A/N:
Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer owns the plot and characters of Twilight, not to mention all the money it makes. I make nothing but fanfiction.
I'm thinking of taking up anti-depressants. You know, to ease the misery. Maybe y'all should have some, too.
I hope this chapter will answer, at long last, your questions. It was honestly one of the earliest chapters that I had visualized completely when I started this chapter. I knew this was where it was going to go from the start, but that didn't make it any easier to write. I feel insecure posting it, and unsure of myself in the worst way. So I would beg all of you to go easy on me, and I promise you all a HEA. I fucking NEED my HEA.
I believe in happy endings is why.
Now that that's out of the way, thanks to all the readers, new and old. Those of you that have reviewed, you are made of awesome. On with it.
Chapter 13 – Nightmare aka "Don't Hate Me"
"James," Victoria's voice was breathy. Coy. Cautious. "I didn't let them in here, the guy just shoved me and I-"
"Quiet."
Victoria fell silent immediately at his command. He smirked in satisfaction, his eyes still on me.
"Get your hands off her." Was that really me? My ears were ringing. My palms were slick with sweat. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat. I want to tear him limb from limb. I looked at her again and bit back a groan. She looked dead.
He raised his eyebrows and his hand stopped playing with her hair. "She'll be out of it for the next few hours. Down in the K-hole." He chuckled again, and the sound was dark. Frightening. "She's had quite a bit this past week. Earned every gram." His hand dropped to her jaw and he caressed her face possessively. My skin was crawling. "Such a tigress."
Emmett suddenly came into view, snapping something at James. I heard nothing. I saw red. That filthy disgusting animal. Whatever Emmett said made him smirk again, then lift his hands from her in faux submission. Emmett scooped Bella into his arms, and she looked so tiny there against his chest, so frail and weak and utterly defenseless. She was a rag, her limbs dangling unresponsively like some sort of terrifying doll. He said something to me. I heard nothing. I couldn't look away from her broken sad face. Rosalie put her hand on my arm, and I looked at her, dumb and mute and deaf and fucked. She said something, too. I heard nothing.
"You're Edward, aren't you?"
I turned at the sound of my name, and James looked smug.
"She kept calling your name. Edward, Edward, Edward. I'm so sorry. Please don't hate me. She'll be so pleased to know you came here for her. But of course, she'll come back." He grinned wider. "I'll look forward to when she does, Edward."
Rosalie was gripping my arm, and I wanted to yank it away and attack him. But I had to focus on Bella. I had to get her home. Make sure she was safe and warm and dressed. Away from James and Victoria and this nightmare.
Rosalie wouldn't give her up to me and sit in the front seat, so we both sat in the back with her. Rosalie pulled on her jeans while I cradled her head carefully on my lap. Her eyes fluttered every once in a while. She spoke often. "Edward," she breathed, and my heart clenched. "I'm sorry. Please, I'm so sorry."
"How did this happen?" I was shocked at the stunned quality of my voice. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the heart-wrenching expression on Bella's face.
"That bastard Phil," Rosalie's voice broke, and I swallowed. She was crying. "He hurt her, and that bitch of a mother of hers did nothing. She was in pieces, Edward! Renee told her it was her fault! She called her a dirty little hussy that ruined everything she touched, and Bella believed her. James found her wandering around SeaTac, and she was so ripe for the taking. She keeps going back to him, and I don't know how to stop her."
Emmett groaned as Rosalie began to sob, and I clenched my jaw tight. I wanted to kill that mother of hers. I wanted to kill the fucking stepfather, too.
At that moment, Bella opened her eyes. She looked at me, then turned her head away and began to cry, too.
***
We took her back to Rosalie's. Esme eyed us warily as I carried Bella through the living room. "I'll call Charlie, tell him she's here. Does she need an ambulance?"
"No, Mom. Just some sleep." Esme nodded as Emmett put his arms around Rosalie and they went up the stairs ahead of me, leading me to Rosalie's room. I'd never been in it before, but I was too preoccupied by the precious bundle in my arms to notice any of it. I placed her carefully on the bed, and she gave a shuddering sigh that trailed into a pathetic whimper.
