Ebb and Flow (Twilight x Reader)

Chapter 19

Four months.

For four months, Bella moved like a corpse.

She woke up. She ate. She went to school. She did homework. She showered. She slept.

No more than that.

Repeatedly I'd tried to talk to her and ask what Edward had told her, to ask what was really going on, but she stayed silent. When she spoke, her voice was lifeless. Her eyes were blank.

I knew that it was better for Bella that Edward was no longer in her life. She was safe, now.

But she was also miserable. She was a husk of a human being, moving mechanically and going through the motions.

Part of me wondered if it was better for her to be happy and in danger than depressed and safe.

Whenever my thoughts went in that direction, I quickly stopped myself. Of course it was better to be safe. Things would get better for Bella. Eventually, she'd come out of the hole she was in, and things would get better.

I spent those four months doing much the same of what I'd been doing—working, hanging out with Jacob, having girls' nights out with Angela and Jess, walking to classes with Mike. At first, they always asked me how Bella was doing. But after she stopped responding to invitations to hang out, and after my answers began to sound repetitive, they gave up asking.

One night at breakfast, Dad had had enough.

"That's it, Bella! I'm sending you home."

Bella looked up from her cereal, which she was pondering rather than eating, and stared at Dad.

"I am home," she mumbled, confused.

"I'm sending you to Renée, to Jacksonville," he clarified.

Bella's face slowly crumpled. "What did I do?"

Dad scowled. "You didn't do anything. That's the problem. You never do anything."

"You want me to get into trouble?" Bella wondered, her eyebrows pulling together her mystification.

"Trouble would be better than this...this moping around all the time!"

"I am not moping around."

"Wrong word," he grudgingly conceded. "Moping would be better— that would be doing something. You're just...lifeless, Bella. I think that's the word I want."

"I'm sorry, Dad." The apology was flat.

"I don't want you to apologize."

Bella sighed. "Then tell me what you do want me to do."

"Bella," he hesitated, scrutinizing her reaction to his next words. "Honey, you're not the first person to go through this kind of thing, you know."

"I know that." Her accompanying grimace was limp and unimpressive.

"Listen, honey. I think that—that maybe you need some help."

"Help?"

He paused, searching for the words again.

"When your mother left," he began, frowning, "and took you and Y/n with her." He inhaled deeply. "Well, that was a really bad time for me."

"I know, Dad," Bella mumbled.

"But I handled it," he pointed out. "Honey, you're not handling it. I waited, I hoped it would get better." He stared at Bella and she looked down quickly. "I think we all know it's not getting better."