Chapter Three
Next to Normal
Bella hadn't slept once in the seventy two hours that followed her peculiar encounter with Eric. She was familiar with the restlessness that occurred after prolonged tours and increased amphetamine usage. The feeling of weakness, lethargy, quivering limbs, and simultaneous mania would always ghost throughout her body. But this time her body felt different. The wakefulness was steadfast, almost zen, and devoid of her usual earthly urges, aside from the growing sense of dread that she was seriously ill or disturbed. Bella pulled her knees tightly against her chest and rocked back into Jasper's sofa, taking in the sunrise from the lone east facing window.
Jasper had kindly forced Bella to be his roommate for the foreseeable future. He'd seen too many close friends meet their untimely deaths and was not going to allow Bella to become part of America's most hideous statistic. Eric and Mike were in support of Jasper's plan to get Bella on the, mostly, straight and narrow. The first action they took was canceling all the local shows their manager had booked before their return. Hopefully the time off would give Bella a chance to write and record the few ideas she'd tried out on the road.
The boys had given her space, first and foremost. Jasper wordlessly watched Bella gaze out of his small living room window for hours at a time since she'd agreed to stay with him. Occasionally she would turn as if she was being addressed by an invisible third party, only to be distracted by Jasper flipping pages in his monthly show calendar.
On this particular day; Tuesday, Bella was feeling acutely agitated. Jasper sensed it the moment he opened his bedroom door at six thirty in the morning. The living room was mostly dark, the sky a dusty pink out the window, Bella hadn't moved an inch since Jasper had retired to his bed a few hours before.
"Can you at least pretend to sleep?" Jasper yawned, focusing on the sunrise's orange glow on Bella's eerily blank expression.
"Did you know your neighbor is cheating on her boyfriend?" Bella said quietly. Jasper's brow furrowed. "He walked in on them a few hours ago. I'm surprised her screaming didn't wake you up."
"Yeah, good thing it didn't," Jasper said dryly, running a hand through his bed head. "I'm guessing it woke you?"
"No," she sighed. "I haven't slept yet," Bella continued to leave out the small fact that she was going on seventy four hours without a single REM cycle.
She'd deduced that explaining her newfound chronic insomnia would most likely lead Jasper to believe she was using again. Jasper would in all probability scrounge what little funds he did possess to send her to a detox center. He also wasn't entirely off base. It was an indisputable fact that Bella had, indeed, tried to get high the day before. She'd covertly crushed up an entire fifty bag she scored from a college kid a few blocks away from her Jasper's multi-dwelling building. Extremely desperate and slowly losing her grip on reality, she'd held her breath the entire time. Going as far as to wear leather gloves to completely avoid any accidental skin to skin contact.
Bella's game plan had been to induce an overdose. Not necessarily to end her life; although that option wasn't entirely repulsive, she'd mostly set out to feel something other than this monotony. No sleep, yet no exhaustion. No regular meals, yet her stomach never ached for food. She longed for the warm embrace of her dearest companion. Bella had sobbed for hours when she quickly came to the realization that her companion drug had utterly no effect on her. Instead she'd spent the better part of the evening choking on expensive white dust.
Two days prior, Bella had locked herself in Jasper's bathroom. Emerging from the cramped closet of the room a few hours later, she'd systematically taken note that her skin was absolutely free of any blemishes, and most importantly, was a ghostly white-grey color. Purple bruises graced her cheeks under her black irises. She looked beautiful, otherworldly, and downright dangerous. It was as though the waves of shocking revelations couldn't stop overtaking Bella. Despite this the rhythm of her heart never matched the anxiety fueling her brain. Upon further inspection, Bella could only notice the tiniest whisper of a pulse on her wrist and neck.
