Among many things - son, brother, mind-reader, vampire - he decided that he was a fool.
She was running towards him, her mouth probably screaming out his name; the crowd was much too loud for him to properly hear, which was saying something. There were tears in her eyes . . .
Ah. So I've hurt her again. he thought to himself.
Time was so slow to such ancient beings; so rushed to the mortal. She wasn't even halfway across the plaza and he felt the sun on his skin. The damnable sun, the beautiful sun.
Fool. he chastised himself, smiling. You should have remained with her for even just a moment more, if it was all going to come down to this.
In all honesty, he'd thought he was doing what was best for her. She was mortal, malleable, flexible. Surely she wasn't so entranced with him that she'd do something so foolish as to end her own life? But then his sister, his youngest and brightest sister, corrected that vision. And he wallowed in his regret.
Was it a trait of all the undead? He seemed to revel in the misery. Enough that he was finally doing something about this pointless life of his. Enough to give him the strength to stand in the sun.
But then, he was proven wrong again. She was stronger than that. She couldn't have idolized him so much as to do the ultimate foolish thing. No, he was the one who was the fool: unseeing of the truth, now seeing the sun. And sensing, of course, the figures behind him - two, three, perhaps? Cloaked in the guises of modernity, no doubt their sadistic smiles staining their fangs, stepping from the shadows to end it for him.
Too late. He realized too late.
The time for turning back had passed. It was time to accept his fate, his foolishness. Even she could see that, no? But still, how her legs carried her across . . . how she reached out to him; the very hand he'd first tasted her blood from.
Her expression, however. It should have crippled his acceptance, it should have had him running out to meet her and hold her. It should have destroyed all pride he had in his intellect and experience. It should have.
But self-control, taught by years of thirst, raised him. He smiled instead.
So . . . that's how much she loved me. he thought with his last.
"Why, young Cullen?" whispered a voice behind him, "Rejecting our gift, our right? And putting the rest of us in danger with your own foolishness. You are a fool, Edward Cullen."
He nodded, loving her more in this moment than in any previous. He did not take his eyes from her. It was enough, in this last moment, to know he was loved so. It was enough to see that he was wrong, but she would be all right. She would survive, as he intended, and he managed to take a bit of her heart away with him. Selfish, perhaps. But on the edge of oblivion, he believed - finally - he was entitled to such.
How can a monster be loved so? They cannot.
So was he a monster? He'd like to think not, not anymore. Not with her reaching for him like she was.
"I know." he said softly.
"Consign to the flames." another voice said.
He nodded. Perhaps she had not saved his body today from fire, but . . . if he had a soul, she had undoubtedly saved that.
A/N: So . . . I actually didn't really love the Twilight books, per say, but I did read them so see what was what. And this idea popped into my head. Idk. I just think that with all of Cullen's damn problems, the one that should've been fixed was his self-loathing. Like . . . what do they say? Take the love story out of Twilight and it's nothing at all? Yeah. I just wanted to think that maybe it might've been better for him to reach some sort of peace with himself rather than cover it up with a "forbidden" romance.