Hey all! I'm going to be real quick up here because I'm currently in FL on vacation. *hears waves crash in the background and grins*... Thank you for all the reviews and adds again this week. You're seriously amazing.
Thanks to my beta, Stratan, and to stephk0525 and claireoth for prereading.
Hopefully, this chapter makes up for all of Edward's um... selfishness? Stupidity? Yeah, it's whatever you want it to be, and I hope it's enough. Eep!
Chapter 18
Edward
I opened the door to the silent, dark apartment and stepped inside. This was the place that Jasper and I called home during the school year. This was where I thought I wanted to be, alone. But when I flipped on the light and glanced around, I quickly realized that being trapped inside this apartment wasn't going to fucking help anything.
Because now there was nothing to save me from myself.
Seeing Bella's tears, hearing her plea, feeling her breathe against me, cling to me... It was like a sucker punch to the gut. I was what kept us apart. Not Maggie, not Bella's hesitance to tell me...
I was the only one who could fix this.
And I didn't know how.
I wanted to hit something again. I was twenty-fucking-three. I should know all the different ways to make things right with a girl. It should be instinctual, second nature. Instead, I floundered. I got confused, scared.
I was fucking hopeless at this love shit.
Panic lanced through me with the word. Love. It was the first time I'd ever used that term to describe what I felt for Bella. And I didn't know what it meant yet. Whether it was real or not.
Whether it was enough.
"You look a little sick, dude."
Startled, I jumped, my eyes narrowing when I saw the smile on my brother's face. "What the fuck, Jazz? You couldn't bother to let me know you were back there at some point?"
"Nah. It's too much fun to get you all riled up."
I growled in frustration. "Why are you following me?"
"Seemed like a good idea."
"You stupid-"
"Oh, get your panties out of your crack," he laughed, pushing past me so that he could sit his own luggage just inside the door. "I have school up here, too."
"In two weeks," I said between my teeth.
"Well, I have things to prepare for. Advisor meetings to attend..."
"Bullshit."
"Maybe." He grinned at my reaction. "It's fucking dark in here, Edward. Ever notice that?"
I took another look around, knowing exactly what he meant. Everything inside the apartment was some shade of gray. Charcoal walls, black furniture, stainless appliances... There was hardly any light coming from anywhere but the windows. I used to like it, because it matched the way I felt.
Now, though...
"It's depressing. We should fix that," I murmured, running my hand over the back of my neck while I waited for his response.
"Yes, we should." He walked over and plopped down on the couch, the sleeve of his t-shirt bunching up at his shoulder. I still wasn't used to seeing him in actual summer clothes. "Got anything in mind?"
"Not really."
"Yeah. Me either." He paused. "We need Mom."
I snorted.
He leaned back against the arm of the couch, pinning me with those fucking steel eyes of his. "So what brings you up here, anyway?"
"I needed space," I replied vaguely.
The bastard saw right through me. "Sure you did."
"I did."
"Because?"
"I..." I chewed on the inside of me cheek, debating on whether I should answer him or not. Finally, I did. "I saw Bella yesterday."
And effectively ran.
"Oh?" he asked, smiling over at me.
"She cried."
That wiped the smile off his face.
"I can't... I, fuck, Jasper, I can't run into her knowing she's going to react like that. Knowing that it's because... I mean... Goddamn it, she's crying because of me and I-"
He waved at me to stop. "Deep breaths, Edward."
I did as instructed, breathing in and out, over and over again until my chest didn't feel so tight.
"You don't like making her cry," he stated after I'd calmed down.
"You think?" I shot back snidely.
"What are you going to do about it then?"
"That's just it. I don't know." I pointed over to my bags. "I did pack the journal and shit, though."
The smile was back. "Well, now, that's a start."
"We'll see. I haven't been able to bring myself to read any of it yet."
"You will," was all he said in return.
