Chapter 13: Weightless
A/N: Tam, I love you. Thanks for helping me write better, and smile more.
My thanks, also, to everyone who is reading, reviewing, pimping and tweeting. You're the best, all of you.
Here we go ...
Weightless, City and Colour.
Come close,
Lay next to me
Come close,
Lay next to me
I need to tell you something important
So stay close,
Remain next to me
I need to feel important
It's your eyes that I don't believe
And my heart, you will, you will mislead
Do you know the consequence that comes with having such confidence?
Holding all the weight in my life
Then you turn and you walk away from me
May 2010 cont.
Edward? What the fuck are these?
I'm not sure I will ever be able to forget the look of abject horror that overtakes Bella's face as her fingers curl around the little bottle of pills I left sitting on my desk. The color drains from her face – her normally pink cheeks are white, her lips pale as her tongue peeks out to wet them.
I grimace reflexively, hating the reminder that my brain needs me to dose it with chemicals to make it do its job. "My anti-depressants?"
"Yours …" The bottle falls from grasp, her fingers flexing as though burned. She turns away from me, then back again, panic and uncertainty written in her eyes. My hands reach for her as she stumbles toward my bed, but she waves me away. She collapses on to the edge, her head falling into her hands. "How long – Why – I don't understand."
Utterly bewildered, I'm on my knees before her, trying to make sense of her reaction. "Bella?"
"How long have you been taking them?" Her quiet voice is devoid of emotion, her eyes still hidden by her hands.
"Um." My hands rake through my hair as I try to work it out. "It's got to be close to four years, I think."
"Four years." Her voice carries a note of disbelief.
"Yeah. I think so. I went on them toward the end of my freshman year."
"The whole time." I'm not sure whether she means for me to hear.
"Bella?"
"Why?"
"Why am I on them? Uh, depression and anxiety." I sigh, shifting on my knees. I have no idea whether or not Bella is listening, but I feel compelled to explain. "Freshman year was pretty rough on me. I think I've told you before that I don't cope well with change?"
She doesn't reply; the slight movement of her head is my only indication that she hears what I'm saying.
"Well, moving out of home, starting college, starting a relationship with Heidi – it was all too much, and I wasn't really coping. So, I went to a doctor, and he sent me to therapy. I had some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to deal with some of my anxiety issues, and that really helped with the panic attacks. But, nothing really seemed to help with the depression, and the medication became necessary … especially after Heidi and I broke up."
"Why did you never tell me?"
I shrug, before I realize she's still not looking at me. "I don't know. It wasn't like I made a decision not to tell you. I just … I just don't think about it. I, uh, I take a pill every morning, but other than that, I don't really give it a lot of thought. It doesn't affect my day-to-day life anymore."
"Why wouldn't you tell me, though?" There's a note of accusation in her voice.
"I don't tell anyone about it, sweetheart. Because, really, I mostly just try not to think about it. It's like, I dunno, I guess – it's not that different to being a diabetic. If you're a diabetic, you take insulin, you monitor your blood glucose or whatever, and you get on with life. My brain doesn't make the chemicals I need it to. I take a pill, I monitor my symptoms, and the rest of the time, well … I just forget about it. I don't … I mean, it doesn't define me. I won't let it."
"Were you hiding it from me?" The strain in her voice alerts me to the fact that she's crying.
"No. Why would I hide it, Bella?"
"I don't know, Edward." She finally looks up at me, her eyes red-rimmed and full of hurt. "Why would Jacob hide the fact he was suicidal?"
Fuck. Understanding crashes over me like a wave, dragging me under, depriving me of breath.
"No, Bella – No." My hands reach for her, but she pushes them away. I search frantically for the words to make this right. I'm speaking truthfully – I don't dwell on my condition. "It's not like that –"
"Really? 'Cause I'm really struggling to see that it's not exactly like that." I'm not sure I've ever heard Bella raise her voice in anger.
"No. No, sweetheart –"
"He didn't want me to know. Leah didn't want me to know. And you … You're my best fucking friend, Edward."
The hurt in her voice, the pain in her eyes, they're like a knife to the heart.
"I trusted you, for fuck's sake. I've shared with you every secret, every fear, every hurt. And it never occurred to you that this might be something I should know? Do I seem that pathetic? That weak? Poor Bella can't be trusted with these things? Did you think – what, that I couldn't understand? That I'm 'too nice, too sheltered' to be able to deal with the truth?"
Bella spits Leah's words in my face, and my heart aches for her. I have done this. I have made her feel like this.
"It's not that, honestly. I'm so sorry, love. It's just – it's never really come up. Well, it did, but we were drunk and –"
"That's why you hate being called a freak?" Compassion flickers across her gaze briefly.
I swallow hard. "Heidi. She would call me a f-freak. You know, if I had a panic attack, or when she, uh, saw me cry."
"Is that why you didn't tell me? Because you thought I'd call you a freak? Because you think I'm like her?"
"No, Bella. Fuck. You're nothing like Heidi. You've never once looked at me the way she did. Like, I'm … pathetic or that I disgust you." Never once, until right now. "I'm telling you, it just never crossed my mind to bring it up."
"You didn't want me to know."
I push up on to my knees, desperation driving me. I need to make her understand, I need to tell her. Now.
"That's not true. I want you to know everything about me, Bella. I –" I take a breath, before I plunge on, handing my heart over to her, "– I love you."
"Don't say that." I don't see her lips move, but the words hang in the air, their sharpness stinging as truly as if she'd slapped me. The ache in my chest flares, intensifying with her quick dismissal of my words.
"Listen to me. I love you –"
"I said, don't say that!" Bella's voice is angry, hard.
