The Long Way Home: Drowning In Regret
Bella's POV –
What a mess I was making of everything. I looked over my shoulder to see Jasper watching my exit. I couldn't even begin to imagine how all of my ragged feelings were affecting him. He had to be getting tired of me by now no matter the words that came out of his mouth to the contrary.
The itching burning sensation at the back of my throat had returned much quicker than I had anticipated. I pushed it down as much as my urges would allow for. I was getting accustomed to recognizing my need to hunt and that need was growing fierce. Maybe it was just because during my hunt with Alice I hadn't really focused on the task at hand and allowed my brain to wonder too much so that I hadn't completely satisfied my needs. The last thing I wanted to do was be a burden to them anymore than I already was so I continued to walk off quietly into the distance even though the monstrous compulsion picked at me.
Absently I touched the bark of the trees as I passed by them. It's funny how now I could feel each pointed shard rather than the typical bumpy way it would have felt to me just a few weeks ago. I focused on those vast differences in the then versus the now in a vain effort of shoving my wants to the deepest part of my now unrestrained brain. I counted my steps methodically as I kept on moving forward, to what I didn't know. My life, existence, was suddenly nothing like I had thought it would be even if I had been changed under the most optimal of circumstances. I never anticipated Edward not being a part of either my human life or vampire one for that matter. While breathing was now unnecessary, I still let out a heavy sigh. Thinking about Edward pained me. I missed him so desperately, even more so than when he had left me after the disastrous events of my birthday. Maybe it was because he was so close but yet so far or the way his eyes raked over in disgust now. I didn't know really but the ache that filled me was all consuming.
I dropped to my knees begging for the ability to cry. I needed that all human emotional release. I hoped that I was far enough away from the house to give Jasper some peace. I didn't want him to come looking for me trying to make me comfortable when I knew deep down that would never happen.
"Bella, are you injured?" I needed look up to know who the velvet voice belonged to. He hadn't spoken to me in weeks but the sound of his voice would be forever burned in my ears.
"I'm fine." I told him averting my gaze not wanting him to see the bright red tint to my eyes. Alice and Jasper assured me that eventually they would be the same color as my new family but it would take some time for that change to fully take effect.
"Why are you so far away from the house?" he asked me. I deluded myself into hearing concern in his tone. There was a part of me that still needed to believe he loved me or at least didn't want any harm to come to me.
"I don't know." I told him honestly. I hadn't realized how far I had truly traveled away from everyone and everything.
"You should really head back." He said gesturing to the path.
"I'm not ready," I choked suddenly feeling a strangling sense of despair taking hold of me. Being so close to him, wanting to reach out and touch him but fearing the worst if I did just that. I couldn't handle feeling him pulling away from me. So there I sat on my knees somewhere between trepidation and hopelessness.
"Should I get Alice?" He suggested to me. I shook my head. Why couldn't he see that it was him I needed and not Alice? Did he despise me that much that he couldn't even sit with me and comfort me the way he used to? I wanted to ask him those questions but I was terrified of the answer.
"Jasper then?" I thought I had heard a hitch in his voice with the mention of his brother's name. Sort of the same sound I used to hear when Mike Newton's thoughts would aggravate him.
"No," I whispered. "I'm fine. I will be fine here."
"I don't want to leave you here alone."
I looked up at him hearing his words but not believing him. Leaving me alone was all he had done for weeks now. "I'm fine really." I wasn't sure if he took notice of the flat way I spoke to him. I needed him to believe I was fine, needed him to know that I was making my way through my change perfectly. "I'd like to be alone." I lied.
I watched the steps of my beloved falter momentarily giving me a flash of hope that somewhere inside of him he still cared about me before he turned and headed away from where I sat motionless. "I'll leave you then." He told me.
It took all of my willpower to stay exactly where I was. I wouldn't follow him screaming his name as I had that day in the woods even though every fiber of my being wanted me to. He didn't want me or at least not like this. It was obvious how much he regretted what he had done, regretted changing me. That thought alone tormented me because being like him and the others had been something that I wanted or at least I had when it meant I would be tied to Edward forever.
