Stranger
I picked myself up from the couch and trundled the stairs to my bedroom. I was so tired that my goodbye to Charlie was silent; I had tried to speak the words but once I'd failed in getting them out I felt even more drained. So I left the room in silence. Behind me, the TV continued to play ads about stereo speakers and car window tinting, and Charlie pretended to watch them.
Each stair felt horrible to climb; as I went up it seemed that each successive stair was double the distance in height than the last. The only thing stopping me from sleeping right where I stood was the prospect of a shower, and a pillow. So I kept pushing myself up.
In the way that life was sometimes kind to me, the next thing I remember was stepping out of the shower, feeling clean but not refreshed. I hadn't felt refreshed in a long, long time. The small chunks of time that would slip away from me were the best part of most days. I pulled open my drawer; my weakened limbs wouldn't allow me to carry my toiletries bag with me any more; and pulled out my hair brush. I could see the corner of my previously favourite pyjamas at the back of the drawer poking out. Before I could allow myself to remember what they had once been there for, I slammed the drawer shut with a bend of my knee and concentrated ten-fold on exactly how to brush my teeth.
Either I've been laying here for a long time, or I got bored enough to use the hair dryer. I couldn't remember. Slowly, I trudged through my memories to try and think what had happened between the bathroom and bedroom – I'd said good night to Charlie from the top of the stairs, more audibly this time; but had I dried my hair? I looked at the clock on my bed side table.
No. I've just been laying here for a long time.
I looked at the dark ceiling, barely visible in the trickle of moonlight that the clouds were allowing to pass tonight, and shifted my head slightly. Immediately I felt a wet patch right on the back of my head where my hair had not dried. I didn't really want to get up, but I knew that my hair – and pillow – was going to give me a cold if I didn't try to dry them.
I swung my legs out of bed and tried to reach my window without actually getting up. I couldn't do it. When I finally got my window open; the dried paint had eventually gotten its revenge on my weak muscles; I propped my pillow onto a chair next to it.
Next, I crossed to my door and pulled it gently open. Being quiet wasn't really necessary because Charlie was out on a night patrol or something – actually, I didn't really know where he was, but I knew he was out tonight. That was a downside to the temporary no-memory moments that criss crossed my world. I'd missed out on some important things.
Nevertheless, I tip toed as quietly as lethargy would allow me to the bathroom, and pulled the door closed behind me. I stood for a moment, blinded by the sudden lamps in the ceiling, then set to work with the hair dryer.
Oh, thank you dear stupor of nothingness. Here I am, thoughtless, in front of my slightly open bedroom door, and no memory of how I got here. Not that there would have been anything to really remember anyway… drying my hair and crossing from the bathroom door to my bedroom door wasn't all that eventful.
The door made no noise as I pushed it open, no noise when I closed it behind me. I made a beeline for the pillow, which was now quite cold but reasonably dry, and threw it back on my bed. Then I started dragging my computer chair across the carpet to its home under the desk. Once the window was closed, I climbed back under the sheets and stared at the ceiling again.
My eye lids were feeling heavy, so I let them drop. I knew that as soon as I was asleep, I would dream… unpleasant things. Spots of white and blobs of black danced behind my eyelids but I could never quite see them. I felt a cool breeze across my face and was glad that the window was still open.
Wait. I closed it.
For a moment I froze, thinking there was some kind of murderer in my room about to slide a blade across my skin; when I realised I didn't particularly care. I was barely surviving the worst thing that could possibly have ever happened to me… so what if I died now? Charlie and Renee would probably be relieved… they wouldn't have to be on suicide watch for me anymore. I unfroze and took a breath.
And instantly regretted it.
Whoever was playing this prank on me was so, so dead. Tears started to leak down my temples, but they weren't tears of fear, they were tears of extreme, extreme sadness. It was his smell. Someone had raided the Cullen's house and was wafting things around in my room. My eyes snapped open, but the ceiling didn't convey any kind of betrayal.
