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Bella POV

xxx

Edward, Edward, Edward…

Are these going to my final thoughts? I hope not. Death is not something I'm afraid of – it's inevitable – but it's not something I'm looking forward to, either. Even when Edward – what's the point of not saying his name anymore? – left, even after months of shallow pain, I never once considered death to be an option to stop the hurt. Though I was only a ghost of a person, I didn't want to die.

I suppose coming here was a suicide attempt.

Wasn't Edward the one that told me there are more dangerous things out there – more dangerous than him? I had practically given myself over to the things that lurked in the corners and shadows of the woods.

Edward, Edward, Edward…

And just my luck that Laurent is the more dangerous thing. He crouches, ready to spring, his lethal, venom-coated teeth glinting even without the sun showing. He's ready to kill. And all I can do is chant my love – my soul mate, my other half, my angel's – name in my head and cower in my boots.

Edward, I love you.

I sigh and watch Laurent tense. Edward…Edward… I ball my fists so tightly that my nails bite into my skin, leaving a mark. Edward!

"Dammit, Bella! You can't die!" Ah. The hallucination is back. His magical voice rings through my thoughts and I smile.

Edward, don't worry. I think it's for the better.

"No!" it roars back at me.

"I love you."

I didn't realize I said that out loud. My eyes flutter open – when did they close? – and I find Laurent growling. He's closer than he was. I take an involuntary step backward…he inches forward. Adrenaline bursts through my body, but I ignore it. Why run? He'd catch up with me faster than I could say "ow."

Edward.

My final thoughts. The last things to pass through my head…consciously, at least. I wish there is someway to stop Laurent from attacking, but maybe death is better for me.

"No, Bella!" My hallucination. I smiled feebly, watching Laurent carefully, trying to predict his attack. My heart is beating so fast…I'm sure it sounded like running footsteps to vampire ears.

I love you so much, Edward.

"Bella!"

Laurent jumps toward me, bearing his teeth. There's no time to duck, no time to scream, no time to think coherently anymore. His teeth dig into my neck, and I wither back in pain, my voice lost. I was as good as dead.

Wait…why wasn't I dead? Didn't he promise me something quick, painless? Fire abruptly explodes inside me, flowing through my veins. Burning my body. Where did it come from?! It hurts so bad…

Maybe this was Hell. That would explain the blaze, the pain, the fact that Edward isn't here…

xxx

Three years I have been haunted by this memory. I wish – oh, I wish – I could call it a dream. I wish daily that I'll wake up from it, curled in my soft bed, nestled in…Edwards'…arms. Safe. Terrified, maybe, but safe. That, of course will never happen again, no matter how many shooting stars I see.

Three years. Three years. It shouldn't seem like a long time to someone such as me, but without your other half, your soul mate, three little years seem like an endless space.

Three years I have been testing my self control, trying so hard to drink only animal blood.

Three years I have been without him.

And three years I have been visiting their empty house.

Honestly, I didn't know why I was here…it only brought back the painful memories – the ones I try so hard to block – and create new, uncomfortable ones. It's inevitable, the pain from the memories, but I always somehow end up here. But now, the hole in my chest that never fully healed – and never really would, I suppose – ached so much harder. It was so intense, frankly. I could literally feel the hole breaking open, splintering at the seams, gaping in the middle. Harsh wounds like this cluttered my insides – the organs weren't used, so there was space – and throbbed for the strong embrace I've yearned for, for three years.

Three years.

I sighed, and stepped out from the cover of the trees, giving me full view of the Cullen house. It was empty – eerily so. That could be in part from the empty woods, though…why was the wood empty? The bright, white siding of the house seemed to illuminate slightly against the velvet darkness of the night, and the windows were tainted black…they looked as if they were painted from the inside with horribly black paint. It was so dark…but my vampire eyes, of course, saw through the night, through the black, and into the twitching empty. And my vampire ears, so attuned to the little sounds, could hear the screaming that the empty seemed to throw at me. My vampire nose could smell the empty scent…the long since used computers, belongings that were left behind, the dusty interior. Small scents, but so strong, it seemed. And, of course, the soft, lingering scent, that I smelled faintly…a vampire scent. A Cullen scent. Edward's scent; that was most prominent to me.

