This chapter won't be all happiness but I promise, everything's going to solve itself.
Enjoy!
Jasper pulls me into his arms from Edward kicking and screaming. In that moment, I hate Jasper for keeping me from Edward while he lays there, blood dribbling from his mouth.
"Jesus, Em, call an ambulance!" Jasper was shouting but his arms were calmly bound tightly around me. I would've appreciated his calmness and strength in any other panicking moment, but not now. I needed to be with Edward.
"No, not an ambulance. I'll call his personal doctor. The ambulance and the paps will just spread it around about Edward Cullen being near to death." Aro was shushing Angela, who in return who shushing Matt. He was crying loudly, and immediately I was transported to the last time I had seen her. My Rosette.
She was crying hysterically and I couldn't do anything. My visions had started going blurry, and I recalled Lauren still crying in a corner and Marcus muttering, "Jesus. She can't even be a mother. Just like Renee."
"Bella! Bella, listen to me!" Emmett was shaking me wildly, as I came to my surroundings. "I want you to stay here, okay? We'll take Edward to his apartment here. We want you to stay here, okay?"
"No." Jasper must've heard the steel resolve in my voice because he just dialed Edward's personal doctor and muttered, "Let her come, Em."
"I'll stay with her, if she'd like." Angela was quiet now, but her posture explained it all. She didn't want to be dragged into all of this again. And she had Matt now.
"No, it's okay. Aro, are you staying somewhere?"
"I'm staying at the JW Marriott Dongdaemun Square Hotel nearby. Why?"
"Take Angela and Matt there. I wouldn't want there name to be broadcast when this gets out, which I'm sure it will. It won't be good for you when Marcus hears that she's here, along with with your baby."
"Yeah, you're right." As Angela passes me, I see that she's near to tears and suddenly she has her arms around me and I can feel her as well as chubby little Matt hugging me. "Thank you, Bella. Thank you so much."
"It's nothing. I'd do it again over and over again. I didn't know before, that he'd threatened you. I'm sorry."
"I know. I never held it against you. Thank you."
Aro returns half an hour later. Edward's personal doctor, Dr. Alistair, has already transferred Edward to a private hospital. He said we couldn't travel with him, so I'm in the bathroom. I'm washing my face and making myself look presentable and I'm remembering those last words Edward spoke to me before he lost his consciousness. He said he was sorry, and I assume he was referring to his careless and rude behavior. although I'm sure I don't love Edward or have any kind of feelings for him, I'm not exactly sure why i'm rushing to the hospital for him either.
My musings are interrupted by Jasper's knock on the door. "You okay, baby girl?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, Jas."
"Then hurry up and get out, girl! I gotta pee." Emmett shouts.
I laugh as I tie my hair in a ponytail and exit the bathroom. Emmett grins at me and I grin right back. Even though it's a really hard time for me, I'm glad to have this bit of normalcy in my life.
Soon, we're all in the hospital, going to Room 410. The room is brightly lit, with light sea-green wallpaper of the sea. There are cream-colored couches placed elegantly and the fireplace is burning brightly. But I don't notice that. I don't notice these things. My gaze just falls over them, because they're somewhat important details of a room. But the detail my gaze notices and commits to memory out of habit, is Edward's pale body lying on the bed. His eyes are closed, lips bloodless and face gaunt. But still, he's never looked more handsome.
I sit beside him on the bed and touch his hair. It's silky soft and just the way I remember from when I kissed him.
"He'll wake up soon." I stand up, extracting my hand from Edward's forehead.
I look over to see his doctor standing in the room. He has an easy smile on his face and I smile back.
"Hey, it's okay. You're the Isabella he told me about, aren't you?" At my confused look, he smiles again. "I'm also his webcam psychiatrist."
"Oh."
The others look nervously around and seem out of place. The doctor looks kindly at them and speaks in a gentle voice, like we're all afraid animals. I guess that's not wrong about me. "Would you mind giving me a moment with Ms. Swan, please?"
"Of course, Doc." Aro leaves with a pat to my shoulder. Jasper hugs me tightly and I savor the brief moments I have left with the people from my past that I did not love and care enough before. "Bells, we'll come up after grabbing lunch. We'll get you something."
"Not a chance, Jas. I'm the only one who knows that Bella likes the Big Mac cheeseburger from McDonald's with a large vanilla shake and an apple pie." Emmett boasts playfully and I grin at him. Jasper shoves him out of the door, muttering, "Guess we all know that now, ya big oaf."
I turn around to see the doctor checking Edward's heartbeat with a satisfied look on his face. He sees the troubled and somewhat hopeful look on my face and smiles hesitantly, almost worriedly.
"I assume he hasn't told you yet?"
"The reason he mysteriously seems to drop dead all of a sudden?"
"That and his mood swings. Do you want to know?"
"Yes." I say quickly. I may be angry at Edward for his careless and indifferent attitude towards me but I still felt something...something I'm not sure I know myself. And right now, the clarity in my head among the jumbled mess only told me one thing: Truth was essential right now for me to know, whether it was bad or good.
