***
Edward drove me home the following morning. The air in his Volvo was stale; it didn't rain the previous night. The tires slid beneath us without the familiar sound of excess water, leaving it eerily quiet inside the car. His fingers drummed the steering wheel, the repetitive thrum dulling my senses and leaving us with the white noise we both needed. The sun shone through the windshield, aggressive against tired eyes. I felt hung over, though I wasn't. Edward looked hung over, though he wasn't. Even still, his eyes were laced with purple-black circles, and the pallor in his cheeks was whitewashed and pale.
He pulled up to my house and turned towards me, sweet words of thanks bubbling from his lips.
"I had a really great time," he said. I scowled, sure that that was supposed to be my line, not his.
"Yeah," was all I could offer in response. He paused, brow furrowed.
"Sorry, did you not have a good time or something?" It was then that I saw his insecurities, and excessive need for enforcement in everything that he said or did.
"No, I did. Really."
He smiled in relief.
"Good."
Esme's dress was wrinkled beyond repair due to the dance and to what happened afterward. I shuddered, ashamed by the fact that I couldn't even admit to my own mind what it is that had happened. Eager to be distracted from my still obvious faults, I traced my fingers over the deep, almost etched in wrinkles. The dress bunched around my waist, gathered there, revealing bare skin with leg hair that was beginning to grow in from early yesterday morning, which was the last time I shaved. Edward turned off the ignition and walked around to open my door.
I let him.
He dipped down and his lips brushed my own. They were chapped, and cracking slightly.
"I love you," he murmured.
"I love you," I murmured.
He walked me to the door, paused, kissed my cheek.
Charlie wasn't home. He was on duty. He was on duty for hours and hours and hours.
I used said hours and hours and hours to listen to the extremely dull voices of National Public Radio in a feeble attempt to lull myself to sleep. I didn't get hardly any sleep the night before; I spent the night reveling in a naked Edward. I felt his lines, muscles, curves, bones, skin. He slept deeply, soundly. Didn't hardly flinch, didn't hardly shiver, didn't hardly move. I felt sad for him; sad for his perfection, his beauty, his misunderstandings. I felt sad for myself, too. Because I knew that eventually I would have to lose him, because I was incapable of holding onto anything that I loved.
"I'll call you later, 'k?"
"'K."
He stopped for a moment, prepared to say something that he apparently decided against. I waited politely, and when he finally turned to leave I entered my house. I immediately fell asleep on the couch in Esme's dress. Every time I turned in my sleep the fabric swam around me, enveloping me in the blue, drowning me in the blue. When I woke up, the house was dark, and a light blanket was draped over me. I moved from the couch, rubbing tired eyes with fists and seeing the remnants of mascara create bruised smudges on my hands.
I trudged to bed and slept.
I didn't bother with school the next day, feeling too tired to go. I didn't even realize that I missed it until Edward called after the day ended, waking me up and asking me why I didn't show. I gave him some lame excuse, at which point he told me he'd call later about something I wasn't really listening to.
Whatever.
I finally changed out of the dress, leaving it in a crumpled heap on the bathroom floor as I showered. It was interesting, how beautiful I thought the garment was, until it looked like a rejected piece of fabric on the tile. I left it there, only to have my dad find it later, for him to cry into the fabric, and for him to hang it up in my closet, not realizing that I had borrowed it from Esme.
I didn't stay under the water for too long.
Charlie sat across from me, a cup of coffee clutched between his fingers.
The coffee cup read "World's Best Dad".
"I've got the night shift," he said, eyes tired and heavy.
"After your day shift?"
"We're short-staffed."
He didn't like staying home with me. That was his reason for constantly being at work. I brought him down, down, down, and he didn't know how to help—he didn't know what to do. I could tell, just by the lines in his forehead, the creases beneath his eyes, that he was tired of failing me, tired of trying and failing. So he stopped trying.
"Okay, well, um, okay."
He sighed, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes clenched, forehead furrowed.
"I'll be back soon. Really."
