🌛CHAPTER 22🌜
*°Third Person's POV°*
Eden still set the alarm clock for 6:15 AM from the day he left.
Every morning, Eden slaps it silent before the radio can play that stupid love song Edward used to hum. The buttons stick under her fingers now—too much force, not enough control. She leaves crescent-shaped dents in the plastic.
Normal human girls don’t break their alarms, she thinks. Normal human girls don’t have to remind themselves to breathe.
She gets out of her bed, slowly getting ready for another day ahead of her, getting dressed in whatever she grabbed first from her closet.
Eden avoids the mirror in her bathroom.
When she brushes her teeth, she stares at the sink. When she changes, she keeps her eyes on her socks. But sometimes—when the light hits just right—she catches a glimpse of gold in her periphery.
Not the same gold as Edward’s eyes, but the same type of gold, as her mother's eyes. Eden quickly grabs a towel covering it completely.
At school she was barely able to pay attention as she stares off into nothing.
"Eden Hale?"
Mr. Banner calls her name three times before she realizes it’s her turn to present. The class titters. Jessica rolls her eyes, while Bella look at the girl, worried about her behavior.
She recites her report on Wuthering Heights without looking up from her notes: "Heathcliff loved Catherine enough to ruin them both." Her voice doesn’t shake. Her hands don’t tremble.
She ended up getting an A-, which didn't bother her at all.
After school she would immediately go home. The passenger seat always staying empty.
She drives with the windows down, letting the October air whip the scent of pine and gasoline into something that doesn’t smell like him, never even turning on the radio either.
Eden would stop in the middle of nowhere, only to let out a scream, that holds all of her emotions, thinking nobody would hear her, but she was heard loud and clear.
During dinner with her family, she would only stare down at her food, not touching it at all.
"You’re not eating," Peter remarks, swirling his wine.
Eden stabs a carrot. "Not hungry."
Derek’s stare burns into her untouched steak—the blood pooling under the meat, the way her nostrils flare when the iron hits the air. He swaps their plates wordlessly, giving her his salad, while he takes her steak.
Eden would slowly start eating the salad, not to make her family worry about her even more than they already were.
After dinner, she would head straight for bed, climbing into bed, staring at Edward's name in her contacts, wondering if she should try calling him again.
At 2:47 AM she finally gathers enough courage together to dial his number, putting it down on the bed, thinking it won't ring, like all the previous times.
Until she heard it actually ringing.
Eden lunges for it, sheets tangling around her legs, hope lodged in her throat like a shard of glass—
"You’ve reached the voicemail of—"
She doesn’t throw it against the wall, like she wanted to, she only slams it on her bedside table, causing another crack to appear on her screen.
Eden cried herself to sleep that night, not caring if her father or derek heard her, finally letting out all the pain she has been holding inside.
She woke up at 4:30 in the morning unable to fall asleep again. She got up deciding to go for a walk, only grabbing her jacket.
She has come to terms that the cold doesn't bother her anymore, especially with the strange things that has been happening, like things turning to ice when she touches it, or when her body temperature suddenly drops below 0°, and yet she's still totally fine.
Eden walks barefoot through the frozen underbrush, her toes leaving faint imprints in the frost. The stars are sharp tonight—needlepoints of light stabbing through the canopy. She stops in a small clearing, where the moon spills silver over the snow like a spilled secret.
She finds a rock to sit down on, staring up to the moon, deep in her own thoughts.
"I miss them," she mutters to the sky, as a few tears escape her eyes, freezing onto her face.
The words hang in the air, crystallizing.
"I miss him."
Why he had to pack up and leave because of a small accident, she never blamed Jasper, because thinking about it logically, he thirst got multiplied since he felt his siblings thirst as well, she was pretty sure Edward didn't think of that.
A twig snaps not that far from her, pulling her from her thought.
"Who's there?" Eden calls out, staring in the direction the noise came from.
Paul steps into the clearing, arms crossed over his shirtless chest, breath fogging the air. His usual scowl is softer in the moonlight. Eden stare at him in surprise.
"Yeah," he grunts. "We know."
The only three shapeshifter knew of her pain, hearing the screams she let out by the borderline everyday, the first time it happened, had them on high alert, running around the forest looking for the screams, but didn't find anything unusual, only the following day did they find out, who was letting out such painful screams.
Eden doesn’t startle. She just sighs, her breath frosting between them.
"How long have you been standing there and how much did you hear?"
Paul shrugs, kicking at the snow. "Not that long, but I heard enough."
For a long moment, they stand in silence—the half-wolf and the wolf who’s always angry.
Then, surprising them both, Paul sits down beside her.
"You’re not the only one who’s lost shit," he mutters.
Eden glances at him. His jaw is tight, but his eyes—usually blazing with fury—are just... tired.
"Who did you lose?" she asks softly.
Paul’s fingers dig into the snow. "My mother also just up and left one day leaving me with my drunken father. When the change happened i was fighting with him, thankfully Sam came, guiding me into the forest, since then I atleast had him and Jared."
A pause. The wind howls through the trees.
"Does it ever stop hurting?"
Paul looks at her, really looks at her, and for once, there’s no anger. Just understanding.
"No," he says. "But you get used to carrying it."
They don’t talk much after that, the two sitting in an understanding silence. When the sun started peaking out, Paul walked her home
But when Eden stumbles—her bare feet numb from the cold—Paul doesn’t hesitate. He grabs her arm, steadying her.
"You’re an idiot," he grumbles.
"Yeah," Eden agrees, smiling faintly. "I know."
And for the first time in weeks, the weight on her chest feels a little lighter.
"We should do this again, it was unexpectedly pleasant." Paul says, once her house came into view.
"I'll think about it." She smiles up at him, before running to her house, with one last wave in his direction, she entered the warmth of her house.
*🌛Unedited🌜*
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Unexpected ~•Edward Cullen•~
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