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DISCLAIMER: I DON’T OWN. STEPHENIE MEYER DOES.
A/N I don’t know exactly where this plot-bunny came to me from. I pride myself from being a cheery person. There’s not a lot in me that would allow me to write angst or anything remotely tragic. I admire those who can. This is my attempt at something different. I just had to get it out of my head.
Thanks a lot to ajr818 from Sparkly Red Pen for taking a look at this for me. She made my grammar prettier.
Warning: It’s mildly disturbing. People die. I hope we’re still friends after you read this.
No one is prepared to die. At the age of nineteen, I can’t say that I was. I can’t complain though. I had a wonderful family who loved me unconditionally. Loving parents and even a little sister to tease, fight with, and spoil. Yeah, I had it good.
As I sit here watching him drink a beer, I wonder if he even thought about my family when he was hitting me, when he threw the gasoline over my body. Did he even care?
Our relationship was always so damn hard. And yet, until this day and after all he did to me—all I did to him—I can’t say that I hate him. How can you hate the love of your life? Isn’t that what love is about? Pain? I don’t know. Maybe our love was about that. I never knew anything but our love.
He finishes his beer and sits the empty can on the table. I know what he’s planning. I’ve been paying close attention to what he has been doing. However, somehow I know this time he won’t get away with it. I don’t understand how I know these things, but something tells me my time on this Earth is almost up, which means his is too.
-x-X-x-
“Stop!” the girl screams, her dark hair sticking to the sweat that covers her face.
“Please, just … let me explain. I swear it’s not what it seems. He’s just my friend.” The girl pleads. The boy is furious. As always his jealousy blinds him to the facts. She was just hugging her friend goodbye.
All the boy could see was her cheating on him, lying to him, betraying his trust.
One would think that after all they’d been through, he would have more trust, the girl muses, and yet as she thinks this, she knows he doesn’t know how to trust.
“You’re a fucking whore! That’s what you are! Whores have no friends, and whores have no right to explain,” the boy screams, fury visible in his darkened eyes.
She stops his hand mid-air. The hand that was about to hit her. She uses all her strength to stop it, and then she pushes herself against him. She uses her body to push him against the coffee table and make him fall.
-x-X-x-
It wasn’t always like that. Right, angel? There was a time in which you would lay the world before my feet, no questions asked. I wonder what happened to us, to me. I used to be so proud, so full of myself before I met you.
After I met you, all I saw was you, all I wanted was you. Even if it cost me my life—which it did—all I wanted was to be next to you.
I laugh bitterly. How fucking ironic. Even in death, all I do is be next to you. I can’t leave you. Even in death, our fates are entwined. Death can be a cruel bitch. Yeah, and she has a sick sense of humor, too.
Maybe I am a masochist? Maybe this is not death keeping me attached to you? Maybe it’s me? I never did know when it was time to let go. If I had, then I would probably be alive today.
You walk to the window and sit on the sill. I know you’re going through your plans, counting the minutes in your head. It will be time to leave soon.
-x-X-x-
The boy is kissing his girl. His lips marking her, punishing her for the hold she has on him. He wants her so badly. So intense is his obsession with her.
Ever since they met he knew she was it for him. That had always scared him, and yet, he couldn’t let her go. He would kill anyone who got in the way. Even if it was her she had to kill.
His hands grip her thigh possessively, opening her up to him. She moans his name, and every time she does it, he feels a high so profound, so exhilarating, he knows he’s addicted to it.
“Baby, I love you,” he whispers. He’s not overly affectionate. He dreads the word love, because all it has ever brought him is pain. However, he cannot help but say it whenever she’s with him. Another reason to hate her, to want to castigate her, she has all the power, and he has none.
He’s out of control.
She grunts, and he’s inside her. So deep, he never wants to leave. He wants to crawl up inside her skin, be a part of her. If he’s inside, she cannot leave. If he’s inside, she cannot abandon him.
They move together, fast and hard. The sounds of skin slapping, their moans filling the air. He can smell himself on her skin. He can taste himself on her breath.
He lives for this. He knows this will kill him.
-x-X-x-
My sister looks so happy. It took a while for her to get where she is today. She just couldn’t resign herself to the fact that I couldn’t be saved. That it was too late for me.
She brushes her fingers through her hair. I know what she’s thinking. She cannot believe her reflection in the mirror. She never did see herself clearly. She’s beautiful. She always has been. But today, she’s glowing.
“I love you,” I whisper. I wish she could hear me. I wish she could know that I am here with her.
I look outside the window. I know he’s out there. Waiting.
He has done enough damage, but somehow it’s not enough. He thinks that now that I am gone, my sister should take my place at his side. That if he cannot have me, he can at least console himself with her, since she looks so much like me. I couldn’t stop him before, and I still don’t know how, but I won’t let him ruin this day.
I just won’t.
