It Will Be As If I'd Never Existed By pattyrose.pdf

It Will Be As If I'd Never Existed By pattyrose

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5241468/1/

Chapter 1 – It Will Be As If I'd Never Existed

"It will be as if I'd never existed."

Four years. Sometimes it was hard to believe it had been 4 years since I'd heard

that, since the last time I'd seen his beautiful, perfect face; as distorted by cold,

unfeeling eyes as it had been that day. Four years since I'd been thrown into this

incomplete existence. Four years since my insides had been ripped and torn to

shreds; a hole as wide as the Amazon River replacing what had once been my

heart, my lungs and my soul.

"It will be as if I'd never existed."

What a stupid promise it had sounded like to me those first few months after he

left. As if I could ever forget he'd existed. As if taking himself away, as well as

those few precious momentos I'd collected of him, would erase him from my

heart and my mind. Just because that was all it would take for him to forget me

didn't mean it would be the same the other way around. Everywhere I looked

those first few months I saw him. In school, the absence of him in almost every

class I had was a constant reminder of him. At work, the Camping section of

Newton's store was a constant reminder of his family's hunting charades. My car,

my old battered red Chevy he'd hated, reminded me of him every time I tried to

push it past 55 mph. He'd hated its crawl of a pace. The woods would remind me

of him. We'd spent so much of our time, running and playing, laughing freely as

he'd run us to our meadow, our own little private Eden (or so I thought of it then)

in the middle of the rainy gloom that was Forks, the little town we lived in.

Everywhere I turned, I'd see him.

But worst of all had been my room, which for all intents and purposes should

have been my sanctuary. The one place where I should have been able to run

and hide and feel safe. All those months of torture and misery, where I constantly

felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut repeatedly were made worse once I entered

my room. For there lay the greatest reminder of him. My small bed.

Not that our relationship had ever reached that physical point. No, it was never

like that. For all my attempts, we'd never made it past chaste kisses and the

occasional tight embrace where I could feel my body pressing up so close to his

that I couldn't tell where my own ended and his began.

Those were some kisses though… His lips on mine so tenderly, so lovingly, that as

cold as they were, the heat they brought to me was akin to the most intense heat

wave I'd ever experienced. He'd pull me so close to him and whisper words of

undying love, singing me my lullaby as I drifted off into peaceful oblivion in his

arms; promising me he'd love me forever and making vows he'd never meant to

keep.

He'd told me that his physical boundaries to our relationship were meant to keep

me safe. Safe from his unbelievable strength, which could've crushed my bones

in an instant had he not been constantly on guard when he held me. Safe from

the venom coursing through every vein in his body, which, although not a

tragedy in my eyes, had the power to turn me into one of them, something to

which he was vehemently opposed. He'd argued it was for the sake of my

humanity.

Lying alone in my room those months after his departure, I'd come to the

conclusion that the physical boundaries had just been proof of how little interest

I'd held for him. I'd been a curiosity, a distraction to his endless days and nights,

but not enough of one for him to want to keep around forever. So the physical

boundaries had just been to ensure that he never made a mistake making it

necessary for him to keep me.

These memories had been my worst torture in those months. I'd cry myself to

sleep quietly, not wanting to wake or worry Charlie, who slept down the hall. He

was, of course, not oblivious to the hell I was going through in my room. The

nightmares and screaming would come in the middle of the night and inevitably

wake him up.

While awake at least, I tried to suffer in silence, because I didn't want to worry

Charlie any more than he already was. I didn't call any friends at first, I didn't

want them to try to pull me out of my misery. I wasn't ready to let go.

"It will be as if I'd never existed."

At some point a couple of years later, I'd caught myself wondering, had he really

existed? Was it possible that I'd experienced that kind of love and joy once? Did

that kind of all encompassing bliss really exist, or had my mind just conjured it all

up one day as I read one of my Jane Austen novels, replacing myself as the

heroin and creating a fictional hero of my own? He couldn't have been real; he'd

been too perfect. True, my hero was a vampire, which naturally made the whole

fairy tale ending a bit harder to imagine. But the unbelievable joy I'd felt for

those months we were together had to have been too good to be true, to be real.

And so I must've imagined it, he couldn't have existed, because in real life,

outside of Victorian Era England, that kind of love could not exist.

Then there was the matter of his beauty. His amazing, angelic beauty could not

have been of this world. His locks were a rare mix never before and never since

seen, neither brown nor red, but something in between. Bronze. His eyes

alternated between beautiful deep amber, which somehow perfectly matched his

hair, to the deepest black imaginable, depending on his thirst.

