Chapter Eight
Mom and Michael arrived the next day. I was released from the hospital on the morning of my birthday. Dad helped me into the cruiser. Pain medication and sleeping pills in hand, I knew I would end up abusing both in my depression. The ride home was silent. It was raining in Forks. Before, rain and clouds were associated with Edward coming to see me. Now, it just reminded me he was gone. The rain against the window made me want to cry. No. Not today. Something good would happen today. I swore that to myself. I would manage a single smile that was sincere and not forced. Something to make an effort into healing. I couldn't live like this anymore.
My room was still a disaster. Clothes thrown into my closet. Books stacked in the corners and stuffed onto my bookshelf. My laptop and iPod were broken beyond repair and my phone was in pretty bad shape also, not destroyed though. My bed was made and I laid down. No amount of time could erase Edward's scent from my bed and room. I closed my eyes to stop the tears from spilling over. I didn't want to cry on this birthday, for any reason. Usually, I cried because I was a year older. Now, it was much worse. I was getting closer to death, yes, but worse than that, I had one less year until my death, one less day before my chance was up to see Edward again. I wanted to feel alive again. I wanted to feel like I once had whenever I saw him. I didn't even have to be with him then. Just knowing that he loved me, that had been enough. Not now. I felt dead still.
I sniffed in my misery. Michael walked in and I smiled because he always had this amazing attitude about life. He didn't suffer from depression and he was happy about everything. He could help me, I knew that. He grinned, pleased by my effort. "Jake and Billy are coming," he told me, sitting next to me. He knew I didn't want to talk about Edward and he was good friends with Jacob Black through our childhood, so why not? Talking didn't help me. It sort of made me more miserable, so I kept the thoughts inside and just nodded. "Dad ordered Chinese too. Mom went to get a cake. Might as well enjoy your birthday a little." He smiled at me, and I could tell he was up to something. Some stupid surprise and a huge present I didn't want. Great! I was being forced to celebrate when I wanted to dig my own grave and jump into it. I didn't want to celebrate anything. "Brought you a present," Michael announced, seeing my glare. It only widened his grin, which terrified me. I hated presents.
"Michael, I don't want presents, and I'm not celebrating anything," I mumbled into my pillow. I stuffed my face into it before the tears came. It helped stop them! I hadn't expected that, but I was glad.
"You'll celebrate this," Michael announced, showing me a small, rectangular present that was about an inch tall. He smiled smugly, waiting for me to get excited.
I only glared at him. What was there to celebrate? Ever. I'd been dreading my birthday for months, but I'd always expected to spend the entire day with Edward. From six in the morning to midnight, waking up to his face there, and falling asleep in his arms, like I said. That would never happen now. I sighed and snatched the present away from Michael--anything to make him stop grinning like that. He was proud of himself, whatever the present was. The grin told me that I would most likely hate the gift and it would put me in a horrible mood for the rest of the day. I began to unwrap it slowly by carefully pulling off the tape. As slowly as possible, not wanting to rip the hideous paper. I just wanted to put off seeing what it was though. Presents. Celebrating. Two things that could destroy my attempts to be happy and pretend for my family. Now Jake and Billy would be forced to watch my misery also. Great!
I froze when I saw the corner of the present. Brown. A picture frame. I was completely still for minutes. Michael was waiting for another reaction, taping his foot impatiently. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. This had to be a joke! Some kind of idiotic joke. I blinked a ton to make sure I wasn't seeing things. No. I recognized it. I could never forget it. I took a deep breath and then my hands flew. I shredded the paper, trying to get it off as fast as possible. It took longer than it would have if I just opened it the way I'd planned to. I tossed the paper aside furiously, onto the floor instead of the nearby trashcan. I didn't give a rat's ass about trash on the floor. I was shocked! In shock still. Celebrating, you could call it that.
