Its been a while. This one's angsty.
I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
And she will be loved
She will be loved
-She Will Be Loved (Maroon 5)
ELEVEN:
"So basically," she slurs, gripping onto Edward's shirtfront. "My dad died." Bella stops talking, and looks over Edward's shoulder, peering at a girl who had started to stare suspiciously at them. The girl ducks her head and continues her path to class.
"He died, and so did my soul along with him," she continues, and looks him in the eye seriously, before cracking a wide smile.
"But I didn't realize it," she continues, "I just thought it was sleeping."
"But you know what, pretty boy," Bella pokes him in the chest with the hand that was holding onto the locker door. "What can't kill you…only makes you stranger," her smile continues to widen, as does Edward's horror at Bella's mental state. Just what had happened in the last few weeks, he wonders.
"Why so serious, Edward?" she asks, with a little giggle in her throat. "Why so serious?"
"Enough with this shit," he ignores her question and grabs onto her arm, slamming her locker door and proceeding to the entrance of the school. She continues to giggle, and he wishes she would shut the fuck up. He's not perfect, and he knew he should be tolerating her crap, but he cant. It was too goddamn freaky.
"Rape, rape!" she screams, annoying him further. But her giggling offset any concerns passing students may have had, so the crazy girl yelling in the hallway was ignored.
The parking lot is empty, thank Jesus, so Edward doesn't have an audience for his rough shoving of Bella. "Easy, easy," she sticks her hands up like a criminal being caught red-handed. "I'm not going to run, I'm sick of this shithole anyway." She sways into his car and hurts Edward's ears with her screech of: "Where we goin' Louise?"
"Is your mom home?" He says through his teeth.
"What mom?" Another giggle. "There is only Renee. Renee the empty, Renee the lifeless, Renee the ghoul…" Bella sighs, her mouth finally contracting back into an expression that wasn't one of a maniac. "She didn't even notice these," she draws up her sleeves to reveal small cuts zigzagging across her arms. "I couldn't do 'em dramatic, scared a'pain y'know," she sighs once again, drawing her sleeves down and staring out the window.
Edward tries to keep his temper but isn't very successful. More worrying though was the deluge of distress he feels at the cuts. He knew of her fear, but when will the time come that even that won't block her path of self-destruction?
"You didn't answer my question," he states, his face still neutral but his foot pushing down on the accelerator. "Is she home?"
"No, pretty boy. She isn't."
"Thank you."
The car ride was quiet, except for the small stupid things that Edward whispers. He doesn't know that she is completely calm and serene, so he tells her sweet nothings to keep her from screaming out again or doing anything dangerous. He doesn't know what he'd do if she jumped at him and turned the wheel of the car or something. Fuck, he was in over his head, he thinks viciously. What the fuck has her mom done to her?
They finally arrive at Bella's house and Edward murmurs about fifty prayers of gratitude to any higher power that may be looking over them that nothing had happened to them on the ride there. He gets out impatiently and opens the passenger door for Bella, to find her just staring through the windshield aimlessly. 'I watched the Dark Knight yesterday, Edward," Bella informs him, turning her head so she was facing him. "That Joker…he has some good points." She brings her fingers to her chin and scratches it, as if she has a beard. "Not about the killing people thing, but…we should cause some anarchy, you and me," she grabs his shirtfront again and shakes it, a pleading look in her eyes. "You and me, Edward." He chooses not to answer that particularly disturbing comment.
He peels her hands off his shirt and steps back, waiting for her to get out. When she doesn't, he comes forward and scoops her up. Her head lolls back, and she stretches out her arms, whispering "wee".
The door is unlocked to Edward's surprise, and Bella murmurs something along the lines of, "stupid Renee, can't do anything." Edward drags both of them up the stairs and into the tiny bathroom, dumping Bella gently onto the tiles of the shower.
"You aren't gonna be a jerk like those guys in the movies who douse the chicks in cold water to sober them up, are you?" She grins, causing him to pause for a second, before making his decision and turning on the cold water. She raises her arms in glee and stands up, dancing around in the freezing water. This surprises him so much that he doesn't see her arm jerk out and grab his arm, pulling him into the inferno of ice water. "Fuck!" He yells, trying to get out, but she holds him and doesn't grant him reprieve. After a few seconds he stops trying to get out and just stares at her, watching as awareness slides back into her lifeless eyes.
"You chose this, Edward," she says softly, looking into his eyes again. "You've chosen to save me," she pauses, brushing his now sopping hair out of his emerald eyes. "You've got to be with me through all the shit, or none at all." Bella lets him go and stares at him like a depraved angel, good but so, so disturbed. Either he stays in the shower or he gets out, the choice is Edward's.
"I'm fucked up, Edward," she tells him, "I'm probably not worth it," her hand extends to the tiled wall to keep her balance as she floats down to the floor, curling up into a ball. "But now I'm sober…ish," she adds, after thinking about it, "and I'll remember what you do. Choose." Bella looks up at him through her eyelashes and hopes.
