Losing Love

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by satajah on June 14, 2010 at 7:38pm

omg the touched me deep down inside....... im like really emotional so itz sad

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 8:05pm

Hi, Satajah!

The preface was hard to write. It's based on a pretty sad song, but I'm a fairly happy person, so of course it's going to end differently than the song ends. I'm not going to tell anybody the song until it's past a certain part of the story because it'll ruin it.

Thanks for reading!

Permalink Reply by M!R@ND@ on June 14, 2010 at 8:00pm

OMG...I have to read this!!!

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 8:07pm

Hey, M!R@ND@!

Thanks for reading! I just added the next chapter! I'll probably post pretty often (when I start a new story, it occupies all of my time because I just HAVE to write more) so there will probably be another chapter every day or every other day.

Permalink Reply by Kay Cullen on June 14, 2010 at 8:01pm

u have got 2 rite this

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 8:08pm

Hi, Kay!

I was already going to write it (even if no one commented, I still love writing, and would post it just in case anyone wanted to read it). It's going to be pretty sad after a couple chapters, but it should get happier. I think. (I never know for sure where my stories are going to go. I might think it's going to go one way, and then choose another way.)

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 8:04pm

Chapter 1
BPOV

“Hey, wait up!” I giggled as I chased after Edward. He’d been my best friend since we were babies. Our moms had gone to high school and college together. They both settled in the same town—Forks, Washington. Edward and I even shared a birthday, though he was technically older because he was born in the morning and I in the afternoon. He never failed use his authority as “the older one” to get me to do ridiculous things, like stealing a huge chunk of my mom’s chocolate cake right under her nose. That failed miserably, as did all the other things he made me do.

“Catch me if you can!” he taunted. He thought he was so good just because he was faster than me. If I was as tall as him—as it was, I was over half a foot smaller than him—I could run fast, too. It wasn’t my fault his legs were longer.

I frowned as I ran, knowing I would never catch him. A grin grew over my face as I deliberately tripped and fell, screaming. I stayed on the ground, clutching my ankle, waiting for him to take the bait. I moaned to speed things up, and, sure enough, Edward came running.

“What happened?” he asked frantically.

“I tripped and hurt my ankle. I think it’s broken,” I whimpered, hiding my surprise that he hadn’t seen through my act yet.

“Here, get on my back. I’ll take you to Mom.” Elizabeth Masen was a pediatric nurse. If I had actually hurt my ankle, she would know what to do.

He helped me climb onto him, and in a moment I was clinging to him piggyback style. He set off walking towards his house, but we were a good distance away.

With speed that surprised even me, I jumped off Edward’s back, pushed him down, and sprinted towards his house. He was so shocked that it took him a moment to stop staring at me, let alone get up. I finally heard his footsteps close behind me. I tried to run faster, but he tackled me, knocking me to the ground with him on top.

“Gotcha!” he shouted triumphantly. “Ha!”

I pouted. “You couldn’t have let me win just once?”

“Nope.” He said with certainty, smirking.

“Meanie,” I muttered.

His smirk grew more pronounced.

“The meanest,” he said proudly.

I rolled out from under him and stomped back towards the house angrily. He caught up with me easily and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, stopping me.

“I’m sorry, Bella. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

I didn’t reply.

“Bella? Please talk to me!” He grasped my shoulders with both hands and shook me. “I’m sorry! Please forgive me!”

“Fine,” I muttered.

“Thanks. I knew you would.” His jade eyes suddenly bored into mine, intense and smoldering. “Bella, do you know who you’re gonna marry?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well, I’m going to marry you. I’ll never hurt you, Bella. Best friends forever.”

My eyes were wide from his announcement that he wanted me as his wife, but the rest of his little speech helped me relax. Big mistake.

His lips came down on my cheek for half a second before he pulled away. I jerked out of his arms.

“Eww, Edward!” I complained. “Now I have cooties! Ewww!” I wiped off my cheek with one hand, glowering at Edward when he started laughing. “Oh, shut it!”

I stalked back towards the house, Edward easily keeping pace with me. Taking off our shoes, we walked inside and saw his mom busy in the kitchen.

Elizabeth Masen was lovely, with soft bronze curls that reached just below her shoulder. Her eyes were a bright green, and always sparkled. Edward looked exactly like her, with the bronze hair, green eyes, and crooked smile. The only things he got from his dad were his height—Elizabeth was very short—and his love for sports.

“Hi, Miss Beth,” I said. My mom always called Elizabeth “Beth”, so I had basically grown up calling her Miss Beth. Edward called my mom, “Miss Ren.”

She turned and spotted us. “Hello, Bella! Are you staying for dinner tonight, or is Edward going over to your house?”

“That depends,” Edward interjected. “What are you making?”

