I've seen the world in muted shades since they left. I didn't realize that until I saw Carlisle, who was so bright he hurt my eyes. Of course, I realize this can't be literally true. But it's my experience.
We are all shaped by the past, aren't we?
"Going to the hospital," Charlie says. "You'll be okay?"
"Yeah," I say. He's too preoccupied to notice the hoarseness in my voice, or maybe he just assumes it's from last night's screaming episode - not a new occurrence. "Hey, Dad? I'm sorry. About Harry."
He tips his coffee cup up to his lips, but I see the redness in his eyes. "Thanks, kiddo," he says gruffly. "Not looking good. Sue's a mess, and Seth and Leah are..." he sighs. "Not handling it well."
"Be careful," I say automatically, as he steps through the door.
"Always am."
When he's gone the fatigue hits me. I didn't eat last night and I don't much feel like breakfast this morning. The urge to drive over to the Cullens' house is overwhelming, but I won't do that. Seeing Carlisle undid something inside me, and I don't know if it will ever knit back together.
I have something I can take upstairs - stimulants I can take to keep me going through the day. I don't nap. Not if I can help it, not when I dread closing my eyes for the few hours of sleep I can manage at night.
In my room, I slide open the shoebox at the back of my closet and pick up the bottle. It's right next to the sleeping pills Dr. Gerandy prescribed, next to the dramamine I have to take every now and then. My fingers graze over the stimulants and pick up the sleeping pills instead.
I twist open the cap and pull out the wad of cotton stoppering the little orange bottle.
I won't do it, of course. I can't do it - not to Charlie and Renee. Some things you can't get over - I know that better than anyone. But for just a minute, I imagine a sleep so dark and deep there can be neither dream nor nightmare in the depths of it.
Replacing the bottle, I take two of the stimulants and wander downstairs, pulling the ends of my sleeves over my hands. I haven't been able to shake the chill of the ocean off me, and I probably need to wash my hair again. I'll clean the house, for something to do with this endless time. I should probably make an appearance at the hospital, too. Maybe I can make some muffins. Or cookies. Something.
In the kitchen Carlisle is sitting on the stool at the island.
"Jesus Christ," I snap, jumping a mile. "Give me a heart attack, won't you?"
"I made noise," he says, unhelpfully. "I thought you heard me."
"Well, I didn't," I say, swallowing hard, wincing against the rasp of my throat, scraped raw by salt and screams. I turn my gaze away so he won't see the tears in my eyes. "I thought you'd left." I meant for the words to sound cavalier, uncaring, but they come out haunted instead.
"I didn't." He sounds like he wants to say more. "What are you doing?"
"I'm...making cookies," I say, crossing to the pantry and pulling out the cookbook - it had been a wedding gift to Charlie and Renee but I was the first one to use it when I moved back. All those years and perfectly preserved pages, but I'm the one who spilled spaghetti sauce on the pasta page and left flour fingerprints trailing down the Cakes and Pies section. "To take to the Reservation."
I turn with it in my hands, facing him at last, and there's something in his eyes that pulls me up short. He's leaning forward on the stool, hand clenched on top of the countertop, as if he's physically stopping himself from getting up. "What?" I ask, turning to look behind me as a flash of red hair sweeps across my memory. Nothing there but an empty pantry, which I knew.
He sighs and visibly forces himself to relax. Maybe he's gone a little mad, too. Me and the vampire, losing our minds over cookies and a memory or two.
Stop it, Bella. Stop it.
"I'm not going to bite you," I say. I intend it to be funny but it comes out shaky and nervous. He's seriously psyching me out. "Or throw anything at you...again. Sorry."
He blinks. "Alice saw..." He shakes his head and I press the cookbook to my chest to keep the pain that comes with her name at bay.
Oh. She saw me with those pills. I consider explaining, decide it would take too much energy. "Alice saw...?" I prompt, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing. Never mind."
Interesting.
I turn away and pull down some mixing bowls and measuring cups. After a silence that seems to stretch on forever, he gets up and turns the oven on to preheat before taking the flour from the cabinet. I let my hand brush his sleeve as he passes. Just to reassure myself I'm entering this uneasy truce with someone real and not a ghost.
Our eyes meet. I'm sorry for what I said. I'm sorry I still haven't hugged you. I'm sorry that those angry words are all the closure I can bring us both. Bring any of us.
He isn't Alice, or Esme, or Edward. But he's here, in my kitchen making cookies, and that's more than I ever thought I'd have again. When he's gone at least I'll have a last memory that isn't him cleaning the blood and glass from my arm. That isn't dark woods on a cold night.
"Bella?" he asks, and I look down at the measuring cup of flour that's still suspended over the bowl. I dump it in and add the baking soda and salt while he mixes eggs and oil.
When the cookies are in the oven, I step back and rub the back of my neck, which is still sore. The skin on my thigh feels tight and achy, the bruise black and swollen. I was lucky. The word feels bitter, wrong. Lucky.
Carlisle runs water into the sink over the dishes. I remember him doing the same thing at the Cullen house, so quickly my eyes couldn't track his movements. He's moving at human speed now. He doesn't know what he's going to do yet, I realize. About me.
He turns, dish towel in hand, and I self-consciously drop my hand from the back of my neck. He steps toward me, reaching, questioning. After a long moment, I nod.
His hands slip over the back of my neck, prodding, feeling. Down my shoulders and around my back. "Is there someone you can talk to?" he asks quietly. "Anyone you could..." The words trail off.
"Who would I tell, Carlisle?"
His hands tighten on my shoulders, and it's an easy thing for me to lean forward and rest my head on his marble-hard chest, cold and familiar.
"Don't do it, Bella," he whispers. "Don't ever do it again."
He thinks I jumped off the cliff on purpose, just like he and Alice thought I really would take those pills. Wrong on both counts. "I wasn't trying," I say, but the words taste empty in my mouth.
"You've been to the house," he says. And I wonder if he scented the blood I left on the hard glass points of the window I shattered with a rock so I could climb in.
"You're all still there," I whisper. "It's the only place that ever felt like home."
He pulls the cookies from the oven when they're done, pushes a piece of peanut butter toast toward me and watches as I nibble at it. And all the while I wonder when he'll say goodbye again, and what I'll do when he does.