Part Nine
Wishing I had Let You Sign
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'You said that I will be okay and in your name I find meaning, but I'm barely holding onto you.'
'Broken', Lifehouse.
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Their life passes in measures of laughter and tears and birthdays and weddings and grandchildren. At Amelia's wedding to Mark – a nice boy she met at the museum with a quiet temperament and a quick wit – Jacob walks her down the aisle and everyone laughs at his reluctant expression (and tears) as he gives her away. Next is Sarah, and Jake is equally as resigned as he passes her off to a boy who is a, quote, 'long haired goon on a bike.' Bella laughed uncontrollably when she first heard that and how Sarah stomped into the other room, retrieving the photo of a twenty three year old Jake, his grin all teeth, and Bella hiding her face behind his shoulder. Jake faltered, mumbling something about it being 'completely different', before giving his permission. Sarah just rolled her eyes in tandem with Bella's before saying 'lucky he gave us his blessing and all, considering I've already bought a dress.' Jake sulked for a week after that. Something about a 'betrayal of trust.' The next day Bella overheard Jake hurriedly interrogating Chris about his girlfriend and Chris exasperatedly assuring him that there were no definite plans for a wedding soon. Bella almost laughed at the conflict on Jake's face, his desire for his son's happiness warring with the desire for his own peaceful state of mind.
And life went on.
And, even when she hated it, she appreciated every second of it.
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More and more lines mark her face, gentle hollows and paths that tell the story of her life. Bella smiles at the mirror as she remembers her distraught, paranoid fear of getting older at age eighteen. She remembers the way Charlie would pluck a hair from her head and saunter casually past before laughing as she dashed to the nearest reflective surface. Now she appreciates these lines as a sign that she's lived, really lived. That she's human.
Because she can see her story in her face. See that line Jake always smooths between her eyes, see how the lines are deeper on the right corner of her mouth and above her right brow. She can see Edward and she can see Thomas. She'll always see Jacob. She can see Amelia and Sarah and Chris. She sees it all and she smiles.
She smiles because she's lived.
It's the one thing she can do for Edward. The one thing she has left to give him. The one thing she was always destined to give him, in one form or another.
Her life.
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When they told her that her heart was dying, she laughed. Because, really, of all the things to kill her, of all of her organs, her heart should be the strongest. It had been cared for. Coveted by Edward, lended to Thomas and, finally, belonged with Jake. Oh, Jake. But then her laughter quiets because, maybe, her heart's just tired. Maybe a heart just can't love two people so intensely, so fully, without giving out.
And loved she has. Recklessly, desperately, hopefully. Happily, peacefully and eternally. But she doesn't regret one single second of it. How could she?
Because she was loved back. And to Bella, that was all she ever really wanted from life.
To be loved.
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The day Bella Swan dies, a tall man walks the coastline of La Push. His face is lined with grief, the grace of his walk, only more pronounced with age, is heavy, as if it sees no point in movement. In life.
Jake knew this day would come. He'd always selfishly hoped to go first. Never told her, but always hoped. Because he knew there was nothing for him if he couldn't follow her. Sure, there were memories. But he didn't want them without her. They hurt without her.
He hears people pass him, hears their life, and turns his face away. He sits dazedly on the old driftwood stump staring at the birds that careen in the swift breeze, the sounds of life around him, and wonders how everything can just keep going, keep moving, because don't they know that the love of his life is dead?
And it hurts. Hurts worse than when she left him, because at least she was happy somewhere. At least the possibility of her was alive. And, for a fleeting moment, he wishes he'd been selfless. Wishes he'd let her go and stopped fighting for her. Wishes Edward had won, and she had embraced the night. Because at least a form of her would be here. At least he could see her face, talk to her. Anything. Anything of her.
She's gone and it feels so wrong for him to be breathing. Surely, he should be dead, too.
Surely, life should stop right here.
But life doesn't stop for death, he realises. Not even when you wish with all your heart that it would.
