A/N: Hello, darlings. (Ugh, why do I call you guys that!) Chapter 11 of Destructive Desire is finally up. I know, it took me forever. So with the song inspirations, I decided to do two of many splendid Lykke Li songs. I love Lykke Li. You'll see her in the fanfic a lot. This time, I used "Sadness Is A Blessing" to be sarcastic and "Hanging High" to be genuine. I couldn't pick just one. Now here goes...

Sadness Is A Blessing & Hanging High

How many sleeping pills does it take to die?

That was the question of the moment. I'd spent about an hour doing nothing around the house. I was bored. I decided that since there was nothing to do, I might as well take out the sleeping pills and experiment.

Make it stop.

October third, in the year of two-thousand and nine. Twelve fifteen in the afternoon. I paid way too much attention to the dates now. I was that pathetic.

MAKE IT STOP.

I sat on the floor of the bedroom. Legs crossed, head down, throat dry. I had been clenching the white bottle in my left fist for minutes now. Considering, considering. Never really doing anything.

Please, make it stop.

I twisted the cap of the bottle off and shook the little white pills into the palm of my right hand.

...Three, four, five... Seven, eight, nine...

The scale was right next to me, taunting me. The scale was the best friend from hell, always bothering me and making fun of me. I was too skinny. No, I was a fat-ass. Oh please, I didn't eat enough. Wait, I didn't need to eat. What was I supposed to believe? The bottle of vodka was good to me, though. It was Charlie's and it didn't judge me at all. My new best friend sat down right beside me.

Twelve is good. Thirteen is better. Down it with half a bottle of vodka and I'm golden.

I closed my eyes and held three pills in my hand after setting down the other ten. Behind my eyelids, I saw Drake, his eyes as blue as the sea. I saw Benjamin, his hazel eyes the most beautiful color on the planet. I saw Edward, his angry green eyes, still gorgeous. Three men I had loved, gone. Light of my life, fire of my loins. Good and gone. They'd let me fall. They'd told me they'd help. They didn't.

Three's a good start.

One, two, three little white pills down. Excellent. I'd be on my way to visit Benjamin in no time.

Another won't hurt.

I lied to myself again. I took three more. I didn't feel anything yet. Why wasn't this working?

I can't even do this right. Can't do anything right...

Frustrated, I downed a few more. The dizziness swirled all through my body. Quickly, I washed it all down with half of the contents of the bottle of vodka. It was strong, disgusting stuff.

Is it over yet?

I sat there for what felt like forever. The dead silence was scaring me. I was drifting after a while. I could even hear the faint sound of a door unlocking...

They told me that I was close to overdosing. They told me that they saved me at the last minute. They told I had been very sick. They told me I was lucky to have survived.

I didn't feel so lucky.

I felt embarrassed.

As I spent the rest of my weekend (and Monday morning, too) in the hospital, I felt ugly and stupid and broken. Edward wasn't even there anymore and he continued to control me. I wanted to blame him, but I knew it would be wrong. Wasn't this all my fault? I was so stupid. No wonder why Edward had left me. I was a bad case to be dealing with.

The doctors and nurses ran plenty of tests during the time I was there. I was totally underweight, with a BMI of 14.8. My blood pressure was low, too. I was also suffering from exhaustion. Anything that could have been wrong with me, was wrong with me. They should have just killed me.

Charlie talked to me on the way home from the hospital on Monday. No more I love you, no more I'm sorry this happened to you, sweetie, and no more This can't ever happen again. He was getting real.

"Maybe you should go live with your mom for a while," he said. "You know, go and straighten yourself out. You'd like Florida."

He was right. I would like Florida. The warmth sounded appealing. Renee and her husband Phil had moved there last summer, and they love it there, even more than they loved Phoenix.

But I wouldn't move. What if Edward were to come back? Then what? Renee wouldn't let me move back. I'd be stuck there. I was afraid that Edward would be mad at me, or worse. Also, I'd gotten used to Forks. Who said that the same things that had happened in Phoenix couldn't happen in Jacksonville.

"Dad, I'm not moving."

"Really, Bella," he continued, "you would love it there. Jacksonville is always sunny. You can make new friends, even continue to do counseling. There's more for you there than there is here. Maybe you'll like things there more than you do here. You know you're not the first, or the last, person this has happened to."

"Please, Dad. Stop. You're wrong."

"Maybe you can even get better help there. We both know it's not getting better. And, Renee would love to have you back. It's been almost a while since you've last seen her. Maybe she can help you. She certainly can better than I, and -"

"Dad, stop!"

"Sorry, Bells."

"I don't want to leave."

"Why?"

"I like it here." It was half true.

"You really do?"

"Yes."

"But you're not living, Bells. And your previous...incident... doesn't really have me convinced."

"I'm trying, Dad. I'm sorry. That was just a stupid moment. It won't happen again."

"I found you almost dead in your room. I don't want that to happen again, sweetheart."

"It won't. I'll take extra counseling, if I have to."

"I think you have to."

"I do, too." In a way, I did think this. Sort of.

"Miss Barry told me you were talking to her."

Anger surged through me. She wasn't supposed to tell anybody. It was in her code of conduct to keep everything confidential. "What did she say?" I asked.

"Nothing much, just that you're starting to talk to her." He made me sound like a child.

"Baby steps," I said.

