"Well, I wasn't going to live without you." (New Moon, page 19.)

The cell phone rings three times before I bother to answer. Even when I do, I say nothing just wait. While I welcome a distraction, anything that is urgent enough to call me for can't be good.

'Edward.' Rosalie says my name with such relief and pity that I can't help but imagine the worst.

I wait.

'Edward, I'm sorry.'

"Stop," I manage to wheeze. What… what has happened? Images of my love swirl through my mind.

Her dark hair twisting like wind on her pillows as she slept.

Her empty body, near death, lying in a hospital bed, filled with tubes and covered with bandages.

Her shocking, beautiful, timeless, perfect smile, inches from mine, as we twirl around the gym.

What could possibly have happened?

'Edward… Alice has just had a vision.'

"I thought as much. Out with it." I struggle to speak these simple Rosalie doesn't really need to say anything, only one terrible eventuality would result in the likes of her contacting me.

'There was a cliff. A very high one at that. There was water below, Edward, but Alice waited and waited, and she didn't come up. No human could last that long. I'm so sorry Edward.'

No. I slammed the phone shut, nearly crushing the thing. But I couldn't break it yet. I couldn't allow myself to panic yet either. Alice was sometimes wrong. Sometimes she missed things. My hands shook as I slowly dialed the Swan home phone.

It rang times. Then an unfamiliar voice:

'Swan residence.'

"Is Charlie there?" I ask. I couldn't manage speaking to Bella. Charlie could confirm that she was alive, probably safe and sound, hanging out with her friends like I never existed.

'No. Hes at the funeral.'

I let out a muffled sob as I hung up the phone. So it was true then. Bella was gone. There wasn't even a worry that I would run back to her and ruin her life, because she didn't have one anymore. I screamed and tearlessly sobbed. All my beautiful memories of her crashed down on me, a tsunami that flushed my mind clean of anything besides her.

Her fascinated awe, watching the sun shimmer off my skin in our meadow.

Her kitten like anger, that always amused me, much to her annoyance.

Her unguarded thoughts, beautiful utterances in the night, my only true look to what she couldn't say.

He focus, preparing to fight off a man who would surely overcome her in an alley, only a year ago.

She hadn't given up then. So many odds against her. Four men, in the darkness, surrounding her, and yet she prepared to fight.

So why couldn't she fight now?How dare she give up, take her life, mine, Charlies and Renees…

I couldn't see her doing it. What had driven her to such a terrible, thoughtless decision?

I could run to Forks, find out what or who caused this destruction of the only thing that justified the creation of the world.

But what would that do? She'd still be dead. I'd still be alive.

I knew what I had to do.

Last spring, when you were nearly killed, part of my mind was making contingency plans.

Contingency plans?

Well, I wasn't going to live without you.

Back then, she had been angry with me for saying such a thing, and made me promise never to think such things again.

But she gone now. At her own hand,what's more. How could she leave me in a world without her, and force me to stay?

She couldn't. She was past this world, and I would soon join her. I ran for the nearest airport.