Beyond the Pale Contest

Title: The Wait

Pen Name: netracullen

Characters: Bella, Edward

Image that Inspired You: 19

The wait will kill you if you let it.

The paranoia sets in, and you're sure that what you're waiting for will never arrive. Worse, there's nothing you can do to stop that feeling from spreading. You have to ride it out in the vain hope that a time will come when you realise how futile it is, how completely unreasonable you are being.

I wasn't being paranoid though. Which made the waiting even harder to handle.

I'd given everything for him - the very things that made me human - and he was gone. Every passing second made it worse, made my terror compound on itself, snowballing out of control until the crushing weight was impossible to bear any longer. I didn't understand how it could keep getting worse, how there wasn't some threshold that I should have met long before this point. I dragged my fingers through my oily hair, pulling as hard as I could. The physical pain meant that my body was still responsive, that I was still alive.

It was a reminder, but not a positive one. The knowledge that I was still living, still suffering this immensely, seemed to taunt me, picking at the frayed edges of my sanity and dragging me further down in the pits of my self-made hell.

If love was the drug, then I was withdrawing on a monumental scale.

He told me he'd leave her… He was always telling me how much he wanted to leave her.

"I hate it, I hate the whole damn situation," he'd tell me as we lay together in bed, completely sated and blissfully happy. "Our marriage is over, but we're too proud to end it. With you on the other hand," he said as his fingers traced up and down my back, breathing life into my tired body with the aimless patterns he drew in his electric touch, "you are everything to me. You make me feel like I can breathe again, after all the years of feeling like I was underwater. I was a prisoner in my own life, and you saved me, Isabella. You'll never know how grateful I am, or how much I love you."

Not enough to stay, apparently.

His words, that had filled my heart with so much happiness that I thought it would burst, felt like lashes of a whip, each one stinging as it ran through my head. I tortured myself with them, replaying every sentence over and over, every sweet nothing, knowing now that's exactly what they were: nothing.

That doesn't stop me from maintaining my vigil, though. For three days, I have stared out the glass window in my door, looking at the road, listening for the sound of his car on the gravel, searching desperately for any sign that he would come back.

Deep down though, I knew.

He wasn't coming back.

In many ways, I suppose I deserved what was happening to me now. I was always the troubled one. I was the one who snuck out in the night to see boys and drink beer I had sweet talked the local twenty one year olds into buying me. I was the one who got caught with weed hidden at the bottom of her makeup bag. The one my parents knew better than to trust, or rely on.

Alice was… perfect. The perfect wife to Edward, the perfect daughter to Charlie and Renee, the perfect sister to me. So patient, cheerful and loving no matter how I treated her, or what I state I showed up at her front door in, or how many times I asked her for her time, or her money, or whatever I needed to get me out of trouble.

And this was how I repaid her.

I remember the day I met Edward Cullen. I was living at home in Forks at the time, having skulked back to my parents with my tail between my legs after a five month relationship I had invested far too much of myself in had turned sour. The bruises on my cheek and arms had yet to heal, I was skinny and unkempt and Alice had brought her new beau home, having no idea that I was even there. When things went wrong in my life, I had a tendency to lay low, too proud to ever acknowledge my own stupidity. Alice had thought I was still living in LA with Jacob, the lead singer in an up-and-coming indie band, who neither she, nor I, knew had a penchant for speed and on occasion, beating on his girlfriend.

I was curled up in the corner of the couch, trying to ignore the sad looks Charlie was giving me from the armchair as we both pretended to be engrossed in a football game on the television. The front door opened, and I didn't even bother to turn around to see who it was. I simply didn't care.

"Mom, Dad! We're here!"

When I heard the voice, I hesitantly peeked my head over the back of the couch to see my beloved older sister Alice with her arms wrapped around a tall man, who looked very nervous.

"Alice!" my mother squealed from the kitchen before she came barrelling out, wiping her hands on her timeworn apron before throwing her arms open expectantly. Alice extracted herself from his arms and bounded over to our mother, embracing her fervently. My mother cooed softly in her ear, and Alice whispered back before leaving the hug and returning to the man's side. I caught a flash of movement from behind me and turned to see that Charlie had risen from his chair, presumably to participate in the family event taking place in the small foyer of our home. I stayed on the couch, feeling like I was watching something foreign and private.

