Title: Goodbye to You
Disclaimer: The characters and New Moon storyline belong to Stephanie Meyer. The song for this songfic is "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch.
A/N: Song lyrics are in bold. POV switches back and forth between Bella and Edward, starting with Bella. POV changes are marked with *******. This fic follows the basic New Moon storyline.
Goodbye to You
/Of all the things I believe in
I just want to get it over with/
"You…don't…want me?" It may have been voiced as a question, but inside, the searing undeniable truth of that statement was even then burning itself into my reeling heart. He didn't want me; my angel who had healed a pain I hadn't even realized I felt didn't want me anymore. Had he ever even wanted me?
"No."
"Don't do anything reckless." I promised; it didn't matter. I didn't want to do anything. Even continuing to breathe in and out was more than I thought I could bear.
"It will be as if I'd never existed. Goodbye, Bella. Take care of yourself."
He left then—disappearing into the twilight of the forest and for a moment I stood, incapacitated by the pain of the giant hole ripped into my chest where my heart had once been. In a twisted, masochistic way I was grateful that he had left before he could see what his leaving had done to me. I had always known that I wasn't enough for an angel like him, and in reality, his leaving made sense. He shouldn't feel guilt over doing what had to be done and as he'd ripped apart my world a part of me wanted him to just get it over with.
Now he had, and he was gone.
/tears from behind my eyes
but I do not cry
Counting the days that passed me by /
The pain wells up inside of me over and over again but I don't allow the tears to overflow. What good are tears when they will not bring him back to me? Allowing the tears would only remind me of him and the way he used to comfort me when I cried. I can feel him running his cool, silky fingers along my face, brushing away the tears as his breath surrounds me in a cloud of sweet comfort. I hear him softly humming the song he wrote just for me as he holds me in his arms and the rest of the world fades away until all I know is this perfect moment.
Pushing away the memory of the heaven I used to know, I return to my hell and to counting the days that have passed me by.
Charlie keeps trying to get me to go out with my 'friends' and it's starting to get old. He says that Edward's not coming back and that I need to move on. I don't have the heart or strength left to tell him that when someone rips away your very existence and reason for being—the thing that makes you whole, there is no moving on from that.
/Looks like I'm starting all over again
The last three years were just pretend/
I call Jess and we go to the movies; nothing is the same as it used to be. We aren't really friends anymore because I am not who I was before I met him. He changed me; maybe he didn't infuse me with his venom and turn me, but he changed me just as completely and irrevocably simply by coming into my life.
I am not the girl I was when I moved to Forks, and my old friends may not fully know the reason why, but they feel it and they stay away. At school I am as alone as I was on that first day I moved here and it seems like I'm starting all over again.
There is Jacob though- my personal sun whose warmth and brightness is usually enough to dull the throbbing pain in my chest at least while he's there. But Jacob isn't there at night when the nightmares come and I awake screaming with the raw pain that cannot be healed except by one who no longer cares and maybe never even cared in the first place.
Adrenaline…such a powerful hormone; it's only when the adrenaline is coursing through my veins that I hear his perfect honey smooth voice in my head warning me that what I'm about to do is foolish and dangerous.
It's harder to trigger that rush of adrenaline than it used to be. Physical danger doesn't faze me so much anymore; when you have lost the one thing you tried to hold onto in life—when you have been forced to endure more emotional pain than you thought possible, the realities of mere physical pain pale in comparison. The pain from a gash or broken bone fades steadily but the pain that I am in lashes out just as fiercely now when someone says his name as it did six months ago. This pain still taints each hour of my day no matter if I am awake or asleep and only briefly cools when Jacob is with me.
But Jacob is not here now and standing on the rough edge of this cliff, my stomach quivering with trepidation as I look down to the rocks and waves below, I feel it-that elusive rush of adrenaline begin.
I savor the feeling as I move closer to the edge and there he is in my mind—a wonderful, peaceful, solace if only for a few seconds.
"No, Bella!" his angel's voice warns me.
I smile sadly at him as I take a deep breath of the misty sea air and step over the edge.
I am dying; I may not have stepped off that cliff looking for death, but I know that it has found me here in the swirling, icy waters. Yet, as the tide takes me, I can't find it in me to regret what I have done because he is there. The angel who changed my life is there with me now in death. I look into his golden eyes and allow myself to remember every moment we shared—the memories, normally painful now simply fill me with love as I close my eyes and reach my hand out toward my angel and the blinding light behind him.
