no body, no crime

Chapter 6 : I Wasn't Letting Up Until The Day He Died

"Is Carlisle still asleep ?" Rosalie asked.

"Yes," Edward whispered. "I left him on the couch, he seems comfortable. Or at least as much as he can be," he added with a wince.

Rose felt very bad as well. Carlisle's reaction to the news of Esme's death had been violent to say the least. He'd curled up on himself and stayed still. After a while, afraid of seeing him unmoving, Edward had stirred him lightly. No reaction. Rosalie was scared that maybe he'd had a heart attack or something, but he was in fact asleep. However, even in slumber, his face was agitated and heartbroken. They'd laid him on the couch, then retreated to Edward's bedroom.

Edward sat on his bed next to Rose and sighed.

"Maybe we shouldn't have told him that Esme's dead. Maybe we should've told him something else, for example that she'd changed her mind and didn't want to be with him."

Rose frowned.

"First of all, that would've been mean ."

"It would've been for the best," Edward pleaded. "What can be worse for him than this ?"

He nodded towards the living room downstairs.

Rose glared at him.

"Even if we had been horrible enough to tell him that , he wouldn't have believed us. Esme's not the type of person to do that, and he knows her very well. She would've told him herself, instead of avoiding him and hoping he'd forget her."

"I think he would have believed us," Edward disagreed. "He doesn't seem very confident, and they've been together for a very short time. He knows her very well, that's true, but he doesn't know how she'd deal with that kind of situation, whereas we experienced it when she dumped Marcus."

"Maybe he'd have believed us," Rosalie granted. "But between us, I fear Esme would never have fallen out of love with him. And I have a feeling he wouldn't have either."

Rosalie stared at the floor, shoulders slumped in sadness.

"The more I get to know him, the more I realize that Esme and he belong – belonged – together. They feel so right . Maybe it's because we learned about the details of their relationship through his eyes, but I've had a feeling ever since I laid eyes on that picture. They understood each other. They would've led a very happy existence. Esme deserved a life with him , not Charles."

"Hey," Edward said softly. "What happened to Esme isn't your fault."

"Yes, it is," Rosalie answered in a hard voice. "I should've stopped her from marrying Charles ; I should've told her to get a divorce earlier, before he began sleeping with Lauren."

"On that account, I'm as guilty as you," Edward comforted. "Plus, even while she knew Carlisle, if she didn't think Charles was cheating on her, and thus breaking his vows, she would've thought that she was tied to him and that she had no reason to divorce him."

"I guess you're right," Rose sighed. "But I can't help wishing... that it had been different. For both Esme's sake and ours. And by ours I mean Carlisle's too."

"I know. He and Esme would have had a great life together. But we can't do anything about it, can we ?" Edward asked sadly.

He patted Rosalie's back.

"Of course we can," Rosalie hissed. "Charles is going to pay."

Time passed by. Lauren now lived with Charles, sleeping in what used to be Esme's bed. Rosalie, Edward and Carlisle now lived together at Carlisle's place. He felt too lonely without Esme's lively presence to brighten up his empty house. They'd all resumed working, slowly, though Carlisle still hadn't recovered. Five nights out of seven, he still woke up sweating and calling out Esme's name. When that happened, Rosalie got up and sat next to him. They talked about Esme, losing themselves in happy memories with her. Carlisle had kept the photograph of Esme and him that Rosalie had found in the drawer of Esme's night table. She'd also shown him the other pictures as well as the background of Esme's phone. They'd wept in each other's arms until Carlisle fell asleep again, exhausted from crying.