This is very, very old, written when I was in 8th or 9th grade. The grammar and character quality is garbage, and the story is plot-holed. The only reason I'm not removing it is because this is the kind of thing I needed to read when I was that age, poor-quality or not, and it might be the same for someone out there. Having said that, this is not at all a representation of my current writing style.
CHAPTER 1:
"Just one more," she promised, positioning the small, sharp blade against her wrist, directly over the bite James left behind after their confrontation a few months ago.
There was very little risk she would be discovered with Edward having left with Emmett on a hunting trip that morning. Emmett dragged Edward far from Forks for hunts, often days away, claiming the local forest provided no true challenge. Bella figured it would be at least a few more hours before Edward could manage to sneak away from him, meaning he wouldn't be back till morning at the earliest.
Bella did the mental math in her head. The cut should bleed no longer than 10 minutes, so long as she put pressure against the wound, and it would begin to scab by tomorrow. There would be nothing but a small graze when Edward returned. There would be no tell-tale scent of blood and she could always blame the injury on a branch, or a trip over nothing, if he noticed. Perks of being clumsy.
One tiny cut, that's all I need. Just enough to calm me down. I won't go any further.
She pushed aside the voice in her head reminding her that those were her exact thoughts the first time she cut. She still remembered what a disaster her first time was, but she was smarter now, she had learned to how to hide the cuts from Edward and his family. Her first time had been risky.
It had an accident of sorts. She'd been at school all day, and she had just wanted to wash off her bad day with a shower before crashing in her bed next to Edward. As she ran her razor across her lower leg though, she had felt the weirdest pull to just maybe yank the razor sideways. She resisted the impulse, naturally. What kind of idiot would cut themselves on purpose?
She had scoffed at herself and moved the razor up her leg from where it had fallen still during her contemplation. She continued over her knees and made her first sweep up the side of her thigh, then a second, until her thigh was nearly bare. The urge had passed, she knew it had, and she confidently ran the razor up one last time to get any rogue strands. And when she had reached the outside crease between her thigh and hip, she wrenched the razor to the left.
It hadn't bled excessively. Bella didn't think it should have been bleeding much at all, she certainly hadn't applied much pressure to the razor…had she? Either way, it was done bleeding before she exited the shower and Bella had thought the blood would be long gone by the time Edward came to tuck her in.
She was startled to see Edward already waiting for her on the edge of her bed when she entered her bedroom, but only cinched her pajama pants a bit tighter, hoping to suppress any bloodied smell. She thought it worked, too, until she was nearly asleep in his arms.
"Bella, darling? Are you asleep?" he had asked.
Bella had internally groaned. He knew damn well she wasn't asleep yet. She sucked a deep breath in and answered. "Not anymore."
"Did something happen while you were showering?"
He said the question in a relatively smooth and calm voice, but Bella's fluttering heartbeat must have immediately given her away. "Are you hurt? What happened?" He quickly and gently examined the arms she had wrapped around him for any visible injuries.
Bella had tried to pull her arm away and perfect her sleepy façade. "Edward, no. Stop. It's barely anything. I just nicked my leg a little with the razor. I'm perfectly fine." She even choked out a nervous giggle to make it seem as though she was embarrassed.
Edward had released her arms, but said nothing. Bella hoped he interpreted her blushing cheeks as shame; embarrassment could speed up a heart just as easily as a lie. Slowly, when Edward didn't reply, she found herself drifting off again. When she was toeing the verge of unconsciousness, Edward asked her one more question: "Love, how did you cut yourself with a razor?"
She remembered, the next morning, that she had slurred at him, "Ugh...come on, Edward...I'm no vampire—" here she had yawned wide enough to crack her jaw, "—but I'm at least skilled enough not to cut myself shaving, sheesh, give me...some credit..."
But that had been months ago. To Bella's knowledge, it was the only time Edward had ever been suspicious something may be going on. The morning after had been chaotic, with Charlie pulling her out of bed early to go to the station with him to see the apparently famous celebrity they'd arrested (he wasn't, the crook just looked remarkably like Tom Cruise), but it was enough that Edward had been distracted and had forgotten to ask her about it again.
