Chapter 21

I found my own true love was on a blue Sunday
She looked at me and told me
I was the only one in the world
Now I have found my girl
My girl awaits for me in tender time
My girl is mine, she is the world
She is my girl

- "Blue Sunday", Jim Morrison and The Doors

The pain in my chest is indescribable as I force myself to drive away from her.

Leaving Bella is the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than being without my parents, harder than living with my uncle, harder than taking a life, because she is everything.

Hearing her screaming, sobbing, fucking clawing at the car as I drove away will haunt me forever even after she's made her way back to me.

And her yelling out at me, calling me a liar. That fucking cuts me, rips my heart.

But I know that she's got a better chance of getting back to me this way, and I have to have faith that she'll realize I'm right, that everything I do is for her.

For now though, I can't think about that. I have to worry about getting away from this fucking cop so I can be found once she figures it out. And I know she will. She's so fucking clever, my Bella.

After about ten minutes of high speed driving, the siren behind me grows louder and rings in my ears as it follows me down this lone stretch of highway that I've trapped myself on. I know what I have to do, and for the millionth time since I left her monstrously at the side of the road, I wish my fucking beautiful Bella were with me. She'd fucking ace this.

I grab the shotgun from the floor of the passenger side and brace the shaft against the seat's backrest, aiming towards the rapidly approaching car behind me. It's at an awkward angle, not to mention I'm working with one eye. I know I won't do any real damage, but I have to make an attempt. I also know I have to let it get closer. My foot eases off the gas pedal, and the car slowly decreases speed, waiting for the one behind to gain on me.

Once I can see the definition in the face of the driver in the rearview, I pull the trigger with my right hand and continue steering with the left. Even at the odd angle and with a partially blind glance behind me, what I was hoping for happens. I've hit the car enough that it sends it careening and swerving on the road, kicking up dust and smoke from the burning rubber of the tires that spin out of control.

I watch the car zigzag behind me; smoke coming from the hood and front tires, and it veers into the uneven, prickly brush on the side of the highway at an alarming speed. I slow and see the car hit some sort of ditch as the nose dips and jumps up immediately after, bottoming out and coming to a quick halt.

I slam my hand down on the dashboard and yell; excited it went as well as it did. I turn to the passenger seat and talk to Bella, fantasizing for a moment that she's there with me.

"We did it, baby! We did it!" I rub the cloth seat next to me as I would if it were her bare leg beneath my hand, dying that it isn't.

I smile for a bit until I let the ruse end that she isn't here with me, that she's somewhere on the side of the road or already picked up by police because of my decision to leave her. The realization that I don't know, probably won't know what's happened to her, makes my stomach lurch in pain and before I can stop it, I lean my head over the side of the door and vomit while trying to keep the car from joining the fucking cop in a ditch. I clear my head and erase any uncertainty because I will find out; she'll come to me.

I can't stay on this road with the threat of a roadblock before me more than fucking likely the closer I get to what the map says is US 57, about thirty miles ahead. The road is straight and flat so I can see pretty far in front of me, but after twenty minutes, I figure my luck is running out and when I approach a small dirt trail on the left I turn, slowing the car to a crawl so as not to pick up dust behind me in case there's more cops on their way.

Driving through the rubble and wild vegetation on the earthy road, I'm relieved it seems to have been unused for some time. I come to a rundown house, its shutters hanging off the window hinges and the overgrown grass telling me no one has been here for a while. Again, I think of Bella. Bella and the abandoned house where I finally gave in and fucking touched her, owned her like I'd been wanting to for so long. Like she owned me. It still enrages me that she thought I didn't want her when she was standing in front of the mirror in that room, so unsure. I've always wanted her. It floors me that she didn't fucking know.

I pull around the side, looking out over the sizeable land in front of me. Ditching the car way off in the distant fields seems like a good idea, they appear to be unoccupied too, as they're also wild and thick. Searching around the house, I find what I'm looking for. There's a decaying hose hanging from a rusty well near the porch and I get out, twisting the knob hard until it gives. The water rushing out is brown and murky at first, until it finally runs in a cool, clear stream.

Pulling off my shirt, I run the water over my chest and face, rubbing at the dried blood and dirt, careful to leave the gauze over all three wounds dry because Bella would tell me to be careful. I take off my sneakers and blood soaked jeans, throwing them onto Bella's seat, before hosing down my legs and wiping as much blood from my sneakers as I can. The black canvas of my Converse doesn't reveal much, and the white rubber sole cleans up well, but the shoelaces are done for so I unlace them and toss them on top of my bloody jeans.

I dry off quickly with another shirt, all the time keeping an ear out for a siren that could pierce the air at any moment. Glancing to the fields behind me, I think about my plan so I drive naked out into the middle of an overgrown patch of weeds, far from the view of the road. Being naked in the car makes me think of Bella, laid out before me on top of the backseat in that other convertible. My heart twinges.

