Except from Twilight/Midnight Sun:
"I would stay in Forks, Bella. Or somewhere like it. Someplace where I couldn't hurt you anymore..."
"Bella, you have to go to Florida with your mother." I spoke slowly, softly, letting the words sink in. I prepared myself for her rebuttal, for her distress. But as always, her next words were the ones I was least prepared for.
"I think you're right" she said.
Could a dead heart flatline again? It felt like mine just did.
I looked into her boundless brown eyes, waiting for her to speak again. I watched as she crossed her arms over her middle, and turned away from me to look out of the window of the hospital. The sun was beginning to set. My mind calculated the exact minute, catalogued every dust particle in the air, marking the moment my world tilted on its axis. I was untethered. Her breathing came in little hiccups, like she was holding back tears. I was swallowed by my own grief for a moment, too stunned to comfort her in hers. The monitor beside us beeped at a metronome, the only indication that time had not, in fact, stopped.
The part of me that loved her selflessly breathed a sigh of relief. She had finally realized how wrong I was for her. All the things I took from her, my Persephone, by keeping her in my warped obsidian underworld. The selfish part of me wanted to drop to my knees and beg her to forget the words I said that brought her to this conclusion. I wanted to ask her what changed, how I had convinced her with my half lies that she easily ignored in the past.
This is what you wanted, the monster reminded me.
Finally I found my voice, and spoke, practiced and detached. "Very sensible."
She did not turn to look at me. I stood from my recliner. She drew a deep breath. "Are you leaving now?" She asked. Her voice was raspy, and I detected a hint of panic in her heartbeat then. She turned to look at me with red rimmed eyes. "Will you stay with me...until Florida I mean?"
Bella's lovely cream skin was tinted with rose. Her heartbeat betrayed the calm tone of her voice. How could I refuse? I would give her anything to ease her discomfort now. I will stay as long as I can. I will be strong enough to let you go.
"I will stay with you." This came as a vow. I needed to remind myself to keep it light, but the words fell from my lips. "Until you ask me to go. Until you're whole again. You're making the right choice, of course."
"Of course." She replied, looking away from me again. She held her middle once more and winced.
I needed to leave the room then. I turned on my heel and walked at a barely human speed through the halls of the hospital until I reached a stairwell. I was on the roof of the building moments later, chasing the sunset. My skin glittered hideously pink as it reflected the last remnants of the dying star. Twilight again. Another ending.
I laid down on the gravel of the roof. The sky above Phoenix darkened as I waited for the stars. Staring above but not seeing. Detached from my physical form, I recalled the falling snow in Denali, before I consciously knew I loved her. For a moment I wished I had never left that snowbank. Bella would not be three floors below me, broken in a hospital bed, if I had made that choice. I would have saved us both this pain.
I replayed her physical trauma in my mind. I would endure sound of her bones breaking for the rest of eternity. The video footage Alice showed me would forever stay with me, tattooed to my nonexistent soul. It felt important in that moment to recall the physical pain, as I had forgotten what my years of medical training should have prepared me for, I realized. The psychological trauma of James's attack had changed Bella. I feared she would never forgive me, and it appears I was right.
I laid on the roof, desolated. By choosing to be her vampire guardian "angel", I became not only an omen of death to her, but a trigger for horrible memories. How could she look at me and not re-experience the attack? I looked at my pale dead hands in disgust. I hated the hands that had been too late. These hands, which couldn't hold her, couldn't touch her, without some kind of danger.
She asked me to stay until she moved to Florida. As if I could bear to part from her now. I would keep my promise to her. I closed my eyes and listened to hear heartbeat, audible to me even now.
She was not alone. Her mother, Renee, had come back from the cafe with some kind of tea she claimed would help Bella heal. I allowed myself to listen to her thoughts for a moment. Though undeserving, I simply wanted to see Bella, so I watched her though her mother's eyes.
Her mother's thoughts broadcasted through the hospital walls.
Turmeric, lavender to calm her, poor thing, and three drops of my "Strength" essential oils should do the trick. I wonder where that boy went, I haven't seen him leave this room in days.
"It's supposed to smell like that honey." Renee said aloud.
I watched as Bella sipped her tea with her one good hand, her eyes still red and puffy. I wondered if Renee had noticed the emptiness that I saw now in Bella's eyes.
"I would like to finish out the school year in Forks before going to Florida," Bella shared, unprompted. She subtly placed the tea out of view, behind a pile of magazines Alice had left for her.
Renee's mind was suddenly hyper-focused on Bella's expression. She pictured me holding her hand lovingly just an hour before. She remembered Bella telling her that she refused to go to Florida, while I sat in the recliner pretending to sleep. "I live in Forks," she had said. I felt a fresh pang of pain in my long dead heart.
She must have given some thought to what we talked about.
What's this? I sat up and listened harder, struggling to organize Renees scattered thoughts. I saw images of Charlie, young and adoring, wearing a tattered flannel, a crushed monarch butterfly, and a 1980's Chevy Nova.
So much like Charlie.
"Oh. Honey." Renee reached over and patted Bella on the forehead. "We can work out the details - but are you sure?"
"Please, not now." Bella swallowed, looking out toward the hallway. Looking for me? "Yes, let's just think about something else." Did she worry that I was listening?
The gentleman in me gave Bella her privacy. I returned my gaze to the sky. Too early for human eyes, I registered the faint pink glow on the rock above. A cherry moon, they called it. The start of spring. Footsteps approached me from the east, lighter than a dancer.
"Florida, huh." Alice sat on the olive green rooftop generator beside me, crossing her legs delicately. You have a decision to make.
I watched the kaleidoscope of visions splinter, no longer tethered to path that Bella and I had been on. Untethered, like me.
She survived. Alice gently reminded me.
When I spoke, I spoke to her, and to Bella, and to the universe.
"I am not sure that she did."
AN: This story picks up page 626 of Midnight Sun. Chapter title reflects song title I think of while writing (Spotify soundtrack in progress!).
All characters belong to Stephanie Meyer, the Twilight Saga. No copyright infringement intended. Plot is mine :)
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(NEW a/n : This story has taken on a life of its own! I am overwhelmed by the response - please leave reviews, questions, criticisms, every little email gives me absolute joy. THANK YOU for reading!)