Charlie barely even seems to notice that I don't leave the hospital over the next few days. He's there every hour, sitting by her, except when he's bullied into going home by Renee, who came as soon as she was called. I sit with her every night, when all visitors have supposedly gone home. I hide under her bed when the night-nurse does the three-hourly check on blood pressure, temperature, heart-rate and checks her fluids. All I can do is listen to her heart-beat, not the one coming from the beeping machines, but the one I can hear going steady inside her. Inwardly, I make plans for what happens afterwards. If she dies now, I will follow her. I can't live without her. Everything I know now is tied onto that heartbeat.
She'd laugh at that, I think, holding her hand. She'd tell me not to be so silly, that the world would keep right on turning. That she isn't the only thing that matters in my life. Yes. She would laugh. Carlisle comes in, silently, to check the machines that are now keeping her alive. The downward spiral came very quickly.
"You shouldn't be here, you know."
"I know."
"She's no worse. Stable."
"What am I going to do if she dies, Carlisle? Just let it happen?"
"You cannot change her."
"I never -"
"But you thought it. I will not do it, Jasper. She needs to make her choice about that."
"She told me. Just a few weeks after we met - after she broke her hand on my face - that in order for us to truly be together, I'd have to change her. She said 'I'm not going to get old and die while you stay like this forever. And when the day to change me comes, when it happens, I want you to be the one to do it.' She told me that, word for word."
"We can't. One day didn't mean a month after you'd met. You know that."
"I do."
"Stable," he says again, marking it on the chart. "It's a good sign."
"I know." He puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. "Can she hear me?"
"Possibly." He slips out, and I push a lock of hair away from her forehead. She's so pale. She's lost weight - not enough to be visible to a human yet, but I can tell. I put my head next to hers on the pillow, and whisper.
"Bella, you have to be OK. Please."
Finally persuaded by Alice to come home, before somebody notices that I haven't exactly been acting human, I go up to my room. My sheets still smell of her - the conditioner and deodorant she uses, and that smell that's so totally Bella. It's been four days, the longest of my life. Suddenly, the phone downstairs rings. The sound is like a knife through my skull. And I instantly know it's bad news. Alice answers, and I can hear the conversation.
"Hello? Carlisle?"
"It's Bella. Her parents have been spoken to. They have made the decision to turn off Bella's ventilator. They feel, having been told that she stands little chance of recovery, that it would only be cruel to keep her artificially alive. It was such a bad case and she went downhill so fast - the machines are her life now. They don't want her to be alive like that."
"Carlisle, I -"
"I know."
She replaces the phone with a quiet click. She's standing beside me in a moment. When did I hit the floor, I wonder.
"Jasper," she whispers, gathering me into her arms. "Jasper, I can't see her anymore."
I know what she means. Bella is going to die.