DISCLAIMER: Much to my dismay, I don't own SM's story or characters. I just like to mess with their clothes, sanity and anything else I can. I do own a grumpy kitty called Judy though.
Note to self
I miss you terribly
This is what
We call a tragedy
Come back to me
Come back to me
To me
'Note to Self' – From First To Last
*~* Bella *~*
"Come on, Bells! It's perfect!" I heard, Alice calling me from deep inside my new Chicago apartment. Why she felt the need to go through all of my stuff, I don't know, but then again, she's been doing it my whole life, so why the hell should she stop now?
"I'm coming, Ali." I followed the sounds of her shrieks coming from somewhere deep inside my new closet, which just so happened to be large enough to set up your own boutique. It was the closet that sold Alice on the apartment, I'm sure. Of course, it was my decision, and my decision was actually based on the fact that it was close to my new job as an English teacher at a high school here in the city and the fact that it was large, spacious, had an excellent kitchen, more than one bedroom and miraculously fell within my price range.
Alice flew past me in a whirlwind of colour and black spikes. You would have thought that after twenty-three years, I would have gotten used to her insane adrenaline rushes and energy levels, but nope. She still continued to surprise me with her heightened level of peppiness.
So unlike her twin-
I stopped that thought as I felt my heart lurch and the tears prick at my eyes.
It had been almost ten years and none of us had heard anything from Edward. He had just left. Without a trace and none of us had been able to find him, contact him in any way. He'd left his phone in his bedroom and his bike was no longer traceable seeing as it appeared he'd had the liscence plates replaced. He hadn't even touched his trust fund, that he had been able to get into since he turned eighteen. He could have had immediate access to it, seeing as it automatically entered his bank account on his eighteenth birthday, but no. Not a penny has been touched. Going in or out. The only difference with it, was the interest that the particular bank account Carlisle and Esme had set up for him added on with each passing year.
Nothing had been taken out.
That would have given us some idea of where he was, what he was doing and if he was okay. If he was alive. I hated to think it, but we didn't even know that much. It was too much to think about, too much, not knowing.
Esme and Carlisle had been distraught when they'd returned from their evening out. We hated telling them and had all hoped that Edward hadn't taken Emmett's words to heart. But it turned out that his motorbike was missing, as was his leather jacket, gloves and helmet.
He was gone.
Who knows where.
Doing who knows what.
That fight with Emmett was the last we'd seen of him. Not that we hadn't tried to find him.
Posters had gone up all over Forks, La Push, Port Angeles and Seattle, stating that Edward was missing. Apparently, Carlisle had even gone and put some up in Olympia and other neighbouring towns.
Nothing.
We heard absolutely nothing. Not even a report from the appeal that Carlisle and Esme broadcast on television begging Edward to come home or at least contact him in some way. And it wasn't like he blended in, what with his thick bronze hair, strong jaw-line, high-cheek bones, alabaster skin and perfectly straight nose. He was unique in himself. Just being him.
I wished that we could find him.
"Bella. Bella!" I didn't notice Alice standing in front of me, hands on her hips, tapping her foot until she tapped me on the head with the hanger that was in her hand. "Have you been listening to a word I've been saying?"
"Will I get hit again if I say no?" I asked, rubbing my head where the hanger had assaulted it.
She rolled her eyes and stalked off, muttering something about needing to fill closet space or something.
"We need to go shopping Bells." She called from the bedroom, making her way back out into the living room where I was currently sat. "I mean, half of your new closet is bare and the other half is screaming for an update. Come on."
She held out her hand and I scowled at her. "Alice, I do not need any more new clothes. I don't care if the closet is screaming out in agony over being empty. I will go shopping when I feel like it and not a moment before."
"You ruin everything, Bella." She stomped her heeled foot at me, her lip sticking out in an attempt to guilt me into yeilding. It used to work, but now all it did was to remind me of Edward, because he used to do the same thing.
My laughter died as Edward sprang back to mind. I couldn't help it. You would have thought that after almost ten years or so, that you would get over someone. Well, the person that says time heals all wounds can fuck off because they're talking a load of absolute shit.