"What did she take?" I asked hoarsely. Rosalie was touching Bella's face and prying her eyes open. She looked like she'd done this before. Often. Emmett looked so miserable standing in his corner that had my heart had room for anything besides Bella at that moment it would've gone out to him.
Rosalie sighed, opening a drawer and picking up a towel. She handed it to Emmett. "Babe, can you please soak that in cold water and get us something with sugar in it?"
He nodded without looking at her and left the room. Rosalie stood over Bella, spread on her sheets, and put her hands on her hips.
"She took Ketamine. A lot of it. But it must have been at least two hours ago by now. She'll be okay." Then she straddled Bella, reached her hand back as far as it would go, and smacked Bella's cheek in a slap so loud it echoed and bounced around the room.
I looked at her, slack-jawed. "What the fuck-"
"My head." The rest of my sentence was lost as Bella opened her eyes and looked at Rosalie. "My head, Rose." Her voice was so small, so ashamed and lost, that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and protect her from the world.
"I know, baby. We're gonna get you some sugar and a cold towel."
Bella swallowed and closed her eyes, rolling over to her side. Rosalie got off the bed and shot me a nervous look, stepping out of the room while muttering something about Gatorade. I hesitantly sat beside her on the bed, carefully touching her face. Her skin felt feverish. Her eyes shot open, and she looked at me, fear, panic and pain in her eyes. "What are- How did you…?" She trailed off, swallowing and clearing her throat.
"Are you okay? Is there anything I can get you?"
She dropped her eyes and her jaw tightened. "No."
"I was so worried about you, Bella." I ran my fingers through her hair, greasy and stringy and messy. I still loved the feel of it.
She reached up and weakly swatted my hand away. "Well, I'm fine, so you can go."
I blinked. I blinked again. "Bella?" I didn't know what to ask, where the questions should have started. I didn't know where I wanted her to begin. I didn't even know what I wanted her to say.
She turned her eyes to me again, and I saw it there, like the worst kind of de ja vu imaginable, my worst nightmare coming to fruition. Anger. Hatred. Fury and loathing. Like the early days but worse. Like that day we went cliff-diving but worse. Magnified. Intensified. Like it had festered and grown since the night before. A raw determination that seemed to exhaust her, and a glistening moisture that couldn't have been tears, because her voice was weak but steady. "What the fuck are you even doing here?"
So harsh. Cutting. "I… went to Seattle to get you." I sounded dead already. My body was shutting down. I was so tired suddenly.
Her face briefly showed pain, but she hid it again so quickly I doubted I'd seen it. "Why the fuck did you do that? Fuck. Now I'm gonna need to drive back there in my fucking truck and get my bike. Nice one. Fucking great."
My throat closed up. Jesus, why did it hurt so much? I should've seen it coming. I should've known it was bound to happen. So why hadn't I? Why had I thought I could have her back? My heart broke, and I realized I was fighting tears. Fucking pussy. She looked at my face for a long time, her eyes infinitely deep and beautiful. She closed them.
"I'm tired." I nodded even though she couldn't see me, because I couldn't speak. I knew I had to leave, to save myself, to rescue the remains of my tattered and battered fucking heart. I knew that I would cry, soon. But maybe I was just a fucking masochist, because I leaned down and kissed her warm temple, inhaling her, all of her, the sweat and cigarette smoke and oranges and flowers and even the horrible scent of that other guy. She stiffened underneath me, and I ran out of the room before she could say anything or yell at me or curse at me some more. Rosalie was in the hall with Emmett, and she looked at me curiously as I brushed past.
"Edward?" Emmett's voice was already far behind me. I was almost out of the house. I was almost in my car. And fuck, I could smell her everywhere, and as I started the engine, I peeled out of the driveway and drove too fast for Forks, and I clenched the wheel and gritted my teeth, and the little needle on the speedometer kept going up and up. I couldn't slow down, I couldn't stop. It was too fucking hard. Being in love with her was just too fucking hard.
