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Summary: Like any good mother, Esme listens. Bella has things she can't say to Edward. Mild New Moon spoilers.
Just Forever
***
"You're hurt," Esme observed quietly. Bella nodded, but didn't say anything for a long while. The silence grew oppressive, until she just blurted it out.
"It just shows that he doesn't love me as much as I love him."
Bella slapped a hand over her mouth, not having meant to say that.
"Go on, dear," Esme said gently. She needed to get this off of her chest. Hesitantly, Bella continued, after a pause.
"He… If Edward were human, I'd be happy with a human lifetime. But he's not. It's just impossible. So I don't want to settle for that. Is forever asking too much? I mean, doesn't he want me that long? Then again, why would he? I'm just plain Bella, nothing special at all, and he's so… well, not perfect, but… close enough to it. He left me once. How long until he comes to his senses again? I… love is selfish, Esme. It doesn't think of anything but itself. So maybe Edward felt bad when he thought he'd driven me to suicide – that's Edward, right? Of course he'd go off and do that. But he would never have come back to me on his own, when I could barely breathe without him. Esme, they were going to send me to a mental hospital! I could barely function. And then…
I started doing crazy things, dangerous things. Riding motorcycles; that sort of stuff that's even more dangerous to someone as accident prone as me. It wasn't so I could commit suicide, I'd made a promise, but… when I did those things, I could hear his voice again, telling me to stop. I went close to a transforming werewolf just to hear his voice again! I couldn't live without him. It was the only way I could be close to him at all. I had to find our meadow, just to make sure I hadn't dreamed the whole thing. Without the pictures and other things… I couldn't be sure that he wasn't just in my imagination. I had to know that he had really been with me.
So what happens in sixty or so years, when I'm old and grey and he's still perfect? He'll leave, that's what, and I won't have the strength… I don't have the strength, Esme, to go on without him again. What use is "saving my soul" when it won't save me? He's more in love with my humanity than he is with me, and that… that hurts. He wants me human more than he wants me. So can you see why I'm hurt? He doesn't want me… not forever, at least. He doesn't want to be with me forever. Love is selfish, and he's… selfless."
"Nothing I say can convince you otherwise, dear, can it?" Esme asked sadly.
"No," Bella replied just as sadly. "No, you really can't."