A/N: the only chapter i'm doing outside of B/E/APOV. thought you could look a little insight into the mind of the infamous Carlisle Cullen. this chapter is a review of events that have already happened, leading up until edward's last day of being an emo dumbfuck. i was going to save this until the last chapter, but i think it needs to be now because i'm still not sure which way this story's gonna flop. i apologize in advance for any problems with this...it was written this morning at 3AM during a random spark of inspiration. but enjoy, loves. And as always, REVIEW.
song: turn and turn again by rollo

CPOV

It sounded like a thousand swarms of bees, surrounding my head all at once. I couldn't hear anything beyond that particular sound, and my breaths were coming quickly. I caught a glimpse of my wife, poking her head in the room with a frightened expression before quickly jutting away. She knew what was going on, but I think she wanted to deny it to herself.

I held the shaver in my hand by my face, looking at myself in the mirror.

I was a shell. There was no denying that. I was a shell of a person, not really complete, as I had been before. Or at least, as I thought I had been.

My cheeks were sunken, my eyes cold and hard. I was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Sure, I was a doctor, but I was a surgeon. I had seen many patients that had problems similar to mine, but I never dealt with them first hand. Maybe it also had to do with the fact that this was me. My being. I was the one suffering now, not some stranger that I had nothing to offer to other than an encouraging smile.

The lights above the mirror made my face look drastically different, my pale skin bleached out in a way that made me look inhuman. The shaver still buzzed with life in my hand as I scraped in shallow breaths, my chest rising and falling erratically. I lifted the device to my face again, watching as the silver blades turned into one another angrily. My hand vibrated along with it, and it shook me to the core. This was quite possibly the most frightening moment of my entire existence. I knew that I was drawing it out. But I couldn't help it.

As I watched it foolishly, putting off the inevitable, I thought of my family.

I thought of my beautiful wife, and of the way that her face died a little bit every time she looked at me. The weight was shedding from my frame each day, and it would only get worse the next day when I began treatment. I knew I was doing her a favor as I watched the blades spin, so quickly that they were merely blurs of gray.

I thought of Emmett. Emmett was so tender, so sweet and forgiving and so hilariously spacey all at once that I couldn't help but laugh to myself in spite of the intensity of the moment. I thought of his smile, the way that his cheeks dimpled much like Esme's did. I was so proud of him. I had been an awful father to him, just as I had been to all three of my children, but for some reason he loved me anyway. I didn't deserve that.

My hand continued to tremble feverishly.

I thought of Alice. She was so beautiful. I wished that she would notice how much I loved her, how much I admired her. She was so talented, with so much potential before her that her options in life were limitless. I thought of the ways I'd tried to show her that I cared, and the way that her face had fallen with some sort of dissatisfaction. Ever since she was small, she was the apple of my eye. She had my heart in the palm of her hand, and she never seemed to realize this.

My chest was exploding with fear as I considered the last member of my family. Edward. Angry, hurting Edward.

I often thought about my youngest son and how I'd treated him throughout his childhood. I'd always been very fond of him. He was so different from my other two, maybe a bit darker. Alice and Emmett were always very social, thriving in whatever atmosphere they were pushed into. But Edward…Edward was always much more reserved. He was in his own universe, so introverted that I often had trouble understanding him. I couldn't crack his puzzle, and it frustrated me to no end. He was always babbling about things I couldn't understand, yanking me back and forth and trying to let me in so desperately. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to know him and be able to gain prospective into his confusing and brilliant world, but I could never gain my footing. I could see that I was hurting him. I would lie awake at night, his face in my mind, thinking of ways that I could identify with him. I loved him so desperately that it hurt me every time his eyes drooped when I denied him, the way his lips turned downward at the ends when I gave yet another excuse as to why I couldn't get to know him.

I could have easily made more time. I knew that my other children were suffering as well as my hours at the hospital grew longer and my time with them became clipped and random. Children need routines. And I was unable to provide them with that.

