45. Bitter End or Beginning?

"Here's your two sixty change."

"Thanks," I replied on auto pilot, accepting the notes and coins from the service station attendant. As I pocketed them in my freshly donned jeans, I couldn't help but think that an extra pair of hands would've been useful. Managing to drape my little black dress over my forearm, I found myself juggling the food, drinks and band aids all the way back to the car.

A still pallid Bella greeted me with a yawn as I tried desperately not to succumb to my own mental and physical fatigue. The last thing we needed was for me to fall asleep at the wheel - hence the provisions stop.

"Did you use the restroom?" I asked unlocking the car.

"Yeah," she murmured, before lending a hand (which would've been helpful earlier) to open the back passenger-side door. I happily deposited the purchases - apart from my coffee - on the backseat, eventually bringing myself to take a tentative sip of the caffeine heavy drink for necessity's sake.

"You're not a coffee drinker, are you?" Bella, obviously noting my face screwing up in distaste, grinned in amusement.

"What gave it away?" I responded facetiously. She raised an eyebrow. I managed a smile as the bitterness in my mouth subsided. "Truth be told, I hate the stuff, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?"

She acceded with a nod.

"And speaking of time, we better get a move on." I picked up another purchase – a bottle of Coke. "You should drink this. The sugar will be good for you after the shock that you've experienced."

Bella eyed me curiously but didn't offer any opposition to the idea as I placed the bottle in her hand.

"Are you some kind of trainee doctor in your reality?" she jibed as she watched me begin, but then hesitate, to roll up the sleeve of my right arm. Instead, I decided to remove a band aid from the packaging.

A soft crackling hiss made me glance up. She'd simply twisted the lid of the fizzy drink, yet her open expression told me that she was trying to alleviate more than just the pressure contained within the bottle.

"Ah . . . no. No, I'm just a person who remembers some of their first aid training." I chewed the inside of my cheek, carefully considering how to phrase my next request. "But. . . I am going to have to play doctor again, so . . . can you sit yourself in the car while I attend to my . . . ah . . . injury? I don't have anyone to help me pick you up this time."

Seemingly acknowledging the sense behind my request, Bella sat down in the safe environment of the car. If I needed a reminder of the strain brought on by recent events the lethargy in her movements spoke volumes.

"Francis' assistance would have been useful right now," I mused while trying to roll up the remainder of my shirt sleeve, before applying the adhesive band aid to my upper arm. The wound, now encrusted with dried blood, stung when it was disturbed. The smell of fresh blood hit my nose just before I smoothed the last of the adhesive edges and I said a silent prayer of thanks that Bella had finally listened to me and not questioned my judgement.

But how long will her compliance last? This whole situation has become one bloody mess!

I shook my head as I considered how such a wonderful evening had transformed into something else so quickly. Images of key moments seemed to be on continual replay in my head, feeling more and more distant the further I drove Bella from Seattle and towards Forks – feeling more and more distant with every written page.

Yes, the book had been in my luggage held in Francis' car boot.

Francis . . . hopefully he's relaxing at home now.

He'd fervently protested against my intention to drive to Forks, but had finally capitulated, recognising that I would not budge from my decision. As soon as he'd reluctantly moved my bags to the boot of the Beetle, the book had been the first thing that I'd looked for when I'd claimed to be seeking more serviceable shoes and comfier clothes for driving.

Francis had clearly noticed my initial relief upon reaching to open the book . . . and my subsequent urgency upon finding a disturbingly small amount of blank pages left.

Page 421 . . . of 434.

"Whoa – slow down, ma'am!" he'd called as I'd yanked off the heels, one at a time, and tossed them into the boot, before forcing my Converse Chucks onto each foot. "Perhaps I should do what I was asked to do and drive you - drive both of you - to the airport. You're far too worked up-"

"Because this is far too important, Francis!" I'd cut him off, literally and figuratively putting my foot down. "And I'm far too stubborn to be convinced otherwise." Not wanting to upset him, I'd closed the boot and moved towards him with a gentler expression. "You've been a great help and I can't thank you enough, but I . . . I need to do this. You can't convince me that sitting around in an airport overnight is a better use of my time than taking a daughter home to her hospitalised father."

"But what about your safety?" He'd challenged a final time before leaving.

My stomach still clenched as I replayed his question like an mp3 playlist on repeat. It brought to mind the horrible, shiver inducing image that Alice had described – the catalyst for Edward removing me from the danger zone and taking me to Seattle . . . the image of my death.

My contrived, nonchalant response to Francis even chilled me.

"As long as there are no monsters lurking about, we'll be safe. Believe me, I'll be careful."

