Waxing Crescent (Alice Cullen x Bella Swan)

Chapter 25 - A Penultimate Ending/s

It was dark. I was nowhere, yet everywhere. But... somehow, I was still conscious. Or, at least, as conscious as anyone could be in that in-between state of life and death.

But then, things began to swirl—faster and faster—until the blackness faded. I was no longer at peace, but feeling anything but.

For a moment, I thought I'd miraculously gone back in time—watching memories of Jacob, Alice, my friends and family, like reruns on late-night television.

I didn't want to look. I didn't want to face any of it. But there was no turning away. No eyes to close, no neck to bend. I had to see the painful truth whether I liked it or not.

Gosh, was I really this manipulative? So enthralled by my own bullshit that I couldn't even be straight with people? With myself? I thought I'd gotten better...

What hurt the most was Jacob. It had all been a lie. I hadn't really thought of him as a brother. It was true. I'd felt something when he'd walked into Newton's all those months ago—but it wasn't what either Alice or Jacob had thought.

I'd squashed it down as quickly as it came—so quickly I could almost give myself the benefit of the doubt. But the truth? My feelings of inadequacy about Alice knew no bounds.

If I couldn't have her—couldn't be worthy of her—I'd need a distraction. I'd have to settle.

Whoever I chose would never be enough. They'd never fill the void her absence left in my soul. But they'd have to come close.

Jake seemed as good a fit as any. Naive enough to think I truly loved him, and good enough at distracting me that I'd be able to convince myself that I did. 

How sick? How horrible... How could I do this to the people who cared about me? 

Then, the images flickered, replaced with old and new memories. Memories of my childhood. Of Charlie. Of Renee.

Ah. I see.

I watched myself in various stages - gangly and awkward, just at the crux of pubescence, or plump and squat with puppy fat still filling out my cheeks. In each memory I was the one taking charge. Making everybody else feel better. 

I was nothing if not useful. Nothing if I didn't always have something to offer.

Whether Renee or Charlie had intended it—and oh, how Charlie had tried his very best, but the divorce had hollowed him—I'd been taught from an early age that love was conditional.

This was wrong. It was so wrong.

I couldn't keep thinking like that. I couldn't hold onto the hopelessness anymore. I had to accept Alice's love. Accept that it was unconditional, even if undeserved. Accept that it was all mine.

Mine.

It was mine.

Mine, no matter what.

Warmth radiated out from my chest and down to my fingertips and toes. For the first time while in this dream-state, I could feel my body. 

I wasn't fractured into a million nondescript pieces. I was whole.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The first thing I noticed as I came to, was how my body just didn't want to respond. It felt heavy and numb, overcome by that weighty feeling that suggested it should ache but couldn't.

There was something so uncomfortable about the sensation, like my blood was an alien in its own body—sludgy, tenebrous, and polluted to the point of estrangement by analgesics.