***
Of course, when school resumed in early January, nothing had changed. My first day back at school, Jasper glared at me, clenching and unclenching his fists. Alice's eyes were sad and wide. Rosalie and Emmett exchanged nervous glances, but Bella never looked at me. Lauren tried talking to me, but I couldn't find the strength to acknowledge her existence, let alone her words. At one point during English, Berty asked me a question six times before Mike Newton nudged me into a response.
Jasper refused to speak a word to me during lunch, which was just as well considering I couldn't speak. Emmett's attempts at conversation fell flat when I couldn't manage more than a grunt whenever I did. I couldn't look at Bella. I couldn't look at Emmett and Rosalie either, because their eyes told me I was pitiful. Alice's eyes were even harder to meet.
Biology class was too much. I skipped and spent the hour in my car, not listening to music. Not smoking, either, because it made me think of that time we cut classes to go eat and fight and she took care of me the best way she knew how.
After the last bell, I trudged my way to my car, avoiding conversations and glances by staring at my feet. When I got inside, I sighed and looked up. The five of them were clustered together, and Alice was looking in my direction. Sometimes Jasper would try to get her attention, but she was fixated on me, and I thought of the phrase "if looks could kill." When she saw me looking she turned to say something to Bella, and everyone within earshot looked at her in shock.
Fuck it. Fuck all of it. It was too hard.
I drove home that day like I was hoping I'd crash and die. Probably I was, but I was too exhausted to realize it.
Little did I realize that first day was to be a template for how the rest of my days would go. The weeks wore on, and I missed more and more biology classes. At some point in time, Emmett stopped trying to draw me into conversations. I couldn't pinpoint when exactly, because I didn't notice it. Rather, I realized it was something that had stopped happening over time, and I was hard-placed to define that time. Sometimes, Bella missed school. Those days were easier, but only slightly.
At home, I did little. My music gathered dust on the shelves, because everything I listened to reminded me of her. I couldn't stop thinking about her stupid roots, and her fucking smile and her laugh when she made fun of me for not knowing the early inspirations of the bands that influenced My Chemical Romance. So I stopped listening to music.
Carlisle tried talking to me. He started throwing around words like 'catatonic', but I swatted him off my bed and managed to find my voice long enough to ask him to just leave me the fuck alone. For the most part, he did. He was worried, but he was helpless.
It was one day like any other when I was sitting in my car, waiting for the bell to ring, that I saw Lauren. My eyes would have passed over her in the same way they always did now, but my mind insisted I stop and notice, that something was different. Something was wrong. My sluggish brain tried to compute that difference. She was talking to Tyler Crowley, smiling at him in that flirtatious way she had often used on me. I realized suddenly that that too had stopped some time ago. I didn't know when. I was just about to give up on pinpointing what was wrong when she laughed, reaching her hand up and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Wait. Lauren had hair again?
It wasn't long like it used to be. No where even close. But it wasn't close cropped either. It actually looked pretty cute, and she clearly knew it. How long did it take hair to grow out that long? Was she wearing a wig? I looked up at the sky. It was cloudy, but it was always cloudy. What was the date?
I stepped out of my car, dazed, feeling strangely disoriented. I didn't know what I was searching for. Some kind of hint or clue as to what the date was. I searched a little frantically until I reached a tree with a flyer stapled to it, next to one of the picnic tables outside the buildings that were rarely ever used. The flyer was advertising tickets on sale for the Spring Formal dance. Spring? The date of the dance was April 14th. Coming soon, the flyer promised. There was another flyer close by, reminding seniors to schedule time with the school advisor to discuss graduation. So then, graduation was coming up, too?
I swallowed. Fuck. This couldn't be happening. April meant four months. Four months of my life had gone by, like something surreal. Four months I'd been drifting, too numb to feel anything, too scared to chase the numbness away. Four fucking months. Gone. I turned around to look at the school, and it looked strange and unfamiliar, like I was seeing it for the first time. And I gripped my hair in my fists and shook my head. What the fuck happened to me? Where the hell had I been?
