Chapter 3: Awake

Chapter 3: Awake

BPOV

Pulled from darkness, I smelled a familiar scent. It was bitter and putrid—why did they always have to use smelling salts? I think I would have rather enjoyed a slap to the face just to feel something again. Opening my eyes, I was blinded by the brightness of the overhead-florescent lights. It took a few moments of blinking to get my eyes to co-operate and to actually see—albeit completely fuzzy. Hands around my arms, shoulders, and waist helped hoist me from my prone position on the floor. Apparently this particular hallucination had been so powerful, I literally fainted from it. I picked my brain for my last memory before blacking-out. Only colors—bronze and green—surfaced in my mind. Nurse Emily spoke to me, but I couldn't decipher her words as she pulled me completely from the ground to stand on my own two-feet. Upon standing, I closed my eyes for a moment to clarify my sight. I felt other hands—hands in addition to Nurse Emily's that sent an electrifying current of tingles and sensation over my skin—on me. I snapped open my eyes and saw his glorious-self in front of me with an arm extended to my waist. It was incredibly disturbing. Stiffening, I clutched at Nurse Emily's side, afraid of what they might do to me when I admitted what I saw.

"Emily! I'm hallucinating again! It's… much more vivid than before!" I screeched. My eyes filled to the brim with tears, and in such a condition I couldn't care less if they spilled out over my cheeks. I was in a mental hospital, who cares if I cry? She moved her mouth as if she was speaking but no sound came out. Eerily, I knew that I truly was hallucinating again. I could never make sense of when I was awake or dreaming anymore. My head felt like it was spiraling out of control and I desperately needed to get a hold of reality.

"Bella, Bella!" a faint voice called to me from outside my delusions. I closed my eyes again. In the darkness behind my eyes, I felt as though if I never opened them I might be safe from these falsities. But, who was I to kid? I was in this place because no one knew what to do with me. This place had made me crazy. Before I came to New Moon, I had never had a hallucination or delusion in my life. Now, such things were commonplace in my day to day life here—if you can call it a life. Deciding that I can't live the rest of my forced life behind my eyelids, I decided to attempt to open my eyes again. This time, I truly opened them and the florescent lights on the ceiling were brighter than in my dream. I was still lying on the floor, but my head hurt, presumably from fainting. "Bella!" my father called to me again—ah, yes: that's who was calling my name before. Charlie and Nurse Emily helped me stand again—just like in my dream moments before.

"Whoa there, tipsy! You gave us a scare there for a moment when we thought the smelling salts weren't working," my dad joked. So they did use smelling salts… I thought. I gave him a half-smile and barely that. He was in a rare form this visit, all smiles and jokes within the first few moments of me being conscious. Removing his face from directly in front of me, Charlie moved to my side and my field of vision widened. Shock rapidly washed through my body all over again as my hallucination was back in full-force. Edward—the only color in my monotone world—was before me only a few feet away. This time my hallucination was different. Edward sat in a wheelchair.Well that's a new concoction, I teased myself. My anxiety level spiked as I realized that, like in my dream, I needed to tell Nurse Emily of my hallucination. If I was lucky then they might even sedate me. I clutched her arm tighter as I pressed my frail body against her well-portioned curvy one as if she could shield me from my waking nightmare. Like in my dream, tears filled to the rims of my eyes. I'm sure that if I was well-nourished I would have blushed too.

"Emily," I rasped, "I'm hallucinating again and it's really vivid. I'm… scared." I was completely honest, something that I had started to do here. It meant that I would be left alone more readily. I stared at Edward. His face was laced with worry, and it looked as though he might cry at any moment. It was breaking my half-heart all over again. My hallucinations were cruel to me.

"What do you mean, Isabella?" She asked, concerned. "Is it auditory or visual, honey?"

"Visual," I squeaked as the tears started to leak down my cheeks.

"What do you see?"

"My dead fiancée," I whispered. Suddenly I was reminded of that movie The Sixth Sense and wondered if maybe I too had that gift. Then I remembered that I was crazy, so of course I ignored that delusion.

"Bells, no you're not," my dad assured. I looked at him as if he was the crazy one.

"What?" I asked incredulously. What did he take me for? Oh yea: crazy.

"Bella," Alice chirped from the corner—I had not previously seen her due to my preoccupation with my visual hallucinations. Near her were Esme, Sue, and Carlisle. Carlisle?Wait… he was in Paris last I remember... "You're not hallucinating. Edward's really here… he's not dead!" She rushed to me, grasping one of my hands that had previously been strangle-hold wrapped around Nurse Emily's arm.

"Stop lying! Why are all of you trying to hurt me!" I screamed, staring straight into Alice's eyes, trying to catch her in the lie. Brave little Alice didn't even shirk away from my outburst.

