A/N: If Alice hadn't come, and Bella had answered the phone, instead of Jacob. Yes, I realize that's an overdone AU, but I thought I'd put my two-cents in anyway. Sort of darker.
Disclaimer: Nothing new. SM and Bukowski.
--
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.
I wish I could ring in some bravery.
it's a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn't know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.
there's nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
each faces it alone.
Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!
--
The sun sets – like every day – and it's not any different.
She leans her head back, stares at the reds and oranges, the slight purples tinted at the almost-corners of sky.
Beautiful, she thinks, her lids sinking closed.
If she had known this was the last time she would see it, Bella maybe would have kept her eyes open.
--
The wind, hard, blows crinkled leaves across her face.
There's a pumpkin by the doorstep, and it's staring.
--
Jacob doesn't waste any words when she unlocks the door for him.
"She's coming," her tells her, hard-edged and straight-faced. "Sam caught her scent, and she's close."
Bella puts a hand to her forehead and tries not to let him see that she's scared.
It's a quiet comfort, the kind she could never grow used to. She feels his arm around her, his breath hot at her neck.
"I'll keep you safe, Bells," he whispers. "I can promise you that much."
Naivety is an easy thing to have. She takes his hand and tells him she believes.
--
Everything is black.
Light doesn't matter as much, and Bella falls.
--
It's the pain that she feels, before anything else. Jagged and quick, but very, very loud.
She smiles and thinks of sparks. Fires burning on cold nights, leaning back on something warm, a sharp inhale when a cinder lands on her arm.
It's almost the same. Almost, but not quite.
--
A screwdriver sits on her dresser for three years after the first time she comes to Forks.
She hates the rust that grows, but she never bothers to clean it.
--
A few weeks before they realize what's coming, Jacob kisses her and whispers love.
"I can't," she says, pulling back. "Jake, it's just – I…will never love you. Not like that. I can't."
She flinches, expecting a broken edge to his face again. But his smile is wide, even if his eyes are a little sad.
"But don't you see?" he asks, holding on to her hand. "Honey, you already do."
--
There's a garden – greens and golds and color.
Every day, she leaves a note, hidden under a rose petal.
Years pass. She grows up, ink fades, and the flowers turn gray.
--
The cliff diving, she admits – much later on, when the water is cleared from her head –was a stupid idea.
It's just another way that Jake ends up saving her, just another thing she owes him for.
And it means she has a big bruise on her leg, one that shows just barely when she's wearing shorts. She sees Jacob's eyes linger on it sometimes, and she can't stand the look that crosses over him.
It was her fault, anyway. It usually is.
--
Mary had a little lamb, played in careful scales on the piano.
White fingers crack and shatter, fall to her feet with a sound like broken glass.
She screams, and nobody hears it.
--
Victoria doesn't take long to plunge.
It's Bella's idea, actually, to send them looking for her, instead of the other way around.
The truth is that she knows the vampire will never stop. She can feel it in her gut, her body, her heart, everywhere, and if there's even the smallest chance that the rest of them can be saved, she's going to take it.
The purr is almost angelic in her ear.
"Beautiful human," she says, running her finger over Bella's neck. If she hadn't known any better, if she had been closing her eyes – it would have felt loving.
She wants to laugh. Because Jacob was right. He was right, about everything, like he always was.
If she had chosen him, if she had let herself see, instead of hiding behind her memories of untamed, too-short love –
If she had chosen him, she would have chosen life.
--
She's five, and Renee is pushing her on a swing.
Forward, back, forward, back. Sand crunches between her toes.
Lovely girl, look up.
--
She wakes early that morning, the day before – well, she doesn't know it yet, so it doesn't really matter.
She makes pancakes, slices strawberries and whips cream, and Charlie smiles when he sees her in the kitchen.
He gives her a thumbs-up as he chews, his fork clinking loudly against the silverware – and, suddenly, Bella is very glad that Edward isn't there.
It doesn't happen often, that kind of thought, but it's enough to keep her floating, those still, too-long days when she wants to drown.
--
Silence. Fair, beautiful silence.
An open mouth, and she sees it…
--
The last thought – the one before it all goes black again – is of that sunset. It's of warmth and light, the way the shadows fall on her skin, the form of the figure standing in front of the horizon. It's of wide smiles and black bikes – marshmallows roasting and early mornings.
It's of the last time she saw him, the way that, in the end, he couldn't keep her safe.
"It wouldn't be that hard, Bells," he had told her. "It would be easy, really, to love me."
What she hadn't realized was that, in between the quiet jokes and soda cans – the hole that she remembered, the part of her heart that was missing – it had been filled.
It was easy. So easy that she never even realized what had happened.
She doesn't know what Victoria will think, hearing her murmur a name – a different one than she expects – on the edge of darkness. One thing she does know, however, is that it was worth it – death, that is, however painful it may be – for the little bit of life she got to keep.
She doesn't say I love you – she doesn't say it because she doesn't need to. It was there, all along…and now that she knows, she doesn't really mind so much that she has to go.
It was worth it, all of it – in the end.
--
Oh, where am I going, where am I going now that all of this is gone?
--
now people come by
beating on the doors and windows
the phone rings
the phone rings again and again
I get great letters in the mail
hate letters and love letters.
everything is the same again.
--
END