I propped myself up on my elbows and glanced around the room. The window was closed and there was no one else there. The smell was gone.
The tears started to drip, quicker and quicker. My heart felt like it was torn up, smashed, frozen… gone. It was like he'd just left me, again. The nightmares that would come now were inevitable, so I allowed myself to think his name, because I wanted some trade for the pain I would feel soon enough.
Edward. Edward. Edward. Please, please come back. Edward.
I shuffled my feet and the noise startled me. Feeling stupid, I rolled over, back to my window, just to hear the noise of the cotton folding around my body in the hope that it wouldn't scare me again if I did it in my sleep.
I must have fallen asleep then, because I could hear the beautiful sound of his voice, just like he was here. But he wasn't. He was gone, and he was never coming back because I was just a boring, weak, ugly human. He could do a million times better than me.
"Bella," came the voice. I wanted to put my hands out and feel for him, see if I could somehow touch the sound. But I kept them wrapped around my body, afraid that I would fall to pieces.
No dream had ever been this cruel before. Usually I had some kind of visual to focus on, something to let me know that I was most positively dreaming. But no visuals tonight, just black. Black, nothingness, emptiness, loneliness, black. And there was another feature of the cruelty of my mind. I'd swear I could feel his skin on my cheek. I tried to shrug it off. I squirmed under my covers and pulled them tighter over my head. Yet I could still feel it.
I made a whiney protesting noise and tried to roll over the other way, hoping that it would stop the hallucinations if that side of my face wasn't exposed.
I rolled into something. Someone. My eyes snapped open, staring straight ahead, but whoever was sitting on my bed was blocking the miniscule light available. I could tell they were right in front of me, but I couldn't see them. Their inconsequentially coloured clothes had blended in with the rest of my vision. Their profile was black, their background was black. And my mind was black.
"Bella."
Cruel, cruel imagination. Oh how I hate you so much right now. Was there some part of my mind that was trying to make me kill myself? No, I don't want to know the answer to that.
Suddenly, an earlier thought crossed my mind. Maybe my head was giving me what it thought I wanted? I accepted that scenario much too quickly.
"Edward," I answered back, closing my eyes. It was all in my head after all.
"Bella, look at me," the smooth voiced cooed.
"I can't. I can't see anywhere except in my head now." I knew I sounded insane… but hey, wasn't I?
"Please, Bella." No, no the voice can't be in pain. He can't be in pain. This is my pain. I'm allowed to be in pain, not my imagination.
My voice was muffled because I'd tried to bury my face further into the folds of material bunched in my hands.
"Edward." I sighed. "I want Edward."
"I'm here, look at me Bella. Please. I'm so sorry."
I had to tell the voice. I had to tell him it was wrong for him to be upset. I had to tell him that he was meant to be making me feel better about losing my sanity. I wanted him to tell me that he was coming back and that it wouldn't take long for him to see me again.
So I opened my eyes, and sat up.
I was impressed with the accuracy of my imagination. I could actually feel him sitting beside me, more in presence than anything else, because there was no way Edward had materialised in my room. I still couldn't see. I knew that if a light was turned on, he would disappear and I would be left with my crippling loneliness and my cruel imagination, so I didn't reach for my light. I just sat, and looked in the direction I thought he was in.
"Bella."
"Edward."
I felt his hand on my face. Terrified that it would end any moment, I seized his hand with such force that I almost slapped it to my cheek, and held his palm to my mouth. I inhaled deeply, again impressed with my clearly damaged mind's accuracy. His other hand went to my cheek, and I held them both to my mouth, kissing his fingertips and trying to hold back my tears.
Perhaps, somehow, I could force myself into insanity just so I could stay here with Edward? That wouldn't be so difficult… I was missing total chunks of life anyway. It wouldn't be that bad. And I would be happy here in the cage of my own head.
