So here I am, with yet another fic. I hope you guys will like this one. It's different for me. Not gonna lie, it's gonna be angsty. So hold on tight folks, you're in for a ride.

After much bugging, prodding and encouraging from Silver Sniper, I'm releasing this to the world after about six months of rolling the idea around in my head and (very) slowly working on it. I figured it only be fitting to release it on her birthday since she's the entire reason why I'm posting this in the first place. So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SIS. I love you more than life.

Thank you to my beta's BellaMadonna and LittleClareStar for the wonderful job they do! My writing just wouldn't be the same without them.

Thank you to my prereaders: Laura, Izzy, Maria and Silver. You all are awesome! I couldn't do it w/o your input!

I'm going to be doing a lot of flashbacks with this. They will be in italics and a /~F~\ will come before and after it.

Disclaimer: Twilight – I don't own it.

Chasm: (1) A deep, steep-sided opening in the earth's surface; an abyss or gorge. (2) A sudden interruption of continuity; a gap. (3) A pronounced difference of opinion, interests, or loyalty.

Never the wiser of what I've become
Alone I stand a broken man

Breaking Benjamin – Without You

Chapter 1

This is not fucking happening. He has to be fucking with me. This is just some kind of sick and demented joke.

I threw my head back against the pillow, squeezing my eyes tightly closed. If I refused to look at him, that meant he wasn't really there, which meant this wasn't really happening.

My hands gripped the sheet that lay loosely wrapped around my lower body. I was ignoring the pain that was shooting through my left hand as my fingers dug into the stiff uncomfortable fabric, slowly ripping at the fibers.

I tried to run my fingers through my hair, but a sharp pain shot through my arm and into my shoulder. I gritted my teeth and tried not scream out in pain. Fuck. I keep forgetting about my goddamn dislocated shoulder and the two cracked ribs. I brought my left arm up to tug at my hair, the greasy strands tangling through my fingers. I hadn't had a decent clean-up since long before the accident. I didn't fucking care though. Who was I trying to impress? No one.

I dragged my fingers down the side of my face, feeling the bandages that covered my cheek bones, wrapping underneath my jaw and down my neck. I hadn't looked in the mirror. I didn't want to. I wasn't particularly vain, but I didn't want to see the destruction and scars that would mar my face.

I slowly opened my eyes to see Carlisle standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes filled with so much emotion – mostly sympathy. I did not need his fucking sympathy.

"Don't fucking look at me like that," I barked, turning my head to the side so I could no longer see his eyes; deep blue eyes which were just oozing pity for me. I stared at the bland white wall, just willing this nightmare to end.

"Edward, I know this is difficult to hear but-"

"NO!" my harsh voice cut him off, "I don't want to fucking hear it! You don't know what the hell you're talking about." I knew I was screaming at him, but at the moment, I didn't give a flying fuck. I didn't even bother to look him in the eye. There would just be more pity waiting to greet me.

I knew I was in denial. The rational part of my brain knew that he was an excellent doctor. I just couldn't be rational anymore.

"Fuck," I spat, squeezing my eyes closed tight again as I tried to block out the sudden searing pain that was shooting through my skull like someone was taking a pick-ax to it. Obviously, the pain in my shoulder wasn't any better. "Can't you do anything about this fucking pain?" I ground out, and opened my eyes to glare at him.

Carlisle sighed; I watched him rubbing his hands over his face.

"Edward, you know I can't do that," he whispered more pity and concern in his eyes.

I let out a frustrated snarl. "I'm in pain, God damn it! So I'm supposed to just lie here and suffer?"

"You know exactly why we can't up the dosage on your pain medication," Carlisle responded calmly. He hardly seemed phased by my outbursts. "It's too risky."

I didn't waste my breath by responding. I turned my attention back to the plain white walls as the minutes ticked past, letting my anger fester just under the surface, an uncomfortable silence settling between us.

I heard Carlisle take a deep breath and move to sit in the chair adjacent to my bed.

