"What was it like to lose him?" asked Sorrow.
There was a long pause before I responded:
"It was like hearing every goodbye ever said to me - said all at once."
―Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure
CHAPTER FIVE: BROKEN
BPOV
I ate the last of my lunch, lost in thought for a while. The food was simple but tasty, and I was grateful to Carlisle for making it for me. It was a sweet gesture, much like him all over, really. After a while I glanced up at him, to find that he seemed to have zoned out completely. He was sat on the bar stool, elbow on the counter, head resting on his hand. He looked lost in thought just as I had been; and by the flickers that kept crossing his face, he was apparently lost in ones that were not altogether pleasant.
I realised I was staring, and looked down hurriedly. Sneaking another glance up, he was still oblivious to me, and I found myself unable to look away from him. It was as though he was drawing me in; he was a magnet pulling me to him, like a moth to a flame.
A flame that would set me alight and burn me, but in the best possible way...
I mentally slapped myself. What the hell was I thinking? I couldn't think of him in that way... could I?
No, no, of course not. Stop it.
I drank in his beautiful features; the angle of his perfect cheekbones, the arch of his nose, the way his hair swept down in small, golden waves. I arched an eyebrow as I felt my body respond, heat starting to pool at my core.
Quit it, Bella Swan! He'll... he'll smell you, or something... damn vampire senses...
I tried to calm myself down, grateful that he seemed still caught up in whatever he was thinking about. I forced my gaze down, but that was no better. Now I was ogling his strong, muscular arms, and the way the fabric of his deep blue shirt strained against them. He was slight, but it was obvious that underneath that shirt he was...
Bella! Get a hold of yourself!
I stifled a small gasp as I realised I was eyeing up Edward's... dad. Well, his... not dad. But kind of dad. Urgh, why was their family so complicated? In reality, Carlisle was frozen at only six years older than Edward, even if he did pretend to be over a decade more than that, but still. He assumed the role of patriarch, he was coven leader, and for all intents and purposes, to everyone else in this town, he was the Cullens' foster father.
And yet...
Now he was alone. Was that what he was thinking about right now? I longed to reach into his mind, wishing I had Edward's gift so that I could find out what had happened, in order to comfort him somehow.
Edward.
I blinked. Suddenly, his name, the thought of him... didn't seem so painful anymore. It was as if he was far away, lost somewhere at the back of my mind, tucked away in memories that didn't matter anymore.
No, that can't be right. Edward, I love Edward...
The ache, the emptiness. The black hole he had left behind inside me. That was...
Oh.
This time I did gasp out loud, at full volume, as it hit me.
The emptiness, the gaping chasm...
It had gone.
I felt whole. Properly, fully whole. For the first time in months.
The sound that escaped my lips alerted Carlisle back to my presence, and he threw me a small smile.
Oh God, that smile... make it wider, Bella, make him smile more... all the way to those eyes, those beautiful eyes...
I shuddered, not from displeasure, but from something warm, primal, magical...
No, shut up, what are you... oh my sweet Lord...
His butterscotch eyes were locked with mine, and I could feel my core heating up again, sending waves of ache and longing through me. I might not ache with emptiness any longer, but this was a greater ache. It was a need, a desperate need, and it was building, building... to something that felt like it would sweep me under and drown me.
He raised an eyebrow, and I prayed to every deity I could think of in those few seconds that he couldn't tell how turned on I was right now.
I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. Goddamn it, Swan, always the blush, the goddamn fucking blush, betraying me...
"Holy shit!"
I cursed and started violently as he disappeared from where he sat beside me to halfway across the house in less than half a second.
What the...?
I slipped from my seat and sought him out, racing through the house, finding him bolt upright against a wall, eyes closed, his chest almost convulsing.
"Carlisle? Are you okay?"
What the hell was going on between us?
"Carlisle?"
He opened his eyes. I gasped. They were pitch black. Feral.
For a moment, his eyes locked with mine again, and it was like looking at a completely different man. This man was... fire. Danger. Unbridled, predatory, dangerous desire.
Then, before I had time to process any of this, his body quietened, and he was suddenly back to Carlisle again, back from the precipice, relaxed, and calm.
"My... my apologies, Bella," he stammered, and clearly in shock. "I am not quite... myself right now. I did not mean to scare you."
"You... you didn't scare me... but I don't... I mean, what is..."
