AN: You're not going to get all your answers straight away otherwise there would be no story. Patience, young grasshoppers.

Also, these chapters were written 6/7+ weeks ago so when people are suggesting I'm writing or manufacturing things for reviews that's simply not true. This was all plotted out a long time ago.

Just remember everything has changed for these kids. Of course they're different. Of course they're fucking up and making mistakes. Grief and trauma change people. Sad, but true.

Chapter 23

Edward

Waking with a start, something warm pushes against my hand. A whine, another nudge followed by slobbery wetness lashing across my palm.

I open an eye, Oz pushing his head into my hand again. He looks at me expectantly, heading to the door and back, and I guess I need to let him out or something.

But I kind of… don't want to move.

The house is quiet apart from the sound of deep, even breaths right next to me. Carefully, I raise my head to look at her. Dark hair against pale skin, pillow wedged between her leg to support the boot encasing her ankle, her head curled into her chest…

And for a minute I'm back in her ICU room.

Barely recognizable with all the tubes and wires. That stab of agony jolts through me again, clenching my stomach something fierce. The moment where it hit me, she was literally hanging on to life by a thin thread. And when that thread snapped... There was nothing I could do. Powerless. Helpless. Pushed from the room by panicked doctors and nurses shouting things I didn't understand.

I swallow thickly.

Almost losing her.

I try not to think about it, or how we managed to make it through the next few hours and the days that followed. The doctors gave no guarantees on whether she'd make it.

I try not to think about the fact she didn't even know who I was when she finally came out of being in the induced coma, or weeks later when she said she couldn't 'do this.'

And I thought I got it. I thought I understood.

Everyone said she needed time. Space. Both, maybe.

I thought she'd let me visit.

I thought she'd text. I thought she'd update me on how she was doing. I thought we'd still at least talk, and then… eventually we'd go back to where we were.

I was wrong.

Any updates came through her mom, or even her brother, and it wasn't for my lack of trying.

I tried.

And she didn't want to know.

I allow myself to study her again, just for a minute. And it feels like forever since I've seen her this close. I can see the dark circles under her eyes, how the freckles over her nose have disappeared from last summer when she had a sun-kissed glow and a perma-smile on her face. She's more angular now: thinner. Too thin.

For a second I think about waking her just so I can hear her voice, but I shouldn't even be here.

I shouldn't have come last night at all, I knew better, but seeing her… seeing her with that guy. Ben. The sick feeling creeps up my throat again.

Oz whines again and I lift myself off the bed, careful not to wake her. Tip-toeing across her room, I quietly open the door, slipping through the house until I'm at the back door. I let Oz out to do his business, wandering out onto the patio, long shadows cast on the lawn from the sun rising at the front of the house.

"Edward?"

Mrs. Swan's voice calls out softly from behind me. I turn slowly, caught, offering her what I hope is an apologetic smile as her eyes dip to my shoeless feet.

"Hey, Mrs. Swan."

"Bit early for a visit?" she says, one eyebrow slightly raised.

I scratch the back of my head

"Yeah, about that..." I falter as my cell buzzes in my back pocket, ignoring it as she gives me a knowing look, tilting her head to invite me back into the kitchen.

Oz follows us back into the house, happier when his bowl's filled and he's chowing down.

Leaning against the wooden kitchen counter, she makes me a coffee without even asking me how I take it. I'm not too surprised that she remembers though. The long hours, and longer days, we spent in the hospital, waiting. Hoping. Praying. We'd take it in turns going down to the cafeteria, like we'd take it in turns sitting at Bella's side and holding the hand that wasn't shattered.

We keep our voices low as we make conversation. I didn't hang around the other week to have much of one. I needed to get back to Auntie C and Uncle Al and...

Jasper. He haunts my dreams; I swear. Just like she does.

"What are your plans for the rest of the summer now you've finished for the semester?" she asks, taking a sip of coffee, and wiping up a spill with a damp cloth.

The truth is, I don't really have any. Europe for the next two weeks for a string of competitions with Embry, and then who knows. Maybe base jumping again. Going somewhere and flinging myself off something really high just fucking appeals to me right now. I don't tell her that, though, but I do tell her about my Europe plans.

