Chapter 80 Chapter Notes
Edward overhears Charlie's conversation with Alice, who is still deep in her trance. It's a disturbing portrait of a once-capable man who is drowning in fear, misery, and loss. And pain.
The chapter title belongs to Alice Cooper
Chapter 80 Welcome To My Nightmare Monday, December 25th
The snow storm has blown out, leaving about four inches on the ground. It's above freezing, though, and it's already started to melt. The roads are clear. When Bella and I arrive at the house, my siblings have already left for their planned hunting trip. Esme and Carlisle delay their departure until we arrive, with no news about Alice to report. "We'll be back around sundown," Carlisle says. Take it easy around Charlie. Dr. Lund says he's not doing well.
Bella narrows her eyes, familiar with this one-sided form of communication that we sometimes employ in the family. "Tell you later," I say, and she accepts this.
Maybe Charlie's voice will reach Alice. It's worth a try, as Jasper is growing more desperate by the day. When we go up to see her, I find that she hasn't moved since the last time that I saw her.
The family has left food in the refrigerator for Bella, and after I proudly fry her an egg,I hear Maya's car slowly making its way to the house. Bella is finished eating by the time they arrive, and I quickly wash up the dishes while she welcomes her and Charlie at the door.
"Merry Christmas," Bella says cheerily, as they all share hugs. She hands her father an envelope and Maya hands her a pretty red bag with trailing silver ribbons hanging off of it. Bella gestures them to sit down and says, "Go on! Open it!"
Charlie tries to manage a smile, but it just doesn't materialize. He opens the envelope to reveal an all-expenses paid trip for two to Vancouver for five days. His brow rises as he hands the certificate to Maya. "It's a resort near some pretty good fishing," Bella says, her tone hopeful.
"Thanks there," he says, nodding to both of us.
Bella opens the gift bag and pulls out a woven basket. It's so tightly woven that I imagine it might hold water. "It's lovely. Maya, did you make this?"
Maya nods happily. "My mother taught both Carmen and me. When I lived with her in Mexico, I had a lot of time to work on the skill."
I have a few seconds to probe Charlie's mind before we all pretend that we're just family members, gathered for a nice visit. He hasn't had any practice or instruction on how to shield his thoughts from me, and the more agitated he's becoming, the less sturdy the barrier is between his mind and mine.
In this brief interloping interlude, I am shocked at the maelstrom of disparate thoughts, accusations and suppositions. He's angry, not just at the Cullens, but at everybody. The normal flow of his mind, as much as I ever got to see of it (before the revelations that changed his life), was orderly and concise. It was a law enforcement officer's mind. Just the facts please, ma'am.
This…I can't even describe how untidy it is.
After we're all seated, I offer them a beverage, working hard to keep my face from betraying dismay. He and Maya each request a Coke. Bella and Maya chat for a few minutes, but it's a strained conversation. Maya tries to act normal, like anything about this setup is normal, but she's as taut as a bowstring.
Charlie doesn't say anything. He sits perfectly still, radiating pain and loss and anger. When Bella glances at him, he tries to smile, but it looks more like a rictus of agony. He nods politely at whatever is said, while thinking that we've all drawn sides, and the Cullens are 'the enemy'.
I can't blame him. I'm stealing his daughter's humanity.
Charlie takes the last drink of his Coke and sets down the can. "Can you take me to Alice, there, Edward?"
I nod, wondering what I'll hear when he sits with my comatose sister. Maya helps him to his feet and he walks behind me to the stairs, then stops and looks at them. They go up and up. He glances at me. "Third floor," I say.
He breathes a sigh. "Lead the way."
It takes a few minutes for him to make it all the way up to Alice and Jasper's door. I gesture him in. "Take all the time that you need." As I walk down the stairs, I can hear the churning agony that has completely overtaken him, and I briefly wonder about his sanity. Of course, if he loses his mind, we all know who to blame.
Downstairs, we sit in an uncomfortable silence. Bella's hands twist in her lap and she worries her poor lip. Maya perches on the very edge of her chair, perfectly still. She waits for her man, knowing that he's suffering, and that there's not one single thing in the world that she can do to help him.
She and Bella can't hear anything going on upstairs, of course.
But I can.
I hear Charlie sit on the edge of Alice's bed. He must pick up her hand, because he thinks about how cold and hard it is, and wonders how he could ever have believed that any of us were human.
"Alice, honey, can you hear me?" She doesn't respond. He begins to mutter, and the tenor of his voice is disturbed. "Bella will be just like this. Hard and cold. Bella, my Bella," he moans. "Not a human anymore!"
He's so appalled by the events that led us all here that he's not sure he can recover from the shock of it all.
"Edward fucking Cullen." Now, he's pacing the room, muttering through his teeth. It's barely audible. I imagine wide, staring eyes and a grimace of hatred on his lips. "Alice, will he turn into a bat? I can just see him, swooping down on Bella, parting his cape, sinking his fangs into her neck. Oh, I know. He doesn't have fangs right now, but who knows what happens when he drinks blood? Do you all sleep in fucking coffins? In dirt?"
Charlie must look around, because he says, "This classy house doesn't look like it has a room full of coffins, but who knows? I've been a cop long enough to know that folks keep secrets that you would never guess."
Good lord. Bella gives me a startled look and I rearrange my face. I realize I'd been gaping with my head tilted back, toward the direction of Charlie's disturbed words.
He begins to mutter again. "Secrets. Yeah. SO many secrets. My seventeen-year-old daughter dated a fucking vampire, and had kept it a secret from, well, everybody." He swallows and takes a deep breath, but a sob escapes. "How has it come to this?" he chokes out.