The present was a picture of Edward and myself. We'd taken them before our party after we just started dating. Edward surprised me with a picture frame and that picture. He was holding me in it. Our torsos were together, his head was just below mine with his hair sticking up as I pressed my check to his forehead. Edward had given me this and I'd left it in LA during spring break... I still had a picture of Edward! Some small, physical evidence that he existed. I hugged the picture to my chest with all strength I had. I wanted to burst into sobs. Instead, I was smiling. Genuinely. And the tears did come. Happiness though. Edward was more beautiful than I remembered. His eyes were more brown than I recalled. His skin was paler next to mine, and his hair was messier.
"He's already fading," I admitted once my happiness began to fade--it was bound to happen. Just a picture. Not his presence. But the picture was something. I shook my head, not sure how to describe what I was feeling. "I can't remember how gentle his voice used to be," I whispered, the tears flowing steadily now. How could I forget something so precious to me? I couldn't forget. I wouldn't. I didn't care what I had to do to remember. I would not forget.
Michael let me cry for a few minutes. He shrugged then. Casually and it made me remember the damned party. All I wanted to do was spend the entire night staring at that picture, maybe even talking to it with the hope that Edward would hear me. Michael brought me back to the moment finally. I was glad that he did it before I was lost in a pit of depression with no way out. I had to get myself together! "You'll remember," my brother promised me with a smile. "That's all you have to do, Tim. He'll come back. I bet you every bit of your bank account that he'll come running back to you some day."
I shook my head doubtfully, wishing I could believe the words he'd spoken. "You didn't hear what he said to me," I mumbled. "You didn't see how he looked at me before he left." Conflicting emotions in his eyes, but I began to think I saw some form of hatred there. Edward didn't love me anymore.
Michael tapped the picture of Edward and me and my eyes automatically returned to Edward's breath-taking face. I felt a gap inside me. It widened and I forced myself to look away from the picture, tucking it under my pillow. Edward's pillow. "He couldn't look at you like he did without loving you, Tim," Michael said. "Sure, I don't really like the guy after... But I know. The hardest part will be to stay away from you. He's probably already realized what he's done to you. He'll come back."
I nodded this time. Then he would stop talking about Edward. I was silent though. More tears fell, but not as many. Not uncontrollable this time. I heard Jacob's voice downstairs and sighed deeply. I pulled out the picture again once my tears had stopped. Edward's face was... Well, it was like the first time I'd set eyes on him. I was amazed and part of me believed it was just a hallucination. It was too beautiful to be real. Like the months I'd dated him. They were like a fairytale. I'd lived in a fairytale, vampires and all. Now the fairytale was over and I was forced to face reality--Edward was gone.
Michael smiled and jumped to his feet quickly. It pulled my attention from Edward's face. "Take a few minutes. I'll distract everybody, say you're putting on your makeup," he announced, grinning.
I glared at him. "And who on the entire planet would believe I'd put on makeup right now?" I muttered as he turned to leave.
Michael shrugged. "Maybe I meant the makeup where you pretend to be okay?" he suggested, and he was gone.
I sighed deeply. I appreciated my baby brother. He was the older sibling then. He took care of me. For him, I would find happiness again. I wouldn't let him go through what I did growing up. I wouldn't force him to care for me the way I took care of Mom in her emotional state after leaving Dad. I could take care of myself. I would win this fight. I would bring Edward back, whatever I had to do.
I cried for ten more minutes, staring at Edward's gorgeous face, after Michael left. Then I went to the bathroom and washed my face. I brushed my hair and my teeth quickly. Dressed in a clean pair of sweats, I hobbled downstairs to the kitchen. Jake hugged me. He didn't comment on how horrible I looked, but I swore he was about to when Mom ran in with my cake. "Honey, sit down!" Mom instructed, sounding impatient with my attempts to help her through the door. But instead of sitting at the kitchen table, which was covered in presents--ugh!--I went to the living room to watch TV with Jake, Michael, and Billy.
It was the first week of June. No football or basketball was on. So they'd turned on 3:10 to Yuma with Christian Bale. I watched it from the recliner, my eyes blurry as I tried to focus on the film instead of my longing to go upstairs and retrieve my picture from under Edward's pillow again. It was like I was a heroin addict. Edward was my heroin. He'd once said that about me. He'd claimed I was his own personal brand of heroin. Not anymore, I guess. He was mine now. I took a deep breath, listening to Mom and Dad argue in the kitchen about when to open presents. Mom was demanding to open them now to put me in a good mood before we actually started talking. I loved Charlie so much then! He was insisting that opening presents should be the last thing to do in case I had a mental breakdown, which was likely because I was already wondering what Edward would have gotten me for my birthday.