"Mom, Daddy, this is Edward," Alice announced grandly and he stepped forward to shake my father's hand. I could see the muscles flexing in Charlie's arm as he asserted his dominance in the home, making me roll my eyes a little despite my complete fixation on the happenings before me. Renee then pulled him into a hug, loudly proclaiming how happy she was to 'finally be meeting the man who made her little girl so happy'.

The man who I now knew to be Edward stepped back, looking slightly more comfortable now. Alice and Renee were beaming, and Charlie looked like he was appraising the younger man before him. I looked him over once more myself while Alice chatted away. He was tall, almost a whole foot taller than Alice, his hair brown with a bronzy tint that seemed to catch the light. His eyes were green, his features sharp and angled, from what I could see of his profile. His smile was uneven, and more natural each time he displayed it. He was handsome, definitely, and well dressed too. Alice deserved someone like him.

I looked over at Renee who was conspicuously tilting her head in my direction, in a less than subtle attempt to alert Alice to my presence.

"Bella?" she asked, confusion lacing her tone. "Is that you? I thought you were… Oh my god!"

She darted from Edward's side, vaulting over the back of the couch and throwing herself into my lap, almost smothering me with the force of her hug. I could hear our parents and Edward laughing softly at her exuberance.

"That's Alice's younger sister, Bella," my mother explained to Edward as Alice continued to hug me excitedly. "She's staying with us for a while."

"Alice talks about her all the time," Edward replied in a smooth, deep voice, "it's nice to be able to put a face to the name after all the stories I've heard."

"Bella," Alice's voice broke me from my eavesdropping, "what is this?"

Her nimble fingers traced over the bruise on my cheek, and I flinched slightly at the contact.

"It's nothing, Alice," I tried to sooth her in a quiet tone, but her face crumpled and tears filled her eyes. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me to her, whether for her reassurance or mine, I wasn't sure.

"Come on," I whispered to my distressed sister, "you haven't introduced me to that babe of a man you've brought home. It's rude." My gentle chiding and cheeky words acted to distract her and she weakly laughed, wiped her tears and stood up. Snatching up my hand, she dragged me over to the man in question...Edward. I looked like shit - bruised and skinny, swathed in one of my dad's Forks Police Dept. sweaters, and my long brown hair was in a pony tail that had only barely survived my sister's attack moments before.

Alice threw her arms out, presenting me like a prize on a game show.

"Edward, this is my sister, and all around favourite person in the world, Isabella." Her voice held such a grandeur that I almost laughed. How anyone could hold me in such high esteem after everything I'd done, I couldn't understand. Although my body was weak and hunched in a defensive position, I gave a small wave, trying my best to smile warmly him, although I suspected I failed. I could almost feel the static of my sister's excitement from her place beside me.

"Hello Isabella," he said softly, making a concerted effort not to scare me with an overzealous greeting. I must have looked like a nervous filly, about to make a break if anyone got to close, and honestly, that's how I felt.

Although I didn't know it then, that moment, and that man would come to play a more significant role in my life than I could ever have imagined. He would be my undoing.

Alice and Edward had stayed for lunch and then returned home to Seattle, despite my mother's pleas for them to stay the night in Alice's old room. Two weeks later Alice insisted that I move out of our parents' place, saying that no self-respecting 23 year old could pull that off. Apparently though, mooching off your sister at 23 was completely acceptable. She moved me into the spare bedroom of the apartment she had bought for herself when her small design firm had taken off to a flying start, and supplemented my rather meagre amount of possessions with her own belongings and a constant stream of 'gifts' that she claimed were making up for the birthdays and Christmases we hadn't spent together in the previous few years.

I managed to find myself a job, working in a department store. My lack of an outside life meant that I quickly ascended the ranks, to the point where I was making quite a respectable living for myself. Alice refused to let me move out, saying that she loved the company, but I knew that it was because she felt this misplaced sense of responsibility to keep an eye on me, make sure I didn't make any of the same mistakes that had plagued my life in the past.

