Hello, all. Last chapter was difficult with news of Mike. While I don't go into detail, this chapter comes with a TW for anyone who has had to experience this kind of heartbreak. Wrapping you in a virtual hug today if you've been in this position.

Thank you to everyone!

Edward

Mom picks up on the first ring. "Are you alone?"

"No, Jasper's here," I answer quickly. "Mom, is it —"

"It's true," she confirms sadly. "They found him this afternoon."

"Oh, God," I choke out, my phone fumbling loosely between my fingers before it lands with a clang on the carpet beneath my feet.

"Edward, are you there?" I feel myself whirling, my world splintering into a million little pieces as Mom's words settle into my soul. She sounds so far away.

"I got him," Jasper says into my phone after he has picked it up off the floor. Apparently, he was woken up from my conversation with my mother, and he eases next to me on my bed. I know they talk for a few more minutes, but their voices filter in and out of my ears like I'm under water; I can't make sense of anything they say.

Right now, nothing makes any sense.

Dead?

Mike is dead?

"I will," Jasper promises something to my mom, hanging up the phone shortly after. He sighs next to me, not knowing what to say as I sit on the edge of my bed. My feet rest on the floor, my elbows perched on my knees, my head in my hands.

My heart broken.

My chest constricted.

Sure, we had our differences. And yeah, he was a dick to most people, including Bella. But dead?

I'm not ready to believe it yet, let alone accept it.

"Your mom said she's going to book a flight for you to go home when she hears about the services," Jasper says softly. "I'll email your professors for you."

I nod slightly, still dazed that this is even happening.

Dead?

This isn't fucking real.

This can't be real.

I've anticipated mostly everything that could happen to me my entire life. I've planned ahead; accounted for all the worst-case scenarios, and analyzed and measured every move and decision.

This is not something I ever planned for. Why would it be? I would never have thought this would happen to someone I know.

Never thought it would be Mike.

It's one of the thoughts that never leaves my mind over the next few days.

"I think that's why it feels like such a punch to the gut," Eric croaks a few days later. We're outside on his deck in Forks, the silence between us deafening. The brown, dried leaves scratch against the wood as we try to make sense of everything. "Never knew he even thought of things like this."

"He called me a few times last week. Texted," I reflect quietly. "I should have fucking picked up the phone."

"Yeah, me too. It wouldn't have changed anything," Eric answers.

"It might have," I argue. "What if I could have stopped him?"

"He was miserable here," Rosalie sighs, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear and staring off into the distance. Her breath filters out of her mouth in light gray puffs. "All of us were gone and starting new lives without him."

"One more year," Angela sniffles from her chair next to me. "One more year, and he could have transferred anywhere."

We all look around at Angela's words, each of us thinking of different versions of what here means to all of us.

Most of my memories of Forks are good. Pleasant. Laughs with friends and holidays with family. Stolen moments with a girl who easily changed me for the better.

But for others, like Bella, Forks is a cold and formidable prison. I wonder how long Mike felt that way.

Maybe the prison wasn't the place, I think to myself later that night as I'm dragging myself up the sidewalk to Mom's apartment. Maybe the prison was in his head.

I relate to that on such a molecular level that I feel like I can't escape the madness of Mike's suicide no matter what I do. I can't make sense of the thoughts in my head and what to do with them. I can't sleep, and if I do, it's in small bursts that leave me confused and angry when I wake up.

"I'm so sorry," Mom whispers as I cry on her shoulder the night before his funeral.

"Why didn't I see it?" I cry, my tears wetting her shirt as she holds me. She's sitting next to me on the edge of my bed, both arms around my shoulders. My shoulders shake against her as I let myself grieve.

"Sometimes we can't," Mom replies, pulling me away from her so she can look me in the eye. "No matter what you think you could have done, this isn't your fault. Mike was battling something far bigger than any of us could understand."

"I should have been there for him." A fresh wave of tears slips from my eyes. "I thought by leaving Forks; I was just leaving a place. I didn't know I would leave anyone behind."

"Of course you didn't," Mom says. "No one does. But that's not what happened — Mike didn't do what he did because you went away to college. Mike was troubled for longer than that, baby."

Exhausted, I pull my hood over my head and lean back onto my pillows as Mom places my blanket over me, and I close my eyes. My phone is nowhere to be found, and even if I did know where it was, I don't have the energy to talk to anyone.

I don't have the energy for anything.

