I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.
.
"No, Bella, no, remember the flat." I tried again, struggling to remember where the black key came, groaning as my finger automatically augmented. "Bella…" Marley sighed, and switched off the power. "Bella, what is wrong with you today?"
Marley is a child psychologist stroke married father of two stroke closet piano teacher who is literally one of the nicest guys I've ever met; but when it came to music he had the patience of a toddler.
"Nothing," I said, knowing that any argument was futile. I glanced around the staffroom, looked back at the dead keyboard, ran my fingers across my legs. I was wearing a skirt today and I had forgotten how much I disliked them.
"You keep making mistakes."
"I'm just tired."
He put his hand on mine, holding it still as I fiddled with my hem. Marley is a pretty tough looking guy; muscled and black and not a single hair on his head, somehow managing to look macho even in a cashmere jumper and white coat. But the really scary thing about him is that when he's in psychoanalysis mode, you can't hide anything from him.
"Bella, look at me," he said, and I couldn't stop myself from turning to meet his big, dark eyes. "What's wrong?"
I stared at him. What's wrong?
I had gone to sleep last night at four, and now my eyes were stinging and I had bags under them that made me look like I'd been punched. I hadn't been able to switch my mind off, and no matter how hard I tried to close my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to empty my mind, no matter how many sheep I counted; sleep had not come for me. The only reason I wasn't snoring was because I had made myself a flask full of espresso, and was taking shots of it like a tramp with a whisky bottle.
Jacob had been gone by the time I had woken. He had left me a note on the kitchen table ("There's a huge dent in the car- do I want to know?")but there had been no breakfast stuff laid out, no dishes in the sink, no water in the shower base. He had obviously been in a hurry to get out of the house.
Also, this week was the beginning of Med Student month. I couldn't go ten minutes without a student, who had lost their timetable or their patient list or their textbook or their plastic gloves or their hospital map, coming up to me and demanding that I produce their misplaced items. Like I had some kind of magician's hat that just spouted stethoscopes.
But I couldn't look away from Marley's eyes, so I told a small part of the truth. "Wedding stuff," I said, smiling weakly, determinedly keeping steady eye contact.
"Finding it stressful?" He asked, his deep voice sounding genuinely concerned.
"Yes," I said, looking back at the keys and running my forefinger along them. "Just… money stuff. And late nights." I wasn't lying to him; merely voicing one of my many problems. "I suppose it's hard to concentrate on flats and sharps when I'm worrying about a million other things."
He nodded, smiled sympathetically, and turned back to the book, evidently accepting my excuse and choosing not to pry. "It'll all be worth it in the end. You need to watch this bar here."
I nodded, grateful that he had chosen to leave me be. We went back to the lesson.
I was terrible. Marley could only teach me every other day, and the only piano-like instrument we had managed to find was a second hand electric keyboard from the annual Knives Elderly jumble sale in the town hall.
But still, I found something strangely comforting about it. The melodies Marley gave me were simple -they had to be or I wouldn't be able to play them- yet they sounded pretty.
And it made me feel better knowing that for at least half an hour of the day I was taking control and working toward something positive, instead of sitting around moping. I felt that I was in the driver's seat instead of hanging off the exhaust pipe; here was something productive I was doing with a life that was in all other aspects a complete waste.
It was also a relief; while I was failing at playing I could lose myself. I could only concentrate on the music or I would get it wrong, so there was no room in my head for anything else. I could escape my life and live in a different one, where everything was much simpler and the only thing you had to worry about where the demi-semi quavers in bar thirty-seven.
Marley made me play the piece through about three more times, then groaned and elbowed me out of the way. "Flat, Bella, B flat!" I laughed, running my hands though my hair and shaking my head.
"I'm incompetent," I said, shifting my chair.
He smiled. "Thick as a brick," he said, and I grinned. "Watch a master at work." He ran his fingers easily over the plastic keys and the instrument regurgitated an electronic mesh of irritatingly correct-sounding music.