His lips were so perfectly shaped that I could only stare at them like a deer in

headlights whenever he spoke to me, wondering what good deed I'd ever done in

life to deserve having those perfect lips touch mine so tenderly every day. And

his marble body…

True, I'd never really gotten to see much more of it than what any other Joe

Schmoe walking down the street would have (except of course, for that glorious

day in the meadow when he'd shown me what he looked like in the sun), but I'd

felt it. I'd felt him as his body pressed up against mine during one of our

embraces, and I could feel every line of him then, as my hands would roam

carefully down his broad shoulders, to his muscular arms, and come to a shy but

breathtaking stop at his impeccable abs, strong and hard.

No, he could not have been real, I'd thought that day. Such a perfect specimen of

a man was not meant to roam amongst mere mortals, and was definitely not

meant to waste his time with one of its least interesting units, so the answer had

been no, I must've made him up.

But then I thought…had he really been that perfect?

Sure, heck yes! my memory of his physique had screamed! Well, then how about

on the inside? Had his outside beauty been matched by equal beauty on the

inside? Were his heart and soul (for I still believed without a doubt that he'd had

a soul) as pure and lovely as were his outside features? My heart wanted to

scream Yes, yes they were! I could remember every time he'd saved me, from

Tyler's truck, to the day in Port Angeles, the incident with James, and of course,

from his own brother. Surely someone capable of that had to be pure and lovely

on the inside also. If my imagination was able to invent a fictional hero so perfect

on the outside, wouldn't it have also transcended to his inside?

That was when my mind had thrown those dreaded words back at me.

"I don't want you to come with me"

"I'm not human, and I'm tired of pretending I am"

"Bella, you're not good for me"

"It will be as if I'd never existed"

Oh. He wasn't perfect; close, but no cigar.

Then why did my mind make up such an irresolute fictional hero?

Moreover, I'd then remembered that there was other physical proof to his

existence. There had once been a Dr. Cullen working in Forks Hospital. There

were records of that. There had once been 5 unbelievably beautiful students by

the surnames Cullen and Hale who attended Forks High School. There had to be

records of that too. Other people besides me had seen and known them, and they

had interacted, although very little, in the worlds of other people in this dreary

town. It hadn't been for long, but they had been here; I hadn't been the only one

who saw them.

And so there was my answer. As hard as it was becoming by then, a couple of

years later, to believe it had all been real, and although it may have been easier

to convince myself that he hadn't existed, that I'd never known that kind of love,

that that kind of passion had never existed, I knew. First, I'd never been

imaginative enough to be able to make someone like him up. Second, and most

importantly, he hadn't been perfect, not really. He'd turned out to be just a

typical, confused (although slightly stronger and more resilient) 17 year old kid,

capable of loving and leaving, just like any other self-absorbed and self-obsessed

teenage boy, except trapped in a 100+ year old perfect body. It was little

consolation that this knowledge did nothing to change my feelings for him.

So yes, while he had existed, and we had once had a fairy tale love, that fairy

tale had ended. My prince had turned into a frog, instead of the other way

around. He'd dumped me unceremoniously and with no better reason than I had

failed at being a distraction. Truth be told, he'd probably also gotten tired of my

unintended but constant damsel in distress routine. No happily ever after for my

romance novel.

So here I was, over four years later. Living the human experiences he'd once

claimed he hadn't wanted to take away from me. The truth was, after that first

year or so, things had gotten easier, if not better. I'd more or less pulled myself

together, with some help of course (thank God for Jacob), accepted my fate, and

gotten on with it, so to speak. But even four years later, having had enough time

to think everything through, knowing I'd never been enough for him, I couldn't

bring myself to deny one true fact to myself: I would always love Edward Cullen.

Mr. Everett, my Literature professor, pulled me out of my dangerous walk

through the past.

"Ms. Swan, what are your thoughts on Dante's perception of the 7 layers of

Hades?"

Instantly, I responded with an answer I knew would show that although lost in a

fog of my own memories, I knew the material well. I was a good student. 3.9

GPA, the result of barely a social life outside of Jacob and a couple of friends,

which suited me just fine. I'd never been much of a social butterfly. In a little

over a month I'd be graduating at the top 5% of my class.

"Very well thought out answer," Mr. Everett complimented me, but I knew it was

time to break myself out of my reverie.

