Title: Wait It Out

Author: ladyakako- LJ

Rating: PG

Ships: Edward/Bella

Summary: “I don’t know what I was waiting for as I watched the night disappear every night, but I knew I wouldn’t find it there. I wouldn’t find it anywhere but the one place I couldn’t go back to.” Edward can’t stop thinking about Bella while he’s away from her in NM.

Notes: Obviously, all recognizable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. This ficlet was also largely inspired by “Counting Stars” by Sugarcult and “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles. Also, this is my first time I’ve shared anything I’ve written from Edward’s perspective, so I’d really like feedback on that aspect most of all. Response to weekly challenge, ‘Waiting’, at LJ community toourmeadow.

---------------------------------------

All I could see these days was her face full of hurt, full of misunderstanding. No matter how much darkness I wrapped myself into I couldn’t erase her pale, tear-streaked features from the back of my eyelids. There was no balm in the world that could heal the wound I had torn in my heart when I had made her cry that day.

I wondered time and again if she hated me now. It would be easier for her if she did. I tried to convince myself of that but I selfishly held onto the idea that my Bella would never hate me. She couldn’t hate me.

I tried to put as much distance between us as possible hoping that distance would heal the rift at least partially, but there was no de-railing my mind from thinking about her. She had become every breath of my existence and even when I held my breath until it was painful, her soft voice whispered in my ear.

My mind replayed her every movement from that day over and over again so as to further twist the knife deeper in my heart. I had been so selfish the entire time I knew her, how could I have gotten so close to her? Why couldn’t I have just been satisfied with knowing her from afar? Now everything was falling apart at the seams.

I couldn’t even look at any of the members of my family without thinking of her. I couldn’t look at anything without relating it back to Bella. Even as I looked up at the stars late at night, I felt myself wondering if she would think they were beautiful.

I had started a small collection in my brain of all the things I had seen since I left her that I thought she might find beautiful. A red rose growing wild alongside the road. A cloudless sky delicately painted in oranges and pinks. A seemingly endless horizon of freshly plowed brown dirt.

Did she smile often without me there? Did she smile often before I was there? There were so many things I wondered about her life without me. There were days when I convinced myself that I would just go to Forks to check on her and not let her know I was there, but I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t break my promise to her. I had assured her I would never bother her again and even if she didn’t know I was there, I would still be intruding on her life without me.

I had lost track of days months ago when I had stopped trying to even survive. At first, I had been determined to make my entire existence about self-preservation and concentrate solely on simply surviving, but my mind’s defenses against my memories of her were poorly constructed. I don’t know if I ever even wanted them to be strong. In all honesty, the only time I ever felt any kind of comfort was when I thought of her smile, of her eyes, of her. And that was how my days slipped away from me.

I didn’t know how long it had been when I thought of looking for Victoria, time didn’t mean much to me by then. I found her track while hunting one day and followed her through the Midwest, but my expertise never encompassed tracking so I soon lost any hope of finding her. I ended my journey farther south than I had ever been and the jumble of Spanish and Portuguese flooded around me. As I stared out a window of a darkened room I had holed myself up in one morning, I wondered if Bella would ever have the chance to visit the beautiful beach outside the room that had been deserted for the night. I silently added the sight of the moon slowly sinking beneath the ocean to my ever-growing arsenal of things I wished Bella could see. Or more accurately, things I wished I could show Bella.

I stayed in that dark room for an immeasurable amount of time before moving on and every night I was there, I watched the moon slowly descend beneath the waves that lapped at the beach.

I don’t know what I was waiting for as I watched the night disappear into the sea every night, but I knew I wouldn’t find it there. I wouldn’t find it anywhere but the one place I couldn’t go back to. I left that beach with the heaviest heart I had had in a long while and as I ran away from that beach, my path was blurred with images of Bella. I could hardly see where I was going anymore because everywhere I looked there she stood with her face covered in the tears that I had made her cry.

Since leaving her, I had tried to stay out of the forest when I wasn’t running because it reminded me too much of the day I left. The trees themselves seemed to disapprove of me being there. They loomed tall and forbidding and threw their shadows stubbornly over me at every step as if accusing me of the blackest sin. I wanted to cry out to the trees that I had only left her because I wanted her to be happy and I never meant to hurt her, but I knew they would look no less forgiving if I tore out my cold heart right there in the center of the forest.

I felt like a haunted man whenever I stopped too long to think for myself so after a while I tried to stay in large cities where I could let my brain be immersed in everyone else’s thoughts and not have to dwell on my own, but that too soon became tiresome. My thoughts never left her even when the cleaning lady downstairs was thinking about how much she loathed her employer or when the man next door was wondering why his wife wouldn’t look him in the eyes anymore. Everyone’s thoughts always managed to guide my own back to Bella. Even the most trivial thought of some errant passerby would somehow relate to her.

I gave it up for a lost cause and began to wander again. Eventually I took shelter in a church that looked to be on its last legs. I hid in the long-forgotten belfry of the ancient stone building and huddled into myself. I didn’t have to wait for long before my mind began to play every moment I’d shared with her before my eyes in painfully perfect detail. I didn’t try to fight off her memory anymore though. I succumbed completely to myself and let the pain almost consume me. The ever-present idea of returning to Forks to see her just once more prickled at my consciousness but I fought it down as valiantly as I could. I would just have to wait for her memories to wear themselves out. My addiction to Bella would fade in time, I promised myself in vain. I knew that no amount of waiting could lessen the betrayal I had committed against my heart. I couldn’t wait this one out.

Time went by without me and I hardly noticed it was passing until my long-silent phone started ringing and jarred me from my memories.

--------------------------

If you read, review. I want to know what you think!