"I know. Really."
It wouldn't be until Charlie reached his office that he would realize he left his gun on the kitchen table.
Yeah.
I got a call from Edward two hours later, something about something I didn't care about. He was talking about homework (I picked up on it about five minutes in), going on and on about a class I missed. I figured he assumed he was helping me out, telling me about the class that I missed, trying to save my probably unsalvageable grade. I picked up the phone and brought it into the living room, turning on the TV only to see Drew Barrymore advertising Cover Girl with her stroke-victim smile.
"Bella, you there?" he asked; obviously I wasn't paying attention.
"Yeah, right, sure."
"So do you want me to come drop off the homework?"
"Oh, no, really, that's okay."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, well, let me at least tell you what it is. I mean, you're going to have to do it eventually, right?"
"Right," I lied, suddenly feeling hungry. I moved to the kitchen, warily eyeing the gun that Charlie left on the table. I debated calling him, but then decided that it would take too much effort, and I was already on the phone with Edward.
Edward shuffled around on the other end of the line. I didn't bother listening; instead I pushed magnets around the surface of the refrigerator with my fingertips. There were no pictures underneath the magnets; just a barren, vacant refrigerator.
"Okay, I've got the homework," Edward said. I was about to respond when a knock sounded at the door.
That was the last thing I remembered until I came to.
Screaming.
"Why are you screaming?" James cried. I blinked, gathering my bearings. I sat on the couch, the phone beside me. It blared the tone that signaled the recipient had long-since hung up, and I hadn't ended the call myself. Edward hung up on me? Wait, what?
"Why are you here? Where did you come from?"
"I knocked on the door and you like passed out or some shit, Jesus Christ!"
"What?"
"What do you mean, what?"
I stared at James. Somehow, I was just now truly registering what he was, who he was, what he looked like. He was ugly; eyes disproportionate to nose disproportionate to ears. Hair too long and shaggy, making him look like a confused sheepdog. Clothes mismatched and arms too gangly, legs too gangly. He stared at me like I was a psychopath, disproportionate eyes even more disproportionate due to their increased size, dark brown green gold blue purple red eyes.
"I was in the kitchen."
"You were in here, there is where you were."
"I don't understand."
"There's nothing to understand!" he shrieked.
I looked out the window. Nothing was abnormal; the sky was cloudy, the lawn green, the tree swaying slightly in the wind, the street silent, the neighbors indoors. I looked to the kitchen. The gun sat, waiting, on the kitchen table. Yeah.
I stood up and he took a step towards me.
"Don't touch me," I warned. And, oh, that set him off. His eyes, multi-colored, multi-faceted, turned only to the solid color of a red demon, completely clear of his hair. He took another step toward me, backing me into the wall. I felt the cold, hard, solidity of the wall behind me. Nowhere to go, nowhere to turn to.
"That's what it always is with you, isn't it? Don't touch me; don't touch me, wah wah wah, what a baby." His lip had a snarl. I never noticed it before. It pulled up in one corner, only one, not the other. It showed his bloody red gums disproportionate to yellow teeth disproportionate to jaw size. No longer was this the James that I knew, no, this was someone completely different. Someone I didn't understand, someone who was quickly spiraling out of control, quickly taking me over.
"Back off," I said with no conviction.
"That's all I ever do with you, Little B. I back off. Now there's nowhere to back off to, is there?"
He pushed me into the wall, shoulder bone reverberating on the hardness. His touch was cold, fingers like ice.
"Don't touch me," I said again, speaking to his fingers, fingers cold as death.
"I'm not touching you."
It felt like the world was caving in on top of me, strangling me, killing me.
"You are touching me," I cried. I felt the pressure, I felt the bruises, I felt the marks, I felt the burns, I felt his fingers on my skin, touching me and violating me even though I tried, I tried, to get him to stop. But he wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop. He couldn't stop because he wasn't actually touching me. His hands were at his sides, balled into fists, away from my skin.
But I felt him there, on top of me, in me.
"Please stop! Just stop!"
