Hey everyone! I'm reuploading this story—I have a few chapters up already that I've taken down and reposted here. This is Bella's side of "The Blessing." Actually, this is a book on Amazon and I've been meaning to come back and upload it to fanfiction for a long time now. If you guys didn't know, I'm back in college and all of the studying is KILLING me. Seriously, I feel brain dead. I study literature, creative writing, and Japanese. I love it but between that, a full-time job, and wanting to write all of the time … I have no time to sleep at all. So, please forgive me if there are any errors in this. I just really wanted to get it uploaded here for you guys. It's basically the same as my book on amazon … expect it related to my favorite subject: Twilight (like it was originally). (I did this totally out of whack). "The Blessing" is a fanfiction that I published for fun a few years ago and this story is "Jagged Hearts" which is part one of Bella's version. Part two should hopefully come out soon and I'll be posting that here in this story, too. (Sorry if none of this makes any sense. I stayed up all night working on a project and I'm totally sleep deprived).

Now that all of that is out of the way, I hope you enjoy this story! I'm going to get this uploaded and all tied up while finishing off "First Impressions." I hope to get all of my fanfic wips finished this year so I can start posting my new story ideas.

P.S. I'm sorry I've been so inactive this year. I went back to college (finally! Yay! ) and have been up to my neck in homework. I'm trying to take as many classes as possible so I can get into grad school as soon as possible. Last semester I got straight A's with three A+'s (is that correct grammar haha?) and got onto the dean's list (highest honors). So, hopefully I can get some more scholarships, get to work less, and have time to write more.

Anyway! Please enjoy this story and comment! Getting to chat with you guys is seriously the best relief of my stress haha.

Prologue

Death with Dignity

Sometimes, death was beautiful. It was the last chapter of someone's story, after all. When it came to my mother, my fingers still fumbled numbly on her very last page, afraid to turn it over because I knew once I did, I would never be able to flip to the beginning of her story again. Her story had been told, and mine, I felt, was just beginning.

Certain moments felt as if they would play in my mind forever, circling over and over again—teasing my mind's eye despite my effort to evade the thoughts completely. I didn't want to forget the images which swirled around in my mind; however, I didn't want the images of her—the images of that day—to haunt me forever. When my mind was quiet, I saw the white, seemingly endless hallways of that constricting hospital; I smelled the faint stink of antiseptics and urine; I pictured the way the fluorescent lights had reflected against the large windows of her hospital room, which had peered out at the dark, ominous sky. Time moved forward in my memory, and I was hit with the sounds of dozens of machines, screaming at my jaded mind that the end was imminent. That room colored my memories, and, no matter where I was, I could close my eyes and see it all clear as day. After all, this was the last room my mother had ever seen—the room where I had felt a part of myself slip wordlessly into the same void.

I had spent hours in that room, ignoring the walls which had felt as if they could have swallowed me whole as I sat at my mother's bedside. With my feet glued to the floor, I would squeeze my thighs together, trying desperately to hold everything in to avoid using the ladies room, fearing if I had, I would have come back to find my mother gone. With my thighs smashed painfully against each other, I had made sure I hadn't missed a single instance. As time had ticked on, my body had become almost as atrophied as hers. I had been waiting for something—anything—to happen.

Hours had passed, and I had begun to furiously blink my eyes in an effort not to nod off. My gaze had remained on her face for as long as I had been able to stomach it. While my eyes traced her features, I had noticed she looked very much like a shadow of the woman I had grown up with. Her ashen face had caused my eyes to veer off toward my father, who had no longer cared to hide the emotions he felt. The grief swimming in his eyes had done little to assuage the pain in my heart.

On that final day, the look of resignation on my father's face had nearly killed me. Being as young as I was, I had looked to my father for comfort and guidance as we tread through foreign waters. When I watched my father, I had felt even more lost—even more uneasy. He knew. Deep down, in the depths of his consciousness, he had known that day was the end. In his eyes, that knowledge had been clear as day. Perhaps, I had easily recognized it because I had known, too. So had my sister, Alice, who had spent most of the time with her eyes glued to the floor beneath her perfectly polished white sneakers.

Despite being older, Alice hadn't been able to stomach it. As I had watched her, the energy in the room became even more suffocating. The tension had been so thick, the walls of the already small hospital room in the bleakest ward felt as if they were closing in around me.

I have to escape … I have to get out—if only for a moment. A moment of fresh air … A moment for some clarity … Peace. Finally, a few moments of peace. Just a few seconds … Just a moment to breathe … The air in here is far too thick … The walls are so constricting. Mom … I can't. Mom … I—I can't think. I can't breathe. Mom …

With my mind and body somewhat out of synch, I had risen from my chair and left the room. As I traveled down the corridor toward the ladies room, I had watched one foot move in front of the other, never wanting to acknowledge the images attached to the cacophony of sounds surrounding me. Instead, I had focused my mind on the matter at hand: moving down the hallway and to the right.

I had locked myself in a stall and placed my head in my hands until I had been able breathe again. My heart had raced in my chest, pumping against bone as if it were trying to break free. Surprisingly, no tears had ever come. Not yet. You have to be strong, Isabella. Be strong for her. Be strong for the one person who has always been strong for you.

