Chapter 26 – I Need You

A/N: I am sorry I took so long to post this chapter! RL was a bitch, so it took me longer to put this together! But I hope you all like it!

And as always, all Polyvore sets are linked on my profile page!

EPOV

Sitting here on this wood dock, contemplating life, the sunlight fading in between trees and the small hills, the purples and oranges of the twilight being my companions of solitude. I was thinking about bad days today – not the ones when you get up late for work or school, or even the ones when you have a flat tire on the way to a meeting or to your own wedding – I am talking about really bad fucking days.

I had my fair share of those, like when I was 13 and Mike Newton stole all my clothes after gym and I had nothing to wear for the rest of the day ; when my father discovered I got a B- on Algebra and took my PlayStation for a month; when I stole my mom's car to pick up a drunk Emmett at a party and end up crashing it by accident; or when Eric Yorkie spilled a whole can of soda on me right before an English test, making me wet and disgusting for a whole day; not even when those dam jocks grabbed my composition notebook from my locker, and ripped it up to tinny pieces, making me loose tons of songs. Nothing would compare to what I felt that day after mine and Bella´s fight.

Maybe I had been unfair with her, but after everything that we had been through I thought that she would at least tell me the truth, open up to me and let me help her. I knew that Christian coming back after her was like opening the Pandora´s Box, that she would get overwhelmed by her past and all the things that hunted her. Yet I stood next to her, I tried to be there for her, to be her rock when she needed someone to help her stand on her own two feet's. Instead of letting me in, she shut me out, pushed me away and made me question our relationship.

I guess that I was pretty naïve to believe she would had picked me when I saw that idiot on that fucking Harley-Davidson, but nothing would prepare me to find it out about it from Jessica and Lauren. I was picking my things on my locker for my Chemistry class when I first hear the rumor that Bella had run away from school on the back of a black motorcycle. The gossip was insane, focusing on the mysterious leather clad man that took Bella away, from how we had break up five seconds before she ran away with another men, to wonder if she had been cheating on me all this time.

I didn´t want to believe at first that she would just leave with him, never I thought she would do this to us, for me she was just going to say their goodbyes and I would see her at third period English. But no, off course that after our fight she decided to jump on his bike and run away to God knows where leaving me far behind.

I don´t know why I was so surprised, I mean, is not like she was always the most opened person ever. I should had figured out that she would freaked out at the first sign of trouble, and there is no bigger problem than a mysterious ex-boyfriend that come back from the dead. I know she had been caring a heavy burden, that she couldn´t forgive herself for the accident that hurt her best friend, but no matter what Christian had said to her I deserved better. I mean, she didn´t even tried to say goodbye, and even now three days later I still hadn´t heard from the woman that I wasn´t so sure that was mine anymore.

I was walking down the hallways, as people kept staring at me, not because they saw me as The Other Cullen, the geek, the freak , but as the guy that had being dating a gorgeous girl, living the dream, but only to be left hanging on. For them, I had been ditched in the most humiliate way, and that I should had seen it coming, because never a woman like Bella would stay for me for that long. The latest gossip was that she and Mike Newton had been working together to make me fall for her and so she would steal my V-card, and then ditch me, making me learn just were I belonged to. That I knew it was a fucking lie, I knew Bella, and even though she had broken me by leaving, I knew she would never do anything so devious.

I saw my cousin by her locker, and I knew she had been avoiding me since Monday, and deep down I think I knew why. Alice knew something, something she didn´t want to share, something that I desperately needed to know but that she thought that would hurt me. Well guess what, I was already broken, there was nothing left for me to lose at this point.

" Hey Ally" I said, stopping right next to her locker.

"Edward, hi. Hum, how are you" she asked me with caution, which only filled my head with the certain that she was hiding something.

"Like shit, but I guess you know that" I said with cynically.