As time went on, Edward and I had formed a fairly close friendship, again motivated by Alice's perceived need to keep watch over me. She concluded that by having her friends become my friends, she could keep me around without me ever realising that I didn't in fact have a life of my own. I let her do it, because I knew that it made her happy, but I always knew. I came to see him as my protector, and when the time came for him to prove himself as such, he did so with no hesitation.

I was sitting on the floor in Alice's living room, sobbing as the bangs on the door got louder and more aggressive.

"Bella, let me the fuck in! You know that the longer I'm out here, the worse shit is going to get for you! I know you're a fucking idiot, but this is stupid, even for you!"

I was shaking now, rocking back and forth as he yelled through the door. I was alone in the apartment, and somehow he had found me. I had no idea what he was capable of, but I knew that it wouldn't be pretty, and I was terrified to the point where I couldn't move.

"Fuck this! I'm coming in!"

I heard a bang on the door that sounded different to the others, and before I had time to hide myself, he kicked the door in.

"There you are," he cooed, his voice raspy and filled with hatred.

"Jacob please," I pleaded from my position on the floor, hoping in vain that he would have mercy if he saw how frightened I was.

"Don't fucking 'Jacob' me, Bella. You ran from me, and you owe me money, so here I am!"

"I can get you money, I promise," I told him desperately.

"If you'd let me in before, that might of worked, but now I'm pissed off."

I closed my eyes as he started advancing towards me, bracing myself for whatever was to come.

"What the fuck is going on in here?" I heard a voice, coloured with rage, that didn't belong to the man leering over me say. I opened my eyes to see Edward tackle Jacob, who was significantly bigger than him, to the ground.

"Call 911!" Edward shouted as Jacob flipped him over and took a swing at his face. I immediately snapped to action, running for the phone and trying not to panic as I heard the scuffle escalating in the next room. By the time the police had arrived, Edward had sustained a black eye and a bruised rib, but he never once complained about it, or accepted my apologies.

"Bella," he told me time and time again, "there's nothing to apologise for. Your safety is my primary concern, not some silly little bruise."

From that day onward, Edward became the most central person in my life, other than Alice of course. She bound us together, but our bond, as well as his desire to keep me safe, quickly grew on its own, particularly when she found herself inundated with work. She was overjoyed that the two most important people in her life got along so well, and we realised that we actually had a lot in common.

He hovered almost constantly, especially when we were out as a group, and warned me off of his friend Jasper, who had been making some less than subtle advances. At the time, I couldn't figure out why, because Jasper seemed lovely, but Edward knew my history, and was only trying to protect me from making the same mistakes, so I listened. He was four years older than me, and I hung on his advice, taking in his life experiences and accepting his guidance.

I needed him, but I had no clue how much until the day everything changed.

"Hey Bella," he started as he sat down on the couch beside me. I muted the TV show I was watching and turned to face him.

"What's up, roomie?" I asked. Alice had gone away for a week to some kind of design summit in San Francisco, and had conscripted Edward to move in for 'Keep Bella On The Straight And Narrow' duty. Normally, this would have bothered me immensely, but Edward was around most of the time anyway, and after 5 days together, we were having a blast.

He said nothing. Instead, he passed me a small black box and I knew without opening it what would be inside. I ran my fingers over the soft velvet on the outside of the box, before opening it carefully and observing its contents.

"Oh Edward," I breathed.

"I'm going to ask her when she gets home," he told me resolutely.

"She's going to love it, it's perfect," I murmured as I took the ring out and observed it from all angles. I placed it carefully in the box and slid it onto the coffee table before returning my gaze to Edward. He looked down at his knees then spoke.

"It's time."

"Yes," I agreed. They had been together for nearly two years now.

"It's what people do at this stage in their lives."

"Yes."

"I want this."He sounded increasingly uneasy with each sentence he uttered.

"Yes."

"I want…"he trailed off, his words hanging in the air.

"What do you want Edward?" I asked, trying to get to the source of his problem. I moved closer to him and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, deducing that he was simply suffering from cold feet.

As soon as my hand touched his t-shirt-covered back, he flinched as if he had been tazed. I removed it at once, confused and a little hurt, only to have him snatch it between two of his hands.

