Isn't anyone trying to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?
It's a damn cold night,
Tryin to figure out this life.
Won't you, take me by the hand, take me somewhere new?
I don't know who you are, but I...
I'm with you.
-I'm With You by Avril Lavigne
Chapter Four
I stood in Carlisle's hospital office, staring at some of the medical texts that were crammed on the shelves. Maybe I would look into taking some medical courses if I ever I go to college, obviously just theory based classes, but it seemed like they could be helpful. I really didn't like the uncertainty of not knowing what was wrong with Bella earlier.
I had been waiting for about two hours when the door opened quietly and Carlisle strode into the room, collapsing in his chair. He let out a sigh as if he was truly tired.
"Bella?" I asked.
"She will be okay. She has a concussion with a broken wrist. Otherwise she got away lucky, as it seems is her way." Carlisle shook his head, barely believing it himself. He motioned to the chair in front of him for me to sit down.
I didn't feel the need to rest, but I took the seat anyways.
"So, how did this happen? I saw the motorcycle abandoned in the road," Carlisle spoke evenly.
"Well, she had been in her room when she had gotten a sudden idea. Her emotions had spiked and she he drove to La Push," I tried to speak in a factual manner.
"Did you follow her all the way?" Carlisle couldn't keep the concern out of his voice.
"No, I stayed on this side of the line. When she came back across the line she had the motorcycle on the back of the truck and then she went out of the access road. As she was unloading the bike she felt excited. She was anticipating something good. I wasn't paying attention too closely and she had the accident. She had flipped over the handlebars and hit her head on the rock."
"But, why didn't you stop her?" There was no accusation in his voice, only curiosity.
"I had been distracted by her feelings. She was excited and hopeful. She felt…" I struggled to find the right word, "alive. I was jealous of her and I couldn't stand to take that feeling away from her. I didn't want to do that to her."
"I understand. Bella's having a tough time now." Carlisle paused and then said almost casually, "She's asked to see you."
I blanched at the idea. "I don't know if I can. Being too close to her is painful. She's just so…forlorn. She is still holding onto Edward and Alice. It's painful. I didn't think she was in denial, but when I was waiting for you, she was muttering about how Edward was really gone."
"That's precisely why you need to see her," he asserted. "You are the only person who can actually relate to her. What we say to her, while good intentioned, is not necessarily considered truthful by her. We don't know how she is feeling. We have a different kind of pain that doesn't necessarily compare. She knows we don't know how she really feels. We cannot relate, but you can."
"It's not just that. I also, don't know if I trust myself. I mean after what happened at her birthday..." I trailed off, embarrassed,
"Have you looked at yourself?" Carlisle asked, incredulously. "It seems that you have found the control you have wanted for so long. You were perfectly in control when I came to you and you are still fine even though your pants are soaked with her blood. How many times do we have to tell you that her birthday was not your fault. It was a surprise to all of us and you just happened to feel all of our thirst at once."
I sighed, feeling the hope that Carlisle was sending me. He really wanted this. But, honestly I just wanted to continue to watch over Bella from a safe distance. When I got too close, her emotions were overwhelming. I was broken, I didn't know how I could help somebody else who was broken too, even if we were in similar situations. I just didn't know.
God, how many times would I have to wake up in the hospital? Charlie was sleeping in a chair next to my bed and Esme was standing against the wall apparently watching over me. "She's awake." Esme spoke in a normal voice, probably alerting Carlisle who was somewhere else in the hospital. Sure enough a minute later Carlisle entered the room, not wasting any time before starting his examination.
"Good, it looks like you will be fine to be discharged tomorrow."
I sighed in relief. "What time is it now?"
"It's 2:30 in the morning."
"Is Jasper here?" I asked, trying to keep the hope out of my voice.
"No." Carlisle looked like he was struggling with something before he decided to continue. "He has difficulty being around you right now. You are not letting go. I'm not saying you have no right to feel the way you do, but you're holding so tightly onto Edward and Alice that it's not allowing you to properly grieve."
"I know they aren't coming back. I understand that," I defended.
"Yes, but you have been in this stasis, not actually acknowledging their death. You need to mourn. You need to say goodbye."
"But if I do, I will forget them. It will be like they never existed," I couldn't help but find some grim amusement at those words. He had wanted that for me not that long ago. I couldn't let that happen though. Before, it might have been okay to forget because I knew that he existed somewhere. It may not have been with me, but he was out there. Now though, I couldn't let that goodness be extinguished.
