Someone whose opinion I respect and adore talked me into updating again. Just... bear with me for the next couple of updates, okay? All darkness will come into light this week, if not toward the light. I promise.
Chapter six
"I'm having an end-of-the-year thing at my house," Emmett said, standing pensively by my locker. We'd never had a fall-out or anything, but there was a definite drift. It was weird how this was so normal yet abnormal at the same time. I looked up at him and was surprised to see that he looked impossibly taller, his hair a little longer but there he was, my friend, the same but not the same.
"Yeah?" I asked, slinging my bag over my shoulder, reminding myself that this shouldn't be weird and I shouldn't be nervous. Hell, sophomore year, I would've been part of the planning for his end-of-the-year thing, trying to convince him to make everyone dress like pirates or yelling that I was not going to make eight different flavors of Jell-o shots.
"Yeah. I think you should come," he said, his eyes darting to the collage of pictures, mostly of Edward, still pasted in my locker. There was a copy of our group pic from the Spring semi-formal and one of just the guys from the same dance, all of them doing gorilla impressions. There was one super embarrassing one from the eighth grade trip to Washington DC of Edward with his arm slung around my neck, grinning his "oh, you want to take a picture with me? Yeah, okay" smile and I was flushed because Rosalie had basically forced me into asking him to take a picture with me on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the Reflecting Pool and Washington Monument in the background. I hated the fucking picture, but he had crowed the first time he saw it taped to my mirror, stabbing it with his finger and insisting that that moment was when he knew I had the hots for him, so it had better damned well stay tacked up in my locker forever. There was also one of just Emmett and Edward sitting in the back of Edward's pick-up. "I asked Jess and Rose, too. Even Jasper."
"You did?" I asked, taken aback.
"I just..." He blew out a hefty breath and put his hand on top of his head. "I'm trying to not be angry anymore. You know? It's the end of junior year, and we should see it out together."
"I'd like that," I smiled, feeling one of the many weights on my shoulders that I hadn't even realized were there ease up a bit. I turned to pretend to rummage through my locker so I wouldn't have to meet his eyes when I said what I said next. "Do you mind if I bring someone?"
"Yeah, that's cool. Jasper's bringing that Alice girl from Seattle," Emmett said, fiddling with his phone. "Hey, Bella?"
He tugged the back of my shirt so I turned around. My face was bright red. I couldn't meet his eye.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing. I heard you were hanging out with some kid from the rez. It's cool. It's just..."
"What?" I prodded again. It came out defensive and like the snap of a rubber band. It was as though I'd just been waiting for someone to call me out, to tell me that I'm an asshole for spending time with Jake or at the very least, I wanted someone to say, "but what about Edward?" because that way, maybe I wouldn't feel like he was slipping out of my life. Because that was the way I was feeling. It was a massive ball of guilt-inflected relief in some ways, but more than relief, it was slow heartbreak. Maybe I wanted someone to tell me to hold on forever.
"It's weird," Emmett said carefully. He stared off at some point that wasn't here before shaking his head and coming back. The corner of his mouth hitched up into that charmer smile he's got, or at least the one he used to throw around all the time. That could have made me wince with missing other boys' smiles, but this time, it just made me miss my friend. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed Emmett, too, and the joke of it all is that he had been there the entire time. "Part of me wants to deck the guy hanging out with my buddy's girl, you know?"
"I didn't pick this, Emmett," I said softly. "If I had a choice-"
"I know, I know," he said quickly, waving his hands in soft defense. "You shouldn't feel, uh. Bad. It's just-" He shrugged then smiled at me. "My boy, you know?"
"My boy, too," I said, bumping his shoulder with mine.
"I know it," Emmett sighed. "School sucks without him." It kind of occurred to me that Emmett was probably really fucked up about this. I'd spent over a year stuck on me and Edward, but the fact was that Edward did kind of belong to everybody. And especially Emmett. Hell, he was Emmett's before he was mine.
"Everything sucks without him," I laughed.
"Yeah," Emmett breathed, staring back down the hallway, seemingly oblivious to the cluster of kids racing to class before the bell rang, not something any of us had ever been overly concerned with. "Sometimes I think I see him, you know?" He laughed uneasily. "Is that screwed up?"
"No."
"I mean, I'll be driving to the Albertson's out in PA or out for a run or even watching TV and someone will walk by and I'll have to look twice. It's like...it's like...my mind can't stop looking for him. Even when I'm not thinking about it."
