Chapter 1

"You're so beautiful Bella."

I blushed and cursed my flowing blood under my breath, chances are Edward heard anyway. I hid my head in the crook of his armpit, thankful that he didn't sweat. That wouldn't be the nicest thing in the world.

"Thanks…" I trailed off, not quite knowing what to say to him. I never did know what to say when he complimented me, especially when it was one of my plainest days, or when I had just woken up looking disgusting and possibly very sweaty too, considering all the tossing and turning I did in bed. The nightmares never seemed to leave me alone, the Volturi were nearly always the starring people in them too, which just added to the horridness of the whole thing. However, that night, I had had a good dream. The good dreams always seemed to be full of action too, so I couldn't escape from the sweat to be honest. Man that was one thing I couldn't wait for! The non-odour part of vampire life. This dream featured me on Edward's back as he ran through the woods, the trees blurring into a solid wall on either side of us. We had arrived in a meadow, not any meadow, our meadow. The tossing and turning came when I dreamt of Edward's hands caressing my face as he kissed me. I was always restless when I thought of things like that. Anyway, in my opinion, it shouldn't be me receiving the sweet comments, it was Edward. Edward was the one who was so beautiful and so magical and just so right for me.

"I love you." I told him.

"You too, as always," he replied earnestly. I was delighted to see that he really meant it. It was still ridiculously hard to believe it, he was so perfect and he seemed just too perfect for me.

I sighed and rolled over to look him in the eyes, he didn't meet my gaze as quickly as I'd have liked so I waited patiently until his eyes met mine.

"Yes my love?" He asked.

"I want to go to the meadow."

The meadow. I hadn't been there since Edward had left me. The pain of the memory was rearing up, threatening to ruin the happy moment I was in, laid in Edward's arms on my bed. The image of myself standing at the edge of the trees, simply remembering Edward, remembering his smell, his voice, his touch. I had broken down there and then, collapsing onto the floor as the pain washed over me, dragging me into a dark, black sea of despair and worthlessness. I had a weird montage moment as images of our past time together had run through my head as if they were on a slide. Love, laughs, happiness. Then came the bad parts. Him leaving me, not wanting me, going. I had ambled around for so long that day, refusing to believe that he had left me for what I had thought was forever. I pushed the image from my mind, all of that was in the past now, Edward was never leaving me, and I would never dream of leaving him. There would literally be no point in my life. Fair enough, I wouldn't do anything like try to finish myself off but I'd just be in existence, I would have nothing to live for. My life would just carry on but it wouldn't be interesting. Edward was the person that made my life what it was. And for that, I loved him.

"Oh. The meadow… why?" He didn't seem angry or anything, just a bit surprised as to why I would want to bother going there when it was so out of the way of anywhere. It took a good half a day to get there by normal human's standards. With Edward running, it took about 45 minutes at the most.

"I don't know. It's a sunny day, and you and I both know they don't come around very often. Why not make the best of it?"

He stroked from my cheek down to my jaw bone and smiled at me. "Anything you want Miss Swan. Your wish is my command."

I smiled back at him and proceeded to get out of my bed. I kicked off my quilt and stretched, groaning as I did. I spied my bag of toiletries on my desk so I started to make my way to it.

"Oh no you don't," I heard Edward chuckle and I felt his strong arms grab my waist and pull me back down to sit on his knee. It was uncomfortable to say the least but I didn't care in the slightest. My rock. Any time whatsoever with Edward was fabulous and I wasn't about to give any of it up.

I looked up and my eyes made a scrutinizing trail around his face, of course, I could find no imperfections. As I thought of that, Edward's face neared mine and I felt my heartbeat speed up. No matter how many times I was kissed by him, or even touched, it always still had the same effect on me. I blushed, thinking of how stupid I must seem to Edward until I remembered that he loved me. No reason to be embarrassed, I told myself. I had to tell myself that a lot because although I was technically comfortable with Edward, I felt stupid when I did silly little human things, like dropping things or forgetting about the toast. That kind of thing made me feel self conscious because they're the kind of things that Edward would never do. He would never forget to leave the key under the mat when he went out, so his father could get in if he finished work early. Man! Charlie killed me for that.

I made to reach my lips up to close the last bit of the short, tantalizing distance but realised suddenly that it was 9:30am. Morning breath. Perfect little Mr. Cullen didn't have to worry about such trivial things as morning breath, oh no. He was fresh. I on the other hand, probably smelt like a rotting fish. Not the nicest smell, I was sure.

"Human minute." I said quickly before he had time to argue or ask.

I legged it across the room to my desk, grabbed my bag, a change of clothes and ran out of the room. I wanted to waste as little time as possible away from Edward which was why I was running everywhere. As I passed the cupboard on my way to the bathroom, I flung open the door and pulled a towel out of it.

