Chapter four: Memories

October

November

December

January

Their absence hurt.

It cut deep. Like he had cut out her heart himself. She never thought she would be like this, but she also never thought he would leave her. She often felt like a silly teenage girl, crying over her boyfriend who had left her. It's what most people at school thought about her too. But she didn't really care. She never thought he would leave her, she believed their love was a love for the ages. One like Carlisle and Esme's, Rosalie and Emmett's or Alice and Jasper's. She had felt like one of them without actually being one of them.

The thought of them having kept her around for their entertainment often entered her mind, but she didn't really know what to believe. She thought vampires were serious about their love, about who they chose to spend the rest of their lives with. But then again Edward never wanted her to be like him, so that should've told her everything she needed to know, right?

The doubt was hard and difficult, but the fact that he took everything she owned of them felt like a harsh slap in the face. After resting for days in her bed she had finally been able to get out of bed, her throat had been hoarse and painful from the serious cold she had gotten and the screaming nightmares which had followed. The nice and sweet dreams she had had that day in the forest didn't come often, but when they did she relished in them. She always knew she was dreaming, but she didn't care.

She had gotten up after six days of bed rest, shuffling around her room to find the CD Edward had gifted her. She had turned on her CD player and pressed play, frowning when nothing happened. Her heart skipped a beat when the device opened and showed that it was empty. She knew it had been in there, just like she knew where all her pictures of them had been. She rushed to her desk and pulled out the scrapbook she had gotten for her birthday, almost ripping the first few pages to get to the middle.

"No." She sobbed when she realised they were all gone. Her hands had been shaking and her vision had been blurred by tears as she rummaged through the drawers of her desk, searching for the polaroid pictures they had made during the summer. She had never told them where she put them, but they were gone too.

"No!" She yelled as she kicked against the hard wood of the desk, not caring how much it hurt her toes. She heard some items from the first drawer fall down the back, she sighed and dropped to her knees, leaning her forehead against the edge of the desk. Trying to contain her tears and sobs. Charlie had told her about their excuse for leaving, but she couldn't tell him that she knew they wouldn't be in California. They couldn't be.

She pulled out the bottom drawer and crouched down, reaching her arm inside the bottom of the desk to grab the things which had fallen down the back. Bella had a tendency to keep way too much stuff in the drawers of her desk, often making things fall down the back of it. As she sorted through the assortment of notebooks and papers which had fallen down, she gasped as one, singular polaroid picture of Edward fell down from the heap. She dropped everything else on her desk in a hurry and crouched down to gently pick up the picture, almost as if she were scared it was going to disappear in front of her. Like she had been imagining it.

Silent tears streamed down her face when she realised that the picture she was holding, was her favourite picture of him. They had been in their meadow on a warm summer's day, a few clouds had rolled in. Making Edward almost look like a regular human being again, the glittering of his skin had temporarily gone away making it the perfect moment to snap a picture of him.

"What are you doing, Bella?" He laughed as she pointed the camera at him. "You know what we talked about." He said hesitantly, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, making Edward gasp dramatically before he burst out laughing, throwing his head back. They had previously talked about how they never took pictures or videos that showed something unhuman-like. Like their sparkling skin.

He had been leaning back on his elbows, his head thrown back with laughter when she softly said his name, her voice filled with love and adoration. "Edward."

He tilted his head towards the camera and smiled brightly, his eyes and face filled with the same sort of love and adoration as he stared into the camera.

He wanted to reach for the picture in her hand but she moved it out of his way, he laughed at the determination on her face. "This one," she said teasingly, "is for my personal collection."

"Oh really?" He said with raised brows as the sun burst out between the clouds again. "Guess the weather Gods were in your favour today." He moved his elbows so he could lay down in the grass again, his skin sparkling and his hair softly moving in the wind. He sighed contently.

"You don't know how happy I am right here, right now Bella." He said as he held out his arm for her. She quickly put the camera back in her bag and moved down to lay next to him. Their bodies resting against each other, her head on his arm and against the side of his chest. "Tell me." She murmured as she kissed the side of chest lightly through his shirt.

He moved his arm so he could gently play with her hair without moving the rest of his body.

"I missed this, just laying in the sun. I've always loved the sunshine but I've never been able to enjoy it fully with someone to share this experience with."

"Does it feel the same as it did when you were human?" She asked softly, yet curiously.

"I don't remember." His voice distant as if he was digging around in his mind for the answer. "I don't mind though, it feels nice like this. The only downside is the sparkling."

She laughed as she opened her eyes and was nearly blinded by his sparkling hand in front of her face.

"Oh, is that funny to you?" He said teasingly as he moved to lay on his side.

"You're blindly beautiful, Edward." She teased with a light voice. He let out another loud laugh and grabbed her around her waist, moving her so she was laying in the warm grass underneath him. His lips pressed against hers quickly and softly. He had started to trust himself more and more around her. She sighed against his mouth, he made a noise in the back of his throat as he breathed her in. His tongue danced lightly against her jaw before moving down to the side of her neck before and stopping in the middle of her sternum pressing a kiss against the skin he found there, his soft hair tickling against her chin making her giggle.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me Bella," his voice more serious then before, "You have no idea how much I love you." He moved his head so he could look at her face, her cheeks were flushed with a healthy blush as she moved her hands to his hair, tangling in his locks.