"You're thinking about him again, aren't you?" Another voice said from the doorway and I looked up to see Rosalie standing there in all her model glory. She was so gorgeous that it knocked any girls self-esteem down a dozen points just being in the same room with her. It certainly didn't help mine any. I nodded slowly and a small, sympathetic smile appeared on her face. "Oh, honey." She crossed the room and wrapped her arm around my shoulders.
"I'm being a pathetic idiot, you don't have to hide that you think that from me." I mumbled and she chuckled slightly.
"No, Bells." She shook her head. "You're not pathetic."
"And it's my brother who's the idiot for leaving in the first place." Alice grumbled, inspecting her perfect nails in front of me.
"You can understand why though." I looked between the two of them, looking to see if they could. It didn't seem so. "I mean, he thought that everyone hated him, that everyone wanted him gone and out of our lives for good. Can you really blame him for not wanting to stick around when everyone was thinking that way about him?"
"I guess not." Rose mumbled, leaning her head against my temple. We'd had this conversation many, many times over the years and it always ended the same. I still don't think they understood where I was coming from.
All five of us had decided that we needed out of Washington, wanting to stick together, but branch out on our own. Emmett had determined that we would decided where to go by getting a map of the USA and pointing to it blindly. None of us had any better ideas so we went with his and ended up on Chicago. Call us stupid, but we figured that it was the easiest way to decide where to go.
Anyway, all of us had careers that could be moved across the country. I had been given an excellent recommendation from Port Angeles High, where I had been working before I had decided to move, Alice had just opened up a boutique that was doing excellent business in its first month due to her excellent knowledge for fashion trends and her quirky tastes, Jasper was going to become a history teacher at the same high school I would be working at, so at least I had someone I knew there before I even started. That helped to boost my confidence a little, knowing that Jazz was there to help me if I needed it. Emmett and Rose had collaborated and combined their knowledge and love of cars and opened their own garage. They had been in the city for three months now and their business was booming, although I was sure that Rosalie herself had soemthing to do with bringing in the new customers whereas their skills under the hood kept the customers.
"But what I do need to do, is go food shopping, so you can help me with that." I looked up at Alice and she pouted at me again and I laughed. She might like shopping, but to her food shopping was incredibly boring. To Alice, there was nothing like a good ol' clothes shop.
"Alright, I'll let you off the shopping for today, bu-ut………" She smiled wickedly at me and I knew that I wasn't going to like whatever it was she'd come up with. "We're going out tonight."
"Hell yeah!" I heard Emmett shout from the doorway where he and Jasper were wrestling with a dresser. "This is the last of it."
"Good!" Alice chirped, pulling me up and leading me down towards the bedroom.
"Alice!" I moaned, knowing that she wasn't listening to me. "I don't wanna go-"
"It's either out or shopping." She turned and pointed a finger at me. "Which one is it gonna be?"
"Out." I mumbled, pressing a finger to my lips and biting on the nail absentmindedly.
"Alright then." She nodded, yanking my finger out of my mouth. "And stop doing that."
I followed her into the bedroom, grabbing a towel from one of the open boxes that had yet to be unpacked and going into the bathroom, knowing the drill by now. I saw that all of my toiletries were nicely linesw up on the counter underneath the mirror, all of my shower products on the small stainless steel shelves in the corner of the shower. The strange thing was, I wasn't surprised to see everything out. It would have confused me if they hadn't been out to be honest.
I washed my hair with my favourite strawberry shampoo, letting the hot water relax my muscles as I stood under the heated spray.
After what I deemed to be around ten or fifteen minutes, I reluctantly climbed out of the shower and wrapped myself up in one of my large, fluffy, midnight blue towels and padded my way out into the bedroom again. I sighed and shook my head, seeing that Alice had already laid out my outfit for tonight.
She had decided that I would be wearing a pair of dark grey skinny jeans that I had only worn once before and that was in the shop I bought them from. They fit me like a second skin and made me feel extremely self conscious, but I wasn't about to argue with Alice. Punishment for that as a fate worse than death. She had paired them with a light blue halter neck that showed off a lot of my back and shoulders. Apparently, I was showing skin tonight and as the only unmarried one of the group, I was sure that the others were trying to set me up. It wasn't the first time they'd tried.