"Did Bella invite you over?" she asks, eventually, approaching the elephant in the room.

I shake my head. "Kinda showed up unannounced. Ran into her last night and just…" I shrug a little. Taking a gulp of coffee, awkward now. What do I even tell her? That I'm jealous? That I wish she'd talk to me? Be my friend. I stare at the bottom of my mug, as if it has all the answers before asking her for my own. "The seizures…"

She smiles sadly.

"Started a few months ago. She can be fine some days, others have one or two grand mals—that's what you saw her have the other week. She'd been dreading Jasper's birthday... It didn't surprise me."

"And they're because of the accident?"

"That's what her neurologist says. Post-traumatic epilepsy. She's not taken it well. Distraught, really. Another thing that she thinks stops her from being normal. Doing normal things."

She sighs heavily, brushing hair back off her face, and my chest aches something bad.

My cell buzzes again, this time an alarm.

"I'm really sorry. I need to head out. My flight's in a few hours."

Mrs. Swan stands as I do, and she gives me a hug. Motherly, in the way she squeezes me that bit tighter. And I can't help a big part of me wishing her daughter would hug me tight too. The last time I held her, I didn't even know it would be the last time I ever got the chance to.

"It's lovely to see you, Edward. You take care. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

I promise her I won't, but I'm not sure I can keep it.

I slip back into Bella's room on my way out to get my sneakers, hoping she's awake now. She isn't though, she's still sleeping peacefully, and it would be selfish to rob her of that when she looks so exhausted.

Grabbing a pen from her desk, I hurriedly write two words on a piece of paper I tear away from a notebook, leaving it on the pillow next to her before I leave.

Text me

…

"Where have you been?"

"Emmett's," I lie.

Bella wasn't wrong. The way Alice is glaring at me right now, I'd never hear the end of it if she knew the truth. She approaches me, arms sliding around my waist, head resting against my chest. I let her, but not for long, pulling away stiffly. Our blistering argument last night, one of many recently.

"You didn't answer your cell."

"I was sleeping."

Another lie. They just keep coming.

"Are you not even going to kiss me?"

I hesitate, before pecking her on the lips, all too conscious I've just slept in another girl's bed.

It wasn't like that, but it feels pretty shitty of me.

I move through the house to the bedroom, pulling my suitcase from off the floor where I haven't unpacked anything since we got here from Seattle a couple of weeks ago.

"Edward," Alice leans against the door, arms crossed, imploring.

"Yeah?"

"Are we not even gonna talk about last night?"

"I'm not apologizing. You were out of order. I really don't get why you don't fucking get it."

"I didn't even say anything wrong! I do feel bad for her." She shakes her head, "You're so defensive of her, even now. She has no idea what she put you through. Do you not remember the last eight months? I was the one left picking you up off of bathroom floors and cleaning up your puke. I was the one who made you get up and go to class, the doctor..."

She lists everything off, but I'm tuned out already. I rub at my forehead, her voice jarring against a fuzzy head. Because I know that. I know she was there for me. We've leaned on each other heavily since her dad passed. Since Jasper. Since Bella ghosted me. And yet.

"It's not an excuse for making someone feel like shit," I snap. "I thought you'd grown the fuck up."

The change in her was marked, especially after her dad died. And, despite her own grief, she was there for me, putting up with all my bullshit. But, I'm starting to think I'm wrong.

I look at the time and swear. "Look, you know I'm grateful for everything, but my flight out is in three hours and I don't have time to—to fucking argue with you. Again. I need to pack my shit, then maybe we can get lunch before I leave. Okay?"

She mutters a 'whatever' and leaves me to it, my head throbbing. A shower doesn't help, neither does trying to jerk off while I'm in there. I give up, resting my head against the tiles and looking up into the stream of water, letting it pour off the back of my head as I ask myself what the fuck I'm doing for the millionth time.

And I don't know the answer anymore.

"Have you seen the stack of decks I had here?" I ask Alice as I pick up a hoodie from the back of the sofa, shoving my arms through it. She's sitting with glasses on, legs-crossed in one of my t-shirts, blunt bangs hiding her eyes.

