did she kiss me first, or did I kiss her, or did we just collide? I try to remember now, and I can feel my hands sweating again, my tongue feeling like it's too large for my mouth, but I can't remember who did what first. It's like that whole debate over Han shooting first in Star Wars. Maybe my mind embellished, changed details, trying to make the story more than it was, when the original story would have been sufficient, if perhaps simpler. But the bottom line is that we kissed. It was awkward and sloppy, yet it was still perfect. One kiss, but three firsts: mine, hers, and ours.
Was it magical? Were there sparks? I would like to think so. I remember the butterflies, my blood pooling and pulsing in unexpected parts of my body, but neither of us was probably very good at it. Maybe Bella had practiced on her hand; rumor had it that that's what girls did at slumber parties. I'd heard some of the more mature boys talk about French kissing, and, as I'd had a mild germ phobia due to my physician father's lectures on hygiene, I'd found the concept repulsive. But when we kissed that first time, it seemed natural to want to taste her mouth. Her mouth was like mine, warm and soft, but sweeter. My tongue darted quickly into her mouth, worried if it moved any slower it would lose its nerve, and I nicked my tongue on her braces. I savored the tiny cut on my tongue. I liked that she'd marked me, that I'd have this reminder of what had happened when I went home that day, when I'd lie in bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling and seeing only her face.
We were going steady by high school, always together to the point that the other kids sort of left us alone. We were the boring marrieds of high school. But my sun rose and set with her, and I was happy just to be part of her orbit.
"Edward, don't you think you and Bella are getting too serious?" my dad would ask from time to time.
"I'm happy," was all I'd say. "Why should I mess with that?"
He'd press his lips together in a tight line and drop the subject. My mom thought it was fine, maybe even sweet, and she thought Bella was a good influence. She talked to the other moms, and their kids were cutting class, coming home drunk, keeping them up all night with worry. My mother slept soundly at night knowing that all I could see was Bella, and she me.
My—our—life was perfect. I felt so lucky to have figured it out while it seemed our classmates were floundering, gasping, thrust into the turbulence of adolescence unready with gills that hadn't yet evolved to lungs. When I looked at Bella, breathing was easy. The others may have thought we were boring, but I saw their couplings as desperate, awkward, and superficial. I could see my future before me, Bella by my side forever.
So it hit me like a ton of bricks when Bella said in the school parking lot, "I can't do this anymore."
"You can't do what?" I was kissing her fingertips, brushing her cool cheek with the back of my hand.
"Edward, you're all I've ever known. You've been my first … well, everything," she said, eyes cast downward, blushing. Although our bodies locked together easily, naturally, verbalizing our physical connection still embarrassed her.
"What's wrong with that?" I said gently, rubbing my thumb along her lower lip.
She pulled away. A car alarm was going off in the distance, and it felt like the sound came from the panic flooding my body. I shook my head—I must have misheard her.
"I need space," she whispered, avoiding my eyes.
Maybe she just wanted a little breathing room. We didn't need to spend every moment together. "Space? How much? I've been selfish, taking up all your time. You probably miss your friends." I threaded my fingers with hers, trying to bring her hand back to my mouth.
"No, Edward," she said, shaking her head. I was mesmerized watching her hair tumble around her face. She was always so beautiful. "We can't do this anymore."
"This?" Even if, deep down, I knew what she meant, I refused to believe it until she put it into words.
"This," she said, looking down toward our clasped hands. "Us."
"I don't understand," I said, even though I did.
"Are you being deliberately stupid?" She pried her hand out of mine.
"What did I do?" I asked. I felt like I was sinking into a hole.
"It's nothing you did," she said, looking at the sky. Her eyes looked wet.
"You … don't want to be with me?" I asked.
"We should … I need to be alone," she said, and when she blinked, two fat tears rolled down her face.
"No, please," I said, reaching for her.
"Just let me go, Edward, please." She turned and ran, and I stood in the parking lot until the sun went down as if I were a statue. I might have stayed there all night if my mom hadn't called to tell me to go pick up my sister Alice from ballet class.
I was like a zombie, and Alice chattered all the way home about the casting for the spring recital, oblivious that my world had just ended.
I didn't sleep that night; every moment I'd spent with Bella for the last four and a half years flickered behind my eyelids. I swore I wouldn't cry; I wasn't sure I even remembered how. So instead, my heart felt like it had stopped. I tried to force it to beat, imagined shocking myself with those paddles like I'd seen on medical dramas, but it was dead muscle within me.
The next morning, Bella was waiting at my assigned parking space. I wasn't sure what to say or how to act, but as soon as I'd gotten out of the car, she was in my arms, weeping. "I'm sorry, Edward. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it, not one word." I held her tightly and let her tears soak my shirt. My heart began to beat again. Reprieved.