The bell rang some time later, and I walked to class wide-eyed. I was seeing everything as though for the first time. The way people's eyes slid right over me, like I was a ghost. Like I was furniture. Like I wasn't even there. For the past four months, I probably wasn't.
I discovered it was April 9th. My mind reeled all over again at the realization that I had been dead to the world – and myself – for so long. It frightened me. Emmett seemed to notice something different about me in gym class, aiming a few unnecessarily forceful passes at my head with a basketball. Jasper turned his stoned blue eyes on me, and his eyes widened, looking momentarily lucid.
Because I was scared, terrified by my realization, because I wanted to feel something again, anything, even if it was just the indescribable agony of her proximity, I looked forward to her approach during lunch. My body felt it like I knew it would, and I listened to it this time. She sat beside me without glancing my way, and I stared at her.
She was so fucking beautiful.
I'd spent the past four months not looking at her, not speaking to her, not even picturing her or remembering her, and I was struck dumb by just how gorgeous she was all over again now that I was seeing her for the first time in too long. I breathed raggedly, and Emmett eyed me curiously.
She frowned at his expression, then followed his line of sight and saw me. I knew that being caught staring wasn't really what I was going for, but I couldn't look away. Her face registered several expressions in the following seconds. Surprise. Relief. Anguish. Sadness. I recognized them all, and none of them made any sense.
"Bella, can I talk to you for a second?" She turned in response to Jasper's request, and his expression worsened as he took in her face. "In private?"
She nodded and quickly got up as Jasper unceremoniously pushed Alice off his lap and led Bella by the hand, out of the cafeteria, out of my sight, who knew where and for what purpose. Alice sat in the chair he had deposited her in and grabbed me suddenly by the collar of my shirt. I yelped, blinking at her surprisingly strong grip. "Go. After. Them.Now."
She was crying. I nodded, glancing at Emmett, and he looked uncomfortable. Worried. He nodded at me, and I was out of my seat as soon as Alice let go of my shirt. I heard them before I saw them, their shouts carrying from the parking lot. They were squared off against one another, Jasper with his hands holding her face so close he could kiss her without trying. She was gripping his wrists, yelling up at him, and I was jogging across the field with fire in my ears.
"It's none of your fucking business, Jasper!" She was on the verge of tears. I could hear it in the trembling of her voice.
Jasper glared at me again now that I was close, dropping his hands from her face and taking a step towards me. "Why don't you just back off for a second, Cullen. We're having a private discussion here."
"Fuck your private discussion, Jasper, you have issues with me you talk to me about them. Leave her alone."
He made his face blank. "This is between me and Bella, so just butt out."
"Jazz, don't." Bella gripped his arm, and he turned to her, wrapping his arms possessively around her as he eyed me cautiously.
I heard the frantic footsteps of running behind me. I didn't care enough to look and see who it was. "Jasper, let's go back inside." Emmett's voice was low and menacing.
"I'm not ready to go back inside," Jasper hissed at him, gripping Bella more tightly. Her shoulders were hunched, her face buried in his chest.
"Stop it, Jazz." Bella's voice was muffled by his shirt.
"Jasper, I'm serious dude, let's go."
"Why don't you just shut up and stay the fuck out of this, Emmett?"
Emmett hissed. "Chill the fuck out, Jasper."
Jasper's eyes widened, and he gripped Bella more tightly, his eyes darting to each of us as though we were threatening to steal her away. "Bella," he murmured in her ear, and her hands reached around his waist. "Bella, say something."
"No."
"Bella. Say something!" His voice was pleading, and she suddenly pulled away and looked at a spot over his shoulder.
"That's it, Jasper Whitlock! That's the last straw!" All of us turned to see Alice standing a short distance away, her eyes narrowed and tears streaming down her cheeks. "Enough is enough. I won't be sloppy seconds. Especially not to her." Shaking her head, she marched off to her car, Jasper gazing after her with disbelief and horror on his face. I wanted to punch him.
"Nice fucking going, dickwad," Emmett rumbled, and Bella dropped her face in her hands and shook her head.
"Hey, eat shit!"
