Two chapters in one day! Lucky you! I've been writing more because I've been working more and have little else to do. This is a shorter chapter. But it packed a punch. She didn't really need to say much to say everything.

The song for this chapter is Hurt by Sleeping At Last. Remember that you can play along with the story on Amazon Music using the special web address below!

HEY READERS! Want to be able to play all the songs from this story in order while you read? Well now you can! Just visit: https colon slash slash .com slash user-playlists slash 83eaf70f5fd2488da12e8f0787411603sune?ref=dm_sh_670a-24ac-70cc-3d48-5036e (Remember to replace the words with the punctuation and no spaces!)

Twitter: teamdemonmonkey

Facebook: teamdemonmonkey fanfiction

Disclaimer: I'm only doing this for a friend. I don't get anything from it but her undying appreciation. I certainly don't get to have fun with Emmett and the boys in my head.

Chapter Forty-Five: Hurt: Part One
BPOV

The days were all blurring together.

Was this how the Cullens felt? Days turned into weeks turned into years turned into decades turned into centuries of pointless existence until time just passed without you noting it?

I pushed myself off the bed, noting how much weaker I felt.

I needed more blood.

How long had it been since I had some last?

A week?

Two?

My phone rang and I glanced down at it before turning away abruptly.

Carlisle.

I hadn't spoken to him at all.

Edward was torn between furious and concerned.

He thought I blamed Carlisle for changing me.

Or him.

I didn't. I knew who was to blame for all this.

But I couldn't bring myself to hear Carlisle's voice.

His gentle assurances.

The concern coating every word.

The worry that I hated him.

I didn't hate him.

I loved him.

And wasn't that just so much worse?

Because if I hated him, it would be easier.

This would be easier.

But I didn't hate him. I loved him.

And it felt unbearably selfish to talk to the man I loved at the cost of my father's life.

Charlie lived without Renee for years.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that he sacrificed his own happiness for hers.

It wasn't fair that he sacrificed himself for me.

None of it was fair.

And it was my fault.

I was the one who couldn't wait for someone to come home to see Charlie.

I was the one who didn't move him into the police station where we would have been safe.

I was the one who let slip about my secret relationship.

I knew he wouldn't approve. It's why we pretended I was dating Edward instead.

Why had I slipped up? I knew how to keep a secret. I hadn't told him that the nice town doctor and his family were bloodsucking immortals, had I?

It was just further proof that I shouldn't have been there. It was selfish of me to be there at all. All he wanted to do was to keep me safe and out of the eyes of the serial killer targeting me to get to him. All I had to do was stay out of sight and let him work with the other agencies and catch the guy. Then everything would have gone back to normal. I would have gone back home. He would have been home for dinner more often than he wasn't.

He would have looked at college brochures with me.

He would have seen me graduate.

We could have gone on trips.

I could have come home to visit.

But it would have been dishonest, the annoying voice that sounded like my mother reminded me. You wouldn't have been able to bring Carlisle. You would have lied to him and said it was still Edward. He wouldn't have been able to walk you down the aisle.

If I could hear that voice clearly, I was definitely in need of more blood.

I dragged myself into the bathroom and opened the mini fridge and pulled out three bags of blood, noting that my supply was dwindling. I placed them in the basket to the bottle warmer I'd ordered two days after waking up and filled it with water before putting it in the warming unit and pressing start. I stared at myself in the mirror while I waited.

A stranger stared back.

It wasn't just the shiny, thicker hair or the flawless skin.

It wasn't even the red eyes.

I didn't know the person who stared back at me.

The person who was granted immortality at the cost of her father's life.

The person who hadn't spoken to the man who had saved her.

The person who ignored everyone else in the house as she came and went from whatever high energy activity she was involved in.

The person who drank human blood in copious amounts.

I'd accidentally discovered that too much blood felt like a high. That if I drank more than I needed, drank past my thirst, I started to feel a buzzing under my skin. My thoughts operated faster than I could process. It was easier to block out everything.

The guilt eating away at me like acid.

The grief.

The selfish part of me that was happy that I wasn't dead.

Everything was manageable when I drank an excess of bagged blood.

Edward got the first batch for me. When I refused to go hunting the first week after waking up and the first signs of deprivation set in, he'd ordered some with some phony papers. Then he forced me to drink. If I hadn't deprived myself, I probably wouldn't have overindulged the first time and made my lucky discovery.

Jasper was furious. He left after the second feeding, taking Alice with him.

I didn't blame him.

They'd all leave.

Emmett and Rosalie.

Edward.

Carlisle.

I was poison.

Toxic.

The alarm for the blood dinged and I grabbed the bags, not even bothering to dump them into a cup, and bit into the first one.

I welcomed the buzz growing, ready to lose myself to oblivion until it wore off again.

And then I'd do it again.

And again.

I had a whole eternity to look forward to, after all.