"Little B, I'm not touching you." But he didn't take a step back. Instead, he took a step forward. I could feel him surrounding me, his presence surrounding me, and I knew right then that I had lost everything.
"Please." I sunk down to the floor, clutching my hair, imagining myself in a place that I wasn't. Yet, I didn't imagine that I was with anyone. I imagined that I was alone; completely alone. No one was with me and it was peaceful. There was no risk, no imminent downfall. It was just me, and I could handle it because I was completely alone, and it was beautiful.
And then I was pulled back into the darkness.
I imagined that he hit me, punched me, pushed me. I didn't know who it was, but I knew there were hands, so many hands all over me and I couldn't stop them. It was as if my body wasn't mine anymore, but it was anyone else's who wanted something from it. I was completely and utterly detached, looking down on myself being bruised and battered, my skin marked and marred.
"But Little B, I love you."
And he didn't sound so much like James anymore, but like someone I used to know; someone from a distant memory that I couldn't quite place.
"Know that I will always love you, no matter where I am."
And it didn't make sense, what he was saying. It didn't make sense because it wasn't true.
And then I felt warm hands on me.
And then I felt them rejuvenate me.
And then I heard a different voice, a subtle voice, growing louder and louder the harder I listened.
"Bella, Bella. Come on, come on; don't do this to me. Please, please, don't do this to me."
I didn't understand. I couldn't remember doing anything. I didn't know what was going on, what was real and what was not. All of these things I couldn't determine.
"Bella please, please, please." And then the voice grew quieter. "Yes, there's been an emergency. No, I can't… no I've tried. Why aren't you listening to me? Yes, yes, I need help here now. Okay. Okay. Okay."
I opened my eyes but there was only darkness. I tried to see but I couldn't. It was like being in a thick forest with walls of trees. The canopies over my head let in no light, but I knew that there was sun above them. I just had to reach the sun, and then there would be light, and then I would be able to see. But I couldn't quite reach it.
"Bella, Bella, please just wake up. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."
I couldn't even hear him anymore.
He was drifting away from me.
No, he wasn't the one drifting.
I was the one drifting, leaving him behind.
*
I woke up on my couch.
My neck was sore from lying in the same position for too long, and my teeth felt fuzzy and gross. I squinted at the harsh light above my head, involuntarily turning my head to the side and thus making my neck hurt. A drooling mouth wet the edge of the couch. It was Edward. He was in the state of sleep where his eyes were mostly closed, except for a thin line of white with flickering lids. I pushed him awake with my foot.
He woke with a start.
"Bella." He looked intensely relieved, and I had no idea why.
"That's me?"
"Thank God you're okay." Thank Him? And… why? He kissed my forehead.
"What happened?"
"Bella, I swear," he sighed. "You passed out. Bella, you hadn't eaten in over 24 hours. Why the fuck would you do that? I just… I don't understand."
My eyes widened. I didn't know. I didn't remember. I didn't remember to eat, I didn't remember what happened, I didn't remember where James went –
"Where did James go?"
That made him pause, stop, think. He furrowed his brow and looked to the side.
"Charlie?" he called out for him. Charlie walked in shortly after, his face set in a frown.
"Oh Bella, you're okay."
He didn't touch me.
"We have to tell her Charlie. We can't not tell her."
"But Edward, she just woke up."
"Tell me what?" I interjected. "What's going on?" My voice rose in pitch, hurting even my own ears.
"Are you going to tell her then?" Charlie challenged Edward, who was clearly quite determined.
"If you don't want to Charlie then yes, I will."
Charlie was very unhappy with this. He scowled and stared at the floor.
"But she's just getting better," he said timidly.
They were talking like I wasn't in the room. I hated it.
"Someone please tell me what is going on?" I begged.
"Bella." Edward grasped my hands and spoke in a way that acted as though someone I knew had died. "You were asking about James… James, Bella, just hear me out okay?" I nodded. "James… he isn't real."
***
Thankz to revrag for betaing
Ya