I think that part of me thought that if I could provide for them, that would be the answer. If I worked often and was able to give them more, I would understand. Alice loved clothes, and I stored that knowledge stealthily. Emmett was accepting of my absence almost always, and throwing catch with him in the yard was enough to get into his good graces for a considerable amount of time. But Edward…I never knew what to say to him. No matter the amount of money that I threw at him or the material possessions that I gave to him, he was always resentful. It was like I was missing something, and he would never tell me what I needed to find.

I filled my lungs with air once again, the fluorescents beaming on my full head of golden hair as I reached into the cells of my mind, trying to find my son. I knew where he was, but I hadn't truly found him.

I'd been making somewhat of an effort. The hospital was encouraging me to stay home more and more, but I knew that I couldn't accept defeat. I loved my work, and as of now I was still able to continue my work efficiently. I wasn't quite ready to sit back and let my cancer consume me just yet, but I also found that I was beginning to be around the house more and more as time went on.

That night…that night that Edward had childishly gauged a hole in my office door was sort of a turning point. When I had found the perfect maple scathed roughly by the edges of my own wood saw, I should have been surprised. I should have been angry, and I should have punished him. But for some reason, it was almost expected. I knew how my son resented me, how he hated that I was never around. And when I was, I built a fortress around myself and hit within the confines of my office so I didn't have to think about him. I loved him, and I always had. But he confused me. He was an enigma. I was so used to knowing everything, so used to gaining knowledge simple by opening a book. But I couldn't learn him, no matter how hard I tried. And to a fairly egotistical man as myself, something like that can be quite frustrating.

But that night, as I gaped at my door in the silence of my hallway, I could hear my boy crying. I heard him wailing like a small child, and at first I wanted to scoff at him. He was almost a grown man. I expected more from him than that—ruining my door and then crying about it like a five-year-old. But then, just then, wheels turned within my mind. I could…I could understand.

I sat on the floor at the foot of the stairs to the third floor listening. I heard shuffling and the occasional snap of something being broken. I could hear the ripping sound of my son's sobbing. I could hear his footsteps as he paced, and the grunts of his frustration.

I should have been angry. I should have told him to man up and to stop crying because he was causing a scene. But I couldn't. I was captivated by the sound of his emotion, so used to his coldness that he had displayed to me all of his seventeen years. Edward never cried. Not ever. Emmett cried more often than he did, and Alice cried enough for all of us. The sound of him acting out was almost…refreshing. I craved it. Some leeway into his heart, into his mind, into his psych. It was just what I'd wished for. Save a few disappointed glances and a glint of sadness within his green eyes, I had never, never seen something like this from Edward.

I realized that his life was slowly deteriorating into nothing, and that it was primarily my fault. His life was a mess. A complete, unjustified mess. And I wanted so badly to clean it up for him. The desire was so devastating that it made my limbs ache. The only place I knew where to start was to take the study door from its hinges. I couldn't hide anymore. I needed to let him know that things would change.

So I began to visit him. I began to climb the stairs that were nearly strangers to me to speak with him. At first, it was horribly awkward. I would sit there on his couch, barely speaking to him as he scratched drawings in a sketchbook or lodged his earphones in his ears to listen to music. It was maddening. But slowly, I watched him accept me. Learn me. Know me. My face brightened infinitesimally in the mirror as I remembered this.

I was doing this for him. I was doing it for them. I couldn't watch their faces as my hair fell from my scalp without my consent. I couldn't see Esme's face crumble as my chemotherapy wore on. I couldn't watch the well-disguised inkling of terror within the eyes of my children as my body deteriorated slowly. It would be simply too much to bear.

I knew it was time. I couldn't delay it any longer as I watched my face in the mirror, the shaver buzzing impatiently in my palm. One more deep breath, and I had moved it to the patch of hair just above my ear, holding it slightly away from me so it wasn't close enough to remove anything.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

My breaths were tremulous and frightening as my head grew heavy, my eyes clouding as I took in the waves of my hair for the last time. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I could make it through. Maybe I could one day have a full head of hair again. But then again, maybe not.