"I do that," I said, nodding thoughtfully. "All the time. Once, I was walking out of Blaine's Deli and this guy tucked into the corner table looked so much like him that I went back inside just to make sure."
"It's just so...I mean. Where the hell did he even go?" he said with exasperation, both his hands in the air. "The planet is huge, but he's gotta be somewhere, right? He has to be somewhere on some square inch of this earth."
We decided to skip the rest of the school day. Went to the beach though it was a bit cold, and just talked. About Edward. About Jake. All of it.
xxxxx
"Sucks to be him," Jake said as he plunked a Cherry Coke and a package of Junior Mints on the counter of a Pik-Way located half way between his house and mine. He barely paid any attention to the good-looking kid on the flyer pasted behind the counter, the one he was referring to. "Shit's crazy. Never even found him. I guess it's ironic that it seems like this stuff always happens in these small towns. Or maybe you just hear of them only when it happens in a small town."
"I knew him," I said quietly as Jake took his change from the cashier.
"Who'd you know?" Jake asked, holding the door open with his hip.
"Him. Sucks to be him, him?" I stammered out, following Jake out of the store.
"Hey, you okay?" Jake asked.
"I love him," I blurted out, because it was the only thing that I could manage, and I wanted Jake to stop talking about it, about him, like he was a small town myth from long ago.
"Who?"
"Edward. The missing kid? He was my... mine. So."
Jake blinked and looked away, then looked back at me before leaning on his car. I couldn't read the expression on his face, couldn't tell whether it was assessing or annoyed or nothing or what.
"Shit. I didn't know."
"It's okay."
"I'm sorry."
"Nah, you didn't know."
"No, I mean I'm sorry he's gone. That that happened to you."
I sipped my slushee and blinked back tears before smiling at Jake.
"Thank you. I'm sorry, too." I gave him some sort of watery, lame smile, his return smile much more sincere than mine.
A few nights later, he kissed me.
I let him, I saw it through.
And then I felt sick all night long, like a traitor, like a cheater, because in the back of my mind, this entire time, I'd had this notion that if Edward was the last person to have his lips on mine, it meant some kind of weird thing for eternity.
Like, the only lips to have touched mine were his, and that had to mean something.
Jake kissing me was like wiping Edward's kiss away.
I wanted to always say that his kiss was the only one I'd known and I had this terrible fear that Edward would soon turn into just one of the boys I'd kissed long ago.
He'd meant so much more than that.
He wasn't some boy, long ago.
He was a lifetime.
"Jake- I'm not..."
I'm not what?
Not ready?
Will I ever be ready?
Will I ever get over him?
Will there ever be a day or a minute or a moment when I can get out from under a boy that's not even here?
It made me so fucking angry.
It was a very real possibility that my forever would be shadowed by a boy who might be a ghost.
Would I forever be under the lock and key of a boy who had fallen off the face of the earth?
The course of my life was totally altered, and it wasn't fucking fair.
It wasn't my choice. I did not choose this. I did not make a foolish decision, and this should not be my consequence.
Yet...there it was, anyway.
"What? You're not what?" Jake asked, stepping back, trying to meet my eye.
I grabbed his shirt and pressed my lips back against his.
I know that I did it out of anger and a touch of fear. I did it because Edward disappeared, and I was scared that- no. I knew that I was losing myself, too, and anything the future might hold.
I wanted to hang onto him. I wanted to preserve myself, to stop time, to go back to not do anything without my friend, my partner in crime, the love of my life.
But that couldn't be. It laughingly, hysterically, devastatingly could not be.
That life was not mine to have, not anymore.
And so, you forge ahead.
I didn't know how to let go or to hang on, so I just moved forward.
With Jacob in front of me, I said goodbye to my dream love boy and chose reality.
Reminder: this is an Edward & Bella story. Just... not like one you've read before. Probably.
Thanks for all the comments and even the criticisms! It's still blowing my mind that "everyone" is talking about this right now, as some of you keep telling me. The story isn't even a week old yet!
Oh, and many of you have asked how many chapters, and the honest answer is... I don't know, not yet. See, this entire thing is written in a large blob and I'm just working day by day, separating out the sectios into chapters as I scan for bad grammar and repetitive sentences/thoughts. Today, I work on chapter twelve. Maybe thirteen, I'm not sure yet. I'm guessing this will end up somewhere around the 25 to 30 chapter-ish range? Maybe? Probably? As soon as I've finished going through the entire document, I will let you guys know. Thanks for sticking with me!