He smelled so good. But he wasn't real. I decided that my mind was giving me what it thought I wanted, so I would take more than I deserved because it was bound to leave me soon. So I licked Edward's skin.
It was cold, had the smooth and hard yet delicately soft feeling of marble on every part. Another part of my head pulled me back, if I wanted this to last as long as possible I had to be nice, tiptoe around the boundaries.
Okay, I thought. Boundaries.
I slid across the cotton so I was right beside him. The cold fabric of his pants touched my leg and made me shiver. I let go of his hands but kept my own on his body, tracing my way up each of his arms to his shoulders, then his neck. I leaned cautiously forward until my face made contact with some part of his skin, then I slid my cheek along it, the tip of my nose, and kissed gently along the ridge of what I thought was his jaw line.
I heard a soft purr from his throat, and it tickled my own because I was so tightly pushed up against him. One of his hands traced the back of my neck, the other slowly joining up with it, and then moving along my arm to hold my hand on the back of his neck. I pushed myself up higher onto my knees so I could reach his ear, and the small space between his hairline and the edge of his eye. The purr rumbled along his body again, but this time I felt it in his hands, his whole torso.
Unfairly, this seemed to be the extent my imagination was going to allow me. The hand that had been on the back of his neck was gently being peeled away, held to my shoulder as his other hand touched my other shoulder and pushed me back.
I flopped back down on my crossed legs and felt the tears welling up in my eyes, falling down my cheeks and gathering at the point of my chin.
He was going to leave me. Again. And I wasn't going to be able to handle it this time.
The mattress barely moved or made a sound when he rose up. He turned so his back was to me, and held his hands behind his back. I sniffed and reached out to touch them, desperate to remember how he felt, but he spun round just as my hand was about to make contact with him and I touched the fabric on his shirt instead. I wasn't quick enough to yank my hand back before he saw it, or felt it.
My cheeks burned; something that hadn't happened in a long time.
Quicker than I could see coming, his hands were on my cheeks. I put my own up and tried to get a firm grip on his hard, cold forearms. My eyes had adjusted to the level of light in the room and I could almost see his face as he spoke to me.
"Bella." He stared into my eyes. I blinked and two more tears slipped out, pooling where his hands held my face. He looked down for a moment, then back to me. "Can you ever forgive me? I cannot live without you. There is no meaning in my life anymore; everywhere I go and everything I do; every mind I hear, it reminds me of how beautiful you are and how stupid I was to ever leave this place. I love you, so, so much. Please, please forgive me."
I shook my head. "You're not real."
He pulled his hands away like I'd electrocuted him. My now empty hands fell to my sides, and more tears spilled over.
"I am real. I am here." His jaw, what I could see of it in the light, was set hard.
"No, you're in my mind, and when you leave I'm going to become nothing more than an insane cripple, where I hope I can relive the good part of this particular nightmare over and over for the rest of my pathetic life."
He looked furiously at me. I'd never seen anything like it before, except for when he was protecting me from James, and even now it was more frightening to me. A growl rippled quietly from his chest. I put my hands behind me, crawling like a crab across the small space that I had to get away from him. He looked like he wanted to pick me up and throw me right out the window. But then again, perhaps that would be a nice way to die? I'd rather pass at his hands than at any others.
"Pathetic?!" He put one knee deliberately slowly on the bed, crouching towards me.
I started to breathe much too fast, my heart beat thudding loudly in my ears.
"You are not the pathetic one," he growled, advancing towards me. I felt the edge of the bed behind me and knew I was trapped – not that I hadn't been before, I would never be able to outrun Edward.
"I, I'm sorry. I'm not as good as you." I stuttered, hoping that he was going to make this painless. Contrary to the intent of my words, he became, if possible, even angrier.
Like a flash; no, quicker than that; he was right in front of me. His nose was barely a finger width from my own and his cool breath interrupted my fear for a moment. But then, like always, the fear caused tears to start flowing and I was able to feel the terror full-on. He bared his teeth slightly as he spoke.
