Chapter 6
A/N: You might realize some similarities between this chapter and the part in New Moon where Bella goes cliff diving. Yes, I'll admit that I got a bit of inspiration from that part, but there are differences and the ending will be slightly different, with Nessie's new decision…
Enjoy!
Haven't you heard of it? If you ever visit the area around Forks, there's one place you have to see, for the more adventurous, sporty type. Beyond the hills behind Jasmine Beach is a sort of secret and yet not-so-secret place, but beautiful as dark beauty can be.
There are three cliffs, jagged shadows against the backdrop of the now-stormy purple sky. I hurried along with Nahuel's novel still clutched in my hand; this is the perfect time, the perfect place. You won't find a better combination anywhere else.
The branches of the great weeping willow tree were starting to sway in the building-up breeze.
The wind has reached its climax as I scrambled onto the piece of rough gray rock leading up to the highest and roughest of the three cliffs. They're meant for cliff diving, but that's not what I had in mind that day.
I screamed aloud in exhilaration as I stood atop the mountain-like cliff. The rain started to fall just then, soaking the thin paperback in my hand and the easily comfortable T-shirt-and-jeans ensemble that I was wearing. Had I gone mental…?
Who cared about me anyway? I carelessly hitched my left leg up the larger piece of rock at my side and swung my other arm back to toss my favourite novel in the sea. The gentle, blue rippling waves had gone and in their place were angry pitch-black tides.
I laughed a bitter, humorless laugh. The howling wind tore my voice away from me and hurled them into the swirling tide beneath me and into the dark unknown territory of the underwater abyss that would soon become my freezing tomb. Nobody need ever find my body. I would simply go missing, just like a haunting memory that would fade away with the passing of time.
I switched off my brain. Nobody was up here with me, nobody to witness. Even then, nobody who cared. Ever since the death of Grandma Esme and Aunt Alice, there hadn't been anyone who had truly cared about me. Not Leah, definitely not. Not Jacob, the ex-lover whom I had waited so long for. Sebastian was totally out of the question.
Rolling up on the balls of my feet, I allowed myself one last look at the earth, at the horizon that lay beyond that seemingly endless sea. That horizon shone bright, like a possible future, full of new hopes and dreams, endless possibilities, with promises of starting a new life. That horizon was far away, and getting even further by the second, as I pondered my options. A distant dream, just like the dream of Jacob and I had become.
I plastered my best smile on my face. At least, if I was going to die, I would die a happy woman. Okay…at least, appearing happy enough on the outside, since nobody would guess or bother to guess my true feelings at my time of death if I was well and truly dead.
One look at the furious black-and-purple currents beneath my feet changed my expression to one of horror as I prepared to make my jump, the final jump that would end my life. I would be lucky to die in the midst of my fall. Upon impact, it was rumored, the water stabbed at all parts of your body like a sharp blade of a silver polished knife. The water was hell icy, and if it was freezing there you'd die in a matter of seconds. Hypothermia, it appeared.
I took a step backwards and launched myself into the air. My feet curled up automatically behind my back and I felt myself falling as the side of my finger brushed against the edge of the jagged rock and grazed the skin.
In that moment I heard panicked footsteps rushing behind me, yet they were strong and sure at the same time. I recognized those footsteps without having to turn and look, the only person who would have made me stop. Then again, I was probably already dead. They say your life flashes before you just at your moment of death…the good times, the bad times. This was my life flashing before me, the time when Jacob was mine.
But now I could hear him calling my name, as clearly as a ringing sleigh-bell. A dream? A vision of the dead? It couldn't be. It seems so real…but then again, they give you the best moments of your life before you die, right? Something to tide you through if you ever feel lonely in your next life.
"Renesmee, no!" He shouted as I watched his feet lift up and off in the air, propelling his entire body toward me. I didn't know why I could still watch him in this way, this view. Shouldn't I be dead already?
But this isn't death; it can't be. How can it be when I could feel, so vividly, his fingers reaching out to grasp mine and barely making it, brushing against my skin and missing my torso as I went down to meet the force of gravity?
Subconsciously I reach out my hand towards him and he scrambles frantically for it. More than half his torso is already lying out of the cliff face; he might very easily fall. I warn him, but that voice is not mine. That voice is smooth as silk and rich as velvet, that voice belongs to a woman far more beautiful than I, that voice is perfect. Glancing down at myself in shock I realize that my skin has turned a flawless, creamy white, and my hair is, for once, free of tangles. It flows in soft bronze curls past my shoulders and down my back. I blink my eyes and find them reflected in Jacob's melting dark ones. They are a shockingly pale, ice blue, deep in their crystal-like beauty, framed with long lush eyelashes and fitted together with full cherry-red lips on a perfect heart-shaped face.
