Hello! Sorry the rewriting process took a bump when my internet went down, but I'm back on. I'm working not only on rewriting this, but I am also working on ideas for the sequel.
When you were standing in the wake of devastation
When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
And with the cataclysm raining down
Your insides crying, "Save me now"
You were there, impossibly alone.
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failures all you've known.
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go.
Let it go.
Linkin Park-Iridescent
The morning light drifted into the room with a sad twinge to it. Neither Edward or I wanted to leave this place, but we had to go back to reality.
By the looks on everyone else's faces when we met in the lobby, they didn't want to go either. The ride back to Seattle was so exhausting, more so than the one to California because at least then we had something to look forward to.
The ride itself was solemn, as no one was looking forward to going to work, or in Edward's case, going to school. No one really talked, we all just listened to someone's iPod and left it at that. I just placed my pillow against Edward and dozed off.
When we finally pulled up in front of us girls' house, it was about five thirty in the morning and it was hard to keep my eyes open as I climbed out. Edward got out to take my luggage to my room, so I walked straight to my room and threw myself on my bed, sighing when it was smaller than the one in California.
I felt a kiss on my forehead and a quiet promise to be back later before I was dead to the world.
I sat up at around nine in the morning and still felt tired, but couldn't go to sleep without Edwards arms around me. I sighed in defeat and grabbed my pillow and blanket and walked out to find Alice and Rose on the couch with blankets and pillows all over them.
"Can I join the sleepover?" I asked.
"Sure Bella, squeeze in here" Alice said as she and Rosalie moved to leave a space in between them.
I laid my head on Rose's shoulder and Alice laid her head on mine as we tried to sleep with our boyfriend's on our mind. I actually did manage to fall asleep and awoke along with the girls at around twelve.
"Morning" I said, trying to fix my hair from its mess atop of my head.
"Hey Bella we were thinking of going to the guy's house" Rose said. "You want to come?"
"Why?" I asked
"Well they had to go to work all tired, so Rose and I thought it would be nice of us to go unpack their stuff and fix up their house a little" Alice explained.
Now that I thought about it, I've never seen their house, and I was anxious to see Edward's room.
"Sure" I said.
We walked out pajamas and a huge coffee mug in hand towards the guys' house. Alice used the spare key that Jasper gave her and opened the door. I tried to hold in the gasp that wanted to escape my mouth as I looked around. It looked as if their house was just hit by a tornado, either that or they just got robbed. They had dirty laundry thrown around, dirty dishes sitting on the coffee table and on the floor.
"Okay first, let's unpack their suitcases. Then, we clean the rest of the house" Alice said.
We nodded our heads in agreement and walked further inside the house. We have never been here, so we just opened random doors in hopes of recognizing how their room would look like. The first door I opened led me inside a room where a large poster was plastered on the wall of a half naked girl, I resisted the urge to gag and called Rosalie over.
The next door I tried had many shelves of books along the wall and a piano pushed into a corner. I walked in further and was met with Edward's intoxicating smell and knew I found his room. I closed the door behind me and noticed that this was probably the cleanest place in the whole house.
He had a huge king size bed in the middle of the room that had black and white bed covers on it. The book case was huge that was pretty much entirely filled. Looking around some of the titles I noticed the books were mostly medical books, but I recognized some classics there. The piano in the corner of the room was on a slightly elevated platform, and was black and shiny. If it wasn't for the random music sheets spread all over the place, it would seem untouched. I quickly stacked up the papers and placed them in a pile on the corner of the piano. There was also a desk next to the closet that was a black wood and looked sturdy. I went up to the desk and noticed that everything was organized well, all of his pens were arranged by color, size, and type.
I spotted his suitcase in the corner of my eye and rolled it over to his double-door closet. I walked in and instantly noticed that his clothes were arranged by color. I rolled my eyes and decided to help him redecorate his closet a little bit by mixing up the colors.