I heard myself holler as the first clumps of hair fell to the tops of my pair feet. A few strands landed on my shoulder, the moisture from my eyes spilling down my wasted cheeks as I began hyperventilating hysterically. Esme didn't come in to check on me, thankfully. She knew that I wasn't foolish enough to bleed myself out to death with an electric razor. She knew I was just…scared.

"God," I spat, my shoulders rising so quickly that my entire form was shaking. I spat in the sink, leaning against the counter as my eyes took in my naked scalp where hair had just been. I grew angry as I watched it, my ear tickling against the bare skin.

I raised my hand once again, swiping it along my head furiously, tears falling hard and steady as I moved my hand along the crown of my head. Handfuls of my golden hair were falling all around me, like snow. The faces of my family flashed through my mind with each stroke that I took, my veiled frustration and confusion and love and adoration skipping through my veins.

It was done. I was finished. It was happening, and I was…different.

This was all real. It was happening. It was happening. And I…I couldn't stop it. I couldn't control it. I controlled everything in my life. But now, my sickness was beyond my grasp. It was beyond my control, just like the chemo, just like my life, just like my youngest son.

*

Without my hair, I felt like a child. But it wasn't a bad thing. I felt sort of…fresh. It was an overwhelming sensation, scratching my head and feeling nothing but skin. Surprisingly, my family adjusted very well. I think that maybe it was because I simply went ahead and cut it myself.

I began chemotherapy treatments the day after I shaved my head. I had previously been scared as all hell, my mind flickering to images of myself wasting away as the treatment grew more and more intense. I had seen cancer destroy the lives of various patients and their families, and I saw many of their faces in my head as I thought of the worst-case scenarios. Though I'd never dealt with them first-hand, I'd seen the people that friends of mine worked with in the hospital, and their faces were haunting. The range of their expressions were limitless--fear, bitterness, acceptance. Even fright, like I was feeling. But after I left Edward's room the night I cut my hair, I wasn't so frightened anymore.

That night before chemo was the night that Edward told me.

Bella.

I would forever be thankful to that girl for saving my son.

He told me how he thought that he loved her, how she soothed him and made his problems seem trivial. He told me the color of her eyes and how they perfectly matched her hair. He laughed when he talked about her blush and how at first, he hadn't found anything remotely attractive about her. But over time, he had seen her expose herself as she warmed to our family little by little. He saw her as a strong person, someone who was able to overcome whatever was handed to her with just a little bit of help. He talked about the look that she got in her eyes whenever she was determined to do something, the set of her jaw when she spoke passionately. He spoke of her with such love and longing that I recognized something in his eyes that I saw in myself when I thought of my own wife.

Edward was going to be okay.

This thought settled my soul as I walked back to my bedroom after leaving his. Somehow, I was soothed knowing that Edward's life was falling back into place again. He seemed less irritated by my growing presence in his life, opening up to me slowly rather than pushing me away. I couldn't resent him for keeping to himself, because that was essentially my fault. Edward could have grown to be an outgoing, normal teenager, but because of me, he had to fight for normality. And although I was relieved that he was beginning to pick up the pieces of his life, part of me was still empty knowing that I was the reason things had shattered in the first place.

*

It was a normal day. Nothing special. But for some reason, the change of the atmosphere in my home was palpable. I felt it, felt it down to my bones, that something was horribly, horribly wrong. It was sort of an intuition, that gut feeling that you sometimes get when you just…know something. But the problem was that I had no idea what it could be.

I knew it had nothing to do with Esme, who was beside me as we moved around each other in the bathroom getting ready for our respective day's activities. It was like a wave that hit me—I could feel it.

That was the morning that it all began.

It was Tuesday, a while after Edward had let me into his mind when he told me about Bella, and I hadn't seen any of my children since Monday morning when I saw them all off to school. Esme and I had recently arrived back home after seeing my mother in Illinois for what I felt could possibly be the last time. I wasn't saddened by it, strangely. I had had a lot of time to sort of accept things and get over them, seeing life now less as just a dreary reminder of my impending death and more as an opportunity. I was to head into the hospital today to file some paperwork and then planned on coming home to spend some time around the house. I hoped to speak with Edward again.

