Chapter Fifteen

Another night, another dream of Edward. He was with me, in front of me. I could see the happiness dance in his eyes, but his mouth was tight. It was like he was angry or like he was trying to force himself to be angry with me for something. It was like he was trying to hide his unbelievable happiness, and he couldn't do that. So his eyes glowed . His lips tightened into a thin line. His eyebrows knit together. He opened his mouth, about to say something, but he closed it then. I heard sobs somewhere. I realized the sobs were mine. I was crying and Edward didn't know how to comfort me. He didn't know if he could or if I would let him.

Suddenly, he was right in front of me. I hadn't blinked. I hadn't looked away. He was there when he felt so far away. He took the person crying in his arms. It wasn't me. It was a withered, tiny old woman. Streaky curls, totally white. Leathery skin, a hospital gown. I didn't recognize this woman or any of her features. Except one. Her eyes. She had my eyes, shockingly green. Edward handled this woman as gently as he'd once handled me. He embraced her and she laughed. My laugh. "Edward, I missed you," she said, and her voice was mine. "Eighty-seven years, I've waited. Four more to live and I'll have waited as long as you did."

"I heard you were dying," Edward replied, his jaw clenched hard. And then I realized he wasn't angry. He was hurt. He was crying, even without tears. I knew that now. I was dying. Edward sighed then. "I heard you were in pain. I wanted to end it now because I know you're holding on for me."

"I've been hurt worse before."

Edward nodded, and he knew I meant when he left me. "The doctors said you only have a few days left. But that's all we need. I can't live without you." Edward pulled my ruby ring out of his pockets, and the sobs became silent, worse. "Are you ready? Do you still want me forever?"

"No," I answered firmly, and my heart stopped, even though I was asleep. "I'm ready to leave this world. Just remember how I was when I was young."

I woke up, crying out. I rolled out of bed and ran. With all my strength, all my power, everything I had, loved, wanted, everything. I heard Trooper barking after me, but I couldn't stop or slow down. I jumped into my truck and drove towards La Push. Anything to distract me. Anything at all. Anything to get away. I didn't make it to Jake's house though. I stopped at the beach. I walked, faster and faster with every step until I was sprinting as fast as I could go. I came to a cliff. I looked down into the water, breathless and scared. I couldn't go on. I couldn't stop myself. The cliff wasn't very high... I remembered Jake telling me about how much fun cliff diving was once, and I remembered how all my friends had tried to get me to do it once in Hawaii. I'd been too afraid then. Now I wasn't afraid of anything besides living without Edward, and I was living that life now. I walked to the very edge of the cliff. It was higher than I thought. I stared down into the blue water, my heart pounding suddenly. I could feel the blood pulsing through my veins. I hated my blood then. It tortured Edward. It caused him to leave, and now he was gone.

I looked at the water. It was tempting. I must have been fifty or sixty feet up. I didn't know if there were any special rules or safety precautions for cliff diving. I was already there. I didn't care. I just wanted to try. I knew how to dive. I was a good swimmer. I shook my head. "No, Edward," I whispered numbly, and my voice sounded so dead. "I'm not going to wait that long. I can't. You can't do that to me. Please... Come back, please."

I took another step and my toes were at the edge, my hands were at my sides. "Don't." I froze, unable to move. It was Edward again. I saw his face in my head, as clearly as it would have been if he was there in front of me. Only he wasn't. It was another hallucination, and he hadn't come back, but he was talking to me. I lied to hear his voice and he was telling me not to take the leap of faith and jump off the cliff. He didn't understand though. I took a leap of faith every day when I hoped he would come back. Only hoping hurt worse than jumping would have.

"Don't jump."

I shook my head defiantly, and tested my knees. I was afraid that Edward would leave me if I jumped. But I had to. It was already decided. I made the decision, but I still held onto Edward's voice while he was talking to me. If I wasn't capable of letting go, moving on for real, how was I supposed to let go when he was there? He was talking to me, he was trying to get me to think, but I couldn't. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. I didn't know if I wanted to get Edward out of my mind for another few hours or if I wanted to hear his voice more. I knew that if I continued to stand there, I would never be able to forget him. I wasn't trying to, but I felt the need just to be close to him. I could only be close to him while he spoke to me though. And he was trying to drown me again. I was doing so well, and this failure was the worst yet. He was pulling me into the water while he told me not to jump.

