Ch 9: Stalker

BPOV

The weekend was officially ruined.

Sunday.

I still had another day of freedom, but the disaster that was Saturday was too much for me to handle. For the first time in months I was seriously considering skipping school. I doubted I would be able to recuperate by the next day.

On top of that, my car was gone, finished, smashed to bits. When Alice came by, she dropped off the little scraps of metal. No amount of money I had was going to fix it. Needless to say, I had practically given Charlie a heart attack when I told him about the accident. When he saw the twisted hunk of metal that barely resembled a car, he was not only infuriated, but astounded that I had survived. Of course, I hadn´t gone into detail. Alice had given me a wonderful excuse that I had had enough time to leap from the car and safely into a bush before anything happened. Would the Chief of Police think about how long it would take a person going 50 mph in an out-of-control vehicle to remove the seatbelt, open the door, and jump into the most convenient place to avoid injury? I hoped not. It seemed his fury was enough to distract him from physics, and his relief was enough that I didn´t end up getting grounded, though he promised that I wasn´t going to be driving anytime soon.

Monday.

I was ready to bury myself in work, doing just what I did the last time my life became so dramatic. My enthusiasm was bitter. Now I was subjected to the bus. I still hated the cold to this day. I never tried to stay in it too long. Now I had to wait in the near-freezing rain for the blasted bus to arrive. Yet I knew I only had myself to blame. My thrill-seeking had to catch up to me sometime. I was just fortunate that it didn´t end with my death. I shut my eyes against the fresh memory of Edward, the panic in his eyes as he held me in his arms mere moments after my rescue, the rain pouring over us in sheets. In spite of everything I wanted to show him that I was grateful that he had saved my life yet again, yet I had never shown him gratitude… I had never thanked him for doing that. I was too hurt, too angry at what happened afterward.

Even now I could feel his presence, like he was watching me, waiting for me. My whole body hurt with wanting. A year ago, all I had to do was turn around and he would be there. Now he was only inside me. I had told him to go away, that I never wanted to see him again…

When I disembarked from the school bus, the rain had stopped, but I was already shivering down to the bone. Unfortunately, my first class had a broken heater that would only be fixed later in the day. I wrapped my hands in my coat as tightly as I could. I would just have to tough it out for an hour and a half.

Spanish class.

I truly was horrible at this stuff. With any luck we´d be talking about the tropical environments of Latin America, of the heat and sun. Maybe if I learned Spanish quick enough I could escape to there, like Edward did. I took the chair as far away from the door as possible, so that the entrance and exit of the students wouldn´t also bombard me with wind. I was in the corner, fiddling with my notes, when the air suddenly became colder. I looked up.

Oh God…

"What are you doing here?" I asked sharply.

Edward´s golden eyes stared back at me, freezing me into place, but I forgot I was even cold at all as I looked at him. He always had such a numbing effect on my mind and body. Just like a vampire… luring you in before taking out your heart.

"I happen to be in this class. Is there a problem?" He responded, just as defensive, but his eyes were glowing with a different kind of emotion.

"Are you trying to annoy me to death?"

He sat down next to me. The other chairs were already taken. Damn them… "I came back on such short notice. I could only take the original schedule I had planned out."

Of course it was no surprise why he was here and not anywhere else. Last year, we had planned our classes so that we had most of them together. That could only mean…

He answered my unspoken thought, " Spanish, Calculus, Government, Health, Advanced Biology, Literature, and Senior Thesis."

All but 2 of my classes…

I clenched my teeth, "This is ridiculous."

"I have just as much right to an education as you do."

"You´ve had your education countless times. Move over for someone else."

He smirked, and I forgot myself.

We didn´t talk for the rest of the class. I was still boiling over his ever-lasting presence in my life. Boyfriends and girlfriends planning classes together really was a stupid idea. By the time the breakups start happening, there is no way out. Of course, who thinks of break ups when they are tragically in love? No, it was certainly nothing I had ever considered.

