I'll Stand By You

by WitchyVampireGirl

Bella and Edward meet briefly on her 21st birthday. When fate conspires for them to cross paths again months later, will they have the courage to make it last while facing their darkest fears? March 2012 Drabble War entry AH

54. Chapter 54

A/N: Shall we see how Edward is faring? 2of 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, SM does, I am playing in the sandbox! ENJOY!

54

EPOV

I can see the streams of light through the small cracks in the blinds, but I ignore it. Instead I pick up the whiskey bottle that helped to keep me awake last night. I knew that if I went to bed I would see things I didn't want to see.

Lizzie dying.

Bella convulsing.

My cowardice.

I ran from Bella. But even worse than that, I ran while she was having a seizure.

Disgust, shame and guilt fills me up and I want to purge myself of them, but there is no way. They are sitting inside, festering, and ripping my heart and my spirit to shreds. I take another swig from the bottle in attempt to numb the pain.

I pull at my hair, at a loss over what I feel and what to do about it all. My heart is screaming for me to run to Bella, to beg her forgiveness. I would do and say anything to prove how sorry I am.

But the bigger part of me, which is gripped by overwhelming fear, is holding back. I just cannot go through losing someone like that. I don't have it in me to watch Bella suffer a prolonged illness and waste away before me.

I know that makes me weak and pathetic. I'm just not strong enough to be that man. I thought I could be.

Maybe this is why she never told me her prognosis. Maybe she knew all along that her illness was advanced. Maybe this is why she held herself in check. She didn't want to get to close to me, just to have to lose me.

My head spins with the questions without answers and the copious amounts of alcohol I have consumed. My body aches from sitting on the cold floor where I collapsed when I made it home. My heart throbs with every beat that I'm away from Bella.

I just want it to stop. I just want the pain to go away. I don't want to think, I don't want to feel, I don't want to remember how I utterly failed Bella in the worse possible way.

So in order to forget, I keep drinking. When that bottle is done, I start another and I don't stop, not even when I find myself slipping away.

A/N: Hmm what do you think of Edward?