the sea wants to take me, the knife wants to slit me
Alice,
It’s been seventy two days since he left with you. I can’t sleep. Charlie is worried. I overheard him calling my mom last night after I woke him up screaming. I think he might send me away, maybe to Jefferson? I can’t let him. How will you find me if I’m gone, if I leave? I can’t leave, I can't, Alice. I don’t know what to do.
I dream of him every night. I dream of you, too. I never remember what I dream about when I wake up, but I wake up with your names on my lips.
I’m falling behind in school. I can’t shower, can’t eat, can’t move. Most days I don't recognize myself in the mirror. Aren’t vampires supposed to not be able to see themselves in mirrors? You would have told me, if you were here. If you were here I wouldn’t be like this. You would change me, right? I still want to be a vampire, you know. He would say it would be killing me, damning my soul, but this isn’t living. I don’t want to live, not if it's like this.
If Charlie sends me away, would you come looking for me?
Please respond soon.
-Your Bella
Alice,
It’s been eighty four days since you both left. I think of you every day. A couple days ago it got so bad I put the dress you gave me on and slept in it. I thought – God, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I thought – I wanted to be pretty if you looked into the future and saw me. I wanted to be pretty enough for him to want me again. I wanted to die in my bed (have you ever been in my room? Has he ever told you about it? I’m forgetting the color of your eyes.) and I wanted it to be pretty.
It’s not pretty now. I’ve cried and slept and festered in it for days now. I tore one of the sleeves screaming last night. I’m sorry.
Rain, as always. You would have loved this weather. Charlie says he doesn’t know what to do with me. He’s upset with me, I think. Everyone expects me to be better by now, as if three months is enough time to forget everything, to forgive him, to somehow stop and move on. If I move on, you’ll stop existing.
I have to do something, though. I owe it to Charlie. He deserves a better daughter. Sometimes I wish something awful would happen to me and I could stop hurting him like this, forever.
Would you kill me, if you came to me now? You said I smell good, didn’t you? Did I make that up? I still can’t write his name, but he must be so disgusted with me he wouldn’t even try.
They’re tearing your old house down soon. Soon I won’t even have that to comfort me. Come home soon.
-Your Bella
Alice. 104 days. I’m talking again. I still can’t sleep, but I’m talking, and I’m showering, and I haven’t even looked at your dress in a few days. I found a secret. I can’t tell you, but it works. I can see him again. He looks so beautiful. Jacob is helping me. It’s nice being around Jacob. I forgot how nice it is to talk to people. We’re building bikes. You should see me – I’m actually getting kind of good at it.
Sometimes I’ll make a joke and he won’t laugh, and I’ll realize you would have gotten it, and suddenly there’s such a deep longing I want to cry. I miss you. I wish I could have both of you. I wish I could have Jacob as a friend and you as a friend and him, him, him. I want so much.
It’s still bad when I leave Jacob, though. I’ve found a way to help, though. You and him would hate me for it, but that’s half the reason it helps.
I’m getting better, Alice. I promise. I’ll get better and I’ll be good and he’ll want me again, I’ll be pretty and he’ll want me.
Maybe I shouldn’t say this part to you, but I’m halfway certain you don’t even read these, so who cares. Sometimes when I can’t bear to think about him any longer I pretend it’s you in my bed instead of him. I wonder if you would want me too. Could I be good enough for you to come back?
There's still snow on the ground. Do you like snow? It glitters like he did. I wonder what you look like in the sunlight.
- Your Bella
Alice.
Things are worse, but easier, if that makes any sense. I’m getting more reckless. It doesn’t work the same anymore. Before it was just dangerous situations, the back of a stranger’s bike, walking late at night in the forest, motorcycles with Jake, easy stuff. Things I could pass off as an adrenaline rush and an impulsive decision. But he doesn’t stay long enough, he fades too quickly, he never stays.
I’ve found a way around it, though. Can I tell you? Are you even reading this?
I keep thinking if you found out what I was doing to myself you’d drive to Forks overnight and run to find me. You – all of you have a hard time around my blood. How far away can you smell it from? If you’re in the area you would have found me already, would have run to devour me. If I bleed enough, will you see me in a vision? I don’t want you to stop me. I want you to lose control and turn me. He wouldn’t do it. He can control himself around me, or he did the first time. But you? You would give me what I want, wouldn’t you?
I’m sleeping, but I’m still screaming at night. I see you. I see you with my blood on your mouth and I’m begging you to either turn me or kill me but you never do either, you just stare and stare and stare.
Jacob is pulling away. Jessica hates me for still being sick. You’re the only one who gets it. They all think four months is too much time, but your kind can grieve for a century. How could you show me this kind of life and then just leave?
