Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. I am now a proud owner of Vanity Fair UK, the Robert Pattinson issue!
A big thank you to Xx Bri xX my editor, Mcc101180 the amazing/genius beta and Flyaway Dove, the great beta! :)
A big shout out to Becky for making up the twilighted forum thread for me! I will post teasers and so on over there! http: //www(dot)twilighted(dot)?f=44&t=7697
Also, if I have offended anyone on the last chapter, I dearly apologize. I did warn that the chapter was M rated, and if you are underage or doesn't like lemon, you can skip it and will still be able to understand the story! I hope you will continue to read this story even though you didn't like the last chapter.
THIS CHAPTER IS NO M RATED! NO LEMON (sorry ladies)
Chapter 10: Why the heck does this happens to me?
EPOV
It was like a dream. The whole thing—making love with Bella, being so connected. It was like a permanent high.
As I lay in bed, I could not help but think I was in heaven. Bella lay in a deep slumber in the crook of my arm.
I had known that after such activity it was completely normal to be exhausted. However, with Tanya, it was different. It wasn't making love, it was just sex. Mindless and meaningless sex that had always been about her getting the pleasure she wanted. Wasn't it not normally the guy who does that—the deplorable act of the wham-bam-thank you-ma'am?
I tasted blood in my mouth after a few minutes of contemplating in silence. I walked into the bathroom and shut the door quietly; the small click of the door closing into its frame echoed faintly around the bathroom. I walked over to the mirror and saw that my nose was bleeding. Bleeding, like other things, was normal; or at least as normal as anything could be in this fucked up situation.
I knew that this nose bleed was a direct result of sex. I cursed as I grabbed some toilet paper to stop the blood. I continued to curse in silence as I dabbed the surface of my nose and mouth.
Fuck, this cannot be happening to me.
Of course this had to happen now, of all times. Leukemia can be erratic and it is different in every case. A nose bleed is one of the more common symptoms for Leukemia sufferers. Sometimes a nose bleed will stop by itself. But other times hospital visits were a must. At times when these bleeds presented themselves they seemed to last for hours upon hours.
Yet, despite the fact that these nose bleeds had come only a few times in the past few months, it had to happen as I stood in front of the mirror, butt naked, in my girl's bathroom no less.
As I slumped against the side of the vanity, silently screaming at the fucking wonderful timing at which this particular side effect had come, I couldn't help but be bitter.
I have never believed in God. If God existed, he would hear my prayers, would he not? He would save me.
I didn't know if God existed, but I just don't believe. I have stop believe since…. I was diagnosed with this disease. But what I do know is this—this disease I have kills. It is long and drawn out. It takes the life, the hopes, the dreams, the meaning of life, out of the sufferer before the disease itself take the life. This disease… it robs people. It robbed me too; it had taken the chance of being able to complete the things in life I had always wanted accomplish, to do. I had dreamed of being a famous composer, a pianist. Yet those dreams are a part of a past that is long forgotten and impossible.
I just wanted to be normal, even if only for a little while. Try as I may, I knew that it was the bitterness that forbade me from seeing the point in believing in God. I could not avoid my fate; there was no point in praying to a God who may or may not exist to change my life. I have been given a sentence, a death sentence.
I looked into the mirror on the back of the door and saw a huge bruise on my back. It had been where Bella dug her nails into my skin; yet another beautiful factor of cancer to be thankful for. It would have never happened to a normal person. But then again, I wasn't normal; nothing about my situation was.
"Baby, are you alright?" I jumped in surprise as I heard Bella's voice ask the question quietly.
Bella came into the bathroom and slid down beside me. She was clad in only her sexy lingerie with her hair twisted in a messy bun. Though her face seemed to be in a sleepy state, she was glowing; she looked stunning.
"Edward, you're bleeding…" Bella gasped as she saw the blood trickle down from my nose and the wad of bloodied toilet paper in my hands. Her eyes went wide with fear as she looked from the toilet paper then back to me. She swallowed nervously and grimaced a little. "That's a lot of blood."
"Nah, I'm good. It will stop eventually." I smiled the best crooked smile I could muster, trying to alleviate the darkened atmosphere.
"You're a shit liar," Bella muttered as she rolled her eyes. She grabbed me by the shoulder and looked straight into my eyes. "How long have you been sitting here?"
"Since, I don't know, about three…"
Bella gaped at me in shock as her eyes widened again. "So you've been bleeding for forty-five minutes?"
I hadn't thought that nearly an hour had passed. But apparently time had gone on, even though I longed to stay forever in the now.
"We're going to the hospital," Bella said suddenly and shot up to her feet. She held her arms out to me and swiftly pulled me off the ground. But, like I feared, things started to spin manically. Bella included. As I muttered low obscenities and tried to reach out for the vanity's countertop to stabilize myself, a smooth soft hand caught me and set me straight. It was warm and welcoming and fuck it if I didn't feel like home.
"We better get going," Bella said quietly as she supported half my weight.
"We should take my car." Bella nodded and walked the both of us into the room. She ran to the bedside table and grabbed my pants off the lamp. How they got there was a mystery to me.
There was nothing more embarrassing than needing Bella to help dress me. Sure I was ill, but I couldn't help but feeling less of a man for needing help with things that others did not. Once I was dressed, and feeling like a three-year-old, Bella slipped into the first thing she found in her closet.
I knew this wasn't the time to ogle; the pounding in my head reminded me of that. But damn if I wasn't the luckiest guy to walk the earth, because there was no doubt that she was hot and totally fucking doable and she was mine.
