The Black Balloon Contest

Title: Lost in the Quiet

Your pen name: fardareismai2

Characters: Edward/Bella

Disclaimer: I don't own these guys, they belong to SM. I just fuck with them occasionally.

A/N: This o/s got its start as a non-fanfic class assignment for my writing class. I figured it would work for this contest. I'm probably the only fic writer turning original work into fanfic instead of the other way around.

Black Balloon Contest: http: // www . fanfiction . net /u/2247006/Black_Balloon_Contest

A great big thanks to Chicklette and Gallathea for their beta work, suggestions, and support.

This is not a fluffy bunny story. If you want fluffy bunnies go somewhere else.

That is all.

The party was well underway when I arrived. I made my way to the bar and slammed down three shots in quick succession, knowing my brother and best friend were way ahead of me. Emmett and Jasper found me at the bar, greeted me with slaps on the back and catcalls, and soon were dragging me to the dance floor.

"C'mon, Eddie," Emmett needled. "When was the last time you cut loose?"

"I cut loose plenty," I countered. "And don't call me 'Eddie!'" Only our mom was allowed to call me Eddie.

"Seriously, man," Jasper added, "you've been cooped up in that apartment since Leah left. It isn't healthy."

"I haven't been cooped up. I had finals." I was full of shit. I'd hardly left the house since Leah and I broke up, except to go to classes and buy food. They were right, and they knew it. I needed to relax.

Bolstered by the liquid courage, I slid across the floor, the bass beat vibrating and thrumming through me. I closed my eyes, allowing the rhythm to encase me, slowly beginning to sway and grind and move. When I opened them I saw her.

Brown hair cascaded down her back, ending at a trim waist that led down to the most perfect ass I'd ever seen. Her hips swayed and undulated to the beat, an age old move set to new age music. She spun around, hands waving in the air, eyes closed and head thrown back in abandon as she lost herself in the song. Her skin was fair and fine, tinged pink from the heat and press of bodies. She was beautiful and wild, and I was gone. I only realized I'd stopped moving when someone bumped into me.

Snapped out of my staring, and in a moment of atypical brashness, I moved toward her. I wrapped an arm around her waist and swayed with her.

"I'm Edward," I shouted above the noise of the music.

She smiled and wound her hands around my neck. "Hi Eddie," she said with a crooked smile and eyes that sparkled. She moved against me then, sinuous and inviting.

The vodka coursed through my blood, made me bold. "Marry me!"

She threw her head back and laughed. "But you don't even know my name," she countered.

So I asked her name, but she shook her head with a smirk and continued to dance with me. I tried to guess, but she just kept shaking her head and laughing as we danced. The heat of the summer night made us sweat and flush, and soon we were walking hand in hand down to the shore, trying to cool ourselves as we talked and talked, and then kissed and kissed.

Her mouth was like candy, all sugar sweet and wet. She grinned up at me and with a wicked smirk shrugged out of her dress and panties and ran to the water. Wild and unabashed, she followed no rules. I chased after her, my clothes a trail like Gretel's breadcrumbs. I dove in and grabbed her by the waist, and she, shrieking and laughing and kissing me with her sugarmouth.

"Tell me," I urged. She giggled again. "Tell me," I said as I brought my lips to her neck and traced a path to her ear. "Tell me so I know what to shout when the time comes," I whispered.

"Bella," she whispered back. Then it was nothing but wet skin and hot mouths, fingers and hands, teeth and tongues, hot breath and the warm summer night.

Every day after was like that—wild and uncertain, fun and exhilarating. Nothing with her was predictable, and our friends and family smiled indulgently as we worked to balance each other. Me with my staid, predictable and already planned life: graduate school, a house, two-point-five kids. And she without plan or course, but with music and art and dancing and laughter, sex and love, and did I mention sex?

The last year of school was a blur of classes and parties, picnics and late night road trips, dancing and making love. Bella was a whirlwind of activity and energy, and anyone in her orbit was either caught up in it or jettisoned. I kept my apartment until I realized I was paying rent to keep a closet there; all my time was spent at Bella's. When I commented on it, Bella said, "You still have your place? Why?"

And just like that we were living together.

It only made sense to move into hers—it was paid for and it had a studio for her to paint in. Bella's parents weren't around much and made up for it with . . . things. When she was eighteen and they didn't make it home for her high school graduation, she got a convertible BMW. It was waiting for her with a bow on top. When she got an art scholarship to university, they were at a loss since they didn't have to pay for it. So they bought her a condo. The only time they saw it in person was the day they came to meet me. Oh, and the Beemer? It was red. Bella's favorite color was blue.

Bella brought a sense of joy and whimsy to my life that I never realized was missing. I'd always been a "by-the-book" kind of guy. Sure, I did my share of partying in high school and college, but I never really "cut loose," as Emmett would say.

Emmett. My twin. We shared a birthday, but that's about it. Me? About six feet tall and lanky, with auburn hair and green eyes. Him? Six foot three, brown hair and eyes, and built like a tank—offensive lineman in high school and college, until his knee blew out. Emmett was the "fun" twin, the one with all the girlfriends, the popular one. I just coasted in his wake. Except for Jasper, my friends were Emmett's friends, by default. Emmett was the one who was always trying to rope me and Jasper into some sort of mischief. In fact, in many ways, Emmett and Bella were very much alike.

In retrospect, I wonder if that wasn't part of what I saw in her—my other half.

Swept up in Bella and her energy and joie de vivre, I often missed the hints, the reminders that she wasn't so unaffected by things. But sometimes, when I'd come home from a late night in the library, I'd find her asleep on the couch, a picture of or letter from her parents clutched in her hand, the tracks of her tears dried on her cheeks. I'd pick her up, cradling her in my arms, and carry her to bed, just wanting to comfort her, hold her. But she'd mold her body to mine, open her large brown eyes and whisper, "Love me, Eddie," and I would, because I did.

