The Ghost of You

by crimsonmarie

Edward Cullen's life was never what one would call normal. His father's a top-class surgeon and his mother's a new age hippie. He's had it when they move from California to Forks, WA. Will he find normalcy or learn to accept things as they are?

5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.

I'm going to apologize in advance for not being as enthusiastic as I usually am, but certain things in my world just kinda crashed around me a bit. I love all of you and you're all very fucking amazing. Thank you for your kind words and alerts and favorites.

Thanks to sixeightshuffle, for being an awesome beta who's always patient enough to add in the commas where I've left them out. Angie, Meg, Shae, Shelley… all of you girls are amazing and I love you dearly.

I want to say that I'll be able to update next week, but I'm not entirely sure with this new development that's just popped up. My head really isn't in the right mind frame to write much of anything, but I'll do my best to try for you guys. I hope you still stick with me if I can't.

One more thing; my dearest wifey, Shaelove, has written a crackfic of this story here and I fucking love it. It cracks me up more often than not and you should all go read it (only if you plan on laughing at it as well. There will be no flames! She has my full permission, k?) and let her know how awesome she is. Link: http:/www [dot] fanfiction [dot] net/s/5947030/1/When_Writers_Throw_Characters_Under_The_Bus

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I found myself in the library the next day during lunch, bypassing Emmett's request to sit with him during the period, and remembered that I'd need to ask him where he lived so that I wouldn't get lost again trying to find his damn house on Friday.

I honestly had no problem with him. He hadn't wanted to string me up by my balls when he saw me with his ex-girlfriend and had seemed as friendly as possible whenever I saw him, so there was absolutely no reason why I shouldn't go and mingle with the townsfolk.

I wasn't against meeting new people and gaining a few new friends while I was here, but I had a ghost in my house and I wanted her gone. At least, I was pretty sure that I wanted her gone, anyway. Seeing her huddled up on the floor of my bedroom had freaked me out, no doubt about it. Wanting to make sure she was all right after that was completely normal, right? Plus, being forced into helping her and wanting to get my life back to normal – as normal as I could possibly have it considering the parents I had – was completely… normal.

Was it wrong to want to be normal in a new town?

I didn't think so.

So here I sat. In front of the ancient machine that I couldn't remember the name of, looking through all the articles that I'd found mentioning anyone named Bella.

She hadn't been hard to find. In a town this small, it had been fairly easy to find the Bella that I wanted.

I couldn't find my way to anyone else's house, but I could sure as hell find Bella. I was choosing not to think about that too much.

Her last name was Swan, she was an overachiever to the nth degree, and her father had been the Priest in this tiny little town. She'd planned on going to Yale when she graduated, and wanted to be a teacher for disabled children. She'd been on the honor roll in middle school and had carried that over to her only year in high school. The pictures that were plastered next to these articles showed a vibrant, beautiful young girl with eyes full of… life.

They were nothing compared to the ghost I'd seen since moving here. The spark that was visible even through the grainy black and white photographs wasn't there any longer, and the brilliant, beautiful smile that was showcased in the photos, I'd never seen.

Granted, I wasn't sure if seeing any of that was even possible anymore. She was a ghost; all of that had to have disappeared when she died, right?

I yawned as I scrolled to the next article, reaching up with my free hand to scratch at the back of my head. I'd slept the best I had since we'd moved here and getting up this morning had been an interesting feat. In fact, I'd almost missed homeroom because having to actually open my eyes and put my feet on the floor was not something I'd been looking forward to.

Bella hadn't been there when I finally managed to get moving, and I did my best not to be disappointed. Then I spent entirely too much time wondering why I was disappointed in the first place.

That was part of the damn reason I was sitting here in the library as opposed to eating lunch. I needed to get this ghost out of my house and out of my life before anything else happened. I didn't need my mother trying to drag her from her dimension into ours and ripping her in half. I also didn't need to be feeling disappointment when I woke up to find that she wasn't sleeping next to me like she had been when I'd fallen asleep the night before.

No.

I leaned forward when the next article showed up on the screen, my eyes widening and my jaw dropping just a little.

"Local girl stabbed twice, strangled."

I blinked, shaking my head and swallowing hard as I rested my chin in my hand and started to read. She'd been home alone, her parents out at a fundraiser for the church. Someone – they didn't know who – had broken in to their home. From what the police could piece together, this person wouldn't have known that Bella was still home and she'd probably startled them at first.

