Bella POV
Alice had purchased 2 first class tickets for the flight. I had promised to pay her back but she would have none of it, dismissing my offer completely with a wave of her hand.
"Oh, Bella, you're a part of this family whether you know it or not." She had said. I was confused by her statement and wondered what she meant by that. I had hoped that someday that would have been true but Edward's cold departure completely and effectively disabused me of that notion.
I was thankful to have had a passport even though I really never travelled anywhere. It was thanks to Renee that I had one at all. Upon a visit to a psychic, she was convinced that we were going to go to Paris and she made me apply for a passport the very next day. We never did go to Paris.
We were in midflight to O'Hare in Chicago, where we would have to transfer to the second leg of our journey. There were no non-stop flights to Florence from Seattle. Alice was reading a fashion magazine as I gazed out the window. In my nervousness, I had bitten my fingernails all the way down and I was starting to pick at my cuticles.
"You know it's not going to help any if you start bleeding on the plane." Alice said looking pointedly at my fingers.
"Oh, sorry." I said putting my hands under my legs where I couldn't get to them.
'It's okay Bella. You're just out of practice."
Alice's eyes suddenly glazed over and I could tell she was having a vision. I resisted the urge to question her, knowing any answers would have to wait until she was done. I didn't want to interrupt her seeing anything important.
"Damnit." She finally said.
"'What?" I demanded.
"It's Edward." She said. Those two words had the bile of fear rising to my throat. Was he dead already? No, he couldn't be. Alice would be much more upset. "He is not going straight to Italy. He must have made a last minute decision I didn't see until now."
"Where is he going then?" I asked frantically.
"He's going back to Forks. To say his last goodbye, you see, before he tries to convince the Volturi to end him. We'll have to go back." She sighed.
"But, but how?" I asked confused. "We won't get there in time. We won't be able to get a plane back to Seattle that quickly."
"Since when do you know me not to have a trick or two up my sleeve?" She patted my arm."Don't worry, I have my resources."
I watched her confused as she picked up the air phone and looked at me with a slight grin on her face.
"Hello, Donald" she said. "yes, it's Alice Cullen…I'm well, so is Jasper…yes that new piece of real estate you picked up was a real bargain…well I wanted to ask you if you still had one of your private jets at O'Hare….You do?...that's great…yes I do need it… family emergency…to Port Angeles airport…can you have it ready in say an hour?...great…thank you so much…yes, I'll let you know..take care, bye."
She hung up and looked at me smugly. My jaw hung open in disbelief as I was putting the pieces of Donald, Real Estate and private jet together in the puzzle. "Donald?" I sputtered. "You mean Donald..?"
She held up her hand and nodded. "Yes, that Donald."
"But how? Why? I am confused."
"I had met him at a cocktail party some years ago and passed on a stock tip to him." She said as if it were the most casual thing in the world.
"Let me get this straight" I was still in disbelief "He gives you complete access to his jet on a moment's notice because you gave him a stock tip."
Alice crossed her legs and once again picked up the magazine. "Let's just say it was a very good stock tip." She said.
I leaned back in my seat and felt the first genuine smile on my face in a long time. I didn't want to think of what was waiting for me once Edward saw that I was alive. I would ease his guilt with no promises this time and he would be out of my life once more.
We didn't have to wait for baggage claim at O'Hare since we had none and ran straight to the non commercial part of the airport where a plane was fueled and ready to go for us and we were headed back from whence we came.
Edward POV
Forks seemed to have changed. It was darker and gloomier somehow. Thunder rolled in the distance threatening rain. I knew, though, that it wasn't Forks that had become darker, it was I. The brightest, the only light in my existence had been snuffed out and my world succumbed to everlasting darkness.
Charlie wasn't home, I noted as I stared up at her window. It was open as if she were still waiting for me. I answered the invitation and jumped onto the ledge and into her room. Her scent was still strong here and it nearly brought me to my knees. I took in the room, noting the subtle and not so subtle differences. All her beloved books were stacked neatly on the bookshelves, a fine coat of dust covering them. It was if she had stopped reading altogether. Clothes were strewn about the floor as if she had dumped them in haste. They were still clean and held the smell of detergent on them.
It was then that I noticed them. Four Envelopes on the floor. They must have been blown off the desk by the breeze coming in from the window. I picked them up and read the names on the back of each one; Mom & Dad, Jake, Alice, Edward. Her last letters, I thought.