Earlier this morning, I had promised myself I wouldn't shed a tear—at least, not in front of my mother. I had to be strong for her like she had been strong for Alice and me every day. In the bathroom, I had heaved on air for several minutes before my legs had found their strength again, and I managed to rise to my feet. Composed, I had left the small sanctuary I found in that bathroom stall, returning to my mother's room.

Slowly, I had drifted out of the bathroom and begun down the hallway. Like before, I had ignored the sounds around me; I had allowed them to mix into one massive blur made up of a variety of noises produced by the patients around me. The blur had been a comfort, which had quickly been shattered by one sound I had been dreading to hear.

A long, menacing beepfilled the air, effectively erasing my mind of anything other than the room at the end of the hallway. My mother's room. My throat had tightened, and my chest had grown heavy as the persistent beep strained against my ears. The walls had moved in on me, and the corners of my vision had become fuzzy. One nurse had zoomed toward my mother's room, and then another. And another. Before, finally, the NP had flown down the opposite hallway with a doctor in tow. It was then when I had realized I hadn't been moving. In my horror, I had stopped to watch; I had observed the entire scene with a weak stomach and fractured heart.

Time suspended as I had peered down the narrowing hallway and attempted to will my legs to move. The world had been muddled around me, but I had managed to propel myself forward. I never had understood the idea of "out-of-body experiences" until I ran toward my mother's room. In those moments, I had found that my body had been weightless and moved of its own accord. When I had looked out at the scene surrounding me, it was as if I were in a theater watching a film—nothing had felt like it was happening to me.

It couldn't be. Nothing awful happens to me; awful things happen to everyone else.

I had been lost in my thoughts—my senses had run wild as my world fell apart. As I had heard my sister scream, I came back; my thoughts had returned to the present as I shot down the hall.

My legs had shaken, but determination had kept them moving until I had reached the room. The commotion had rung in my ears so loudly that my mind hadn't been able to block it out—as much as I had desperately tried. My sister's voice had turned my body to ice, shooting through me like poison in my veins. Her hysterics had driven my mind wild and shattered the image I had held of her for a moment.

All my life, she had been someone I had thought was impossibly perfect. So, when I had found her rocking back and forth in a chair near my mother, I saw her looking more human than ever. The only thing that had been more disturbing than her wails had been the chaotic sounds coming from the machines surrounding my mother's bed. My eyes had drifted away from my sister and widened in horror as they took in the sight of doctors and nurses clustering around my mother, trying to revive her; they had moved with little success. While I had watched them, my eyes increasingly widening with horror, I had felt myself drop to my knees. The sting from the fall had shot up my body, but nothing other than the sight before me had mattered.

She slipped away … right through our fingers. This morning, she was fine, and by twilight, she closed her eyes …

"I'm calling it," her doctor had murmured as he peered down at his watch. "Seven twenty-eight."

Then, they had dispersed, allowing me a clear view of her. She had appeared just as she always had. Although, now, she had been far thinner—the bones on her face were more prominent than ever, but she still had the same ethereal beauty.

As I had studied her, I found she looked as if she had fallen to sleep—slipping into a state of unconsciousness she would soon wake up from. However, even at fourteen, I had known her eyes would never flutter open again. I had known … but still, I had allowed myself a moment to dream.

My eyes had pulled away from her, moving to my father, who had collapsed against his chair. With his face buried in his hands, he had quietly sobbed; his shoulders shook enough to rock the chair he sat on. Then my eyes had moved to my sister, finding her in a similar state. I had been the only one semi-composed. After a long pause, I had risen from the floor—my legs had still been unsteady as I had moved to my mother's bed. I had peered down at her for a moment before my hand reached out, and my fingers brushed along her hand, avoiding the IV jutting from her vein. I had held her hand for a long time as my tears came and went. I held on until her palm was cool against mine.

After that, my memory became fuzzy. I could remember my father composing himself just enough to reach for me, taking me in his arms. I remembered, despite my distress, I felt almost childlike as he had carried me out of the hospital room and to his car. Looking back, I suppose I had beenchildlike—I was fourteen, after all; however, in that moment, I had felt so much older than my years. I had seen more than any fourteen-year-old should.

Too much. Far too much. So much, I wanted to scream.

The most disturbing thing I had seen that day was the look in my father's eyes. The light in his eyes had extinguished; as I had peered up at my father, I had barely recognized the haunted man before me.

The memory of the beginning of such a tumultuous period of my life had my mind reeling. The images of the hospital faded as the image of my dim apartment replaced it. Looking ahead, I wondered what type of woman I would be if that event hadn't shaped me. After that day, I had learned to cherish everything in my life.

Every. Single. Thing.

I accepted the good with the bad, carrying the weight when I had to. And I always had to … just like Edward. My past allowed me to understand his pain so completely. He believed he was alone in this; in his beautiful, jaded mind, I was sure he believed he would carry this weight on his own. But I would carry it with him if he let me.

I would carry that weight with him because a man like him deserved the world. A man who reached for the light in the darkest of times was the sort of man I could give myself to.

My mind eased as I thought of him like I always did. Edward Warren. Edward, my sinfully handsome neighbor with a baby to care for and a jagged heart. One day, we'll let go of our demons and find happiness—together.