Fanfic: The Red Wish (Twilight)
Title: The Red Wish
Author: runsamrun
Fandom: Twilight (J/B)
Rating: T
Summary: I wished for Edward Cullen to come back. And he did. (Set during New Moon-ish.)
The night before Edward came back, Jacob and I were lying in the back of my truck, trying to count the stars. There was light pollution in Forks, but it wasn't as bad as in La Push, so the sky was almost littered with stars. It was weird to think how little attention I ever gave the night sky and lying out here, my arm brushing Jacob's warm one, they were possibly the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"And that one," he pointed and squinted, "That one's part of the Little Dipper. See how it's like a little cup at the end?"
I wanted to laugh. "Jake, you're pointing with your puny hand at the whole night sky. I couldn't possibly see what you are talking about."
He rolled his eyes and grabbed my arm, his sunshine-hot skin burning mine. He pointed with my hand toward what he'd been talking about and said, "You gotta squint a little bit. See it? Right there?"
I shot up from the truck bed and my arm slipped from his grasp. "I saw a shooting star! I've never seen one before. Did you see it, did you see it?"
He laughed, that barking loud Jake laugh. "Make a wish."
And I did. I was so stupid that I actually did. Maybe he heard me, wherever the hell he was. Brazil or Kansas or Zimbabwe or Italy. I told myself I didn't care. That I was strong and I didn't miss him when I had my own personal sun right here beside me. I didn't need any frozen skin or over-protectiveness.
But it was a reflex, something I'd been wishing for since he'd gone away: I wished for Edward Cullen to come back. And he did.
-
The next day at school, no shiny black Volvo came rolling down the street. No perfectly-coiffed Cullens strode from the car, looking as if they were all sharing some secret joke. None of Jasper's strained smiles or Alice's happy ones, none of Rosalie's disdained lip-purses or Emmett's playful punches. There was only Edward, riding up on a jet-black racing motorcycle as I parked my car and readied myself for the last month of my senior year.
I should've felt it, his coming back. I'd prayed for it for months and months, even resorting to consulting an actual God in my brain about it. I'd hoped and wished and here it was. I didn't even recognize him until it occurred to me that Jacob was not nearly that pale, nor that short, when he pulled up next to me on the bike.
Then he took his helmet off.
My eyes processed it before my brain did. My body went stiff, like my blood had frozen inside of my veins. He looked different, which seemed wrong to me. Edward never looked different; he hadn't changed in nearly one hundred years. But he apparently had, judging by the motorcycle jacket and the fact that he'd buzzed off most of his hair. It would be that short for all of eternity or until his death, whichever came first. And his face, something about the way he held his lips, was unusual as well. Like he was trying to hold back a smirk, instead of that carved, jaw-clenched expression I'd always come to associate with him.
From inside the car, his smell did not make my senses go haywire. In here, he was not the cell phone to my airplane gear. He was only Edward, with shorter hair. And in that moment, I absolutely hated him.
How dare he come back here, and smiling, nonetheless? As if he had something to be proud of, for abandoning me and making me look like an absolute idiot? I had felt no anger then, but it bubbled up inside of me now, unfreezing the ice inside my veins. I was almost over him and here he was, parading around Forks on a MOTORCYCLE with a HAIRCUT and I was just supposed to, what? Pretend that he hadn't absolutely crushed me?
He would not get the satisfaction of seeing me upset, I decided, even though it would've satisfied the animal anger inside of me to scream at him. No, I would completely ignore him. I would walk past him and pretend I had never met him, like he was just a bump in my life that I'd already gotten over.
Still, I didn't move from the car. He moved, though. He flipped up the motorcycle seat and shoved his helmet down in there. He made sure the kickstand would hold it upright. He pulled out his keys. He did everything in the wrong order and I watched him, wondering when his eyes would land on me.
Then they did. And they were bright red.
--
forth.