I don't own Twilight. What I own is my character's behavior, personality, background, and plot of the story.
Thanks to my Beta MadMooey18 for her continuous help, support, and love.
"How are you doing?" Edward asks Bella, who is still in the hospital. It has been two weeks since she has started speaking. Not a lot has changed. Her mum and her are still staying at the hospital. They are going back home in a week and they have hired a nurse to help them since they have injuries that make it hard for them to move. He tried to say that he can sleep over and help Bella move; he is a big boy, but no one thought that was a good idea. They kind of ignored what he said and went on discussing options.
Bella told him that she would rather he help her than a stranger which made him happy, but then he met the nurse Phil. Now he is no longer happy, because Bella thinks that Phil looks like Prince John in Pocahontas, and it's her favorite movie so she really likes him.
"I don't know," Bella answers truthfully. She misses her daddy a lot. She can't understand that her daddy is gone. She knows he is gone to heaven and has seen a picture of his grave but it doesn't make sense to her. She wants to think that her daddy is playing a joke on her and he will surprise her at any moment, but her daddy knows that hospitals scare her. He would not let her stay alone if he could stay with her.
Everyone her tells her that her daddy sees her and is near by, but she has never felt more alone in her life.
"Did you get the book?" she asks him, changing the subject. He nods his head.
"And the dictionary?" she continues. He nods again then opens the bag and takes both books out and hands them to Bella. The last time he was here she asked him to go to the library and take out a book about ghosts. When he rightfully pointed out that its language might be too big for her, she told him to get her a dictionary too.
Her daddy won't let her stay in the hospital alone, he just won't. If there was a way to come back, he would. She once heard that dead people become ghosts. If that is possible then her dad has definitely become one, so she needs to find out if ghosts are real. If dead people become ghosts they must find a way to contact them, because if they are then her dad is definitely one.
"Just don't damage the dictionary, please. It's my daddy's," he tells her. His father doesn't know that he took it. He knows that what Bella wants to search for is crazy, and he doesn't want his mummy to think that Bella is crazy. Ghosts, like Bigfoot, monsters, and gnomes aren't real. Bella should know that. She is smart enough not to know that, but for some reason, she has been adamant about them being real recently. When Edward tried to understand why he was met with silence.
"I am not a baby. I won't destroy it," she mutters dismissively then starts flipping through it. This has been their pattern since she first spoke. If she wants something from him, she will ask for it, or if she asks him a question, she will listen to his reply, but the moment he is done, he is dismissed. He hates it. He has never felt more unimportant in his life than he did then. He hopes that both this, and her ghost obsession will eventually go away. He wants his best friend back. He wants the happy Bella, not this one that never smiles and doesn't want to talk to him.
He is deep in thought trying to figure out a way to get the old Bella back when he hears the hospital room door being opened. He looks up and finds a woman with black hair and dark skin enter the room.
"Who do we have here?" she asks in a sweet voice that puts him at ease instantaneously. Whoever this lady is, he knows she is a nice person
"This is Edward," Bella mutters, still reading in the book and not looking up. Edward frowns at that. Whenever Bella used to introduce him, she would always say that he is her best friend. Did she stop thinking of him as her best friend? What did he do wrong? How can he fix it?
"I am Amanda. I am Bella's psychologist," the lady introduces herself to Edward as she bends forward till she is at eye level with him and stretches her hand for him to shake. He shakes it in silent understanding. His dad explained to him what a psychologist is; she is a head doctor. She teaches a person how to think right, and to deal with their emotions.
He jumps off his chair and waves bye to Bella before he leaves the room and closes the door behind him. His daddy taught him that psychologists speak to their patients alone. He can't stay. He knows his daddy will be done with work in two hours. When his mummy dropped him off, he told her he would return with his daddy since he thought that he would spend all of his time with Bella. He had a plan to make her speak to him.
That's a lie. He didn't have a plan. Unless, poking her cheeks every time she ignored him is a plan. He decides to go to his daddy's office since he has nothing to do, and along the way he starts compiling a list of ways to get the old Bella back. Halfway towards his daddy's office, he freezes in his place. If he wants Bella back, he can't do it on his own. He needs help. The psychologist is the perfect person to help him. How did he not think of that?
He turns around and walks towards Bella's room as fast as possible. He needs to be by the door so he can speak with the psychologist as soon as she leaves Bella's room. He paces back and forth in the corridor as he waits for the psychologist.
After forever, she finally leaves Bella's room. This is his chance. He needs to ask her. His mouth dries. He feels that he should speak first to Bella about this, but she would never listen to him. It's now or never.
"Miss Amanda?" She turns around and looks around till she lowers her head and sees him.
"Can I talk to you?" he asks before she says anything. She nods her head and walks toward the chairs alongside the wall of the corridor between Bella's room and another's.
"How can I help you, dear?" she asks as she watches him sit two chairs away from her.
He looks at his feet nervously, not sure what to say. He decides to have some courage and looks up with determination shining through his eyes as he clears his throat then says, "I want your help with Bella. She has been acting weird, and she doesn't speak to me and I'm her best friend. I want the old Bella back and I need your help. My daddy is a scientist. He told me what a psychologist does. You can help me help her."
