The Diver
Do you really want her dead, Edward?
Alice is in Study Hall; I am in Calculus class. She thinks, and I formulate intentions to speak. She picks my words up out of the future and then replies. Not a breath of air is disturbed.
Me: You have no right to ask me that!
Her, wounded and angry: You think you're the only one who loves her! You can read minds and so you think you know everything. But you don't!
Me, just as angry: You're a fine one to talk!
Our gifts are imperfect, Edward. Because we are imperfect. We see what we want to see, what we already believe.
Arguing at a distance like this makes us appear to be daydreaming. We must be careful, very careful, not to seem absent for too long.
Just once, Edward, stop reading my mind and just see. See me. See what I see.
I hear in thought as she whispers, "Jasper, help me."
The two of them have been inseparable since he returned, but he doesn't like what she is asking of him. "You're meddling, my darling. You're playing with fire."
She shows me anyway, without his help: moment after moment after moment, herself and Bella, best friends forever. I can almost understand. Alice has been as helpless as I have been. This tiny sliver of possible future has pulled at her, as hard as Bella's blood pulls me. Now it burns, brighter than all the rest. For her at least.
I don't care! Bella is alive and well, and I intend to keep her that way!
But you can't Edward. Don't you see?
And she shows me Bella's old age. How she will have many years of infirmity at the end. A weak heart. Difficulty breathing. Years of that. Confined to a wheelchair by a stroke when she is eight-two. I am given her half-sagging face, her mottled skin, the sores on her thin buttocks that can never heal because, much as her granddaughter loves her, she does not live nearby in those years, and the aides who take care of her don't get her out of the chair enough, don't turn her enough when she is in bed.
I won't condemn her to be what we are!
Are we really so horrible, Edward? You love her! And she loves you.
Well, not quite exactly. I hadn't been able to refrain from pestering Alice to show me what Bella's final inscription in the scrapbook meant. Not that I ever asked her outright. But each of my moments of temptation materialized to her as an aborted future, and so, in a rare moment of lightness for these days, she had demanded of me twenty-three pieces of notebook paper. On them she had written out each of the "treatises" that Bella had composed and then discarded.
She thinks I'm gay. She wants to offer herself to me as a friend.
Emmett and Jasper got a great laugh out of that. My heart just ached for her. This girl. This girl.
Pledging herself with her blood. Who does such a thing?
I cannot forget those three drops on the page. Completely dried now, though if I moistened them with my tongue I am certain I could still lift that essence up from the trapping fibers and into my mouth. They lie there, like an evil omen. And yet I cannot stop myself from opening to them every night, to stare, and yes, to sniff. It is the only page I turn to.
The bell has rung, and it is time to gather our things and go home once more. We all converge at my locker and loiter. After Bella ambushed me at my car, I can no longer stand to be in the parking lot with her. I hurt her. Again. I am always hurting her. I don't want to.
I don't want to.
And yet, surely that is better than to encourage her affections – even if it were only by failing to discourage them. The real consequences of her ever drawing close to me loom in my mind. They are not pretty.
I have Jasper's memories to thank for that.
Encouraging his own affections, and those of his prey. Giving them, as Peter had put it, "a happier death than God ever will."
He is completely sensory. Breasts, and musk, and heart beating tattoo through sternum to his lips. The bite. The blood. The carnal ecstasy. Shared. Redoubled. Such exquisite heat. Below. And in his mouth.
Too late, the surge of panic, as teeth and venom chase the bliss of orgasm, and his victim realizes that this embrace can no more be moved than a concrete wall. For perhaps a minute there is gasping and squirming, until, starved of blood, the heart fibrillates. The body spasms as seizures take the dying brain. And then nothing. Nothing.
I have my own memories. "Pretty boy," they all thought. Until I tore into them.
Jasper feels me. What are you thinking, brother?
Nothing. Nothing but what lies beneath the glittery surface of each of us.
I hang back inside the building, my family with me, waiting for Bella and her venerable red truck to disappear from the sight of anyone within range.
The sub-rosa conversation between Alice and me continues, spoken now, though beyond the range of human hearing, as we all meander to the library and pretend to look at reference materials.
"You can't keep her alive, Edward. One way or another she is doomed to die."
She shows me again the sum of all possibilities, like some unholy triptych.
The simple casket, holding its lifeless husk, a cicada cast. The thin arms crossed over the withered chest are empty now. The future in which Bella carried my journal with her into the earth has been given back to me.
Her dead, drained corpse beneath me – still sweet, still soft, still warm – for a little while. Never run from a vampire. Her fragrance fades, changes, as she cools and stiffens. And still I cannot let go.
Her white beauty, silent-chested at my side.
"Why won't you choose a good death for her?"
How can she even suggest that it is mine to choose?
And the wolves. They would never forgive this. Never.
For once, Rosalie is on my side, her eyes shooting at Alice like a double-barreled nail gun. Jasper growls.
I see that we have killed half an hour at least. Bella is long gone.
