"What?! No, Edward, you promised me. I've thrown all of my energy into this wedding, I couldn't handle it if you left me again, and-" I babbled, on the verge of hysterics.
"Silly Bella." Edward said, chuckling. "Of course not the wedding. I want to marry you and love you more than I can possibly convey to you."
He reached forward, brushing my cheek with his fingertips, and leaned in to place a kiss on my forehead, tenderly brushing a lock of hair from my cheek.
My forehead wrinkled up as I stared at him.
"I- I don't un-understand." I stuttered confusedly. As I spoke, and waited for him to answer, his warm topaz eyes started to darken up.
I am not quite sure how long we stood there, but I started to get impatient waiting for him to answer my unspoken question. He looked apprehensive. Moving away from me, he pinched the bridge of his nose and paced around his bedroom.
He had been acting strangely for a few days now. I didn't notice it at first, so immersed in the wedding plans. Now that I thought back on it, it was the day I had spent with Alice.
Everything had been fine that morning.
I drove up to the Cullen mansion bright and early. Edward rushed down, picked me up and whisked me away to his room, me giggling nonstop. We engaged in an activity I could do all day- kissing. Being kissed by Edward was like nothing in the world. Alice, of course, interrupted us much too soon, dragging me downstairs and telling Edward that we would be back from Seattle later that evening. He walked us to the car, tenderly buckled me in, and placed a soft, chaste kiss on my lips- telling me to hurry back to him, and teasingly telling Alice to not kill me with too much shopping. Alice shot back with saying I'd only be half dead by the time we got back. I looked at Edward with a "Help Me!" expression as he chuckled and bounded gracefully back to the house.
That day, nothing seemed amiss with our resident fortune teller- except towards the end of the day. Alice did get quiet, I recalled. she stiffened up and when I asked her what was wrong, I got a terse,
"Nothing, just thinking about the wedding."
I took her word for it, but when I got back, Rosalie was staring at me with a curious expression on her face, while the rest of the clan was notably absent. Edward's kiss was perfunctory. He noted that I looked tired, and asked if I wanted to go to my home that night, explaining that Alice's thoughts were fanatical, I could use some rest. He disappointed me by saying he would be by until I was asleep, but he needed to chat with Carlisle about something or another- he was quite vague about it.
When I drove up the next morning, no one would look at me in the eye. I thought maybe with the little sleep I was getting, it was just my imagination.
How wrong I was.
"Edward???" I tried asking him again.
"Bella, I'm trying to find the right way to tell you this. You won't be happy with what I'm about to tell you, but it's for the best. Please, believe me on that."
"Edward, you are scaring me. Please, tell me what it is." My voice rose with the previous hysteria that I had managed to suppress earlier.
He stopped pacing, strode across the room, and gently cupped my face in his heavenly hands.
"Love, please don't be frightened- I'm not leaving you, I'm here, the wedding is on." he soothed.
I tried easing the tension cracking a joke.
"I knew it! I'm on the menu, right?"
Instead of laughing, he merely pinched his nose, and resumed his agitated pacing. He stopped abruptly, looked at the ground and sighed. Then, his features hardened into resolve.
I felt a thrill of apprehension race up my spine. Just when I thought I would go mad with waiting, he looked up, and very quietly said:
"Bella, it's about your immortality. I held another voting the night I had you stay at your house. It ended five in favor, two against."
"Edward.... in favor of what, exactly?"
He looked up at me, his topaz eyes, still slightly darkened, held my eyes unwavering.
"Of your humanity. You will be staying human."
I stared at him, waiting for the punch line. I realized that he was dead serious.