He hadn't known such pain existed, or how sharply it could pierce him. He had always thought himself somewhat invincible.

Arrogant? Yes, maybe, but the truth. He was a vampire after all. Little could kill him. In fact, he knew truly of only one sure method: the Volturi.

But now it seemed he'd found something else. This could kill him. This horrible pain that was worse than anything he had ever endured before. He would have rather been plagued by the thirst he'd felt on the first day he had met her again rather than withstand such a crushing hurt.

And then the look in her eyes changed, and Edward Cullen knew a much greater pain. One that could have very well brought him to his knees. It was the look of confusion, mingled with the beginnings of a realization that she was being betrayed.

He nearly shuddered. Nearly. If he'd had a soul, it would have been torn in half by that simple, wide-eyed look of horrid realization.

I love you, his mind whispered, but he would not say it.

He would not. If she heard it, she may have believed that he would stay, and he could not do that. No matter how much he wanted to.

He had already placed her in enough danger. She would be better off without him. Though he wanted to wince, he kept his hauntingly perfect face somber, maybe even touching cold. Edward could not leave here letting her believe there was a chance, even the smallest, that they could be together again.

He had never had such a strong desire to reach out, to touch her, to pull her against him. He wanted to breathe in her scent, to know that it would be there whenever he needed her most. The pain turned his eyes harsh, turned his lips into a thin line.

The scene at his house had been the last straw, the last little shove he'd needed to make up his mind. She had nearly been killed. By his own family. He was glad that he didn't need to breathe, because it felt like he could not. It was becoming harder and harder every moment to convince himself to turn away, to keep to his plan to distance himself from her as far away as possible.

Never had someone looked like such a perfect god of utter sorrow than Edward did just then, standing in the woods, speaking words he didn't mean, and leaving the only person who had ever meant so much to him that he would die if she died, weep if she weeped, love if she loved, and hate if she hated. His stood in the dreary light of the forest determinedly shoving a rift between himself and this incredibly unique human, and though his features appeared aloof, cool, removed from the situation even, there was something deep down in his eyes that screamed otherwise.

The words had passed through his lips, though he was unsure of how he'd managed to speak them. His goodbye had been spoken, his reasons kept simple. He had to get away now. He had to leave before this idiot façade crumbled under his desire to never, ever hurt Bella Swan.

He had sworn to protect her though, and, like he had always known it would, her biggest threat had become being with him. This had to be what was right.

Edward turned and left her standing in the woods, turned and felt that if he'd had a heart, it would have lay throbbing and bleeding on the forest floor beside her. He didn't look back. He couldn't. If he had, he might have never left. He made it out of the forest, the look of composure still somehow tightly plastered onto his face, and then he ran. He ran before he could change his mind.

Bella, Bella, Bella, the name kept whispering over and over in his mind, and he knew it would never leave him. There was no life outside of Bella for him. There never had been, and there never would be.

Just as inevitably, Edward felt as if he was sealing his own fate.