It had been a week or two since she last cut, and Bella would tentatively say she's weaning off her bad habit. Of course, those were little more than hopeful thoughts when she currently had the blade pressed against her wrist. She guessed she wasn't doing better, not if she ended up in this position once again. How weak was she, that she could only go little more than a week before giving in to the urge to cut?
She stared down at her wrist in disgust and dug the knife in a perfect matching crescent to the scar already there. If she wasn't strong enough to stop her self-pity, then she deserved the pain.
"We forget that it gets better—but it's still the truth. We trip, we stumble, we tumble, and we fall, but we will all eventually pick ourselves up." Bella finished the speech she had written for English late the night before. There were no clapping or acknowledgement of her finishing, and although Bella hadn't necessarily expected it, she was still disappointed. It seemed she could never do anything worth praise.
A small voice in her head told her Edward might have clapped, had he been there. The reasonable side of her brain told her there was no way someone as perfect as Edward would clap for an essay so horrendous.
After a long, terribly tense stretch of silence, the teacher smiled awkwardly and sent Bella back to her seat with a few words.
"Good job, Isabella! Very...inspirational. Now then, who's next?"
Bella attempted to cover her (very ladylike) snort behind her hand. Inspirational? Yeah right, maybe for a fourth grader, but everyone older knew that her essay was dead wrong. Life doesn't just 'get better'. It gets worse and it gets confusing and it gets hard. Bella's life certainly only seemed to be getting worse.
Like this morning, when she had woken up to an empty bed and no Edward in sight. She racked her brain to remember if he had showed up last night, and recalled a brief kiss to her forehead, sleepy greetings being exchanged, then nothing. Her window curtain was pulled, though, as Edward always did on his way out, stating "the sun would wake her." Which was utterly ridiculous, she lived in Forks for Pete's sake! The sun could only wake her if it managed to through the absurdly thick blanket of dark clouds that always seem to hover above Forks.
She couldn't think of anything that would have made Edward want to leave before she had woken up. She couldn't remember needing to use any of her excuses last night either, despite the long list of them she had created as a precaution, so he either hadn't seen the cut or had thought nothing of it.
What confused her even more was when Alice picked her up, instead of her usual vampire. Alice offered no explanation, simply smiling and telling Bella to get in. Once inside, Alice had told her that "Eddie" was helping Jasper with something today, in a totally non-vague way of course, and that he wouldn't be at school. Bella thought it was weird that Edward hadn't told her anything about it, and had tried to ask a chatty Alice, but her almost-sister waved every question with expertise ease and managed to distract Bella with talk of the next places she was going to take Bella where "the skirts are to die for, Bells, even you'd love them."
Bella was so emerged in going through her memories of that morning that she nearly jumped out of her skin when the bell rang to signal the end of the school day. She grabbed her bag and headed over to the English teacher standing by the door, handing out graded papers to the students as they filed out.
"Now class, do not forget about the essay due tomorrow!"
Crap. Bella groaned along with the rest of her classmates, who had most likely also forgot about the assignment. She could usually write essays with ease, but it was the topic that stumped her on this one. It was a personal statement question: Describe a personal trait that you are proud of. It was barely and essay at all, only needed to be 600 words, and she was completely and utterly stumped by it. Maybe inspiration would pop up soon and she could make something up.
Although, with Edward away for the day, the miracle was unlikely. At least English had been her last class. Now she could go home and hopefully see Edward. She figured he was probably done helping Jasper with whatever he needed.
Alice was waiting by Bella's locker to ambush her. She dragged Bella to her flashy car, chatting up a storm. She was almost too bubbly, like she was trying to hide something. Alice was an amazing actor, just like the rest of the Cullen family (Bella supposed centuries of practice could do that), but Bella had known her so long that she could see when Alice wasn't herself.
Bella wanted to confront her about it, but found she didn't even have the energy to squeeze in a word edgewise, let alone question Alice. Not that Bella minded not having to fill the air with conversation, she much preferred listening to Alice than listening to her thoughts.
Gossip and loud music filled the air until Alice raced up the Swan driveway.