I licked my lips nervously, my heart beating fast and my hands shaking a little as I scrolled to the next page.

They'd stabbed her twice in the stomach, and from the defensive wounds they'd found on her hands, had deduced that she'd fought back even after that. She'd been strangled and pushed down the stairs, where she'd ultimately broken her neck on the way down.

No one had any leads and nothing could be found from searching the Swan home. Nothing left behind. There were a few more articles after that, declaring that they had a few leads that only ended up as dead ends when they went to check them out. In short, whoever had killed Bella was still roaming around without a shred of remorse at all.

The bell rang and I jumped, quickly cleaning up everything I'd been using before grabbing my bag and booking it out of the library.

I wasn't able to concentrate on anything in the rest of my classes for the day, merely thinking about how Bella had died and trying to figure out what the hell I needed to do to put her at rest. Or make her move on. Or whatever it is that I needed to do to help her out.

By the time the final bell rang to end the day, I had no idea what I had to do for homework and I still had no idea what I was supposed to do for Bella. If the police didn't have any leads, then what the hell was I supposed to do?

"Edward!"

I looked up from mechanically throwing books I wasn't sure I even needed into my bag to find Emmett running towards me, his bag bouncing on his back as he came to a stop in front of me.

"Hey."

"A few of us are going to the diner to hang out for a while. Did you want to come?" he asked easily, leaning a shoulder against the locker next to mine.

"Uh, yeah, sure, that's… that'd be fine."

"Great. You remember how to get there, right?"

I nodded, closing my locker door and throwing my bag over my shoulder.

"Yeah. I'm just gonna stop at home really quickly to tell my mom."

"No prob, dude. We're all doing the same. Parents." He rolled his eyes and I laughed, nodding. "Meet you there in twenty?"

"It's a plan."

"That it is, my friend. See you then."

He turned and jogged off, meeting up with who I thought might've been Eric Yorkie. I walked out of the school, shaking my head at myself and sighing.

I should've known that kid's name. I should've known where Emmett lived by now. I shouldn't have spent my lunch period in the library, researching a dead girl and trying to find a way to help her. I was eighteen years old, in my senior year of high school in a new place, and instead of making new friends and living it up like any normal teenager should be, I was spending all my free time with a fucking ghost and all the bullshit that came along with her.

Naturally, I got pissed at the whole damn situation.

I slammed my way into my car and dug my keys out of my bag before shoving it in the backseat, harshly shoving the right key into the ignition and gunning it out of the parking lot. I made it to the house in record time, pushing my way out of the car and sprinting up the porch steps. Of course Bella was sitting on the stairs, her chin in her hand and a small, welcoming, almost happy smile on her lips when she saw me.

I could only manage to scowl at her.

"Hello, sweetheart!" my mother chimed from the kitchen. "How was your day?"

I continued to glare at Bella, trying not to feel like an ass when she shifted uncomfortably on her step, the smile falling from her face as she began to chew on her lip.

"Fine!" I called back, still watching Bella fidget. "I'm going to meet some friends at the diner, okay?"

"What's wrong, Edward?" Bella asked quietly, clasping her hands together and resting them on her knees.

"What time will you be home?"

I looked away from Bella when I heard my mother's voice closer, looking at her to find that she was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a towel between her hands.

"I don't know," I said, shrugging and crossing my arms over my chest. "We're just gonna hang out, I guess."

"All right," she smiled, walking over to me and kissing my cheek. "Be careful and be home in enough time to finish your homework, please?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Do you have enough money?"

"Yeah."

"Have fun, honey."

With that, she turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen, humming under her breath as she flapped the towel at her side. I shook my head and looked back at the stairs to find Bella still sitting there, her hands twisting around each other nervously.

"I'm not doing this," I whispered, looking back towards the kitchen quickly. "I'm not helping you with anything."

"Edward, please…"

"I should be out with people I might consider friends at some point instead of sitting in the library and looking you up to figure out what the hell happened. I have better things to do with my time."

"Please, I'm running…"

"Find someone else," I spat, turning around and walking back out of the house.

I looked across the street to see that Rosalie's car was in her driveway, but thankfully she wasn't anywhere near it. The last thing that I wanted to do was deal with her bullshit too. One crazy woman – and in my mind, it didn't matter if she was dead or alive at this point – was enough to fill my quota for the day.

