Chapter Eight

When I woke, I was lying in bed, the covers tucked in around me carefully. I realized with a warm feeling that it was my birthday, and for a moment, I wondered when Edward would come bursting into the room to tell me happy birthday. But then I remembered he would never tell me happy birthday again. Tears leapt immediately to my eyes.

Then, in one sudden rush, everything of the previous night came flooding back to me. The young man by the street light, who had looked up at me in the very instant I had thought of him, had had the face of my brother, although it was somehow different. It was still Edward's face but more perfect, more beautiful.

I got out of bed and ran to the window, vainly hoping the young man would still be there. But there was no long, lanky figure standing near the street light. I wondered for an instant if he lived somewhere nearby, but I decided that if he had, I would have seen him before and would have remembered seeing him.

As I turned sadly from the window to hide my tears from the bright June morning, I saw them sitting on the nightstand. To see them there was too much for me to comprehend, for I had left them behind the night Mother and Edward died.

Sitting on my nightstand were the snow white stuffed bear that Father had given to me when I was eleven and the small framed photograph of the four of us. Father had brought the bear, with its now tattered red ribbon, home for me from the toy store he'd visited while on his trip to New York City. I had loved that bear and slept with it every night, letting it sit faithfully on my bed during the day; I'd named it Manhattan, after the New York borough where Father had bought it.

The photograph had been taken in 1916, just days before Edward's and my fifteenth birthday. Father and Edward stood behind Mother and me, their lanky heights and crooked grins the only things marking them as father and son.

But I had left Manhattan and the photograph in our house when Mother and Edward had fallen ill. I could still remember glancing back over my shoulder as I left my room to see Manhattan sitting against the pillows.

I doubted at once that Aunt Sophia would have gone to collect them for me. She hadn't mentioned my birthday and wouldn't have given me anything to acknowledge it anyway; besides, even if she had planned on giving me something, how would have she known how much Manhattan and the photograph had meant to me?

Then I saw the small piece of paper tucked between the bear and the frame. I picked it up slowly and studied it for a few seconds before unfolding it. There were only two words written there in an elegant, flowing hand:

Happy Birthday.

The hole in my chest throbbed painfully. My mind told me firmly that Edward was dead, but my heart, which had begun beating slowly in a small corner of my chest, murmured softly that he was still alive somewhere, that Dr. Cullen had lied to me.

I spent most of the day trying to ignore the burning ache in my chest. All day, the battle between my heart and my mind raged violently until I no longer knew which side would triumph over the other.

My mind would give my grief finality and closure regarding Edward's death, but my heart could give me back the brother I still loved.

I certainly knew which side I hoped would come out victorious.

That night, I cried myself to sleep, clutching Manhattan to my chest like a frightened child. I had never needed that bear more than ever before because he was something familiar, from the life and family I had known before. From the life and family I would never have again.

A/N: Okay, I know I promised longer chapters, but they seem much longer when I type them up in Word. But I do know there will be a couple of lengthier chapters coming up.