Vent
A/N: Hey! This is the first fic that I'm posting, out of a real bit of frustration at Edward, more than anything, but also from restlessness. Any reviews are highly appreciated. Set After Bella's been bawling her eyes out for a few months straight in New Moon.
Vent
Today was the day. Bella didn't know why, but she got up from her bed, and regardless of her extremely disheveled state, she walked down the stairs and directly out of the house. It had taken a lot of time – four months, to be exact – of stifling and of tears, and finally she felt like she was going to burst. She needed to burst. And that's what she intended to do.
With a shaking hand, she turned the key in the ignition or her truck. She trembled as the engine roared to life, but she stayed focused. She held her breath and drove.
She numbly drove on and on, her mouth slightly agape. She was still numb as the road came to an end. And that's when she began walking.
Never mind that she was barefoot. Bella trudged and stumbled, trance-like, along the forest grass, over roots and fallen logs along a path that was altogether painfully familiar yet estranged from her. She acquired a few new scrapes from where she'd fallen and slipped, but she carried on. She felt the beginnings of a sob in her throat as she stepped nearer and nearer to what she knew she came to find. The meadow. His meadow. Not theirs, no, never theirs. Perhaps it had been once, but was it not a lie? He was never truly hers, no matter that she remained his. No matter that he didn't want her any more than he would have wanted a souvenir keychain. So Bella understood it: it was his meadow, and she was there to intrude.
It was cloudy. The wind hit her skin, not in a calming way, but in a way that made Bella shiver in her tank top and shorts. Her hair felt dirty, heavy as it was blown along. She frowned, her eyes already swimming with tears. She felt goosebumps on her arms and legs, and held her arms close, rubbing them vigorously for warmth. She was beginning to feel stupid. She had to let it out, but didn't know where to begin. Probably the best way was to begin with what hurt her the most: his name.
"E – Edward," she whispered into the wind, trembling. "Are you there?" Bella felt she needed to remember why she was in the meadow. She needed to talk. She waited a few long moments. The wind continued to blow, and that seemed all the answer Bella got. No, no, of course he wasn't. He was gone. She began to get angry. "Of course you aren't there," she cried cynically. "You're gone! You're gone, and I miss you, and I love you, and I need you, Edward! Where are you? This is all wrong!" She was yelling, something she hadn't done since he left. The tears were welling up in her eyes quickly as she scanned the skies as if they held the answers. As if he were there, listening. And that's what she latched onto.
"Why did you go?" she whispered painfully. Bella knew perfectly well that he would never hear her, and so she decided that if she were to pour out all the hurt and all the pain he managed to inflict, hoping perhaps she'd allow herself to breathe easy, even for only a moment. She took in a deep breath, and resumed her cries. "Edward, it was me, wasn't it? What was I to you, anyway? Just some little charity case of yours? Just a – a means to alleviate your boredom? What was I! Tell me! Do you do this to all your little playthings? Because you tell one hell of a lie, Edward," Bella shook her fists at the sky. "Maybe that's why you were so entertained with me! Oh, weave a story for the poor little mortal girl. Yeah. It was a good story, too! Real good. In fact, I wanted to live in that story for the rest of my life, if you'd have let me.
"You know why, Edward Cullen?" Bella was growing hysterical, beseeching the heavens through her sobs. She moved further into the meadow and repeated, "You know why? BECAUSE I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU! Right now, Edward, I don't have anything left to give. My heart?" – she clutched her thin shirt tight – "Is that what I can call this thing beating in my chest? I don't think so, because it hurts, Edward, it HURTS! It's like some sick, SICK reminder of what I thought we had. And it's ALL YOUR FAULT! I don't even want a heart if it means that all I'm ever going to feel is like shit! Shit, Edward! And it's not just me, it's Charlie, too! Every day he looks at me like I'm to most wretched thing in the world, and that kills me. I don't know when I'll be able to leave this behind!" She beat at her chest over her heart, her tears spilling down. "AND ALL IT TOOK YOU WAS TWO MINUTES TO LEAVE! TWO MINUTES, EDWARD? I can't even pack my lunch in two minutes! And you packed your entire life and left! Left me, for another life that wasn't your own, another home, another lie, and quite possibly another girl… who isn't… me."
Bella recoiled, breathing hard. She felt foolish. Edward wasn't there, he was never going to hear anything she had to say. And even if he did, he'd probably brush it off as if it were nothing, like how the wind just blew away all her cries and pleas for recognition, like how he brushed her off the last day she ever saw him. She hung her head, ashamed with herself. She wiped her tears away, and turned. She stopped, however, for she felt she hadn't said the most important thing she'd come to express.
Bella sat down on the grass, and lay down with her heart to the ground. She shut her eyes and wept. "I have one more thing to say, Edward, wherever you are," she murmured. "The first is that I love you. I will always love you. I could say you've ruined me for any other man, and it would be true, because much as I love you, Edward, you've destroyed me. Look at me. I'm a mess without you. But I can't expect you to come running back to me. I'm only a silly girl who was once foolish enough to believe that someone as beautiful as you could need – could love someone like me. Every lie you told, I took in with all my heart, and that's how you've hurt me beyond measure. Every belief I had about what were and could have been was shattered. So much for forever, right, Edward?" Bella smiled sorrowfully. "I'm not angry anymore, Edward. Everything I yelled earlier was nothing. I didn't mean a lot of it, and I'm sorry. The truth is, my heart belongs to you. It always has. But what you've chosen to do with it hurts. I miss you. I need you. I love you, Edward. And you know what?" she said with a heartbreaking choke, "I do think that's forever."
Bella looked up at the nearing noontime sky. "Do I say goodbye? I don't know, Edward. A great, great part of me wants to wait for you, but every rational part of me knows you'll never come back. It wouldn't make any sense to say goodbye to someone I can't let go of…" Bella shook her head at her own weakness. "That's all, I'm sorry I yelled," she said, and sadly blew a slow kiss to wherever Edward was, and prayed he was safe, and happy. Then she got up, and wordlessly made her way home.