Chapter Three

BPOV

"I wish you had."

Those four words haunted me for the same amount of days; four. It's been four days since I last saw Edward Cullen at the county jail, and two years before that.

He never even knew I visited him during his stay in the hospital.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The woman who greeted me just outside the door of his hospital room refused me entrance the first time I showed up at the hospital, then continued to refuse each and every time after that. I'll never forget her angry blue eyes and tightly drawn mouth, the way she crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her nose slightly in the air. Edward's ex-wife looked nothing like my mother, but practically seeped Renee from every single pore, from her haughty disposition to her painful, stinging words.

We all blamed someone after the wreck, the accident which took so much from so many people, and Kate Cullen obviously blamed me.

"Do you know that my husband was a star athlete in high school?" she asked, angrily swiping a tear from the corner of one eye. "And now the doctors are saying that he's lucky, that the worst case scenario is that he'll walk with a limp for the rest of his life. A limp. My husband, who's not even thirty yet, will have to walk with a limp for the rest of his life."

"At least he's alive," I told her, red-hot fury boiling in my veins. "That's more than I can say for my husband and child."

"If you came here to place blame," Kate whispered, her face turning cruel. "You've come to the wrong place. Edward did nothing wrong. It was your husband who pulled into oncoming traffic. I read the papers. It was the first time your husband had ever dropped your child off at that daycare. Why is that, Bella? Where were you? Where was Ben's mother when he needed you?"

I slapped the woman before I even realized what I'd done. The tall blonde's head snapped back, an angry hand print quickly appearing on her slightly tanned cheek. She pressed her fingers delicately against the mark of scorn, staring at me with wide, shocked eyes, and parted red lips. It was the first time I struck another person in my life.

It felt good.

"Your husband was speeding," I seethed, my face growing as red as the mark on her cheek. "He murdered my family … he killed my child, my husband."

"The police made a mistake, and admitted it. The newspapers recanted their claims. The police ended the investigation and admitted that Edward was not speeding," she spat back, her fingers leaving her cheek as she took a step forward. "Now, leave this floor … no, leave this fucking hospital before I call the cops and charge you with goddamn harassment."

Our growing voices had drawn a small crowd of nurses and nursing assistants. Persistent hands grasped at my upper arms as I fought against them, fought for what? I'm still not sure, not even to this day. Maybe I was fighting to get my hands on Kate one last time, for spewing those words, and for her placing the blame that I already so deeply felt. Maybe I was fighting to get into that room, to lay eyes on the man who took the only thing I ever had to live for.

Whatever I was fighting for, it ended. In a matter of minutes I was escorted from the hospital by a sympathetic man of around six-two with kind chocolate eyes and an honest smile.

"Mrs. Cullen leaves around nine pm," the guard said, lighting his cigarette as we stood near my car, his eyes darting around as though he was being careful not to get caught smoking on hospital grounds. "It's pretty quiet on the night shift. The head nurse usually heads down to the cafeteria on the first floor around one am and returns at one-thirty. While she's gone the nursing assistants sneak in the conference room and goof around on their phones."

"Why are you telling me this? Do you want me to murder this man? Because that's what I plan on doing."

"You ain't gonna murder nobody, Ms. Bella," the man said, surprising me by calling me by the name I prefer, the name I hadn't introduced myself as in ages. "That's right. I know you. You're Charlie Swan's little girl. Charlie Swan's a good man, and I reckon he raised some pretty level-headed kids."

I nodded, thinking of my father, how he would react if he saw the way I acted that day. My cheeks burned red with shame and humiliation. I found myself hanging my head.

"We all need closure, Ms. Bella," the guard continued, his voice far away and thoughtful. "I sure hope you find yours."

The bright cherry on the end of his cigarette disappeared beneath his heavy boot. He gave me a smile and a nod, then turned and walked away, weaving through the rows of cars lining the hospital parking lot.

It was those guard's words that I repeated over and over in the back of my mind that day. It was those very words that pushed me to sneak into the hospital that exact same night, to quietly slip past the inattentive staff in the corridors, and to ease silently into his room.

The smell of blooming flowers caught my breath as I entered the room. The fragrant smell of blossoms was one that normally brought forth happiness, but now only reminded me of death, of flower arrangements on caskets and sprays of carnations draping across headstones.

This man must be very loved, I thought to myself, my eyes taking in the blooms pouring from vases, the bundles of balloons tied to every surface.

I stood over him, the man who murdered my family, and gazed down at his face, at the scrapes and cuts, the bandage wrapped tightly around his head. Pain was etched in his features. Long, dark lashes rested against wounded cheeks. Bronze hair, too long and unruly for a man his age, peeking out from beneath the bandage wrapped around his forehead.

