So one thing that's always intrigued me, but is usually not considered, is how Esme reacted to the news that Bella jumped off a cliff. I mean that had to have had some effect on her, right?
Esme
It had been a good day. I felt happier than I had felt in a long time. Happier than I'd been since we'd left Forks. I'd been out hunting with Carlisle, Carmen and Elezear. I had had fun with my husband and our close friends, we had laughed and joked like old times. It felt good to be able to be happy again, after all of the trauma my family had been through. Admittedly, we were still going through it. Every minute while Edward stayed away from us, and Bella, we were still going through it. But it had been good to forget all our worries, if only for several hours.
We were in sight of the Denali clan's home, when I felt a gentle tugging on my hand. Allowing the other two to go ahead of us, I turned my attention on my husband.
"You're happy," he stated. It wasn't a question. He smiled at me and I smiled back at him.
"Is it such a bad thing to be able to be happy, if only for a small amount of time?" I asked. I knew it couldn't last. Happiness was fleeting nowadays, when I carried the knowledge of my oldest son's heartbreak around with me. Always there to remind me he was out there somewhere, suffering.
The last time we had spoken was just before Christmas, I had asked him to come home for the holidays and he had refused. He was out there, alone and hurt, and he was refusing the help I so desperately wanted to give to him. I longed to comfort him as only a mother could, but I hadn't seen him since we had left Forks, as he had refused to follow us to Ithaca.
"No, no it's not," Carlisle replied, he pulled me toward him and kissed me deeply. I didn't get much chance to enjoy the kiss though, as we were interrupted by the sound of shouting from within the house.
"We should just phone him and end this!" I recognised Rosalie's piercing voice.
"Alice said not to." That was Jasper.
"So? We don't all have to follow your wife's orders," Rosalie replied sarcastically.
"Don't you dare talk about my wife like that!" I heard Jasper growl.
"Get the hell away from my wife!" Emmett growled back.
I looked questioningly at Carlisle, and saw the same confusion I felt reflected on his face. Without saying a word we both headed at full speed toward the house.
All three of our children stopped arguing when we entered the room. Tanya, Kate and Irina stood in the middle of them, with Jasper on one side, and Rosalie and Emmett on the other. Carmen and Elezear stood at the edge of the group, watching on looking confused.
"What's going on?" Carlisle asked. All three of our children looked at him uncomfortably.
"Where's Alice?" I asked, when no one seemed willing to explain.
"Forks," Jasper answered.
"Forks?" both Carlisle and I asked surprised.
"Why would she go to Forks? She knows … we have to stay away," I said. I couldn't bring myself to say my son's name.
"That doesn't matter much anymore," Emmett muttered.
"What do you mean?" Carlisle asked. All three looked uncomfortably at us again.
"Bella's dead," Rosalie announced flatly.
Bella's dead? How could we ever tell Edward that? If simply leaving her behind had left him near cationic with grief, what was the news of her death going to do to him?
Even among my worry for my son, I felt a moment of grief for the girl I had already begun to see as a daughter. Brave, darling Bella. The girl who had brought my son out of his shell after centuries of loneliness, who had brought about changes within him that I could never have imagined. It had been wonderful to see my son so alive. Even after knowing him from decades, I realised I had never really seen him fully happy. And back then, if only for a few short months, he had been, thanks to her – the girl brave enough to walk into a house full of vampires.
I remembered the first time I'd met her. The way Edward had stood beside her, loving and protective, it was a side of him I'd never seen before. I remembered the words I'd overheard him say to her, 'Esme wouldn't care if you had a third eye and webbed feet.' It was true. He was happy and that was all I cared about.
And now all his happiness is gone, and that brave, beautiful, intelligent young girl is too.
"Dead? What happened?" Carlisle asked unbelievingly.
"She …" Rosalie trailed off. I couldn't help but notice that her eyes had flickered toward me, before quickly turning their attention back to Carlisle.
"Rose, whatever it is, just tell us, please," I asked.
What had killed her? An accident? Considering her clumsiness that was a possibility. Different scenarios flashed through my head. Bella following down the stairs, much like the cover story we'd used after the Phoenix incident, hitting her head, and the resulting injury killing her. Bella in her ancient truck, involved in some traffic accident. Or had she been on the other side of the accident, an innocent pedestrian? But none of these theories would explain my daughter's reluctance to tell me what had happened.
"She killed herself," Rosalie answered reluctantly. I couldn't help the gasp that escaped my lips. I felt my husband grasp my hand, but I wasn't paying much attention.
She'd killed herself. Why would she do that?
Though it was blurred, I could still remember the loneliness and desperation I had felt at the top of that cliff eighty-five years ago. The feeling of having nothing else to live for, that everything I had held on for was lost, that there was nothing left that mattered another to keep on living.
Had Bella felt like that, before she died? Is that what we'd done to her? Made her feel the same desolation I had felt after my son's death?
Horror coursed through me at the idea that I had helped to cause the anguish I had felt that day to anyone. Especially Bella, who had done nothing wrong to anyone but love.
"Are you sure?" Carlisle asked desperately. I could tell he was hoping they'd been a mistake, but I knew it was false hope. In my mind I could see exactly why she would have taken such drastic measure. When Edward left he had taken away what she loved, what she lived for, in exactly the same way that my son leaving me had done. If she had felt the same as I did, than I could fully believe she would take the same action.
"Alice saw it," Jasper replied.
"What exactly did she see?" There was another long pause. I was certain that for a brief second, all eyes had flickered toward me, much like Rosalie's earlier, before turning back to Carlisle.
Like earlier my imagination went into over-drive. Different images flickered through my mind.
