Immortal: Chapter 6

Chapter 6
Edward was dead. Edward was dead. Edward was dead.

That was all I could think of as I sat in the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room of the hospital. Edward was dead. I had already been checked out and given the ok but they had asked me to wait around for my family to come pick me up. Edward was dead. And I needed to identify the body one last time. Edward was dead. I should have been dead too. I should have been lying in a black back on a table next to my Edward. There was nothing left in life for me so why couldn’t that monster have killed me as well? Would that have been so much to have asked for?

“Mrs. Cullen?”

He was dead. He was dead. I would never see him smile again or him tell me that he loved me. He was gone. He had died in my arms.

“Mrs. Cullen?”

Maybe I should have just gone and jumped off a cliff and gotten it over with. That was all that was left for me. Death.

“Ms. Swan?”

My head snapped up and I finally noticed the doctor sitting next to me, calling my name that I still wasn’t used to. Was it fair that I was widowed so soon after getting married that I wasn’t used to my new name? Any other time, the doctor would have been hansom I suppose, but right then he looked like a demon bearing more bad news.

“Mrs. Cullen,” the doctor continued now that he had gotten my attention. “I must talk to you about something. Did you and your –” He paused for a minute and cleared his throat. “Have you and your husband had unprotected sex lately?”

I blushed. What was he asking me?

“No, Doctor,” I said. “Edward and I are – I mean, we were always very careful.” A sob caught in my throat making my voice crack as I realized I was going to have to change the tense of everything now – now, that Edward was dead.

“Are you sure?” The doctor gazed at me intensely. “I have reason to believe that you are pregnant from when I was checking you out. Would you mind taking a test?”

“Is this some kind of cruel joke, doctor?” I snapped, tears welling at my eyes. “My husband just died. He died! I can’t be pregnant.”

“I know this is hard for you which is why I didn’t check further on my suspicions before asking you but I insist you take a test,” the doctor said. “It’s for the baby’s safety as well as your own.”

How did doctors learn to be so cruel and detached? I cried just watching movies where people died. How could this doctor sit here and act like the most horrible thing in my life was the fact that I might be pregnant when in reality my husband just died?

“There is no baby,” I hissed. “I’m not pregnant. Now, please, will you leave me alone?”

“Mrs. Cullen, I must –”

“Bella!”

I turned and saw Esme and Alice coming across the room, their arms already wide open and tears on their faces. I collapsed into them and we all sobbed. Sobbed for the loss of a son, a brother, a friend, a husband.

“He’s dead, Esme,” I wailed. “How can he be dead? He was fine a few hours ago and now he’s dead. I can’t live without him.”

We just stood there and cried for a while. What else is there to do when the world loses someone like Edward? There’s nothing that compare to that. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest and thrown on the ground.

“Mrs. Cullen?” a different doctor from earlier said, coming up behind us.

“Which one?” Esme asked.

“Bella?” the doctor said.

“That’s me,” I whispered breathlessly, trying to wipe tears from my face.

“Mrs. Cullen, we need you to come and identify your husbands body one last time,” he told me.

I nodded and looked back at Esme. “Do you want to come with me?”

“If you don’t mind, I’d prefer remembering my son the way he was,” Esme said, giving me another tight hug. “Will you be ok?”
I bit my lip and nodded against, tears pricking at my eyes. He was dead. Edward was dead. My life was dead.

Each step was an effort. I wanted to curl up in a ball and just give up. What was going to be the point of life anymore? I was widowed at eighteen. My one and only love was dead. Life’s pointless without love and I was never going to be able to love or be loved again. I clutched my arms against my chest as though I was holding myself together, holding the sobs in so that I didn’t scare the poor doctor that had the unpleasant task of leading me to the morgue.

The door to the morgue opened and a man walked out, sweeping past me. For a moment, his eyes caught mine and I could have sworn his irises were a bloody red color. Relief washed over me. This was another one of my oddly-realistic dreams. It wasn’t real. Edward wasn’t dead. Any moment, I would wake up and he’d be there, ready to kiss my forehead and tell me it wasn’t real. But I wasn’t waking up. The doctor was still holding the door to the morgue open and giving me a pitiful look. My eyes were still stinging with unshed tears that I was trying to hold in and my chest was threatening to rip open.

It was like a horror movie inside the room. The room was dark and everything was washed in red light. There was a blue cloth over what was obviously a body that was laid on a table in front of me. There were a bunch of plates with awful, sharp tools. A silver bowl with I don’t even know what was laying across the room. My knees weakened under me and I could feel the doctor placed a hand under my elbow to steady me as another morgue attendant pulled back the sheet over the body’s face. I turned away to look at the doctor, who nodded towards the body.

I looked and there was Edward. The blood had been cleaned off of him and now he just looked like wax figure laying on the table.

“That’s him,” I gasped through the lump in my throat. I wondering if I could be fast enough to grab one of the sharp, dangerous items sitting next to me and stab through an artery before the doctor could stop me. Then again, a hospital wasn’t really the best place to attempt suicide. They’d be able to fix me up before I managed to bleed to death. “That’s Edward.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ll give you a moment – if you want it.”

I just nodded. The doctor went to the other side of the room and started talking to the attendant in a hushed voice. My knees gave out and I found myself sobbing into Edward’s chest. He was cold but that didn’t matter. All I could think about was how this was the last time I’d ever be able to touch him, dead or not. Sure, there’d be the funeral but this was truly the last time.

I reached up and wiped some of his bronze hair out of his face. He looked almost peaceful. Even in death, he still looked perfect, like an angel. And now he was dead. I leaned down and kissed his cold, still lips one last time.

Edward’s eyes shot open and he gasped, a shocked look on his face. I thought for a moment I was imagining things, like the one guy’s red eyes. Then I realized that Edward’s green eyes were staring into mine and he was trying to sit up. I could feel his heart racing in his chest from where my hand arm was resting on him and he was really alive.

“Edward?” I asked.

“Bella,” he gasped.

And then the doctor was across the room, shooting something into the IV that was still hanging over Edward. The attendant grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room while I struggled against him, reaching out for Edward. The attendant shoved me out of the room and stood guard in front of the door. The doctor came out moments later, a shifty look in his eyes.

“He’s alive,” I gasped. “He’s alive. Get him out of the morgue. He’s alive!”

“No, Bella, he’s not,” the doctor told me. “And you’ll do well to forget about this.”

“He is,” I said. “He was breathing and his heart was beating and – and – and he said my name.”

“No, that was – er, that was a natural reflex that sometimes happens,” the doctor said, his dark eyes flashing red. This time I knew I wasn’t seeing things. “He’s dead, Bella. Don’t get any ideas because he’s not coming back. Now, good day.”

The doctor strode down the hall. My breath caught in my throat and the sobs came again. I sank down to the floor, leaning against the wall for support. Edward was alive. He had to be. HE HAD SAID MY NAME! He was alive.

No, he couldn’t be. I had seen him die. He had been dead for three hours now. People could be brought back to life after just a few minutes, but not a few hours. It was impossible. The doctor was right. I had to forget about it. The only meaningful thing in my life was gone.