I rummage through the items that I dumped out from our bag earlier and start to shove the contents into the backpack. I tug on a clean-ish pair of jeans and my Doors t-shirt, Bella never leaving my mind as I pack.

I agonize over leaving her things, her shirts and underwear, jeans and toiletries, but I'm fucking smart enough to not be caught travelling with them. I chuck everything of hers into the seat with the bloody jeans and shoelaces, but I pause and lose my shit as my hand grabs her wedding dress. I stand staring at it for longer than I know I should. Bringing it to my face I inhale, smelling her and filling my lungs with her. My dick hardens, as it has every time I've thought of her since the first day we ate lunch together.

I want to rub my cock against the material, she was so fucking perfect standing there in Jasper and Alice's house, pledging herself to me, giving all of herself to me, and I know I can't get rid of it. I shove it down to the bottom of the bag and stuff my clothing on top, over the brown envelopes and bottles of water, shutting it closed with a loud zip.

After ramming the map in my back pocket and putting the ammo and gun on the ground, I gather the bloody knife that still lays on the floor, the first aid kit, the garbage bag, anything at all that remains in the car with either of our fingerprints, and push it all into a pile in the front seat, putting the bloody clothing and shoelaces on top. I rethink the CD and pull that out, and I see the camera in the mix and grab it also, trying to convince myself that the pictures on here won't be the only images I have left of her.

Pulling out my lighter, I flick it open with a metal snap and dismantle it, tapping any remaining lighter fluid onto the pile I've amassed. With one pause, one moment of hesitation about fucking burning everything that exists of her, I turn the edge of my lighter towards the paper bag and watch as the corner catches the flame.

The pile goes up quickly, and I stay long enough to see the dashboard start to melt, the blood from the cloth on the seat burn away, and all of my Bella's belongings turn to red-hot embers.

Grabbing the gun and ammo, I walk away from the burning car, and with one last thought, reach for the cell I stuffed in my pocket and toss it on top of the fire. I take a cigarette out of my pack and hold it down towards the denim mini skirt that's burning hotly in the bonfire, my arm feeling the intense heat and making the hairs curl. Once it's lit I inhale deeply, sucking Bella into my lungs, before pulling myself from the car and making my way across the gnarled, abandoned countryside.

I walk for two hours. Driving at my normal, fast speed would've taken me about another twenty minutes to get to the border, but I'm staying off US-277 and picking my way through undeveloped landscapes and wandering down dirt trails. I avoid any sign of activity, small gatherings of houses here and there. By my estimation, I have another hour or two to go.

My entire life with Bella plays in a loop within my brain, and I get lost, remembering her smile as she lay under me when I outlined her eyes and how she felt my uncontrollable lust for her for the first time. I can still see her body stretching out naked before me, letting me consume her completely, but mostly I remember just being with her. Driving next to her, holding her, singing with her.

Eventually it gets too dark to see, and it would seem sketchy to cross into Mexico at night anyway, so I stop where I am and slide under some bushes. I keep the shotgun close in case some fucking animal decides I'm dinner, but holding the shotgun to protect myself makes me feel like a prick.

I've always protected her, not myself. Everything is for her, was for her, will be for her.

I was a goner the first time I noticed her. Beautiful in her fury, voracious in her hatred, overwhelming in her interest in me when she thought I didn't notice. I've killed for her happily, to keep her by my side where she belongs…where she's always belonged, before I even knew she existed.

My eyes close and I think about the fact that I stood outside her trailer night after night, ready to fucking cock punch Mike Fucking Newton if he showed up again after stabbing him in the hand. I berate and hate myself because it didn't matter anyway. I wasn't there the night she needed me. She said she was happy things went the way they did, but if I had been there, maybe we'd have still have left together, but Bella wouldn't be a killer like me.

Pain lights up my gut like wildfire and if I had anything in my stomach, it would be spewed all over the dirt. I couldn't protect Katie, but that guilt feels miniscule compared to the guilt I feel that Bella had to take care of Mike Fucking Newton alone. I should've cut off his goddamned hands when I lunged into that trailer and hung them from my neck like a warrior. The hands that touched my girl. My life. I'll never let her be alone and scared again.

I grit my teeth, punch my head, and rip at my hair because here I lay, hundreds of miles from her doing exactly that. I can't protect her; I don't know where she is. I don't know what's happened to her. Hell, I don't even know if she's decided that I'm fucking repulsive and worthless and is now disgusted by me.

I hope she doesn't ever doubt my goddamn need for her like I'm doing right now.

I feel helpless, but I can't do anything for her but this. Remaining free and keeping my promise to just fucking be there when she figures it out.

I tell myself it's the only way to make sure she's mine forever.

