This is the shortest chapter I have ever written. It's not quite 3,000 words. It's Sunday, right? So, we're all a little more mellow.
Thanks for the great reviews. I laughed at how we all saw the the internet was extremely "helpful". It would be amazing if we were really able to get all that from the internet. Maybe we should all ask where is Edward Cullen, one of us is bound to get an answer, right?
A little while after I started this story, this song came out. It fits so well. It was exactly what I was thinking about Simmons. Is it weird that two songs came out called LOST, at just the right time and inspired me? . . . .
CHAPTER 7 - GOOD-BYE
Just because I'm losing, doesn't mean I'm Lost.
Doesn't mean I'll stop,
Doesn't mean I wear a cross.
-
Just because I'm hurting,
Doesn't mean I'm hurt.
Doesn't mean I didn't get what I deserve,
No better and no worse.
-
I just got LOST.
Every river that I tried to cross,
And every door that I tried was locked.
I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off.
-
You might be a big fish in a little pond.
Doesn't mean you've won,
Cause there'll only come a bigger one.
-
And you'll be LOST.
Every river that you try to cross.
Every gun you ever held went off
And I'm just waiting 'til the firing starts.
-
I'm just waiting 'til the shine wears off.
- LOST, Coldplay
- - - - - - - - - -
I felt a nudging. It was pulling me out of some strange murky world where ghostlike creatures with golden eyes kept whirling around me. In my hands I held a strange heavy object, that I only realized after I awoke was a crucifix.
I blinked the sleep from my eyes and saw Bella standing there.
"Hey," she said simply.
"What time is it?" I questioned.
"A little after 10:00 in the morning."
It shocked me again to hear that high-pitched bell sound coming from her.
I sat up slowly and groaned. "Bella, I'm sorry you had to come all the way over here. I should have called and saved you the trip."
"I called you three times, but there was no answer." She explained.
I looked at my phone on the nightstand. It was only two feet from where my head had been.
"I must have been pretty out of it," I said thickly.
I had fallen asleep on top of the bed and was still in yesterday's clothes. Even my shoes were still on. I took a deep breath and let my head fall into my hands as I sat on the edge of the bed.
"Rough night?"
I laughed darkly. "Yeah, pretty much."
"Is something wrong?" She asked hesitantly.
I yawned hard. "Nothing a night club and a few super models can't fix."
"What are you talking about?" Bella didn't like being left guessing, that much I remembered.
I scratched the back of my neck and stretched my back.
"Well, Bella, I've been thinking and I changed my mind about getting involved with this whole thing. I'm just going to let you and Edward handle it." I slowly raised my eyes to look at her.
She blinked in surprise. "Why the sudden change? Last night you were so adamant that you be a part of this?"
I had to swallow again. My chest and throat felt so tight. "Last night after you left, I uh, did a little investigating of my own."
She looked down at me with a confused look on her face. I stood up slowly and without meeting her gaze walked over to the window. After staring out at the city for a moment, I turned again and spoke softly.
"You know Bella, I knew there had to be some difficulty surrounding Tanya. I knew that there would be some hurdles I would have to cross to get to her again. But, the scenarios I had in my head were quite different from the actual truth. I thought maybe she was a jewel thief, part of witness protection, maybe a spy, or on the run from a jealous boyfriend. These were things I could deal with."
"What do you mean by the truth?" Her voice was flat and the anxiety on her face was easy to read.
I looked straight into her pink-stained golden eyes. "Apparently, Bella, I draw the line at vampires."
I saw her body stiffen. Her lips got tight and she swallowed hard. I watched as at first she planned to dispute my findings. She wanted to tell me I was wrong, but in the end she let out a large sigh. It seemed to me that she seemed relieved that I knew. It was actually a pleasant surprise to see that even now, after she had changed so much that I could still read her so well.
"You know Bella, back when we were together at the firm, you always told me I was the best guy you had for research; no secrets could stay out of my reach for long."