Monsters lurking . . . Are you driving straight back into the danger zone, Audrey, or are you following Alice's instructions to the letter? It would have been nice if she'd left you a letter this time, right?

But she had left me a letter – a note with the shoes.

"Trust me" . . . a small message that I instinctively knew carried meaning beyond the context of fashion.

Retrieving my coffee and taking another couple of sips of the strong stuff, I closed the back, car door. Moving to the driver's seat, my caffeine buzzed mind woke up to the notion of Alice placing her trust in me, too.

If she hadn't trusted me to make good choices, then she would have left me a very clear message if she could have, wouldn't she? A cell phone, or something?

This thought motivated me as I closed the door and turned on the ignition. I winced as the slight movements reignited the stinging sensation of my gash.

"How's your arm?" Bella's voice cut through the stirrings of the engine.

"I could ask you the same thing," I replied with an indicative glance at her swollen wrist, trying to avoid thinking about my own slight pain. "Why don't you hold the cold bottle of water against it?" I suggested.

She followed my eyes as they traced a path to the back seat. After some slightly uncoordinated movements, she'd steadied the coke bottle and retrieved the water bottle, placing it against her wrist. I couldn't help but shake my head in disbelief, though, when she then struggled to coordinate putting her seat belt back on.

"Here," I said, adjusting the restraints of my own seat belt to reach over and fix Bella's in place. "There we go."

Sitting back, awkwardness immediately pervaded the small space and I sensed discomfort rolling off Bella in waves as she stared at her lap.

Perhaps you got too close too soon? She was just physically assaulted, you idiot!

"I'm sorry; I was just trying to help. The last thing that I wanted was to make you feel uncomfortable."

Bella's wide chocolate eyes startlingly met mine.

"It's not you . . . it's just . . . I'm . . . I'm not used to being taken care of . . . and you keep taking care of me . . . and I don't understand why you do care after how I treated you."

I stared at her and decided to answer honestly.

"Charlie."

My one word response apparently made loads of sense . . . perhaps too much sense. Small nods of her head told me that Bella was truly mulling over my answer, and I'm not sure that she'd liked what I'd implied.

Nevertheless, with both of our thoughts seemingly fixed in the same direction, I added, "We should get moving."

One more sip of coffee, before making use of the cup holder, provided me with the fuel to shift the car into drive and steer us onto the highway.

"I should never have come to Seattle," Bella broke the silence, making me jerk slightly.

Feeling as though a response was expected, I tried to recall what had pushed Bella to want to travel to Seattle in the original Twilight novel. Instead, this only led my thoughts to dwell on the reason why she never made it to Seattle.

Edward . . . The meadow . . .

Bella's self-berating snapped me away from treasured memories and back to my current predicament.

"I should have travelled home earlier."

I couldn't disagree with her.

What the heck had she been doing going back to her car, parked in a quiet back street, all alone in the dark, anyway?!

"Should-a, could-a, would-a, Bella," I sighed, unreservedly releasing some of my frustration, but managing to keep some of my thoughts to myself. "I do agree with your earlier statement, but there's no use living life regretting past decisions – past mistakes. We just have to learn from them and deal with the consequences."

Even though I was staring at the road ahead of me, I felt her glare at me with challenging eyes.

"You speak as though you've lived a lifetime-" she began, fiercely, but I quickly and calmly interrupted.

"No; I speak as someone who's learnt to listen to those who have lived a lifetime. There isn't enough time for us mere mortals to make all the mistakes in the world and learn from them, but we can certainly learn from other people's mistakes."

"Are you learning from my mistakes?" she pressed.

My expression surely showed my exasperation, along with the care that I put into constructing a decent answer.

"I'd like to think so," I spoke, as I reviewed what I'd learned from the original Twilight novels, before considering the story that Mavis had given me the chance to write. "Just as I'd like to think that you would learn from any mistakes that I have made, or may make."

"And what mistakes have you made?" she queried sardonically, albeit with some curiosity.

"Plenty," was my immediate reply, before I flicked on the high-beams, having left the lights of the city behind.

"I could be making a mistake now," I thought, but quickly quelled any such speculation.

Perhaps it was a mistake to not spike that Coke with some sleeping pills.

"I'm listening," she seemed to respond with a more composed tone.

I exhaled, warily reached for the coffee, took a sip and placed it back in the holder.

"When there was an opportunity to present the truth of a situation to people that I cared for, I ran away from that opportunity and took away their ability to make a choice, all because I thought that I knew what was best for everyone involved. . . In reality, it wasn't for the best. It only robbed us of time together. I let my fears dictate a course of action that only ended up hurting others."

