AN: I don't often talk about what I listen to when I write. However, there were three songs I listened to on a loop while writing this chapter.

For Part One it was 'Your Hands are Cold' by Jean-Yves Thibaudet from 'Pride and Prejudice'.

For Part Two it was 'Planetarium' by Justin Hurwitz from 'La La Land'.

For Part Three it was 'Letters from Albert' by IIan Eshkeri from 'The Young Victoria'.

The overall song for this chapter was: 'In the Androgynous Dark' by Brambles.

This chapter will be split into three parts – to show Ella's descent into closing herself off.

Chapter Forty-Seven – Walking on the Other Side

Part One

Life did not turn the way you wanted it to. It did not mould into the shape you wanted or follow the path you wanted. Frustration screamed from every part of my body. Why was this so difficult? I'd ask myself, because life wants you to suffer my mind answered back.

I wanted to be normal, be whole again. I wanted the darkness to slip away and the light to come back. I wanted to see the world as I had done before and not as I did now, through a cracked lens.

Anger fuelled my being, it seeped into every part of me with a vengeance that I was unable to control. I had so many emotions coursing through me and yet I didn't know what to do with them or how to handle them.

Camp had been wonderful but it was poisoned. I couldn't think of camp without thinking of Marco. I couldn't think of Marco without thinking of what happened. Without wondering about what happened and without pressing down to feel the pain upon my face.

The Cullen's return should have bought me happiness. It should have filled the emptiness within my heart. Yet I felt neither happy or safe with their return. I could no longer kid myself that I lived in a world that could keep me safe. I knew the truth that tried to hide now, no one was safe. No one was ever safe.

Trying to pick myself off the floor was harder than I would have thought. When I looked around myself I just saw pieces of me crumbling. The despair engulfed me. I often found myself staring out of the window, wishing for something better to happen. I couldn't find the happy girl I knew I was. I couldn't sense the sarcasm that used to come so easily. I'd lost the confidence and the determination to be great.

What was I left with? The bleak despair of cold darkness.

My mind was no longer my friend as I fought within myself to gain control. I wanted to be better, to show everyone that I was fine but I couldn't keep myself on track. I couldn't work out how to be that whole person that didn't struggle.

I found myself rising early enough to see the sun rise into the sky. It was a sight I came to associate with peace and safety. The way the colours bled into one another, like young children playing the day away. The sun rose like a Mother to us all, reminding us that there would always be light in the world for us to follow. However bad life got, the sun would always be there to wake us, to guide us and to shine for us.

I realise that my thoughts have become random and at best a little loopy but I couldn't deny the healing effect they had on me. I didn't want to associate with others when I saw how they looked to me. I know I had said I was broken but I was only voicing what I knew others were thinking. I saw myself as a china doll who'd been smashed on the ground. Try as they might, I could not be put back together by another. They job of being fixed was mine alone, only I had the glue and the ability to make the pieces fit right.

Fate could be a fickle friend. I'd often cursed the hand I'd been dealt with humour and sarcasm but I did wonder how much more I'd be asked to deal will and how much more I could take before there would be nothing to bring me back.

I hated feeling like this. I hated the darkness that was consuming me. On the inside I was screaming while on the outside I repeated the phrase 'I'm fine' to anyone who asked. They believed me even less than I did but not once did they question me for which I am grateful. I understood that I had to weather the storm before I came out the other side and I realised I was trapping myself inside of my mind without an escape.

I thought a lot about how other people perceived me. They must think me silly, they must want me to snap out of it. Oh, how I wished I could snap out of it. I had become a dab hand in managing my own depression but this was something far worse and something I couldn't manage. I felt sick to my stomach and often woke with a headache that would not pass.

I knew I needed help but I did not ask for it. I couldn't ask for it as my mind was in turmoil and I couldn't work out where my beginning or end was.

The feelings came and went. I had constants of course, my love for my family, my hope for my friend's and the unbreakable bond I shared with Edward.

I floundered.

