Chapter Six

Flicking on the bathroom light switch, Edward yawned deeply with his eyes almost shut. He blinked, and then, through unclear eyes with plenty of crust to pick out of them, he looked into the mirror and was still surprised with what he saw. He always hoped he would get used to it, but perhaps this was just God reminding him that Bella wasn't in the wrong, and that this wasn't permanent.

But what if he wanted it to be permanent? What was wrong with that?

He sighed aloud. Everything, he thought, his own voice being the only one in his head. Everything is wrong. He could only lie to himself and Bella for so long, but the truth remained as true as ever. They were growing apart. Both Edward and Bella had always been rather dismissive, but never to each other until now. These days, life was different. The motionless were finally moving.

Get moving, get moving, Edward told himself. Keep it moving.

He ran his hand over a light at the sink, and cold water started running from the faucet. Placing his hot hands underneath it, he felt instantly relieved. These hot, summer nights of mid-July were going to scorch him. Cooler mornings were his saviors.

Edward leaned over the sink, splashed water over his face, and then got a good view of his face, up close and personal.

Being human was amazing, but being seventeen-years-old again was just agonizing.

He liked to eat whatever he wanted, and he never gained any weight, but all of the fat had managed to be converted to pimples on his face. It was just pimples, pimples, and more fucking pimples for Edward, and the end couldn't come soon enough. This was probably God reminding him again that Bella wasn't in the wrong, and punishment for devouring more bacon cheeseburgers than humanly possible, but that was his favorite food; it was merely inevitable.

Edward was thankful for stubble, though; the hair along his jaw concealed the worst of it all, and Bella never verbally complained, so it couldn't have been that bad. But pimples were ugly parts of being human, and he had never been very concerned with beauty in the first place. Routinely, he applied acne cream to his face, thoroughly rinsed it off, and then patted his face dry with a towel.

Running a hand through his clean hair, he padded off to the kitchen with food on his mind and the thought of his solitude on the back burner. He was practically a single man these days. Bella, while not avoiding him, was still very dismissive, often making a short effort to interact with Edward only to cut it off soon enough. Ever since their rendezvous last week which ended with purple bruises on his sides that took days to heal, she didn't bother with him for too long, while he had grown more comfortable with her only to be left cold and in the dark. They had to have had some type of shared special ability; they were just too damn good at flipping personalities and never being on the same page. They were hardly ever on the same chapter.

And then his daughter, Renesmee, was wrapped up in her own business that he couldn't get through to. Renesmee, similarly to her mother, wasn't very open at all. Closed off and always with Jacob, those two were one and the same. When he threw in Bella, the three were a force that Edward would never decipher. Being human

Fucking amazing, Edward thought, swinging open the refrigerator door and taking out a jar of strawberry jam. Fucking enlightening.

"Visiting hours of ten to six are so unreasonable," Jacob remarked as Renesmee parallel-parked next to the curb.

"Dealing with depression without treatment is so unreasonable," Renesmee replied, straightening out the car.

"Living for over a hundred years without getting older for most of the time is super unreasonable" was what threatened to roll right off his tongue, but he kept his snark to a minimum. Nessie had a lot of things to be upset over, and him adding onto them would be obnoxious. Then again, he had a lot of things—way more things—to be upset over, too. They were such a sad little couple, but his sadness mattered a little bit more today.

Nessie turned the car off and turned to him. "I'm sorry about the way I went about this," she said, "but I want you to get better. I need you to get better."

"I know," he said. "I believe you."

"And I believe in you," she told him. "I want you to try."

"You know I'll try."

"I want you to try the best that you can."

"Of course, honey."

She gave him a strange, sad smile. "All right," she said quietly.

"You'll pick me up in an hour, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's the plan."

He unbuckled his seat belt and started to get out of the car.

"I love you," she told him.

"I love you, too," he replied. And he meant it. He meant it entirely.

She waited until he was completely out of view before she started driving away. Having made plans to go shopping with Alice, she looked forward to them, but she worried more about Jacob than anything else. He was finally getting therapy since being diagnosed with clinical depression about a week ago (and taking part in a joke of an intervention shortly after), and she prayed to some form of a god that it would work. She missed him. She could easily bet money that he missed him. That was more important. The acceptance of the fact that he was more focused on himself as opposed to her these days was slowly but surely settling in. She was glad, though.

And she felt terrible about it. More than the usual terrible, too.

Renesmee should have done the research like anybody else would have. She shouldn't have taken everything so personally. That was what supportive girlfriends (if that was what she was to him) of depressed boyfriends did: they remained objective and didn't make assumptions, even if it was the easiest thing in the world. Jacob didn't deserve laziness from her, though; he deserved just the opposite.

She turned up the radio and rolled down her window as she drove far past over the speed limit. She was like her father in that way. The men in her life were just too goddamn strange.

"At least you're both getting therapy today," Alice commented as she quickly swiped her debit card at the store cashier's machine and typed in her PIN code.

