Ch. 3

I didn't even think about school for about a week. Eventually, I decided I should go back- Charlie had been giving me a nervous side eye for at least three days. People stared but didn't ask many questions. I think I made up some story about being laid up with the flu. But the sudden conspicuous absence of the Cullens' brought about skepticism from most people.

I kept my grades up, but not for myself. I knew Charlie wanted me to get into a good college and maintaining my grades was a good way to keep conversation to a minimum at the house. Most days I would come home from school and head straight upstairs under the pretense of homework. Charlie didn't ask questions, I didn't offer explanations, and we lived in a moderate, tense sort of comfort for it.

Months passed and I thought of nothing but keeping routine, something to keep myself sane. I couldn't seem to get a handle on my emotions. I pined for company when Charlie was gone, but ticked down the seconds until he would leave. I didn't speak at school unless spoken to first. I took to having lunch at the vacated table the Cullens' used to occupy.

I seemed to be the only person in Forks mourning the Cullens' departure. Edward was right. It was as if none of them had ever existed. I had only a small crescent shaped scar on my hand to prove to myself I hadn't imagined all of last year. That much he couldn't take away from me. Well, that, and my own shattered will.

Seasons passed without notice. I ate without tasting, slept without rest. My eyes became bloodshot, purple bags puffing up beneath them. Fall came, a dry whisper amongst the trees. I kept routine. School, homework, dinner, sleep, repeat.

I started to think I might survive. My bright edge was dull, I started to feel like nothing would ever sharpen it again, but I could survive. It's what he wanted, right? My life, this stupid, boring routine. Maybe I wasn't made for his world. Maybe he just got bored. Maybe he realized I was more trouble than worth. I found myself appreciating the fallen leaves, though their crunch was held captive by the never ceasing rains. Then winter hit, and that's when the nightmares began.

I lie in the meadow, the dewy grass sparkling like diamonds around me. My arms are spread wide, my legs straight out. I watch the clouds pass by, fluffy, but for once not threatening rain. A breeze throws a sweet taste to my nose. I close my eyes and relish the scent.

Shadows cast over my closed eyes and I open them to see a pair of playful hands. They part and Edward's face appears between them, smiling. He leans down and kisses me, that sweet taste filling my soul, spilling over into reality. I close my eyes and lose myself in him. He twists around, his body on top of mine, pulling me closer, kissing me, his scent intoxicating, enveloping. His marble body pressed to mine, his hand is on my lower back, his other strokes my face.

I open my eyes. Edward is standing in the center of the clearing. The sky is dark, the grass black. He speaks. His voice whispers directly into my ear, though he's easily twenty feet away.

It will be as if I'd never existed.

He's gone, withering into the darkness like smoke. I try to run to him, but my arms and legs are shackled to the ground. I pull at my bindings to no avail. I'm screaming, the sound rising from my chest to burst from my protesting lips.

Laughter bounces from every tree, taunting. My wild eyes search and find him. The tracker. He's upon me in less than a second, grasping my tender throat in his hand. He runs his tongue over grinning teeth, wrenches my head to one side, and tears my throat out.

I woke myself screaming. Charlie barged into my room, wearing only pajama pants and brandishing his gun. It took him a moment to comprehend the scene: my face flushed and nervous, almost guilty, cold sweat gleaming on my forehead, pure panic in my eyes, but no visible intruder.

"Jesus, Bells, you nearly gave me a heart attack," he said finally, trying to force a laugh and failing.

I had to take a moment of my own just to appreciate him. I'd hardly spoken to Charlie in months (in fact, I mostly wished for his absence), but here he was ready to defend and rescue me from some unknown foe. Of course, had my brain not been on overdrive, I would have recognized him as shouldering the burden that is fatherhood, but I wanted to appreciate the moment anyway.

Silence lingered between us, as it seemed so prone to do lately.

"Nightmare. Sorry," I said finally.

He stood there for a moment longer, his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides.

"Get some rest, Bells," he said. He left quietly.

I didn't go back to sleep. The images from my dream flashed before my eyes every time I tried to close them: the hunter's hungry smile, his gleaming white teeth, the pain in my neck as fire swept from my throat down toward my heart.

But worst of all, Edward's face. But not just Edward's face. His smile, his cool lips, and his body on mine. Everything I had repressed and forced myself to believe I didn't miss had come rushing back in those few moments. Moments that weren't even real, I thought bitterly to myself. How could he keep hurting me like this, when he was gone for good, so far away?

I had made so much progress. I had started sitting with my friends at lunch again, forcing laughs for their jokes. I had even made plans to go shopping with Jessica soon. Not that I really wanted to go shopping, but it was nice to see that ghost of a smile on Charlie's face when I told him.