"Don't do this to me," Edward begged, sounding angry. "You can't do this to me." To him. And what had he done to me? I didn't want to hurt him. I wasn't trying to get my revenge. I just wanted to know what it was that I wanted. I didn't know what was more important anymore. The tears of confusion came. I bent my knees again, ready to spring to make my dive.

"Timberlee, don't do this!" Edward commanded, but I shook my head, and I made my dive. I wasn't going to drown anymore. It was hard to jump off the rocks, and I didn't know if I would regret the decision. I'd made it already though. It was too late to go back.

"No!" Edward said in the same way he had when he left. His face in my mind was the same. I didn't know if this was a new hallucination or just a memory of how he'd hurt me so badly. Everything was clouded. "Why!?" Edward demanded. "Why?" His whole body was shaking in fury, but I somehow knew it wasn't directed towards me. And this was new. The last no I heard wasn't the monster. There was something new. And he was trying to understand something...

It felt like a year that I was falling. My heart pounded harder than I ever remembered. I loathed my own blood, even as it kept me alive. I hated it because it was the reason Edward was gone. I wished so badly that Edward hadn't arrived in time to save me. I wished I was a vampire so Edward would never have left. Then neither of us would have felt any more pain. We would have never hurt if I wasn't human.

As I fell, pictures in time flashed in my mind. Edward's glare when we first met, us talking on the bed of my truck, debating our friendship, our first kiss, his first smile at me, his laugh, his pained expression when he tried to think of my questions, pictures of us together and how much we'd changed since February 9th when I first saw him. We were smiling, laughing, talking late at night, him driving me to school in the morning, us dancing at prom with me standing on Edward's feet. Just pictures.

The water hit me and they were all washed away. I was no longer drowning in Edward's memory. I was sucked down underwater. At first, I didn't try to fight it. I wanted the memories to be washed away until I could think of something else for once. But I was still human as much as I hated it, as much as I wanted to be a vampire. I had to come up for air. Only when I remembered that, I was too deep down. The current hit me like a wall as I tried to reach the surface for one gulp of air before I let the water rush over me again. I tried to get up to the top. I was too weak though--Edward still had all my strength. I couldn't hit hard enough. I felt the burn in my lungs when they needed air bad enough. I couldn't fill them though. Edward was the air I needed to breathe in to live, and I was still underwater. If I wasn't, he wasn't there anyway. I couldn't fight.

"Push!" Edward yelled at me. "Get out of there."

I can't, I thought, trying so hard for him. He sounded as desperate as I felt when I was running after him, trying to hold onto his memory. I was trying because Edward told me to only. I had no other reason to not give in. I kicked as hard as I could and reached for the surface. I tried and tried. It was no use. "Harder, dammit! Push," Edward whispered, his jaw clenched. I had to for him. I felt dizzy and I had to get air. I was drowning for real now. I could feel myself fading, and I knew I would lose consciousness soon. I was dying. It was obvious. Everything went black, and Edward's face disappeared. He was gone again. No, I thought furiously. I only knew that I wasn't dead because I was still hurting. Hurting because Edward was gone again, and I still had no power to fight.

Someone's hand grabbed me, a hand around my waist. My lungs burned twice as bad, but the surface was closer. Edward was somehow pushing me, even though whoever had a hold of me was burning hot. When the water broke, I gasped for air too quickly and inhaled a mouth full of water too. I coughed, trying to breathe in the available air. I rolled over and spit out the water as soon as we were on ground. I choked, coughed, and tried so hard to get the water out of my lungs. "What the hell was that?" Jake's voice demanded. Jake...

I gasped in the air. Finally, it came, and I closed my eyes as it filled my lungs. I breathed heavily. Jacob waited for an answer. I waited until it was easy to breathe again, and then I sat up. I felt numb for a few seconds. Then the emotions overwhelmed me. Breathing seemed completely impossible, even as I tried to gulp in gusts of air, even as I did. Edward's face was gone, wasn't it? He was gone. Nothing made sense, and I couldn't move on. I couldn't breathe anymore, couldn't go on any longer. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine Edward's face, but I couldn't. I only saw black. He was fading from my memory, and I was fading from life. So we faded together and Jake could only watch me in this helpless, hopeless state.

