Disclaimer- All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note- Hi! It has been a while since I last updated this story, as well as my other work in progress Elevators, Blackouts, and Strangers, but I do plan to continue updating these stories, even if it takes me a month or two to do so. `Hopefully this summer I will have more frequent updates. Also, check out my account on under the pen name Juliett Dawson. Thanks, and happy reading!

Reasons To Be Missed

Chapter 3- Life Goes On

Sitting silently, statically, I found it hard to piece together what I had just heard. So much that made this man who he was today had just been laid before me, the shattered pieces of a broken heart, and I had come to find that I knew not what to do with them. Of course, there was still much to be learned, more to be told and more to be listened to, however, there was already so much information that had to simply be left to lay in the open until a time would come when it would be possible to dust off the cobwebs and be revived. Much like Edward.

Misery reeked from his shut eyes, the dark circles beneath them seeming darker and more prominent than before. It was moments like these that made me think of my wife, two children, and granddaughter, and what I would do if I suddenly was without them.

All I could see in those bleak fantasies were visions of regret, grief, and self-loathing to the point where it physically sickened me, even now, when I knew that my wife was at home, searching for a dinner recipe for that evening, that my son was probably working in his fancy suit and tie, that my daughter Sarah, and her daughter Lily, were most likely watching re-runs of 'I Love Lucy' or playing Monopoly. I knew perfectly well that they were all there, as they always have been, but the prospect that one day they might not be gave me an instantaneous sympathy for Edward Cullen.

I did not, however, have any idea how to help him. So I did all I could. I listened.

"Is that clock correct?" He asked me as his eyes found the hanging clock on the wall.

"Yes, I believe it is." I answered, clearing my throat and propping my glasses back on my nose. "Well, we are only a couple minutes over time... I hope you aren't late for anything..."

"No." He answered as he steadied his voice. "I just need to get to work." He stood, and went hesitantly to shake y hand as he did every session.

"Well, I believe this is good progress. It may not feel that way right now, but you will start to feel better."

"I hope so." Edward answered with a disdainful grouchiness rumbling through his throat. Pausing, he turned to me and asked with his eyes looking down to the floor what he should do about the phone call.

"I can't tell you that, Mr. Cullen. Only you can tell yourself what to do."

"But if you were in my situation – I just, I don't know, this is just so cliché, but I feel so – lost."

Putting my hand on his shoulder, I looked into his eyes which were now beginning to sparkle with intimate confusion and spoke the only words I could think of that could possibly apply. "You have already lost these people once, causing irrevocable pain for years on end. It has severely interfered, keeping you from a normal life, keeping you from moving forward with what you want to do, how you want to live. Do you want to regain what you lost? Or do you want to try to move past it? It is your decision only. The answer is a lot simpler than it may seem."

Thinking, Edward leaned against the door frame and sighed heavily. "Is there any possibility that I could come again soon? Before next week?"

"Of course. How soon do you want to come back?"

"Does tomorrow sound desperate?"

"No." I answered truthfully. "You could even come back around four o'clock if you wanted to." I continued, half-joking, assuming that he would live under the reign of his stubborn pride and reject the offer.

"If that is alright with you, that sounds appealing actually." Not showing my surprise, I agreed and marked a note in my schedule. "Thank you Dr."

"I will see you tonight, Mr. Cullen."

After I finished jotting down the rest of my notes for the session, as well as my last-minute observations that suddenly came back to my memory, then sat back into my chair and tried to remember the different people he had spoken about. There was Jasper, his best, and from what I understood his first friend, with the golden hair and strange way of carrying himself. There was Alice, the girl who his friend had loved since the moment he laid eyes on her.

There was Rosalie, who had reached out to him in a time when she knew she had done something wrong, and had a duty to make things right. There was the man she loved, the same man who had beaten Edward and Jasper nearly to a pulp.

Then there was Bella. In truth, I knew very little about Bella, yet I felt as if I knew how important she was to Edward without ever having seen them together.

Life works in such mysterious ways. It can never be understood, predicted, estimated, or calculated. It can only be studied, be awed, and rightfully so. There was too much of the unknown to assume that he can justify why certain things happen, and why certain things do not. All any of us could do was wait for what was to happen, and hope that we have the strength to overcome whatever it may bring.

4:00 the same day...

Edward entered the room as he had earlier that day. His head was hung, his face pallid with destitution. Moving silently across the floor space, he found his previous seat on the leather couch, laid down atop it with a swift swivel, and folded his hands across his chest. Watching him, I brushed off the remaining crumbs from my afternoon sandwich, and took out my pen and notepad.

"Are you doing better, Mr. Cullen?"

"Not really."

"Well then. Shall we get started?"

"Where did I leave off again?"

"I believe...Bella had just fallen asleep after you refused Emmett's apology..."

