Breaking Point-Chapter 9

Bella POV.

A/N: I wasn't sure exactly what to do with this story after chapter 8, and I stopped working on it for a while. Then, out of nowhere, I found chapter 9 rotting away in my notebook. I have no idea when I wrote it, but who cares, right? Here it is, and please don't expect the next part too soon because I am a complete idiot. Also, sorry about the cliff-hanger.

REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW. If you guys review, I conclude that you like my story, therefore I updated. Otherwise chapter 10 may never see the light of day.

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, Bella, or Edward. If anything, they own me.

"Hello Isabella. Now, I'm going to ask you a few questions so we can help you get where you need to be, okay?"

I stared at her for a couple moments before realizing she expected some type of answer.

I nodded weakly.

"Good, good, all righty then. Isabella, why don't you start by telling me what happened at school yesterday. I take it you've been missing overnight."

Missing? I, I only…

I tried to breathe, to see, to understand. But everything was so dense and so thick and so hard. I couldn't live through it.

"I…I can't remember yesterday." The past was blurring like watercolors, fringing my present and making everything incoherent.

"Nothing at all. Hmm…well, Miss Filas and Mrs. McAcon have informed me that you fainted yesterday."

Miss Filas…the name prodded at the edges of my brain as I struggled to find a place for it. It was so difficult to pay attention.

"Who?"

"I believe they are nurses at your school."

I flinched and drew away from her. I had remembered.

More than before, my vision weakened and it hurt to keep my eyes open. Poison is ripping my eyes, I thought. I cannot see, I cannot live.

"Isabella?" A pause. "Leslie! Call! It's worse than I thought. She's having hysterics."

Her voice turned back to me. For a moment there, it was just me and her. Me and this strange, unknown woman that I had barely had time to know. I felt like I should open my eyes, just push through the pain so that I could look at her.

I felt like her voice was clouding around me as she spoke again.

"All right, honey all right there. I'm calling help."

They loaded me onto a stretcher, and I knew that much. The feeling was familiar…the rough friction of the straps against my stomach, the hard but soft fabric.

I had never experienced a feeling like what was happening to me now. I felt half-disconnected, half-submerged, half-succumbed. Limbo. Indecision.

It was painful. Confusing. Every feeling was hot and sweaty or cold and icy. Too much, all at once, more than I could contemplate. New things were happening, new people speaking to me, new questions to answer and breaths to take, when I was still pondering something from hours ago.

I was being dragged, the way a water skier is dragged when he falls down behind a moving boat. The water the filling my lungs, clogging my skin, and making me choke. My eyes were washed out, blind. My body was filling up with water, getting heavier and heavier, little by little.

There was no way for me to stop the dragging. You can stop a motor—you can't stop life.

My eyes stayed closed.

I didn't move, but concentrated on my breathing, making sure I was still doing so. I hoped for unconsciousness. Wherever I could go from here would be an escape. I wasn't sure what would happen to me, but it didn't matter.

Nothing mattered, not at all.

I closed my eyes and breathed and breathed, and hoped.

But instead I heard a voice.

"Excuse me, young man, but you can't be here right now. This woman is mentally ill and we need to get her to a facility."

I opened my eyes, the water gone. Her words had made perfect sense to me, as if my mind was suddenly being occupied again. I stared at the women in shock and then flickered my eyes to the person she had been speaking to. Standing beside me.

My heart stopped beating and the water returned. It was unceasing, cruel. It made it difficult to see him, and that was far more tortuous. But I didn't move, I couldn't. I just stared at him, daring him to disappear. He stared back at me.

"Isabella, do you know him? Is he a relative? A friend?"

I didn't say anything.

Edward burned me with his eyes. More pain.

She turned to him.

"Excuse me, but we have an emergency here. You must leave now."

His lips parted. I thought that I could feel his breath. Surely he wasn't that close to me.

"Bella."

The woman observed my motionlessness and panicked, taking my pulse.

"OH MY GOD, oh my god—Sed! Sed we have no heart activity!"

I tried to reach for him, and that's when I remembered that I was strapped down.

Wordlessly, he broke the straps with a flick of his wrist, allowing me to pull myself up.

The woman watched us in awe, reaching for more equipment.

He slipped his cool, smooth arms beneath my knees and neck, and scooped me up into his arms. The woman opened her mouth and raised a shaking hand, as if to protest.

The ambulance workers froze.

Edward swiveled and walked away from them all, into the cool, safe forest, not taking his eyes off me.