Fire and Ice
A/N: Dedicated to Robert Frost's masterpiece, and all those who favor fire and savor the taste of their desire.
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction, ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost
How would I rather die? Fire? Or Ice? A morbid question, sure, but death had been chasing me for long enough it wasn't so bad. It was just good planning. If I wait until destiny beats down my door I might make a rash decision in the moment, motivated by what I ate that morning or what played on the radio when I commuted to work. And the last thing I needed was to become what I eat.
Fire, or ice. Fire, or ice. Polar opposites – except that, so far as I know both the North and South poles are made of ice, but hey, with global warming, who knows? Both get the job done. Though ice was around at the dawn of time, fire forged its place in history.
Let's start with ice. A perfectly fine way to die, for sure. Plenty of awesome people have frozen to death. All it takes is being seduced to sleep by the snow, laying your head in its cold embrace. Time passes, your body becomes encased in a crystal. Perfectly peaceful, perfectly gentle. You could probably hear your own heartbeat stop. You could probably live a long time, frozen, without a heartbeat. Like cryogenic sleeps. An eternity even, suspended and inanimate until you're shattered to a thousand pieces.
That didn't sound too bad. A bit indifferent, sure. Ice would just take your hand and hold you still, keep you as its own as long as it wanted. Completely at its mercy, completely in control. Although... I don't like the idea of dying with blue lips or missing fingers and toes.
Well, how about fire then. Having the flames lick every part of your body, being surrounded by vivid reds and burning blues at the hot center. Hearing your heart race, feeling your body burn- It would be quick, in comparison. But not too quick, it would savor and treasure your deterioration.
It wasn't until I noticed I was twisting the piece of paper with the poem into a sweaty, pulpy knot that I realized I should really stop thinking like this. What good ever came out of depressing oneself, particularly with poetry? One mildly redeeming thing about English class. One more thing I would leave behind in my new life. My new immortality. The permanence of the word scared me. The one thing I would never miss, however, would definitely be high school English classes.
Unrolling it on the floor next to my old English binder, I read it one more time. "From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire." What a beautiful line. Whichever perverted linguist decided to make fire rhyme with desire had done the world a great service through Robert Frost. How weird it was to have the whole world perish twice, though. I'm suspicious he only said that to rhyme with ice.
The phone rang. I could hear Charlie rush to get it. So swift was he that he stayed completely planted to the couch, moving at record speed to turn up the volume and tune the telephone out. Another relic of a former world of mine that would perish soon.
Running to the phone, I answered it with a standard "Bella Swan, Swan residence."
"Hey Bells." It was Jacob. He sounded like crap. And of course, it would be my fault. Mr. Frost should have realized that fire and ice are scarcely forces to be reckoned with compared to Isabella Swan, epically capable to hurt everyone important to her. Sometimes, three or four of them at the same time.
"Jake!" I tried to sound cheery, for his sake. We would probably be able to count our conversations between now and my transformation on one hand before he would refuse to speak to me.
Really, when did melodrama enter my life and how do I get it back out again?
"Calling to see if you want your motorcycle. You know, after you're immortal and all, you can hit all of the trees you want and still be able to stand up again."
"Can I jump off of cliffs too?" I asked with mock excitement.
"Heck, you and your daredevil antics will be off the charts."
"Most of them will probably happen because I tripped over something," I muttered.
"Mostly your own feet." Well, he sounded like he was warming up. That shouldn't be so hard, what with him being 108.9 degrees in temperature. It would be hard for him to freeze me out when I was a vampire. When he was in sun mode, he could melt the polar caps quicker than carbon emissions.
I laughed aloud. It suddenly occurred to me that the TV in the other room had gotten quieter. I'll bet Charlie turned it down the moment he heard me say "Jake." How thoughtful.
"Well, Edward sent me an invitation to your wedding." The moment he said that, I felt my body get cold. Wedding. The word sounded terrifying. It didn't help that my one love had sent me an invitation to my other love. I swear, my spine shivered. "It said to RSVP at the bottom. Bill will probably come, you know, support Charlie in these times." It sounded like he was talking about a funeral. But really, in its own way, it was. Once I was married and transformed, I might as well be a cold dead corpse to Charlie. "I'm not going to go though."
