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Pain
Sunday 11-17-11/9:14 p. m.
The school, Forks, WA
Edward's Pov.
I was along in my room. The rest of the family were doing couple stuff, so I had decided that it was best for me to go back to my room. But ever since I was here on my own, I hadn't been able to stop thinking. It was overwhelming and I just couldn't make sense of it.
The past few days had been the most confusing of my life. I knew that the entire family felt this way, but I wasn't sure if they were aware how much meeting Bella had affected me. I tried not to show too much concern - because that would result in an avalanche of questions and hundreds of jokes from Emmett's side. And that was something I could definitely do without. But even if I had wanted to talk about it, I'd have no idea what I had to say or who to speak to. The entire situation was complicated and I really didn't know what to think.
When Alice first had a vision of Bella leaving the country, I had been very upset. Of course, I soon after had found out that she'd only be gone for a few days before returning to the school, but that didn't change anything about the fact that the thought of her disappear out of our lives had troubled me. And even now that I knew that I was going to see her again before the end of next week, the thought of her being across the Atlantic was painful. It was a strange kind of pain - I had never felt like this before.
Of course, the pain wasn't of a physical nature. What it reminded me of most was the faint memory of the grief I had felt after my parents' deaths, but it still was different. It felt like something was being taken from me, but I didn't know what to do with that feeling. And in a strange way, that made me angry. I shouldn't have to deal with this - after all, I was still Edward Cullen, the guy who had access to all the information in the world. I always knew what people were thinking, so I was normally very good at making sense of things.
That in itself was another issue. Before Bella, I had never met anybody who's mind I hadn't been able to read. That had always allowed me to see myself as some kind of a omniscient demigod (which might be arrogant, but also was great for my ego). Bella had forced me to change my worldview because as it turned out, I wasn't actually all-knowing. This was probably the most confusing part of the entire story. Part of me felt guilty for having been so arrogant, but a very prominent part of me was almost angry at Bella for robbing me of my title as the "great all-wise Edward Cullen".
It was ridiculous because I knew that she hadn't in fact done anything (I assumed that she didn't block me intentionally - and even if she did, I couldn't hold it against her. After all, it was perfectly understandable that someone might not want a stranger to know what they were thinking). Merely crossing my way obviously wasn't a crime, but part of me couldn't help resenting her for it. That in turn was another problem. Strange as it may sound, I had a hard time actually being angry at her. The worst thing about it was that I had absolutely no idea why that was. The entire situation just didn't make sense.
Of course, I wasn't known for being particularly friendly. I wasn't very forthcoming, nor was I exceptionally sympathetic and that had never really bothered me, but for some reason - god only knew why - I had very recently felt and urge to better myself. I couldn't tell what had caused this need to stop being a jerk, but the only possible explanation I could come up with was Bella. She was the only thing in our lives that had changed recently and I had seen a pretty rapid change in Rosalie's personality over the course of this weekend - and that change I knew to be caused by Bella.
It was strange because I barely knew her. I hadn't ever talked to her directly and I only knew about her what my family had told me. But some irrational part of me would do anything to make her happy without knowing why and an even more irrational part wanted to be even more extreme in my rude behavior. It seemed like a rebellious teenager had been hiding inside of me for decades and now he apparently thought it necessary to make a sudden appearance. The angry, rude part of me currently still had the upper hand, but I could feel how this new, nicer version of myself was getting more and more powerful and I didn't know how to feel about that.
All I knew was that yesterday, when she had been so lifeless after her breakdown, I had felt hurt. It was almost like some tiny part of me had died. Something inside of me broke and I was still trying to figure out what exactly it had been. I had reason to believe that it wouldn't have bothered me much had I seen anybody else collapse like that - somehow, yesterday had been different. The whole situation was completely incomprehensible. I had thought that I, after all those years, had figured out what life was all about, but evidently that wasn't the case.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to hate Bella for coming here in the first place and causing this entire mess or if I should be glad that she showed me that I might have been wrong all along. It certainly would be easier to hate her, but I wasn't sure if it was the right thing. That made it hard to make a decision and I figured that being as neutral as I could until I had come to a conclusion was probably my best shot. But as hard as I tried to stay impartial, my mind kept switching from one extreme to the other. I admired her one moment and detested her the next.
But I wasn't the only one who had changed since Friday. Alice had become awfully quiet. She sometimes still had little outbursts of quirkiness, but she was nowhere near as lively as she had been a few days ago. Finding out that she hadn't been able to foresee something like this happening had been hard on her. I knew that Jasper worried. He had never seen her laugh as little as she currently did and his sorrow pulled all of us down. Alice had cried several times over the past few days and that was something I had never witnessed before. It broke my heart to see her suffer like this.
