Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of the characters.
Summer of my Soldier
Chapter 4- Eternally Yours
The night passed by me without the gift of sleep. My empty eyes stared blankly at the sky, first the darkening purples and blacks, then the lightening blues and oranges that streaked across the atmosphere. The glistening stars began to fade into the realms beyond the earth, and the moon was pale and white in the sky. Still in my clothes as I lay across the bed that had never before been home to a sleepless woman, the house around me remained silent and eerily still. Nothing stirred, yet it did not seem as if time were standing still. It felt as if years were passing, lifetimes were flashed before my blood shot eyes, and though the house was frozen without the light that had been snatched to greedily away from me, there were still signs of life that continued outside these walls.
Wind crept through the cracks and window frames, gently sweeping the drapes along the floor. Fluttering wings of birds darted through the trees, and the creaking house settled on its foundation. There were the rare occasion where my eyes blinked, scraping my eye balls with a pain similar to that of dragging a scalpel along the skin. Laying on my side, my arms were folded tightly across my chest, as if my arms were to fall to my sides, my entire body would collapses into itself, for the beams that supported my being had been taken from me.
It was not until the sun began to pierce my tender eyes that I allowed them to close, revealing the horrid visions I had masked from my conscience relating to the wars in Europe. Hours passed, and no words formed in my head, nor pictures in my mind's eye, and all that could make itself present within my head was the emptiness and loneliness that engulfed me. Nothing seemed real, and yet it did not seem enough a dream to be considered false.
As the sky began to glow with the setting sun, strange noises entered my house. The sound of patting footsteps in high-heeled shoes clapped along the wooden floors, and the door had been swung open. A distant, foggy voice echoed through the house, speaking my name, yet I could not answer. The mysterious person entered my room, waking me from my daze.
"Bella! Bella, what is the matter with you? You are making yourself sick! You had Rosalie and myself terrified. You hadn't answered your phone."
"Oh. I do apologize, Alice." My voice was scratched and meek, hardly sounding like myself in the least.
"Bella? Are you alright? When have you last eaten anything?" Alice sat beside me on my bed, her short black hair curled into ringlets behind her ears. A soft pink dress hung on her tiny form, and worry was spread across her wrinkled forehead.
"I don't know. It isn't important."
"Not important? Listen to yourself, you need to keep yourself healthy."
"Why? What's the use of it? It does not make it any easier, nor less--jagged." Her aggression mounted, and used the one thing against me that I could not refuse.
"You need to eat, you need to stay well. If not for yourself, at least do it for Edward." The very sound of his musical name speared my very soul, tearing the wounds that have not yet sealed. "Look, I do apologize, but I cannot allow you to do this to yourself. Now, I made some apple pie, and I insist that you eat some." She glided over to my nightstand to where one of our two telephones resided. The receiver had been knocked off the hook, no doubt the reason she was unable to reach me.
"Thank you." I tried to smile, however the muscles in my face rejected my commands, leaving me to simply stare at my friend's face. Her lips formed the smile that I had tried before to conjure. She knew my intention, for she not only knew me, she knew my struggle.
Alice and Jasper had been married for a couple of years, and had been in love since first they met. She was visiting a friend in Houston, Texas, when she found herself at a diner. She told me once that she knew something wonderful was about to happen, and then in walked the love of her life. After only a moment's passing, they were inseparable, except for that is, a draft.
She led me downstairs, keeping myself upright was a challenge in my weakened condition. Sure enough as she had told me, a steaming apple pie rested on the round table in the kitchen. With a fork in hand, I dug into my slice, each bite worsening my stomach. The slightest amount of weight inside me only impressed upon me even more greatly how empty and desolate I was.
"Bella, did Rosalie tell you..."
"Yes, she did." Alice broke the silence, wondering if I knew about the recent even.
"Ironic, isn't it? She has always wanted a child, but she has always wanted one with Emmett."
"She will have us, but it is not the same."
"It will never be the same. Even if--when, when the boys come back, they will be older. They will have seen and perhaps even done terrifying things. No one can predict how they will be, Bella. The only thing that I can say for sure, is that they will be different."
My fist curled into itself, holding myself from turning into a nothingness dust on the floor. It was not that Alice was proclaiming falsities, but it was that she was speaking inevitable truths that could neither be denied nor doubted. None of them would be the same, not Emmett, nor Jasper, nor even...I could not bring myself to think his name. Could it be that they would become different men in their entireties? Would even some shred of their previous selves, or would the man I love return to me as someone I did not even recognize?
The thought horrified me. I had been faced with the consequence of my love being lost overseas, but him returning home, desolate, distant, changed without exception, and loveless for me would be worser still. I could not bear the thought of my husband, the love of my life, falling out of love with me, and staying in the home he had purchased for me.
"I should not have brought it up. I apologize." Alice spoke sincerly with regret in her voice, for it was clear to not only myself that the idea had tormented me.
"No, it is quite alright. You need my support as much as I do you. They are going to the same place, and leaving us behind in the same place, together. This is not the time for differences."
"Thank you. You have always been such a good friend. I relate to you more than I thought that I could, mentally at least."
"How about I support your sanity, while you get me out of bed in the morning?" She giggled softly and deliberately. At least I had regained a bit of my personality, that was a good sign if I were going to write to--him when I was aware of myself instead of scribbling like an asylum patient.
We stayed together for a short while, and when she left, she brought with her the faint drops of happiness that had even allowed me to smile. As the darkening sky loomed over the shadowed house, shifting the metaphor of darkness into literal terms. With nothing left to occupy my time, I sat myself before my desk, and shifted the pen around in my fingers. So then was the beginning of the end of my life.
This first transcription of my thoughts became the only reason for my existence, and all else faded from me. There was nothing else left for me to do, and my being was now kept from death by the simplicity of ink and paper. Such began the beginning of letters with the very first.
November the 21st, 1939
My dearest Edward,
This house is not the same with the absence of your existence. The walls are dreary, the wind creeps through the cracks at night to swirl around the whistling notes around my ears, keeping me from sleep. These barricading exteriors seemed impenetrable with you hear, and have now become as strong as tissue paper lit with gasoline, and a box of matches laying right beside it. The rooms are dark, and the clouds are sinister and taunting. With every breath, I dream of the moment you return to me.
I do hope that you are well, as I am truthfully not. I beg you, take my thoughts off of my decrepitating mind, and tell me about you. What is it like where you are? Where are you? Is the food well, or simply enough to live on? How are Jasper and Emmett? Please pass on my greetings to them. I do hope you three are together, for it would warm my heart knowing you had the charismatic Jasper and brick-like Emmett by your side, not only for protection but for peace of mind as well.
Alice has been keeping me company, and I do not know what I would do without her or Rosalie. You have much to thank them for, for it was due to them that I am sane enough to write to you in the way that you remember me as.
I had not slept since you have left, and the bed seems like a sheet of jagged rocks without you there. I sound like a desperate housewife, I imagine, but I could only hope that you miss me as well. You have an adventure to distract you from the loss, while I remain here, completely made aware o the one that's missing. It is strange how much the presence of one person can change the way your eyes view your surroundings, altering them completely from rooms and doors into memories and love.
As with that, there have been no new instances to report to you, for it has not been very long yet, and though it has been eons too long. If you can remember only one line that I write here, please remember this and hold this with you. I love you so very much, and I always will.
Eternally Yours,
Bella
