Thanks as usual to addicttwilight2. Standard disclaimers continue to apply.
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I had rather be a toad, and live upon the vapour of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love for others' uses...
~ "Othello", William Shakespeare, Act III Sc II.
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Chapter Two: Monster
He remembered, now, all too clearly. He saw what he'd missed before. And try as he might to block the hideous images out, still they spooled and replayed in his head on a cursed reel, intent on torturing him.
He should have seen this coming. She'd laid her intentions bare to him before ever she had married him. He had seen the proof with his own eyes, and still refused to believe, refused to contemplate the idea that his own selfish hurt at her betrayal mattered beside the desperate nature of his love for her.
And hurt he had been, though he'd done his best to hide it. How could he not be, listening to their thundering hearts, their gasping breaths? He had witnessed her every reaction to Jacob Black's touch, his kiss, his declaration of love. He had seen fiery blood rush to her cheeks, something that he'd previously been vain enough to believe only happened in his presence. He had sensed her fingers wrapping in his hair, a reaction that he'd previously believed was brought forth by his touch, and his alone.
She'd kissed another man barely twenty-four hours after she'd pledged to be his wife. And still he had ignored the signs of her obvious unhappiness, still he had blindly believed her when she'd told him she had made her choice, that she couldn't live without him. He had swallowed his doubts and his hurt and told himself that everything would work out, everything would be okay. And somehow he'd ended up believing his subterfuge. His and hers.
It had all been a lie, then.
He wondered bitterly to himself whether anything she'd ever told him had been the truth.
Maybe this was his punishment for ever daring to think he could live without her. He'd left her bleeding on a shore of broken promises once before. Maybe this was her long-awaited revenge. Maybe the days and months since their reunion had simply provided her with more fuel to throw on the furnace of her hatred. Maybe she really was that good of an actress, after all.
Even as he poisoned himself with these toxic thoughts, in yet another part of himself he held the memory of their months of bliss dear, replaying certain moments doggedly till every drop of sweetness had been leached out of them.
Bella's mouth wrapping sensuously around the tines of a fork he'd held out for her, Bella's dark eyes smiling at him across a crowded room in a museum, Bella's breathless voice as she moaned her desire into his ear during their most cherished times together, Bella's skin lit softly by the glow of candles and the gentle curl of steam rising slowly from a shared bath.
None of it was real, he reminded himself harshly. How could it have been? She had twisted everything with her eventual retreat, had distorted their happiness into something naive and foolish. Had made his devotion, which he'd once viewed as his duty and privilege as her husband, seem in retrospect to be the desperate pinings of just another teenage boy.
But still his mind could not come any closer to anything that could be construed as an insult to her, to his wife, to the woman he still adored. And so he reconsidered. Maybe she'd genuinely tried. Maybe behind the laughter and joy of their honeymoon there had been a kernel of hope she'd cherished. Maybe she, too, had believed that they had a sliver of a chance. After all, it wasn't her fault that her husband was a monster, and it certainly wasn't her fault if through the increased intimacy of their marriage she had come to realise who he really was – what he really was – and had become dissatisfied.
He'd always known that he didn't deserve her. No man was worthy of her so how he'd ever been so arrogant as to think she somehow belonged to him was beyond him.
Still he was trapped in memories, watching their early moments as if studying the interaction between two strangers, remembering his wife in the first days of their relationship and feeling his love for her grow in his chest even as he cursed her memory and wished he'd never laid eyes on her.
Had it been worth it? Was anything worth this pain?
He remembered another time like this, a dark time when his world had collapsed around him with a few simple words. Jacob Black had been the reason for his emotional annihilation then, too, his voice growling into the phone confirming what he'd believed to be his worst nightmare. The solitary hours and days that followed those words – he's at the funeral – had vanished from Edward's head as he'd experienced them. He barely even remembered how he'd gotten to Volterra in the first place, but the gaping chasm his Italian hell had left in his chest was still very much alive and well.
He knew it was a horrible thought and he knew he was a selfish monster for giving voice to it, even in his head, but he would trade this hell for that one in a heartbeat. At least in Italy he had gone to face his demise in the belief that Bella had killed herself because she couldn't bear to live without him. Behind his grief and anguish there had been that little voice that had said wow, she must really have loved you.
He had cursed the knowledge then. Right now he would have done anything for it.
Back then he'd had hope that he could follow her, that the strength of his love would override his sins in the eyes of the god he'd never before believed could be merciful. That somehow they would find their way back to one another. But now... he had no way to fight this now. He was stuck in a horrifying limbo where he could move neither forward nor back. Trapped in the knowledge that the best moments of his life were indubitably over, forced to replay their bittersweet memories in his head and paralysed with stupid, blinding hope that still whispered, maybe this was all a dream...