"Edward has bladder cancer, Ms. Swan. Are you sure he never told you?"
Although my suspicion and instincts and Angela's warning all pointed to this in my sub conscious, I'm still shocked and feel the world slip from beneath my feet. I still take the blow as I would've had even if nobody had told me. There's something wrong with me, it's not like I'm dependent on Edward. Aro is here now, as well as Jasper and Emmett. They once told me that all I had to do was call them and they'll come back without any questions. It was my pride and haste to get away from my family and the constricted freedom they provided me that led to my being away from them. But now they're here.
I owe nothing to Edward and he owes nothing to me. Except for the whole marriage thing. But even then, he has no hold over me as long as I don't repeat the sacred vows. But something tells me that I'm wrong this time. That I shouldn't do what I'm thinking I should do. I shouldn't run from him. I hate this voice of reason but I can't help but obey. Maybe it's just that I want to see his green eyes again. That I want to see his face flushed with blood again. That maybe I'll leave after he's discharged. But I know that after the news the doctor has just dropped on me, it's not going to let Edward get discharged soon.
"No. He never told me."
"I see."
"Maybe I just wasn't important enough for him to bother telling me."
"I'm sure that's not the case, Ms. Swan. I think you best be here for when he wakes up. It'll be good if he sees you first." He smiles and leaves the room.
The room is covered in silence and tears slip from my eyes. I don't know how I managed to keep them at bay for long. It's been a long time since I cried for anyone. I didn't cry for my baby because I knew, I know that I'll get Rosette back soon.
"Or maybe he was too busy hating me that he didn't get the chance to tell me between caring for me and looking at me like I was nothing but something he'd enjoy in bed." My whisper echoes in the silent room but once again, it's quiet again.
"No. I don't think that's the case either."
I turn towards Edward's bed, where he's struggling to sit himself upright. I rush over to him and help him sit back comfortably against the pillows. I hand him a glass of water and he gulps it in one go. I wipe my eyes and sit beside him, careful to not touch him except when mandatory so that he doesn't suddenly snap at me for being even remotely romantic with him.
"Thanks."
I stare at his fingers on the bed twitching nervously and finally he takes a deep breath and I look up at him. His gaze pierces me the same way it did when we first met, intense with a hint of sexual tension and something else I'm now afraid to admit to myself in case my heart gets any foolish hopes.
"I assume you know everything."
"Yes."
"And I assume you want some answers."
"Not really. I'm glad you're okay and now I just want to..." I trail off helplessly as his fingers graze mine and I pull them back subtly. His gaze searches mine again brazenly and I feel like I'm being examined.
"What? Do you want to go?" His voice carries no hint of any emotion, and it makes me frustrated. It's neutral and I have no way of knowing what he's feeling.
"I should go. It's late and-
"It's only eight. Not late."
"Right."
"Bella, you should know that everything I did had a reason."
"It just would've helped if I had been told those reasons."
"I know and I'm sorry for not telling you but I had to. I feel something for you but I can't act on it. I've got 5 years at best, and 2 at worst. I can provide for you, give you a name, protect you from your family and take care of you. But I can't let myself fall for you completely. I can't let you fall for me too and then leave you heartbroken when I die." I flinch but he grabs my hand and his other hand goes into my hair to grip it firmly. "It's true, Bella."
He calls me Bella, not Isabella and it warms me. But the room is cold and it suddenly throws me back into the harsh and cheap reality of this world.
"I will die one day, Bella and I can't leave you broken. You deserve someone who'll love you and cherish you forever, not for 5 years on borrowed time. And that is why I can't let myself worship you completely. I can't even get to know you fully, worried that I'll fall in love with you and then, when I die, my soul will be forced to see your tears."
"I will cry, Edward, whether you die loving me or hating me."
"I know. But I'd rather have you hate me than look up at me with hopeful eyes as we grow older and you hope for children, gray hair and a lasting sunrise for me. And I'll start to hope for those things too but then I'll come back to reality and realize that I can't give you that. I can't give myself the luxury of seeing you with gray in your hair or you smiling at something you've told me thousands of times and I still forgot it every time. I don't have that, Bella. But you do. And i want you to save it for someone else."
"What if I want to share all those things with you? In the 5 years we have left?" I cried. Tears were streaming down my face in endless rivers and I was sobbing. Edward took me in his arms and I felt his lips at my hairline.
"No, Bella. I have 5 years left. You have your whole life ahead."
"But...there must be a treatment! Anything!"
"That's enough, Bella. There is no treatment and even if there is, I won't go through countless treatments that take all of the time I have just to have 2 more years of borrowed time from God."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
His lips press gently but firmly against my eyes, then my neck, my ear and then, like a whisper of feathers, against my lips.
"We can cherish the years we have, promising each other to never fall for each other. So as to not hurt ourselves."
It is the most hardest decision I've ever had to make. But I have to. And I regret it then.
"I promise." He rests his forehead against mine and our hands entwine together.
I regret it then.
A/N : CHAPTER INSPIRED BY SONG : Like I'm Gonna Lose You by John Legend Ft. Meghan Trainor.