18+
LXVI
'Oh god, oh god.' I can't stop saying the words, 'I fucked it up. He thinks that I…fuck, we have to get there.'
We've been in the car for twenty minutes.
It took ten for me to be coherent enough to form a sentence.
Now I can't stop.
'What if he's gone, what if he's already gone?'
Jasper rubs his thumb across my wrist soothingly. 'Let's just get there. What are you going to do?'
I gulp, a spike of fear jabbing me in the throat. 'I don't know. Tell him? But what if he…doesn't want me?'
A collective scoff.
'I hurt him.' My words come from deep in my chest, dripping with anguish.
It pools on the floor, rising up higher and higher until it chokes me.
Silence.
No one tries to deny it.
I'm grateful.
'You have your reasons.' Rose says after a while.
I pull my knees to my chest. 'I just…'
'We know.' Alice says softly.
My voice is hollow, 'It won't last.'
Rose turns to me and her blue eyes are filled with so much agony that I feel a fresh sharp pain in my chest, overtaking the wrenching ache that's been present since Edward got in that car.
'Nothing ever lasts Bella.' Rose's voice grates, 'but you can have it while it's here, and then you can remember. The memories are better than never having it at all.'
Emmett grabs Rose's knee and she swallows suddenly, her face going back to its usual mask.
I let her words sit for a while, tasting them, considering them.
I already love him, he's already inside, the door shut behind him. I can't keep him, but even when he shatters that door and breaks my heart into a hundred pieces, I'll still have his fingerprints on the frame, the indents of his footsteps on the floor.
The knowledge burns like a fire, scorching me to the bone.
I'm not afraid anymore.
But am I too late?
We get to the airport, jumping out of the car.
...
Yes.