Ice Veins; Ice Heart

frost thy mind

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding

- Rudyard Kipling

Months had passed since the departure of the Cullen family and with them, Noelle's heart.

Noelle had sunken ever deep into her whirlpool of pessimism. She revelled in the darkest parts of her mind. During the time Noelle had spent with Jasper, she had stopped wearing her gloves. Jasper made her feel safe enough to take them off but the false sense of security was ripped away from her.

Noelle had returned back to her old habits. She wore her gloves constantly and took her medication religiously. She became a shell of who she was. Constantly hiding herself and her true emotions. She created a rock facade and kept it up throughout the days that followed her miserable existence. Noelle first tried to move on from Jasper's betrayal but she couldn't. There was a hollowness within her that would constantly remind her of the pain she felt the night he felt.

They say time heals all wounds but time had suddenly forgotten Noelle Swan. Her wounds hadn't healed. Nothing had healed for her. The wounds were fresh as ever, bleeding and aching.

Nothing healed for Noelle.

The days passed melancholic and the nights were filled with nightmares. Every time Noelle closed her eyes the same play unfolded. The three hooded figures stood before Noelle, Bella was crying in the corner over an empty casket and water filled the room. Noelle felt she was losing her mind as time slowly went on but she found solace in the most unlikely companion, Isabella.

Even though Noelle wished to shut herself in a room in the darkest corner of the world far away from everyone else she shared a house with the only other person who could possibly fathom what she was feeling; it was her own twin sister.

Over the course of a few months, Bella and Noelle were slowly mending their relationship through sleepless nights and tired days. The nights that Bella couldn't sleep she would slyly slip into Noelle's bedroom and sleep by her sister's side. Noelle wasn't oblivious to Bella's action. But, even the coldest hearts had a fiery core within them that expelled warmth and affection. Noelle didn't hate her sister, all she had ever done was to protect her family, Bella included.

From the moment, she woke in that dull, beige hospital room to this very point all her efforts were to protect her family.

Sometimes Noelle's love came across as hate but love and hate are derived from the same poisoned root. One cannot exist without the other. You must have loved to hate and to hate you must have lost love. They grow with each other; the more love encapsulated you as a whole, the more hatred follows if you wished it to.

Noelle thought to herself as she walked up the same dreary stairs where she once threatened her sister's vampire boyfriend and headed to the same lifeless room that her sister occupies. Not unlike Noelle, Bella had turned into a shell of a human. She looked as if she was stunted in time. She was frozen in the place of the once cheery and happy Bella she was. Her intrusive thoughts occupied her day and her nightmares occupied her nights. She was stuck in a hell-loop of her boyfriend's betrayal; by the betrayal of the Cullen and their like. 

"Bells" Noelle sighed. "What are you doing?" Noelle asked leaning on the doorframe. 

"Nothing," Bella said as quickly shut her laptop to hide her suspicious online behaviour. Noelle strutted towards her sister and opened the laptop much to Bella's protests.

"Bella, emails? Again?"

"I..I" Bella was speechless.

"You know they are never going to reply right? For god sake, your emails are not even being delivered!"

"It does not matter. Alice can see them in her visions!" Bella retaliated, her faith in the Cullens, despite everything they did, was strong. 

"And why would Alice be keeping tabs on you?"

"Because, because he would have asked her to!"

"No, he would not have Bella! He does not care for you, he left you in the fucking woods for crying out loud!" Noelle yelled. She was getting quite angry with Bella for clinging on desperately to a sawed-off branch of hope. A branch that Edward had destroyed, a branch that Bella mistakenly held on for. 

"I know...I know!" Bella responded with tears in her eyes.

"Bells, he is not coming back. I am sorry but he just isn't."

When Bella did not verbally respond to Noelle's shattering comments, Noelle grabbed her and pulled her into a sisterly embrace. Bella held on to Noelle as if her life depended on it as if she was falling from a cliff and Noelle's embrace was the only thing that could help her.

"They are not coming back."

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Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Love you all.
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