Why was Edward even in this lower level class? His Spanish was nearly perfect, probably better than the teacher´s. He must really have been humoring me when he signed up. I didn´t even see why he bothered coming to school at all. He had missed the entire first semester, so he surely wouldn´t be able to graduate on time, but what was another graduation to him?

It was only during the end of the class, when the teacher asked Edward where he had been all this time that I became really bitter. Edward didn´t speak at first. How unlike him to hesitate when he knew the language perfectly. For the first time in the whole year, I made a sad attempt at forming a sentence, "Edward fui a Brasil."

"Fue," Edward responded, glaring at me, "The verb is supposed to be fue."

I had no doubt that everyone else in the class caught on to the tension between us. I could feel the very air around us suddenly hardening. The teacher, however, seemed unaffected, even by my ridiculously simple error, asking cheerfully how it was, "¿Y qué tal Brasil?"

He looked at me again, but seemed to be looking past me and into another dimension. I was certain he wasn´t really looking at me at all. Something about his stark golden eyes tore at me. They were more than just angry, they looked broken, clouded over. I had seen them with such clarity before but now the features were hazy, like he was in the beginning stages of going blind. We look at each other for what seemed like forever, my heart aching, and when he finally looked away I had to choke back tears, "Bien… Era muy divertido" He said in what seemed to be a perfect Castilian accent. Good… It was a lot of fun.

The bell rang and I was already out of my seat, moving almost as quickly as Edward had the first day we met each other in Biology. Everyone stared after me. I felt so humiliated and exposed. No doubt the whole school had been aware of our break up since the beginning, and now the rumors would really fly. I could hear them now. Poor Bella, she´ll always be reminded of what she can never have. Poor Bella, thinking she stood a chance with a god like him. Poor Bella, look how miserable she is.

I couldn´t do it. I had suffered through too much trauma to face Edward in school, at least not today. I got all the way to the parking lot before I remembered that I didn´t have a car, and then I really felt stupid, standing in the middle of the road. There was no way I would hitchhike, and Charlie was definitely not going to be okay with me playing hooky. I practically stomped my way to the other side of the school. Eyes followed me everywhere, but at least Edward was nowhere in sight. I almost fell on my face when I saw Rosalie and Emmett looking at me from across the way. Rosalie had no expression on her face as she regarded me, but Emmett looked like he wanted to come over and say hello. Rosalie pulled him towards the building they were about to enter.

Just as well. I needed some time to myself, to clear my head. Around the corner was the forest. I didn´t have to go far. There was a beautiful sitting area just beneath a canopy of branches. It was wet and muddy, but it would do. There was a log lying against a tree that was dry enough to sit on.

So I got to work. It was easy to push all my troubles from my mind when I had to focus on an endless array of forgettable facts. My grades had skyrocketed this last semester. I wasn´t about to let them fall again.

When I ran over the conjugation of Spanish verbs in the past tenses, I growled.

"Fue," Edward responded, glaring at me, "The verb is supposed to be fue."

I instantly fumbled with the books. I was about to force it and my notes into my backpack when a strange sound caught my attention. It could have been the sound of a bird, but the sound itself frightened away a group of swallows, who whisked above me and through the trees. The sound had been musical, soft, dark.

My heart was pounding in my chest, enough that it made my entire upper body shake a little. I shut my eyes, trying in vain to drown out the myriad of emotions running through me, scorching my veins. I knew this feeling. It was not new to me.

"Edward?" I whispered hesitantly.

There was no answer.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

I made it to my final class of the day, the only class I knew Edward would not be in, but the pounding of my heart had not stopped. This feeling wasn´t exactly that of fear. I was annoyed, frustrated, sad, and anxious, but I was not afraid. I was certain that Edward had been there with me in the forest, somehow… My heart had memorized his velvety chuckle.