I needed to help myself but I was too focused on helping those around me. They needed to heal as well, didn't they?

Part Two

I loved Edward, no one had to reaffirm what I felt for him. He was everything to me and yet I didn't know how to act around him. We had fought like couples do but never like our most recent argument. I didn't know how to move past this. I was changed from what had happened. I knew Edward blamed me for my actions towards Marco and I knew I blamed him for leaving me. How would we move on from this? Could we move on from this?

Through the months of summer, I had long fantasised about how Edward would return to me. How I would greet him with love and joy and how we would continue to grow as a couple. It was all different now. If I didn't have Edward, did I have anything?

Of course, I did, I knew I was being silly, melodramatic, negative even. The silver lining to my life was there, I just couldn't see it yet. Nothing was cheerful to me, nothing brightened my day and my world was seen in clouds of grey. The colours were there, I knew they were as were the happy emotions but I couldn't catch them, I couldn't grasp onto them long enough to feel them or see them.

Alice told me to think of things from Edward's perspective. I heard her encourage Edward to do the same. Thank heavens for Alice, for Bella, for Rose and Dad. They were my tight knit protective barrier from the rest of the world. Offering comfort where others could not, offering silence when silence was needed and safety when I felt vulnerable.

Oh Edward, I am sorry I cannot be who you want me to be. I am sorry I cannot welcome you back with open arms. I am sorry I cannot tell you how much I love you or how much I long to be in your embrace.

I was blinded I suppose by the anger I held close to my chest. That Edward thought I had willingly let myself be fooled by Marco, that I had willingly let go of Edward for Marco's embrace sent fire burning through my veins. I didn't think Edward thought I was so easily persuaded by another. I thought our love meant something. I thought he knew what he meant to me. I thought our love was eternal. Forever. Were we not mated? Had it all been a lie?

There was a part of my brain that still argued about my love for Edward. The part that still tried to convince me that Edward wasn't real but not I could push that voice to the back of my mind. I could force myself to believe that voice wasn't real. No, not force, there was no need for force, I knew that voice wasn't real. What had Marco done to me to make me war with myself so? What poisons had he led me to believe in the time I was with him.

I had rather hoped I would have gleamed something from my time with him. Though I remembered next to nothing, part of me hoped I had learned something of what was after us. I couldn't believe that it had all come to an end with Marco. Maybe I was pessimistic.

The worst part in it all was that I could see Edward's side of things. I could feel his hurt and his betrayal as if they were my own. I may well have betrayed his trust, become Marco's girl instead of his yet I couldn't remember.

I wished I could assure Edward that my heart still belonged to him but I was fragile. I didn't know if I could tell him. I didn't know if he would reject me. So much was unclear to me now.

I knew my love for Edward would endure. It would not waver or change even if I did not put it first. I could not put my love for Edward first, not now. Not when there were so many things that needed to be discussed and thought about. As much as I dreaded saying it, I needed to fix myself before I fixed anything else. If I was determined to put things behind me then I needed to be serious about patching myself up.

I was going to be a senior when school started once more and school started soon. If I could just get myself to a place where I didn't jump at every sound and I didn't flinch every time someone touched me, I'd be happy.

That silver lining was waiting for me, I knew it. The one where Edward and I were ok, where we were in love and looking forward to our life together. The one where there was no danger. The one where my family was safe and happy. The one where my friends were happy.

I just had to get there.

Part Three

There were good days and bad days. My thoughts around Edward made my day's good, they reminded me of things I had forgotten but I could not always think of those good thoughts. Often, my mind locked me in a cage of terrifying thoughts, of negative thoughts and fear filled thoughts. Those were the bad days.

As childish as it sounded, I had taken to carrying a cuddly teddy bear around with me for the simple reason that I needed the constant company of safety and warmth. It had been easy to see how people avoided me when they could and I could completely understand it because I knew they struggled with what to say to me. Unless you had experience with depression or PTSD it was hard to help. I understood their weariness as much as I hated it.