" I am so sorry Edward, I had no idea she would leave just like that" she said to me, and I could see the pity in her eyes, and that was the last thing that I needed to see my own cousin feeling for me. But I guess that had to had a reason, I guess that Bella really did left me to be with him. Just the mere thought of this made my heart ache and brought a hole in my soul.

"Did you talked to her" I asked her coldly, feeling the sadness started to turn into anger.

"Edward" she said hesitantly.

"Did she or did she not called you Alice" I asked in a hard tone.

"Yes" she reply in a sad tone.

"Where is she" I asked her quietly, and from the look on her eyes I knew that I wouldn´t like the answer.

"She went to DC with him" she said to me, shattering what was left of my broken heart.

" So she jumped on his bike and ran to the other side of the country? That is just fucking great, good to know that I really meant nothing to her, since she didn´t even had the decency of telling me we were over" I said madly, feeling my blood boil just from thinking of the two together. Fuck, I was such a fucking fool. I let her play me this whole time.

"I don´t think it was like that Edward" Alice said, softly touching my arm.

"She left with her ex-boyfriend, didn´t even had the decency of saying goodbye, or letting me know where she was going. And on top of all of that, instead of calling me – her supposed boyfriend - or even fucking texting me, she calls you." I shouted at her, not really controlling my anger any longer.

"I think she didn´t know what to say to you, nothing she could say would make you feel better" she says, trying to reason me.

"How about start with 'I am sorry' it would had been great" I said, my tone bitter and the words tasting like poison on my tongue. How could my life become so fucked up in such a short period of time?

" I believe she is deeply sorry Edward, but she needs to figure out things on her own, there are so many messed up things in her past. Maybe she is trying to make right on her wrongs or something like that" she says, softly touching my arm, trying to calm me down. But nothing would be able to do it, this fury was consuming me, and I feared that all the love that I had felt for Bella may end up becoming something dark and terrible.

"I am so sick to listen to this speech about Bella and her past. Everybody has one, everybody screws up and makes mistakes, but life is made of choices. So fucking deal with it!" I said, punching the locker next to me, with such force that small drops of blood started to form on my knuckles and a huge dent was left on the metal door.

"Fuck" I shouted, feeling the pain rippling through my body, my right hand aching so bad that made me fear that I may had broken something only two weeks before my audition. I was fucking stupid, I could lose everything because of this. God what was happening to me?

"God, Edward your hand" Alice said, grabbing my hand to analyze the damage.

" I am ok" I said trying to not let the pain show, protectively putting my right hand over my chest, covering it with my left hand; it hurt like a bitch, but I still could move all my fingers, thank God.

" You are not okay, do you need to go to the doctor" she said with worry all written over her face, never I had lost my temper like that, but I also never had been this angry or this hurt.

"That's ok Ally, I already felt way worse than a hurt hand, don´t worry about me. I am sorry, I didn´t mean to shout at you" I said to my cousin, feeling the guilty for being such an ass to someone that always had been nothing but wonderful to me on my entire life.

"Edward" she said, and I knew that she could imagine my pain, but she also was Bella best friend.

"I got go" I said, not even looking at her, I just walked away from the filled hallway.

I left a stunned Alice behind, a dent on a metal locker and my last piece of hope that this story could had a happy ending.

That was the day that I let all hope die.

I decided to skip class right after that, my hand was hurting and starting to swell, and if I wanted to keep practicing till my audition then I needed to put some ice on it. I walked quickly out of the halls, and being the nice geek that I was, no one suspected that I was trying to leave the school in the middle of the morning. Not even when Mrs. Summer , my Spanish teacher saw me walking towards the parking lot, she didn´t try to stop me, rather believing in a lame excuse about picking a forgotten book inside my car.