And things went back to normal, or at least I pretended they had. Looking back, I can see that after that first break, things weren't the same. My heart did beat, but the valves now were flawed. I had glimpsed a future without Bella, and now I was afraid to move, afraid that anything I did might make her go away again.
Bella didn't leave my side, but sometimes it seemed she wasn't with me. Her eyes were far away, and I wondered if she'd outgrown me. When the new school year started, she made more of an effort to talk to our classmates. She went out for girls' night. She joined the school paper. She filled her afterschool time with activities, volunteering. I thought she wanted to give herself an edge for college applications, and I wanted her to stretch and grow, so I didn't say anything even though I missed her.
Sometimes I'd catch her looking at me when she thought I was lost in a book. She wore such a puzzling expression; it felt almost like hate, resentment, but when I'd look at her questioningly, her expression would morph into something like a smile.
"We're going to college next year," she said one night early our senior year.
"I know," I said.
We'd planned college a couple of years ago—we'd apply to the same schools and hope we'd get in together. When we graduated college, we would get engaged, and get married a year later. Then we would begin the rest of our lives. Bella wanted to travel—she'd never been outside the States.
"Where do you want to go first? I'll take you everywhere," I'd said one day as we lay on our stomachs on a blanket I'd spread out near the football fields. I'd packed her a picnic, and we were enjoying the rare sunshine and eating cheese and grapes with fresh, crusty bread.
"Paris," she'd answered immediately. "I want to walk where the poets and artists walked. I want to see the Moulin Rouge, Les Deux Magots, Notre Dame—everything. I want to eat snails and steak tartare and fois gras."
"Anything you want."
"I want to be kissed under the stars at the top of the Eiffel Tower."
"We'll do all of that and more," I'd promised.
"Pinkie swear?" she'd asked, eyes wide and childlike.
"Pinkie swear," I'd agreed, winding my pinkie with hers and squeezing.
Back then, I could see our future so clearly, but the image now wavered a little in my mind's eye like a mirage.
"What if we don't get in the same college?" she said, chewing on her pencil.
"We will." I was confident. We both studied hard and were at the top of the class.
"But what if we don't?"
"We will, but even if we don't, we'll be okay. Physical distance is meaningless," I said. "We'd make it work."
"Hmm," she said, and I couldn't tell if it were a murmur of assent or of doubt. Her brows were knitted in thought. Suddenly she said, "Hey, did you know Jessica Stanley's having a party next weekend?" Bella didn't generally like parties—she said all the noise hurt her head.
"Yeah?"
"Well, I was thinking that maybe we should go. It's senior year," she mused, "and we might not see these people again."
"Whatever you want," I said.
The night of the party, Bella seemed oddly nervous. She kept sending me out of her room so she could change tops, which seemed ridiculous since I knew her naked body as well as I knew my own. I thought maybe she wanted to see my reaction to her complete outfit. Her dad found me leaning against the railing in the hallway.
"How's it going?" he asked. He had dark circles under his eyes.
"Fine, sir," I said. I wanted to ask him if everything was okay at work, but since he was the police chief, I figured that stuff was probably confidential.
Finally Bella emerged from the room in a pretty shirt with a plunging neckline. She'd draped a scarf over her cleavage to pass the Chief's inspection. He smiled at her with tired eyes, started to say something, but stopped himself. "Have a good time tonight," he said instead, almost touching her face. He let his hand hang in the air, like he'd forgotten it was there.
There was an uncomfortable silence, so I said, "Bella, you look beautiful."
She seemed not to hear me. "Let's go," she said, walking past me to go down the stairs. "You ready?"
She was silent in the drive over, but that wasn't unusual. I snuck glances at her at lights and stop signs. She was turned away from me, looking out the window. She twisted a lock of hair around her slender finger.
"Love you," I said.
"Mmhmm," she said, and I suppose I should have known right then.
Maybe I did. Maybe I knew but denied it because I didn't want to believe it was true.
"Is the noise okay?" I asked as we walked through Jessica's open door.
"I'm fine, Edward," she said, taking her scarf off and wadding it into her purse. "Could you get me a drink? The kitchen looks really crowded."
"Of course—anything in particular?"
"Mix me something sweet and girly," she said, and I had to laugh because she always said the same thing. I loved the face she'd make whenever she'd take a sip of my beer, like a cat trying to cough up a hairball.
It took me longer than I expected to get to the baker's rack where all the liquor bottles had been set up. The floor was sticky, and the room was packed wall to wall with sweaty bodies. There were a few double-takes as I pushed my way through the kitchen. "Cullen's here?" I heard people murmur. A few girls brushed against me, pressing their chests into me "accidentally." I was used to this—I had received such attention since I hit my growth spurt in the eighth grade. It barely registered, because all I ever saw was Bella.
