Disclaimer: Not mine.

Chapter 2 As if I never existed

I stopped my walk and turned around. His eyes were full of pain, his shoulders slumped as if he had the weight of whole world on them. I couldn't bear to see such defeat in him, especially when my words were the cause of it.

"No, Edward, I am just going back home to Charlie. Would you like to come with me?" I sighed, my anger at him went deflated as punctured balloon.

It was almost visible how relief washed over him, even hint of his crooked smile was trying to show up.

"Yes, of course," he answered simply, still looking at me with unwavering gaze.

I smiled at him, happy to hear that he wanted to be with me after I said to him angriest words yet in all the time we were together. Although they were truthful to a point, I still felt guilty at having caused him this pain. I realized that I wanted him to hurt as much as I was hurt by his words earlier and that it wouldn't do either of us anything good if we continued in it. It would only break us for good in the process. I wanted to fix it right then and there.

"Edward, I am sorry for what I said about you hurting me. I know that what you tried to do was out of your love and your concern about my safety. Yes, it was stupid and yes, I am still angry about it, but in hindsight it also showed me how much you love me," I rushed to say, before we would reach my house.

"Bella, you don't have anything to apologize for. I am the one who should say 'I am sorry' for eternity and even then I don't think it would be enough," Edward sighed.

I tried to interrupt him. "But..."

He stopped me with gesture.

"Bella, I understand now that my words have hurt you. I will be regretting them for eternity because they were the cruelest lies and I hurt you with them. I truly didn't mean any of them and I will make it up to you, I promise," he said sincerely.

I felt I needed to stop him. Didn't he hear that I forgave him and understood his reasons?

"Edward, please stop this self-blame thing. I forgive you and I understand it, please stop dwelling on it. You will not leave me, I will not leave you, just so we understand each other. What happened on birthday party wasn't anyone's fault. Not Jasper's, not yours, if there is anyone to blame here, it should be me. I wasn't careful around vampires after all," I said, with perhaps little bit of teasing in my voice.

Edward shot his eyes up.

"Bella, please be serious. I don't think it would be appropriate joking about the event that could well happen to cause your death."

I sighed. I saw that Edward will not let that go that easily.

The rest of walk to the house was silent. When we got there, I saw that Charlie wasn't home yet, so I just went in with Edward. When I went to my room, I gasped.

It looked like someone went here and took every reminder of Edward I had.

No photos, no CD of my lullaby, no nothing.

I spun around and saw him looking at me apologetically.

So that is what he meant when he said that it would be as if he never existed.

The silence grew heavy and both of us seemed afraid to break it.

I found eventually my voice.

"I have just one question. Did you destroy everything or did you just take it away?"

Edward sighed. "No and no. It is still here. I just hid everything under the floorboards, right here."

I expelled breath I didn't know I was holding and the heaviness in my chest slowly disappeared. He pushed floorboard away and indeed, everything was there: photos, CD, tickets, all of it.

He was thorough, I have to give it to him.

He suddenly turned his head to the direction of the street. "Charlie is coming to the house. Will you wait for him?"

I thought about that. I didn't want to be apart from Edward, especially after what happened today. And I still wanted to talk to Alice. I had a feeling that only her could show Edward what would happen if he went through with his "noble" leaving. I was afraid that even that I talked him out of doing that today, he could still do that someday in the future. I realized that although he knew I loved him, he still saw me as human teenager and must have seen these teenager crushes too often to think that this was just that for me. From his point of view, his actions seemed almost logical.

I knew what I felt and I hoped that after the talk with Alice he realizes that too.

I quickly grabbed a pen and wrote a note to Charlie that I went to Cullens, took my jacket and put my shoes on, still without a word to Edward.

Finally, he asked: "Where are you going now?"

"I hope we are going to speak with Alice."

"Would you like if I took you there?" he asked, his face showing first signs of smile.

"Of course."

Just as we went to his car, Charlie arrived. He placed his cruiser next to Edward's Volvo, got out of it and bemusedly asked: "Wanna take my place, eh, Edward?"

"No sir, just went to take Bella to our house, she wanted to speak with Alice."

Charlie turned to me: "Ah, girl talk. Don't want nothing to know about. Have fun, Bells. And don't be too late!"

Edward answered: "I will take care of that, sir. She will be here on time."

Charlie narrowed his eyes to him. "I will hold you to that, son. Have a good time, Bells," he waved to us as he entered house.

We got into Edward's car and in almost no time we were entering the road to the Cullens' house.

As we got out of car and entered the house, Alice sprinted towards both of us and took us to her bear hug and chanted repeatedly: "Thank God you are both here. Thank God you are still together."

Although I did enjoy being hugged by her and even more being here with Edward, one thought reverberated through my head.

What did Alice see?

A/N: Thank you all for your reviews :) It inspired me to write (or rather say to finish) another chapter. Hope it lives up to all of your expectations. Please leave a review if you want to comment on it.