But I didn´t see him again that day. Even at Gym I anticipated seeing him, just as I did whenever I arrived and left. Edward had always walked me to that class, and was always waiting for me as I left. My eyes lingered on the corner where he always waited for me, my inattentiveness resulting in a tennis ball hitting me in the back of the head. I was sure making a poor attempt at looking like I was over him. I wished I had his ability to read minds and see what others were thinking of me. How odd. I never used to care what others thought of me, only that they didn´t draw too much attention to me.

But maybe what I really wanted to do was read his mind, to know where he was, what he thought of me. He obviously hadn´t listened to me when I told him to disappear, but why did he stay? He had no reason to… Did he?

´Don´t even go there, Bella´ I thought to myself, ´If he wanted you back, you would have known by now.´

Very true. If he loved me still he wouldn´t possibly be so desperate to get away from me. Not desperate enough to leave again, apparently, but enough to avoid talking to me. It was just like when we first met. Edward, wanting nothing to do with me, and myself, unable to accept it and move on, the questions gnawing away at my insides.

I couldn´t go down this path again. This wasn´t going to be like before. I couldn´t force him to love me again and I didn´t want to. Maybe seeing him so rude and abrasive would make it easier for me. Eventually, it would be clear that I was better off without him, right? It seemed doubtful even in my mind.

I spent the evening staring out my window, looking for signs of movement, then pretending like I was doing something else, just in case he was out there, laughing at me. God, could I be any more pathetic? What kind of girl traipses about her room pretending to do something when she´s just looking for signs of her ex boyfriend? It was on the verge of disgraceful. I must have been imagining things. I had imagined him angry in my mind in the face of death. Why couldn´t I imagine him any old time, especially now that the memory of him was so fresh?

Tuesday

Edward wasn´t at school today. I walked into Health expecting him to be there waiting for me, but he didn´t show up. As though the rest of the class expecting him to be there too, the seat next to me was left empty. The sun was not shining. Where was he?

´Stop it,´ I told myself, ´It´s none of your concern.´

I spotted Alice on the courtyard. So it wasn´t anything family-related, I assumed. We ate lunch together, and I bit the inside of my own cheek, trying to keep out of it. But the silence dragged on, and my nerves dragged the sentence right out of me, "Where are the others?"

Something in her eyes frightened me. She wasn´t the kind to look scared. I might have just imagined it. Half a second later, she smiled, "An old acquaintance came to visit from up north."

I didn´t open my mouth again.

Wednesday

No sign of him, though this time it made sense. The sun was shining. Everyone was enjoying the rare heat. I should have been enjoying it too, but I couldn´t keep my eyes from searching. Of course it was impossible that they would be here. They wouldn´t dare expose themselves to the sunlight. So why was I still searching for him?

Thursday

Sun…

I arrived home, again unsatisfied, my eyes tired from searching the masses for his face.

Forks was warmer. I was calmed by the sight of blue, the touches of sunlight on the top of the trees. Still, I was uneasy. I could feel that something was wrong. But of course everything was wrong these days. It would be more disturbing if it had all felt right. I tried to focus on my homework, but my mind kept wandering to the window. I don´t know why I kept expecting to see his face. Surely he wouldn´t be in public on a day like today.

This was stupid. I shouldn´t even be thinking about him like he was going to follow me around. I was Jacob´s… girlfriend now. God, if he wasn´t as school right now, I would have something more useful to do with my time. Maybe I could work on kissing him, making myself more comfortable with his overpowering touch.

I decided to go for a walk, something to calm my nerves. No day better than today. I looked towards the woods. I know what lay just beyond there, and it would bring me great pain, but like a moth to the flame, I was drawn to it. My feet moved without my mind wanting them to, but with every movement the tempo of my heartbeat increased. I even followed the steps exactly. The footprints were gone and yet this forest was just as still, just as unchanging as a vampire. I swallowed the lump in my throat and disappeared into the shadows. Sunlight filtered in through the trees, patching the ground with light. I could hear a few birds but less than I expecting considering what I usually heard outside my window. Even in the sun, the earth here was wet, the kind of wet I hated.

