This chapter works as more of an introduction , it's very skimmed over and brief, just to help lead into the actual story.
Bella's POV
I wanted to say her name over and over in my head. I wanted to say it until it hurt. I wanted to say it until a single thought couldn't pass through my head without her name flooding into it.
When you lose someone, the way I lost her, the first thing you feel is the pain. It just hurts so much and you want it to go away so badly. You want everything to go back to the way it was. You want it to go back to the way it was before the aching, before the agony that came crashing in from their absence.
But that's the thing. It will never be like it used to be.
So, once the pain is gone and time has passed, you just feel empty.
That's when the strangest thing happens, something you would have never had expected. That's when you realise you want the pain back.
You see, If you'd known that it was your last physical connection to them, if it was the last time you'd feel them. Then you would off clung to the pain with all you had. You would've sat in it, soaked yourself in it, you would dwell in it forever. Because without it, you realise she's really gone. There's nothing left without that pain.
So, that's what I decided to do. I decided to stay here, in this dark place, absorbing every bit of the pain. Because the alternative seemed so much more horrifying.
Letting her go, that would be what really hurt.
It had been six months since she died.
Six months of having my own room and six months of not wanting to look into a mirror, not wanting to see her eyes looking back at me.
For the first time in this life, I wished that weren't identical twins. Maybe then my mother could look at me without the constant reminder that I was here and Anna wasn't. Maybe I wouldn't be a constant reminder that the wrong one died.
My mother knew that Anna deserved this life. Anna worked hard to make it shine and I just sat on the side lines watching her. Just passing time and watching her live out a life that I was unable to grasp.
These are the things that never occurred to me. I thought my reflection would be a comfort, but instead I want to smash the glass with my hands, to pull her out, or climb in after her.
I thought I could remember everything she had told me and that would bring some solace. But it just makes everything harder. The traces of her in my head were almost as bad as the traces of her that were left in the room we had once shared.
After she died, I had to be the one who decided what happened to her things. Her clothes, her books, the sheets that she slept on, no one came into our room to take them. Though, I had waited for someone to do just that.
It was almost like I expected someone to come and collect it all and take them to her. My mind simply couldn't comprehend her not needing them anymore.
No one would ever believe me if I told them, but Anna knew she was going to die. She had told me a long time ago, trying to give me time to adjust to the idea of life without her, as if that was something I could ever comprehend.
She had made me promise that when the day came and we weren't together, that I would go back to Forks.
She told me that I belonged there, that he would be here waiting for me and that I needed him. She said he could help.
I had to trust what she told me, I had to do as she had asked. No matter how much I didn't want to leave this place, I had to keep my promise.
It had been like this for as long as I could remember, she always knew what was coming. But she had always carefully decided on what she would share with me.
She said it wasn't right. People weren't meant to know the future, that it took something away from the now. She said it messed with the natural order of things. She said that her mere presence in this world didn't fit because everything she was - went against the purest and most ancient of things…. Time.
It made things harder for her, there was a part of her that no one could reach and that no one could understand. The only part I ever really understood, was that just like me, there was a part of her that would forever be alone.
When we were six, I found her in the school playground alone; she sat staring at the ground crying, but wouldn't tell me why. She was inconsolable all day, but then the school bell rang and she grabbed my hand and dragged me home. We got off the bus and ran home to find our Gran as usual; she would look after us each day after school while our mother worked.
We sat with her that evening on the couch while she read us a story and the three of us fell asleep.
When I woke I felt my grandmothers cold skin pressed into mine.
I remember being so frantic when I couldn't wake her up. I ran to the phone and called the ambulance. But Anna held her hand and stroked her hair, she told her that she loved her and that we would all be ok without her.
I remember freezing. Just for a second.
I stopped screaming into the phone and just watched her.
She was so calm and there, she was there in that moment with her. She wasn't lost in confusion and panic; she held her hand knowing it would be the last time. It was real to her, not some dazed and blurred haze of emotion.