Even Rosalie had changed. She didn't treat the people around her the same anymore. She was different. Politer. Friendlier. Only a few days, she had often seemed cold and she just loved snapping at people. Finding reasons for that it had always been one of her greatest talents. Towards her family, on the other hand, she had always been very respectful and loyal. I knew that she would give her life for each and every one of us. In that respect, we were very similar.
If she ever were to need help, she could definitely count on me - and I was sure that it would be the same vice versa. But as much as we secretly had each others' backs, we didn't usually get along very well. We were constantly squabbling and insulting each other and we had a long history of doing so. We had a love-hate relationship, but somehow, hate usually had the upper hand. It was as one would expect, really, as we both had a reputation for being exceptionally rude.
But as they so often did nowadays, my thoughts went back to Bella. As I said, I spent much of my time hating her, but in some special way, I liked her a lot. For the first time in decades I felt genuine compassion and I worried about her wellbeing. I wasn't sure if I should be more worried about caring about her so much about usually lacking sympathy. I wasn't sure what had caused me to become such a terrible person and maybe I didn't even want to know. There probably was some reason, whatever it might be.
Bella was an intriguing person. I knew that I wasn't the only one who felt that way - Alice had been obsessed with her ever she first saw her in one of her visions. But it seemed like she had a different effect on me. Maybe it was because I couldn't read her mind and because that made her very different form all the other people I had met during my lifetime. The only type of insight into her mind I had came from Jasper's thoughts. I knew how much she really suffered. I knew that she lived in constant fear. And still she somehow managed to upkeep a façade of perfect friendliness and courtesy. I was impressed with it.
It probably would have been much easier for her to be me more like Rosalie or me and to be ride and cold towards other people. To ignore what people thought of her and distance herself from her peers. But she didn't. Maybe it was because this was the way she was raised. Maybe she knew that people didn't like getting snapped at. Maybe it was because this was just what she was used to. Maybe she wanted to distance herself from rude people she didn't like. Or maybe she was just genuinely a good person. Ultimately, I didn't know, but I just couldn't stop thinking about it.
Maybe all of those things were reasons, but I wasn't sure if they were sufficient to explain her behavior. At least not in my eyes. She somehow was different. Already when I met her for the first time, I had sensed that she was special. Even before I had ever exchanged a single word with her. I had only gotten a short glimpse of her face and realized how it was strangely silent around her. It had taken me the fraction of a second to realize that I couldn't her thoughts. But there was more than just her differentness - she was extraordinary in other ways. I just still struggled to identify what exactly those were.
And the more I thought about her and the entire situation, the more time passed, the clearer it seemed that I had been right all along. She was special and deserved to be seen and treated accordingly. She deserved somebody who fulfilled every wish she had. But although she probably deserved it more than anybody else in the world, it seemed like there was nobody to treat her the way she should be treated. She seemed to be completely alone and that was just goddamn wrong. It was awful. It upset me.
Usually, I didn't care about anyone but my family, but somehow, Bella had changed that. I wasn't as indifferent as I usually was. I genuinely cared about her wellbeing. I still barely knew her. I had never really spent any time with her - partly because I had an irrational fear of hurting her. I knew that it would absolutely destroy me to know that my own stupidity somehow had made her suffering worse, so I tried to keep a distance. I didn't know what she thought of me - or if she even had given my persona much thought - but a surprisingly big part of me really wanted her to like me.
That part also wanted to do everything possible to make her notice and care for me. It also made me want to protect her, no matter what the cost. I wanted to keep her safe at all times - even though I knew that that was practically impossible or at least ethically questionable. And there was one more problem with spending a lot of time with Bella. It worried me.
Her blood. It had the sweetest scent I had ever smelled. It was the main reason why we had spent so little time in a room with each other. It was why I had been forced to disappear so suddenly after I encountered her in the entrance hall on Friday. Fleeing the room had been the only way of keeping the monster inside of me under control. I hated this side of me. The effect that her blood had on me hadn't really changed since then, although I wasn't taken aback by it as much anymore. However, I still preferred avoiding her over accidentally ending her life and I didn't expect that to change anytime soon. Keeping a distance would be my best option.
This made it really hard for me to protect her physically, but I still couldn't help keeping an eye on her. I was constantly watching the minds of those around her to make sure that she was doing okay. Of course, I knew that that probably wasn't the correct thing to do and that it most certainly hurt her privacy, but I just couldn't stop doing it. My brain was 100% convinced that something would happen the second I stopped paying attention. And I felt like I was slowly going crazy. I had never been a particularly paranoid person, but these days I was persistently fearing for Bella's life. I wasn't sure what it was, but something inside of me told me that she wasn't safe.
There were so many feelings I had never experienced before and I had no idea what to make of it. Where had they come from and what did they mean? Frankly, I was terrified, but I also knew that there probably wasn't much I could do against them. Taking big strides towards the future was my best bet, so that was what I was going to do.