CHAPTER FIVE- "Time of Dying," by Three Days Grace and "Breathe Me," by Sia
I listened patiently as the phone rang in my ear, waiting for someone to pick up. Eventually, after about the thirtieth ring, he finally answered.
"What do you want, Cullen?" Jacob Black hissed, his deep voice rumbling in my ear.
"I'd like to talk to you about something without you hanging up on me," I replied calmly, referring to the first time I had called. He'd let me say little but my name before slamming the phone onto the receiver.
"It better be pretty important for you to wake up my daughter with your stupid calling!" he snarled. I felt my eyebrows shoot up at the word 'daughter,' but then reminded myself that it had been thirteen years. A lot could change.
"Oh, it is." There was very little that was more important as of now, maybe nothing. "It's about Bella."
"You found her?" All the malice was gone from his voice, and his tone was drenched with worry. I glared at the road as he asked, "Is she okay?"
"You don't know?" Was he really the person to talk to?
"It's been nine years since I've seen her, leech." And he was suddenly my enemy again.
"Look, dog," I said, letting the derogatory name slip as I drove past the Washington borderline. "There's stuff I want to know and there's stuff you want to know. I'm coming to Forks, and-"
"No!" he roared, and I heard a faint, female voice in the background. "Hell, no! You come here and it happens all over again!" I wasn't quite sure what he was talking about, but I was beginning to think it'd be better for me to just call Charlie pretending to be Carlisle.
"Black," I said lowly, reaching over and turning off the radio. "This is stuff I need to know. Look," I sighed, trying to reason with him. "If you meet me somewhere, I'll tell you everything I know."
After a moment of internal debating, I heard him whispering to someone. "Give me a minute and I'll put Izzy down, but I need to go meet an old acquaintance." The female voice replied, and then he was speaking to me again. "Me, Quil, and Embry will be waiting in the old square in Port Angeles. Is it just you?"
"Yes," I sighed, relieved that he agreed without too much of a fight. "If you want, I'll treat you guys to dinner. I'm that desperate."
"Alright," Jacob paused. "We'll be there. But one wrong move, Cullen, and I swear-"
"I'm not going to cause any trouble. I just need to know how badly I need to beg for Bella's forgiveness."
His chuckle was dark and humorless. "You have no idea." And then there was a light click and a dial tone.
I pressed the 'end' button, slipping the phone back in my pocket. His last words sent a shiver up my spine, and I was suddenly worried about how much damage I had really done. Was I wrong? Had Bella's mind retained more than a normal human's? It shouldn't have, but there was nothing normal about my beautiful love.
I let my hands control the car, not needing to even look for signs. I would have known this place anywhere, and I needed my mind to think straight. I wasn't even quite sure what I was doing. It had been five minutes that I had been home from Bella's house the night before, and then I just needed to know. I needed to know every little thing that had happened to her while I was away or I would go mad.
All I knew was that she jumped off of the cliff, but according to Angela Webber, who I had called for information the first day I saw Bella, she hadn't known anything about it, and she saw my sweet Bella just a couple days after. My lips twitching downwards, I made a mental note to ask her about that the next time I saw her.
My phone suddenly rang, and I picked it up, thinking it would be Jacob, pumped up and ready to argue again. But- surprise, surprise- it was my sister. "Edward," she whispered frantically. "Bella is in my car. Unconscious. I don't know what to do, Edward, I'm scared!"
"Calm down," I coaxed her. "She's fine, probably just sleeping."
"She's not human anymore, you idiot," she said, sounding terrified. "She's a vampire. And vampires don't sleep!"
"She does." I told her firmly. "I think it has something to do with her ability or something- you'll have to ask her about it when she wakes up. But for now, just take her to her house and put her to bed."
"Are you sure?" Alice asked one last time. "I really think we should talk to Carlisle about this..."
"We can when I get back, but for now, just get her home."
She was undecided for a long time before she sighed in defeat. "Fine, I'll take her home. But you hurry up, too."
"I'll be back as soon as I figure out what happened." I assured her, hanging up and putting the cell phone away. Thanks to her call, I didn't have any more time to think to myself before I was driving through Port Angeles city limits. Frowning, I found the square and parked in front of an old antique shop.
