Anastasia

~Present, at the Healer's clinic

Jacob has been watching me the whole time I have been speaking. He listens without a change in his expression. I don't know if he believes me, or if he cares about what I am saying.

The pain in my body interrupts me, and I grit my teeth. This time, I see him flinch, but the moment disappears quickly. Maybe I lost him, a long time ago. The moment that Gisele became his mate, I should have given up.

Why am I still here? I wonder. I should have been the one who died in the ravine. Why did I survive that fall?

"Look, Ana," Jacob leans against the wall, and it looks like he is having an argument with himself in his mind. "I know that what happened to Gisele was an accident."

I want that to be all that he says, but his face betrays him. I want to scream that this is the truth, that it was an accident, that I didn't want it to happen. I don't do that. Instead, I stare at Jacob, willing him not to say what is on the tip of his tongue.

"I've known you since we were kids," Jacob continues, dragging out the tension in the room. He is skirting the issue and that frustrates me. "It probably wasn't your fault, that's… I mean…"

"Probably?" The word tastes like poison when I spit it out at his feet. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry, Ana, but I still blame you." The dagger shaped sentence hits me harder than my own fall in the ravine did. "If you hadn't told her she could jump, if you hadn't taken her there… She would still be here."

Now I wish that he would have kept beating around the bush. I don't want to hear him say any of this. He cannot truly believe that. It's not true. Of all people, surely Jacob knows that.

I feel the stupid tears well up at the corner of my eyes. I never cry. I feel the pain in other ways. But here, in this room, there are no knives for me to cut the hurt from my skin. I can barely move before I scream in pain. Even reaching for the water beside me is a chore.

"I want you to leave," I say, surprised at the hissing sound coming from me. "Please."

"Sorry, Ana." He doesn't sound that sorry to me. Obviously, he doesn't understand what he's doing to my soul. Maybe he likes seeing me like this. It's the universe's punishment for Gisele's death.

Jacob probably thinks that I deserve it. If anyone else thinks that, I don't care, but because it's Jacob, it destroys my heart so much more.

He sits there without making a move, as if I hadn't said anything.

"Get out!" I shriek as the first of the wrenching sobs bursts through my body. I almost add 'please' again, but I stop myself. There is no reason to be polite if Jacob thinks that of me.

He does not tell me that he'd prefer to stay, nor that we need to talk about it. His shoulders slump, and he turns away, rejecting me yet another time.

Jacob leaves the room, and it is instantly darker. The pain of my injuries cannot compare to the gut-wrenching reality of his honesty. Sobs are racking my body, despite fighting against them. My cheeks are wet and my face red.

I try to stop crying. I never do this. It only makes the whole thing worse. Eventually, I turn on my side, wishing that the sobs will stop. They do not.

My phone rings on the table beside the bed, but I ignore it. I want the world to end. In this mood, I cannot imagine ever speaking to someone again.

The minutes pass, turning into hours. Several more times, I hear my ringtone, but I never answer.

I fall asleep twice, a fitful unconsciousness filled with nightmares.

Gisele's face in the woods. "You killed me."

I would scream, and run, and start to see her everywhere. "You should have died that day."

"I didn't want to hurt you," my dream-self wants to scream, but the words never come out of my mouth. I wish she would leave me alone, but she appears again.

In my shower, in the garden, at school. She's everywhere, in every dream, constantly reminding me of that day.

"It's all your fault, Ana, and you deserve to burn."

Each time I wake up, the torture of being alive simply returns. The vicious cycle refuses to end itself, and I wonder if I should stop it all myself. It would take just one cut to do, and it wouldn't really even be difficult.

I could lay in the bath, back at home, and take a knife to my wrists. Then I think, that wouldn't work. I'd heal faster than I could bleed out. No, it wouldn't be that simple to end it all. I've fallen down a ravine, and I survived that.

Maybe I should cut my neck, sever every artery until my head almost falls off of me. I'm sure not even my healing would be able to stop that. I could try to hang myself in a tree, hope that I'd suffocate. That could work, or it might just be an embarrassing chapter in my already humiliating knife.

I could ask Medeia to kill me. I'm sure that she wouldn't mind doing it. She could shift, and I'd stay in my human form. A few claws would do it. Then, all of this would be over, and I wouldn't ever have to think again.

Whatever happens to her after that wouldn't be my problem. Jacob might be angry, but he might not. He still hates me for Gisele's death. Maybe he would even be relieved that I am finally gone.

