Title: Disillusioned

Genre: romance / hurt / comfort

Pairings: alice/jasper, edward/bella, alice/demetri

Warning: the world's in crisis, but at least i updated (i'm so sorry, i compensate with humor).

In the end, her ankle is not broken, but her wrist sure is.

The stretching, straining bend of each knuckle sings through her wrist all the way up to her elbow in a fiery trail of pain that leaves her sullen and Jasper uncomfortable. After an awkward lapse of silence in the car, he had walked into the house to pass her off to Carlisle before making himself scares.

She is not sure why she is surprised, but she had half-expected him to linger with her. Though, she supposes after their conversation, they were still back on awkward terms. Awkward, but better.

"So, do you hoard medical equipment from the hospital, or did you just expect me to be so danger prone?" Bella asks, anything to fill the silence now between her and Carlisle. Carlisle who, undoubtedly, spends the most time around humans, does not allow the silence to draw out like Rosalie or Jasper might.

He peers up at her from the x-ray prints in his hands and huffs. "Bella, not even you are 'danger prone' enough to warrant that." He makes a gesture to what Bella has been loosely referring to as his 'doctor room' which is outfitted as any clinic as far as she was concerned. "Though it is helpful in these situations."

The x-ray machine was a surprise, she will give him that.

Carlisle continues, "And it is interesting to learn that a wolf shifter's bone structure is strong enough to break human bone. Good to know."

Bella flushes, resisting the urge to curl in on herself. "Yeah, well, I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this to Charlie."

"We can help you make something up." Carlisle nods, assuring and turns to pin the x-ray print up on his board. "We've missed you these past few days. How have you been getting along?"

For a moment, Bella thinks Carlisle may have turned his back so she would not have to guard her expression. It's not guilt she feels from deserting the Cullen family or anything. Well, maybe she does feel guilty, but not in the sense one might think.

She appreciates the Cullens and everything they have done for her. She never will really be able to repay them for sticking up for her, protecting her, and fighting for her even though she is no longer one of them.

And in that guilt, she feels the need to pull away. Evaporate from their lives as quick and quietly as possible.

"Well, aside from getting in a fight with a werewolf, it's been grand." She tries to keep her voice light and cheery, but she can taste the exhaustion in her tone. The edgeless feeling of being filed down to nothing. She's tired, more than anything. She wants sleep, a good meal, and maybe a shower.

In any order.

Carlisle hums, noncommittally and leans against the back of one of his chairs, easily as if he needed to lean. "Have you been dealing with any lack of sleep? Anxiety?" Bella bites her lips together in response. Has she felt anything else in these past months? Has there been anything else? "I can have Esme pick you up some melatonin if you want. It's natural, non-addictive, and it helps promote healthy—"

"No, I, uh," Bella runs her finger across the splint on her wrist. "I, uh, I don't really want to sleep? With the Volturi and all. And, any hangers from Victoria's army. I haven't really felt like sleeping."

Carlisle nods. "Yes, we've thought as much. Alice said it would be better to give you your space for now, let you heal a bit, but," Carlisle's immaculate brow crunches, bothered. "Alice has been the ambassador for us in these matters, but I believe they are waiting for Alice's say-so to speak with you."

The thought—even the gesture—of Alice speaking to the Volturi on her behalf makes her feel sick. It's generous, even more than generous. It's downright charity at this point and far more than she deserves.

Bella thinks about the messages from Alice she still hasn't answered. The look Alice gave her before she stormed out of the house—pleading, begging, love her despite her faults.

She shivers.

She does not have time for Alice right now.

"What will happen when . . . when Aro finds out about the wolves?" As mad as she is, she does not want anything to happen to Jacob or the Pack. Not to Emily, or Leah, or Paul, or Sam, or anyone. She wants them safe. Living out their lives and dreams without any more vampire interruptions.

"Oh, Aro saw the wolves from me years ago. An oversight on the guard's part. He is fascinated by them, but he is more concerned by the roaming tribes of shifters in eastern Europe. They are a more immediate threat there than in a small town here." Carlisle's kind eyes flicker to hers. "I should have told you immediately, I am sorry to worry you."

She bites off the customary. Its fine, and focuses back on the x-ray over Carlisle's shoulder. She may not be an expert, but one or two of those white dots look out of place. "Is my hand going to be okay?"

"I've seen worse breaks," Carlisle says. "It doesn't need to be rebroken, at least."

