Chapter Twenty One: Clarity
Edward
Bella? Baby? Are you alr– Oh god...
Oh god, no...
Sweetheart...
NO!
Bella! God, what have I done?!
Bella? Please, Bella...
Please...
Oh my god, no!
What the hell have I– Bellaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Those words still echo all around me.
Those cries...
Those words and cries that were my own.
After I saw what I did to my wife.
My sweet, beautiful, perfect wife.
Sweet, beautiful, perfect, and unconscious.
And bleeding.
My wife...
Before they took her away...
And away from me...
And left me here...
To drown in a sea of pain and regret and broken glass.
The sea that I couldn't get through to get to her...
With my chair. And had to leave it, and its help behind me as I jumped into that much too rough and helpless sea. To swim through... crawl through... drag myself through... to reach her.
After which I finally did... and saw how badly I'd hurt her... I had to drag myself back. The other way... away from her... while she laid there needing my help...
Because I'd left my phone somewhere behind me. Somewhere I couldn't even remember where was. Somewhere that took much too long to get to and...
I screamed at the 911 operator when I finally found it. And kept screaming as I crawled pathetically back to where none of my screaming had disturbed anything. Anything including her, who I needed and needed it to disturb.
To wake her. To rouse her in any way from her unintended and unwanted and unfathomable sleep...
That I was afraid to wake her from. But tried to. Desperately.
I called her name... cried it... hers and every pet one I'd ever given her... as I touched her as gently as I could... shook her and squeezed her as much as I dared to... afraid to hurt her more than I already had...
There's blood on my hands. And on my lips. All over me. From her cheek... and from her hair... and from the endlessly gushing gash on her head that it all came from. And that I tried to stop... tried to put pressure on with my shirt... gently but firmly... as I cried more...
I'm sorrys and I didn't mean tos and I didn't know you were theres...
I love yous and I'd never hurt yous and...
A thousand other things she couldn't hear. And that I couldn't be sure she'd ever.
Or ever want to even if she could.
If she woke up.
That she would do... WILL do... or I will die.
In every way there is to.
Maybe even before I know if she's okay or not.
Because Emmett just tore through our front door. And is staring in horror at what I did. And then in horror at me. And in disbelief.
And rage... "You will explain this to me, Edward... every fucking bit of it... every unacceptable fucking detail!"
I nod and bury my face in my soaked-with-her-blood shirt... the only part of her I can touch now...
Because when the paramedics took her away they said I had to stay... and wait for others... that they'd call... but for the police is probably what they meant...
But I'm not waiting for anyone. Because Emmett was my call. My second. And he got here first.
Here, and then to our bedroom and back again, throwing a clean shirt in my face and ripping the other out of my hand. The one that's practically dripping with– "Whose is it?"
"My shirt, her blood... " I think I say.
And then know I did as his fist connects with my already bloodied face. HARD. "Whatever the details are... I know you had at least that coming."
"Please take me, Emmett. Please take me to her," I beg, not arguing for a second about what I had coming. Or have. Or will gladly take from anyone and everyone if she isn't taken from me.
This way. This horrific and unthinkable way. That's my fault. All my... "Please... "
"Put the shirt on, Edward," he says calmly and looks away from me. Shocked and disgusted by. And to what he's more disgusted by. Bella's and my once-perfect life shattered under his feet. And all around them. And mine, that don't touch any of it.
In the second I can't see him, the second it takes me to pull my shirt over my head, he's picked up a piece. He holds it in his hands now. And then shoves it in my face, forcing me to look at it.
A piece half intact and half not. Half broken and half whole.
The glass covering me in the picture is cracked, but not gone or broken completely. Some pieces are missing, have fallen out, but others remain, like a spiderweb I've gotten stuck in.
But Bella... the glass that covered her... shielded her perfection... still does. It's unmarred. Undisturbed. And solid. The spiderweb cracks don't reach her. Don't touch her. Her or her beautiful smile...
The one she wears for me... as she looks at... proudly. And with her own kind of MINE stamp. One that's permanent. And fierce.
One that could never be washed away or scrubbed off.
Or cracked. Or broken. Or shattered.
One that could never fade.
A Mine no matter what.
Hers...
No matter–
He takes it away now, and walks away from me, glass crunching loudly under his feet. His heavy and purposeful steps. The sound echoing painfully in my ears...