"No, they will never be forgotten, especially with all of us here to help remind you. We have perfect memory. We can help you remember. There is a difference between remembering and holding on. You need to let them go and say goodbye."
I nodded to show my understanding, although I didn't want to. I didn't want to say goodbye. It would mean they were finally gone.
"We'll be here when you want to say goodbye, Bella. We can help you through this," Esme offered.
"I think I need to do it alone. I'll do it tomorrow." An idea occurred to me. "I know where."
"For now though, you need to sleep." With that I saw Carlisle push a syringe into my IV and I felt the drug induced sleep take me.
I woke up the next morning to a very concerned Charlie and I tried to assure him I was fine. Unfortunately I had to divulge the whole motorcycle story, fudging on the details about the attempt to hear Edward's voice. I told him I just wanted the adrenaline rush. He told me there had been no motorcycle in my truck, and he seemed happy about that. He was slightly appeased by the fact that it was no longer in my possession and I promised him I wouldn't go try to find it. I was done with motorcycles.
Carlisle came in and did a thorough examination, running me through numerous tests to make sure I was better from my concussion. He told me I would have the cast for a couple of weeks, but that didn't faze me. I was used to casts, having been in my fair share of them before. At least this one wasn't on my leg. After the tests he declared me fit to leave. I remembered what I had to do next.
It took 45 minutes for me to convince Charlie to let me drive myself and that I had to run an errand by myself. Even then, I was only allowed to do it with the reassurances from Carlisle to Charlie that I was okay and I could handle it. They had monitored me overnight and well into the day and there were no signs that I had any side effects from my concussion. I told Charlie I wouldn't be more than a couple of hours.
I got in my truck, noting that any of my blood that had been in the truck had been cleaned up. Must have been the work of Jasper. I hoped that hadn't been too uncomfortable for him. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was out as I exited the hospital parking lot. It was a stark contrast from the weather yesterday. I drove my truck outside of town, now to the familiar road out in the woods.
I parked on the side of the road. I still remembered what path it was to the meadow. I figured it was the place that I had the strongest associations with Edward and thus would be the best place to say goodbye. The path was rough, but I took my time, in no hurry to have this task over with. I knew Carlisle was right, I mean he was always right, that this was the best thing for me to do in the long run. That didn't make it any easier to do. I didn't want the finality of Edward being gone.
I lost track of time as I thought about him. The first thing that came to mind was his crooked smile. I would miss that the most. The way his mouth would gently tilt upwards, but only on one side was probably the sexiest thing I had ever seen and it almost always had the effect of putting a smile on my face. It was yet another thing that made me sad to think was permanently gone from this world. I thought of all the times that we had spent in my bed, not even talking, but just enjoying the feeling of being in each other's arms.
I had to wonder, if I had been enough would Alice and Edward still have be here now? If I had been more beautiful would it have been enough to keep him here? If I had been more intelligent, would I have been interesting enough to keep his attention? If I had just been more extraordinary, would he have felt the need for his distractions?
The trees suddenly thinned and I found myself in the all too familiar meadow. Flowers were in full bloom and the grass was the most vivid green I had ever seen. Everything was so bright and colorful under the shining sun. That made it all the more difficult for me to do what I had to.
In the last 24 hours Bella had led to more mysteries than any other human I had ever met, probably more than any vampire as well. Although I was not blessed with the power to read minds, usually a person's emotions were enough to give me all the information I could ever need or want. Bella never felt the right emotions for the situations though and she was doing odd things.
After I had talked to Carlisle I went off to hunt in the woods, but my mind kept coming back to Bella and what Carlisle said. Did she really need me? Eventually I had decided to check back in at the hospital and had actually caught her leaving, so I had decided to follow her. I didn't see how I could be of any help to anybody in the current state I was in. He told me that he would advise Bella that she should let go of Edward and Alice but I didn't actually see her doing it. She was so dependent on their memory that I had no way of possibly thinking she could actually let them go.
But here she was trudging through the woods at an insufferably slow pace, with me of course shadowing her at a safe distance. Her emotions covered a wide spectrum. First she was determined, then that determination wavered as dread overcame her. Then there was depression followed by guilt and a large dose of insecurity. I had no idea what to make of her. I had been around her relatively little over the past year. The most time I had spent with her was when we were in Phoenix and that was not really normal circumstances. She had been filled with concern at the time and very little else. She was concerned for us, concerned for her mother, and concerned for Edward. Concern for herself played little role in her emotional schema.
