Severe angst, as well as some graphic and disturbing imagary.
As always, all characters and recognizable plot belong to Stephenie Meyer. I own what little bit is left over.
I sit there on the couch, staring down at the floor. I don't have the energy for pacing any longer. I feel eyes on me, hear the creaking of leather as the chair across from me shifts a bit, but I don't look up. I pick a spot on the floor—the vortex of a dusty rose swirl on a background of light beige—and I focus all my attention on that small detail. I don't know if I will be able to finish, but I do know that if I am to have even the smallest chance then I will need to keep my mind as blank as possible. No feelings, no emotions, and—most of all—no eye contact. I will the numbness to wash over me, and then I continue.
"Less than 2 weeks later, it was time. By some coincidence we actually both had our last finals on the same day, although mine finished several hours before Bella's. She was going to go out with some classmates for a few drinks after her last test, then come home to change so we could go out to dinner. I told her our reservation was for 9:00, which meant she would be back at the apartment by about 8:00.
"I had it all worked out, pretty much down to the minute. She walked in the door a little before 8:00, just like I planned it. She always did the same thing when she came home; she would drop her keys on the table in the front hall, hang her coat up, and then toss her backpack down next to the couch on her way to the bedroom. I heard the front door close, heard the thump when her bag hit the door, and I watched the doorway, just waiting for her to appear."
My eyes are stinging now, my vision misty and my breathing harsh. With grim determination I continue to stare at the same spot on the floor, willing the image of the swirling pattern to imprint itself into my retinas so that I won't be able to see anything else.
"I'll never forget her face when she walked through the door. It's burned into my mind, and whenever I try to remember anything about her, whenever I try to picture her, that's the only thing I can see. The horror, and the devastation, and the tears that were just about to spill over before she turned and ran. She ran, and I didn't go after her. I stayed behind, and I fucked that strawberry-blonde bitch in our bed for half the night. We finally fell asleep around midnight, and woke up 3 hours later to the police knocking on the door."
Something tries to break through the numbness I have submerged myself in, but I pull the cloak tighter around myself and fight it off. I need the numb if I am to finish this; the pain can come later.
"Maybe the elevator was taking too long. Or maybe she just couldn't stop moving; maybe she had to run. Nobody will ever know why she took the stairs, considering that she used to joke that she was so clumsy she was practically disabled. And especially in that situation, when she was crying, and upset…she should have never tried to navigate even one flight of stairs, much less 17 of them. But she almost made it."
For the first time since I sat down, I look up and meet the eyes of the man sitting across from me. I want to flinch away from the sympathy I see in them, but just can't find the energy.
"When we started looking at apartments, there were 2 available in the building we ended up in. One of them was on the fifth floor, on the other side of the building, and you could see right into the windows of the apartments across the street. It was cheaper, and she tried to talk me into settling for that one. The building location was exactly what I wanted, and the apartment itself was beautiful. But then we looked at the other apartment—the one on the 18th floor—and it was perfect. The view…I had to have that fucking 18th story view. We used to sit outside on the balcony late at night, just watching the lights that lay out below…
"She made it down 12 flights before she tripped."
The face across from me grows fuzzy, and I dimly realize that I have been crying. Tears drip down onto my hands that lay clenched into fists on my lap, and I look down as I focus on straightening them out to lie flat on my thighs. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I take a deep breath before pushing on.
"The cops wanted to prove that I pushed her, and I can't blame them. They come to tell some guy that his life is over, and find him in bed with another woman—of course they wanted to get me for something. But there was no evidence of any kind of foul play, and Tanya was a pretty convincing alibi. Didn't stop them from doing their level best to find a way to pin it on me, though. For weeks they hounded me, trying to get me to admit something. They even brought pictures, trying to get me to break. Or maybe they were just punishing me. They talked about things like massive internal hemorrhaging, and punctured lungs, and severe head trauma. They made sure I knew all the dirty details.
"It was almost 8:00 when she walked in on me, on the scene I had set up especially for her to see. Do you know when they put time of death at?"
"Yes; it was in the file."
"Yeah, I'm sure it was. It's not an exact science, so they couldn't pinpoint it exactly. But they estimated it to be between 11:00 and midnight. She ran down 12 flights of stairs, and then she tripped near the top of the 13th flight. She fell, and somewhere on the way down she broke her leg and four ribs, as well as cracking her head open. The head injury knocked her out, and caused some swelling of the brain, but it wouldn't have been fatal. It was the ribs that did it. They punctured her lungs, and pretty much shredded her inside. She lay there, unconscious, and slowly bled to death while I screwed some slut in our bed.
"Three hours, maybe more, it took her to bleed out. If I had gone after her, if I hadn't been so intent on getting the full measure of my revenge, it would have been enough time. They could have stopped the bleeding, and put her back together. But I didn't. The maintenance guy found her a little after 1:30; he called 911, but by then it was over."
The silence stretches on, broken only by my occasional sniffles as the tears continue to course down my cheeks. The numbness that allowed me to tell my story is starting to grow thin in spots, the pain beginning to bleed through. But I push it back as best I can, because I'm not finished yet. I don't think I will ever be able to tell this story again, so I want to finish it while I still can.