I got back into my car and started it, pulling out and speeding towards the diner. I would be early, but I didn't really give a shit. I needed to get away from the house and the ghost inside of it. Too much was going on at once and I didn't like it. I hadn't even gotten a chance to get used to being in a new place before I was forced into this ghost hunting/problem solving bit and I just wanted a minute to myself. I wanted to be a regular, normal eighteen year-old kid for just once in my life.

I parked in the almost empty lot at the diner and turned the car off, leaning back in my seat and running my hands through my hair.

A few minutes and a lot of deep breaths later, I nearly had a heart attack when someone knocked on my window. I opened my eyes to find Emmett standing there, grinning at me. I huffed out a breath before I grabbed my keys and opened the door, stepping out and looking up at him.

Fuck, he was a tall bastard.

"Hey."

"Hey. Sorry about that." He shrugged. "Had to get your attention somehow."

I nodded, looking around.

"Where's everyone else?"

"They bailed," he grumbled. "The cheerleaders were practicing in the gym after school and they all opted to stay there and watch."

"You didn't want to?"

And why in the hell had no one told me about this?

"I'm a one-woman man, my friend." He slung an arm over my shoulder and started leading me towards the entrance. "Rosie's all the woman I need."

I blinked, shaking my head.

"I thought…?"

"Oh, we'll get back together. We always do," he said confidently as he pushed through the glass door. "Hey, Tyler!"

"Hey, man!"

Who I safely assumed was the cook waved at him through an open window in the wall, tapping a greasy spatula against the chef hat he wore and leaving a mark on the top of it.

Emmett led me towards a booth in the back, finally lifting his arm from my shoulders before sliding into one side and leaving me to do the same.

"Why are you so confident that you'll get back together?"

"This is what we do." He grinned and leaned back, resting his hands behind his head. "It used to be easier when Bells was around to play in between us, but hey." A shadow passed over his face and he shrugged, dropping his arms to the table top. "We make do."

Oh, great. He knew Bella, too. Perfect.

"Ah," I mumbled, nodding and reaching to pick at my hair. I knew what the next logical question should be and fuck me if I wanted to voice it. "Bells?"

Naturally, I'm a fucking idiot.

"She was like my little sister. Even though she was a few months older than me." A sad and wistful smile graced his lips as he looked down at his hands, tapping his thumbs against the table. "Her and Rosie were my two best friends growing up. We were stuck to each other, I never went anywhere without either of them."

"What happened?" I asked through my teeth, internally cursing at myself.

"Three years ago, she died," he said quietly, shaking his head. "Her parents went to a spaghetti dinner at the church and she stayed home because she wasn't feeling well. Someone broke in and, well…" He sucked in a deep breath and braced his hands on the edge of the table, leaning back on his seat. "She didn't… yeah."

I bit the inside of my cheek, watching as he licked his lips and looked over towards the long counter.

"Sorry," I grumbled, fidgeting in my seat.

He huffed out a chuckle and shrugged his shoulders.

"She kept me out of trouble, you know?" He smirked. "She was the rational side of our triangle; Rosie's the hot-headed one and I'm the pain in the ass that barely thinks before he does something stupid. She balanced us out. She knew just how to calm Rosie down and she knew just what to say to keep me out of jail. When Rosie and I would fight, she'd knock sense into our heads and tell us to get over whatever it was that was bothering us because we were those gooey high school sweethearts everyone else always aimed to be. We still know that, but sometimes it takes us a little longer to realize it."

"You said something about her with some French guy?" I asked, immediately jumping at the chance to change the subject.

Now that he'd officially made me feel like the biggest ass in the world for not helping who had seemed like the nicest person in the world, I needed a change of subject. And maybe a new place to live. I couldn't feel guilty if I didn't live there anymore, right? I was eighteen and more than able to move out on my own. Just because I was still in high school and didn't have a job didn't mean a damn thing. I was a legal adult.

I was also losing my mind. More afraid of looking into a ghost's eyes and seeing something that could possibly be extremely close to betrayal than the fact that she was an actual ghost. Aside from the whole pesky exploding light bulb thing that happened…

"Oh, she does that. She aims to get me jealous when she's away, then gets pissed off when I get pissed off about the whole situation. I've got the time to really think about it while she's away and she's got the time to stew about it. She comes home and we do this for a while before I finally call her and shit goes back to normal."

I stared at him as he looked back at me and he laughed.

"Doesn't that get old?"

"Clearly you've never had make up sex."

"Uhm."