"You make it look so easy," I groaned.
He laughed, turning to me and flashing alarmingly white teeth. "I've been playing much longer," he said, in his slow, steady voice.
"I'm never going to be able to do it," I said, glancing up at the clock. It read twenty five past one, and I sighed. "I've got to get back." I switched off the keyboard and closed the book.
"You will get there. Bella, you've been playing for so little time you can't expect much of yourself." He took the book and put it in his briefcase. "It'll come. Your playing at present is just… a little different to how it should be."
I snorted. "Different is one word for it. Another's 'shit'."
He patted my head as he stood up, smiling. "The keyboard's shit, so we'll blame it on that."
"Of course we will," I said, "It's entirely the fault of that stupid machine."
He laughed. "You'll be here for our next lesson?"
"Yes," I said, standing up as well. "If I haven't been arrested for killing a med student."
He laughed, shaking his head. "I would pretend to disapprove, but I have almost been caught under that same charge." He walked over to the door and held it open for me. "Look after yourself, Bella. Don't worry about the wedding. It'll be the best day of your life."
Somehow I doubted that.
Marley set off for the psychiatric wards, and I reluctantly headed off for the reception. The corridors were quiet; a few visitors, an old man shuffling along the corridor with his I.V stand, a pair of tired-looking doctors, and a nurse on her mobile.
I reached the foyer to be greeted by a Cheshire-cat sized grin from Linda, my thirty-something year old fellow receptionist. Coming closer, I mentally braced myself for the avalanche of mindless smalltalk that was indubitably rolling my way. Linda was nice enough, in small doses, but there were only so many times I could pretend to be interested in TV shows that I did not watch.
"How was the piano thing?" she asked, spinning around in her chair to face me, her lips stretched wide over heavily whitened teeth. He hair hung straight and blonde around her head, and she ran it through two of her fingers; a nervous twitch. If her hair wasn't straight she would go home, no matter when her shift ended, and she would flat iron it for three hours, until it was either completely vertical or in a smoking heap on the floor.
"It was fine," I said, as I sat down in my seat and shook the computer mouse to wake the screen. The excel sheet flashed up, detailing appointments and times.
"I don't know how you do it, I'd never be able to work out all those fiddly little key things. Plus I need my lunch hour for gossip, and I'm not going to get that in that gross staff room. Don't you think that Dr Roberts looks a bit like a taller, older, bald Eddie Murphy?"
"Err…" I said, scanning the sheet. "I guess." I wasn't really listening to her; it was only a second or two later that I realised that by Dr Roberts she meant Marley. He did not look like a tall old bald Eddie Murphy. At all.
Linda sat back in her chair. "These med students are driving me up the wall. I mean, sure, some of them are a bit hot;" she shot me a glance and laughed her Linda Laugh. It was a witches cackle which exploded out of her mouth with the force of an atom bomb and shook her whole body. "I know, I know, they're too young for me, but a girl can dream, right?" Her loud, stammered laugh rumbled through her lips again. "But they keep getting lost and asking me for things, which drives me crazy. A whole new hoard of them came in while you were at lunch, and one of the girls in that group fainted during a surgery observation, which is not going to be helpful in career in surgical medicine… or maybe she fainted because of that one drop-dead gorgeous guy in that group, oh my God. He looks even better than Tom Welling, and you know how I worship at Tom Welling's feet-"
The phone rang. Thanking my lucky stars, I gratefully picked it up and took down an appointment.
When I hung up, Linda was busy with a stack of order forms, so I was free from her droning chatter. I gave directions to several men, women and children who didn't know where their doctors' rooms were. I answered the phone a few more times. Ten med students came over and asked me inane questions ("Where's the bathroom?" "Have you seen a tube of urine?"). A few doctors and nurses signed in and out. A woman in labour came through the front doors; I stood up to help her, but a nurse got there first. I sat down.
