Chapter Forty-Four
Stubborn Ideas
Bella's Point of View
"Why didn't you tell me, Bella?" a harsh voice demanded, seeping into my dreams like a dark, blood red stain. A pair of dark chocolate eyes, ice cold and yet lost and confused, followed my every motion.
The dark scene faded away, like I had taken a turn in my mind. "It's not a match," the velvet voice said quietly. A ripple of fear disseminated through the grey rain on the sidewalk. "It's not a match," it said again, mourning, weeping.
Another turn. I was lost in the sound of the ocean, the unforgiving skies and the relentless black of the waves. "Bella? Bella, what's going on?" My mother's voice now, that haphazard panic in her tone. "What do you need me to do?" Howling wind rattled the windows, salty cold soaking into my bones.
A warmth replaced the waves, golden and red like a sunset in Phoenix. "We'll take it together," the tender voice promised me, a hand on my arctic shoulder. "One step at a time." My feet moving on their own, one step taking me into the clutches of darkness.
Shattering glass, pale green shards littering the floor. Roses on the floor, a puddle of water slinking like death over the wooden floors. "Why?" A roar, not so much human as animal. Tortured, agonized, tormented past the point of human emotion.
The last scene, death. There was no light, no happiness. My body, dark and frozen with the absence of life. Like a TV show on a broken screen, my skin chalky and my veins blue through my vacant flesh. "Get better, Bella," said a honey soft voice in my ear. A pair of lips brushing against my temple. A delicate pink flower blossomed on the deathly cold skin, warmth spreading through my immovable body. Warmth for just a second, flaming in my bones. Then nothing. Nothing at all.
I was jolted out of my nightmares as the frigid feeling of death spread through my veins. My world seemed muffled, silent, but my heart was pounding wildly in my chest. Proof that I was alive. A breath lighter than a dove's feather fell from my lips as I looked around me. My world was still in balance. I was still in Esme's house, still in Edward's old room. Edward was still lying beside me on his bed, his eyes darting around as if he were dreaming as well. I set a hand on top of his, willing the nightmare to leave his mind. I watched as his eyes slowly stopped moving and his breathing slowed to normal.
I stood up and began to pace Edward's room, suddenly feeling uneasy. My mind was a whirlpool spinning in unorganized patterns, everything seeming to attack me and then move on to be replaced by a new thought. My breaths came in sharp and uneven, cutting into my lungs. My heart began to flutter as I traced the source of my unease.
My mother was getting into town this morning.
I raced out of Edward's room with as much speed as a cancer-impaired woman could. Down the stairs, through the living room, frantically looking around me for any source of life. A soft sizzling sound came from the kitchen, and though the smell made my stomach churn, I followed it.
Esme was standing before the stove as bacon fried away in a cast iron pan. She didn't see me right away, and I was immediately frozen in watching her. She seemed to have aged, standing alone in the dark kitchen. Her mouth was turned down in a worried frown, grey strands suddenly stuck out in her caramel hair. Her fingers were trembling on the handle of the spatula she was holding and a single tear had left its mark on her cheek.
"Esme," I breathed, feeling as if I had intruded on a very personal moment. "Esme, what's wrong?" I moved towards her and set a hand on her arm, suddenly forgetting everything but my mother in law's pain.
"It's nothing, hun," Esme responded, wiping away the remnants of a tear with the back of her hand.
"I don't believe that," I whispered to her, putting the best semblance of a smile on my face that I could muster. "What is it?"
"It's your mom," Esme explained, looking me straight in the eyes. "She got into town this morning and immediately went to the hospital to get tested. Carlisle just called with the results a few minutes ago." She paused and gathered her strength, but I already knew the words that were next on her lips. "It was negative."
Even though I had seen the result coming, the words still hit me like a freight train to the chest. I couldn't breathe; I just stood there, a statue in my hopeless sorrow. "W-Where's my mom now?" I forced myself to verbalize though I couldn't bring myself to look into Esme's sincere eyes.
