I'd began to formulate my leaving shortly after the accident. I saw what my being in Bella's life could do to her. Her birthday party had been the wake up call. I was finally made aware of just how dangerous it was. There was no other way. It had to be done. We had a family meeting and it was agreed that the best thing to do was just leave. Alice had been the lone dissenter. I couldn't even look at her as she pleaded with me to change my mind.

In the days leading up to our leaving, I kept pulling myself further and further away from Bella. Preparing her and myself for the day I would leave. If she noticed the chilly distance I was placing between us, she didn't let me know. It's not like I had the luxury of reading her mind.

When a vampire needs to flee, it doesn't take long. Carlisle and Esme wrapped things up in Forks quickly. Carlisle had been offered a fantastic job opportunity in Los Angeles. That was our story anyway. On the day I decided to leave, everyone had already left. If Bella tried to come to the house after this day, there would be no one there.

I could sense the anticipation coming from her as soon as I asked her if she would come on a walk with me. I didn't take her far, just a few steps inside the forest that skirted her lawn. I leaned up against a tree and stared at her, trying to get my bearings. I took less than ten minutes to tell Bella I didn't want her. Ten minutes to break her heart. Ten minutes to break mine. I hated myself for the lies that came out of my mouth and seemed to lash across her face, causing her pain. I had made the lies cruel, but perhaps even crueler was that she believed those lies. I had heard her chase after me. It was useless of her to try to follow me, but it took everything I had not to stop and go back for her.

"It will be as if I never existed." I had told her shortly before I left her there. I ran back to her house, intent to destroy the small amount of proof she had that I had ever been in her life. I took her photos from her scrapbook and my CD. I held them in my hands for a brief moment, contemplating their destruction when I second guessed myself and ripped up a floorboard and placed them there, under her bed. I inhaled her scent deeply, taking it deep inside me. A memory I would keep always. I ran downstairs and wrote a note to Charlie, imitating Bella's handwriting, saying that she was in the woods. I had left her there alone, I wanted someone to know where she was. And without looking back, I got into my car and left. The small town of Forks was just a passing blur outside my car window as I drove away from the one person I loved the most and toward a future I was sure held no joy for me

If you wait for me then I'll come for you
Although I've traveled far
I always hold a place for you in my heart
If you think of me If you miss me once in awhile
Then I'll return to you
I'll return and fill that space in your heart
Remembering
Your touch
Your kiss
Your warm embrace
I'll find my way back to you
If you'll be waiting
If you dream of me like I dream of you
In a place that's warm and dark
In a place where I can feel the beating of your heart

I will find my way back to you.

---Fifty-seven years later--

The chemical,sterile smell of hospitals always overwhelmed my sensitive, heightened senses. I could never fully understand how Carlisle managed to put up with it on a daily basis. This place was an assault on our finely tuned senses. The constant sounds of machines beeping and going off, the grating noises of squeaky wheels from wheelchairs and gurneys rang in my ear irritating them. I wouldn't even be here if it were not for one person.

Bella.

I'd been shadowing her every movement since I left Forks. I had watched from dark sidelines as she graduated high school and then college. I had been there when she was married. I sat in a back pew, close enough to the door to make a hasty exit if I needed it. I had to hear for myself her promise to love another man till death do them part. I had flinched as her crystal clear voice answered loudly, " I do.".

What came next hurt the most. I watched sadly as Bella gave her husband two children. I would hide and watch her with them at places like the park. She never seemed more alive then she was chasing after her children. It was this happiness that I had hoped she would find after I left her that day in the forest like a coward.

So the years went on. I subjected myself to this hell of spying on her. Every smile she gave her husband, every time she bent time to scoop up one of her children in an enormous bear hug, I shrank further and further from who I was. I didn't even know who I was anymore, I certainly couldn't recognize the person I had become.

Bella went on to live her life and I was stuck in a seemingly drawn out hell. Even as she aged, I still found myself drawn to her. She had been so worried about her growing old while I stayed seventeen forever while we were together. I wanted to tell her that it wouldn't have mattered…that she had worried over nothing but the same, dark thought always crept back into my head. It didn't matter, at least to her, she had moved on with someone who would grow old with her.

I watched as her children grew up, and in turn, made their own life. Bella was now surrounded by five grand-children. I watched as she spoiled her grand-children in ways she hadn't with her own children. Ice cream before dinner, excessive toys. But when she chased after them, whether it was in her backyard or at the park, she still had that same youthful enjoyment she had all those years ago with her own kids.

