Sometimes There Is No Brightside [Edward Masen-Cullen]

Chapter Five

"Bea, you have to get away from here."

"Oh, and why?" I narrowed my eyes, a sour expression on my face. "And whereto?"

"Come with me."

I could not cope with his patronizing, as it made feel as if I failed. But I hadn’t failed! Didn’t I have a job, maybe even a future? I was alive and didn’t live in the gutters, and I had managed all that on my own! I wouldn’t let myself be made believing it was wrong what I had done. "That doesn’t answer the question as towhy I should wish to leave."

"I would have never expected you, Bea, you, to turn into a woman with no pride." Edward’s tone changed, losing its gentleness as he met my resistance.

"Careful there. I might have lost dignity, but I will never lose my pride. Which I why I will stay here."

"How on earth does one thing have to do with the other?"

"Easy." I stated. "If I go with you, it’s as if nothing ever changed, as if those ten years would just disappear and we’re back to the old scheme. That won’t happen, because those ten years won’t be erased. My pride is what keeps me here; this is my life now, and I stand up for it. I don’t need to be saved. Things happened as they did."

His eyes lit up angrily, and somewhere in the back of my mind I noticed with sadness how badly this meeting went. "Bea." He paused to calm himself down. "Nothing’s written in stone, you yet have the chance to have a future. For heaven’s sake, you’re only seventeen!"

"Well observed. I would ask you not to tell my employer, though, he believes me to be 20."

Edward let out an incredulous laugh. "I would have never believed you so..."

"So what?" I dared him.

"Stupid."

I looked at him as if he had struck me, unable to accept the fact he had called me stupid.

"Don’t you see what you’re throwing away?"

I shut my heart closed tightly. It seemed I was not the only one who had changed, Edward had, too. It would be useless trying to bring the past back again, we would never get along again, and it did not pain me as it should to realize this. Not after the things that have been said.

"No." I replied coldly. "I’m throwing nothing away. As you have so correctly stated, I’m only seventeen, so by the time I’m too old for this job, maybe even earlier, I’ll have enough money saved up for a life in comfort. That’s all I need."

"Oh, what a life indeed." Edward snorted contemptuously. "You’ve been in this business for two years and already addicted to drugs. Not very promising. What future exactly do you have in mind, should you ever manage to get out of this hell? I dare say a life with husband and children will be hard for you to find."

"When have you turned so hateful?"

"The moment I learned how cruel fate can be."

"Oh, when exactly was that for you?" I asked with faked interest.

He took a step towards me, and for the first time since his arrival did I feel a hint of the danger he radiated. Towering above me, his eyes bored into mine. "I take lives, Bea, I’m taking other people’s lives to live. I’m driven by thirst, I watch myself more and more becoming the monster I am now that I’m Changed. Do you think I enjoy this?" His voice was low, but his tone insistent and dangerous. "I don’t want that kind of future for you, Bea. I don’t want you to know how it feels losing oneself."

What if I already lost myself? I asked myself in a clear moment, when I saw the two of us as what we once were: brother and sister. In that moment I wanted to haul myself into Edward’s arms and ask him to make it all alright for me... then I remembered I wasn’t a little girl anymore and Edward not who he had been, either.

"What makes you think your future will be mine?"

Edward let out a growl and took several steps backward, then he glared at me again."What happened to the sweet girl who wanted to make a change to the world, who strived for being different, who had dignity and principles?"

"What happened to the kind-hearted man who had promised to protect me from all evils and to grant me a better future, to support me?" I looked into his golden-red eyes with accusation as I coldly spoke those words.

There was a moment of silence, then Edward was gone and I only heard the door slamming close.

Then the tears came as I uncontrollably shook with sobs, my whole body being racked by cramps as the tears poured and poured.