One arm was set in a cast, the other clutching a note with elegant scrawl gracefully drawn between the pale blue lines. Without a second thought, I pulled the note from his hand, carefully watching his face, sighing in relief when there was no movement, not even a blink of an eye.

Edward,

There is no greater sorrow for a mother than witnessing her child hurt, and not only physically hurt, but hurt in any sense of the word. I know you blame yourself for the accident, but it was not your fault. Please, Edward, pull yourself from whatever dark place your thoughts have traveled. Your wife needs you. I need you. Do you remember what you told me when I was diagnosed with cancer? Do you remember how I would spend my days laying in bed sobbing? You asked me why I so easily accepted defeat when there was so much left in life worth fighting for. You asked me to fight for myself, and for you, just like I'm asking you to fight for yourself, and for me now. I need my precious baby boy back. Come back to us, Edward.

Your loving mother,

Esme

Pouring myself a half of a cup of coffee, I take a careful sip, remembering reading Edward's letter from his mother. The pain of her words as she begged her baby boy to fight the demons he so obviously fell victim to, enraged me at the time. Esme's son still had a chance at life. Edward was weak, broken, injured, yet still living and breathing, something my son was not.

I stayed in Edward's room for the entire thirty minutes the guard had advised. Sitting on the stiff fabric of a salmon-colored recliner, I watched him sleep. I studied the rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes flitted behind closed lids as he dreamed. I witnessed the facial grimaces, flinches, the whimpers, the tears as a nightmare invaded his mind.

My own tears fell as well. They were tears of anger and hurt, jealousy and wrath. How could that man sleep, even with nightmares? It was something I hadn't done in so very long; sleep. Sleep evaded me, although I was beyond exhausted. The fact that my nights were spent in the solitude of the dark bedroom once belonging to my husband and I didn't help. The sheets still smelled of him. His cologne still lingered in the air.

Eventually I would grow weary, slipping into an hour's worth of slumber, only to have my mind relentlessly thrown into a tailspin, sending my peaceful dreams ricocheting into nightmares. I awoke cold and trembling, coated in a thin sheen of sweat, my night-clothes plastered to my sticky skin.

"Take a shot of tequila every night," my brother, Jasper, drawled one day upon visiting me. He shot me a lopsided grin, then turned back to his cell, scrolling through as I sat a cup of coffee on the dining room table in front of him. "Tequila always makes me tired."

"Tequila makes you mean," I corrected, my voice thick with sleepiness.

"Only after about six shots."

I frowned at the smirk on my brother's handsome face, but contemplated his suggestion to my quandary. What could it hurt, taking a shot or two at night? Nothing, if it meant finally getting my long-eluded sleep.

So I did it. I took a shot that night … then, to be on the safe side, I took another, mesmerized by the dulling sensation the alcohol had on my mind. Each night I would drift into a peaceful slumber using alcohol, any type of alcohol, as a sleep aid until one day I no longer drank to rest.

I drank it to cope.

Shaking my head, I draw myself from my memories, the memories of the hospital, of drinking, of Edward.

Edward.

I can't stop thinking about him, about the pain in his eyes every time he gazes at me, at the words he spoke. His blatant confession …

All I've thought about is touching you.

I'm disgusted with myself, with the effect those words had on me that day, the effect they continue to have on me now. This man, who I once blamed for the death of my husband and child, shouldn't bring forth the flood of conflicting, confusing emotions churning through my mind. But he does. Because, in that short amount of time I shared the same space as Edward Cullen, I felt it too … the draw, the constant need to touch him, comfort him, heal him.

I'm sickened with myself. So sick that I find myself gagging and dry heaving over my cup of coffee, gasping for breath with tears streaming down my cheeks.

He was trying to run you off, Bella, I tell myself, once I regain my breath. And it's working. You're supposed to be at the county jail, in ten minutes, yet here you sit crying over stale coffee.

I dump my wasted coffee in the kitchen sink, then lean against the counter weighing my options. The newly purchased bottle of Jack Daniels sits nearby, the dark liquid practically calling my name. My mouth floods with the thirst, the thirst for what I constantly crave. I eye the bottle warily, chewing the inside of my mouth, my fingers tapping against the counter. I can do one of two things today: I can hide out in my home and drink until I can't think straight, or I can spend the day ministering to Edward Cullen. I shove myself from the counter and wrap my hand around the glass bottle, carefully examining the liquid as it sloshes around inside.

The unmistakable sound of a key rattling inside the front door lock causes me to freeze. The bottle pressed from my lips is drawn away by my unsteady hand.