The supernatural reflection in the mirror showed that Isabella Swan was very much alive and present in Jasper's bathroom, ugly floral wallpaper, small forehead scar, and all. On the inside; however, Isabella Swan felt altered. She'd never experience exhaustion after a long set or french fries animal style from In-N-Out. Her stride was graceful and foreign, three full packs of guitar strings had fallen victim to her newly acquired strength. It felt as though Bella Swan had died in that alleyway and all that remained was an inhuman shell that walked and talked and daydreamed of ripping out her best friend's jugular.
"I think I may go for a walk," Bella was off the couch and tying her shoes at the door before Jasper could process her movements. He chalked it up to fatigue clouding his mind and nodded in acknowledgement of her abrupt change of plan.
The Seattle morning air was wintry, Bella instantly noticed the heavy coats donned by rosy cheeked early morning commuters. She glanced down at her simple black t-shirt and trousers, mentally adding 'insensitivity to climate' to her growing list of undiagnosed symptoms.
The sun was low, the shadows of the nearby buildings slowly creeping across. A nearby church bell echoed against brick and concrete, signaling the start of a new hour.
Bella purposely walked down vacant streets and alleyways the opposite direction of her old university. She'd planned to avoid sharing airspace with people for as long as luck would allow. She kept her eyes low and her breathing shallow. From the corner of her eye a shimmer of deep red liquid caused her body to still. He sat on a secluded bench, nestled between two large trees on narrow block a few miles away from Jasper's apartment. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, a muscular build, and fresh blood trickling from his battered nose. Bella really only processed the last identifier.
With a throat full of flames and a familiar ache in her jaw, Bella's attempts to try and mute the voice in her head giving elaborate instructions on elementary exsanguination were futile. Her feet silently propelled her forward and before she could halt her actions, Bella's teeth were clumsily puncturing the sweaty skin of the stranger's neck. He fought against her sturdy embrace with obvious intent, but quickly lost any chance of championing his attacker. With every second that passed he lost precious pints of blood; ultimately ending with his limp, lifeless body strewn across a lonely park bench at seven thirty on a Tuesday morning
Taking in the extent of the damage she'd unknowingly inflicted, Bella backed away from the body in horror and found herself in a dead sprint headed West. She raced around the back of Jasper's building and gracefully swung herself onto the rusty fire escape. She effortlessly hauled herself onto the roof seconds later. Her breathing was labored, though not from normal physical exhaustion. Instead, she was gasping for a single deep breath because the stranger's blood coursing through her body made her feel exhilarated and stoned. More so than any drink or drug that came before. She needed more instantly.
Stalking across the roof, her calculating steps mimicked a feral cat, she listened to the early morning clamor of Jasper's twenty-five year old neighbor, and local band boy, Luke. He'd been kind while passing her in Jasper's stairwell the day before. Under different circumstances Bella might've even accepted his offer of grabbing a drink down the street. She'd politely declined in less than six words, once again holding her breath in fear of killing the man. This Tuesday morning; however, Bella stalked the perimeter of his small one bedroom plotting the most seamless entrance and exit after she took what she needed.
Luke had opened his living room window to smoke his regular eight A.M. cigarette shortly after she'd arrived on the roof. Bella caught a whiff of his signature Marlboro No. 27s at the same time everyday. The fragile wisps of smoke rising from the small window lured Bella to the edge. Looking down, there was no doubt she would be able to swing herself carefully into the window.
Her fingers curled around the trim as she prepared to lower herself onto the window sill.
"He'll scream, but you'll kill him anyway. Jasper will hear you and he'll call the cops. They'll ask him about you and you will, A. not have an alibi, and B. you'll be missing. Neither look promising, Isabella Swan. I've never been behind bars, but I can promise an eternity behind them will not be fun."
The smooth voice calling out Bella's legal name interrupted her second hunt of the day. It was the same voice that apologized before sucking the life from her body. She crouched defensively and whipped around, once again locking eyes with the strange man.
"Who the fuck are you," she spat.
"I really loathe to be officially meeting like this, but," he grimaced before continuing. "My name is Edward Cullen, I am your sire."
Bella's jaw promptly fell. "I- I'm sorry? Sire?" Her tone was incredulous, though her stance remained steady.