I missed Alice at that point. I felt she would have better luck at figuring out what was up with Bella. Alice was so perceptive and she would have no hesitations in forcing an answer out of Bella. She was the friend that Bella needed at this time, not a depressed empath who happened to be a vampire with little control over his thirst. That was the last thing she needed, yet it seemed it was all she had.
She finally emerged from the woods into a clearing of sorts. It was quite beautiful and I was wondering why I didn't know of this place and how Bella did. Then it hit me quite suddenly. This was probably the meadow that Edward often visited. He told us about it, but not where it was. I think he was afraid we would overtake it for ourselves. He probably wasn't that far off the mark. It would not be unlike Emmett and I to commandeer the place for our numerous wrestling matches. After he had started to date Bella, was date the right word, he had started to take her there. Then he expressly forbade us from trying to follow him out there. I listened, but forbidding Emmett to do something just made him even more interested in doing it. Edward had used numerous tricks and blackmailing schemes to keep Emmett away from the meadow. It held a special place in his heart and apparently that strong feeling had been transferred to Bella as well.
The moment she stepped into the field her mixture of emotions melted away into one, grief. The grief that hit me actually caused me to stumble. Her emotions had not even been this strong when she initially found out about their deaths. I prayed in that moment that for the rest of my existence I never had to feel that amount of sadness again, especially coming from one person. Apparently Bella couldn't handle the strength of her emotions either because she collapsed on the ground, falling to her knees. She hunched over herself, hugging her arms tightly to her chest. Sobs ripped through her chest, the most raw sound I had ever heard. I wanted it to stop, but I also knew it was necessary. This was her finally coming to terms with what happened.
"Edward, why wasn't I enough? Why did you stop loving me? That's all I want to know and then I can let you go. Please just tell me."
That made my thought process halt in its track. Why did she think he stopped loving her? That solved one mystery, why I had felt her insecurities earlier. Edward had never told us exactly what he had said to her when they broke up. He had just told us some vague shit about it being better this way. I had accepted it at the time, because it didn't affect me. But now I was wondering who it was better for. Without much thought to my actions. I started to walk out into the meadow.
She didn't see me directly, what caught her eye first was the reflection that I was casting onto the grass near her. She didn't look up immediately. A wave of hope flooded her. "Edward?"
"No, he's gone," I told her softly. The hope quickly faded as she recognized my voice. She looked up at me and her eyes burned into me. I don't know exactly what I had been expecting when I would finally talk to her. Part of me thought she would be relieved to see me. I was foolish. I didn't need to feel her emotion to recognize the hatred that she was staring at me with.
She stood up, squared her shoulders, and she faced me front on. "Where have you been?"
"By myself, in the woods. I have been trying to come to terms with what happened," I replied honestly, well almost honestly. I didn't want to tell her that I had been watching her from a distance. I didn't think she would take too kindly to that information.
"Well, that's fantastic," she replied bitterly. I had never heard her speak in such a tone. It threw me through a loop. "Never mind that there might be others who need you."
I shook my head at this. "I am no use to anybody. Not in the state I am in. I am barely in control of my emotions as it is. If I was around other people, I don't think I could help them."
"Isn't that convenient? You know it wasn't just your power that that I desired, I wanted the company. You understand better than anyone how I feel. But, you couldn't even do that. You could have made an attempt to help me. It's the least you could do," she spoke quickly. Her emotions were all over the place and I honestly could not get a clear read on her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" I looked at her questioningly.
"It's your fault that this all happened." Her voice was ice cold and each word pierced through my tough skin and left me feeling raw. She continued on, in case I didn't understand, although I didn't need any explanation. "If you had not attacked me that night, none of this would have happened. You couldn't keep yourself in check because of a damn drop of blood. That was all that it took and you attacked me. Are you seriously that weak? Let's not forget that you should have gone with Alice. You shouldn't have listened to her. Maybe if you had come with us they would have made it out. How is it fair that she asked me to sacrifice myself and Edward, but she couldn't put you in danger?" Her voice was steadily rising, until the end when she was screaming.
I dropped to my knees at her words. She was just saying everything I had been thinking the last week. None of the words were anything new to me.
She was gasping violently, slowly hyperventilating. She fell to her knees right in front of me. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have cut myself. I should have been better for him. I should have tried harder to be interesting to him. I should have tried harder to follow Alice. I shouldn't have jumped off that cliff. I shouldn't…." she couldn't speak anymore. Her gasping turned to sobs and she hunched over herself, hugging herself tightly. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn't. Not only was her grief too far gone for me to control, but I wasn't inany state to help. Then I remembered her words earlier. Maybe she didn't need my power. Maybe she just needed me.