"Shut up, Jasper!" Bella clenched her hands into tiny fists, and I wondered if she was going to take a swing at him. I hoped she would. Making a frustrated noise, she pointed in the direction Alice had gone, where her shiny yellow Porsche was pulling out and disappearing. "You need to go after her. Now. You and I will talk later."
He swallowed, his face suddenly looking tired and pained. Nodding wordlessly, he jogged to his car, and Emmett shook his head and growled again.
"Bella." It felt good to say her name. Good like torture.
She shook her head and wouldn't look at me. "Don't, Edward. Just give it a rest." A thrill shot through me at hearing her speak my name. I couldn't go back to ignoring how devastating having her in my life was. How devastating not having her in my life was.
"It's over with him. Listen to me now."
She turned to me, and I saw pain and bitterness in her face. Her eyes showed me pain I had previously thought her incapable of harboring. She shook her head like I'd said something ridiculous. "Don't be silly. I've always listened to you."
Emmett rubbed his face tiredly. "Bella, just tell him the truth."
She stiffened minutely. "There's nothing to hear."
"You know," I started, and though my voice was still hoarse with disuse I felt my sense of self returning to me. I felt it coming back, and my body was tingling like a limb that had fallen asleep and was now pins and needles. "It almost sounds like you have a fucked up reason not to listen to me."
She bit her lip and stared at her feet.
"It almost sounds like maybe I should be the one doing the listening."
At this she looked at me, and her face was a strange mixture of fear and hope and anger and hurt. "Jasper is just some guy who got too attached to the girl he lost his virginity to. Who I fuck is none of his business." She eyed me then, as though considering fucking me, but there was no lust in her eyes. Just a butcher looking at a piece of meat. It made me shudder.
"Bella, get a fucking grip." Emmett sounded disgusted and tired. "Just tell him the truth."
She shook her head at Emmett, her mouth opening and closing without a sound. Hugging herself, she turned around and walked away to her truck, leaving me there to wonder how even after four months, I still didn't understand her at all.
***
I suppose it was coming when Jasper marched right up to me the next morning at school and punched my face in. Emmett got hold of him after a few good shots, and Rosalie screamed at him for being a stupid cock. Bella and Alice stood a fair distance away, Alice with tears in her eyes, Bella looking bored.
"Fucking hell, Jasper. What the fuck is your problem?"
Jasper hissed and made another lunge at me, but Emmett easily kept him away from me. "Cool it!" He turned to look at me then. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
A small crowd was gathering to watch the spectacle. New Kid vs Jasper. Fucking sweet.
"You don't deserve her, you bastard!" Jasper was trying to get at me again, and I shook my head.
I didn't deserve her? My mind presented me with the image of her, dressed in white like in my dream. Bella in my dream, asking if I loved her. She looked like an angel. Bella standing at her window, waving good night. Bella on the hood of the Jeep, bathed in starlight. Cold and wet, shivering in my arms in the hollow of a tree. Bella in my bed. Bella half naked and strung out in James' lap. No, I didn't deserve her. But… "You don't deserve her, either," I spoke, and he stopped struggling against Emmett immediately, staring at me with shock. It was just as well, because Emmett dropped his arms and stared, too. "No one deserves her. She's a goddess."
I looked at Bella. She was staring at me, her mouth slightly open. She was shocked, too. When she realized she'd been caught looking, she snapped it shut and tried to look indifferent. When that failed, she turned and ran into the woods.
"Bella!" It was a fucking moronic thing to do. I knew it even as I ran after her that I was an idiot, a big fucking idiot, but it was all I ever seemed to be around Bella, and I was done trying so hard to control it. "Bella!" I was vaguely aware of shouts behind me, of Emmett and Jasper calling her as well. I didn't stop to listen to anyone. I didn't stop for anything. I was done controlling it. I wanted to run after her, so I did. I wanted to catch her, so I did. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and press her back to my chest when I'd caught her, so I did. She struggled, gasping and panting in my grip, but I wrestled her down to her knees, the both of us on our knees, kneeling in the woods, with my arms around her. It felt so right to have my arms around her again.
"Let me go!"