I picked up a black hoodie that I remembered him wearing on the way back and sniffed it and my eyes nearly rolled to the back of my head at his intoxicating scent. I made a mental note to take it with me and placed it on the bed so I wouldn't forget to take it home.
I finished up putting his clothes away and placed the worn clothes in a pile. After making sure that I didn't leave a mess behind, I walked out into the living room with his pile of clothes in my arms and threw it down on the ground. Moments later, Alice and Rosalie emerged with an armful of clothes too.
We incorporated all of the dirty laundry that was strewed around and agreed to sort it out later. Three hours later, we finished washing and drying everything and set the baskets down on the ground.
When we were sorting the clothes, we discovered that Edward and Jasper tended to wear the same size clothing, mainly medium or large. From there, Alice and I sniffed each shirt to distinguish their special scents. Emmett's clothes were the easiest to spot because they were huge.
After folding all of their washed clothes, we walked to their rooms to put them away neatly.
We threw ourselves on their couch once we were done cleaning their kitchen, bathrooms, and living room area.
We made a quick trip home to change out of our pajamas (and I took Edward's hoodie) and came back to their couch.
"Ooooohhh, they have guitar hero!" squealed Alice, jumping off to connect their gaming system.
And with we began our gaming session, which always lasts a long time, especially when we noticed that the guys only got up to medium in the game, so we were nice enough to pass the hard level and the expert.
When I was playing, I heard a key unlocking the front door and moments later Jasper and Emmett came into the living room, surprised to see us.
"Hey guys" Alice said from the couch.
"Wow. You guys cleaned?" Jasper asked, looking around.
"Yup" we all said.
I was so concentrated in the game that I didn't even hear when the front door open again a few minutes later, I just felt Edward kiss my forehead.
"Bella?" Edward asked waving his hand in front of me.
"Can't talk. Playing" I said with my eyes locked on the screen.
"Holy shit. Are you playing on an expert level?" Emmett asked.
I nodded and then jumped up and down when I got a perfect score. I gave the guitar to Rosalie and went to go sit down on Edward's lap on his place on the floor.
"You girls know how to play?" he asked in his velvet voice.
"Yes. And we're pretty good" I said.
"Pretty good? Bella you just got a perfect score on expert" he said.
"Aww it was nothing" I said giggling. He chuckled and wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me against his chest.
"I missed you" he whispered.
"I did too" I said, turning up my face to meet his lips.
We broke apart when Rosalie passed another song and she taunted Emmett. He got up and snatched the guitar away from Rose and picked a song in the expert level. I have never heard someone cuss so much in my life. Every time he messed up he would cuss, and he messed up very frequently. We all started laughing when he threw the guitar to the floor in his rage.
"You girls think this is funny?" he asked us.
We all nodded our heads while still laughing.
"Fine. Let's play Halo and then we'll see who laughs last." he said while putting in Halo.
We were too busy laughing to tell him that we all beat that game and were also on expert level. One by one we all beat an enraged Emmett. We all decide it were only for the best if we lay off the video games to save Emmett's sanity.
Edward stood suddenly, making me squeal out when he kept me in his arms. He smiled crookedly and walked us to his room, setting me down on his bed.
"You put my stuff away?" he asked when he couldn't spot his suit case.
"Yeah. I didn't do much though, your room is already perfectly organized" I said.
He nodded in agreement and opened his closet doors. I had to bury my face in the bed covers to smother the hysterical laughs trying to escape my mouth. His face when he saw his disorganized closet was completely priceless. I couldn't hold it in anymore and busted out in hysterical giggles. He turned to me and narrowed his eyes.
"Bella…" he said getting closer. "…Did you disorganize my closet on purpose?" he asked getting even closer.
I climbed off the bed to put more space between us. "Well Edward, you need to live a little" I said backing away from him.
He just started laughing. "I guess I can be anal about how I organize things" he said and soon, I joined him and also laughed.