I look up at the night sky, speckled with shiny pricks of light as I rub the tattoo on my ring finger, and even though it's a fucking chick cliché, I do wonder if she's looking up at the same sky, either thinking of me with sangre in her veins or hatred in her heart.

I spend an hour the next morning burying the shotgun and ammo with my bare hands. I've got Bella's wedding dress tied around my head to ward off the sun that's beating down as I stamp down the earth and leave to continue my walk. I know I should've used one of the white t-shirts, but having her wrapped around my brain is comforting, she's holding me in. I talk to her as I go, telling her about my folks, and about the life we'll have. Simple. Painless. Happy.

Even though the main goal now is to get to where Bella will find me, I'm still anxious to find my parents, and I relive every detail they made me learn as I walk. I know where they are supposed to be…but Bella's fucked up need for reality has invaded me and I try to keep the doubts at bay. When I'm not thinking of Bella, I think of a reunion with the other two people I love.

I know I'm getting close to the border when more houses pop up, and I have no choice but to venture out onto the main road. Since this is a trip I've been planning since I was ten, I know every single major border crossing in Texas and have a pretty good idea what to expect. I hadn't planned on not having a fucking car, but it works out that I had decided on crossing with Bella at Piedras Negras anyway, because you can walk across the country line there on one of the two international bridges as a tourist to go shopping in Mexico for the day. Fucking beautiful.

Arriving at the town of Eagle Pass, I enter the first rest stop I come to and attempt to clean myself up in the bathroom of the dirt and grime that's covered me in my trek, so I don't look like the fucking fugitive that I am. Those two words make me smirk and shake my head. Like father like son, I guess.

I put on my cleanest, least wrinkled shirt, try to tame my hair with water from the sink, and brush my teeth with the travel packet I bought from the machine in the little store. I skip the eyeliner, thinking it best to just look like Joe All-American out to buy some cheap Tequila for his frat buddies. Happy to get one more spark out of my lighter, I smoke a cigarette before making my way to the border. I shuffle my passport and ID to the front of the backpack so I don't have to dig around to open it fully, hoping they're satisfied with just seeing my paperwork. I don't really have anything questionable, a knife or two, which they'd just confiscate, and the money, but I figure it's best to just have it readily available. I decide not to get the stupid form required to re-enter the U.S. as I'm not planning to fucking do so once Bella returns to me.

I walk about ten minutes until I see the buildings that house border control, and there's a line of cars waiting to be allowed passage. There are cops and dogs walking from car to car, but I keep my eyes peeled straight ahead, following behind an older Mexican couple with some bags, obviously returning from getting some shopping done on the U.S. side.

Even though I've researched it, I'm surprised it's as…simple as it is. The bridge has lanes for cars and a pedestrian walkway much like you'd see on any highway overpass. Right before the bridge starts to cross over the Rio Grande, the tollbooth looms ahead and I take a deep breath, anticipating and planning different scenarios in my head. I watch the couple ahead of me from my lagging distance and all they do is pull out some money. No paperwork is asked for or offered.

It can't be this fucking easy.

I walk towards the booth and put a smile on my face when I stop at the toll window. The woman inside looks at the white bandage over my eye for a second, but then just tells me the charge of fifty cents is required to pass.

I give her a buck and she gives me change. That's it.

I glance quickly over to other side, the side that allows passage from Mexico to the U.S. and there seems to be more people waiting there, showing documentation.

I guess they don't really care what kind of fucker is going in. I shake my head a little and walk with my bag slumped over my shoulder casually, holding my breath as the plaque in the middle of the bridge signals my entry into Mexico.

Immediately there's a huge sign welcoming me to Piedras Negras and shops with tourists walking in and out, but I distance myself a bit and stand by a wall, pulling out a cigarette and trying to use my lighter which is now out of fluid.

I curse, and some guy offers me a match, so I lean down and take the biggest inhale I can to calm my nerves. He's standing there with a couple of bags, watching a woman take pictures of some kids in front of a fountain.

"So," I begin, trying to sound casual, "they're not too strict with checking ID, huh?"

The guy with the matches smirks. "Getting back into the U.S. isn't as easy. But if you're going farther than ten or twenty miles in, you might get asked for your FMM at an immigration checkpoint."

"Right, thanks," I walk away from him and decide taking a bus is out, as I don't plan on going near any immigration officials.

I leave the square immediately, in search of a detailed map of Mexico. Hitchhiking it is.

It's time to get to Playa de Sangre. For Bella, my wife.

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From the planetblue Archive of Awesome Fic List:

The Red Eye by badjujube

It's important for any private investigator to maintain a good relationship with local law enforcement and it's representatives. Therefore, I am always cooperative and polite with Chief Swan. Also, I try not to drink his daughter Bella's blood.

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