A/N:I hope you guys like this chapter and review because the next ones bring you Edward so more reviews means a faster update.
You can find bella's outfit at http:/www(.)polyvore(.)com/bella/set?id=17134308
courtesy of Marianne Northam Cullen.
.:CHAPTER 3:.
Coming home pt. 2
I woke up just as a door was closing.
I tried to fully gain consciousness, the lingering echo of a dream, a memory or perhaps an illusion flashed through my entire being, luring me back inside of my head.
"Promise?" I had asked him as my hot tears and snot soaked the front of his shirt.
"Promise," he had murmured into my hair as his arms wound around me, and he hugged me tighter, his tears joining mine.
My small hands gripped onto the fabric of the back of his t-shirt and I so desperately wanted to hide myself inside him so they wouldn't be able to separate us.
Her hand roughly pulled me back and dragged me away.
My eyes lifted to the faces of my friends, all sad and with tracks of salt adorning their cheeks.
My falling tears turned into blubbering sobs as I asked again,
"Promise!"
"I promise, Bella. I'll never forget you! We never will…" His eyes smoldering green held all the promises I needed as they rimmed red and filled with tears again.
I groaned and rubbed a hand over my face.
Lately, it seemed that I couldn't stay for long in the present. My powers would alienate me from any outside influence and stimuli, as my soul fleeted through space and time, digging through the deepest corners of my mind in its search for the past, uncovering parts of my life that were best left forgotten.
There was a struggle between the two constants in my life- one my light and the other my dark. They were the ones that had kept me awake half of the night.
The luminous one had brightened my life with his smile for the first ten years of my life. He had been beside me from the very beginning and was still the one that gave me the power to fight the morbid blackness that threatened to swallow me so often.
The dark one had revealed himself as my tormentor during the first session of exorcism my mother had submitted me to. I had seen him reflected in the dark eyes of the woman that was holding my head between her hands as she recited her convoluted incantations. In my own reflection. He was a monster that thrived feeding on my doubts and fears. He drank my pained tears as his most precious nectar, they were rightfully his, he had claimed. He was somewhere inside of me, fused with me. He ran through my blood trying to incite me to do things that would not only hurt others but also get me hurt. Small things, nothing attention drawing, but big enough to make me suffer.
He had been the one telling me it was okay to play with my powers just to be able to see the rosebud bloom. That I had time in abundance before they came back home. That I would be able to feel like I was home again, in my gran's garden.
The nightmares had plagued me again. The monster was sneering at me from the past, making me restless in my sleep as I desperately searched for a fragile glimpse of a once more vivid memory- the green of Edward's eyes as my sole comfort in the darkness, keeping me grounded, telling me to endure a little longer. Just two more days, after what had been an eternity without him.
I was uncomfortable, the feeling brought forth by the fat, cold beads of sweat that rolled from my hairline, down my neck, licking my collarbone and continuing their tickling journey down my chest. There they would seep through the thin cotton of my wifebeater, their moisture making it cling to my body, trapping me.
Frustrated I got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, turning on the shower.
I noticed Dad wasn't in the room so I assumed he had gone out to get the truck ready to continue our trip back home.
My clothes came off lazily as my eyes were still squinted and tired from the lack of a proper nights' sleep and fell haphazardly to the floor in a pile.
The hot water streamed across my body, trying to cleanse grime that had accumulated from 7 years of pain and loneliness. But looking down at myself, nothing seemed to have changed so I scrubbed harder, leaving angry, red, stingy marks as fresh tears were mixed in with the over chlorinated water that had long gone cold.
The only memory of him, besides the intense green shade of his eyes, I had, was the photo I kept hidden in my locket; a snippet of a 6 year old boy ridding his bicycle. It had been the only one I could find and stash away from my mother's rage…nothing else had survived nothing to remind me of them. Not a single other image that I could use to imagine how my friends would look now in their teen years.
Finally stepping out of the shower stall, I was faced with my own image reflected in the blurry mirror. A quick sweep of my hand and the image gained contours but remained distorted as if to say that that was my true form, my freakish self.
I had hoped that leaving my mother behind would erase her harsh words and the suffering they caused. Unfortunately their whispered forms still echoed in my mind; a repetitive, monotonous soundtrack for my moments of grief.
"FREAK… fre-eeeee-ak, you're a little freak, Isabella. Why can't you be like the others Isabella? Why can't you be normal?" she would chant lowly in my ear whenever we were alone.
A last look at myself and then I was ready to evade reality again.
Thinking about him my only distraction from the disaster that was my life.
As the ragged towel wrapped around my body I wondered how he looked. Surely he was handsome, that had never been a doubt, but had his hair stayed blond like his father's or had it taken a darker, more coppery tone like his mother's? Was he tall and lanky, like I imagined him to be or did he remain the shortest boy in our little group? Did he still take guitar and piano lessons or had he given up? What music did he like to listen to, and what books to read?
One after the other the questions rang unanswered in my mind. Not too long now, my subconscious whispered.
Once again a door being shut broke me out of my reverie.
"Oh good, you're awake. Here, I bought some breakfast," he said, giving me a brown paper bag with a ham sandwich, a cherry muffin and cup of coffee, strong enough to wake up the dead but sweet enough to be bearable.
"Thanks, Dad. I really needed this."
"Yeah, yeah. No problem. Just finish eating and getting dressed and come out when you're ready, 'cause we need to leave if we want to get there today. I'll just be outside smoking," he added before once again closing the door behind him.