After Anna died, I laid in our room as the sunlight flooded it through the window and I knew that it wouldn't be the same without out her, even if I did stay. So I committed myself to going through with this. I had to do it, even if it was only to keep my promise to her.
I hadn't been to Forks since I was a baby, back when my father was still alive. But what remained there was the house he had left me and Anna. In the end I knew it was the best thing for everyone; mom needed to distance herself from me and I wanted her to be used to living without me, before it all fell into place, before all of this ended. Because I would do what Anna told me to do. But only to a point.
My room was completely empty, except for boxes that Phil promised to load onto my truck before he started work.
I looked over at the clock and waited for him to knock on my door to wake me, I wanted to savour every second that I could in this space that had once belonged to her, that still smelled like her. In a space where every inch of the room held some memory of the only person who ever truly loved me.
It didn't matter that it didn't look the same now, that everything was packed away. The ceiling still looked the same, it still felt the same way and that was all that mattered. That was all I needed to pretend that it was just another day and she was laying just a few feet away from me. So close that I could simply reach out and feel her hand that was always hanging off the mattress while she slept. Reaching for me, even in her dreams.
"Let's do this Bell's" Phil yelled as he knocked on my door, I closed my eyes shut for a second, I let the calmness of the empty room take me over once more before I forced my eyes open.
Ok. lets do this
I quickly jumped to my feet and wiped my face, trying to remove the tears from my red eyes. I snatched up my jacket and unlocked the door for Phil.
"Sleep well?" he questioned with concern, as he looked me up and down.
I smiled and nodded quickly at him.
"I'm fine." I added before turning my back to him to start this, to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. I could feel his eyes on me as I passed him the closest box, trying to draw the unwanted attention away from me.
I moved quickly. I moved just fast enough to be sure that I didn't have to fully think about what I was doing. So I didn't chicken out.
Within an hour I was standing in the driveway, watching as Phil tied everything down. I tried to pay attention while he explained how to undo the knots when I arrived in Forks. The more I stood there, the more I found that I wanted to leave, just as badly as I wanted to stay… I wanted to run away and at the same time I wanted to hide away in mine and Anna's room. I guess in the end it was the same result. I wanted to be alone.
I walked over to my mother and wrapped my arms around her, but just for a minute. I could feel us both forcing ourselves to hold on for longer than we wanted too. There were expectations on us. Not set by her or me. But there were expectations on what a loving family should look like. She was supposed to be sad I was leaving and I was supposed to be worried I would miss her.
I force a smile at her and she returned it. She held the fake warm expression for as long as she could, before she stood back against the front door, watching me from afar as I climbed into the truck.
I knew that I had to do this, but I never expected it to hurt so much, I didn't think that I would be so relieved to get away from her.
I imagined that I would finally be able to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything, everything that I had wanted to tell her since I was little, but instead I smiled from the car and gave a quick wave, before forcing myself to brake eye contact.
"Call when you get there, so we know you're ok." She said nervously as I pulled out the drive way, not giving her a chance to say anything else. And not making her any promises that I had no intention of keeping.
I took a breath and let my eyes fill with tears before quickly taking off down the road.
I drove for hours and hours, never being able to stop myself from crying no matter how hard I tried.
I could still hear Anna next to me laughing and singing off key to the songs on the radio. It was too soon to be doing this. I didn't want to be doing this. It was a constant fight inside of my head, I wanted to stay in our room for every second that I could and just think about her. I wanted to lay in bed with her clothes that still held her familiar scent, breathe it in and cry all night. But at the same time, I wanted to run as far away from it all as I could, as if I could distance myself from what happened, not from Anna, but from loosing her.
