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Even the Best Fall Down Sometimes

I woke up disoriented and with my head pounding like a kettledrum. In time with every single beat of my too-loud heart, the pressure behind my eyes pulsed angrily, and sharp, throbbing pangs that felt as though I were being stabbed by hot fire pokers shot through my temples.

I couldn't remember the last time it'd been this bad.

Groaning, I twisted to turn on my side, hoping in vain that some change in position would alleviate the pain. As I moved, however, the inside of my forearm caught on something and suddenly, every single inch of exposed skin ignited. My eyes flew open, only to instantly close again when the too-bright light from the room nearly blinded me with a kaleidoscope of crimson and orange. That pressure behind my eyes blossomed into outright agony, obliterating the momentary inferno on my skin.

"Fuck, fuck… fuck," I groaned, rolling on my back again, slinging my other arm over my eyes in some effort to block out the light that still shined bright red behind my lids.

Just talking hurt, I realized. Even though my mouth was cotton-dry and unwilling to allow anything more than a hoarse rasp, it was still too loud. My throat was raw, and every time I flexed my jaw, pain radiated deep and through my teeth. It felt as though I'd been punched in the face. Repeatedly.

Wincing, I took a shallow breath through my nose to avoid moving my face. All I could smell was the stench of dried sweat mingled with the sickening sweetness of stale scotch. It was seeping out through my pores. I could taste it even – that and the sourness of stomach acid.

I smelled like shit. The taste in my mouth made me want to vomit. My head was exploding. My arm was on fire again. And when I took a silent self-inventory, noting all of the other places that protested when I dared to move – my back, my shoulder, my ribcage – I realized that I hurt. Everywhere.

For a long moment, I lay there, dazed, sick, and hurting, not really knowing why. I only knew that judging by the smell, I'd fucked up. Exactly as I had known I would.

An ache that had nothing to do with my physical well-being settled deep in my bones.

Minutes later, still lost in my misery, something soft, cool, and damp lightly brushed across my forehead, startling me and making my whole body jump off the cushion. My muscles locked when a hand gently pushed my shoulder down, and then I heard the voice that I knew would crush me.

"Are you going to be sick?" she quietly asked.

I didn't answer at first. I couldn't because a lump appeared in my throat and a balloon expanded inside of my ribcage. Instead of speaking, my eyes squeezed tightly together and my lower lip trembled.

"Edward?"

Barely above a whisper, I finally managed, "No."

The damp cloth made another circuit over my forehead. "Are you sure?"

A little louder, but still whispering, I muttered, "Yeah, I'm sure. I think I've already done enough of that."

As much as it hurt to do so, I slowly lifted myself up, sliding into a tired, sprawling slouch against the cushion at my back. Squinting and grimacing against the light, I forced my eyes open, ignoring the unrelenting throbbing of my head and neck.

Half blind and hungover, it took me a moment to comprehend that somehow I was on my couch, most likely not a result of my own efforts. Incapable of lifting my eyes, already knowing what I'd see, I instead focused on the floor, taking in all of the evidence of my failure and humiliation: balled up towels, a half-empty bottle of Gatorade, the trash can from the hallway bathroom, an open first aid kit.

The fire in my arm suddenly made sense, and when my gaze slid to my lap, I saw the white gauze loosely circling my arm, wrist to elbow. Brown-red splatter, dark underneath the white, showed where I'd been cut the deepest.

"I couldn't change it while you were asleep."

"Passed out," I mumbled, staring at the tiny squares in the thread pattern.

"What?" she asked. I noticed that Bella had moved to the chair across from me – away from me. Even though I refused to look up, the weight of her eyes was enough to send me into a tailspin.

Picking at a loose thread, I spoke the truth that she chose not to address. "You don't have to sugar coat for my sake. I wasn't asleep, Bella. You and I both know that. I passed out."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Even though she didn't speak, I could feel her appraising me, judging me, deeming me what I already knew I was. Mortified, scarlet warmth climbed my neck, lighting my cheeks, yet I wouldn't dare insult her by offering some excuse. There was none. After three and some odd weeks of sobriety, I knew that much.