"Edward," he whispered. I still didn't bother looking at him, but my unresponsiveness didn't seem to faze him. "You know that this is a wonderful hospital and all the doctor's are going to do everything they can. But, right now it's just a waiting game. You have to be prepared for the very real fact that you might never walk again."

I squeezed my eyes closed and clenched my jaw tightly together, ignoring the pain that shot through my head at the action, wishing I could block him out as he repeated the words I so desperately wanted to forget. This was not fucking happening to me. Hadn't I already been dealt a shitty enough hand in life? Now I had to be handed this crap too? If I was being honest with myself, I knew that this talk with him was coming. I, however, was not being honest with myself. I wanted nothing more then to go back in time to before the accident.

The memories raced through my pain-riddled brain, taking me to a different time and place. I had decided to just go for a quick ride on my Suzuki GSX-R1000. I had needed to clear my head and taking my bike out for a spin always seemed to do the trick. I loved the way being on my bike made me feel. The way my adrenaline spiked, the wind blowing through my hair. There was no other high better.

And I would know.

Just a few days before my joy ride, I asked my girlfriend of four-years to marry me. I couldn't remember a time that I had ever been as happy as I'd been in that moment. But of course, God is a twisted motherfucker and had to ruin it for me.

Asking Bella to marry me was both the easiest and hardest thing I'd ever done. I knew she would say yes, so it wasn't the nerves that had gotten to me. It was the choice of the day on which I'd chosen to ask her to spend the rest of her life by my side.

Perhaps the anniversary of my parent's death wasn't the best choice I'd ever made in hindsight, but I wanted to change the memories of that day to something positive, so I wouldn't have to sulk around for the entire month, dreading the inevitable depression that would hit and debilitate me. I wanted to not dread the month, but rejoice and celebrate with something that made me happy.

Well, karma was a fucking bitch and apparently I wasn't allowed to feel happiness.

I laughed bitterly. How fucking ironic. It was like God was looking down at me and laughing. 'What's this? Edward Cullen's happy? Well we can't have that. Let's fuck him up some more.'

I was out on my ride, enjoying one of the few fleeting moments of sunshine in this gloomy-ass town, when my back wheel caught something on the road. Before I even realized it, my bike and I are skidding across the pavement headed straight for a fucking tree. Sharp points of light pierced my vision as my body reacted with shock to the trauma that shattered my lower half. The blinding torment eventually clouded over with black splotchy patches as the pain from being pinned to a huge ass tree by 400 pounds of steel dragged me into unconsciousness. When I woke up I was laying in the now much hated, god-awful, hospital bed.

The rage was building up inside me and I couldn't control it. I didn't even know who I was so angry with. Myself? The doctors? God? I'd never been a religious person, but I found myself believing, now more then ever, that there was no God. If there was, He wouldn't be putting me through even more bullshit.

Truth be told, I was pissed at myself. If I had just stayed at home with Bella, none of this would have happened, but no. I had to go out on my bike because it had been a rare sunny day in Forks. Bella had offered to go with me and I had considered it because I loved the feel of her holding onto me tightly as I controlled all that incredible power between our legs. But, I told her I wanted to go by myself, do some thinking. She had reluctantly agreed to let me go alone. I had a lot of thoughts in my head about mine and Bella's future, as well as the emotional burden that date always carried, and thought a good, hard drive would clear it.

Now I thank the stars above every day that Bella hadn't been on that bike with me when it rolled. I would never have been able to forgive myself if she had been the one to get hurt. The pain and rage I felt inside currently would have been nothing compared to how I would have been feeling if something had happened to Bella. She was my entire world. From the moment I met her I knew she'd have an irrevocable impact on my life.

I met Bella eight years ago, when I left for college and had just wanted to get the fuck out of Forks, where I grew up.

I grew up with my brothers, Emmett and Carlisle, and our parents. Emmett is just two years older then me, but Carlisle is eleven years older. I suppose I had been an "accident". Either way, while growing up, Emmett and I had been close, but I never knew Carlisle the same way.

