On Her Way to Him {a Twilight Fanfic}

The End

As she stares into the mirror, a ghastly, tear-streaked face stares helplessly back at Bella, only showing a fraction of the pain she felt inside. Darkened streams flowed down her porcelain skin, only adding to the image of pure pain within. Her once bright brown eyes, haunted and scared. As sob after sob overtook her slim frame, shaking to the point of convulsions, she slides down the wall behind her, pulling herself into a seated position. She remembers his glorious face, smiling lovingly down at her, their faces holding barely an inch between them. Bella recalls his hearty, true laugh as he threw her over his shoulder, carrying her playfully around the house.

Then she is struck with the images she did not wish to see. Edward's pale, almost chalky face, surrounded by the blinding white of the hospital sheets, yet a smile still installed upon his chapped mouth, a fighting light still evident in his emerald green eyes, half-closed. Still reliving those images that had haunted her for the past year, she sees that fateful day, the day everything changed for her. Bella watches as image after image passes through her mind. Sitting in the doctor's office as he told her how little time they truly had, as he told her the words that would steal her reason for existence. Those words. Cancer. Tumor. Terminal. She remembers how she had sat, holding his hand as countless medicines pumped through his now-frail body.

Her slim form curls into the fetal position as she recalls those last few minutes. Edward had squeezed her hand, making her look up at him. In the faintest of voices, he had confessed his never-ending love to her, for what seemed the thousandth time. Yet, this moment held a finality to it, a finality Bella did not wish to ever hear. The beeps emitting from his heart monitor slowing to a dangerously slow rate, he finished his speech, ending with a simple but meaningful word. Forever, he said, as the doctors came into the room. Bella had screamed at her love not to leave her, screamed at the doctors to help him, screamed at God not to do this. The doctors simply sat there, pained looks in their eyes, knowing nothing could be done now. Edward's eyes closed just as the tone from the heart monitor flat-lined.

In a small part of her mind, she had heard the doctor announce the time of death. Bella had heard as they moved forward towards the forever-stilled body. Hugging his body to her, the anguished girl had screamed a cry of pure agony, pure loss evident on the broken girl's beautiful face. She had sobbed as she was lead from the room, having to be almost entirely held upright. She had not even noticed the sympathetic looks she had gotten from everyone who saw her, she had not wanted to. Bella didn't want to see anything but his face in front of her, alive and well, so they could live together, forever, like he had said with his final breath.

As she finally escaped from those horrifying memories, a determination came across her. Bella stood from the cold, tiled floor, she turned to the bathtub, running the hot water, filling the tub. She turned, as if in a trance, to the medicine cabinet. Grabbing the medicine her doctor had given her, the one that was supposed to make her happy, she realised it could now do it's purpose. After all, she could only be happy with him, and the medicine could take her there. She took the bottle, opened it with a determined ease, and dumped its contents into her mouth, swallowing it with minimal difficulty.

Reaching into a drawer, she grabbed her old lip gloss. Uncapping it, she wrote two words upon the mirror. To him, Bella wrote, the letters dripping a little, making the message look appropriately morbid. Turning to the now filled tub, she removed her baggy clothes and stepped into the heated water, not bothering to turn off the tap, which was beginning to get colder. Removing her engagement ring from her finger, she clutched it in her shaking hand as she laid down, completely submerging her head. She closed her eyes and all she saw was his face, as she slipped to the lurking oblivion's open arms. Forever, she sighed, her words distorted by the water. She smiled, she was, at last, on her way. On her way to him.