"Isabella…" he said quietly, dragging out my full name as he stared at our linked hands, "I don't know… what I'm doing… what I'm thinking… I can't…"

His troubled green eyes met mine and I could think of nothing to say. He looked down again and tugged softly on my hand, pulling my body closer to his. Slowly but surely I was drawn closer to him, until I was almost in his lap. His fingers traced the blue veins in my wrist, slowly and pensively, as if there was some riddle in their placement that he couldn't decipher.

"Edward?" I asked softly, perplexed but slightly entranced by his behaviour. His hand crept up my forearm, to my shoulder. The movement was so gentle I would have hardly noticed if my eyes had not been fixed on his every move. It then moved from my shoulder up to my neck, gently cupping the side of my face.

"Edward," I repeated, my voice cutting through the unbearable tension that had enveloped us. He looked up sharply, as if broken from a trance, and then used the hand on my neck to pull my face to his, locking us in a kiss.

I pulled back, horrified.

"Edward, no!"

He said nothing, just pulled me down once more. I could feel the conflict coming off him in waves, and by the third time our lips met, I was lost. Our clothes were shed and we made love right there on the couch.

We never spoke of that night, and when Alice returned home, Edward proposed. Crippled by the guilt of what we had done, I fled. Alice was heartbroken, which I had expected, but I couldn't face her. I spoke to my mother on occasion. She told me that they got married in a beautiful ceremony. I was sorely missed. She told me when they bought their first house together, and when Alice's company grew into something amazing and hugely successful. She regaled me with tales of my sister's happy life, not knowing that every word she said stabbed me like a needle.

Four years later, I found myself living on a secluded property about 90 minutes out of Seattle, relishing the solitude afforded me by the dense forest surrounding my home. It was my refuge from the hell I had created, and one of the very few things that brought me happiness. My parents didn't know where I was living, no one did, so when there was a series of fast raps at my door one afternoon, I was thoroughly surprised.

"Bella," I heard my sister's voice, "I know you're in there! Did you really think I'd never find you?"

I laughed as I walked to open the door.

"Alice you are so…" I swung the door open to see two people standing on my stoop "…oh."

"Oh?" Alice jeered. "Is that all you have to stay after going completely MIA for nearly 4 years? You missed my wedding! Did you know that?" She thrust her left hand in my face, showing a tasteful wedding band that perfectly matched the familiar engagement ring perfectly, then pushed past me into the house. Edward followed behind her silently, his hand brushing mine with a feather light touch that sent a warm shudder up my spine.

Two hours of interrogations and reunion later, Alice received an urgent call from one of her clients, and quickly left, encouraging Edward and I to catch up, and promising that she would swing back to pick him up later that night. As much as he tried to protest, she insisted and the front door closed behind her with a sickening finality as we sat on opposite couches in my living room. The only sound in the room was the fireplace crackling on the wall between the two couches. The tension between us was palpable.

"Edward, I -"

"I don't want to hear it, Bella." His harsh shoot down shattered my already thin resolve to attempt to fix things, and tears began streaming silently down my face.

"You know what?" he asked after a crushingly long silence, "I do want to hear it. I want to know why you left after what happened that day."

"I…" I struggled for words, not knowing what to tell him. "She's my sister, Edward! She'd do anything for me -she has done everything for me- and she loves you. You were getting married! What was I supposed to do, sit around and watch her walk down the aisle, commit to a life with you with no idea of what we, of what I did to her? I don't fucking think so."

He stood up, throwing his hands in the air.

"I wouldn't have done it," he shouted, "if you'd just -"he cut himself off, sat back down and pulled his fingers through his hair and down his face.

"You wouldn't have done what?" I asked quietly. I couldn't bring myself to regret what we'd done, and it would hurt me even more if he did, but I had to know.

"I wouldn't have married her," he spoke into his hands. I gasped quietly.

"Don't - don't say that. Just don't."

He pulled his hands from his face, and his eyes were enraged.

"Why not? It's true," he laughed sardonically. "I would have given it all up, and yet… you ran."

"Liar." He couldn't have been telling the truth. It didn't make sense. Alice was perfect. She was completely self-sufficient, lovely, beautiful, and I was her weak-minded, skinny little sister, unable to sustain human contact without fucking everything up. This was the reason for my self-imposed exile - so that I couldn't damage myself, or anyone else ever again.

