I don't own these characters. They are the sole property of Stephenie Meyer. I only borrow them. No humans are permanently harmed through my actions, though I do confess to harassing, annoying, torturing, and exasperating them – just because it's fun. I make no money from my little stories, sad day. I only play in the sandbox, I didn't build it.

Author's Note: I finished writing the final chapter, which is chapter 6. The whole story should be posted by the end of the month because I can't seem to resist tweaking and editing and... You get the picture. Thanks for reading my little angst-fest. Sometimes a girl just has to wallow, you know?

Chapter 2: The Cleansing Fire

"Convinced on the inside, you're so much more than me, yeah
No there's nothing you say that can salvage the lie
But I'm trying to keep my intentions disguised
And now I'm deprived of my conscience and something's got to give."

Truth by Seether

~OT~

Later that day, after I threw out Dee and Dum, I pulled out my laptop and did what any semi-intelligent person did to find out information. I counted myself as at least semi-intelligent. Good old Google. First, I entered "Charles Swan, Forks, Washington." It had been the Swan residence that I had called and that number was apparently out of order. I couldn't remember Bella's old cell phone number and it probably wasn't operational either.

So…Charlie first.

I was actually surprised when his name came up without any further prompts. I hadn't imagined that old Charlie would be a World Wide Web kind of guy. But then again, getting your name on Google doesn't exactly require any effort.

"Charles Swan, Forks Chief of Police Killed in Line of Duty"

The headline was stark and blunt. I looked at the date. It wasn't long after I had been such a fuckwad to Bella at that concert, less than a month to be precise.

"Way to be a total ass, Cullen…" I would have liked to think it would have made a difference if I could have seen what was coming for her, but in my heart, I knew I would have done exactly the same thing. Except, maybe, I would have had another girl suck me off that night, one with better skills. This realization only proved that I was, beyond a doubt, irredeemable.

The article featured a shot of Charlie in his uniform. He looked just like he had when I was dating his daughter – formidable and grim. I was honest enough to admit that he had scared the shit out of me. That's why it taken me a year to work up the courage to actually fuck Bella. I wanted to make sure he couldn't haul my ass to jail if he found out.

I wondered what he had thought when I stopped calling his daughter. Relief, as any caring father should that his daughter was being distanced from such a total shit? Or had he hated me for breaking her heart? Useless questions.

Apparently, Charlie had interrupted a robbery at a convenience store. It had wrong place/wrong time written all over it. Stupid fucking fate, a roll of the dice and a good man was dead. It was an out-of-town kid, high as a fucking kite, who just wanted some quick cash. That made me a little uncomfortable since I spent a lot of my time in that same compromised state.

"Survived by his daughter, Isabella Marie Swan, also daughter of the late Renee Swan Dwyer..."

So, she had lost them both. When had Renee died? How? As far as I knew, she had never tried to contact my family to let them know about Charlie or her mother. But knowing Bella, she wouldn't have. She had only contacted my family once after I stopped calling her. I hadn't had the courage to tell my family what an ass I was being, so I just sort of said we had broken up and let them fill in the gaps incorrectly and on their own. Bella called my house that one time, made polite conversation with Alice just long enough to hear that I was alive and well, and she had never called back. Even today, my family had no idea exactly how I had broken up with Bella or that I can done so be default. Basically, she had dropped out of our lives. Or I had pushed her out. The result was the same. Our families hadn't exactly moved in the same social circles, and I knew Bella would never have made a scene in front of them. So my secret was safe.

Alice was younger than me, a year younger than Bella even, so she accepted my explanation quite easily. My parents had been concerned that Bella and I were getting too serious and were too young, so they had been sort of relieved actually. Only Emmett had looked at me speculatively, as if he sensed all the dirty little secrets I was not revealing. He had always been protective of Bella, seeing her as another sister in a way. Looking back, I realized that there had started to be some strain in our relationship around that time.

When the rest of my family moved to California, Emmett had moved to the East Coast as if distancing himself from the circus that my life was becoming. I had probably talked to him twice in the last year. I remembered one of those conversations clearly, though the other was mostly lost in the haze of being completely stoned and close to blackout drunk. I had woken up to my phone buzzing with annoying persistence and had had to climb over a female body to answer it. She hadn't stirred. She had been a redhead. I think. I tended to go for the redheads and blondes these days. Emmett and I had talked briefly. My confused and mumbled responses had cut the conversation short. Emmett had little patience for my bullshit ways.