Only one person, other than myself, has a key to my house. It's a key that my husband gave her years earlier in case of emergencies, he'd said, but I knew the truth. My mother schemed it from him in the only way she knew how, by voicing her so called 'good intentions.'

Truth is …. she's just fucking nosy.

"My God," she murmurs, the click, click, click of her heels against the cold floor grating on my nerves. "Is this how you spend your days?"

Rolling my eyes, I raise the bottle back to my lips and take a swig, just a little swig. It's certainly not enough to get me drunk … just enough to take the edge off.

"You never worry about Jasper's drinking."

My cheeks burn with my statement. I'm not normally one to speak this way to my mother, but the past few days of turmoil and confusion churning through my brain has turned my reasoning to mush.

My mother stares at me in disbelief before a slow, curling smile plays on her perfectly painted lips. Those lips pull back as she shows her teeth, nice and straight, aligned years ago through thousands of dollars worth of dental work.

Back then she was Renee Higginbotham, a poor girl with a rich girl's surname. My maternal grandparents fell into hard times, financially, then pushed Renee into marrying a man whose family was ten times wealthier than the Higginbotham family ever imagined being. She married my father. She married Charles 'Charlie' Swan.

"Well," my mother says, crossing her arms over her surgically enhanced chest. "Someone not only took a shot of Jack today, they took a shot of confidence as well."

"You never complain about Jasper's drinking problem."

"Jasper has a job," she shrugs, relaxing her arms and lazily sauntering around the room. "He has a wife and kids. Jasper most certainly does not spend his time wallowing around in self-pity."

Renee walks around inspecting my kitchen. Her little upturned nose wrinkles in distaste as she gazes at my country-looking canisters, the ones I found at a yard sale years ago. They're adorned with little red hens pecking the ground in front of an old barnyard. The curtains above the kitchen sink are critiqued next. Her eyes tell me that she finds them distasteful as well … too cheap, too tacky, especially inside such an expensive house, one that my husband worked hard to build.

I've heard it a million times. Sometimes I hear the words uttered from her mouth. Other times I read her thoughts on her face. My mother is nothing but an open book to me.

"I get it," I muse aloud, picking up the discarded bottle top and screwing it back on the bottle. "It's not okay to be an alcoholic, unless you're a functioning alcoholic. Well, Mother, I think I fit the bill just fine, right along with Jasper."

"You're not an alcoholic, Isabella," she huffs, appraising me with those dead eyes.

"I'm turning into one," I tell her quietly.

I think of the letter from so long ago, the letter from Edward's mother to him. The words begged for her son to come back to her. I remember the emotions that ran deep inside me, even jealousy. I was jealous of that relationship, and I wondered then what I continue to wonder now…

"I need help," I tell her, watching her face soften for a moment before hardening once more.

"Help yourself," she mutters, the click, click, click of her heels echoing through the kitchen to the foyer as I follow her. "Put the bottle down. How fucking hard is that? People do it all the time."

"I think I need professional help, not just for the drinking. For other things, my thoughts …"

"I see you've come to your senses about the ministry program," she says, abruptly changing the subject. She pauses near the front door in the foyer, turns, and gazes at me with a critical stare. "Considering you're supposed to be there by now. Is that what's brought all this on? The ministry program?"

I shrug, unsure of the answer myself.

"Find something worthwhile to do with your time," she suggests, her eyes growing cold, yet thoughtful, "besides wallowing around in your feelings all day. I understand that you no longer wish to teach ... to be around children, but the insurance money will be gone one day. Go out and find someone, Isabella. Someone who can take care of you, financially and otherwise. Someone like Eric."

"I can't believe you have the audacity to suggest …"

"Don't play games with me, Isabella," she whispers, those cold eyes crinkling at the edges as she smiles a bitter smile. "We both know you never loved that man."

My knees weaken. Her words cause me to waver, to lose my balance. I grip the nearby door frame, struggling to stand.

"I loved Eric."

"You married Eric for the money," she spits, her words slicing through me, cutting me raw and deep.

"Just at first. Just at first. And only because you pushed me to marry a man I barely knew! You pushed, and pushed, and pushed so goddamn much! But I grew to love him. I loved him so very much. I still do."

My face feels wet. Reaching up I brush my fingers against my cheeks, then draw them away. I stare at the wetness … stare at the wetness. I'm sobbing.

"See what happens when you love someone, my dear?" my mother whispers, shaking her head. She gazes at me in disappointment, as though I'm unworthy to be in her very presence, even in my own home. "I've told you your entire life, Isabella. Don't fall in love. Love is for fools. You only get hurt in the end. Don't be such a fucking fool. You'll be better off following my advice. Never fall in love."