"You were there that night, Bella. You felt it. Tell me you didn't feel it," he demanded, leaning over the coffee table that separated us staring at me accusingly. "Tell me!"

"Of course I felt it." I couldn't lie to him, not about this.

"So how can you say that I'm lying?"

"Because it doesn't make sense that you felt it as well!" I cried. "You have Alice, and she's perfect, and you're perfect, and together…"

"Together we have nothing! We're friends at best, stuck in this marriage because neither of us has the balls to acknowledge what a huge mistake we made! I could have had everything with you, we could have had everything, and now all of us have nothing, because you left me, Isabella!"

He darted around the table then, sitting so close beside me that I could smell his sweet breath on my face with each of his breaths. I looked at him, seeing the tear tracks on his cheeks that matched my own. I wiped them away and his hands shot up to hold mine to his face. Without a conscious decision to do so, my fingertips moved to his neck and knotted in the hair at his nape.

"Edward," I said, my voice pleading because we were so close I could almost feel his lips on my own, "you can't do this. We can't do this."

"I don't think I have a choice anymore," he said, before closing the final space between us.

In the months that followed, there were highs and lows that I wouldn't have thought possible. I found it remarkably easy to overlook the monumental crime I was committing against my sister when Edward and I were together.

He lay on his back as I nuzzled into his neck, relishing his the warmth he radiated and his smell - like sunshine and happy and man all rolled into one glorious package. My eyes were focused on my fingers as they drew aimless patterns across his abdominal muscles, just wanting another way for us to be connected. Our legs were tangled up together under the sheets, and if it were possible for us to meld into one person, this would have been the way to achieve it.

We were completely at one - mind, body and soul.

"I never knew it could be like this," I mused quietly, breaking us both from our own thoughts.

"Be like what?" he asked, his voice husky from our intermittent napping.

"Perfect."

He chuckled lowly, the vibrations rumbling from his chest into my fingertips and I smiled at the sensation.

"Why are you laughing at me?" I teasingly complained.

"Because," he murmured, his hand stroking softly through my messy hair, "we're not perfect. Just this morning we were screaming in each other's faces, and there's still a broken mess of plates all over the floor from the fight."

"That doesn't matter now," I dismissed him. "This, right here, is all that matters. And it's perfect."

"You're perfect," he stated.

"No, I'm not, but you make me feel like I'm pretty close," I confessed. He just laughed again and tilted my face up to press a soft kiss to my mouth.

"You're so silly sometimes… My silly, beautiful, Isabella."

We would spend the days Alice was out of town together, never leaving our bed, or each other's arms. We would fight like crazy, break up, only to make up days, even hours later. We swore on our feelings for each other, spoke of a future where we could be together. We loved each other. It was the kind of love that people wrote stories, poems, symphonies about. The kind that people dreamed of as children, that fairytales were made of.

It was the only kind of love that could justify the damage we were doing.

And then it all came crashing down.

I could tell from the moment he walked through the door that something was off. Normally, he looked so happy and relaxed when he came over, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. That's the way I felt whenever he came over, like all the troubles we may have had were suspended.

He came in without a word, grabbed a beer from my fridge and sat down on the couch. I loitered in the doorway, sensing that something bad was coming and desperate to avoid it.

"Come sit with me," he said, his voice strangely quiet and even.

"I don't think I want to," I admitted. He looked up at me and smiled, although it was weak, a slight curling of his lips that didn't reach his eyes. He patted the couch cushion beside him and I reluctantly took it, throwing my legs over one of his. He put his hand on my leg, splaying out his fingers and squeezing so gently I barely noticed it.

"Bella, you know I love you, more than I can ever express?" he asked.

"Of course. I feel the same." I placed my hand on top of his to reinforce my words.

"I love you so, so much, Bella, but…"

He didn't speak after that.

"But what?" I prompted.

"But I can't do this anymore."

"Ha ha," I said dryly.

"I'm not joking, Bella. Oh, how I wish I were joking. This has to end, and it has to end now."

I pulled my body away from him, completely unimpressed with his poor taste in humor.

