character/pairings: esme. carlisle. slight edward.
summary: age 16 and already dreaming your life away," her mother would scold.
notes: title from the kills. and quite frankly, i hate this fic. it isn't what i wanted at all and by the end, i gave up. and i tend to make all my characters darker than they are. so this is dark!esme. and nothing is mine, btw. but you knew that. and un-betaed to top it off.
changes: book canon has esme's baby dying after birth and this fic has the baby dying before birth.
it was always expected that she would marry some farm boy nearby. she was nothing if not a simple girl and the idea of love stories intrigued her. she was destined to find that 'one', right? the one that so often was described as 'loves of lifes' and 'never looked back'.
"age 16 and already dreaming your life away," her mother would scold.
"never find your dream if you keep playing in mud," her father would frown.
but esme kept dreaming and esme kept running around the field.
her skirts got stuck in thorn bushes (she sees this as symbolic later in life) and climbs trees.
so when esme falls from those trees she can only think of how no boy wants skinned knees.
she limps home, her leg no longer in the right position, and has to say that she is pleased by the gasp her mother gives.
mud in her hair and on her face - tear streaks run her face and bruised elbows.
her mother rushes her to the doctor's and she stumbles in the doorway.
"careful, miss platt." the doctor chides lightly. esme has lost ability to breath, lost in gold eyes.
careful, indeed.
---
it all ends in fingers and triggers and feet dangling off cliffs. shivering as the wind whips against her face.
yes, simple dreams. she could live with having her husband treat her like that. she could deal with not having the perfect life she had wanted. her real dream as a child was a child. country girls can only hope for some much and is a child that much to ask for?
trembling hands against her stomach, cursing the empty space.
tears won't fall but she will. she takes the last step.
---
she's confused. she must be in heaven, she's caught a glimpse of those gold eyes she's seen before. now where is her baby? he has to be here to. he wasn't meant to go but now she had him back. she wanted him back.
a chiming voice goes through her ears, angry, "carlisle i have to get out of here. her thoughts are too much. all i hear is her crying for him."
she can't make sense of the words. why would one be angry here?
but then. then she realizes she's not in heaven.
---
"esme! you know better than to disobey me." a slap to the face. she reckons she deserves it.
her father's face next, never happy enough. never content with how his daughter turned out. was she really such a burden?
mother's then and she's crying. esme can't remember why. she can't remember anything anymore.
the pain runs through her, fire through her veins.
heaven has always seemed too bright anyway.
---
she wakes to a two sets of gold eyes but only one she remembers. the doctor from years ago is looking at her with urgent, careful eyes.
they explain it quickly, what she is. what the burn in the back of her throat is. she's reminded of pulling off the band-aid, faster means less pain.
she wants to cry. then learns she can't.
---
carlisle leaves her by herself as she tries.
---
it only takes a week before she blames him. her memories are fading. she can't remember the way her stomach had grown and how it had felt to feel her baby kick. can't remember his face as he had slipped so unwillingly out of her, no longer safe. she couldn't protect him. she wanted to remind herself everyday.
days are spent in balls in the floor, unmoving, trained to the wall.
she'll block this memory out later in her life as well.
---
"i'm sorry it turned out this way. we didn't mean it to be like this. he didn't want to see you die. you can't blame him."
esme barely hears what edward says. he's so young and when she looks at him, all she can see is the son that could've been all grown up.
she'd rather not think of him at all.
---
simple girls have simple needs and after the memory of her baby's body dead in her arms is long gone, she slips easily into the role they want her to be. she's always been good at being a mother. and she's always been good at pretending.
being happy couldn't be that hard, could it?