Alice took a deep breath and quickly spewed out, "Oh! And Edward said he wouldn't be able to come over tonight, but you'll be okay, I checked!" She wiggled her fingers at the side of her head before kicking Bella out and throwing the car into reverse so fast Bella didn't even have the chance to attempt to comprehend what Alice had just told her.
Bella watched Alice's car speed out of the driveway, heard the clunk of the passenger door slam shut, before she drove away. Bella let the all-too-familiar feeling of disappointment wash through her.
She walked numbly to the front door, dumped her backpack there, and fled to the bathroom. She wasn't going to do it for the need to calm down this time; she just plain needed to feel. Once in the small bathroom, she pulled out her razor and managed a wavery smile.
Bella wanted to run. She wanted to run away from all the troubles and agony she keeps causing again and again on her friends, her father, the Cullens, and never have to see their disappointment again. But she can't. For some reason, every time she tries to end it, to be done with her horrible life, Edward is there.
Not really there, as he has never seen what she does, but he's there in her mind. Her subconscious conjures him up in the front of her eyes, right before things get too far, and he stops her. A semi-suicidal vampire stops her from killing herself. What a strange defiance of Mother Nature.
Bella often wonders if he's noticed anything odd about her, besides the usual annoying things that must make him hate her, if only just a little. Things like her constant clumsiness, her insatiable hunger for physical contact, and the sheer idiocy involved with all humans. She wonders if he ever takes time off from his human charade of endless patience with her.
Edward tells Bella that she is his whole world, but if she was, wouldn't he have noticed what she was doing? Wouldn't it be obvious what she's been doing?
But she shouldn't complain. She doesn't want to see the disapproving look he often gives her, with the stern tilted eyebrows and the lip twisted down in disgust.
But maybe she deserves that. Perhaps that's the reason he was gone today, to teach her a lesson. He must have thought that if no one else would discipline her, he would have to. She isn't quite sure what she's done wrong, but if Edward thinks she has, she certainly must have. He had even come up with the perfect punishment: to stay away and force her live through it alone.
It hurts Bella, in the most pathetic way possible, to be away from Edward. He's her rock, her sanity, her everything. Lately, she feels the only reason she wakes up is to see him. Without him she was sure to crumble, she...she...wanted to die without him, and he just doesn't let her. Bella thought herself weak, but even if he no longer wanted her, she doesn't think she could bring herself to go against Edward's wishes to stay alive. She would do whatever he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted it. She refused to even consider purposefully hurting him. He was, after all, responsible for the few months that made up the best part of her sad, lonely life.
There were times though, times like right now, when she was so tempted to fully press the dull razor that was posed just right of James' scar, parallel to the cut she made last night, a little bit harder, to just end it all and not have to worry about disappointing anyone. If that guilt-tripping imaginary Edward would just disappear, she would have no trouble forgetting the reasons to live any longer.
Instead, she was forced to listen to imaginary Edward lie smoothly about how she would fail Charlie by leaving him here all by himself. How distraught Alice would become to find out her best friend/Barbie doll had abandoned her. Or even how she had yet to prove her worth to the Cullen family.
Bella was certain Rose thought of her as someone who gives up easily. Carlisle and Esme have surely marked her as simply using their son by now. Emmett dismissed her as mild entertainment, and Jasper couldn't care less if another human took the easy way out.
If she died now, there would be no loose ends left over. Their opinions of her wouldn't be changed by her decision.
Tantalizingly slowly, she moved the razor down her wrist, pressing only hard enough to cut a few layers of pale skin, before concealing the bloodied razor back in her empty shampoo bottle and watching Fake Edward fade away, back into her head.
She needed the opportunity to change their minds. She wanted to be someone worth the attention they gave her. That was worth shouldering the guilt, for now.
Twenty minutes in and the bleeding still hadn't stopped.
Originally, she'd only barely scraped the surface of her wrist, but after sitting for an hour in front of her laptop, trying futilely to write the stupid, stupid essay, she grew flustered and agitated and grabbed the razor and sliced along the previous cut.