"Come on. You have to get warm," Jake said, pulling me up. He did it so easily and I was to weak to be of much help. I was limp, barely strong enough to support my own weight. I leaned against Jake as he helped me to my truck. I let him drive me to his house. "What were you doing there?" I asked.

"Long story," Jake muttered, and I noticed how he was shaking. We walked inside to see Billy on the phone. We immediately knew something was wrong, and I almost collapsed completely in Jake's arms.

Billy sighed and hung up. "Harry Clearwater had a heart attack," he whispered, and his voice told us that Harry was gone. Dad. Charlie! I called home and Charlie told me to stay at Jake's for a few days until he was done helping Sue with the funeral arrangements. I agreed with a nod and Jake shrugged. We spent every second of the next few days together, even though Jake was kind of distant. He never mentioned the incident on the cliff, and I knew it bothered him. He probably thought it was suicide, and maybe it was. I just didn't know how to explain it to him. So we were silent. I watched him work on most days. Then we decided to go to my house one day. I was used to La Push, but I let him drive my truck on the way back home. Charlie wasn't there. He was still helping Sue manage everything. I walked inside and the phone was ringing. The red light on my cell phone, which was on the counter, had caught my attention. I opened it, and my heart stopped. Edward's number! Four missed calls. He'd called me! Four times... No messages...

"Answer the phone," I told Jake, pointing to the home phone and redialing Edward's number. I was ready to cry in the hope that Edward was coming back. He had to call me for a reason.

"Hello?" Jake asked, sounding confused. He watched me freak out and panic as I packed. "He's not here... Um... preparing for a funeral..." Then he hung up.

"Who was it?" I asked.

"That one doctor."

"Dr. Smith?"

"No. The leech."

"What? You hung up on him!?"

"No. He hung up on me."

I froze again, ready to break down. "Oh, my god," I whispered. "What did he want? Why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't for you. He wanted to talk to Charlie. He asked where he was. I answered and he hung up on me."

"Shit. You idiot! That wasn't Carlisle!" I screamed. Carlisle wouldn't hang up on anyone. Not even Jake. "That was Edward! He called me. He's probably just freaking out. Worried sick--I always answer my phone, and he knows it too! I would always answer to his number, no matter what. And, and... Why didn't you tell him I was here?"

"He didn't ask," Jake said defensively.

"So what? Why the hell would Edward call Charlie, huh?" I stopped and covered my mouth. "Damn it," I whispered, and I ran upstairs as fast as I could, terrified. Jake followed, probably just because he could hear my sobs. Frantic and worse than ever. "Shit, shit, shit! You idiot!" I yelled, throwing a pillow at him when I entered my room and he was still following. "That wasn't Carlisle! He found out about my accident somehow. He thinks it's my funeral! All because you can't just... Ah! Why didn't you tell him about Harry?"

"He didn't ask!" Jake exclaimed.

I threw an empty cup at him next. He ducked to avoid it. "Get out," I said as calmly as I could, which wasn't calm at all. "Get out and don't you ever come back. Leave."

Jake stared at me for a moment, amazed, and I glared back. Finally, he turned to leave. I threw a third pillow after him. It hit the back of his head. He paused, then continued out. I sat on my bed, redialing Edward's number again. It rang and rang. I hung up after thirty seconds each time, only to dial the same number again and to get the same thing, then to repeat the process. He'd turned on his phone again. Reconnected it. Why? Something had happened to make him want to get a hold of me so badly that he went as far as to use the number he knew I would always recognize. I was hyperventilating. I could only imagine what Edward was going through. He thought I was dead. That was worse than what I felt as he left me. I sobbed when he didn't answer, screamed when it only rang, and cried between calls.

I sniffed when I heard a car door outside. I stood, one hand in my hair, the other holding the phone to my ear. Carlisle's Mercedes! I dropped the phone, even though it was still ringing. I blinked, trying to decide if it was another hallucination or not. I couldn't take this. I'd just heard it, and there was on one in it... Something was going on. But it was definitely Carlisle's... A knock on the front door--the desperate pounding--told me it was real. I was too shocked to even fall down the stairs in my hurry. I yanked the door open. It was Alice, not Edward, but that terrified me instead of easing my fears as I thought it would. "Alice," I whispered.

"Please tell me you have a passport," she muttered, pushing past me.

"What?"

"Edward's in trouble," she told me. Gently because she knew it would hurt me. And it did.