"Edward," I warned him, "this isn't funny."

"Bella, I'm so sorry -" he reached out to me and I slapped his hand away.

"Don't apologise to me!" I cut him off. "You have nothing to apologise for. You're not leaving, we're not ending this."

He stood up, and tried to come to me, but every step he took forwards, I mirrored, keeping the distance between us.

"Tell me," I demanded. "Tell me why you're doing this, why you're saying these awful things to me. It doesn't make sense."

"Isabella, she's pregnant. I love you, but she's my wife, and she's having my baby. "

With those two sentences, everything I knew of the world, and my place in it, was turned on its head.

I didn't even know he was still sleeping with her.

"That's not funny, Edward," I chastised weakly, hoping against hope that he was still persisting with some ridiculous attempt at humour.

"I just wanted to tell you myself, but I've said what I came here to say, and I'm just dragging this out. I'll go."

With that, I snapped out of my confused daze.

"No, you will not fucking go!" I cried. He ignored me, and started walking towards the front door. I darted in front of him, using my small body to block the door frame.

"How can you do this to me?" I yelled at him as the tears started. "You said we had a future together, that we'd be together forever, and you're just leaving me? We can't be apart… we'll die! I won't survive it!"

"Bella, don't make this harder than it is," he said in what I assumed was meant to be a soothing tone, which only infuriated me more.

"Harder? How could this possibly be harder?" I laughed harshly at his ridiculous words. I left my stance in the door and ran to him, holding my face in his hands and trying to force him to look at me.

"Edward, please," I begged, "please don't do this to me."He fastidiously avoided my gaze, seeming intent to stare at the floor for the entirety of my breakdown.

"You're such a fucking coward!" I spat at him. "You won't even look at me when you leave, when you take away my very reason for being, the only thing that matters! Look at me!" My voice was cracked and broken, my face and neck covered in tears. I wanted him to see what his leaving was doing to me, and know that it would only get worse from here.

"I should go," he murmured, almost to himself. The words made my anger dissolve at once, leaving desperation in its place. He couldn't leave. There had to be something I could do to make him stay. I had to buy some time, make him realise how monumentally stupid his decision was. I didn't care if she was having a baby. Fucking quintuplets, it didn't matter to me. Edward was mine, I just had to make him see that for himself.

"Please," I begged, gripping his face harder, my nails biting into the soft skin there. "Once more, before you leave. Make love to me once more, that's all I want."

"Bella, I can't. Don't ask that of me."

"That's the one thing I'm asking, before you leave me. Just this. Please."

His eyes met mine then, and the heartbreak within them was surely mirrored in my own expression. He knew he was wrong, I just had to confirm it, had to show him how great we were together. I took my opening and smashed my mouth to his, relishing the spark that cracked between us as it always did. He would never be able to walk away from this, it was too important to be denied.

He put his hands on my face and I rejoiced that he was reciprocating, until he harshly pushed me back.

"Isabella, no."

He opened the front door and I sank to my knees in the middle of my entry way, sobs tearing through me and making breathing near impossible. He stood in the open doorway, pity in his eyes as he watched me.

"I'm so, so sorry," he said quietly.

"Get the fuck out of my house!" I screamed at him. "Just get out! I hope your car fucking crashes! Go home to your wife you son of a bitch, I hate you!" My yelling was cut off my another sob as my lungs screamed for air that I struggled to provide. Without saying anything else, he walked out the door, across the porch and back to his car, not turning as I continued to scream profanities and hateful words at him. As his car pulled away, words failed me, and in their place came wordless cries - highpitched wails that were the only way I could express and channel how I was feeling.

For days on end I waited, hoping against everything that he would come back and tell me that he'd been wrong, that she wasn't pregnant, or if she was, that he didn't care, because he wanted me anyway. I hated myself for my selfish thoughts, but I couldn't stop them from coming.

I waited for him to see the light and return to me, but I knew he wouldn't. Dark thoughts plagued me, taunting me with an easy way out of the pain I was suffering, but I knew that if he came back, and I'd ended things, I would no longer get to experience having him with me, and there was no pain on earth I wouldn't suffer for the chance to be with him once more.

So, I would wait.