I grabbed my luggage and took it to my bedroom, intent on unpacking. But when I opened the suitcase, all I could do is stare at the brown leather journal sitting atop my clothes and wonder how much of the puzzle I was missing. Which parts of Bella's story I wouldn't let her explain. My hand ran over the smooth cover, and I snatched it back when my fingers touched the edge. Every day I was closer to reading it, closer to caving.
The room suddenly felt tiny. My head swam.
I needed air.
I bolted for the door and grabbed my laptop on my way through the living room. Jasper was busy unpacking his own belongings, so my escape went unnoticed. Thank fucking Christ. The last thing I needed was to try to explain to someone else what was going on when I couldn't really even explain it to myself.
There was a coffee shop on the corner where Jasper and I had always gone to study when we needed out of the apartment. It was closer than the UW campus libraries, and if you timed it well, just as quiet. I had nothing to study, but I could figure something to do out. Make sure everything was set up for classes, surf the web... Hell, anything would do to pass the time.
I checked my email, scanning through the new messages until I came upon one from Emmett with an attachment. I clicked the image and was suddenly looking at Bella's smiling face, taken just after their most recent game, and damn it if my chest didn't start to ache.
"Fucker," I muttered, staring hard at the photo.
"You look really pissed off about something."
I glanced up and fought back a grimace. "Tanya," I replied coolly, hoping she'd understand that I wasn't in the mood for company and go.
She sat down instead.
Her curly, blonde hair fell against my shoulder, and I had to repress a shudder before scooting my chair a little further away from her.
"You're back early."
"Yep."
"How come?"
"What's it fucking matter?" I returned.
She still wasn't deterred by my rudeness. "It doesn't. Just making conversation."
I grunted.
"Ready for class?"
I jerked one shoulder up. "I guess."
Her blue eyes brightened excitedly. "I'm dying to start. It means I'm just one step closer to being an actual doctor."
"Yeah. Can't fucking wait," I responded dryly.
"Why the sarcasm?" she asked, genuinely trying to reach past the attitude to learn more about me.
Like I was going to fucking let her.
"Listen, I'm kind of busy here," I said, giving her a glare, "so you should go sit somewhere else."
"You say that like I'm not welcome."
"You're still sitting here like you are."
She huffed but, thankfully, started to stand. Until she caught sight of the picture of Bella.
Fuck.
"Who's that?"
"No one." I quickly shut the laptop before she could see any more. For some reason, I didn't want this girl looking at Bella. It was almost like I was protecting her from Tanya, which was stupid. Tanya was annoying as hell, but that was it.
So maybe I just wanted to keep Bella to myself.
But why?
"She's pretty. You know her?"
I clenched my teeth together so I didn't yell in the middle of the coffee shop, my nostrils flaring with each breath I took to calm myself.
"Edward..."
"She's none of your business."
Her eyes met mine. She smirked. "Oh, how hard the mighty do fall."
"Jesus, Tanya, would you just go away?" I groaned.
"Sure." She got up and wiggled her fingers, the smirk never leaving her face. "See you in class."
I waited until Tanya was out of the coffee shop before opening my laptop and calling the picture of Bella back up. She seemed happy, but I'd had enough experience with pretending to see that Bella was doing just that. She looked tired, like she wasn't getting enough sleep. She was still slightly thinner than she had been before... The smile on her face was bright, maybe even one of laughter. But it didn't quite reach her eyes.
Emmett had known exactly what he was doing when he sent me this. He knew I'd study her, and then feel this fucking guilt eat away at me for being the reason behind it all. Because I wasn't really mad at Bella anymore. I was just...
Fucking lost.
I typed a quick email back to the piece of shit before grabbing my stuff, leaving the coffee shop, and heading back home. Escaping the apartment - getting away from Bella's journal - hadn't helped at all, because now all my thoughts were on her anyway. I wondered what she was doing. If she was readying herself for the move here, laughing with Alice, or spending more time with Jacob Black. Learning to surf. Falling off her board and having Jacob help her back on. I nearly fucking snarled with the thought of him putting his hands on her, platonically speaking or not.