-x-X-x-
“Edward! I swear to God!” The girl giggles. He can always find a way to make her smile. He has a sixth sense to know when she needs him.
Today when she wouldn’t answer her phone, he knew that something was wrong. When he saw her bruised face, his worst fears were realized.
He didn’t comment. He had told her several times what he thought of the ‘love of her life’ as she referred to him. He wished she could see him as more than a friend. As a man who loved her and would give her the world.
But it was not meant to be. Whenever he tried to bring it up, confess his love for her, she would smile and say, “There’s someone out there for you. Someone perfect for you. Someone you will be willing to die for. Wait for her, Edward, or you’ll regret it. Never settle for anything less than that.”
He always sighed in resignation. If he couldn’t be with her, he would at least be her friend, like they have always been, since they were kids.
“What?” Edward asks, shaking himself out of his morose thoughts.
“You are way too serious for an eighteen year old boy. Stop frowning. You’ll wrinkle too soon that way.”
Edward’s frown deepens.
“I just don’t like how he treats you. He acts as if he owns you. He won’t even let you see your family. He hits you …” he whispers, as if saying it in a low murmur will make it less real, less sad. He feels so powerless. “I wish I could kill him sometimes.”
“Don’t say that,” the girl gasps and places a gentle hand on his jaw.
“You are too good to say that. Don’t even think about it. I love you, Edward. You know I do. I wish I could love you like you deserve. Be with you. But we aren’t right for each other. Your perfect girl is out there waiting, and if you get stuck with me before you meet her, you’ll regret it all of your life, because I know you. You would stay with me out of some twisted sense of loyalty. You wouldn’t leave. That’s not how love works, my sweet friend. You stay because you have no choice, because there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. No matter how tough the going gets, you stay, because you are meant to be with that person, for better and for worse.”
“Even if he treats you worse than dirt? I am sorry, but I just cannot understand that kind of love.”
“I know,” the girl whispers miserably. “I can’t either. It’s the hand I’ve been dealt with, my fate. You cannot escape fate.”
“That’s not true,” Edward immediately protests.
“It is, my friend. It is the sad truth.”
-x-X-x-
I smile. It is your day, my sweet friend. I told you to wait, and as usual, I was right. The perfect girl for you was right under your nose. All you had to do was look. When I was there, you blinded yourself, hid behind your love for me. You couldn’t see there was an even greater love just within your reach. You just had to stretch out your arms a bit and get it.
I smile, and I feel this lightness in me, like I can fly. So different from the heavy weight that has kept me glued to this Earth, to this place, even in death.
I know it is because of you, because you are going to make my sister so happy. Like you two are meant to be.
No matter what he tries tonight, I will stop him once and for all. You’ll be happy for me, like I truly wish I could have been.
My mom is glowing, crying happy tears, and the ceremony hasn’t even begun yet. Your brothers are teasing you, making you blush with comments about your wedding night and what lies ahead.
Little do they know that you’d already had your taste. I didn’t mean to intrude. Trust me, the last thing I needed was to witness you and my baby sister losing your virginity to each other. Hazards of being a ghost, I guess … You are bound to certain people and places, and you can’t always choose to leave.
Nonetheless, I am sort of glad I was there. It made me realize that love doesn’t have to be brutal, painful. It doesn’t have to hurt. That it can be passionate and sweet at the same time. It made me realize that you were right, Edward. Maybe in another lifetime, once I am free from the chains that tie me to this place, I’ll be able to find the kind of love you and my sister have.
-x-X-x-
“Where were you?” the boy seethes.
“Out!” It’s all the girl replies. She’s tired of fighting, tired of having to justify herself to him every single time.
“Out with him?” he practically growls.
“What if I was?” she replies challengingly. “What if I was out with him? For the umpteenth time, I love you! YOU!”
“But you are sleeping with him. You are going to leave me for him!”
“Listen to me because this is the last time I am going to say this. I love you beyond all reason. Why do you think I haven’t left already? Why do you think I stay? Even with how you treat me, how much you demean me, with how you are jealous even of my family. I haven’t spoken to my parents in over a year, haven’t seen my sister or spoken to any of my high school friends since I graduated. Not because I didn’t want to, but because you are jealous of everyone. And the one friend who has stuck by me, the one person who still talks to me, even though he doesn’t understand why I stay with you, you want to take him away too? What do you want? To lock me in a basement for only you to see? Am I to be your prisoner?”
The boy takes two steps forward and grabs his girl by the waist. He kisses her frantically, like it’s the last kiss, because it probably is. He has made a decision. She’s slipping away. He can feel it. She’s frustrated and lonely. She will leave regardless of what her words say. He can read her features. He can read it all over her face.
He cannot let it happen. So he will put an end to his torment.
If she’s dead, he thinks as he gently places her body on their bed, I will be the last one to taste her. The last one to have her. She’ll be forever a part of me, because taking her life will bind her to me. I rather have her blood on my hands than not have her at all. I’ll make her mine through death.