As I drove back to my house, the radio turned off, the silence only filled my anger. I felt cheated, hurt and fooled; and if there was one thing that Edward Cullen was not, was a fool. I always thought that I could read people, that I could see what they were up to just from a look of their eyes – a ability that was very useful when all the jocks are bullying you all the time – it had saved me from being trowel on my locker or had my head pulled down the toilet more times that I could say. Yet, I couldn´t see that my own girlfriend was ready to left me at any time.

Maybe it was my fault, after all I wasn´t an exciting biker, with all that leather and that bad attitude. I was a regular guy, the guy next door, the one that never fills women wild fantasy's. I was a random, simple guy, which his only talent was making sad songs on a piano.

I guess I was being delusional thinking a woman so smart, caring, funny and hot as hell would want to spend the rest of her life with me. Maybe she saw me as a challenge, something for her to have fun while she was stuck in Jacksonville before leaving for college – God knows where, since I sure as Hell didn´t knew where – maybe she just needed someone to be there for her for a while. But I guess that she didn't saw any need for me anymore, since she didn't had any problem leaving me.

As I walked inside my house gates, I saw the gardener mowing the lawn and was really relived when I saw that neither of my parents cars where in the garage. At this moment the last thing I wanted was to explain why I was skipping class, or why I had hurt my hand, especially why I had hurt it. My father would go crazy over the possibility that I wouldn´t be able to play anymore and my mom would demand an explication why I was acting like that. I didn´t want to disappoint my mom, she got really fond of Bella the last couple of months, and she didn´t needed to be broken hearted over it also.

I walked inside my house through the kitchen door, only to find Mrs. Cooper reading a book, while eating an salad on the kitchen counter. She was the closest thing I had of a grandmother, since both of them passed away before I was even born, and I knew the moment she would set her eyes on me she would see that something was wrong.

If there was one woman that always got the truth out of me, was Sarah Cooper.

" Edward, what is going on dear" she asked me, putting her fork back on her plate.

"Aren´t a little early to have lunch" I asked her, since it was barely 11 am.

" I am old and your mother went to have lunch with her friends at the country club. Besides, aren´t a little early for you to be home" she said with a smirk.

"You are not that old" I said, putting my backpack on the kitchen chair.

" How lovely for you to say that, but don´t change the subject, we both know you skipped school" she said with a raised eyebrow, while suspect looking at my right hand.

"I did have a minor accident" I said, mentioning my red and blooded knuckles.

"Edward, what did you do" she asked me worried, walking closer to me to inspect the damage on the tissue.

"I am fine, it´s no big deal' I said with a shrug.

" Look at his, is swelled, did you at least washed it" she asked me, like I was a five years old.

"No" I said, not wanting to be scolded about it.

"Go wash it for God sake, I will grab some ice for you to put on it" she said , while going to the fridge to look for an ice pack.

I quickly washed my hands on the bathroom, the soap making the small cuts sting, but it looked less worse after the blood was washed away.

"Did you decided to teach a lesson to Michael Newton? You know, his grandmother goes to the same church I do, maybe I should say something to old Mrs. Newton" she said, while putting the ice pack over my hand.

"Fuck, that's cold" I moaned in pain, my skin starting to go numb with the low temperature.

"Language Edward" she scolded me for my manners, moving the pack slowly over my knuckles.

"Sorry Mrs. Cooper" I said, feeling once again like an idiot.

"So, do you want to tell me what this was about" she asked, mentioning my injured hand.

"You know how klutz I am, I slipped on the school parking lot and scratched my hand on it" I said, letting the lie slip pass my lips. It was easier to lie than to face the truth.

"You are such a bad liar. Do I need to remind you that I have known you all your life? I did changed your diapers for God's sake. Do you really think that I can´t tell the difference from when you are lying and when you are telling me the truth" she said with a hard tone.

"I just don´t want to talk about it" I said, not wanting relieve all the bad memories, I just wanted to lick my wounds at peace.

" Honey, come on, you know you can tell me everything. I won´t judge you, I didn´t when you wet your bed when you were ten years old" she said with a sweet smile.