"So how's it going on the reservation?" I asked Jacob when I could no longer stand the silence. It just left too much room for my thoughts to drift to Edward.
"Good. It's boring though," Jake answered with a shrug. "You should come by sometime."
I nodded quickly. Anything to distract me. "Sure! I'll definitely do that once I can drive again..." I let my voice fade, wondering when that would be. Weeks, months. Ugh... I shouldn't have said that! Now I was stuck thinking about what I would do until I could drive... Maybe Charlie would drive me. It was way out of his way if he was going to work, but he loved Jake and he would probably like that better than me sulking all day in my room. Or wherever else I found to escape from my ghost haunting me--that's all Edward was. A ghost now. And I loved him just the same.
"Baby, here, open this," Mom called, tossing me a large bag. She must have noticed I looked bored or depressed or whatever I was showing my face--I had no clue. There was too much that mattered more to think about. Mom loved to give me presents. I hated accepting them, especially in a time like that, but anything for her. She got me a Fossil purse and a nice wallet to go with it. Leather that smelled wonderful and didn't look cheap. Both would have cost a ton, but Mom was a genius when it came to bargain shopping. "Look inside the wallet," Mom pushed with an excited tone that made my stomach lurch. It reminded me of how Alice would have sounded. I knew she would have showered me with stupid presents, clothes, stilettos, everything she could think up.
I took a deep breath to push Alice out of my mind as well. I hated doing that. She was my best friend in the whole world. She'd helped me shower even after my run in with James. She saved me a lot of trouble and embarrassment that would have resulted in asking Charlie to help me take a shower. She'd always been there to cheer me up, whatever happened. No matter what. Not this time. Like Edward, she had disappeared. She hadn't even said goodbye. Part of my wished that she had, but I wondered what her reason would have been. Did she stop caring about me too? No, I was glad she didn't say goodbye because I was terrified her farewell would have been as bad as Edward's was. I wondered what I would have done if Edward hadn't said goodbye. Anything would have been better than believing he didn't love me anymore, and I would have been just as confused. Maybe even less because I would have heard him say he would always love me, I would have heard him begging me to always believe that before he left. No harsh truth or lies or whatever it was when he said he didn't love me anymore.
I sighed and opened the wallet slowly, realizing everyone was staring at me now in concern. Two hundred dollars. I smiled awkwardly. That was all I could do to thank Mom because I was on the edge of tears again. She meant for me to go shopping with it, but there was no point. Alice wasn't there to nag at me for wearing sweats all the time. Edward wasn't there to make me want to look good. Whenever I was depressed, I took as little time on myself as possible. So I decided to spend the money on gas for my truck. The '83 Chevy didn't get very good mileage compared to my Acura. But that was what I would have to drive after my casts came off. I found myself wondering what had happened to my gorgeous, deep burgundy Acura RL. I wouldn't have cared usually, but it smelled like Edward and lots of memories were made in that car. Plus, and most of all, I wanted to see if the damage to the front was consistent with my assumption that Edward saved me. I wanted to see if the dent matched his frame, not a tree. I had his shoulders, his frame, his abs, his face memorized. But it was fading now. I couldn't remember how huge he'd looked next to me, how tall, how muscular. It was all fading. And he'd only just left. Not a month had passed. How could I go on when it hurt so badly?
Michael saw me battling back tears before anyone else and switched off the TV, which caused a small outburst from Jake. Then he followed Michael's eyes to me and cringed. His mind was working as fast as Michael's to find something else to do, something that took thinking, something to distract me. Michael jumped up. "Let's go play a game or something," he suggested with a grin. Too enthusiastic. It made me want to turn the TV back on and cry in front of everyone, which made me feel bad for thinking of that instead of thanking him for his effort.
I glanced down at my broken leg. "Yeah, hide and seek," I mumbled sarcastically. "I'll be the one clunking down the first two stairs, then falling down the rest."