The tracker was dead. Torn to pieces and burned. But Edward… he was out there somewhere. I didn't know what I was to him anymore. A pet? An experiment? A lover? But I knew what he was to me. He was my heart. And with him gone, a hole had opened in my chest. It surprised me to think that no one could see it. Like someone could simply reach through me to the other side. I was empty. I had been foolish to deny it.

I woke that Saturday to snowfall. The dregs of the nightmare muffled it's beauty. I'd suffered through it nearly every night since it had first come to me. It was a strange feeling, fearing sleep for the pain of the tracker's bite, yet yearning to see Edward as I remembered him.

I gazed out my bedroom window as the snow gathered on my truck, fat clumps of white flakes melting together into a pillow of fluff on the roof of the cab. The cruiser was gone; Charlie had mentioned the night before that he might take a trip to the reservation to visit Billy Black. The sun was shining happily outside, reflecting on the quiet serenity of it all. My heart ached with dread.

I had agreed to go shopping with Jessica in Port Angeles. At the time, it felt right to agree to it, something that was expected of me as a friend, especially after feigning that I'd shaken myself out of the funk I'd been drowning in, but that was before the nightmare. Now somehow, no amount of half-hearted nodding yes or no to the color of Jessica's potential new shoes or offering falsely positive opinions on a patterned purse would convince me I wouldn't rather be at home alone. I sighed heavily, maybe even a bit over-dramatically, and forced myself into the shower.

I dressed myself in an oversized grey sweatshirt and thick blue jeans. Charlie had picked up an obnoxiously bright yellow parka on sale over the summer. He'd left it on the hook by the front door and I wrapped myself gratefully in it after strapping into some brown and black all- weather boots. No matter how much Jessica might scoff, I intended to be warm. I set out to brave nature's cold white beast.

Jessica had plans with her family after shopping with me, so we'd agreed Friday afternoon to drive separately and meet at some boutique she'd been dying to shop at. She'd seemed skeptical at first about my truck's ability to deliver me safely, but eventually shrugged in a whatever fashion and dropped the subject. I was grateful to her for that much. I needed the time alone to prepare myself.

The last time I'd been to Port Angeles was when Edward and I had our first date. It seemed centuries ago, in another life, yet I could recall the details as if it were only yesterday. Edward might have been determined to wipe himself out of my life, but he couldn't take my memories, and I held them selfishly to myself like a dragon guarding its treasure.

I turned onto the snowy highway and gingerly pushed my truck to fifty. Charlie had installed snow chains again and my truck stayed planted firm in its trajectory, even though the plows had only made a few passes so far and the gray sky seemed determined to undo their work with every passing moment.

I remembered the terrifying thrill of doing a hundred in Edward's shiny silver Volvo down this very highway. At the time I had nearly screamed at him out of shock, but now it seemed a fond memory of teenagers doing crazy teenager things. Well… one teenager and something else entirely in the driver's seat.

My mind began to wander, tracing through every moment I could recall, searching for something that should have tipped me off to any sort of insincerity I could have caught him in. My chest ached with a gasping sort of emptiness. Every blip, every moment, he had me caught like one of Charlie's many fish.

Was I like a fish, puckering toward him while he lured me, smiling in satisfaction of victory? If that were the case, why didn't he just kill me instead of running? To save himself the trouble of a coverup? Or was he really committing a noble self sacrifice? But if that were the case, why couldn't he understand he was punishing me too?

My mind whirled in new confusion. He'd warned me to stay away, but I had been stubborn. Or maybe stupid? If I had been his idea of a game, I'd played right into his hands. A new kind of pain shouldered its way into my suddenly overcrowded chest- betrayal.

I don't remember pulling to the side of the road, only that my vision had blurred to the point that road and snowy bank had melded into one. I stopped the truck and threw the flashers on.

No one was around to see me cry. I hollered my fury and pain at the dashboard like I'd never properly felt emotion before. It was a release that I'd been denying myself for months. Charlie knew I'd been damaged, a bit of shine had dulled somewhere inside of me, he'd even woke me for nights on end from the same nightmare time and time again, but I'd never given him the satisfaction of hearing me cry. Somehow, I felt that would make it real.

Maybe this right now was the nightmare, and the nightmare was my reality? Maybe Edward would come back to me, after the tracker turned me? We could be together again that way. I would no longer be fragile and alone. Or was just losing my mind?

I hung my head down, my hands clutched to the steering wheel like a life preserver, afraid if I lost that grip, my whole grip on reality would go with it. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling the hot tears drip down my cheeks, when my driver side window exploded.