I bit my lip and walked half way to the door…what makes this time any different from my other visits? I would walk half way then turn around, vowing never again to come back. The walls in my mind – the walls that I used to block the blurry human memories and the hollow pain from them – always wanted to thrash their way down, devour my mind with the terrible images by this time. I didn't matter how distant the memories were. It didn't matter, really.

But, oddly, my foot seemed to make an involuntarily step forward. Strange…

And another step. Confused, I wrapped my arms across my chest as the pain became more noticeable to me. It doesn't matter that I am a vampire, with rock hard skin, and a heart that doesn't beat anymore. The hole is still there.

The lasting scent of the Cullen's became stronger as I took another step.

I wasn't sure if I – me, I – was telling my brain to make the agonizingly slow walk to the door, or if my feet were betraying me, taunting me with the memories that were board line with wanting to explode.

Another step. My foot cracked a dead leaf, and the sound echoed through the woods. Still empty? Usually, the animals could sense that I wasn't normal…that I was a danger to them, like humans could sense that I should be left alone. But there were always some herds that didn't seem to…care? But not this time. There was nothing. Not even a heartbeat.

Another step. I snapped a twig this time, on purpose, trying to coax a heartbeat. It was almost as if the animals had disappeared entirely. Or was running from something infinitely more dangerous…

I gasped as I thought that. The only thing "scarier" that I could image would be…those bears. Those wolves. I wasn't sure. But they couldn't be evil, could they? They saved me when I destined to die.

Another step. Another tug at my heart, another pull my memories. Another crash at the wall. My mind seemed to have something up its sleeve. An unconscious thing. It rolled with the images of the wolf-bear creatures, the possibilities of why the wood was so dead – there was a reason – and why, suddenly, the scent of the Cullen's was so powerful that I wouldn't even have a chance to spare a thought to an "unconscious thing."

And another step – the last step before I would have to open the door. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and extended my arm. My hand found the cold doorknob, and I twisted it, hoping that it would be locked. But of course it wasn't. No one knew where the Cullen's lived, and besides, they were vampires. Who was gonna threaten them? I squeezed my eyes shut more, and pushed the door open.

I let the tension settle before opening my eyes again. The house was the same as always. I didn't know why I was excepting to see Edward sitting at his piano, to see Carlisle reading a book or to see Jasper and Emmett making another ridiculous bet. I had put too much hope in my visit.

I shut the door gently and gazed at the interior of the house, switching on the light.

Three years since I had been here.

Nothing had changed – the open living room was still flushed a bright white, the quiet stars were still visible because of the giant window wall that was still there. Edward's piano still sat silently in the corner of the room, and the stairs still seemed to beckon me up to his room, like so many times before.

I sighed, and walked through the living room, inhaling the wonderful scent of the Cullen's. It smelled so inviting, so warm. You can't really describe such a scent…

Trailing my arm along the white walls, I made a circle around the room, purposely leaving a large margin between the piano and me. Already, I could almost hear the sweet sound that filled the house when he played and the large swell of emotion that built up in me when the melody was my lullaby.

Was I becoming paranoid? Obsessive? I felt like everything of my past was a buzz in my ears, a haze in front of my eyes. I was still gripping on too tight, hoping with a shred of hope that maybe, maybe, he would come back. But it's been three years – surly he doesn't care anymore. No, he never cared. I shouldn't have wanted him so bad in the first place…

I shook the thoughts, and stopped in the middle of the room. I wasn't much up to going upstairs – I was afraid of the pain that was inevitable at this point. I surveyed the big room once more, my eyes resting on the piano.

Sigh.

Slowly, I made my way over to it, exaggerating the drama. The sleek exterior of it shined with the moon and the lights, but the keys looked old and scarred, from years of overuse. I swept my hand over the top of it, sparking a cloud of dust. I smiled, and blew, and another little puff of dirt flew up. I chuckled lightly, but stopped abruptly. When was the last time I…laughed? Why was I laughing now? At dust? In the Cullen's mansion?

