The Beginning of the End
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(A/N: I wrote this in my journal for my creative writing class… I felt like posting it up, so… yeah.
Told entirely in Jesse's POV.
Mediator Book #6 spoiler. Set after Twilight.
Again, I do not own any of the characters. Anything that happened after Twilight is mine, though. Which is most of this fanfiction.
Reviews welcome.)
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I knew I shouldn't have done it.
I don't know what made me do it. All my friends at the medical school told me that I should.
"As long as your girl doesn't find out, you'll be fine," they said. "Everyone does it."
I brought her home one day. Blonde and pretty blue eyes, with a great body, if you know what I mean.
No, I have never 'laid' her, but I have had intense kissing, if that counts. This day I wanted her to see my home before Susannah came back from classes. She was due home in two hours.
I entered with Kelly, (yes, Kelly from Susannah's high school.) and we proceeded to kiss. We fell back onto the couch. Her kisses grew more passionate and I returned them with as much vigor. That was when I heard a gasp.
I sat up quickly and turned in the direction of the noise.
Susannah.
She stood there, shock on her face evident. As I watched, her eyes clouded over with disbelief, sadness, and never ending hurt. Then a single tear fell.
She turned away, still silently crying. She ran into our room and locked the door.
My mind clicked as the doorknob's lock clicked. Susannah. She witnessed me with another woman.
At this revelation, I bounded to the slammed door and pleaded to Susannah to come out. To let me explain.
No answer. It was as if Susannah had left. But I knew she couldn't have.
After sitting on the couch for half an hour, Kelly asked, "Are you gonna dump the bitch?"
I froze. I slowly turned around.
"GET OUT!" I heard someone yell. Kelly's face crumpled into one of disbelief.
It was only then I realized it was me yelling. But by that time, I was too far gone.
"GET OUT!" I yelled again. "GO, AND NEVER COME BACK!"
Kelly whimpered as she scurried out the door. I collapsed onto the floor.
All night, I sat outside her door. I pleaded, begged for her forgiveness. I heard her move around behind the closed door. But never once did she answer.
I couldn't fall asleep all night. I stayed awake, hoping that Susannah would come out.
She did.
She came out. I looked up at her. Into her eyes.
They had clouded over in pain. In anger.
In hate.
She confronted me about her. About Kelly. She broke down crying in the middle of it. I told her that it was nothing.
"Nothing!" she shrieked. "You were playing tonsil hockey with her!"
My anger got the better of me.
"At least you knew how I felt when you kissed that bastardo Paul! And you know what? I don't love you. I never did!"
She looked stunned. Then she spoke to me in the coldest voice I have ever heard her use. She never sounded that cold before, not even with Slater.
"Well, there is a difference," she said, eyes flashing. "At least I didn't want Paul to kiss me. I stopped him. You kissed her right back."
The way she said it made me feel like I got punched in the stomach. She whirled around and went back into the room, slamming and locking the door behind her.
I sank onto the ground the third time. Why did I say that? Why?
I guess I must have dozed off. The next thing I knew, the bedroom door was open.
I jumped up and rushed into the bedroom and stopped short.
The closets had been left open. Everything that belonged to Susannah was gone. Her paints, her accessories, all gone.
I ran to the front door as I heard a car drive away.
Susannah had left.
Without saying goodbye.
I collapsed and did not rise again. My thoughts whirled. All the times we spent together. The love we felt for each other.
I became angry. How dare she leave? I didn't leave when she was with Paul, though it hurt me beyond anything.
But I knew that I was trying to push away the truth. The truth that Susannah had left because of me.
I, who claimed to love her, made her leave.
I, who had hurt Susannah in the worst way possible.
I, the one Susannah had gone back in time to give me another chance at life, even if it was without her.
I, the one that Susannah used to love.
And at this revelation, I threw my head back and submitted to shuddering.
I never thought I would feel this way. Once Susannah came into my life, everything seemed to sparkle, to brighten. Now all the colors seem faded, surreal.
I never thought she would ever find out. I never thought we would ever be separated.
I never thought.
I stiffened and stood up.
Fine, I thought. If she wants to leave, fine. She just doesn't know what she's missing. It's not like I love her anymore.
For the next few weeks, I tried to forget about her. I called up Kelly and made up with her. I started to get into heavy "tonsil hockey" as Susannah would call it, but every time I would stop before it got too far. I forced to forget about Susannah, the whore.
I became moody. I would suddenly scream at Kelly one moment and tell her I loved her in the next. No one, not even Padre Dominic, could get through to me.
A week ago, I caught Susannah at a mall. Her eyes met mine. We gazed at each other for a moment, before I turned my back on her. I put my arm around Kelly's waist and kissed her deeply before walking away, never once looking back.
And then it happened.
I was in the middle of a very, VERY heavy make-out session with Kelly. This time, I ventured under her shirt. But when my mobile rang, I was startled.
"Nombre de Dios," I muttered as I got off of Kelly. She peered up at me, pouting.