"I love you too, Edward." She said, "so much."

She tried to control her breathing again and pressed the picture against her chest. It was all real. She kept repeating to herself, over and over again. Somewhere along the sadness, pain and downright agony of his absence she felt rage and anger boiling somewhere in the pit of her stomach. How dare he, take everything away from her. Not just his love but also the love she felt, her stuff, her friends, her second family. She tilted her head upwards, as if she was trying to push her tears back into her eyes. Pursing her lips she tried to contain her feelings, but she couldn't.

The pain of his departure was something she had never experienced before and she didn't understand where it came from. She felt like he had physically ripped her heart out of her chest and hadn't bothered with closing it, leaving her with an empty chest and a gaping wound. She felt painfully numb most of the time, she couldn't think straight. All her energy was constantly being pulled to either the memories of him, of them or to the gaping hole in her chest, she often found herself sitting or standing with her arms wrapped around her chest as if she was trying to hold herself together. As if anything else can be taken from my chest. She muttered darkly to herself.

She placed the picture on the scanner part of her new printer, making a copy on her laptop before putting the picture in an empty frame and placing it on her night stand. She didn't know how long she had been staring at his picture but she did know that the pain was getting worse and worse, so she reached out with a shaking hand and put the frame down so she couldn't see the picture anymore.

More often then not she would wake herself and Charlie up with loud screaming. She was never actually aware that she was screaming but her nightmares haunted her. It was yet another night of loud screams when Charlie burst into her room again, no matter how frequent her nightmares were. He always ran in to wake her up as gently as possible.

She was sobbing this time, having trouble to control her breath as he pulled her into a sitting position on her bed.

"I know Bella." Charlie said quietly as he stroked the back of her head gently. "I know that I didn't know very much about the two of you." He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his other hand looking at the picture of Edward on her nightstand. She couldn't leave it turned downwards. "But I know pain changes you. I know it's hard."

Bella just nodded, unable to speak a word and let herself fall into Charlie. He slowly put his arms around her and placed his head on the crown of Bella's head. "I know it might not look like it right now." He murmured quietly whilst hugging her, "But it will get better, eventually."

She hadn't spoken to anyone but her dad for months. Her teachers had eventually stopped asking her to answer and the few friends she had had eventually stopped talking to her. So Bella always found herself sitting at their table, all by herself. Living through the memories of them. Picturing Emmett sitting across from her with a bag filled with boiled eggs, just because he could.

"Why do you bring a Ziplock bag with just hardboiled eggs in it, Emmett?" She had asked him one day after the fourth time he had brought the same thing in a month.

"Why not?" He grinned back, not fully understanding Bella's apprehensive look. "What?" He asked more seriously this time.

"Nothing," she started off, "It's just not really something that other students bring to school. That's all."

He frowned and looked around the cafeteria with squinted eyes. "I thought many sporty guys ate eggs for protein and shit."

"Emmett!" Rosalie said as she closed her eyes and pinched her nose.

"Sporty guys?" Jasper repeated with a dry, sarcastic voice.

"What! You know what I mean right?" He said as he looked at Bella. "Tell them, Bella!"

"Don't look at me!" She exclaimed as all eyes at their table turned towards her, waiting for her to answer. Edward gently placed his hand on her thigh, squeezing ever so slightly. "I mean, I guess so." She said with a blush on her face.

Alice's eyes darted towards Edward's hand and she smirked at her with a knowing smile before everyone burst out laughing, making several tables turn their head at them.

"God, Esme must think I'm crazy asking for so many boiled eggs." Emmett groaned, making them laugh even louder.

She smiled to herself, thinking back of the memory and ate some of her lunch.

"Hey Bella." A quiet voice said in front of her, making her look up with confusion. "Angela." She almost breathed out.

"I just wanted to ask how you were doing." She said awkwardly before adding, "You're looking better today."

Bella wanted to sigh but grinned awkwardly and decided to lie, "I uhm, I guess I've been doing a lot of thinking these days."

Angela clutched the side of her lunch tray and looked back at her usual table, nobody was looking at her. "Can I sit with you today?" Bella just nodded.

They ate in a comfortable silence.

"Have you heard from them?" Angela asked softly, making Bella tense. Angela immediately noticed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"I haven't." Bella said tensely, the hard plastic fork in her hand made a slight noise in protest as she tightened her grip.

"That's really shitty of them." Angela replied carefully. Bella scoffed, "Tell me about it."

"Does is still hurt? You've been looking really sad these last few months."

"It hurts," Bella started as she looked up at Angela, "but it's okay. I'm used to it now."

Angela just stared at her, Bella was happy she couldn't see pity in her eyes.

"It's hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember." She murmured to herself as the bell rang.

"What?" Angela said softly.

"Nothing." Bella said a bit louder, her throat was dry and her voice sounded hoarse again. She reached into her backpack to take out a bottle of water and took a few sips. "It's nothing." She said again as Angela looked at her with sad, understanding eyes.

"Thank you for sitting with me today." She smiled at Angela with empty eyes, she had never felt this empty before.