Jake's grin was so... huge that it made me half smile. "What about a card game or a board game?" he said.
I shrugged with a small sigh. I'd gotten through about one minute without thinking about Edward. Board games. Card games. Rosalie and Emmett had been playing a card game once when I went over there. Edward and I played Go Fish and we never finished the game. I'd gotten mad at him for cheating and trying to steal cards, then we were laughing so hard that neither of us could continue. He'd carried me upstairs to his room to study for finals, which was the excuse that we'd used so Charlie would allow the visit. I was weightless in his arms. Nothing mattered but his love. And now it was gone. He was gone. Board games. Chess. The time he had Alice look into the future to see my next move, read her mind, and cheated. There were too many things to remind me of Edward here. Too many small things that brought back important memories. But I forced a nod. "Sure. The new table's perfect," I whispered, staring at the spot on the couch where Edward had sat, me in his lap, his arms around me in protection. That was a time when I felt so safe. I could see him there, his outline, but not his smile, and not the happiness in his eyes. He was angry and cold, like he was when he left me.
The Edward I love no longer lived. He was only inside me, waiting to come out or waiting to be forgotten. Neither would happen, so he was haunting me.
I limped off to the dining room with Billy rolling his wheel chair right behind me. I was a little embarrassed to see that he could roll faster than I could walk. Which meant he was waiting on me to hurry up. Dad and Michael dug through the attic to find all the board games they could. Downstairs, me, Mom, Billy, and Jacob played Egyptian Rat screw with an old deck of cards. Four cards were missing, but it didn't matter to me. It was one game I'd never played with Edward. It wasn't Twenty Questions or Go Fish. It wasn't poker, which I'd played with Emmett a few times, Edward using his unreal and amazing mind to tell me the odds of me winning against Emmett. I had to force those memories out of my mind too, even though I wondered what Emmett would have done if he'd come to say goodbye. Trip me instead of just laughing when I did trip? Not like that would have done much more damage.
Dad and Michael returned with Monopoly, chess, Sorry, Clue, checkers, and Scrabble, plus a few puzzles. I immediately refused to play chess and tossed it out of sight so it wouldn't bring up any memories. The other games were fine though. I'd never played them with any of the Cullens. Mom got up to get drinks, which left the seat next to me empty. And it made me think about how we would be seated if the Cullens were with us. I imagined Edward would be behind me or next to me, his hand in mine. Alice would be messing with decorations or presents while Mom or Esme took pictures. Emmett would be teasing me about my latest accident. I knew them all so well, but I'd never thought they would leave me like this. Not once. None of this was like the people I knew. But how well do you really know anyone?
Dad and Billy had beer, Mom had wine, and it made me wonder if alcohol would help me numb the pain. The fact that I was to the point to consider numbing myself hurt. With Edward, I wanted to be wide awake every second. Not anymore. I wanted to feel numb, no feelings and no more tears. I couldn't do that, even as Mom handed me a cup of water, even with Jacob smiled at me, raising his Coke to me, and even while Michael held my hand, squeezing it when I flinched at a certain word or a certain gesture that reminded me of one of the Cullens. I wanted to pull away, but he wouldn't have understood. My hand belonged in Edward's and no one else's. Not even my brother's. It looked so strange there. I looked as pale as Edward next to Michael's beautiful olive skin.
"Hey, Tim, pick out a puzzle," Michael told me once we finished the first game of Monopoly, which I'd refused to play in. I watched and managed a few smiles here and there. Michael was doing his best to distract me, cracking stupid jokes, talking about school when it was summer already, whining about how he'd lost, anything to get a half smile from me. I felt guilty for making them put that much effort into anything with no results.
