Disclaimer: I am but a poor High School student. Please don't sue me.
A/N: This is the first part of 'As if I never existed'
Tired Day
Bella cannot get out of bed today
Jacob calls them her Tired Days, for the children's sake. "Mommy's having one of her Tired Days," he says, steering their son back into the hallway. "We should let her rest."
If he were inclined to be accurate, he would call them her Tired Grieving Sobbing Guilt-Stricken Days. But perhaps their son is not quite ready for that information.
She does not think of her family - not of her handsome patient husband, or her bright beautiful children with her eyes. She doesn't think of her friends – not of Emily who takes care of the pack still, or of Billy or Charlie. She does not think of dinner, or PTA meetings, or of herself.
It has been 6 years since she told Edward she couldn't change for him and today Bella cannot live with that.
She will not
(cannot)
Think of the words she said to him, or of the gaze that played across his face.
She remembered how she felt, how she still feels. She knows that as much as it hurts now that it was justified.
She didn't see Charlie or Renee or anyone else but him. She would curl up when he was gone, freeze when in his presence. A beautiful mindless zombie that bent to his will. If he had asked her to die she would have, if he had asked her to live she would have, if he had asked her to stay she would have, but he didn't ask any of those things.
He asked her what she wanted.
(Jacob)
How many grains of sand fill a beach? How many wars have torn their way through the world? How many hearts have broken over the centuries? How many souls have despaired of finding heaven?
(Jacob)
She's shivering and although her fingertips feel warm where he's touching her, the rest of her body can't get warm. Her finger tips tingle, but her lips are frozen from the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him breathing. A light mist that quickly disappears up into the sky. His eyes are glass, she can tell, shards of golden crystal that glitter in the moonlight.
He turns towards her and looks so young that she's frightened. She has never seen him so vulnerable. She could never believe he could ever look so lost.
Not him. Not Edward. But it's not Edward. It's Jacob
Despite the kind eyes and the lovely crooked smile it is still Jacob. Not Edward's wonderful golden eyes, not Edward's comforting stone cold hand, not Edward's wise youthful face. Jacob.
And that's when it hits her that she had chosen to save herself. She had chosen Jacob because she wanted to be Bella. She wanted to be clumsy and hate parties and not become a murderer and so she chose Jacob. To make him happy, for Edward or for Jacob or for herself.
She sees their faces blurred together now. Instances fade in and out of each other until they are the same person and then they are completely different, and she knows the one that she goes to every time.
She lies still in bed, trying desperately not to think. Normal life seems an impossible goal, distant and unthinkable. She is shaken at the mere thought of getting out of bed, of dressing
(Tempting stretch of pale skin over muscle. Cool hands falling dangerously low on narrow hips)
And going downstairs and smiling for her loving waiting family.
She loves them, Jacob and the children—fiercely and without reservation. Jacob is everything she ever hoped for in a husband, and more; their son and daughter are the light of her life.
But she does not have to wonder whether it was worth the trade—her humanity, her thirst for murder, her true love.
("No one compares to you")
for her family. She already knows the answer.
Bella cannot get out of bed today.