Not long after Anna died my mother said she had to sell the house. That she couldn't handle living here without her and that's when I realised just how different we both were. She wanted to start over with Phil and have the baby that her and Phil had been planning for years. But I didn't want a new anything; I didn't want to start over. Starting over in a new house will not change a thing. So, I would go back to the place that we were in when we were first brought into this world. I would go back to the old, back to the start. And my mother could move forward.
Missing Anna is all I had left, the only life and happiness I had was because of her and it went with her. Guilt had washed over me when they talked about having a baby, because I prayed it would replace Anna and I, because I am done. I just want to lay in bed smelling her clothes and listening to her favourite music, watching her movies. Whether I do that here or in Forks, I guess really makes no difference. But I can't pretend it didn't happen, I cant move on.
Hell, I refuse to.
By the time it was midnight I had made it to the motel. I sat in the car outside debating on whether or not I should just keep driving no matter how tired I was. I tapped my hands on the steering wheel knowing what could happen if I wasn't somewhere safe and out of sight. But the thought of sleep mixed with the idea of crashing the car, because of how tired I was finally pulled me from my seat. I checked in and went to my room. It was nothing special, just a room with a bed and a TV, but for some reason everything in the room was a pale yellow, even the carpet. I dropped myself onto the bed and closed my eyes, it felt like only a second had passed when my alarm went off.
I smiled into the pillow with relief and rolled over. I just had one more day of driving and I should be there in the evening.
Phil insisted over and over that driving from L.A to Forks was too much, I used the excuse that I didn't want to leave my truck behind, but I just couldn't risk the plane trip.
There were rules that I had lived by, that Anna and I had both lived by. Rules that we set in place to keep us safe, to keep people from noticing what was going on with us, to keep people from knowing that we were sick or broken...or whatever it was that we were.
It comes on so suddenly for me, it always has. Painful blackouts that the doctors called seizures, but I never read any thing that described what I felt in those moments. For Anna it was completely different. When were were children, we had so many diagnoses, but none were ever conclusive. Our mother had continued to take us to every facility she could and try us on every new drug she could get her hands on, anything to make us normal.
As we got older, I got worse and Anna slowly got better.
She had broken down once. She finally understood what was happening and she wanted, as any naive child would, acceptance and comfort - understanding and help.
She told my mother and the doctors that she was seeing things - that these images would take over. But the more she told them - the more tests they would do, the longer they would lock us away in hospitals. That was when Anna and I decided to stop talking about it.
We would only talk about the symptoms that could be associated with epilepsy and we kept the rest to ourselves. To keep us safe.
We promised that we would look after each other instead. Anna spent years reading books, trying to find anything that was even remotely similar to what we had, but she never found anything close and one day she just stopped looking. I questioned her over and over again, thinking she had found something that she didn't want to tell me. But she promised repeatedly that there was just nothing. She said she was wasting her time.
As the pain got worse each day, she tried to work with me, tried to help me handle it like her, but it never took.
I never really understood what Anna wanted me to do. She would ask me to try and focus when I was having a seizure or a migraine, or a black out or what ever you want to call it. But I didn't understand how she could see anything, focus on anything or think about anything when it hurt so much. That's when I realized that she was stronger than me, smarter and braver.
As I got to Forks I couldn't help but feel a blow of nostalgia, everything was just as I had left it. I didn't need the map anymore I knew where I was going. I still knew every street like the back of my hand and every house still looked the same as it did when I was young. It was so unexpected.
I pulled into the driveway and I somehow still felt like this was home. Like it really was the best thing to do and everything really was going to be ok.
That thought lasted about thirty seconds. Then it his me, I could feel it coming.
The problem wasn't that the pain was unbearable right now. It was knowing that it was going to get worse. But I would never know how long it would be before it would become unmanageable. Before it would hurt so much that I wanted to pull myself apart and die.