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Stop it! Let me go!" Her voice cracked with rage, and I flinched. It felt like she'd slapped me again.
"Bella, why are you doing this to me?"
She suddenly went limp in my arms, and I heard her sniffle. Oh, God. She was crying. "I wanted to stay away," she said, and her voice was so small. My heart broke. "I wanted to do the right thing and stay away. I didn't want to be here like this."
Slowly, carefully, I maneuvered her in my arms so that she was facing me, and tears were running down her face. I swallowed a lump in my throat, because fuck if I didn't feel like crap watching her cry. "What do you mean? I don't understand!" I heard the frustration in my voice. It made me cringe.
"Edward," she whispered, her hands on my face, and I lost myself in her eyes. I watched, mesmerized, as she brought her face closer to mine, and I lost all capacity to think when I felt her breath against my lips. As if in a dream, Bella Swan touched her lips to mine and kissed me the softest, sweetest most loving kiss I'd ever experienced.
My lips moved against her, and I groaned. She was killing me. She was fucking killing me. Mustering my strength, I took her face in my hands and stopped her, panting and trying to regain use of my thoughts. "Why are you doing this to me?" I asked her again.
She whimpered. "Because I'm weak. Because I'm scared. Because I don't know how to stay away."
I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her face was anguished. It made my heart clench. "Please," I pleaded, unsure what I was asking for.
She leaned forward and kissed me again, and I knew I was lost to her. The battles I had won before were meaningless. I had lost the war. I wrapped my arms around her, deepening the kiss, feeling my heart race as she put her slender arms around my neck. The leather of that jacket that had looked so perfect on her rubbed against my shoulders and I loved the sensation. I knew that for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be able to feel leather without thinking of this moment.
"Edward," she murmured, and I pulled away, leaning my forehead against hers. "Edward, do you love me?" Her voice was small again, and so uncertain. I couldn't believe my ears.
"Yes," I hissed, clutching her more tightly in my arms. "God, yes. I want you more than anything."
She whimpered again, and I felt her shake her head against me. "What am I doing?"
"Bella, please," I spoke against the soft skin of her neck. "Let me have you. Please, let me. I swear I'll treat you well. I know I don't deserve you, but please let me try."
She shook her head against me again. "Don't say that, Edward. Don't think that."
I held her face again, pulling it away from my chest so I could see her eyes. I knew I couldn't conceal the longing in my eyes. I knew she would see it there. I hoped it would convince her to let me try.
"Can you take me home, please?"
I nodded, struck mute by this goddess before me. Getting up, I held her waist and guided her slowly back to the parking lot. She stumbled occasionally, but I was always there to catch her. I told myself that if she let me, I always would be.
The parking lot was empty when we got there, everyone gone back inside the buildings or somewhere else. Emmett's Jeep was gone. Alice's Porsche was, too. I walked her to the passenger side of my Volvo, and it had been so long since I'd done this my heart was soaring. I opened the door for her before getting in and starting the car. As we drove away from the school, I turned to her and swallowed. "Bella?"
"Hmm?" She was looking out the window. I couldn't see her face.
"Is it 'later'?"
She turned to me suddenly, and her face was resigned. She looked like she'd been sentenced to the gallows. "Yeah, it's about that time."
I nodded, and we rode in silence. At her house, Bella rubbed her face with her hands, sighing. "Do you remember your first day at school, Edward?"
I nodded. "You hated me."
She smiled sadly. "I suppose I did. I was angry at you. See, I'd sworn to myself I'd never let anyone be in a position to matter to me again. I was over it, the emotional trials and tribulations of loving someone, anyone. I guess you know now that Jasper and I didn't do so great as a couple."
I swallowed and shut my eyes. "I figured."
"We were together for two years. It was so intense, so real and… passionate."
I groaned and opened my eyes, unable to look at her. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because Jasper was the first time I thought I could be... I don't know, good. He meant the world to me. And I left him." Her voice broke, and I turned to see her on the verge of tears. "Because we were all wrong for each other, and he wouldn't see that, and I was scared. I broke up with him, and he was ruined."