I was fixated on a single white tile on the floor when Esme murmured, "She's in the shower. She said she needed to be alone; she needed time to think before you woke up."
I sat down silently at the table, numb, defeated, and no longer able to stand. "Okay," I breathed, putting my head weakly into my hands. "Okay."
-o-
Fifteen minutes later, my mother came down the stairs with her dark hair pulled back into a loose pony tail and her favorite grey Notre Dame sweatshirt wrapped around her body. Her usually happy eyes were sad, lost, lonely. Nothing about my mother was the way I had left her.
When she saw me sitting at the kitchen table, Renee ran towards me and engulfed me in a bone-crushing hug. "I'm sorry, honey," she murmured, her throat thick with tears. "I-I'm not…" She didn't finish the sentence, but everyone in the room knew what she was trying to say.
"It's not your fault," I promised her, the words pouring out of me along with the tears. They were the same words I had told my father the previous day, the only words that would make any difference on the pair. The only thing that would lessen their pain.
A moment of fretful silence grew between us, filling the air with our anxieties until Esme's kind-hearted words broke it. "Why don't you two eat breakfast out on the porch and talk for a while," she suggested. "There's a sweater hanging in the front closet if you want it, Bella."
She patted my shoulder and retreated from the kitchen. My mother eyed the tray of eggs, bacon, toast, and strawberry jam, and a half smile appeared on her face. "This smells great. I haven't had real home-made food in weeks." She picked up the tray and led me outside with her hand on the small of my back, a comforting gesture that I genuinely missed.
We settled in on their front porch swing and my mom silently spread some jam on two pieces of toast. She took a bite out of one and then smiled, albeit somewhat sadly, as she handed that piece to me. "Do you remember how you always used to that when you were little?" she asked quietly, as if she were talking to herself. "You always took a bite of my food before giving it to me. You said that you had to make sure that it wasn't poisoned."
"I remember that," I answered, staring out at the green forest and blinking away the blur in my eyesight. I took a small bite of the toast and swallowed it, but it tasted of somber memories and I had to force it down. The lump remained in my throat though, and the tears began to burn in my chest. "What am I going to do, Mom?" I whispered, like a ghost already. I didn't move as I uttered the words; I just stared straight ahead in a trance. "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't have a donor….I don't have any other options. I'm…I'm going to die, aren't I?"
My mother was uncharacteristically still for a moment before answering. She draped her arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards her like she had when I was little. Her pained blue eyes focused on me, a horrible sadness in them as she shook her head firmly, as if she couldn't bring herself to accept it. "No, Bella. I'm not going to let you die. You are going to give me a grandchild, whether you want to or not."
She gave a forced laugh, rough with the withheld tears inside her. "You are not going to die on me," she said again, letting her forehead fall against my shoulder as her body shook with the tears. We held onto each other and cried until there was nothing left inside us. We let the comforting mother/daughter bond hold us strongly together as we broke down.
-o-
"Bella, the telephone's for you," Esme offered quietly, standing like an angel in the doorframe. When she saw the dried tears on my face, she rubbed my shoulder in her typical fashion. "It'll all work out in the end," she promised me as I took the phone and answered it with a broken voice.
"Hello?" I began, my dilapidated brain sorting through the muffled sounds on the other line.
"Bella?" the man almost shouted. "Bella, it's Carlisle. We need you to come in to the hospital. We need to get your treatment options sorted out as soon as possible."
"Options?" I repeated doubtfully. "I didn't think I had options."
"I'll explain once you get here," Carlisle attempted, his voice drowned out among the noise. "Come when you can, okay?"
"Yeah," I muttered, confused. "Yeah, I'll be there soon."
Author's Note:
Yep, another sad one. Sigh. But you can't get too mad at me, I'm going to post another chapter for you guys to read since I won't be able to update this weekend. You're very welcome. Will you send me a review or two in thanks?