He hadn't called back since then. Funny, I hadn't really realized that until now. It hadn't bothered me. I hadn't even noticed. What did that say about me?

My family had been in California by the time Charlie died, I noted. She wouldn't have bothered them there. She probably wouldn't have known how to reach them. We had all dropped her, and she had gracefully bowed out, unwilling to hurt even those who had wounded her. Bella had never been about revenge or retaliation; she was about acceptance and forgiveness.

Guilt, hot and bitter, rose up within me. It burned me with the heat of a thousand suns. It sliced into me likes countless knives. I welcomed it. I deserved it.

The pain was soothing in a way, cleansing – like a fire that reduces everything to ash that simply blows away in the wind leaving nothing behind.

She had faced her father's death alone. I had dumped her without the courtesy of telling her or even attempting to explain. Then I had acted like she had the plague – or even worse, didn't exist - outside that concert hall. How different might things have been if I had just been a fucking man and asked her to just hang out with me that night? My life had hinged on that moment and I had tipped the scales in the wrong direction. Next stop: hell. I could have chosen Bella and the redemption she represented.

But no, I had been too busy thinking about the fuck awesome blow job I was supposedly going to get. In fact, it had been mediocre at best. I hadn't been doing as many drugs then, so I remembered the indifferent efforts of her mouth on my cock. So I had shattered Bella for nothing more than apathetic sex with a stranger whose name I never bothered to learn. I'd broken the only woman I'd ever cared about for a moment of…what? I couldn't even really call it pleasure.

I took a deep breath and entered "Isabella Marie Swan" with full confidence that it wouldn't show up much beyond maybe a graduation announcement. In my imagination, she was existing somewhere, probably still pining for the man, me, who had ruined her for all men. Some sick part of me actually liked that scenario. Selfish bastard to the core. She would be like some living memorial to me. I'd never be forgotten if Bella Swan still lived.

Of course, like always, I was completely fucking wrong.

"Isabella Swan and Local Hero Jacob Black exchange vows."

So no pining for Edward Cullen; I hadn't ruined her for men after all.

I stared at the article and then scrolled down to see the accompanying picture, and for a moment there was nothing but blessed numbness and disbelief.

Then I was aware of a pain starting in my chest and radiating outward. I could hardly catch my breath. Fuck… So this was pain, the real deal, the genuine article. I was familiar with the concept of hurting, but this was something new. Something sharper and more defined. A blade slipping in between the ribs rather than a weight crushing them. It was sly and sneaky. It didn't even hurt at first. It was only when I saw my life's blood staining my fingers that I realized the wound was there.

It was Bella, grinning happily as she dodged what was probably bird seed or rice or whatever the fuck they used at weddings now. She had a small bouquet of flowers in her hand, a white veil sweeping back from her long, dark hair. Her dress was beautifully simple…classic…elegant and unassuming, much like Bella herself.

I hardly recognized the lovely young woman, except… Her eyes and her smile were the same. She was looking at her…husband. And why did that word cause my heart to constrict? Their heads were both sort of ducked down, their faced turned toward each other and his arm was wrapped protectively around her waist, probably to keep her from falling. She'd always been clumsy as hell. I had found it sort of endearing until the day I realized it just pissed me off. Of course by then, pretty much everything pissed me off so maybe it was me.

She looked gorgeous, and he was in a Marine's uniform, that overdone formal shit that makes all the girls go crazy and start peeling off their panties. He even had a fucking sword. I looked up at the top edge and I could see where they were passing under an archway of swords.

Not only was Bella married, she had married the biggest fucking Marine I had ever seen. He towered over her by more than a foot, and I imagined that she had been wearing heels that day.

I stared at the picture for hours it seemed. They looked like they had the fucking world by the balls, ready to make a reality where ugliness and fuckheads like me had no place.

Every time I looked at them, they remained the same. It never changed. She never looked less happy; he never looked less proud. They never looked less…perfect. Annoyingly, heartbreakingly, mind-fuckingly perfect.

I hadn't wanted her for myself, in fact, I'd tossed her away. But to see this proof that she had found someone else and loved him took what was left of my dead, black heart and shattered it into a million pieces.

I looked around my own trashed house and I wondered what she was doing at that exact moment. Was she still as happy as she had looked in that photo? Was this Jacob treating her right? He could hardly treat her worse than you, fuckhead. I wondered if this Jacob Black recognized what he had. I hoped he did.

God, I hoped he did.