"Excuse me?" Renesmee asked, debating with herself on whether she should have gotten those violet stilettos she'd had her eye on ten minutes ago.

"He's getting his therapy for depression, and you're getting retail therapy," Alice clarified, getting her receipt from the cashier and starting to walk.

Renesmee rose an eyebrow at her. "Was that supposed to be funny?"

"Oh, Nessie, Nessie, Nessie," Alice said. "Relax your pretty little head. I meant that in a light manner, though I am glad Jacob's finally getting the treatment he's needed for a long time."

"You noticed?"

Alice nodded, and Renesmee wondered just when she'd change up her hairstyle. "We all noticed," Alice replied, "and the intervention you held the other night wasn't the best way to handle it."

"God, I am such an idiot."

Alice rolled her eyes. "You have got to get over all of that self-loathing bullshit, Ness. It's not good for you, you know."

"Well, it was wrong of me," Nessie reminded her aunt.

"Yes, it was. He's clinically depressed, not addicted to meth. That intervention was the wrong way to treat him. Depression isn't an addiction."

"I know, I know. At least I know now."

"That's always a good thing."

They made their way out to Renesmee's car. Alice got into the passenger seat, and upon starting the car up, Renesmee wondered aloud, "Was he going to do anything if I hadn't called him out on it in front of everybody?"

"What do you mean?" Alice replied.

"Alice, did you... see anything?"

She shook her head. "No," she said sternly. "I couldn't see anything concerning you or Jacob even if I tried."

"Sorry."

Alice turned to Renesmee. "Don't be sorry."

"All right," Renesmee said. "Okay. How do you feel about all of this stuff? Besides Jacob. All that's going on with—"

"Your dad, Rosalie, and Emmett?" Alice prompted. "I was bitter about it for a long time, but I don't mind Rose and Emmett. At least they can agree on what they want and are happy with each other's decision. I don't mind what they're doing at all. It calls for less quality time—or at least being more careful with them—but dealing with your mother when she was human was the same type of situation."

"And about my parents..."

"Your parents are a mess, Renesmee, but you know that already."

Like hell I do, Nessie thought. But she put up a challenge, anyway. "How so?"

"You don't need me to tell you about how they disagree on everything. I feel it every time I'm around the both of them. Separately, though, it's like they're entirely different people. They're both very carefree when they're not together, but still coexisting, just in different spaces. They laugh a little more, knowing that the other person can't get jealous because the other person isn't there. They usually handle their issues differently, and they're always resolved soon enough. It's not the same now."

"Nothing is the same," Renesmee replied. "Nothing's been the same for a long time."

"Your mother has hope, though," Alice said, probably just to lift Renesmee's spirits. "Jasper told me just yesterday. She thinks your father is going to go back sometime later, but—who am I kidding? I don't know much about your parent's relationship. Your mother hardly speaks with me anymore, despite us being on the same side of the cure discussion. And your father... well, he's busy being human. He doesn't have time for the rest of us who aren't like him. He's too busy doing important, human things, like eating. And sleeping."

As much as Renesmee loved her Aunt Alice and her big, unfiltered mouth, it had been enough. She didn't need to be reminded that her parents were no longer the couple that she had bragged about to herself when she was a kid. They were no longer the couple that Renesmee would have killed to bring to some elementary school function, only to say, Those are my parents and they're more in love than your parents. That sappiness, that photo album of awkward, lovey-dovey pictures from over a hundred years ago didn't mean a thing today. Renesmee couldn't be that angry. She had other things to be concerned with. Her parents had always been melodramatic. Who the fuck was she kidding?

She shouldn't have had to hear through Alice that her parents' relationship was going down the drain because of his stupid decision. She hadn't taken a side before (merely because she didn't like to pick and choose between her parents), but she was completely on her mom's side now. Her mother had done nothing wrong. Though she still loved him, her father was responsible for all of this.

Renesmee should have known better. For someone who had been to college plenty of times and was even going now, she sure was stupid. She was a fucking idiot. Love wore off—it didn't matter if her parents had both been immortal for such a long time. There wasn't a guide to immortal love, and even if there was, there definitely would not have been a disclaimer that ensured that love between immortals was immortal. Love, in general, was some bullshit.

She had been such a believer in the world and the beings that occupied it. It had been so easy to see the beauty in everything and anything, but now that there was pure, unadulterated ugliness occupying her own world, she didn't care. She didn't care anymore. All that she had to care about was Jacob, all because he was worth it. He had been a form of beauty in front of her eyes since day one, even as he had been fighting his own inner wars for a really long time. He had a thousand wars in his mind while she floated in a nomadic state of madness, with eyes but unable to see what was going on before her. She had ears, but hadn't been able to hear the truth.

The truth was that the real world was full of shit. That should have made itself clear from the very beginning.

A/N: Give me a moment. I'm just getting warmed up, and this was just a transition chapter to set the stage for a Nessie x Jacob arc. Expect a new chapter by Thursday.

Thanks again,

HalcyonSeasons