Thank you addicttwilight2. Standard disclaimers still apply.
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I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea,
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.
"I Thought Of You," Sara Teasdale
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Chapter Five: Alone
She'd known the exact moment when her marriage had keeled over and died.
He had left her for the first time since they'd become man and wife. A hunting trip in Alaska with his family. They had both realised how necessary it was but still, the separation had been painful. She'd put on a brave face and literally kicked him out of the house, wondering absently how she was ever going to get to sleep without the soft sound of his breathing beside her. Little had she known that soon even that simple comfort would be taken from her forever.
It had happened then. She'd received a note, a few lines written on a piece of paper, and with that, her marriage had tumbled around her ears. Everything had flipped on its head, had been laid out in stark and simple terms, and she had seen right through to the diseased heart of her and Edward.
She'd realised then that she would have to leave him. That they couldn't continue living this lie, this mockery of a marriage. She hated herself for it, yet somehow she felt she deserved to be miserable for ever thinking she was allowed to be that happy. Of course it was wrong, of course it had to end. Of course.
She wasn't the person she'd once thought she was. Neither was he. The steps she had taken to create and then widen a gulf between them had worked all too well, had turned them into two strangers that barely knew how to function around each other. The house had not been big enough to contain the damage she had inflicted on both of them.
And then... then there was Jacob.
Swivelling in the small booth, she eyed the tall form of her best friend as he chatted blithely with the pretty waitress, charming her into offering him more pie. His tone was easy, friendly, his expression disarming, but she who knew him so well could spot the signs of fatigue and stress on his massive frame with ease.
Sometimes, lying next to him on the stained mattress of whatever run-down motel they'd collapsed at after a long day of travelling, she watched him sleeping and bitterly regretted ever having met him. She'd known, of course, that she needed him – that there was no way to avoid being with him, not anymore – but still she wished that she could have been strong enough to do this on her own.
She loved him, and still she'd chosen to involve him in the sticky mess of her dead marriage. In the end, she had been too selfish to allow him a Bella-free existence. That very first day she had run blindly into his arms, and he'd been a solid refuge for her, keeping her close and safe, making her feel as protected as she could in the circumstances.
She'd known he paid a huge price by doing this for her, but he was such a pure and good person that he hadn't hesitated even once when she'd shown up howling at his door. His clear mind saw things simply, even when they weren't. No matter what, friends were friends, family was family and he would do whatever it took to protect her and keep her safe. He'd helped her plot, helped her scheme and machinate, and had finally been there to hoist her on the back of his motorcycle and screech into the night.
Now as they drove across the country, stopping only in quiet restaurants and sleepy motels, he orbited around her like a satellite. She knew, of course, that touch wasn't necessary to foil her former sister-in-law's gift, but still she felt insecure unless some part of him was pressed against some part of her, and he felt that insecurity and acted accordingly. When he drove, she rested her head in the hollow between his shoulder blades. When they ate, she rested her boot-clad foot atop his. When they slept, he curled his large body around hers like a question mark. And when they walked, he kept an arm coiled loosely about her waist.
And if she longed, constantly, for a colder touch, for a tender white hand to graze her face in moments of silence, for icy lips to flutter about the hollow of her throat each morning as she woke... well... that was her problem. Residual feelings for a love that had died months before. What good was love anyway, she thought bitterly. Instead of bringing them closer together, it had just torn them apart. He'd loved her, but not enough to change her, to make them equals. She'd loved him, but not enough to trust him in the end.
A large hand squeezing hers broke her out of her reverie.
"Hey," he murmured softly, "are you okay? You seemed a bit lost for a minute there."
She blinked twice. She hadn't even noticed him folding his long frame into the seat beside her.
She offered him a weak smile. "I'll get over it."
He nodded, his eyes pained but understanding. She watched him quietly.
"Have to say, I've never travelled this far before," he said, grinning at her. "Kansas is a lot... flatter than I expected."
The corner of her mouth quirked up. "Thank you for doing this," she whispered under her breath, knowing he could still hear her.
Mockingly, he checked his wristwatch. "Wow, it's been two hours since the last time you said that. I think that's a record, Bells. Your average is improving."
She shook her head, a wry smile twisting at her lips. "I can't ever say it enough."
He offered her a single shrug of his massive shoulders. "You're my family. What else could I do?"
"But Leah..."
His eyes darkened briefly, shot through with pain as he remembered her, the woman he had at last fallen in love with.
He swallowed. "Leah understands too. Believe it or not."
She stared at her hands, clasped together on the dirty Formica table. "I just hate that I've taken you away from her. Again."