"Um... The coin one," I said quietly, trying to sound happy. Or at least not depressed or dead. My stomach was starting to hurt again, and the water didn't help. I took a sip of Michael's Sprite to see if it helped any. It didn't. Usually, I was the most indecisive person ever too, which was another difference my family exchanged glances about. Any decision kept my mind off Edward for a few seconds. It wasn't that I wanted to forget. I just wanted to get through the day without crying anymore or breaking down at a certain word that Edward's voice sounded extra beautiful when he spoke. So I separated the edge pieces from the rest of the puzzle I'd chosen. A slow process. Michael and Jacob were hopeless at puzzles and spent most of their time joking around. I'd tuned them out absent mindedly, trying to keep my mind immune to any memories of Edward or the Cullens. I was pretty good at puzzles. For the years my grandma was in a nursing home, I went by every other weekend to help her with whatever puzzle she was doing.
Like I thought, the coin puzzle was a hundred times harder than it looked. So it required all my concentration. I didn't think of Edward. It was nice in some ways, but it also left me feeling more miserable than before. I didn't want to lose one second of the time we had together once. Even if it was over now. I didn't want to forget one more detail, and I'd already forgotten too many. I didn't laugh once and my smiles were forced, but they were there. Anything was better than crying. I only wanted to remember Edward, the real one. My Edward. The man that had loved me once. And even that Edward was a wagon of pain now because he was gone too, never to return to me or to himself. He was a monster now. Forever.
Mom got an ice cream cake. We all had a piece, but I stole the smallest and I didn't want to sit with them, pretending. I went to sit on the front porch, suck in the fresh air and hopefully calm my stomach some. I wanted to stare off into space, think about absolutely nothing, and be alone if I ended up crying. The wind was a little chilly. I set my cake down beside me, covering my face with my hands. I knew the tears would come soon. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't then. When I cried and Edward wasn't there to wipe away the tears, to kiss them until I smiled, laughed even, it was always harder. It felt like this ghost was strangling me, sucking the life from me as a vampire would. He wasn't draining my body of blood though. Not yet. Just the life. The blood would possibly come at the next accident, whatever it was.
I looked up when the front door opened, glad that no tears had fallen. It was Jacob. He sat next to me with a smile. Enthusiastic and little kid cute. "You don't mind, do you?" he asked when I looked away without returning the smile.
I shook my head, letting out a slow breath. "No. Your presence is kind of relaxing actually. You have this nice energy. I guess I'm kind of like a horse right now. In there, they're all scared to mention something on accident, so I'm scared too. I can sense it. You're relaxed and not fussing over me, so I can relax too," I explained with my eyes closed. "It's kind of like you have life and... happiness"--I was surprised to realize the mere word was hard to say--"radiating off you."
"And what if I'm not happy?" Jacob inquired, and I was too distracted to tell if he was serious or not.
I glanced at him. It seemed like ages ago that Charlie told me Jake was having friend problems. Even in my own misery, I could tell nothing had changed since then. I forced a half smile as I shrugged. "It doesn't make much of a difference," I answered softly, wondering if Edward was happy or not. He didn't have me clinging to him physically anymore, just to his memory. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, pushing Edward from my mind again. "I've been told I'm a pretty good listener."
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
Jake laughed, shaking his head. I had to take a deep breath to stop the tears when I remembered how Edward used to do that when I'd annoyed him. Mostly when asking about how to become a vampire. Laughing came before his anger and after I'd pissed him off beyond return. "You were missing for four days, sedated for two more, you wrapped your car around a tree, almost killed yourself, I can tell you've been crying, and you're about to breakdown right now and you don't even realize it yet," Jake told me in a voice that made me hang my head. I felt so defeated, too tired to fight anymore. I just wanted to cry until the pain stopped, and I couldn't do that. No person had that many tears. He sighed. "Then you ask me if I want to talk about my problems? Why do you pus your problems off like they're nothing, when mine are so much smaller?"
"Oh," I whispered. I didn't know how to explain it and it would probably make me sound crazy or something. But the whole town of Forks probably thought I was out of my mind already. I shrugged at Jake, breathing deeply again. It still hurt. But now I was getting used to the empty hole in my chest. "I guess helping people helps me sometimes. It makes me realize that thinking through problems rationally isn't too hard. Even my own problems. And no problem is small. They all change our lives in one way or another. And maybe our problems are similar. Maybe we can help each other somehow."