I dragged as many of the boxes of the truck as I could and started going through them looking for the one filled with my medication. I was so engrossed in searching that I didn't pay any attention to the house. I didn't take a second to look around; I just frantically looked through box after box, wishing I had of labelled things better. It was stupid to have packed them at all
Finally, surrounded by open boxes - I found the one I was looking for. I collapsed to the floor and rummaged through the bags taking pill after pill, before quickly grabbing the prescriptions I had and running back out to the truck. If I hadn't been so consumed in my grief I would have been better prepared. God knows I had nothing but time. But still I didn't get the one thing that I needed to get and now, in this glorious stat I was in, I had to go out.
I felt like there really was no time to think. No time to do anything but focus on my goal. I drove far too quickly into town, stopping nowhere else on the way. I could feel my hands starting to shake as I pulled in to the car park. I walked in to the pharmacy tripping over my own feet, wanting nothing more than to get back home to where it was safe and I was hidden.
The pharmacist examined me suspiciously, until looking down at my scripts to see what I needed, when he suddenly looked up giving me a small but comforting smile, assuring me it would only take a few minutes, that he would rush the order.
I sat in the waiting chair, I usually would look around the shop or get some groceries maybe, but today I sat staring at him behind the counter, and counting the seconds it took for him to fill the script.
I couldn't imagine how I must off looked, tapping my foot and biting my lip, waiting on the edge of the hard plastic chair for him to make his way back to the counter. But the thing was I just couldn't bring myself to do anything else but this.
I had been using all of Anna scripts since she had died, I was going through every medication so much faster than I should of been and couldn't bring myself to go without them when I had her ID and scripts, I found that as long as everything matched no one paid attention. For some reason I always had to think of it as borrowing, that if she needed any of this stuff I would give it back.
Finally he nodded to me as he made his way over to the cash register. I paid him and almost ran from the store. I could feel my insides starting to boil beyond belief and the sharp pain in my head started throbbing harder and harder.
I started to pull out of the car park when suddenly I felt nothing but pressure all through my head; I sat in the car trying to stop the flashes. Trying to stop the noise that burnt my ears and light that stung my eye's.
I wanted to scream so badly that I gripped the steering wheel until it hurt, I breathed heavily as my eyes filled with tears. I realised I had been sitting there to long, that someone would have seen me.
I quickly looked around me to see if someone was witnessing the breakdown, to see a shiny silver Volvo in my rear vision mirror, parked behind me, the door slung open. I realised that I was blocking the exit to the car park and he was probably getting out trying to see what was going on.
I didn't wait to see anything else. I started the car and took off as fast as I possibly could back home.
I drove the car onto the lawn, as close to the front door as I could. I couldn't stop anymore to think about the growing pain in my head. I couldn't think about anything but the heat and how I needed to get cold water on me before I passed out.
I opened the car door and fell out onto the muddy grass; I pushed myself back up and threw myself at the front door. As soon as I opened it I stopped kidding myself and collapsed onto the ground.
I could hear nothing but screeching all around me, I tried to focus on where I was going but I was blinded by bright colors that flashed so hard I felt them erupt through my head like lighting. I dragged myself up each step towards the bathroom; the only other thing I could hear was my cries. I didn't have any control over what came out of my mouth. I couldn't help the pleading to no one, begging that this end. Even though I knew it never would.
There was no time to take my clothes off, I frantically pulled my self into the shower and turned the cold water on. I lay on the tiles trying to breathe, trying to imagine the water putting out the flames that ran through every inch of me.
I watched the water slowly go down the drain. I watched the pattern of the drain as it suddenly it started to shake, like I was on a train going a thousand mile per hour.
My thoughts were blocked; like my brain was drowning and it couldn't breathe.
"No, No, No, No" I screamed as I pulled myself from the shower and dragged my body along the ground. I knew I had to get off the tiles, that I had only seconds to get through the doorway. I reached out for the door frame to pull myself through to the safety of the carpet when suddenly the noise that was deafening stopped and I was gone. Everything turned hazy just before it was black and still.
