A/N: This is a little bit of an experiment for me, and it's quite different from Ne Me Quitte Pas. This is darker, much darker.
I haven't abandoned NMQP, but this story was begging to be written and I couldn't write anything else until I choked this one out.
I hope you enjoy it, because I really enjoyed writing in this style.
I have no real personal experience with religion, eating disorders or suicide, and I apologize for any errors I may make.
This story mentions anorexia and suicide and could be considered triggering.
…Every one of them slays the soul and makes the soul incapable of eternal bliss, until he cleans himself with due repentance. If a man falls but once in any of these sins, he dies by soul: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one, he is guilty of all.
*
His body was always too distant, his touch too gentle. She needed him to push, rub, scratch, shock, stroke, and taste.
"Bella, please stop."
Her tiny hands clutched at his neck pointlessly. Her lips glided against his, pleading for acquiescence. His mouth remained stone, refusing her offerings.
With disconcerting ease his fingers pried hers away from his skin, placing her hands in her own lap. His lips drifted closer once more, but not to where she desired them. They brushed her cheek softly, and she remained stoically still, refusing him the gift of her affections.
"Bella, my love… you know why we have to stop…"
"I know your feeble excuses, but I don't agree with them." The small girl's unyielding stare matched the man's, "You wouldn't hurt me. I know you, Edward, and you couldn't."
"It is too much of a risk, love. I will not endanger both your body and soul."
"My soul?" she laughed, "I'll be rid of it soon enough."
His eyes pleaded with hers, begged her to understand. She had made her decision.
"I will not taint your purity with my damnation. You cannot ask that of me!"
"I can ask, and I will. I will ask until my voice goes hoarse! I know what I want!"
She moved towards him, extending her fragile hand. His face crumpled, and he pulled her tight to his chest.
"I love you, Bella… I want you more than you know, but I cannot be the one to damn you."
*
She is glad he can't read her mind, as they lie together in her bed. A thick wool blanket separates her beating heart from his silent chest. He traces small circles into her shoulder blade, his touch as light as a butterfly's wing. The way he treats her like precious china aggravates her.
If he won't "damn" me, then I'll just have to do it myself. She thinks.
"Tell me what you're thinking?" he asks her.
"I love you." She whispers before her lashes flutter shut.
*
Lust is excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature; excessive love of others, which therefore renders love and devotion to God as secondary.
*
"Good morning, cygnet." He sighed into Her ear.
She was prepared.
"Edward." she smiled.
Her arms found his waist, and she held herself to him before declaring, "I love you."
"I love you, my Bella." he answered, taken aback by her enthusiasm.
"I love you more than anything," She repeated. "You are the most important thing in my world, and I do not feel any remorse for that."
His frozen lips found her warm pout, and offered them his love.
*
Under the cover of night, she completed her task. With Him gone to hunt, she had no fears of being interrupted.
A gentle moan fell from her lips as ivory skin met pink.
*
Those who commit the sin of Envy resent that another person has something they perceive themselves as lacking, and wish the other person to be deprived of it.
*
Long, red nails dragged across His skin. Her skin… that skin belonged to Her.
"Are you coming to my party, Edward?" Its voice was sickly sweet, trying to seduce the man. Didn't she know that He was Hers?
"No, Lauren. We have plans." She said. He turned to Her, startled that she spoke up. She was usually quiet and permissive, silently possessive.
Bella had always been envious of other girls. She saw herself as monotonous and mundane, so unworthy of Him. Other girls had beauty, sass and flirtation, Bella had blushes, dull brown eyes and a lacking figure. She wanted to have hips and breasts, winks and hair flips, bends and snaps.
"I'm sorry, Lauren, I'll be spending the evening with Bella."
*
She snuggled into his chest, filling her lungs with his scent.
"Lauren is harmless." He assured her.
She sighed, unconvinced.
"No, she isn't." Brown eyes met gold… "She's beautiful."
*
Gluttony is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste.
*
"Hungry, Bella?" Rosalie mocked.
Bella wouldn't mind, but She did.
She looked down at the food He had laid out before her on the table, and then back to his sister.
"No." She said.
He always made too much food. He wanted to give her options.
She had never really thought of what she ate, before. Her hands grasped at her thighs and stomach, feeling how soft and fleshy they were.
When the perfect-one left, She reached for the pasta, and ate it rapidly. Next she ate the garlic bread, the pizza, the chicken breast and finally the apple pie.
Her last meal would be a great one.
*
Greed is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of excess. However, greed is applied to the acquisition of wealth in particular.
*
"Would you like to give me a gift?"
The slight girl's eyes widened in surprise and excitement, "You'll let me buy you something?"
She nodded.
The fluorescent lights hurt her eyes, but her mood was bright. She was only three sins away from having Him. He and Her, She and Him…
The svelte sprite pulled her from store to store, offering jewellery and gowns, handbags and appliances… none of which she needed. All of which she accepted.