She didn't think she'd meant to cut this deep. Heck, she didn't think at all. How would she hide this from Edward? How would she even hide this from Charlie? He would be home in less than an hour. How was she supposed to hide the bloody rags she's been using to hamper the flow or prepare dinner with this huge gash on her arm?
It's not that the wound was bleeding profusely, it was more of a trickle by now, but it still worried Bella. The flow should have stopped and something about it looked more severe than other cuts she's made. The edges of it are slightly jagged from what she can see under the crimson covering her entire wrist, but that's not what worries Bella; some of her deeper cuts looked like that when she'd made them. No, it was something about the shape of the—oh.
Crap. The edges of the cut didn't touch. She couldn't pinch the sides and get them to stay together, it wasn't going to heal on its own. It would need to be stitched.
This was…this was fine. She would be okay. She could simply drive up the hospital, ask them to stich her up, and drive back before Charlie even got home. Forks was small. She could make it. She could be back in plenty of time. The only thing Bella needed to do was give the hospital a reason for the injury.
She grabbed another rag from underneath the bathroom sink and wrapped it tight around the cut as she thought over her options. She had plenty of excuses stored up for if any of the Cullens or any friends ever noticed—cut herself on a tree branch while in the forest, dropped the knife while cooking, nicked herself while shaving—but none of them worked for a gash of this magnitude.
Bella pressed the towel down firmer to staunch the bleeding as she walked down the stairs. She grabbed her keys, locked the front door behind her, and got into her truck.
Maybe she could persuade the nurse who stitched her up that she tripped and sliced her wrist on the edge of a piece of furniture or something. Except, the only piece of furniture that was sharp enough or the right height was the nightstand-looking table at the bottom of the stairs, and to hit that she would've tumbled down the entire staircase. The nightstand was right after the curve in the staircase, so to have hit it with enough momentum to cut herself she would have had to fall down the entire length. But really, Bella really couldn't think of any better options. Plus, this excuse was on par with what the town knew about her if word spread to anyone else; everyone who knew her knew that she had two left feet.
Right, that would work. Bella had fallen down the stairs. She'd been distracted by her phone and wasn't looking where she was going and then-bang! Fell down the steps. Oh, but if she had, she would have quite a few bruises along her body, wouldn't she? How would she justify her lack of abrasions? Maybe she could just say she fell down the last few? No, that wouldn't work for where the nightstand was located.
Bella sighed. If she wanted to make her excuse realistic, she would have to actually fall down the stairs. Plus, that way she might actually be able to keep a level voice when explaining and not give it away with her complete inability to lie.
She removed her keys from the ignition and walked back into the house. She hesitantly closed the front door behind her and traversed up the stairs. When she reached the top step, she took a deep breath and, before she had time to reconsider, closed her eyes and took a step.
Bella toppled down the stairs and crashed to a stop at the bottom, missing the actual nightstand by inches.
Bella picked herself off the ground carefully, hissing when she placed her left hand on the ground. She set to work re-wrapping her injured appendage. Along with the cut, bleeding anew from the fall, a few of the fingers and the wrist itself were causing her pain.
At least now she would have the bruises to match the cover story.
She gingerly walked back to her car, limping slightly. She was pretty sure nothing was broken, but she'd managed to hit the area a couple inches below her right knee on the front of a step on her way down, which made putting any pressure on it rather painful. Whatever. They could check it when they looked at her wrist at the hospital if it still hurt then.
Plus, now she could head to the hospital and get stitched up without having to worry about her cover being blown. And she should probably hurry, if the red splotches peeking through her makeshift bandage were anything to go by.
Bella drove the rest of the way to the hospital one handed and parked in the nearly deserted parking lot. One perk of living in a small town: the parking lots in Forks were almost never full, even at six in the afternoon. Bella hoped the waiting room was just as empty because Charlie was due home in half an hour. With any luck, the doctor that stitched her up could do it quick.
She shuffled through the automatic doors of the reception room and knew the second the receptionist saw her.
"Oh my! Dear, what happened? Are you alright? You're Isabella Swan, right? Chief Swan's daughter? Do you want me to call him, sweetheart?"
Bella did her best to reassure the concerned receptionist with a wave of her good arm.