I stared at her in disbelief. I remembered something about her mother gone and pictured her father pining. I drew a parallel, Jasper, so hung up on Bella it was sickening, and Bella's flighty mother gone for good, a horrible excuse for a human being.
Oblivious to my revelation, she went on. "When Alice asked him out, he turned her down the first two times because he was hoping I'd change my mind. He was hoping I'd take him back but I didn't. So he dated Alice. And I was sitting there every day, watching Emmett and Rosalie and Jasper and Alice, and I was so unbelievably alone. I watched him fall in love with her. I saw how perfect they were together. I saw her be for him what I could never be. So I went to Jacob."
Jacob Black. The story just got better and better.
"I don't know what Rosalie told you about him, but Jacob saved me from James. I owed him. He never told Charlie, and I was so grateful. He didn't try to force me into anything, he just told me how he felt about me, that the whole time we were growing up together he was so in love me, and he could never forgive himself if anything bad happened to me. He was sincere, and he made me feel like I didn't have to think or make decisions. I never loved him, not really the way he wanted me to, but I couldn't stop seeing him, and whenever it got too hard being around Jasper and Alice, I ran to Jake. He was there for me, no questions or anything, even though everyone hated him so much. It wasn't fair to him, you know?"
I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. I felt sick.
"I gave him the wrong idea, I think. He thought we were more than we were, and… it was all my fault. He loved me, and I used him. Maybe he got a little possessive or whatever, but he was just harmless." She paused and breathed deeply. "Do you remember coming to get me in Seattle?"
I groaned. At this rate I really would be sick. "I remember, Bella."
She nodded. "I fucked James for the K."
Christ. I didn't want to hear anymore.
"Do you believe in love at first sight?"
I stared at her. "What?"
She wasn't looking at me, but her face was serious. "Do you believe in love at first sight, Edward?"
I swallowed.
"I've loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you that day in the cafeteria. I felt it right away, and it only took me a minute to realize what it was. I'd fallen in love with you immediately, just like that. And I hated you for it." She turned to me, and her brown eyes held an echo of the fury I'd seen in her eyes that day. "I told myself I was done with love, and then you came along and forced me to love you in spite of myself. I felt helpless and angry, and I wanted it to stop so… I pushed you away. I wanted you to hate me."
I choked and shook my head. How could she have done that? How could she have rationalized it to herself? "Why would you do that?"
She covered her face with her hands. "I wanted you to hate me so that you'd be horrible to me. If you were horrible to me, then I'd learn to hate you, too. Not just hate you because I was angry, but really hate you. I desperately didn't want to love you."
"You're insane!" I heard the accusation in my voice, but I heard the hurt there as well.
"But you weren't horrible to me, even though I was so horrible to you. I couldn't understand it. You were perfectly kind to me despite everything. And it made me crazy, so I ran away."
"Jacob Black."
She shook her head. "Further away."
I growled. "Seattle."
She nodded, uncovering her face and looking at me. "I spent the better part of three days in Seattle. I- I don't remember what I did. I was never… I just lost myself. I finally pulled myself together enough to leave when I ran out of money, but I couldn't go back to school. So I went to Jake, and he knew something was wrong. I spent days there, battling with myself, the part that wanted to love you and the self-preservation that prevented me from doing so. He started prying small parts of the story out of me. After a while, he told me I had to go back and face you. Probably, if I met you and got to know you, I'd realize you were just as dull and mindless as all the other boys, and I'd get over my silly infatuation. So I came back."
I swallowed and put up my hand to interrupt her. "That day he brought you to school. That… display."
She bit her lip and dropped her gaze to her hands, clenching and unclenching in her lap. "That was… not my idea. Jake said it would be fun, but I think maybe he just wanted… to stake a claim."
I palmed my face. The memory of them wrapped up around one another haunted me behind my closed lids.
"I got to know you, then. And you were wonderful. Everything I learned about you just made me fall deeper and deeper in love with you, and it made me angry all over again. But then I stopped looking for faults in you. I stopped trying to fit everything you said into a negative space. And I… liked… being around you. I enjoyed your company. You were… just wonderful."
