Chapter Text
Chapter 2
"What a Rush"
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There’s an indescribable emptiness that settles into your bones, into your very soul, when someone who had become your world leaves. If the sun suddenly disappeared, how could the Earth be expected to maintain the same orbit? How could anyone expect the Earth to not just stop and stare into the void that the sun left behind? Because what was the Earth supposed to do now?
There was no more sun.
He had left. He had left before she had had a chance to eat the pomegranate seeds, and now she was stuck back in the light, back to pretending that she cared when all she wanted to do was lay down and let the ground swallow her whole once more in the hopes that she could see him again. To dance in the darkness he called home.
She would have died for him. The entire time they were together, as soon as she had learned the truth. The golden carrot of their immortal life, their unending love, dangled itself in front of her. She had planned their eternity over and over again inside her head. She thought he had been doing the same.
But he told her he didn't love her, instead.
Compared to that, what did she care about shopping? About movies and magazines and meaningless high school drama? She had faced death and lived, more times than she cared to count. Everything else seemed so… painfully, mind numbingly normal… mundane. And none of it even mattered in the end.
Not when He was gone.
Bella hadn’t seen Edward since he and the Cullens left about three months ago, and every moment they spent apart felt like another blow to Bella's threadbare sanity. She was tired. So tired. The tapestry of her brain was coming undone and it was like she was paralyzed, unable to stop it.
Her father had noticed it, too. The lead in her veins, the dullness in her eyes, the quieting of her voice; the dimming of a vibrant soul. One morning, Charlie all but begged her to go out with her friends somewhere. There was a desperation in his eyes, a wavering in his voice that Bella had never heard. He was worried. Scared. When he suggested taking Jessica up on her proposed shopping trip, Bella didn’t have it in her to say no.
“Quite frankly, you're scaring the shit out of me, Bella…,” her father had choked.
As exhausted as she was, as much as she just wanted to sleep or sit around and not have to look at anything in particular, she couldn’t stand seeing the haunted, devastated look on her father’s face. Whatever it was that lay just behind her father’s eyes, it gave her just enough energy to say yes to going out.
She just hoped Jessica wouldn't make her regret it.
Jess was as shocked as anyone else that Bella had said yes, and proceeded to remind her of it the entire time, while also mentioning at every possible opportunity how weird and distant Bella had gotten lately. When she dipped into a self-pitying tangent about how she’s struggling with life too, and that no one sees her sitting around like a statue for months, a group of voices caught Bella’s attention.
As they walked home, a gaggle of men catcalled them, asking if they were interested in a ride on their motorcycles. Bella recognized them immediately as the guys that had accosted her before on her way home, the ones Edward menaced when he came to her rescue. She hadn’t known he was a vampire then. She didn’t know a lot, it seemed.
More catcalling brought her out of her memories, and something in their voices made her stop. Maybe she should just go over there and let them do whatever they wanted to her. Maybe if Edward heard, he’d come back home. Shitty logic in place, and against every screaming bit of better judgement in her body, she started walking towards them.
“Uh, where the hell do you think you’re going?” Jessica shouted. Bella shrugged, not looking back. “I just have to check something,” she answered, not listening to whatever Jessica said next. She should have ignored her sooner, it felt nice.
As she walked, Edward appeared out of nowhere before her, misty like a distant mirage. “Don’t. Turn around.” the apparition warned. Bella stopped dead, eyes wide, momentarily struck by the confusion, relief, and grief at setting his face again. What was that…? she thought. She took another step and he appeared again. “Bella, stop.” Edward said.
The confusion turned. Wait. How was he sending his image to her? How could he possibly know what was going on? Know enough to tell her to stop? Suddenly the how didn't matter. He was watching her. He could see everything, close enough to try and prevent something from happening in the morning. He had been spying on her. An active feed to the last three months of Bella's own personal hell…
Rage boiled up inside of her.
So he was watching her? Somehow, he was watching her. He could see how miserable she was, how broken, how empty, and he hadn’t even called? Hadn't sent a message asking if she was alright? Bella’s mind drew narrow, focused on the rage and betrayal she felt. Screw him. He was going to control her and tell her what she can and cannot do for the last time.
So, with fiery determination, she marched towards the men and their motorcycles. “Hey baby, want a ride?” the man leered. “Sure, let’s go,” she replied, and he revved the engine while she got on. They sped off and Bella ignored Edward’s ghost in front of her, appearing and dissolving into the night air around them as they flashed past buildings and road signs.
She contemplated flipping his nosy specter off.
Asshole.
Suddenly, it occurred to Bella that she had left Jessica behind. “Stop!” she shouted, but he kept going. “Stop! Fucking stop!” she demanded, slapping him on the back. The guy, to her surprise, obliged, and Bella hopped off with the grace of a drunk sorority sister. “Crazy fucking chicks,” the guy murmured and sped off.
Bella jogged back to Jessica, who was thankfully still standing right where she had left her. “Hey, um, what was that?” she asked sarcastically. “It was stupid, but it was such a rush…,” Bella recounted. Jessica scoffed.
“Unbelievable,” she shook her head. “What the actual hell is wrong with you? You know, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but like, are you stupid? Are you suicidal? You need help, Bella. I mean, who DOES that? Who looks at a bunch of shady old creeps and goes ‘oh yeah, let’s get on this loser's death-mobile, that sounds like a great idea’. I mean, really?!” Jessica ranted.
She continued her scalding tirade as they walked back, but Bella tuned her out. She was still reeling over seeing Edward, over the knowledge that he had been watching her for months, over the rush of it all, the feeling of freedom that the bike had given her. It felt as though she had suddenly grown wings.
It was the electricity sparkling under her wind-flushed skin, the sudden burst of warm adrenaline lighting up every raw nerve that it touched like a livewire…
She admitted she was stupid for getting on the creep’s bike, but she wanted more. She wanted to ride again. And again. And again. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, even when she got home that night.
It was like her soul was finally awake, filled with a lightness it hadn't felt in a long long time.
She didn’t have any nightmares that night. No terrors, no screaming, no trashing in her bed. Instead, she dreamed of an open road and a bike of her own.
She rode it until the world melted away and everything around her was white. No up, no down, no behind. There was only forwards.
She liked that dream.
And when she woke up the next morning, she grabbed her keys for something other than school. It was crazy, she knew that. But so was the last year of her life. How bad could a little more hopeful insanity be?