"At least." She repeats.

"You had good technique." He comments blithely.

"Thannk you."

"But, your technique was aimed weight class."

"It's always something."

Carlisle packs away his materials in one of his medical bags, an old fashion one with supple leather. Bella sits on the desk, swinging her legs, deep in thought.

"Bella, since we are alone for the moment, may I be frank with you?" She nods, belatedly, and Carlisle draws himself up. In the moments between one speech and another, she wonders if this is the moment she's been waiting for, for the axe to drop, for the last perfect image of the Cullen family to come crashing down on top of her. "Despite everything, I want to let you know that Esme and I still think of you as part of our family."

It surprises her.

Genuine altruism in the face of adversity. Bella can feel her throat fill with the lump in her throat, but she does not cry, she does not want to, and the sheer force of the desire will keep her tears at bay.

Her heart pinches with the urge to say, but I'm not. But she can't. Carlisle has only ever been open, been loving, been encouraging. It doesn't feel right to disregard him that way. He smiles, seeming to take pity on her, he changes the topic. "I hear you got into your top choice schools. Any winners?"

She smiles. "I was thinking about NYU."

Originally, she had been gunning for Dartmouth. Alaska, a place with large spaces of time between sunlight and dark. A place where she could adapt to life as a vampire, maybe spend a semester studying. Her and Edward had a couple ideas in mind for their uncertain, but bright future.

Carlisle's smile never slips, but he must know that her shift in preference must have to do with them. "I feel you will do well there. Any area of study got your fancy, or will you—Oh, hello Alice."

Bella feels a shock go through her when she hears the name. The door behind them pushes open and then close, and Carlisle shifts, so they can both look at her, small and dark against the archway of the door. "Hey, Bella."

It's her voice, that sounds so small, so delicate, that grabs at her. "Hi, Alice."

There is an awkward shift in the atmosphere. The battlefield folding out in front of her and Alice standing amidst the rubble. She feels almost happy with the realization that looking at Alice does not fill her with rage anymore. That those emotions Jasper transferred onto her were nothing, but a passing phase.

Then, she feels nervous.

For no other reason than the fact that Bella has to talk to her now.

"I'll give you two a moment." Carlisle announces before exiting the room. He gives Bella a final smile over Alice shoulder and shuts the door. It's the only noise in the room for a while, lingering even after Carlisle's footfalls fade down the hall.

Bella can feel herself physically counting down to talking to Alice.

At five, she'll say something.

At ten, she'll say something.

At fifteen, she'll say something. Anything.

Finally, the words are so backed up inside her, she says the first thing that comes to mind.

"So, did you know Carlisle had an x-ray machine in here?"

"Yes, actually," Alice looks at the machine and then smiles, half-charmed, half-thankful. "Carlisle wanted a comprehensive family set. The traces of broken bone are harder to see because the venom strengthens any breaks, but there are some traces in Emmett and me. Emmett had a broken arm at one point, but he said it happened when he was a kid. I had a broken clavicle."

Alice's fingers touch the bony rise of the bone under her skin. The sharp curve of it sinking into her shoulder.

Her smile dims a little. Her fingers curl into the neck of her shirt. "I still don't remember how it could have happened."

Bella can feel the guilty feeling burying her. Deeper and deeper until there is nothing, but her reaching fingers. "Alice, I—"

"I saw what Jasper did." Alice says quietly. "I don't blame you for needing to be away from me for a bit. Honestly, you would have said some terrible things."

"Did I mean them?"

"No."

"Good. I don't."

Alice's frown is persistent, the tug of her mouth almost an insult. "What's wrong then?"

"I don't," Bella can feel her throat constrict. "I don't feel like I've been a good friend to you. Not really. Not at all."

Alice studies her a moment. "You've never really had friends," She says it as a fact, no malice, no quip, just a fact that cannot hurt Bella so long as it comes form her mouth. "I've never had friends either, so I guess neither of us can really blame each other."

It causes such a knee-jerk reaction that Bella immediately wants to argue. She wants to make a case for how terrible and flaky she's been, make Alice hate her as much as she should and turn her loose and leave her for the wolves.

But, Alice is right. In all their conversations, in all the time they've spent together, Alice has never mentioned friends, just Jasper, just family. In the fleeting, few conversations about the Volturi, there has only ever been Demetri.