It wasn't until our parents died when I was sixteen that I started to get to know him. For whatever reason, he had decided to take on the burden of raising two teenage boys at the age of 27. Just finishing up medical school, he decided to do his residency at the hospital in Port Angeles instead of beginning it in Seattle like he originally planned.

As usual, it had been a rainy evening in Forks. My parents and I had been on our way home from one of Emmett's football games, when something jumped out in the road, causing my father to jerk the wheel quickly. Because the roads were slick from the heavy downpour of the rain, the wheels hydroplaned, causing the car to swerve and crash into a row of trees the lined the long and deserted road.

I'd been the only one to survive.

My leg had broken in two different places, requiring me to ingest several different kinds of pain medication.

From the moment the first bit of medication seeped into my system, I basked in the glorious numbing feeling. Not only did the medication numb my physical pain, but my emotional and mental pain as well.

When I was on the meds, my body anesthetized, I didn't have to feel the anguish and uncontrollable guilt that the death of my parents had left in me. It wasn't until my leg began to heal and Carlisle began to wean me off of the meds that I realized how much trouble I was in.

I needed those meds to survive. If I didn't have the all consuming numb, then how was I going to get through each day. I needed a way to float outside of myself, and those meds were the key.

It's amazing how fucking clueless Carlisle was back then. It'd been so easy to score every pain pill under the sun living in a house with a doctor. He kept bottles full of Vicodin, Percocet and Darvocet in the house. I have no idea what the fuck he was thinking.

The pills carried me through the remainder of my high school career, with Carlisle none the wiser to my full-blown addiction to the pills. He was so busy with his residency; I don't think he even realized how much I wasn't dealing in a healthy way with the death of our parents.

I just think he was so damn busy that he didn't want to open his eyes and see that I wasn't healing or dealing with it…at all.

College opened a whole new avenue of access to hardcore pills. Not only did I have access to the usuals, but I was able to get my hands on Morphine and Oxycodone.

I was a complete mess.

It wasn't until I met my Hemera, goddess of daylight and sun, that I finally sought the help I needed. It was her light that guided me through some of my darkest days. I didn't deserve her compassion, her light or her love. I didn't then, and I didn't today..

Throughout my sophomore year which was her freshman year, we were practically inseparable. I remember the exact moment I loved her as more than a friend and I knew she deserved better than me.

/~F~\

"Bella, you're so beautiful," I slurred. She rolled her eyes at me and continued to try and help me off the floor. I wanted to get up, I knew I did, but my body just felt so heavy and I was so tired. My body wasn't cooperating with the directions my brain was sending it. "Don't roll you eyes to me. You're fucking hot,"

"Edward, you're lit out of your mind."

"Doesn't mean I don't know when someone is fucking beautiful," I slurred out, my head leaning back against the wall, my eyes shutting on their own volition.

"Jesus Christ, Edward, how much have you drunk?"

"This many," I said, holding up my hands, wriggling my fingers in the direction of her voice, my eyes still closed. I tried to open them so I could look at her beautiful face, but t was no use. I was so tired. "Pills too," I said after a few minutes.

"Fuck, Edward I thought you weren't doing that shit anymore!" She screamed, and I flinched from the volume of her voice.

"Too loud. Wasn't going to, but… but…. you don't want me," I mumbled, before blacking out.

The sun shone through the blinds of my dorm, and I groaned as I rolled over and unexpectedly bumped into something that was hard, but also warm and conversely soft.

"Good morning," the something warm and soft whispered and I slowly tried to pry one of my eyes open.

Bella was laying in my bed, staring at me, her eyes full of concern.

"How are you?" she asked softly as she stared down at me.

"I feel like death," I mumbled, throwing a pillow over my head and groaning.

"I figured," she mumbled back, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

I angled the pillow so I could peak out at her through one opened eye. She was looking down at her fingernails and picked at her cuticles in a nervous fashion.

