OH STAR, NO OTHER LOVE COMPARES TO MINE

THE SEQUEL TO STAY WHILE I PLAY THE PIANO IN THE DARK FOR YOU.

AUTHOR: Zakhariahz

GENRE: Romance/Angst

CHARACTERS: Edward/Bella

RATED: M

SUMMARY: She's done it; she's left him and she's finally trying to move on with her life but Edward refuses to let go. He chases and she runs. He just won't give up. How will this one play out?

CHAPTER ONE: 'THE AFTER'

Edward Masen

I sighed when I could no longer hear my car. With slow, steady hands, I closed the wooden lid over the ivory keys, looking at my fingers where they lay. She had so much faith in my fingers, so much faith in me.

"Oh, Bells, what have I done to you?" 'Love me', she'd always say and I'd believe her because I loved her smile and the way her face lit up like Christmas morning. I didn't feel sorry for myself, strangely enough, and my eyes were still bone dry and on fire. Now as I got up from the cushioned bench and walked over to a china cabinet that was packed, instead, with photoframes of our years together, I wondered how Bella had ended up with me, wondered why she had chosen me over Charlie and more importantly, why she had bothered to stay with me this long. My eyes raked warily over the photos and I, who had faultless memory, recalled every detail of each frozen escapade, thinking that maybe I should've smiled like I meant it – like I wanted to be there with her. With furrowed brows, my eyes breezed over the frames in search of one in particular.

"Ah, found it!" My smile was wide and childishly triumphant. In this photo, there was only a view of my head in her lap but it was by far my fondest memory of us. One of my eyes were closed, the eyebrow over the other half-opened one cocked high up on my forehead and my teeth were flashed in a hearty laugh. My hair shone in the sunlight, looking even brighter against her pale, bare legs. It had been the day she had convinced me to comb out my hair and it was the day I had convinced her to wear shorts. It was also the day we had had our first, proper date. We had been young and the word had been at our feet but she had been sixteen and I had been sweet for her. Who cared about the world?

Flashback

"Comb my hair?" I asked the mirror in disbelief, grimacing slightly at my damp waves, "I mean, I haven't touched my hair with a comb since I was a little kid." The phone rang besides my bed then.

Grumbling slightly, I answered, "Masen."

"Swan?"

"Excuse me?"

"You said your last name, so I said mine as well," she answered innocently, her voice on the brink of laughter. 'Jump,' I thought, 'Jump. Let me hear that sweet laugh.'

"Oh!" I laughed, shaking my head and rolling my eyes even though she couldn't see. "There better had be a purpose to this call miss," I teased, "I was just about to molest my hair with the instrument of said molestation that you bought for me."

"You'll look less scruffy and handsome," she said pointedly.

"I thought you liked me scruffy," I whispered à voix bass into the receiver. There was a silence which could only mean she was blushing. "I'm going to go get ready, sweet lips, don't forget those shorts."

"You haven't tasted my lips yet, Edward," she countered sexily. I rolled my head to kill a moan.

"Tonight, Bella, tonight."

"Promise?" 'Sixteen, sixteen, sixteen,' I reminded myself, 'Not on the first date.'

"Promise." 'Idiot.'

"Bye, Edward." She hung up before I could respond in anyway. Frowning at the receiver, I put it back down on the cradle and picked up the comb.

Surprisingly it wasn't too bad

She was waiting in front of her house, standing, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She looked… it just knocked the wind out of me. I'd seen her in that white cotton – peasant? – blouse before as well as those basket-heeled, white sandals but her brand new, denim short-shorts made her look like a woman; not quite my twenty-six summers but definitely not sixteen, even though her long, brown curls hung in two messy plaits. Bella bounded over to the car, flinging open the door before I had the chance to get out to do it for her.

"Hey, Edward," she said cheerily, beaming as she fastened her seatbelt.

"Hey, yourself, kid." I grinned easily at her, thinking in some dominant niche in my mind, 'This would be easy.'

The frame fell from my trembling fingers and smashes upon hitting the floor, flying in all directions. Clumsily, I fell to the floor and unearthed the picture from the bed of broken glass and plastic, my hands, inevitably, cut on the shards. I went back to the piano, propping the photo on the keys, putting some blood on them in the process.

Flashback

"The carnival!" Bella squealed in delight, "You've brought me to the carnival!"

I laughed quietly. "Yes, I thought you'd like it and I guess I was right."

"Oh my God! Edward, I love you!" She threw herself at me, half-choking me in her excitement.

I ruffled her pretty hair, jokingly, I said, "Not yet.", and she blushed profusely for a moment before grabbing my arm to haul me off to the ticket booth. There were these special hand-bands that allowed you to go on all of the rides as many times as you liked at forty dollars apiece, so I purchased those, laughing at her expression as I tied it around her thin wrist.