Was that why he had always been so against changing me? Had he not wanted me forever? Was I just some play thing to pass the time with until my human frailties would take me from him? I gasped again as the pain of those thoughts hit me with a blunt force.
Maybe nothing I could do now in this vampire life would make a difference to Edward. Was I worried about being perfect for someone who no longer wanted me because he had never wanted me in the way I had wanted him?
Too many thoughts were swimming in my brain to the point I felt as though I were drowning. I had always thought Edward wanted me but feared taking my soul, that's what Carlisle used to reason with me on my birthday. What if he hadn't wanted me at all? What if that's why he always put up walls when I would bring up my becoming like him? Would I have been better off dead than like this without the one that I loved? Could I live with a hole in my heart for the rest of eternity?
Edward's POV –
I forced myself to continue looking forward. I couldn't, wouldn't look back at her. If I did I wasn't sure I could have not run to her, scooped her up in my arms and professed my love for her.
I didn't like leaving her alone in the wilderness. I was well aware that she now possessed the capacity of taking care of herself but for me she was still 'my Bella' and my need to protect her and keep her safe always won out. Yet if I was honest I hadn't been able to do either of those things for some time now. Everything that I thought I had done to protect her had backfired in such a way that I had damned her to an eternal hell – first with Jacob Black and now as part of my world without ever giving her a say in it.
She hadn't been able to look at me and I knew why. She was angry with me. That's why she wanted to be alone. She can't stand having me near her. A strangled cry escaped my lips at that thought her not wanting me near when that was all I longed for tore me apart.
Not being able to truly leave her there alone, I leaned against the trees and waited to hear any movement on her part. I could be back at the house before she even realized that I had been watching her. I just couldn't get myself to depart. No matter how she felt towards me now, I still loved her and the last thing I wanted was for any harm to come to her.
"What are you doing?" Jasper's voice took me by surprise. I had been so lost in my own thoughts that I hadn't heard his as he approached me.
"What are you doing?" I retorted with more hostility than I expected. I could tell by his thoughts that my brother, like I, was worried about Bella and why she had been gone for so long. Why that upset me so I didn't know or maybe I did but didn't wish to acknowledge it.
"It appears like you checking on Bella too." Jasper told me.
"I can go now." I told him knowing that leaving was better than forcing Jasper to deal with my frayed emotional state.
"No stay." He said. "I think it would do Bella good to know that you are close."
"I doubt that." I countered his words.
"Why do you insist on acting this way?" It was easy to hear the frustration in his voice I needn't read his thoughts to know that he and Alice were perturbed with me. "You are only making things so much worse."
"You don't know that!" I growled back. "You don't know what Bella's thinking!"
"Neither do you!" Jasper came back forcefully. "I do know what she's feeling! She's full of despair and confusion."
"Because of me, what I did!" I cut him off my voice shouting.
"You saved her from death!"
"No I damned her to hell!" I continued shouting.
"The only hell you damned her to is the one where you aren't a part of her life. Yes, she's struggling with her new lifestyle. That's to be expected – she is a newborn." I heard him stress that word. "But Edward, she's amazing. She's got control more control than I had thought she would. You would know that if you spent any real time with her."
"I can't." I told him.
"No, you won't." He corrected me. "That's what's making this so much more difficult for her. She feels she's a disappointment to you. That because she still has the urge for human blood that she's not worthy!"
"That's ridiculous!" I scoffed.
"Not to her! Alice and I have both tried to reason with her, make her see what she's feeling is normal but it's your approval she needs." I heard him sigh in irritation. "I have done my best to make her come to terms with the fact that everyone takes to this life differently and that even though she may be faced with the challenge of denying what comes naturally to us all that she will eventually be able to put those urges in their proper place."
I heard him think about how overwhelmed Bella was right now. She not only had to deal with her lust for human blood, but her heightened awareness and senses had put her on overload. Then add to the mix my unexplained distance she wasn't coping all that well. Jasper's thoughts only made me hate myself all the more.