With that thought firmly rooted in his mind, the boy begins to plot.
Screams of pleasure fill the night. The last night they will ever spend together as lovers.
Tomorrow … tomorrow, he will be her killer … She will be his first victim.
-x-X-x-
It didn’t stop after that night, did it? You got a taste for blood. You were always so controlling. I feel dumb for not seeing it before. My dad was a police officer, for God’s sake! I had heard him discuss people like you. With tough childhoods, traumatizing pasts, that later in life took all that pain and inflicted it on others.
I should have known.
Maybe I did. I just didn’t care enough. It’s all pointless now.
You took my life that night. You strangled the life out of me in our bed just as I was reaching my climax. You waited until the last minute to take my life, just as you were taking my body.
One minute I was full of hope, thinking your gentleness as you made love to me that night meant you had seen the light. The next I was out of my body, watching you wrap my body in our sheets. The same sheets that were on your bed the night I gave you my virginity. The same sheets in which we were tangled in when we first said I love you to each other.
You carried me outside. No one would see. We lived too far out from the city. No neighbors. Perfect for a hunter like you.
The smell of gasoline still haunts me. It’s my own personal ghost. That night, you destroyed my body, hoping to erase whatever madness possessed you the day you met me. I think you were crazy long before that. You just used me as an excuse so that your sick thoughts made sense to you. I was going to leave you, so logically, I drove you so out of your mind that you had to kill me and burn my body to ashes. Logically …
But what of all the other brunettes who looked just like me? What of all the other women you seduced and killed the same way? It has been three years, and you just keep exorcising your demons by reenacting that night over and over again.
It’s not enough for you anymore. You want a piece of me again.
You never were interested in all the stories I told you about my family. I know you tuned me out whenever I mentioned my little sister.
Until one day you saw Edward walking down the street, holding hands with a beautiful brunette that looked just like me.
When I disappeared, they comforted each other. She was only fifteen, scared and lonely. My parents were too distraught to take care of her, make her whole again.
Edward took care of her as a brother would a sister. He was kind to her, as much as he was to me.
One day, when she was old enough to understand and when Edward’s heart had healed enough to open up again, they saw. They saw what I had already foreseen. That there was someone out there for them, and that they were each other’s fate.
You couldn’t see it, though. She looked so much like me when we met. And she was with him of all people! You wanted him dead. You wanted her for yourself.
So you planned. I know of the chloroform in your car. I know that you plan to kidnap her right under my family’s nose. That you plan to leave enough clues so that Edward knows that it’s you and follows you into your trap.
You want to kill him and burn him like you did me.
Fire is your weapon. You think it’s cleansing.
Nothing can cleanse you.
But I won’t let it happen. You got away with killing all those girls, and there was nothing I could do to stop you.
There’s something deep in me that tells me I can stop you tonight.
Everything is ready. You watch from across the street and see that my sister is alone. My mother is sitting in church, crying her eyes out of happiness, while my father waits patiently outside my sister’s door.
I see you study the perimeter like the hunter you are, trying to find the weakest point. An open window adjacent to the room in which my sister is sitting alone, putting the last touches to her make up.
She smiles and rises to take a final look at herself in the mirror.
She’s so gorgeous in her white dress. She takes your breath away. You imagine it’s me, ready to walk down the aisle towards you. You killed that dream, though, the night you killed me.
You walk towards the street, ready to cross the road towards your latest prey.
Ready to take what isn’t yours, again.
I’m ready this time. I see a car turn around the corner. The driver is oblivious to the part he’ll play in this Greek tragedy.
I show myself to you for the first time since you ended my life.
You gasp, unable to believe the apparition right before your eyes.
The driver cannot stop in time, just as I planned.
You are dead. Just as I am.
When you realize what has happened to you—when you see your body being dragged by the blue car and me standing not ten feet from you—it’s already too late.
I can see the darkness surround you. I’ve seen it a few times; it’s like a fog that engulfs the souls of those who died in sin. I never believed my Nana when she told me stories about Heaven and Hell, until I was dead myself and privy of the secrets of the afterlife.
The fog swallows you whole, and I feel no regret. Justice has been made. You’ll hurt no one else.
“Goodbye, James,” I whisper. A final gesture in honor of what I felt for you once.
“Alice?” I hear my sister’s voice from the window.
“Bella?” I reply, shocked that she can see me. Only the dead and those who are about to die can see ghosts. She looks quite healthy to me. Maybe this is my chance to say goodbye. I know that whatever tied me to life has no hold over me anymore. I will pass on to whatever place people like me go. I hope it’s heaven. I miss my Nana.
Realizing this may be my last chance to speak with my sister until we are reunited in death, hopefully many, many years from now, I smile and say, “Be happy, Bella. Make Edward happy. I love you both.”
My sister smiles through her tears, and it’s the last memory I have of this Earth.
I am free. I can fly.
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