This isn't me. Who is this? Has death transformed me into a stranger?
Wondering about the numerous times I'd wished for beauty like Leah's, to make fair competition…now I have it, but this isn't me. I want myself back, the real Renesmee, the stubborn, plain Renesmee with tangled curls and a lopsided smile.
I struggle to keep my eyes open and the horrifically unfolding scene before me is shocking in the revelation it brings. That beautiful girl was Renesmee, all right, just not me, in the being that I was now, in my old, ugly form. That girl had been Renesmee in her past and her future. That girl had been Renesmee at the best point in her life, the potential person I could have become, if given the chance.
Why had I understood this, all of a sudden? It seemed as though I would have preferred not to understand, though. And now, here I was, watching from the point of view of a stranger close to death, in the eyes of the old Renesmee. The scene before me was, really, portraying the beauty of the youth I could have become, a future with Jacob I had once only dreamed of. It wasn't coming true, all right. Definitely not. Was that scene supposed to inspire me or cause me pain? I wasn't sure. Did I even want to know? Death seemed an unavoidable thing now, something the future had to hold. My future was bleak, any promise completely desolate. I was lost.
The scene before me slowly faded into empty nothingness and I was engulfed into an endless portal of black, gray and white. I could, still, faintly hear Jacob's panicked, frantic voice yelling at someone in the background. I would leave this world, leave him with his beautiful young Renesmee, a life I would not live to enjoy.
After what must have been hours, I woke to the conscious world. My body was numb; I could only feel my fingers, icy cold, and Jacob's familiar yet strangely unfamiliar warm breath on my face, on my forehead.
"Nessie?" I heard him ask. Mmm…am I not dead yet?
I tried to answer him, or make any indication that I had heard him, but failed miserably. Jacob, I wanted to shout back desperately. My Jacob. With all the strength in my numb, lifeless body, I tried to raise my hand. That failed, too, and I was bitterly disappointed.
"Did her fingers just twitch?" Jacob murmured. I felt movement beside my body and then the fragrance of a fruity, fresh feminine perfume.
"I wouldn't bother so much about that girl if I were you," a woman said in a warning tone, and I bleakly remembered her as Leah Clearwater…who was she? At this moment all that was running about in my senseless, fuzzy brain was Jacob.
I remembered Leah as a beautiful woman…and how had she come into my life? She had connections to Jacob. She was worthy of him in a way I would never deserve. Leah…Oh. Disappointment, anger and resentment at myself tore through my body like a dangerous hurricane. She was…a fiend, not a friend. She was my rival. I didn't deserve someone like her to be my rival. Surely Jacob should see how outstandingly beautiful she was, even more so when compared to my messy, shapeless figure? I was, again, disappointed that the one person who had come to me in my subconscious state apart from Jacob was someone whom I could not trust, someone whom I had to fight against to be with Jacob. Then again, I would rather die than see Jacob love Leah and be with her.
Jacob was not, in fact, mine, and even though the thought of not being able to have him was depressing, it was not a fresh line of thought. Just something to add to my list of impossible fantasies, most of which included Jacob. Another fantasy, I might as well add, was that Leah could be gone or migrate or something and our family could reunite again. That, I had to admit, was even more far-fetched than any of my Jacob-related fantasies. At least Jacob was here. His presence, his being alive and near me gave me my reason for living…still.
But in truth, Grandma Esme and Aunt Alice was dead. Their eyes would never blink again. Their hearts would never beat again. Their lungs would never inhale again…Bella was far away with her secret lover, the tall, fair-haired man. I imagined my joy if she would return to us upon his death, but that would have hurt her too and, even though she had played a crucial part in destroying the family, she was, after all, my biological mother. Her blood ran in my veins. Carlisle, Rosalie, Emmett, Jasper, and the unwilling, reluctant Edward had left long ago as well.
As in my state of sub-consciousness, I pictured my Aunt Rosalie, who was still a young woman when she left. She was the youngest child Grandma Esme had borne, and, since Edward was the eldest, she was only a mere fifteen years old when I was born. Beautiful, bright and golden-haired, we would spend entire afternoons in her room, entertaining ourselves with games of dress-up. Then she would tie my bronze hair into millions of thin, tiny braids, and joke about some random neighbour… Carlisle, Emmett and Jasper had never been close to me. Even though we lived under the same roof, there was little interaction between us.
