AN: Hey kiddies! Time for some answers. Who's ready?
Edward hadn't been still since we left Alice's apartment. In the car he had bounced his knee and here in the hospital waiting room he paced. His long gait carried him down across the room, toward the middle, around the seats there, toward the counter with the coffee pot, in front of me and back to the far wall. I watched him make the circuit, eight, nine, ten times. He didn't talk; he didn't look up from his shoes. He just paced.
Jasper had gone to find "some real coffee" and there was no one else in the room. I felt I should have been doing something. I should have made him talk, or at least acknowledge what was going on. He was bottling everything up, shutting down just in case the news from down the hall ended up being bad. Surely there was something I could do to help him through this.
But then, that was the problem. I had no idea what this was. I'd jumped in the back of Jasper's car because I thought he was trying to run away from me and I wasn't going to let him, at least not without a fit, but then we were speeding down the road, and Edward was jumping out of moving cars and begging his best friend not to die, and then Alice was on the floor and he was pulling his hair out muttering "not again" over and over. He hadn't said a word since.
I didn't even know how to help because I had no idea what was going on. I mean yeah, I understood Alice had tried to commit suicide and Edward had found out. That made all too much sense to me, and I had to fight not being sick as my own memories came back. Edward's "not again" comments and all the things that I'd heard him scream at Alice's door told me that there was something more going on. This wasn't the first time that he and Alice had been through this.
I wanted to help. I needed to help him, but at the same time I didn't want to make it worse. That was the last thing I wanted to do.
Finally I gathered my courage, carefully shoved away the worried and haunted memories playing at the edge of my mind, and walked over to him. I put my hand on his arm and stopped his pacing, likely forcing him back to reality. His eyes were wide with surprise like he had forgotten I was even there.
"Edward, why don't you come sit down?" I asked, carefully modulating my voice so as not startle him. It was the same way I talked to scared kids at school. "It's going to to be while and you'd be more comfortable."
He shook his head, lips pressed into a thin line. I half hoped he would say something, even if it was just a simple no. He was going to explode if he didn't let this out and soon.
Jasper walked in balancing three styrofoam cups. His sharp eyes glanced between the two of us before sitting and cocking an eyebrow as to say, "Really? I've been gone ten and minutes and nothing has changed in this room." I could only shrug in response.
"Edward, come sit down." Jasper's voice made it clear that Edward wouldn't be arguing. I took my coffee from with a smile that was grateful for more than just the warm caffeine.
Edward dropped onto the seat next to me, nose pinched between his fingers and knees bouncing like a kangaroo. I wanted to grab the one closest to me and hold it still, but I didn't know how he would react if I touched him. I wanted to touch more than just his knee. I wanted to wrapped both arms around his waist and hold on tight.
The three of us sat in silence while the clock on the wall ticked the minutes away. Edward held his cup but never took a sip and his knee continued bobbing. Up and down, up and down, up and down. It got faster and faster until finally he just stopped, let out a sigh, and muttered, "I knew something like this was gonna happen. Weddings just fucking suck."
Jasper and I sat silently in our uncomfortable waiting room chairs, dressed to the nines. The boys had looked so handsome in their tuxes earlier and now they just seemed useless and out of place. I'd nearly squealed when I'd put on this dress because for once I hot and now the only thing I could think about it was that these shoes hurt.
"Alice takes them hard and who can blame her? Charlotte just makes things worse." Edward muttered again. "I should have stayed. This is all my fucking fault."
"Edward, you can't…"
"Don't Bella." Edward turned to glare at me, and I let it go. "Just don't. I knew she would do something, and I just let her push me out the door because I wanted…"
He trailed off squeezing his eyes closed. "Alice was engaged back in college. James was my best friend. He introduced me to Alice. She wasn't like this back then. She was normal. She was happy. She was over the moon and then she became this strange, scattered little thing. I don't recognize her some days."
Edward trailed off. His thumbnail was etching shapes and swirls into his styrofoam cup. He took a deep breath, and another, and a third before he spoke again. "It was a couple weeks before the wedding and I went over to their apartment. I don't remember what for. Probably something stupid. I'd just dropped out of med school and had a lot of free time."
"When I got there, it was quiet. Way too quiet. Alice and James didn't know how to be quiet. There was always music or the tv on. The place felt cold and that just wasn't right."
Edward's breath shuddered, his hands shook, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I leaned over, wrapped both arms around his shoulders and held on. He gave me a shadow of smile and leaned into me like he had at the apartment.
"I found him in their bedroom. He'd collapsed on the floor and it didn't look like he was breathing. There were pills. I don't remember what, just that there was a lot of them. He wrote Alice a note and then swallowed them. I didn't know what to do. I'd taken CPR, I'd been pre-med and I just, I couldn't think. He was just lying there and I couldn't think of a thing I could do. I was helpless."
He paused and tried to wipe away the tear stains on his check. "I should have checked for a pulse. I should have tried to make him breathe. I should have done something. Instead I froze. I was terrified because I didn't understand. I hadn't known there was anything wrong with him. I was his best friend, and I didn't know."
Edward was pleading, begging for understanding. I squeezed him a little tighter and hoped that he understood that I didn't blame him. I couldn't. You could sit across from someone everyday of the week, talk to them, laugh with them, cry with them, and still never know that things were so bad that they think not living would be better. I swallowed down bile. Pain really did recognize itself.
"Alice got home about that time and saw him before I could even gather my thoughts. She, of course, freaked out, and I did too. I was scared that if we told anyone, they would blame us, which was stupid. It was very clearly a suicide; there was a note and everything. I couldn't think straight though, and Alice and I went and hid at the school library until someone called us to tell us something had happened."
His breath caught in his throat and he stared straight forward as he softly admitted, "To this day, I still don't know if he was alive when I found him. He could have been, and if he was, then this is my fault. James and Alice-it's all my fault."
I knew that line of thinking too. The thought that everything that happened could have been stopped if you had just noticed. If you had just known, you could have said the right thing, pounded on the right door, run just far enough to make the difference. You don't want to let go so you hold on to everything you've got left even even if just the idea of it was slowly tearing you apart. You do it because it seems like a fitting tribute.
I grabbed Edward's cheeks in both my hands, turning him to face me. I met his haunted green eyes and told him, "This isn't your fault."
His bottom lip quivered, and I could tell he didn't believe me. That was fine. I would just keep telling him. Maybe I would believe it one day too.
AN: Oh dear. Poor boy. Thanks to dizzygirl28 for taking a look for us.
How are we feeling out there?