I wanted to tell her how I thought she was wonderful, too. But so much of what she'd just told me angered me. So much of it was unfair. Some parts of it seemed like such a waste now.
We could have spent that time more wisely.
"Bella," I whispered. I could only whisper. "What about… Christmas?"
She bit her lip. "When we went cliffdiving, I just… panicked. You saw me, all the ugly parts, and I was convinced that when you saw them you would get over me and move on, and then I could move on, too. But you were so nice. You didn't even take advantage of me. You wanted to, but you didn't. I couldn't understand it. Until I realized that, maybe, you loved me, too. Maybe not as much as I loved you, but you did. It scared me. And I was angry at you all over again, for complicating my life and making it difficult, for making me want you when I couldn't have you, and for making yourself available to me when it was just destined to fail. And then in the car, when you kissed me, I realized that you might have felt the same way about me after all. So I ran again."
"You… ran?"
She nodded, and her eyes were ashamed. "It was more horrible than any of the other times. I wanted to forget you. I wanted to forget everything. I ran out of money, fast. Then James made me an offer."
I punched the steering wheel and the horn let out a shriek. "Fuck!" I tugged my hair and refused to look at her. I couldn't fucking stand it.
"One day I woke up and realized suddenly that it was Christmas. It was Christmas, and I was fucking high in some whore's apartment, sleeping with her pimp for my fix. I went home, and Charlie was so relieved to see me. I felt like shit. Because I was fucking poison. I poisoned everything. I poisoned Charlie's life, and I poisoned Jacob's, and I poisoned Jasper's, and even when I was a fucking fetus I poisoned my mother's. And I was poisoning yours."
I shook my head, but I still couldn't look at her.
"I was so bad to Jake. I told him to back off, I told him he had no claim on me, that he was delusional, and that I didn't love him."
"He hurt you."
"He just grabbed me a little. Nothing serious. I wanted to say good-bye to you, so I came to your house. I wanted you to turn me away, to reject me and throw me out on my ass. I wanted you to say good-bye, too. That night wasn't supposed to happen, but it did. And I told myself I was just saying goodbye. A full good-bye, and I would never poison your life again. It was so natural to kiss you, to touch you, to fall asleep in your arms."
It had felt natural to me, too. I hadn't known she'd come to me after marathon fucking and drug binging with James. No wonder he'd looked so smug. I was so naïve.
"I was in a panic the next morning. So… I went back to Seattle. I wanted to get lost again. I didn't expect to see you again so soon. I was terrified, and I was ashamed. Because you knew. I was ugly and dirty on the inside and you knew. So I pushed you away because I suddenly realized… I didn't want you to say good-bye. I wouldn't have been able to stand it."
So she'd said her own good-bye. I was like a pingpong ball that she'd tossed around her mind, ricocheting off of every surface without knowing why or for how long. At her mercy. Jerked around. Fucked with. Hurt. Abused. I had never even known why. "Didn't you care about my feelings at all?"
She bit her lip at the venom in my voice. She had known that I loved her from that day on the beach, and had hurt me in the cruelest, vilest ways imaginable. To save herself. She gave me no answer. I knew she had none. She was crying again, her hands clenched into fists in her lap. Her face was determined. Resigned. "I tried not to love you. But I can't anymore. Edward, you asked why I did this to you, and now you know. You said you wanted me. Do you want me now?"
My heart raced. My palms were slick with sweat. My ears rang. I had wanted her so much just an hour ago. Did I want her now? Now that I knew?
"I think you should go."
She looked at me, no surprise in her face. Only a quiet resignation. And a hint of agony. I looked away. I couldn't look at her right now.
Nodding, she opened the car door and stepped outside, and as soon as she shut the door again I drove off. I tried my best not to look back, but when I glanced in my rearview mirror, she was still standing on the lawn, her head down, her body limp, as the sky opened up above us.
AN/
I'm suspecting some unhappy readers right about now...
Due to connectivity issues this chapter ended up on Twi'd sooner than on here, but hell. Maybe I'll put up the next one here faster than it ends up there. Just for cosmic balance.