Tears sting the corner of my eyes, but I blink them back fiercely.
"Please, just listen. I love you. This game we've been playing – it's not a game to me. Not anymore. It hasn't been for six months. Hell, I'm not sure it ever was. I was scared to tell you. I mean, I know we agreed we didn't want relationships. I didn't want to fall in love … ever. I, I didn't mean to fall in love with you. But I did. And I want this – I want us to be real. I love you. So much."
It's in this moment that I lose her. I see her gold-brown eyes harden and grow cold. The defenses that she's slowly lowered over our months of friendship slam back into place in an instant. It sucks the air from my lungs, constricting my chest, watching her shut me out.
Determined to make her understand, I press my lips to hers, but she pushes hard against my chest, forcing me away.
"Bella." I'm begging, hot tears beginning to spill from my eyes.
I press forward again, desperate, sure that if I can only kiss her, then I can make her see, I can make her understand that I love her, and that hurting her is the very last thing I ever want to do. Maybe she will accept from my body, the words she doesn't want to hear me speak.
"No!" Her hands push me away again. There's less force, less certainty behind her shove, though. Am I getting through to her? Is she starting to understand the depths of my love for her?
"Even after I told you how much Jacob and Leah hurt me? Even then, you didn't think this was something I should know?" The fire in her eyes is dying, her voice is weary with hurt. She looks down, and tears start to spill from her eyes, splattering against her hands where they lie in her lap.
"It was never my intention to hurt you." My hand reaches out hesitantly, waiting for her to slap it away. She doesn't, and I inhale in relief as she lets me wipe her tear-stained cheeks. "I love you."
When Bella doesn't recoil from my words, I press my advantage. My lips meet hers tentatively, expecting her to fight me again. She doesn't. My tears continue to flow as her hands find my chest. I want to pour myself into our kiss, pour every ounce of tenderness and affection I can into it. Our lips move slowly at first, and I can almost make myself believe that she feels something for me. Surely, surely there is some feeling behind the delicate way her lips caress mine, the way she takes my bottom lip between her own, the way her breath escapes on a moan when our tongues begin to dance.
Her little hands fist in my shirt, and the intensity of our kiss ratchets up a notch. Lips move harder, faster, tongues devouring. Her fingers are at my shirt buttons, scrabbling against them. I ignore the quiet voice that tells me we need to keep talking, that we have not made things right. Instead, my fingers copy hers, frantically popping open the buttons of her blouse.
Our hands tug and pull as we seek to rid ourselves of the layers of clothing that are keeping us apart. It's frenzied, fabric being ripped and wrenched away as our hands seek out each other's flesh. I can taste our tears, bitter, salty, through our fevered kiss.
I refuse to allow any space between us as we scramble on to the bed, barely even managing to tear our lips apart for long enough to gather the oxygen we need. My hands are grasping, grabbing, squeezing at Bella, and I have to force myself to calm them – I cannot, I will not bruise her soft flesh.
I don't let our lips part as my hand snakes between her thighs, stroking and curling, seeking her release with ease. Months and months of familiarity, of watching her every reaction, of seeking to meet her every need, means it's no time at all before I'm swallowing her cries of pleasure.
Unsatisfied, I don't slow my fingers, don't ease the pressure. Greedily, I bring her to the edge again, my fingers demanding her release. When she falls, again, and again I devour her screams, her little body shaking as wave after wave of pleasure crashes over her.
Bella reaches for my hand, pulling it away as she gasps for breath. "I need you."
As if I could deny her.
I push the sweat-dampened hair out of her face. "Look at me, Bella. Please."
She complies, her golden-brown eyes spilling over with tears, her beautiful face severe with emotion.
"I love you." The words spill from my lips as she takes me inside herself. Bella answers with a sob.
The frenzy leaves my body as I move inside her. My movements are slow, purposeful – my declaration. Every thrust of my hips says "I need you," every kiss against her mouth says "I love you," and every tear that falls from my cheek to mingle with those pooling on hers says "forever, always."
This is not playful intimacy, or drunken horniness; this is not frantic release, or needy fucking. For the first time, I let myself make love to Bella. Can she feel it? Does she understand? I show her with my body, the truth I've been hiding within for months.
As our pleasure peaks, there are no moans of delight or screams of ecstasy. Instead, our completion is accompanied by choking sobs and tearful gasps.
When I slip from her warmth, uncoupling us, I am somehow less. I have left some part of myself with her, given something of myself away into her keeping.
Exhausted and drained, I grab a washcloth from beside the bed, making sure Bella is comfortable before I clean myself up quickly. The emotional upheaval of the night has me struggling against the heaviness of my eyelids, my fatigue compounded by the lateness of the hour.
As I lie back down beside her, Bella's dark eyes meet mine in the low light cast by the bedside lamp. The pain and regret I see in them strikes terror into my heart. I watch as she falls asleep beside me, as her blinks become slower and heavier, until they hide her eyes from me, and she sighs deeply in her slumber.
I lay still beside her, my arm curled around her waist. Bella mutters and mumbles, moving restlessly.
"Off." She pushes at my arm. I lift it away, the hurt shooting through me making me all too aware of the dreadful power Bella wields over me, even in her sleep.
I try desperately to fight off sleep, to force my eyes to stay wide and watching. I can't help but fear that if I close my eyes she will disappear, that she will slip away from me. Just as fatigue claims me, as sleep overpowers me, I realize: she already has.
My dreams are restless, tortured. Filled with emptiness and nothing. I'm searching, looking for something precious, something I want, that I need. It eludes me.
When I wake, Bella is gone.
I don't go looking for her this morning. I know instinctively that I will not find her.
Talk to me, my lovelies ...
Shell x