A/N: I admit, this chapter is also short. Honestly, when I write chapters I don't have a goal length in mind, I simply right a chapter according to the amount of emotion and plot the character has to go through, if that makes sense? And this is a very emotional chapter for Bella. However, from now on the chapters will be much longer! Promise!
Also, thanks so much for the reviews! The amount of support and positive feedback I've been getting is very encouraging! So please, continue to review!
People were beginning to file in to the pews at the church. The funeral would start in a little over half an hour. Charlie was sitting next to her, staring at the Bible and Hymnal that were perched in a little shelf in front of him. They were sitting at Jacksonville Methodist Church, waiting for the memorial service to begin.
Bella hadn't even been aware that her mother went to church, much less was a Methodist. And when she looked around she saw many people she didn't know. Some were crying, some were holding the crying, and some were pulling a Charlie and staring straight in front of them. Had they been her mother's friends, distant cousins, or coworkers?
Two women walked into the church whom Bella did recognize. One of them was one of her mother's best friends from high school, and the other one was one of her yoga friends from Phoenix. Part of Bella wanted to greet them, but they were holding each other's hands as they took their seats a few rows back and to the left, and Bella knew she would only be interrupting them. A small family came in looking solemn. Had they been fellow church goers, or neighbors? Tears slipped down Bella's cheeks because she didn't know. She didn't know.
And she had never bothered to.
Ten minutes left now. Ten minutes and the pastor would stand up and talk about her mother for a few minutes. Then Phil would give his eulogy. Then Bella would give hers, which had been hastily written on the plane ride over. Edward had offered to do it for her, to help ease some of the stress he knew Bella was under. But they both knew that that was wrong, and a part of Bella resented him for even suggesting it.
Bella hated speaking in front of large crowds and this would be no exception. How was she going to do this? To stand up in front of a room full of people and talk about a woman who she hadn't bothered to visit in nearly a year? A woman whose emails she had ignored up until the day she had died? A woman who she had come to resent for making her go to college and subsequently tacking on another year she'd have to wait for Edward to turn her? Bella felt sick, physically sick.
Charlie had gone from staring at the back of the pew to staring at his hands in his lap. Phil was sitting a row in front of her. His shoulders were shaking gently, so Bella knew he was crying. All three of them were grieving together, if in their own ways, and yet, Bella felt very much alone. Edward wouldn't have been able to step off the plane if he had tried to come to Florida with her. He was still in Rhode Island, watching the clock and texting her every few minutes to ask her how she was. She had stopped replying. There were only so many variations of, "Wishing it was over."
Five minutes. So close. The casket, which was white, was sitting at the front of the church. It was closed. The car had flipped several times, and apparently there had been some sort of fire…
Bella was sobbing now. She tried to hide it, tried to stay strong for Charlie, but she was failing on all accounts. She had never felt so miserable, like such a piece of shit. She had to stop crying. She couldn't go up there and weep her way through her eulogy. She couldn't be that daughter, that daughter who was never around, who stood up and boo hooed in front of a congregation that probably knew her mother better then she did.
She was going to vomit. And there it was; a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she could feign illness. Then she wouldn't have to get in front of everyone. She wouldn't have to feel like the terrible daughter that she was. She could—
No. That was the easy way out, the coward's way out. Her mother deserved better. It was the least she could do.
Three minutes now. Everyone was talking, but no one was talking to her. And she didn't deserve it really. She didn't know them, and they didn't know her. And there it was; that loneliness was rearing its head again. She choked back some of her tears.
Two minutes.
One minute.
A hot arm slipped around her shoulders and pulled her in close. She didn't even look to see who it was. After all, hadn't he always come through for her when she needed him most? And she had needed him, without even realizing it.
"Jacob," she said in a raspy voice that surprised her.
"I'm here Bella. You're not alone in this."
And there he went again, knowing just what to say, and making the loneliness go back to its hiding place.
