Renée's expression cleared, her eyes returning to her daughter. Forget Edward...my baby. My beautiful baby girl. She's awake. Tears flowed down Renée's cheeks as she bent down to hug Bella awkwardly.
"Bella, I was so upset!" Renée spluttered through her tears and other inarticulate sounds. I should have never, ever let her go to Forks. What was I thinking? I'm such a fool.
"I'm sorry, Mom. But everything's fine now, it's okay," Bella tried to reassure her.
She's sorry? I'm sorry! Everything's not okay. Look at her...all the bruises.
At Renée's thoughts, my stomach tightened sickeningly with pain. I felt a pang of unease. The bruises...the broken bones...they were my fault, no one else's. Sick images swam in my head and continued to come at me relentlessly. Every part of me ached with my idiocy - my ignorance - at what my clandestine existence ultimately brought to Bella. Thoughts of leaving her echoed through my head, but my love continued to pulse in my heart, my inability to leave her growing stronger. The ongoing battle continued to ensue inside me.
"I'm just glad to finally see your eyes open." Renée sat down at the end of Bella's bed.
Her eyes are so sparkly. To think that there was a possibility that they could never open again...she grew sick at the thought, letting it trail off to images of coffins and people dressed in black.
Struggling, I tried to push her images from my mind fiercely. My lurking doubts started resurfacing in my mind. I should leave Bella to her life, stop destroying her future.
"How long have they been closed?" Bella gasped, her mouth forming a little O of horror.
"It's Friday, hon, you've been out for a while."
"Friday?" Her voice was full of stunned disbelief.
The two worst days of my life.
I had to agree with Renée's thoughts, except they were the worst two days of my entire existence.
"They had to keep you sedated for a while, honey -- you've got a lot of injuries."
"I know," Bella winced.
"You're lucky Dr. Cullen was there. He's such a nice man... very young, though. And he
looks more like a model than a doctor..." If I wasn't married...
"You met Carlisle?" Bella interrupted her fantasy.
"And Edward's sister Alice. She's a lovely girl." The whole family is breath taking. What kind of food are they feeing them?
Only if she knew of the consequences of having our beauty and the blood we drink to continue our deplorable existence.
"She is," Bella agreed sincerely, unstinting devotion, love emitting from Bella's eyes in rays of emotion.
Suddenly I was in Renée's vision. Wow, she really does feel strongly for this family. But, what about this boy? He seems to be around much more than the rest.
"You didn't tell me you had such good friends in Forks," Renée said suspiciously, turning back to Bella but continuing to steal glances of me over her shoulder.
I wonder what their deal is...
Renée was busy stealing another glance over her shoulder when Bella moaned in pain. The lamentation of grief reached Renée's ears, her eyes quickly found Bella's. So did mine, flashing open as soon as her mom's attention was no longer on me, panic coursing through me.
"What hurts?" she demanded anxiously, voicing my same concerns. Her thoughts were full of a deep motherly concern, one full of love.
"It's fine," she tried to relieve our tension. "I just have to remember not to move."
Her words eased some of my panic. Closing my eyes again, I focused on her through Renée's thoughts.
Never again. She's not going back to Forks. Thank god for Phil's contract. She'll be so excited.
"Where's Phil?" Bella blurted out, almost as if she were reading her mother's mind too.
"Florida-- oh, Bella! You'll never guess! Just when we were about to leave, the best
news!"
"Phil got signed?" Bella interjected.
"Yes! How did you guess! The Suns, can you believe it?" She can finally move back home!
Deep down I could feel the hollowing of my insides along with the burning of my heart at the thought of Bella moving away, but it was the best thing she could do. She should leave, graduate high school, college...get married and have kids. Not stay with a vampire who could offer her no future.
"That's great, Mom," she replied in a questioning enthusiasm.
I knew what was going to come next. The borrowed time was lessening. Instantly, I became increasingly nervous.
"And you'll like Jacksonville so much," she jabbered while Bella stared at her vacantly. "I was a little bit worried when Phil started talking about Akron, what