I finally came to it. That dreaded place where we had said our final goodbyes, the last place Edward had shown me anything even close to love. I knew exactly where I had been standing, where he had been standing. The direction I had run off to, calling out his name. I remembered the feel of his final kiss on my forehead. I could feel it there still. And then, there was nothing. The Edward I knew and loved had vanished into thin air. This new Edward not only didn´t love me, he was vicious. I didn´t stop. I kept walking. If I stayed there, I would break down. I wasn´t that far from it as it was. I just kept going straight, blindly. It didn´t matter where so long as I kept moving forward. The pain ate at me. I was no better off than I was on that day he left me, just a broken excuse for a human being, like a comatose body.

One thing was crystal-clear to me and had been since the very beginning. I still loved him and being apart from him almost destroyed me. Now that he had come back into my life, I needed him more than ever. Like placing food in front of a starving man, my heart was screaming with the desire to have him. And now he was gone again, due to the sun maybe, and I had no idea where he had gone to or if he would even come back. Once again, I was without him. I would have settled for anything. It would have been better just to see him everyday, see him hating me, than to never see him at all. Saying those words to him on Saturday had been the biggest lie, only born out of my fury that he would dare attack Jacob. God help me, I didn´t want him to go away no matter what happened. I was selfish. Even when he didn´t want me, I had to have him close to me. The world without him was just as dull as if all the colors had been stolen away.

If only I had a car, I would go up to his house just to see if he was there. And then I laughed at myself. What kind of girl was I turning into? Another one of his "groupies", so to speak, who left promiscuous letters in his locker, who would follow him home if they knew where he lived? No, that wasn´t me. It wasn´t my business anymore where he was or what he was doing.

I came to a clearing, and the sun was about to set. I basked in the warmth of it. Tomorrow, there would surely be rain and clouds again. The horizon was lined with grazing pastures for horses. A few barns dotted the little bumps of hills. Every once in a while, I would see the outline of the horses walking from one stretch of fences to the next. A lot like me, perhaps, never satisfied.

I sat down on the grass up against a tree. This was a very beautiful sight. The sky on the horizon was beginning to turn a delicate orange. I guessed that next a layer of pink would appear. I sighed, laying my head back and letting the sun wash over me, breathing deep.

A twig snapped above me. I was so used to the quiet that it startled me from my daze. I looked up to see a small flock of birds flying away from somewhere in the branches.

My heart sped up again. I had to have been losing my mind. There was no way he would take the risk, would he? I had neighbors. He couldn´t have gotten into town without someone noticing him. Still, my heart was thundering.

´Okay, I´ll prove to myself that this isn´t real,´ I thought.

"I know you´re there, Edward," I said as casually as I could muster.

Again, no answer. I sighed and blushed, even though no one was around, so I shouldn´t be embarrassed. I was glad for that. Talking to nothing but the trees. I truly was crazy.

So when a figure dropped from the sky into my perfect scenery, I let out a yelp of surprise.

"Sorry," he said quickly, "I didn´t mean to scare you."

I set my eyes upon him. Had it really only been a few days? His eyes were a deep golden, but still looked at hazy as they had on Monday. His skin sparkled in the fading sun. His skin… so white and smooth-looking. It wasn´t the first time I just wanted to reach out and touch him, see if his perfection could rub off on me. The specks of light reflecting off his skin were orange too, a new color I had not seen on him before. The closest thing I could compare him to was the ocean at sunset, with light dancing upon him, evolving against the sun. I always believed there was nothing more beautiful than the sunset by the sea, but his beauty was the stuff of legends, the kind that was supposed to kill you in old mythology. I would have died happy, so long as I could look at him.