The look in his eyes portrays ambivalence, and indeed, he feels very indecisive. He feels great affection for the pathetic shell of a girl curled up in front of him, but he was only seventeen. He'd never dealt with anything like this. His dad's a little nuts, as is his sister, but other than that his family was perfectly functional and had never put him through any situations even bearing a tiny resemblance to the one he is in right now. But the memories of the moments he has shared with Bella anchor him for a moment, even when she was fading away they had still had some moments…Edward doesn't want that to be the end of their story.
Determination glares through his eyes and he walks out of the shower, leaving Bella alone.
Realization pounces upon her like a puma, and she starts sobbing, loud and long. It was not pretty – snot was pouring out of her nose like out of a tap, and her eyes became bloodshot quickly as her tears became one with the water blasting at her. She doesn't care if Edward can hear her, she wants him to feel her pain. She wants someone to feel her pain. She wants to feel a sense of belonging with someone, and she was so close, so close… But Bella has an epiphany – no one can be trusted. No one can be let in. Everyone will only end up crushing her until she is only ashes in the wind, and she doesn't want to be ashes. Ashes are as insubstantial as the smoke that blows off of Renee's cigarettes, and Bella wants to mean something. The world will fucking remember her when she is through with it.
Bella gets up off the tiles and turns off the water, threading her hands through her short, choppy hair and pulls it, smiling at the small prick of pain. She was slowly desensitizing herself to it, as it's probably going to be a dominating presence in her life. Get used to it, Swan, she instructs herself.
She steps out of the shower and doesn't care about the streams of water flowing off her clothes and onto the floor. Renee can clean it up, if she notices it.
But as Bella is about to walk through the door and back to her bedroom, Edward appears in the doorway, holding two towels. "Sorry I dripped a little, there weren't any towels in here and it took me a while to find them," he smiles crookedly and half-heartedly, hoping Bella will accept him.
Gratitude blooms in Bella's eyes as she realizes that she is wrong, she is not alone, and trust can be given to a select few. Though she doesn't fully trust Edward yet, maybe time will change that. But maybe not, Bella doesn't know. The damage Renee has caused has absorbed Bella completely into a downward spiral and Bella isn't sure that she can ever recover from it. But she is determined to try and not destroy herself in the process as she was planning to. Edward is probably against that, Bella thinks wisely.
She takes one towel from him slowly and begins to wipe her face. "We should get changed," she says to him, gently, as if any sound louder than a whisper will disturb the balance of the world and take him away from her, shattering her recent resolve.
"Yeah," he agrees, looking between them at their saturated clothes. "You're a pretty weird drunk, you know."
"I know."
She doesn't apologize because she knows she doesn't need to – Edward's decision has slightly closed the distance between them and Bella knows there is no need for sorry anymore. He has acknowledged that she had a fucked up moment, that there will be future fucked up moments, but he will be by her side throughout the fucked-upedness.
"Don't cut yourself, please." He asks her, his face slightly tarnished with the agony he feels at the thought of her hurting herself. "Don't," he repeats.
She links her pinky finger with his and whispers: "pinky-swear."
She gets changed into sweatpants and a Spongebob t-shirt while he drives to his house and puts on his own clothes, avoiding his mother stealthily and driving to the high school where he leaves his car for Alice and drives Bella's truck back to her house. He leaves Alice a text describing parts of the situation, omitting the gorier and more personal details.
After an hour he arrives back to Bella and jogs to her room, throwing her the keys to her truck and stands awkwardly beside her bed which she is reclined on. She is reading a book, which she puts onto her bedside table when she catches sight of him.
"Hey." His greeting may be lame, but it's all he could think of.
"Hey," she replies, looking at her hands and fidgeting. Unable to keep silent after a few moments, she says: "So this is awkward for me, is it awkward for you?"
"It is awkward for me," he says, smiling. He is glad that she is nearly back to herself, if not fully, then at least she is more similar to the way she was before the zombie days than during them.
"You expecting an explanation?" She asks him, still not looking at him directly.
"No, but it would be nice," he replies. "You could have told me you were suffering before."
She considers his statement, before saying, "I wasn't really expecting you to care." She shifts her focus to the trees outside her window. "If Renee doesn't, why should you, is what I was thinking."
"Well I do," he informs her, hoping that she will remember that for future incidents. "Tell me if it gets to you again."
'I'll try," she finally looks at him, mentally smiling at the euphemism of 'it'. "But this is hard for me. I'm struggling to even be in the same room as you right now."
"Why?" he asks, bewildered. He thought that they were alright now.
"You have no idea how humiliated I am, Edward," she tells him dejectedly. "Humiliated at what you saw, at the fact that I want to get drunk again. I promised myself I'd never turn into her, but I feel like I'm going to."
He stops merely standing there like a fool and sits down beside her, separating her hands and laying them by her sides so she'd stop fidgeting with them, something she did when she was anxious, as he had noticed.
"It's ok Bella," he says, his tone soft. Bella thinks back to when he first said those words and wonders whether he knew something was up with her even then.
She pulls his sleeve down to prompt him into arranging himself so he was lying beside her. After being in that position for a few minutes in comfortable silence he shifts his face so he is looking at her, prepared to make a joke of some sort to lighten up the grim atmosphere. But his attempt at humour halts in his throat when he sees tears rolling down her face like antelope racing through hills and valleys.