"I'm a pretty terrible first friend, to be honest." Bella says, glumly. "I never even asked you how you were feeling after seeing—" She cuts herself off, if only in self-preservation, but Alice is too quick, a wry smile curling at her mouth. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Alice takes her splinted wrist in her hand, cupping it as if it were some fragile bird. The gentle cool of her fingers feels heavenly. "He's a man, not a monster. I can handle hearing his name."

They sit in silence. Alice holding her wrist and Bella watching her. It feels oddly intimate, the line of connection between them, Alice icing her bruised fingers with the tips of hers. It's more than she deserves and she knows it.

She thinks back to their conversation in the cottage, beneath the soft lights, on an unmade bed with a Volturi cloak slung between them.

"Were you happy to see him?"

Alice pauses a moment, fingers still curving their chilly grip against her own. Bella studies Alice, the curve of her lips, the lowering of her lashes, the subtle, near audible way she swallowed before she spoke.

"It was good to see him," She concedes in a voice soft like before, like rose petals and spring breezes, and other lovely things. Bella knows vampires cannot blush, if Alice could, her face would be a cherry. "I've missed him too much, it's terrible of me," She mumbles, eyes lowering to the ground and, she looks like she might say more, but then her gaze lifts to the window. "He wants to speak with you, but I told him you need some time. I saw that something happened, but I didn't think it would be a broken wrist."

It's a deflection, a cut-away.

Bella can respect that.

"I don't think anyone really saw this coming."

The acting story about her wrist is that she fell getting out of her car.

It's embarrassing, but she lets Charlie snap a picture of her and her injured wrist. All the more material for the scrapbook he keeps promising to make of her injures dating back to infancy. He makes it up to her by ordering pizza and then extending the offer to her friends—

She tells Charlie all her friends are busy, so they can eat together and watch a movie.

After that, things shift back to normal as summer begins in earnest.

She goes to graduation parties. She signs cards. She makes cupcakes one-handed.

Angela is the first to leave town. People joke that it is sudden, but in the middle of the night, Angela packed her car and took off for Portland, or Olympia, or maybe California, leaving Forks and Eric stunned. Bella runs into him one day, at the diner to pick up lunch for the staff at the Newtons' and watches him shake his head in dismay. Jessica leaves next for Seattle, settling into her cousin's apartment and giving Bella a call once she's settled before detailing to her how much she will do in college.

Mike, who is taking a gap-year, works at his family's store in order to supplement his free time, much to Bella's chagrin. However, in her luck, Mike announced that he and Jessica decided to try long distance.

It's one of those lazy afternoons, the lull of lunch time enticing Mike and his mother into a charity cookout that Bella knows Emily is working, but cannot go to because she dropped lunch last time, she went to pick it up. Mike promised to bring her back a burger and a cookie as quick as he could, but ten minutes in and Bella is assuming he either forgot or is trying to wrangle his mother away from her friends.

With the oddly warm summer breeze blowing through the shop's open door, Bella sink back behind the check-out counter with her new book, excited to finally get some reading done instead of one-handed stocking shelves.

The open door, however, winds up being her downfall.

One minute, she is alone and the next, she is not.

Demetri looks much the same as he did when she saw him last: sweeping black coat, wind-swept hair, and a cruel smile. The huge black-out sunglasses, however, are a new touch.

"Buon pomeriggio," he offers, the faux-cheer of his tone is almost musical.

Bella tightens her grip on her book, his sudden appearance raging through her like an after-shock.

It's like drowning.

She never got a chance to scream.

"H-how are you doing?" she asks, voice cracking. The very real fear of Mike and Mrs. Newton lain out bloodless in the backroom rises up in her with fervor. It must show on her face because Demetri huffs indignantly.

He makes a show of leaning against the check-out counter, inspecting the display of keychains and gum before finally saying, "Well enough." A praise that Bella might take as good. "Lord Aro sends his best." Even if he says that.

"Oh, good. Say hi for me."

This is the man that Alice loves. Bella thinks, eyeing the man before her. He is tall, compact, and blond which may speak to Alice having a type, but the differences between Jasper and Demetri were a never-ending score.

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, since you have an inflated sense of ego, I have been instructed to come to you." Demetri fold his elbow onto the counter, leaning if as if he might try and whisper in her ear. "You have some nerve revoking an invitation from the Volturi. However, I am more willing to chalk it up to idiocy rather than gall."