She laughed, a beautiful, melodic sound. “I actually have no idea. Right now I’m making a cake for a party Miss Ren and I are going to tomorrow.”

“Can we call Miss Ren and Mr. Charlie and see if they can come eat hotdogs and hamburgers here?” Edward asked.

“Why not at my house?” I demanded.

“Because your mom would accidentally poison the food, and your dad would accidentally burn the house down.”

Edward and Miss Beth laughed in unison.

“Yes, I still don’t know how they feed you,” Miss Beth mused. “Of course they can come. I’ll go call them.” She left the room, and Edward turned to me with a devious glint in his green eyes.

“What are you going to make me do?” I asked warily.

“Just a little bit of the cake. Please?”

“You can get it yourself!” I said harshly.

“But I’m older, and I’m telling you to get it.”

“No!” I growled. “I’m not having a repeat of the time when you made me take a handful of Mommy’s cake. She was so mad at me!”

“Please?” he asked, a pout on his face, his eyes pleading.

“Well . . .” I wavered. “Maybe.”

I stood on my tiptoes while I tried to reach the cake that was pushed back into the very corner of the counter. With my small size, I could barely reach it. I was about to grab a handful to satisfy Edward when Miss Beth came back in.

“Miss Ren and Mr. Charlie are coming—” she began before she saw me reaching for it. “What are you doing?” she chided. I jumped and fell over, landing on the floor with a crash.

“Edward?” she sighed. “What have you made Bella do this time?”

“I just wanted a little cake,” he said innocently. “It was her idea.”

“It was not!” I huffed in indignation. “You made me!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

Miss Beth cleared her throat, successfully interrupting our argument. “Calm down. Miss Ren and Mr. Charlie are going to be here soon. We don’t want them to find you fighting.”

We both pouted, but quieted down as she went outside to grill the hotdogs and burgers.

“I’m sorry,” Edward finally said, breaking the silence.

“I’m sorry, too. Are we still friends?”

“Yes.”

I sighed with relief.

“But I’m still gonna marry you someday,” he added.

I rolled my eyes, and we continued our playful banter until dinner was on the table.

Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on June 14, 2010 at 8:55pm

that is so adorable
Love it
Love Elizabeth

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 9:23pm

Hi, Elizabeth!

Funny. You have the same name as my best friend, and my middle name coincidentally (sorry, I felt like I needed to mention that). Anyway, thanks for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 9:25pm

Chapter 2
BPOV
(Seven years later)

Don’t blink. Don’t blink.

The words echoed in my head repeatedly as I tried to keep my watering eyes from closing.

Don’t blink, don’t blink!

I couldn’t do it. I closed my eyes, relieved to have the burn finally leave, and heard Edward hoot triumphantly.

“Yes! I told you I would win! Hand it over.” I opened my eyes to see him with his arm outstretched toward me, palm facing up. Sighing, I pulled out my wallet and put a dollar into his hand.

I still didn’t understand why he made such a big deal out of this. I never bet a lot, not wanting to risk losing it all. And it was just a staring contest. Really. Sometimes I feel like Edward is nine again, instead of seventeen years old.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk. Do you think you can stop gloating long enough to make it actually enjoyable?” His smug expression told me he couldn’t, and I set out for a walk alone.

He followed me of course, swinging his arm over my shoulders. From the outside, people might think we were together, but we were only friends and would stay that way.

As we were walking up the road, a moving van with a car close behind it pulled up to the only vacant house on
the street.

“Oh, look, someone finally moved in,” I said in a detached voice.

Edward didn’t reply. I followed his gaze to see a teenage girl with delicate strawberry blonde curls climbing out of the car. She was tall, like Edward, and thin, with long legs. I glanced back at Edward.

His eyes were wide, his mouth agape. I was surprised his tongue wasn’t hanging out. He was practically drooling. I snapped my fingers in his face.

“Huh—what?” he stammered, jumping.

I laughed. “I’m surprised, Edward,” I teased. “Didn’t you promise you would marry me when we were ten?”

He stuck his tongue out at me childishly. I just giggled again and walked back home to give him some space as he went to introduce himself to the girl. I shook my head.

Edward had fallen for that girl, fallen hard. I wasn’t sure if I was offended or happy for him. I wanted him to find love, but I was worried that the girl would take my place. Yes, I was territorial when it came to Edward. Maybe that was why he’d only had one girlfriend, and that was when I was away for two weeks. I’d never had a boyfriend, probably for the same reason Edward only had one girlfriend. We were both protective of each other.

So I was worried about what he would do for this girl. I tried to shake the feeling away; I needed to hide all melancholy otherwise he would give up all hopes for this girl in order to comfort me, or—the worst possible scenario—tickle me until I promised to be happy.