Bella, for all her protectiveness was someone I missed greatly. She treated me like I was made of glass and frequently squeezed me in a tight embrace to assure herself that I was still here. Never once in my life had I felt so separate from my twin. She was a part of me that I never wanted to be rid of and yet here she was taking a step away from me.

It hurt.

It hurt more because she didn't realise the damage she was causing. Bella, who could read me like a book, couldn't realise what she was doing was hurting me. She found my clinginess annoying, frustrating even. She wanted time to herself but she also wanted to be there for me.

I suppose she was as lost as I was.

I needed her to hold me tight, to tell me everything was alright and to assure me that we were still good, that she would never leave me, that we were twins and we loved each other.

In her absence, Rose stepped in. I loved Rose dearly and she filled the role of friend/aunt/mother but she wasn't Bella and she couldn't fill that hole that desperately craved attention.

The pain I carried within myself was becoming unbearable. It was becoming harder and harder to exist in the outside world where I knew I couldn't be protected, where I knew love didn't always triumph and where evil could attack at any moment.

My mind was so often drawn within itself, conjuring fantasies that didn't exist and only served to mix my mind up further. I was taking refuse I guess, in a make-believe world that couldn't harm me the way the real world did.

In moments alone, my mind wandered.

Marco's face swam in my vision, a smirk plastered across his face, his eyes like the devil. He beckoned me forward.

I flinched, jolting out of the memory.

He was gone but he was still there, inside my mind.

What torment would he continue to inflict on me? Would I ever be free from his hand?

I felt sick.

I felt weightless and empty. How could I leave the well I was in without a rope to climb out?

Oh, the tears of frustration I have cried since my release from hospital. The times I have wanted to punch a hole in the wall have increased with each passing day of not moving forward.

In my desperation to get better I'd even turned towards google, hoping an unheard-of article would help fix me but it was all for nothing. There was no quick fix for me. Of course, realistically I'd known this. I'd known when I'd woken in the hospital that this would be a long road and a very bumpy road to travel. Life was never easy. I knew that from past experiences. The more I wished for a quick recovery, the longer the road I travelled would be.

I could not blame anyone for what happened to me just like I could not fault myself for the actions I had taken. It is what it is.

I pained my nails, bright yellow and orange. My attempt at getting myself to cheer up. Obviously, it didn't work. It only served as a reminder to the happiness I didn't have in my life.

Life sucked and no amount of ice cream was going to fix it, not that I was eating much to begin with. Enough to keep me healthy at least but not enough to stop the feeling of sick to creep into my stomach.

Some days I woke and felt like I'd fought the night with an elephant, others I woke feeling like I'd got the flu. Sometimes I had a moment of clarity where I would find myself smiling but those moments were rare. There was so much chaos in my life right now, I didn't know which way to turn or which way was the correct way to move forward.

What if I moved the wrong way? What if I lose something along the way? What if it gets worse? What if I never get better?

What if? What if? What if?

I wanted to murder that phrase, attack it with spears and leave it for dead.

I knew what had to be done and I knew my family would like it even less than I did.

I had to break to pick myself up again.

I realised that now.

AN: Should have said this in the last chapter but was mindful of not babbling on too long. It amazes me that this story was first over 100,000 words and now 150,000. When I started it, I never expected it to succeed more than 40 chapters. What started as a niggling plot at the back of my mind has evolved into so much more. I enjoy the journey this writing has taken me on and the support I continue to receive from my readers and reviewers.

AN2: This is the first chapter of a couple that will feature Jasper's P.O.V. Bear with me on it, if I don't do it justice – I'm sorry you feel that way. It was necessary to involve another P.O.V to see Ella's journey to recovery and Jasper fit that role the best. ~Hannah

Reviews for Chapter Forty-Six:

Arkytior's Song - Haha, well he is an idiot. At least for now he is. I mean he can't just waltz back into her life and expect everything to be hunky-dory. Doesn't work like that! Glad you loved it though, ya'know I've actually managed to write a few chapters ahead! (shocking right), so you'll get a couple of regular Thursday updates!