"God, I thought we agreed on never speaking about it ever again! I had drank an entire pinch of sweat tea before bed, it was a bad decision" I said annoyed to be reminded of such an embarrassing fact about my childhood. Thank God Emmett never found out, I wouldn´t live the day if he did.

"That's my point, we always talked about things, even when you didn´t want your parents to know about it" she said with caring, and that only made me feel shittier.

" I punched a locker" I whispered lowly, not wanting to speak out load, not when I knew it was such an idiotic move.

"I beg your pardon" she asked shocked.

"I punched a metal locker back at school , that's how I hurt my hand" I said, looking down at the ice pack on my hand.

"Edward, my sweet, stupid boy! Why did you do that " she asked.

"I don´t know, I was just so mad, that I lost control I suppose" I said, not really sure why I had done it. Now I could had fucked my entire future because I was pissed with Bella.

" Let me see" she said, grabbing my hand to look for more serious injuries.

" I don´t think you have x-ray eyes Mrs. Cooper" I said, softly laughing at the situation.

"I guess you keep forgetting I used to be a nurse before I came here to take care of you and Emmett, I did saw my share of broken bones. This looks ok, just some minor bruising, but if you like we can go to the hospital take a x-ray of your hand." She said, putting the ice back at place; she knew I would never go to the hospital, just the possibility of my father founding out about this made my blood run cold.

" That's ok, it doesn't hurt just as much right now" I said, taking off the ice and looking to the red skin. I slowly moved all my fingers, making sure I could still make quick and précises movements.

" So, you were pissed because of those idiotic boys at your school? You know, it's been a while since I had heard of them giving you a hard time, but you know, I wouldn´t mind having a small chat with Principle Kyles" she said, in her British tone, all protective. I really did loved Mrs. Cooper and how much she cared for me and Emm, I had confessed to her how my life had being miserable too many times, especially after Emm left for college. But this time, it was not their fault I was miserable.

" Bella left" I said simply.

"What do you mean" she asked confused.

"She left Jacksonville with her ex-boyfriend and went to DC with him" I said, the words feeling like dirty on my tongue.

"Why she would do something like that" she asked, the shock evident of her voice, she was also on Team Bella and I could see that she couldn´t believe what she was hearing.

" He is the brother of her best friend, they had lost touch over the years, and I think she leaving with him has something to do with that. But I am not sure, she didn´t stop to say goodbye or even to let me know where she was going. I had to find out if she was ok through Alice. She just didn´t care enough to let me know what was going on" I said to her, my chest heavy, my head pounding. But I promise myself I would not break down over this. I wouldn´t let her break the last piece of me.

"I just can't believe she would do something like that, it just doesn't sound like Bella at all " she said with sadness.

" I guess we just didn´t knew her well enough then" I said bitterly.

"Maybe there is an explanation honey. What does your heart tell you" she asked me with sympathy.

"My heart is broken, there is nothing left to be said, se choose to leave me and that is it" I said, just admitting it, the words hurt a hundred times more than any physical pain ever would.

"How about some pie? You know what they say, a good piece of pie can make anything go away. Como on dear, I think you will feel better after a piece " she said, pushing a slice of cream pie to me, and just like that I forgot all my doubts, all my fears and all the pain that I felt inside, even that just for one second.

So here I was, standing on this dock, wondering how something that was so perfect could had turned so fucked up. I tried to not think about her arms around him while he drove then far away from Jacksonville, or how he would feel excited to have the woman that he still loved back at his arms or even if they had slept in the same bed on a cheap motel on the side of the road.

I tried not to think if she was moaning his name, if her nails were scratching his back while he fucked her like there would be no tomorrow; I tried not to think about her coming all over him while he spilled his seed inside her. No matter how much I tried to not think about it, to think that she leaving had nothing to do with them being back together, but I couldn´t stop the images coming to my head.

