Chapter 2.
"What? No, b-but..." I stuttered out, tears forming in my brown eyes. My thoughts were all over the place, too hard to manage. Only one sentence was fully formed. Edward is leaving. Edward is leaving.
He turned onto the shoulder, putting the car into park and then slid over to me, putting his arms around me. I buried my head into his chest, letting my tears fall. He ran his hands through my hair, murmuring to me in a comforting tone. I instantly felt bad, he was the one who would be leaving, this was his fate that was up in the air, I should be the one comforting him, not the other way around, but I couldn't stop crying to do that.
"Is Emmett and Jasper...?" I finally found the strength to ask, and it hurt even worse thinking that they would be leaving too. Rosalie and Alice... I knew how they'd be feeling right now...
He nodded, his eyes hard to read.
Another round of tears.
"When?" I was afraid to ask.
"A month."
A month. That was so soon... "What about our wedding?"
He sighed, dragging his hand through his bronze hair. "I don't know, love. Maybe we can make it earlier. We'll figure something."
"We have to get married before you leave," I demanded lightly. What if he never came home? We needed to get married now.
He nodded. "We will, Bella."
I nodded, and put my head against his chest again. There was so much to take in....so much to think about....
"I'll be all right, love. Really...it's good that we enlisted when we did...we'll have all right jobs, we probably won't even be in the fighting..."
That didn't really make it a whole lot better, but I said nothing, realizing that he was reassuring himself, just as much as he was me.
"You'll be okay," I murmured. It came out sounding like a question, or maybe a request.
I felt his arms tighten around me. "I will. It'll be all right, Bella."
I nodded, looking up at him through the tears in my eyes. "It will be," I tried to convince myself.
He kissed my hair and we sat like that for a long time.
---
When Edward dropped me off outside my house, I was sure I looked terrible. My brown hair was falling out of the bun I had put in earlier, my hair falling around my shoulders. My cheeks were red, my eyes bloodshot from the crying. I couldn't make my mouth turn into a smile, even though I tried, for my parents sake.
I knew they would know something was wrong the moment I walked inside, and I would have to tell them. I would have to say the words out loud and know they were true, that they were really happening. Edward was leaving.
So I hesitated outside the door, trying to put it off as long as I could. I watched Edward park his car in front of his house next store, and head inside. He would tell them now, I knew.
Well, if Edward could go tell his entire family, I could certainly tell mine. I turned the doorknob and let myself in. Who knew, maybe my parents would have already off up to bed, and I wouldn't have to see them until the morning.
"Where have you been, Bella? It's so much later than you usually..." Mom's voice came from the kitchen, her words trailing off as she saw me, taking in my expression. "What's wrong?" her voice was soft, but serious.
I bit my lip, trying to stop tears before they fell. "Mom..." I choked the word out.
Her eyes lit up with worry, and she moved over to hug me. I leaned my head against her shoulder. I needed someone to cry on. I felt bad crying in front of Edward, when he had so little control over what was going on. I was sure it just made him feel that much worse.
"What's wrong, Bells?" Mom asked after I had cried out the worst of the tears, and my body had mostly stopped shaking.
"It's Edward..." I hated to say it out loud. I hoped she would put the pieces together without me having too, but she just looked at me with an expectant look, waiting for me to finish my sentence.
"He's leaving, Mom. In a month," I barely whispered the words and my lips trembled as I spoke.
"Oh, Bella," Mom said, hugging me again. She smoothed my hair back from my face, holding me as I started to cry again. "I'm so sorry, Bella."
"What's wrong?" Dad came down the staircase, his eyes on us.
I pulled away from Mom, wiping tears away with a shaky hand. I could feel Dad's eyes on me, waiting for me to explain. But saying it out loud once was quite enough. "I'm going to bed," I muttered instead, walking past my parents and then practically running up the stairs to my room. I shut the door behind me, hoping that neither of them would come up after me to talk and try to comfort me. I couldn't deal with that, I didn't want to talk about it.
I tossed my shoes off, leaving them laying in the middle of the room, and laid down on my bed, burying my face into a pillow.
It was really amazing that I still had this many tears left. I had been crying since I had gotten the news, you'd think I would have cried every tear I had.
Eventually they did subside, and all that was left was wet, sticky, red cheeks, and a pain in my chest that felt like there was a gaping hole-right through my heart. It was hard to breathe, just thinking about it.
Edward's leaving. Edward's leaving. I couldn't derail my train of thought, no matter what I tried to think about instead. The two words were relentless, playing over and over again in my head.
Edward was leaving. And he might not come back.
A/N: Short chapter, sorry. I've got quite a bit of this written out though, so the next chapters will be better and longer.
Thanks for all the reviews. :]