I know it sounded vain and part of me felt bad about that. What attracted me wasn't only her exterior, even though she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. It was also that she understood that sick people, me for instant, doesn't like people to feel pathetic or sorry for them. They're not really sorry, they're glad that it was me who has the disease, not them. I hate when people put on the fake smiles, saying 'it's going to be alright'. How the fuck is it going to be alright if I'm dying, if I'm suffering through this pain, both mentally and physically? With Bella, she doesn't feel look at me like I have an 'I have cancer' tag on my neck. She looks at me like an equal, a friend, a human being and most of all, a lover.
When I talked to Bella, words couldn't describe the feeling. It was almost like coming home after a bad day, finally finding solace despite the madness of the world. It helped greatly, of course, that we had similar interests, such as music and reading classics, and our mutual hate of hip-hop only bonded us further.
"Edward, let's go!" Bella said quickly, snapping me out of my daze. After getting into the Mercedes, with Bella's help of course, I fell into a deep slumber as the sounds of the car starting and speeding down the drive echoed in my head.
I awoke to Bella trying to pull me out of the car. After countless blood tests and a stern lecture from a doctor that I was not to overdo myself, I was cleared and more than ready to go home. The nose bleed was nothing but a strong wake up call. It was just another sign that I'm going to die; and soon at that.
I tried to convince Bella that we had to get to class, fully aware that the likelihood of Jasper killing me before the cancer did was at an all time high. It was seven a.m., and Bella put me to bed like a seven year old and told me to 'stay'. I did so, grudgingly, because I was a pussy whipped fool and would do anything for her.
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I woke sometime later in the day. I was feeling a tad better than I had in the early hours of the morning. I looked over to the bedside table and saw a single note sitting on it.
Edward,
Going into the university to get the work we've missed and then stopping to get some groceries. Stay where you are and rest!
Love Bella xx
My heart swelled on the word 'love'. I had no idea that a simple word could make me feel a thousand things at once.
Looking at my Blackberry, I had 28 missed calls, all from Alice. No shock there. But there was no way in hell I would call her now. Certainly not alone, I would wait for Bella to come back and call her. She could save the pixie if I had the desire to kill her, which I probably would.
I decided to just lie in bed for a while. I lay in silence, trying to process what had happened in the last 24 hours.
The sound of the security alarm going off followed by footsteps sidetracked me as I waited patiently for Bella. After a few minutes, Bella's head popped in the doorway. The shyness had reappeared slightly on her face.
"Hey, sorry… I thought I could do something useful while you caught up on your beauty sleep," she joked, sending a wink my way.
"So are you going to come over here?" I asked, patting the spot on the bed beside where I lay. Somehow, my invitation seemed to excite her greatly as she quickly jumped onto the bed.
"Wow. You're pretty energetic, my darling," I said kissing her temple and slinging my arm around her waist.
"So… I have something I want to tell you," Bella mumbled bowing her head. I wasn't sure if it was from the embarrassment or something else. My curiosity was peaked regardless.
"I'm all ears."
"You know how I never tell anyone why I moved from New Zealand to the States? Well, I want to tell you." Bella took a deep breath before looking me in the eyes.
"You don't have to, Bella."
Yes I had wanted to know, but I would hate for her to think that she had to share her past with me simply because I did so with her.
"But I want to, Edward," Bella said sincerely as she placed her hand on top of mine. She then began to tell me about her life before she moved here.
"I lived in Wellington since I was eight, in a condo. My mother, Renee, was a free spirit artist. But she's not famous or anything. My father, Charlie, he was a cop. We had a pretty perfect life," Bella said slightly wistfully and shook her head a moment later.
"I lived in Phoenix for about four years before moving to New Zealand. I had seen your performance; you looked so happy, so peaceful. I wanted that. But Charlie and Renee were very career focused people and they would work day and night- keeping the business they inherited from my grandmother, Marie, afloat and in perfect working condition. Of course they would try and spend time with me on the weekends. But normally it was just the nanny and I."
I nodded and moved my hand to resume the pattern of rubbing circles along her skin.
"My parents decided to branch out their business to a new country, and that was why we had to move. But not too soon after, cracks were starting to show. The business wasn't doing well, and my parents were fighting more often. After a year of things being thrown around the house, Charlie decided to leave and Renee then decided that she no longer wanted to work. I don't know where the hell she went to; all I know is that they left me there all alone. They didn't care that I was their daughter. Yes the trust funds were left for me, but I never heard from them again and it made me realize that they didn't want me from the very start."
I nodded once again, letting Bella resume talking without interruption. "Jasper's parents found out about me a year later and they tried to persuade me to move back to the States and live with them. I refused because I honestly thought that Renee was going to come back. After years passed, I finally hired a private investigator to look for them. But nothing came up. So here I am."
Not a single tear fell from the ones pooling in her eyes. Bella tired to smile, but a smile didn't form. It was, in that moment, painfully obvious. We both had pasts; pasts that hurt to think of and relive. We held onto each other and I kissed her softly on both sides of her temples as we drifted into a surpassingly comfortable sleep.
The past didn't matter in that moment. No, what mattered was the present, the here and now, and I thoroughly planned to enjoy it.
AN: So that's the chapter. I hope you liked it. Please review... We didn't make it to 20 last time.. so 20 reviews this time please? Thanks
Big thanks to 5ctBauble, Mcc101180, Anonymous, Roses4Cullen, Juliamine, Ideblade, Mad4hugh, Madcowre, ZooeyD, Katherinef7, Angel-Miya, Gaby47, Kbacon, UnaRJ, Tinaababy, LexyW, Anonymous (no.2), TwiMomof2Monkeys, Mallory83, Alala, Xx Bri xX and Karalian70.
Thanks to those who has put this fic on alerts and favorites!
Rec'c of the week goes to:
Chance Encounter by TwiMomof2Monkeys = A musico Bella with an Actorward. How will their relationship progress as more pressure is put into it?? It's a great fic and I know you'll enjoy it! So go check it out.
More to come!