Fade Into You: Chapter 13

"Edward, everything is going to be alright. You know that right?"
Beep. Beep. Beep
"We're here for you. Just remember that. All of us."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"We love you, son."

---

"Hey big bro. Things kind of suck right now. I miss you. I hope you can hear me. I love you."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Alice needs you back buddy, and so do I."

---

"Do you think he can hear us yet?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"I don't know,"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Ed, can you hear us son?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"We miss you."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

---

"You're doing that all wrong. That's not where you put it. Jesus, can no one do anything right around here?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"I swear. Nurses don't know shit about shit these days."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Oh for the love of God, move. I'll do it myself"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

---

"Edward, Its Esme."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Are you coming around baby?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"We'll be here waiting when you do."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

---

I don't remember there ever being a white light or anything like that, but I guess that doesn't happen when you aren't dead. I mean, I guess I wasn't dead. I could still hear things going on around me and I ached, stiffly. It felt as if none of my joints had moved in weeks.

"The doctor said it wouldn't be long now."

"I'll go get the others."

I must have been in a hospital. That was the logical explanation…right?

"He's been moving around a little bit more today. That's a good sign."

That's when I remembered the accident. Bella, was she okay? Had she survived?

"Be…"

I tried to get the words out, but they were like cement and my tongue was the mixer. My eyelids were much the same. They felt as though lead weights were holding them shut.

I guess someone heard me try to speak and was clutching my hand. It was soft and feminine. Perhaps it was my Bella. Maybe it was Esme or Alice, but I decided to hold on to the fact that it was my pretty girl. It hurt less when I thought of it that way.

"Edward? We're here. Open your eyes for us."

"Is he awake?"

"Not yet."

"We've missed you so much bro. Things haven't been the same without you calling me a douche."

Ah, Emmett, he made things easier. I felt my lips turn up into a half a smile but I couldn't manage the rest of it.

"Oh yeah. He can hear us alright; nothing makes him smile like me calling myself a douche."

Bella though, she made me smile like that. Didn't they remember the smile I had for Bella? This was all wrong. Why weren't they talking about her? Where was she, and is she okay? I licked my lips and tried again.

"Esssme. Be…"

Why couldn't I get her fucking name out?

"I'm here baby. I'm here. We all are. We've missed you these last three weeks."

Three weeks? That accident had put me out for three weeks? I knew that it had been bad, but you would think with the protection of the steel and sheet metal of the car, it wouldn't have been this bad.

Three weeks. I wonder how Bella had been fairing all this time. I was frustrated that they weren't talking about her.

Three weeks is a long time. A lot can change in three weeks. Had she forgotten about me? Given up hope?

I slowly worked at opening my eyes, and squinted against the harsh light that seared my irises through the tiny slits. I could see Esme and Emmett. That was it. Esme still held my hand in hers.

"Carlisle, did you call the nurse? Oh for the love of God, don't roll your eyes now."

"Yes Esme, I called the nurse." My uncle said and then mumbled something about them being incompetent anyways so he didn't even see the point as to why. "I called the doctor too."

"Bella."

Finally! Okay. I was starting to find it easier to regain the usage of the functions of my body. I squeezed my aunt's hand, and turned my neck slightly to see who else was in the room. I saw Alice and Carlisle and a nurse that my uncle was looking at quite nervously. No Rosalie. No Jasper. No pretty girl.

"Carlisle, leave the poor girl alone." I told him and chuckled quietly.

"Oh kid, there you are. We've been going insane."

"How's Bella?"

The room went silent and my heart dropped to my feet. Silence was never a good sign. Silence meant the answer was bad. Silence was ominous.

"Where is she?"

All four of them looked at each other in confusion and back at me with sympathy. Carlisle took a seat on my bed on the opposite side from my aunt and took my other hand. This was not good. The answer was going to devastate me; I could feel it in the air.

"Where. Is. Bella?" I asked, punctuating each word and still feeling the mixed emotions coming from everybody.

"Son, who's Bella?"

Who is Bella? Who in the merciful flying fuck is Bella?

"Bella!"

"We don't know anyone named Bella, sweetheart."

Why were they lying to me? Was this their way of letting me down easy? She had died and they were hoping that I had forgotten about her. Bella was the girl that Esme loved like a daughter. She's the girl that Emmett couldn't wait to kick someone's ass for. The girl that Alice had become best friends with. Bella is the girl that Carlisle told me not to let slip away.

My heart and mind were racing and I didn't know which one was going to win.

"B-but…she was in the car with me…in the accident. I need to know how she is."

Esme looked concerned for me and put her hand on my forehead. Carlisle took my pulse at my neck as he checked the time on his watch. Alice looked like she was going to cry and Emmett just looked confused.

"Dude… you weren't in a car…"

"Of course I was in a fucking car!"

"He's panicking!" An unfamiliar voice called out, and everything turned into a blur.
I calmed down enough to tell them to get the fuck out. Every single one of them. I didn't want to see them when they were lying to me like that.

"Edward sweetie, we aren't lying. It's the truth. Please. You were hit by a car while you were on foot, you weren't in a car…and I'm sorry, I can't recall this Bella."