I could see the Quileute boys before they saw me, but we smelled each other at the same exact time. All three turned around, like a well-oiled machine, and glared at me. The one in the center, Jacob, took a step forward. "Is Bella alright?"
Jacob Black had changed into almost a completely different person since I last saw him at junior prom so long ago. He was no longer a too-tall, awkward boy, but a well-built, solemn-faced man. He was taller than me by quite a few inches, and the thick bands of muscle wrapped around his biceps were almost as profound and defined as Emmett's. His face was thicker, too, and he'd gained weight in his neck, making "lanky" now an antonym to describe him.
"Yes," I said, trying not to wrinkle my nose at the smell of rotting meat. "And no."
"You want to be straight with us?" the one on Jacob's left hissed, but the man in the center put a hand on his chest, holding him back. I swear... If he hurt Bells... I don't know what I'll do...
"Calm down, Embry," Jacob murmured. "I know it's hard, but we need to know what's happening with Bella." But I know how you feel. I want to kill him, too.
"Why don't we go someplace else?" I offered quietly, glancing sideways at a young woman who was beginning to stare. "Is there someplace in particular you would like to eat?"
"I don't come up here often," Jacob admitted. "I don't know what's around."
"There's a diner up that way," the one on his right- Quil, I guessed- spoke up, pointing behind him with his thumb.
I held my hand out. "Lead the way, then."
Quil looked to Jacob, who nodded and jerked his chin in that direction. At that, Quil and Embry both started towards the diner. When they were several yards away, Jacob turned to me. "Just tell me- is she alive? In danger?"
"No," I whispered. "She's fine, physically speaking, but Jasper tells me she's very unhappy. Chronic depression, he guesses."
"You know," he began, and I didn't have to know his thoughts to hear the malice dripping into his tone. "There was a time when she was happy- with us."
"I'm glad," I murmured, and started towards the diner. "I left so she could be happy, could live a normal life."
Jacob scoffed, and he was at my side in a minute, walking with long, powerful strides. "Normal? What's normal about us? About Bella, even? Listen, leech," He waited until I looked in his eyes. "As much as I hate to admit it, your family leaving didn't do anyone any good."
Embry and Quil were sitting at a round table when we walked in, talking about a girl named 'Claire.' "Her piano recital's at seven, and if I'm not there, she'll kill me" Quil muttered. She's still ticked that I was late for picking her up from practice yesterday...
"Have you two ordered yet?" I asked as I sat down.
They moved their chairs away from me, wrinkling their noses. "Nah," the most slender of the three, Embry, grumbled. "She came asking for drinks, so I got your soda for you, Jake."
"Thanks," the man sighed as he sat down. He had changed more than just physically. It was if he had the thoughts of someone who had seen too many years, like Carlisle. Very mature, so unlike the gawky boy of sixteen that I remembered. "So," he began, leaning back as a tall, red-headed waitress brought their drinks. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything." I gave them a moment to order. "Start from when we left."
All three of the men winced both visibly and internally. "God..." Jacob said, stirring his soda with his straw. "That was horrible. Bella was so... God..."
"He doesn't like to talk about it," Quil explained quietly.
"Show me," I demanded.
Jacob looked up, and I was suddenly attacked with painful images. Bella in Sam's arms repeating "He's gone." Bella laying in her bed, pupils dilated as she stared into space. Bella screaming in her sleep. Bella looking thinner and thinner. Bella wrapping her arms around her chest, holding herself together.
"Stop!" I gasped, the pain in my chest unbearable. Bella, my sweet, innocent, kind Bella had been little more than just an empty shell. My loathing for myself was growing more and more every second. I had caused that. It was all my fault.
"And now you see why," Embry murmured, glancing at Jacob, whose thoughts had mercifully switched to something unimportant.
"Distract me," I commanded. "What happened then?"
"She got better," Quil offered. "We would all hang out at Emily's place, and Bella'd smile and laugh along with us. After she jumped off the cliff-"
"Why did she do that?" I interrupted, half-glaring. "What made her jump?"
"You'll have to ask her," Jacob responded. "After she jumped, she and I started dating." Sighing, he closed his eyes and leaned his head down. "I thought she was happy, at least content. Now that I can look back on it, though, I know she was anything but." His eyes opened again, and they flashed at me. "She felt horrible all the time- guilty about loving you while she as with me. When she spent the night, I'd wake up at two in the morning to find her crying in the living room."
The memory was accompanied by images, and I flinched at the sound of her tears.
"And then that stupid bloodsucker..." he spat, glaring at the table.
I froze. Had one of my family members gone back despite my demands? "Who?"
"The red-haired one," Jacob hissed, clenching his fists. "A couple days after Bella's twenty-first, we got into a fight when she accidentally called me 'Edward.'" His eyes glanced toward me for a minuscule second before moving back to his food. "She was furious when I called her pathetic, and she drove to Seattle against my wishes.
"We had no clue that she had left until Charlie called, asking if she was with me. As soon as I realized where she was, the guys and I were running as fast as we could. But when we got there..." Jacob sighed, shaking his head. "The leech had already bitten her. We destroyed her before she could drink any more blood, though."
"Thank you," I whispered, my body trembling with fury.
"It's no problem," Embry replied. "None at all."
Jacob was silent for a while as he reviewed the three days during which Bella had been changed. He had been furious at first, and then extremely depressed. And then, in the final few hours, accepting. I felt a certain surge of pity. I don't know what I'd do if Bella was a werewolf.
No. Of course I did. I'd love her no matter what. Human, vampire, werewolf, dryad, loch ness monster...
"Anyways," He whispered. "We had to act fast. We tinkered with the truck so that it'd explode after a certain time, and that's what Charlie found in Seattle. He was real messed up..." Jacob went silent, but I saw the clip running through his head:
Billy walked into my room, where I was carving a wolfish figurine from a slab of driftwood. "Jake," the old man said, tears glittering in his wizened eyes. "I've got something to tell you."
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking up from my whittling. I panicked. What happened? Where was Bella?
"Charlie... Charlie killed himself last night."
"No!" I groaned, letting my head fall into my hands. "No wonder Bella's so depressed... She feels guilty; I know she does. She blames herself."
"She was real torn up about it," Jacob agreed, nodding. "She wouldn't come out of that room until she had to hunt."
"Where did she stay?" I asked, feeling jealousy squeezing my heart like a fist. "With you?"
"Mmm-mmm." He shook his head. "In one of the rooms at your old place. One on the third floor."
My room? Could it be possible?
"What happened next? After Charlie died?" He was nearing the end- I could tell.
Embry was the one who answered. "She disappeared. We went over to the house to hang out, and she was just gone."
"Do you know why she left?" I murmured, looking down at my folded hands.
"No clue," Jacob said, shrugging sadly. "And I haven't heard from her since."
I had to crack a smile. "She's teaching in Michigan. High school."
All three grinned, looking strangely alike. "Are you kidding me?" Quil asked incredulously. "Bells is teaching?"
I nodded. "Yes. But I don't think she's having much fun. Jasper says she's unhappy all the time."
Jacob paused. "Cullen, I've hated you for as long as I can remember. And as much as I don't want to admit it, there's only one thing that's going to make her happy and keep her happy."
He looked up at me, and I could see how much he'd really changed. "You."
I felt as if I had just been punched in the stomach. All of the air rushed out of me with a whooshing sound, and my head fell into my hands. "I can't be. I hurt her so badly."
You can say that again. Jacob thought, but he said, "We've all made our mistakes. Mine was not looking for her. I stayed here when I should have gone after her. I should have brought her back. But I didn't." He sighed, stirring his drink with his straw. "I'm just as much at fault."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "You made her happy. She left you. I was the one who left her."
He was silent for a long time, his thoughts as scattered as a fallen chandelier. I tried to focus on what he was thinking, but my own mind was distracted. I lost myself. Charlie was dead, and it was my fault. I had hurt everybody, ruined everything. My actions had caused Jacob and his brothers to grow up sooner than they should have to. Me. Me. Me.
"We were engaged," he said suddenly, and jealousy snapped me out of my wallowing with a sudden jerk.
"Engaged?" I sputtered, my eyes probably the size of small plates. Embry and Quil snickered.
Jacob chuckled softly. "Yeah. It was a pain in the ass trying to get her to keep the ring on her finger, but she agreed to it about a year before she left." He shook his head. "She ended up hiding it under the floorboards when she disappeared. I found it a little while later."
"Did she hide anything else?" I asked curiously, trying to put away the aching feeling that thudded in my heart.
He shrugged. "A couple pictures, a bracelet I made her for as a graduation present, the newspaper articles about her's and Charlie's deaths."
"Do you still have them?" I asked, an idea forming in my mind.
"Yeah, sure. I've got a photo album completely dedicated to her." He eyed me warily. "Why?"
I pulled a pen out of my pocket and slid Embry's unused napkin in front of me, explaining what I had in mind. They were exuberant. "That's an awesome idea," Jacob exclaimed, taking the napkin from me when I was finished with it. "I'll do it as soon as I get home."
I nodded, tucking the pen back in my pocket. "Thank you. I really appreciate everything, but I really must get back to Michigan." I grinned wickedly. "I've got school in the morning."
.0.
It was almost four in the morning when I stepped into my new home. And I immediately knew that Alice had disobeyed me.
"It's just not normal!" I heard my sister saying to Carlisle. "You don't need sleep when you're already dead!"
"Alice, I wouldn't worry," Carlisle sighed. "If she's been sleeping since she was changed, I don't expect anything to come from it."
"Hey, Edward." greeted Jasper, who was sitting on the couch, tapping at his laptop. How was your night?
"Fine, Jasper, thank you." I murmured, setting the keys down on the table near the door.
"Welcome home," Carlisle said, smiling warmly at me. "Nice to have you back."
"Edward!" Alice said harshly, putting a tiny fist on her hip. "Tell Carlisle that this isn't good!"
"I don't see anything dangerous about it," I told to her. "I'm not worried."
She muttered a growl of frustration, and Carlisle smiled. "Esme wishes to speak to you- she's in our room."
I nodded, moving across the wooden floor towards the only bedroom on the bottom floor. Breathing deeply, I opened the door, closing it behind me.
Esme was leaning against a large stack of pillows, her legs tucked beneath her. Her hair was pulled back behind her, and her forehead was creased, as if she was trying extremely hard not to cry.
Oh, Edward...
Esme looked down at my sweet angel, who laid asleep in her arms. Her hand was repetitively smoothing over Bella's hair, trembling as she raised it after every stroke. Then her face turned back to me, and I could tell that she'd been suppressing sobs for a long time. If we were able to produce tears, her face would be sticky with them.
"Alice wasn't sure if she'd feel comfortable waking up in your room," Esme whispered, sliding slowly off the bed so as not to wake Bella. "Considering... everything..."
"Why isn't she at her home? In her own bed?" I asked mutedly, taking a couple more steps towards her and Esme. "That's where I told Alice to take her."
Oh, don't be so selfish! The sharp tone of her thoughts surprised me, but her face softened again, and I could practically see the invisible tears pouring down her face. "Edward..." she whispered, her eyes pleading with me. "It's been so long..."
I frowned, glancing at my sleeping angel. "It has."
And just like that, Esme broke, taking my jacket in her hands and sobbing into my shoulder. "I thought she was dead!" she cried, her voice high and airy. "For so long, I felt so guilty, and she's been alive this entire time!"
After a moment of hesitation, I wrapped my arms around her, trying to think of something to say. But I couldn't. I knew how she felt, and there weren't words to express how much I hated myself for having to break Esme's heart along with Bella's. And Charlie's. And Alice's. And the Wolves'.
All the pain my family had felt had been my fault. From the minute I decided to leave, every single horrible thing we'd come across had been because of my stupid choice.
"I'm sorry," Esme whispered between tearless sobs. "It's just so hard to believe that she's really here. That I can touch her, and hold her, and sing to her while she sleeps. I keep wanting to wake her up, just so I can ask if she really is Bella." Her shoulders shook, and I glanced at Bella's peaceful face. She was far too asleep to be disturbed by this.
"She is Bella," I assured her. "She's too amazing to be anything less."
I felt Esme nod against my chest. "She's so beautiful, so perfect."
"I know, mom. I know." I whispered, smoothing a hand over her soft curls.
I had to fix this.
