Roxane: His face is like yours, burning with spirit and imagination. He is proud and noble and young and fearless and beautiful-
Cyrano: Beautiful?
Roxane: Yes. What's wrong?
Cyrano: With me? Nothing. It's only... only... This fatal wound." Act 2, pg. 60

Chapter 1: Walls

The song of the birds rang in my ears even at night. It was mating season. How many of them were singing alone into the night? How many of those poor creatures were destined to never find peace with their perfect match?

´Just a few minutes more,´ I repeated again in my mind as the moon began to peak over the tropical trees.

Just a few minutes more, and I would have another precious moment with my Bella.

Of course, the anticipation was tainted, for it wasn´t Bella in the flesh I would lay eyes upon, but rather a ghost of her, a singular photograph I had taken away at the last minute before my departure from her life. I know I could have taken so many more from the stack she had given me to mail to her mother, but aside from stealing, it didn´t seem right to remove anything else from her precious life, her memories of youth. The lone picture I had wasn´t taken from the box now tucked away between her floorboards either. She was not the only one who received pictures from the prom.

I had kept the photo in a frame in my room, but it never held as much importance to me as it did now. It didn´t matter that there was no light for miles in this jungle. I would still be able to see it perfectly. I refused to look upon it save for a moment every night, hoping that the need to look at it again would keep me moving, day after day. If I continued to look at it forever, then there really was nothing left to hope for. My only solace was that I would be able to look upon that face again tomorrow. That and finding the vampire woman who still posed a threat to her life.

The moonlight was almost right. Another reason I refused to look until this moment was that even as a photograph, the moonlight made her look especially radiant. I wanted to always remember her at her happiest, not at those final moments when she looked just about as heartbroken as I felt. Whenever I thought of her, I tried not to think about her tears, the pleading look in her eyes as she begged me not to go. I tried not to remember how easy it was for her to believe that I didn´t love her anymore. Instead, I tried to remember watching her peaceful face as she dreamed happy dreams. For this reason, I laid on the ground, even though it didn´t make any difference to my physical state. I did so only so I could reminisce. I couldn´t dream, but I could daydream. I could go back to a time where I was the luckiest of men, watching over this picture-perfect girl in her slumber. It brought very little comfort. By the end, I only remembered the agony, but the pain was worth it for a few moments in memory of her.

The time had come. I delicately removed the picture from my jacket. I had taken special care not to damage it. The material was still crisp. I moved it into position, the one position where I knew the light would be just perfect. Even this would change. The moon´s orbit was not permanent. It too would migrate, and one day I would even lose this small comfort… on the night of a new moon. But it didn´t matter. It kept me going for another day, and that was all that mattered.

The moment had begun. I set my gaze upon the photo and once again committed every detail of her to memory. I had looked at this picture so many times, I had memorized every miniscule pixel, but I never tired of it. She still took my breath away. As much as she had dreaded going to prom, I had to admit she looked… happy. The blue of her dress and the cream of her light jacket lit up her skin perfectly. I had told her to smile, and without needing to be told twice, she did. I had been too dazzled by her smile to look towards the camera myself.

Dazzled… She had always described her reaction to me in that way. Did she have any clue how dazzling she was to me? No, clearly she didn´t, when she had so little faith in my love for her. I cringed and tried to force myself to think of something more positive. I couldn´t waste this precious time thinking about the end.

I still had the feeling that this night meant more to me than it did to her, even though I had forced her to go so as to not miss out on a human experience. I know she went more for my sake than for hers. Be that as it may, I recalled the night with perfect detail. My arms remembered the feeling of holding her as we danced carefully. My throat remembered the common burn of her presence and the aftertaste of her blood from less than a month prior. My lips recalled the soft warmth of her skin, as I could never get enough of tasting her.

Unfortunately, I also remembered my annoyance- for lack of a better term- with the stares and fantasies of the various male students. The Quileute boy was surprisingly the most annoying, not only because he had stolen a dance with her, but because his thoughts of her were sweet, rather than corrupt. I didn´t know which was worse: hearing the sexual fantasies of the boys who could never hope to earn her affections, or hearing the thoughts of an innocent teenage crush from a boy who she liked in a small way.