In the midst of the swirling water something grabs me and starts pulling me up, away from him. I reach out my hand again trying in vain to hold onto him, but he is gone and I am lying on the rough sand with a very worried Jake bending over me.
I should be relieved that I am alive and that Jake rescued me from the angry waves, but instead all I can feel is the searing pain of my battered heart at being ripped away from the one I love, from the one thing that I tried to hold on to.
/Ohhh yeah
It hurts to want everything & nothing at the same time
I want what's yours and I want what's mine
I want you but I'm not giving in this time/
How long has it been since that day I left her?
Bella-the love of my existence who deserves nothing less than for me to run away from her as fast as I can, dragging with me the danger that I have brought into her life. It is because of me that James very nearly destroyed her; because of me she was near Jasper that ill-fated night of her birthday.
I have returned to her over and over, weakly surrendering to my desire to be with her, but I am doing what is right for her now no matter the cost to me. Her safety matters more than anything; I want her but I'm not giving in this time.
/Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew/
It can't be true; that last moment in the forest—that stricken, wounded image of her face seared into my infallible memory can't be all I am left with. That can't be our final goodbye. Rosalie must be wrong—she has to be…but Charlie is "at the funeral." In that instant, hearing those words from the mouth of the werewolf, I know that I could never have stayed away from her forever; this woman draws me to her no matter how great the distance between us. Now, in the face of her death, there is only one choice left to me, only one way to have any hope—no matter how small—of seeing her again. I hope Carlisle is right about there being an afterlife for our kind. Maybe this is goodbye to everything I thought I knew.
/You were the one I loved
The one thing that I tried to hold on to/
He is at the very fringe of the shadows, so close to exposure. Even as I frantically stumble across the cobblestone courtyard in a pitiful human effort to save him from himself, I can't help taking my eyes off my treacherous footing to look up at him for what may be the last time.
The circles under his eyes, normally faint, are so pronounced now that it looks like he was on the losing end of a boxing match. His hair, normally immaculate hangs limp, and his eyes—his eyes are pitch black and colder than the darkest night. They are empty—dead. His guilt over my supposed "death" has driven him to this. He may not have loved me, but I have to do whatever I can to stop him from destroying himself because I can't picture this world without Edward in it. He was the one I loved—the one thing that I tried to hold on to.
/The one thing that I tried to hold on to/
At the edge of the shadows, I feel the beckoning heat of the midday sun and the closure stepping into that light promises to provide. One way or another it will be over—I will be with my Bella or I will cease to exist. Either way, this is my only chance now to be with the one thing that I tried to hold on to.
/Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew
You were the one I loved
The one thing that I tried to hold on to/
She's really here with me—alive—warm and in my arms. Somehow we are both alive, but as we descend into the gloom below the streets of Volterra with Jane and company at our backs, I know there is a very real chance that we will not remain that way for long.
I want to sweep her up in my arms and flee from this danger to a place where we can be alone and I can admit the truth. I see it in her eyes—she still believes the lie. She thinks that I stood in front of Aro begging, pleading to die solely out of guilt over not being there to stop her from jumping off that cliff. She really doesn't have any idea she was the one I loved—the one thing that I tried to hold on to.
Back home in Forks, safe—or as safe as my Bella ever manages to be—she sleeps, and I hold her close, the heated blanket between us. I breathe in her sweet scent as she nestles into my chest and I know that I can never leave her again. She is my life now—she has chosen me despite the danger and as much as I have tried to fight it for her sake, I have chosen her too.
My world was empty before her—a dark endless night until she arrived and illuminated it with her sweet, trusting warmth. She has been a bright flash of light across my dark sky and I never want to lose that.
She moans in her sleep and reaches out, searching for me; I hold her close and whisper, "Shh…sleep, my Bella. Sleep, my love. I am here and always will be; you will never have to be alone. When the stars fall, I lie awake. You're my shooting star."
A/N: Positive reviews and constructive criticism are welcomed—this is my first Twilight fic.
/When the stars fall and I lie awake
You're my shooting star./
/Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew
You were the one I loved
The one thing that I tried to hold on to/
/I still get lost in your eyes
And it seems like I can't live a day without you
Closing my eyes till you chase my thoughts away
To a place where I am blinded by the light but it's not right/
/And I say goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew
You were the one I love
The one thing that I tried to hold on to/
/I've been searching deep down in my soul
Words that I'm hearing are starting to get old/