Chapter Three
There was a candlelight vigil at the school which I did not want to attend but did anyway. The thought of being surrounded by Edward's admiring throng now turned deeply saddened and disturbed mourning masses made me want to tear my own face off. I wasn't sure what irritated and infuriated me more- that these kids who barely knew him acted all grief-stricken about his disappearance or that they dared suggest that he was never coming back.
The thing about things like this- shocking and grave and confusing and tragic and mysterious things- is that it makes everyone face their own mortality and it makes everyone want a piece of it. I get it, I do; it was the near-mundanity of it, the "this could happen, even in your town" element that drew everyone together. Yeah, you hear about this kind of crap on the television all the time, see more of it on the internet. And every damned time, you think to yourself, "oh gosh, that's terrible." And you read those articles and you keep the headlines in your peripheral vision, wanting updates on these people you're never likely to meet, just so you can either feel relief when things turn out well or mourn appropriately at the usually inevitable conclusion of bad, terrible endings.
You see the testimonials from neighbors about the "nice, quiet, kept to himself" guy, or "the town sweetheart," or the almost always innocent victim. You see those neighbors, those Mrs. Garcias and Mr. Jordans, and they talk about how he was a great kid or she was a sweet girl and that they're terribly, horribly affected by the loss and you think to yourself, "if you really cared, you wouldn't be blabbing about it on the national fucking news." And you know deep down inside that these people probably aren't the ones who know all about the missing person; they don't know that he loves brussel sprouts no matter how disgusting they really, really are, and they don't know that he has this recurring dream involving vampire rabbits and they don't know that he has this breathy chuckle when he's truly amused by some dumb thing you just did.
So when these well-meaning, probably absolutely the nicest person you'll ever meet in real life people go on national television and profess their grieving devotion in the glowingest of terms, it always pisses me off.
Kind of like this candlelight vigil.
And I was resentful of it.
Girls- from watery-eyed freshmen to busty seniors- bore his jersey number on their cheeks and spoke to local news stations with tears on their lashes, talking about how great he was, what a great person he was, how sweet and lovely. If I were watching this on the TV, I probably would have thought he was the biggest flirt on campus, and that he'd gotten with half of the girls they interviewed. I smiled smugly at my thoughts; Edward was right, I really am mean.
Is, I furiously corrected myself, my smile changing to a scowl. Edward is right.
The guys, half of whom Edward called assholes, occasionally to their faces, went on about elementary school antics they'd gotten in together, how he had a hella good curveball, that he was always good for a laugh. It was like everyone was in a contest to get on camera and to be the one person who was closest to him. I imagined Emmett was feeling like me and while my first inclination was to ask him about it, I also didn't want to bring it up with him. Somehow, talking to Emmett about all of this would make it... it would maybe, possibly, probably give it even one half ounce of a thousandth of a shade of the slightest possibility that it all could be valid. Edward's... whatever, I mean. His disappearance.
So, I squelched the thought of asking Emmett about his impressions on all of these jerks coming out of the woodwork to talk about how they used to play catch with Edward back in the summer of 2000 and instead focused on the probability of Emmett punching one of them in the kidney just to make them shut up. It seemed likely.
I laughed as I heard one of the guys actually, for reals say, "we used to play catch in the sixth grade," and instead of the ferocious indignation I'd been expecting, I just felt laughter. Helpless laughter. Sad people. Edward would have mocked all of them if he had been standing there next to me. Not loudly, or anything. It would have been murmured in my ear. He wouldn't have said it for anyone but me to hear. He really was a nice guy like that.
I know it's how people deal or whatever. Logically, I knew that, that everyone has their right to reacting this way. It's perfectly human, and I shouldn't be such an asshole about it.
But still.
I wanted to laugh and spit on all of them. To say to them, "don't you dare reflect on him so you can worry about yourself. He's better than you."
Instead, I stood there in his sweatshirt and even his socks without a word to offer to anyone, keeping the parts of him that only I knew sacred and quiet. Even when people gave furtive glances and not-so-soft whispers in my direction, the braver ones hugging me tightly.
After the vigil, a bunch of people ended up in the empty lot behind Emmett's house, drinking somberly at first then and laughing, all of them telling stories about Edward as though he were dead.
I stared at the fire and that's all Emmett did, too.
"He was such a good bastard, though," Mike sighed at the end of the night. There were only a few stragglers left as he poured the remains of his beer over the smoldering fire, this hiss and crackle matching my increasing ire.
"What did you say?" I asked, well aware I sounded like he had just insulted my mom. I could feel my entire face pinching, could barely make out Newton's suddenly terrified face through my narrowing my eyes.
"He was awesome," Mike shrugged carefully. "It just...sucks."
