I haven't written anything in months but I've been drowning in Bellamione fic for days now so bless you wonderful writers for sparking a bit of motivation in the cemetery that is my mind right now. Forgive any impending ineptitude, I've only ever written one (terrible, terrible) fic for this pairing and I'm hopelessly rusty in general, as is. Also, just as a disclaimer, I have no idea what this is (I just started typing and didn't stop) and can't even kind of give a proper summary for it. It's very short and not very happy. Tada.

There was a time in my life when I didn't know what the tips of your fingertips felt like etching patterns and warmth into my skin.

There was a time in my life when I didn't know what your mouth felt like against the sensitive patch of skin in the crook of my elbow, tickling and burning and indelible. I can't take a shower without remembering the breathiness of your laugh, the melody of my own. Happiness.

There was a time in my life when I didn't know pain. Not the kind you inflicted. The all-encompassing kind. The kind that filled my lungs with thorns and ran blades down my back, gaping, red lines left in their wake. The kind that punched a fist through my chest, past ribs, and sunk nails first into the tender, beating muscle that was my heart, suffocated it, wrung it till it was dry, bloodless, no longer red but a sickly pale color, pallor like that of a corpse.

There was a time in my life when I didn't know what it felt like to love someone so fully that I'd sacrifice everything I stood for, everything I ever believed to be true and solid in this world just to be able to keep them. To always have them with me. You. I'd have given up everything for you.

You wouldn't do the same.

You didn't do the same.

I was unrepentant in my love for you, unashamed, nearly violent with it. You were my heart, my soul, my every want, every need.

You claimed you felt the same, breathed it so fiercely into my neck, my skin, that I just wrapped my arm tighter around your trembling waist, kissed the tears falling down your cheeks, tasted the tangy salt of them, my fingers carding through your hair as you whimpered and clung to me helplessly, your nails in my shoulder blades bordering on painful.

I didn't care. I never did. I'd endure the pain of a thousand curses if it meant you felt safe, felt loved.

And then one night, you left. You left without a goodbye, without even a kiss, a touch.

You left me for Him. For a ghost. Your revenge far more important to you than I ever could be.

There was a time in my life, before you, before you, Bella, when I didn't know how sickeningly addictive it was to feel hate. To feel it in every inch of me. To feel it festering like an infected wound, puss leaking from it, necrosis setting in, death, death, death.

That's what you stand for, isn't it? All you've ever been good at? Killing, suffering, ruining.

I saw you today, Bella, my sweet, sweet Bella. You were with them, with those other men who lived for the dead now. You found my eyes, an inexplicable tug in my gut at the endless pools of onyx. Black, just like your name, just like your soul.

But there was a moment. A split second of surprise in them that only I would ever have caught. You never show your emotions, my dear Bella. Never to anyone. Apart from me. Show me, show me again; I felt the plea in my head, felt the aching need lick at my insides, heave in my gut. Show me that you feel pain over this, over leaving me.

You didn't.

You turned away from me, a billow of inky black smoke, and then, nothing.

You left me. Once more, you left me.

There was a time in my life, before you, before you sweet Bella, when I didn't know what it felt like to not feel. To have such a hollowness inside me I wonder if my body has been sucked empty, all my entrails, all my blood.

You always claimed that my love for knowledge would get me into trouble one day, in the next breath whispering that it was one of your favorite things about me. My insufferable little know-it-all.

You've given me the worst kind of knowledge.

My darling Bella, because of you, I now know what it feels like to have my heart broken.

And I will always love you. Until my last, shuddering breath will I love you.

But I hate you just as much.

My darling. My Bella. Mine. No matter if I was ever yours or not.