i. at first
he wonders why she won't leave him alone, why she's always at his side with her cutting, well-aimed words, and he can't believe he used to think she was beautiful when she was still whole. During Bella, he never took note of the anomaly of her, the way she was what she had no birthright to be, the swell of her breasts and the sheen of her hair in the moonlight when they phased.
So he gnashes his teeth right back at her and doesn't feel guilty anymore when he phases and sees her, thinking: bitter harpy, bitch, always ruining everything,
ii. flashing back
(because she saw his form trembling under the weaknesses she spat at him without feeling guilty, sensed the trees blur past him and the ground drop beneath him as he tried to outrun everything. He returned a month later, too weary to speak, and she was unrelenting as Bella's heart.)
iii. eventually
he figures out from the flashes of her mind he feels when they run and from the way the acid in her voice can't hide its trembling that that's exactly why she stays. Because his pain is hers, her rejected love is entwined with his, and she loves to batter them both with it, as if to remind themselves of how things are and never will be. He pushes her away with fangs, claws, whatever remark will hurt the most—if there's one thing good about her, it's that he never has to be careful with Leah.
But she is relentless. Eventually they can bear each other's presence, lay on the ground and look at the stars without wanting to tear each other to shreds, and it's the kind of kinsmanship he'll never admit to because in too many ways they are exactly the same.
iv. one day
he remembers all these things, and there are no secrets between them—there can't be—she knows, and it makes sense for them to be drawn to each other for solace, isn't it?
So he kisses her, and she is fire beneath the moon, and though they are not enough there is so much comfort in being inadequate together.