"I'm sorry," I blurted, squeezing my fists against the silence I couldn't stand anymore.

"I know."

Her voice was so quiet that I almost didn't hear.

Shaking my head, I huffed in aggravation, "You always say that when I fuck up."

Bella didn't answer immediately, and I was left wondering, waiting for her to realize and see and send me packing. Instead, all I heard was the creak of leather when she shifted in her chair.

Finally, just when I was on the brink of losing my goddamned mind, in a too-soft voice that pinned my back to the cushion, she said, "Then what? What do you want to hear?

"I don-" I started to say, but she didn't give me a chance to speak.

"That I'm happy about finding you like that? Or that I'm not angry at you for scaring me? Because I am.

"There's no way that I'm telling you that I think everything is okay. It's not... You're not fine, Edward, even though I understand why… But I don't know just how much I should say to you. It's not like I'm some expert! Just because I know some–…" She sounded so frustrated… with herself, with me, with everything. But mostly with me. "Even if I were… I can't make you do anything you don't want to do. I can't force you…"

Bella paused, as if gathering herself, and there was another creak of leather. I glanced up for just a moment. My chair swallowed her, making her look small and frail. As if contemplating her words, her eyes were closed, the hollows beneath darkened by missed hours of sleep. There were lines across her forehead, and her lips were mashed and straight. As my focus again dropped, I couldn't help but notice ten slender fingers laced together, squeezing tightly enough that her knuckles were white.

"I don't know if you see just how sick you are," she whispered. "How you're going to kill yourself if you don't find a way to stop. If you can't find a way to deal with what happened."

I flinched as if struck, but I couldn't seem to find my tongue to correct her. Instead, I could only gape at the floor, trying to recover while only halfway hearing the rest. My head pounded a hard, No, no, no, despising the image that I wouldn't forget until the day I died – a pale, slim wrist marred by sadness and grief.

"Not like I did," Bella went on, waving at empty air, as if she somehow knew the tenor of my thoughts, as if she could hear my silent incredulity and horror. "Just slowly. Over time. That is what you're doing to yourself because you can't forgive yourself."

"I– but… It's not," I stammered, fumbling over words I couldn't form.

Cutting me off again, but still in that so-soft voice that unnerved me so much more than if she'd yelled, she pushed, "Do you want me to tell you that I wish more than anything that you'd talk to someone? That I wish that you'd try to get some help? And I don't mean that idiot therapist who just drugged you up years ago. I mean someone who actually knows what they're doing.

"Is that what you want me to say, Edward? What should I be saying to you right now? What do you want to hear?"

I swallowed, hating the sharp edge of tired anger simmering beneath her words. I didn't know what to think, how to face this side of her – a harder, bitter side that I hadn't quite seen before. I didn't know how to respond to her questions either, not because I didn't want to, but because I just didn't know the answer.

Maybe I expected her to yell. Or maybe I expected her to tell me what my father always told me. Or maybe what I told myself.

"I don't know," I breathed, roughly shoving my hand through my hair.

She sighed and I could hear the anger bleeding into sorrow. "Do you want to talk? About what happened at the hospital?"

Hesitating, still reeling from her quiet rant, I traced a figure eight on the couch cushion beside me, considering how to even begin to tell her things I didn't know myself.

"Not really…"

"Ed–"

There was that edge again, that frustration and anger, so much worse coming from her. Years of ingrained defense kicked in, making my palm smack the couch and my mouth snap a hard response before I could stop it. "Goddamn it, Bella! No, I don't want to talk. I don't remember, okay?"

I wasn't sure which one of us recoiled first, but the room went deathly still. Hearing the heat that she didn't deserve, my shoulders sagged, and the pounding in my head marched in double time.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." My fingers jammed into the tops of my thighs. "I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at me, okay. I'm just so pissed off… at me… not you. Never you."

Lifting my face to the ceiling, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, reaching for some semblance of calm. Of all the people to snap at, I chose her, the one person who didn't deserve any of this, because I was so goddamned disgusted and angry with myself.