My confession lingered between us for some time and I was left to consider whether I'd be in this situation now, driving back to Forks with Bella, if I hadn't, at any time, shut Edward and the Cullens out.

Should-a, could-a, would-a, Audrey. Listen to your own advice!

"Is that why you found me tonight? Were you running away?"

"No!" I shook my head, hastily. "No, I actually thought that I was running towards something . . . well, driving towards something, really."

"Or someone?"

I turned my eyes away from the road momentarily and cocked an eyebrow. She kept me in suspense, choosing that moment to take a swig of her Coke. Then, the dam burst.

"Audrey. . . Edward isn't with you. He wasn't at school yesterday, either. She came to a sudden realisation, "Actually, none of the Cullens were."

Given the cell phone conversations shared between Edward and Alice, and knowing that Peter and Charlotte had visited, this was no great revelation to me.

"Were they with you?" Bella continued, without giving me a chance to respond. "You were wearing a nice dress, you had your luggage . . ."

As intriguing as it would be to get glimpse into the workings of Bella's mind, my patience was wearing thin.

"Wouldn't it better if you stopped trying to play Sherlock and instead just let me fill in some of the pieces of the puzzle for you?"

She stilled, after a sigh, and I took that as her concession.

What will I tell her?

The truth stood out.

"Edward was with me tonight," I breathed before my voice grew stronger. "We had dinner." I quickly peered Bella's way. She seemed as though she was raptly waiting for more information. "After dinner he . . . he had to leave suddenly, but we arranged to meet at the airport to catch a flight – a flight that I missed—"

"Because you stopped to help me," Bella finished, a new edge to her voice.

Silence settled in an unsettling way between us as we both deliberated how to resume.

"Have you let Edward know that you're driving me back to Forks?"

I let go of the breath that I'd been holding.

"No. I can't get in contact with him. But I guess that I can do something when we get to Forks. Perhaps Doctor Cullen will be at the hospital."

The sound of tyres moving over asphalt filled the brief void.

"Where were you going?"

"Sorry?" I responded, not having immediately garnered Bella's train of thought. We were on a straight road with no apparent turn offs.

"You missed a flight," she stated, as if it was an unnecessary chore.

"Oh," I reacted, feeling like a bit of an idiot. "Um . . . Sydney – we were travelling back to Sydney."

I stretched my eyes and took a deep breath as I continued to watch the road ahead.

"And Edward was going with you," Bella eventually muttered as if she was trying to convince herself of that reality.

"Yes," I sustained the 's'.

Even though she didn't respond right away, I heard her thoughts being turned over and over and knew that a question was coming.

"Just you and Edward?"

"Yes." My phrasing was more clipped. "Just me and Edward."

"What about his family? Were you taking him away from them?"

I tried to prevent my jaw from clenching – I really did try.

"I've told you before, Edward makes his own choices. I don't deliberately try and take something away from anyone. The only person who I've taken something away from tonight is myself, because I'm actually trying to keep you safe and give you the opportunity to see your father."

Strained silence lingered until a car shot past us on the other side of the road, its headlights acting fleetingly as our spotlights.

"So, I guess you'll drive back to Seattle, tomorrow, and take the next flight out to Sydney?" Bella murmured, tentatively.

I swallowed before shaking my head, resigned to the reality of my limited pages – my limited time.

My choices had dictated the words of the book, but the book was now the dictator of my choices.

"Why?" Bella sounded taken aback.

I quickly chanced a glance her way. Sensing genuine concern, mingled with unbridled curiosity, I decided to elaborate.

"How did you put it the last time we met? Oh, yeah, that was it – I'm fading away."

I laughed softly as Eminem's Lose Yourself started playing in my mind and the next part of my answer verbalised itself.

"I had one shot, one opportunity to return home on my own terms, but my time's run out. There's no point heading back to Seattle."

"But Edward's waiting for you there. How can you even think like that?!"

"It hurts to have to think like that, but it's the reality of this . . . alternate reality, if that makes any sense."

Beginning to recognise the strange paths my thoughts were taking, I sensed a need to consume some more caffeine. After carefully taking a sip, I sighed and spoke more calmly.

"Edward will be waiting for me regardless of where I find myself tomorrow. At least, that's what I hope."

Bella scoffed. "I really don't understand you! You claim to be in love with Edward, but you're leaving him behind."

Actually, he left me behind.

"It doesn't seem like you value him," she continued, as if she'd known Edward for an age. "If anyone was to look at this situation, they would assume that you care more for me and Charlie than you do for the guy whom you supposedly love."

I only turned my eyes to meet Bella's briefly, but the ferocity behind my stare was enough to make her flinch.