"Nope." Her voice is clipped.

"I'm sure I had them right here. I wanted my lucky board."

"Some luck it's giving you."

"Alice," I say, pleadingly.

"What? It's true, you've been bombing in competitions since you pulled out of the X Games last year. Everyone's asking what's wrong on these online forums. Maybe you should get your PR to put out a statement… even if it's to say you're dealing with some personal issues." She's talking to her laptop, and then looks up, concerned. "Have you taken your meds today? They're on the side in the kitchen."

I tug at my hair, frustrated.

"No."

"Have you got enough for the next two weeks?"

"Yeah," I mumble.

I move into the kitchen, picking up the white plastic bottle of Zoloft pills and shaking one out onto my hand. I make the mistake of swallowing it dry, the feeling of it slowly sliding down my throat lingering as I tear the house apart trying to find it: the deck Bella scribbled her butterfly on.

But I can't find it anywhere.

Not in the backyard, not in the truck, not in the house, and I know I definitely brought it with me from Seattle.

"Which one are you looking for?" Alice says, finally setting her laptop aside.

"The white and red deck." I tear off duct tape in between my teeth, taping them around three other decks, flinging spare trucks and wheels into my case.

Alice stares at me, a fleeting look of guilt across her face that makes me stop. My stomach drops.

"What did you do?"

...

She broke it.

And then she threw it in the trash.

That's what she did.

My knee bounces as the plane starts to taxi on the runway, Embry sliding a look across at me.

"What's wrong with you? You ain't a nervous flyer are you? Cos I'm gonna ask that damn fine flight attendant to move me away from you if you are. Reckon she'll hook me up? Or hook up with me?" His head cranes to find the pretty brunette who greeted us when we boarded with a red-lipped smile.

"No. Just…" I shake my head, rubbing my thumb up the middle of my head. "Got in a fight with Alice before I left. She broke my lucky board and threw it out."

His eyebrows raise. "Didn't know you were superstitious."

"I'm not." I lick my bottom lip, managing a smile as the same pretty flight attendant double checks we have our seatbelts on. Embry stares at her ass as she walks down the aisle. I guess I do too.

"Well, what's the problem?" he says, turning his attention back to me. "Sure you have more than enough decks kicking around."

"Not the point. I haven't skated with it since I pulled out of the X Games last year. Bella tagged it," I admit, bouncing my knee agitatedly.

"Sorry it's lame."

"Nothing you do is ever lame."

"Ahh, and your new girl is jealous of you keeping shit like that around," Embry says, knowingly. "Girls are crazy like that. This girl I was seeing a couple of months back, she was checking my cell behind my back, my MySpace, my Facebook… I mean she freaked when my own sister was calling me. Can't be dealing with that shit."

I sit back in my seat.

"You still seeing her?"

He gives me a look, smiling at me like I'm insane.

"As if," he scoffs. "No pussy is worth that kinda crazy. Gotta find myself a dope ass chick... How is Bella anyway?"

I shoot him a look.

"Seeing someone." I breathe out a slow breath, tempering jealousy and anger, cracking my knuckles. "Some dickhead she knows from high school."

Dickhead is probably an unfair statement but...

"It serious?"

"No? I don't know. It's new, I think. I mean, she's still not walking, and she's having fits now—seizures."

Embry pulls at a thread on his baseball cap.

"Fuck, man. That's gotta be hard on her. Still not talking to you either?"

I shake my head. Even last night she didn't really… acknowledge what I was saying. She didn't say anything like it back. There was just… nothing. I don't even know if she even remembers everything, and the thought of her not— not remembering us like I remember us…

"Not really. She said we should be friends, a couple of weeks back."

Embry winces.

"That sucks. On both counts. You guys had some mad kinda love going on last summer."

He shuts up as we start picking up speed; the plane hurtling down the runway before finally we take off.

And he's right.

It does fucking suck.

…

A four-hour flight from Portland to Dallas Fort Worth, an hour-and-a-half layover, and then a straight nine-hour flight to Amsterdam.