When it got late, the girls and I said goodbye to the boys and walked the distance back to our home, where we put together a quick dinner. Once we all ate, we sat on our couch and saw TV for a little while before going to sleep.
As I laid in my bed I found it extremely difficult to go to sleep without Edward here next to me. I slipped on his hoodie and marveled at how huge it was on me. I buried my nose in it and let it soothe me.
Suddenly, I heard taps on my window. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Who can be knocking on my window this late at night?
And then I began to panic.
Memories of Jake filled my head and my fear only increased when I remembered his very recent texting. I sat up on my bed and covered my head with my blanket, just like I used to do when I was a little kid and had a bad dream. Except, this wasn't a bad dream and someone was really knocking on my window.
I took deep breaths and threw the blanket off of me and slipped to the floor. I crawled on the ground towards my window, all the while terrified of making any noise. I slowly slithered up the side of the window and peered through the space in the curtains. What I saw shocked me, but in a good way.
Edward was standing outside my window with a blanket wrapped around him, still shivering when the cold night air hit him.
I dropped everything and quickly opened my window to let him in and out of the cold. "What are you doing?" I asked, wrapping my arms around him and trying to provide him with body heat.
"I couldn't sleep without you" he said, wrapping his blanket around the two of us.
"So you sneak out?" I asked.
He just nodded and snuggled into my warmth. I pushed him down on my bed and crawled in next to him, wrapping the blankets around us. With Edward here with me, I closed my eyes and was asleep in no time.
It was six in the morning when I heard the sound of rustling. "Bella, I'm leaving" I heard Edward whisper in my ear. "Is this my sweater?" he asked and I felt the sleeve of it being held up.
I kissed him and nodded then heard my window being opened and closed. I decided to go back to sleep for a while.
At around ten I walked groggily into the kitchen to eat breakfast. Alice of course was already up and cheerfully scrambling eggs.
"Good morning Bella!" she said in her perky voice.
"Morning" I said in my sleepy voice.
Alice gave me a plate full of eggs and I started eating. Rose joined us a little while later, and we all ate together.
We all decided that today we would all do a laundry day. We gathered all of our dirty clothes and went into our washing room. After three hours we all finished our clothes and we went to go put them away.
We were all sitting on the couch when we heard the mailman drop off our mail. Alice went to get it and then called me.
"Bella, it seems your dad sent you a letter" she said as she handed me the envelope.
I looked at the front and saw Charlie's address, so I opened it. I pulled out a letter that had messy writing on it and looked nothing like Charlie's writing.
The letter said:
Bella,
I just want to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you and I still love you. No
matter how many times you run from me I will find you. I used Charlie's address because
I knew you wouldn't open anything with my address on it. When I come for you I'm going
to finish what I started last time. This time there wont be any rocks around to smash on
my head and no one, not even your pretty boyfriend will save you.
As soon as I was finished reading I let out a loud scream and fell to my knees. I heard Alice and Rose come rushing towards me, but my screams drowned out everything. Alice took me into her tiny arms while Rose took the letter from the floor where I dropped it and began reading. Alice tried to calm me, but my screams continued to come louder than the last. My throat burned with the exertion but I couldn't bring myself to stop.
"No! He's coming! Stop him!" I screamed at no one in particular.
"Bella! Shhhh. No one is coming for you. Please calm down" Alice said rubbing my back and hugging me.
"Alice you should see this" Rose said handing her the letter.
I was partly paying attention to them, I was mostly staring at nothing in particular and kept screaming. Every single scenario ran through my head and they just made the screams get louder the more terrified I got. What if he hurt Alice or Rose to get to me?
"Bella, who sent this to you?" Alice asked after she read the letter.
"He's coming. He's coming" I kept screaming over and over again.
"Bella, we need to know" Rosalie said.
I wrapped my arms around my knees and tucked myself into a ball, rocking back and forth while my screams began to lose volume. My voice started to break painfully whenever I screamed, but I didn't care.