I mixed her a fuzzy navel. It wasn't the most sophisticated, and I vowed that one day I'd get a bartending book and add more interesting drinks to my repertoire. Tomorrow. I would do it tomorrow.
I walked back to the hallway, but Bella wasn't there. "Have you seen Bella?" I asked Jessica.
She had a funny look in her eye. "I think she went upstairs. She said she had to use the bathroom."
I jogged up the stairs and rapped softly on the bathroom door. "Bella? You in there?"
I heard thumping, the sound of a body falling, and I panicked. "Bella?" I said again. I rattled the doorknob. "Is everything okay?"
I could hear her moan, so I took my pocketknife out and used the large blade to unlock the door. Even though I had heard the simple lock pop, I still put all my weight behind the door as I pushed it open.
"Occupied!" shouted someone—Mike Newton—with his trousers half down. Bella was beneath him, her top off, one breast cupped in his hand.
I threw the drink on Mike and pulled him roughly away from her. "Leave her alone! What the fuck is wrong with you?" I turned to Bella and held out my hand. "Did he hurt you? Do I need to beat his ass?"
Bella looked at me with hatred. "Get out, Edward. God! I'm not this weak, perfect thing. Can you just accept that some things are my choice?"
"Your choice?" I echoed stupidly.
"I do exist separately from you, you know," she said, crossing her arms over her exposed breast.
"But … you've always been my center," I said, feeling so desperate that I didn't care that Newton was listening.
"Do you have any idea how smothering that is?"
"But you love me," I said. I didn't sound so sure.
Her eyes went dead, and she turned to Newton. "Can we find somewhere else to go?"
Newton grinned like the asshole he was. "Sorry, bro," he said. "You heard the lady."
She picked up her top and clutched it to her chest as Newton led her out of the bathroom to a hooting audience in the hallway. They cheered as they watched the two enter one of the bedrooms. I ran after them, but Tyler Crowley, one of Newton's meathead henchmen, stopped me. "Let her go," he said. "She doesn't want you, man. Can't you see it?"
"How long has this been going on?"
Tyler shrugged.
"Tell me!" I grabbed his shirt.
He shoved me roughly. "I have no beef with you, Cullen, but I will beat the crap out of you if you don't step off."
I made like I was going to leave, and then I went batshit, fists flailing. I never learned how to fight properly, and it was probably a stupid thing to do. It took only one punch from Tyler to my face to knock me on my ass. My nose was bleeding, maybe broken. I could hear moaning and familiar cries coming from behind the bedroom door. Those cries should have belonged only to me. I didn't understand.
Humiliated, defeated, I turned and left without another word.
It was the last time I spoke to Isabella Swan. I made it easy for her. She wanted away from me? I'd give her the space. I wouldn't give her the chance to deliver the "let's stay friends" speech. We would never be friends. The only way for me to survive the heartache was to hate her.
I pretended she'd never existed. If she walked in my direction in the hallway, I bent down to check that my shoes were tied. If we had class together, I imagined Photoshopping the image of her out, copying and pasting blank space over the place she occupied. She was invisible. She was never there. I had never known an Isabella Swan.
It worked—almost. I could still feel her eyes on me, and I could imagine she was missing me, but I didn't allow myself to hope. I was also surprised at how vengeful I felt inside, glad if she was missing me, if she was hurting. I withheld the smiles I wanted to give, fought the urge to tell her how empty my life was without her.
I started screwing around with any girl who looked at me with chest heaving, any girl who'd look for any excuse to touch my arm, who'd laugh a little too hard at my jokes. I tried to fill the hole in my heart with endless fucking, but all I ever saw was her face. I'd push the girls away, sometimes throwing up when I was alone again. I felt like I'd betrayed her.
And yet, I still hated her so much for going back on our promise to be together for the rest of our lives.
I started college that fall at Dartmouth. I'd gotten into all of my schools, and I wanted desperately to be on the other coast once I'd heard through friends that Bella was going to stay in Washington State for school. I smugly thought about the superior education I was getting, that maybe Bella would have held me back if we were still together. Obviously she must not have gotten into any of the other schools if she were staying in state. She'd wanted to leave Forks and see the world; she wouldn't stay unless she'd had no other choice.
I kept trying to make up reasons that it was better for us not to be together. I dreamed of walking in on her and Newton in the bathroom again and again, to the point that I began to drink heavily before bed, hoping for dreamless slumber. All it did was give me acid reflux and a poor GPA. And it didn't help the dreams either. "How could you think I wanted you?" Bella would say to me in dreams as she lazily turned her head toward me on the bathroom mat.
I didn't go home for Christmas. The thought of being even in the same state as Bella was still too painful. I'd done poorly my first semester in college, and my dad was concerned. "Pull up your grades, Edward," he said on the phone. "This isn't you. You know you can do better work."
