A/N: Unlike the chapters before it, I actually spent quality time on this chapter. I edited, I thought and I tried to make it sound emotionally real. If there are any extra grammar errors, I apologize in advance. Fair warning, it's a little morbid but I think Ashley needed this realisation. It was a much needed. Hopefully I don't depress everyone too much. And yes, it's quite short and very soon after my last chapter. Don't worry, I'll hold off for a while on the next chap. I wouldn't want to overload you all.

Return to Meyer

7. Release

I remained at Charlie's over the next couple of days. The house was silent apart from Charlie's comings and goings but in some ways I found the seclusion reassuring. Bella's room was my place of solace. It wasn't somewhere I had to pretend that everything was alright. There were no fake smiles or people to convince I was okay, just me and the stack of books on my bedside table. And before long, without even realising, it had become my prison.

I had not heard from Jacob or Edward for days now. Jacob was obviously busy, Edward possibly still angry or giving me some space. Who knew? Although, being in the emotional state I was in, I found myself feeling something different. It was worse than anger or sadness. Apathy. I couldn't find it within myself to care. Besides, would they want to see me this way? This completely defeated?

After my talk with Jacob, the momentary feeling of happiness I'd felt in his presence had since passed, receding within me even further than before. I was unsure as to whether Charlie had noticed my dampening spirits but if he had, he kept silent on the subject. The only time we spent together was meal times, the solitary times of the day I retreated from my room. That, and the small periods of time I spent walking through the bush close to the house. Vampire attacks be dammed. Nobody was going to touch me this close to the centre of town anyway.

Over my time alone, I became quite grateful towards Alice and her shopping expertise. It appeared that she had thought of everything I'd need or want, ranging from clothes and toiletries to books and a hair straighter. Alice, herself, had checked in with me once or twice during the week but only for brief talks. I had the feeling that she was attempting to avoid someone at home but for once, I minded my own business.

Usually her visits were filled with denied accusations and questions about how I was feeling. But as forcefully as I kept up my bright act, I could tell that she was nowhere near the point of believing it. The rest of the time our conversations revolved around a set of strange visions she'd been having recently. She believed that they were important but had yet to work out what they meant. I could feel her frustration from across the room, making me wonder just how Jasper was taking it with his particular abilities. It was after a particularly heated discussion that, later that same night, the impact of my state of mind finally hit me in complete and utter relentless force.

*** ***** **

Curling up under the bed linen, I glanced momentarily at the small alarm clock positioned on the bedside table. A set of bright red, block numbers stared back at me. They were the only light in the now darkened bedroom aside from the moonlight. The pale, silvery rays, hit the floor, changing shape as the trees outside blew in the breeze.

2:18 am. It was late and by the heaviness of my eyelids, my body could feel it. Yet, despite this, a part of my brain refused to let me simply lay my head on Charlie's freshly washed pillowcase and fall asleep. Of course not, that would have been too easy.

After occupying my foggy mind for a few minutes by merely watching the shadows on the walls change shape with each gust of wind, I rolled over under the covers and reached out to feel through the darkness for the switch on the lamp. It had been lucky that Jacob had broken the desk lamp on his rather unorthodox entry to my pseudo bedroom rather than the bedside lamp. Otherwise, I would have been at a major loss over the past week. Sleep, let alone dreamless sleep, had been hard to come by. Charlie, to my relief, had resisted asking why he'd need to replace the lamp bulb and settled for saying he'd pick up one when he got the chance. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to explain to him that I had strange boys climbing in and out of the window during the early hours of the morning. Well, that is if you could call Jacob strange.

Once my fingers began tracing the familiar edges of the switch, I flipped it, creating a pool of golden light across the room. Normally, I wasn't one for closing my bedroom door while I slept but tonight I had been compelled to shut myself off from the rest of the house. Clearly, I had chosen wisely. I wouldn't have wanted the light to reflect off the floor and continue shining down the rest of the upstairs hallway. Somehow the sudden burst of light seemed to make the little bedroom feel even smaller and more isolated.

Sitting up and slowly raising my legs to my chest, I crossed my arms and laid them on top of the skin that would have been my knees had they not been covered by layers of blanket padding. The room was so silent I could hear my heart pounding beneath my chest and the sounds of my rising and falling chest against the mountain of bedclothes. The mass of unanswered questions from earlier this week began to rise to the surface of my mind again, filing it and sending me reeling into a fit of confusion and panic.