Maybe that's another aspect of Mike's life I find myself conflicted about. When I think of Mike, the first thing I remember is the playground at school when we were in Kindergarten. Years later, playing basketball together for hours, both for fun at the court near my house and for high school. Our first foray into girls and getting fucked up. They all tumble together from one to the next, disjointed and broken, moving too fast to make any sense. I see him tackle me on the court after our win at states. I see him beg me for my French homework.

I see him on the floor at the fundraiser between Bella's legs.

I hear him taunting her in the hallways at school.

I see his unanswered text flash across my screen a few days ago.

There's no easy fix to the confusion running rampant through my veins.

And I'm sitting up in bed, sleep plaguing me yet again.

I realize now there is no end to my nightmare.

——-u——-

The church parking lot is full the morning of Mike's funeral. Mom and I arrive early to find a spot, though we both know it won't matter. The lot has always been too small for events like this, and today is no different. The cars spill out onto the surrounding streets as people walk toward the church with umbrellas over their heads.

It's fitting; somber weather for a somber day.

I walk into the church with my eyes burning and my chest heavy, unsure if this is something I can see myself sitting through. The thoughts in my head are still racing, and I still haven't figured out how to make them stop or even slow them down. If anything, they've only gotten worse, and I feel like I haven't stood on solid ground in years.

I spot Eric, Rosalie, and Angela in one of the pews a few rows back from Mike's family, and Mom follows behind me as I walk on shaking legs to join them. It's not a far walk, though it feels like miles, and just when I don't think I have it in me to make it through the service without panicking, I move my head to find the closest exit.

That's when I see her.

And with a breath I didn't know I was holding for the last week, my shoulders slump in exhaustion.

"Bella," I say, loud enough for her to hear me but not at a volume that would be considered disrespectful. I can almost hear the relief in my voice, and before I know it, the legs I had almost given up on are carrying me towards her.

Her head lifts at the sound of her name, and her eyes dance around the church briefly as she tries to find the source. Her eyes meet mine when she sees me, and she walks wordlessly into my arms.

I can't feel their eyes on me. Eric's. Rosalie's. But I know they're looking.

The only thing I can feel is Bella and how the wheels in my head sputter to a stop the minute I wrap my arms around her. I rest my cheek against the top of her head, my eyes fluttering closed as I welcome her peace.

"I thought you couldn't come back here," I whisper to her, not because I don't want anyone to hear, but because it's the only strength I have.

"For you, I can."

——-u——-

Jasper gives me until the first week of November before he reaches out.

I'm lying on my bed, facing the wall. I don't move too far out of this position these days, which is why he drops a card onto my bed right near my eyes.

"You should probably give them a call," he says, clearing his throat as if it would soften the blow of this whole fucking conversation. "It's right on campus."

Not able to look at him yet, I pick up the card that sits like an anvil on my pillow. "Therapist?"

"Something like that," he replies, briefly hesitating as he sits on the end of my bed. "It can't hurt to see someone. You're suffering, man."

"Haven't I always?"

"You've covered it up as best you could," Jasper says, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder. "But you don't have to live like this. You don't have to carry this load every day."

It takes me another week to walk through the doors of the on-campus clinic, mainly because the thought of opening the door to my own fucking room to step outside is too overwhelming for me to do. I collapse in bed with my hands on my chest, breathing heavily as another wave of panic constricts my chest.

"Does that happen often?" Dr. Emily Young asks as I sit across from her in a stiff chair. I'm not sure if it's the chair that's stiff or the person sitting in it.

"Not until recently," I say weakly, my level of discomfort palpable in the small, sterile room. It's private, but walking into a mental health clinic in the middle of campus has left me off-kilter.

"What do you think brought on these feelings of panic?"

I hesitate to answer her; my response will require a lot of unpacking. "My friend from home killed himself a few weeks ago," I say. "None of us were prepared for it."

"No one ever is," her voice softens. "Were you close?"

"We were close, but I guess we drifted a little over the last few years or so. But we grew up together and had the same circle of friends."

Dr. Young nods in understanding. "I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Whatever his reason was, it was not your fault."

"Sometimes he did some things I didn't always agree with," I add. "With girls and stuff. But I never said anything to him about it. Figured it was who he was and that he'd never change."

"Are you thinking that if you had said something, it would have made your friend rethink his choices? Behave differently if the situation presented itself again?"

"I don't know," I reply. "I would hope so. But I don't know; I don't know much about that kind of stuff."

"What stuff?" She questions.

"Friendships," I clarify. I shrug my shoulders. "I've always struggled with that. Why I keep the friends I have when I disagree with a lot of the things they say or do. Why their opinions matter at all to me when we're completely fucking different."