"Did you watch Friends last night?" Linda asked me as soon as she had finished the forms.
"No," I said. Please let the phone ring.
"It was so funny!" Linda said, starting to laugh at the memory. "Phoebe's brother had this girlfriend who was forty or fifty or something and he's about fourteen or nineteen; no actually I think he's around twenty, maybe twenty three or six. Anyway so Phoebe was really disgusted by it, because they kept kissing in the cafe and having sex on the couch and on her purse and stuff, and she asked Chandler and Monica- sorry, Chandler and Joey, to ask him, her brother, Phoebe's brother, to break up with his girlfriend, but then-"
Someone picked up the staff book to sign in, and I looked up at them, hoping they would tell me to order something or call someone; anything that meant I could excuse myself from Linda's gauge-out-your-own-eyes nattering before I lost control and stabbed her.
The eyes I met were amber.
I started violently, my hand flying to my heart and my mouth popping right open.
The surprise on Carlisle Cullen's face was nothing in comparison. He stared at me for a second, and then he rearranged his shocked expression into one of pleasant surprise.
"Bella!"
I could only stare back at him. I was very aware of my jaw hanging limply off the end of my face, and I quickly shut it closed. He seemed to be waiting for a response, but I was still processing the fact that, yet again, my life was vampire-central.
"Alice told me that she saw you. It's been too long."
I blinked.
He was still smiling at me, and I still hadn't responded. I felt a full ten seconds tick past, and still I was gaping like some kind of mentally handicapped blowfish. I felt a sharp nudge in my ribs, and I winced. Linda was awful at subtlety.
"Hi," I choked out. "Um-"
"Look, Bella, I always meant to apologize for our abrupt departure from Forks," he said abruptly, still smiling. His teeth were so white they hurt to look at. "Regrettable but unavoidable. I know it was rude."
"Um," I said, intelligently. "No, it's, it was, I'm… don't, don't worry about..." to my horror, I felt my cheeks flushing.
"I didn't notice you when I first came in, you'll have to excuse me. My mind is racing a bit. Mr James just came out of his transplant and there were some complications."
I bit my lip, raising my eyebrows and struggling to kick my brain into motion. "Oh," I said, stupidly. "That's… that's- that sucks."
That sucks. What was I, twelve?
"So, Bella, how are you doing?" He asked this question very suddenly, and his eyes were sharp on mine. I realised that the whole courtroom escapade would have been related to him, and even though he sounded quite casual he probably meant more by this question than it would appear.
"I'm fine," I said, managing to make myself sound alert and in control and subsequently feeling rather smug. There was a pause, as he scrutinized my face.
"How are you?" I asked, to make him stop.
"Very well, thank you," he answered, promptly.
I smiled lamely.
There was another long silence. I felt my entire body heat up, and I looked away, embarrassed. I could feel his eyes still on me, and I pointedly clicked the mouse and pressed several random keys (4:30- Mr elkfadsafjvs). There was another pause, and then I heard him leave. I breathed out.
"Holy fucking shit," Linda said, low and quiet beside me. "Holy fucking shitting shit, I have never seen anyone so fucking gorgeous as that in my whole fucking life. My eyes hurt. Holy shit. Holy shit." I glanced at her; she was smoothing her hair between two fingers and gazing at Carlisle's retreating figure. "Who was he? Where did you meet him and how do I get there?"
"Carlisle Cullen," I muttered.
"My God. Even his name is hot." Her eyes ran up and down his body, as he stopped to talk to another doctor just in front of the doors into the main hospital. "He's new, definitely, I would have noticed him before. Did you go to school with him or what? He's... wow..." Linda was actually speechless.
I felt my body slowly coming back under my control, and I was sentient enough to be offended by this assumption; no I did not go to school with him. But then, I realised that Carlisle and I would seem the same age now. It would be more believable for me to say that I did go to school with him. Nobody would believe that I went with his children.