It hit me as I spent my winter break in a friend's sublet: I didn't need to let Bella ruin my whole life. I was in college. I was nineteen. I had a whole world ahead of me, and hell if I would let Bella Swan destroy all chance of happiness. I wouldn't give her that power.
I started jogging in the mornings, stopped drinking at night. I studied into the wee hours of the night at the library. I studied so hard that there was almost no more room in my head to remember Bella. My grades were up, and I made some friends and started actually enjoying school, being out on my own for the first time.
It was right before spring break when I was making my weekly phone call to Mom and Dad. Since I'd started living my life again, calling home didn't fill me with dread. To my surprise Alice picked up the phone. We rarely talked. She was just younger enough that we just had very little in common.
"Hey, big brother," she said.
"Where are Mom and Dad?"
"Dad's working. Mom went over to bring Chief Swan a casserole or something."
I didn't know my mom was in touch with Bella or her dad at all. Even just hearing her last name said out loud shook me, reducing me to wreck I'd always been. I wasn't so strong after all. I hadn't moved on.
I was quiet for a moment as I tried to figure out the most nonchalant way I could ask Alice why Mom had brought Chief Swan a casserole. As I was about to speak, Alice said, "Oh, crap. I wasn't supposed to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"About Bella."
She said her name, the name I'd refused to speak, refused to let anyone else speak around me after Jessica Stanley's party.
"What about B-Bella?" I tripped over her name as if my mouth had forgotten how to form the sounds and shapes.
"Mom and Dad said I'm not supposed to tell you."
"Alice, you've already mentioned something, so you may as well tell me. I'll just ask them later anyway, and then you might be in trouble."
I could practically hear Alice's eyes rolling. She huffed. "Bella's dying. Happy now?"
"Wait, what?"
"She's been sick—some kind of cancer, I think. Dad won't tell me anything, but Maisie Stanley says she heard from Jessica that Bella's all bald and stuff. She was in the hospital for a while but now she's back at her house."
Chemo? Was she just resting at her house, or was there nothing more they could do for her?
All the lies I'd told myself about how I didn't care, how I'd moved on, melted away like fog in the sunlight. I didn't hesitate one moment. "Alice, tell Mom and Dad I'm getting on the next plane home."
I threw some things in a backpack, then went online and booked a ticket out of Manchester. I was grateful I'd convinced Mom and Dad that I'd need my car out at Hanover; flying out of Lebanon would have set me back at least a day.
I texted my flight information to Dad's cell after I'd checked in for my flight. I'd rent a car at Sea-Tac and drive straight to the Swans'.
I was hoping I'd misheard. Bella couldn't possibly be dying. Who got sick at our age?
During the drive from Sea-Tac to Forks in my rental car, I kept asking myself why she hadn't told me. Then I would see an image of my own face senior year, the sneers and dead expressions I'd wear whenever she was near. Would you have told you that you were sick? You were such an asshole to her. I supposed it was my own fault. But what was I to think? After what she did? I was just trying to survive. I argued with myself until I pulled up in front of the Swans' tidy house.
I hadn't been here in so long, not since the night of Jessica Stanley's party. My hands shook as I walked up to knock on the door. I'd never had to knock before. Bella had a sense of when I was near, and she'd be waiting at the door, smiling and laughing.
The sun had just set, so it wasn't too late. Still, I hoped I wasn't disturbing anyone.
A strange woman answered the door. "Can I help you?" She peered down at me as I stood on the stoop.
"I want to see Bella," I said.
"She's not expecting visitors," she said, and began to shut the door on me.
"Please, ma'am. Can you just … can you ask her if she'll see Edward?"
"I'm sorry, but she's resting. Maybe you can call her father and discuss an appropriate visiting time with him."
I turned around, ready to go back to the rental car and head home, but before the woman could shut the door behind me, I heard a faint voice say, "Wait!"
The woman seemed startled. She shut the screen door on my face and ran down the hallway. I could hear soft voices. I turned my back to the door and surveyed the lawn. The grass was soggy, yellow, dying. "Are you sure, Bella?"
There was silence, then footsteps, then the woman returned. "Bella wants to see you, but she's very tired. Please don't upset her."
I pushed past her. I was surprised how different the air in Bella's house had become in a year. It used to smell like sunlight, but now it smelled like dark, hiding things. I started up the stairs, but the woman caught my arm. "We moved her to the den. She can't do stairs anymore, and all the equipment wouldn't fit there anyway."
She led me down the hallway. There wasn't a door to the den, and I wondered if Bella missed the privacy. I tried to brace myself to see her, hoping she hadn't changed too much. I could hear the beeping and hissing of monitors.
Bella sat up, propped by pillows, a lacy knit cap on her head. She was like a shadow of the Bella I remembered.
"Oh, Bella," I said. "I was hoping it wasn't true."