"Are you awake?" A voice interrupts my personal torture from the doorway. I am half-asleep, and confuse it with Gisele in my dreams. Her body, at the bottom of the ravine, contorts itself to look up at me before it asks the question again.

'Are you awake?' I see Gisele's cold body move, but it's not her voice. Her lips are purple.

The fright jolts me and I turn over, peering at the figure in the door. It was just a dream, I have to remind myself. It's Garett, his face painted in concern.

"What are you doing here?" I ask, rather rudely. Garett walks to the chair beside my bed and sits down, ignoring my tone entirely. He's not looking at me. Instead, his eyes drift around the room idly, as if he is admiring the barren walls.

"It's a bit boring, isn't it?" Garett finally comments, offering me an apologetic smile. "I bet you can't wait to get out of here."

Time hasn't been kind to me in this bed. I don't know when I will be allowed to leave. I don't tell Garett any of this, of course. He's being nice, and I should at least appreciate that someone is.

"Yeah," I answer, but it is unconvincing. I sound completely apathetic, and it shows in Garett's face.

"Everything's going to be alright, you know." He pulls the generic comment from the tension in the atmosphere, still not looking at me. "The whole world isn't always going to be doom and gloom."

"I guess. Why are you here?" I repeat my question from earlier, in a more polite tone. "I'm not exactly fantastic company right now."

Garett stretches himself out in the chair, making me feel slightly jealous of his ability to do so. It seems like he has come here to tell me something, but feels too uncomfortable to do it. I have time, and as long as he is here, I do not have to be alone. On the other hand, I really want him to leave.

I want to be with my demons, and he is interrupting them.

"Can't a guy visit a girl when she's hurt?" Garett jokes, but it's clear to me that that's not the real reason he has come. "Honestly, I've called you, like, twelve times."

"I haven't been able to answer." It's as close to the truth as I can manage. It would be painful to reach for my phone, but not impossible. I just don't really want to talk. Even this conversation is dragging me to my limit.

"Besides that, I'm not going to fuck you in the state that I'm in," I keep going, taking out my anger for others on someone who does not deserve it. "I don't know if you've realized, but I'm severely injured."

"I noticed, but shit, it's not necessary to be that rude," Garett says abruptly, a rare moment of him actually standing up for himself. "I'm trying to be nice, I'm not asking you to take your clothes off for me. Besides, aren't you mated to Derek?"

"Sorry, I'm not in the best of moods." I didn't expect to apologize to Garett today, yet here I am, doing just that."

"I actually came here for a specific reason, anyway." Now he seems fidgety, like he'd really be anywhere rather than here. It makes me want to know what's going on with him. He's normally weird, but this is even stranger than usual.

"Okay, so out with it. What did you come here for?"

"I need to tell you something." Garett awkwardly pulls a hand through his hair and blows a breath out through his teeth. His nervousness is almost tangible. Whatever he wants to tell me, I have to guess that it is big.

"Okay?" I offer the question as a way to show him that I'm waiting for him to spill it.

Garett pushes his lips together until they form a tight line. "I, uh… I've found my mate."

I blink a few times, pretending that the news does not hit me as hard as it does. This is not something that I expected, especially not now. I'm not supposed to care this much, so why do I?

I have a mate, and little else, nothing that I can offer him anyway. I can't expect Garett to go on loving me forever when it will never be returned. So why do I feel so jealous?

"You called me over and over to tell me that?" My voice sounds harsher than I intended. "I don't care. Good for you, whatever."

Well aware that I am being hurtful, I still don't soften my gaze. Garett frowns, but quickly hides his feelings behind a stoic wall.

"I just thought you should know," he says, "I'm sorry. Maybe it was an inappropriate topic."

"I mean, I'm healing from major injuries." Despite telling myself to stop being so awful, I keep going. Jacob's statements from earlier and the nightmares are taking their toll on me.

"Yeah, sorry." Garett gets up from the chair, already making his way back to the door. "I guess I should've waited to tell you."

"Maybe." I'm not willing to give an inch, even if I know I'm wrong. There isn't much that I can take this frustration out on.

"I'll let you rest." Garett remains as kind and patient as ever, making me feel a flash of guilt. "You'll feel better later, I know it."

Then, he's gone, too. I lay back, unwilling to sleep again, knowing that the nightmares will be worse than ever. I feel as if I have lost everything now, like I am completely alone. Jacob hates me, Garett doesn't need me, Gisele is dead, and I still do not want Derek as I should.

There seems to be only one recourse for me. When I get out of this building, while I am still too weak for my healing to kick in, I will end it all.

Then, finally, the nightmares will stop, and the world will be rid of me.