I could see him now. And I could see that he could not see me.
It was really him, no hallucination this time.
Edward stood, motionless as a statue, just a few feet from the mouth of the alley. His eyes were closed, the rings underneath them deep purple, his arms relaxed at his sides, his palms turned forward. His expression was very peaceful, like he was dreaming pleasant things. The marble skin of his chest was bare - there was a small pile of white fabric at his feet. The light reflecting from the pavement of the square gleamed dimly from his skin. He was beautiful, just as I remembered.
The clock tolled, and he took a large stride toward the light.
"No!" I screamed. "Edward, look at me!" My scream echoed in my head as I willed my legs to move faster.
Edward wasn't listening. He smiled very slightly. He raised his foot to take the step that would put him directly in the path of the sun.
I slammed into him so hard that the force would have hurled me to the ground if his arms hadn't caught me and held me up. It knocked my breath out of me and snapped my head back.
His dark eyes opened slowly as the clock tolled again.
He looked down at me with quiet surprise.
"Amazing," he said, his exquisite voice full of wonder, slightly amused. "Carlisle was right."
"Edward," I tried to gasp, but my voice had no sound. "You've got to get back into the shadows. You have to move!"
He seemed bemused. His hand brushed softly against my cheek. He didn't appear to notice that I was trying to force him back. I could have been pushing against the alley walls for all the progress I was making. The clock tolled, but he didn't react.
"I can't believe how quick it was. I didn't feel a thing - they're very good," he mused, closing his eyes again and pressing his lips against my hair. His voice was like honey and velvet, the way I remembered it. My mind unconsciously made comparisons to another for some reason I couldn't help.
"Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty," he murmured, and I recognized the line spoken by Romeo in the tomb. The clock boomed out its final chime.
The hole in my chest should have closed by now. Just the feeling of being back in his arms should have been enough. But, though I was trying very hard to will it differently, it wasn't closed. There was still a hole.
I shook my head, trying to rid it of the horrible feeling that didn't belong. "I'm not dead," I gasped desperately. "And neither are you! Please Edward, we have to move. They can't be far away!"
I struggled in his arms, and his brow furrowed in confusion.
"What was that?" he asked politely.
"We're not dead, not yet! But we have to get out of here before the Volturi -"
Comprehension flickered on his face as I spoke. Before I could finish, he suddenly yanked me away from the edge of the shadows, spinning me effortlessly so that my back was tight against the brick wall, and his back was to me as he faced away into the alley. His arms spread wide, protectively, in front of me. I couldn't see the expression on his face. I decided I didn't want to. It would be angry, or sad, the only emotions that fit.
Angry I was here, put in the path of danger once again, sad that he wasn't in whatever place came after this life with me, where things would have been perfect, where I would have been perfect. I'd ruined everything. Again. It was like all my attempts at loving had only resulted in exactly the opposite: hurting. There was a growing part of me that just wanted this ongoing cycle to stop.
Slowly, two dark shapes detached themselves from the shadows at the end of the alley.
"Greetings, gentlemen," Edward's voice was calm and pleasant, on the surface. "I don't think I'll be requiring your services today. I would appreciate it very much, however, if you would send my thanks to your masters."
"Shall we take this conversation to a more appropriate venue?" a smooth voice whispered menacingly.
"I don't believe that will be necessary." Edward's voice was harder now. "I know your instructions, Felix. I haven't broken any rules."
"Felix merely meant to point out the proximity of the sun," the other shadow said in a soothing tone. They were both concealed within smoky gray cloaks that reached to the ground and undulated in the wind. "Let us seek better cover."
"I'll be right behind you," Edward said dryly. "Bella, why don't you go back to the square and enjoy the rest of the festival?"
"No, bring the girl," the first shadow said, somehow injecting a leer into his whisper.
"I don't think so." The pretense of civility disappeared. Edward's voice was flat and icy. His weight shifted infinitesimally, and I could see that he was preparing to fight if it came to that.
"No." I mouthed the word, but apparently sound came with it.
"Shh," he murmured stiffly, only for me.
"Felix," the second, more reasonable shadow cautioned. "Not here."
He turned to Edward. "Aro would simply like to speak with you again, if you have decided not to force our hand after all."
"Certainly," Edward agreed. '"But the girl doesn't need to have any part in this."
