All things Twilight belong to Stephenie Meyer.
CHAPTER TWO (BPOV)
… being in the woods with her, breathing in air that doesn't have an aftertaste of medication and despair, can almost make me forget what my life has become and take me back to a time when I had a future, one that was a part of a family I considered my own from the very first day I had met them. Back to a time when I was healthy …
--FOUR YEARS EARLIER--
"Time heals all wounds for your kind," he had said. Hysterical laughter bubbled to my lips as I replayed his words over and over again, while Charlie looked at me, horrified.
"Bella! I hardly think that this is something you should be laughing at!" His strained whisper carried across Dr. Gerandy's office. The reality of the situation sunk in and I finally quieted, but a small, sad smile lingered on my face. How ironic it is that the first time Charlie should see me smile after he left is after getting the news that I had been diagnosed with Stage Two Myeloma. Bone cancer.
Not all wounds, Edward. Looks like you couldn't protect me from everything.
--PRESENT DAY--
I smiled at Alice and she went to go talk to the charge nurse about taking me outside. While waiting for her to return, I drifted, as I often do, to the events of the past four years…
My would-be protector and the rest of the Cullens had left a little over a year ago, right after my 18th birthday. I spent that year numb to everything around me. Well, almost numb. There was an ache, deep within my bones, that I had chalked up as being a physical side effect of the enormous amount of pain that their leaving had left me in. It was only after I had lost an unhealthy amount of weight in four months and Charlie forced me to go see Dr. Gerandy at Forks Hospital that I learned that this pain was a result of bone cancer, and not, as I had thought, heartbreak.
From that moment on, all the pain that stemmed from the Cullens leaving had taken second place to my cancer, though it was always there, burning hot. I moved slowly through life, withdrawing even more into myself. About six months after the diagnosis, the cancer had progressed to the point where it became necessary for me to move out of my small room in Charlie's house and into a small room in the hospital. Charlie spent every moment that he wasn't working or sleeping in my room, helping me do such simple tasks as walking to the bathroom. My bones were so brittle at this point that one Bella-esque tumble and I would be in near full-body cast. It struck me as ironic that despite all the time that Edward had spent hovering over me, fearing that I would break, it was only when he left that I became truly breakable.
After living this meager excuse of a life in the hospital for about 5 months, I experienced the second greatest heartbreak of my life. At my urging, Charlie left on a Friday to assist the Seattle Police Department with a homicide, the perpetrator of which, they had traced from the outskirts of Forks into the middle of Seattle. Charlie had not wanted to go, but I had insisted, assuring him I would be fine while he was gone. I had felt guilty that he had to take care of his screwed-up daughter, and I wanted him to feel that rush he always felt when he helped people.
The day after he left, I woke to find two officers from the Seattle PD and a few nurses waiting for me. They informed me that Charlie had been killed when closing in on the person responsible for all the murders. They told me that they had received a call from a local Seattle hotel. Upon arriving, they learned it was Charlie that had been attacked and killed soon after going to bed. They said that there had been no sign of anyone other than Charlie in the room. After speaking with the nurses, the uniformed men left, leaving me in a complete state of shock and depression.
It was that night that Alice had chosen to return to me. The nurses had given me some medication to help me sleep and when it wore off, I woke to find Alice perched on the foot on my bed, her golden eyes holding a thousand words that she seemed to scared to speak. Too surprised to speak myself, tears had started rolling down my face as Alice wordlessly clutched my hand, lending me a bit of her immense strength. She stayed with me until I fell asleep, and was there when I woke up. Still reeling from the events of the previous night, I listened quietly as Alice told me why she was there.