The five of us finally file out of the school's main doors, and the cold air of outside hits us as Alice answers me: "No matter what you do or don't do, you're still choosing – "
She gasps, and nearly doubles over. Before anyone can notice, we all have circled around her so no one can see.
"No! Oh, Bella!"
Emmett and Rosalie are instantly on guard. Jasper has his hands on his wife's shoulders. He feels, but only I can see what she has seen.
Bella falling through the air. A cliff above, the sea below.
"Alice, when?"
"I don't know, Edward. I can't see!"
"Concentrate!"
"Get your hands off her!" In an instant I'm on my back on the ground with Jasper looming over me, his eyes wide and black. "The Sam Hill, Ed'rd!"
"Stop it!" Rosalie hisses. "There's others about!"
Alice's vision flashes again, and I recognize the cliff. She does, too, of course. They all tracked me to that headland when I had run there from Bella's room. The day she almost died. The night of her books and her quilts and her heavenly scent, binding me in their toils.
I can feel again the water in my lungs, when I was brought back up from my dive.
And the night before that. Standing in that very same place. The medicine paper, all fragrant with her, unfolded in my hands. The briar patch inside, the three red roses tucked among the green. The "Thank You", written in her careful script.
All of it – ripped to shreds and thrown to the wind, and the black waves below.
I climb to my feet, faster than is humanly possible, but I don't care.
"We have to go there, now!"
The rest of them follow me, complaining, as Alice explains. We leave as we had come: the three freaks in my car, Emmett and Rose in the jeep. We push our machines to the limit once we are free of the town and its traffic.
I want to abandon the vehicles and run straight there. But the risk of exposure is too great. I hate the limitations of rubber and steel and gearboxes, hate the curves in the road, HATE that it becomes dirt and slows my car that much more. The light in Alice's vision could be right now.
Why would she do such a thing? Why would she jump? Why? As rude as I have been to her, surely not … but I have been far worse than rude to her. I have stalked her and she must know it. I have approached her and avoided her. Given her things that she can't understand. And then taken them away.
"Jasper, has she been despondent?"
It's unfair to ask him this. He's had his hands full just with me. When has he had leisure to monitor her feelings? Or cause, for that matter? All of our resources have been turned inward.
"Edward, if you can't see that she's in love with you – "
"The whole female student body is in love with me."
Jasper snorts, and echoes his wife. You can read everybody's mind, but all you can feel is yourself.
"She thinks I'm gay."
"When's that ever stopped a girl?"
I feel like I might throw up, if I were human and had tangible stomach contents. Would a girl do that? Throw herself off a cliff because the boy she has fallen in love with can never love her in return?
At last we reach the long left turn, the thinning trees, the bluff in sight, the ocean beyond.
And God help me, there she is.
I feel as though a vise is clamping my throat. She stands, back to us, arms stretched out at her sides, hair streaming forward, as if she will set sail on the wind. For a moment I can say nothing. She is so lovely there. I cannot help but think of the statue of Christ the Redeemer over Rio.
But we are in time. We are in time. Thank God.
I recover my wits and yell.
"Bella!"
Even without the sudden blinding flash of Alice's vision, I know my mistake. But the breath has left my lungs. The syllables of her name have shot out like arrows from my lips, and no power above or below can call them back.
Startled by my shout, Isabella spins around, arms still outstretched.
Too quickly. Too close to the edge.
I watch in utter horror, as balance deserts her and she tilts away from solid land and out into the void. She does not even try to right herself. My cursedly perfect vampire vision sees it all as if in slow motion. Her wide-eyed gaze flashes across my face, then drifts upward to the lowering grey of the sky … and … lets go. Is she truly so willing to give up her life on this earth? Why?
Even before her form has disappeared beyond the lip of the cliff I have launched myself forward to catch her.
"Bella!" Alice's scream echoes among the trees.
I am too late by far. She is already free falling downward by the time I reach the cliff edge. Even at vampire speed. There is nothing for it but to hurl myself after her, try to plummet faster even than she, to catch her on the way down and somehow break her fall.
Halfway down. I've almost reached her. The foaming green surf draws lazily back, baring huge, jagged teeth of black rock. There will not be even a shred of water to cover them when we hit.
Almost there! I grab Bella as I pass – too quickly, too roughly. Again.
No time! Twist! Twist my body under hers; gather her arms and legs, make her a ball held against my chest. Cover her face against flying shards, because there will be shards, as my back smashes against the tumbled ledge of basalt.
We hit, and Bella's shriek tears through my ears.
How could I think that my unyielding body would do anything but transmit the shock of impact right into her?
My mind floods with ghastly imaginings of her ruptured organs, as the water towers above us, ready to heave back against the cliff, to smother and roll and drown us under its weight, grind us against the stone, and impale her soft parts on the twisted spars of driftwood caught between.
The sight of it resurrects a dream – long lost, dead and forgotten with my human flesh – a nightmare of lake Michigan rising up from its banks as my parents and I were walking along the shore. The memory superimposes over the present: a huge grey wave rolling in from far out, rearing like an arched wall over the beach, and falling to engulf us.
