"I would die if he wanted me to."
The most frightening thought to cross my mind in the entire seventeen years of my life; death, relinquishing my hold on what I now realize to be a very short existence with full knowledge and will of my actions.
I had always wondered how I would die; of course like every other teen, it was a fleeting thought, nothing to dwell on. I wondered if I would have children and if their children would have children when I left this earth, I wondered what my husband would look like, I wondered if he would miss me when I was gone. Eventually, following my train of thought I would have covered the manner, reason and time of my death.
But that was the extent of it.
I was a teenager, I had too much life to live and there was no time to think about death. I never realized how quickly that could change, almost at once: a split second, the spin of a wheel, and the skid of tires on a road slick with rain…
It all changed, and the sober reality of death hit me in the face, suffocating me. Yet there he was, there just as suddenly as my life shifted and cracked. It was like seeing for the first time that was the only possible way to describe it because I had to have been blind before that.
After that moment, death was never a question of 'how', or 'why' but merely 'when'. After that moment my life was his to protect, his to nurture or his to snuff out if he so wished. I promised myself that when the time came I would not complain, I would not beg, I would not question it; as strange as it was, I trusted him.
"I would die if he needed me to."
I never doubted the time would come; even as everything around me seemed to be looking up, the danger lurked in the shadows where my happiness somehow did not reach, waiting, watching, hungry. That was when I made the promise, not to his face of course because I knew he wouldn't hear it even if I wasn't who he truly wanted, who he truly needed. I made that promise to myself, though I suppose now that it was as good as telling him…
I would die because I loved him in a way I didn't think was possible, in a way I was sure he could not love me, in a way I knew he couldn't love me.
If you had asked me what I would do in a life and death situation a month ago, I would have ignored you and pondered about it privately when no one could see the way my face twisted in thought. It was a stupid, ungrounded question at the time but now, there was ground for it, now I was sure I knew what my answer would be. Call it morbid, but I would choose death without a second thought if it was he who did me in.
After all, my life was his and his alone, the very least I could do was allow him to do with it as he pleased. If somehow in my useless and almost pathetic human weakness I could repay him I would leap at the very opportunity.
That's when I decided, on a Friday night in the darkness of my room as sleep evaded me I promised myself that I would willingly die if it made him happy. If he was happy, my life was inconsequential.
On that Friday night, while my uncle slept soundly down the hall, I decided that I would give my existence if it meant Edward Cullen's happiness.
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