I'm not sure why that last sentence surprised me. I hadn't even planned to invite him because I knew he wouldn't come, it didn't make sense that I should swallow my tongue now. Now of all times, after I'd agreed to so much, even argued for most of it. Now that everything was set in motion and I was really going to be married very soon.
Maybe I was surprised because somewhere, in my head and my heart, something whispered: Neither am I.
The moment I understood, I just started crying.
There was an awkward second where Charlie sounded like he was going to get up and come talk to me. One of those serious Daddy-discussions that always ended with discomfort. Jacob was silent on the other end of the phone. I think he realized what those strange noises I was making were, however, because he frantically started talking. "Look, Bella, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'll come if you really want me to, but it'll just make things worse and I don't know what to do-"
"It's not you," I squawked. Good lord, I sounded disgusting while I cried. If the secret service tapped my phone for any reason, they must be getting a good laugh out of me right now.
There was a pause. "Then what is it, Bells?"
"I don't want to live forever." My heart must have said it. I don't know how it beat sound out through my mouth, but my brain definitely wasn't in on it. My stomach must have been confused too, because it was writhing and churning. The thought hadn't even occurred to me. I didn't want to grow up, I didn't want to be an adult, but I didn't want to be eighteen forever either. What was my future? A long blank road through a grey valley, the occasional hill? Even with Edward, I'd be perfectly alone, forced to walk past anything else in time that I might grow attached too. Time would be moving, but I would be frozen, eyes glazed, lips blue, and a few toes missing.
"Do me a favor?" I paused, listening for Jacob to specify said favor. "Don't jump off of any cliffs if you're mortal, okay?"
I laughed, but laughing when you're crying sounds more like a wet snort. I could feel my nose running like a waterfall. "What if he leaves me," I sputtered on. It was another "where in the world did that come from" moment where I was seriously tempted to knock on the door of my subconscious and find out what else it was hiding from me.
Irrationally, I thought Jacob might say something like: "He would never leave you, he would never do that to you." Obviously, that was a lot harder to say when he already did it. It was for my own good, I reminded myself, to try and help me move on. I wouldn't move on, however, so he came back to be with me.
Did Charlie leave Renee for her own good? Would Renee and Phil be together until the day they die? Forever is so long, even if Rosalie and Emmet, Esme and Carlisle, Alice and Jasper had managed it, what promise did I have? Rosalie had been intended for Edward, and he didn't take her. Rosalie, who was more beautiful than me, more graceful than me-
"I remember when he left," Jacob began. His voice was slow, he was picking his words carefully. Probably trying not to shatter me. I could have hit myself for sounding so breakable. "If he did it again, you would be more zombie than vampire or mermaid or anything else."
"What should I DO?" Dumb question. I knew his answer would be an emphatic "MARRY ME!" and I would get mad at him all over again for his stupid competition for my hand. He was my sun, my heat generator, but not my husband or fiancé.
"Remember when we looked for the clearing?"
Well, this was a random moment for nostalgia. As much as I would have liked to put my waterworks on hold, they were coming full force as a tidal wave without any hope of ceasing. Humoring him, I whimpered assent.
"We didn't find the clearing the first or second time, it took a number of hiking trips and searching to find the right path and we-"
"Can we get to the punchline? I think my nasal passages are almost completely cleared," I murmured. My fingers sought a tissue as my ears searched for an answer.
Jacob laughed sympathetically. "Consider all your options. Follow each path in your mind, consider all the factors. Ever since you and Edward started, you've only been following one path in your mind. Don't tell me it's not true, it is." Alright, I couldn't argue with that. "But before you pass the point of no return, you have to know and understand what you want."
Fire or Ice. Eternal life with Edward, in a cold world of vampires, drinking blood of other living things? Suspended in time, isolated from my world, watching them pass by? Or staying in the warmth of a family, feeling my heart beat and experiencing the fire that life has up close and personal. It would be briefer, who knows how long, and there would be pain and smoke along the way. But from what I tasted of desire? I just might hold with those who favor fire.