AN: I'll be vacation the next week without my computer and don't know if and when I'll have a chance to update on this story. Sorry for any delay because of that.
That shouldn't stop you from reviewing though ....
After a long, miserable weekend Monday finally arrived. I had spent most of my time in my room, listening to music, thinking about Bella and how I could leave her alone.
Finally, I had come to the conclusion that I had no choice. I would let her go her own path without me. I didn't know, didn't even believe, actually, that she wanted me the way I wanted her. I would end this before it even started and her life would be happier for it.
Once the decision had solidified, Alice had come to my room, telling me that now Bella would live. She wouldn't be killed by a vampire and she would still be alive in summer. Other than that nothing was sure, her future very much in a flux.
I told myself that this was enough, that this was all I wanted, and hoped that if I repeated it often enough, I would eventually start to believe it.
I threatened to go back to school, to see Bella again. What only a few days ago had filled me with giddy expectation, now only posed the potential for pain.
How would I be able to stay away from her?
How could I live without her?
Things weren't made easier by the fact that once I turned up at school on Monday I was celebrated like a damn hero. The school paper wanted to write an article on Bella and me, which I vehemently refused to allow much to the obvious relief of Bella, who hated the publicity. I would have refused on principle, as any kind of exposure was unwelcome, but now I was particular adamant, and borderline rude.
I couldn't refuse the congratulation of the school principal, though. I couldn't afford to piss him off, either, so I smiled and said thank you, and hoped he would shut the hell up. At least Carlisle, who had come to school with us that day, managed to convince him not to make a public spectacle out of it in front of the whole student body. I know I had come across as an idiot, but I didn't care.
There wasn't much I cared about any longer.
Bella began casting strange glances in my direction when I started to ignore her, but I didn't give her any explanation. Actually, I stopped talking to her altogether.
During most of a day it was quite possible to get out of her way. I had memorized her class schedule and made sure I was someplace else whenever she moved through the corridors. At lunch I sat at our usual table, boxed in by Emmett and Jasper. Rosalie or Alice usually got the food for me, so there was no risk of her accidently standing next to me in the food line. Not that I had much of an appetite anyway.
The only time of the day I couldn't completely ignore her was during Biology. I seriously thought about ditching the class, it wasn't as if I needed the credit. My grades were near perfect and I had some additional credits from some online advanced placement program I took part in. But as much as part of me feared to be close to Bella for those sixty minutes every day, another part, a part far more vocal, was looking forward to it in some twisted, sick, self-flagellating way. Just to be near her, to see her, to sit next to her. Even if it were sixty minutes of torture, as I wouldn't and couldn't touch her, or even talk to her, those sixty minutes seemed to be the only time in the day I felt sort of alive.
Bella, naturally, quickly picked up that something had changed. She wasn't stupid. But she couldn't figure out why I, who had obviously been overjoyed every time she came to my house only a few days ago, now only gave her the silent treatment. Several times she tried to start a conversation, but as I didn't reply to anything she said, she finally gave up and left me alone. The hurt look she gave me after I snubbed her again and again broke my heart.
As the days dragged on, I started to sleep badly. I was having nightmares, with Bella in the starring role. At first I replayed the accident. Even though I still couldn't really remember it, my sub-consciousness obviously had enough of an imagination to fill out the details. Only in my dreams I was always too late and I saw her crushed and broken on the ground, covered in her own blood. Later my dreams got more creative. My family got invited as well, killing her in various ways, drinking her blood while I was watching them, unable to move, unable to save her.
My personal favorite, though, was the one where I was the monster and I watched myself plunging my hand into her chest to rip out her heart, only to devour the still beating organ, reveling in the taste of her blood. And then I looked down at her glassy, dead eyes, and that was the moment I woke up screaming.
When my parents, who naturally realized something was very wrong, tried to help me, I yelled at them to leave me alone. Hadn't I just seen Emmett tear out Bella's throat? Hadn't I just seen Rosalie drinking Bella's blood, her eyes turning crimson as she laughed like a mad person? Just the thought of them being with me in the same room repulsed me, and finally they left me alone, though I saw the hurt in their eyes. I wouldn't tell them what I dreamed about, though, so they didn't understand.
Of course I couldn't leave myself alone, so all that was left for me was to hate myself. I never did anything to myself – it wouldn't be right – but I did put in some serious thinking about it.
I tried to forego sleeping altogether, but obviously that didn't work. So in the end I asked Carlisle to get me some sleeping aids, which he finally – reluctantly – agreed to. The pills did make me pass out and I slept without dreams, but somehow in the morning I felt worse than when I had gone to bed the night before.
I don't know exactly how long this went on. I sort of lost track of time. I didn't live, I simply existed. Every day the same painful routine. Get up in the morning. Go to school. Wait for biology and then suffer through the one single hour I allowed myself to be with her in the same room every day. Get home and stay in my room until it was time to go to bed. Take my pills.
Press repeat.
On every second Saturday I still went to the hospital, but it didn't bring me joy any more. Mrs. Jackson immediately picked up on my mood and tried to find out what was wrong with me, but as I didn't want to share my misery with her, she eventually gave up, and we stayed with safer topics from then on.
At least the weather seemed to follow my mood. It was raining throughout February, the sun never making a single appearance.
I had hoped that with time it would get easier for me, that I would get used to the idea that I couldn't be with her. But actually every day it got a little bit harder. More than once I caught myself only at the very last moment from addressing her, by calling up the memories from my nightmares, the picture of her how she had lain there in her own blood, dead. It was just enough to seal my lips.
But it was so unbelievably hard.
