CHAPTER THREE

FALL TO PIECES

A few hours later I stumbled up the stairs lugging my bag.

I had indeed discovered Charlie's 'stash' and was now part way through a bottle of Bacardi.

Definitely not my favourite but it had taken the edge off being back in this house without Charlie and my head full of memories.

I hoped that with enough Bacardi I might even be able to sleep for a few hours.

Not much had changed in the twenty years since I had lived here I realized as I spent two hours wandering aimlessly from room to room through Charlie's house. Opening cupboards and drawers, looking at old fishing magazines and sorting through the mail.

I had purposely avoided his bedroom but inspected just about everything else.

I wasn't intentionally searching for anything as much as trying to see who my father was.

What his day to day life had been like in retirement.

My school photos were in a desk drawer finally but my graduation picture was still on display as was my wedding photo and one taken of me after I finished the Las Vegas Marathon.

Charlie had been very proud of that.

Seeing my wedding picture had been the moment I began searching for 'the stash' in earnest.

There were too many memories here and my head was hurting. I missed the non life I'd created for myself in Nevada. The one where I didn't have to think.

I entered the bedroom and threw my bag on the floor.

Nothing had changed in here either since my hasty departure.

It belonged to a girl that had just graduated high school and was running away with a broken heart.

I sat in the rocking chair and took my shoes off. My head was spinning a bit when I stood up again and made my way to the bathroom I no longer had to share.

The sudden jolt of pain brought me to the floor.

Waves of pain washed over me as I cradled my stubbed big toe.

How can something so little hurt so much?

It was barely bleeding and probably not broken yet how could I stub my toe walking across a bare floor?

It was then that I noticed the floorboard. One end of it had popped loose and was jutting out.

A potential death hazard for someone like me.

I slammed my fist down on the board feeling very angry with the floor, like it had bit me.

The other end of the board jumped right out of the floor.

What the hell?

Crawling over to the now unattached board I knelt over, removed it and looked into the hole in my bedroom floor.

'It will be as if I never existed" he'd told me

Yet it never was and now I had the proof that he had existed. Right beneath my feet all that time.

I pulled the three photos out and gasped at the sight of him.

My memories did not do him justice. The beauty of that face, my god those topaz eyes.

He stared out at me from the kitchen in one shot and in the next we were standing awkwardly side by side in the living room.

Had I really ever been that young and happy?

We looked so beautiful together.

The last photograph was of Charlie and Him watching T.V and that broke my heart.

I was suddenly filled with so much pain and rage that I felt I might catch fire.

I ripped those beloved pictures into a million pieces the C.D was next and when I couldn't break it I threw it against the wall and watched the case smash I tried to tear the C.D up with my hands and I stomped on it and I screamed and I cried and I raged.

I was furious with everything ; my father for dieing and forcing me to come back here, Jacob for being so nice and finding happiness with someone else, my husband for wanting out of our marriage, myself for becoming such a recluse and wasting my life, my inability to form friendships and the need to move every couple of years, but mostly I HATED HIM for destroying my life and any chance of happiness I might ever have had .

Leaving me and thinking I would just forget.

How could I ever forget what we had?

Time had not healed my wounds like He promised

I had just learned to coexist with them.

I yelled in utter frustration at the top of my lungs, almost a scream that no one would hear and bowed my head and cried.

Sometime later I pulled myself up off the floor

Calmly I washed the blood off my hands in the bathroom sink, rinsed the tears from my face and went downstairs. I grabbed an old blanket off Charlie's chair and curled into the fatal position on the couch. The blanket smelled like my father.

I closed my eyes

That was the first night I dreamed of Edward again.

..Let me know what you think guys. I've been lovin Jake but I think Ed will make an appearance soon. Jbug