One tiny one after this one. Enjoy. Any and all mistakes are mine as I'm impatient, lol.
Chapter 5
Sunshine pours through the kitchen window as the dishcloth sinks under soapy water. Automatically, my hand reaches in, capturing it, squeezing it tightly in my fist.
I begin to wash the contents of the bowl.
One plate.
One knife.
One mug.
The rhythm of routine makes me hum but not in a good way; I feel itchy.
It's almost summer. Everything has bloomed, and the woods at the back of the house are a deep green. This is a short weekend stay at home. Monday brings me back to the hospital for the last week of a four-month stay.
And then I'm on my own.
I dry off the plate, the knife, and the mug with a worn yellow towel, standing on my tip-toes to place them neatly back into the cupboard. The towel, I fold—in half and then half again—leaving it on a yellowing cream work surface.
Bare feet cross sun-drenched spots as I walk back into the front room, across wooden floors. My dress is white, tiny flowers scattered over it. The skirt sways around my thighs as I move; a lot closer than they once were.
Pausing for a second, I slip sandals on my feet by the front door, my eyes automatically finding the spot at the bottom of the stairs.
The blood is gone.
Mom is buried.
It's a small plot at the local cemetery, right next to Nana. I wasn't sure what she wanted. Then again, I never did.
That morning lingers over me, the truth standing there with it.
Only three of us know what happened. One is dead. One is missing. And one is right here, where they both left me.
I lied. My tongue twisting truths. Repeating it over and over as the evidence of Edward's escape melted away.
She fell.
It was an accident.
It was.
And maybe I should have been devastated. She was my mom. But I wasn't. Our relationship was nothing to mourn. Maybe it makes me a bad person. But I think I can live with that. She always made me feel like one, anyway. For never meeting her expectations. For being a disappointment and a burden. For telling lies as a child with no concept of what a lie was. She never believed me when I told her about that man, who she brought home, and how he touched me under the table at dinner—every night.
There's been liberation in death.
My feet crunch down dirt and gravel to the bottom of the drive. There's a few kids playing out further down the street, their laughter drifting across front yards in run-down suburbia.
The mail box squeaks with protest as I open it and grab the stack of mail, sun hot overhead as I shift through the pile: bills, pamphlets for fitness classes, and community projects, and finally, nestled between them, there's a bright yellow envelope with handwriting I don't recognize.
A flush of anticipation makes my hands tremble, the sun on the back of my bare neck feeling even hotter. The other letters fall to the ground around my feet as I slide out the contents.
Something else flutters down with them.
Daintily, I crouch, picking it up from the ground and laying it flat on my palm. The most perfect giant daisy head pressed flat.
My smile grows, heart hammering hard in my chest as I look at the postcard. I don't recognize the place, and there's words written on the back of it.
Scribbled.
Almost illegible.
I know though. I know.
It's him.
Mrs. Banner appears with her zimmer.
"Dropped a lot of things there," she points out.
"Yeah, I—" I bend down to pick up the rest of the letters as she watches on. I stare at the postcard before showing it to her.
"Do you know where this is?"
...
The bus is crammed, and I'm sweating. The scratchy material of the seats prickles into the back of my thighs, the canvas of a rucksack on the seat next to me rough against my arm. It's stuffed with everything I thought I might need for this trip.
My gaze falls to the window again, and my head presses against glass that vibrates. I stare at the fields beyond the freeway, the bus speeding along, overtaken by faster cars. A hot breeze moves my hair from the vents above my seat. Someone coughs behind me; a rustle of newspaper pages being turned by the older woman sat next to me.
Edward never came back after that morning.
I waited for him. At the window, on the porch, until my fingers and toes were numb and my eyes were too heavy to keep open. I thought maybe he would come back when things had calmed down.
But he never did.
He disappeared.
I waited for weeks. I helped his family distribute flyers with his face on them, 'MISSING' printed in bold type: Edward reduced to basic facts. People looking at the flyer wouldn't know about how much he loves pancakes, or football, or what he looks like when he's slick with sweat. No. They only know the color of his eyes and his height. He's just another missing person. But he's my person, and I want more than anything to have him back.
I combed the woods after, in hope he'd left something to explain: a letter, or something.
He never did. Or if he did, I never found it.
And I thought, much later, in the darkest and deepest of winter nights, that he took my words too literally.
I told him to go.
So… he did.
And now he is. Gone.
It took a trip to the ER after passing out in the street for me to realize that he wasn't coming back. The next day Amber drove me to RanchHill. It was time; my head cried to my heart, to put myself first. I couldn't carry on. My body wasn't going to let me much longer.
I reach into my bag, unfolding a worn rectangle of paper. Smoothing it out over my legs, my finger finds his face, tracing it, a deep sense of longing tightening my chest.
The bus pulls into a rundown station an hour later, a loud hiss as it comes to a stop and the hydraulics lower for passengers to disembark. My stop.