He seemed to notice how intently I was staring, and turned his head away. I wondered if he would have blushed then, were he human.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

He didn´t answer me, but his eyes grew tighter and I knew he was ashamed. I tensed up. I didn´t need to know, did I? I had felt it before… "You were following me," It was a statement, not a question.

He didn´t confirm or deny it.

And I was angered by his silence. "I´m sure Charlie would be more than willing to put out a restraining order."

He smirked then, bitterly, but still said nothing.

"I´m not forgiving you for dislocating Jacob´s shoulder."

…

"Aren´t you going to say something?"

He sighed, then finally spoke, "What do you want me to say?"

My heart swelled at the offer, but I pushed it down with all the force I could muster. I couldn´t tell him what I really wanted him to say… That he still loved me. I surely didn´t want him to lie to me, did I?

"Why are you still here?" Why did it sound like I didn´t want him to be?

He looked towards the pastures, at two horses that had started to run side by side. He didn´t worry about them seeing him. I wondered why he wasn´t afraid of the sun when those little barns were in sight. Weren´t there humans close by?

"There have been a few… complications… that have come to my attention."

I crossed my arms, "What kind of complications?"

He hesitated for a frustratingly long moment. How could a vampire be so slow? "You remember Victoria, I trust."

My knees trembled at the name, as did my lips. "You… you know about her?"

"Alice´s thoughts clued me in, and how the werewolves have been trying to track her down." He said, "Well, I couldn´t possibly let her do what she will with you. She has quite a few tricks up her sleeve. My family and I decided that we would hunt her as well."

My breath hitched. It was like last year, when they were going after Victoria and James. In spite of the enemy being outnumbered, I still feared that something would go horribly wrong, that one of the Cullens would die. Alice, so small and pretty, against Victoria´s terrifying beauty… I couldn´t think of them both in the same place. It was horrifying to me.

"Why should you have to do anything? This isn´t any of your business," I snapped a little, my fear for them overflowing from me in the form of anger.

He smiled that bitter, unpleasant smile again. "Call it a debt of honor. I know I haven´t done right by you Bella, but I won´t let you die because of me. Victoria wouldn´t even be after you if it weren´t for me."

He looked so sad then, and I wanted to touch my hand to his forehead, to draw him out of his pain like I used to be able to. He said once that my touch felt amazing to him. Even if he didn´t love me anymore, maybe he could still be comforted by me.

"You don´t need to…" My voice trailed off into less than a whisper, resisting the instinct to reach out to him.

He looked into my eyes again, his deep, intoxicating eyes, "I know," He said simply, "I want to."

My stomach felt like it was turning into mush. His eyes were digging into my soul and I couldn´t take it. I searched for a way out of this feeling, "So why are you back at school?"

He walked towards me, but didn´t approach close enough to quell my desire for his closeness. He crouched down 7 feet away, and I tried not to be hurt by this. If he wanted to stay distant from me, I wouldn´t deny him. "It´s clear, isn´t it? Someone needs to keep an eye on you at all times. We can´t trust Alice´s visions to let us know in time what´s going to happen. I believe you've already been informed about Alice´s inability to look into their futures."

Alice had suggested this to me before. "So you have been following me around all this time?"

"Not all this time. I thought we had a lead a few days ago, but nothing came up."

Ah, so Alice wasn´t exactly lying when she said they were meeting someone from up north. "Let me guess… Alice stayed behind to babysit me?"

He cringed, "You make it sound like we´re stalking you."

"Well, yes, I think that would be the term," I said as coldly as I could.

I hated myself for saying it, and I knew it was only going to upset him. He didn´t respond, however, he just stared at the open fields. His face was glistening in the fading light, but I could find no joy in looking at him. He looked deader to me than ever. I preferred him as he was in my memories, smiling and lively. Why did he have to look this way?

Then, his face became angry, "Would you rather I just leave you to die?"