She grimaced suddenly, sharply inhaling. I thought to call the woman who I assumed now must be some sort of home-care nurse. She saw the look on my face, my panic, and said, "I'm fine, Edward. Just give me a minute." She arranged her face into a deceptively placid smile. "You can come closer, you know," she said. "I'm not contagious."
I hadn't realized I hadn't moved. It was like the polar opposite of our first meeting—back then my body had been drawn into her orbit without my knowing, and now, now that I wanted to be as close to her as possible, I hadn't budged from the doorway.
There was a folding chair placed by the hospital bed where she lay. I sat down and carefully took her hand. She had bruises from repeated needle sticks and IVs. "Oh, Bella," I said, my vision blurring.
"Don't you dare, Edward Cullen," she said softly. "Don't you dare cry in front of me. You can turn around and leave if you're going to cry."
"What happened, Bella?"
"Does it matter? I'm here now. You're here."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Bella sighed. "This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I never wanted you to see me like this." She tried to gesture to herself, but her arms were heavy.
"How long have you known?" I traced her familiar face with my fingertip. Her eyes looked the same, but the skin clung to her bones, and the roses in her cheeks had faded.
She leaned her face slightly against my hand. "Almost two years," she said. "I tried to push you away. I didn't want you to … love me when I died. I didn't want you to hurt like that."
"You … it wasn't anything with me? You weren't sick of me?"
"Edward, how can you be so ridiculous?"
"Well, what was I supposed to think? You broke up with me."
"Yes, but remember that I couldn't stay away even a whole day? I didn't sleep at all that night. I cried my eyes out, and I thought, 'Well, I'll just be selfish just a little longer, until I'm strong enough to cut the tie.' I've been saying goodbye to you ever since I was diagnosed."
"The … the party?" I whispered.
She looked away. She spoke so softly that I had to lay my head on her chest so her mouth was right against my ear. "I planned it all. I knew I'd never be strong enough to leave you unless I made you not want me anymore. I thought if I could just make you hate me, it would be easier, for both of us."
"How could you?" I said, leaving my head on her chest, trying not to put too much weight on it.
"Believe me, making out with Newton was no picnic," she said, trying to laugh but coughing instead.
"That's not what I meant. How could you … steal that time we could have spent together? I could have been with you five hundred and fourteen days that I wasn't."
"You counted the days?"
"I couldn't help it."
I felt Bella's hand in my hair. "I counted too," she admitted.
"All that time, we could have been together."
"Edward, I made a mistake. I just wanted to protect you. I thought by hurting you a little, I'd save you a much bigger hurt."
"All those days …" I just couldn't get over it.
"But you're here now. You're here today. You came back, despite everything, despite how much I made you hate me."
"I did," I said, turning my head away so she wouldn't see me cry. I couldn't bear for her to send me away again. "I'll never leave your side."
"Do you love me still?" she asked.
"I never stopped, no matter how hard I tried not to." My face burned, thinking of all those girls I'd fucked, hoping to forget her. I covered her hand with kisses, being careful not to jostle her too much. "You're my beautiful Bella."
"You're a liar," she said, looking at something on the wall behind my head. "I'm not beautiful. Maybe I was once, but not like this."
"Don't be silly," I said, tugging on her earlobe. I realized I'd been reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear but stopped when I remembered it had all fallen out. "You're still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
"You lie prettily. I'll allow it," she said with an imperious wave of her other hand and a mischievous smile.
I just sat there and gazed at her, hungrily taking in her image, trying to make up for lost time. I don't know how long we sat there, hand in hand, both gazing as if the other might disappear at any minute.
"Edward, do you love me?" she asked, breaking the silence.
"You know I do."
"Will you do one last thing for me? A final request?"
"Anything for you—you know that. If you want me to bring you a star for your hair, I'll travel into space and bring one back."
"I don't have any hair, Edward."
I could have kicked myself for being so stupid and insensitive. "Of course, of course," I said. "What do you want, Bella? Anything. I'll do anything for you."
She moved her head slightly to make sure the nurse wasn't around. "Edward, I want you to help me die," she whispered.
"Wait—what?" I sat upright. "No, Bella, no. I just got here. This time is all we have."
Bella shook her head slightly. "Do you know what it's like, Edward? They pump me full of painkillers until I don't even know who I am. Or I let the drugs wear off enough that I feel like myself again, and everything … hurts. It hurts so much, Edward, and I'm tired. I can't bear this any longer, even with you here."
"What … what about your dad? Have you talked to him about this?"
Bella pressed her chapped lips together before speaking. "I made the mistake of asking him. He won't let me go. He won't give up hope. He still thinks I can pull through, but I know I don't have much time left. I mean, that's why I'm home from the hospital. They don't send people like me home to heal—they send them home to die. He prays for a miracle, and every morning, I think I can't possibly hurt any more than I do, but the next day I realize there's always another level of pain. I don't want to have to choose between oblivion and this agony. Honestly, I think I was just waiting to see your face again, to know that you forgive me for what I did, for my selfishness."