"Bella, it took me too long to find my son, but I did. You're not hallucinating anymore—this is real. He's real," Carlisle spoke as he slowly stepped towards me with Esme in tow, smiling her big smiles. There was a peace in her face that I hadn't seen since before. If the words hadn't come from Carlisle himself, the only person who wasn't present during my breakdown, I would have kept on believing them all to be liars. But once he spoke those words—that this is real—I decided to believe him. I released my grip on Emily and wiggled my withered hand from Alice's warm grasp and took a hesitant step to Edward. Our eyes froze in an intimate connection for what felt like a thousand years. I was unsure of how to approach him. How does one approach their previously thought-to-be-dead fiancée after one has tried to commit suicide, offhand, maybe three almost four times? Words did not come to mind. My connection with Edward was so much more than words and yet simple words like hi were failing me. I could have said I'm sorry, but that would have felt too weird rolling off my tongue as the first thing I said to him after everything that has come to pass within the past—shit, I didn't know how long it's been since I've seen him—months. Body language seemed to be the best bet at the moment. Raising my eyebrows at him, I silently provoked him to prove that he was real.

"Hello love," his velvety voice ushered through his perfectly sculpted lips on his devastatingly handsome face. In my hallucinations I never did his voice justice. The sound that came from his lips was too perfect to be conjured up by me. Holy Shit, Edward was alive. The monumental realization of that bore down on my shoulders as I ran to him only to trip and fall to my knees right in front of him. The action of it exhausted me and I laid my head in his lap and sobbed just as ungracefully as I fell. "I see you haven't changed while I've been away," he teased, trying to lighten the mood. My fingers clutched at his shirt in need of being close to him while my head remained in his lap as I tried to steady my breathing. It was difficult but I managed to calm myself enough to lift my head again. Looking into his eyes, the world shifted again and righted itself. He had come back to me. Now, I too was alive.

"Edward," I breathily spoke. "How? You… CNN said you were dead. Everything… everything was just so empty without you…"

"Love, how many times have I told you that you shouldn't believe everything you hear on CNN?" he laughed and smiled my favorite crooked smile of his. It elicited a smile of my own, which felt foreign to my lips but oh so right.

"Too many to count," I said through my smile. Suddenly, with his eyes raking over me, I was very aware of what an unruly state I was in. Immediately I stood, somewhat wobbly, and straightened my hopelessly wrinkled white hospital gown. I ran my fingers through my hair to try to tame the inevitable mess it was in—it had been so long since I last looked in a mirror. "Uhm, can I have a few moments to be human?" I asked, playing on our inside joke that I take inhumanly long to get ready to leave the apartment.

"Sure. But don't take too long, I've been waiting to see you for months," he half-heartedly smiled—the seriousness of the situation wouldn't allow his full, beautiful smile. I nodded and turned back to Nurse Emily.

"Emily, can we go get my clothes?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Sure, honey. I don't see why not," she smiled.

Nurse Emily escorted me out of the private visiting room and down a corridor before turning onto our ward's main hallway. Lining the walls were a few of the other patients. Victoria was slouched against the wall by my door, smoking a cigarette.

"There you are!" She called to me and I nodded, not really knowing what to say. "Where the hell have you been? Did your dad visit again?" I smiled at her for probably the first time; her face mirrored the shock of my action.

"Better. Edward's alive." I stated as Nurse Emily unlocked my door, before turning to me to speak.

"Isabella, I have to go get your clothes from the Nurses Station, I'll be right back OK? Your hairbrush and other things should be in your room, though," she assured me before walking off.

"Holy Shit! Are you fucking kidding me?" Victoria scoffed. "Is this another of your hallucinations?" She and Tanya were well-versed in my delusional thoughts and apparent hallucinations—the whole ward was.

"Nope. It's real. I'm just changing really quickly before I head back to the visitor room—a lot of my family has come. I don't know how he's alive yet but I will soon. I just… I didn't want him to see me like this ya know?" I gestured to myself.

"Yeah, you have been looking like shit lately, though you've always seemed like you were a pretty girl outside of New Moon," she teased. She followed me into my room and sat on my bed—the action reminded me of Alice and a pang of sadness hit my gut. She watched while I tried to tame my knotted hair with my brush. There was a mirror in my room—one of those plexi-glass unbreakable kind—that I had to work with. It was amazing to me how soon my arms got tired with the simple routine motion of it—too long had my muscles gone unused and undernourished.

"Uhm, thanks?" I wasn't quite sure how to address that statement but I did my best attempt.

"So when do you get to go home then?" she asked in a slightly higher octave. Was that sadness that I detected in her voice?