Jake stared at me for a moment as if to see if I was actual serious. Then he shrugged. "Okay. So my two best friends are Quil and Embry." I smiled at their names, wondering if Jake was only saying that to make me laugh. "No, I'm serious! That's their names."
"Okay, I believe you." Not. Not yet anyway.
"Well, Embry sort of... okay, you'll think I'm crazy. Just forget about it."
"I think I deserve the chance to call you psycho after you've been thinking it for so long about me," I joked half heartedly.
Jake grinned. "Okay, fine. Uh... You know Sam Uley, right?" Sam... I didn't recognize the last name, but I assumed he was one of the search party and nodded. "He has this group. He's controlling and annoying. He pisses me off to say the least. He's got these friends called Paul and Jared. He's always looked at me this certain way. Anyway. Embry joined his group if you could call it that. It's more like a gang if you ask me."
"There's a gang?" I inquired. I was interested then. Partly because this was Jacob's problem, partly because it kept my mind off Edward.
"Yeah, but not the kind you're thinking about. No robbing banks and all that crap. It's just... They're a good gang. The elders are all like... singing their praise about how Sam keeps us safe, blah, blah, blah. They don't really seem to realize that Sam basically grabs these random kids and somehow gets control of them. Like he's controlling their minds and they can't break out. He scares me because he always seems like he's waiting for me to join the gang. I'm not going to. Embry said that same thing to me so many times. He hated Sam. And now he can only hang out with Sam. He won't talk to me or anything. I saw him out with Sam and the stupid gang the other day. He looked at me like Sam does. Now Quil's scared as hell and... Oh. Just forget it, Tim. It's the stupid high school crap. Nothing like your problems."
"No. Tell me," I said gently.
Jake sighed then. "They're basically just like hall monitors gone bad. Quil's acting like Embry did just before Embry bailed out on me."
I knew his story was over then and shrugged to give myself a few seconds to think of some way to reply. "I guess we both got bailed on, huh?" I mumbled, staring at the spot where Edward always parked his Volvo. He used to park on the side of the road where I could see him from my bedroom window. He used to lean against his car, smiling up at me, and I knew the smile was because he'd been happy. Or maybe he was just laughing that Charlie hadn't figured out he'd been laying in my bed with me every night, watching me sleep. I had no idea. Either way, that figure by his Volvo was just another ghost.
Jake nodded, which brought me out of my thoughts. "You more than me."
"Not really," I muttered, turning to stare at my one bare foot and the cast on my broken leg. "It all hurts, and you can't know how bad until the hurt is gone," I whispered more to myself. I wasn't that much older than Jake, only about a year, but he seemed so young, or maybe it was just that I matured so much faster than all my friends had. Jacob was no exception, even if boys generally matured slower than girls. I felt a little responsible as Jake's friend to help him through his own problem. It would help me live through mine maybe. Hopefully.
Jake sighed, leaning back against one of the porch posts. "So what are you escaping from in there?" he asked, throwing his thumb over his shoulder at the front door.
Escaping. That was a good word!
I turned my body so I was facing him and hugged my knees to my chest. That helped the nausea at least. Not the hole. "Nothing specific really. More like a hundred small things hinting at a hundred bigger things, that hint at another hundred even bigger things, and so on," I answered with the annoyance thick and obvious in my voice. "To get away from the things they're all trying so hard not to mention while they're all thinking about it." I shrugged then to give me an excuse to pause as I fought back more tears. "I had to get away from them all trying to distract me. But that doesn't help because then I'm up all night trying to think of what would have happened that day, what the day would have been like if Edward was there to make it the best day of my life." I smiled sadly. "He always did that. Everyday was better than the last. Up until..." My voice faded and I shook my head, leaning my cheek against my knee.
Jacob ignored the last small section. "Yeah, my dad's been the same away. But at least I can sleep."
I nodded distantly. I broke into a genuine smile at the thought of someone telling me how I was turning into a vampire because of my insomnia. Little did they know, vampires were real and I knew a whole family of them. I'd dated one! "I guess we'll have to hurt for a while," I mumbled, resting my chin on the knee of my good leg, studying Jake's soft, young face.