I ate quickly, washing it all down with a large gulp of coffee and pulled my duffel bag on the bed to pick the clothes I would wear.
I pulled out a pair of black jeans, a faded pink t-shirt with a rose print and a green hoodie. My black chucks were dirty, so instead I put on my pink ones and added my silver locket, a ring with a gemstone that was the same shade of green as his eyes and a pair of silver rose ear studs.
Closing the duffel bag, and throwing it over my shoulder I gazed once more around the room to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything and exited the room with a sigh.
Just a little while longer.
"Ready?" Dad asked as he stepped on the ashes of his cigarette, extinguishing its amber.
"Yeah, let's go."
After leaving Santa Rosa Dad drove 'till Eureka and then decided to let me have a go behind the wheel.
We didn't talk, we didn't even chat about easy inconsequential things, but the silence wasn't deafening or oppressing, instead it was oddly reassuring and relaxing.
Getting lost in the scenery was easy as I was driving so near to the coast that I could smell the salty water in the breeze. It reminded me of home, of going to play in the tidal pools with my friends, of times long gone.
Shifting my gaze to my right I noticed that dad had fallen asleep and realized that the agony of my nightmare must have kept him up, my ghosts haunting him as well.
He woke up just as I entered Newport and asked me to pull over when I saw a gas station, to get more fuel and so that he could get behind the wheel again.
As we left another city behind, the landscapes began to blur before my eyes as the sweet, off-beat motion lulled me to sleep.
As soon as I woke up, the warmth and the feeling of familiarity inside of my bones told me I was almost home.
The whole trip had been a constant motion, back and forth through the labyrinths of my sleep induced nightmares, resurfacing occasionally to take a deep breath of reality only to be pulled under again by the force of the currents.
It seemed as though my mind was healing itself and preparing for the better, more luminous times ahead.
I looked on mesmerized as the rainforest unraveled it's vastness before us, taking a deep breath of air that smelled of rain, despite the fact that we were in the middle of June. But then again, I couldn't remember a time when Forks' cool air didn't smell as though it would soon start to pour from the skies above, the monotonous calm before the storm permeating the atmosphere.
Childhood memories were being revived with each new wide-eyed face that looked on incredulously at our passing, each moss covered tree, each house, curb of the road, color and sound. Places where I used to play with my friends, my old school, the local market and my dad's old police station were only a few of the sights that brought my walls crumbling down as salty streaks of water burned my flushed face.
As the town got smaller in the rearview mirror, my nerves grew because I knew where we were going, the magic of the place calling to me after such a long absence. I could feel the rhythmic thump of the forest breathing as it rushed through my veins.
My grandma's house was one of the first ones to be built and was as such farther from the more inhabited areas of Forks. The other house that was nearby was the Cullen's, the only things separating them being the cherry orchard, the remains of a once greater forest, a small lake and a meadow.
A tidal wave of emotions swept over me as a smile graced my features.
In the distance I could see the white, ghostly silhouette of a Victorian house. It was small and simple, painted in a faded blue with white accents that made it stand out even more as we approached.
Home.
Looking over at my father I could see as a bright smile shined on his face, making him appear younger, almost as young as he looked when I was ten, as if none of the last seven years had been real.
Only then did I realize that I hadn't been the only one living in a world of suffering; my father had lost it all as well- his only living parent, his home, his job, his friends and social status and ultimately his wife. All because of me.
I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my green hoodie and got out of the car just as the first liberating molecules of water were tumbling gently from the sky.
Our hometown was welcoming us back.
I grabbed my father's hand as he was going toward the trunk to get the luggage and pulled him on the narrow path that led to the front porch.
"Leave it. We'll get it later. I just wanna see grandma."
"Okay. Let's go," he said wrapping his arm around my shoulders as we stepped on the porch.
"What do we do now?" I whispered.
"We just… knock, I guess," he said as he gently knocked on the door.
A long moment of silence followed before we heard steps coming down the stairs.
"Coming, just a se…"
Grandma lost her voice in a single gasp as she saw us standing before her and a single drop of rain fell from her eye sliding across her pale cheek.
"Oh my sweet, sweet children, you're finally back home," she said in awe before hugging us both and pulling us inside.
After thousands of kisses, hugs and words of affection Grandma Marie finally declared that it was late and that now that we were home we had all the time in the world to talk more about what happened to us during the seven years we had spent apart from her so we should go to bed.
"Take a bath, sweet child, and I'll come upstairs to comb your hair before you go to bed, just like I did when you were little," she added before I went up the stairs and did as I was told.
After getting undressed I turned around and got in the tub, but not before noticing in the mirror that my marks were extending again, becoming more intricate, their color growing darker in intensity. They had appeared four years ago and were initially just a small, faint, greenish outline that marred my skin. In time, though, they had grown steadily until they covered almost my entire upper back; an unimaginable design of swirls and flowers in a dark green hue.
The bathroom was still as I remembered it, and as I sunk in the warm water of the clawfoot bathtub I couldn't help my giddiness as I thought of the gift my love would receive tomorrow, on his birthday.
A/N:I know, I know I haven't updated but between my health issues and the shit was giving me when I tried to update it was really difficult to get this one out.
Let's just say that pissed off nurses and wireless network aren't a really good mix in Romanian hospitals, so yeah...
Anyways I hope you enjoy this and leave me some love so that my stitches heal faster and you get the next chappies quicker.
