A/N: Hey guys! Ok this story was originally a oneshot called "The Right Thing" This first chapter is NOT the same as the oneshot. It has undergone a lot of extending and it deserves a reread if you have already read it. Pritty Please R&R! I would love you forever and ever!
Exposition: This is written from Edward's pov, it begins in chapter 3 of New Moon. If you haven't read New Moon please turn back now MAJOR spoilers may be contained!
The Right Thing
There are moments, in life, when time seems to move both very slowly and simultaneously quicker than lightning. You seem to be experiencing everything more deeply than seems natural. You can hear every extension of every syllable of every sound. You can feel every separate sensation of feeling in your body. You can see every detail in your surroundings with exceptional clarity. Yet at the same time the moments seem to be slipping away from you without permission, leaving you without the means to appreciate your newly defined senses. It is if your body is acting of its own accord, on a set path. You are a train with no breaks and no steering. You have only one set course. You cannot deviate. It's a very helpless feeling, this sensation that something important is moving away from you so quickly that there is nothing in your power to stop it.
It is in this state of sharply aware, single mindedness that I turned from Isabella and walked away.
Thousands of times, in the few seconds that it took me to put nearly a mile between us, I wanted to turn around and run straight back. I could feel my joints preparing for the one fluid movement it would take me to spin and be hurtling in the opposite direction. It would've been so simple to just reappear and wipe away the silent tears that I could still smell lingering, salty in the air, but I had to be strong. I had to control myself and my every beastly tendency.
For even then, even as I lamented the greatest loss I had ever experienced, the accursed thirst burned in my throat, with its constant sickening throb. Serving a purpose for once, this was enough to push me on and away from Isabella and all her soft unspoiled goodness. I refused to hurt her anymore than I had already. Hopefully sometime soon she would be able to understand that this was the right thing. I had done the right thing.
Although I told myself that countless times over the next months, I could never seem to make it ring completely true.
I hurtled through the forests faster than I could ever recall going before, with no sense of purpose or direction. It didn't matter anyway. Now that I had run away from the one thing that mattered, what was there left to run towards? Without meaning to I found myself in our meadow. It was wrong to have come there but it was as if my feet were winning some battle with my head. I didn't pause on the edge of the treeless circle of billowing grasses. I pelted straight through the rain directly to the center, to the very spot where we had been sitting what felt like millions of years ago.
The painful memories of that day flooded back, knocking me down in every literal sense. I sat curled up on the muddy bank of the stream, pretending that the thick rain drops staining my face were tears, wishing to be normal. The vision of her face, flushed and warmed by the sun as she beckoned me farther into the warmth, curious rather than frightened of what I was, taunted me. Even more painful yet was the marring vision of her frozen in place, frightened into stillness by my over reaction to her presence.
Even the good moments of my short lived happiness with her had been scarred until they were unrecognizable by my actions. It was unforgivable.
I had no concept of passing time as I sat in the liquid dark, straining to smell a scent that was now too far away and washed clean by rain.
Without meaning to my mind began to replay the last moments I had spent in her company. I had said my real goodbyes days before in her room when I had made my decision; but these were still the last recollections I would have of her heavenly scent, her silk like hair, her depthless eyes, and her warm skin beneath my cold betraying lips.
Suddenly it was too much. I had to do something. I couldn't sit still any longer; I needed to make it all come out right. To me this meant that I needed to be punished. I was beyond all rationality, and although I knew it would make no difference upon my cursed existence I turned to the cold crystalline stream to my left.
Unthinkingly, in one swift movement I threw myself into the freezing water. It was only deep enough to just cover up my body with a few silvery feet of liquid once I was laying on the bottom. I felt a short moment of relief as the water shocked me slightly, being a few degrees colder than my own skins temperature, but the reprieve provided by being able to actually feel was soon gone. My body naturally trapped air it didn't need, but I forced it out of my lungs and breathed in deeply. I could feel the water filling up my lungs making my chest heavy. I half expected to feel the desperate and helpless feeling of needing oxygen but it never came. The water just lay there in my unused windpipe, like lead. I stayed absolutely still for countless minutes, allowing the churning currents caused by my abrupt entry to the stream bed to still. Soon I could see the fantastic patterns formed by the natural flow of the water and the raindrops still falling over my head.
