Of Distant Dark Places

Effy Stonem / Edward Cullen

Chapter Nine

It was everything she had ever wanted. Isolation. The very factor in which she wished to exist and breathe. Why was it that Effy Stonem never got what she wanted? Her dying thoughts had often addressed the question, empty in her laments on running from love, always being there to solve the problems of others when those she helped could never be bothered to help her in return. Her existence was a strange, misguided one, complicated in which she had never truly understood herself. Chillingly the only true moment wherein the misplaced poetry that swarmed her mind was then. That moment where needle had pierced through her skin.

Sometimes I think I was born backwards.

Visibly she shivered, garnering the attentions of Mike, who, hand at her thigh squeezed. It wasn't concern. Effy looked at him, her startling blue gaze hard and stony and yet Mike Newton was clueless and oafish enough to not even flinch. He was infatuated by her, driven by the lust she implored with short dresses and mystery. It should have been fine; she willed it to be so. And yet somehow, looking into his eyes that infatuation wasn't enough for her. And Effy pushed his hand away as it tried to subtly creep upwards, lips pursed in irritation as swiftly she manoeuvred herself away from his hold.

You know, come out my mum the wrong way.

There should have been nothing special about the table and yet she was endlessly fascinated. Among the cafeteria it held its dominance. It was wide, spacious, glowing under the dullest light from grey skies and a permanent winter air. The girth that separated it from every other table was something that Effy admired, even craved. It's isolation. Perfect for those who wished to be so.

And yet, she knew, even though it was logically impossible, somehow just one of that family could never be alone. To hear the thoughts of the world was a gift that Effy couldn't wish to welcome. To look at another and search within them unconsciously was a talent that provided the knowledge of another existence, left they open like a book, and yet sometimes she just didn't wish to know.

It was strange, how easily she thought of Edward Cullen, and how he drew her attention for all the reasons he shouldn't have. Effy had never once focused on the fact he didn't breathe, nor had she ever been startled by his tragic, flawless beauty. Once she had thought him like her. The tortured centre of attention who could never escape the earthly realms in which they were bound. Once she had been settled with that, allowed that recognition to fade and yet he was always there, setting himself past her expectations.

I hear words go past me backwards.

Why it was those she knew fell so effortless in love with her, and that she, as though releasing all the horrors from Pandora's Box, was unable to ever love them back. And, when she did, all she could do was run away. Effy closed her eyes. Freddie had called her beautiful, so instantly that the object of his 'love' had been placed upon her head on the first day he had met her. Cook, his obsession crowned by that game, that fucking game that had played them against each other and left her torn. And then there was Edward. Edward Cullen who was unlike either of those two, unlike anyone she had ever met. Who climbed through her window as she slept dreaming awake that one say she would love him back. But she wouldn't.

The people I should love, I hate. And the people I hate…

Eyes rose with the sharpness of her actions, chair scraping piercingly across the floor as Effy rose without a word. It wasn't like the times before, wherein she moved with grace and knowing nods as she clutched the outline of the cigarettes in her pocket. The tips of her fingers never even once skimmed the prominent outline of box in leather even though her throat burned for the taste of nicotine. Effortlessly turning Mike Newton away, unable to reach the ever demanding eyes of Bella Swan, Effy didn't know why she avoided the doors that led to the open air.

For somehow instead she walked across the canteen, slipping into the isolation of the table of her admirations. She was alone, for they hadn't arrived yet, and against the normal behaviours of humans knowing terrible things her heart didn't quicken and nerves didn't twist her stomach into dismaying churns. The girl wasn't shocked by her own calmness. Yet found comfort in facing a row of blank chairs, staring out of the window.

Somewhere along the way she lost herself to an empty world, even if all other eyes stared with inquisitiveness into her back.

Edward didn't know why Alice mapped out the cafeteria within her mind, placing herself at Jasper at a table that wasn't that in which their family usually found themselves situation. Though bemused and intensely curious, he refrained from question his sister, instead allowing the steady pulse of human thoughts to pierce through a silence that to him was never anything less than the whispers of those nearest, finally looking towards the misleadingly delicate vampire with an expression of uncertainty. His eyes expressed it all, the furrow of his brow silently saying 'you know', to which Alice Cullen only smiled peculiarly, withholding information that Edward would have clung onto as though it were his source of life.

For the world of Effy Stonem was one in which Edward only dared to tread.

The whispers pounded against his thoughts at their appearance, hastening in vivaciousness at the absence of Rosalie and Emmet, how Alice and Jasper, remaining, embarked towards a smaller, quieter table rather than the large mass that everyone had assumed the Cullen's home. And, finally, all thoughts sharpened as Edward approached alone, noting how he seemed to falter in speed, trying to figure out his stoic expression as he approached the school enigma that was Effy Stonem.

"You should hate me," she mused as he took his place beside her, cautious to likewise have his back facing what seemed like a speculative world, before her voice casually softened. "I'm a train wreck."

He was speechless as he rested an arm at the table, unsure of what to say and equally uncertain as he watched her with such intensity whilst her eyes stared distantly into the outer sights of the window. It was almost physically impossible to be near her, Edward though, reminded of the previous night where she'd openly rejected him, even banning him from being anywhere near her at the point in which she was vulnerable. Effy wasn't used to that, being read. Edward was aware. A part of him knew that the fear of being so drove to the calm warning she had uttered, though once more now she fascinated him. Proposing that she had to hate her, whist it had been he invading the privacy of her mind that she held so dear? He would never be able to understand her, a human girl who had captured everything, who he needed to make him whole.