She lost her husband when he was seventy-four and I watched as Bella grieved. I understood why she was desperate with her sadness. By my own admission, he had been a fine husband and father. I had met him once under a false business pretense, just to see how he measured up. No one would ever be perfect for Bella in my eyes, but he came close. So many times over that year, I wanted to comfort her. But I was a coward.

I watched silently as a once vital, glowing and thriving Bella slowly grieved herself into a bad decline of horrid health. She gave up and stopped taking care of herself. It was text book Bella to take on her suffering and internalize it. I would watch as her children tried to bring her back. The sight of her grandchildren couldn't even bring her back from this dark place she had lead herself. It was as if Bella had become a zombie, her omnipresent cloud of grief hanging over every part of, dripping down to cast itself around her and never releasing her from its hold on her.

I stood idly by and watched as she picked up infection after infection, her body and soul gradually beat down after each bout with the flu or pneumonia. How I wanted to go to her side and try to bring her back. But I had told her it would be as if I had never existed. I wasn't even sure she remembered me except for patches of fuzzy human memories that wore down with the passing of time. Surely, as new memories cropped up, her older ones got pushed further and further back. I shared this with her in the sense that my human memories were next to nothing. Hazy, cloudy things that I couldn't focus on, just out of my reach. But a vampire remembers everything about their new lives. They never forget. That she should feel so utterly alone that she would just give up...I had many regrets, and my betrayal of Bella was behind every single one.

And it's why I am at the hospital. This is my last chance to tell Bella, finally, that I am a liar, a coward and that I will always love her and have always loved her.

I stopped right outside her closed door. I could hear the soft murmurs of her families voices softly mingling together on the other side. I could see in their minds the sorrow and also faint yet happy memories of Bella as a mom and grandma. Human memories were so weak, it was a pity that something so special and wonderful as a cherished memory could fade and eventually disappear. And finally, I could Bella in their minds as she was now. Rail-thin,lying in a hospital bed with various tubes and wires covering her arms, chest, nose and mouth. If there was any punishment in the world, seeing her like this was it. I could've prevented all this. But I was a coward who ran…

I knew from their thoughts she was all but gone. She seemed to be hanging on by just the thinnest of threads. And because I was a coward, I had waited till this very moment to tell her I love her and that I had lied. I steeled myself and talked myself out of just leaving, that she wouldn't even know I had been there. This would be my last chance to tell her and I wasn't going to run this time. I opened the door and stepped into the room full of Bella's children and grand-children. And my eyes fell on Bella and where my useless, dead heart was, it grew very heavy.

I'll find my way back to you
Please say you'll be waiting
Together again
It would feel so good to be
In your arms
Where all my journeys end
If you can make a promise If it's one that you can keep, I vow to come for you
If you wait for me and say you'll hold
A place for me in your heart.

I've found my way back to you Bella.

I'd thought this out. I just couldn't step into into Bella's hospital room as Edward Cullen. Even though her family knew nothing of me, how could I explain why a seventeen year old wanted to see an...old lady I wasn't supposed to know. I hated to think of her as that and I could mentally picture a youthful Bella in my mind sticking her tongue out as if to tell me so. Thanks to Carlisle, I was able to procure his white lab coat. With my dress shirt and tie to accompany it and slicking back my hair, I looked a bit older. I could pass for a very young resident. It wasn't an exact lie as I pretended to be a doctor. I did have a few medical degrees under my belt. This lie would hurt no one and it would allow a few minutes alone with Bella.

I cast a quick glance about the room. Everyone sat slumped, defeated, waiting for the end. They had barely looked up at me when I entered the room. Bella was asleep under a mound of blankets, her arms on top at her sides and her face barely peeked out from under the pile of blankets. Her features had sharpened over the years, but her creamy complexion was barely riddled with the wrinkles that accompany age. Her forehead showed them the most and was a witness to her true age, the lines were furrowed deeply here from deep thoughts and worry. Her long brown hair had been replaced many years ago with a silver that complemented her cool, clear skin. I still saw the Bella I knew, she was still there. There are some things that even the ravages of time cannot change. Her scent was still as dangerous to me as always, unchanged over the years. I felt a dull burn in my throat. Even at the end, she was determined to drive me crazy.