That's—

"Come to—wait, what?"

Demetri stares at her, his black-out sunglasses tipping so that she can see the irises of his eyes. Blue-violet from contacts. "I believe I asked Alice to contact you so we may go over the terms of your arrangement as agreed upon."

"Alice told me that you would I had more time—" Bella glances back from Demetri's eyes to her hands, hopeless. "She said she would set a meeting—"

"Alice does not make those calls." Demetri says dismissively. "And, if I may be frank, isolating yourself from the Cullens will not make us forget your association with them. We are vampires, not werewolves. Our memories are much longer and they are crystal. We have sent you messages to meet with us, but since you have deliberately ignored us—"

"B-but I haven't gotten any messages!" Bella explains, frantic. "I haven't received a note, or message, or text, or anything! I haven't even gotten a tap on my window."

That causes a shift in the air between them.

Demetri's peeved expression shifts from annoyance to anger. The kick of his jaw a definitive marker. He snarls, lips curling up over his teeth as he leans further over the counter. "Have you actually not received any of our messages. Do not lie to me."

There is an edge to his voice that, if Bella is honest, sounds more annoyed than anything else. As if Bella were something, he was checking off his to-do list. Regardless, it scares her. His expression, his body, his everything terrifies her down to animal impulses.

"Honestly," she says, willing her words slow and docile and true. "I haven't gotten any messages that the Volturi have been sending me."

Demetri studies her for a moment longer. The sheer intensity of his stare and the red eyes beyond the lenses seem to burn into her, tearing at her from her lop-sided ponytail to her rumbled work smock. There is something unsettling in Demetri that does not quite translate with the other guards, she realizes.

Unlike Felix, he is not entertained by the thought of flirting with her to garner a reaction. In fact, he seems rather disgusted by her in all her human afflictions. Once more, unlike the twins, he has no sadistic glee in toying with her—whether by powers or lingering on. No, Demetri is unsettling because he is a hunter, a tracker, like James.

He makes decisions. He waits. He deliberates his options.

Demetri is terrifying because he is the least animal of them all.

Bella sinks her teeth into her tongue and tries, tries, tries not to fidget like mad under those eyes.

"Well," Demetri relents and the mock shrug of his shoulders. He looks a little like a panther conceding to a mouse. "If that is the case then I shall deliver my message to you loud and clear."

During the entirety of their conversation, Bella has had her hands braced against the countertop, the check-out counter working as a plastic barrier between them. Now, Demetri reaches across the margin, his fingers brushing the brace Carlisle placed on her wrist.

His touch is light, concerning, and in any other context make have been seen as tender, but Bella can feel the intent pressure of those fingers. How they tip against the Velcro strap to the fabric of her pale flesh beneath.

Demetri cups her wrist in his hand, lifting it as if to inspect the binding. The pale, wrinkled bends of her fingers are level with his mouth when he says, voice cool as silver, "Walk into the forest behind your house after dark." His breath is cool and sweet as the threat sinks in.

The weight of his words seems to hit her directly in her solar plexus. A vibrant, vicious fear blooms deep in her belly. All around her, the word seems to stretch out in brilliant, multicolored detail, before shrinking on to this: her damaged hand in Demetri's curling fingers.

This is it.

This is their decision.

He must feel her trembling. Demetri's grip on her only quickens as his gentle smile grows. As if she could escape, as if she could fight him off. "You were inducted into our world by a gentler kind, Isabella Swan. I should think you would know better than to try and outwit a vampire."

Her mouth is dry.

"I should like to be very tidy about this mess. However, I promised not to enter your family home. I should think that you would have enough mind about yourself to not do anything drastic like hide or leave an incriminating note."

A note.

Yes.

Most people would leave notes if they went missing.

It is something she might

"F-for my father?" She asks quietly. "Could I l-leave a note for him?"

Demetri's expression is as smooth as the David. "Whatever for?"

"To say goodbye."

He seems to consider it for a moment and, for a moment, Bella thinks he might say yes, but his response is a singular, biting squeeze on her wrist. It is barely a pinch to him. Nothing to a vampire. But to Bella, it is insistence, bone-on-bone, singing. "No."

"He'll look for me—!" The words are out of her mouth, spurred on by pain, by fear, by fury, before she realizes what she has done. She whimpers. "Don't."