"Hopefully I'll be able to go home with Edward today after we visit for a little while. I don't want to spend another day at this place!" Just then Nurse Emily walked back into my room carrying my suitcase full of clothes that they had confiscated from me not too long ago for me not eating. Quickly, I rummaged through it to try to find something decent but Renee hadn't packed me too much in the way of looking attractive so—after putting on fresh undergarments—I settled on a pair of black yoga pants, a grey fitted v-neck t-shirt and Edward's green zip-up hoodie. Everything was so much looser on my tiny figure than I remembered them being before. Tying my hair back in a neat ponytail, I regarded myself in the mirror. What I saw disturbed me. My face was sunken-in; my cheeks hallowed out. There were purple bruise-like bags under my eyes. My lips were white and cracked. I may not have succeeded in suicide but I did look like death. I rushed over to my bag and rooted through the mostly unworn clothes and crap Renee had packed while muttering under my breath about looking like shit. Searching for makeup, my quest was unsolved. Damn!

"Victoria, do you have any makeup?" I turned to her contemplative form on my lumpy bed.

"Of course!" She rushed out of my room to her own and was back in mine before I knew it. She handed me a tube of pinkish lip-gloss, cover-up, and blush. Her skin tone was on par with my pallor so I knew the colors would be complementary to my natural coloring. First, I applied cover-up to my bags—they being the most unsettling part of my appearance. Then I lightly patted the blush on my cheeks, trying to add life to my face. I finished with a light coat of the lip-gloss—that smelled fantastic—and decided that I was as good as I was going to get.

"I think I'm ready…" I half-stated half-asked of Victoria.

"You look so much more alive," she bluntly stated. One could always count on Victoria for a truthful response. "Pretty!" I rolled my eyes at her inaccurate statement; she was probably trying to calm my nerves by saying that. It was amazing how much of myself had come back to me after the knowledge that Edward was alive. I wondered when all of the pieces would fall back into place, if ever. I hoped it was soon.

"Thanks," I said to Victoria. "Emily! I think I'm ready," I called to my open doorway. Before leaving my room, I slipped on a pair of black ballet flats, opting out of going barefoot like I had before—it gave off the impression of insanity.

.::.

The second time I entered the private visiting room was much different than the first. The first time I had dreaded setting foot inside, and wasn't expecting to find what I found. When I entered again—not needing the support of Nurse Emily's arm like I had before—I was met with a near-buffet of my favorite food, Edward smiling, and the rest of my visitors looking much more relaxed. Apparently everyone was celebrating my breakthrough as well as Edward's return. I was just thankful that he was alive at all.

"There you are!" Edward called mid-smile as I appeared in the doorway.

"Here I am," I stated as I crossed the door's threshold.

"You look more like you," he observed. I walked across the room to where his wheel-chair was parked and wrapped my arms around his shoulders in a long-awaited hug. It was a bit awkward because he was in a sitting position and I was standing, but I truly didn't care. His arms instantly wrapped around me delicately as they tightened their embrace. As soon as they had secured themselves around me, Edward pulled me onto his lap—something that I felt awkward initiating on my own because I didn't know if it would be painful or not for him. Once I felt ready to release my hold, I drew back a small bit so I could look at his face eye-to-eye. There was a pink scar that ran from the peak of his left cheek to the left corner of his lips that wasn't present before he left for Paris. Oh, his still very kissable lips. I traced the healing scar with my index finger very lightly as if to will it to heal. It didn't mar his face, but simply gave it more character. When the intensity of the reunion caught up with me, my eyes filled to the brim with tears once again.

"Oh Edward!" I squealed as I mashed my lips against his as my tears streamed down my gaunt cheeks, ignoring everyone else in the room. His lips returned the urgency as he kissed away my pain. It wasn't until my father's grunt that we parted lips—only a few seconds after the kiss was initiated. Usually I felt sheepish for showing PDA in front of Charlie, but in present circumstances, I couldn't have cared less. "I love you so much," I offered, not knowing what else to say to the man I loved so much that I would rather die than be without.

"I know, baby. I love you… I—I told you I'd come back," he whispered that last part to only me. Guilt flooded me to the core as I realized the weight of his words. I had lost faith that he was coming back; I had acted selfishly.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered back, my voice choked with fresh sobs.

"I know, love. It's why I can't be upset with you—who's to say I wouldn't have acted similarly," he admitted only to me. A small amount of relief trickled through me, but not enough to completely quell the guilt I had started to feel. Nodding, I showed the understanding we had because my voice was betraying me with my silent sobs. Our reunion was filled with so much pain and sadness for what had happened to the both of us and yet so much love and gratitude to be with each other once again. It truly was bittersweet. "Before anything is explained, the first order of business is to get you to eat something! A little birdie told us that you haven't been eating many well-balanced meals," Edward joked much louder for the whole room to hear. I knew the time for explanations would come but I could wait as long as I got to be with Edward while I was waiting.

.::.