Written for the Song to Story Challenge, July 2021. Stories between 500 and 1,500 words were written from the prompt song, "If I Told You" by Darius Rucker. The Song to Story Contest was created by Frannie Walsh, of It All Started with Twilight. Please check out all 16 entries listed under the Author name Song To Story Challenge.
Summary— This is my idea of Edward, hunting for Victoria the moment he breaks and decides to go back to Bella. In an instant your whole life can change.
Disclaimer— Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. I am not Stephenie Meyer.
As always, thank you to Raum for beta'ing.
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In an Instant
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Edward stumbled into a deserted back alley as the horizon began to brighten, warning him of the approaching sunrise. He slumped against a grimy brick wall and slid down to the ground. Another night of hunting with nothing to show for it. The voices around him were in Spanish again. So, not in Brazil anymore. He didn't know how long ago he had crossed the border, or even what border he'd crossed. He was proving to be a miserable excuse for a tracker.
The phone in his pocket rang yet again, but he ignored it as he had every other time. It wouldn't be the only person in the world whose voice he wanted to hear, and he couldn't muster the strength to talk to anyone else. They'd give up eventually. They always did. And if they didn't, the battery would die before long anyway.
Victoria had passed information to James that he'd used to lure B—Edward curled his fists so tightly his nails dug into his palms.—to lure her to that ballet studio, and she would pay as James had paid. Except this time, he would do the honors himself.
Mentally, he retraced his steps. He'd traced her as far as Texas, and from there he'd followed a lead from a passing nomad that she'd been headed to South America. It had been very little to go on, but at least he'd had a direction. He'd hoped to catch her scent somewhere through Central America, but there had been nothing. If she'd swum, she'd have to have surfaced along the coast of Columbia, or possibly Ecuador or Venezuela, but he'd found no sign of her. With no other choice, he'd turned inland and tried to think as a nomad would think, to travel as a nomad would travel, and prayed to anyone who'd listen that he'd come across something or someone who could direct him better.
Edward forced himself back to his feet and trudged forward. He needed to find shelter and fast. The buildings around him were rundown and overcrowded, but broken windows in the top floor of a building near the end of the alley looked promising, and in a second he'd scaled the wall. The space smelled of rotting wood and mold from water leaking through the roof, and parts of the floor looked like they wouldn't support much weight, but it would do. Treading gently, he stuck to the perimeter and dropped to the ground in the darkest corner. The days were the worst. The nights at least he had the semi-distraction of hunting Victoria, but the days he had nothing but the pain.
First the baseball game, then the birthday party. He couldn't continue to put her in danger. He'd done the right thing, leaving. Edward told himself that every minute of every hour, but his resolve was weakening. He had a job to do, and he would do it. He would find Victoria and end her, but maybe when that was done, he could just check. . . .
No. He couldn't just check. Going back to check on her was only an excuse, and he knew it. If he gave in, he'd only come up with a new excuse to get just a little closer, stay just a little longer. He'd known from the beginning that he would only have a short time with her. He'd hoped for a few short years. He'd only gotten a few short months, but he'd been lucky to have had even that. He'd never understood why someone like her—so good, so innocent—would even talk to him after everything he'd done, let alone love him. His rebellious adolescence, as he'd called it, as if it had just some stupid youthful mistake he'd made. Even after he'd told her everything, she'd loved him anyway.
And he'd broken both her heart and her trust.
"You . . . don't . . . want me?"
Edward shuddered at the memory. Worse had been his own voice responding with that single word answer. The worst sin out of the long list of sins he'd committed. She'd stared at him with horror in her eyes that she had never looked at him with before.
He dug his fingers into the floorboards. After all of the times had he told her he loved her, that she was his very life, all it had taken was one lie to erase countless truths. Maybe that was only natural. Human beings did fall out of love. She would fall out of love with him. The hurt he'd caused her would fade, and she would move on, possibly already had.
The acknowledgment that she might have already moved on hurt like being ripped apart and being burned piece by piece. He'd promised Rosalie he'd find a way to survive after his time with B— with her had run out. How little he'd understood the crippling pain that had awaited him.
She would move on, and some other man would stand at the end of an aisle as she walked toward him in a white gown, her father at her side. Or maybe not. She was nothing if not fiercely independent. But whether she married or not, she would love someone else, build a life with someone else.
Edward ripped two floorboards out and ground them to pulp in his hands. He crumpled into a ball and opened his mouth to scream, but all he managed was a choking sob. It hurt too much to scream.
What had he done? Who was he kidding? He couldn't do this. He couldn't live without her. How had he ever thought he could? Of the stupid things he'd done—
Maybe he could just have Alice check on her. That wouldn't be breaking his promise, technically. Not if she never knew.
Because there was nothing creepy in that, no—not for someone who'd stooped to sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep.
If he could just know she was happy, that would be enough. Just to know she was happy.
Except, what if she wasn't? What if she were sick? Or hurt? He'd seen her walk across perfectly flat linoleum and trip over absolutely nothing. To say nothing of her ability to attract danger to her.
He could call her himself. He could disguise his voice and call her. Just to check.
Or he could man up, grow a pair, and call her and tell her he'd been a stupid fool and beg her to forgive him.
He shook from head to foot, and he knew his resolve was crumbling. Why would she forgive him, though? Bella was an angel, but even she had to have her limit. Why wouldn't she tell him to go to hell?
Without her, he was already there anyway.
At the very least, didn't she deserve the chance? One way or the other, she deserved the chance to decide for herself what she wanted. In his arrogance, he'd robbed her of that.
Edward felt something like adrenaline pumping him at the thought of hearing her voice again, even though he knew it would likely be to hear her tell him she never wanted to see him again. He lay on his side and imagined he was back in the meadow outside of Forks, Bella lying in the wildflowers next to him. In his mind, he could see her so clearly. She was like an oasis mirage to a man dying in the desert, and he reached out as if to touch her hair.
If I told you I was a broken mess without you, that I was half crazy without you, that before you I 'd hardly known what love was, even after I hurt you so badly, betrayed your trust and lied to you, could you love me again anyway?
His phone rang yet again, and sighing, he dropped his hand. He considered just chucking the damn thing out into the street, but then—
Alice!
Had she seen him wavering? With how much she'd hated leaving without even a goodbye, she'd have taken that and run with it. Had she seen—?
Edward answered the phone without seeing the number calling him and unable to speak through the emotion, the sheer elation of—
"So, your phone does work, then," Rosalie drawled.
It took two full seconds of confusion for it to register in Edward's brain that it was Rosalie who'd been calling him relentlessly, two more seconds for that confusion to turn to panic—What could be so wrong that it would be Rosalie who'd spent the last several hours trying to reach him?—and two more seconds for the sarcastic tone of her voice for the panic to turn to irritation.
"What do you want, Rose?"