As always, the characters and world belong to Stephenie Meyer, and all errors belong to me.

Prologue

It has been three weeks since we left Forks, and my son has still not spoken a single word. The profound sadness that filled his eyes when he first returned from his walk with Bella had been heart wrenching, and had haunted me until I realized that it only got worse with each passing day. His crushing melancholy seemed to saturate his darkening irises, spreading like ink through the midnight of his eyes until it overflowed and radiated outward from his body, infecting anyone who found themselves in his wake. He slowly retreated from civilization, closing himself from the world, from me, abandoning his cloak of humanity and slumping, still as stone and just as icy, in the darkest corners of the house where no one dared intrude upon him.

But now, with a cavity in my chest to match Edward's, carved from each day of his agony and my own, I can no longer permit myself to cower in silence and attempt to escape his pain. I have let fear dictate my inaction for far too long, and there is something that I need to say to him. It would make him angry, fiercely so. Venom pools in my mouth involuntarily, anticipating his reaction and preparing to defend myself from a physical attack. He wouldn't – would he? I am not so sure, but as I move toward him, I am careful to make no sound, leaving nothing but my thoughts exposed and hoping that they would reach him and convey the depth of my hurt and love and longing. When I reach him, he is facing me, but his eyes are as vacant as the night that filters through the window into the dark room.

Edward.

He does not answer, but turns away from me to face the window, his face pressing so close to the glass that I cannot see his expression reflected off it. But his hands are now clenched into fists, and he trembles slightly.

Edward, please. Talk to me.

Tentatively, I reach out to my son and place one hand on his shoulder to steady him. He flinches away, and a different kind of pain spasms through my body. I take my arm back, restraining it with my other hand.

"I'm sorry," Edward apologizes, his voice barely audible. "Please, leave me alone."

Edward, I begin tentatively, unsure how exactly to begin. He must have detected my reticence, my unease, for he actually looked at me with an expression that resembled curiosity.

"Yes?"

The fact that he answered me is such a surprise to me that I slip, so that instead of uttering any of the hundred ways I'd practiced initiating this conversation, I think – Edward, son, Bella doesn't deserve you. You're better than that – you deserve someone who actually loves you.

From his blank expression, I can see that he no more contemplated my response than I had been able to foresee his. "What?" he gasps.

I work to suppress the thousand thoughts that have plagued me over the past weeks and that now threaten to resurface; I didn't want to anger him, to chase him away and precipitate our separation. I work my mind to an empty calm before filling it with just one thought – She let you leave.

"Just one of my century of failures," he replies, hanging his head in shame.

It wasn't your fault.

He instantly becomes livid. "I hurt her, Carlisle. Over and over. Each step I took, I was putting her in danger. I couldn't be the man she needed me to be. So don't you dare tell me it isn't my fault. Not after she got hurt, not after she was endangered, and definitely not after she believed me when I said I didn't love her."

"Wait, what?" I say out loud, incredulous. You told her you didn't love her?

"It was the only way to make her let me go."

Pain flashes across his face once more at the recollection, but I barely register it, as confusion and disbelief war inside my mind in a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts. Edward had told Bella that he didn't love her?

"What else was I supposed to do?" he countered. "It was the best way for her – the only way for her to move on. I could see that she wasn't going to let go any other way. I had no choice. If she thought I'd moved on, then she might – then she will – move on as well."

Then she will move on as well. His words sweep me back a hundred years, and Esme's teenage face resurfaces in my mind. It had been a single day at the hospital, and yet it had been enough to forge a connection so deep as to be unbreakable by a wedding and fifteen years. Had I not also left her in an ill-fated and futile attempt at saving her? Had I not convinced myself that she would move on and lead a happy life, because that was the only way I could bear to leave?

I have vastly undermined Edward's strength, his resolve. I had been convinced that if it had been so difficult for me after meeting my mate for a few hours, it must be impossible for my son who knew Bella for a full year. Driven by my foolishness, I never entertained the possibility that he would be strong enough to tell such a monstrous lie. Edward continues to speak, responding to my tempestuous thoughts and sending them spinning through my own tortuous past. "I told her I wasn't good for her" – I gently press Esme's shoulders into the hospital bed – "but she wouldn't listen" – but she struggles to sit up, and when she realizes the futility of her struggles, looks me straight in the eye – "I could see it in her eyes, that she wouldn't let me go" – I see in her eyes the same curiosity and admiration as in so many humans, but also something I have never seen before: a burning sincerity, a purity that does not belong in a world so dark – "she was so beautiful, so perfect, so vulnerable and yet so determined" – in those eyes I see my future, a future so full and blossoming for me but so bleak for her – "I had to do it, Carlisle" – and so I tell myself that I have to do it, that I have to tell myself that she would have a better life without me – "I had to tell her I didn't love her" – because, convinced of this fact, I can bear to tear my gaze away from hers – "because this alone gave me the strength to leave" – and disappear from her life.

"I didn't think that she would believe me so quickly," Edward cried. How long had it taken me to convince Esme that I loved her? Months, if not years. I understood perfectly now what I couldn't begin to fathom a hundred years back. How was I supposed to believe that Esme, a creature so gentle, so good, so beautiful, could ever think herself inferior to me? Me, who had abandoned her, who had left her to a disastrous marriage and a close encounter with death. But now, looking at my son, I understand exactly why Bella swallowed his lie so readily. Despite myself, I am relieved. For three weeks, I had thought that Bella simply let my son go, that she didn't love him enough to want him to stay. Now that I know the truth, I know that there is a solution.

Edward, son. I tell him gently. It is not up to you to decide Bella's future.

"But I have to do everything to protect her. It's called love."

No, son. I correct him. It's called arrogance.

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