Chapter Thirty Five
Bella
The next day I felt a little stronger and Lizzie, with the help of the stranger from the day before who I now recognized as one of Dr. Cullen's sons Jasper, helped me sit up propped by plenty of pillows. My head swam at first but it cleared after a few minutes leaving me with just a mild headache. The worrying thing was that I couldn't seem to focus properly on anything at a distance but I hoped that was just a short-term problem that would rectify itself.
I had managed some fruit juice and scrambled egg although the latter seemed to fill me up far too much. Now, I wanted to know more of what had happened to me and Lizzie was joined by Doctor Cullen again.
"We'll start from the top and you can fill in any gaps if you remember things."
I nodded aware that Jasper was back in his spot by the window listening as the Doctor began to speak.
"Your father told everyone that you had left Forks to live with relatives in Cleveland before the blizzards began. While setting up generators at the school there was an explosion and several men were killed, your father was one of them. He tried to tell me something about you, I like to think it was your whereabouts but he died before he could make himself understood. A little while later you were discovered by a deputy locked in the basement of the house you shared with your father and were airlifted along with the accident casualties to hospital in Seattle. The same hospital you absconded from. Is any of that familiar?"
I thought about it, I didn't know of any relatives in Cleveland and I was pretty sure I never left Forks although...I did have a vague memory of a cabin and lots of snow. I also saw a dark space, cold and frightening, that must have been the basement, a place I was terrified of because...then it hit me because I had been locked down there when I angered my dad and I seemed to do that a lot.
"I remember some of it."
I was unwilling to say too much until I knew the whole story and I looked to Lizzie as she began the rest of the story.
She told me about the phone call she received from me begging for her help when I woke up to find myself in hospital in Seattle. How I told her my dad had kept me prisoner in the basement of the house and in a cabin out in the wilds and slowly more memories returned.
"You came to help me, I remember talking to you in the hospital and then driving to...no, that's blank and apart from a few flashes of those strange but somehow familiar faces I don't remember anything else but there must be lots more surely? What else happened to me? Where did I go before the accident? There's a big chunk of time missing."
Just admitting to that was scary, I could feel tears welling up and struggled to hold them in, why was I so weak and emotional?
"Don't you remember anything after I left you?"
I closed my eyes and tried but the effort made me feel sick so I stopped, throwing up all over my bed wasn't something I could cope with right now. In fact, I was tired again, so tired that my head hurt and I closed my eyes once more.
Jasper
Lizzie and Carlisle left Bella to sleep but I knew she wasn't settled and probably wouldn't slip into a deep sleep. I didn't want her to wake up and find herself alone, besides I couldn't leave, it was as if a thin chain stretched between the two of us and I was sure Bella was as aware of my presence as I was of hers, even if she didn't understand it yet.
Seating myself beside her bed I watched as she began to move restlessly agitated by something only she was aware of. When her eyes flew open I saw panic in them and took her hand.
"It's OK Bella, you're safe here."
She pulled her hand away weakly before recognizing me and blushing.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was you, Jasper. Where's Lizzie?"
"She went to take a nap, she hasn't slept much since she got here."
"Neither have you, I remember seeing you here every time I opened my eyes, even when I wasn't sure who you were."
"What woke you? Something frightened you."
She hesitated then reached out for my hand again,
"It hit me suddenly that Renee is dead and right now I want her so badly. I miss my mom so much and now my dad is dead I'm all alone."
I waited, she hadn't finished speaking yet just pausing to collect her thoughts. Talking was something we all took for granted but the accident had made it more difficult for Bella to put into words what she was thinking.
"Do you know the craziest thing of all Jasper? I had no need to run away, Lizzie told me my dad was dead before I called her for help but neither of us knew it. If I hadn't run away I wouldn't have had the accident and I wouldn't be trapped here in this bed terrified of what problems I'll have to deal with. Does that make sense to you?"
"Yes, it does but you will recover from this and you don't need to worry about being alone. I...we're here for you."
She didn't miss my slip although she didn't question it.
"I'm very grateful for all you've done for me but like Lizzie you have your own lives to lead so I guess the sooner I can cope on my own the better for all of us."
She sounded frightened of the very thought of being alone but nothing I could say would persuade her that she would never be alone again, not yet.