Until I can't hear it at all. Can't hear anything but the silence I created. Because he stops. Stands that piece upright on the mantle above the fireplace. A place where I can't reach it. Can't touch it. Can't hurt it or damage it any more.
And walks back. And heaves me with more care than I deserve up and over his shoulder. And then my chair up and over the mess I made of all that was sweet and beautiful and perfect. And carries us both through my front door without another word.
…
FBoFW
…
"You're bleeding too, you know."
Emmett's observation tells me I was wrong about our drive to the hospital being a silent one. Wrong and... "I don't care."
"Bella would care. And I do, even though I want to kill you right now."
"I wish you would."
"Yeah, well, it's not going to happen."
"If she's not okay... "
"Then you'll have to live with that."
"I won't be able to."
"You won't have a choice. Just like you don't now, about telling me what the hell's been going on in that house."
"I wanted her to make one."
"She already did, Edward. The one you wanted her to make more than any other. Jumped through hoops so she'd see how much you wanted her to. Not that she didn't know... or couldn't possibly have not... what with all of your shameless begging."
"It was shameless. I loved her and needed her to believe it. And something different about me than what she already did."
"Love."
"What?"
"You love her, not loved. And it's still shameless."
"Of course I do. But it will never be shameless again, Emmett. Not after today. Not after what I did."
"So, don't forget that. That shame that you feel right now. And don't ever let the other kind you feel hurt her again."
"I never wanted to hurt her... "
"And don't hide behind it, because that's a lie."
"A lie? You think I wanted to–"
"I may not know the details yet, Edward... but I do know you. And I'm not stupid. And don't need to hear them first to know what you were doing. What you've been doing–to her and to yourself–for God knows how long. You left me plenty of broken pieces back there to put it together."
"I wanted her life to be better... "
"And is it? Is it better now? Is this better, Edward?! Did it make you feel better to watch that ambulance take your life away while you sat there, left behind and helpless?! Was the pain you inflicted on her before you did better for her?! Not just the pain she's in now, but the other? That you know hurt her far more than what you did today?! IS IT BETTER?!"
"I don't know that... that it hurt her more... because I don't know anything. I don't know if she's–"
"Don't tell me you don't know anything, Edward. Because you do. You know what I know... you know that she's strong. And tough. The strongest and toughest and most stubborn woman you or I will ever know. Or have the privilege to. And the privilege to love and adore. And be loved and adored by.
"You, because you're who you proved to her you could be, though you're hiding behind something you could never be right now. And me, because I won't let you anymore. Because I love you too, you fucking asshole. And because, though I still may kick your stupid and stubborn ass, I won't kill you. Because I love her, too. And because, after all of this time, your wife finally adores me instead of just tolerates me, and, unlike you, I think that's an honor and would never try to make her stop or feel any other way."
"Adores you is pushing it," I say stupidly, because it makes me stupidly and irrationally jealous to hear him say it.
"You wish it was."
Though not selfish. "I'd wish for it to be everything if she could just be okay."
"You sure it was your spine that got fucked up in that accident, Edward? Because I think your brain is what's fucked up."
"It's all fucked up," I say as we pull up to the hospital doors.
That my life lies somewhere behind.
Because it's where I put her...
My life...
My wife...
All because, no matter how fucked up I am...
She still wanted to be.
…
FBoFW
…
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cullen, but you simply can not see her right now. And appear to need to see a doctor yourself, so–"
"I don't need to see a damn doctor! I need to see my wife!"
"Your wife is being treated right now, just as you need to be. I'm going to page Dr. Molina to–"
"I'm going to ask you one more time... WHERE IS SHE?!"
"She's with your father."
The answer I wanted comes from behind me, and from the pained voice of my mother. The pained voice that matches the pained and stricken look on her face as I turn around, acknowledging only the first. "Where?"
But she doesn't give me another, and asks a question of her own. "Edward, what happened?"
"I happened. To her... and... "
And I can't say any more. Because what I said is enough. Enough and too much...
And too wrong...
And I don't have to tell her that for her to know.
"Your father is going to take care of her, Edward. I promise you he is. Far better care than he's taken of, or given to, his son. To you. That, believe me, he knows the hard truth of his failing to do now."
"I'm responsible for this. No one else."
