Sometimes There Is No Brightside [Edward Masen-Cullen]

Chapter Eight

"Mr Mason?" The porter asked when Edward returned to the hotel he was staying at. He had decided to take a room more out of habit than necessity. "There is a call for you."

He growled in reply, knowing who it would be. Wordlessly he took the receiver.

"Yes."

"Edward." Carlisle’s voice sounded. "Come home, son."

"No."

"I can understand you, Edward, but please be reasonable. The feelings you’re now experiencing are understandable, but dealing with them on your own won’t make it easier."

"I don’t need help." Edward growled in reply.

Carlisle sighed. "I know that I should apologize for Changing you and giving you a life you might not have wanted, but I won’t, because I don’t regret it. Neither do I believe that you can’t overcome the thirst, if you just let yourself accept..."

"Accept what?" Edward interrupted bitterly. "That I’m a blood-sucking monster? I find that hard to accept, after ten years as much as after one."

"Wandering through cities and killing criminals to satisfy your thirst won’t make it any easier for you, Edward."

"It’s not as if they didn’t deserve death." He growled in defence, but even he knew that it wasn’t giving him the right to kill. Although some of the scum he came across really deserved nothing else.

"You’re not a killer, Edward. You’re a good-hearted man and I do not want to see you perishing. Practising that kind of self-justice you are now will only make your thirst stronger and harder for you to find your way back."

Edward didn’t want to hear all the well-meant advice, as it made him feel as a failure and only triggered the urge in him to fight back even more fiercely.

Just like Beatrice.

The image of her pierced through his body like hot iron. Once again he realized that she had been right and he’d been so wrong... had made so many mistakes. Could he ever make it right again?

"There’s no way back for me, Carlisle."

Beatrice’s P.O.V

I was released from hospital after two days. After a lengthy goodbye to the kind-hearted nurse, I immediately went back to Avalon Hotel.

I opened the door to my room and kneeled before my bed, pulling forth the two red suitcases I had bought out of a whim a few months ago. It had been unnecessary spending of money then, but now I was glad to have them.

Dwelling for a moment in the scent of the leather, I ran my hands over the fabric. It smelled and felt like freedom.

With a smile on my lips, I heaved them onto my bed and walked over to my closet, hesitating - What clothes should I take with me? I couldn’t take them all, especially because most of them I didn’t even particularly like, I had chosen them because they were what men wanted to see. Or rather, the dresses revealed what they wanted to see.

I sighed, finally picked out twenty outfits and packed them carefully into the larger one of the red suitcases. That being taken care of, I sat down before my dressing table.

Smiling and feeling as free as seldom before in my life, I reached for a pair of scissors. Seeing my peroxide blonde curls soundlessly falling to the floor was like an acquittal. I cut it so short that they weren’t even five centimetres long anymore, standing off into all directions.

It made me look younger, but also livelier and, most important of all, all the fake colour was now gone, and only my natural blonde was left.

Letting out a little laugh, I went to pack my toiletries into the considerably smaller suitcase.

As happy and proud as I was about my decision... I regretted that Edward would never know about it. Not that it would have changed much, since his opinion of me would stay the same; I could, after all, not make my actions and decisions undone, but still... His face appeared before me, and I felt a painful, strange twitch in the region of my heart.

"What on earth do you think you’re doing?"

I turned to see the owner of the hotel standing in the doorway, hands on his hips.

"Something I should have done long ago." I took my luggage and passed him with a smile on my face. "Quitting."