She stared at me with those eyes that I no longer knew. "It looks like you learned my greatest secret," she whispered.
I wanted to say it was a truth I wished I'd never learned. Instead, I smiled at her sadly. "Yeah," I breathed.
She took a small step toward me. "You seem sad. Simmons, don't be sad for me. This is all I've ever wanted."
I raised my eyebrow and looked at her doubtfully. "No one could want this," I said as I gestured to her.
Bella's eyes seemed to turn darker as she looked at me intensely.
"I was sixteen when I met Edward. From the first moment I saw him, there has been no one else. You saw me before, how I was. I was dead then, not now. I have my only love by my side forever. I will never want for anything else."
"You chose this?" I asked incredulously. "I thought for sure Edward pushed this on you until the choice wasn't yours to make," I spat.
She slowly shook her head as she smiled at me serenely. "I begged him to change me so many times. That's why he left for so long. He didn't want this for me. He finally realized that it was destiny for me to be by his side. It was probably the hardest thing he's ever done."
I shifted my feet and ran my fingers through my hair. I felt completely baffled at this "person" in front of me. All this talk about "forever" and "destiny" was making me uncomfortable. I had never heard her talk like this before and it reminded me too much of what I hoped I'd found in Tanya. I attempted to lighten the heavy conversation.
"So, I shouldn't challenge Edward to a duel and fight him to the death for taking my best friend and turning her into a vampire?"
It worked. She laughed. It just wasn't the laugh I remembered.
"No," she said. "Please understand, I am happier than I ever thought I could be."
She did look pretty happy. In an undying, indestructible, cold-skinned sort of way. But I didn't understand it. I would never, never understand loving someone so much that you would change your very immortality for them. It didn't make any sense.
"You act like this is the perfect scenario," I argued. "You must have given up a lot to be with him."
"Every choice comes with another road not taken," she replied.
My face twisted. "Ah, don't give me that crap, Bella. This isn't just another road. You walked away from being human. From having children. I'm guessing you also walked away from your family and close friends." I looked right into her eyes. "Bella, do you realize what you've done?"
She squared her shoulders and stared me down. "I know what I can't live without. I made this choice with my eyes wide open."
I scoffed at her and said, "What about drinking human blood? Have you ever done that? Have you ever killed anyone to be with your 'true love'?"
She nodded her head slowly and calmly. "I will never do that. Edward and his whole family only drink the blood of animals, never humans."
This was a no win argument. I looked off into nothing and shook my head at the lunacy of this conversation.
"I do have a question for you," I replied.
"Go ahead."
"That one day in the conference room when you wanted to trick Edward into thinking about something else so that you could buy up the majority of the shares to his company."
"Yes," she prompted me to go on.
I sighed hard and said, "One of the things you made me say was 'I hope Edward never finds out that Jacob is a werewolf'. Bella, please tell me that isn't true."
She bit her lip and looked at me nervously. "Actually . . ."
I threw my hands up in amazement. "Oh, come on!"
She just began to laugh.
"How can you laugh about this?" I raged.
"I know how I felt the first time I learned the truth about all this. I was in shock and amazement just like you." She put her frigid, rock hard hand on my arm. "I understand you feeling this way. Trust me. You are handling everything like a normal person should. I never did. Edward was always so angry that I accepted everything about him so easily." She laughed and pointed at me. "You're the normal one."
I sneered at her. "Yeah, I am so normal that I have been in love with a vampire for the past year."
She just gripped my arm tighter and whispered, "Sorry."
I despairingly rubbed my bleary eyes.
"You didn't sleep well last night?" She asked.
I chuckled a little as I shook my head.
"Yeah, neither did I." She said with a small smile.
I looked up at her with one eyebrow raised. Somewhere around 3:00 a.m. I remembered reading about the fact that vampires didn't sleep. At any rate, I didn't find her joke very funny.
"Be patient with me, Bella. I'm a little new to vampire humor."
