"Something should have stopped her, should have told her it was a bad idea. Maybe she already knew, maybe she didn't care. The Cullen house sat untouched, as it had for six months."
Bella Swan has been broken, her shattered heart fatefully determine...
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She struggled to comprehend what was happening. Emmett, a brother to the man she loved, stood in front of her after she had been told that she would never see the family of immortals ever again. Her breathing became shallow as she considered the possibility of seeing him again, her heart couldn't take the pain. Sobs violently racked her body as she failed to notice the broad shoulders of Emmett Cullen encasing her small shoulders.
Bella wanted to tell him everything: how she had barely slept in six months, her horrible eating habits, and the amount of tears that she had shed for a man who never loved her. She so desperately wanted to tell him that she felt like she was dying inside, like her heart had collapsed in her chest, leaving only a hollow space in its wake. She was dying to tell him that she threw up most nights from crying to hard and that she didn't bother sleeping because it meant seeing him again and that was worse than any exhaustion she faced.
Emmett didn't speak, he didn't whisper how it was "going to be okay" because he didn't know if it was. Seeing how damaged Edward had left the teen girl made him want to find him and tear him apart. He could see every side effect of the illusion that Edward had carried out, all for the thrill of the rush and to be around his singer. Emmett knew the repercussions—the whole family did—but they didn't stop him. Even Rosalie felt bad for the state they left her in.
Bella was in despair and falling faster every second she didn't hear back from the Cullens. However they didn't know which was worse: leaving her alone with her own painful thoughts or coming back without Edward and pretending it never happened. Emmett didn't care, he just wanted to make sure that the girl they considered family but left behind was okay.
Emmett didn't pretend that he knew everything would be okay, he wasn't Alice and he didn't want to give false hope to the already broken girl. He didn't speak as he held her, he let her cry into his chest and curse Edward's name and do whatever she needed to feel better. The vampire didn't know if his family would come back, it wouldn't phase him if they didn't, of course for Bella's sake he certainly hoped they would.
Bella fell asleep. It took hours of sobbing and blubbering and protests, but she did. Emmett knew she would have a nightmare, he knew her sleep was probably plagued with images and memories of the man she hated the most right now. As he carried her into the house, he wondered just how broken she had been, he knew she wasn't sleeping, it was fairly obvious she hadn't been eating, but what all had his brother done to her?
He contemplated setting her on the couch and hurrying to get her something to eat, anything would suffice as he noticed just how thin she had become. A shirt that once fit perfectly and he had seen her in plenty of times, practically drowned her in its fabric. Her limbs and face had become viciously thin, the skin which once provided warmth now almost comparable to his own. She was the living incarnation of death itself, and his own family had done it to her.
Bella's screams were like nothing Emmett had ever heard before. The fear and pain they held were enough to break his heart but seeing her in a cold sweat, yelling out Edward's name made him angry. His anger melted away when he saw the tears fill her eyes at the realization that he still wasn't there, that she was still broken. Emmett sped over to the sobbing human and held her. He held her until she had fallen back asleep, and he continued to hold her even then, hoping it would provide her some comfort. It did.
