Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, New Moon, or Eclipse, and unfortunatley I do not own Edward Cullen or any of his wonderful family.
A/N: This is a sequel to 'Tired day'
As if I never existed
This story, like so many stories begins with a moment. It seems petty and rash and fleeting. You won't even think of it for years until long after the cold breath of death should have wafted across your neck and you have wished it would more times then you can count. And you'll think 'yes, I remember her that day when she smelled of flowers and I hated her for it. She surprised me like no other had done. Yes, I remember' and your mind soars, you feel as if your eyes could almost tear, and it's a mystery to you why that moment, of all moments in your life [out of all of the happier moments with her comes back to you. But it does.
She had walked into the room, searching desperately for a seat that was not next to you and both of you knowing that there was no way another seat could be made avaliable because no one ever sat next to you.
Except her
You had shifted from her in an attempt that was not cruel in the way she interpreted it to be. In fact you would consider it very generous, very humane, had you not been trying so hard not to kill her. She looked up at you and tried to smile and you glared down at her and you knew that in a moment you were going to attack her and Esme would seem to cry and Carlisle would be disappointed and Alice would look at you in that way that said 'I told you so' and you didn't know which one you would hate more.
The teacher stopped, the lunch bell rang, and the image of her brown eyes staring into your own was lost, very quickly, into the abyss of your life.
Your life was filled with broken memories and a mysterious past and you found the present to be much more pleasing then all of that. You had the power to change the present, and live in the present, and the past was better left forgotten anyhow.
Only you risked forgetting her.
For your own sake they all wish you could forget her. Alice still doesn't say a word when her birthday comes around, Rosalie is kinder then she has ever been and Emmet and Jasper are the ones who try and keep things just a little bit of what they were before she was gone but not before she was here. Esme still sighs like she used to when she was first changed, when the thought of loosing her first child was still on her mind, and she still casts those looks in your direction that says she is worried and sad for you, even after all these years.
And every once in a while when her presence is thick in the air or in their thoughts you can hear Carlisle murmur"If only we had" and you can't help but interpret that as 'If only you had Edward' even though you know that's not what he is thinking at all.
It's what you are thinking and the saddest part is that even though you can't let go of her, even though all of you suffer for it, even though it has been years since she died, you are still glad that you didn't do it.
For her sake
For a while after she left you, you used to go and watch her.
You never made yourself known, or said a word. Sometimes you kid yourself into thinking that she had seen you. That for a second she knew that you were watching and still didn't come to you. But in the back of your mind you know that if she had known you were there she would not have ignored you. She would have run to you and begged you for forgiveness and taken back everything she had said and things would go back to the way they were.
You wish you really were as strong as she thought you were.
Still, she was always happy with him. In the beginning she was sad and a mess and you realized that this is what she must have been when you left her the first time, and you realized that this time Jacob had to be her rescuer. You had to let him finish the job. Because that's what she wanted this time. Most of the time you allowed yourself a bitter smile and you left, because as much as you loved her, as much as you wanted her to be happy, you still have human tendencies and you still couldn't stand the sight of the two of them together for more then a few hours at a time.
You staid away for many years, knowing that you wouldn't be able to handle seeing her in pain anymore if you came back. Until one day you realized how bad things had gotten and that all you would have to do would be to stop her from biting anyone, and you know that you would be able to do it if only she would come back, you would not allow her to change, she wouldn't have to be afraid, and you could hold her body against your cool skin and feel a bit more human.
So you went back, years after you should have.
You saw the house she lived in, the normal white Pickett fence, the green lawn, the red door, and you had convinced yourself to leave long before the little girl with black hair bounded out of the house. She stared at you with wide calculating eyes, Bella's eyes, and ran back into the house in alarm at the stranger in her yard. And even though your head screamed at you to leave before you could be seen, even though you were trying desperately to leave, your feet did not move, and you didn't breathe, and every part of your body betrayed you as you stood there and watched Bella step from the house.
You left then
And her not calling you back was the loudest sound you have ever heard.
You didn't come back anymore after that. You stopped Alice from watching her after that. You stopped looking at any of them, and you left, back to Denali. Because you couldn't listen to the thoughts of the others when they thought about her. And it was so hard not to.
The sun slowly went down and you became surrounded by darkness. The type of darkness you cannot ever escape from, not really. It lingers and kills and sometimes you want to scream at the world for its sadness. You want to kick and yell and say particularly disastrous words because you miss life before. Before life consisted of before and after.
Before she left. Before she loved him. Before you loved her.
But you don't kick and you don't scream because somewhere inside of you you realize that acting like that just seems juvenile. So, you go on, go to school, go to Denali, and know that somewhere in Forks and through the darkness they're at the beach, very much like before.
Only it will never be before again.
You never forgot her, no matter how much you tried and knowing that she was there always made things worse. You felt human again, time going so slowly, every day seeming to last forever because she wasn't upstairs in her room waiting for you to appear on her bed with that amusing surprise even though you had done it so many times before. She wasn't there begging for you to change her or for you to let her kiss you and you wish that even if it had to be like that again, that it could be like that forever. That she could always be human and be alive and you could always be there to protect her from everything. But those thoughts are juvenile.
Then Alice called
And time suddenly stopped altogether.
And you ran
You ran like she was still on your back and you were trying to impress her with your speed, like if you ran fast enough then maybe you could run right back into the past and save her and maybe you could start all over. You ran until you could no longer see and dry sobs racked in your empty chest and you wished someone would just rip you to shreds here and now before you could see it was true.
And now you stand, your cold head against her cold stone. The harsh words engraved with delicacy, and the words placed there seem familiar to you and then you remember and someone is crying out in agony and it takes you a moment to realize that its you.
'Don't feel grief. It will be as if I never existed' - Isabella Swan
Wife.Mother.Grandmother
A/N: This is my first shot at Stephanie Meyer Fanfiction. Reviews are welcome.