I noticed the worried glances that Rosalie and Alice traded and began to sob as I thought about anything happening o them. Rosalie got up and went into the kitchen, leaving only Alice and I.
"Bella. You need to calm down sweetie" Alice said.
"Alice, I'm scared" I said.
I felt completely helpless. I'm screaming on the floor, rocking myself back and forth and I did not give Alice or Rose any sort of explanation. Nobody knows about what happened with Jake, not even my best friends.
Rosalie came back into the room with a cup of tea in her hand and she looked cautious of approaching me. "Here, drink this honey. It will make your throat feel better" she said as I took it.
I brought the mug to my lips and relished in the feeling of the warm liquid make its way down my throat, soothing the soreness. I finished and set the mug down next to me and made to get up, but swayed as I was overwhelmed with exhaustion. My eyelids felt heavy as my legs gave out on me and I tumbled to the ground.
"What was in that?" I asked, my words came out slurred so that not even I knew what I said.
Everything went black and I let it consume me.
I remembered the day with Jacob. The day I lost my best friend. The way he grabbed me and was fully intent on forcing himself on me.
I felt arms wrap around me and I snapped. I began to thrash and kick and scream at whoever was holding me.
"Bella! It's me!" I heard a familiar velvet voice say.
"No! Don't touch me!" I screamed at the memory of Jacob. As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt the arms disappear. I knew then that it wasn't Jacob who had his arms around me. He would never let go of me no matter how many times I asked.
I opened my eyes and met Edward's worried gaze. I looked around and noticed that someone must have placed me in my room.
"Edward!" I said throwing my arms around him. He hesitated, unsure if he should hug me back, but soon enough I felt his strong arms encircle my waist.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked.
"A little. Where are Alice and Rosalie?" I asked.
"They're at my house. They wanted to give you some space." he said.
I threw a brief glance at the clock and sighed when I saw it was ten at night.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked after a moment of silence.
I searched his face, contemplating whether I should tell him or not. I need someone to confide in and for someone to know, but I didn't want to risk him thinking differently of me.
"It's a long story" I said finally.
"I've got time" he said smiling encouragingly at me.
"Did you read the letter?" I asked. He nodded.
"Well when I lived in Forks with my dad, his best friend's son and I were really close. I always thought of him as a brother" I started. "Jacob seemed to be okay with being friends, but I noticed he started looking at me differently. One day when we went to hang out by the shoreline, he confessed his love for me. I told him that he's like my brother and I could never love him. He kissed me against my will and I was trying to push him off, but he was too strong. He knocked us to the floor and fell on top of me. I panicked, so I got a rock and hit him in the head with it. I've never told anybody this. Not even Alice and Rose" I said. I felt the tears building up in my eyes.
I looked at Edward and noticed he looked furious.
"He took advantage of you?" he said through gritted teeth. I nodded. "Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asked.
"Jacob is Billy's son. If I told Charlie, their friendship would be ruined, I couldn't do that to Charlie." I said. Edward put his arms around me and rubbed circles on my back.
"You're the most selfless person I have ever met Bella" he said. "I'm not letting that bastard come anywhere near you. And he certainly is not going to finish what he tried to do to you"
After some convincing from Edward and the girls, I agreed to sleep in Edward's room with him. Alice and Rosalie were also sleeping over at the guys' house so I wouldn't be alone when they left.
I quickly changed into my pajamas and slid Edward's hoodie over on top. He smiled as I came out of the bathroom and took my hand instantly. We locked the house behind us and walked over to his house quickly.
When we got there, we went directly into Edward's room. It was eleven, so I thought it was time to go to sleep.
I crawled into Edward's awaiting arms and he covered us with the blankets.
"Don't be afraid Bella" he murmured to me.
"When I'm with you, I feel safe" I said. He leaned down and placed a kiss on my lips.
We both dozed off in each others arms into a peaceful sleep.
Please take a few seconds to write some feedback. You have no idea how much I would appreciate that.
Review! =)
-Steph
