I tried to cover my shame. He took my hands with his and pressed them lightly against his chest. His eyes looked deep down into mine. The pain inside me piqued. I could see just how much he'd lost fighting for us. His eyes revealed everything. His interior. The dark abyss that had swallowed him. No strength. No awareness. He seemed deader than dead. I continued to bleed inside. The closer I felt him the more the pain grew. He released me, but his misery lingered, weighing down on me, tearing me apart.
"Don't cry," he said, even before I started to. His words triggered it. My eyes filled with crimson tears that flowed over the edges and trickled down my nose. I was not use to it. Crying blood felt as strange as having my heart blown to a million little pieces. "You see. Now you've messed up your face." I couldn't care any less about that. I was bleeding an ocean on the inside. A little spill was presumed.
"Edward," I started in a soft, cracked whisper. "Why?" I knew the answer. It was precisely it what had me discharging a torrent of bloody tears. He had to leave for the sake of his family. Wishing things would change proofed to be an exercise in futility. If the Volturi found out about me, and of the information I was made aware of, they would probably kill the Cullens, and me, if they could.
"Addison, you know why."
"Nobody has found out about us so far," I stammered desperately.
"The more our feelings grow, the more dangerous it becomes."
"But I'm already one of you -"
He stopped me before I finished a sentence he knew I knew was all wrong. "No. You're not. You're different. You are far more powerful than any vampire of my kind." He looked away. "Addison, you were bitten by a different kind of vampire." I could see the revulsion in his eyes. A different kind of vampire? Yes. A whole other breed. The kind that shed blood in the place of tears. The kind with sharp fangs. The ruthless kind. "My entire family will be implicated. Not to mention the risk we're facing just by staying here."
"I don't understand."
"Whoever bit you will come to claim you. When he realizes you've mixed with my kind, he'll come after us."
He said with severe words. His voice was usually a whisper. Every word a secret. Every inflation carefully crafted. As well as his face, soft, unblemished, bloodless. Unlike mine, which had been contorted by the stride of my misery into a blanched, lifeless mask. At least through his you could see the soul within, a fraction of human inside of him. I had no soul. It'd been drained, along with the rest of me. All of me, except that part that was connected to Edward. That part was still very me. I could not feel for Edward what I felt for any human or vampire. I was slowly losing touch with the only part of me that remained. If Edward left, he'd take that with him. He'd take me, all of me.
"You're going to have to do this on your own." The undertone returned to him faster than I could wipe the bloody mess from my face. "Fight the urge to be what you're not." He meant the monster that even he feared. "I had to do it on my own too, practically." That was a lie. He had Carisle. "You'll find the strength from within to endure the worst part." He moved closer. His hands, which had for two years irritated my skin with their perpetual coolness, felt warm against my colder skin as he slid them up my arms and onto my shoulders. For a minute I forgot we were no both vampire. I imagined him human. "Eventually," his susurration brought reality swarming back into my life, "you'll find the strength to live without me."
I'm not sure what he meant. He knew it was impossible for me to live without him. He knew that he was an indelible part of me since the day he found me by my temporary grave, bitten. I woke up, after having clawed my way out of seven-feet under, and recognized him. I woke up still loving him, still needing him, still utterly incapable of living without him. "No," I started with a soft cry, when Rosalie's truculent voice penetrated my miserable existence.
"He's here, Edward," she said, eyeing me with disgust. I could smell it on her too, the unlimited emanation I couldn't smell off of Edward and he couldn't smell off of me.
"I'll be there in a minute," he replied, hands still on me.
"Who's here?" I asked, ignoring the fowl sent that lingered even after she had scurried off.
He sighed. "Godric."
I did not need a crash-course on vampire history to know who Godric was. Ever since I was bitten, I've been hearing his voice in my head. He was the one who stopped me from killing an eight-year old. He was my conscience now. Godric was Edward's definition of strength. So, basically, I needed him too, but not as badly, and as irrevocably.