She laughed for a moment, and then she got serious. She swallowed hard as she took a step closer to me. "There's . . . . there's some things that I need to say to you."
I took a deep breath. "Go ahead, I'm ready."
She smiled slightly, and said, "I just wanted to say thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for seeing past my hard exterior when I was your boss, and for being my friend. Thank you for helping me through that horrible time when I had to see Edward in that conference room everyday. You really held me together. And thank you for telling Edward that I really did love him. I owe you so much."
I cocked my head to the side. "Bella, you act like you're saying good-bye."
She looked like she was about to cry, but no tears came out. That was a switch.
"I am . . . . . I am saying good-bye," she finally managed.
I stared at her in shock. "Why would you be saying good-bye to me?" I blurted out.
She started speaking so quickly, it was hard to keep up. "It's not my choice. There are . . ." She paused as if searching for the right word. "There are beings, very powerful beings that would demand your death, or immediate changing if they knew you were aware of our secret. The only reason Edward and I came here was because we were afraid you would go digging and asking questions where you shouldn't. We came to stop you from doing that."
She shook her head forcefully. "I won't put you in any more danger. After all that you've done for me, that is the least I can do for you."
I moved so I was standing right in front of her. "If you think I'm going to go around telling people about all of this, you are gravely mistaken. They'd throw me in the loony bin, for starters."
"Simmons, listen to me. This is absolutely serious. They have a great deal of anxiety about any human knowing their secret. You can imagine, can't you, as to just why this is such a hard and fast rule for them? They are not just concerned about the chance that you will tell anyone. They are just as concerned about the fact that you personally know about us. They do not allow any human to know the truth, and live."
I tried to imagine a vampire-like CIA scouring the world sucking the blood of anyone who learned their secret.
"Even Edward wouldn't be able to stop them," she breathed.
That didn't sound appealing to me at all. But still, this was Bella. Did everything have to be taken away me?
"I swear I will never tell anyone your secret, but can't you . . . . what if . . . . . isn't there any way that you can contact me? Just once in a while so I know you're okay? I had my hands on her shoulders. They were rock solid.
She breathed in deeply and looked at me sadly. "For now, can I just say that I'll try? I won't make any promises. I want you to be safe. That is the most important thing to me."
I stared at her dismally. "I bet you have had to say good-bye to a lot of people that were important to you lately."
"I am happy. This is what I want." She said it forcefully.
I believed her.
"Try as hard as you can to contact me," I begged.
She put her frigid hand on my face. "I promise."
I gathered her in a hug. I will never be able to describe what it was like to hold Bella close to me, and have the memory of holding Tanya crash so vividly into my mind.
Her coldness.
Her scent. Almost the same, but not quite like Tanya's.
Her granite-like skin that almost made me want to whisper Tanya's name.
How much harder now. To know that saying good-bye to Bella also meant saying good-bye to any chance of ever seeing Tanya again. I silently berated myself. Even when I knew I could never have her, apparently I had still been holding out hope that I would somehow, someday see her again.
It was almost as if Bella had been reading my mind.
"Are you sure you don't want any part of helping me and Edward today?"
"I'm sure," I muttered into her hair. It seemed to be the most human part of her.
We slowly let go of each other. She began walking to the door.
"You know," I said. "It's going to bug me like hell if I see you when I'm like 82 years old, and you still look as stunning as you do right now."
She stopped at the door and turned to me.
"Listen to me, Simmons. You are going to have a wonderful life. You are going to find a great girl, you're going to have a family, and be happy. You are gifted in so many ways. You are going to have a great career in anything you choose. You're only 26 years old. Go and live the life you were meant to live."
"I love you, Bella," I stammered.
"I love you, too."
Then she was out the door.
I stood there until I heard the elevator door close.
I slowly let the air flow out of me. My eyes closed as my head fell.
"Good-bye, Tanya," I whispered.
- - -
I know this is a short chapter, and not a lot of action, but I would love to hear what you thought of Bella and Simmon's conversation. See ya tomorrow!