I didn´t want to think about this, and I tried hard to focus on something else, but all I could see was the future I both hoped for and dreaded. My Bella, only no longer my Bella, in the arms of someone else, someone who loved her desperately, someone who she loved desperately in return. I tried to be happy with that image, but in my selfishness I could not. The closest I had ever come to a nightmare was imagining her once again walking down the aisle in a flowing white dress, looking just as beautiful as she did in this picture. Her hand being placed into the hand of her human groom, looking so perfect side by side it made me feel violently sick. And I imagined myself standing before them, only invisible to everyone, pounding against an invisible wall that kept her from me. My vampire strength meant nothing, for the wall refused to give. If it had been real, if the obstacles between us were as simple as an invisible wall, I would have found any means necessary to tear it down. However, the separation between us was too big to be breached, and there was nothing physical for me to fight against to make it better.

Even wanting for her to move on, a part of me hoped that she missed me even slightly as much as I missed her. I knew she was human and that time would eventually heal her wounds, but I still desperately hung to the belief that her love would be as eternal as mine. What a foolish thing to hope for. I said myself that I would take myself completely out of her existence. It would be best if she completely forgot about me. How I managed to not go insane from these two conflicting desires, I´ll never know.

I even wished that I could forget, from time to time. Such moments rarely lasted. In spite of the excruciating pain, I wouldn´t trade my moments with her for anything in the world. Yet even that was a lie. I would trade them if I could be reincarnated as a human, just so I could be beside her without risking her life. I would trade them all away if I could guarantee her safety and happiness. Nothing that exists or ever existed mattered more than that.

The moonlight faded once again behind the trees, and I obediently put the photo back into my jacket, right next to my heart. It hurt to put it away, but I had to be diligent. If I allowed myself any slack, I would falter in my resolve to stay away.

Every day it got worse. The desire to run back to Washington had my muscles tense, as though my very body needed it. Every day new excuses came to mind. I would just stop in to check on her. Just a little peek into her window. But I knew that wouldn´t be enough. Soon it would be just one more night watching her, then one more night lying beside her in bed, then one more kiss, and then eternity wouldn´t be enough for me.

I stared up at the stars with my back to the ground, not caring how it would dirty my clothing. I only focused on every positive memory I could grasp, tried to remember that brief moment of bliss in my existence. While I should have been grateful to have been blessed with that much, the agony was too great to overcome. I knew only partly what my future held. In a few minutes, I would continue my quest to find and destroy Victoria. Once that was over with, I didn´t know how I was going to keep myself away from Forks. I didn´t know anything anymore.

The ring from my phone was loud enough to stop the chirping of nearby crickets. It was amazing I even got reception in a place like this, no matter how small. However, it only rang once. The call had been lost. The caller ID read "Rosalie", and I groaned. She was the absolute least person I wanted to talk to. Her attitude about Bella pushed me to the limits of tolerance.

Still, I hadn´t spoken to anyone in the family for a while, and I knew they had to be worried. Even if it was Rosalie, I might as well update someone on my situation. Rio de Janeiro was a very short distance away. I would surely get good enough reception there.

As soon as I entered the borders of the city, I dialed the number. Unlike the others, Rosalie always let the phone ring a few times before answering. Every aspect of her personality was based on making people wait on her, including waiting for her to respond. I found myself considering that I should have called Carlisle instead. No matter. I suspected this conversation wouldn´t be long. Rosalie´s banter could only be tolerated for a few minutes.

"Edward," she said curtly as she picked up.

"What is it, Rosalie?" I responded in my usual bored tone. I knew that always got to her, and I didn´t much care that it would annoy her.

"You could be a little more courteous to me. The rest of the family wants to keep secrets from you, but at least I have the decency to be honest."

No. Rosalie was just too self-centered to worry about the feelings of others. If the family was keeping something from me, she would surely jump on the chance to make my life harder. "How kind," I mused dryly, "So what´s the big secret?"

"It´s that Bella Swan."

I hissed through my teeth. It was hard enough for me to say her name out loud, but the ice of Rosalie´s voice made the name sound like poison. She may be feigning kindness, but she had zero sympathy. To say the name of my beloved with such distain was torture. I never wanted to hear Rosalie utter anything about Bella again.

