Atlas Shrugged by JeesieChreesie

Official Description:

Bella’s betrayal with Jacob is the final straw to make Edward stumble. Now she has to find the strength to put him back together and face the consequences of her actions. Begins after the kiss in the woods with Jacob. Eclipse AU. E/B

Word Count: 98,132

I fell in love with Edward.

Back in 2008… I, a woman in her mid-50’s, who never before read a romance book, was cajoled into reading the Twilight series by my teenage daughter. And I fell in love with Edward Cullen.

But in spite of having created this wondrous man, I was furious with the author. Twilight – the original – was a lovely book with compelling characters. I understood the attraction between this 107 year old vampire and the 17 year old girl, in spite of their difference in years. I truly liked Bella and saw the best of myself in her. I could feel Edward’s struggle through Bella’s limited point of view – his hesitation, his bloodlust, his inexperience, his internal war between the 19th and 20th centuries.

Keep in mind I’m talking about the book – these nuances and depths were eliminated from the film.
And then SM wrote New Moon and Eclipse. Somehow, she seemed to have forgotten what she wrote the first time around.

The mature young woman was gone, and in her place was a harpy. As if she’d succumbed to peer pressure at Forks High, it was now okay for Bella to insult Edward again, and again, over his sincere proposals of marriage. To scoff at the gift of the ring that had belonged to his long-dead mother. To take his devotion and treat it as a given, a fact – not something to be nurtured but something to be expected. To push and pull him beyond his limits, to forget he was a vampire and she was his singer. To forget he could read the minds of those around him and suffered daily through the images of her self-destruction and the lustful thoughts of her “best friend.” To realize that in his attempt to save her from his world, he’d forever lost that role as her best friend.

Speaking of which, don’t you find that odd? Critics and reviewers and readers and feminists have condemned Edward’s controlling behavior; have insisted SM created an abhorrent role model with this relationship. No one ever talks about the other message – the one that says the man you marry is not your best friend. I mean, what the fuck? I’ve been married since 1973, and in spite of ups and downs and fights and fury, we’re now 57 and 59 and the only way we got through those years is because we’re each other’s best friends. What the hell else is a marriage based on?

Anyway, back to our subject at hand. Fanfiction has softened Bella because so many readers forgot the bright and accepting young woman from the first book turned into a shrew. In fact, many in this fandom never read the source material. The general rule of thumb is, Edward made his own bed by leaving her, not realizing it all started before that fateful birthday party. The Bella I initially admired refused to accept a birthday gift from Edward but happily accepted one from Jacob. Why? Because Edward was rich and Jacob was not. It made her feel funny taking a gift from her rich soul mate but it was fine to take a gift from the kid whose every thought was how to get her away from Edward and have her for himself.

Oh right, Bella would conveniently forget Edward could read minds. When he told her Newton lusted after her body, she scoffed. When he told her Jacob wanted more than to be her friend, she ignored him. When it came to showing any sensitivity for the feelings of the man she claimed to love she’d check out – he could deal with it but oh my god, – can’t hurt sweet Jacob, can we?

Don’t get me wrong, Jacob started the series as a good guy and a good friend. Yet somewhere along the line he turned into an intolerant and self-absorbed racist who got a free pass from both the author and Bella, regardless of what he did. Had SM kept him as a brotherly friend I’d have adored him. Instead, she turned him into a 16 year old boy who insisted the 18 year old daughter of his father’s BFF was the girl for him – she just didn’t know it.

And we call Edward controlling?

Anyway, just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Starting with the end of New Moon and all through Eclipse, Bella becomes the puppet master, dangling both men. Edward is the one she claims to love while Jacob is the one receives her compassion.

SM gave interviews, claiming Bella was in love with both Jacob and Edward, and during the fateful Eclipse kiss she saw the world of choices before her, and realized she could love them both. She simply loved Edward a little more.

Forgotten was the first book concept of soul mates. Forgotten was the understanding Jacob would imprint at some time in the future. Forgotten was Jacob’s immaturity, Bella’s supposed maturity, and the simple fact these two had nothing in common. SM made him tall, gave him muscles, and called it good. And somewhere in the process, SM turned Bella from the mature and compassionate young woman into a moron who allowed everyone their turn at manipulating her while expecting her vampire boyfriend would stand by and be mature and older than any of them and simply… understand.

*takes a deep breath*

And then Jessiechreesie came along, and wrote Atlas Shrugged.

“Adonis became Atlas, holding up the burden of his shooting star. I never noticed before how he had progressively carried more and more weight. My humanity and his immortality; the call of my blood and his unending thirst; my insecurities and stubbornness; his desperation to keep me safe; my precipitous abandon towards all things dangerous; his sacrifice of his own feelings to protect me; the guilt of his abandonment; the consequences of my relationship with Jacob…every little thing further weighed him down. Today was just the day he finally succumbed to the burden.”