I emerged from my room, spooked by the stillness and quiet that smothered me. "Hello?" I called up the stairs. I received no answer.

"The cars are gone," Esme remarked, coming from behind me and planting a kiss on my cheek. Her fingers lingered along the bare skin at the nape of my neck, and her eyes looked thoughtful. "They have school today, you knew that."

"I know," I replied, turning to her. "But something feels…funny."

"What are you talking about?" Her voice was laced with concern. I was sure that she assumed that I was referring to the way that I was feeling physically rather than just in my gut.

"I don't know, Esme," I whispered. "I just feel like a ghost lives here." My stomach was twisting in knots, and I had no idea why.

"You're just nervous," she assured. "Come on, let's go before we're late."

Shit. I had treatment again. I had forgotten that I had another 'session' of sorts that day. Perhaps that was what I was anxious about, and I was just blowing things up in my mind to make them scarier than they really were. Esme and I climbed into my Lexus and sped off to the hospital for another terrifying round.

Luckily, my nurse was someone I knew. Carmen had been working at the hospital for almost as long as I had, and we chatted easily as she led me around the nurse's station and support rooms to the chemo room. Choosing a spot in the corner, I nervously lowered myself into a chair and smacked anxiously on the gum Esme had given to me before I'd have to throw it out. Now that I was where I was supposed to be and a bit less nervous than before, I wondered why the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach hadn't gone away. I drew the curtains around me, sitting in my chair calmly although I was so strangely shaken up that I almost wanted to cry.

Esme had chosen to sit in a waiting room while I endured my extremely lengthy treatment. The first few times she had come to sit with me to keep my mind off of things, rubbing my stupid, bald head as she fed me Junior Mints. But now, I think she was tired. It killed her a bit each time that she saw me wince. I didn't miss her eyes clouding over everytime the first and second chemo drug was pushed into my vein. Carmen rambled without pause as she hooked me up to my IV, giving me my anti-nausea meds before the real treatment started. I knew that Carmen knew how truly scared I was. Perhaps that was why she spoke without stopping.

The room seemed very cold to me. The curtains that I chose to draw around me to avoid the faces of any others receiving similar treatment to mine were an unhappy ice blue, closing me off from any sort of normality that I had left. I hated the looks that the different nurses gave me as well. They all already knew me, and for some reason every time I came in I felt foolish and weak for needing their help rather than the other way around. Remember what I said earlier about my egotism.

Carmen always spoke a lot about side effects and when I should call in at any sign of severe complications, as if I didn't already know whatever she had to say to me. I politely nodded, attempting my normal, serene smile. But I was always shaking uncontrollably with nerves, not fooling anyone. Not even myself.

The worst part was the feeling of loneliness. Although there were many others in the room, I recognized that no matter how many people were around that I always had to do this myself. The nurses couldn't do it for me, my family couldn't do it for me. It was just me, alone.

The injection site always burned. It burned like hell, actually. The main hassle was that it was so boring. I wished that Esme was strong enough to watch, but I would never put that kind of pressure on her. She was doing her best. Carmen brought me a small sandwich from the café when I complained of hunger pain, and she assured me—as she always did—that the medication I had already taken would prevent me from throwing it up. I winced. Luckily I had been taking the appropriate supplements prescribed by my nutritionist, so the vomiting wasn't so bad. Not really.

Esme took my hand as we left after three grueling hours. I had a splitting headache, and the feel of her hand was nice in mine. Her palm was warm where mine was cold, and it soothed me.

"I love you," she whispered, kissing just above my temple where my hair should have been.

"I know," I said dryly, wrapping my arm around her.

*

I had almost forgotten about the gut-wrenching feeling when Esme and I walked hand-in-hand through the door of our home we'd made together. I was just about to sigh with contentment when it hit me like a sack of bricks—the feeling of dread and unease.

"Esme," I choked, "are the kids home?"