"I hope that people would see a person who does what is right, even if it isn't easy," I breathed, before strengthening my tone. "I do love Edward and Edward loves me for who I am. If I compromised my values for the sake of convenience, then I wouldn't be the person that he fell in love with, would I?"

I glanced at Bella again, challenging her to respond. When she didn't, I added, less tensely, "Yes, it would have been easier to have left you on that deserted street. Yes, I could have told you to make your own way back to Forks. Sure, I could act in a way that says that I do not give a stuff about how my choices might negatively impact the lives of others . . . but that's not who I am, Bella. I can't live like that."

Briefly recalling the last vision that Alice had shared with me – a scene where I looked upon Edward one last time before fading away – provided me with a flicker of hope, despite its overriding gloomy prospect and despite knowing that the vision could have been rendered invalid by the decisions that had been made in the last few hours.

"And, if Edward wants to find me, he'll find me . . . believe me."

My whispered words were spoken to counteract my growing sense of emptiness and to persuade myself to hope, rather than to persuade Bella of anything. Ironically, I'd come to accept that we seemed to be on completely different pages when it came to a number of things. I struggled to suppress the mirthful grin that accompanied such a thought.

Bella's resulting stare almost burned a hole into my temple. I endeavoured to relieve the tension.

"Well, whether you believe me, or not, I'll choose to believe that the events of tonight have happened for some reason or another. I'm sure you had a good reason for coming to Seattle in the first place, right?"

When no reply came, I quickly peered to my right and reiterated, "Right?"

Bella fidgeted in her seat.

"Why did you even go to Seattle, Bella?" I paused. An uncomfortable pressure building beneath my sternum with every second of continued silence encouraged me to push my case to be a confidant of sorts. "It's not like we'll ever see each other again after tonight. And this time when I say you won't see me again and it will be like I never existed, you can take my word for it."

I suddenly felt like a specimen being closely assessed.

"If I'm going to be honest with you, can I have your word that you'll be honest with me?"

Uneasy with how careful Bella was being, I faltered, but my thirst for the reasons behind her journey forced me to agree to her terms.

She sat up straighter and her tone seemed buoyed.

"When you left, you also left me with many questions. I needed answers. I needed to know how someone could infiltrate my life and change its course like you did. I needed to understand the Cullens. I needed to piece everything together.

"I went to school on Friday and everyone was talking about going to La Push Beach the next day, but all that I could think of was finding answers. I decided to see if, like Charlie, they'd all forgotten you. I asked them if they'd seen you - you know, Jessica, Mike, Tyler, Eric, Lauren and Angela - but they all looked at me as if I was delusional. Defensively, I made up something about meeting you with a few of the Cullens the other day and that started a whole new conversation about how weird the Cullens are . . . how they can be absent from class so often and still manage to produce top grades . . . how they stick to themselves and don't want to mix with the rest of the community . . . how they're all coupled up, apart from Edward."

She took a breath and, feeling her eyes on me, I quickly regarded her expression.

"I, obviously, knew otherwise."

Good.

"Then they brought up how beautiful they all were and how it was weird that a family of adopted people could all look so similar -"

"The whole "Dr Cullen performs cosmetic surgery on his kids" idea, right?" I interjected with a smile and shake of my head.

In my periphery I saw Bella nod.

"That didn't seem plausible to me, either. I needed a computer, books – I needed a library to research and sort through my ideas."

"Ah, so you went to Seattle for its library!" I surmised.

"Yes."

No elaboration was provided, which only caused me to wonder what she was unwilling to share.

Burgeoning thoughts encouraged me to question, "But, why didn't you just go to Port Angeles?"

"I did stop there, but, as fate would have it, the library was experiencing technical difficulties."

Yes, as fate would have it . . . or was it as Mavis would have it?

"Hence why you travelled to Seattle," I mumbled, still trying to unravel the twine of events that had led us to this somewhat torturous car ride. "Did you find the answers to your questions?" I continued, my volume and clarity increasing.

Frustration pulsated from Bella as she admitted, "No. . . No, not all of them."

Well, that makes sense given that Jacob gave her a heck of a lot of information when everyone visited La Push in the original story.

I released a breath that I didn't realise I'd been holding. "Not all of them?"

Bella's stare felt like laser pointers dancing in and out of the corner of my eye.

"You've actually provided me with more answers than I could find in the library."

"Really?"

My throat tightened as my tired mind tried to replay the evening and pinpoint any slip ups. Bella seemed to guess my train of thought.

"Don't worry too much, Audrey. You haven't given away the Cullens' secret." Her tone, and the gleam in her eye upon my quick glance, unnerved me. "But you did promise to be honest with me."

