A Beacon In The Night
(Winter Song)
How do you sit by, day after day, and watch someone you care about, someone you love, waste away, each day becoming more of an empty shell, a mere fragment of the person they once were? I'm to the point now that I wake up in a cold sweat, afraid that when I check, I'll be told that she's gone, that she simply vanished with the night air, that she ceased to exist.
It had been over a year since he left, it was December, and winter had settled in on Washington. The cold, wet weather didn't help my frame of mind much. The dreariness only served as a reminder that she was slowly killing herself, and taking me with her.
I drove into Forks, not really sure of what I would say, but knowing that it had to end now, before it was too late for her, too late for me, too late for us. I looked at the low hanging charcoal clouds that pressed heavy in the air and knew by that and the smell in the air, that a storm was rolling in from the sea. I pressed my foot to the accelerator. I wanted to get this over with, regardless of the outcome.
As I pulled up to her house, I noticed there weren't many lights on, just the soft glow of the lamp in the living room. Charlie's cruiser wasn't in the drive, so I guessed that he was out late with the impending weather situation. I took a deep breath and braced myself on the steering wheel for a few moments, before getting out, and closing the door behind me.
As I walked to the porch, I noticed there wasn't any sound or movement coming from the house, and I couldn't even hear her heartbeat, my pace quickened, my mind raced, and I thought my nightmares had come true, she had simply ceased to exist, but as I reached the door, I heard the faintest of heartbeats, the steady, thud, da, thud, da thud, even sounded tired, lonely, and lost. And that made me angry. That's it. I needed to be angry. I'd played this game long enough. It was time that I told the story the way I saw it, and got results, even if they weren't the ones I longed for.
The wood felt soft under my knuckles, as I knocked on the door with a little too much force. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, and tried to reign it in just a bit, I couldn't risk getting angry enough to phase.
There was a shuffling sound, then I heard the click, click, of the locks as she turned the dead bolt, and the creaking of the hinges as she slowly opened the door. She was wrapped in a flannel blanket, her hair was a mess, and frankly the angel that I knew she could be, looked like hell. This fueled my anger even more.
"Hey. What are you doing here Jake?" She asked in a feeble voice, and I thought to myself that she seemed a hundred years old right then.
I was silently cursing the existence of Edward Live Forever Cullen, when I found myself pushing my way in the door and closing it behind me. My breathing had sped up considerably and I was trying to form the words, words that would be gentle to her, but they eluded me, leaving me with only the raw, open wound truth.
"Bella," I said, nodding to her as my only form of greeting.
"Jake. What's wrong? Are you okay?" She asked, blinking at me like she was trying to focus on an old memory, one she had forgotten.
"I'm sick and tired of this, Bella."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"You. Of this," I said, grabbing the blanket that she was wrapped in and pulling it away from her.
I felt bad for a moment, because I had stripped her of her only sense of security, then I felt like it was the right thing to do, to rudely awaken her, an act to make her cold, so she would listen and understand what I was going to tell her.
She immediately wrapped her arms around her mid section and I could see that she was instantly chilled. The old Jake would have left her wrapped in the blanket and even offered his own warmth to her, but right now, he wasn't here.
"I'm sorry Jake, but I don't understand. What have I done?" She asked, looking at me with a face full of confusion, pain, and emptiness.
The confusion and pain, I could live with, after all that's what I had been doing for over a year now, but the emptiness made me furious. How could she stand there in front of me, the one person who would give her everything, and look empty. I could fill her, I could make her whole again, but she wouldn't let me. How dare she?
Between clenched teeth, I began. "Do you realize it's been over a year since he left?" I said, thrusting the reference of him at her like a hot dagger. And even now she flinched.
"Yes. I happen to know that quite well. Thank you for reminding me. Now what is this all about?" She asked, through trembling lips, and chattering teeth.
"It's about me. It's about you. It's about this life, or existence, or whatever the hell you want to call it, that we've been plodding through, day after day. I want you to take a good look at yourself Bells," I said in the harshest tone I could muster, grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging her across the room to the hall where a wooden framed mirror hung on the wall.
"Jake. What is wrong with you?" She screamed, as she tried to struggled in vain, against my grip.
I pressed myself against her back, holding her in place by her shoulders, as I looked into the mirror at her, at us.
"Take a good look at yourself Bella. Look at what you've become," I said, dropping my voice, so it was low and gruff.
"No," she cried out.
But I took on hand and brought it her jaw, pulling against her, until she was looking in the mirror. The tears were streaming down her ghostly features, and I said a silent prayer that I could reach her, before it was too late. I wanted her back, I wanted the color to return to her cheeks, and the smile to inhabit her lips and eyes, like it once had.
She looked, but she wasn't seeing, she was only crumbling under me. I held her up and moved us closer to the mirror, until her breath was fogging it over.
"Where is she Bella?" I whispered.
"I don't..... know what....... you're......talking about," she sobbed, and my heart wrenched, but I trudged on.
"Where is my Bella? You know they say that things just cannot grow beneath winter snow. That the palest of roses will perish, unless they are nourished and tended to," I said with a dry chuckle, "or so I've been told."
Her sobbing continued and she closed her eyes, not wanting to see what I saw. Her body quaked and I tightened my grip around her again, just to keep her from collapsing on the floor.
"Ja...Ja....," was all she could manage to get out of her mouth.
"I'm tired of hearing the stories from my dad, from Sam, and the others. They tell me to give up, to find someone who will love me and make me happy, that you are a once distant star, that I simply cannot hold. Are they right Bella?"