Jessiechreesie looked at the kiss before the battle and realized Edward needed to react the way of any man who had been pushed and pulled. After enduring her insults, and convincing the woman who meant everything to him to him to marry him, the next day she kisses his rival.

And in Jeesie’s world, Edward broke – the burden finally too much Unable to simply get up and leave her as any man might, he took punch after punch after punch and then finally… Bella asks…

[dcs_p]“Will you leave again?”[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]And then the empty stone god, the unbreakable vampire, stumbled and fell. And no one was there to catch him. Alice gasped. Esme panicked. Rosalie glared at me. Carlisle reached for him, but was denied. They were beginning to see the picture clearer, that something far worse than bloodshed and death marred their brother and son.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]Alice and Esme released me as I squirmed to free myself and run to him. I would pick him up as he always had me. But his slight shake of the head stopped me inches behind him. Those bone shattering muscles tightened and shrugged. His head dropped, and his lungs gasped for air. At last, in a tenuous voice, as if he hadn’t used it in ages, he stuttered,[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]“I. Promised.”[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]With that he was gone.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]No longer Titan and god or vampire.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]A broken burning man, injured inside and out, staggered out of my sight.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]That final glimpse told me I never needed to become a vampire to make us equals. I had achieved that today. He bled and fell, he felt pain and agony and suffered from my same insecurities. He needed reassurance and someone to brush back his hair and tell him they would make everything ok. Without a partner he was an overburdened man sinking under the weight of the world.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]It took this most acute betrayal for me to know Edward Cullen.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]He put aside his hopes and wants and inner desires and loved unconditionally. He sacrificed himself time and again for me, whether rightly or wrongly, and loved me even when I threw it back at him. He loved me enough to leave me. He loved me more to come back. He loved me enough to ignore his seething jealousy and let me see a temperamental wolf that he knew to have ulterior motives. He loved me too much to call me on my never-ending ration of crap I dished out. He let me reject him and pull him closer and make ridiculous demands. Even at his lowest and my worst, he resisted his bloodlust, and saved my life again. After all that I still doubted his promises, and he still kept them. I imagined as he made his way back to the house, he was awaiting my arrival to send him away and to explain that I wanted Jacob instead. But he would stay and endure until that time; ever loyal; ever loving.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]Yes. I knew Edward now.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]And I knew myself.[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]I was Bella Swan, the god killer.”[/dcs_p]

In these few paragraphs Jeesie poured forth everything I had been thinking. I was shocked Edward took the constant abuse, embarrassed for him as she rejected him time and time again. Yet this lovely, devoted man accepted whatever injuries Bella was willing to lash him with, because he loved her. That simple. It was pure, unconditional love for a woman who had gone past the point of deserving it.

There were limits to how many times this young woman could claim innocence. There were limits to how many times I, as the reader, was willing to cut her slack. There were limits to how many times this woman who all assumed to be mature beyond her years could torture the man who unconditionally loved her.

If I were Edward, I’d have walked. But Jeesie took it in a different direction. Instead of leaving, because he’d promised he’d never leave her again, he fell apart.

And suddenly, with startling clarity, Isabella Marie Swan, standing in the wreckage of what had once been the man she loved, sees what she had done to him – and understands that developing self-awareness and compassion for the man she claimed she loved might be the only way to help this vampire who’s both emotionally destroyed and yes… physically injured.

If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, you need to. There are few stories I recommend so highly, few so beautifully written. I remember when this was a WIP, and a few reviewers criticized her for the high level of her prose. Go forth and read, and see it as a gift from Jeesie. See Edward return to the maturity we remember from Twilight, and Bella to the girl from Twilight with another couple of years on her. Read the beauty of Jeesie’s tale, where Bella has no longer regresses to Jessica Stanley’s twin, but instead flies with the potential we all saw in that 17 year old girl who’d just moved to Forks, Washington.

Here’s what we had to say before:

mozzer0906 says: What drew me into reading Atlas Shrugged was that it faced something that bothered me in Eclipse head on –Bella was locking lips with Jacob with Edward not too far away from them. In the books Edward was sort of ambivalent about it, which was very out of character for him in my opinion. In this fic, Jeesiecreesie asks the question – what if that moment shattered Edward’s heart the way he shattered Bella’s in New Moon? She answers it perfectly; their responses are real and heartfelt and you are taken on the journey of watching Edward and Bella mature along with their relationship. I also think she writes the camaraderie between the Cullen clan in a fun and lighthearted manner, which helps balance the weight of Edward and Bella trying to find their way to happiness. This fic has completed recently, so go and read the whole thing in one sitting! You will see why this was nominated for a Bellie award.

[dcs_p][/dcs_p]