I sat down on the couch at Edward’s house and flicked through the TV channels as I waited for him to come back. Finally, I heard footsteps and laughter, and I knew he was back. The door opened, and Edward walked in with the girl holding his hand. He looked at me in surprise.

“Oh, hey. I thought you had headed home. This is Tanya.”

“Hi, Tanya,” I said, smiling. “I’m Bella.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said sweetly.

“I’ve just got to get my phone. It’s up in my room. I’ll be right back,” Edward said to her.

As soon as Edward left the room, Tanya turned to me, her ice blue eyes glowing with fury.

“Stay away from him!” she growled.

“What?”

“Stay away from Edward! He’s mine! You might’ve had a fling before, but not now!”

“We never had a ‘fling,’” I corrected her. “We’re just good friends. We’ve known each other since infancy.”

“Oh, cut the crap. If you haven’t fallen for him now, you will soon. If you make a move on him, you’ll have me to answer to, got it? So stay away from him.”

“You can’t make me stay away from him,” I snapped. “He’s my friend, and I have every right to spend my time with him.”

Tanya opened her mouth to retort, but Edward came down the stairs. She quickly rearranged her face into a sickly sweet smile that made me want to vomit.

“Bye, Bells!” Edward called as he went out the door. “Sorry to leave so soon!”
“Bye, Bella,” Tanya said sweetly as they left.

I sat on the couch long after they left, too miserable to move. Finally, I dragged my feet upstairs to Edward’s room.
It was practically my room, too. I even had some clothes over here in a drawer in his dresser, as he did in mine.

A queen size bed was in the corner, golden comforting over it. There was a golden shag carpet on the floor. He had a large stereo on one side that he never allowed me to touch, with several large shelves holding all his CDs. He had never wanted an iPod like most kids did. He liked listening to CDs instead. I never understood why, and I doubted he did either. It was just something that made him Edward. It was part of him.

A bookshelf was in the opposite corner from his bed. It was relatively small and held few books, unlike mine. Mine was enormous and still had barely enough room for all the novels. His closet was to the right of the door, a third door near his bed leading to his bathroom. I turned to his walls.

You could barely see the white paint. Almost every space had a photograph covering it. I looked at them and saw pictures of me and Edward as babies, toddlers, preschoolers . . . all these pictures basically showed our lives.

I didn’t know why I felt this need, this compulsion to examine every single picture. All of them were on my walls, too. We always had two, one for each of us to put on our walls.

Perhaps I felt like I had to see every single picture because I wanted to be sure he hadn’t already forgotten about me, hadn’t already replaced me with Tanya. I was being ridiculously insecure, I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. Edward was my rock in life. Without him, I was completely unsteady. He helped me through everything. I didn’t know what I’d do without him.

I sighed and left his room to head home next door. Yes, we lived next door to each other. We never even told our parents where we were anymore. If we were gone, we were at the other’s house. They didn’t bother to check now, either. They trusted us completely.

I got home and flopped down on my bed. I just knew—knew—this was going to end badly.

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 10:30pm

Chapter 3
BPOV
(One year later)

Edward was completely head over heals for Tanya, to my chagrin. As Tanya had predicted, I fell hopelessly in love with Edward. He was all I ever wanted, and all I couldn’t have. If Tanya hadn’t moved here, I was sure Edward and I would be together.

But no. Instead I had to sit patiently while Tanya sent venom-laced whispers in my direction—that, conveniently, no one else heard—as I sat with Edward and his family at dinner. Tanya was constantly joining us now, and it made me tense. Miss Beth (as I still called her) and Mr. Edward could tell I was ill at ease, but they didn’t know why. Even Edward couldn’t tell, but he was blind to my feeling, so I wasn’t surprised. He was blind to everything but Tanya.

That night, before I left, I asked Edward if he was still going to come over to eat at my house the next night. He had taken to eating at Tanya’s instead of my house on Wednesday nights, but he had promised.

“I can’t,” he finally said ruefully. “Tanya and I are going out.”

I didn’t speak again as I walked out of his house.


The next day, I went over early in the morning just after his parents left for work. I was going to find out why he never wanted to hang out with me anymore.

“Edward!” I shouted as I banged on his bedroom door. “We need to talk.”

I heard his footsteps. At last he opened the door and looked at me blearily. “Why are you here so early?” he groaned. “It’s eight o’clock!”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Then talk,” he said as he walked over to his bed and laid back down. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that every single picture on his wall was gone.

“Sit up!” I insisted, yanking his arms to pull him into a sitting position.

“Fine! What do you want to talk about?”

“Why do you never want to spend time with me anymore? Why don’t you spend time with anyone but Tanya?”