I scoffed and bit down on my lip and was no longer able to contain my brewing aggravation.

"All right, I'll be honest with you . . . There's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'd willingly betray the Cullens' trust to anyone, let alone you right now! I care about them too much." My tone softened as I admitted, "They and Charlie became my family in this world when I thought that I'd lost everyone that I hold dear. If you haven't realised by now, Bella, I will try my best to look after my friends' and family's interests, no matter how challenging that may seem." My right hand left the steering wheel momentarily to gesture emphatically and enhance my meaning. "Can we just put an end to the antagonism and the questions about things which aren't ours to share? Ask me about who I really am. Tell me about who you really are." The filter between my brain and mouth disappeared for a few seconds. "I really don't want to leave here remembering you as an ungrateful bitch."

My eyes widened when my uncharacteristic words reverberated in the void.

How could you actually verbalise that?!

"I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said that," I whispered, but such words felt drowned by the weight of the truth contained in my previous statements.

Yes; my fiery statements were clearly, initially, much to Bella's chagrin, but, as the quiet settled and self-reflection on both of our parts occurred, an astonishing thing happened.

"It's all right, you're right," she murmured, before quirking her lips into a tentative grin. "I don't really want to remember you as just the harpy who stole my life, either."

The damn burst, and any pent up tension was released in our chorus of laughter.

Funnily enough, it was almost as if a green-eyed monster had been doused with a big bucket of water, causing it to melt away.

Ding dong the witch is dead?

"Harpy?" I chuckled in disbelief.

"Would you prefer, hmm . . . leech?" Bella offered playfully.

Perhaps that's more apt.

I shrugged. "Whatever works for you, Bella. You never know, you might be blessed with not having to remember me at all."

Her initial chuckle wasn't prolonged. Weightier contemplations meant we were content to let the silence settle.

City lights greeted us again as we hit the outskirts of McCleary, enlivening us somewhat.

"You know, you may have lived a life that should have been mine," Bella began, capturing my interest. "But I think that you've lived it better than I could have done."

My brow furrowed and my heart fluttered at such an unprecedented admission.

"I don't think that's—"

"No, Audrey, it is true," she interjected. "You need only focus on how you treated Charlie to know it's true."

The area beneath my sternum seemed to hold the vessel growing heavier with all of my unspoken thoughts. I grew slightly uncomfortable as Bella explained her point.

"You were the daughter to him that I've never been, and I feel sorry for him, because he doesn't remember that. He's lost a bond with someone and I don't think . . . I don't think that I'm good enough to replicate that bond."

"You're more than good enough, Bella."

She looked up from her lap and turned her disheartened eyes on me.

Without deliberation, I pulled over, sensing how crucial this moment could be, and met her eyes, gently.

"You don't need to replicate any bond, because you're already bonded uniquely and profoundly to Charlie. You're his daughter. Just . . . just let him into your life. Talk to him. Let him be your Dad."

Bella bit down on her lip. Her eyes grew glassy.

Sensing that she needed a moment to herself, I offered her a reassuring smile before steering us back onto the road once more. No natural light made the roads easier to navigate, despite the rare, cloudless sky.

It must be a new moon. Yep, it really is a New Moon isn't it, Audrey? But this time, you can't flick to the pages at the end and check to see if Edward reappears.

What will be there when it all ends?

Despite all the losses that I had endured and would probably endure, I found some solace in what I believed that I would gain.

My mind couldn't prevent itself from imagining that, once again, I could be a daughter to my own parents. I could be reunited with my family- the people who had loved and cared for me for as long as I'd known, and more. A civil war seemed to be raging in my heart; it thrummed with anticipation, but such energy was quickly opposed with heavy, intermittent pangs of loss and longing.

Will you find me, Edward?

I tried to return to that feeling of ease and comfort that I'd felt before I'd woken up with my face stuck to the cold glass of Charlie's cruiser window, but I couldn't. I chanced a glance at Bella and saw that she'd finally succumbed to sleep – a luxury that I couldn't afford.

The taste of the now ice-cold coffee surprised me. It wasn't as bitter.

Letting the taste linger, I just drove on and on . . . wishing that I had a vampiric memory as I tried to recall every detail of the journey thus far – a journey that I hoped would continue beyond the pages of the book.

I know that it has been an age since I updated. Life has been filled with many blessings since my last update. My Dad has continued to encourage me to finish this. Now my husband is encouraging me to finish this too. :-)

If you're still with me, thank you for your continued support and kind messages.

Did Audrey make the right decision to drive Bella back? What did you think of their frank convo?

Karry.