´There are worse things,´ I thought to myself, only to hate myself for thinking such things. "I expect you to stay out of my life! You have no business following me around, especially after you´ve attacked my boyfriend!"

He cringed at the same time I did. "I´m very sorry you feel that way." He said, his voice soft again, "More than you´ll ever know."

My vision of him blurred in front of me. I was crying. I had thought I had cried all the tears I could over him, but they kept on coming. It was easier to keep them away when he was being rude and aggressive, just like on Saturday. This right now reminded me too much of how he used to be, how we used to be, only no matter how close he was physically to me, he was so far away I could never hope to reach him. I had better chances of jumping into the air and touching the moon.

I got to my feet, suddenly needing to disappear. All I could do was go beyond this tree and I would be free to feel what I needed to feel. I just couldn´t get my legs to move from that spot. When I opened my eyes again, I let out a gasp. He had appeared in front of me, a look of concern on his face that made my heart jump into my throat. It was the same look of adoration he used to give me. He shut his eyes for a moment, face contorting, looking like he was struggling to figure out what he should say. When he opened them again, his eyes had taken on an almost black undertone. Gingerly, he touched my forehead with his fingertips, instantly smoothing away the roughness, and then his touch drifted down my temple, to my cheek, and ended at my chin.

"Bella…" He sighed, looking like he was giving up on whatever he was thinking, "Don´t cry, okay? I hate to see you cry."

God, why did he have to make me feel this way? Why couldn´t he just go away and leave me in peace? I could feel my body dying just by being next to him, just by knowing that he would never be mine. I didn´t dare allow myself to feel protected, safe, loved by him. It was a false emotion.

"Why do you care?"

He smiled sadly, "It´s just that. I… care about you… a great deal, Bella. That isn´t going to change. Didn´t I tell you that?"

Indeed he did. In that instance, all my defenses melted away. My heart was leaping in somersaults. The effect was dizzying. I didn´t know that such simple words would be enough for me to feel whole. Even if he didn´t love me anymore, he still cared about me. That was why he didn´t want me to cry. That was why he was so angry when I had put myself into danger, just as I would be if he did anything that could potentially remove him from this earth forever.

Overwhelmed with love and longing, I leapt into his outreaching arms. He made a small sound of surprise as I collided with his chest. It hurt a little. It was so easy to forget how sturdy he was. If I was any faster, I might have bruised. Instantly, I was covered with his scent, his cold body, and I was home. After a few more seconds, he returned my embrace, pressing me harder against him than I had imagined he ever had before, so close I almost couldn´t breathe.

The world was breathing for me now. The wind picked up and whirled around us, howling in my ears, snagging leaves and flower petals from the trees and grass and sending them to us. They wrapped around us like a cocoon, protecting us from the outside world. Suddenly there was no world outside these arms. I shivered against the coldness of his skin, and he held me tighter still. Even if I was in the freezing winter, it would have been enough to just shiver in his arms. As much as I hated the cold, it would only be pleasure. The elements of nature covered us, tangled into my hair, pushed me against him as though we were both at the center of a hurricane, and the safest place for us to be was in the eye of the storm, in the calm. I knew that the world was chaos outside of these arms. I wasn´t ready to face it again. I doubted I ever would be.

I would take whatever part of him he was willing to give me, and would give him whatever part of me he was willing to take.

To be continued…

I hate writing in Bella´s POV. I truly do. She is a total idiot, but somehow making her smart would feel out of character. Hehe… Anyways, sorry for the delay! Graduate school is a true pain in the ass. Oh, what I wouldn´t give to be in high school again… I hope you at least find this chapter decent, but the next one will be in Edward´s POV, so you know it will be much better ;) I was happy to receive more reviews this time around. I hope it continues. Thanks to everyone who reads!

´Ta luego, guapas… y guapos… No sé si hay guapos aquí. (Ooo, stealthy Spanish, ooo)

xoxoxoxo