"Are these friends at school?"

"Back home."

"Have you struggled with this here on campus?"

I take a moment to think about it, my eyes glued to the floor. "Not so much," I say. I clear my throat and try to stop the bouncing of my leg as I sit in the chair. "It took me a while to warm up to the idea of trusting other people with my work for the paper. I was so afraid of what they'd think I almost didn't do it."

"But you did do it?"

"Eventually. Put it off for as long as I could. But I haven't been able to go back since Mike died." I shake my head at myself in frustration. "It's too much."

"This is a traumatic event in your life, and I think it's important to treat it as such," Dr. Young advises. "But intervention may be needed if it starts interfering with your day-to-day life."

"I don't want it to," I say sadly, knowing I've lost the ability to control whether or not I let it.

"Tell me about your friends here," she says with a trusting smile.

I shift in my chair again. "Well, there's the staff at the paper. And there's Jasper, my roommate." I think about the card burning a hole in my wallet. "He's the one who told me to come here."

"He sounds like a great friend to have," Dr. Young says.

I nod. "He is. Truly."

"Is that all?"

"No," I swallow nervously. "There's Bella. She's a friend from back home."

"And she's here on campus, too?"

"Yeah, we applied to UCLA together our senior year." I smile at the memory. "It was her idea. She was the one who convinced me to major in English because she knew it was what I really wanted."

"She sounds like she has your best interests at heart," she notes.

Unsurprisingly these days, I feel my eyes well with tears. "She does. She always has. Even when I didn't deserve it," I chuckle humorlessly, quickly wiping another tear from my face as I think of Bella amidst all the chaos in my head right now. I cross my arms against my chest, squeezing myself tightly. "Bella has been the one to help me see the best in things when I couldn't stop thinking about the worst. Or how everything could go wrong with one wrong decision."

"Have you always worried about making the wrong decision?"

It's a question so heavy I feel its weight crash around us. Breathing deeply, I make the decision here and now to let it all go and tell the truth.

"My whole life."

——-u——-

"When was the last time you slept?" Bella asks me the following week. We're both sitting at our desks, talking through video chat on the computer. The beam from my laptop is the only light in the room. Jasper isn't here tonight, so there's no need for me to put the TV on when I don't give a fuck about anything anymore.

"I slept for an hour here and there last night," I reply with a yawn. It matches the dark circles and heavy bags I have under my eyes.

She shakes her head. "That's not enough, Edward."

"I know." I sigh. "I go to close my eyes, and I just…can't. Can't get it to turn off."

"Have you told Dr. Young?"

"Yeah," I answer before another yawn slips out. "I'm really tired."

"Do you want to at least try to go to sleep?" Bella asks. I see her sigh through the computer screen. "Bring your computer over to your bed and close your eyes. I'll be up for a while."

She motions to all the books and papers surrounding her, and I nod, ignoring all the work of my own I don't bother to complete.

"Okay."

"Goodnight," she whispers once I have everything situated comfortably. My computer rests against the wall on top of my pillow, and I watch her silently while she works until my eyes are too heavy for depression to win this round.

Five hours later, when the sun rises behind her and illuminates her like a halo on an angel's head, my eyes flutter open, and I feel the corners of my lips turn up at the sight of her.

"Is that a smile?" She asks in disbelief.

"Good morning," I say, my voice heavy with sleep for the first time in weeks.

"Stay there. I'm coming over," Bella replies, our video call ending before I could try to change her mind.

Someone must let her into the building because fifteen minutes later, she's knocking on my door like there's a fire. I roll out of bed, shuffling to the door while the banging continues, only for her to plow past me. She heads straight to my desk drawer, pulling it open to find what we both know she's looking for.

"The world needs that smile, Edward Cullen." Bella sticks her hand out, a full bottle of pills to help combat my newly diagnosed anxiety and depression rattling in her grasp. "Please. Try. If you don't like them, Dr. Young can try something different. But please, Edward. Try."

Instead, I stare at the bottle as I have every day since filling the prescription. Dr. Young may be right. Maybe I do need them to help my world stop spinning for a while.

But I know what I need more.

Reaching for her hands, I pull her to me, so our eyes flit back and forth. "I need you," I choke out. I make sure her eyes never leave mine. "I need all of you, Bella; even the parts you're not ready to give me yet."

"Where else am I gonna go?" She asks rhetorically through unshed tears in her eyes, both of us knowing we'll never go anywhere else without the other.

I take my first dose of medication after kissing her so hard I can feel my life begin again.

To happy times ahead. Only a few more chapters to go. See you soon!