I turned her quickly in my arms, so that I was holding her shoulders at arms length from me, as I pressed her back against the wall beside the mirror, so I could hold her upright.
"You're.....not.....making......any....any.....sense....." she sobbed, her face now flushed, her eyes sad and rimmed in red.
"I'm not? Well, Bella I guess you don't know me at all then. Do you? I'm the one who still believes in summer days, and sunshine, and ocean mist, and heart beats. I know that the seasons change, but they always come back to the warmth, the summer. It's all wrong. This winter is unbearable because you are not where you belong. Do you know where that is, Bells?"
She couldn't form words now, she only shook her head no.
"You belong in my arms. I've been there for you waiting, giving you time and space, hoping that tomorrow you would see me, really see me. Then that day would pass and I would hope for the next day, and the next. But instead you are wasting away, and you know what? He's winning. He may not be sucking your blood from your veins..." I held onto her as she shrieked in agony and pushed at me, hitting my chest with her tiny, weak fists.
"No. No. No. No," she sobbed until the words trailed off into gasps of air.
"But he's winning because he's draining you of you're very life force, what makes you exist. And I've been standing here letting him do that to you. But not anymore. You have a choice. Right here tonight, you have a choice to make. I. Need. To. Know. Is there any love inside of you, left alive for me?" I asked, shaking her gently, looking desperately into her eyes, searching for a gleam of hope, of something I could hold onto.
"Bells. When the winter is gone, the rose will grow and flourish, it will bloom and be more beautiful than ever before. My love is like a beacon in the night. Let my words be your light, so I can guide you to me, into my arms where you will be safe and loved, more than anyone has ever loved you, forever. Bella. Let. Me. Love. You," I said, again shaking her gently by her shoulders.
She looked at me and I knew my words had hurt her at first, but I had to do it. I had to shock her into reality, I just hoped that it had worked. As I looked at her, my brows furrowed, my head ached, I knew this was the turning point. And the next words that she spoke would tell me whether I had won or lost this fight.
I waited, she stared, I wondered. Her tears slowed, and she blinked her eyes many times, trying to clear her vision. Had she heard me? Did she even care? Was she too far gone? Had he won by taking her from me for good?
We stood like that for what seemed like hours. Each of us looking into the inner depths of the other, until I was almost certain we were looking at each others soul. That's when I began to feel it. It was almost like time-lapsed-photography, as I watched a spark flicker in one eye, then in the other, and a nice peachy rose color began to rise in her hollow cheeks. It was as if the rose was blooming under the warmth of my touch, so I held on and would not let go.
Finally, she spoke, in the faintest of whispers, her voice raspy from her screams and the salty tears that she had swallowed.
"Yes," I heard her say, "yes."
It was as if she opened her eyes and looked at me, I mean really looked at me, for the first time in almost two years, and as the recognition came over her face, a frail smile pulled at the edges of her cracked, parched lips, and I knew that it was alive. It had been there all along, but she had forced it to remain dormant while she suffered. But right there, that night, she broke free of his shackles, and I even envisioned them falling from her arms as she reached for me, scared at first, then more sure than she'd ever been.
As she touched me for the first time, as someone who knew she loved me, she seemed liberated, but I waited. I let her make the first move. I had to see this with my own eyes, and hear it with my own ears, and taste it with my own lips, to believe it.
I loosened my grip on her shoulders, and I hoped that I hadn't bruised her delicate skin. As I began to release my hold on her, she was moving toward me, and it seemed like it took forever for her to finally reach me, but then, there she was, pressed against my chest, panting with the new found air she was breathing, and she touched me. She really touched me with her own two hands, first on my chest, then she trailed up my neck to my face.
It was as if she had been blind, once only seeing with her hands, but now wanting to see with her eyes what she was feeling. She traced every contour of my face, the bridge of my nose, my upper lip, my eyebrows, and she smiled as she tried to smooth out my frown that had brought them together in a scowl.
"Bella, I'll be your harvester of light, I'll fill you with love and happiness and warmth. God I'll keep you warm the rest of my days," I said, as the tears now were streaming down my face, "if only you will let me. And tonight we can start again," I whispered, as she moved upward toward my lips.
"Shhh. Jake. Don't cry. Shhh, let me love you. Jake, let me love you," she said, as her lips met mine and the distance was closed between us.
I tasted the salt of her tears, but beneath that, I tasted her love. I truly, absolutely, tasted her love for me for the first time. And I drank it in, never wanting to let her goes. I wrapped my arms around her, picking her up off the floor, and carrying her to the couch. I lay down, coming to rest on my side, as I pulled her into me, brushing her hair away from her eyes.
I draped the blanket over her back and side, but she moved it and let it drop to the floor.
"I don't need that anymore. I have you to keep me warm. I'm finally where I belong, in your arms," she said, as she kissed me again.
Then she pulled away and wiped my eyes with her hand as she whispered, "I love you, Jacob Black. Thank you for not giving up on me, even though I had given up on myself."
"Never. Never honey. I'm sorry, but I just had to show you. I didn't know what else to do. I was losing you. I love you, Bella Swan, and I'm so glad you've proved them all wrong, because you are now within my grasp and I'll never let you go."
She smiled and I tucked her head under my chin. And as we began to drift off to sleep, I had a foggy notion in the back of my mind that I would pay dearly when Charlie found me embracing his daughter in the middle of the night, but I smiled to myself and thought it would all be worth it in the morning.