The second vampire hesitated, scrutinizing what he could see of me from behind Edward. "As you wish," he finally said. "But it will be Aro's choice as to whether or not she'll need to be involved in the future. If Aro wants her, we'll send Demetri, understand that."
"I do understand." Edward assured, his voice caught slightly by a grimace.
Silence. He waited motionlessly, making sure the conversation had been closed.
Then, in slow motion it seemed, he turned to me. He looked at me, eyes deep with thought and emotion. I stared back, pleading. "Don't go," I whispered pathetically. It was all I could manage to say.
Edward took two even steps forward and placed his hands on my shoulders.
"Bella…" he sighed, a weary hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "You're alive…you're alive, Bella," He put one of his hands up to the side of my face and stroked my hair gently with his thumb.
He shut his eyes, and I watched as his expression shifted. This was the first time I had a chance to really look at him. The planes of his face were shadowy and sunken-looking. His lips were pale, his hair was roughed as if he'd run his hands through it over and over; his body was slightly hunched, his posture diminished in confidence. This is what I'd done to him? I asked myself first.
But I had to correct myself, unwillingly. No, this is what he'd done to himself, trying to cope with what he'd done to me. I shuddered.
Without opening his eyes, he went on very seriously, "I am so sorry…everything I said to you…the words I used, the way I used them…" He stopped himself for a moment as the pain flickered over his face. When he had composed himself to his satisfaction, he reopened his eyes. They instantly became distressed after seeing whatever my face looked like.
"You have to know it was all in an effort to let you have a life which I cannot give you! Happiness, safety, opportunities...Bella, I can't take these things away from you. I can't let myself. I thought I could, before, but that was selfish of me,"
"I don't care if you were selfish," I blurted out helplessly.
"Bella…I – I just can't bring myself to give you anything but what's best for you,"
He stopped again, leaning his head in closer to mine. "I am not what is best for you."
I was shaking from head to toe. My vision blurred, but I fought back against the tears. There was no stopping what I knew this was coming to. I could see that. Even if I could find a voice to shout, "Yes, you are!" to scream it at him over and over again, it would be no good.Edward would not come back into my life. He wouldn't. Any attempt on my part would fail.
Edward went on in a perfect voice, "I thought you were dead, Bella…I couldn't bare to think that because of me, in my attempt to give you something – it had been taken away…there was only one thing left for me to do. I – I couldn't live with myself."
I saw my hand move up to his face, though I couldn't feel myself doing it. Everything was out of sync.
What was happening? Why was this happening? How could it be that what I thought the rest of my life was going to revolve around was going to end, just like that? It went against everything. Everything that seemed right.
There was a miniscule part of me that kept surfacing and going under, over and over in the confusion. It didn't go against that part. It should have, but it didn't.
Edward's gaze was unfaltering. So this was it. He wouldn't tolerate living with the fact that my love for him would, in the end, kill me. The truth of it was pushing past every memory and touch and word and piercing me right in the center of the hole in my chest. It caused one, solitary surge of pain to run through me, throbbing, pulsing, as I realized that Edward would not be the one to close the hole and stop the pain.
"Bella, I'm so sorry." he said softly.
"But this is what's best for you…" he finished. The smallest of smiles returned. And then he was folding over me, embracing me like it was the very first and very last time he ever would. He didn't need to continue talking, because I knew exactly what the verdict would be.
I was alive, so therefore, we couldn't be.
I buried my head deep into his shoulder and closed my eyes. His bare skin was so cold. I'd grown so used to the warmth of another's; the memories where I'd encountered it flickered through my head without warning. And for some reason, the throbbing pain in my chest lessened for just one moment, and then started to throb again as my hand traveled once through his hair, over his jaw, down his neck.
When Edward started to pull back and I had no strength to resist.
I didn't want to open my eyes, because I knew that nothing would have changed. So I didn't open my eyes. Either it was the sudden inability to control my muscles, or the small bit of sense left in me, telling me not to open them, not to attach a picture to what was already shaping up to be the worst memory of my existence.
"Aro is waiting." that voice said from somewhere down the alley.
In the last moment, things moved slowly, surreally, again. I felt his lips touch my forehead gently, and then disappear, and though I could not hear the footsteps, I knew he would be gone when I finally willed my eyes to open again.
"Goodbye," I breathed.
"Goodbye." a velvet voice replied.