He's thinking about Maya, now a supernatural being. He loves her, and can't, doesn't, want to unlove her. Is it the same thing? When it's your daughter? "Alice, honey, please tell me this will all be okay. That Bella isn't making a huge mistake! Tell me my daughter isn't turning into a monster!" Full-on tears now. They're muffled, and I see that he's holding a pillow to his face.
I hope he hasn't turned a corner into insanity.
After a few more minutes and many deep breaths, he begins to pat Alice's hand. "Honey, I don't know if you can hear me, but Edward said that you're in a trance or asleep or something, and unreachable. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your friendship with Bella, and that I'm sorry about what happened to your friend in Alaska."
There's a pause, and I hope he's not waiting for a response. He's alarmed at Alice's wide-eyed visage, how she lays perfectly still, without blinking or breathing. When he lifts her limp arm and tries to find a pulse, his heart begins to race, and I'm afraid he's going to hyperventilate.
Just as I prepare to go upstairs and see if he needs help, he says, "I know that the woman who died was your friend, and it was a tragic accident, but sweetie, that's, that's just p-part of life. Everybody's life, not just…" He takes a shaky breath, and I can hear his soft sobs.
"Not just your family's life. Loss is just—" His muffled cry is heart wrenching, because he's sad not for Alice, or for himself. He's sad for Bella. For the loss of her human life.
After a minute, he regains some control. "Loss is tied up with everyone's existence everywhere. Maybe not death, in the case of your family, but you've all suffered loss. We all just have to do the best that we can and go on. We don't get to choose."
He utterly breaks down. I imagine him sitting in the lone chair in that room, with his hands covering his face, as the sobs are muffled. There's a wavering to the sound, and I think he must be rocking back and forth.
It's heartbreaking. Thank god Bella can't see or hear this.
No thoughts emanate from Alice at all. I had hoped that a small part of her would hear Charlie's words. They're true, all of them. We've all suffered loss. We can't check out because of it.
Charlie struggles to his feet and I go upstairs to see if he needs help coming down. He waves me away, though, and I let him make his own way. Downstairs, he says nothing. Bella's mouth drops open in surprise at his red, swollen eyes and trembling lip. She rushes to his side and as he hugs her, Charlie utterly breaks down into heartbreaking sobs.
He and Bella rock on the spot for a minute, then he takes a few deep breaths and pulls away from her. She's been crying too, of course. He gives her one last pat and turns away, into Maya's arms.
She says, "Thank you for having us. That was important for Charlie to do." She leads Charlie out to her car, wishing that this whole thing with Bella would be over so he wouldn't have to worry about it for the next five months.
Bella and I watch as the car snakes its way down the single lane, toward the highway. I don't say anything, knowing that she's working through Charlie's disappointment and obvious sorrow. Finally, she says, "Is he going to be okay?"
I wish I knew. "Um, you have to remember, Bella, that he's a trained police officer. You've got to be strong to do that job. So yeah, I think he'll be okay. Eventually. He's still in a lot of pain from his injury, so that undermines his ability to deal with difficult issues."
God, could I have been any more vague? Bella looks up at me and I sigh. "C'mon. Sit down." I tell her everything that I heard upstairs. "I'm afraid that Charlie isn't coping well with the loss of his profession, his livelihood, and his daughter,"I say. "But what I said earlier is true. He's a cop, Bella. And that requires a great deal of personal discipline and strength. He has Maya to help him through this. He'll be okay. And you have your own life and every right to choose for yourself what you want that life to look like."
She goes to the bathroom and fetches some tissues, and for the first time in days, I can't smell her desire. I guess seeing your father break down and sob on your shoulder is enough to dampen anyone's need. Even Bella's.
While she's gone, I think about what the next five months will actually look like. We'll continue to go to school. I'll be bored out of my skull. Bella will do her schoolwork with zeal and struggle with the stupid calculus. I'd do all the homework for it myself, if she would only let me.
We'll continue to enjoy ourselves in bed. And on the couch. And the floor…all over the house, really. I'll hunt regularly. And Bella will worry more and more about her conversion, the closer to it we come.
Her warm human scent swirls all around me, a comfort after the horror of hearing her father's breakdown upstairs. It's the most amazing thing. I inhale deeply, reveling in the cinnamon-flowery-musky perfume of her living body.
And the blood. Let's not forget the blood. I can't smell it right now, but the memory of that aroma is tied to her other human scents. I liken it to a buffet of a starving person's favorite foods, but foods he knows are poisonous if he even takes a single bite. So he can only stand and smell the foods, but can never sample.
Lest he die.
In my case, it's not myself I'm worried about. I could care less about my own demise. Bella is the only thing that matters.I've convinced myself, and told Bella that it wasn't that close, the other day when I yelled at her to leave, but is that the whole truth?
I'd always said that the worst thing about my losing control was that I wouldn't be aware of it when it happened. Was I about to attack her? How would I know?
I put Bella in danger for the pleasure of the sexual experience. We're both taking Carlisle's word that open communication along with an open window are the keys to keeping my monster at bay, but what if he's wrong?
The truth is, I'm not a human. I'm an animated corpse that looks human. That consumes blood. A fucking vampire, right out of a horror movie. And now I'm living with my human companion, full time. And loving her every chance I get.
Whatever is wrong with me?
The consequences of failure are dire, so why am I continuing this arrangement?
Bella emerges from the bathroom and walks over to me. She hugs me around the middle and I bend to smell her hair. I gently run a hand through it, reveling in the texture, the smell, the way it falls over her slender shoulders and down her narrow back.
This is why. This woman, this human woman is everything. Everything. I take a deep breath, willing my vampire nature to stay tethered, promising myself that I will never hurt her, no matter what the circumstance.
But I'm wishing that I didn't have to worry about it for the next five months as well.