She checked her watch quickly, her caramel eyebrows screwing together. "They should be. Why? What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. "Just…intuition." She didn't question me as I took the stairs immediately two at a time, rapping my knuckles lightly against Alice's closed door before poking my head in.

She was lying on her bed, her feet propped up on her headboard, jabbering into the phone. "I don't know, Jasper," she whined. "Just buy the—hey, Dad!" She rolled around quickly after spying me in her doorway, looking genuinely happy to see me. "Hang on, Jazz," she ordered, putting her fingers over the receiver. "How was…you know?" She didn't like to say the word.

Chemo.

"Fine, Al," I answered, smiling. Obviously, Alice wasn't the problem that was causing me this unease. I closed her door quickly so she could get back to her conversation, ignoring her confused expression as I backed out of her room. I took the few necessary steps down the hall before peeking into Emmett's open door. "Em?" I called into his vacant room. "You in here?"

"Yeah, I'm in el baño," he called with a poor Spanish accent from the bathroom. His restroom door was closed, so I decided to linger in the hallway. "You need something, Dad?"

"Are you alright, son?" I asked, attempting to be casual.

"Uh, yeah?" he laughed. I heard the sound of the toilet flushing, and then a rush of water as he washed his hands. He opened the door and leaned his head out, one eyebrow raised. "Should I be?"

Everyone worried about me during treatment weeks.

"You're fine, Emmett. How's Edward?"

Edward. How had I not known that it would be him?

"He didn't come to school today," Emmett replied quietly. "He's…he's sick."

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly, moving towards him as he emerged from the bathroom. My quick movement made my stomach lurch, and I hoped that I wouldn't throw up the only thing I'd eaten that day. Thank God for vitamins.

"It's Bella," he said simply. "Alice told me…I don't know, maybe you should ask Edward."

I considered this briefly, trying to think rationally although my heart was pulling me up the stairs to speak to my son immediately. My mind painted a picture of how exactly I could go about it. If it had something to do with Bella, it was probably something very bad, bad enough to cause Edward to miss a day of school. Bella was all that Edward had. If Bella was gone, so was Edward. It would only be his body that was left upstairs in his room.

"Should I talk to him?" I asked, dropping my voice so there was no chance of anyone else hearing.

Emmett shook his head. "I don't think it's a good idea, Dad. You don't want to go up there. I went to get him out of his room this morning when he didn't come down to breakfast. You can...feel it in there."

"Feel what?"

"The…the death." He turned his face to the ground, his shoulders slumping. "His room is dead. He just stayed in his bed with his back turned to me and didn't say anything no matter how many times I screamed at him. Alice only told me the condensed version, but Bella…well, Dad, Bella wasn't good to him. He's a wreck."

"I should have known something like this would happen," I spat, pulling my phone from my pocket. "How could I be so stupid?"

"What are you talking about?" Emmett asked, scratching his head.

"I basically told him to go head-first into a relationship with Bella, Emmett. I was so goddamned selfish that I saw a light at the end of the tunnel for him. I saw a way that he could take his mind off of me through Bella, and I pushed him into it."

"Dad, this isn't your fault. I'm being serious. Just…give him some time. He'll be okay." Emmett's eyes drooped as if he doubted the sincerity of his own words.

"I don't want you to tell me what happened," I told him. "I'll let Edward tell me on his own. But do tell me this: is there any chance that Bella will ever come back to him?"

Emmett hesitated, grimacing as I watched his face. "No. No, I don't think she will."

Shit.

I hastily typed a text message in my keypad, sending it off to my son up the stairs.

Edward, I said, is there anything that I can do for you? What do you need?

I received almost an instant reply.

Nothing. Don't come up here.

Simple as that. My son was hurting, and he was shutting us all out. I desperately wanted to know exactly what had happened. But secrets and betrayals were things that had torn my family apart, and I was trying desperately to rebuild it. There was no way in hell that I would run to Alice and ask her to spill on Edward. I would wait for him, and I would wait for as long as he needed me to.

*

I had vowed to wait on my son. However, I hadn't know that I would have to wait this long.