I laughed harder, gripping the edge of the piano for support. The whole situation was so ironic to me for some obscene reason. And funny. Still holding on the piano, I shuffled to the bench and sat down gracefully. I'm sure if tears were a possible thing for me right now, they would have been falling. Tears of joy. Of laughter. Of happiness.

Finally, the cackles subsided, but a goofy grin remained etched in my face. How had my mood gone from mourning to joyful? I don't know. I don't care, really. It was a nice break from the numbness I usually felt.

I placed my hands on the keys, trying to mimic how he did it, and pressed down. Instead of the sweet song that usually flowed from the piano, a harsh chord aroused. I cringed back from it, stopping the noise, and repositioned my fingers. This time, I only pressed down on one key – middle C. The note filled the silence, and then died away. Feeling slightly accomplished, I pressed the key again, stood up, and listened to the note until it the room fell quiet again.

There wasn't much else here for me – there never was. In all the three years I've came here, I've never gained anything, just a bigger hole of pain. But until now, until the laughter and the strange high I felt, I hadn't realized it. I had thought there was something for me, like I would come and Edward would be eagerly waiting for me.

It finally stuck.

Edward was gone and he wasn't coming back. I had to get over myself. Three years I had wallowed in this misery that I called a life, three years I had been more of a ghost than anything. But no more would I be like that. No more would I come here, no more would I hope dejectedly that Edward would be here.

I squared my shoulders, standing straight, and swept past the piano slowly. I let my fingers shadow across the surface however, and another rouse of dust appeared. I smiled, and started to walk again.

The little sound of a paper fluttering to the ground made me stop.

I turned slowly, looking at the ground. There, just a few feet ahead of me, lay a folded piece of paper. I bit my lip, and bent to pick it up. It was old, the crease lines disfiguring the paper, and had an odd, musty smell to it. Carefully, I unfolded it, afraid that it might rip, and smoothed it out on top of piano.

I cringed back in shock as my mind registered Edward's perfect manuscript staring back at me. It was a sheet of music, with the title of "Bella." I gasped, holding in a sob, and traced my fingers lightly over the surface. The paper was rigid, indents coming from the other side of it. Like there was something written on the back. Hastily, I flipped it, tearing a piece of the bottom off as I did. I threw the small piece to floor, listening as it fluttered quietly, and then took a deep breath.

There was note written on the back. A note. A note written in Edward's handwriting, a note that started with the heading "Dear Bella."

I didn't stop the shudders that were erupting from me as I read slowly through the lines of Edward's note.

Dear Bella.

Goodbye, love.

I don't intend on you finding this, and I don't intend on you reading this. But, in the off chance that you do, I want you to have this – your lullaby.

I don't want to leave you, but I must, Bella. I'm no good for you. I impose such a danger. Your life is infinitely more important than mine. I can't put it in jeopardy, like I have been. Believe me, Bella, this is much harder for me than it is for you. You'll move on, have a good life, start a family. You'll forget about me, and that's what I want you to do.

But I'll never forget you, Bella. Never.

That's where it ended. If there was more, it was ripped off in my haste to turn the sheet over a moment ago. I looked down, trying to find the part that I ripped off. It had fallen at my feet, but I could see there was more written on it.

I love you, Bella. I always will.

Clutching the piece to my chest, I grabbed Edward's note and ran.

I wasn't sure where I was going, but I knew it had to be far from Forks, far the memories. Far from Edward.

My revelation from earlier came back to me as I dodged a tree – "Edward was gone and he wasn't coming back. I had to get over myself."

Edward was gone, and he wasn't coming back. I did need to get over it.

But all the hope of forgetting him shattered as a familiar figure broke through the trees. I halted, shoving the note in my pocket, and shielded myself using the power I had gotten from becoming a vampire.

"Bella," he breathed, his voice carrying in the wind.

I smiled warily, and took a step forward.

I finally knew why the wood had been so quiet earlier – I wasn't the only vampire prowling around.

xxx

Gah! Am I mean? I'm sorry. I didn't want to end it on a cliff...but they're so fun! Yay! Anyway, can you guess who it is?

Okay. Well, actually, I have no idea who it is. Hm. I think I should figure that out, no? Hehe!

Well, review, please. They make me happy. :)