"It's Bella," she corrected on instinct, "and no, it looks worse than it is. I'm fine, really," she reassured her with a small smile. "I just need a quick stitching up and I'll be on my way."
The nurse nodded, but eyed the arm Bella was cradling warily. "Alright, hon. I'll go get the doctor. Take a seat right over there." She pointed in the general direction of the patient beds as she waddled out to find a doctor.
There were about a dozen gurney beds lined up along the disgusting moss-colored wall just past the waiting room. Bella limped to the furthest one and pulled herself up onto it. She was about four beds from the one she had been put in after the Tyler car incident a year ago. Thank goodness she at least didn't need the neck brace this time.
That event had been horribly embarrassing, but it'd also been the first time she had gotten a glimpse into Edward's life. It had been her first time experiencing how absolutely kind-natured he and his family were. She supposed Dr. Cullen was paid to treat his patients nice, but Edward's father had patched her up at least a dozen times since that day, and still he continued to be nothing but considerate towards her. He was by far her favorite doctor to be patched up by.
A sudden realization hit Bella. She had no idea if Carlisle was working tonight or not. This was bad. She should have planned for this! How could she have been so stupid? If he was working, he would go and tell Edward, or he might figure out she was lying himself! All her plans would be useless. She would have thrown herself down the stairs for nothing.
Through her panic, Bella noticed the receptionist re-enter the room.
"Don't worry, darling, Dr. Cullen is on duty tonight, he'll be here in a moment and patch you right up." She nodded at Bella reassuringly.
Crud, he was working tonight.
"Did you… did you tell him it was me?" Bella stuttered.
The receptionist seemed surprised by her question. "No, I only let him know he had a patient who needed stitches, but you don't need to worry. He'll take good care of you regardless."
"Um, actually," Bella choked out, "do you think there are any other doctors available? I wouldn't… I wouldn't want to bother Dr. Cullen with such a small thing."
The receptionist made a face at Bella like she was the cutest thing she'd ever seen for considering Dr. Cullen's schedule. "Nonsense. Look around, you're the only patient here, Miss Swan!" She gestured to the empty waiting room with her hand. "And anyway," the receptionist continued, "I've already informed him you're here. Just hold tight, he should be here any minute."
Maybe she could just leave. She'd only been here 10 minutes; she could make it back home before Charlie got off work and wait till later tonight to come back to get stitches. Carlisle didn't know it was Bella waiting, he would be none the wiser, and Edward wasn't coming over tonight. Alice had told her such. Her wrist was surely done bleeding now; getting stitched up could wait a few more hours. Certainly, she could hide her damaged hand and wrist from Charlie with a large enough sweatshirt or something without a problem. And yeah, she had a limp, but that would be easy enough to hide.
Yup. Okay, she thought to herself as she hopped off the gurney bed and wobbled dangerously on her landing, I'm leaving.
She heard the receptionist ask Bella where she was going. Bella mumbled something unintelligible under her breath and reached the sliding doors the same moment Dr. Cullen walked into the room.
"Bella?" she heard him ask. "What are you doing here?" And then, in a more concerned tone, "Is that blood?"
Honestly, if it wasn't for the bad kind, Bella was pretty sure she wouldn't have any luck at all.
"Carlisle! No, it's not…well, I mean, technically it is blood. But there's like, hardly any." Bella held up her arm as proof. "It's already stopped bleeding, so I'm just going to…" she edged further outside, "go…"
Carlisle grasped her un-injured arm gently before she could get outside.
"Bella, wait. Hold on." He carefully turned her around and led her back a couple steps into the room. Bella could hear the automatic doors whoosh close behind her, sealing her exit. Carlisle tenderly picked at the bloodied rag covering her self-inflicted wound. "Let me look at it, maybe I can help."
Bella snatched her arm away, but not before he'd already seen the cut.
"Bella." He assessed her for a second, then snaked an arm around her upper back. "Why don't you sit down for a minute." Bella allowed herself to be led back to the bed, ignoring the concerned look of the receptionist as they passed. Carlisle placed her atop the bed and she stared intently at the bedside table to avoid looking at him.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Carlisle walk to the receptionist desk. He whispered something to the woman behind too quietly for Bella to hear, but the receptionist nodded in response and left the room.