"Do not think you can demand anything of me, Isabella Swan." Demetri says and just as quickly, his grip loosens and then he is drawing away from the check-out counter, cool as a breeze. "My orders are clear. You are to disappear without a trace. No clues, no notes, no tearful page-long goodbyes." He straightens his collar. "It would be an endangerment to our kind should any try to make one-and-one mean two."

Bella can feel a bubble of anger forming in her gut, rising backward up to her throat. She can feel everything numb and burn at once.

"So," She can taste the word between her teeth. "I disappear mysteriously without a trace?"

Demetri's lips quirk. "You misunderstand," He turns, the full, dark shape of him seeming to morph towards the door. The shaky, clammy feeling he left blanketing her like the summer's humidity. "Lord Aro's final verdict is not to kill you."

"So, mysteriously and without a trace." She repeats, fingers shaking. "I'm going to disappear."

Demetri scans her features, picking at her tone. "How else do did you think this would happen?"

She presses her lips together, if anything, to keep herself from crying. She does not want to detail to Demetri, of all people, her secret fantasy, her dream of giving herself a formal send off to her family. She could spend a week with Charlie and a week with Renee, Edward with her, and then somehow, someway, some terrible, brutal, accident—a distance, a car crash, an illness. She would slip from the land of the living, trading blood, soft skin, and brittle bones for venom.

She would trade the love her family bore her for the love of a boy who meant the world to her.

It would be unfair.

To Charlie, to Renee . . .

Apart of her is a little caught on the fact that this had been her original plan. The kinder plan of spending time with her family had been Edward's. Now, here she is, with the same cards on the table, something that months ago, would have made her so happy, now leaving her feeling utterly cold.

She will become a vampire.

That is final.

"I don't think I have to tell you that should any of the Cullen clan interfere that I will have to let the twins handle them."

Bella nods, weakly, stomach sick.

Demetri drums his fingers on the counter once more and inclines his head, the faint shadow of his face drawing a stark outline of his profile. "Well, we have preparations to make," he says and, as if he has met some wall, he does not continue. Just tucks his hands back into his coat and disappears through the door with nary a chime.

The rest of her shift seems to pass in a haze. She cannot lift anything heavy, so she is sidelined to the check-out counter, waiting on the sporadic flow of customers as the day begins to close. Mrs. Newton asks her three times what day should be her last and Mike makes an increasing series of mom's and not right now's that only seem to spur the woman's fervor.

Bella can hardly speak. "Soon," she says and conjures up a smile. She thinks of what is waiting for at home and feels ill. "Soon."

"Are you alright, Bella?" Mike asks. "Do you need to go home?"

"No

"Just a weird customer, earlier."

"Really? Who?"

Right, small towns.

"I think they might have been an out-of-towner," Bella begins, wondering at once why she is even trying to cover her tracks now. This would just add to the story of her disappearance. Whisked away by a mysterious stranger with no evidence to—

Evidence.

Bella's eyes flicker to the ceiling of the sport's shop, eyeing the paneled ceiling until she finds what she's looking for—a tiny black dome.

Cameras. The cameras!

"Hey," She can hear the sureness in her voice, the strange clay of hope that forms her tone. "Can I look at the security footage from before? I'm pretty sure if I see him again, I can name him."

She feels alight with the idea. Demetri cannot take her if he left a trail. If he brought himself into the light. If she goes missing then his face would be plastered all over the West coast. Super imposed to make those cheekbones ghoulish rather than charming.

"The cameras? Oh, they don't work."

"They don't work." She repeats, and Mike shrugs.

"Yeah, well, my dad was on this kick, but it's actually really expensive to keep them going so—" Bella can hardly stand this. She turns from Mike and makes a beeline across the store towards Mrs. Newton, who has her back to her as she talks to her friend.

In any normal situation, Bella would rely on her good manners, her shy nature, her police chief's daughter diplomacy, but now she can only hobble up to Mrs. Newton and barge in to ask.

"Do the security cameras work?"

"Oh," Mrs. Newton's eyes widen and then a slow, embarrassed blush covers her cheeks. She looks to her, her friend, and then Bella again. "The cameras—ah, one moment," She reaches out, touching her hand on her shoulder, but must not notice the full body flinch Bella reacts with while she is being led to the back room. Suddenly, Mrs. Newton's blue eyes are on her, stormy blue on her usually sunny face. "Bella, when I am with a customer—"

"I just need to know about the cameras!" Bella cuts in, desperate. "I—I need to see the footage. I need to show my dad!"