~OT~

I closed my laptop that day and I resolved to never think about Bella Swan again. After all, I had left her, and I'm sure my reasons had made sense at the time. Whatever we had shared, I had destroyed it for good that night outside of a Seattle concert hall. I had done so deliberately; crushing it, scraping it away from me like dog shit on my shoe. I had no one else to blame for the regrets that had almost choked me as I gazed at the picture of another man's wife.

That was my fault. I had learned to live with fault and guilt, mostly by ignoring them. I could do the same this time. There was nothing special about Isabella Swan. She had been an ordinary girl from a boring small town, and now she was living a small town life with her Marine. They were probably on a base in Bum Fuck Egypt now, happily making snot-nosed brats and clipping coupons, passing the time away in a crappy little house, making ordinary little people who would grow up in boring small town. They'd be living small little lives until they died and no one noticed.

Well good for her. Good for him. I was meant for bigger things, even if they weren't better.

Luckily for me, the band was starting a new album and I could throw myself into that endeavor. Though tensions seemed to be getting thick between the four of us, we were still able to put together a really good album, though recording was not as much fun as it used to be. Egos were starting to get in the way and I wondered if this would be, perhaps, our last album as a group. I tried to feel something about that, but emotions seemed to elude me, genuine ones anyway.

It was better that way, I assured myself. Emotions and feelings only got in the way. I had a job to do and I was fortunate enough to still be able to do it while still getting drunk and high. Women were a daily part of it, their faces and their names running together in an endless stream of moist, naked flesh and meaningless orgasms. I might as well have jerked off in my own hand for all the real satisfaction it brought me.

It didn't stop me.

If anything, my appetite for meaningless and empty increased. I was voracious, hungry for the next physical experience. I lost myself in whirlwind of joyless sex and chemical happiness.

I was too busy, too messed up, to realize how desperately unhappy I was, and that's the way I liked it.

~OT~

I went out partying. What a shocker. I told my driver to wait for me. I wasn't technically supposed to drive right now – some unpleasantness about a revoked license - and I already knew I planned to get drunk. So to save my lawyers some time I decided to have my driver take me. Besides, the Hummer was big enough I could even fuck a girl or two in the backseat before I went home.

I was tired of having strange pussy in my bed. Most of the time they wanted to stick around. They passed out in my bed, which led to awkward conversations in the morning. They tended to get pissed when I couldn't remember their names. Usually I couldn't remember the sex either, which sometimes made me wonder why I even bothered.

But I did. It was a slow night, only one girl in the back of the Hummer. I let her blow me and then I fucked her, courtesy of Viagra. Even I needed a little help now and then, after all. I wasn't getting any fucking younger. And the booze and the drugs, well they didn't do a body good.

The little blue miracle pill. Better living through chemistry. Gotta love science.

Then I went home and collapsed into my bed, glad I had decided against bringing any strange home. I passed out, but for just a moment, I could have sworn I heard laughter...sweet, feminine laughter.

~OT~

The man fell into sleep that night, tumbling into the abyss with ease. For an hour, he dozed restlessly, his hands twitching and soft cries issuing from his lips. Then she took mercy on him and visited him in his uneasy slumber. He heard her laughter before he saw her.

He felt something warm unfurl in his chest at his first sight of her.

She was there suddenly, standing in the middle of a meadow that he knew so well. IT had been their meadow, their place. Now it was sacred, the place where love had bloomed briefly and then...died.

But she was back and she was there, welcoming him.

"Edward..." she called and there had never been a sound so sweet in the world as his name falling from her lips. She gave him an impish grin and took off running, the scents of the flowers she crushed beneath her heels rising up to tantalize and tease.

"Wait!" he cried. He'd never catch her. She was too fast. He heard his breath, harsh and rasping, felt the earth hard and cool beneath his feet. On the breeze, he caught her scent and his nostrils flared like a predator on the trail.

She was laughing, running ahead of him. Every now and then she would turn and beckon him closer, her eyes bright with love and laughter. He would run faster. But never fast enough and she continued to elude him. She came to a large tree and stopped abruptly, exertion coloring her cheeks a rich and vital pink. She looked alive and happy, her laughter echoing through the small meadow.

"Took you long enough," she teased, darting behind the tree.

He laughed too, relieved that he finally had her within his grasp. It wouldn't be long now; it couldn't be. He slipped around the tree, intending to grab her and kiss her, make her pay the penalty for teasing him. He could already feel her beneath him, writhing and moving, her voice in his ear urging him on. Her submission was going to taste so sweet…

Still smiling, he moved around the tree and found…

Nothing.