Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended. Twilight and all the characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. Lucky woman.
AN: Okay, so this is my first attempt at a fanfic! Scary stuff. I have so many ideas, but thought I would start off slow and simple to get into it. It's nothing special, so don't expect much. Just let me know what you think. Peace and all that shiznit, yo! (I don't really talk like that at all, it's just the nerves speaking).
Chapter 1: The Letter
She won't look at me. She hardly speaks to me. So I have no choice but to slip the letter in her bag while she is in the living room speaking to my sister, Alice.
I'm glad that their relationship didn't suffer because of me and how I treated her. That is about the only thing that I managed to not screw up. I know this because Alice lets me know regularly just how messed up Bella is. She knows it's my fault, too. Knows that I am the reason Bella has trust issues and relationship issues and self esteem issues and so many fucking issues. The worst part is that Bella doesn't hold me responsible at all, because she doesn't know.
She doesn't know that I know. I know I broke her, I know that this insecurity and this inability she has to be in a relationship is all my doing. A part of me is grateful for that, that she hasn't been able to be with anyone longer than a few short months. I am grateful that she hasn't been able to find happiness with someone, how disgusting does that make me?
But I love her. I am so fucking in love with her. She is everything I have ever longed for, everything I have ever felt was missing from my life. She is everything.
God, I need to make her see. I need her to understand.
Isabella,
You say I am not to blame. You say that I never knew, so I could never have done anything about it, but that's not true. I knew... I saw it.
I watched you fall for me. I saw the looks you gave me, heavy with longing and want and hope. So much hope. I keep telling myself that I was only 21, young and so god damn stupid. I have been telling myself that I didn't ever have it in me to take that longing away from you. But if I am really being honest, it is because I am selfish and cruel. Selfish, because I wanted you to feel that way about me. I liked the devotion, the unconditional adoration. I craved it. What makes me cruel is that I never planned to do anything about it.
I had no intention of ever catching you.
So I watched you fall. I watched you crash and hurt and struggle with the pain when I gave you cold shoulders, when I threw my new relationship in your face. I enjoyed seeing that pain too. Because without me realising it, you had ruined me for anyone else. I had no idea, but there would never be another that could hold my attention like you. I wanted you so much, too much, more than what is healthy. You were only 15, and I hated you for it. But mostly, I hated myself. For all of it.
I still do.
I am so, so very sorry. Please talk to me, I miss you.
Edward.
Bella lay in bed, fist clenched around the ragged letter that she must have a hundred times over the past two months. And all she can think right now is "five years". She spent five years being in love with a boy who hardly thought about her in return. And it's been five years since she decided to move on and forget about Edward Cullen. Five years since she has been pretending that he is nothing more than her best friend's brother, a mere existence in her life. At 24 years old, the last thing she needed was a reminder of the feelings she had developed when she was 14 years old, feelings that have taken up almost half of her life. She hated him for having so much control over her.
And Bella was finally determined to let him know just how much.