Mrs. Newton's face scrunches, puzzled. "Why? Did you see something? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I," Bella feels her cheeks color. What can she say? "I had a weird customer when you two were gone. I don't think he took anything but he gave me a really weird vibe. He came up to the counter and he was asking me all these questions."

Mrs. Newton nods along to her story with the cadence of a manager, her mouth tight and her eyes hard. "Why didn't you say anything when I got back? Did he say anything to you? Was he local?"

"I—I don't know. I just got a weird feeling. I need to see that security footage."

"Bella," Mrs. Newton reaches out again, resting her hands on the hills of her shoulders. Bella can feel her nails, gentle and individual. "Those cameras don't work. They're just for show." Bella can feel the hope in her chest beginning to skin, drawing a long, painful line through her. Her one hope of human intervention: squandered.

"Bella," Mrs. Newton's voice is sweet, almost too much so. "But you're not telling anyone that, now, are you?"

She stares at her for several seconds. The weight of the threat not really sinking in, but when it does, Bella feels that it is laughable. She can feel a crack of laughter rolling up in her like a spring waiting to pop.

Mrs. Newton's hands are harder on her shoulders now. Nails an even, clipped manicure. "Bella?"

"Why don't you ask you son about that?" She snaps and jerks herself away from Mrs. Newton's gripping hands. "I'm not the one blabbing to everyone that the cameras don't work!"

Her manager's face twists like she tasted a lemon and Bella watch the slow, subtle tightening of Mrs. Newton's jaw.

"You know Bella," Mrs. Newton says primly. "Today's the last day of the next pay period. I think it's best if we call it now."

There is a weird, out-of-body moment where Bella can only laugh. She is heading to her death sentence when the clock strikes six, but sure, why not quit her job. What else does she have to lose?

It's a cold, futile victory to hand over her smock, balled up in her hands, before she goes out to her car. She can vaguely hear Mike calling after her, asking what's wrong, before the slam of her cab door cuts him off.

All at once, sitting in her car, sinking into the seat, the realization begins to bubble inside of her. She sits with it a moment, spotting Mike out of the corner of her eye before she puts the keys in her ignition and tears off.

The drive home feels equally slow.

Sunset screens the trees in a golden haze. Part of her wonders if she should be enjoying this last ride. In her truck. On her route home. In the neighborhood and town that had begun to grow on her. She takes the long way home, filling her drive with staticy radio and the low hum of her engine. Her final drive and it's such a beautiful day.

There is car parked on the corner of the road leading to her street. Bella cannot see behind the tinted glass, but she knows it's none of the Cullen's. The black mirrors reflect back at her, something ghostly.

She is a little curious as to who sits inside, but once she exits her car, her feet automatically carry her up the walk and into her house. She locks the door, rests against it. It's an odd feeling. That nervous jittery feeling of too much, all at once Bella can feel herself choking with it.

The first tears rip through her like a tidal wave.

The second cut deeper than her own uselessness.

It frustrates her. To no end. She is not in control. She has never been in control this whole time. Even her distance from the Cullens, or her choices since breaking up with Edward—she has not been in control of this situation.

And, in truth, there is nothing she can do.

She cannot endanger Charlie, Charlie who knew nothing and did not deserve this, did not deserve her. She thinks of Renee in Florida. Her mom. Her dad. Separated and childless. Nothing buoying between them but a collection of nineteen years and divorce documents in a government file somewhere.

She thinks of what will happen to her. Her name disappearing from consciousness. Her disappearance turning into urban legend.

She thinks of what will really happen. The madness and bloodlust of immortality. The monotony. The disillusionment that will wrap around her like the cloak they will put her in.

She thinks of killing, of how easily it will come to her, how sick she will be.

Human life wheedled down into the blood running through the veins.

She will become a killer, a monster from Jacob's stories—

Oh, God, Jacob, The idea of him makes her curl tighter against herself. In the midst of fielding calls and having Charlie relay messages for her, she has forgotten that she will never get to see him again. She will never get to say sorry. She will never get to hear him try and explain his words. She will never get to joke with him about her hand.

Or, thank Leah. Or, Emily.

Or, Edward.

Or, Alice.

