Chapter Forty-Three

Waiting

Bella's Point of View

My ghostly fingers shook on the handle of the examination room's door. No matter what I tried, I couldn't bring myself to open that door. "You can do this, Bella," Esme reminded me softly, her fingers moving to rest upon mine. She helped me like a mother would help her child, gently guiding me to turn the handle and face what lay inside.

Every pair of eyes was trained on me as I stepped into the cramped room; Carlisle, Charlie, Edward. I kept my eyes focused on the floor as I went to sit by Edward. My breaths came light and weak, a frightened child's instead of my own. Edward's hand slipped into mine in a silent yet comforting gesture, and I gathered the courage to look up at my family.

"What is it, Carlisle?" The words came out of me in a trembling whisper, a leaf drifting alone in the windy grasp of a thunderstorm.

Carlisle's eyes darkened and every small piece of hope was quickly squandered from my system. "It's not a match," he told us quietly. "We will have to wait for Renee to get here and test her."

That small flicker of hope in my heart sprung lightly to life at the remembrance of another opportunity. True, the flame was small and weak, but it was still alive. I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded, taking it all in stride. My father, on the other hand, didn't seem to be handling it well. His head was in his hands, with his shaking fists clenched around clumps of his dark hair. His jaw was clenched against the disappointment he was feeling within himself, a battle raging within his mind that was obvious on his face.

I set a hand on his trembling shoulder, a gesture the man before me had often used to comfort me. "Dad," I breathed in his ear, fighting the sympathetic tears. They wouldn't help convince my father that everything was fine. "Dad, listen to me," I tried again when Charlie didn't look up. "It's going to be okay, somehow it will. Mom might still be a match. Don't beat yourself up over this."

Charlie nodded, but said nothing. A long silence fell between us, nobody having anything to say. It was as if the hope had disintegrated from the room, seeping underneath the cracks in the door, windows, and ceiling. A numbness, like that feeling in your nose or ears after the first snow hits the air, filled my tired body and I fell against Edward's shoulder.

"Well, there's no use sitting around here," Esme said, her words puncturing the silence. "Let's go home and get some sleep before Renee gets here."

-o-

"What happened?" Emmett demanded the second he stepped into Esme's living room and saw us all silently gathered there. "What did Carlisle say?"

"Calm down, Em," Rose told him, her hand set gently on his arm. "Let's go sit down and talk about it, okay? I'm sure everyone would appreciate it if we didn't disrupt the quiet by slamming through doors. For goodness sakes, you aren't the Incredible Hulk."

Emmett sighed, but dissented. He led the group, consisting of Alice, Jasper, and Rosalie, to the living room, but refused to sit down and listen. He stood with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, the same method Edward always used when he didn't want anyone to see his hands shaking. "Now, what happened?" he asked again, only slightly calmer than the first time he had asked.

"Bella needs to get a bone marrow transplant," Esme told her son, her face somber. "The chemotherapy treatments didn't have any impact on the cancer's growth, and if we don't do something quickly the cancer will continue to grow exponentially."

Throughout Esme's explanation, I watched as the faces of my family members warped into differing looks of shock, pain, and sorrow. Emmett's face twisted into rage, and he looked around him for the nearest flower vase. He gripped in his strong hands and threw it against the wall, where it shattered with deafening force. "Why?" he demanded, turning to us with a trembling jaw. I could see him breaking down before me, his eyes pleading with an invisible force. "God, why?"

He fell into silence and wiped his face with his palm, not wanting any of us to see the shiny slick of tears on his face. Rosalie stepped up to her husband and wrapped her arms around his stomach, pulling him into a silent embrace. Emmett hid his face from us, but I couldn't get that look in his eyes out of my mind. That horrible, wild sorrow, breaking down the strongest of us.

Alice and Jasper were in a similar embrace, though the roles were reversed. Alice was weeping quietly into her husband's chest, while Jasper just stared ahead of him with a lost look on his face. Like he didn't know what to do; how to help.

And if those looks weren't enough to kill me, the front door opened and Jacob Black stepped into the disaster of Esme's living room. A soft sigh of pain escaped from my lungs, and yet I could not look away; I couldn't hide my face from the pain. "What's going on?" Jake asked, his frantic gaze flicking around the room, zeroing in on each terrified face, on the broken glass in the corner. "What happened?"

"I need a bone marrow transplant," I explained before anyone else had the chance. I couldn't let Jake hear this from anyone other than me. I was aware of every eye in the room focused once more on me, but it didn't matter anymore. "I need a transplant or I am going to die. The chemo isn't working. It never made a difference."

Jake seemed to break before my eyes, his shoulders falling in defeat. His dark eyes closed as if to control his emotions raging somewhere deep within himself, and he took careful, measured breaths. "I need to talk to you," he finally managed to say, his voice deathly flat. "Alone."

-o-

"Why didn't you tell me, Bella?" Jake demanded when we were alone in Carlisle's office. His face was torn between anger and grief, appraising me seriously. "I've been sitting at home going crazy over you, worrying myself sick over whether or not you were doing any better. Every time the phone rang, I was both hoping that it was word from you and terrified that it would be. You haven't told any of us down on La Push what was going on, Bells. Not a single one of us. Why?"

"I-I couldn't, Jake," I breathed, wiping the tears from my face and avoiding Jake's gaze. "I couldn't call you; I couldn't call any of you. I tried; God knows I tried calling you every damn day. But I knew that if I told you I was still sick, that I was getting sicker, I wouldn't be able to stand the look on Seth's face, Quil's face, Embry's, Leah's, Sam's and Emily's, and especially not the look on your face. The look I have to see now, the one that tells me you are still in love with me. That you are so worried over my health that you go crazy, I can't deal with that, Jake."

There was a silence between us, and Jake stared at me with undecipherable emotions in his eyes. He leaned towards me in the empty room, his lips only inches from my own. His heart was pounding against my skin, his body pressing me up against the wall behind us. I tried to move away, but I was captured in his presence, in his warmth. "Jake," I panicked, trying to root myself in the real world, where things made sense. "Jake, I…"

"I'm not going to kiss you, Bella," he promised, but his face didn't remove itself from my space. His dark eyes swept over my face, his fingertips tracing the hollows in my skin. "I can't do that to you. I'm not going to make you cheat on Edward; you chose him over me and I know that." He paused for a moment, smiling in spite of himself. "But you are right, Bella, I do still love you. I know that I shouldn't, really I know that. But I love you anyways. And if you aren't going to tell me how you are doing, then I need to make sure I remember what you feel like. I need to remember the way you blush, the way you hide yourself from me, the way your eyes look when I stand in front of you. I need to make sure I will remember you as you. Because, for all I know, you could be on your deathbed before I hear from you again. And if that is the case, I just need to remember you."

I closed my eyes against the pain and felt Jake's soft lips meet the delicate skin on my temple. "Get better, Bella," he breathed in my ear, and when I opened my eyes to find him, he was gone.

Author's Note:

Eep. I love the end of that chapter, though I'm sure a lot of you hated it. How was the chapter overall though? Sad and horrible, I know, but please try and stick with me here. It'll get better...eventually. I am actually almost done writing this, which is fantastic! Happy day. I plan to try and finish tonight :D

So, why not review and keep my mood up, huh? ;)

And check in soon for another update!