When I spoke, my voice was a broken hiss, "I told you not to pry into her life anymore."

After all, I had no more say concerning her life. I couldn´t keep regarding Bella as though she were mine. The lump in my throat made it hard to breathe, and somehow I needed air in my lungs to displace the void inside me.

"Calm down. We didn´t do anything. You know Alice can´t help it when she has a vision."

So that was it? She had a vision about Bella. A part of me was dying to know what was happening in Bella´s life, but still I knew that hearing about it would break me down. "Then tell Alice she has to stay out of Bella´s life, like I told all of you to do. No going off to look for her. And you can stop telling me things I have no business hearing about."

I shouldn´t know anything that was going on in her life. What kind of vision was it? Had Bella moved on with her life? Did she find someone else? I didn´t want to hear it, let alone think about it, but I didn´t expect she´d have to wait long for men to flock to her. No one could deny that she was beautiful, smart, all-around good. I just hoped that someone found her who could adore everything about her. Someone who could give her all the things I couldn´t. In spite of my horrible pain at the thought, I wanted to imagine that she would have a long and wonderful future.

"You have got a lot of nerve talking to me that way." Her anger was no surprise. "This family has been torn apart by your selfishness. And a whole lot of good it did too. That girl was too stupid to get over it."

I suddenly tensed. "What are you talking about?"

I didn´t even have a moment to consider what she could have been talking about, didn´t have a moment to brace myself before she uttered the words, her voice suddenly softer.

"Bella is dead, Edward. She killed herself."

Somehow… I couldn´t comprehend the words for many seconds afterwards. As though I didn´t understand the words she was speaking. Then with every passing second, the meaning settled in. Initially I didn´t feel anything. It was like both the world and my mind had just shut down. I couldn´t even hear the wind. Moments later, it felt as though I had a pulse. It was like there was blood rushing in my veins again, rushing impossibly fast. The new sensation was painful. The rush was tearing open the insides of my every cell.

Seconds more, and the panic erupted in my heart. Both panic and disbelief. I was so certain that my chest had just caved in on itself and my body lurched. To the people on the street, I must have looked like I was about to have a seizure, but I was blinded from the sight of them. My eyes saw nothing except the face of Bella, somehow disappearing.

"You´re lying," I whispered, somehow calmly, but then my voice exploded in a shake, "YOU´RE LYING!"

And then I had to remember that I was being watched, but I could not. I didn't even know if someone in the area spoke English and would be able to discern what was happening, but for the life of me, I could not pay them any mind. My whole body felt like it was melting. Emotions rushed through me so fast I didn't even have the chance to have a full reaction.

"Alice saw her jump off a cliff," Rosalie said, simply. "She knew she wouldn´t be in time, but… she went back to Forks to help her father."

I didn´t need to read minds. I could picture the horror right in front of me. I couldn´t even stop it. Never in my darkest of imaginations had I conjured up such a sight; my dearest love leaping to her death, tumbling downwards with no one to catch her, when months ago I would have been the one to swoop down to her rescue. My mouth was posed to scream out, to stop her, to say anything to make this sight go away, but I couldn´t make a sound as she vanished from existence. The very thing that lit up my world with music and joy… The one truth that kept my feet on the ground; that kept the world from collapsing around me…

I was suddenly shaking my head frantically, "I don´t believe you…" But my confidence was becoming weaker. "She isn´t. She can´t be!"

I waited for her response, for her to yell at me, so that I could yell at her, having all the assurance in the world that Rosalie was lying. I wanted her to break down and tell me that she was just trying to get to me. As cruel of a joke as it would be, there would be nothing more thrilling than hearing her admit it so. I just had to hear it!

But she didn´t say a word. She refused to confess her wicked lie! I wanted to call her every bad name that I refused to use in my daily life, but with every moment I wasted, the pain got worse. By now, I was on fire. "I know you´re lying!" I shouted at her, and without a second of delay I ended the call.