The terror I felt in that forgotten sleep is here and now, in my eternal waking, with this girl lying tender and unresisting in my arms. She is not unconscious; her eyes are open, though they cannot register the nanoseconds as I do. We are barely wet yet, but will be, before she can even fill her lungs again after her scream.
Something in me breaks. What grudge does the universe bear against this Bella? To throw her into my path, into the path of a van, of my family, and now this murdering wave? I won't allow it. I won't.
The water is heavy. Tons and tons of it. Pulled by the weight of the entire planet itself. But I am strong. Isabella is already gathered securely against me. I have only to put my feet under me as the sea crashes down. Pinch closed her nose and mouth, and knife upwards with her through what is, after all, only water.
We are pushed, of course, right to the cliff-face. But I am ready to push us back off with one foot. What counts is that we have won to the surface. I keep Bella's face in free air. She chokes and gasps, but she is breathing.
"Edward!"
"Shh, it's all right."
I inventory her body as quickly as I can. Miracles are granted. She is whole. The wave is on back-draw again, and I use every ounce of that momentum and my own powerful kicking, to pull us free from her death.
It works.
It works.
Bella clings to me tightly, as I swim us away, far from the crashing and the foaming and the bitter rocks, out to the surging swells beyond. Every few moments, her hand moves down to my back, seeking my skin through the rips in my jacket and shirt. Yet again I have ruined good clothing. She is looking for injury – blood, torn flesh, broken bones. And finding none. My name falls over and over from her lips in small cries.
The frigid water surrounds us, with its smells of salt and spray and sea wrack, and coming rain. I stop swimming, and let its peace overtake us. Here, I can tolerate Bella's closeness, even the scent of her blood is tempered, and all I know is the sweetness of her holding me, trusting me, worried for me.
I could stay like this with her forever. I want to stay like this with her forever. I imagine it. Lying together on the heaving breast of the sea, Bella's tender warmth cleaved to me, entering me, changing me – making me real again.
Violent shivering begins to wrack her body, and I am wrenched back from my fantasy. The sea is no benevolent mother, but a treacherous siren. I may be able to lie on the cold swells forever, but Bella cannot. The water is sucking the heat from her as surely and as ravenously as any vampire. Already I can feel the drop in her temperature. This – the cold – is what has tempered her scent, made it possible for me to clasp her to me without killing her.
All sweetness vanishes like the false dream that it was, and I am left with nothing but the truth of my brutish selfishness. I must get Bella back to land.
I scan the water, searching for a safe path.
"Isabella."
She lets me call her that. Doesn't correct me, or say, "Bella, just Bella," but only holds onto me tighter and murmurs my name again. It's foolish, of course, to imagine that she has allowed me some special dispensation, but still I feel a thin flame burn to life inside my chest.
"We have to get back … up there."
She follows the jerk of my chin to the cliff top far away. My brothers and sisters are all at the edge, calling to us. It's too distant, and their voices are too wind-scattered for her to hear.
"Okay," she breathes, between chattering teeth.
"I can't carry you and climb at the same time. You'll have to hold on to me. Piggyback. Can you do it?"
"I think so. Yes. Yes, I can do it."
"Okay." I sidestroke, holding her to me. She lets me lay her on her back in the water, keeping her face above the chop. Occasionally we are doused as we make our way back toward the cliffs. I try to angle for an area with less surf, less rocks under the surface. There is not much to choose from.
I keep asking her if she is all right. She keeps telling me she is, keeps asking me if I am. We stop again twenty yards out, treading and bobbing in the swells. There is no more delaying this. She may well be going numb in her arms and legs, and then I will lose her.
"Bella, we're going to have to ride a wave in and then climb. When I tell you to, get on my back and hold on. Hold your breath until we get out of the water. It won't be long. Can you do it?"
"Yes. Yes, I can."
"You have to hold on, Bella."
"I will."
"Don't let go."
"I won't."
I maneuver her onto my back.
"Don't let go!"
"I won't." She takes a deep breath, and it's time. I move us from vertical to horizontal, bearing her as high as I can in the water, as the incoming wave takes us. Her lips move against the back of my neck, too soft even for herself to hear, but I do.
Hold you forever.
Oh Bella.
I keep us in time with the wave, to ride the thickest part of the water. It slaps us hard against the cliff face, but I am ready, taking the impact with my hands and feet, keeping Bella's arms and legs clear.
And then I climb. Too fast and my movements will dislodge her, too slow and her strength will fail before we reach the top. Her heart beats between my shoulder blades. In the air now, I smell her blood. She is clamped to me like a limpet. Her arms and her legs and her breasts and her breath and the joint of her thighs – our clothes mean nothing. We are cold and we are sodden and we are whipped by an unforgiving wind, but still I feel every inch of her flesh, every secret spot of heat. And her blood, rushing, pounding, in her ears and mine, infusing every molecule of my awareness with red.
A/N: This was another revision nightmare. To averysubtlegift, geo3, SaritaDreaming - I couldn't stop messing with it. All errors are my own.
To everyone who stops by: Thank you for reading. And a bow to Chicklette for Jasper's memories of hunting human women.