How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness every where!
Bella. Bella Swan. Isabella Marie Swan.
I could not escape her. I thought, perhaps, with my kind's tendency to become easily distracted that this would keep me from thinking of her so often. But no. That would never be the case - I knew that now. However, I could not erase what I had already done. I could not, under any circumstances, return to Bella. I had to let her live her life without any interruptions, without any danger...without me.
And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...
What a sick, masochistic lion.
How had I let my selfishness override my love for Bella? To truly love her - which I do - I should have been able to give her a normal human life sooner than I had. I had drawn out this...sordid dream of mine for far too long. If right now, Bella was miserable, that was my fault alone. Nothing she had ever done would be involved in the reason why I left. Oh, never.
Edward, this is getting silly.
I couldn't take this much longer. Alice had continuously tracked down my location and pestered me into returning to Bella since I'd left Forks. Nothing she could say would ever change my mind. How could I bind Bella to a life of immortality? Because if I went back to Forks, I knew Bella would beg for that. And I just couldn't give it to her. Not my precious Bella.
She's depressed. I know you've told me not to interfere or look, but it just happens. It's become second nature to me now.
Alice waited for my reply. She didn't receive one.
She's crying in bed every night, Edward. She looks so frail. If you just went back to -
"SHUT UP, ALICE!"
I heard nothing but silence from both the interior and exterior of my body. Finally.