RECIPROCITY - Temet Nosce

Chapter 2

Bella 

By the time Bella reaches Firenze, everything happens pretty quickly - she catches a train from Florence to Cecina, then another - much smaller, older looking train - which takes her to the Volterra-Saline-Promarance station before finally getting on a bus that drives along the steep zig-zagged roads leading up to the medieval fortified village that is Volterra, tucked away in what seems to be a mostly deserted area, surrrounded by large fields and vineyards on soft rolling hills.
She imagines briefly what it might look like in the sun, but she's too exhausted to properly take her surroundings in right now. By the time she makes it through the outer city gates and into the heart of the village it's already nighttime. She'd have to wait until tomorrow to try and explore Volterra. It wouldn't have made a difference regarding the vampires - it's not like they ever sleep - but she is too tired to go looking for them right now, needs to lie down properly for a few hours at least.

She's exhausted enough that even thoughts of home and Charlie wouldn't keep her up any longer, she thinks. She checks into a cheap nearby hostel, sharing her dingy little room with two tourists who are already asleep, tucked away behind a set of small orange curtains attached to their wooden loft beds. The tiny room is completely silent but for their slow breathing, and the ticking of a plastic clock hanging above the door.

Bella quietly takes off her shoes, pants and hoodie and then promptly falls asleep hugging her backpack close to her under the thin material of the blanket; completely out of it even before her head hits the pillow.

——

Bella wakes up not much later when the tourists she'd shared her room with get up to start their day, the rustling sounds of fabric and quiet murmurs in a foreign language stirring her enough to snap her right out of the dream she was having.

She'd dreamt of Edward's voice in the dark, begging her to turn around, to not go through with her plan. In the past she'd gone out of her way to hear his voice, to see him again. But now she has no room for doubt - and for the past months, doubt was all Edward had been able to give her. Do this, Bella - don't do that. Like talking to a wall. She'd begged him, whenever he had manifested for her, to stay. To talk to her, because even the ghost of the man she loved was a welcome change from the loneliness that threatened to swallow her whole, locked in her childhood home.
In her mind, there truly was no one else to talk to - no one who understood the burden she was carrying, knowing of him. Of his world. But Edward hadn't talked, ever. Not really. Bella don't do this, Bella do that - it was all he was capable of. Commanding her, steering her away from trouble. She'd sought trouble out then, just to hear his voice, just to see his face, fruitlessly trying to ignore his actual words; picturing him telling her stories or reading to her instead. She wishes he could've done that - accompany her as she read, as she trudged through the mediocrity of everyday life. A pathetic way to live, she could admit that much to herself - to willingly fill her life with ghosts of the past and delude herself into feeling less alone in the world.

But what else could she have done? What else but cling to every bit of evidence she had; every bit of sanity that remained, until that, too, was ripped from her, little by little. Again Bella wonders if he knows. He must know - Alice would've seen, regardless of how flimsy her visions of Bella had always been, she must've seen flickers of what she'd become in their absence at least. Must've seen the things Bella had gotten up to in hopes of catching a glimpse- of trying to get him to talk to her. The decisions she'd made in pursuit of that goal.

And yet- they've stayed away. All this time, Bella had held onto hope. It was less of a conscious effort than a sort of pathological need. She hadn't even been entirely aware of it toward the end, right up until she'd left. Right up until her actions barred them from taking her up on her silent offer. In leaving Forks behind - hopefully without much of a trace - it had hit her that part of her had still held out for them. Now that she's dead and gone or missing, whichever one - there is no turning back. Not for her, and not for them, either. Like a door that had remained ajar finally falling shut with a click, lock sliding back into place. The whole notion has a sort of final feel to it.