Fuck you for leaving me. Fuck you for listening to him. Sometimes I hate you more than I hate him. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t remember how many days it’s been. I don’t remember anything except you and him and the look you had that night at the ballet studio.
Please, please come see me. Alice. I need you.
- Your Bella
Alice
Charlie almost found out about our secret today. I like calling it that – our secret. It makes me feel like you’re still my best friend. I miss you more and more every day.
I went cliff jumping again, and it wasn’t even from the highest peak that Sam and Jacob and the others jump off of. (I miss Jacob. He still won’t tell me what’s wrong. I worry about him so much.) In any case, when I came home soaked and shivering Charlie freaked out. I was fine. I barely even saw Him, but Charlie freaked out just the same, and demanded that I take my jacket off in front of the fire to warm up. But I couldn’t Alice, I couldn’t, because that would mean he would see, and that would be the end of everything.
I yelled at him and I ran upstairs, and we haven’t talked since.
I don’t see Him when I do it, but I can feel Him. I feel golden eyes on my skin and that curl in your lip that both of you get when you smell my blood. I almost carved both your names on my legs the other day, just so that I would be sure you both existed. I still can't say His name.
Would you even recognize me if you saw me now? I look different, I know. I’ve lost weight, enough that Charlie is taking extra efforts to feed me, and now my arm is littered with remnants of our secret. It’s the same rush as bikes or the forest, but it’s easier, quicker, endorphins rushing on tap in a bathroom or bedroom without half the effort. I miss seeing Him, though. I miss seeing you too. Come to Forks again, Alice, please. I don’t know how to live without you. Leave Him if you must, but please. I need to see you.
- Your Bella.
Alice
It’s getting bad. I don’t know how to stop. Victoria is back and she’s going to kill me, and I’m not even worried about it. I need you back, I need to see you, I’m spiraling. My dad is talking about sending me to a shrink, maybe somewhere worse. How will you find me? How will you protect me there? How will I be able to write to you and feel your eyes on me in the night and know it was real? Alice. Alice please. If I die, He’ll die too. Do it for your brother. Come see me. If not for me, for him. I know I’m not pretty or good enough to deserve you back but please. I haven’t slept in days. I’m too scared of missing something big, something important. I haven’t gone to school in weeks. My dad- Charlie- who fucking cares – he’s going to send me away. I need you Alice.
- Bella
Alice
Charlie left early this morning and won’t come back for the next few days. Hunting trip. I’ve left you a letter in my dresser, second drawer down from the left. It’s next to all the others. I’m sorry if my handwriting is bad.
I figure it’ll go one of two ways.
- I go into the forest and cut my wrists and it works and I die there, with the trees whispering softly and the ground ready to take me and golden eyes, golden eyes. Edward kills himself. Charlie doesn’t know what to do with himself. Jacob (Jacob is a werewolf, Alice, did you know that?) fights you and it ends badly. You live another thousand years. Eventually you forget me.
- I go into the forest and cut my wrists and it doesn’t work. An ambulance comes, the dogs find me, maybe Jacob sniffs me out and carries me to the hospital himself. I get sent to a mental hospital and stay there for a year while they sedate me into a girl who can live and not hurt herself and doesn’t dream of vampires or werewolves or scream in the night. Edward and you live another thousand years. Eventually you forget me.
Or, if somehow, somehow, somehow
- You see me before I do it. You run to me, you find me bleeding out and you take care of me. You turn me into a vampire to save my life. I’ll be forced to live with you, to be taken in, and I won’t be alone. We live a thousand years and you will never forget me.
It's a risky game, I know. It could hurt Charlie, could hurt Jacob, could hurt Edward. It’s so selfish I almost hate myself for doing it. But I need to. I’m not getting better. I’ve cut myself every day these past two weeks in case you see it in your visions, in case the smell draws either of you to me, in case anything happens. I can’t live like this. I just can’t. Please, Alice. Come to Forks. You have one day before I do it. You’re the only one I’ve told.
- Until death do us part, Bella.
P.S. - Don’t tell Edward. Please. He won’t have the guts to turn me. I want it to be you.
It's surprisingly quiet in San Francisco when Alice Cullen shoots up from the bed she was reading in and runs to the nearest computer, book forgotten. It’s 11:32 pm and the window is open, night air blowing in softly. She logs into an account she hasn’t opened in months and sees over a hundred emails, all from the same address. She knows what she needs to do. She opens another tab and books the quickest flight to Washington she can.
Bella
I’m coming to get you. Wait for me. I love you.
Your Alice, forever and always
Edward can go to hell for all she cares, Alice is saving Bella’s life one way or another. She’s packed in the next five minutes and out the door in four. Visions don’t lie. Bella needs her.