So hasty in my greed to read her final words, I tore open the first envelope, not caring if it weren't meant for me. I wanted, no, I needed to read all of them. Unconsciously, I sat on her bed, the bed we had lain in together so many times. Her scent was so much stronger here, entwined into the fabric of her sheets and pillow. Opening the tri-folded letter, I read.
Dear Mom & Dad,
Please forgive me. I can't do this anymore. Dad, I am so sorry for what I have put you through these last few months and Mom, I know you couldn't be burdened with it either. It is better this way. Really. The both of you need to be happy and it just wasn't happening with me continually bringing my pain into your lives. I love you both.
Yours,
Bella
I let out a sob and clutched her pillow to my chest. So like Bella to be thinking of others feelings before her own. But didn't she know, didn't she realize that her death would bring on the worst pain of all?
The next envelope was for Jake and briefly I wondered who he was to her.
Dear Jake,
I am so, so sorry. Sorry that I couldn't be to you what you so desperately wanted me to be. I know your feelings towards me changed along the way from friendship into something else. But I could not give you what you needed from me when my heart and soul so completely belonged to another.
Please know that if only for a little while, you helped. You did bring some sun into my dark world and for that I am profoundly grateful. But the pain and misery of heartache would not go away. It kept getting stronger and stronger until it consumed me.
Don't feel sad. I will be happier, at peace. And someday, I hope you will share with someone the same love I had with him, even if mine was only one sided.
Be happy Jake, you deserve it.
Your Bells
I gripped the letter tight within my grasp crumpling it. One-sided? She thought it was one-sided? And who exactly was this Jake that was a rival for my love. Though it didn't matter now. Nothing did.
Dear Alice,
What can I say? You were my best friend and my sister and for a little while I felt part of your family To leave so suddenly like you did hurt me but I understand that you did it for Edward as he is your brother and your first loyalties reside with him.
Please let Jasper know that I never blamed him for what happened on my birthday. I could never be upset with someone for doing what it is in their nature to do. Please don't be too mad at Edward either. He couldn't help that he couldn't love me.
Let Carlisle, Esme, Emmett and even Rosalie know that I have missed them as well. I am sure this would shock Rosalie down to her toes but she cannot help how she is no more than I can.
Your sister,
Bella
I was a burning man. Burning in my own misery. These words, Bella's words were wrong. All of it wrong. I did love her. So utterly, so completely. And finally, with dread, I opened the letter that was addressed to me. It would be the most painful yet but I had to know, in the end, what her final thoughts were to me. The page was tear-stained. Bringing it up to my face, I could almost taste the saltiness of those tears on the paper.
Dear Edward,
I almost didn't write this letter not knowing if you would ever receive it or even want to read it but something compelled me to write it anyway. Call me masochistic.
Whoever said "It isbetter to have loved and lostthan neverto have loved at all" was wrong. That person, had no idea what it was like to have loved and lostyou, Edward. Even still, I am grateful for the little time you had given me. I felt the kind of love that poets and those authors I read so much only write about; all consuming, powerful.
You were wrong too, that last day in the forest. Human memories, well mine anyway, are not like a sieve. If that were the case, the pain of losing you would have decreased. It didn't. It got stronger somehow until pain was all I had.
I always knew that I was on borrowed time with you. That you could never love me the way I loved you. It shouldn't have come as such a shock when you left me. But it did.
Despite all this, please don't feel guilty as I know it is in your nature to do. It is really not your fault that I fell so deeply in love with you and you couldn't reciprocate. It is better this way for me, for everybody.
Love always,
Bella
Broken sobs tore through my body as I lay in her bed prostrate with grief. She died believing I didn't love her. As if I couldn't not love her. She was my everything and now my everything was gone. How, after all that I told her, could she not think I loved her so completely?
Isn't that what you wanted her to believe? The little voice inside my head whispered to me. Didn't you think it would be easier for her to let go if she thought that?
"Not like this." I whispered brokenly shaking my head. "Not like this."
I didn't know how long I lay on her bed, with her letters crumpled in my hand. I was too far gone to notice the passage of time.
Making myself get up, I took one last look around the room searing it into my memory. I had one more stop to make, the most painful yet before going to Italy to beg for my death. And then, my pain would be gone as well.