I shoved my hands through my hair and tried to focus on something else. I had no right to feel this way, because I had no claim on Bella. I gave up any claim I might have had on her the day I-
Fuck, one of these days the thought of having just Jacob's hands on her wasn't going to be my only problem. It could be an amorous touch. It could happen with some college fucker she meets at a party. The potential to actually witness it would be there. And I could do nothing to stop it.
I wanted to puke with that.
"I fucking give up," I said as I stomped through the door.
"You what?" Jasper called back, poking his head into the hallway.
"I fucking give up. I just keep thinking about that goddamned journal and what she said and everything I'm missing." I kicked Jasper's suitcase out of the way as I stormed past him in the hall. "It's driving me nuts. I can't do this shit anymore."
"Do what, exactly?"
I dragged in a shaky breath, feeling like I was about to explode from everything I'd been thinking. "Hurt her."
"Then don't," he replied calmly.
"Yeah fucking right. That's all I've done since I've met her. It's what I'm good at."
"That's the dumbest excuse I've ever heard. You're not usually one to repeat your mistakes."
"Yeah, but..." My hands tugged at my hair; my eyes went to the suitcase sitting on my bed. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to be what she needs."
"How do you know? You never really gave yourself a chance to see what you could be to her."
"I just do. My whole biological family is-"
"Don't even say fucked up," Jasper growled. "Because that girl in there... Maggie... is proof that your logic is faulty as hell."
I didn't move for what felt like an eternity, soaking up his words. Because he - they all - were right. Maggie defied my logic. She destroyed my defense. She was the girl who seemed to have accomplished so much because she worked at it, wanted it. Maybe not knowing her past had something to do with it, yes, but my theory of it being something genetic that molded me into this... Fuck, I was wrong. I'd been wrong all this time. Because it wasn't genetics at all; at least, not in my case it wasn't. I couldn't discredit years of addiction research that claimed it was somehow linked to genetics in certain instances. It was the environment I'd been living in, the shit I was forced to deal with at such a young age.
And I'd just fucking let it. I'd let it turn me into something I despised. Bitter, angry, scared, confused...
Before I knew it I'd crossed the room and snatched up the journal. I dug through the suitcase for the other shit Bella gave me, and then I went over to the black desk in the corner, stupidly feeling as though I was sprinting to get there. I wasn't rushing because of anticipation, excitement, or anxiety over what I'd find in my hands. I was terrified that if I gave myself even a second to think about what I was doing, I'd change my mind.
And Bella would continue to suffer at my hand.
The journal was still covered in a little dust from where it had sat still in my room in Forks for so long. I gently wiped it clean before sitting it down on the desk with a deep, steadying breath.
Then I did what I never thought I'd have the courage to do.
I opened it.
A page fell out, something that looked as though it had been stuffed in the front in a hurry, and fluttered to the floor. I went to retrieve it, recognizing Bella's beautiful, looped handwriting the moment I picked it up.
"Oh, fuck," I breathed, feeling something bubble up in my chest as I scanned the page. She'd written me a letter... One that was messy and incomplete, because she hadn't planned on telling me like she did. She'd wanted...
Hell, I didn't know what she had wanted.
And I was quickly learning that her motives didn't matter anymore.
Another deep breath, and I was bracing myself for what was there. Because no way could I look at it and not read it now... Now, I had to know what it was I'd never given her the chance to say.
xx
Dear Edward,
It feels strange writing that. Every other time I've written to someone specific in this journal of mine, it was to your sister, Maggie. But that's also pretty strange, isn't it? I don't really know what I expected to get out of writing letters to a dead person, and have wondered so many times if maybe I should have been denied the heart to begin with. For so many reasons, really, most of which are written down somewhere in here. But the most recent reason, the one I haven't had the chance to write about, is because of you. And... No, I don't...
God, this is going to need a lot of editing.
I should probably start from the beginning. Right? You'd want to know about that, wouldn't you? Of course you would. Anyone would want to know why the crazy heart transplant patient was stalking her donor's brother. You can never tell with people these days. Well, so I'm told. Not that I would really know. Hospital bed and all.