He chuckled. "I'm glad you're getting better, Bella. It's all I want."

"I know."

"Just don't ever scare me like that again."

"Okay." No promises, though.

We were pulling into our driveway, and that's when I decided that I was (barely) alive, but I wasn't living. I wanted to be free. I had come to Forks to break my chains from the past, and I hadn't. I had become more tied down than ever.

This most recent incident had been a wake-up call. I wanted to live. I wanted to be free and be happy. It would take time. I never liked the phrase Change is good because I never thought change was good and I never, ever would think that, but I had to change. The truth was clear: Edward wasn't coming back. I wanted to fix myself. I wanted to take care of myself. Hell, I even wanted love again.

Maybe the love would come later, though.

I needed to get better. I needed to breathe. I'd thought I was okay, but that wasn't true.

As I went upstairs to take a shower, Charlie asked me if I wanted him to go get lunch for me. I said yes. Maybe eating would be nice for once.

Charlie really wasn't a horrible father, and he hadn't parented in a long time. It was nice.

I showered for what seemed like a long time. I felt disgusting. I felt stupid. I felt like a disappointment. I wanted to be the daughter and friend that people bragged about, not the one that people hid away.

Everybody at school probably knew about my hospital visit, anyway. I lived near a lot of people - they could have seen the ambulance.

I didn't want to go back to school. Everyone already knew I had issues. Why would I go back after this? I wouldn't get sympathy from anybody. They'd look at me and think I was a freak. They already did. School would be absolute hell.

I got out of the shower and looked at myself in the mirror. It seemed like it had been forever since I had.

I got a pretty good glimpse of the stranger staring back at me.

I was very skinny. I'd never been particularly fat, but I used to have a figure. Guys had loved me for it, and the girls had envied me for it. Where was it again? Ugh, it was like I had shrunk. I'd never felt this much not like a female. I looked like a skeleton.

I was very pale. I'd always been rather on the pale side, but now I looked like a ghost. It was so unattractive. I looked very sick.

My hair was very gross. I hadn't bothered to take care of myself in weeks.

I felt very ugly.

I didn't go to school the next day. I took a Mental Health Day. Charlie needed one, too, I guessed. He stayed home with me, probably because he needed to keep an eye on me.

When I went to the bathroom that Tuesday morning, I found the medication cabinet empty. Nothing was there. Not even vitamins or aspirin.

Charlie wanted me to hang out with him that day. I didn't say no. It would make him happy. We watched a lot of stupid shows on TV. He laughed as if they were the funniest things in the world, probably hoping that I would laugh along, that I would seem somewhat normal for his own personal happiness. We went to Billy Black's house later that night for dinner. It had been a while since I had seen Billy or his son, Jacob.

Jacob looked really excited to see me. The second I got out of Charlie's car, he took me in a big hug. It felt nice.

"Hey, Bella!" he said happily.

"Hi, Jacob," I laughed. When he set me down, I took a step back to look at him. "Oh my God, you've gotten so tall!"

He really had grown a lot. He was more muscular, and a lot taller. He didn't seem like a boy anymore."What are you now?" I asked. "Six feet?"

"Six two," he said with a grin.

"Wow. Are you ever going to stop growing? I mean, you're, like, huge." God, he was. "How old are you?"

"I'll be seventeen in January."

"Oh my God."

Jacob just laughed.

Charlie was already in the house. Jacob and I walked to the house, and I said hello to Billy.

"Hey, Bella, we haven't seen you around here in a while." Billy Black wheeled toward me in his wheelchair and looked ecstatic.

"Hey, Billy," I said. "How are you?"

"Still dancing." I smiled politely.

Jacob turned to me and asked if I wanted to go to his garage.

"Sure," I said.

Jacob's garage was concealed in the trees away from his house. His garage was huge. There were tools everywhere, scrap metals lying all over the place... very artsy, in a way. I saw a car, raised on cinder blocks, sitting in the corner.

"Did you build that yourself?" I asked Jacob. Then I realized that I had asked a stupid question. It looked like it was still in the building process, not far from being complete.

"Yeah, it's almost done," he said with a pleased smile. He seemed so proud of himself.

Right then, I realized how much I missed Jacob. The last time I'd talked to him, it was last July and we had barely talked, but we did. We had a nice conversation going before Edward had stepped in and taken me away from Jacob.

With Jacob, I felt real again. I felt like I was being treated like a human being. I didn't deserve to be treated like shit (at least all the time). I deserved to be treated like this. Jake was doing wonders already. I appreciated it.

"Damn," I said, "if I knew how to build cars, I'd try to help."

"You can, if you want," he said, smirking. "Let's not and say we did."

"Sounds perfect."

For the next few minutes and the hour after dinner, Jacob and I talked as he worked on his car. I did my part of the job, handing him parts and tools. He was a really crafty person. Very talented. I was strangely comfortable here with him. There was nothing to remind me of what recently happened. Jacob never spoke of Edward.

I planned on spending more time with Jacob. Charlie would be pleased. I wouldn't be bored. Jacob would be happy. I could forget my past and live again. It was all I wanted.

A/N: So, you guys. How was that? I promise, that was the last OMG-so-depressing-excuse-me-to-slit-my-wrists chapter... for a while. Things are looking up! Review please, it'll make me feel awesome.

MusicTwilightLove, out.