I was just adjusting the strapless bra that she had also felt the need to lay out for me, when the two of them burst through the door intent on attacking me with brushes and lipgloss. She did have incredible taste, I'll give her that, but I just wished that I was allowed to pick my own outfits sometimes. It did get a bit tedious.
Another half an hour later and I was done and ready to go and experience the Chicago nightlife. I just hoped that I wouldn't feel like a fifth wheel tonight, what with going out with two married couples. They were a great laugh and I loved all my friends dearly, but there were points in the day where I felt that pang of jealousy because they all had someone. They had someone to cuddle up to at night when watching the t.v., they had someone to curl up with in bed, and welcome the new day with, they had someone to eat their meals with and go grocery shopping with. It was those small, infitesimal things that I wanted. That I yearned for. I'd had plenty of changes, but no one that I ever dated was the right guy. I was beginning to think that I would never find him.
Maybe you already have.
That stupid voice in the back of my head was speaking to me again. Taunting me about how I let Edward get away. Not that I could have stopped him from leaving anyway. It wasn't like I ever told him how I felt. If I had then he would have shot me down, laughed at me and made me feel like a complete fool after shattering and burning my heard into pieces. That was why I didn't tell him. But there was something in me, deep inside, that was telling me that maybe that wasn't true. That he wouldn't have reacted that way if I had just given him the chance.
I shook my head slightly, clearing my thoughts and earning myself a scolding from Rosalie, who was applying so much hairspray to my hair that I would have to steer clear of any smokers when we were out tonight.
"And you're done!" Alice squealed with delight as I stood up. "Oh! One more thing." She held up a pair of patented leather boots and I scowled at her. "Put them on, Bella!"
"Alright, alright, calm down." I raised my eyebrows at her as I sat down on the edge of my bed and she grinned, clapping her hands together. "Okay, they're on."
I stood up, wobbling slightly on the treacherous heels, but Alice quickly grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the door, past the boys who were looking on with amused expressions. I looked back at them as they followed us, flipping them the bird as I did so and they chuckled.
"Alice, what about my bag?" I asked and she held up two bags in front of her, calling that she had it without even glancing over her shoulder at me. I shook my head, chuckling as we all bundled into the elevator.
The two couples instantly moulded to each other and I immediately felt like the odd one out in the tiny enclosure.
We hailed a cab out on the street and Emmett said that there was this bar that he'd heard about that apparently was worth going to. He said that he and Rose would have checked it out beforehand, but they hadn't had the time apparently. I believed them on that one, seeing as their business was booming and taking up a lot of their time.
We split up into two cabs, there not being enough space in one of them for all five of us, the second holding Alice and Jasper who were following us in the cab we were in.
We stopped at the end of a road and the cabbie looked at us in the back. "Sorry, this is a pedestrian only road. Gotta drop you here."
"No problem." Emmett shook his head, getting out his wallet, shooting me down when I offered to put something towards it the fare.
We climbed out of the cab, meeting Alice and Jasper on the sidewalk and we walked down to the bar, passing an interesting array of shops that were all closed. I stopped outside one of them and looked at the name of it.
New Moon Tattoos
It was a tattoo shop.
I looked in and there was an enormous Indian looking guy sitting out front, conversing with a customer and someone else leaning over another person. I couldn't see anything of them from the shoulder up, but I did see their elaborately patterned arm each time they twisted to refill the ink, or pulled the needle away for some reason.
"What's the matter, Bells?" Emmett asked, walking up behind me and gazing into the shop. "You want a tatt?" He asked and I shook my head.
"No." I looked at the others, feeling slightly strange. "I don't know why, but I felt drawn to that shop for a minute. It was weird."
"You sure you're okay?" Alice asked as we started walking again. I nodded, keeping pace with her.
For a busy city, the streets weren't that alive at night, or maybe it was just this area of town that we were in. It didn't seem to be the most respectable place in the world, but it was a lot better than it could be I guess.