He relaxed back into his side of the booth and folded his hands on the back of his head again.

"Tell me about California, dude," he started. "I've never been there and I'd love to take Rosie there sometime."

As soon as I opened my mouth, we heard a female voice, accompanied by a very loud bang and a barely contained curse.

"I'll be right with you, Em!"

"No problem, Jess!" he yelled back, his lips twitching.

I turned in my seat to see a blonde girl crouching on the floor, picking up scattered papers, and noticed that a thankfully empty serving tray was turned upside down next to her.

"That's Jess Stanley," Emmett said quietly, leaning forward when I faced him again. "She's a nice girl, albeit a little bit of a dipshit and clumsy as all fuck. She goes to school with us."

I nodded, vaguely remembering seeing her in the hallways at some point. She was nice to look at; trim little waist, perky boobs, and nice long legs. Not that I'd been able to pay much attention to her as a whole, thanks to the ghost that lived in my house and took up all my free time, but from what I had managed to see of her, she seemed nice.

"Tell me about Cali, dude," he said again.

I started telling him about my hometown and all the ways that it was different from Forks in between bites of food once Jess had finally picked everything up from the floor and made it over to us without falling on her face. She was nervous and slightly twitchy when we were face-to-face, but other than that, she seemed like a cool girl. I'd been informed that she would be at the party on Friday night with her long time boyfriend, Mike Newton.

He was apparently an ass and no one could understand why a nice, fairly good-looking girl was with his dumb ass. I had no opinion because I honestly couldn't remember anyone named Mike Newton even though he was the captain of the basketball team and all around loud mouth. That shouldn't have surprised me, of course, but it did just annoy me further.

Which then led me to feeling more guilty about everything than I had before Emmett had opened his mouth.

Fuck, I was exhausted.

By the time I said goodbye to Emmett and finally got directions to his house, I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the night. Fuck my homework and everything else that needed to be done before that happened.

I saw Rosalie leaning against the back of her car before I pulled into my own driveway and groaned out loud.

Just one more thing that I didn't need to deal with today.

Groaning and turning off my car, I grabbed my back pack, pushed open the door and hoisted myself out, turning to see that she was already on her way over. Her eyes were staring at my bedroom window as she wrapped her arms around herself, her black sweater swimming around her as she came to a stop in front of me.

"You okay?" I asked when I finally saw that she didn't look nearly as… Rose-ish as she normally did.

Her eyes were sad when she finally met mine, I didn't think she was wearing any make up at all and she just seemed to radiate this emptiness that I didn't think she was even capable of. Only knowing her for a little over a week or not, it was blatantly obvious that this was not her usual demeanor.

"She was my best friend."

Ah, good, more about Bella. Because God knows I didn't feel like enough of a scumbag as it was.

"Okay," I said slowly, nodding and reaching up to scratch the back of my neck awkwardly.

And yet, upon our first meeting, she'd acted as though Bella's death was no big deal. I was so confused.

"I've spent the past three years trying to live without her and it's hard. Sometimes it's just easier to be mad at her, even though she doesn't deserve it." She laughed humorlessly and snubbed her toe into the gravel my driveway consisted of. "She knew me inside and out, and sometimes it's just hard to get out of bed. Emmett helps." She nodded and looked up at my bedroom window again. "He misses her just as much."

I think I must've missed the Bella Day memo this morning when I finally rolled out of bed.

"And I know you don't care about any of this." She chuckled quietly and shook her head, chewing on her bottom lip as she looked back at me. "But Emmett never showed up tonight like he always does on her birthday and I just needed someone to talk to."

Whoa. Wait. Her birthday?

Yeah, that made everything ten times worse.

"It's fine," I managed, nodding and swallowing hard. "Uh, Emmett was with me at the diner. I didn't know…"

"You wouldn't have." She smiled humorlessly and stepped up to me, gently kissing my cheek. "Thanks for listening, Edward. I'll see you tomorrow."

Before she could take a step away from me, we both looked up when we heard the rumble of an engine. Emmett's jeep slowed to a stop in front of her driveway and she shot a sad smile at me before bounding across the road and over to the driver's side door. He slid down from the seat, slammed the door and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, his nose buried in her hair as she sank into him. He lifted a few fingers from her back in my direction and I waved back, nodding once before turning on my heel and facing the house.

Fucking. Hell.