"I thought you said you weren't going to be doing drugs anymore," she whispered, not bothering to look at me. She knew perfectly well that I could hear her.

Before I could even answer, she continued speaking. "I can't be with you Edward, not because I don't want to, but because I can't watch you kill yourself. I care about you. But I can't keep doing this," she whispered, bringing her hand up to wipe the tears that had begun to fall from her tender and yet angry brown eyes.

I started to move, to comfort her in some way, but she was quicker than me. She jumped from the bed and grabbed her stuff up from off the floor before turning around to face me, nibbling on her lower lip. Her eyes were red and she had bags under her eyes. The damaged image broke my heart.

"Good bye, Edward," she whispered before running out of the room.

I knew then that I had severely fucked up. I vowed that I would fix it, and I would make myself good enough for Isabella Swan.

/~F~\

"Edward, did you hear me?" Carlisle asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. I just simply nodded. I didn't really need to hear what he had to say. I didn't fucking care. All I cared about was how I failed Bella…again.

"Bella is here, she wants to see you," he whispered. I cut my eyes over to him then moved them back to the wall. I couldn't bear the expression that was present on his face.

I had been refusing to see her. I'd been refusing to see everyone since I'd woken up and discovered I couldn't move my legs. I didn't want to see or talk to anyone. Speaking with Carlisle and the other doctors was bad enough. I couldn't see my family. The look of pity in their eyes was almost worse than the lack of feeling in my legs.

"You can't keep ignoring her, Edward. It's not fair to her. You don't know what you're putting her though. You haven't spoken to her in two weeks. She stays here day and night; just praying you'll let her come in. She loves you, Edward. Don't ruin the best thing you have in your life because you're a coward." With that last word, Carlisle turned and walked out of the room, leaving me to continue staring at the white wall and drown in the dangerously deep sea of my own thoughts.

I'm not sure how long I lay there, but eventually the pain running from my skull and down the side of my body through my shoulder and ribs was too much to bear and I passed out from pain and exhaustion.

After an undeterminable amount of time, I awoke to a gentle stroking on my hand and arm. Familiar tingles and sparks prickled my skin.

Slowly, I opened my eyes, blinking several times as the room began to come into focus.

I looked down at my lap to see a messy mop of brown hair. Bella.

Her cheek rested against my thigh, her head cast downward slightly so she wasn't able to see that I had awoken. Her gaze seemed to be focused on our intertwined fingers as her thumb rubbed soft circles against the top of my hand, carefully avoiding the needles placed in the thick veins.

I swallowed thickly as unforeseen emotion rose up from my chest and settled deep in my throat.

"Bella," I rasped, and her head immediately shot up. She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as she began to shake with uncontrollable sobs.

Not that I was in any position to talk, but she looked like shit.

Her long hair was piled high on top of her head in a messy bun; random pieces fell around her face. Deep purple circles rested under eyes, the usual bright brown now a dull muddy color.

"Edward," she whimpered, somehow she was able to get out my name in between the gasps for air and hurtful sobs that racked her body.

I so badly wanted to reach out and touch her face. To wipe those tears that spilled from her eyes and hold her in my arms until all her pain melted away. But I couldn't. I didn't want to damage her any more than I already had.

"I love you" she whispered, her eyes locked with mine and the emotion in them was so strong that I had to look away.

All I could do was nod. How could she still love me? I was nothing but a cripple now. There was no way she would want to stick with me now. Surely she'd get sick of my dependency and just want to leave me. Fuck, I wouldn't want to be around me right now. I knew I was acting like a complete dick. The fact that I was treating her that way was killing me, but I couldn't control my actions. It was like I didn't have control over who I was any longer. Even more proof that I didn't deserve her.

She should just leave.

A/N: Let me know what you all think of Paralyzedward and leave some love. ;)

I'm going to aim for updating weekly. We'll see how it goes. =)

Laura made me an awesome banner for this story! Link to it is on my profile!