She nods her head and looks deep in thought for a full minute before she finally speaks. "I want to show you something," she tells him as she rolls her sleeve and shows him the inside of her wrist, "Do you see this tattoo?"
He looks at her hand and finds a pretty tattoo of some type of leaves wrapped around her whole wrist, so he nods his head. She takes off her jacket and points towards her bicep where Edward finds an exact replica of the tattoo on her wrest.
She puts her jacket back on and tells him, "Ten years ago my wrist was cut open and the wound was so deep that it needed stitches. The cut healed and stopped being painful with time but the scar never went away. When I decided to get the two tattoos, the one over my wrist was more painful than the one around my bicep. Do you know why?"
He shakes his head. He doesn't know why it was more painful, and he doesn't understand what does that have to do with helping Bella.
"It's because injuries that cause us pain never go away. They never return to how they were before. Losing her dad is very painful for Bella. It means that there are ways in which Bella is forever changed. You can help her become better but you can't make her the person she was before," she tells her patiently.
Edward gets a horrified look on his face as he asks, "So will she always be looking for evidence that ghosts are real?"
To Edward's dismay, she starts laughing until she sees his expression. She collects herself and tries to explain, "Not exactly. Here is the thing, sweetie. When people are in pain, emotional not physical, they go through something bad that shocks them, and they try to make sense of it. Sometimes their way of trying to make sense of it sounds crazy, but it is what they need to feel better."
"But how does proving that ghosts are real, help her deal with her daddy dying?" Edward wonders.
"When you stub your toe, what do you do?"
"I start jumping up and down," he replies.
"How does jumping up and down help?" she asks. Edward is surprised. He tries to think of why he jumps up and down when he stubs his toe but comes up empty, so he shrugs his shoulder.
"The way we deal with pain doesn't make sense most of the time, and as long as you aren't hurting anyone your way of dealing with pain is okay," she explains.
"But she doesn't talk to me," Edward whines. He doesn't like that. Bella loves to talk a lot. She is a very talkative person, now all of a sudden she doesn't want to talk to him? He doesn't like that.
"Sometimes the voices in our head are too loud for us to speak to anyone. Sometimes we are too busy thinking to speak. If you want to help her you need to be honest with her, not judge her, and tell her that when she is ready to talk, you will listen and believe her, okay?" she asks.
He nods his head then jumps off the seat and walks towards Bella's room. He wants to tell her all that the doctor told him, and he will not stop before he does. He knocks on the door of her hospital, and then enters. Bella looks up and when she sees it's him she goes back to reading.
Determined to not let her ignoring him deter him from speaking, he walks till he is beside the bed then speaks, "Bella, I know that you are sad, and in pain. I know that you have changed in a way I don't know and that you are acting in a way that doesn't make sense because you are in pain. I just want you to know that it changes nothing. You will always be my best friend no matter what happens, and I will never make you feel bad for how you changed or act no matter how weird it sound. I will always be your friend, when you are ready to speak I will listen to you and hug you and never make you feel bad for what you say."
He is met with silence. She doesn't say anything to him. He expected her to say anything, even tell him he isn't her best friend, but not complete silence. He looks at the spot she is starting at her; her hands. They are trembling as her knuckles turn white from holding on to the blanket as tightly as she is right now.
He decides to leave. Maybe he is making her feel worse. Maybe she needs to think. He will give her time to think, and he will repeat his words as many times as she needs to hear them to understand. Sometimes, he needs his mum to tell him something more than once to listen; like making his bed, and putting his smelly socks in the laundry basket. If his mum can tell him to do something more than once, he can do that.
Right as he opens the door he hears a faint, "Edward." It was faint, very faint. If it was not for the fact that he knows Bella's voice pretty well, he wouldn't have heard her.
He turns to face her and finds her eyes glistening with unshed tears, "You are my bestest friend too. Thank you for never forgetting me," she tells him.
"You are welcome," he whispers back before he steps out of the door and closes it behind him. He decides to visit his dad. He can't lie to him. He needs to be honest with him.
He doesn't get weird looks from the hospital staff anymore; they are too used to having him around. Some will stop him from entering a department, but no one gets angry at him. Being well-mannered also helps.
Once he reaches his dad's office, he knocks on the door. "Come in," his father calls from inside the office, so he stands on his tiptoes and opens the door and steps in.
"Hey son. Are you done visiting Bella Do you need me to call your mum?"
Edward ignores his daddy's words and tells him, "I have something to tell you about. I took your dictionary. Bella asked me for it. She asked me to borrow a book from the library for her, but it's words are difficult, so she needs a dictionary. I can't tell you what its about since she is my friend and she asked me to keep it a secret. All I can tell you is that her psychologist thinks that it will help her feel better, and it doesn't harm anyone. I don't want to keep it a secret from you because I don't want to make you sad. Please don't be sad at me."
After a full minute of silence that Edward spends pinching his left arm behind his back, a terrible habit he formed recently, his daddy finally speaks, "It's okay son, I'm not sad. I am actually really happy that you decided to tell me and I am really proud of you for being such a good friend."
Edward believes in honesty. He does believe in it, no matter what the truth is, he will always say it.
Hello lovely people,
I would like to hear what you think is going to happen next.
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Until my next update,
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