I looked up when the Chinese delivery man finally arrived with our food. I swung my legs around out of his way so he could get to the front door. "Food's here!" I yelled.
Jacob laughed then. "You never fail to do something funny."
"Like rudely yelling instead of knocking on the door or getting up?" I inquired playfully. Then I realized Emmett would have said something like that and flinched. Jake looked away, and I sighed. I felt so defeated. Nothing ever got better. There was too much to remind me of these people who were pretending not to exist.
"So you want to come over tomorrow?" Jake asked. If he hadn't, our conversation would have ended there, and I probably would have broke into tears. "I can take your truck home and pick you up tomorrow or something," he explained with a grin. "Summer break without anything to do sounds like every other year before you came. You'll have to show me what you did around LA."
I smiled and glanced over my shoulder as Dad paid for the food. His eyes were looking me over. Apparently he hadn't noticed I was gone. "Hope you have a few billion in the bank," I joked. "We basically went shopping and I worked lots. But sure to the coming over part. Remind me to give you the key to my truck. Just don't wreck it, please. No running off to get beer in the middle of the night or anything either. I wouldn't want Billy to think I'm responsible for anything else."
Jake laughed. "Oh, don't worry about it. I've already told him you're corrupting my youthful innocence."
That was the first time I laughed. I was as amazed by the sound as everyone else. It didn't sound like my laugh though. There was no reason to be happy without Edward, as hard as I tried to be. My laugh would never be the same. It wouldn't be alive ever again. I found it strange that Jacob was always the person I ran to when Edward was gone. When I broke up with him before spring break, I went to LA, then I came back and spent all my extra time with Jacob in his garage. The same thing again now that I was left alone. Only Edward gave me no promise to come back. He wouldn't return. He'd planned to leave me without any way to remember him other than memories that eventually faded to hallucinations with no way for me to tell if they were real or not. I didn't know why I always went to Jake, but that was the way it was. I was glad I had him. He at least kept me sane, and he was the first to get a laugh out of me, which almost gave Dad a heart attack.
Mom brought us plates of food. I mostly pushed it around on my plate. My thoughts were on the time Edward left me in a Chinese restaurant. It was before I knew he was a vampire and now I knew it was because he needed to hunt. That was why he'd left. His black eyes flashed in my mind. I tried to remember if they were black or topaz when he abandoned me, but those memories were behind the wall I'd built. I couldn't go there yet. Probably just insomnia, I told myself, and it only helped a little. Enough so I was able to eat half the food Mom gave me. The thought had come to mind that Edward was only hunting, and that was a mistake. Edward was gone. He wasn't coming back. Why did I keep trying to find some other explanation?
"Honey, come open presents," Mom said, and Jake helped me to my feet. His hands were on fire. They burnt my skin. I was somehow numb to that feeling too.
I stopped short at the sight of at least a dozen presents on the living room floor. More than I'd originally seen. If the boxes were any larger, I would have wondered if Alice was somehow hiding in one of them. Or maybe even Edward, but I knew neither of them were cruel enough to put me through all of that for a simple surprise. I wouldn't have believed they were real anyway. I would have thought they were hallucinations anyway. Feeling like I was going to be tortured, more than when Alice bought me presents, I limped to the couch. Dad smiled at my horrified expression and took my arm from Jake. Now his hand was freezing. Almost as cold as Edward's had been, but I knew that was only because my skin had adjusted to Jake's burning touch. "Don't worry, sweetie. We didn't pay for most of them," he told me, but that hardly helped. I was dreading the amount of time we would have to spend opening presents I didn't want in the first place. It would be too long. I would probably break down before we were half way through. The thought alone was torture.
"We wanted to bring you some of home, so..." Mom handed me the first present with an excited smile.
Some of home... Great... That made me extra nervous.
I tried to be enthusiastic. But I didn't know what to think of all the presents, besides how much I didn't want them. Any of them. The first was a jar of sand from my favorite beach in LA, which made me long for the humidity and the sun. Michael made a joke about how he had to escape from the cops when he stole the sand off a public beach, which caused a glare from Charlie. I managed a smile, imagining how easy that would have been for one of the Cullens. Ugh! They were everywhere. Everything reminded me of them.