"Was," I said, my face unrelenting. "You're talking about him like he's dead."
Everyone stared at me, like I was pathetic, like I was some dummy. Like I was the last to get it. They might have not really been thinking that, maybe they were just amazed at my feral behavior. Maybe. Maybe I was tired of people looking at me funny, and maybe I suddenly, seriously needed Mike to bear the brunt of all of my frustration.
"He's not," I said slowly. "You guys just...he'd be so pissed if he knew you all just gave up on him."
"Bella," Jess said, grabbing my elbow.
"He's not dead, Jess," I repeated, but she just looked at me, her eyebrows arcing in worry.
"That's it, right?" I chuckled with a total lack of humor. "You all think he's a corpse somewhere, isn't that right?" I said, my voice sounding increasingly agitated, the last words ending in a shout. I was standing, literally opposite of my friends.
Emmett put his hands on his knees, folding over into I knew not what- suppressed laughter at my helpless ire? Pain? Crippling self doubt? Welcome to the club, buddy, I thought dryly. Jasper raised his hand like he was going to pat Emmett's back but rethought that urge right quick, instead awkwardly swinging his arm around to scratch at his neck.
"You're wrong," I finally laughed with a cry. "You're all so fucking wrong."
"Think, Bella. If you heard this on the news, what would your first reaction be?" Rose pleaded, her eyes wide and round.
I didn't answer her.
The following week, Esme stopped by wielding a box and exhausted eyes.
"There are a few things I thought...well. Here's some of his things," she said softly, putting an old filing box on the coffee table and giving it a fond pat.
"He'll want those back," I said, taking a step back from the box. I couldn't even imagine what was inside, what she thought he had that I might need to keep.
"I know, dear. But he'd want you to hold them."
"Don't give his stuff away," I told her, desperate to not sound so desperate. "Don't act like...like he's not...coming back."
It had now been three months.
Nothing had turned up. No other evidence, no rumors. No trace.
No body.
"Carlisle has me on Xanax. He's insistent on a healthy state of mind. Because I'm told life goes on," Esme said stiffly before turning to face me fully.
"He's coming back," she continued with a decisive nod. "I know that. Of course I know that. I'm his mother, and if he left this world, I would feel it in my bones. So Bella, between me and you...he's coming back. In the meantime, hold on to some of his stuff. It would be an enormous favor to me."
"Esme…"
"Bella, there are things in marriage you wouldn't understand yet. I'm going through these motions to appease my grieving husband. But listen to me." And here, she leaned in with a smile, with Edward's mischievous smile, and like that, my heart broke into a thousand pieces all over again. She even had his confiding tone of voice when she continued, "You and me are on the same side here. He will be back."
I hadn't even realized there were sides to be on. Of course there were sides. Right opinions versus wrong opinions. Hope versus reality. Moving on versus... patience. Funny thing about taking sides- I never chose to be on a side, I was simply there from the beginning. So was Esme. We were the only two. We were on the side of Edward.
I'd always be on his side, always.
With a deep breath, I lifted the lid and peered into the box.
"The winning regional ball," Esme said, reaching in and tossing me a dirty and tattered baseball.
"Maybe Emmett would want this," I said softly.
"Maybe," Esme agreed with a slight smile, then she pulled out his hat.
I held it tightly and counted the minutes until Esme would leave so I could bury my face in it, to smell his fresh-from-victory sweat smell. The one that filled my face when he'd laughingly pick me up and swing me around after having waited like a goober outside the locker room for an hour after every else had gone home.
She had a picture of me and Edward curled up on their couch in their living room, one I'd never seen before. We were at opposite ends of the couch, our legs tangled together in the middle; he'd stolen all of the blanket we were sharing.
There was a sweatshirt and the twine rope necklace, one he only took off for game days.
I slowly walked up the stairs after she left, holding my treasures in my arms, but not so close that I'd crush them. I sat on my bed and lined them all up like they were the Crown Jewels and stared for a long while before picking up the hat.
He had burned his initials just under the fraying brim. I pinched where the initials were and lifted the hat. I fell to my knees.
The pang in my gut thinking about how he would just totally burn his initials into his hat, probably with the old soldering iron his dad had given him for his eleventh birthday, had me gasping. It was such an Edward thing to do that I could feel him in the room, could smell the acrid smoke from burning cotton and cardboard, could see him smirking with satisfaction as he finished the job. In the last three months, I had thought of him often, had remembered and reminisced and ranted and raved, but this was different. It was like he was right there in the room with me this time, and it wasn't even my memory to experience.
It wasn't memory, it wasn't hope; it wasn't even longing. It was cruel is what it was.