A blinding awareness flashed into his brain. He realised in horror that in the most selfish recesses of his being, he would have preferred to see her dead than to live in the awareness that she didn't love him anymore.
He clenched his fists so that his nails dug brutally hard into his granite skin, but try as he might he could not chase the sickening thought from his mind. His cursed imagination showed him the broken figure of his dead wife in front of him. He braced himself, waiting for yet another wave of agony to lap at the back of his teeth, and was shocked and disgusted when the thought became just an additional ache in the general torture engulfing his body.
He was a monster, a sick, selfish creature who believed anything would be better than the thought that Bella didn't love him anymore. That she had run from him, straight into the arms of another man. At the mere thought his mind unleashed yet another barrage of images, real and imagined – russet skin pressed tightly against cream and roses, a rough hand bunching in chestnut hair, Jacob Black's mouth embracing his wife's flushed breasts, her voice crying the mongrel's name... Another man worshipping her, loving her, in a way that had previously been reserved for him alone...
A low, guttural moan made its way from his chest and he curled into himself even more, hoping by reducing the amount of physical space he took up he could somehow compress the agony into something manageable.
He felt the warmth of another being wrap tightly around his back to spoon him, felt desperate arms circle his torso and squeeze and smelt the aroma of caramel and violets, but could not react to his mother's fierce embrace. Where's Bella, he thought. I want my wife.
A hand caught his chin in a tight grip. Dully he allowed whomever it was to force his face up. He registered the fear and torment in his father's eyes as whatever he saw in Edward's face made him hiss in frustration.
"Can't you do anything?" he heard Carlisle bark, and wondered at the harsh tone never before heard in his voice.
"He's not letting me," a voice flavoured with the twang of the South replied in frustration. It became just another one of those things he couldn't care less about.
"I can't believe she did this." A whimper from the far corner of the room. Alice. "I just... I can't believe it."
He heard Rosalie's vicious retort but could not process it. He was drowning in waves of his sister's regret, her horror at this one thing she'd never seen coming, her broken faith in a woman she'd once regarded as her sister and best friend all rolled up into one. Waves of guilt flowed off her and he could sense, and empathise with, Jasper's torment as he felt all that Alice was going through.
Still, he could not bring himself to care. At least Jasper had his mate with him. He could reach out and touch her face. He could hold her and comfort her and soothe her, as Emmett was currently doing for Rosalie. He could stand beside her and suffer along with her as Carlisle and Esme stood, united even in pain.
He, Edward, had no such succour.
Alone. He was eternally alone.
Bella on her wedding day, her eyes wide behind the lace of her veil. Charlie stood behind her, tears pouring down his cheeks as he stroked his daughter's hair.
"Are you absolutely sure, Bells?" he asked, his voice rough.
Bella turned to smile radiantly at him. "I've never been surer of anything in my life, Dad."
Edward shuddered, whimpered "Stop it" in Alice's direction, but still his sister continued to play that moment, and others like it, straight into his head.
"There's no way this is real," she announced, her moment of doubt gone, her voice confident once more. "She loves you, Edward. I know she loves you. There has to be something else going on."
But oh, he knew what Alice didn't, he had lived where she hadn't. He had witnessed his wife slipping away from him day by day. Small details – the way she wouldn't look him in the eye anymore – meshed with big ones – how she'd shuddered when he touched her – to form a sick, twisted and entirely realistic view of their short marriage. He believed, still, that Bella had loved him on their wedding day, but he also knew how quickly that had changed.
Humans were fickle, after all. If the past hundred years had taught him nothing, it had taught him that...
Forcing himself out of his jagged memories, he zoned back into his surroundings, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Alice's words had obviously flipped some kind of switch within the immortal minds of his family, because suddenly barrages of images were forcing themselves into his eyes. Some were familiar – Bella tripping, falling, blushing, kissing him, hugging Esme with Elizabeth's ring sparkling on her finger. Others were flipped, as though seen from a mirror, and Edward was affronted with his own cursedly happy image – beaming into Bella's eyes, wrapping his arms around her waist, playing the piano joyously with her sitting by his side.
They were killing him, slowly.
He had just enough self-preservation left in his body to know that he could not do this anymore, could no longer stay in this house where memories of his absent wife and dead marriage swirled around him constantly.
And so, Edward found himself on his feet and accessed the only gift he had left that didn't cause him heartache. He flew out the door as fast as his legs could carry him, the sounds of his family's cries of protest dimming in the air behind him, and let his dead muscles carry him inexorably forward.
He hurtled through the night and didn't stop till he'd reached the outskirts of Seattle. There, he slowed to a walk, and set about the business of tracking.
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