She wouldn´t do this, not after barely saying goodbye to me, I mean not so long ago we were happy and in love. There was no way she would had moved on so fast, not after everything we had been through, she was everything to me. How could I mean so little to her?

I looked to my phone for the hundred time today, yet there were no missed calls, no texts, nothing. I looked at it, the wallpaper was a picture of Bella in a happy and now so far away moment. She looked happy, her smile could bright the entire room and her eyes were filled with love, something that I had never felt before knowing her.

I guess I could say that my life was divided in two moments, before and after Isabella Swan, and how did she had changed me. She had made me strong, confidant, I felt like I deserved to be happy and to have all my dreams coming true. In so short time, she was able to do what my family had been trying to do my entire life, she had made me get out of my shell. I was no longer The Other Cullen, not Emmett Cullen younger brother, or Alice Cullen geek cousin, I was Edward Cullen, my own persona and I was happy.

At least I used to be happy, now I didn't know what to do, I just couldn't see a happy ending for me anymore.

I stood there, my feet hanging up in the air, while I looked the light of the stars reflecting on the water of Saint John river. I felt like I had aged a hundred years those past few days, I felt tired and aphetic. I would try one more time, but even I knew that there were a moment of no return, someday I would had to let her go.

I grabbed my phone and texted her.

' ARE YOU OK? PLEASE CALL ME – E'

I waited for a few minutes, holding my phone tightly on my hand, begging to see it ring. Yet I was only meet by silence. I tried to call her one more time, I just needed to hear her voice, to hear her telling me we would be ok, that everything would work it out in the end.

The phone rang for a while, but she didn´t pick it up, and soon I was reaching her voice mail one more time. Feeling fucking frustrated I texted her one more time.

'BELLA WE NEED TO TALK. JUST LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE OK - E'

Again, the minutes go by and no reply came. So I texted her one more time.

'OK, I KNOW YOU DON´T WANT TO TALK TO ME. JUST LET ME KNOW YOU ARE OK. I AM WORRIED ABOUT YOU. – E'

I continued to wait for a reply in vain, yet I couldn´t stop myself from sending more texts. I just needed to know she still cared, that no matter what was going on, that we could fix this.

'BELLA, I AM SORRY, JUST COME BACK PLEASE – E'

After what felt like an eternity, the dark clouds in the sky started to cry with the sound of load thunders, and that only made my heart ache more. She didn't care, not enough to let me know if she was ok, not enough to feed me with some small hope.

So I did the only thing I could do, I decided that I needed to love myself more, that I needed to take care of me, I needed to be ok. I needed to let it go, so that maybe one day, it wouldn´t hurt so bad.

'I LOVE YOU BELLA, BUT I DON´T KNOW IF I CAN KEEP DOING THIS ANYMORE.- E'

The next day was my first day post Isabella Swan.

I grabbed an old cardboard box I found in the garage and decided I would remove every evidence that she had even existed. As far as I knew, she was the one that left me, so that meant we were no longer together. I didn´t need to be reminded constantly about the woman that I had loved and lost, so I decided to make a Bella Box.

Alice was the one that started this trend, she had a few of those boxes on her basement, all named after her past boyfriends – Trevor, Nathan, Luke and Josh – all idiots for letting go someone so amazing as my cousin. I was really hoping to not have a Jasper´s box one day, but that was not up to me, I just deeply wished he would never make her feel what I was feeling today.

I opened the blinds on the windows, letting the sun shine through it, the early morning still slightly chilled from the dawn. I started collecting random items that somehow had reminded of Bella – items that I had cherished were now only salt on my open wounds – if I would be able to let this pain go, I needed to let them go too.

The box was filled with pictures of me and Bella, candid shots that Alice had taken, some of us with Ally and Jasper, some of us alone. Soon an old leather notebook joined the other items inside the box; the notebook was filled with countless compositions that I had created since the day I had meet Bella, she was after all my bigger inspiration, my Muse. An old Guns and Roses t-shirt that she liked to wear after we just had made love, it still smelled like her, fresh and sweet.