I trailed off and huffed in frustration. Why could I never get my words out how I wanted them?
"Isabella..."
I groaned, audibly. What it did to me when he called me Isabella...
He mistook my groan for one of upset, and he corrected himself hastily. "Bella..."
I couldn't even bring myself to tell him no, no, please say it like that again. Isabella, Isabella, Isabella, like a mantra, like a prayer falling from your soft, wet, delicious mouth...
Oh my God.
It was my turn to wheel away, and if I had possessed the power to launch myself across the room at the speed of light, vampire-style, I would have. My head was reeling, my body in turmoil.
"Bella, what's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing's wrong... I just... I have a lot of... strange... feelings... right now," I babbled. I forced myself to turn back and look at him, pleadingly. "I don't understand what's happening, Carlisle..."
I stared at him, falling, falling, falling, into his orbit. He was a glorious galaxy, and I was utterly immersed within it. There was nothing else, only him.
His body language shifted yet again, but this time I didn't like the change. He became stiff, withdrawn, clinical almost. As if he was Doctor Cullen at the hospital, and I was just some patient, a stranger to him.
"It's probably been a bit much, spending so much time in my presence," he said, matter-of-factly. "You are still reeling from the shock of my return, the memories and feelings that my being here must have brought back for you, about Edward. And now, I fear you are succumbing to the things about my predatory nature that lure humans in. It's confusing you. I'm sorry."
"No, no Carlisle that's not what I mean. It's not that, it's more than that..." I tried to stutter out. But he was at the door already, opening it and ushering me out.
"I think it best if you go home now, Bella," he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
I felt a crushing void open back up inside my heart.
"Carlisle..."
"Please, Bella. Go home to Charlie. I will keep my distance for a while, it is... for the best."
And just like that, all the energy between us seemed to fizzle and die. As if he had put up some sort of cosmic shield.
I bit my lip to try and stop the tears that pricked my eyes. He noticed my crumpling face, and a flash of pain rippled through his eyes, but he lowered them quickly and waited for me to leave. Suddenly I was angry with him, so angry. I stalked out, hissing an icy "Fine," as I passed him.
A tingle of electricity sparked as I passed close to his body.
I got halfway to my truck, then looked back at him, my rage subsiding. I couldn't even feel mad at my inability to stay mad at him. I just wanted to comfort him.
"Thank you, for lunch," I said pathetically. I wanted to say so much more, but didn't know how. "And for... everything."
He watched me impassively, simply nodding, but saying nothing. I hoped it was because he didn't know what to say either, rather than not wanting to say anything at all.
I turned and got into my truck, started the engine, reversed out, and drove away. I couldn't bring myself to look back at him again. I somehow knew that if I did, I wouldn't be able to leave.
As I steered myself onto the road back home, I gripped the steering wheel forcefully. Thoughts were whirling in my mind, coupled with intense feelings that threatened to overwhelm me to the point of having to pull over. I felt into my body, testing a theory out as the landscape hurtled past.
The further I got from Carlisle...
...the more it ached. The bigger the void grew.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, biting my lip like fury, before reopening them to focus on the road.
My mind went back to what I had been told, once, of vampires, and singers, and... mates.
What if...
Oh God.
I could hardly bring myself to contemplate the things that were wheeling into my mind right now.
What if I was never meant for Edward?
What if I was pulled into his family for another reason?
What if I got sidetracked by him, because I didn't recognise what was happening to me?
What if, when he left, the despair, the emptiness... was not because he left me...
But because he took someone else away from me?
The person I was meant to be with...
The person who had recognised me as their mate.
What if I wasn't meant for Edward at all...
What if I was meant for...
"Carlisle!"
I unconsciously accelerated, gasping as I spoke his name out loud. It felt like honey falling from my tongue.
I was right. I knew I was right. Because when I had finally said his name out loud, acknowledging what he was to me...
My body had responded. My heart soared, my stomach flipped, my chest swelled with joy, my core turned molten... and I swear, if I was a vampire right now, my eyes would be pitch black.
Just like his had been.
"Oh my God!"
The car swerved as I lurched forward suddenly, gripped by an indescribable pain. I slammed on the brakes, and, shaking like a leaf, somehow managed to pull over. Panting, adrenaline coursing through me, I killed the engine and moaned, my hands raking over my face, as I desperately tried to decide what to do. The void raged in me. Every cell in my body was telling me to go back.