When I cried, it was painful in my chest. It was like I'd forgotten how much I missed him. I had been so busy with the business of him missing that I hadn't spent any time missing him.
I hunched over that hat, my forehead to the cold floor, and I cried until the violet violence of the rising sun blurred my vision.
The month after that, I heard my dad talking to Mom from the kitchen as I sat on the couch, twirling the hat around my finger while watching the Discovery Channel.
"We've got to call it," Charlie was saying. "The whole town needs some kind of answer. Carlisle is losing his mind. We've been the walking dead and it's just...it's time."
I shot up from the couch and walked into the kitchen; they both stared at me, their expressions a predictable mixture of shock and guilt.
"Say it," I demanded.
"Bella-"
"You're declaring him dead."
"No," Charlie said softly. "It will be a cold case...but Bella. His family wants a spot for him-"
"A spot?" I wanted to be deliberately obtuse. I wanted him to say it.
"In the cemetery, Bella."
"Esme doesn't," I said, triumphant and proud, like a petulant child. "Esme knows he's alive."
"Bella-"
"What? We're supposed to have a funeral?" I demanded. "They're going to have a funeral for a person who's not even dead?"
"A memorial service," my mother amended, trying to be soothing but it's hard to take comfort from someone who is looking at you like you're the most deluded person on the planet.
"Same difference!"
Charlie crossed the room and took me by the tops of my arms.
"Bella, sometimes this is what people need in order to heal."
"Dad. I'm not a reporter. Don't talk to me like that. Don't give me your buzz words and catch phrases."
"Bella," he sighed, and I felt guilt gnawing at my insides because I knew that he didn't want to do this, and I knew he didn't want to tell me. He didn't want to be the one to tell me. I knew how much my dad loved Edward, too. I knew I wasn't the only one. I knew I was being totally, disgustingly, teenage-ingly unfair. So what.
"Try harder!" I spat out. "This is your town to keep safe! Find him! Isn't this what you're supposed to do?"
Fire came out of my eyes and ripped through my throat and I couldn't stop. I had finally, finally find the perfect place to lay the anger that had been bubbling, brewing and growing. This was nothing compared to the dressing-down I'd given Michael Newton.
"All you know how to do is bust up parties and issue speeding tickets! One real thing happens and you totally blow it!"
Charlie let go of my shoulders and walked out of the kitchen, but not before I saw the look on his face. Stricken, guilt-ridden…that look will stay with me forever.
My mother bent over the kitchen sink, gripping the counter. I saw her take a few heaving breaths before she slowly confront to face my anger.
"This is killing him, you know," she said, not accusingly and not even in anger. Her voice was quiet, reasonable, implacable. "You think he hasn't questioned himself? Do you think he doesn't have the most guilt on his back right now? Do you think he doesn't tear himself to pieces, knowing that he's failing his friend, this whole town, and most of all, his daughter? This is killing him, Isabella."
She walked out to follow my dad and I kicked in the garbage compactor.
Later, there was a scratch at my bedroom door and Charlie walked in, his eyes bloodshot. He came over to sit at the edge of my bed, something he hadn't done since I was eight years old.
"I tried, Bella," he said quietly, after a few minutes filled with false starts and much hand-wringing. "Other than you and his parents, no one wanted me to find that kid more than me. I couldn't have done more even if it was you out there."
"I know, Daddy."
"I just wish..."
"I'm sorry," I whispered, staring at the ceiling.
"Me too," he said.
"Dad?"
"Hm?"
I had to gulp a few times before I could get the words out.
"Do you think he's dead?"
It was quiet for too long before he would even look at me.
"I think," he said, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I think...that it's okay to move on with life. And it's definitely okay to never give up hope."
For the rest of the summer, I hoped.
I continued going to Esme's house at least once a week. Sometimes she let me sit in Edward's room.
At first, it was like suffocating. I couldn't be in there and hold it together for long. After awhile, I found if I lay very still on his sheets and looked at things just the way he left them, I could either pretend he was there or find comfort in just being near his stuff. Some days it was comforting but most days, it was painful. To feel like I was on the precipice of hearing his voice and never getting there was just twisting the knife that much deeper.
I went through his drawers and laughed at the unopened box of condoms underneath his socks.
I cried when I saw my class picture right next to them.
I was once loved by a boy that the whole world loved.
It was enough and it would never be enough.
Nothing would ever, could ever be like that. Like me and Edward. No matter what happened, there was no going back to that. It was like trying to grab on to a wave in the ocean; it just slipped through my fingers and there was no way to hang on.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for sticking with me! While I do have daily updates, I'll be taking the weekends off, so I'll see you all on Monday. Thanks for reading, and for reviewing, I am enjoying reading what you all have to say.