The Leaving OOM
Feb. 2nd, 2009 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
themidnightson"Never mind. I can see that it's impossible. Thank you for your help."
He was choking on his words, on the amount of air it took to force his vocal cords to work to make them sound right. The smell of her blood was in every particle of the air in that all too small office hallway. He spun and dodged out, escape was the only option even as he could not keep his eyes from finding her face. No. God. Carlisle. No. He had to get out of there. He had to leave. Not smiling, not offering to help her, perhaps walk her to her locker, asking about where she lived and why she'd moved and if she'd like a ride with the roads as slick as they were....
He shoved the thoughts away as the breeze outside didn't help to alleviate the roaring inside of him. For all that he had to keep reminding himself not to be marble still or move as fast as his racing thoughts, Edward would have been shaking had he been human. He kept moving -- away from the office (away from her), away from the steps (away from her), away from the buildings (away from her), away from the boy who thought he'd appeared out of nowhere (away from her), glancing without seeing to find his siblings already in his car -- and slammed the door too hard when he slipped in.
Edward tried to control his mouth, but he was certain that sound -- the strangled, gasping, one not being able to pull enough clean air in -- was coming from him.
He was choking on his words, on the amount of air it took to force his vocal cords to work to make them sound right. The smell of her blood was in every particle of the air in that all too small office hallway. He spun and dodged out, escape was the only option even as he could not keep his eyes from finding her face. No. God. Carlisle. No. He had to get out of there. He had to leave. Not smiling, not offering to help her, perhaps walk her to her locker, asking about where she lived and why she'd moved and if she'd like a ride with the roads as slick as they were....
He shoved the thoughts away as the breeze outside didn't help to alleviate the roaring inside of him. For all that he had to keep reminding himself not to be marble still or move as fast as his racing thoughts, Edward would have been shaking had he been human. He kept moving -- away from the office (away from her), away from the steps (away from her), away from the buildings (away from her), away from the boy who thought he'd appeared out of nowhere (away from her), glancing without seeing to find his siblings already in his car -- and slammed the door too hard when he slipped in.
Edward tried to control his mouth, but he was certain that sound -- the strangled, gasping, one not being able to pull enough clean air in -- was coming from him.
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:05 pm (UTC)He slid past a nurse with a cart, moving faster than he should have. He should have faked even noticing that it almost hit him. But he couldn't. He couldn't think beyond the door down the hallway and how he wasn't going to make it if he looked at anything else.
Edward only barely remembered not to tear the door off when he opened it.
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:06 pm (UTC)"Edward?"
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:12 pm (UTC)Was that what he looked like?
It was overwhelming. The look of fierce despair that curled madly. It was enough to make him lose any idea of what he was going to start with. Had he even thought of anything to say? What was there to say?
Carlisle was moving.
Real and right and concerned. He should be, too.
"I have to go, Carlisle," Edward barely felt the words leave his mouth. He couldn't disappoint him. He could do this - this thing that had him so driven to do it. And not doing it was pulling him apart.
He couldn't emphasize Carlisle's name enough in that one time.
"I have to go now."
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:14 pm (UTC)"What's happened?"
Carlisle can't even begin to guess.
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:18 pm (UTC)There were so many voice in the hospital and none of them, not even Carlisle's, was loud enough in his head to drown out the sudden urge to lie. To lie and say anything and track her down. She would be easy prey. Defenseless.
No. Oh. No. Not here. Not standing next to him.
"Yet." Edward was too still and he felt absolutely unable to be still. He had to be honest. He had to be. Carlisle...Carlisle would know what to do.
"But it will , if I stay."
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:24 pm (UTC)"I don't understand."
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:37 pm (UTC)He had to make him understand.
How could he--he didn't want him to underst--he had to stop him--
"Have you ever.." Edward's voice faltered. It was barely a whisper, lightening fast, before he looked over toward a shelf, not even seeing it. "-has there ever been a time.."
He stopped. He wouldn't be able to take it back. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did it after the fact. He needed something to ground into, before he couldn't fight back any longer.
Edward took a deep breath and forced it out. "Has any person ever smelled better to you than the rest of them?" That wasn't even clear enough. People could smell slightly better--their scents were different, alike to them. He stressed, helpless for words that would explain. "Much better?"
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:42 pm (UTC)He hadn't turned Esme because of her smell, but Edward's question makes him think back to that time, finding Esme broken, lifting her up and wanting to hold her to him forever but not knowing if he could --
someone at the school
Just what Edward didn't need.
"Oh."
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:47 pm (UTC)Oh?
That was it?
That was supposed to keep him from wanting to tear off the door and go running so fast he'd feel like his fastest was dragging by snails for what this promised?
But Esme's face clouded into his mind and Edward felt his shoulders twinge and then sag. He could see Bella's body, broken and bleeding, in his mind. With no future on the other side of the act. Just an empty shell devoid of life.
That was what he had to offer her.
She was a person. He shouldn't have for that alone.
That it had even taken him this long to consider her.
And still he longed to push that aside, to explain feverishly the depth of want--of how much he wanted this, wanted her, wanted her death and the waste of her--how disgusted he was with himself.
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:50 pm (UTC)When you come back.
"Do what you must to resist, son. I will miss you. Here," Carlisle puts the keys in Edward's palm. "Take my car. It's faster."
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Date: 2009-02-05 03:55 pm (UTC)The only one.
Carlisle doesn't even think of the other. Edward felt some part of him snarl in bitter anger, as though it were the greatest betrayal, while the other crowded into a corner, felt the relief of the smallest promise that he could not do this terrible thing.
"Alice," Edward said, so low it's almost a lost in a sigh, hand closing to clutch around the key tight. "She saw the Denali."
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Date: 2009-02-05 04:00 pm (UTC)The hand on Edward's shoulder gets used for a weak shove. If Carlisle doesn't make him go, he won't. Even though Carlisle doesn't want to do it.
"Go."
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Date: 2009-02-05 04:08 pm (UTC)He knows just making it out of the city is going to be the same hell as getting to Carlisle. He'll pass so many different exits that could lead him right back to where he does (doesn't does doesn't) want to go.
Edward nodded shuffling back.
He couldn't even think of anything else that could be said.
He looked back at Carlisle, wildly, wondering if he'd even be able to come back ever, and the next second the spot he'd been standing in was empty. If he didn't go now, he wouldn't be able to.
He has to go. She has to live.
Even if it takes everything else from him.