Loved and Lost by Isabella Morgan Meyer

Summary: The grandfather clock chimed as the big hand hit twelve: midnight. The day had come again, just like last year and the year before. Maybe if I could have slept through the pain, it would have been more bearable… Esme-centric. Carlisle x Esme, Bella X Edward (Eventually)

Loved and Lost

Chapter One: The Hiker

The grandfather clock chimed as the big hand hit twelve: midnight. The day had come again, just like last year and the year before. Maybe if I could have slept through the pain, it would have been more bearable…

I sat on the bed, unmoving, frozen in the never-ending midpoint of a sit-up that would have been so very uncomfortable had I been human. Beside me was my husband, just as still, just as silent. But I wouldn't look at him, because I knew what I would see.

He was hurt.

He was my husband; I didn't want to see him hurt. Yet still, everything was so new to me. Not long ago, the word 'husband' had been a word that caused me unimaginable pain, and now here was Carlisle, the most perfect creature I had ever met, the most compassionate. And here I was, causing him pain. I didn't deserve him; no, I deserved Charles, the scum of the Earth that he was.

The sound of it still rang in my mind to this day, this very sad day: the slap of his hand against my cheek, the thud of my head against the kitchen counter, the slam of the front door as he walked away, and, worst of all, the slam of it as he returned, the clomp of his footsteps on his way to the bedroom…

And now, twelve years later, I played the memories back like an old cassette, faded from time but never any better, and realized it was true; time won't heal you until you find the strength to move on. Somewhere between those horrible memories — the beatings, the physical pain — was something much worse. It was the pandemonium of the crowded hospital halls, the screams that fell from my lips (but it was all okay when my crying baby rested, for the first time, against my chest) and, when two days passed, so did his — my son's — final breath. He had died, two days old, from lung cancer.

If I'd had it my way, that would have been my final breath, too. I would have died when I hit the bottom of the cliff. But Carlisle had saved me, and now I was, alive — in a way, at least. I was reliving it all over again, and I wasn't the only one.

Downstairs, Edward was holding his head in his hands, and his dry sobs carried up the spiral staircase to the master bedroom. There was nothing but sadness in this house.

"Go," I whispered, knowing he could hear. The front door opened and Edward, running out into the cold New York air, left all of my thoughts behind.

For now, Edward was pretending to be my brother. We had lived in Rochester for a year now, and I hadn't yet left the house. I wasn't a newborn anymore; more than ten years, and Edward's rebellion, had passed. So, when the invitation appeared in the mail, Carlisle and I had decided together that I would debut at the wedding.

The wedding was between a man named Royce King II and his fiancée, Rosalie Hale. Both were esteemed members of society; Royce's father, Royce King I, was the owner of the bank in which Mr. Hale worked. We had heard of the engagement just months before, and the wedding was in a week. Carlisle, having made an acquaintance with Mr. King, had been invited, and Edward and I were going with him – the wife and the brother-in-law.

"Esme, dear…" Carlisle began, the silence broken. I turned my head towards him, well aware of my dead, blackened eyes. "Will you talk to me this year?" I panicked. I absolutely hated seeing Carlisle's beautiful face wrinkle in hurt when I once again told him that I didn't want to talk. So much, in fact, that if I was human, I probably would've feigned sleep.

Although I preferred to be left alone on this day, Carlisle still tried to get me to talk to him. That was what was hurting him from the beginning — I wouldn't talk to him about it. It wasn't his fault, but I just couldn't bear to talk about my son out loud, especially not today. That would just shattered my dead heart into a thousand more pieces, and I was sure Carlisle didn't want that.

"Carlisle, I can't. Please, I just want to be alone." He kept his poker face, but I could see the hurt in his eyes.

"Alright then, love. I'm going to work — I think a 24-hour shift today. I'll be back by midnight tonight." I kept my head down as he kissed my cheek and left, not holding back his speed. I heard a few muffled jingles from downstairs before the front door closed once more. I was alone, just like I'd asked for.

I had time to kill, so I decided to clean up the house a bit. Back when I was a newborn, there had been a lot more to clean up, thanks to my uncontrollable strength. I'd ended up breaking countless objects, and even hurting Edward or Carlisle once or twice, much to my dismay. Now that I wasn't worrying about Charles on a daily basis, I'd discovered that I loved interior decorating, and so I wasn't all too happy with broken furniture. At least I got to redecorate.

Now that my newborn strength was gone and I'd learned to control my vampire strength, there wasn't much to clean up – no broken furniture or any dirty dishes, since none of us ate. I dawdled around the house with a duster; every speck of dust was visible to me, floating around in the air as I dusted the countertop. Of course, the dust didn't go anywhere, frustrating me to no end. The only good part of this was that it occupied most of my brain so that I didn't dwell on my memories. Nevertheless, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still sad.