My iPod dies after 6 hours of switching it up between System of a Down, The Promise Ring, and Blink-182; and then I'm stuck watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and listening to Embry chat nonstop.

By the time we land at nine in the morning, we've been travelling for almost sixteen hours and I'm a hot mess. Not even the alt girl in reception biting her lip and pushing her tits together stirs any kind of reaction in me. All I want to do is find a bed and crash.

I crash hard too, waking eight hours later to Embry banging on my door, urging me to get up so we can go and explore.

Groaning, I drag myself into the shower, ignoring my cell. When I do check it, there's a string of texts from Alice, apologizing, telling me she didn't realize. I'm pretty sure she did though, and she's just making this worse.

Just give me some space, I respond.

You're five thousand miles away, Edward. How much space do you want?

I don't reply. I haven't got the energy.

I don't mean space as in distance.

Embry and I head out to find food and beer, walking over canal bridges, the dark water reflecting lights from the city, dodging trams and bicycles. Everything looks so old here, buildings crammed together, leaning at angles, dispersed with modern, gimmicky stuff like fast food being sold through vending machines and a whole museum dedicated to sex.

Finding ourselves a coffee shop serving food and pot, I waste no time rolling a joint for the first time in a while. It's a bonus not having to be paranoid because the Dutch are fucking progressive, and I'm determined to enjoy being here, even if everything else is a mess: my skating, my head, my life... at least there's weed and craft beer.

"Fuck, this is some good shit," Embry says, nudging me as he leans back and stares at a wavy concave ceiling, fairy lights poking through holes, low-fi beats in the background.

I look across from him, bleary-eyed, as he offers up his joint. I hit it hard, holding the smoke in my lungs until my eyes are watering.

"Shit man, gonna be lucky if I can do a kick-flip right now," I tell him, taking another hit.

"You're messing, EC, you could do a kick-flip in your sleep," he giggles.

"Did you just fucking giggle?"

"Oh shit, man, I think I did. Fuck. Only girls giggle, right?"

He tries to do a manly laugh, and it cracks me up. We laugh loudly, shit talking each other until a guy sidles up to us ten minutes later offering us crack. He's collared by one of the staff and yanked out to applause of other patrons.

High as hell, we head out to the famous red-light district.

"Just to tour it," Embry says.

Prostitutes in lit up windows, drunken bachelor parties staggering to and from windows. British by the sound of it, egging each other on, clapping and chanting. I kinda feel sorry for the girl whose fiance struts toward the door of a busty blonde to cheers from his friends.

Over the next few days, we hit up some popular skate parks, Olympiaplein and Nelson Mandela Park, chilling out with some local skaters who are excited I'm there, for whatever reason. And then, before I know it, we're on to the World Open series.

Scraping through the heats in fourth, I'm tired and fucking frustrated with myself. Stuff that I used to not think about, I'm suddenly overthinking and it's throwing me off big time.

"Dude, come on! You're a fucking natural at this. Don't think, just do!" Embry coaches when I'm fucking up everything in the finals too. He taps his fingers against his temple. "It's all in here. That's your problem, bro."

I'm wiping sweat off my face feeling the pressure of disappointing pretty much everyone here including myself, and I swear the anti-depressants are the reason I can't get my head in the game. In any kind of game, really.

Skating is something I've loved since I was seven years old. It's what got me through years of bullying at school and lifted me up to a place away from the bullshit. To be at odds with it now is foreign. We go hand in hand.

"Remember what you're capable of. What you've done," Embry says.

I wipe at my face again, heat of tears behind my eyes.

"You're up, dude," he nudges me. "Show these pussies what you got."

Lip ring between my teeth, I let it go, running, laying down my board and then I fucking flick and pray. I land a nollie backside bigger spin down the set of stairs to an audience that lights up, the slow-mo playing on the big screens. I can hear the announcer talking it through excitedly from where I am. A little thrill runs through me, one I haven't felt in a while as it earns me a solid 9.1 on the scoresheet; 3rd place overall.

And I'm trying to be fucking happy with that because it's the best placement since last year, but it's hard.