"I'm Dr. Masen," I told nobody in particular. No one glanced up at me, their unbearable sadness weighed them down. I wondered if Bella could feel this? This heavy atmosphere of supreme loss as they watched their beloved mother and grandmother slip further and further away from them?

"Do you mind if you stepped out for just a moment so that I may examine Mrs. Steele?" I had to force myself to say her last name. Some deep unconscious voice screamed at me that she should've been Mrs. Cullen. Should've been. Could've been. Would've been. But she wasn't. And she was dying right in front of me. All because I left her that day, alone to comfort herself after I had lashed at her with my lies. I was supposed to have been her greatest protector and I left her there to fend for herself. I thought I was saving her. Her weak,aged and very mortal heart suggested otherwise.

Dejected, too sad and too used to doctors and nurses breezing in and checking on Bella to ask why a doctor they had never seen before wanted to examine her, they got up and filed out of the room. Giving in to my pretense as a doctor, I casually walked over and gently picked up her thin arm in a guise to check her intravenous needle sites. She was so thin, her arm felt nothing more than a feather in my hands. When the last of them had left the room, I quickly closed the door and flew back to her bedside. I leaned over and placed my cool lips on her forehead and pressed a kiss there. No change in her heart rate, no change in her breathing patterns. Now I was the one feeling dejected. I had been so sure that no matter how long we had been apart, a single touch would re-ignite our inexplicable bond that had seemed to run so deep between us.

When you live forever, you don't have to think of death. Our kind is usually removed from any situation that would allow us to watch as those we loved died. After our change, we were not safe to go back to those we loved. The bloodlust was part of it, but also our physical changes. To keep our secret, we cut ourselves off from those we had once loved. Whether it was a faked death or something as simple as just disappearing, we cut off all ties. Some of us watch our loved ones from the dark shadows like I had with Bella, but most were content to never look back, like Rosalie. After she had exacted her revenge against those who had wronged her, she never wanted to see anyone, even secretly from her old life. I had never had to give much thought to how much this was bound to hurt the ones you left behind. My own parents died before me, I had no one left behind to miss me.

But I was watching my beloved Bella slip further away from me. I could tell by her faint heartbeat, her hours were limited. This heaviness that I now felt overtook every single part of my body making it unbearable. If I could feel pain, this would be it. I would carry this with me for a long time, it may never fade. It was another sentence on my already lengthy punishment.

I sat on the edge of her bed and clasped her thin hand in mine and my whole body silently shuddered with a tear-less cry. "I'm so sorry Bella. I told you a most heinous lie, because I was a coward. I loved you too much. I only wanted you to have the happiness I thought you deserved." My words came out choked, disjointed.

"I will always love you. If there is any part of you that can still hear me, know that. I loved you then, I love you now and I will always love you. I put you alone above everything else." I leaned down once more to kiss her, this time on her cheek, letting her scent overwhelm me.

"Goodbye, my love. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back..." I pushed the thought out of my mind. You can't change what happened in the past. Not even a vampire could do that. I let go of her hand and pulled myself away from her bed. For as long as I lived, I would never forget this memory. It would always be as clear to me in one hundred years, even one thousand years from now as it was right at this moment. Another form of punishment for me I suppose.

I turned to walk to the door and as I reached to open it, it swung open and slammed right into my face. The wood splintered off of my nose and the accompanying boom made the whole door shake. A very visible hole was now in the door from where it had met my nose. I didn't feel a thing of course, but the door took a beating. A light, airy voice came from the other side as she pushed her way in, seemingly not noticing the violent explosion the door had just taken in her hurry to get in.

"I don't care if he is a doctor, I'm going in to see her, I've been at college and work all day. No one is keeping me from her. Our time is almost over with her!"

I was wiping the splinters off my nose when she entered the room, shoving the door wide open. I jumped back to escape the door again when my eyes met her face. Standing in the doorway, was Bella. A perfect carbon copy, except this Bella flashed me a set of light jade green eyes and she was taller by a good two inches.

I tried to reach into her brain, to search her thoughts, but found it was as closed to me as much as Bella's mind had been.

"Emilia, I'm sure your grandmother knows you're here, no need to yell." A balding man said as he passed through the door. I could see he was her father and Bella's son from his thoughts. The rest of the family shuffled in behind him and took their places in the room. Waiting for Bella to die. I could see that much in their heads. The room held its collective breath, a heavy weight filled the room.

But not hers. She perched on the edge of Bella's bed and took her thin hand gingerly into her own.