I was lost, unsure of what I could do for him. I wracked my brain for different things that I did do for him that I could simply elaborate on, coming up short with only a few options. I always left him lunch money on the counter, I always put gas in his car for him, and I always spent one hour nightly with him. The latter was the only one out of three that weren't material and that would absolutely have to be noticed by Edward. He obviously wasn't planning on going to school and wouldn't have need for lunch money, and neither Esme nor I intended to force him to go with Alice in the mornings until he felt ready. We were angry at his elusiveness, but at the same time, we realized the intensity of the situation at hand. That first night as I watched his empty chair during dinner, I decided to make my way up to his bedroom like I regularly did and to see if he tried to stop me.

My son…my son. My son was a statue.

I felt my breath catch in my throat the night that I first walked through his door after feeling the change in my own house. I softly closed the door behind me, feeling uneasy in the thickness of the air in the room. Placing a bowl of soup at his bedside table, I moved quietly, feeling that any slight noise would send him into some sort of frenzy. I am still unsure of why I felt this way. The room smelled stale and sour although it had only been just over a day since he'd holed himself up. I saw the bronze of his hair sticking out from beneath his comforter, his arms thrown abnormally above his head as he lay, unmoving. I became instantly worried, calming down only when I saw the rise and fall of his back as he breathed. Slowly, I lowered myself onto his small leather couch as I watched him.

I glanced from his still form to the clock now and again, realizing that Edward was not by any means ready to talk to anyone. I might have been a poor excuse for a father, but I still recognized when something was bad. I could still see that he couldn't be rationalized with, not now. So I waited until exactly one hour had passed, rising slowly and leaving as quietly as I came.

My family and I waited for Edward to get better. And it scared me as the days wore on when he didn't. My treatment was over for now until I had to go back for the next one, and now that I was home recuperating, it shocked me that Edward still hadn't emerged from his bedroom. I heard him sometimes late at night, quietly opening and closing the refrigerator. I was relieved to know that at least the boy was eating. I also knew that he had a small fridge in his bedroom and that he more than likely had something of sustenance up there with him. I winced as I thought of the fact that Edward most likely considered alcohol and cigarettes as 'sustenance.'

I shouldn't have been as relieved as I was when Edward began joining us at family breakfast. It wasn't until I saw that messy, coppery head of his walk into the kitchen that I realized how much of a toll his disappearance had taken on my family. As I watched Alice's eyes light up, I recognized how empty they had been just minutes before. As I watched a grin stretch across Emmett's broad cheeks, I realized how I hadn't seen him smile for over a week now. We sat there, expectant, as Edward grabbed a pancake from the plate with his fingers and sat silently at the table.

So obviously things weren't truly progressing.

Sure, Edward had decided to come out of hiding for a measly five minutes before locking himself up there once again. But he was still suffering as much as he had been before. His face was still screwed up with pain, his green eyes cold and solid. It was enough for him to hurt me, but now he was hurting my family. His pain was affecting us all. I couldn't deal with it any longer. Edward owed me no explanation or favors in return for the terrible parenting I'd offered throughout his life, but now, I needed to put my foot down for once.

*

Edward had left the house for the first time in days Tuesday afternoon, over a week since he'd last been out of the house. I heard him shut the heavy front door from my bedroom, listening to the purr of his engine as he pulled out of the driveway. He had muttered something about running by the Forks High after school hours in order to drop off the homework assignments that he was supposedly still completing in spite of the fact that he still hadn't returned to school. I could only assume that he was going after hours to avoid seeing her, and I understood. Esme and I convened within the kitchen minutes after he left, waiting for Alice and Emmett to get in. They already knew what needed to be done.

"This is a terrible idea," Alice grouched shortly after she'd entered the house, folding her arms across her chest.

"This is necessary, Alice," Esme retorted firmly. "We can't go on letting him live like this. It's not healthy."

"Give him time, Mom," Emmett urged, leaning forward on his palms. "He's trying to get over things."