She notices his questioning glance and says, "I just feel so alone sometimes, Edward." Though her words are so sad, he feels something akin to relief at hearing them. He had felt so excluded from her bubble for the last few weeks, but finally she is telling her what she has been going through. Edward has the opinion that if she just told him what has happened to her, he could fix it, and the bags of sleep-depravation and depression would disappear from beneath her eyes.
She sighs as become her habit, and folds an arm so the back of her hand was lying across her forehead, slightly shielding her eyes. "Renee… Renee is no longer there."
She sniffles and blinks back her tears, wanting this conversation not be marred by the annoying drops of crystalline. 'Dad is not here." One of her fingers rubs off the tears drying on her face.
"I am alone." She states, her tone suggesting that she is resigned to the fact.
Edward struggles to keep his mouth shut and let her speak, but he is desperate to reassure her about himself and Alice, and probably Jasper and Emmett too. They had begun to adjust to her before she zombified herself. He silently hopes it isn't too late for friendships to form.
"These weeks I've been trying to get her attention, to somehow get her to snap out of the state of grey she seems to be in, but it hasn't been working." She chuckles lightly, but it is a laugh of sadness and despair. "I've had to learn how to cook since she doesn't feed me anymore. I used to burn my toast every time I made it, but now I can make a decent ham sandwich." Her hand shifts back to her face so it is blocking her eyes, as if that would block Edward's vision so he would no longer be able to see her baring herself to him. But of course, Bella doesn't succeed, and he is forced to witness the sham that Bella's life has become. Silence descends upon them both for a few minutes, until Edward is wondering if this is all Bella is prepared to share with him today. But eventually she breaks the silence, her quiet voice loud in the absolute silence that has consumed house.
"And I don't want the world to see me, cause I don't think that they'd understand…" She sings softly, her voice breaking several times and stopping suddenly at the last word, not continuing the song. His heart aches for her, as does his body, as does his soul. He cannot do anything for her by try to get her to accept her situation and move on from it, but he doesn't know if he is capable of it, or if she is ready for it.
Edward decides not to dwell on the thought and sits up and looks down upon her, removing her hand from her face so he could see her expression. Her glance lands upon him in surprise for a moment before darting over his shoulder. She tries to pull her hand from his grasp but doesn't succeed, and she stops trying when she notices his tender expression.
Once she halts her struggling he releases his grasp on her hand, and moves his palm up to cup her cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb along the jawbone on the other side of her face. She looks startled and he senses that she is about to run away like a deer caught in headlights, but he holds her and tries to show her that he isn't going to hurt her.
It wasn't that she is scared, though. Bella just isn't sure that she could handle this. If she gets involved with Edward, and he abandons her like everyone else has, she doesn't know what she'd do, what she'd become. But she could also get run over while crossing the road, or get hit in the head by an anvil that had dropped from the sky, so she decides to go with it and not ask what if. Anything can happen in life, and she is going to make fucking sure that this, him and her, will happen, even if it costs her heart in the end.
He leans down and places one palm beside her to hold his weight off of her and kisses her gently, as light as the fluffy clouds in the sky or the feathers on a cockatoo. She wants more but he keeps it slow, kissing her then pulling back, kissing her then pulling back, until finally settling and outlining her bottom lip with his tongue. She pulls him closer until they seem to be merged into one, threading her fingers through the mess that he calls his hair and placing the other hand onto the small of his back. She lets out a quiet, embarrassing sound at the feel of his tongue and pulls his hair roughly, resulting in a sound parallel to hers coming from Edward.
She opens her mouth in anticipation for his, causing him to pull back and look at her in apology.
"What?" she asks, worried that he was put off by her and is about to reject her. One thing that Bella is sure she is: full of stupid and fucking annoying insecurities.
"I had a salad stuffed with garlic for lunch. Can I give you an IOU, usable at absolutely any time?" He asks, a side of his mouth lifting in a lopsided smile.
"Are you kidding?" She retorts. "I don't have the aversion to garlic that most people seem to have for some reason." Bella smiles stupidly and strokes the stubble on his cheeks. "I love garlic, I love tasting it, I'd love to taste it on you," she informs him, pulling him back down to her.
"That's alright then," he says, grinning.
He resumes his ministrations and straddles her so his knees are taking all of his weight. He cups her cheek again and places his other hand on her neck, rubbing it slowly. He can barely concentrate through the sensation that her fingers are causing in his hair but somehow he manages, bringing his tongue to her lips once again and hoping they would open. They did, and together they made magic, the kind of crackling, sparkling magic that is thought to only exist in fairytales. But for Bella, Edward is her fairytale, her prince, her knight. She only hopes that he will defeat her dragon and they will live happily ever after.
Review.
"What can't kill you…only makes you stranger" and "Why so serious?" - quotes from 'The Dark Knight'.
"And I don't want the world to see me, cause I don't think that they'd understand" – from the song 'City of Angels' by the Goo Goo Dolls.
