If I Have To Go
Prologue, If I have to go- Edward
And if I have to go, will you remember me?
Will you find someone else, while I'm away?
There's nothing for me, in this world full of strangers
It's all someone else's idea
I don't belong here, and you can't go with me
You'll only slow me down
Until I send for you, don't wear your hair that way
If you cannot be true, I'll understand
Tell all the others, you'll hold in your arms
That I said I'd come back for you
I'll leave my jacket to keep you warm
That's all that I can do
And if I have to go, will you remember me?
Will you find someone else, while I'm away?
-A song by Tom Waits
Edward sat on his bedroom floor, turned away from everything. He didn't hear the troubled whispers of his family downstairs, didn't notice when Carlisle came and stood in the doorway, didn't notice when Carlisle went back downstairs, he didn't see the light fade and turn into darkness, he didn't see anything. He sat like this for hours, until morning. Alice came and sat down next to him.
"It's time to go." She said. What Alice meant was that it was time to go to school, but that isn't what Edward heard.
"I know." He said.
Alice's face went blank, she saw Edward telling Bella he didn't love her.
"Edward don't… it will kill her if you leave."
"That's not your decision Alice." He barked, "Pack what you want to take. I'll tell that to the others, Carlisle will have us removed from Forks high."
If Alice could have cried she would have, instead she let out a broken breath.
"You're choosing wrong." She told Edward and then went downstairs to tell the others that they were leaving.
Jasper wasn't surprised; he had been feeling Edward's emotions for the past few hours, or rather Edward's emptiness.
Carlisle and Esme were upset that their son could be affected like this. Emmett was hurting for his brother and trying to get through to Rosalie. Rosalie was, as normal, bitter. Out of his family Alice was the most distraught, she had seen that Edward was considering leaving, but not seen that he actually would. She loved Bella like a sister, Bella was the only friend Alice had had for years and Alice was upset. The feelings of Edward's family didn't affect Edward. Edward wouldn't be swayed.
Everyone was ready within a few hours. Furniture was removed, bags were packed and the house was left empty. Edward was once again sitting in his room.
"Edward? Are you going on foot or coming with us in the car?" Carlisle, who had once again come to stand in the doorway, asked his son with the utmost gentility.
"I have something to do." Edward relied, tonelessly.
Carlisle didn't speak again; instead he went downstairs and left with all his family. Emmett sat with Rosalie in his Jeep, Rosalie wore an 'I told you so' expression, Alice and Jasper went in Rosalie's car, Alice silent all the while, and Esme and Carlisle went in Carlisle's Mercedes.
Edward waited until the end of Bella's school day and then he went round to her house. He had planned the words in his head, lots and lots of words, for he expected that she wouldn't believe him. He listened and when he was certain that she wasn't in her room he climbed through the window. He removed a picture of himself and Bella, he removed all the gifts that he had bought her; he removed every trace of himself and his family. The material things he hid underneath the mattress, but although he wished he could, he couldn't remove her memories. He noticed a shirt that lay discarded on the floor and picked it up, cradling it to himself, he inhaled, smelling her scent. He would keep this, because he knew that he would never try to erase his memories of Bella. He folded the shirt into his big palm so that she wouldn't notice that he had it and then followed her scent.
He found her reading, in the bit of forest behind her house and he walked up to her silently. She saw him and dropped her book, running to embrace him. He didn't hold her for he knew that if he did he wouldn't be able to bring himself to say it.
"Where were you?" She asked, her voice full of concern. He didn't answer.
She let go and stepped back, looking at his face. She had seen that there was something not right.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"Bella… we're leaving."
She smiled misunderstanding.
"Relax Edward, I don't mind. Where are we going? Really I don't mind leaving Forks."
"You can't come with us Bella." He said.
Bella couldn't breathe.
"You mean… you don't want me?" She choked.
"You're not good for me Bella." He said.
"If that's what you want." She whispered.
He was stunned; fooling her had been so easy. He wanted to say something else but couldn't. He ran away and didn't stop until he was too far to go back. It was only then that he allowed himself to feel again. He let out a cry that sounded animalistic, only no animal had eves hurt this much. He clung feebly to Bella's shirt, grasping it weakly in both of his hands and allowed himself to feel all the pain of being torn to pieces.
The house with nobody in it
Whenever
I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I
never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such
things; This
house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass, If I had a lot of money and all my debts were
paid Now, a new house standing empty, with staring
window and door, But a house that has done what a house
should do, So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old
farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've
passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look
at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and
sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I
do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
And
somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It
needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and
tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living
inside.
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and
spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And
I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them
free.
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on
its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it; it
cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it
has never known.
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its
loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has
echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the
saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could
meet.
I
never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet
it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen
apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house
with a broken heart.
-A poem by Joyce Kilmer
AN// Well, that was depressing! The last poem might sound off topic but I'm sure you understand that I was using 'the house' to be as Edward and Bella are.