"Of course she's angry!" I said to Jasper's unspoken words without allowing him to finish his thought fully. "She has every right to be. I took away her choice. She should hate me for what I have done to her!" I suddenly realized how thunderous my voice was and didn't want to risk Bella coming to see what was happening so I stormed off not caring that Jasper's thoughts screamed my name.
Jasper's POV –
I fell back against the ground with a loud deafening thud so many warring emotions from those around me were getting the better of me. But at the moment it was Edward's inability of getting out of his own way that had thrown me into an utter tailspin. He oozed guilt and regret for the wrong he felt he committed against Bella. Why couldn't he see that all this self-loathing was so pointless, actually detrimental to the one he loved the most?
He was right I wasn't able to read Bella's thoughts but from the little that she had said to me and the volatile emotions that coursed through her I knew that she felt the need to be perfect to reach some unattainable goal of not once thinking of human blood or yearning for it. Hadn't Edward told her of his own temptations and how he had rebelled against Carlisle's ways? She needed to know those things, yet they weren't my stories to tell. It was essential for her to realize no matter how well adapted one was to the vegetarian diet that the true nature of what we were would always lurk below the surface, maybe just deeper for some than others. I knew that she would believe no one but Edward yet he was so busy being repulsed by what he saw as Bella's anger, and yes she was angry – she had every right to be – but not for any of the reasons my brother thought. He would have known that if he had allowed me to explain instead of storming off like an insolent child.
"UGH!" I let out an exhausted growl.
I indeed was exhausted. Up until this point I had always been able to feel the emotional state of those around me but no one needed to continually soothed the way Bella did. And it wasn't as though I minded doing that for it, it was just much more of a drain than I had expected. I sat in the quiet of the forest for the first time in quite a while not focusing on anything other than myself. I didn't appreciate how much I needed the time to recharge until now.
"May I join you?" I heard the sweet voice of my Alice ask me.
"Yes, mam." I gave her a wide smile as she nestled her petite body next to mine. I rested my chin on top of her head and sat in silence for a little longer. I could tell from her posture that she wanted to talk but for the moment I was content on enjoying the unspoken quiet between us.
"How are you?" She asked me. I wondered if she sensed my exhaustion as we were now finally alone.
"It's been trying." I answered honestly.
"I know." She agreed with me. I knew for a fact that like me, she had tried on more than one occasion to get Edward to see that how he had been handling this situation was all wrong. "He's being so stubborn!" I heard the frustration in Alice's voice.
"I agree." Stubbornness was certainly something Edward had mastered. And most times I understood his behavior; even his leaving Bella at the time had made sense to me. He wanted to protect her from the things in our life that could harm her, but now there was no need for that. All his stubbornness was producing now was a chasm between them that he was choosing not to cross.
"What more can we do?" She asked me.
"I'm not sure." I returned candidly. "It seems like we aren't able to reach either of them. They both are so set in what they think the other thinks that well it's like nothing we say matters. I wish Bella could see how wonderfully she's been handling her change. I have seen many many newborns and she's nothing like them. Yes, she has the desire for human blood but somehow she's able to table that. Honestly, I find it fascinating. All she can focus on is how those minuscule desires make her imperfect or not worthy of Edward's affections."
"She told you that?" Alice pulled back looking at me with disbelief in her eyes.
"Not in so many words, no, but it's easy to read that from the emotions that are running through her."
"That's absurd!"
"I know. And then you have Edward whose only thoughts are that Bella hates him for what he's done to her. That's she angry that he took away her choices. All the while the both of them love one another so much that their emotions are palpable. It's draining on all of us."
"Jazz, what are we going to do?" She asked me with a serious tone.
"I wish I knew. I feel at such a loss."
I felt her wrap her tiny arms around my neck and kiss my cheek. "I love you," she whispered in my ear.
"I love you too." I said back wishing that it would be that easy for Edward and Bella to say those three little words to one another.