"Let's go!" Bella hauled me through every ride. Twice. She had so much energy, all nicely wrapped, until she let it out.

"Okay! Enough!" I cried, plopping my ass down unceremoniously on the picnic bench. With a small pout, she sat next to me, dropping her little, drawstring purse behind me on the table. Smoothly, I lay my head in her lap and propped my legs up on the bit of bench left. Bella stroked my hair absentmindedly before saying, "Your hair looks nicer like this."

"Sure sure." My eyes closed, my breathing evening out. I heard rummaging.

"You're cute for an old dude." I cocked and eyebrow, opening an eye slightly to look at her, laughing loudly. The flash of a Polaroid camera blinded me momentarily.

"Oh, Star…" I startled, turning sharply and landing brutally on the floor. Pain pulsed at my knees and the heel of my hand. My head snapped around to see the radio playing one of her Paramore CDs. I got up. I had landed oddly on my left knee so with each step, I winced. Wince, wince, wince…my knee, my knee, my knee; it hurt… Wince, wince, wince…me, me, me; I hurt…

"I won't let you fall away from me." I froze with my hand outstretched. "You will never fade."

My hand dropped like deadweight. "Sorry, Bella, but you aren't getting away from me that easily."

Searing pain or no, I ran to that phone like my life depended on the sucker.

Isabella Swan

I had cried.

It had been all that I had done since I had left that house. I had cried when I had called my brother, Jake, from Edward's phone – stupid-ass man still had never learnt the concept of 'mobile phone'. I had cried when I had pulled up in front of Jake's house. I had cried myself to sleep in Jake's long, skinny arms. The tears just hadn't stopped coming; my storm refused to let up and the turbulence it had caused in my heart – my soul – had me torn up. 'Completely blenderized' Jake called it.

Now, as I emptied out his glove box – the one place he kept anything in this car – to dump his shit, I bawled like a baby and screamed-bloody-murder. I clung to the little thing and missed him with an insurmountably amount of longing.

Flashback

I wanted to cry when he pulled up in front of my house around midnight. "I had a great time," I sighed instead.

"Why are you sounding like that, little girl?" he asked, pleasantly surprised, his pale, angular face bright in the car's interior. "Don't look so tragic. It was our first but it isn't our last. I would very much like to see you again."

Like the little kid I was, I squealed and launched myself over the gear stick and into his lap. "Really?"

"Yes, really." He rubbed his nose to mine in a sweet, Eskimo kiss. "I had a lot of fun tonight." I'd never seen eyes so green before. It was like they were too green to be real. They were bright and beautiful and laughed jovially at me. Then they grew dark and heated, his voice dropping. "I'm going to kiss you now, Bella. Let's see just how sweet those red-cherry lips are."

"I've never been kissed," I confessed, dropping my gaze to his neck, shivers still making me squirm. Edward coaxed my face back up to his, rubbing my leg tenderly with his free hand. He kissed me chastely.

"Let me kiss you the way I've been aching to, please." His strong voice was earnest and breathy, his lips hovering in anticipation at the corner of my mouth.

"Kiss me, Edward. Kiss me and stop aching." Edward's lips were a soft pressure that pushed mine apart to dance with his, and then his slick tongue slid past my teeth to meet mine. He kissed me with tongue and teeth, fight and fire, pulling on my swelling lips with his teeth, pulling my legs to have me closer in the small space. My elbow connected with the door and I pulled away from him, reflexively. Edward growled and pulled me back, cupping my face roughly with one hand and wrapping the other around me, squeezing the swell of my hip. His fire dimmed and his kisses became gentle before he pulled away I entirety.

I was a child who was naïve and did not know but he was a man who knew everything and I wanted him to teach me. In my innocence, I pulled out the white satin ribbon that held my left plait and tucked it into the breast pocket of his jacket. He smiled gently, taking my face between his long hands. My eyes closed contentedly as my face lay cradles in the warmth of his palms. My lips flattened for a small while under his.

I could barely believe that I held the ribbon as well as the fact that he kept it. With that self-same ribbon, I pulled back my hair and composed myself. What I had given away in innocence and infatuation, I took back in negativity but despite, everything, at the back of my mind I hoped I could give it back to him.

"Bella?" Jake had come out of the house, half-dressed and shaking. Poor kid looked scared out of his wits. I felt ashamed of myself and it was, admittedly, a comforting chance form chasm-like depression.

"I love him," I sniffed, turning away from him. Maybe I hoped it was enough for another time or maybe I just needed an excuse for being so stupid.

"I know," Jake sighed, "and I love you, sis." Oh, Jake, so beautifully naïve and only eighteen, what I would've given to take the fear out of your voice.

"I know, Jake, just give me some time to make it enough." 'Give me time to believe it's enough.'