"I must apologize again, truly, I hadn't known of your condition until Alice informed me yesterday." Edward paused again, carefully examining the confusion in Bella's black eyes. He'd been warned by his dear sister to be direct and to take control of the situation in a positive manner. She was rarely wrong. "You are a vampire," he said slowly.
"Come again?" Her posture relaxed slightly, clearly the man was more deranged than herself.
"Do you not thirst for human blood? Is your heartbeat lethargic?" Bella's hand ghosted over her heart, a lump forming in her throat as she felt a single thud in her chest. "The centennial of the last moment of rest I ever experienced is approaching. When was the last night of sleep you remember?"
"I haven't slept since Saturday morning," she muttered, the pieces of Edward's explanations falling together like bricks in her head as though they were unlikely companions playing a perfect game of Tetris.
Edward's expression was clear. "I can't read your mind. Share what you're thinking, please."
He'd been polite, but the request had distinctly been a demand. "No."
Edward shifted his weight to his right leg, hoping to put on display his humanity and lack of threat to his first and only subjugation. His venom had run through her body, irrevocably altering every cell in its path. It continued to reside in her slightly coagulated plasma even today. Vampire law dictated that Bella rightfully belonged to him, at least until she had learned the nuances of their world. He hadn't carefully considered that the beautiful vampire standing mere inches away would deny him.
"I'm only here to help you, Isabella," he warned.
"It's Bella," she huffed. "And I didn't ask for you help."
Bella took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked in the direction of the the fire escape.
"They'll hunt you down and kill you if you refuse my council." Edward's stern tone and paralyzing words forced Bella to stop walking, as though he had grabbed hold of her. "The leaders of our kind have mandated that every new vampire must spend a minimum of four years with their creator. To ultimately aid in keeping the population low and under control. We cannot risk exposure. You killed an innocent man, Bella. You would've killed two innocent men if Alice hadn't sent me to find you when she did."
Bella's head continued to spin while Edward unloaded her reality in relatively plain speech. Neither of her parents, her high school guidance counselors, or core college credits had coached her on how to handle being told you're dead, but not really dead. Since she'd found herself on Jasper's couch on Saturday morning, sensory overload had clouded every lobe of her enhanced processing. She had answers now, unsatisfactory answers, but at least it was a point at which she could anchor herself to. Her anxiety calmed with the knowledge that others had walked the path she was being forced to travel.
"If I accept your help?"
"We can give you something next to normal," the right corner of his lip fell into a downcast grin.
"Is there a cure?" She asked, her voice quieting as she anticipated his response.
"I'm afraid not."
The two fell into a short-lived, yet mournful silence.
"When were you born?" Bella asked a while later. Edward sat with his legs extended diagonally to Isabella, both finding comfort in the superficial brick walls along the perimeter of their perch. Bella mirrored his position.
"1901," Edward stated, proud of his generation and the methodology of the era.
"Did you ever see Jimi Hendrix play? or the Ramones?" Bella asked, genuine excitement taking over her line of questioning.
"Yes and Yes," he laughed. "I wasn't lying the other night when I said my sister brought me to your show. Nightlife and music tend to keep the tedium to a minimum."
Bella nodded in agreement, the camaraderie between her bandmates and their instruments had fulfilled her when others could not. "Do you think I can still play with the band?" Her voice was weak.
Big brown doe eyes stared back at him filled with undeniable hope. Edward had nearly deflected every trying question Bella had thrown his way about their shared condition. His guilt for ending her life was overwhelming. He'd wanted to declare that she now had the opportunity to fulfill several lifetimes worth of bucket lists and the ability to travel the world as his companion. Edward wanted to see her music dreams to fruition, he'd wanted to promise her that she'd learn to control her bloodlust, eventually rent an apartment and hold down an adequate job.
Bella frowned at his hesitation. She'd always been sensitive to those around her and vampirism had only strengthened her dominant quirks.
"I think we should take this one day at a time."