This Bella? This fucking Bella? They were telling me that the last 6 months that I lived were a lie and I was a crazy person that lived them in my head. They were telling me that the love of my existence wasn't real. They were basically telling me that love, life and its meaning were over. And they expected me to believe it. Just like that.

"Leave. Now! I need some time."

After they left, I thought over and over about what happened.

Nothing seemed to make any sense.

Visions raced through my head of glass, crunching metal, blood…and pavement.

Pavement!

Everything stopped as I remembered what had happened.

I was on my way into work and decided to stop into Starbucks for coffee for me and Angela and Ben. I was on foot. I rarely drove to the bookstore as traffic could be horrendous and it was needless to use the gas when you would just sit idling in the middle of downtown Seattle.

I was walking down the street. It was a beautiful day out, mild. I remember getting tangled up in a dogs leash and making some small talk with its owner. I was happy that day.

I came across an old friend. We chatted for a bit, exchanged phone numbers to get together sometime and moved on.

The corner! I remember getting to the corner and waiting to cross until the light changed and said I could. There were plenty of other people around as well, all going along their daily routines.

My phone rang and I answered it. It was Ben. There was a problem with the books. We'd lost an invoice and it royally screwed everything up. I told him I was stopping for coffee and asked what he and Angela had wanted. We joked about how long of a day it was going to be and then the light changed.

I fumbled with the phone and stepped off the curb…

None of it was real.

I took two steps before I looked up and saw the car coming at me and the driver looking in her rearview mirror trying to apply something to her face. Our eyes met for a millisecond before I felt the impact.

I knew those eyes. Those eyes followed me. They were there when I was at the Starbucks day in and day out. They were there when I went and visited 'Bella' in the hospital. They were there when we went on our first date.

I then remembered the pain and the confusion that followed.

I tasted blood and my limbs felt useless. How fast had she been going? People were screaming all around and I could hear the mumblings of chatter on cell phones close to my body. I remembered looking straight up to the sky and thinking that it would be the last time I would see it.

None of this was real.

I remembered locking eyes with that driver. She was blonde, strawberry blond. She had icy grey eyes with a seductive undertone to them. I then remembered looking around and grasping for something else to see because I didn't want her eyes to be the last thing I remembered.

I didn't find anything to latch onto, and then the world went black, and all I could do was feel. Even that was difficult.

"None of it was real…" I whispered out.

The room reeked of silence.

"Edward, you've been in a coma for nearly three weeks." Carlisle said as the doctors and nurses worked around him, doing…whatever it was, they were doing. "I know you wanted us to leave you alone for awhile…and we did. But, I think you'll find that you are going to need us."

I gave him a small nod and waved him of as I had only just realized that they had re-entered my room. Lord knows how long I sat there stunned. And then for him to tell me that I had been out for only three weeks.

Three weeks. I had lived the best almost six months of my life inside my head in the span of three weeks. How was this even possible?

"Emmett? You don't know a Rosalie?"

"No man…she sounds hot though."

I smiled to myself as I remembered how fucking scary she was, and how sad it was that Emmett would never get that too. They were perfect for each other.

"She was. Loved cars too." I laughed. And then I wanted to cry.

Alice. Alice would never get to feel the love of her new best friend and the love of her life. I wonder if OCDsper, as my dream Emmett liked to call him, even existed.

I fell into my own thoughts then and nodded and shrugged my answers to the questions that were asked of me.

Maybe Bella was out there somewhere. Maybe she still needed me. I didn't even know what the goddamn date was at this point I was so confused, and all I could think about was her.

Things started to fall into place though. The strange phone calls and messages, the way I felt as if people were talking around me, and not to me. How exaggerated Jasper and Rosalie were. And the fact that Bella was exactly what I needed her to be. Of course my sub-conscious would have done that.

It all felt wrong.

I didn't understand that I didn't get to touch my girl, or kiss her, or tell her I loved her. I didn't get to enjoy the fact that she loved me back and was going to live with me. I didn't get to see her smile and blush when we tried something new and then cuddled together in one of our beds all night long. I didn't get to see her in my clothes, or even her own and I didn't get to tell her that I wanted to marry her.

Angry tears started falling from my eyes and I had stopped paying attention to the movement around me.

I wondered if Bella existed somewhere. I wondered if there was even a chance that I could love someone that wasn't Bella. Would I ever find love again? Would I ever find it at all?

If it wasn't real, had it actually been love?

This was all too frustrating for me to deal with. I scrunched my eyes closed and willed myself back to a better world. A world where Bella, was real.

"Did you love her?"

I opened my eyes to see the room quieted down and Alice sitting on the edge of my bed. I took her hand and hugged her close to me.

"Come here you. I missed you."

She giggled as she snuggled closer into my side and I stroked her hair. They all must have been so worried about me, and here I was living my life as if they were there…in my head…like a crazy person. I was going to need some fucking therapy after this.

"Pffft, you didn't even know I was gone. And you didn't answer my question."

"I did Alice, more than anything."