What was I saying? Why was I blaming Jasper? Were those words really coming out of my mouth? What was wrong with me? I didn't really mean those words, but they kept coming out. Maybe I meant them a little, just a little. I had thought them on one particularly unpleasant evening, trying to come to terms with what happened. Instead I thought of all the different events that could have changed so that Edward and Alice would still be alive. Although I started to blame Jasper that night, I had actually come to another conclusion on who was actually to blame. That reminded me and my shouting stopped. I was breathing heavily as I remembered who was really at fault. Collapsing onto the ground, I spoke much more softly. I voiced my darkest secret, who was really to blame for what happened.
"It's my fault. I shouldn't have cut myself. I should have been better for him. I should have tried harder to be interesting to him. I should have tried harder to follow Alice. I shouldn't have jumped off that cliff. I shouldn't…." I couldn't speak. The truth of my words hit me violently and I hunched inwardly, trying to protect myself. I felt like I was going to fall apart and the only thing keeping me together were my arms.
Something else was helping though. Another pair of arms joined my own, wrapping themselves over mine. There was a slight tug and I fell backwards into something hard. I peeked up and saw Jasper's face stricken with grief. For a split second I considered that I should be careful, but I quickly ignored that, curling myself into his lap. I flung my arms around his neck and buried my head in his chest, hugging him as tightly as I could, clinging to my last refuge on Earth.
What surprised me was that fact that it wasn't me just holding onto him. He held me tightly to him, almost painfully so. He buried his face into my neck and hair, and I heard an unearthly sound I did not recognize. I remembered that Edward once told me that vampires couldn't cry literally, because they had no tears. But they had their own way of expressing pain. This was it. The sound was a wrenching sob that shook his body. Hearing it caused me only new pain. He was hurting just as bad, if not worse than me and I had blamed him for what happened. I cried even harder, wallowing in the pain that I felt, pain for losing Edward, pain for losing Alice, pain for Jasper, pain for wanting to die, pain for everything.
I don't know how long we were there, except that it was now dusk. The light was quickly fading behind the trees and mountains in the horizons. When I pulled back slightly to look at Jasper, he was only faintly shimmering. His face was scrunched up in pain still, although his sobbing had subsided. I reached my hand up tentatively, running it down his cheek, trying to smooth his face out to the one I was familiar with, not this tortured mask that he was wearing. I expected to feel his emotions this time, like I had that day in Volterra, but nothing came.
"Why can't I feel your emotions?" I asked hoarsely, my voice scratchy from lack of water and all the crying.
"I have control over myself this time. That day, I didn't have a handle on my emotions so I couldn't stop you from feeling them. I have that control now. Actually, during that little episode, I had no control over my power so we were both feeling each other's emotions without any hindrance."
"I didn't notice."
"You probably wouldn't have. They were pretty much the same emotions you were feeling and your feelings were already so intense that you didn't notice the extra pain." Jasper's tone was soft, but it was hard to decipher.
"What are you feeling now?" I don' t know why I asked that, but I was intensely curious.
"Why don't I just show you." He held my hand that was still stroking his cheek, holding my hand tightly to his face. I felt it all of a sudden, a wave of new emotions. I closed my eyes, focused intently on them. There were so many emotions. I instantly recognized the grief and pain that would probably be there for quite some time. There was guilt to go along with the grief. Also, there was an intense love tied with the grief, love for Alice. On top of that there was a small sense of peace as well, acceptance, and another emotion hard to exactly name. The best word I could come up with was affection. There a protectiveness and caring feeling there. It was felt towards me. The only reason I knew that was because I felt the same thing for him. I knew now we were connected in that moment of complete vulnerability. He could leave tomorrow and come back 50 years later and I would still feel that connection him. We were bound together in our mutual pain.
He didn't take his hand away from mine and I felt an odd sense of comfort fall over me as we continued to stare at each other. "Are you doing that?"
He sheepishly grinned. "Guilty. It's been a long day. I just thought you could use a little peace. Not a lot, but just something to take away the edge."
"Thank you." I honestly told him, lying my head back against his chest. I was too short to reach his shoulder. I let my mind drift for a minute when a thought occurred to me suddenly. "Wait, have you been near my house lately?"
"Why would you say that?"
"You didn't answer my question."
Jasper took a deep breath. "I might have been known to stop by to check in on you every once and a while."
"I just remember falling asleep pretty suddenly the other night."
"That might have been me. You were really tired and had not been sleeping well," Jasper admitted to me.