Bella forced her eyes away from the table as Carlisle returned. He said nothing as he rooted through the drawers on a metal cart, and neither did she. He found what he was looking for and pulled out a bottle of antiseptic and a few white gauze pads.
They were both quiet as Carlisle gently—always gently with him—pulled the hand pressing down on the soiled rag away and placed the makeshift bandage on the table.
Under the florescent lights of the hospital, every crevice of the laceration was thrown into stark view. Somehow, the cut looked even worse now that the bleeding had stopped. The older blood had mixed with the more recent to create a hard, wet-looking shell over parts of it. Most of her forearm was crusted over with browning blood, as well as most of the slightly bent fingers on her hand.
Oh. Bella grew a little lightheaded. It was, for lack of better word, disgusting. Carlisle looked up from the bottle of antiseptic he'd been about to pour at her inhale. Bella's eyes flickered up to meet his before she could stop them.
He broke their staring contest first, looking back down to her wound and wiping it with antiseptic-covered gauze sheets. Bella didn't know what Carlisle saw in her face, but she was relieved to postpone their inevitable conversation as long as she could.
"I can see a couple broken fingers, and your wrist is pretty badly sprained. Does anything else hurt?"
She flinched in surprise at his soft inquiry.
His gaze never left the cut he'd nearly finished wiping the blood off of, but Bella found herself looking away from him nonetheless.
"M-My leg. Just under my knee." She laid her good hand on the spot to specify it to Carlisle, but she was shocked to find the jean fabric covering the abrasion was stretched nearly to the point of ripping. The spot had swollen to almost double its original size. Bella sighed, there was no way she was getting her jeans off over that lump.
Carlisle's fingertips left her wrist and brushed over the swollen spot. His eyebrows furrowed.
"I'd like to examine the injury. See why it's so swollen." He said. "Do you think you can get your jeans over it? I can get you a hospital gown."
Bella shoot her head in reply. There was no way she was getting these jeans off. "Can you just cut them?" They were old anyway.
To his credit, Carlisle didn't so much as blink an eye as he lifted the surgical scissors from the side table and snipped off the leg of her right jeans just below her thigh. It took a few more clips to get through the rest of the fabric. Now that the fabric was no longer covering the bruise, Bella could see why it was so swollen.
The center of the bruise was a ghastly mix of green and sickly yellow. Garish, reddish-purple splotches connected the light inside to the vivid purple and navy blue smears circled around it. The entire fist-sized spot was encompassed by a nearly black ring. It lifted off her right leg like a second knee.
Bella could clearly see Carlisle poking and prodding, but she could hardly feel a thing. Bella counted her blessings; she knew in a few hours it would hurt like crazy.
"No detectable bone or muscle damage, but it will take three or four weeks to fade." Carlisle straightened back up to his full height. He towered over Bella, seated as she was on the gurney, and wasted no time in taking a firm hold of her left arm. Bella blinked, and faster than she could follow, Carlisle reached over to the same drawer he'd retrieved the antiseptic from, pulled out a suture needle, threaded it, and made the first stitch. Bella supposed there was no real reason he'd need to use human speed if no one was around to see him, but it still taken her off guard. Carlisle hardly ever used his vampire speed around her. She didn't mind though; the sooner she was stitched up, the sooner she could get home to Charlie.
Charlie. The same Charlie that, according to the clock above the door at her left, was due to be home… almost 10 minutes ago. Bella sighed. She was dropping the ball all over the place today.
She pulled her phone (thankfully located in her right jean pocket, where her un-injured hand could get to) and checked for missed calls. There were only two. With any luck, Charlie hadn't called his friends at the station yet. She hit callback and lifted the phone to her ear. He picked up on the first ring.
"Bella! I just got home, where are you?" He didn't sound too anxious yet, that was good.
"Sorry Char-Dad. I wanted to make pizza for dinner, but we didn't have any tomato sauce, so I went to the store to get some." She hoped her lie sounded more convincing over the phone than it did to her in person. "I guess I forgot to write a note."