"What can I do?" I asked, feeling lightheaded, as if I were looking at Bella through the wrong side of a pair of binoculars.
"Let me go," she said. "Do what my father refuses. Show me mercy. Please, Edward, you're my only chance. Set me free."
"But I … don't know … how," I stammered. "And I can't; I just … I just found you again."
"It doesn't have to be tomorrow. We can decide on a date. We can make a plan. We still have time. Please," she begged, "just help me die. It's the greatest gift you could give me right now."
What could I say, when she looked at me with such pain and longing? I never could deny her.
"Anything," I said, kissing her forehead.
Chief Swan came home a few moments later. "Edward?" he called as he walked in. "Your dad called me."
"Hello, Chief Swan," I said, getting up and meeting him in the hallway. We stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do, but then he collapsed on me, sobbing, and I sobbed with him. I didn't know what to say, so I muttered over and over, "I'm so sorry."
"When your man-love out there is over," Bella called, "my colostomy bag is full."
Chief Swan rubbed his face hard. "Bells, I'll fetch the nurse. Are you hurting?"
"Yeah," she said, and even from the hallway I could tell she was gritting her teeth against the pain. "Could you get Helen to bring the painkiller—the full dose? I think I want to try to sleep."
I popped my head back in the room. "See you tomorrow?" I said.
"Definitely," she said, trying to smile.
I came back the next morning, and Helen let me in without a word. Bella was sitting up. "I knew you were here before you knocked," she said.
"I know; you always could. How can you tell when I'm here?"
"I feel it, deep in my tummy, this warmth. I glow only when you are near me."
She'd been given morphine more than an hour before I arrived, so she was fairly lucid and relatively pain free. "You came at a good time," she said, patting my hand.
"I wish I could hold you," I said, looking at the tangle of wires and tubing. "I wish I could crawl right up next to you and wrap my arms around you."
"That's nice," she said, smiling a little. "Fucking IVs—they're worse than a chastity belt. And that goes double for the colostomy bag."
"You're still beautiful, my Bella," I said.
"We should decide on a day," she said, laying a cold hand on mine.
I didn't need to ask her what she was talking about. "I fly back at the end of the week. Friday morning."
"So Thursday, I guess," she said.
I felt cold all over. "I still … don't know about this, Bella."
"You promised me. You said you'd give me anything."
"I know. I just … I don't know how."
"Your dad's a doctor," Bella said. "Does he leave his prescription pads around the house?"
"I know where he keeps them," I said.
"Find the pad and write out a prescription for Phenobarbital," she said. "I think it would be the easiest, maybe the fastest. You'll probably need his DEA number—do you know it?"
"I don't, but I think he has it written on a card in his Rolodex."
"Make sure you get the injection. I have trouble swallowing, and I don't think I could get down enough of the pills."
"Will they just … give me the injection? Do pharmacies just carry that shit?"
"I don't know," she said. "Just find a way."
That day she made me tell her the story of us, of how we met, and how I just knew we would be together. I described her barrettes, and she said, "I'm certain I had my hair in pigtails on the first day of school."
How could I have gotten such a major detail wrong? "Your barrettes had butterflies on them," I insisted.
"I don't know," she said, scratching her nose. "Maybe you're right. Funny how we both remember that day so clearly, but completely differently. I wonder which is real."
When she got too tired to speak, she sent me away. She didn't like me to see her fully doped up. "I don't want you remembering me like that," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I got home in the middle of the day. Alice was still at school, and Mom and Dad were both at work. I went to Dad's study and found a prescription pad, writing out the prescription as Bella had asked. I went online and researched prescription abbreviations and looked for a large pharmacy by a major hospital. I couldn't go anywhere around here—they'd be sure to know who my dad was. Dad's DEA number was exactly where I thought it would be, and I marveled at how much he trusted us. I could have provided opiates to the entire student body if I'd wanted to, but then again, I couldn't imagine myself doing such a thing.
When Dad found out, he probably would never trust me again.
Getting the prescription was surprisingly easy. I drove all the way to Seattle, figuring the city was big enough and far enough away from Forks for anonymity. I'd written the prescription out to myself in case they checked ID, and I had a story ready if they asked: I was an epileptic, and my dad felt safer with an injection at home, since we lived so far from the hospital. I didn't offer my story; I just had it ready to go.
It turned out that I didn't need to explain myself. The middle-aged woman working the pharmacy couldn't have looked more bored. The place was packed with impatient people waiting for their prescriptions. I hid the syringes in my inside jacket pocket, wondering if I needed to keep them refrigerated. To be safe, I stopped in at a supermarket on the way home and bought a cooler to fill with ice. I could keep the cooler in the car trunk and not have to explain anything.