"Let's take it one day at a time, shall we? You need to concentrate on small goals to start with and we're all here to help you."
"Then tell me what happened during those missing months Jasper, that would be a great help."
I settled back, still holding her hand which was shaking a little less now although it still felt as if the slightest pressure would crush it like a rose petal, and began to speak.
Bella
Why did I feel so much safer in Jaspers presence? I had no idea, I was just grateful it was him who filled in the gaps for me. He told me how Lizzie's friends had spirited me away to start a new life in Milwaukee as a receptionist in a law office. I didn't know anyone in Milwaukee and to my knowledge, I'd never even been there yet I could see he was telling me the truth. Apparently, I had enjoyed my job and volunteered at an animal shelter which I loved until I had been involved in an accident involving a truck. The driver told the police he thought I had been trying to save a stray dog or at least he'd seen one run across the road at the same time I did.
As I listened to his voice snippets of memory flashed back, a woman's face, an apartment I felt I knew, and something to do with dogs and a Christmas party! If not for the story about the shelter I might have thought I was going mad. Remembering was exhausting but I didn't want Jasper to stop talking, his voice curled around me like a warm embrace. My eyes began to droop and he tucked my hand back under the covers leaning over me to place a kiss on my forehead. IT was such an intimate gesture I should have been embarrassed but I wasn't, maybe I was too tired.
"I'll let you sleep Bella, there's plenty of time to hear more and you are still very weak."
I pulled my hand out and grabbed at him,
"Don't leave me, please."
"I won't leave you, Bella. I'll be here watching over you all the time, now sleep."
As if it had been a command I felt myself slipping away into the velvet darkness once more.
As he had promised, when I woke, he was there, our hands still joined and I smiled,
"You didn't leave me."
"No, I told you I wouldn't but now you are awake Carlisle wants to check on you and I know Esme is dying to visit."
Esme? She was Carlisle's wife and I remembered she was very sweet and kind to me when we had lived in Forks.
"I'd like to see her too."
"Then I'll let them know Sleeping Beauty is awake again."
I opened my mouth to complain but I kinda liked the idea of being an enchanted princess, especially if he was the Prince who woke me with true love's kiss, then blushed at my temerity. What was happening to me? I had to stop thinking about Jasper in that light, it was just plain stupid. The trouble was as soon as he disappeared I missed him and yearned for him to come back. Maybe this crazy way of thinking was all because I felt I owed my life to the Cullens. Once I was better it would fade, wouldn't it?
Over the next few days, I found myself with lots of visitors, Esme, Rosalie, Alice and the two other Cullen boys Edward and Emmett. Everyone was so kind and encouraging but I missed Jasper and Lizzie when they were absent.
Of course I had known Lizzie couldn't stay with me forever but she was my only link with my mom and for now, I needed that. Especially when Carlisle suggested I might, like to get out of bed for the first time. I had managed to sit up with a steadying hand but that's as far as I had gone. There had been plenty of embarrassing moments using a bed pan but as Esme pointed out to me, it was better than the alternative, a catheter and the like. What I didn't quite understand was the lack of other staff at this small hospital, the only people I saw were the Cullens and they did everything for me.
I was so weak it came as a shock to discover I couldn't stand unaided let alone walk. My legs didn't want to obey my orders and when Carlisle told me I would need to learn to walk all over again I burst into tears, not for the first or last time either!
"It will come back to you Bella and better that than not being able to speak or move at all."
It could have been so much worse I knew that but it didn't really help the frustration I now felt.
Walking wasn't the only thing I needed to relearn either, I couldn't hold a pen or even feed myself at first and felt like screaming when I dropped a spoon or fork. The only way I could safely handle a drink was in a lidded beaker and this really hurt until Rosalie came in with one that was molded to look like a puppy. At least I could smile at that although I heard a few ribald comments from Emmett about the spout being its tail!
Sometimes I found myself despairing that I would ever relearn these skills but slowly, far too slowly, I began to feed myself and the day I finally wrote my own name I shouted in triumph, like Jasper had said, small victories. Lizzie had to leave but I felt more confident, I trusted the Cullens to look after me and between them, Jasper and Esme had taken her place as my shoulders to lean on.