I gave up dusting as I could tell that it wasn't working and settled for tidying up the windows. Grabbing a washcloth and soaking it in water, I walked up to the nearest window in the kitchen to wipe it down. When I looked in the window, the first thing I saw was a reflection of me. It was faint, but not so faint that I didn't see how dark my eyes were. They were coal black.

I gasped at the sight of them. Never had I gone so long without hunting – I'm sure Carlisle would have noticed, had I looked him in the eye. But I hadn't – and now I could feel the unnoticed flames rise in my throat. I had to hunt now, or I would slaughter the whole city.

I dropped the cloth and shattered my way through the window. Overcome by hunger and bloodlust just like in my newborn years, feeling my every emotion heighten, I ran full-speed through the forest until I caught the scent of an elk. Without a second thought, I savagely pounced on the animal, ripping its head from its body and drinking it dry. When I looked up, its head lay a mile from its body, which was ripped to shreds across the dirty, bloody forest floor. I would feel horrible for destroying the body later, but at that moment my only concern was the waste of blood that could've been mine. At least I didn't have to hide the bloodless body – all signs pointed to a bear attack. I inhaled deeply – that was a mistake.

There was a young man climbing a mountain about a mile north. The blood was pumping heavily through his veins, and his heart was racing, I turned to flee, to let this unsuspecting man live, but he lost his balance and cut his leg on a sharp rock.

I can not explain what happened next.

Warm blood came oozing out of the gash in his leg. From where I stood, I could hear his string of profanities, but he kept on climbing. The gash grew deeper as he trekked, leaving a trail of crimson along the smokey grey stones.

Someone had set my body on fire. My legs moved on their own accord, now. I had no control.

I scaled the mountain, ripping chunks of it off with the force of my feet and hands. As I neared the hiker at an inhuman speed, I could hear his heart pulse and see his jugular pound. I could hear the blood rushing through him and see the blood stain the mountain rocks red. I could smell him. I could smell his blood. Now I just needed a taste…

His jugular caved under my sharp teeth, and his body thrashed under my iron grip.

Suddenly, I was in heaven. At least, that was what it felt like. If I wasn't blinded in that moment, I would have recognized hell, with its infernal flames and glorious heat. But in that moment I was blinded, and I could see why Edward had wanted to leave us. He was leaving us for bliss. This was… perfect. Well, it was perfect until I was ripped away from my kill.

I growled at Edward. He winced, but he didn't let me go to my food. I thrashed about in his arms, growling and screaming, and he quickly brought my lips to the neck of a deer. I drained it hungrily, and finally came back to my senses from the satiating blood.

"Edward?" I asked, my voice tinkling like bells – the sound of an innocent woman, one who hadn't just drained a human. His face came into focus, the face of my son. "What… what happened?" I looked down at the bloody hiker and wiped his blood off of my lips with the back of my hand, shaking. I was horrified. Rich, scarlet blood dripped from my teeth.

"We… we can save him?" I cried hysterically, trembling from the all-consuming guilt. "We can change him?"

Edward sighed. "We can't," he admitted. "He's lost too much blood. He's… gone."

He's dead, I heard.

I collapsed against my son, sobbing mercilessly. I'd killed someone, someone with a family. He was someone's son, and I'd just taken him away from his mother. I was no better than lung cancer.

Edward picked me up. Through my venom-fogged vision, I saw trees fly past us like a mangled blur; Edward always had been the fastest of the three of us.

When he put me down, it was on the sofa of our living room. I stood immediately, walking into the kitchen. Leaning down, I picked up the washcloth from where I'd dropped it beside the broken window. In the remains of the shattered glass, I saw a reflection of half of my face; it was cut off by the beautiful forest sunset where the glass was missing. The sun gently dipped against the horizon, painting the sky a lovely red and orange. The malachite trees casted long shadows on the dewy ground, standing tall underneath bullet-filled skies. Such beauty — what a stark contrast to my hideous red eyes.

I heard the door crash open and instinctively turned around. What I was met with wasn't a pretty sight either.

In front of me stood an exasperated looking Carlisle with red eyes and a screaming, bloody girl with torn up clothes in his arms.

Even in tattered clothing the girl was incredibly beautiful. She had long, golden-blonde hair that had fallen from the ribbon that held it up and wide, violet eyes that were filled with tears. On her neck was a crescent shaped bite mark, and littering the rest of her body were blackened bruises. But there was something about her that screamed familiarity, as if I'd seen her before; then a photograph, noir et blanch, formed in my mind. It was a poised woman with purple eyes, yellow hair pulled daintily into an up-do, side-by-side with a handsome young man. Underneath the photograph were the words, Together with their families…

A strangled gasp escaped from my lips, because here she was –

Rosalie Lillian Hale.

A vampire.