I closed my eyes, steadied my breaths.
Memories flashed through me.
The moment I met him in the hospital, after Edward saved me from Tyler's car. Seeing him come through those doors, like some kind of god-like angel.
I remembered how I had felt, gazing at him, in awe of him. All the little interactions we had after that meeting, all the way up to...
My birthday.
I swallowed. I had never allowed myself to go back to that memory, until now. After all, it had been the cause of their leaving.
But now, I allowed it to all flood back.
I remembered how I had felt so guilty, after Edward had dropped me home. And I didn't mean about Jasper, although I felt bad about that, too. But no, I was mostly guilty for the way I had felt in Carlisle's presence that night in his office, so close to him as he fixed me up, so intimate as he bared a little of himself to me, taking clear delight in my interest. How painful it had felt to know he considered himself damned, without a soul. How impossible that notion had been to me. How I had felt... something... pulling at me when I was with him.
I had buried it all when they departed. Wondered if perhaps it was some kind of karma, for briefly having had impure thoughts about Edward's dad. And then the void had opened up, and swallowed me whole.
But then... perhaps I had not imagined the palpable chemistry between us in that room. Perhaps it had indeed been real. Was it possible that he had been feeling the same, fighting every instinct raging inside him with his impeccable control? Did he know? He had to... he had all the heightened senses of his vampiric nature, he would have known immediately, surely...
So why had he never said anything? Never given in to it?
The pull was meant to be magnetic, impossible to ignore. Finding and falling in love with their mate was the one thing that could initiate a change in a vampire's frozen, unchanging existence. If a vampire lost their mate, they became a shell of their former selves; life became meaningless.
So why on earth...
Edward. Of course it was because of Edward.
My mind raced. I hadn't encountered Carlisle until Edward came back from his week away, when he had been getting his desire for my blood under control. He would have already told them about me. They would have known of his feelings. Been happy for him...
And then Carlisle would have met me, and known, but not been able to hurt Edward.
My hand flew to my mouth, and my heart broke into a million pieces then, for the pain he must have endured all these months. The loneliness, the confusion, the utter control he must have exercised, to keep himself away from me. Not just for Edward, but for Esme. For all of them.
I closed my eyes, feeling what must surely only be a fraction of the pain he had been harbouring, all alone.
Oh, Esme.
Edward.
It all suddenly made sense, why he was back here alone, and it was all too painful to talk about. They knew. Or at least, some of them knew. Had Alice had a vision? Had he confided in one of them? Had he left Esme, broken her heart?
Did... did Edward know?
I swallowed, a dreadful thought creeping into my mind.
If he had known... was that why he left?
Surely he couldn't be that selfish...
He knew how powerful the mating bond was.
Surely he couldn't have forced Carlisle's hand, made him leave me, put his father through unimaginable pain, all because he couldn't bear the thought of not having me for himself?
He is frozen as a seventeen year old, Bella... forever a teenager, forever at the mercy of jealousy, moods, clinginess, inexperience, possessiveness, poor choices...
It was a distinct possibility.
Oh, Carlisle...
Without another thought, I started the truck up again, and swung it around. I had to get back to him, had to tell him it was okay, I knew everything, and he didn't have to hide it anymore. I wanted him, as much as he wanted me. I had to get back to him.
Right. Now.
The world flew past me as I forced the truck to go as fast as I could safely make it. It seemed like an eternity before I was pulling up at the house again, and another eternity that it took for me to fight my way out of my seatbelt and get the door open. I was a mess, a desperate mess, and Carlisle was my only cure.
"Carlisle!" I called, staggering to the door and pounding my fist on it for the second time that day. "Carlisle!"
I repeated this action over and over, until my fist hurt and my voice was hoarse, and I knew he was not inside. I turned to the trees, calling his name, begging him. Begging him to come to me. I wandered into the fringe of wilderness, calling, begging.
A full hour passed by, and I sank back against a tree, sobbing. Indescribable pain wracked my body, seeping into my bones, my veins, everywhere. The pain of loss, the pain of a longing that would never go away.
I didn't need to be a vampire to know.
I could feel the void, it told me everything.
He had left.
He was gone.
Thank you so much for your reviews. I love reading your thoughts and theories, and it makes me so happy to know you are enjoying this story.