"Hello?" I asked into the phone, while skimming my fingers over Kelly's leg. She giggled.
"Is this Mr. Hector de Silva?" I heard an unfamiliar voice say.
"Yes, this is," I replied, still making Kelly giggle.
"Do you know a Susannah Simon?" I moved away from Kelly.
"Yes. What about her?" I asked boredly. Why should I are? I didn't love her anyway.
"I'm afraid I have some bad news. She has been in a car accident – "
"What!" I exclaimed, eyes widening. Kelly peered up at me curiously.
"She is now in the intensive care unit of Carmel Hospital. We checked her phone and you were one of the first few people listed." I was still listed on her phone? Does that mean… does that mean she hasn't given up on me?
"Thank you," I replied shakily. I hung up and ran my fingers through my hair disbelievingly.
Before Kelly could demand an explanation, I jumped up and grabbed my jacket, car keys, and rushed to the front door.
"Hector!" I turned around. I never told her to call me Jesse. I don't know why… but I've only let Susannah call me Jesse. It didn't seem right for anyone else to call me by that name.
"Wait!" she called out.
"Kelly," I said, pausing. I had no wish to be blunt but I was in a hurry. "It's over."
"What?" she asked stupidly. I rolled my eyes.
"It's over. As in, we're breaking up."
As Kelly's eyes brimmed with tears, I got into the car and rushed off.
The only thing that ran through my mind was that I hadn't been there. I hadn't been there during her accident.
I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. I ran quickly to the front desk and asked for Susannah's room number. The lady's eyes filled with sympathy as she directed me to room 425.
I walked slowly into her room. My face drained of color as I took in the room.
Many machines were attached to Susannah. I could see that the situation was bad. Very bad.
I fell into the chair next to Susannah's hospital bed. I reached out to touch her cheek, as I had done that time after the little incident with the RLS Angels. Only, this time she wasn't awake to feel it.
I heard a nurse come in, telling me that she was unconscious, not in a coma, but I shouldn't wake her up. I nodded without looking up at her.
I placed my head in my arms as I forced back the tears that were threatening to spill. The tears that threatened to spill for making the mistake of letting her go. The tears that wanted Susannah to come back to me.
I reached up and held her in my arms.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry," I whispered into her hair.
And then I heard it.
One long beep from the machine that monitored Susannah's heart beat. The one long beep that made me lose the one person I cared for the most in the whole world.
I stared in horror at Susannah. She was devoid of all life.
"Come back, querida! Please! Don't leave me here!" I cried, not even noticing I called her querida again, hugging her body closer to me.
And then I remembered.
I remembered that Susannah proved I was a shifter. We both shifted to Shadowland together. That day when we were both ecstatic, finding out that we could both go to Shadowland together, that even in shifting we would never be separated.
How wrong we were. How blissfully unaware of what the future held.
Quickly, I closed my eyes and shifted.
I stood at the familiar hallway, fog licking at my ankles, my feet.
The gatekeeper appeared.
"You do not belong here," he announced in a monotone voice.
"Please," I begged. "Have you seen mi querida? She has auburn hair and the most beautiful green eyes…"
I guess my eyes had filled with sadness because the gladiator's gaze softened.
"I know the one of whom you speak," he told me. I looked at him with hope. I could see my Susannah.
He moved out of my field of vision. And I saw Susannah reaching for a door.
"Susannah!" I cried.
She turned, shocked.
Her face was back to the way it was before, not the broken one of the body below in the land of the living. Healthy, full of life. The same brown hair, same sparkle in her green eyes.
Then her face contorted into one of infinite pain, hurt, sorrow, and hate.
Hate.
She hated me.
"Goodbye, Jesse," she said, voice completely devoid of anything warm. Of the love that I usually found in her voice when she talked to me.
And then she was gone.
That simple statement killed me. It stabbed me more that the sharpest knife ever could. It hurt more than a punch from the strongest man in the world ever could.
I had lost Susannah. The one person who would risk herself for my happiness. The one and only one I would ever love.
I shifted back and tightened my grip of her body. I cried softly into her hair. My pain was so great I could barely feel the splitting headache that accompanies every shift.
I could not believe it. The person who made my life worth living was now gone.
Forever.
I shuddered. I did not want to accept it. I couldn't.
Then all the tears I had held back in the last month rushed back, flooding out of my eyes onto Susannah's once beautiful, uncut, unbruised face. The face that once was filled with life.
In that moment, I knew. All those times I had kissed Kelly, it was Susannah it my mind's eye. Everything I felt for Kelly was lust, nothing more.
The moment I lost her, I knew. I knew that no one in the world could ever replace Susannah. I thought that if I told Kelly that I loved her, my love for Susannah would fade, evaporate, disappear. But I could never be more wrong.
She had stolen too much of my heart to ever be forgotten.
And then I remembered the fight.
The last thing I ever said to her was that I didn't love her.
My last words to her.
And that was what made me break down. Knowing I could never, ever, take those words back.
And that she would never know how much I loved her.
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