As soon as she utters the words, I can practically feel the ground breaking underneath me.
She's dead, Edward. She...She jumped off of a cliff.
I don't remember crushing the phone, but the line goes silent and the broken pieces drop from my limp hand. My knees crush into the ground, making splinters in the wooden boards below me, and I see the ceiling above me shift as I crumple to the ground.
She's alive. She has to be. It doesn't matter that I can't have her, it doesn't matter that she's human, it doesn't matter that my throat is set on fire every time I'm with her. All that matters is that she exists.
I don't remember when I started screaming either, but I realize that the loud, strangled screams around me are my own after a while. I can't think of anything except Bella and her laugh and her smile and her skin and her hair and her cheeks and her eyes and her lips. Everything else in the world suddenly becomes insignificant details, parts of my life that are foolish and unimportant.
I scream and sob and yell until my throat dries out and I can't make sound anymore. The silence that it leaves behind is deafening. I stare blankly at the ceiling, my mouth still agape with silent cries.
How was I so foolish? I left her, and for what? To please my own egocentric moral compass? To prove something to myself? I wasted those countless hours here, in this room, mourning and moping around, when I could have been there. I could have been there. I could have stopped her. I could have saved her.
Anger replaces my grief, and I leap up, tear the television from its position on the wall, and throw it across the room. It slams into the opposite wall, shattering the screen and breaking plaster. I was so stupid. I managed to convince myself that I was doing the right thing, that I was saving her from myself. And now, look at me. Alone, in Miami, of all places.
She's dead. She doesn't...exist anymore. The girl with the ivory skin and the big brown eyes named Bella Swan is gone. All that I have now is my foolish pride and my painful memories. And it's all because I left her.
Guilt swallows me whole, overwhelming my previous sorrow and anger easily. I sink to the floor once again and breathe unevenly. This is my fault. I killed the girl I fell in love with because I convinced myself I was saving her. There is surely no worse thing that I could've done. I loved her. And I told her I didn't, and now she is dead. She's dead, she's dead, she's dead.
I close my eyes and let the steady cycle of memories whisk me into a false reality for minutes, or hours, or days. I don't really care. Because through the anger and screaming and guilt and memories, I realize something. Everything revolved around her, and now she does not exist. My world is now in pieces, and even if I somehow put it back together I wouldn't deserve it anyways.
On my way out the door, I catch a glimpse of the reflective metal of the door knob. I see a man staring back at me, but it isn't me. He has hollow cheeks and bruised eyes and knotted hair. His eyes are lifeless and his mouth is twisted into a sob. I ignore it, though, and twist the knob to exit the room.
When I first entered this hotel, I was in pain. Or, at least, I thought I was. Now I know that I had no idea what true pain was. I brush past various people in the lobby, almost at an inhuman speed. Their eyes follow me, and I don't blame them.
The stale air indoors becomes suffocating. I burst through the hotel doors and take a breath of the humid evening air. It's twilight - how ironic. I walk briskly to an empty side street and force myself to stand, even though my body suddenly weighs a thousand pounds. The sky is a purplish gray, even though it must be some time after nine. It really is a solstice here - the wonderful day, lasting so long that I take it for granted, and then returning to the inevitable darkness nonetheless. Bella really was the sun, and now the world is covered in an endless night without her.
I stumble around in the road for a while, desperately trying to make sense of the world around me. Everything seems so meaningless without her, it's like I'm trying to find something that doesn't exist.
The only thing that brings me back to logic is my family. They probably know about Bella's death. How long have they known? How long has she been dead? I seethe with anger suddenly and punch the building to my left, cracking the bricks. If they've known for long, why didn't they tell me? But they couldn't have known. Alice was here just a couple of weeks ago.
I force myself to take a deep breath and sit down so that I don't cause any more property damage tonight. No. They haven't known for long. Without Bella, I feel empty, out of place. Like this Earth would be better off without me. But I know that my family would be heartbroken if I ended things. Which do I value more? Their happiness or my grief?
I start to question my previous plan. But everything hurts now. My chest squeezes with every breath, my legs buckle with every step. I don't know if I'm strong enough to live like this. It was easier to be strong before, when I knew that Bella was safe and alive. But now, it seems impossible to go about the rest of eternity in this pain. She is - was - the reason for my existence. So what's the point?
There's a sleek black Cadillac parked two streets down - I could recognize the rev of it's engine a mile away. I speed down a couple of side streets and breath through my tight chest, working to stay focused on the task at hand rather than be swallowed by my sadness again. I peek past the corner of a building near the Cadillac and see a man in a sleek suit walk down the street and turn the corner, so I silently creep to the car. Breaking into cars comes pretty easily to me now, so I manage to get in after a couple of minutes.
When I open the door and slide onto the cool leather seats, it offers me some comfort. Though I am still overflowing with grief and pain, the familiarity of the inside of the car takes me back to better times and I relish in those happy memories for a moment.
I jump start the engine and drive out of the alley and down another deserted street to get out of this wretched city.
As I drive, I try to piece together my jumbled thoughts and calm down enough to do so, but it proves to be easier said than done. Sobs rip out of me every so often and my hands shake so hard that I accidentally rip part of the steering wheel apart.
I can either go to New York, where my family will be waiting with open arms and sympathetic thoughts, or to Forks, where Charlie and Renee will be waiting with teary eyes and breaking hearts. Or to Italy, where I can beg to be killed.
Would Aro do it? He's always been fond of me, only because of my gift, but I don't know if that will be enough for him to keep me alive if I come to him on my knees. It certainly wouldn't be enough if I exposed them - that would require an immediate death.
But I'm not sure I can do that to my family. Everyone is probably mourning Bella anyways, especially Alice. So who am I to take another person away from them? But perhaps I already have - if I let myself live, the rest of my eternal life would surely be spent torturing myself with the guilt and sadness of her death.
A thought enters my mind, and at first I quickly dismiss it. But soon it makes its way back into my stream of consciousness, and I can't help asking myself: What if Rosalie was lying? What if she thought I would come back to New York if I thought she was dead? Or would she think that it would stop my inner torture and I'd go back to my normal self after a while?
I puzzle over it for a few minutes, trying to decide if the theory is a viable scenario or just a sense of false hope that I'm creating for myself. But if there is even the slightest possibility that Rose is lying, then I will never be able to take back me believing it. So, I speed down the road, towards a shopping center that I see just a block away.
I don't pay much attention to the confused looks and startled expressions that I receive from the shoppers around me as I buy the first cell phone that I see and briskly walk out. I know Bella's home number by heart, so I punch in the numbers and clear my throat as the phone rings.
"Hello?" I grimace at the sound of the familiar voice at the other end of the phone.
"Is Charlie there?" I reply and can practically hear Jacob cringe at the sound of my voice. It still has the clear, chiming sound of a vampire, despite the hoarseness of my throat.
He sounds annoyed. "No, he's at the funeral. Why?"
And with that single sentence, Jacob destroys the faint light of hope that I was still holding onto. I hang up without giving a response and throw the phone onto the pavement of the parking lot. Now I know that there's no real choice - I'm not going to New York or Forks. I'm going to Volterra, Italy.
So, what do you guys think? I've never really experienced true heartbreak, what with me being thirteen and all, so writing this was pretty hit or miss. Let me know in a review what you thought of my portrayal of Edward's reaction because I'm sure there's some things I need to improve on. Also, we surpassed 600 views? That's insane. Thank you guys so much!