As much as he needed and wanted to stay away, it was as though she were the centre of a universe, always prominent and luring until helplessly he gravitated towards her supernova.

Effy doesn't know why she does it, why her arm falls beside his, a finger arched out to softly caress the icy pallor of his hand. She's teasing him mercilessly, almost taunting his love for her with repercussions as she felt his body tense, his amber eyes both bewildered and in blissful agony as they stared at her. Somehow the girl didn't feel shame, even when she should have done. But then all of this, it wasn't intentional. Even as her touch trailed, licking temptingly across the space of his arm, Effy knew that she wasn't doing this to rile him, to pull Edward Cullen into a twisted game.

This was something else. It wasn't empty. Something was there, something that Effy couldn't place her finger on. But it was there, present, just unlabelled.

"Everybody loves me."

Edward finds it hard to concentrate. The heat of her life burns against him, fingers clenching until bone pushes against already translucent skin. He's trying to read her, searching so desperately for some understanding to what she's doing and yet there's nothing. All he hears is accusations and whispers, eyes fallen on them in conspiracy as someone cranes over to see their proximity, the whisper audible as it passes through the canteen. An soon comes the scandal, as heads turn to Mike Newton, who Edward can sense reddening in anger and shame and suddenly Edward's angry as the humans thoughts focus on losing his source of gratification rather than the relationship he had with her.

Soon she's spoken again and its minutes before Edward can even comprehend Effy's words, a declaration that he is not the first fool. She doesn't need to say it, or even think it; it's clear in her eyes that she doesn't understand why he could love somebody like her. His hand moves, edging closer to hers, pining to hold and whisper how fascinating she was to him, and how it was everything about her and now her beauty that made him want to call her his. But she moved. Breaking their physical closeness, edging her hand away only a fraction and first before it comes to a folded rest in her lap and Edward's left alone.

There's never silence, he's never allowed to wonder as suddenly she's leaving the table, eyes lingering upon him with something he's never seen before. The voices won't allow Edward that satisfaction, pointing fingers and gossiping as he's left to be sitting alone, his own thoughts lost as a blur.

Fingers are shaking over the keypad of the phone, eyes on the lit screen with lips chewed into a bite. "Fuck," Effy breathes, unsure why her body trembles, flicking backwards and forwards over a name beginning with an 'F' as though part of her fears to press call. She's not right in the head, her simmering conflictions now boiling as she walked out to where she should have always been, leaning at a bench whilst the entire school thrived in their social circuitry.

The phone rings in front of her, its dialling distant, almost a fade as she's not instantly able to bring the mobile to her ear. And when she does it's still dialling, only louder, inflicting an agonizing wait where every second passes with her own mind proposing how easy it would be to press end as though this entire, whatever this is, wouldn't have happened. She drags the phone away from her hand, ready to press 'end' before suddenly a voice interjects.

"Effy. Effy? Is that you? Effy are you there?"

His voice almost comforts her in contrast, to how he'd looked at her, the shame in his eyes after desperately Effy had tried to explain why she'd hit Katie. But even now she's silent, stumbling upon words, beginnings and middles of sentences forming, never knowing exactly where they are meant to start and be spoken.

"Effy if you're there. Say something. Where the fuck are you?"

"What the fuck."

She knows that voice. She recalls its bitterness and the venom laced within what once Effy had regarded to be an innocent bitchiness. The urge to end the call is more prominent than it had ever been and Effy feels her throat tighten as though she's being strangled, eyes widening with the recollection of not being able to breathe, her drug induced terror as she was being slapped and spat on all rising back, bursting forth from the confines in which she's locked them.

"Listen you bitch you better fucking stay wherever the shitting hell you are. Because I swear if you think you're coming back here I will screw you over for what you did to me. Nobody wants you here. Freddie's with me now, again. So you can just piss off, okay sweetheart?"

Effy is wordless in her guilt, flinching at the harshness, at the fact Freddie is Katie's, almost grieved and bitter at the Fitch for inflicting such woes. From the phone she hears struggles, Katie Fitch snarling in frustration as she yells for Freddie to hang up, though as the commotion falls silent Effy cannot help but guess that perhaps he's found a way to shut her out.

Though it's too late. Because now she knew.

Her voice is huskier though clear as she speaks, "goodbye Freddy."

"Effy- wait! I love y-"

But he's too late; because no sooner had he began to speak Effy shook as she pressed the end button, resentful as in moments the screen lights up with his caller ID. He doesn't love her anymore. Had he ever? Effy doesn't know. Suddenly she thinks of Mike Newton and see's Freddie immortalised in his being, someone infatuated rather than caring. She knows that Freddie is seventeen, young and foolish and that he's a victim to the trivial pursuits of his age. As somehow she had fallen.

Effy doesn't think, as her hand hovers over the bin she stalks past, loosening her grip as the mobile phone falls with vibrations among discarded rubbish and filth. As she walked away, eyes of ice glancing towards the cafeteria to Edward Cullen, sullen eyes staring fixatedly at her as though they'd ever left, Effy Stonem walks away knowing something.

Nothings ever perfect.

Thank you to those reading and thanks so much for the reviews! I enjoy reading them (: