AN: Rather than continue with my main fic Scarred for Life, I have decided to break it down into smaller, individual stories with more plot. This is the first of these stories. I hope these will add more depth of character, and a better plot line to my writing. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. (Sits in a corner and cries)

Summary: Set during New Moon, Edward can't stand to be apart from Bella and returns in December. What he finds shakes him to the core. Contains self-mutilation.

Chapter 1: Panic.

Bella's POV

I blinked stupidly as I awoke to the sun streaming through my window. That in itself was unusual for Forks, but that it would be shining today, when everything I looked at seemed so dark and bleak, when everything reminded me of him. It didn't seem right, that the world around me should be so happy while I was sunk in the pits of despair. I thought about the sun, and how wonderful he had looked, glittering like a thousand diamonds encrusted into his stone cold skin. I shut my eyes tight against the thought.

I had to get used to this, I had to learn to cope. It was obvious now, he wasn't coming back. It had been months since he'd left and it still hurt, god it hurt so much. Yet in a way, it was comforting. Though I couldn't live with him, my mind and my heart refused to let him go, and all other feeling had been erased. Ever since that day, when I struggled fruitlessly to follow him through the forest, the only thing I had felt was pain.

I felt the pain of loss, of living, but most of all, of loving.

Through it all, I still loved him. It wasn't fair.

He'd promised me, the last thing he'd promised me was that I'd never see him again, and yet I did. Everywhere I went he followed, always at the edge of my thoughts, consuming my dreams until I woke, sobbing because though it all I just couldn't let go of him. He didn't love me but for some unknown reason, I still craved him.

I loved him. Plain and simple. I still loved him with all my heart and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.

I began to feel resigned, then panicked as the pain ebbed vacancy filled its place. This couldn't happen. I couldn't just feel nothing, because if I felt nothing then it meant I wasn't living.

Hyperventilating, I ran from my room down the hall, the soft carpet muffling the sound of my heavy footsteps. It wasn't necessary, Charlie wasn't here today.

After months of waiting for me to respond to the world, he had accepted that there was nothing he could do, finally taking back a full set of shifts at the station. After all, the good people of Forks couldn't do without there police chief, could they?

I ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me and rushing to the cabinet above the sink, tripping on the shower mat in my haste. Rummaging in the back of the cabinet, I found my prize.

Pulling a razor from behind the soap container I leant against the sink, my hand shaking in anticipation. It wasn't the first time this had happened, but it was the only way I could continue to feel, even if it was agony, I had to feel something.

I pulled the fabric of one of the long sleeve shirts I had taken to wearing up to my elbow, running my fingertips across the bumpy and barely healed skin along the way. I found an unmarked area and pressed the razor down, biting into the soft flesh. It was not enough do damage, but it began to throb. It felt satisfying in a way, to make my body ache in the same way the rest of me did.

I covered the cut with a towel, waiting for the bleeding to subside, and riding the waves of pain. It was a release in, a way to express the way I was feeling, as well as a coping mechanism.

I closed my eyes and thought of him, the beautiful curve of his mouth, his golden eyes and the effect they had on me, his strong stone body and his arms wrapped around me, providing safety and love. And then viciously, I snapped back into reality.

I began to cry. I cried for what I had lost, but I couldn't blame him. I couldn't blame him because I knew how he felt. It was impossible to even consider that he could ever have loved me.

He was my angel, ethereal perfection sent from heaven; while I was his own personal demon. I knew that he was in pain with every second he spent with me, yet he had stayed because he felt a need to protect me from myself.

I thought back to the day in the forest, the day my sole reason for being had disappeared from my life. He had told me that time would heal my wounds, that it would be as if he never existed. But he was wrong. Months later, the agony had not subsided, the grief as raw as if it had been yesterday that I collapsed among the trees, too anguished to keep moving.

I screamed and lashed out at the mirror behind me, drawing relief from the sound of the shattering glass as shards of glass embedded themselves all the way up my arm, the exact same way as they had at my eighteenth birthday.

The irony of this was lost on me as I broke down completely, cutting and scraping at my skin with abandon. I no longer cared if the marks would be visible; I just had to get rid of some of the pain. It was too much. It was all too much.

I knelt down in the glass, my clothes stained with my own blood, and I wept.

Edward's POV

I was running past Seattle, running back to the purpose of my existence.

My sole reason for being. I was running back to my Bella.

It was stupid to think I could leave her, that I could walk away from the woman I loved so easily and never look back. I had been kidding myself when I told her I would leave if it were the right thing to do. I could no more relinquish her, than I could abstain from blood.

Months, mere months and I had already given up, giving in to my selfish desire to be near her again.

I had thought about the consequences of this trip, that she would hate me, that she would tell me to leave and never come back, or worse, that she would have moved on and be with someone else. My chest clenched at the thought and I immediately shook it from my mind. If she was with someone else then I would leave, let her have the life she deserved with someone else. I would walk away freely to end my existence.

I slowed as I passed the sign informing me of my entry into Forks, and kept to the shadows of the forest, the leafy green canopy providing a shield from the sun.

I came to a dead stop 300 yards from her house. It was then that I could tell something was wrong. The burning in my throat flared painfully as I registered the scent of her blood. My Bella was bleeding.

I took off toward her house, desperation to find and heal her adding new swiftness to my speed, I wrenched the front door off its hinges in my haste and almost flew up the stairs, following the scent to the bathroom.

I stopped breathing as I took in the scene before me, my Bella huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth, shattered glass littering the bloody tiles around her.

At first glance, I thought she had tripped, but then looking closer at the cuts, it became obvious that these were self inflicted. Further inspection showed many more, both her arms marred by vicious scars.

Bella, my beloved Bella had done this, to herself.

No, I had done this to her. There was no doubt in my mind that I was to blame for this mutilation.

Bella's POV

I looked up and there he was; my angel in all his glory. I opened my mouth to speak, then frowned. This had happened before.

"Stupid Bella," I muttered to myself, "He's gone, he's not coming back."

He stared at me aghast, "Bella?" he seemed almost afraid to come near me.

"I'm sorry Bella," he whispered, his face never losing the horrified expression.

It was a hallucination, it had to be. There was no reason for him to be standing here, in my bathroom, staring at me with those beautiful, deadly eyes.

"It's not real" I said out loud, trying to force myself out of this bittersweet fantasy. "He doesn't love you, he's not coming back."

I began to cry again, my heartache being ripped from my chest in heaving sobs.

"Bella," Edwa- no, the hallucination, began to speak again.

This couldn't be happening. Why now? Why after all this time was I still living these waking dreams?

"Leave me," I whispered, trying to force the apparition from my sight. Still it did not move.

"Leave me!" I screamed the words a second time, only this time he began to move again.

It took half a second to realise that it was moving in the wrong direction, towards me. I slid backward, away from the delusion that was impersonating him and huddled against the edge of the tub, my knees tucked up to my chest.

Edward's POV

I couldn't believe it as Bella cowered away from me against the side of the bath.

"What have I done to you?" I murmured under my breath, she seemed to hear me though and lifted her face, staring into my eyes with fear written all over her face before quickly breaking eye contact.

That one look broke my long dead heart.

AN: Please review and tell me what you think. The next chapter will be up soon.