October:


I’d been catatonic for days now. I lay on my bed curled up in the fetal position with the covers pulled up to my chin. I didn’t do anything but stare at the wall, not really seeing it, or fall into an exhausted, uncontrollable, and unwanted sleep. I was afraid to close my eyes. I saw things I didn’t want to see when that happened.

My dad, Charlie, or Chief Swan as the town of Forks knows him had even called my mom, Renee. Charlie must have freaked her out if she flew all the way in from Jacksonville, Florida just because I had decided not to get out of my bed. My parents were worried. I knew they were, but I made myself ignore their concern by forcing it into the back recesses of my mind. Keeping my mind blank was the most important thing. If I couldn’t think then I couldn’t remember.

They tried to rouse me, but I just stared at the wall or closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Charlie even asked Doc Gerandy to come back by to “diagnose” me.

“She’s had an emotional trauma … the catatonia isn’t an unnatural response. It’s her body and mind’s way of coping… won’t last forever,” Dr. Gerandy informed my parents.

I’m editing of course, but you get the picture. What Doc Gerandy didn’t understand was that I was lost — I was nothing — without … him. I tried to tune them out as they had no idea how I felt or that there was only one way this hole inside of me could ever heal. I was glad when they left my room to discuss what to “do with me.” I went back to staring at the wall, not caring about anything at all. Eventually, my mom went back to Jacksonville as they finally realized there was nothing they could do.

One night as I once again woke up screaming, thrashing the covers around my bed my dad said, “Bells, he’s gone. This, what you’re doing, it isn’t healthy. If you’d had more of a life outside of Edward Cullen this wouldn’t have happened.” Hearing his name ripped the hole in my chest wide open. I couldn’t breathe. I wrapped my arms tight across my torso in an attempt to hold myself together.

“Dad, can we please not talk about this? I just…just — please?” I didn’t have the energy or the desire to hear this. Those two words hurt too much for me to attempt to fake any sort of normalcy for Charlie’s sake.

He looked at me for a few minutes as he smoothed his hand down my hair. “Okay Bells, get some sleep.” I sighed with relief when the door clicked shut behind him.

With the window in my room open, the cool night breeze flowed through into my room. The cool, biting kiss of the wind on my cheek was like a security blanket for me. I kicked off my covers and lay on my side staring out the open window for the rest of the night.


November



December



January:

Late one night after I once again woke up from my nightmare I heard a noise. It sounded like it came from somewhere outside my window. I got up and patted across the floor to the window. I leaned my head out to look around the yard, but didn’t see or hear anything else for several minutes. Deciding there was nothing out there I pulled my head back inside. Not that my senses meant anything anymore seeing as how they were seriously lacking compared to… I stood at the sill with my fingers clinched on the window for awhile. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t force myself to close my window because then it really would be like he didn’t exist.

The hole in my chest opened up as his image filtered through the wall I had built in my head. I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

When a cold blast of air hit me I opened my eyes to find it starting to snow. The snow was too cold and too wet, so I pushed the window down until it was just barely cracked open at the bottom. I could still feel the cold air seeping into my room and felt slightly comforted. It was the best I was going to feel that night so I resigned myself for another bout of my mind numbing nightmare.

Out of my peripheral vision, I caught a glimpse of a red reflection. I whirled back to look out the window, but couldn’t see anything through the increasingly thicker snow that was coming down outside. If I saw what I think I saw then I’m in trouble. He isn’t coming back because he doesn’t want me, so I’m dead anyway. I’ll just be dead sooner than either of us ever expected and Death really won’t be that different from the waking (and sleeping) He** I’ve somehow existed through all these months. If my seriously deficient human senses can be trusted, the red reflection I saw outside my window belonged to the one other person, being, who could make it all — the pain, the emptiness, the hollowness — go away.

Victoria.