I was around the same age as Edward's father. How depressing.
"Cullen. Is he from Ireland? Oh my God, do you think he can do an accent? How sexy is that? Imagine the games we could play-"
"He's married," I said, revulsion bringing me out of my stupor. Linda's face fell. The phone rang and she grumpily answered it.
I stared blankly ahead of me.
Carlisle Cullen was working at Knives Hospital. That indicated that his stay here was permanent. And if he was here, then I could reasonably assume that the entire family had relocated.
I suddenly felt like screaming. This was so unfair. As if my life wasn't already just plain crap, now I had to cope with the re-entry of the Cullens? How could fate let this happen? They had the whole world to choose from, and they chose Knives, a decrepit city in the middle of nowhere with one of the highest suicide rates in the whole of the US? Most of the people here lived to feed their cats! How was I supposed to live my lovely normal fairytale human life if this was how it was going to work out? Did I have to become a hermit, did I have to physically remove myself from human civilisation and live in a tree?
Because this meant that Edward was back, too.
My heart panged and ached and I bit my lip. Calm down. Maybe I was being stupid. I could avoid Carlisle, right? And if Edward found out I was here, he'd probably just leave anyway. He'd probably already gone.
And if all else failed, I could just ask Jacob if we could go and live back in Forks. I could run away and stay away forever. I could get married and go and live my pretence of a life far, far away from Edward.
Jacob would understand. He would want to get as far from the Cullens as he could. Maybe we could go somewhere really far away, like Europe. England, maybe, or France. Maybe if I asked nicely we could go and live in Australia. I would simply uproot myself again.
I stared out of the window into the carpark and watched the rain pummel down, sliding along the tarmac in sheets. I did not deserve this. I did not deserve to have everything taken from me and then have it dangled in front of my eyes. That was not fair.
The tension inside me was building and building and I felt like my brain was pressing against my skull. I pressed my fingers to my temples, rubbing them hard in the hope of relieving the frustration.
"Geez, Bella, what's wrong?" Linda's voice broke into my thoughts.
"Nothing," I said, composing myself and smiling at her. "I'm fine."
"You look kinda pissed."
"I'm fine."
"You sure?"
"Sure."
"Is it PMS? Because I get that every single-"
"Linda, I'm fine," I said, slowly, trying very hard not to lose my temper.
"Okay," she said, holding up her hands. "If you say so." She stared at me for a second, and then her face split into a smile. "When you're mad, you look just like a prettier version of that one from Gossip Girl, Blair, I think she's called-"
"Linda, I don't own a television," I said, through clenched teeth. I pressed the enter key so hard that it fell off. I could feel Linda staring at me.
I sat through the rest of the afternoon speaking only when absolutely necessary and being a lot more violent with the stationary than was strictly required. The afternoon seemed to drag on for ever, and the near constant sheets of rain I could see through the windows did nothing to help my mood. When I glanced at the clock and saw that in only ten minutes I could go home, I felt exhausted relief flooding me. I was so tired; I just wanted to go to bed. Sleep away this day and pretend it had all been a bad dream.
I drummed my fingers on the desk, my gaze wandering absently over the foyer. My eyes crossed the window, and I watched the scene as it was reflected in the glass. There were a couple of people on mobile phones and two twin girls playing on PS3s, all pale and weakly mirrored. A transparent rain-coloured nurse was walking past holding a clipboard. A doctor with water dribbling down his reflection was stood in the doorway that led into the main hospital, talking to a group of students. My eyes drifted, but then something caught my gaze- something- a glint of bronze hair, the flash of pale skin-
My heart stopped.
No no no no no no no-
I was out of my seat before I even had time to think. Paper flew everywhere as I flung myself from my chair; Linda shouted out but I ignored her. Ripping my eyes from the windows, I gave Linda a hurried "I've got to go," and exited the foyer as fast as I could without actually running. I knew that for my own sanity I had to get away as fast as possible. I threw myself into the corridor, and almost fell, putting my weight on the wall to steady myself.