"Everyone else doesn't get let off the hook just because we got ourselves cast away, Edward. Especially the person who didn't, and just–"
"Nothing matters right now but Bella."
She nods her head, giving up for now, though I know that won't last forever, just like her silence doesn't, and joins the nurse's page. "You're hurt, too. You need to let Dr. Molina look at you."
"I'm fine," I say loud enough for both of them to hear me. "I don't want anyone to look at me. I want to see Bella."
"Your father is with her right now, you can't see her yet. And you're not fine, you're–"
"I said I'm fine. All I need is to see Bella... "
"I'm sure you will soon, but right now you need to see a doctor. You're bleeding and–"
"It's HER blood!"
My mother jumps at my screamed declaration, from its sound or its meaning, I'm not sure, but still doesn't relent. "Not all of it. Some of it is yours. You might not even be able to feel it, but you're–"
"I assure you, Mother, I feel everything."
"I'm sorry, Edward. I didn't mean to... Oh, honey..."
"He's a big boy, Mrs. C," Emmett says out of nowhere, reminding me of his presence, "not that you'd know it from the little boy tantrum he threw this morning that got him–and Bella–to where we are now...
"And, believe me, a hard dose of his reality–though you didn't mean to give it to him–is exactly what he needs and deserves. So, don't apologize to him."
…
FBoFW
…
My mother was right. I couldn't feel some of the injuries my–Emmett was right, too–tantrum had caused me. The cuts on my legs... because I had to drag them through the shards of broken glass I covered our floor with...
But these injuries I can't feel are nothing compared to the ones I inflicted on my wife. Whose they still, after mine have been examined and treated with no cooperation from me, won't let me see. Or tell me anything about.
I don't know anything but that she's alive. And knowing that, while certainly a gift I don't deserve, is not enough. I need to know more. I need to know how she is. How badly I hurt her. How much damage I did.
To the woman who loved me enough to let me do it. Let me do it every fucking day, and still tell me she'd stay so that I could do more. Hurt her more...
Simply–and not at all–so that I wouldn't for the rest of her or my life.
The ones she refused to see as ever being separate. Not shared and lived together. That I could only see being as being suffered... for her.
That I see clearer than ever now...
But not, too, because I can't see her.
And because I can see what I painfully wanted. What it is to be cut off from her. From seeing, and hearing, and knowing anything about.
It's not exactly the same...
I wanted those things I'd never have the privilege of seeing, hearing, and knowing to be good things. Smiles on her beautiful face, and love–for some other lucky bastard–in her beautiful heart, and pure joy in her every day. Felt with her every breath...
I never wanted them, or imagined them, to be what they are now. What she is now...
Hurt. Feeling pain or feeling none because her body won't wake up to let her feel anything.
Won't let her wake up to know that the person she felt so much love for could inflict such cruel and unappreciative damage on her.
I never considered it...
That anyone would ever hurt her. Or do, or want to do, anything but worship her. I let myself be consumed and tortured by thoughts of how they would... worship, love, and cherish her...
But never how someone might not. And might cause her pain instead.
I never imagined her life without me as anything but better. Never imagined that once I stopped hurting her, and she stopped letting me, and she healed from how I had, and how she had, that anything would ever hurt her again.
I NEVER did.
Thought that anything I wouldn't know she was or was feeling could be anything that would hurt me to. In this way.
That now that I do...
Know and feel what it's like...
Because I know nothing...
Know that I never want to feel again.
"LET ME SEE MY WIFE!"
xx
I know this is a little short... and that the wait for it hasn't been... but baby steps, okay? Or strokes... because he has a lot of ground–and a big sea of pain and regret–to get through. Perhaps like that big chunk of trust I've asked you to give me here, no matter how much it seemed like you had no reason to... well... until now, maybe?
And I want to just mention another plea for trust... that I made good on, so to speak... THE chapter of Right There (the one Come Closer–its predecessor–readers waited for and never got) was posted last week. And, though a sweet, was just a preview of what else its readers will get.
AND... for any of you who may be too quiet readers... because I gave you this this morning, I don't have time before I go to work to give you that. But I'll try to when I get home tonight.
And last but not least... Thank you all for being here, and in any of those other places of mine that you may be, or decide to trust me again and go... It really does mean the world to me. xo