We walked for another minute or so, stopping outside a loud sounding bar. I could see Emmett grinning at the prospect of going inside and Alice and I rolled our eyes looking at each other for a split second. He was going to be like a kid in a fucking candy store, wasn't he? We both looked at Rose and she nodded her agreement to Emmett almost bouncing up and down. He loved going to new bars and clubs. It excited him almost as much as shopping did Alice. Almost.
I looked up at the name of the bar and saw that it was called Eclipse.
"Huh." I laughed once and the others looked at me, confused expressions on their faces. "I wonder if this street has a theme."
"What do you mean, Bells?" Jasper asked, the confusion in his voice matching that on his face.
"Well, the tattoo shop up there is called New Moon, this bar is called Eclipse." I looked at them, working it out. "What else is there going to be based around the phases of the moon?"
"I don't know, but that's a good observation there, Bella." Emmett nodded. "You know what would be better? Going into the bar."
"Well done, Emmett." Jasper cooed in the same way you would a newly trained puppet. "Who's a good boy?"
Emmett responded in the incredibly eloquent manner that consisted of … the middle finger. "Right, come on, let's go."
We made our way inside, me sandwiched in between the two couples, looking very out of place.
Well, saying that I by myself looked out of place would be an understatement. We as a group looked out of place. As soon as we walked into the bar all I could see were tattoos and piercings. I felt incredibly mainstream compared to the obvious rebels that were in this particular bar.
"I'll start." Emmett looked around grinning. Although we were getting some pretty strange looks, no one dared to come near us with someone like Emmett around.
We looked around and spotted a table not too far from the bar. Well, I say table, it was more like an upside down barrel with a bench running around it, but then looking around, it seemed that they were all like that, and that was the particular décor of the bar. Seemed a little out of place for the middle of Chicago, but then again, most people in the bar didn't really fit in.
"Anyone else feeling a bit …… naked … ink-wise?" Jasper murmured and the three of us nodded in unison. I know I certainly did. The only ink I'd ever had was when we'd drawn on each other when we were little. I knew that that didn't compare to some of the incredible designs that some had on them.
"Look at him over there." Alice nodded towards a tall man, with black hair who had just stood up. He didn't have a shirt one, which I guess was okay seeing as he was nicely toned.
But it wasn't his muscles I was looking at.
It was the enormous tattoo on his back. It was an enormous black hole, with a single red eye peering out from its depths. There was a pair of hands on the sides of the whole, tearing at it from the inside, trying to free the eye and its owner from the depths of the hole. When he stood straight on, the tattoo had an almost 3D effect. It was an incredible piece of artwork.
"I wonder where he got it done." I murmured, catching the notice of the woman sitting with her back facing me.
"Oh, that?" She pointed at the man's back and I felt my cheeks flush slightly. "That's Ed's work from New Moon. The tatt place down the road. You go in there, they do fantastic work. My baby's had all his work done in there, haven't you babe?" A guy turned around and nodded at us before fixing his eyes back on the door, obviously waiting for someone to walk through them.
A hour or so later, we were all getting a bit tipsy, not really drinking fast enough to get drunk, but just enough to let loose for a few minutes. Jasper and Emmett went to play on the pool table for a little while, while Rose, Alice and I sat and talking about nothing in particular, bit it all sounding deeply philosophical and meaningul in our slightly enebriated state.
I tried to slide off of the bench as gracefully as I could, which for me wasn't very gracefully and I nearly landed on my arse instead of my feet.
"Shuup you two." I moaned at Rose and Alice as they snickered and giggled at me before I walked off to the bar.
I pushed my way over to the bar, leaning on it to try and gain someone's attention so I could get away from all the drunk assholes trying to cop a feel and get back to my friends. Only Emmett would choose this sort of bar. It had his name written all over it.
"Hey, Jane." I froze. That voice. It was so familiar. Too familiar. It was a voice I hadn't heard in years and when I had last heard it, it had been hissing words of anger and venom at me. He can't be here. Now! Can he?
I pushed myself away from the bar, making my way back over to the others only to see them pouting at me for forgetting the drinks.