"I never told anybody what led up to that night. As far as the police were concerned, I was just some asshole who cheated on his girlfriend and got caught, with tragic consequences. I didn't see any point in telling them about what she had done. Her dad is chief of police in our hometown, and I didn't want it somehow getting back to him. They're the only ones who know about Tanya being there that night, although I'm sure that has more to do with sparing our family and friends any unnecessary pain than with protecting me. If they had their way, I'd be in prison just on general principle. As far as everybody else is concerned, it was just a tragic accident."
"That must be very difficult, to keep all those secrets from everyone."
I let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, well, apparently I'm not the only one who's good at keeping secrets."
"What do you mean by that?"
"It was at the funeral home that I saw him again; that piece of shit that my girl spent her Tuesday afternoons with. I just turned around, and there he was, standing off to the side of the room and talking to my sister. I couldn't believe the fucker would have the nerve to show his face, and I felt the rage sweeping through me. I started over to him, planning on punching his face in. But then I stopped short, because Alice was hugging him. Hugging him! And then she turned to the man standing next to him, and she hugged him, too. And when she walked away, they wrapped their arms around each other."
I feel my lips twisting up into a cruel facsimile of a smile, the bitterness burning through my veins as I remember.
"It turns out, Laurent and James are partners, in every sense of the word. Alice met them a few years ago, when she and Jasper wanted to take some sort of dancing classes. They have a studio, and teach everything from ballroom dancing to swing. So when Bella told Alice that she wanted to learn how to dance as a surprise for my birthday, Alice introduced them."
"She wasn't cheating on you, then? She was taking dance classes?"
"Their studio only has formal classes scheduled on evenings and weekends, but when Bella explained that she didn't want me to know what she was up to, they offered to give her private lessons at their home. Midday on Tuesdays were the only times she was available when she knew I had class, so that's when she went. She barely had time between her morning and afternoon classes to squeeze it in, but she went every single Tuesday for 3 months. Because she wanted to dance with me on my birthday."
"When did you find all this out?"
"Right after the funeral. I cornered Alice and asked her who those two guys at the service were, and she broke down into tears and spilled the entire thing. She hadn't been going to tell me, but when I straight-out asked her about them, she couldn't keep it bottled up inside any longer."
"I'm not sure I understand; why wouldn't she want to tell you?"
"Because she understood the significance, and she didn't want me to hurt any more than I already was. She didn't want me to know how close I was to having everything I'd ever wanted."
"I still don't understand. What was the significance?"
"I had been asking Bella to marry me since we graduated from high school, but she always said no. It wasn't that she didn't love me, but she was terrified of getting married, especially so young. It almost became kind of a joke: every few months I would propose, and each time she would remind me that she still didn't know how to dance. It was her way of telling me that she wasn't saying 'no,' she was just saying 'not yet.'"
"So her taking lessons…"
"She was saying yes. On my birthday, she was finally going to say yes."
I lose it after that, unable to keep the pain at bay any longer. The doctor calls me a cab, and then convinces me to let him call Alice to meet me at home. He doesn't want me to be alone, most likely worried that I might not make it through the night. He doesn't understand that suicide is not an option for me, and I am too involved in my breakdown to explain any more tonight.
I don't remember getting home, but somehow I find myself lying in my own bed, clutching the silver frame to my chest as great heaving sobs wrack my body. I'm awake, but the images that flow through my mind are the same as the ones in my nightmares. They are full of brown eyes, and horror, and the pictures that were laid out on the dining room table. My imagination fills in the blanks as I see the most beautiful girl in the world stumbling down flight after flight of metal stairs, unable to see past the tears that won't stop coming. I see as she trips, one foot catching on the opposite ankle and sending her flying. I watch as she falls, twisting and tumbling, hitting the unforgiving steel treads again and again until with a final sickening thud, she lands in a twisted heap of limbs at the bottom. I watch as the pool of blood grows, as the pale luminosity of her skin slowly turns ashen, then slightly blue.
I don't know when sleep takes me, when the visions become dreams, but I wake to the sound of my own screams as Alice frantically shakes me, begging me to please wake up. She takes the day off to stay with me, over my halfhearted objections. I just want to be alone, but really don't have the energy to put up much of a fight. Besides, my sister is nearly impossible to sway once she has set her mind to something.
The weekend passes in a daze, and Alice finally goes back to her own home Sunday night—but only after I have sworn to call if I need anything. I spend most of Monday sitting in my customary spot, with my back to the glass door that leads out to the balcony, my picture clutched in my hands as my fingers trace over her perfect face again and again. Occasionally I find myself murmuring to her, saying, "I'm sorry, baby. I'm so, so sorry," over and over again. I stop whenever I catch myself; my apologies mean nothing.
My phone beeps twice—right on schedule—and I reluctantly drag myself through my nightly ritual. There is no comfort to be found in the routine tonight, but I cling to the familiarity of it.
Tuesday. 3:32, and I sit once again on the brown leather couch. The good doctor looks concerned as he asks how I have been holding up, but I can't manage more than a light shrug in response. Not much is accomplished today; I just don't have the energy.
Thursday is much the same, but I do manage to answer some questions and talk a bit. Not about anything important, but progress is progress.