Taking a deep breath and steeling myself for one pissed off ghost – and maybe a few more broken light bulbs – I walked up the porch steps and into the house. I found my parents in the living room, laughing and talking like they were just getting to know each other. I said my pleasantries, and eyed the stairs before slowly making my way up them and into my room.

She was sitting on my couch, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. She wasn't moving, not even blinking, and I took one slow step into the room, swallowing hard as I kept my eyes on her.

"Hi," I said quietly.

She still didn't move or say anything.

"I, uh…"

I struggled to find something to say and when that didn't work, I shook my head and dropped my school bag onto the middle of my bed. Mentally exhausted or not, I still had homework that needed to get done. I may be forfeiting meeting new people because of the silent ghost sitting on my couch at the moment, but if my grades slipped, my father would murder me. Then we'd both be screwed because if I wasn't around to help Bella move on, there was no hope for either of us.

I'd just gotten my Government book opened with the worksheet we were told to finish for tomorrow when she finally spoke.

"Alice won't let me leave."

I looked up at her from my spot in the middle of my bed, my pen poised over the paper.

"I planned on not being here when you got back." She shook her hands out and a shower of diamonds fell to the floor. "Alice wasn't having it."

I peered over the edge of the bed, looking down at the diamonds as they littered my floor, my eyes widening as they started to disappear.

"I'm tired of pushing," she said quietly and I looked up again when her voice cracked. "I'm tired of trying to make you help me when nothing is going to make you change your mind. I don't know what will happen to me when my time's up, but I'm tired of pushing." She shook her head and looked down at her lap, turning her hands over and picking at her fingernails. "As soon as Alice accepts that you're not going to give in, I'm hoping that she'll let me go. Until then, I'm stuck here. I won't say anything more and I won't bother you." She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on them and looking down at the floor. "I just wanted to explain."

"What are those from?" I asked, watching as the last diamond disappeared.

She didn't say anything and I looked up at her. She had her lips pressed into a tight line and her eyes appeared to be focused on the bottom of my bed frame.

"I have one from before… when my mother was using the board. What are they, Bella?"

She shook her head fiercely.

"I didn't know it was your birthday."

Her eyes snapped to mine and I swallowed hard, nervously tapping the end of my pen against my textbook. Now that I was talking, I apparently wasn't going to stop.

"Emmett and Rose… they really miss you."

She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, her arms tightening around her legs.

"I guess with me living in your house, it makes them think that they can talk to me about you, you know?" I fidgeted on my bed, dropping the pen and watching her carefully. "It's hard not telling them that I can see you."

"Not like you want to," she scoffed, burying her face in her knees.

I licked my lips and stared at the top of her head, the guilt I'd felt at the diner only growing in intensity the longer she sat there. She looked like she was curling into herself, like she'd given up any and all hope of anything. And I guess it was something like that because she'd already told me that she was done pushing me.

"Did you know who it was?" I asked softly, slowly moving towards the end of the bed closest to her. "Did you know who killed you?"

"He was wearing a ski-mask," she whispered, turning her head to the side.

"Are you sure it was a man?"

I had an unhealthy, unnatural urge to reach out and touch her hair. Just place my hand on the back of her head to let her know that it was okay, which really made no damn sense to me because I'd been avoiding touching her since she'd blown up the light bulb. Sitting here, watching on as she kept herself closed off in a way that she'd never shown me before made me want to… comfort her.

"He was tall and his shoulders were very broad. He was so strong and…"

She buried her face back in her knees and the lights in my room flickered.

"Okay," I said quickly, backing away from her.

Huh. I hadn't realized that I'd been leaning in to her.

"Edward?"

I jumped, looking over at my doorway when I heard my mother's voice on the stairs. I looked back at Bella to see that her chin was propped back on her knees.

"Yeah?"

"Your father and I are going to have some cheesecake. Come downstairs and join us, sweetheart."

I kept my eyes on Bella as I slid off my bed and stood at the edge of it.

"Will you be here when I get back?"

"I can't go anywhere, Edward. Alice said…"

"I'll help you," I said quickly, swallowing hard. She stared at me, blinking slowly. "I'll… you deserve help."

I watched a tear trail down her cheek, dripping off the side of her face and turning into a small diamond as it hit the couch cushion.

Huh.

"Thank you," she whispered.

I reached up and scratched at the back of my neck, nodding before turning on my heel and starting towards my bedroom door. I turned to look back at her once I was standing outside of my room to see that she was gone and the light was glinting off the diamond on the couch.