What exactly had Alice seen? Had Bella found a more peaceful way to kill herself than I had? Or had she faced the same violent end I had once been so willing for?
I hoped it was the former. That Bella had simply taken to many pills, an overdose, and slipped peacefully from this world. It was the very least she deserved, a quiet end.
But my mind couldn't help but envisage the more violent possibilities, and it conjured images that tortured me. Bella hanging herself. Bella slitting her wrists. I was ashamed of myself when my throat burned as I thought of that possibility, of her wrists red with her potent blood.
"What exactly did she see?" I heard Carlisle ask again, forcing myself to focus on the conversation in the living room, and not the grotesque images running through my mind. I suddenly felt calmer, clearly my son's doing, but I couldn't be angry with him for it, it was a much-needed relief. The feeling of calm increased as Jasper answered Carlisle's question,
"She saw Bella jump off a cliff."
She jumped off a cliff? The current of calm Jasper forced into me was not enough to keep me together.
I was no longer Esme Cullen, stood in the middle of a living room in remote Alaska. I was Esme Platt Evenson, the year was 1921, and I was stood on a cliff top looking down at a lake in Wisconsin. I knew I had come here for a reason, knew that there was no other place my life could go now. I was alone with no hope. There was no chance of happiness in my future. I had lost everything I had cared enough to live for. With that thought I walked off the edge of the cliff, safe in the knowledge that the end was soon for me, and that with it, it would bring a resolution to all the pain, and the loss, and the loneliness.
Then I wasn't in Wisconsin, but in Washington. It was not 1921 anymore, but 2006. And I was no longer Esme Platt Evenson, but Bella Swan, as I stood at the top of a cliff and looked down at the waters below. But the feeling of desperation didn't change. I still felt like I had lost everything. That I had nothing left to live for. I still sought an end to it all in the swishing waters below me.
"Esme?" The panicked voice of my husband brought my mind back to where I really was. I was Esme Cullen, stood frozen in the middle of a living room, while her worried family looked on.
"I'm okay," I lied. I heard the others began talking around me, but I wasn't listening to the conversation.
My mind was still preoccupied by the image of Bella at the top of a cliff, filled with the same agony I had once decided to escape from forever.
Had she simply walked off the edge like I did, to numb from pain to do anything else? Or had she ran up to it and jumped, happy to be escaping her life? I would never know. There was no way for me to ever know what had happened, or what she had thought, in those last moments of her life. Had her thoughts been solely for Edward, or had she thought of us as well, if only briefly? The family she had wished to join, who had turned our backs on her.
We had done this to her. We could have stopped Edward. We could have listened to Alice's warnings that it was all for nothing. I could have stepped in as my position as Edward's mother, and told him no, that it would only hurt him and Bella. But it's too late for that now. His love was dead, gone from him forever.
"We need to tell Edward, get him home so he can stop moping around," I heard Rosalie say.
Tell Edward? How were we ever going to tell him this without making him more broken than he already was? How would he react to the news? I doubt he would come home and stop moping around, like Rosalie had said.
My overactive imagination created yet another image in my mind. This time it was not Bella or I who stood at the top of a cliff, but Edward, my beloved son. But the desolation and despair that had led both Bella and me to a cliff-top were as present in him as they had been in us.
I was about to fly into a hysterical panic, until some still rational part of my brain reminded me that vampires couldn't commit suicide. Carlisle was living proof of that.
Still I realised the truth behind the image my mind had created. If losing Edward had caused Bella to take her own life, than I was certain losing Bella indefinitely would cause Edward to feel the same desire.
What could we possibly do to help him through a loss so intense?
"Perhaps it's best we don't tell Edward quite yet, until we can think of the best way of presenting the news," I heard my husband say to Rosalie.
"Why wait? All he's doing is moping around in South America. Why not get him home as soon as possible? Why, don't you want him back?" I felt my husband bristle beside me at Rosalie's callous reply.
"We all want Edward back, Rose," I replied for him. It was true. I wanted my son back more then anything. But he would be coming back a broken shell of the boy he had been. As his mother I would, of course, do everything I could to help him through his tragic loss. The problem was I didn't think there was anything I could do that would be enough to help.
Again the image of Edward at the top of the cliff flooded my mind. If I had simply walked gently off the top, I imagined my always-melodramatic son would have taken an extravagant leap to show his feelings for his lost love.
Relief flooded me as I reminded myself again that vampires can't commit suicide. Much as I hated the thought of the pain my son would suffer, the idea of losing him forever was even more horrifying.
"Esme?" My husband's voice was gentle, but still panicked. I realised I was being gently led out of the living room and up the stairs. I vaguely recognised that we had arrived in the guest room Carlisle and I were sharing.
"You okay, love?" Carlisle asked me gently, pulling me into the embrace of his arms.
"I keep imagining her jumping," I told him, not knowing where to start with the thoughts that plagued me. My grief for the human girl I had been beginning to consider my daughter. My worries for my son and the torment he would carry with him for all eternity. My own past reflected in their loss.
I felt Carlisle's tighten his arms around me. One hand began lovingly stroking my hair as I began to sob into his chest.
But I couldn't stop the onslaught of images in my mind. Me at the top of a cliff. Bella at the top of cliff. Edward at the top of a cliff.
You're okay now and Edward can't hurt himself. I told myself this over and over again. But there was no such reprieve for Bella. That sweet little human girl, that had loved my son with all her heart, was gone. She couldn't be rescued like I was. And if I was being honest with myself, I knew that if Bella couldn't be rescued, neither could Edward.
Reviews would be greatly appreciated. What did you think of Esme's response to the news of Bella's suicide?