In the silence, in the dead of night that's when I heard him. I didn't know if I was dreaming or if the voice was real. It was so quiet that I had to struggle to hear. But I could, he was there, telling me that it would be ok, that I was safe and it was over. I felt a hand through my hair, stroking it gently. But when I woke up, I found myself in my bed alone.
It went on like this for weeks
I felt like I was going to go mad living here.
I realise now after waking in strange places in the house surrounded by oddly arranged objects that I'm beginning to lose time. That was something that was unexpected.
Nothing felt right here, there was nothing to distract me. Literally nothing.
Even though the room was almost foreign to me, everything screamed out Anna's name, to the point that my stomach hurt and I couldn't catch my breath.
I decided to stop myself from unpacking to avoid the photos and books and just everything that we were. It wasn't going to help and I didn't need them to remember her. I didn't need any of these things anymore. Mine or her's. They were useless.
It had been three weeks without any human contact, without talking to anyone or doing anything. Any time I felt as though someone was taking the tiniest of notice of me I would flee and today would be no different.
I was forced to go to the supermarket to get milk and eggs, I was going exceptionally well with avoiding everyone in my surroundings when I had to make my way back out to the car park.
The weather had turned quickly and the clouds that had been forming suddenly began to turn black and the wind blew so coldly that it hit my skin like razors of ice. I wore only a cardigan and jeans, not planning to spend too much time dealing with the elements. But as always my plans changed when I opened my bag searching for my keys. I scrimmaged through the mess when the shopping bag slipped from my full hands. One of the two milk bottles burst on to the ground spilling everywhere and I could feel everyone's eyes on me in the car park.
I ignored everyone's stares and knelt down by the mess and opened my bag again when I felt a sting in my thigh. It was the fucking keys, jabbing me from inside the pocket of my jeans. I felt my eyes well at the unnecessary humiliation, and my hands shook as I tried to move quickly, but in doing so I dropped the last of the groceries.
I glanced up to see the shoes of someone coming towards me. No doubt wanting to help the new basket-case of Forks.
THAT'S IT. IM DONE.
I jumped to my feet and swung around, I opened the car door and threw myself into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind me.
I drove like a maniac out of the car park feeling stupider and stupider, not just for what happened but for my reaction.
I got through my front door and closed it and gave into the tears, to the overwhelming feelings of being here, alone and sick. But I knew it was all about her, because I couldn't pretend here. I couldn't sit in the familiar room and pretend she was at a party. That she would climb through the window and into my bed, smelling of vodka and cigarettes and tell me everything that had happened while I sat at home reading.
I wondered, if in the car park today, there were sister like we were, that one who responsibly pushed the trolley while the other hung of the end like a child. One carefree, while the other examines the shopping list one last time.
I could hear her singing along to radio in the car on the way home, chatting to me about boys while we packed everything away.
I was so stupid to think these things didn't matter. That they weren't everything that made up your life.
I leaned up against the door wiping my eyes when an oddly light knock froze me in place.
I didn't move and after a few seconds the knocking continued.
I stood up slowly, deciding that my breathing was far too loud and that I would be heard sitting so close to whoever it was.
I wanted to go upstairs and crawl into bed. I wanted to wrap my arms pathetically around my pillows and pretend that it was her, pretend that she was talking to me and telling me that everything was going to be ok. She always told me that I would be ok, but without her here to tell me, the idea of it became less and less believable.
The knocking stopped as I reached the stairs and I could hear whoever it was walking away. I slowly walked over to the window to see a tall boy from behind, as he slid into his car.
It took two seconds for me to register the shiny silver Volvo in my mind as the same one I saw outside of the pharmacy, the last time I almost made a complete moron out of myself.
I watched as the car drove of down the street and as my eyes dropped as he flew out of my vision I saw two brown bags on my porch.
I opened the door and found the two bags were filled with all of the items I had dropped but obviously they had been re-brought.
Everything had been so hard lately that I decided to just take it as something good instead of creepy or odd. He was obviously trying to be nice.
