She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when she decided to start the burying. But she didn't care as she crouched, mindlessly throwing dirt back with her claw-like hands. Soil clung to her naked form and a dried streak of blood interrupted the majestic and creamy planes of her face. To her left, a mutilated carcass lay, not even the flies coming near the unholy object. The foliage around her seemed to hold their breath, their leaves stiff and unforgiving in the biting breeze. The sun hid behind the clouds, tucking its rays behind emaciated and fast moving wisps like a scared housewife would hide her children.
Bella was alone. Truly alone.
'All my friends are dead,' she thought comically. She recalled the children's book she had stumbled upon in the dark recesses of the internet. She remembered laughing at it with Edward before he began kissing her neck. Funny, she never would have had the time before to find it. But find it she did.
"All my friends are dead." She whispered it this time, and the secret confession sent an unfamiliar chill down her spine. She paused her digging for a moment and sat back on her heels. She remembered Charlie's funeral, how he had been unrecognizable in the casket. No one had been able to remember her after all these years and everyone had scorned her for being a busy tourist intruding on a private moment. And down to the ground her father went, abandoned by the only daughter he ever had. After that came Renee, all the life sucked out of her hair, her skin, her eyes. But Bella could only imagine what the sunlight must have looked like reflected on her mother's pallid skin. Angela's face came floating back to the surface of her mind and Bella was shocked once again by the change. Angela was always girlish looking and no one expects such a profound change. But age had caught up to the girlishness and it had won. The hands that used to type and write so neatly were wizened and liverspotted. Angela's grandchildren sat weeping while Bella ducked out. Everyone she knew had left and Bella had never gotten the chance to say her goodbyes.
A bird's call bought Bella back to the present. She was naked, her feet were dirty, the grave was complete. Bella wordlessly picked up what was left of the doe. It's one eye stared up blankly at her and she felt a dry heave wrack her body as the carcass fell to the ground. A rush of hot air blew past Bella then, startling her back to her haunches. The unbidden image of Jacob came to mind, and the last time she'd seen him.
No longer was he the "sort of beautiful" boy that had pined after her for so long. He was a man, bent, twisted, and scorned by age. The black satin of his hair had turned an ash gray and the skin of his face was heavy, responding to the years of gravity pressing down on it. His huge frame looked barren and sickly. Bella wouldn't have known him if it weren't for his eyes. They were unfocused and hazy, seeing things that only the dead can see, but they were the same.
"Jake?" Bella called quietly.
"I thought I could forget that smell." His response was quiet; his voice was still husky. If Bella closed her eyes she could imagine that she was eighteen again, a girl, sitting in Jake's room laughing as the sun blazed, content with its position in the sky. "Are you happy?"
The question startled her and yet she didn't know what else he could have asked.
"Are you?"
"I'm almost dead," Jacob hissed. His fists clenched before he barked a series of coughs. "I'm almost gone. And you won't even be there to see me after all of it." Jacob's voice cracked and grew heavy with emotion. "I never stopped loving you, you know." Jacob's head twisted to the side and he stretched his fingers out to her, pleading. Damn his useless body! "I think about you everyday."
An unbidden tear made its way down his cheek.
Something in Bella's eyes pricked.
"Forgive me," Bella wailed quietly. Her voice was shaky as she took ballerina steps toward him. "I'm sorry for everything I've done to you. Jake, Jake, Jacob." Bella crouched to her knees by Jacob's bed. He placed a heavy, burning hand on her head.
“Bells...Bella." It was all he had the strength to say. Years of misery came bubbling forth in his chest. His marriage, over before it began, the baby he never got to know, the life he didn't even have a chance to live, the years of solitude, the years of decline. But he loved her still and her name tasted like the holiest of prayers on his tongue. So he forgave her.
That was a month ago. Jacob had died three days after seeing her.
Bella stretched out in the dirt, in her grave. Her skin was cold and unyielding, her heart trapped in her chest and frozen in time. Her body was youthful, graceful. Long, slim legs, slender arms, rich, mahogany hair, curly eyelashes. But her bones felt old, dusty. Above her, the sun disappeared. Darkness ascended and shrouded her in the finest of cloaks. Bella remained, still as a corpse.
"All my friends are dead."
