When she looked back, really looked back far into the recesses of her human mind she could never unearth or recall any individual, male or female whom she had wanted like Edward Cullen.

Years of meeting men, the seduction of a smile, the inevitable satisfaction of getting her own way had never been tinged with the hint of grief that his memory brought. She had stood at many graveyards, the ravages of time affecting everyone in the end. Else, the occasional accident. She had felt, sadness certainly, a little wistful perhaps but that was all.

It was all due to the differences she had imagined. How could a vampire possibly feel real love for a human? It didn't make sense, they were not the same, it would have been like trying to fit a truckload of clay into a car.

Or so she had thought.

When she saw them, dancing at the wedding, eyes locked together she had felt a twinge. Emotion came slowly usually, to be savoured in an unchanging life. Jealously, an ugly human word it was not. That merely confined it to a romantic climate. She was not jealous.

Envy yes, vast and destructive. That was it, the kind that killed Abel, that pulled down fortresses. It was interesting, fascinating almost.

She would do nothing.

Like a rock motionless against the tide she would settle. She knew that it had all been hopeless, always known. Perhaps once she had hoped- he would settle, a resting place. But never a mate. For her it would have been enough. Expecting grand romance was useless.

But still there they were.

She would go home with her sisters and in time, she would forget. It ached certainly but it would not mar her. To have all seen with her own eyes was enough to satisfy her.

And to see him whole, entirely consumed by another, ablaze in beauty.

It was worth it.