"Bella?"
Wet strands of hair slap my face, someone's hot breath brushing too close to my lips. I flinch away then start coughing, seawater welling back up in my throat. I choke, lifting my hands helplessly, then Jacob's face comes into focus as he rolls me onto my side. More saltwater and grit rise up in my throat, burning my nose as I heave what feels like half the ocean onto the sand.
"Jesus, Bella," he says, holding back my hair. I realize it's raining. And that I'm freezing - my whole body hurts. "What were you thinking? Huh? What the fuck were you doing?"
"Cliff diving," I say hoarsely. "Sorry I didn't wait…"
"Does your back hurt? Or your neck?"
"No," I say automatically, but they do. My answer is good enough for Jacob, because he scoops me up and heads down the beach. I think I might be sick again. I open my mouth to tell him, but then he's sliding me into my own truck, turning the heaters up as far as they'll go. I lean against the door. My skin feels raw, my clothes filled with the sand that feels like it's been rubbing holes into me.
He jumps into the driver's seat, grabbing my hand and placing it over the vent. He's shirtless, as usual, wet hair streaming down into his eyes. "Hot," I croak, trying to pull my hand away from his burning skin. He doesn't let go as he guns the truck into reverse. There's something unreadable in his eyes. Fear. Something else.
"Jacob…" I clear my throat. "Jacob, I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" he asks, searching my eyes, trying to find answers to a question he won't - can't - ask.
I turn back to the window in silence, shivers shaking my whole body.
Jacob curses again as LaPush disappears behind us. I blink as the rain finally lets up, giving my tortured wipers a break.
"Look, Charlie's at the hospital with my dad. Harry Clearwater had a heart attack this morning...it doesn't look good."
"Oh, Jake," I groan, feeling worse about myself than I thought possible. "I'm so sorry…"
He nods once, sharply, his eyes wet with more than the rain. "I'm going to take you back to your house, get you cleaned up." He gives me a sharp look. "Or maybe the hospital..you don't look so good."
"No," I snap. "No hospital. I'm fine. Just take me home, Jake, please. Go be with your dad."
His jaw sets, but he doesn't take the exit that will take us to the hospital. I slump back with relief. "But I'm staying with you," he adds. "Bella, there was a second...on the beach...I'm not sure you were breathing." His voice breaks, and I reach over and touch his shoulder. "I'm breathing now," I say quietly, and we both sit and absorb what almost happened.
I don't make a conscious decision to close my eyes, but Jake's low, dark curse sends a jolt through me. I force myself to sit up, ignoring the pain shooting through my body, blinking as my eyes come into focus.
There's a familiar black Mercedes parked against the curb.
My hand presses itself against the glass of its own volition, my heart thumping wildly as the hole in my chest burns around the edges. Jake throws the truck into reverse, grinding the gears. "Jake let me out," I cry hoarsely. "Let me out."
"There's a vampire here," he growls, one hand thrown protectively over my body. "Don't worry, I'm getting you back to the rez."
"It's Carlisle," I choke out. "It's Carlisle."
He stares at me. "And? He left you, Bella. They all did." Gripping the steering wheel so hard it creaks in protest, he holds my eyes, burning me from the inside out. "Say the word. Just say the word, and we'll be gone."
"I need to talk to him," I say, hating myself all over again for what I've done to him, for what I'm doing to him now, for what I will always do to Jacob.
"Fine," he spits out. "It's your funeral. I've gotta get out of here."
He slams out of the truck and toward the woods, body already shaking, rain running down his rippling back.
Sand and grit rub at my skin as I hurry up the porch steps, the wind like knives under my freezing, wet clothes. My teeth are chattering as I open the front door and step into the hall.
It's dark, so dark.
I fumble for the light switch, and suddenly my instincts kick in and I'm afraid. What if it isn't Carlisle after all?
I find the switch and light floods the small hallway. I turn and he's standing there, stock still, a look on his face I can't explain. "Bella, you're alive," he whispers. And of all the words I expected Carlisle to say to me if I ever saw him again, it wasn't that.
"Last I checked." The words taste bitter on my tongue. I want to run to him, leap into his arms, but my feet won't move. My arms stay crossed over my body, my tone is resentful.
We stare at each other. Finally I push myself off the wall. "I'm going to take a bath."
"Not too warm," he calls after me, unable to help himself, the good doctor to the very last. I drag myself up the stairs, stunned by the war inside me. I'm angry at him, and I'm terrified he can't take it. I'm hoping he'll leave. I'm praying he won't.
I peel the wet clothes off, leaving them in a puddle on the floor to put straight into the washer. Sinking into the warm water, I lean back against the tub and think.
