I began to contemplate the concept of revenge as I promised my immortality to him. If my inhuman error does in fact leave us both without means of any kind of existence, would my demise heal him in any way? Is it truly my suffering he has been craving all this time, or is it just a step further in ways of getting the ultimate prize that he's really been after? Of course, the obvious answer is in our origins. We are creatures destined to slay one another. But aside from that, in our unique scenario, our motivation comes from something so much greater than a fateful promise of revenge. We are no longer spurred by our mutual hatred, but instead now by our mutual love. One that he does not deserve by any standards. Not due to lack of character, but lack of compassion. His unfortunately undying love for my wife is a selfish one that has and will put her in harm's way. Not to say that my own doesn't have the same effect, in fact perhaps more so, but I would sacrifice my happiness for her safety whereas he would sacrifice her happiness for his possession. And that, that is not love. And now, as I beg of him to help us both in preserving that mutual love, I'm faced with the inconfidence that the solution to a hateful bond can also be the solution to ours. I play the card anyway, in any hope that it can, somehow, provide us with an answer.
"You deserve to live with this." He spat at me now, somehow his words surfaced in my racing mind that had blocked out all else but my wife's corpse. Deserve it. Perhaps I deserved my first death in the beginning of the century, if only because of unfortunate time and place. I deserve the endless burning in my throat, because of the monster I am and the ugly crimes I've committed. I deserve to be an outcast. I deserve hatred. I deserve agony, and torturous silence, and all the other horrible things that are packaged with my immortal fate.
But I did not deserve Bella. I did not deserve to taste forever, the forever that is much stronger than just that of unending time. I did not deserve to feel human again in the most inhuman way. I did not deserve to know her love, her warmth, her sacrifice, and something so powerful that would cause me to sacrifice myself. I did not deserve love. And after learning to love so deeply, so honestly and so carefully, I did not deserve to live with this. I did not deserve to exist without her. But more importantly, she did not deserve to face the consequences of my selfishness and her selflessness, nor the demise I should have met long ago. She did not deserve to die.
And she will not.