Mom brought me my favorite acoustic guitar--after the one Edward had bought me. She brought my keyboard too since my grand piano wouldn't fit anywhere in the house. Michael brought me two pillows from my room full of pictures, the walls covered in memories. I regretted keeping all my memories here in Forks instead of clearing a whole wall for Edward. I had only one picture of him. The only piece of furniture in that room was a bad, and I'd once dreamt that Edward was holding me in that bed, me telling him about every day, every memory. Time seemed so endless when I was with him. Now that he was gone, only the pain felt endless.
Other than the bits of home, Mom got me a new scrapbook, and I knew she got it before Edward left because all my scrap booking was of me and him together. Or pictures that he took of me, pictures that I took of him too. I remembered the time I had been sitting on his bedroom floor, trying to do my homework. He'd pulled my camera out of my purse without me even noticing and my whole memory card was full, which I figured out days later. I made him a scrapbook and he joked about how that would be the first thing he saved if his house ever got set on fire somehow.
Some joke. Really funny now.
I could think of something else to do with the new scrapbook though. Me and Jake perhaps. Just as friends. No unnecessary touching. Or of my other friends in Forks. I appreciated it as much as I could under the circumstances. Mom got me a sun hat too, which she claimed would remind me of all the wonderful times in LA. It did, but it made me wonder when the next sunny day in Forks would be. It made me wonder how I would have spent that day if Edward hadn't left me. I put the hat on Jake's hand--it didn't fit. I was trying to be light hearted and somewhat happy. I managed a smile at how Jake looked in the hat. A little feminine from the back with his long, black hair. Were it not for his huge shoulders, he would have been mistaken for a female. I wanted to laugh at that. But what was the point? No one was there to make the laugh feel like... heaven. Edward was gone. Nothing else mattered.
Dad got me books. A nice gift. The presents were just another way to get my mind off Edward though. I appreciated them all and the trouble my family put into them. So I did my best to smile and then the party was over. There was nothing left to distract me. The books were all romance books. I didn't want to read them. I wasn't ready to realize I'd once had the best man ever. He was in my arms, he was mine. He was gone. No book, no character could live up to him or even capture what we had once had or the pain I now felt.
Mom and Dad did the dishes after ordering me not to help. I wanted to! I needed something else to distract me. Michael carried my presents upstairs, and I reluctantly followed. I laid down on my bed with the pillows from home and the one picture I had left of Edward. The orange bottles of pills were on my night stand. Anti depressants, sleeping pills, and pain medication. All of them were tempting. I closed my eyes, the tears coming now. I let them fall, letting all my walls fall too, including the one that once held the monster Edward. I let him come to destroy me. It hurt so bad to remember any Edward, monster or the man I loved. But forgetting was even worse. Neither were the best options, and both sounded equally hard. How could I remember this monster? How could I forget my Edward? I clung to the picture of Edward and myself and I imagined his arms were around me. I could hear my lullaby in my head, but it wasn't real. It was another survival mechanism. I just had to survive somehow, hold onto what life I had left until I found some other way out of this. I needed out.
I knew it was irrational, naive, and stupid to believe it was Edward who saved my life. Anything was possible though. I knew that now. Edward had left me when I'd once believed that was never possible. I'd once believed he would never go. And he did. He was gone, as I kept reminding myself in the hope that the anger would replace the pain. Anything to get through the day. Anything was possible, which also made me believe that there was a tiny possibility that Edward would come back to me, loving me more than ever or just as much as before. That was possible. Just not probable anymore. Not after Edward left me.
And so I tried to sleep, crying in misery and pain, but it was no use. I laid there, forbidden to remember and terrified to forget. Forbidden to remember my Edward by the new monster that had replaced him. Forbidden by myself to remember any part, anything that reminded me of him. I was terrified to forget the man I loved, and the monster because I wanted to keep searching for the real reason he left. I could never forget. I could never forget any part of it. Not the monster. Not the man I loved. Not the memories. Edward did exist. And the pain just grew worse again, even if I thought it had been impossible. And I cried, but he wasn't there to hold me. He was gone. Forever.