I walked to my bedside table, where a picture frame of me and Bella stood. It was taken back at Alice birthday party, it was one of my favorite memories of us, we both dressed in Star Wars costumes, me as Darth Vader and her as his beloved, Padme Amidala. My uncle and aunt made sure to take a picture of us, since we were matching perfectly, it was out first official picture of us as a couple. The look of love in both of our eyes, the smile on her face, it was all too much. This was the representation of everything that I had lost.

With a heavy heart and deep sadness, I took the picture frame and put it inside the box, tangled on the Guns and Roses t-shirt to protect it. But there were still one more item that I needed to put away, one of the had the biggest meanings, one that it would really be difficult to put away.

I walked to my bookcase, and there stood one of my beloved possessions, my vintage record player. It was one of those antique wood made vinyl records players, it had belonged to my grandfather Ed, a gift to me on my fifteen birthday. I had a big collection on vinyl records, a passion that I had, and I always tried to purchase antique albums. Since I was such a fan of 70s and 80s bands, it was not always easy to find the records that I wanted, so when I was back at Bella´s a couple months ago and saw the Lynyrd Skynyrd 1974album Second Helping, one that I had been looking for months, I couldn't contain my excitement about it.

I remember laying down with Bella on her rough rug, just listening to the record, letting the music flow though us. After listening to the eleven tracks, and discussing about how the original vinyl version would always kick ass of the CDs and digital versions, I started to inquire Bella where she found such an amazing record in such a good preserved state, since that one had almost thirty years old. To my deep surprise, it had belonged to her late father Charles Swan, a cop, that died in action when Bella was a small child.

A few weeks later, she surprised me on our six month anniversary, with a present. It was the Second Helpingalbum, but it was not one that she had purchased, it was the one that belonged to her father. I still remember her, with teary eyes and tremble hands, when she explained to me that her father like I, were a music affectionate and that he had left her a huge collection of vinyl records; she wanted me to have the record, because she saw on my eyes the same love and emotion she remember seeing on her father when he listened to it – for her, it was a way to preserve her father memory – to me it was the biggest proof I could ever receive that she loved me.

So here I was, tremble and with teary eyes, listening to my favorite album, of one of my favorite bands, to the song that would always mean something to me.

So lay down on my bed, listening, feeling, breathing, letting the music flow through me one more time.

While the quiet tears feel down my face, I let go of the last piece of love that I had left, I just let it go.

I Need You - Lynyrd Skynyrd

Ain't no need to worry

Ain't no use to cry

'Cause I'll be comin' home soon

To keep you satisfied

You know I get so lonely

That I feel I can't go on

And it feels so good inside, baby

Just to call you on the telephone

I said

(Chorus)

Oh baby, I love you

What more can I say

Oh baby, I need you

I miss you more everyday

I woke up early this morning

And sun came shining down

And it found me wishin' and hopin'

Mama, you could be around

Well, you know that I need you

More than the air that I breathe

And I guess I'm just trying to tell you woman

Oh, what you mean to me

(Chorus)

I try to tell you I love you

In each and every way

I'm trying to tell you I need you

Much more than a piece of leg

(Chorus)

Oh baby, I love you

What more can I say

Oh baby I need your sweet lovin

I miss you more every day

A/N: Ok, please don´t kill me yet! This story is a HEA, and I promise you, our beloved B/E will find their happy ending together! Bella just need to get her shit together and beg Edward for forgiveness.

I want to say I am sorry for the delay, but I had a terrible writers block and a new friend helped me out, yes Tom that is you! Thanks for the support

Hope you all liked the Polyvore sets and leave me some reviews! Nothing makes me write faster than a good review!

Love to LeKat for being my lovely beta!

Love you all, thanks for the support!

Xx

PoisonAngelMuse