Disclaimer: I own NOTHING. Not Twilight, not Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, which is the inspiration behind this story.

~BELLA~

I close my eyes and wish I was strong enough to raise the pill to my mouth and swallow.

My arm is locked down by invisible forces. My fingers flutter, uselessly, and the little orange pill almost rolls of my palm. Would I let it roll? I'm so cold. Ever since they left I've been so cold. The irony isn't lost on me- I'm reminded of it every time I make the mistake of touching someone else.

A hot tear dribbles down my face, and I'm surprised. I thought I had lost the ability to cry. Like a salamander. Or a crocodile. Crocodile tears. I cried crocodile tears at their funeral.

The pill winks at me, inviting me in. One swallow and your pain will be over, Bella, it entices. No more nightmares. No more memories of Edward, Alice, Jake or Esme. No more.

No more life.

I put the pill away and start on my math homework.

"Bella! Yoo-hoo! Anyone up there?"

I blink, startled. Jessica is standing in front of me, irritated- an emotion that's been appearing increasingly often on her face when I'm in her presence. "Yeah, Jess?" I ask blearily, shifting in my uncomfortable plastic chair. My lunch is spread across the table in front of me, but it isn't fooling anyone. I haven't eaten a decent meal in months.

"We're going to a movie. Mike's treat. I wouldn't have asked you if he hadn't begged me to." With that, Jessica spins on her heel and storms off.

"Bitch," I murmur as I continue to pick at my sandwich. I'm not sure if I'm referring to Jess or to myself.

Meeting after school with the 'gang' is just as awkward as I imagined it to be. Alice must have passed on her gift, because I know just when Mike will try to break the tension with a lame-ass yo mama joke. I'm too consumed with staring at the rainy panorama to put him out of his misery and set him straight. Mike is, and never will be, a comedian.

"Yo mama so dumb she studied all night for a blood test," Mike cracks, laughing as if he made that joke up himself instead of reading it off his iPod Touch screen. If you need any proof that there's an app to replace someone's brain, look no further than Mike Newton.

I accidentally crack a smile at my own musing, which Mike takes as further encouragement. His words blur to meaninglessness quickly. I go back to watching the rain.

The movie blurs like rainy windowpanes. I can tell there is love and mush but it all seems like crepe paper. Pretty to begin with but completely useless, in the end. Like me.

We file out of the cinema, the others chatting animatedly about the movie. Angela and Jess like it well enough, but I can tell that Eric and Mike only watched it for the actresses. Okay, Ben watched for Angela. His love for her makes me feel sick.

I shouldn't have seen this movie. I want to go home, to go escape into my Xanax-induced slumber. I ready myself to voice my plan to the others when we turn a street corner and I see him.

He sees me and halts suddenly. "Bella?" Jasper asks.

~JASPER~

Pain is to be expected.

Emmett is gone to Hell knows where. I don't want to know if he's accepted the Volturi's invitation. Rosalie has thrown herself into her dancing. She dances for days on end, never stopping, never halting. She doesn't speak to Emmett- or me. Carlisle throws himself into his work. Right now, he's dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

As if, in his search for a cure for cancer, he'll stumble upon a cure for broken families.

"Bella?"

She's changed. Her hair is dark now, cut short and choppy. She's lost so much weight- if she looked like a porcelain doll before she looks like a skeleton now. Her Ramones t-shirt hangs off her frame. Even her skinny jeans look a little loose. I can see her tattoos, her raccoon makeup, her nose stud, her ribs- is this what we left her to?

Of course, I'm not that better.

"Why did you come back?" she whispers. A jumble of emotions tumble off of her: anger, loss, bitterness, hatred. I'm not surprised at the hatred. It's to be expected. I did kill her Edward, after all. Not personally- it was more of a death-by-association kind of thing.

Her friends continue walking, oblivious of her pause.

I swallow reflexively and close my eyes. "I don't know," I say, knowing how stupid and weak my words sound to her. A new emotion rises within her; pity. Great. Am I that awful?

"Jasper, I . . . go away. Please. I'm doing just fine without you!" she spits, pity morphing into rage in an instant.

"I'll go away. I promise," I reply, stepping back into the shadows. I know she's hurting- the pain is definitely there- but it's mingling with mine, morphing into something that I have to escape from. "I'll never bother you again, Bella, I promise."

I watch as she catches up with her friends, plastering on a fake smile and pretending too hard to be happy. "Keep them safe, Jasper," Alice had told me, months ago, before Victoria and her army came. "Whatever happens to me, keep them safe."

I think she knew what was going to happen to her. Could she see me now? In Heaven? I refused to think that vampires didn't go to Heaven. Alice was a beautiful person. Was being the operative word. Slogging through the crowds, feeling their nervous jitter, wasn't helping my musings. But what did, these days?

Night has truly fallen in Port Angeles. Street lights flicker to a start, but I'm already gone. Perhaps a deer or two might satiate the empty feeling within me. The best deer are found near Forks, and to go there would be risking running into Bella again. I don't want to make her hurt even more, but the deer . . . Bella isn't going to be wandering around the forest, is she?

My plan decided, I begin my brisk run to the forests of Forks.

~BELLA~

The dreams started a while ago- too long ago to begin wondering. They were so like the dreams that had visited me when Edward left the first time. Horrible nightmares. Awful nightmares. Nightmares that made the wallpaper tear, nightmares that made the house jerk and the paintings clatter.

A scream rips through my throat as Edward is ripped away from me. His eyes scream, I scream. Victoria bites down on his neck-

And the colours fade away, replaced by complete calm. Something cool is straightening my covers, brushing my hair away from my face, murmuring soothing words to me. "Bella, shh, it's okay, they're gone, don't be afraid . . ."

Without opening my eyes, I whisper, "It's not okay. They're gone."

The person pauses. "But it is okay, Bella. They're somewhere better. They don't hurt anymore."

"Edward . . . Alice . . . Esme . . . Jake . . . Seth . . . Leah . . .they're all somewhere better? Sometimes it hurts too much. That's why I turned to drugs in the first place. That's why I am like I am today," I confess. I'm still half-asleep, still with my eyes closed.

The other person's breathing hitches. "Drugs? Bella . . ."

"And sex. And booze. I tried killing myself too. Yesterday. The pill is still on my desk."

I hear the window crack and I know the Mystery Man just chucked the pill away. He settles next to me in my double, and a new wave of calm flows over me. I smile. I don't want it to go away. "That's nice," I mumble, teetering on the precipice of sleep. In a moment of clarity, I realize who is lying next to me. "I'm not angry at you for coming back. Thank you, Jasper."

"You're welcome, Bella. I missed you."

"I missed you too . . . so when I heard you screaming, I . . ."

All is silent for the briefest, most agonizing second. Then Jasper shifts, closer to me, eventually settling on sitting next to me on the bed.

I fall asleep to Jasper singing something under his breath, a lullaby of some sort.

We'll do it all, everything, on our own.
We don't need anything, or anyone.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world?

I don't quite know how to say how I feel
Those three words, are said too much, they're not enough.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told, before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life.

Let's waste time, chasing cars, around our heads.
I need your grace to remind me, to find my own.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told, before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life.

All that I am, all that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I don't know where, confused about how as well
just know that these things will never change for us at all.

If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me, and just forget the world?

Little did I know I had just stepped in far above my head- this was just the beginning for me.

It wasn't going to be all sunshine and roses from here on.