I looked at her then and saw the sadness that I'd put there. "It's not that I don't want to tell you… I just… don't remember all of it."

She nodded slowly, as if I hadn't just yelled at her at all. "What do you remember?"

"Just bits and pieces," I answered, my voice sinking as I sifted through images and sounds that felt more like broken dreams than memories.

"Dad? I think I'm just… going to go… home," I finally managed, still staring at the name that caused my insides to twist and writhe. I needed to go. I needed to leave before I collapsed then and there on the hospital floor. I needed to escape before I managed to undo everything, before he could see me fall. While I still had at least a little dignity and while his last memory would be of something other than me fucking up for once.

"Edward? Are you all right?"

No. No, I'm not, I wanted to scream, but instead I just nodded and turned on my heel, asking him to tell Mom that I'd try to come back later, that I was tired.

He looked at me strangely, as though he wanted to say something more, but reluctantly chose to remain quiet. "I'll- okay, I'll see you later, son. Drive safely."

That was the last coherent conversation I had, that I could remember. Staring down at Bella's tennis shoes dangling off the chair, I tried to dredge up whatever else I could, to find the pieces that led me from there to here, but my memory, eaten away by the numbness I'd sought, was now little more than a blurred collection of fragments in time.

In the parking lot, my heart slamming into my chest… my lungs squeezing and clenching for air…

The hum of an engine… twin yellow lines jumping off the pavement… the tingling rush of speed and acceleration through turn after turn until the screech of brakes on gravel…

The slam of a car door… mist hitting my face and wet dew splattering tan leather dark… the thump of shoes on wood and then the squeak of the screen door's hinges…

Catching the light from the overhead fixture, in and out of focus, a shiny gold label… the smoothness and coolness of crystal in my hand…

Burning and spices and finally nothing… sweet, blessed numbness that blocked out everything else and stilled my trembling…

Somewhere hidden in the back of my mind, I heard Bella's voice, snippets of anxious words and phrases that I had no hope of actually recalling. I'd been too drunk, too far gone to remember now.

"Why- why did you come here?" I rasped, forcing my head up to look at her again, to meet whatever I deserved from her.

"You didn't call," she said simply, her shoulders shrugging as if her answer made all the sense in the world. "I was worried about you."

"How long?"

Her head tilted, as if not following. "How long what?"

Licking dry, cracked lips, I slowly asked again, "How long have you been here?"

"Since around lunch."

Outside through the window, red and yellow leaves fluttered past the glass, bright in the afternoon sun. It was a rare autumn day with no rain and only a few cottony clouds.

It didn't make sense. At all.

"What time is it now?"

She looked over my shoulder. "Your clock says almost four."

I nodded stupidly, trying to process what she was telling me. It felt as though I were trying to add two and two and coming up with three instead of four.

"Since lunch… yesterday."

Yesterday. That one word hit me like a wrecking ball, harder than anything else she'd said. Immediately, as though kicked in the stomach, my body crumpled and folded forward, my head hung low, barely managing to prop myself up on my knees. My chest felt as though a lead-weighted anvil had been placed square in the middle, left there to slowly crush me, to push out all of my air and crack my bones.

I should have realized, but for some reason my mind hadn't accepted what had been perfectly obvious from the moment I woke up. She'd been here for hours. All night and all day. She'd seen everything. She'd dealt with everything. With me. Alone.

"But how did you-?" I blurted, unsure of what I was even asking.

She finished for me. "Get in?"

"Yeah," I panted out, unable to find any air.

"You'll need to have your window replaced." Bella smiled a small, sad smile as she fingered the edge of her t-shirt – one of my t-shirts, stained with my blood, I vaguely noted.

Shell-shocked, hearing an echo of shattering glass – a dim memory – I could only stare mutely.

It was Bella who looked down then, uncertain and wavering, before gently shaking her head.

