Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer
This begins the night that Bella, Edward, and Alice return from Italy. Edward has carried Bella into her room, where she falls asleep.
EPOV
I snuck back into Bella's room after Charlie's fit at me, which ended in my getting kicked out of the house, and almost gunfire, on Charlie's part. Bella would not be very happy about that reaction…
The peaceful look on Bella's face snapped me out of my internal ramblings. I sat down on the foot of her bed, watching her sleep.
Bella made me feel inhumanly human. I could almost feel the adrenaline course through my veins when I sifted through the thoughts of every teenage boy that looked at her. No, I wasn't just another lovesick puppy. Bella and I had agreed on that a long time. I was a lovesick puppy that lusted after her body, and half of that wasn't what you would normally think it meant.
I was a danger to Bella with every second I was with her. That was why I left. And yet…
Living without Bella was like holding my breath. No. It was like my new-found human self holding their breath while swimming underwater. My world, blurry and distorted without Bella. Without air.
Bella was the air I breathed, the world I enjoyed living my existence in. Holding her in my lungs was necessary, but painful. My body ached for more, protested when I tried to put distance between us.
I knew I'd have to let her go eventually, but I didn't. I knew I'd need to resurface again. I knew once I broke the surface of the water I'd never be able go back again. And I didn't want that for Bella. She deserved better than me. She deserved a life, to live, without me…
And so I didn't go back, as much as I wanted to. But every second I spent without a new breath, my lungs ached more and more. It was just going to get more painful. I couldn't live without her, but she could surely live without me. Or at least—
That's what I had thought.
The images in Charlie's mind were more disturbing than I had ever thought possible. I had ignored the images my impossibly mangled corpse, covered in blood that could never be mine. I just cast those out of my mind. Instead, I focused on the ones with Bella in them.
It was painfully obvious that leaving Bella hadn't helped either of us. Charlie's terrifying memories made my heart break and shrivel. Surely a monster that had done this to an angel could never have a heart. My sweet, angelic, perfect, wonderful, amazing Bella— dead. An empty shell for months.
And dear Bella forgave me. She forgave me for leaving her. She forgave me for being a monster. A sinful, murderous, blood-thirsty monster that nearly killed her several times. A depressed, heart-less, pathetic monster that broke her heart and was the reason for many of her near-deaths.
And I looked down at my angel, and I became selfish. Incredibly selfish. I wanted Bella forever, as long as fate could—would— give us.
Then the moonlight reflected on Bella's pale skin, making it look like marble. Her eyes fluttered and darted in their sockets, and she sighed happily, muttering my name lovingly. My heart broke as I realized she only had so much time. What was the lifetime of a human to the lifetime of a vampire? A century to an eternity. An ant to a colony.
My selfish side kicked into high gear. I wanted her forever. She insisted me that she wanted an insane murderer of a vampire forever. I would do anything to make her happy.
That meant staying, no matter what danger it would put her in.
That meant biting her, no matter how much she deserved to stay human.
I was torn, between making her happy and making me happy. Well, a part of me happy.
Vampires are selfish creatures, I reasoned, it would be in my nature to bite Bella, in more ways than one.
But I had also had my share of selfish moments. No need to add one more thing to that list.
This would be for Bella as much as it would be for me.
I couldn't put Bella through all that pain. I shuddered at the thought of her screaming…
This would make her happy.
And then I broke.
A/N: Hope nothing was disappointing! I've been wanting to write this for a while, now, but I kept pushing the date back. Sorry about this, if you read my other story and were itching to read this one. I just want to make it clear that I'm not going to stop writing my otehr story, but just that I might make the progress a bit slow because of this one. A rough promise being I'll update each one every couple of days, and I'll try to let you know if that changes in anyway, or if I know I won't be updating for a while (i.e. vacation, test prep, other events, stuff like that).
Thanks!
Kylie
P.S. Not all chapters are going to be this short.