Scene Two: Effortless

"She doesn't love you the way you love her, Edward. She wouldn't fight for you. To keep or to hold or to stand beside. She wouldn't shed tears or blood or even sweat in that nonexistent battle. She doesn't love you like that..."

"She simply loves that you love her like that."

My sister Alice's words to me one night just as I'd returned home from taking Bella to hers had shocked and surprised me. Because they weren't ones she'd say.

And once heard, I'd tossed them from my mind as if I'd never heard their not and not right sound at all. Dismissed them as they'd dismissed Bella. Because they weren't true about. Couldn't be, I'd thought. (And because we'd all been watching The Vow together just before I'd taken Bella home, and my youngest sister was obviously still a little caught up in it.)

But then they'd haunted me. Because I feared that they were. Because my sister Alice had said them.

If it had been Rose, my older and 'harder' sister, they'd have stayed discarded. And been forgotten, like she's wanted me to do with Bella since the day I met her. But Alice…

They really weren't ones she'd say, no matter what she'd been caught up in. Unless they were an existing truth that she was and just couldn't keep quiet about. Or hidden from me. Because she loves me.

I started to pay attention to everything Bella did and said after that. Closer attention than I had been.

And in doing that, I realized that she never did or said much at all. And that the doing and saying was all me.

An I love you, if not given to her first, was never given to me.

A touch, if not extended by my hands to her first, was never felt by me.

There was no effort. No work. And no 'just because' play. All things, that when you love someone, you give and do without thought. And without any effort at all.

The effort it was taking me to hold it all back from her was extreme. And exhausting. And painful. Because it was killing me and she didn't even seem to notice.

I went back to Alice with a heavy heart… and asked her if she knew anything else. If her gift of sight of moments in time we were yet to spend or experience had given her anything else she could give me.

And she didn't say anything. But she didn't have to. Her eyes had said it all. And her too gentle squeeze of my hand.

I'd waited for Bella my entire unnatural life…

But waiting to lose her was something too unnatural to spend time waiting for. In my heart that, no matter what else it was or wasn't, was pure.

I loved her with all of it. And love her still…

But a love unreturned is one I won't continue to give to her. Not if she won't put forth any effort to keep it. Or to show me that it means anything to her to have it. Or would, if she were at risk of losing it.

I had to know. If Alice was right, and if everything I had believed in with my pure heart was wrong.

I went to Bella's house today. Was waiting for her when she arrived home from wherever she'd been. We hadn't seen each other or even spoken in three days… because I hadn't made the effort. And had made every excruciating effort to not do either.

I had waited with a dying hope in my heart that my phone would ring, or that she'd show up at my door when hers didn't and I didn't show up at hers…

But that dying hope was not nourished with any life-restoring care from her. It was simply left to continue to die its miserable and lonely death.

And when she saw me today waiting outside of her house, she didn't ask me where I'd been or what I'd been doing for those three days, or even how I was. She didn't kiss me or hug me or say that she'd missed me or was happy to see me. She didn't even smile at me. An effortless thing for the mouth of a person who loves, or cares at all.

But still I gave her a chance. To prove me wrong, and the pictures in my sister's head lifeless.

And if this chance I gave her was a test, she failed it. Is failing it still with her effortless silence. Her nonexistent battle.

I told her we were leaving this place I'd found her in. This place I'd thought we'd found each other in. The each other, and the missing halves of ourselves.

I told her that we had no choice but to go to another. And not much else.

And I waited for her to ask me why. Ask me all or any of the things I hadn't offered her. Or ask me or tell me anything at all.

Like not to go, maybe. Or to take her with me, hopefully.

I waited…

For nothing.

"Say something, Bella. Please."

Give me a reason, just one, to stay right here with you…

I waited…

"I have some things at your house. Could you bring them to me before you go?"

For her to tell me to stop.

With no effort at all.

.

.

Confused? Yeah, I thought maybe that would happen. Or had already, after the first part of this, that I didn't mean for to make anyone...

So, let me try to explain what my summary obviously wasn't clear enough to. These scenes... these moments... are separate. They're not connected to each other in any way, and are each complete where left. You won't get any answers or explanations after you've read them. You won't get anything else at all, but a new and different the next time.

That being made clear now (hopefully), I don't expect any of you to still want them, or anything more here. It's a strange and unusual thing to do, I suppose... this experiment of words of sorts that I'm conducting... but it is what this is. And what it will keep being until my brain tells me it's over.

So, sorry for the confusion. And thank you for giving it the chance to be something else, even if you stop now, knowing that it isn't.

xo