So, I adjusted to waffles for dinner, and brie and wine for breakfast, and she let me organize our home. Books found their way to the shelves, and papers were filed. Dishes made it into the cabinets, and clothes were hung in the closet and not piled on the divan in the corner. Somehow we blended our lives; yin and yang, light and dark, whatever saying you want to use, we made it work.

I thought we did.

Then there was the wedding. I wanted a church, she wanted the beach—she won. I wanted big, she wanted to elope. We compromised . . . and gave our families two days' notice to get to Martinique. In the end about twenty people made it, but not her parents.

The night before the wedding, Jasper, Emmett and my dad took me out for an impromptu bachelor party.

"Boys," my dad shouted as he held up his drink, his body swaying thanks to all the previous drinks. When he finally had our attention he said, "Eddie." I winced. Thanks to Bella, everyone started calling me Eddie. "Eddie, my boy, do you know why Jewish men smash a glass at their wedding?"

I eyed my dad. "Ummm, for good luck?"

"No! It's because it's the last time they get to put their foot down about anything."

Emmett spit his drink out, and Dad threw his napkin at him. "It's true son. Getting married means compromising. Which means if she wants it, say 'yes.' It may be cliché, but a happy wife means a happy life. So don't fuck it up."

I should have listened to my dad.

When we got home from the honeymoon, we settled into "real life." I joined a firm and she painted, and at night we lay naked in front of the fireplace and ate Chinese food from the cartons. Sunday mornings were for coffee and cinnamon toast in bed, while the paper eventually lay forgotten as we got tangled in the sheets.

I got a promotion and my days got longer. We bought a house, with extra rooms for kids, and "networking" became part of our vocabulary. There were dinners and "events" and obligations. There was the job and the house, and it was, "Eddie, I'm bored, let's go dancing," and "Eddie, do you have to work late?" And then there were fewer sugar kisses, and less music and less dancing, and life became quiet.

And one day I realized she'd stopped showing me her paintings. So I went to the studio, but everything was covered in a layer of dust, untouched for months. There was a talk and words like "bored," "uninspired," and "lonely," as well as "depression" and "help" and "I promise." Then there were missed appointments and pills that weren't swallowed, and we stopped talking.

And the silence grew until it became deafening, suffocating.

Then there was the trip to the shore, an attempt to reclaim the past, but the kisses weren't sugar sweet, laced instead with desperation that tasted like vodka. Our bodies slipped and slid against each other in a frenzied anxiety, trying to find that place they once were, until they shuddered and they stilled, and the silence resumed.

And the next morning there was quiet, as if even the birds knew, and there in the lake she floated, her coffee hair black in the water and pale skin blue with cold. One final swim. One last grasp.

Her note was short.

I love you Eddie. Always. But it's too quiet. I'm sorry.

B.

So now I lie on this bed that is too big for me, and obsessively play with the ring on my finger. I pull it off to see how it feels—to see if I'm free from her orbit—but instead I feel untethered and lost, like a helium balloon escaping a small child's fingers, and quickly slip it back on. Not today. I think. Maybe never.

I wake up the next day angry for the first time, and then guilty that I'm angry, and then angry again for feeling guilty. So I go to the cemetery and I stand at her grave and I ask, "Why?" And then I shout it again, "Why?" I look at the stone, and it says, "loving wife," and I think, she was, wasn't she? And like that the anger is gone, replaced with an aching emptiness. I whisper, "I love you," and walk back to the car.

I walk through the empty rooms of our house and see her everywhere. I can still smell her scent, and I'm gripped with panic when I realize that eventually, that too will be gone. I run to our room and grab her robe from where it lay puddled on the floor and I clutch it to my face and breathe. It's there, but it's already faint. As if even her perfume knows she's gone, knows that the party's over and it's time to go.

And when Emmett finds me on the floor the next day, I'm the one clutching a picture, and I'm the one with dried tears on my face. I realize it's Sunday, but there's no cinnamon toast and no crumpled newspaper. There won't ever be any more sugar kisses or sex on the roof. There won't be paint smudged on the door handles or brie for breakfast. And there won't be Bella.

And I can't breathe.

Emmett and Jasper move in. Overgrown children in the rooms meant for small ones. I know they mean well, but they're erasing her and I hate them for it. Her smell is all but gone, replaced with after shave and the odor of Emmett's gym clothes. I try to smile and when I come home from work, I sit and have a beer with them before retreating to my bed, our bed, where I curl up on her pillow, which no longer holds her smell, but it's all I have.

I hear them talking in the next room. I hear words like "depression" and "help," and I shake my head, because I already know how pointless those words are. So I close my eyes, and as I fall asleep, I pray. I pray that I can get through the night without waking up screaming. I pray that I can wake up in the morning and not run to the bathroom heaving. I pray that I can just wake up and breathe again.

I go back to the shore, alone, and I wade into the water because I want answers, because I need the pain to stop, because I need to be with her again, but I can't. I just can't do it. Instead, I go back inside and warm myself by the fire, and in the morning I have brie and wine for breakfast, and that night I eat Chinese from the carton in front of the fireplace, and for a little while I think I can feel her next to me. But in the morning the bed is empty.

And I still can't breathe.

a/n: thanks to lambcullen, elusivetwilight, dihenydd, irish twilight sisters, Aspenleaf and LaracFF for hosting the contest.

To see the other entries, go to http: // www . fanfiction . net /community/Black_Balloon_Contest/78669/ just delete the spaces.

Voting starts April 9, 2010.

Thanks for reading.