"He can't just sit around in his room, skipping school and avoiding everyone. That's not going to help him get better." Esme's face dropped as she sniffed daintily, picking an invisible piece of lint from her wool skirt.

"Well, we could do this without harassing him. This is going to push him over the edge, Mom. Ever think of that?"

"Emmett, don't talk to your mother like that," I chastised, shooting him a sharp look. "We're going to take care of this, okay? We're not going to interrogate him or make him feel uncomfortable. We're just going to let him know that we're here for him."

At least that's what I'd hoped to do. Within minutes, Alice and Edward were screaming and Esme and Emmett were crying. Alice decided to drop the bomb on Edward that she and Bella were still talking behind Edward's back, regardless of what Bella had done to him. I was still in the dark, and as much as I wanted to know what had happened between the two of them, I kept my mouth shut. Yelling at Edward hadn't done me much good in the past.

"So you're talking to her?" Edward had hollered, slamming a fist down on the table.

"Well, yeah, Edward," Alice snapped, rolling her eyes. "She told me everything. Just because you can't handle adult situations doesn't mean I can't be friends with her anymore."

"Wow, Alice, that's cute," Edward sneered. I considered interjecting before things got messy, but something told me to just let them battle it out.

" I love how civil and reasonable you're being," he continued, "especially since you're the one who fucking told her in the first place."

"Edward, language!" I scolded. "And Alice, what is he talking about?" I finally decided to give in to my selfish desire, trying to get to the bottom of things.

"Nothing," Alice muttered, crossing her arms over her chest childishly.

"Bullshit," Edward spat. "Bull-fucking-shit."

I cautioned him once again to watch his language.

"Okay, Alice," he began again. "Let's start off this civilized, polite conversation by asking why the f—sorry, Carlisle. I meant to say, why the heck you felt so inclined to tell Bella all of my business?"

"It's not just your business, Edward," Alice shot back. "Technically, it's mine, too. And Bella had the right to know. Honestly, you can't be mad at me. She would find out eventually."

"No!" Edward screamed, shoving out of his chair. "No, no, no! You don't know what you're talking about, Alice! You telling her about Dad ruined everything! Every single thing I've been working for is completely messed up now."

"Oh yeah?" she snapped. "What happened to your little none of this is any of our faults speech? Maybe you should learn to practice what you preach, dick wad."

"Edward, you hadn't already told her?" I asked. It hadn't even crossed my mind that there was a possibility that he hadn't already told Bella about what was…happening.

The two of them ignored me as if I hadn't spoken.

By the end of the night, things were returning to normal again. The atmosphere of the house was calming considerably, and Alice and Edward were being somewhat cordial to one another. Emmett was still a big blubbering mess after Edward talked with him about his abandonment issues. But things were finally starting to look up. However, I didn't want to speak so soon. I was starting to believe in jinxes more and more as time progressed.

That night after the intervention, I asked Edward to bring me to his place. I marched up to his room like a responsible father would, opening his door and making him agree to take me to his house in the woods. I needed it. The events of the afternoon brought the realization that if I truly wanted to fully know my son, I couldn't simply climb the stairs to his bedroom and drill him on his own life. I needed to see the one place that he'd wanted me to see so badly, the place that I had rejected him. I needed to see it so I could finally, finally understand.

For the first time in months, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

Sometimes, you live your life in so much pain that eventually your body simply adjusts to it. You give up on foolish, trivial things like hope, completely abandoning all faith because you know that it's a waste of time. But what if that hope that you once had wasn't just a feeling? What if it was truth? What if that hope was a tangible reality?

Well, I'd lived in pain for a lot longer than I'd had the cancer. I'd been in pain unknowingly for almost all of my life, leading a virtually empty existence. My sickness…well, I couldn't exactly consider myself lucky for being a victim of cancer. But it had opened my eyes when I hadn't even realized that they had been shut. It was mending my family. It was creating a whole person within me when at first there had only been half of one.

Sometimes, when pain takes root within you so long, the single most amazing feeling in the world is to simply have an inkling of faith. A small piece of hope. A little relief.