And as I stood there, breathing hard, I caught a deep, frantic, velveteen voice coming from the reception area.
"Who was the girl?"
That voice alone, that voice I had not heard for so, so long, was enough to make the world around me spin. I slipped down the wall a little, my ears straining to hear more.
I just caught Linda's intelligent "What?"
"There was a girl, just there, just now, sat right there, next to you, who was she?"
"Who, Bella?"
"Bella?" There was a pause. "Bella?" This time the name was addressed to the hospital in general. He was calling for me.
No-one would notice if I left early.
I ran.
...
"Jacob?" I called, slamming the front door behind me and pulling my arms out of the sticky wetness of my jacket. "Are you home?"
Pause. "Yes," came a muffled grunt from the kitchen.
I rubbed my eyes, and opened the kitchen door. Jacob was leant against the cooker reading a bill, and I wearily walked over and wrapped my arms around his neck. After today I just needed someone to make me feel sane.
But I didn't get the reciprocal hug I had been hoping for. Instead, I was fiercely pushed away. I stumbled backwards.
"Jake?"
"You stink," he spat, and as I looked up at him I saw that he was holding his nose.
"What?" I asked, completely lost. "What the-"
"I can smell it on you!" his voice was nasal, but carried an undertone of anger. His dark brows slanted inwards and he looked livid.
"What? Jacob, what are you on about?"
"Bella, you reek of bloodsucker!" His eyes were getting narrower and narrower, and he shot out his next words with the force of a cannon. "Did you expect me not to notice if you crept off and spent the day with a load of undead monsters? I thought, after everything you said last night-"
"Jacob, I didn't spend my day with them," I interrupted, before Jacob single-handedly started another unnecessary argument. "Carlisle Cullen is working at the hospital. He stopped and talked to me." One look from Jacob's expression told me he didn't believe it. "Honestly, Jacob!"
"What's his job, blood extraction?"
With I groan I threw myself onto a chair and placed my elbows on the table, massaging my temples. "No, Jacob, he's a doctor."
Jacob gave a short, sarcastic laugh. "Ironic."
I rolled my eyes, and then curiously sniffed my hand. "I don't smell."
Jacob wrinkled his nose. "Yes, you do. It's a sickly sweet smell and it's disgusting."
"Right, well, I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it if a vampire shoved himself into my face, Jacob." I felt like hitting something again. Couldn't Jacob see that I was not in the mood for a pointless tirade? I didn't even really see what the big problem was; the Cullens had never personally offended him. He was just being a jerk for the fun of it, and it was getting under my skin.
"What did you say to him?" He asked.
"Nothing."
"If I'd have been there-"
"You would have started another fight and we would end up owing them even more money than we already do," I snapped. "I've had enough of Badass Jake, thanks, so if you could just shut up that would be awesome."
Jacob scowled and wet back to his bill.
I had to shower before I went to bed that night. My hair was still wet as I crawled into bed, and it stuck to my face and made my pillow damp.
I lay awake late again, thinking things over. If I wasn't careful, it was going to become a habit and I would die of exhaustion.
I knew that the longer I stayed, the harder lying to Jacob was going to be. I didn't want to fall under Edward Cullen's spell again, but I knew that if he was going to keep turning up at the hospital, day after day after day, then I would. Without a doubt.
Why was he even there? What cruel twist of fortune had planted him there, right on my doorstep? And what was I going to do? I couldn't run away every time I saw him. But then again, how could I not run? How could I let myself slowly fall deeper and deeper into thishole? Because sometime soon I would hit the bottom with a bang, and this time I would not recover.
I took three paracetamols before I went to sleep that night. Edward would be in my dreams until I woke, but if there was one thing I could control, it would be Jacob's ignorance of that fact.I would protect him, even if it was the only thing I could do.
.
((R.e.v.i.e.w. Or I'll kill them all.))