She thinks of all her heroes in her books. How, even unintentionally, she will wonder over what will happen when if the heroine were to make the wrong decision. If Cathy chose Heathcliff. If Jane stayed with Rochford. If Elizabeth had accepted Darcy's first proposal.

In her mind, all these options would turn out right. As she was the reader and knew that the course of true love would allow these unweathered paths to curve smooth. All jealousies and prejudice and narcissism forgone for the sake of the happy ending. The rest of the plot needed to happen in order to make the story.

One thing about the difference between books and real-life is that Bella cannot be sure which decision was the right one.

She cannot know if staying with Edward, marrying him, becoming a vampire would have made her happy—

Tears blurring her vision, she walks up the stairs to her bedroom, feeling the shift as steps creak under each foot. When she gets to her room, head full of words and apologies, she yanks open the drawer of her desk and begins to riffle until she has a pen and paper.

It's already dark out when she finally puts her pen down.

Night has gathered outside her window and spilled into her bedroom, collecting in shadowed corners under her bed and in her closet. The only force keeping the dark at bay is her desk lamp, pooling orange light over her pages and pages of words. Rough and ink-smudged and torn in some places. Frantically scribbled. Someone who knew something bad would happen to them and was running out of time.

Bella reads over her words, feeling eerily calm as she marks up Charlie's letter—two pages, front and back—and annotates extra notes of love and thankfulness, but it still does not feel like enough.

How does she convey her love for someone in written word? How does she tell time how much letting her be a part of their lives means to her?

How does she—

A sudden, loud rap at her window makes her flinch. Pages spilling across her desk and onto the floor, scattered letters dictated to the people she loves and would never see again. Bella holds her breathe and waits. And waits.

No noise follows after the first.

Maybe a reminder?

She waits another moment, unsure and rises from her chair, half-gathering the letters, but not committing to the pile.

Should she hide them? What if Demetri went back on his word and came inside to check if she followed instructions? Would he take her letters? Would he put them in the trash? Burn them? Take them with him?

She scoops her pile from her desk and cross her room to sit on her bed, considering. There is still a scattering of letters on her floor, all of them open-hearted and honest and full of so much love and pain and hurt—

But, nothing about vampires. Nothing about werewolves, or shifters. Nothing about being quietly turned into a monster.

Just wishes.

Wishes for second-chances.

She never knew she wished for so much until it was right in front of her.

She tucks the letters under her pillow and goes to her door, turning the handle in a half-rotation, she pauses to look over her shoulder.

This is her last look at her bedroom. The nursey and steady-second bedroom to full dwelling. The purple walls, the hanging lights, the dark wood bedframe and dresser and desk. The old rocking chair collecting laundry. The pile of books on her nightstand.

It's hers.

This is where she first dreamt of Edward. Where she spent her nights with him, wrapped up in his cool arms. Where she read her books and dreamed up sunny days in Jacksonville. Where she meditated on her thoughts and planned out attacks.

It's her.

She scans her room, committing every detail to memory when she sees looks to the window again. There is an outline behind the glass, a face, pale and ghoulish, in the low light, peering in at her like a thief in the night. It's Demetri.

Bella goes downstairs.

hello!

any-ho, how are we doing folks? it's been seven, eight months? i am so sorry? i didn't mean to do that? but, really, i didn't. i've been arguing with this chapter for so long now and editing it and trying to get the emotions right, but really, i'm not going to be happy with it until i let it loose. i just felt like my writing last chapter was really good and i hate feeling like i'm jumping through styles, but i know i am. regardless, my newest chap, and the final stretch of my twilight fic baby.

so, yes, i'm taking a break from grad school and enjoying the fuck out of it bc life's hard and it just wasn't making me happy. i'll try again later. but life's been swell and all things considered, i've been doing so much better since.

and yes, the fic notes! ofc the fic notes! bella be going through it tho. and i keep piling it on with everything i feel and i feel a lot. it's just crazy to think this is the story i started writing bc i needed to get my mind off a death in my family and i needed to exorcise all these negative emotions. you may see that thematically somewhere. but, i am really hoping i'm covering all my tracks here with the issues i've caused. alice and bella's friendship (that we hear about but never see), bella's distances with the cullens, being faced with her own mortality, and alice's super hot ex coming to kill her. yeah, sounds like a typical tuesday.

i love writing this, it just takes a while.

please review, they make me so happy & i'm sitting in an empty campus lobby for eight hours, so, do what you do.

- cafeanna