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. Something kept nagging at my brain. The thought of Jasper blaming himself bothered me. "Jasper, I didn't mean what I said earlier. I don't blame you."
"I don't blame you either," Jasper whispered back.
"You don't?" I was unsure of the answer. I knew logically that if Jasper was not to blame then I wasn't either, but that didn't ease my feelings.
"I never did. What happened was unfortunate. I guess each of us have done things that we are going to regret."
"I don't want you blaming yourself at all."
"I feel the same way about you, but am I going to be able to change your mind?" Jasper questioned abruptly.
I considered his words. No matter how many times people might tell me that I was not guilty, I couldn't imagine that changing my mind. In my head, I could so easily see how the timeline of events would have shifted if I had just changed my own actions. I bet Jasper felt the same way.
Jasper took my silence as agreement. "Look, guilt is a nasty feeling and it isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. The best we can do is remind each other that the other was not at fault, and attempt to keep the guilt from getting too heavy. Don't let it bury you. Acknowledge it, but don't let it fester. Hopefully it will fade, but it will never disappear."
"Thanks for the honesty," I said truthfully.
"I would never lie to you," Jasper quickly admitted.
"Even to keep me from worrying?"
"I promise I won't lie to you, ever. I never lie anyways. It just ends in problems and it is impossible to keep secrets in out family," Jasper paused, frowning. "Or it was. I guess I could start lying and nobody would be the wiser."
"It keeps hitting you too? I will forget sometimes and then it will hit me all over again that they are dead. It feels like the news is still fresh."
"That happens to me too. You would think with my vampire brain that allows me to think of multiple things at once that I wouldn't forget, but it still happens."
I figured that this must be worse for him. He had all that space to think about how much he missed them. Just the thought of all that pain brought fresh tears to my eyes. A few slipped down my cheek and he caught them quickly with his thumb. It felt nice to have him here, holding me. I felt for the first time a feeling of safety. Maybe someday, a long way down the road everything would be okay. I didn't want that feeling of hope to go away. Panic rose in me. "Are you going to leave again?"
It came out of nowhere, the sudden fear that shot through her. "Are you going to leave again?"
The pure emotion reflected in her voice was enough to make me feel bad to make her doubt me. She really had felt abandoned. Even if my powers would not have been much help to her, I never thought that maybe my mere presence might have been a comfort to her. Maybe Carlisle was right. I was the only one that knew what she was going through and she needed to be with somebody who knew that.
"I won't leave you. As long as you want me near, I'll stay. Although, I am going to warn you that I may get too attached to you."
"I hope so. I don't want you going anywhere. You make me feel better."
I couldn't help but feel contentment at that. "Maybe you will feel good enough to get a good nights rest then. You should be getting back home."
"Okay, you're right. Charlie's probably worried." She hesitated for a second before getting up. She turned back towards me and put out her good hand out of reflex to help me up. I smiled at the gesture. She didn't seem to recognize that she was offering help to a vampire. I took her hand though and used all my own weight to stand up. I didn't let go of her hand and she didn't try to let go either. We both walked towards the woods.
I thought about offering to carry her, but I figure that might remind her of Edward. Instead I settled myself in for the trek at human speed. Right at the edge of the meadow she turned back and spoke softly, I don't know if she even realized I could hear her. "Goodbye Alice. Goodbye Edward. I love you both. I'll take care of him for you, Alice."
Under my breath I whispered a similar goodbye. "I'll miss you both so much. I'll take care of her for you, Edward."
We both turned back around and walked out of the meadow, letting go of Alice and Edward at the same time. We would remember them, but we would not hold on to them.
A/N: This chapter took a little bit of time because it needed to be reworked some. The biggest change was Jasper and Bella's conversation. When I had initially wrote this over two years ago, I had Bella and Jasper let go of their guilt together. But, what I have since realized that real life doesn't work that way. I still carry guilt over my dad's death, and nothing my counselor, family, or friends said convinced me otherwise. Instead, I have learned to live with it and not let it eat at me, which it doesn't. So I changed the scene to reflect that. It's a little bit of a downer notion, but it's honest and that is one of my goals with this story.
I know this chapter was a little angsty, but I hope it didn't get too heavy. Please let me know what you think. Thanks again for all of the positive responses, and also the critiques. I appreciate ALL of the feedback. Thank!
Oh and I know using Avril Lavigne probably loses me street cred points, but honestly this song to me is haunting and it is what inspired the whole story. I'm not a fan of many of her other songs, but in this one I think she shows off that she truly does have beautiful vocals.