Uncle Emmett had once been a professional wrestler, but as the popular culture of wrestlers, never used his name Emmett Cullen. He had immensely powerful muscles, and strength had always been his main selling point, as beauty had been Aunt Rosalie's. In the wrestling world, he was known as Lightning. Few people, except his family and close friends, knew his real name.
Then there was Uncle Jasper, who was a man always with his composure, steady, calm, and cool. A certain charisma about him drew people towards him, almost like there was a magnetic force pulling them. I put him on the top of my mental list of the family member I found unknown the most.
Grandpa Carlisle was a doctor; or rather, he had been. Before all the abuse he had seemed to be a good man; good enough. How different my viewpoint was now. He was tall and lean, with both a nimble mind and a nimble body. He was a man with unique political views; and, now that I had slowly begun to realize, a man who did not see for others' suffering but on the path towards his own success, his own future.
My eyes opened abruptly, and I found myself staring into an agonized sea of black. Jacob leaned back, away from me, and the agony in his eyes vanished almost completely. Beside him was Leah Clearwater, my rival, and beside Leah was a girl I'd never met before.
The girl was beautiful. Her riveting, impressive beauty struck me in a new light. Her beauty was there something to equal Leah's. No, Leah's beauty was plainly for that pretty face she had so cherished, but this girl's beauty was unlike hers, although not in the beauty-pageant-model-with-eyelash-extensions-and-tons-of-makeup way.
How can I begin to describe her? She had long, very straight platinum blonde hair, hanging in silky lengths straight down to her waist. Her eyes were the clearest sapphire, passionate and understanding. She wore a sleeveless white dress, which was presently dripping wet, and a stack of multicoloured bracelets pushed up her arm. Her hair was quite damp and a few streaks of water ran across her pale face.
"Nessie, this is Rachel Zane-Whitley. She was around the area when you…er, fell and helped me bring you back to Leah's house," Jacob introduced politely, obviously knowing very well that my drop from the cliff hadn't been an accident.
"It's a pleasure to meet you…Renesmee," Rachel told me, smiling. "Your name certainly is one of a kind."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, too, Rachel. I'm really sorry you had to trouble yourself in the rain to help me like that. You shouldn't have…" I grimaced at the memory of the cliff.
"Oh!" Rachel laughed it off like saving a potentially mental, drenched girl was something she did every day. "No matter. I don't say it was much of a trouble, even though I have no idea how a decent-looking girl as you should find interest upon a dangerous cliff."
Before I could speak, Leah cut in: "Our dear Renesmee here isn't exactly your idea of a decent girl, I suppose, Rachel. She does things one would never expect. Though, I guess that's due to her rather complicated past." Leah sighed dramatically and shook her head as though genuinely worried about me. "It's amazing what personal family matters can cause to the average human mind, isn't it?"
"Leah, that's enough," Jacob said in a voice a little unnecessarily harsh. Sure, a painful comment, but what else was to be expected of Leah? It wasn't as though I'd expected her to be at my every beck and call when I moved into her guesthouse. And, what was well to be admitted anyway, Leah was sort of right.
"It's true, isn't it?" Leah sneered at me, knowing she had won.
I couldn't bring myself to answer her. All I did manage in the end, was to stutter weakly: "You can say anything you like."
I looked to Rachel to judge her response, but her expression was incomprehensible; to me, at least. Leah seemed to pick up something in the firm, determined way Rachel set her mouth in that she disliked.
"Well," Rachel finally spoke after a long, awkward silence, "it's been nice meeting you today, Renesmee, Jacob, and…Leah." Rachel was unusually calm, and she spoke as though it was just a casual, simple meeting and not some life-and-death saving she had done. What amazed me even more was how she spat out the name Leah in her last word as though it was venom on her tongue.
"And it's been interesting to meet you, Rachel," Leah spat back. Funny how she used the word 'interesting' instead of the usual 'my pleasure' or 'nice' or whatsoever.
Rachel pressed a signed card into my palm. "Let's keep in contact, Renesmee, I think you're the fairly nice person I've met today."
I smiled. For some reason a part of me took instant liking to the blonde girl. "Thanks, Rachel." Then, after a moment's pause, I added: "And, in the future, just call me Nessie."