I'm not sure what to expect when, a week later, I enter the little gray room where Edward and I once met. I spent the entire drive to the jail wondering if he requested that Angela, the preacher's daughter, take over my lessons with him. Maybe he thought I gave up on him.

It's that thought, and the thought of going against my mother by continuing to minister, that drove me to this place, this building full of gray concrete and steel.

Edward's unruly, rust-colored hair is in a state of disarray, the strands flopping carelessly across his forehead. He sweeps his fingers through the strands, shoving them from his face. A Bible sits in front of him, his thumb aimlessly flipping through the fragile pages.

I watch him for a moment, memorizing the firm line of his clenched jaw, the darkness in his green eyes, until a throat is cleared by the guard tucked away in a chair near the corner of the room.

Edward's eyes flit up to mine. The firmness in his clenched jaw hardens even more. He leans back in the chair, abandoning his Bible. Arms cross over a cut chest, the flow and curve of tattoo's peeping out from beneath the sleeves of his orange uniform. I'm a bug on display under his harsh eyes as I cross the room, unceremoniously dumping my workbooks and teaching materials on the table.

"We'll pick up where we left off last week," I tell him, after clearing my throat and perching carefully on the chair.

I try to look indifferent, but find myself glancing up at him shyly, searching for his reaction to my presence. There is none, other than the hardness that remains etched on his handsome face. My stomach feels funny; queasy. I shift uncomfortably in my chair, the cold metal beneath me undoubtedly will do a number on my back before I leave this facility.

"Do you still wish you were dead, Edward?"

The tightness of his face increases slightly. Those heavy eyebrows of his raise a bit at the bluntness of my question.

"You don't beat around the bush, do you, Bella?"

I love the way he says my name, the way the word rolls off his tongue. Bella. I find myself staring at him, watching him as he watches me.

"I'm usually pretty guarded … around everyone," I eventually say, shifting in my seat once more. "But you've been open with your thoughts, so I'll be open with mine. Answer the question. Do you still wish you were dead?"

"Sometimes," he admits as he continues to quietly appraising me. "I really have nothing left to live for."

"What about your wife?"

The wedding band he wore in the hospital no longer remains wrapped around his long finger. I wonder if rings and other types of jewelry was something taken away by the inmates once they were placed in jail, but there are no tan lines on his slightly sun-kissed skin, leading me to believe his wedding band has been absent for a very long time.

I'm fishing for answers, but the reason I do this is beyond me. I'm assuming it's this connection I feel to this man, not only this strange connection I felt the last time I was in this room with him, but the connection of our past, the connection of the hurt and horrors of our mutual broken lives.

"My wife, Kate, left me a year after the accident," he admits, picking up the Bible and absently thumbing through once more. "She couldn't take my self-deprecation. Her words, not mine. She was ready to 'move forward,' she said. I was stuck in the past, according to her."

"Are you angry with her?"

"No," he murmurs, his thumb pausing from the flipping of pages as he fully opens his Bible. "I'm not angry. Hurt? Yeah. It hurt. It still hurts. I took my vows very seriously. Through sickness and in health, till death do us part."

Edward's body grows rigid as the words leave his lips. He gazes at me with wide-eyes, possibly expecting those words to stab me in the heart, to remind me of my deceased husband. I give him a gentle, encouraging smile. One of the things I despise more than anything is those who tiptoe around me because of the deaths of my loved ones. I cringe at the regret in others' eyes once they've so innocently voiced a statement, only to look at me with pity afterward as they realize they unconsciously wounded me with their verbiage.

I may be cracked, and even a little broken, but I'm not made of glass. I haven't completely crumbled, not just yet.

"Maybe we can work on forgiving not only yourself, but Kate as well," I suggest, picking up a workbook. "Did you study the lesson plans from last week?"

Edward nods, then slides the workbook across the table. Our fingers brush against one another as I reach out for the book. The apples of my cheeks burn as my heart picks up pace. Our fingers breakaway as I pull the workbook in my direction, never looking up.

I thumb through the book, accidentally passing lesson one and somehow opening the book to lesson three. My eyebrows raise in question as my eyes skim the paper. Blank after blank is filled in with perfectly elegant scrawl.

"I finished the workbook," he says with a shrug, staring down at his interlocked fingers resting on the table. "There's not much else to do around here."

"We'll go through the verses and compare your answers," I say, quirking my brow as I search for my Bible, then slapping my forehead as I remember last seeing it on the coffee table back home.

"Are you alright?"

"I left my Bible back home. I'm sure there's another one around here somewhere."

"Probably," he murmurs, his deep eyes green eyes boring steadily into mine as he gives me a small smile. "Or you can scoot next to me and we can share."

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