Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight.

Chapter 10

I woke up the next morning to the familiar sound of Charlie and Big Ed whispering in the hallway outside of Edward's door.

They would usually find each other in the café, while retrieving their morning coffee. Ed would come first thing, before he needed to be at the office. And Charlie would come to retrieve me, and force me to go to school after I had spent the night. He was always equipped with a paper sack filled with clothing and a hairbrush.

This time he had spent the night too, and that fact alarmed Big Ed.

"She stood on the Cliffs for how long?" He whispered, not knowing that the acoustics from where I was laying were excellent.

"Jacob thinks about four hours," Charlie answered in his more technical Cop speak.

"Is she…"

"Suicidal?' Charlie asked rather bluntly, causing me to sit up and listen. "I don't know Ed, I just don't know."

There was silence in the hallway, and then I heard the door handle turn. Quickly, I laid back down beside Edward and closed my eyes, feigning sleep.

Charlie and Ed entered the room, and the door closed behind them. I could smell the coffee, and Ed's cologne that was always too heavy in the morning.

"They look so peaceful like that," Ed said. "Almost like they're just taking a nap, and Edward will wake up any second."

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter.

"Yeah, I think that's what Bella is probably hoping too Ed…that he'll wake up." Charlie's voice was distant.

"He's not waking up Charlie; the chances are one in a million. We've had every specialist in the tri-state area tell us that. At this point, he's just withering away and suffering." Ed's voice was cold and steady, and his words took my breath from me. It took all of my strength not to turn around and beg him to let Edward try to be the one in a million, but I kept silent.

"She's going to need some heads up Ed. Whatever you're planning on doing, please don't do it without telling me first," Charlie asked, and his voice was thin and cracking, but stern and pleading at the same time.

Ed and Charlie were silent again, but I heard footsteps coming toward the bed. They were clicking, like the hard leather sole of an expensive men's dress shoe, not soft rubber like Charlie's Nike's.

I could feel Edward's body move…Ed was touching him.

"I would do it today if I could Charlie. I want my boy at peace. The only reason he's still here is Bella…and Liz I suppose, but mainly Bella."

I was happy for the fact that my eyes were pressed into the pillow, because they were watering. It took everything in me not to suck in air and whine and whimper.

Charlie drew in a long audible breath. "Do what you feel is best Ed. She's only getting worse as the days progress and I think it's time we start moving forward. We will just have to get her through it."

"I'll schedule it for tomorrow then," Ed answered with a sigh, giving Edward's body one last shake, probably a hug.

Then, both voices drifted out of the room. And just like that, I broke down. Completely broke down.

And when Charlie came back in the room an hour later to wake me, I was barely able to function.

"Bella what's wrong?" He asked, too dense to realize that I was awake for his conversation with Ed.

"Nothing, I had a nightmare," I lied.

Charlie stroked my back and brought me breakfast and spent most of the morning inquiring about my nightmare, and how he could help…until finally, he broached the big subject.

"There's something we need to talk about kid," he said as he led me down the hallway to stretch my legs.

I wanted to run. I wanted to sprint toward the nearest exit as fast as I could.

"Ed wants to stop the life support tomorrow Bella, he has it scheduled, and I am behind him." He just sort of laid it out there, no tears, no indecision, and no remorse in his voice. He truly did support Ed, a fact that I wasn't sure of up to that point. "I'm going to do everything I can to get you through this. I can call your mom? Do you want your mom to come?"

He just kept talking, and although I could hear his words, I was finding very little meaning behind them.

"We can go to California for spring break and rent a beach condo like you've always wanted? Would you like that? A beach condo…"

A what condo?

"Or, you can go to school in Florida and be near your mom and make a fresh start. Hell, maybe I will even make the trip sometime and see ole Renee and her new child friend."

Child friend?

"I know you've always loved books set in England. Those Austen and Dickens and Bronte things you always read. Maybe that's somewhere you'd like to go? England? How does that sound kiddo?"

What the fuck!!??

"Stop talking dad. Right now, just stop talking," I was finally able to spit out, while I tried to see past the red speckles blurring my vision.

"I just…"

"I heard you! Now go ahead and tell Ed I've been warned!" I screamed in his face as I turned back toward Edward's room.

Charlie chased me. "Bella, you need to be brave honey, please don't shut down, you need to be strong."

He caught up to me before I was able to close the door. "Leave me alone dad!" I whimpered though gritted teeth. "For the next twenty four hours, everyone please just leave me alone!" I cried as I slammed the door and ran to Edward's bed.

I curled myself back into bed with him, and imagined him singing me to sleep. He used to sing me to sleep whenever I had really bad days. We weren't allowed to sleep in each other's beds of course, his parents being strict Christian's and mine being, well a cop with a gun. But, he would sneak out a few nights a month and crawl through my window and sleep in my bed. Especially on nights after I had had a bad day.

A sob ripped through me at the realization that he would never sing to me again. Hell, he would never be with me again at all. I felt completely empty.

Suddenly the door burst open. "What, you're suicidal now?" It was Jake, and he sounded angry, except I didn't have any strength left to fight him.