"Right. Well, Bella did wake up the next morning. Of course I did not sleep at all, understandably, but after that morning it was like the world rotated, reversed, or flip-flopped or something. It felt so different, so...welcoming. It wasn't even close to being perfect, actually there were so many different problems I am surprised we handled it as well as we did. But we did handle the situation, we held onto each other through it, and I believe that made all the difference, as corny as it sounds. That morning was sort of the turning point of it all...

I was sitting there alone, next to Bella's bed as was the usual, next to the wires and circuits and monitors that beeped throughout the night. I wondered how the patients found sleep amid the pestering blips, and that made my worries all the more severe. There was always a significant chance that the first night she slept she would never wake up again, and unlike before I doubted that any sort of miracle could revive her. I believed in only one miracle per lifetime, and it had already been spent on the most worthy cause I could fathom.

But she did wake up. The second time I watched her eyes flutter open was like seeing for the first time. It was how I imagined being born must have felt like, inhaling fresh air and all at once having so much to take in. An entire world being hurled before new eyes, a new sort of existence present in one fleeting moment that would forever change someone's outlook. Nothing would be the same, and to this day I am still unsure if it was for the better or worse.

"Hey." I said as her eyes met mine. Her arms raised above her head in straight angles, her smile stretching as far as her limbs. Her hair was wild and curly beneath her head, and I could almost feel the antsy-feelings within her legs. She was never an athletic person, that was for sure, but that did not make her any more a couch potato by nature.

"Hey yourself." She replied. "What time is it?"

"About eight in the morning. Friday."

"Wow." She groaned. "And you're still here? How long have you been waiting?"

"Not too long. Only the night."

"When was the last time you slept?"

"You don't have to worry about me, Bella. Just worry about making yourself healthy, alright?" I asked of her, tucking a lock of her thick hair behind her ear. Her eyes followed my hand as it nearly touched her cheek, then followed up my arm and then back to my eyes. Suddenly feeling the heaviness of my eyelids, I blinked, trying to relieve the tiredness that I had evaded for days with little effect.

"But – you look awful." I laughed, causing her to blush faintly. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"I know. But at least you are getting your color back." I chuckled, making her blush with even more severity. A doctor whisked past us at that moment, checking her chart, then the various electronic graphs that bleeped on the monitors.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but I am going to have to ask you to leave." the doctor said kindly, faking a smile for our sake. I turned, thanked her, and after saying goodbye, I slowly strode out of the hospital room, nearly walking into my father.

"Dad." I said, rubbing my eyes which suddenly felt leaden and tired.

"Edward, you need your sleep. Doctor's orders. "

"Please, just let me know how she is first..."

"These tests take longer than you think, they are run on a day-to-day basis after a coma patient wakes up for as long as we determine necessary. If you aren't going to go home and take care of yourself now, when do you plan on doing so? Just so I can tell your mother when to expect you home for dinner."

The thought that shamed me from the core had never before made itself present in my mind until that moment. I thought about being there for Bella. I thought about sacrificing myself – or on the more accurate, less-dramatic side sacrificing my hygiene, for her. I thought about my father who seemed to be getting in the way, who made himself present at times that I looked and felt my worst. I never thought about my mother.

My mother who was still at home, whose husband had been working seventy-two hour shifts, whose son had not even bothered to call during that time. She was never a worrier, my mother, but the only way I envisioned her existing at that moment was sitting on the couch, paying no attention to the blaring TV, eyes dry but pink and puffy, her emotions ranging from heartbroken to raging with anger. Thought I was the first person who wished to remain at the hospital, where I felt I was most needed, I would be the first to admit that I was needed most at home.

Looking up at the man before me who gazed back with all-knowing eyes, without words spoken between us we knew he had won over my pride.

"Go. Tell her you will see her tomorrow." He said, motioning for the door, and gesturing for the female doctor inside. After giving him a quick smile, I went back to Bella's bedside.

"Back already?" She joked.

"I just wanted to tell you that I think you, along with my dad, are right. I'm going to go home, clean up, get caught up on schoolwork, sleep. But I will be back first thing tomorrow to check in with you."

Bella smiled, happy that she finally saw me come to my senses. Sitting up in her bed, flushing as she pulled her wild hair behind her, she said "Now I have one less thing I have to worry about."

"You aren't the one who needs to worry, Bella..." I was silenced by an unforgiving yawn. She giggled.

"Apparently I do."

"Well, you won't for much longer." I kissed her softly on her free hand. "Call me tomorrow and tell me if there is something I can bring you, alright?"

"If you insist." Bella replied, beaming. As I reached the door to her room, she quickly stopped me. "Edward!" I leaned back so that my head was through the door frame. "I don't have your number."

We both began laughing, perhaps more than the pathetic humor should have allowed. I wrote down my phone number on the notepad beside her hospital bed, and with a prolonged kiss on the chick, left the room without us taking our eyes off of the other.

Too tired to drive myself, I began the half-hour walk back home. With my father working in the hospital and all of my friends finishing up the school week, the only person left who could possibly drive me home was my mother, and I did not want to bother her any more than I already had.