*
"What is all of this?" He asked Her.
"My new things."
"Why didn't you tell me you needed anything, love?"
"I don't need any of it, Edward, I want it."
*
She was changing, and it scared Him… but what could he do?
*
Pride is the desire to be more important or attractive than others; excessive love of self.
*
"Edward?"
"Yes, love?"
"Would you love me if you could hear me?"
"Of course I would, Bella."
"Tell my why."
Her mind absorbed every word he spoke, every compliment he uttered and every acclamation he gifted.
She had so much more than those girls.
She had Him.
*
As days moved to weeks, She became increasingly vainglorious. She craved His compliments more than the food she had given up.
The tender words became less sincere, more forced.
He barely knew her anymore.
*
"Those are nice shoes, Bella," It sneered. "I'm sure your grandmother wants them back, though."
This would have hurt Her before, but she knew better now.
"It's not my shoes' fault Edward didn't want you. You managed that one all on your own." She smirked. "I guess it pays not to be a fake, eh?"
"I don't know what he sees in you…" It spat.
"I'm the most spectacular girl he's ever met in all of his years."
Eight classrooms away, He shuddered.
*
Wrath may be described as inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger.
*
"You're different." He told Her.
"I'm not pure, anymore." She said. "You can't damn me."
"What have you done?"
"I've succumbed to the Cardinal Sins of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Envy and Pride." She stated, as if listing the colours of the rainbow. "I can be yours now, completely yours."
"I don't want you." He cried, his face crumpled and devastatingly beautiful. "I want my Bella."
*
She locked her window that night.
She knew she had changed, but she had done it for Him, and he rejected her all the same.
Maybe he never truly wanted me. She thought.
*
Bella,
I'm going away.
Be safe.
-Edward
*
"Where is he? Tell me Alice! You have to tell me…"
She pounded her fists against the cold skin of her could-have-been-sister, her should-have-been-sister.
"You have to give him time, Bella. What you did upset him, and he needs to think about everything." The vampire sighed, and placed a frozen hand on Her shoulder. "He might not come back…"
*
It was sunny, and His family went hunting. She drove her old truck as fast as it would go, needing the advantage of surprise.
She arrived at the white house, and promptly took a bat to the Volvo. She swung and hit, and smashed its windows in.
"I HATE YOU," She screamed with each blow to the hard metal. "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!"
She hit the silver metal like she would hit His silver skin: brutally and repeatedly.
*
Alice returned to find Her rocking on the ground, hands digging into the hard earth, whimpering His name. Her hands were cut and blistered, blood leaking from them. Alice ran.
*
Her mind and her heart were at war. Her mind fought with rage and choler, her heart with bitterness and hurt. It tore her up inside, and she felt the ache of loneliness in every inch of her body. At least she wasn't hungry anymore.
*
Sloth is laziness and indifference; the failure to utilize one's talents and gifts.
*
Her life became an out-of-body experience. She was no longer a player in the game of life.
*
She attended school, she passed her classes. As slipped to Bs, Bs slipped to Cs…
She was there everyday, but Bella was not. Bella was gone.
*
"Why don't you come to La Push this weekend?" Her father asks.
She knew he wasn't really asking.
*
"Here's to being alive."
Glasses clinked together, and She winced at each tinkle of celebration.
She wasn't alive. Not really.
*
When She finally slunk away from the party into the night, she didn't feel the chill. When she reached the main road, she didn't feel the rain. The wind whipped her filthy hair around her face, but it didn't bother her. She was simply walking, and being… she wanted to remember the smell of the sea.
*
It was a long fall to the water, but she didn't know if it would be far enough. Failure wasn't an option. She walked further, until the water below her was littered with jagged rocks. Failure was no longer a possibility.
She lifted the white dress over her head, and she finally felt the cold.
Her untouched nipples hardened as the frigid breeze caressed them through her thin bra, the light cotton not offering her the protection she required. Her virtuous white panties didn't fare any better.
The feeling halted her movements. The emotions she had suppressed for months attacked her from all angles, and her lungs couldn't keep up.
She stood at the crooked end, suddenly indecisive.
*
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
-I Corinthians 13:4-8
*
Her toes grasped at the lip of the precipice, and the air wouldn't leave her lungs as she closed her eyes and attempted to return to her world without feeling.
"Don't move." He said in her head. The sound of His voice made her knees weak, and she wobbled at the mouth of the rocky height. Her right foot slipped, and she knew that she had reached the end.
She let out her breath, and her lips lifted at the corners for the first time in months… for the first time since He had left Her.
She let go, then. She accepted death, because she wouldn't—no, she couldn't—live without Him.
*
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.
Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
-Luke 6:37
*
Rigid hands grasped Her ribs, and her eyes flashed open. Brown met gold in a glorious reunion.
"You came back."
A/N: Constructive criticism would be fantastic :)