"I was a fool to even think about leaving you Bella, let alone to actually do it. I will never make such a mistake again, if you let me back in. I love you. More than anything else in this world, I love you."
"But you left me," I sobbed, terrified of both his anger and the memories that were trying to throw me into the hard wall of loneliness.
He backed away, kneeling on his feet, holding his head in his hands. I stayed frozen where I was, too scared to move.
"I know," he moaned. Somehow he had become the one needing comfort.
I was still unwilling to move, in case the killer came out to play again. My heart was still ricocheting around inside my skull, jumping back and forth between my ears.
"What do you want from me Edward? You can't just come here and then leave me again. Just kill me, kill me now if that's what you're planning to do."
He mumbled something into his hands. I couldn't understand, and I involuntarily leaned forward to hear it.
"What?"
His head snapped up, his eyes burning into my own. I didn't feel scared for myself anymore, I felt scared for him. The pain I could see there was worse than any pain I'd felt in the last miserable part of my life, because his pain was self-inflicted. He had been the one to leave me, and he had been the one to bring the pain onto himself. For Edward, there was no one else to blame.
I edged carefully towards him. As I got closer, his smell became more intense. I tried to be inconspicuous about my large breaths, but I knew nothing would escape his attention.
"Edward." I put my hands up to pull his hands down from his face, and he allowed me to do so. "I will always want you. But you didn't want me. You don't want me."
He closed his eyes, breathed in heavily. He seemed to recognise something, because he paused. His eyes snapped open and he leaned toward me. I was frozen. He touched his nose to the skin of my throat, and like I had done to him, he touched his tongue to my warmer, softer skin.
I felt a tingling over the slightly damp place, a natural warning trying to make me run away, because the venom would incapacitate me if it got into my bloodstream. But I just felt overwhelmed with tingliness, like the butterflies that had been trapped for so long were now bouncing into every part of my body possible. My neck felt especially light and delicate.
Edward made a sound somewhere between a murmur and a purr. I couldn't help but laugh slightly; silently; yet he somehow heard me.
He looked me straight in the eye, holding my hands on his cheeks with his own. "I have waited almost one hundred years for you. I will always want, need, and love you Bella." He leaned closer to me. "Will you take me back?"
The gold in his eyes glinted intensely. I sucked in a small breath, and was almost lost for the disruption to my thoughts that his scent caused. But I remembered my answer clearly enough to whisper it to him.
"Yes."
He smiled at me, my favourite crooked smile, and leaned in carefully. He turned his face slightly to the side, letting the very tip of his nose wash over mine, lingering from my lips for a short moment. I couldn't wait for him to kiss me, so I turned my head up slightly and pushed my lips to his. I thought he would pull back, trying to keep me safe, but he didn't. He let go of my hands and wrapped his arms around my waist; I kept my hands on his face, holding as tightly as I pleased because he wouldn't be hurt.
I felt everything heal. My heart still beat erratically, but now for the right reasons. The hole in my chest was gone, better than healed; simply a bad memory that would never come back. The lonely part of my being shrunk down and hid in a tiny corner in my head, the rest of me rejoiced and the butterflies flocking around me started doing a dance. My still pumping heart swelled up in my chest and my cheeks lifted into a smile so big it was almost impossible to keep kissing Edward. Almost.
Then, Edward did something he'd never done before. He gently slid his tongue into my mouth, and it touched my own as though they themselves were kissing. I was so shocked – both with this action and with the incredible taste – that I almost, crazily, tried to bite him. It wouldn't have hurt him – he's made of marble – but what an odd thing to do. I wondered if it felt that way for him all the time.
I traced my hands across his face while our lips remained joined, trying to create a picture in my head of his beautiful outline, even thought I could remember it perfectly already. I wanted to be able to hold him so tightly it would make my arms ache; kiss him for so long that I would faint; be so close to him for so long that I would freeze; and hear his perfect voice for ever and ever.
"I love you Edward."