“I love her, Bella.” His words felt like a stab to my heart, but I tried to ignore it. We needed to talk, and we were going to talk.

“Love her?” I growled before I could stop myself. “Love Tanya? Edward, if you think you love her, then you don’t know her at all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his sleepiness gone in an instant.

“Do you have any idea what she’s said to me?” I shouted.

“Stop lying, Bella,” he snarled. “We all know you’re jealous of her!”

“Yes, I am! You know why?” My fury made me bold, foolish. “I love you. I’ve been trying to show you ever since I fell for you! How have you not noticed?”

He stared back silently, rage burning in his emerald eyes.

“She’s poisoning you, Edward! She’s turning you into her! You never want to spend time with me or any of your other friends anymore, you yell at your parents, you took the pictures off your wall . . . she’s changing you, Edward, and it’s not good!”

“You know what, Bella? You’re pathetic!” he finally roared, his green eyes glinting with wrath. “You’re so jealous of me spending more time with Tanya that you’re trying to convince me that you’re in love with me and that she’s ‘changing me’. I can’t believe I spent eighteen years as your best friend. I hate you!”

He pulled back his hand and slapped me across the face. He was much stronger than me, and he used all of his strength when he hit me. I fell onto the floor, my face stinging, tears smarting in my eyes. I took a deep, gasping breath and looked up at him, his words wounding me more than his strike. I sat up and tilted my head so I could look at him. My eyes were wide, pleading, begging him to take it back, to tell me that he didn’t mean it, to do anything other than look at me so coldly.

He didn’t.

I got to my feet shakily, tears streaming down my face.

“Goodbye, Edward,” I choked out, running from his house. I dashed through my front door, ignoring my mom when she anxiously asked what was wrong. Everything, I wanted to say, but my throat was too thick with tears. I sprinted up the stairs to my room and threw myself onto the bed, sobbing. The pillow grew soaked with tears, and still they continued to flood from my eyes. I couldn’t calm down, couldn’t stop weeping.

I couldn’t just go back to being friends with him after what I had told him, and what he had said.

I love you, I’d told him. I had bared my soul for him with those three words, and he broke me. He said the only three words that could hurt me so. I hate you. He had never said that to me before, not even when we were young, not even as a joke.

It was those thoughts that made my decision for me. I pulled the pictures off my wall, packing all of them into an enormous bag that I threw into my suitcase. I threw all my clothes in on top of it, grabbing my toiletries. As I seized them, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. A dark and purple bruise was inking my entire left cheek. I looked away quickly and went to get my wallet, checking to see how much money I had. Twenty bucks. Well, I could get more out of my bank account later. Right now, I just had to get away before my mom could stop me.

I took two sheets of notebook paper and wrote a letter to my mom on one.

Mom and Dad,
I’m sorry for leaving like this, but I just couldn’t stay. Edward and I had a horrible fight, and I know it can never be the same between us. I can’t stay here. Everywhere I look, the memories swim to the surface, and it hurts too much. None of this is your fault, it’s just something I had to do to keep myself sane. I love you and I’m so, so sorry.
Love, Bella.

I stuffed it into an envelope hastily and wrote “Mom and Dad” on it. I took the other sheet of paper and wrote another note.

Edward,
I’m sorry for everything I said. I was hurt, I was angry, I didn’t mean most of it. But I can’t stay here. Your words haunt me constantly. “I hate you,” you said. They keep repeating in my mind, and each time it feels like another slice to my already broken heart. Everywhere I look, I remember things we used to do and it just hurts too much. I have to get out.
I only meant one thing I said. I love you. I truly do. I know you don’t feel the same way, but since I’ll never see you again, I thought I just needed to tell you.
I’m sorry for running instead of talking to you again, but I knew it would end badly no matter what. Tanya destroyed what we spent eighteen years building, and it’s impossible to rebuild it.
I hope you’re happy with her. I know you really do love her. But I can’t help wonder what it would have been like if she hadn’t come. Would you have ended up with me? We’ll never know because what’s done is done and we can’t turn back and try to redo or repair what we did. It just makes it worse.
I’m sorry.
Bella

I sealed the second one in another envelope, wrote Edward’s name on it, and then I was sneaking out of the house. My mom was in her bedroom listening to music. Luckily, she always closed the door when listening to music—she never wanted to be disturbed—and that would help me make my escape.

I ran out the front door silently, throwing my bags in my rusty truck. I took one last look at my home before I drove down the street, away from Forks and all I had ever known.

Permalink Reply by Julie on June 14, 2010 at 11:05pm

Hi, Tatter Tots!

Thanks for reading! I'm a little surprised that I've started the fourth chapter and I just started this story tonight, but, then again, the chapters are kind of short.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• …
• 25
• Next ›
• Page