"What the hell was that about? Your dad reamed me out for over an hour last night!"

"Sorry," I whimpered, gripping into Edward's frail arm. I had almost completely forgotten that I was inches from death the day prior. In that moment, I wished I had gone through with it.

"Your body temperature was dangerously low, you could have killed yourself!" He was desperate to pick a fight with me, to get a rise. But I was too tired, and frankly, I didn't care whether or not Jake thought I was suicidal.

I turned to him, surely looking a mess. I pushed my hair from my face and tried to focus my eyes. "Well, I'm fine. Unless you came here to tell me what I want to hear, I'd like you to leave."

Jake looked startled by my appearance. He inched closer to me, but held his stern look. "No, I didn't come here to tell you what you wanted to hear," he whispered with his hand reaching toward me.

I shirked away. "Ok then, please leave."

"But, I also wasn't aware that we couldn't be friends anymore either?" He said, and his voice was all earnest and sincere. I wanted to puke.

"Oh, don't be mistaken Jacob, we are definitely not friends anymore." It was like I was on a rampage to destroy every connection with every person who ever loved me. It felt amazingly good. The truth was I wanted to hurt Jacob. I wanted to cause him pain. If I am really being honest, I wanted him to cry and squirm and feel like shit because of how badly I had hurt him.

I wanted him to suffer too. I wanted someone to feel as grossly awful as I did in that moment.

He wasn't taking it of course.

"Bella you talk out of your ass like you have the first clue what the hell you are talking about. You know we're talking about turning Edward, our Edward, into a mother fucking VAMPIRE, right?" His eyes bore into me, and forced me for the first time to really consider what I was asking for.

But what he didn't realize was that there was nothing to consider. If it meant Edward would live, it was exactly what I wanted. There was no doubt about it.

"Yes," I answered firmly. "I know Edward would be a vampire, I know that Jake."

Jake shook his head at me, and then his eyes shot to me again like something major had just occurred to him. "You don't actually think you two could ever be together again do you?" He spat, coming toward me a bit aggressively. "Do you?"

"Uh…" My head was a blur with his question. I had never gotten that far with Dr. Cullen. I wasn't sure whether I could be with Edward again? I never thought that far ahead. My only motivation was keeping Edward alive.

"Do you?" Jacob pressed again, getting uncomfortably close to my face.

"Stop it!" I cried, turning and slamming my head back into my pillow.

Jake's feet paced away. "My God Bella, listen to yourself! You want to turn Edward into a monster, and you expect me to go along with it, while you don't even have the first clue what the hell a vampire even is!"

"I do so! Look at Dr. Cullen, he's a vampire!" My voice was muted in my pillow, but as soon as the words came out, I knew my analysis was wrong.

A low chuckle escaped Jake's chest. "Oh, you are so naïve! You think they just all pop out like Dr. Cullen?" He cried, confirming my suspicion.

"Stop it!" It was all I could think to say. I just needed for him to stop yelling at me and leave me alone.

He didn't.

"No, you stop it! Stop it right now!" He cried, his feet pacing loudly all over the room.

"Leave Jacob!" My pillow was soaked at this point, and I wanted to get up and just slap him, but I was too weak to even turn around again.

Suddenly two hands gripped the back of my skull and I could feel Jake's lips at my ear. "You know I will always be here for you. And I will always look out for you and protect you and love you. But I won't do this Bella. I can't."

His breath was smoky and smelled like pretzels, and I just wanted his hands off of me, and I wanted him to hurt…

"They're doing it tomorrow," I said steadily, turning over to finally look at him.

"Doing what?" He asked, removing his hands from around my head.

"Pulling the plug," I said focusing my eyes on Edward's beautiful serene face. I couldn't look at Jake. Even if he wouldn't help me, I knew this would crush him.

He was silent for over a minute. Then he finally spoke. "Shit really?" He asked, dropping his body into the chair under the television, his head falling into his hands.

I relished a little in his pain, but not as much as I had hoped. The bigger part of me wanted to run over to him and comfort him.

"Yeah, Ed has it scheduled and everything," I said, gripping my hand into Edward's hair involuntarily, just strangely grasping at him nervously. I touched his face and put another hand around his neck, and then slid it down his chest, and over his belly.

There was a sickness in my stomach as my hands jerked from one place to the next. It was like any minute the forces were going to come and get me, and I had to make sure I remembered what every crevice of his body felt like. The smile, the strange smile from the Cliffs, I could feel it pulling on my face.

I contemplated the fact that I was losing my mind, that I was actually losing my grip with reality, but I just kept gripping into his hair, and sliding my hands over his frail body, with a weird sick smile on my face.

I traced Edward for at least ten minutes, until I was finally shaken from my trance by the sound of low moaning sobs coming from the corner.

"Noooo… oooohhh…nooooo…"

Jake was curled in a ball on the floor…rocking himself.

AN- I got zero reviews last chapter. Yay me right?

Anyway, I held my chin up and decided to keep going. I hope you liked it. Tomorrow is the big day. It won't be at all what you expect, I promise. Or maybe it will, who do I think I am a M. Night Shyamalan?

Please review before I start pulling a Bella and losing my mind!