OK, here it goes.
I woke up after my surgery with a melody in my head. I'd never been one to listen to classical music, so I didn't think much about it. I had other things to worry about, like healing. I'd hear a piano play and it would come back to me, along with questions about who my donor was. I guess at the time I thought I was trying to just... I don't know, really. Find peace? Someone had died and I had lived. I needed a reason why, because I'd never really gotten a chance to do much in my life. And every piece of information I learned about her just made me feel worse about myself. Undeserving of the gift I'd been given.
We're a lot alike in that way, huh?
It snowballed from there. I found out all the information I could about Maggie, met her parents and shed some tears... But it still wasn't enough. I needed more. I needed to find you.
Shit, I'd rather tell him all of this in person.
I got to see you for who you really are when no one else really could. You are giving something back to me, something I hadn't known I'd lost. You're giving me a purpose. Because now I know that my life can be amazing if I want it to be. I have to thank Maggie for it, of course, because I wouldn't be here without her, never would have known you even existed. But I have to thank you too. For opening my eyes in the last few weeks. For helping me come to terms with everything. I owe you so much more than you will ever know, and the thought of hurting you...
I don't know how I'm going to tell you. I'm so scared I'll lose you and I've just found you. You make me feel... I can't describe it. Alive. You make me feel alive, Edward. Sometimes I think maybe I have the same effect on you, but I'm sure it's just my heart wanting you to feel the same. And that's another thing. "My heart". I always used to refer to it as "this" or "her heart". At some point, I accepted it as my own. I think it's because of you.
Jesus, this is confusing as hell and I know the entire story. I should stop talking. Think of something else. Although, at my rate, I'm never going to tell him anyway.
OK, so I'm scrapping this one. Maggie, if you would help me out here I'd appreciate it. I'm totally screwing this up. I don't know how to tell him, how he'll react. Please don't let him hate me. I couldn't stand it. I-
Claire de Lune! That's the song! Maybe I should add that somewhere. Maybe it means something to him too.
Does it? Does it mean anything to you?
xx
I put the letter down with shaking hands and tried to push my hair away from my forehead. I wanted to laugh because the letter was so inherently Bella. Scattered, pieced together and unsure, but still somehow able to say more with just a few sentences than most people could in an entire page. Movement caught my eye, and I looked over to see Jasper still hovering in the doorway. He hadn't let me read it alone. Just in case.
"Claire de Lune," I muttered unthinkingly.
"The song?"
"It's what Bella heard when she came out of anesthesia. It's what my mother played for me before she-"
I swallowed and pushed the thought out of my mind. Before drugs became the center of Elizabeth's world, I was. Only those kind of memories were muddled, overshadowed by all the bad.
"Do you remember something? Maggie?" he asked, his eyes wide and fully of worry.
"No," I whispered. I stared back at him for a moment, dumbfounded. "How is that possible?"
He didn't have an answer for me.
I studied the first page of the journal until the words blurred together. She'd written the entry just after seeing Maggie's adoptive parents for the first time. Tears stained the paper.
I skimmed a drop with the tip of my finger, and then turned the page.
Heartbreak. Confusion. Maybe even a little... mania? Each entry was colored with some new feeling as it was written, letting me see into Bella's soul, connect with her on some level I hadn't know existed.
"I'm fucking stupid." So goddamned stupid because I could have spent these last few weeks with her, learning every square inch of her, and instead I'd been blinded by anger, too wrapped up in myself to know what I'd been missing.
"Are you okay?"
I shook my head. "Christ, Jasper. I'm lost."
Lost in a completely new way. Lost to her.
Because I'd finally come to realize I couldn't fight the inevitable.
xx
If I am killed, I can die but once; but to live in constant dread of it, is to die over and over again.
xx
"You're obsessed."
"Seems to go with the territory," I muttered, stretching and feeling my bones crack as I did. "Shit, what time is it?"
"Ten." Jasper plopped down on the couch beside me. "You've been reading that thing all day."