I didn´t even miss a beat. I opened the phone again and started dialing. My fingers were shaking badly, as though I was once again a human infected with Spanish influenza. I would barely even see in front of me through my eyes were clear of tears. I could feel that my eyes were trying futilely to tear. They burned with dread. I refused to acknowledge the burn. There was nothing to be afraid of! Bella was not dead! She couldn´t be dead!

The phone rang once and I let out a sob. Fear suffocated me. As a vampire, breathing wasn´t necessary, and yet I was panting. The image I had made up of Bella hurling off a cliff was flashing before me, and I shut my eyes, waiting an eternity for the next ring. But when I closed my eyes, I could only see Bella. I could only see her face looking up at me with all the love in the world. The innocent blush on her cheeks whenever she was embarrassed. The way her eyes lit up whenever I came in through her window. Her contented glow and she snuggled up next to me in her bed. There was never a sight more beautiful in all the world than the sight of her sleeping face.

My breath hitched, and the phone rang again, the sound deafening even to me. My nose filled with the smell of her, not just her blood. The sweet smell of her hair enveloped me. The burn of my throat was suddenly blissful, nearly lustful. It was a pain so exquisite that were it a drug I would gladly inject it into my veins. I would revel in the pain that hurt so badly it became pure joy, a nirvana.

I began to shake, and the phone rang for a third time. Her kiss… the feeling of warmth against my ice cold lips. The curve of her cheeks, ears, and neck as I kissed every exposed inch of her. Her accelerated heartbeat rewarding my attentions. A sigh… A small moan every time our lips met. Instead of infecting her with the venom of my mouth, she poured life into my body. I was filled to the brim with adoration and desire. I worshipped the warmth of her body with ever part of my own.

When I heard her voice in my head, I was unprepared. A simple greeting , like she did every morning, but it still was the sound of the angels to me. The softness of the sound made me recall the thrill of hearing her whisper my name in the darkness of her room. That first moment when I knew I loved her with every fiber of my being, my name on her lips. I wanted to hear her whisper my name again, but somehow my mind would not cooperate. The sound was but a memory locked tightly away, but when she said hello again it was like a hallucination. It rang out so clearly in my mind that I stumbled.

By the time I had fallen to my knees, my mind locked up again.

By the time my free hand made contact with the pavement in front of me, I had combusted.

Because at that very moment, I realized that I hadn´t heard the voice in my head. The voice had come from the phone.

My head was immediately against the ground, and in spite of the surrounding crowd, I was sobbing. The force of it was so strong that at first it didn´t make a sound. I barely thought to cover the mouthpiece so that when I did make a noise, she wouldn´t be able to hear it. I heard her say "hello" again, this time sounding adorably impatient, and I snapped.

All the walls I had put up around myself, the invisible walls, were crumbling before me. Walls that in the end were made of nothing more than guilt and shame. In its place was the only thing that mattered. The one thing that defined me. The truth that Bella didn´t know… I loved her. And that was it. There was nothing left for me to feel. I loved her so much that I had no room in my heart to wonder about anything else, not even the danger that my presence posed to her, not even the damning future that would fall upon her just for being with me. Right here, right now, I was desperately in love with her, and I always would be.

She hung up the phone, but I was already done for. I needed that voice. I needed it more than I have ever needed human blood, even hers. And I needed to see her face. And I needed to run my fingers across her cheek again. And I needed more than anything else to expose the lie behind my departure. I could not exist for a moment longer without my true feelings being known.

A phone call was not enough. The humans around me gasped as I disappeared into thin air, or at least it appeared so for their eyes. Their thoughts of fear faded quickly behind me as my muscles finally got what it was wanting all along. The craving was so deep that my sobs shifted to ones of joy. I reached the main airport in record time. The woman behind the desk looked perplexed at my appearance, no doubt a mixture of joy and grief, the look of a cursed madman who was somehow on his way to heaven.

For the first time in months, my voice ran out clear, "O seguinte vôo para Seattle." The next flight to Seattle.

To be continued…

I´m not really sure where I´m going with this, but I was hit by a sudden stroke of inspiration. I hope you enjoyed this and the chapters to come. As can be deduced from my sn, I am all about making this story the most romantic. Please review and I will post a next chapter, and we´ll see what´s going on with Bella due to this sudden twist! xoxoxoxo