AN: Longer OneShot than normal. Wrote this in Sophomore year of High School with Emily Whitaker but changed it up a little and made it sound better. Hope you enjoy and please review!
"Would you two just stop it? This is a family dinner. The first real one we've had in years and all you two can seem to do is bite at each other!" exclaimed Renee. "This is the reason we can't get together more often."
Bella glared at her sister from across the table. A fight was always assured to break out when Bella and Rosalie were in the same house, let alone the same room. Bella glowered at her sister thinking about how stupid she could be sometimes. Rosalie had just insulted Bella's taste in men; with her husband Edward sitting right next to her.
Edward's touch on her arm pulled her out of her angry thoughts. Normally, he could calm her down, but today there was too much on her mind for his loving contact to take full affect. She was stressed enough with work and the fact that she was pregnant. Now her father was in the hospital recovering from a serious stroke, and her sister was picking fights with her! They had never really been on good terms, but none of their fights have been as coldhearted as this one.
How could this be happening to her family? The man who was their rock, their strength was lying in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. Her father had always been the one she looked to for comfort and advice. He had always had a solution to all of her past problems. But he couldn't solve this one. He never could seem to get his two daughters to coexist and he had seemed so frail tonight at the hospital.
Silence settled over the table as everyone went back to eating. Bella's fifty year-old mother looked to be about ninety tonight. Thirty years of constant fighting between the two sisters had taken its heavy toll on her, but it only became visible tonight. She seemed so lost without the love of her life at her side. Shoulders that had once been straight and proud now slouched. A frown seemed to have been etched into her beautiful, smiling face. Her eyes seemed to have lost the color that they once held. They, instead, looked leaden and lusterless. She looked exceedingly tired, as if she could lie down and sleep for years. Bella's mother, who put on make-up to go work in the garden, had recently not bothered with cosmetics at all. Nor had she attempted to fix her hair. Bella hardly knew this drawn, old lady sitting at the head of the table looking so alone. She had a beautiful, strong mother who never quite looked her age and who was always completely adored by her husband.
The shrill of the phone ringing interrupted the heavy silence. Everyone knew that only the hospital would call during dinner. Her mother got up slowly and walked towards the ringing phone. She picked up the receiver and walked to the living room as not to disturb everyone else. Bella and Edward could barley see her. They couldn't make out what she was saying, but they knew what had happened as soon as they heard the moan come drifting to them from the living room.
Edward jumped up as he saw his mother-in-law start to lose her balance. He got there in time to steady her before she collapsed, but it was evident that they both were horribly shaken. Bella already knew what had happened, but she had to hear it to believe it.
"What is it? What's wrong?" asked Bella running to her mother's side.
Her mother could only get out, "He's dead," before shock wore off and she fell into the abyss of tears. Edward took his wife, folded her up in his arms, attempting to shield her from the horrible reality.
Months later, Bella still had not begun to cope with her father's death. Refusing to work through her grief, she had fallen into a depression so deep that she withdrew from society. She no longer went to work even though her bereavement absence had long since run out. Nor did she visit the doctor for her and the baby's check-ups even though she was on her fourth month of pregnancy. Edward was forced to turn away her friends that came to the door concerned. The only people that she saw were Edward and her best friend and sister-in-law Alice. Edward's sister was a counselor and was just beginning to help Bella work through her pain. That is until the day that Bella started having the horrible pains.
That day, she came home from the rare trip to the store with stomach cramps. They got to the point where she was doubled over before Bella would allow Edward to take her to the hospital. Doctor said during her depression she had lost weight excessively until it was dangerous for both her and the baby. The baby wasn't receiving enough nourishment and her body had resorted to using anything it had stored before. When there was no fat left to burn, they both became sick. It came down to the only way for Bella to stay alive was for her body to abort the baby.
This news only made the depression worse. Bella had not only lost her father; now she had lost that beautiful little life inside her. And it was all her fault. She had caused it by simply neglect. Lost in her grief, she shut out everything and everyone she could.
Throughout his own mourning, Edward tried to help her cope with losing the baby the best he could. But she would not accept his offerings. He tried everything. He had tried talking to her, staying home with her, and even threatened her with divorce. It was an empty threat at the time, but he had to try. He had called Alice and asked her to come over, but Bella wouldn't acknowledge her. The only time she talked was to ask for something, and even that was barely once a day. She barely ate, barely drank, and hardly ever slept, never moving from wherever Edward positioned her in the morning. Her depression grew to where it seriously affected her physical health.
One morning she had a 103.5 degree fever, and had been physically sick and shaking all night.
"Okay. That's it," Edward told her after her third hour of throwing up. "I'm calling an ambulance to take you to the hospital right now."
"No," Bella said weakly. "I'm okay. I don't want to go to the hospital."
Normally, Edward would give his wife anything she asked for, but this time he couldn't. "You don't have a choice anymore. You're going. This has gone way too far."
"Edward, don't make me go, please. When someone I love goes into the hospital, it seems like they never come out. Please don't make me go. I'm fine," she said trying to sit up from the floor next to the toilet.
"I'm sorry Bella, but you're not fine. You are seriously ill, both physically and mentally. You can't just sit here and hide from the fact that both your father and our baby are dead."
"I'm not hiding."
"Then what are you doing?" When no reply came, he continued, "I can't take this anymore. If you don't go to the hospital now and then get professional therapy afterwards, then I am leaving," he said walking out of the bathroom off their room. He got down a suitcase from their closet to either fill with her things for her hospital stay or his.
"You said that before and never did," she said.
"This time I mean it," he said walking back in the bathroom. "It has been six months since the miscarriage, and nine since your father's death. Since then, you have given up on life. Now either you fight to live, fight to keep me in your life, or I walk."
"Please don't leave me," she said looking up at him with tears streaming down her face. "I need you."
"No. What you need is someone to make you food and wash your clothes. You forgot that I'm a real person who was trying to cope with the loss of our child. Don't you think that I was and, and still am, just as devastated as you are?" He took a deep breath and ran his hands through his hair. "I'm sorry Bella, but you need more than I can give you. I've tried, but you've pushed me away. You need to go to a hospital and then to a psychiatrist."
When she made no clear want for the help that he was giving her, he left the room, and packed his things in the suitcase. She lay there on the bathroom floor where she had been all night and listened to him pack, then leave. She lay there for hours, expecting him to come back, but he never did. She eventually cried her self to sleep on the cold tiles. She had ruined everything that she had loved in her life and now it was too late for her.
A few days later, Alice came over to check on Bella. Edward had come over and told her that he had left. He gave Alice the key to the house and asked her to check up on Bella to make sure that she was okay. He also asked her to try to get her the help that she so desperately needed.
As Alice walked through the house, she noticed that it was completely dark. It seemed cold and she didn't understand how Bella could live like this. Alice searched through the house calling Bella's name. The last place that she looked was their bedroom. As she was leaving the room, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She found Bella, still on the cold tiles in the same position that Edward had left her in. She hadn't moved since he walked out the door. Alice went over to her and tried to wake her.
"Hey Bella," she said softly going over to her. "It's time to get up. It's me, Sweetie. I brought food."
Bella didn't move. Alice went to gently nudge her, but she was so cold. Fear pulsed through Alice's veins. She quickly searched for a pulse and ran to the phone. She couldn't feel one.
The paramedics came and took Bella away. She had been dead for three days. They said that the official cause-of-death was malnutrition and dehydration, but everyone knew that she died of a broken heart.