"She knows you're important to me. She knows you're my family. Of course it's hard for us both, but she gets it. She really does. She would do the same, if Seth needed her."
She nodded twice, swallowing a large lump in her throat. She couldn't express all she felt in words and so she squeezed his hand, hard, and hoped he understood.
His eyes got slightly misty. He cleared his throat.
"Bella, I think it's time."
She blinked. "Time for what?"
"To make our way towards an airport."
Her breath caught in her throat, which suddenly felt extremely constricted.
He noted her alarm and continued. "It's been two weeks. If anybody was going to follow us they'd have done so by now."
Her fists clenched as she tried to control her rising panic.
He reached out and laid his hand on her cheek. "You knew it had to happen sooner or later," he said gently.
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. "I know," she muttered, staring fixedly at her hands. "I just... I don't want this, I never wanted this."
"I know."
No further words were spoken. His thumb stroked gently and rhythmically over her cheekbone.
Finally she managed to quell her emotions, compacting them into a tight lump of insanity and locking them tightly in the back of her mind. She breathed slowly and evenly and eventually felt well enough to square her shoulders, look up at him and nod firmly.
They left together. She didn't look back.
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"Bella, please tell me what you're thinking. Please let me in. This is killing me."
Her back was to him, every muscle locked and tight.
"There's nothing to say." Her expressionless voice rang in her ears.
"There's everything to say, Bella! Why won't you look at me? Why won't you talk to me? What have I done that's so awful? Please, Bella, if you don't tell me what the problem is, I can't do anything to fix it."
She ignored him. A few moments of silence passed between them, and then suddenly he was facing her, his eyes fierce, his hands demanding.
"You're my wife, goddammit! Act like it!" And he kissed her, his mouth firm and unyielding against hers.
Though it felt like it would kill her, she forced her body to remain stiff, her lips closed tightly. Beneath the blankets her knuckles were straining against her skin.
His tongue flickered insistently against her lips. She forced herself to remain impassive. One of his hands wrapped itself around the side of her face, the other clutching at her hair feverishly, and still she did not move. The kiss felt like what it was, a dead thing.
He was growing angry, frustrated. She could feel it in every subtle way that his body twined with hers, in every shift of his weight against her, in the desperate way he was kissing her. His body was pleading with hers for affirmation, for some acceptance or acknowledgement of this closeness they'd once shared so easily.
He flipped over, onto his back, holding her above him. His present actions were unhinged when compared with his normal, implacable behaviour, and yet his hands still cradled her like the most precious of porcelain figurines. With one hand tight around her back to prevent her from moving, he held her face above his and layered kisses down her throat, his tongue darting out to tease her skin. Her breathing was loud and ragged in her ears.
Then the world was whirling again and she was beneath him, and he was everywhere. Perhaps sensing her lack of control, his hands were eager now as they inched their way beneath her loose top, grazing the skin of her belly tenderly before cupping her breasts in his hands.
In another heartbeat, the fabric of her top had disappeared, her skin was open to the night air and his mouth was paying homage to her right breast.
She closed her eyes and for a moment thought to arch her back, to bring her traitorous flesh even closer to his lips.
Then sanity flooded back in. She panicked and pulled at his hair.
He drew back slightly, his face open and vulnerable, his eyes soft and yet still somehow pleading.
"I said no," she said flatly. "What, does it only matter when you say it?"
He drew a sharp, shocked breath. She took the moment to place her hand on his shoulder and push. When he'd rolled off her fully, she turned her back to him, curled her knees up to her chest and reached to the nightstand for the pills she had so recently purchased.
She swallowed one thickly and let the fog of artificial sleep overwhelm her. Hearing but refusing to acknowledge his shuddering, sobbing breaths at her back.
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"Bella! Bella, wake up!"
Her eyes opened and for a moment she saw golden eyes where there was brown, her husband where there was her best friend, the chance for redemption where there was none.
She couldn't help it. She threw her arms around him, buried her face in his neck, and sobbed her eyes out.
His large hand stroked her hair rhythmically. His voice was a tender murmur in her ear.
"It's okay, it's okay. I'm here, I'll never let anything happen to you, it's all going to be okay..."
"I miss him so much," she choked. "I miss what we used to be. I just wish..."
"I know." His voice held an ancient grief and she knew that he really did get it, that he understood more than words could say.
They lay there together on the narrow motel bed, each wishing they were somewhere else, with someone else. Bella had the feeling that they were the last two people in the entire universe, marooned in this narrow slice of hell, clinging to each other desperately for any drop of comfort that could come from human contact.
Somewhere as the grey limpness of dawn crept ever nearer, she drifted into an uneasy sleep, dancing visions of her estranged husband just out of reach.
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