When I arrived in the bathroom, I let the hot water run out of the shower for a bit, and manically brushed my teeth to give myself fresh breath. I used more mouthwash then what's recommended and wished I hadn't when it started to burn my mouth because it was so strong. I figured that I'd rather smell overwhelmingly minty than like fish. I showered quickly, not bothering to appreciate the calming water like I usually did. Showers were often the most enjoyable part of my day, when I hadn't spent it with Edward of course. All I wanted was to get to the meadow and I wasn't in favour of anything that tried to slow me down. If anyone had got in my way I would have carried on my mission, not caring how much I hurt them. That's how desperate I was to spend my day with my Edward. Calling him my Edward brought back a sharp pang of pain. I used to call Jacob, my Jacob, but of course that was all different now. I couldn't keep hurting him so I insisted on calling him Jacob whenever I thought about him, or talked about him. I couldn't even face to call him Jake anymore, it seemed too friendly, too intimate and whenever I felt like that, I felt like I was betraying Edward. I didn't really talk about him much anyway, especially when I was in the company of Edward because as soon as his name was mentioned, Edward's face would contort. Jealousy? I didn't think so… it just seemed as though he wished he wasn't part of the reason that I refrained from talking to Jacob, so it was more guilt than anything else.

I towelled myself dry and shoved on my underwear, denim jeans and khaki vest top. The sun had decided to show itself, yes, but it was weaving in and out of the clouds and when it was hiding behind them, it was chilly. It didn't look warm enough to venture into getting my milk bottle legs out. I wished I tanned. It's what everyone was surprised about when I moved to Forks, the fact that I looked half-albino because of my otherworldly pale skin. Edward would know all about that. He would also know about things like sparkling in the sun and being unbelievably rich. I swear to God, that boy must have more money than the whole of the USA! There were random stacks of it piled throughout the Cullens' household. I wouldn't ever dream of taking any though unless I really needed it. Even though they had more money than sense, it still felt wrong. It was still stealing after all and I wouldn't want to steal from them. The Cullens' were too lovely. I left the bathroom in a hurry, tripping over the door as I went. "Bollocks!" I yelled as I went hurtling through the air. I wasn't one to swear, but sometimes the time came to swear at the top of your voice, even if it was just to piss off your neighbours. Enough of the swearing already.

"BELLA?" I heard Edward exclaim as he heard my exclamation of 'Bollocks' reverberate through the house. He would have come to my rescue if I hadn't landed so far near my bedroom door after flying through the air.

"Going to dry my hair!" I called to Edward as I hurried past my bedroom to the stairs that would lead me downstairs. I couldn't be bothered to explain to him that I'm such a klutz that I tripped, ever so slightly, over the corner of the door and flew for about 20 minutes through the air, for about 3 miles, to land outside my bedroom door and shout bollocks at the end of my adventure. Yep, couldn't be bothered in the slightest. I carried on naturally downstairs into the living room. I got out the hairdryer and turned to find Edward sitting in a chair, looking as if he had been there for longer than a fraction of a second… which he totally hadn't. He was doing quite well not to laugh at my recent accident. Boys.

"Surprise surprise Edward." I said jokingly, rolling my eyes at him.

He just smiled serenely at me, as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary.

I dried my hair then pulled it back into a loose ponytail to keep it out of my face as we would probably be running there.

"Can we run there?" Edward asked me when I had turned the hairdryer off.

I laughed internally at the fact that I had just been thinking about the same thing, yet Edward couldn't read my mind.

"Of course." I loved perching on Edward's back as he sped through the woods, dodging trees as if they weren't even there. I still couldn't grasp how he did it; even though he'd told me many times that it was easy, instinctual even. It seemed as though when he ran, everything was slowed down and he could judge exactly when to tilt to the right or dodge to the left so that neither of us were whacked full on in our faces. That would kill.

I debated for a matter of a few seconds on what to wear on my feet. I decided on some converse, they were casual and it wasn't like I was going to a party. We set off a few minutes later and we walked for about 10 minutes off the trail in the woods before Edward started to run, to ensure we wouldn't startle any hikers who knew nothing about the mythical world of vampires, which was entirely real. We weren't the kind of people to want to bring on a heart attack on a random, innocent person. The wind whipped through my hair and I felt a thrill ripple through my body and I whispered into Edward's ear, "Faster." Edward laughed and pushed himself faster with a ferocious want to please me. No matter how fast he ran, he never seemed to get tired out, his breathing was as even as it had been before we set off and he was still going as fast as before. I rested my chin on his shoulder but my head didn't bounce up and down. It was stationary as Edward was so graceful that it seemed as if his legs were like a platform we were standing on, instead of actually being attached to Edward's magnificent body. I wished I could hear what he could surely hear as we travelled, the clicking of ants below us, the whisper of the leaves way up above us, everything basically. I was jealous, yes. But with Edward, it was hard not to be.

"Will I be as fast as you when I'm a vampire? And will I find it as easy as you do?" I asked him, wanting to know as much as I could find out before I actually morphed into a vampire.

"No one knows Bella. Everyone's different so, it's possible that you could be faster but then again, I'm pretty fast," he winked at me.

We ran for another 20 minutes until I started to see a break in the trees and a stream of sunshine was filtering through it. Another 30 seconds, and Edward was stood at the edge of a beautiful, perfectly round meadow. I could hear a faint bubble of a creek somewhere to the East of me and I smiled at how nice this felt. It didn't bring back the horrific memory of the time I came by myself to this wonderful place. It was trying to force it's way through the bubble that seemed to protect me whenever Edward was near but it couldn't quite pierce my bubble of happiness, it was too thick and too vibrant so have any weak points or holes. I released my grasp of Edward's neck and slid down his back to stand next to him, grabbing his hand so as not to be separated from him, and we marvelled at the beauty of the meadow together.