It's not hard to figure out. Alice saw me jump - and a pang goes straight through me, knowing she saw me grieving, saw me writing her endless emails, and never once reached out - and for whatever reason, did not see me resurface. So Carlisle hops a plane, takes a jog through the woods, whatever, and now he's here.
They thought I was dead. Alice and Edward thought I was dead and they couldn't even be bothered to show up.
My hair is stiff and salty. I slide lower into the water, letting it swirl over my face and block every bit of sound from the outside world. My breath bubbles up from my lips and I stare up at the distorted ceiling, remembering the violence of the ocean singing through my ears.
The bathroom door snaps open.
I jerk up, grabbing for the shower curtain and pulling it around myself. "What the actual fuck?"
He keeps his head averted, but he stays in the doorway. "What are you doing?"
"Taking a bath," I snap. "What are you doing?"
"You stopped breathing," he says, something unreadable in his tone.
"Yeah, well," I'm suddenly too tired for this, for any of this. "It happens. I'm only human, you know."
I'm sorry, I want to call out, as he gently closes the bathroom door behind him. I'm sorry. I don't know who this person is, saying these things.
But I know. It's the tiny, fledging part of me that I taught to protect myself.
I climb out of the bathtub, wrapping a towel around myself. As I run a brush through my tangled hair, I remember the haunted house, alone in the forest. Has Carlisle been there, too? Maybe even first, to run his hands across sheetcovered furniture and smile a little sadly at a memory.
You and I, we are the same. Haunted, abandoned, and now visited by one more ghost who won't let us forget.
I put on a sweatshirt and thick lounge pants, covering my feet with fuzzy socks, trying to force some warmth back into my body. Wrapping my sopping clothes in a towel, I walk past Carlisle and to the washing machine. "Why are you here?" I ask him, on my way back to my room for another layer of clothes.
"Alice saw you jump," he says, still and calm, as though the slightest hint of movement would scare me off. Maybe it would. Carlisle always knows best, after all.
A laugh spills out of my mouth, followed by a cough. I bend over, forcing more seawater out of my lungs, willing myself not to throw up. His hand on my back is almost my undoing.
"I'm fine," I say woodenly, straightening back up but keeping my arms wrapped around myself.
"We thought you'd died," he says. "She said it was already too late, but I came to..." he swallows. "We didn't want to tell Edward, unless we were sure."
Pain. I hold myself tighter. He runs his hand down my arm, tugging gently at my hands, where the fingers are burying themselves into skin. I laugh again, hoarsely. He looks concerned. "Please, Bella, come sit down. Just for a moment."
He leads me down the stairs, sits me onto the couch. "I don't want Charlie to see you here," I say. "He'll have a heart attack, and Harry Clearwater already had one, and you know, he died."
"Yes," Carlisle says. "I'm very sorry about that."
Our knees are almost touching. He's looking at me intently. "Our leaving did you no good at all, did it, Bella?"
I swipe furiously at my eyes. "Why are you here, Carlisle?"
"Why did you jump?" he asks in return.
"You know, I'm still confused," I snap. "I'm nothing to you, or your family. Your son made that perfectly clear before he left me, alone, in the woods. And I woke up the next day and you were all just...gone. Do you know what you did to me?" I'm almost yelling now. Is this closure? Are these words, these words I've been nursing and holding close to my heart, words I expunged in a thousand unread emails, all I'll ever have?
"I don't know what Edward said to you," he says slowly, but there's a dawning light in his eyes. He knows Edward better than I ever will now. He might not know, but he can guess.
"You're supposed to be a father," I say, my hands clenched tightly to keep them from reaching for him. "But he said leave, and you left. What about me, Carlisle? Would you have taken the rest of them and abandoned Alice, if Edward ordered you to? Rosalie?"
His jaw clenches tight, as though I have personally attacked him. And I remember, suddenly, how much I've always hated to see him sad. "I'm sorry," I say quietly, the fight draining out of me all at once. "I'm not myself. I haven't been, in a long time."
He opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up my hand. "I love you," I say simply. "I love all of you, and that hasn't changed. But I understand. You got in too deep, right? All of you did." I pull my sleeve across my eyes, suddenly aware of how I must look. How I must sound. Like I've gone mad. "Please just go. Now, before Charlie gets here. You've seen what you came to see...so go."
I head for the stairs, forcing myself not to look back to see if he does. But up in the emptiness of my room, when I place my hand against the frozen window and watch the Mercedes pull slowly away from the curb, I close my eyes against pain made fresh again.
I forgot how much it hurt, when it was fresh.