On Wednesday, Bella looked ragged. "Hey," she said weakly.
"I got what you wanted," I said, and she smiled a tiny smile.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Tomorrow, then?"
I nodded, unable to speak, wondering if I'd have the strength.
She asked me to bring down her yearbooks from her bedroom, and I gladly obliged. She wanted me to flip through the books and show her every picture of her and of me, and of the two of us together. "What were you thinking about when this picture was taken?" she'd ask of each grainy black and white photo.
"Probably about you. Or tater tots. Or you feeding me tater tots."
"Tater tots," she laughed to herself. "You did have such a strange fascination with those."
"They are delicious," I said sternly, holding a finger up. "Don't hate on the tater tots."
"If it were up to me, I'd make you the biggest tater tot the world has ever seen, bigger than the Rock of Gibraltar."
"That sounds delicious."
She laughed at the image until she began to cough. "Motherfucker," she said. "This so fucking sucks."
"Tomorrow," I said, squeezing her hand.
"Tomorrow," she repeated.
"I don't know how to do this," I said.
"I'll help you. Just listen to what I say."
"I'm always listening."
I didn't sleep that night, knowing tomorrow would be the last day. I agonized over what to wear, trying to remember if there were any shirt or color she had liked to see me in. At some point in the night, I realized it wouldn't matter; I realized that no shirt or color would make this day suck any less.
I went to Bella's house a little before lunch. Helen let me in as usual. She seemed a little harried. "Thank goodness you're here—my grandson was hospitalized. I need to head over there now. I've called for a substitute hospice nurse, and she should be here shortly, but …"
"I'll be fine. Bella seems to know what she needs and when," I said.
"I would never do this, but … oh, she should be here any moment."
"Go to your grandson," I said, waving her out the door. "What's going to happen? She's already dying," I joked weakly.
When I'd heard the car drive away, I walked down the hallway to the den.
"Hi, Eddie," Bella said. She hadn't called me Eddie in years. She probably hadn't called me that since we were still in junior high.
I felt nervous and strange and afraid, kind of like when we'd finally decided to have sex. "We probably don't have much time," I said. "The other nurse will be here soon."
I showed her the syringes in my pocket. I had gotten two. "I hope this is enough."
"It will be, if you give me the morphine too. Helen keeps it in the fridge. And alcohol—I can try to swallow some of that down."
"I have no idea what I'm doing."
"There's no wrong way, Eddie. It'll be enough."
I stared at her, wondering if I were strong enough.
"Mix me a drink, Eddie?" she asked. "Something sweet and girly."
Hearing those familiar words, I tried to make myself numb so I wouldn't cry in front of her. I went to the kitchen, found the morphine, and mixed her a fuzzy navel, just like at Jessica Stanley's party. I realized I had never learned how to make more sophisticated drinks.
I returned with the glass bottle of morphine and her drink. "It's a fuzzy navel," I said.
"I love those," she murmured, exhausted.
I held up the drugs. "Do I put these right into the IV?"
"There's a little tube on the side of the main IV line. You turn the dial to make it go faster."
"Are you ready, Bella?"
"I'm happy, because you're here, and because I'm not going to hurt anymore. Please, Eddie. Please hurry. They'll be back any moment."
She had observed many nurses over the last year or so, and she knew exactly how all the equipment worked. She told me what to put where, and I pushed down the plunger on the syringes, letting the liquid flow into the main IV tube along with the ever-present saline drip.
"Now help me drink this," she said, and I lifted her to sitting, tipping the cup into her mouth. She tried to swallow, but as much liquid fell out the sides of her mouth as probably went down her throat.
"Your nightgown is soaked," I said.
"Doesn't matter. I forgot how good orange juice tastes." Even though I couldn't bear to part from her side, I ran to the bathroom to get her a towel. I couldn't let her die damp and cold.
When I came back a second later with a towel, her breathing had already grown shallow, and I knew we didn't have much time left. Suddenly I realized that I had never made good on my promise to take her to Paris. A sob caught in my throat.
"What is it, Eddie?" she said, breathing laboriously.
"We were supposed to go to Paris," I said. I couldn't stop the tremor in my voice.
"Shh, don't cry," she said, weakly patting the place by her side. "Come here."
I climbed into bed with my shoes on, pushing the wires and tubes out of the way. It wouldn't matter now if I got them tangled or disconnected. I wrapped myself around her thin frame as best I could, trying to fit on the bed without crowding her.
"Eddie," she said, "take me to Paris now."
"I … but … we're … here," I said, confused.
Bella sighed. "Tell me about Paris. What plane are we on?"
"We … we're on a 757. I paid for first class, so we have lots of room."
"That sounds really nice, Eddie. You shouldn't have."
"Only the best for you."
"Tell me more. Are they feeding us? Do we have movies?"