"Like I said… you didn't call. When I…" She started and stopped, her attention briefly turning toward the kitchen behind me. And then as if that one look released the dam, words came pouring out so quickly I struggled to keep up. "You didn't pick up your cell… And I called at least three or four times. I knew about the hospital… I was afraid of what happened… and I just was… worried about you." I watched her hands wring. "And then you wouldn't come to the door when I knocked. Your car was there, so I knew and I just…

"When I looked through the window, there was a puddle of scotch and broken glass on the floor and there was… blood on the counter. I could only see your legs… you were just… laying there…" Her eyes bore into mine. They were shining and even across the room, I could see the moisture pooled on her bottom lids, threatening to spill. "I… didn't know. It scared me. So I just… had to..."

"I'm sorry," I repeated for the thousandth time, closing my eyes and flexing my hand, feeling an almost satisfying jab of pain, inside and out. I deserved so much more than that.

"I know," she said again. "I know you are, Edward. But-"

"I tried," I stammered, feeling my heart fly, battering against my lungs.

"Tried what?"

I flexed my arm again to feel the burn on my skin. "To stop. For three and a half fucking weeks…"

"Why?" she asked, and the question hung in the air, defying gravity.

Lowly and ashamed, I murmured, "Because I wanted to be enough... I want to be enough…"

"Be enough for what?" Bella groaned, frustration eating through her calm exterior. "I don't get–"

I dropped my head and palmed the back of my neck. "For you. You shouldn't have seen this. You shouldn't have to deal with this. I don't want you to. It's… just…it's so fucking ha–"

"Edward, you can't–"

"I'll try again."

"What? Why–"

"I love you, okay?"

My head whipped up, panicked because the words I'd fought to hide were loose, spoken without my permission and now echoing in the silence. My chest throbbed in time with the hammer in my head.

Taking a deep breath, softly, I went on, pretending as though I couldn't see the disbelieving look on her face, "I shouldn't. I should leave you alone so that I don't hurt you again." I closed my eyes, feeling recalled droplets of water falling and splashing on my face and behind my closed lids, I saw the now invisible tracks of those shed tears, streaking her pale cheeks dark.

She opened her mouth as if to dispute me. With a firmness that came from somewhere I couldn't comprehend, I added, "And don't tell me I didn't, Bella. Don't say that. I know I fucked up and I know that I managed to hurt you in the process, not just scare you. I do remember that much. I remember you crying. Because of me… I hurt you. Just like I knew I would… You just… shouldn't have to deal with my fucked up shit."

I sighed as a stab of pain in my chest threatened to split me open. "I should stay away from you…I know I should…" I confessed, halfway to myself, the resignation bitter on my tongue. "But God help me, I can't. I don't want to. Ever.

"Tell me to leave you alone, Bella. Tell me to fuck off and I will."

My gaze again fell to the floor, unable to bear whatever I'd see in her eyes or in her face. Pity. Revulsion. God only knew.

"No, I won't tell you that," she whispered back. "I love you, too."

There was a sharp pant of air, and my head shook back and forth in my hands, stunned and unbelieving, loathing and loving the words I'd stupidly, selfishly wanted to hear. Horrified by the implications, by the knowledge that I had no fucking idea what I was doing, my hands trembled, even as a warmth I hadn't felt in so very long spread through my aching body.

"You can't say that!" I sputtered, begging her to take it back, scared of what it meant if I failed again.

Bella slowly stood up. She crossed the feet between us, coming close enough that I had to lift off my knees so that she could stand between them. Lips parted into a small smile, her fingers wound through my hair and gently tilted my face up to look at her, holding my head steady so that I couldn't turn away.

"I love you, too," she repeated. "Don't hide from me. Let me help you."

For a long moment, we just stared at each other. Until I couldn't take it any more. I surrendered, finally exhaling the heavy breath I'd forgotten to release. My arms wound around her thighs, pulling her closer, and I pressed my face against her stomach, ignoring the crimson stains of my folly. She held me close, cradling me, as I whispered again, "I'll try. Let me try again. Please."

.

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Chapter title: Lyrics from Collide, by Howie Day