I shut the journal and glanced over at him. "Want food?"
"Yeah. Pizza?"
"Yeah." I threw the phone at him. "You're buying."
"Dick."
I smirked as he dialed the pizza place a couple blocks over. "You seen any of this?" I asked, gesturing down to the journal.
He held up a finger and finished the order before telling me, "Hell no. That's Bella's diary. No way am I looking at that thing."
"There's..." I flipped through the pages and found what I was referring to, a sketch of an anatomically correct heart. "Look. Here."
"Well, hell. Look at that. B has talent," he said with a grin. "She even put the coronary arteries in the right spots."
"They're all over the place. It's... She quotes something one day, writes a letter to Maggie the next, draws something she's seen a week later. There are sketches of Olympic everywhere."
"Huh. Even from before she moved?"
"Yeah. She was drawing from memory, I guess. I don't fucking know."
"Go. Ask. Her."
I pushed him away. "No. I can't."
"Pussy."
xx
Dear Maggie,
Your brother is an asshole. He's rude, he's obnoxious; he does everything he can to keep people away. And yet here I am, watching him sleep in what looks like the most uncomfortable chair ever, which is something I don't think he allows himself to do much. I can't stay away from him. I'm physically drawn to him, his taste, his touch... There's something incredible about the way he looks at me, and when he lets me see him for what he really is, I melt. He's a weakness I didn't know I had. A drug I can't get enough of.
Ironic, isn't it, given his past? Your mom?
My biggest fear, though, is him shutting me out. With or without knowing about you. Because he tries. Every single day, he tries.
And I don't know why.
"This is her," I said, flashing the picture of Maggie to Dr. Banner. "Margaret Grace Carr. They called her Maggie. Or maybe my parents did, and the Carrs kept it. I don't know."
"And?"
"Fuck, I just told you: I don't know."
He chuckled. "Well, what do you feel when you look at her?"
I turned the picture around and studied it closely, trying to name what it was I felt when I stared at her. I hadn't allowed myself to dig too deeply into Maggie's information yet. Bella's journal, I'd devoured. This, though... This was harder, even though I didn't want it to be. There was a part of me that wouldn't let go of the past still. But at least I was getting better. Before, I couldn't open the photo album, much less look at a picture of a girl who looked nothing like me at first glance.
A picture of my fucking sister.
She had blonde, wavy hair that was cut off to her collarbone in the picture. Pale green eyes shaped like mine. Her mouth even twisted up further on one side than the other, much like Bella had always claimed mine did. She was so full of life... happiness.
Son of a bitch.
"Hope," I finally admitted. "I feel fucking hope."
"For?" he pressed.
"Myself. Bella. Everything. I see her and wonder if maybe I can find a way out of this bullshit life that I've made for myself. I have adoptive parents like she did. I have the means for school and nearly everything else I want like she did. It's just I...
"There's something Bella wrote in her journal. A quote. 'Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future'. I was already starting to think along those lines, but when I read it..."
He shifted the pad of paper in his lap slightly and waited.
"I wondered how much of my future I've already missed because I can't let go. And I- It's all a fucking lot to process," I finally sighed.
"Which you seem to be doing."
I shrugged and tried not to fidget in the chair.
"Any resentment toward her?"
"I... I keep reminding myself that it wasn't her fault. Not any more than it was mine. But I- What I mean is that- I'm..." I exhaled loudly and shook my head.
"You know what they say, Edward."
I gave him a funny look, because I didn't know what they said. Not in this situation, anyway.
"Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Oh. Fuck, yeah. I get it. I do. It's just... I want to be someone Bella deserves. And I want to be that now."
Dr. Banner stared at my legs for a few seconds. I glanced down and noticed they were bouncing anxiously.
I stilled immediately.
"You are."
"No, not yet. There's so much running through my mind," I told him earnestly. "And I think... No, there's no fucking thinking about it. Impossible as it seems, I love the girl." My heart thrilled with the admission, like the fucker was thankful my brain had finally gotten with the program. "I want her back. But I don't want it to be like before."