Taking the usual route home that had not been so usual since the purchase of my silver Volvo, the whereabouts of which were unknown to me, I walked through the gray shadows of light that poured from the canopy of trees, a sight I had forgotten about. Sooner than I had expected, the aging, white mansion was visible up ahead, past the creek which slowly whittled away at the rocks that formed its bottom.

Not wanting to startle my mother, I made no attempt to make light my strides as I stepped across the creaking wooden porch. Knocking softly on the door, I heard a click of the TV from inside and a familiar stride walk hastily to the door.

"I'm sorry I didn't come home sooner..." I began as she hugged me tightly, then recoiling as she saw the state I was in, dirt from the hillside still visible on my forehead.

"You're right. But that doesn't' matter right now, you need to get yourself cleaned up. What do you want to eat, hm?"

The next day, as promised, I went back to the hospital to check on Bella. As she requested, I brought her her schoolwork, ironically nearly identical to mine being that we had almost all of the same classes, and her father brought her the rest of the clothes and other things that she wanted from home. She appeared even healthier than the day before, and even more beautiful.

After her father, and a long phone call with her mother, Bella asked me to come into her room.

"I got you your books. All of the assignments are written down here." I said as I handed her the sheet of paper.

Smiling, she thanked me, and asked me to sit down. We talked for what seemed like an eternity, for what was only an hour on the clock. We would not have paused if it wasn't for my father dragging me out of the room. Figuratively, of course.

"Come on, Edward. Let Bella do her work, just like you need to." Looking at him with pleading eyes, I asked .

"Can't I stay a little longer?" My father was unrelenting, but he did however, agree to letting me work in the waiting room once I got my own work from home. On my way out, I hung back once more.

"Dad? Um, this seems like a really, really bad time, but...what happened to my car?" He chuckled.

"Don't worry, we had it towed. It's back in the garage at home, safe and sound. I am surprised you didn't ask about it earlier, actually."

"Well, I was concerned about something else." I said, giving Bella a quick goodbye wink. Blushing violently, she smiled and whispered a faint goodbye. Without her or my father knowing, I walked outside the hall, but continued to look through the blind of the window to her room. I watched as my father checked all of the routine machines and charts, and then as Bella reluctantly opened her books as she glanced at the assignment page.

Grinning with anticipation, I watched the surprise in her eyes grow as she found loose sheets of paper wedged between certain pages of the different textbooks. Knowing how organized she was, all of her homework was secured safely inside notebooks and binders. As she tilted the book subtly away from the doctor beside her, she gazed across the countless sheets of paper in awe. Nearly a full school week's worth of work was completed before her, not in a different hand than her own, but in clear, printed type.

Shutting the book closed, she hid her smile with her hand, and shook her head with contained laughter. Thankfully, my father either did not, or at least pretended not to notice. To this day I am not sure whether he knew, considering that if I knew the man at all he would have given me a lecture on why I should not have done that, despite the trying times.

Content, and brimming with cunning skills and amusement over her reaction, I walked out of the hospital, and decided I would be able to work best at home. Yesterday had been a very long day, but not long enough for me to forget to save the work I had done for Bella on my computer. Our work was already completed. I went home that day, inspected my car to find it free from even the most insignificant knick, and as I re-adjusted the rear-view mirror I looked at my reflection for the first time in who knew how long.

A different person was looking back at me. Not a man, not a child, not a person in between but rather a mixture of both. The strength of a man to help his friend in need, the immaturity of a child to put his own well being at risk when the one he sacrificed his well being for was already on the road to recovery. Laughing briefly at myself, I finished fiddling with the mirror and told my mother that I was going to Jasper's house.

It had been too long since I paid my best friend a visit, or event he courtesy of a phone call. Reminding me of another situation I had recently remedied, I quickly drove the familiar route to the Whitlock house. Not wanting to burden them by simply showing up at their door, I dialed Jasper's number.

"Hello?"

"Hey Jazz."

"Edward! Good to hear you."

"Same here. You busy? I was just driving around and wondered if you would mind me stopping by."

"Yeah, come on by. I don't have much of a life apparently, me being at home on a Saturday..."

"Well, now you have plans. I'll be by in a minute."

As I reached his door, I knocked twice before an immediate answer.

"Edward!" He replied in the same tone. "Wow, you look..." he began, searching for the right words. "clean."

"Thanks, so do you." I replied, giving him a hard pat on the shoulder as I walked inside. It all was piecing itself back together, almost fitting too closely together. I had forgotten about the fact that I had not admitted to Bella how I had changed my appearance, cowardly as it was. Still, I felt like that was something that was not needed to be shared, at least at the given moment.

What was important at that time was getting my life back together the way that it was, or at least, how I envisioned it being. It had never been easy, but perhaps now it could be a bit easier. It sure as hell couldn't be worse than the last week I had endured, but I had endured it. We all had. If we could overcome this, we could overcome anything. Couldn't we?

"We didn't."