We leave Amsterdam the next day for Barcelona, immediately hitting up MACBA. It's a sweet little spot outside the contemporary art museum that draws crowds of tourists and skaters alike, and just being out there in the sun and the heat, chilling with some wicked people… it's good. It makes me feel more alive than I've been in months. I feel like I can breathe out here, numbness in my bones retreating, the fog of depression that I've been in for months lifting. I even start splitting my pills after talking it through with Esme on the phone, seeing whether I can manage on a lower dosage.

A week later and I still feel good. Another third place down and we're still soaking up the city. We've done some touristy shit; like Park Güell and La Sagrada Familia, even a tour of the soccer stadium; but it's the culture and the laid back vibes that have me daydreaming about moving out here. I've even got a few Spanish phrases down, thanks to Maria, a Spanish girl and her friends who took it upon themselves to be our unappointed chaperones—showing us around. She was blatant in her advances, but I turned her down, much to Embry's amusement, and her indignation.

Chilling in our rental just before bed on one of our last nights here, I'm mindlessly scrolling through Facebook posts when I see it: a video Rose has posted of Bella.

Of Bella walking.

I watch as she takes her first steps without the boot, without crutches. She's wobbly, kinda how I imagine a baby is when they learn to walk, a guy I assume is her PT at her side, watching her carefully. He's one of Emmett's buddies, I think, but I don't care about him.

I care about her.

The determined little look on her face that reminds me of when I was trying to teach her to skate, and the smile when she looks up; her hand coming across her mouth. I can hear Rose crying behind the camera, and as a tear drips down Bella's face too, I wish so fucking badly I was there.

I'm writing out a comment before I can back out, hitting enter, only for Rose to message me privately minutes after it posts.

Alice? Really? Serious downgrade btw.

My fingers fly over the keyboard and then backspace. What can even say to that? I'm not pitting them against each other. I frown, because the root of this comes down to one fact.

She didn't want me.

And then seconds later.

You're an idiot. Grow some balls and tell her she's amazing yourself.

I hesitate, before reaching for my cell. Spurred on by a buzzed head, I scroll until I find Bella's number. I assume it's the same; I think Rose would have said if it wasn't. I take a deep toke on the blunt I'm smoking, tapping out pretty much the same comment I wrote on Rose's post.

It's true.

I do think she's amazing. She's come so far. She should know that.

I stare at it, adding and re-adding a kiss, deciding on leaving one, and then I hit send, my stomach twisting with nerves.

I think you're fucking amazing x

She replies days later. The day we're leaving to come back to the US. Just two words. But two words is more than she's texted me since the accident.

Thank you

I scroll up, past my desperate pleas for her to talk to me, to her last texts on the day that changed everything.

My last message to her is still there.

08/05/2006

Do you even remember last night?

I scroll up.

On our way home. I can't wait to see you xxxxx

And up.

I love you

And it makes me feel ill. How much has changed. How everything I wanted was taken away. I lost Jasper, and I lost the only girl I've ever fallen in love with, just like that.

…

"So I'll see you in a couple of weeks for my Grad film night, yeah?" Embry asks as we sit ourselves down, waiting for our connecting flight to Portland.

"Wouldn't miss it."

I look around, indecisiveness wrecking me. Alice has been silent for the past few days, I kind of assume she's past caring. I've spoken to her a couple of times, and sent her texts, but if she saw the comment I left on Rose's video the other day...

The hollow feeling is back, the dumpster fire of my life burning somewhere north-west, and I don't really want to go back to reality just yet.

"What's that look for?"

"I've got an idea," I say slowly. "I dunno though. Are you in?"

Embry grins.

"What does it involve?"

...

I wipe at my face, staring across the valley with a strange calmness, like I'm not about to bring myself one step closer to God.

"You ready, man?"

"Yeah, I'm ready."

A step back and then I'm running forward, propelling myself off the edge of the cliff in a somersault.

Adrenaline. Euphoria. A burst of laughter.

Wind whips at my face, the ground rushing towards me.

Base jumping's illegal here, but who cares.

There is no fucking God.

No, this isn't a cliffhanger!