Edward found himself coming to the end of his cigarette, reminding himself for the fourth time today that he should kick the foul habit, and yet the temptation to reach for another also meant that the time had finally come for him to face up to his parents and the church he so profoundly associated with angst and pain. He stood at the all too familiar arch way at the front of the now over crowded church filled with all the people he had spent all these years trying to avoid, wondering why he had even agreed to turn up. He could only see the back of her mother's head, he noticed that she had stopped dying her hair that lovely chestnut brown colour and was now very much a dull grey. He knew without even being able to see her face that her eyes would be bloodshot and swollen. He prepared himself for this all too familiar sight and the way her father would shake his hand like a complete stranger.
July, a hospital bedside. Her small, lifeless fingers are like bones bundled in thin silk, and they offer no resistance when I squeeze them. The bruises on her pale face were drawing the tears out of me, the last signs of weakness I will show. The young nurse came in to hospital room to confirm my worst fears, they had to pull the plug, and she was a lost cause. Bella was a lost cause.
With a few deep breaths (these that his psychiatrist claimed to be oh so important) he slowly followed the group of people descending within the church. As he'd anticipated, Edward was greeted by several of Bella's extended families consolidating him, trying to sympathise. When what felt like the 100th "I'm sorry again, for your loss" and "you haven't changed one bit" was given he started to feel claustrophobic and trapped, a feeling that he was accustomed to since the accident. Edward didn't know what he intending on doing, or where he was planning on going, all he knew was that he needed to get out of that place as quickly as his legs would allow.