Midnight
Disclaimer: I am not Stephanie Meyer; I do not own Twilight.
The scene is beautiful. There is hardly a cloud in the sky—a miracle in Forks. The temperature has climbed to sixty today, rather warm for early spring, not that I can feel it. To the humans however, it will make the outdoor gathering much more pleasant than the forty degree weather that could easily occur at this time of year. The setting is gorgeous as well: a picturesque meadow, not the one I shared with Bella, but a beautiful one all the same. The wildflowers are just beginning to poke their colorful heads above the soil, dabbing the soft green grass with spots of golden yellow, palest blue, and rich violet. A small creek burbles quietly in the background, just close enough for the humans to be able to hear it.
And yet, no matter how beautiful the scenery is, it all pales in comparison to her. Isabella Marie Swan. Bella. The love of my life. Dressed in flowing white, her dark hair piled neatly on top of her head, she looks the part of an angel more than any being from the Bible might. If only my heart still beat in my chest, I know that it would be doing flip-flops from the mere sight of her. Her walk has scarcely improved since the day I met her, and yet she still appears graceful. Even stumbling, Bella radiates a sort of beauty that makes her lack of balance seem trivial. Her elegance has little to do with the loveliness of her face, though that certainly is not lacking, and more to do with the loveliness of her soul.
I watch her walk down the aisle now, arm in arm with Charlie as she heads towards her groom, and I know that, had I been human, I would have been crying. The boy—man, now—waiting for her so eagerly at the end of the aisle is not me. His skin is warm, unnaturally so, and it is tan rather than pale. Jacob Black has been Bella's closest friend since I left her, all those years ago, and today he will become her husband.
I try to tell myself that I do not begrudge him the honor. While I long to be the one to whom Bella can give her heart for eternity, it cannot be so. To love me would kill her; I had to leave to keep her safe. I try to tell myself that as I watch her, and yet I can still feel my frozen heart slowly break. I would have given anything to be Jacob Black right now.
Perhaps the worst part is that I cannot bring myself to hate him. It would have been so easy, so very, very easy, if I could bring myself to feel even a hint of bitterness toward him. But I can't. Jacob truly loves Bella. His decision to marry her is making her happy. How can I hate him, when his actions are bringing so much joy to the one I love?
No, that's a lie. There is one small thing that I can allow myself to feel bitterness about, though it is not really bitterness so much as longing. I cannot help but imagine a wedding, very like this one, but critically different. Bella and my wedding. For years, ever since I left her, that dream has haunted me, as out of reach as the moon and as impossibly beautiful. There was no way that I could have returned to Bella, no way that I could have put her in so much danger again. It was best for her this way. I knew that, and yet a part of me could not help but rebel by picturing it again, that impossible, beautiful dream. But that was just a distant future that died long before it had a chance to live.
A/N: The last sentence is one of Jacob's thoughts on page 298 of Breaking Dawn. He thinks that when Bella tells him that he's a part of her family. I thought it was ironic to put it here.
The title of this story comes from the unpublished companion novel to Twilight, Midnight Sun. The title of the novel refers to how Edward views Bella. The way I'm using it is midnight sun without the sun. (That sounded horribly stupid, but there was a symbolic meaning in it.)
