The Twilight Twenty-Five

thetwilight25 dot com

Prompt: # 02

Pen Name: twilly | Pairing/Character(s): Edward/Bella | Rating: M | Word Count: 499

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Scattered

"No."

"Bella, you have to. You were his wife—"

"I am his wife."

Tears brimmed in her sister-in-law's eyes. "I didn't want to believe either. Even after the Coast Guard said there wasn't a chance he survived. Even when the search and rescue firm Dad hired gave up. And your dad knows every deep sea fishing rig on the coast. Someone would've seen him. He's not coming back."

"I'd feel it if he was gone. I would know."

"I know you want to believe that. But that's just something in movies."

"It's not. He's not..." She couldn't even say the word. Looking at the stack of pictures in her lap, she shook her head. Alice rubbed her back soothingly, which only upset her more.

Bella offered the stack back to her sister-in-law; she refused to take them. "He's not gone. And I'm not going to sit here and pick out pictures for his memorial!" With an angry heave, she scattered years of their memories across their room.

"How are you doing, sis?"

"Emmett," she whimpered, bursting into sobs. He wrapped his arm around her, rocking gently. She clutched at his shirt, shaking her head. "I can't do this. Why do I have to do this? I shouldn't have to do this."

He held her tighter, wishing he could take the pain from her.

"All of their grief...it's too hard. When he comes back—"

He pulled her off his chest, holding her arms. "Bella. He's not coming back."

"He is, Emmett. He is."

"No, he's not. You need to accept that so you can say goodbye to him before they put him in the ground."

She leapt to her feet. "Put what in the ground?" she asked harshly. She reached for the casket. "What are they going to bury?"

She pushed the austere flower spray off the lid and opened the empty casket. "What body?" She slammed it closed, reopening and closing it harder with every question.

"What body?

"What are they going to bury?

"What, Emmet?

"What?"

He pulled her back, hugging her body to his.

"No one is dead unless there's a body. You said that, Emmett. You did!"

"Bella, this isn't a soap opera. I wish it was. He's gone. He really is."

Her brother's embrace was the only thing holding her up.

She sat in the front row of the church where he promised to love and cherish her forever. How could it already be the end of forever?

She still felt him.

They all said it was her mind tricking her. Her irrational brain trying to save her broken heart.

Her eyes wandered, inexplicably pulled to the back of the church where she saw a familiar silhouette..

She was out of the pew and down the aisle before her parents could react. She leapt into his arms, pressing her tear-stained cheeks into the scruff on his jaw. "I knew you were still alive. I knew it. I knew it. Please be real."

I don't think I could ever really kill Edward.

My crazy was strong with this one. Geeky tempered it and my missing words.