Chapter 1

"Edward wait", My mind was racing back and forth with the decision I was about to make. "Edward please don't do this."

Bella knew, she knew as soon as she looked up at me through dark pooling eyes that this would be the last time she would ever see me, in this life, in her life again. I wanted to scream, I wanted to die, I wanted more then anything to take back all that I had said and all that I was about to.

"I'm coming too" she said. She tried to make it sound like a command but it came out more so as a question. I couldn't take any more of this, my mind was already set. I had to leave, to leave her, this was not what I ever thought I would have to do, but her life was too fragile, too important to jeopardise. I was no good for her and it was only a matter of time before something would happen beyond mine and Alice's powers, we would fail her and I couldn't live with that, I couldn't continue living out this "life" (if that's what you'd call it) knowing I was her demise.

"You're just not good for me" (lie), "Not good enough you mean". Every fiber of my being was twisting and tearing as I tried to keep my composure as I told her: my heart, my life that was standing before me that I no longer wanted it, no longer needed it's steady drumming to fill my body with life. I was going to be sick if I didn't end this soon. "Bella, I promise you that after today I will never bother you again" Every bone in my body was screaming at me now to stop, to reconsider. "I'm sorry …… Goodbye".

There it was, it was done. I tore my very own beating heart from my body and am now forced to watch it bleed. I had to leave, I had to leave now before I lost all resolve. "Edward wait!" she cried as I turned away from her. My entire body screaming at me to turn back, to take her in my arms, to tell her I how much I loved her, to keep her with me for the rest of time, but I couldn't. I had to steady the course, it was what was best, for her. I knew this to be true and one day so would she. One day she would look back on this moment and know I had made the right decision, for her.

One day she--- At that very moment Bella reached out for me quicker then I had anticipated, she completely caught me of guard as she grabbed on to my arm. Quickly I tried to shrug her off as though she were nothing, just so I could get my point across to her. That we were now over. Unfortunately for us both I moved quicker then I intended. As my hand slide from her grasp, her body flexed in response, and in less time then it takes to snap ones fingers; my razor sharp nails glided across her arm like a skates on ice.

In that instant time stood still. Bella gasped and then cried out in pain, pain that I had inflicted on her. She pulled back her arm and quickly wrapped her hand around the four sharp lines drawn across her flesh in a failing attempt to stop her blood from flowing…….. Oh dear God….. Flowing down her arm. My eye's continually focused, then unfocused as a steady drumming sound that had once pulsed through my veins all those years ago began to beat again. It was all I could hear as I stared entranced by the sight before my eyes.

Bella's blood was now literally on my hand.

Bella was speaking now, but I couldn't hear a single word that she said. All I could hear was a drumming sound that grew in volume and intensity. I very quickly wondered if in fact it were my own still cold heart come back to life to haunt me, but as I tore my gaze from my hand to look back at Bella I quickly realized that it was hers.

Her heart beating faster then the wings of a humming bird; her heart that was pumping her blood down her arm; her heart that had very foolishly trusted me, loved me. I stood there cemented in place as I looked up now to her eyes, her beautiful trusting brown eyes, "Edward please…."

And that's all it took, all it took to wake the sleeping dragon that lay beneath. My once golden eyes had now turned black, blacker then the starless night that had rise above.

Before the next beat of her heart I lunged.

This can't be happening, this can't really be happening, I said to myself as I stood before Edward. But it was, the minute I saw him in my drive way I knew what was coming, and knew I could do nothing to stop it, to stop him. But I had to try, I had to try to fight for us even if he wouldn't. "Edward wait…" He was talking to me, talking so fast I couldn't even catch my breath. So fast that I could only focus on the sound of my now breaking heart to tell him no, to tell him to stop, so he wouldn't leave me.

I could feel the contents of my stomach slowly beginning to rise up in my throat, it took every once of strength in me to not throw up, to not break down and collapse on the floor of the forest. Wait, what? Did he really ask me to promise him to not do anything reckless? For Charlie's sake? Are you kidding me?! "Good bye." My head was now spinning. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. This is real, this was real. Edward is going to leave me, and never come back?! I choked back a sob just long enough to call out to him, to try one last attempt to keep him here with me before it was too late. "Edward wait!" it came out more as a strangled sob, at that very moment I could no longer keep it all in, I began to cry.

As he turned away from me I knew this was it, if I didn't react quickly he would be gone in the blink of an eye. I reached out for him just as he was about to take his first step away from me, the first of many. What happened next in a million years I would have never imagined, but it did.

I gasped not from the pain per say but from the look on his face when he turned back to face me. If it weren't for the warm tricking sensation running down my arm I wouldn't have realized that Edward nails had just sliced through my arm, all I could focus on was stopping him from leaving. His eyes very quickly trailed down to my arm. As they did I instinctively grabbed my arm, trying to cover up the evidence of what I knew would send him over the edge and far away from me. As if it wasn't bad enough what happened with Jasper a few days prior, then this surly would cement him in his decision to leave.

"Edward, it's, it's ok, it's not your fault, you didn't mean to, I know you didn't mean to. It's just a scratch really it's nothing , I'll be fine". He didn't move, not an inch he just stood there transfixed on my arm, as I spoke to him. Oh thank God he didn't leave, there's still time to convince him to stay, to stay with me, to love me. That I am good enough for him, for all of them. If only I could convince myself that first.

"Edward please….." I'll beg, if that's what it takes I'll beg like a dog, anything. I'll do anything to keep him from leaving me. He then very slowly began to lift his gaze from my arm up to my face. Oh thank God he can hear me, I sighed to myself as our eyes met. "Edward, it's--"

It felt as though the air literally was dragged from my lungs. His eyes, Oh my God his eyes, when they finally met mine were no longer his. Edward's body stood before me but I knew he was no longer there. With out so much as a flinch he very slowly brought his hand up to his mouth and one by one licked my blood off of his fingers.

In the back of my mind I could hear this tiny pleading voice telling me to run, to run as fast as my legs would take me, and with out consciously thinking about it I took one step backwards. It was at that moment that the heel of my foot came in contact with a twig on the ground, before the twig stopped crying out in pain from the weight of my foot Edward lunged.