She could hear the relief in his voice when he answered back, "Oh. That's fine then. You had me worried, Bells!"
She forced her voice to be lighthearted as his as she watched Carlisle place the last couple stitches (She now realized they were bright, neon blue. Guess there was no hiding it after she got out of here). "Yeah, sorry. There's a huge line here, but I'll be home as soon as I can, kay?"
"Hm, they must be having a sale or something," He sounded distracted. Bella thought she could her the TV in the background. "No worries, Bells, take your time. See you when you get home."
They exchanged goodbyes and hung up.
Carlisle had remained quiet during her conversation, but she thought she could physically touch the cloud of disapproval radiating off of him, if she tried.
"I…can explain."
Carlisle tied off the suture and placed his tools back onto the metal cart. He dressed the area around the newly-placed stitches and moved his hands down her arm. Before Bella had time to say anything, Carlisle had snapped her fore, middle, and ring fingers back into their bone sockets.
The action left her gasping for breath.
"I'm sorry, Bella. It's easier if you're not tensed." His words lacked the sharp bite she'd been expecting.
He left her side to zip over to the opposite side of the room and grab the padded surgical wrap they kept there. She used the time to collect herself and banish the water from the corners of her eyes. When Carlisle returned, he lifted Bella's arm once more and started covering the entire wrist with cotton ball-like pieces of gauze. She understood what he was doing. Typically, he would have given her a Velcro brace for her wrist, but with the gash carved James' scar being almost directly over the sprain, he would have to settle for wrapping it as securely as he could.
When he was finished, Bella's right wrist was wrapped in so many layers it looked like cotton candy from a fair. Carlisle took a step back and assessed her to be sure he'd attended to all her injuries, and probably to make sure she wasn't hiding any others.
Bella knew how she must look to him. Her arm resembled something the Pillsbury Dough Boy would be jealous of, three fingers of that same arm had been secured with metal braces, and the leg of the opposite side was lacking its jean covering and bared a baseball-sized, purple lump.
She resolutely refused to meet his gaze. She looked up only when she heard the door he'd first came into the room from close.
Was he…letting her leave? He wasn't going to ask any questions? Had he not recognized her scars? No, he was the best doctor she'd ever met. Heck, probably the best doctor in the world, he would have known the cut directly over James' scar was a result of her own doing. Maybe…he just didn't care.
Whatever. Bella wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She flipped onto her stomach and slowly lowered herself to the floor, she'd learned from her last experience not to hop off the bed, plus her adrenaline had long worn off and her many wounds were really starting to take a toll on her.
She'd limped all of two steps when the Carlisle strode back into the room, the receptionist following on his heels. Bella wandered what he'd told her.
She heard Carlisle's beautiful voice dismiss the kind woman, "Thank you Lydia, I'll see you tomorrow."
The receptionist, Lydia, smiled back at Carlisle in return. "Of course Dr. Cullen. Take care."
Carlisle nodded and walked over to where Bella had frozen mid-step. His face gave away nothing as he weaved his arm in hers, swiftly guiding her out the front doors she'd been so desperately trying to leave through a moment earlier. Bella willingly let him lead her around the front of the building to the faculty parking lot and accepted his offered hand into the passenger side of his car.
She contemplated what she would tell Carlisle when he asked her what had happened, as he would inevitably do the second he got into the car. She couldn't tell him the truth, that much was certain. He wouldn't understand, he might panic or tell Charlie or tell Edward and…no. Just no. That wasn't an option.
She could tell him a partial truth. Say she'd cut herself on her razor while shaving. That wouldn't explain the broken fingers though. Or the goose egg on her leg. Maybe she'd tripped in the shower from surprise?
No, no. The plan she came to the hospital with was the best. She'd fallen down the stairs. It wasn't technically a lie, and maybe that would help her voice keep steady when she spoke to him. Any other excuse and she would get caught up in a web of lies. Plus, she had the bruises as undeniable proof.
By the time Carlisle had walked around the car and sat down, she'd determined her original story was the best: she'd fallen down some steps.
That plan was shot out the window the moment he opened his mouth.
"Bella, how long have you been self-harming?"
Well, crap.