This was dangerous territory I'd been treading, and one in which I seldom let

myself wander, at least while awake. I could already feel the rips and tears

starting in my middle, and my arms instinctively came around my torso, as if to

prevent any more damage, protecting myself from the physical pain my useless

memories could cause. Four years later, this was still my reaction when I'd allow

myself to remember. I'd pulled myself out of my own layers of Hades in the past

few years, and it was by avoiding the very trips down memory hell in which I was

now indulging. I was not bitter. Bitter was too harsh a word. I did not begrudge

Edward Cullen his happiness, as far away from me as that had taken him. I truly

wished he was happy wherever and whatever he was doing now. How could you

not wish happiness to someone who would always occupy your heart? But I

couldn't deny the fact that his need for distractions from an immortal and

timeless existence had come at the expense of my very human heart.

It was time to come back to the present. The present now consisted of plans and

preparations for my commencement next month. I was finally graduating from

the City University of Seattle, at their Port Angeles Campus, after 4 long years.

I'd started trekking my truck up to Port Angeles 4 times a week for classes 4

years ago, but when the Chevy had finally given up and died a year later, I'd

bought a little Beetle, new enough to be able to make the trip into Port Angeles

almost every day, but old enough so that it didn't break my bank account

(although it did put a significant dent in it for a time).

I'd been working at Newton's for a few years now. When Mike had gone away to

college, his parents had given me more responsibility, and many more hours.

Which worked out fine; I needed the money and the distraction. I worked and

went to classes, and spent most of my time in between with Jake.

My Beetle probably wasn't as safe for me as my truck had been, but I'd figured,

what the heck. With all the close calls I'd had in the past few years, I was due for

some good luck. The car had served me well so far, it hadn't broken down once in

3 years.

Going to college also turned out to be a very helpful distraction. And after

graduation, I'd be taking a big leap with my life, as well as my little bank

account. I was opening up my own book store. The literary pickings in Forks had

always been slim, to my chagrin, and I'd decided a few months ago that I would

be the one to change that. I was going to bring an expansion of the mind, so to

speak, to Forks. I'd already found a store in the same strip mall which housed

Newton's, and between myself, Charlie and a little help from Renee, I'd managed

to scrape up enough for the required rent and initial purchase of merchandise for

the store. I'd be spending the summer putting it together, painting, organizing,

planning and beautifying. It was exciting and more than a little scary. I wouldn't

have much competition here in town, that was for sure, but it remained to be

seen whether the townsfolk would find a little bookstore interesting enough to

forsake the trip to Port Angeles for their literary needs.

Charlie, Renee and Jacob for that matter, were practically busting buttons off of

their heavy raincoats with the pride that was swimming inside them. Charlie

especially was overjoyed at the thought that I'd come so far in the past few

years, from the shy, self-conscious and pained teenager that had entered as a

freshmen, to the seemingly self-possessed and strong young woman graduating

with a B.S. in General Studies, at the top of her class, ready to take on the world

(or at the very least, a little bookstore in the State of Washington). Yes, to say

Charlie was busting a gut was an understatement.

"Bella, call your mom right away, she's called 4 times already," Charlie called out

to me from the kitchen as I got home from class.

"Sure, sure", I responded, as I dragged my feet up the stairs to my room, feeling

an incredible amount of brain drain from last minute study sessions for upcoming

finals. Mathematics, Literature, The Rise and Fall of Western Civilization…blah,

blah, blah.

The phone startled me out of my slow crawl, ringing just as I entered my room.

Renee was never known for her patience, and if she had something she wanted

to share with me, she'd keep calling until Kingdom come.

"Yes mom, I got your message, but I just walked in." I spoke into the phone

without bothering to check the caller ID to see who it was.

"Bells, hon, it's me," said the voice on the other line. Immediately, I relaxed as I

kicked my Converse off and threw myself on my bed, spreading out on it like a

big paint splatter.

"Hey Jake, sorry I thought it was Renee, she's been hounding me all day," I said,

while picturing Jacob on the other line, sitting in his garage, his big body under

the hood of a car fixing someone's transmission, or under a car, replacing a

muffler. Jake's garage was a sanctuary to both of us. It was the one place where

we could both let loose and just be ourselves.

"Well, just calling to see how your day went. I know you've been stressed out

lately with upcoming finals and graduation and everything. You want me to let

you go so you can call your mom, and I'll call you back later?"

It was funny how Jake knew that until I spoke to Renee, I wouldn't be able to

relax. Knowing she was going to keep hounding me until she tracked me down

was going to keep gnawing on me, so yes, it would be better to just get that over

with.

"Thanks Jake, I'll call you right back, okay?"

"No problem Bells, I'll speak to you in a few. Love you".

"Love you too Jake", I said, as I hung up the phone and started dialing Renee. I

did love Jake. He'd been my rock, my salvation, in more ways than one, for years

now. I knew him like I knew the back of my hand, and he knew me the same. It

had been easy, easier than I'd thought, to let myself be with Jake. At first, it had

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