"We have our own screens, and a menu with every movie you could want. They are bringing us food on real plates, piping hot. You are having salmon with some sort of creamy dill sauce."
"And you?"
"I'm having a tater tot as large as my head."
She laughed silently; I could feel her chest shake. "More, Eddie."
"Y-you're watching some chick flick with Colin Firth."
"Yummy," she said.
"I'm watching something with a lot of explosions, but occasionally I look over at your screen and wonder why you find that guy attractive, when I think he looks kind of like a toad."
"Don't be jealous now, Eddie. There's room in my heart for both of you."
"We land, and there's a limo to pick us up. Paris is still asleep—it's very early, just after sunrise. We roll down the windows even though the morning air is cold and damp, because the limo windows are too tinted for us to appreciate the true colors of the city."
Bella shivered, and I rearranged the towel and her blankets, drawing her closer to me.
"We drive down the Champs-Élysée. Nothing's open yet, but some café owners are just beginning to sweep the sidewalks, roll out the awnings, set the tables up outside. The Arc de Triomph takes your breath away, and I tell you to wait, that we'll come back at night when it's all lit up with the stars dancing behind it."
"I'm starving. What do we eat?"
"We find a boulangerie and get pain au chocolat, hot from the oven. You complain that the butter feels like napalm on your cold fingers."
"And the Eiffel Tower?"
"When you see the Eiffel Tower, you laugh and say that you feel like you're at Six Flags. I wave my hands, and it's already evening. The sky is clear. You can count every star. I've paid to close down the entire tower except to us, and a Frenchman with a weenie mustache takes us to the top. We dance in the moonlight, in the cool air, and I twirl you, and I ask you to marry me."
Bella was quiet.
"Bella? Bella?" I said in a panic.
She couldn't speak anymore, but she looked at me, blinking twice, as if to say that she was okay. With much effort, she wrapped her pinkie around mine.
"I promised I'd kiss you on top of the Eiffel Tower."
She squeezed my pinkie weakly in response.
"We dance for hours, until we hear protesting from the tourists below. They want to come up. You say we should let them, because this glorious night belongs to everyone. You want everyone to be as happy as we are. We tell the employees in our bad French that we'd like for them to let everyone up, and it's a party. Everyone you love is there. You tell everyone we've just gotten engaged, and strangers and friends alike hug you, ask to see your ring. It was my grandmother's ring, and it fits your finger perfectly. I know it fits perfectly because I tried it on you while you were asleep. We kiss in front of everyone, and there are fireworks, and we can see for miles, and boats glitter up and down the Seine. And you say you've never been so happy in all your life."
Her grasp on my pinkie loosened, and I knew she was gone.
Now that she wasn't there to chide me, I let myself sob, clutching her to me like a rag doll. I didn't even notice when the replacement nurse arrived. I suppose I must have registered somewhere the sound of sirens, the medics arriving. I wouldn't let her go. I wouldn't leave her. They tried to pry me away, but I wouldn't loosen my grip. Chief Swan came with several officers, and they managed to yank me away.
I told them what I had done. I didn't want them to wonder. "I killed her. I gave her a lethal overdose. I acted alone. No one is to blame but me. I couldn't let her suffer anymore."
Chief Swan slapped me hard on the face before going to Bella. My lip was bleeding, but I felt nothing. We were still dancing on top of the Eiffel Tower, Bella and I, shivering in the cold night air. I kissed her deeply, and her mouth was warm, and I felt like I was pulling the warmth out of her body and into mine. She was doing the same, and we both no longer shook from cold. We clung to each other, and she spun me around, and I was grateful, so grateful, to be part of her orbit again.
***
The harsh buzzers take me out of my memories, the same ones I relive every morning. I don't think much about the trial, about the months since the last day I saw her. The trial didn't last long, since I admitted to everything. My lawyer tried to argue for insanity, but I felt that would be dishonest to Bella, that it would somehow cheapen what I'd done. If I were insane, it would have been easier to let her go. My dad didn't lose his medical license, even though there was an investigation—the pharmacy had security footage, and the scrip was not in my dad's handwriting. I admitted to everything anyway, at least when I remembered people were interrogating me. It was hard to remember, because every second of the trial, I was on the plane with Bella, always going to Paris, feeling her pinkie wrapped around mine.
The buzzers ring again, and I sigh. There's no use putting off the day any longer. I swing my legs around, placing them on the cold floor, and I wonder what happens to all of a star's satellites when it supernovas. Are they absorbed into the energy? Do they slowly drift away, lost in the universe? I look at my tiny patch of sunlight, and I wonder where she is now, my beautiful collapsed star.
[1] "What have you done, oh you there, weeping without ceasing? Say, what have you done, you there, with your youth?" Paul Verlaine, no title, from Sagesse, in Sagesse III, no. 6, (1880).