I went into the kitchen and put on the kettle and started heating up the fry pan to cook some bacon and eggs.
I tried to stay positive in the emptiness of the kitchen, but no matter what I did it seemed every day I was at war with myself to stay out of my room.
Sometimes I wondered if I wanted to break down and retreat so much that I would blow things out of proportion just so I could go and dwell, so I could go on refusing to try to do anything but stay stuck in this longing for her, this dreading of the pain that could strike whenever it pleases, with no rhyme or reason.
I forced myself to stay in the kitchen long after I finished eating and began flipping through a magazine, wondering if I should put on the TV to kill the silence when I felt the sharp pain strike through head, my hands shook and I dropped the magazine taking deep breaths.
No, It's to soon.
In my head I would count, like she used too. Only it used to work for her. As Anna got older, by the time she would count her way to ten, it would be over.
I thought if I just kept doing it, that one day it would work, that something would just click in.
As the pain began to hit over and over again, forcing me to my knees, my sharp harsh breath shot out the numbers as I crawled up the steps, the staircase seemed as endless as always.
I had been doing this for weeks, but in reality I had been doing this exact same thing for years. My life was this exact moment, the desperation of trying to catch my breath, of not understanding why you couldn't just die, why this pain doesn't just kill me.
Slowly I made my way to the bathroom by dragging my body along the floor. I reached up and turned the taps on, filling the tub as quickly as I could. I reached up to the sink and cried out as I pulled myself up to my feet, I tried to open the medicine cabinet when the searing pain forced my body forward.
I grabbed on tightly to the sink crying as the pain got worse and worse. I managed to reach up to the cabinet and open the door.
As I reached for the pills I needed, the pain hit harder and I grabbed onto the shelves to help me keep my balance and knocking everything onto the ground in the process. I actually felt lucky that I hadn't dropped what I needed. I shook my head at the thought as I opened the bottle and poured the pills straight into my mouth, I don't know how many I took, only that I swallowed everything that passed my lips.
I wanted to lower myself onto the ground and then slowly climb into the quickly filling tub. But the pain came on so strongly that I could do nothing but grab fistfuls of my hair in terror, as I suddenly felt my body heat up in seconds and the pain became so bad that I couldn't handle it for a second longer.
I lost my balance and my legs gave out as the pain struck harder and stronger, giving me the only warning I was allowed, that I was about slip into something that I couldn't escape from.
I felt like I could off hung on longer if I wanted too.
But I didn't even try, instead I let it take me, I let it eat me alive.
The lat thought I had was there was no point to this.
I had hung onto this existence for one reason, and that reason was one that would seem insane to anyone else. It even seemed crazy to me. Most days I wiped it from my mind and planned a fate she swore me never to think of. But at times like this it was impossible not to.
There were so many things that Anna told me that I just had to believe, because I knew she wasn't mad, she hadn't lost it. She just knew things and as she got older she could hear them clearly.
She could tell me so many things before they happened.
She told me I was going to lose her, but she never said when.
She explained my life to me in puzzle pieces, pieces that would all fit when he finally showed up. He was the one that was going to fix all of this. He would fix me. She told me a number of things about him, though some of them didn't make sense. I often narrowed that down to her drinking to much.
But the one thing she pressed, was that everything was going to be ok, but she never told me when. Only that I needed him - to make it ok.
But I didn't want to hang onto that dream anymore, I wanted to let go and drift of. I deserved peace, I was sure of that.
As I floated off, seemingly unnoticed, I felt a wave of harsh air plunge into my lungs. It stopped me from drifting away and smashed me down to the hard ground, bringing back with it the pain that came with being alive.
My body was wet and my clothes drenched, I starred up at the light in the bathroom coming slowly to my senses, when I felt someone softly smooth back my hair and the bright light disappeared and was replaced with golden eyes staring into mine.
Just like that, he was there.
Just as she had promised.