As soon as I step out, I'm hit with a wall of humidity. I look around the station. There's a few people waiting to get on as the driver tells them to wait and disappears to the johns. The bus shudders and splutters, the noise deafening.
I bring out the postcard, turning it over, looking over the road and then… a laugh spills out of my mouth, a giddiness there: spying the deep blue of the sea in the distance, melting into the sky in the horizon.
The bus finally pulls away, and I hesitate. There was no real plan from this point. I guess, in my head, he'd be right here, waiting after I got off the bus.
Stupid, really.
Shouldering my bag, I head into the ticket office. For now, I need somewhere to stay.
With the help of the kind old man on the desk, I find myself a room in a bed-and-breakfast right near the beach.
The room I'm given has a huge bay window, with sea views to the right and boggy marshland to the left. I stand at the window and watch the gulls on the thermals and the people on the beach. Families. Teenage boys with surfboards tucked under their arms. A patch work of beach towels and windbreakers.
I book myself in for a week.
I end up staying two.
...
My search is fruitless. It's a small town. If he's here, he should be known. Everyone knows Edward Cullen. Everyone should know him, anyway.
Every time I ask, people stare at his picture, frown at it, slowly shake their heads and mumble their apologies.
It's exhausting, the days blurring together into lonely nights.
On my last full day I wander the beach, picking up shells and pocketing them in denim cut-offs. I let waves break over my feet as I walk along the shoreline, sandals swinging from my fingers. I explore the small tourist shops along the beachfront and even have a few drinks in the rundown beachside bar, resigned. Hopeless. Lost. My heart thrumming against my chest.
The bartender has curly blond hair, and a shark tooth necklace around his neck.
"Dime for your thoughts?" he says, as he slides along a bottle of pale ale, and wipes at a spill. The rag gets flipped over his shoulder; he leans toward me, his arms splayed.
"I think my thoughts are worth more than a dime," I say, slowly. He grins.
"That might be true."
I sigh and reach in my purse.
"Have you seen him?" I push the paper forward across the bar and it's dark varnished wood.
He takes it from me, bright eyes scrutinizing and then squinting. I'm already prepared for his 'no'.
"Ah, yeah. Maybe."
My head jerks upward.
"Maybe?" A flush of hope. Optimism.
He scratches at his head.
"A while back though. A little… strange, that one. Think he worked over at the conservation center for a while doing odd jobs."
"Really? Are you sure? How long ago?"
"I don't know. Last month, maybe. He might still be there."
I don't stay. I head out into a warm summer evening at a run, my cardigan wrapped around the strap of my bag. I run along the boardwalk until the shops thin out and the marshland encroaches and swallows the sandy beach. The path changes to worn wooden slats. My feet carry me, down the winding path elevated above boggy ground. The air is heavier here, insects and birds loud.
Breathless, I reach the low wooden building, made from shiplap, with long narrow windows for bird watching on each side. My dress sticks to my back, my chest heaving.
It's closed.
I pull at the locked doors, rattling the rusted padlock, frustration expelled in a loud frustrated cry that sends birds scattering up into the sky.
Sinking to the floor, wiping at my forehead and my eyes, sweat and tears mixing.
But he was here.
He was here, and he wrote me.
I pull out the postcard, looking at his writing.
Forever without you is lonely.
Pulling myself together, I sniff. I hold back the tears burning in my eyes. Diving into my bag for a blue pen. I hold the cap in between my teeth as I scribble on the back of his picture.
Forever without you is lonely, too.
I shove it through the locked doors.
...
The next day I leave the small town behind in a haze of sunshine and damp heat. Already, I miss it. The sound of the ocean. The squall of the gulls in the morning. The feel of hot sand between my toes.
I think maybe I'd like to move there, one day. Sell up and leave one small town for another. But then I worry if I'm not there, how will Edward ever find me?
The journey is long, made longer when the bus breaks down, clouds of grey smoke billowing from the engine. The replacement takes three hours to arrive.
It's drizzling and grey, darkening clouds above my head, the evening drawing in when the cab pulls up at the end of the drive. I pay the cab driver in cash and tell him to keep the change.
My bag is heavy on my back, my head bowed against the wind as I rummage in my purse, keys jangling as I detangle them from my Walkman.
I don't notice him until I do.
There. Waiting. Sitting on the steps, a baseball cap twisted in his hands, like he never left.
I stop still.
His hair is longer, down to his chin, and he's tanned. The rush of emotions is unexpected, the anger, the frustration, the sadness propels me forward, past him and up the steps to the door.
"Bella," he says, hopeful and hopeless.
My hands shake. Pausing, I look back at him.
"Why?"
Heavy footsteps and warm arms, his hot mouth on mine.
"I didn't know what to do," he breathes.
He doesn't, but I do.
The dance we do is familiar. Clothes strewn over the living room, skin on skin. He moves between my legs and lets me rock over him. He's greedy, and I let him be.
I hold his face in my hands.
"Don't ever leave me again," I tell him, as he groans into my neck. "I missed you so much."
"Never," he pants. "I love you. I love you, Bella Swan."
