Late December, 2005

[themidnightson]

He's been thinking about it.

In days, hours, minutes, weeks, seconds. Has it been a month yet.
Holding together pieces of a string when consciousness is never lost.
But the idea of being found, of holding on, is as ludicrious as wanting to.

The grains in the beam of the ceiling above him don't change. Like him.
The weather is warm with freak cold fronts, constant pressure changes.

The crowds outside inside are the only reason he knows it's December



Sunday

Evening

Christmas

The effort even to press the button is monumental. And within milliseconds of achieving it already questions if it's real. Again. This place. This endless weight. The dulled want stabbing his insides, burning, scorching through his throat, up into his mouth. Every dead cell aching. The whispered words flooding his mind, memories and phantasms and people. Some he knows. Millions he doesn't.

But then he remembers. Again.

Unforgetting. Unforgettable. Unable to forget.

The scent of her blood and the catch in her voice (You don't...want...me?). Jasper's desperate shame, the others pleading with him. Placating him. That this is all his own fault. He set the wheels in motion. (You think I lifted a van off of you?) He knocked the dominoes off the table. He deserves this place. This feeling.

And still the phone rings.

Comments

[ofthefamily]

Carlisle hates ringtones. Most of his family has some sort of chirruping noise that rumbles through their mobiles when they receive a call; Carlisle's beeps once as it vibrates.

For every number except one that he cannot miss.

He answers on the first ring of Westminster Chimes, almost veering into the opposing lane, driving home from work.

"Edward?"