Accident (Edward/Bella)

[storypaint]

Comm: none
Words: 456
Title: Accident
Fandom: Twilight
Pairing: Edward/Bella
Rating: PG, character death
Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. This fanfic is a derivative of canon material that is not my property. I do not profit from these writings. The opinions and actions expressed in these stories are not necessarily the views and beliefs of the original author or me.

~~~~For jinarocks, who has been hoping and praying for Bella to die. ♥ my Twilight buddy.

Excerpt: Alice once told Bella that they all loved her for Edward's sake. But in the end they all loved her for herself and Alice won't speak to him, can't speak to him, through the sobbing.

He tells Charlie that there was an accident. He knows that Charlie will believe the story, because Charlie has seen the Volvo and Charlie thinks that he is careless. He tries to keep his voice level and his head up, because he can't cry here, and to his credit, the sheriff never even thinks about reaching for his gun. He asks a few simple questions and then throws Edward out of the house. Edward has no problem letting him.

Edward walks home-- walks, not runs, because he doesn't want to run anymore. There's no point: there's no smiling, laughing, clutching weight on his back. There is another weight instead, much heavier, and Edward walks.

They're all there when he gets home, quiet, uncertain. Alice once told Bella that they all loved her for Edward's sake, that they couldn’t stand to see the pain in his eyes for the next hundred years if she was gone. But in the end they all loved her for herself and Alice won't speak to him, can't speak to him, through the sobbing. She wishes she could cry and Edward wishes he could get out of her head, just once. He walks into the forest and listens to the trees because they don't think (not as loudly).

*

There is a scene playing in his mind, underneath the debris of normal thought, and the scene is this: she is smiling, anticipating, and she keeps saying it: "I love you. I'm ready," and he slowly puts his teeth to her neck.

And then there is screaming.

She was ready, but he wasn't.

*

This isn't the first time he has ever wished he was dead, but it won't be the last. Edward sighs. He sits in the meadow and the trees are silent, but the wolves are howling. Of course they are. How long before Jacob comes to rip his throat out, and they all go to war, even as they think (Edward this wasn't worth it) and there are more lives lost and gone forever?

"If I did still have a soul," he says aloud, "when I met you, it's gone." She isn't there to tell him that he's being overly dramatic, that he is wrong, that she will be his moral compass (not that she was particularly good at it, but she tried). He can't sit in their meadow any longer without her.

His life goes on, because time is linear, because none of them can stop it, and it goes on and on and it doesn't stop, and Jacob doesn't even try to kill him. Sometimes the worst punishment is living with what you've done.

He never forgives himself, never, even though maybe she would have wanted him to.