"Um… Bells." Jasper waved his arm in a circle, signalling that I'd forgotten something. "Forget something?"
"I know, but I have something to tell you." I told them, looking around at them all.
"You're taking some manhunk home with you?" Alice sat there bouncing up and down, clapping a huge grin on her face. All of that stopped when I shook my head at her and she looked confused at me. "What, then?"
"He's here." I stated plainly. I saw three faces turn to shock and one of them still masked in confusion.
"Who's here?" Emmett asked, looking around at everyone.
"Santa." I quipped, sarcasm dripping in my tone as I slid in next to Alice. "Who do you think? Edward, you dipshit." I hissed and his features grew dark.
"I thought we weren't going to talk about him tonight." Emmett took a swig of his beer and I rolled my eyes at him.
"Kind of hard when I've found him." I nodded my head over to the bar where sure enough, a distinctive head of bronze coloured hair was knocking back three shots in a row.
I saw him put some money on the bar and holy shit he turned our way. Even though I knew that I should, I couldn't look away from him and I felt my jaw drop when I saw him.
He looked almost the same as when I'd last seen him, but with one major difference.
The steel.
He was covered in piercings. He had two in his left eyebrow and one in his right, but the one in his right was weird, going lengthways along his eyerbrow, instead of through. I'd not seen that before. He had those plug things in his ears. Not the huge ones that you could stick your whole fist through, but smaller completely full black disc things. I also saw he had two piercings on his bottom lip, one on each side. I knew the name for that one, but I couldn't remember what the hell it was. Something to do with snakes I think. I noticed that he had rings and bars going through his ears as well.
I watched him as he made his way through the crowd, watching his profile and I saw that his nose was no longer perfectly straight as it had once been. Had something happened? Something must have happened for him to break his nose. Only a break would cause an imperfection like that. Not that he was perfect to begin with, but he was pretty damn close and I'm rambling now so I'm going to shut up. Anyway, Edward's new appearance.
As he moved, I saw that it wasn't only the steel going through his body that he had added. He was absolutely covered in tattoos.
They were the most beautiful pieces of artwork I had ever seen. What I could see of them anyway. I wanted to be able to see them all.
He still moved with that stealth and cunning that always used to save him from regular beatings from Emmett. Or at least, kept him alive from. Emmett may be bigger with his enormous muscles and height, but Edward was a lot faster, ducking and weaving out of the way. Saved him many a broken bone, I'm sure.
"That's it." Emmett hissed under his breath, slamming the beer bottle on the table in front of him and heading in the way that Edward had walked. Out the door, thankfully enough.
The four of us looked at each other before taking off after Emmett, not wanting him to do any real damage to Edward at all, although from the looks of it, he can take care of himself nowadays. Either that or people are so transfixed by his appearance that they don't go near him at all.
Honestly, even with all the ink and steel, I couldn't see people avoiding him.
We made it out onto the street to hear a scuffle happening a little ways down.
"Shit." Alice hissed under her breath and we all took off in the direction we could hear the noises coming from.
We rounded the corner to see Emmett standing over Edward who was holding his nose in one hand, pressing the wrist of said hand into his lip. Pulling his hand away I could make out the faint outline of blood on his chin, thankful that I couldn't see it properly or that would have been me on the floor.
Instead, I focused on Edward himself, watching how he moved as he stood up, pressing the back of his hand to his lip again and inspecting it for more signs of blood.
"Hi there, little brother." Emmett grinned down at Edward, who looked up at him as he stood up, clearly not seeing Emmett properly in the faint glow of the street.
"Fuck." I heard a breathy sigh come out of Edward as he pressed the back of his hand to his lip again. "Emmett?" He looked up at him and then the rest of us, a pissed off scowl crossing his face. "Fuck this."
He turned away from us and walked down the street turning down the street at the end.
We all looked at each other and followed him, turning in the direction that he went in, but were surprised to see that the street was completely deserted.
What the hell was that all about?
I know the chapters are short at the moment, but they will get longer as the story progresses, so don't worry about that.
Love? Hate?
Continue? Abandon?
Let me know.