Alice's voice broke through my confusion, echoing her advice from earlier. "Ashley, you're human. It's okay to feel human. You're not like us. I can see what this is doing to you and you need to deal with it. Sooner or later it's going to build up and you won't be able to avoid it any longer." Seeing my expression, she'd then moved on to making another comment about Jacob's scent and its apparent resistance to leave my room completely.

The uncertainty returned, why was I here? What was going on? Was this world of death and destruction even real? Or was it simply just the creation in the mind of a deluded and seriously confused fanatic?

Double dimensional doors, vampires, werewolves, missing hikers….it wasn't possible.

These were things that belonged in films and novels. They were Bella's world. Not mine. So what was I doing in a place I clearly didn't belong in? This wasn't just weird. It was insane.

Images of James grabbing me, kicking me and wounding me filled my mind. These were followed by Victoria almost ripping my throat out and then to that day many months ago where I had almost been raped in an alleyway in Port Angeles. Moments of my life full of terror, of inferiority. They were all horrible memories. Events that had happened since I had come here.

The feeling in my chest from yesterday had returned along with the ocean of self doubt. It wasn't sadness, it was feeling like something had wrongly been cut out of somewhere and replaced by something else. By someone. Someone who didn't belong. I had replaced Bella in the story that was supposed to be her life. And where was she? She was living with her mother in sunny Jacksonville, trying to forget about the mixed up world she had been briefly dragged into. She wasn't even here, had technically never even lived the events I'd always thought her to have. Yet, somehow I felt as though I could never live up to her. This resistant, strong and responsible person, I couldn't do it.

Thinking back to the two months I had spent at home before returning to this...mixed up delusion, I realised that as much as I didn't belong in Forks, I now no longer fit in the place I was supposed to be. Disappointed parents, unspoken to friends and a diminishing school studies report…things were as bad there as they were here. So where did I fit in? Where did I go from here? What did I really want? I had separated myself from the one thing in the world that I wanted more than anything else in order to keep a story that no longer existed on track. I was no martyr. So why had I done what I did?

Feeling the misery setting in and a sudden anger at myself take hold, I stopped holding back the tears that had been trying to fall for weeks, maybe even months. The burst of emotion that showed just how insecure and lost I felt in a world that was too big and complicated for a sixteen year old girl. The water prickled as it hit my skin. Running slowly down my cheek, the droplets clung to the bottom of my chin, resisting the fall to the sheets where they would quickly break. Not wanting to be seen at my moment of total and unreserved breakdown, I reached out and again switched off the light. Finally the greatest of the waves hit me and I couldn't stop the loud and painful sobs from echoing around the quiet room.

As though he had heard me calling, a figure reached out. Cool and smooth skin, wrapped itself around my fingers, lifting me from my bed and leading me towards the rocking chair in the corner of the room. Here, Edward enfolded me in his arms, brushed the tears away and held me tightly until the pain eased.

For the first time since those horrible instances, I had realised that I was not okay. Alice had been right, I couldn't avoid it. I wasn't resilient Bella, able to block out every horrible detail and move on with her life. I was me, Ashley.

It wasn't wrong to feel afraid and violated. Feeling was important. It was human.

At long last, I had woken up.

A/N: Like I said, the chapter was a little on the miserable side but much needed. The character had begun to lack something and this was it. I've found that most of the character's I've read about, bad things happen to them a lot but after a short outburst (maybe not even that), they just move on, it's never brought up again. Ashley's a real person. Not a wooden board. Not a vampire. She feels and needed to deal with what had happened in the previous story. Guess what that means? It's time to go back to the writing that I like. In some ways, this chapter was also a wakeup call for me. I'm not sure if you've noticed but this time around, my writing's been missing something just as Ashley's personality has. After watching the Twilight film last night, I was reminded of the things I love about the series. It's time I brought them back into my writing. Hopefully things have now changed and for the better and I can get this story back to a similar level as Living in Meyer. So without further ado,

Next Time on Return to Meyer: Feeling rejuvenated and for the first time in a while, actually happy, it's time for Ashley to begin to enjoy the world of her books again. Sure, the weather's a little dreary, Jacob and the wolf pack are hunting Victoria who is still after revenge and Alice is becoming more aggravated by her confusing visions, but Ashley refuses to let her spirits be dampened. Well….at least for now.

Next Time….