"How was it before?" he asked curiously.
"Like everything else in my life. Completely fucked. It was built on lies. None intentional, but..." I trailed off with an irritated noise at myself.
"So tell me something that happened in your past. Something you might have hidden from Bella before."
"No. Not-" I choked on my words and pushed through it. "Fuck me, fine. What would you like to know?"
"Why were you shot?"
"I wanted to get high."
His brows shot up, and as much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to give him the full story. I just hoped that I could get through it all without wanting to retch into the wastebasket behind me.
"I was a stupid kid. I used... everything. Heroin, mostly, though. It was lightning fast and left you soaring, you know?" I cleared my throat, because apparently, I was still pretty stupid. "Never mind. You probably wouldn't fucking know. Sometimes I just wanted to get away from everything. See what it was Elizabeth was so fascinated with."
"How exactly did you do it?"
"Uh... I never mainlined. Scared the fucking piss out of me. I had a death wish, but not like that. Fuck, I'd seen too many OD's when I was at Grayson's and never wanted to be one of those seizing corpses."
"Grayson."
I tensed, realizing I'd spoken aloud about the fucker. I hadn't said his name willingly in... Fuck, nine years? He thought I was dead. Saying his name was like broadcasting that I was still here, that I still knew. It was risking my life, my family's... Bella's...
And there it was, triggered by her name alone.
Panic. Seizing me, owning me... I couldn't breathe. Because Bella's safety from my past was never something I'd really ever thought about until now. I'd only seen the immediate danger, what I could do to hurt her. What I'd been doing to hurt her. Now there was a whole new threat. If any of them found out who I really was and came for me...
"Edward? You okay?"
I gritted my teeth together, and then I managed to clarify with, "Aro Grayson is the bastard who shot me."
Another raise of the brows.
Silence stretched between us until I was able to keep going with the story.
"So uh," I pulled at my hair, "anyway, I think I was after an eightball. I wanted coke with it for some unknown reason that day. And I was a cocky fuck when I thought no one was watching. I didn't know the shithead selling it to me was one of Aro's new guys. James, I think his name was. So I just waltzed into the alley and made the buy."
"Then what happened?"
"I heard the sound before I felt the pain. Delayed reaction, shock. Whatever. I didn't die with the first shot. So he fired again. I couldn't keep on my feet and I... I remember lying there feeling the blood pool around me and thinking that I was going to drown in the stuff. When I was thinking, that is. I wasn't too fond of consciousness at that particular moment."
"Why'd he shoot you?"
"Why the hell wouldn't he? Do you know how much shit I knew about those fuckers? I knew where they hid out, which clubs they frequented, where they kept their product. There was prostitution and rape and murder and God fucking knows what else going on inside that complex. I could have given the cops everything they needed to lock all of them up for an eternity."
"So why didn't you?"
"Because I was terrified of them," I said simply.
No need to delve into all the threats and innuendos I'd received on a daily basis in that hell hole. Not a day went by that I didn't think I'd be...
"Edward?" Dr. Banner asked. "Where did you go?"
I blinked a few times. Took a few breaths too, in hopes of settling my stomach. Didn't exactly work. "What?" I wheezed.
"You got lost in your head a bit."
"Right. Yeah." I swallowed hard. "Can we talk about something else?"
"Sure. We can talk about whatever you want." Pause. "But we will eventually talk about what just happened."
Of course we would.
I reached over and grabbed the file, opening it and hurrying through the paperwork until I was looking at Maggie's adoption records. She was younger than me by sixteen months, adopted eight years before I was.
"I want to talk more about Maggie. I want to know why it is you think I don't remember her."
So... yeah. Hidey hole time.
Hope everyone had a great holiday and has a Happy New Year!
Quotes, because I cannot take credit for them:
The quote Edward reads in Bella's journal is from Abraham Lincoln
The quote Edward references in his therapy session is from John F. Kennedy
Apparently, I like presidential quotes.