Through the foggy liquid looking glass I saw a figure loom over me. Carlisle, golden hair luminous even in the dark through three feet of water, was now reaching down to lift me from the stream. You can still go back. This thought echoed out clearly as he put me on my dripping feet with a deeply pained expression.
I tried to respond aloud but my airways were filled with water. I choked on the cold liquid pouring out of my mouth, and despite my lack of an average gag reflex started to reject the water in my system. As I leaned on my hands and knees in the tall grasses sputtering and finally taking deep unnecessary breaths, I could hear other tracks of Carlisle's thoughts spiraling off faintly. He's tearing himself up already. This can't last long. It took the small amount of self control I had left to force myself to disagree with words instead of reckless actions, "No. I can't go back Carlisle. This is right. She deserves to be happy. She deserves to be normal. I won't hurt her again, I promised." I sounded as desperate as I felt even to myself. Why don't we sit down and talk through this again. There must be a way… some solution that won't cause you so much pain… a way to stay.
"We've been over it again and again. There is no solution. This is the only way!" My voice was moving up fast in pitch and intensity. My eyes searched my father's face wildly for some sign that he understood. I found nothing in his expression or his thoughts to tell me that he approved of what I was doing; I accepted no other answer. I drug myself to my feet and began to back away from him, "I won't hurt her." I repeated once more.
And with that, in order to make my words true I ran towards the opposite side of the clearing, aiming to put as much distance between myself and temptation as I possibly could. When I reached the edge of the meadow in a fraction of a second I was stopped abruptly by the presence of a pale figure standing in my path, caramel hair billowing in the wind and rain. I couldn't bear to look into her eyes and see the disappointment I knew was waiting. I couldn't bear the sadness I was causing her along with that which I was causing myself. I tried desperately to tune them out but her thoughts broke through. I don't know if I can stand to see you go back to the way you were before. You've changed so much. For the better.
My head felt like it was going to explode if it fought with itself any harder. I wanted to hate myself for wasting the chance I had been given at happiness. I wanted to mourn what I had lost. I wanted to hope that a solution would present itself after all. And most disturbingly of all, a small part of me wanted to destroy.
A pure and perverse instinct wanted me to manifest the pain I was feeling in any physical way. It wanted me to rip something to shreds just because I was able. Even more ashamed of this part of myself than anything else I spun away from Esme and ran at the wall of forest to my left. Just as unthinkingly as I had thrown myself into the water hoping to drown, I threw my fist directly through the first tree I met hoping to release some of the horribly intense emotions I was feeling.
In a matter of seconds I had efficiently turned the innocent tree into sawdust and I was moving onto its neighbor when I felt a small, solid hand on my shoulder. I froze in place, one hand raised half way to impacting with the doomed oak and the other curled just as tightly ready to follow the blow through. I slowly uncurled my fists and lowered my hands to my sides. My head felt loose and heavy on my neck, collapsing forwards to leave me staring at the muddy ground. I squeezed my eyes shut for a brief moment and when I opened them I was much closer to the ground. I had sunk to my knees without realizing and I was now staring at the pulverized remains of the unsuspecting plant I had destroyed.
This was what I was. I was a reckless force of nature, unnatural in everyway. I was a perfect machine with no possible function. I was doomed and damned in every sense and no amount of repentance would preserve me.
I went limp and began to fall forwards into the wet earth, but iron arms were around me suddenly, holding me steady. Carlisle lifted me to my feet and supported my weight; I found myself facing a horrified Esme. She was trying desperately to reason with me in her thoughts. She knew what I was going through; she had spent many of her human years away from her true love. She had lost Carlisle once. That was true, but what I didn't say as I fell into the warm embrace of my unnatural mother, was that she had found her love again. I was leaving mine for good.
A/N: I know this chapter is pretty short. I am trying to work on my length… please review with constructive criticism or praise :D what can I do better? How can I keep you interested? I am here to serve haha I'm going to the beach over the long weekend so the earliest I will update this is next Wed. also I just started a ton of AP and honors courses so I may be a slow updater. Stick with me though! Lots of LoveDarky