Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight

A/N: Hey… so now the majority of the happiness is gone… short really depressing chapter … Read. Enjoy. Review…

Love Never Fades

Chapter Seven – Learning to Live with It

I emerged from the ally way three days later, my throat burning for blood, I had been set to go all day But I had chosen to come out at night, from the legends, they said that Vampires glis, and I didn't need to sparkle and catch everyone's eye as I jumped into the harbor and drowned myself. The whole day I had thought of Bella, but I also knew that I may not be able to resist the temptation of killing her. I couldn't do that, I couldn't hurt her, and once I had given it some decent thought, I was a monster. There was no way that my beautiful Isabella could love a vampire, she was in love with the human me, and I wasn't that person anymore. I wasn't a person at all.

I would probably have cried, but my new body, which seemed a little older didn't allow for tears. As I stood and took the potatoes rotting potatoes off myself, dumped mother's now rotten and smelling food on the ground. I flipped through my journal quickly, I wanted to go check and make sure Isabella had left, sought freedom, but I couldn't bring myself to. I already knew that she wouldn't leave without me, and she was home, it was better if I didn't know for sure.

I put my bag over my shoulder and made my way through the darkness to the now vacant harbor. I meant to jump into it with my bag and all, but I could not let Bella's letters sink with me, it seemed a little ridiculous, but those letters in that journal meant to much to me, and it broke my heart to think of them at the bottom of the ocean. I set my bag down on the dock, hidden under the old crate we had leaned against that first night, in vain hopes that eventually Isabella would come and find it before plunging right into the water.

I let myself sink to the bottom like the rock I had become and I closed my eyes as my feet reached the sand at the bottom. I stayed there several minutes, much longer than a human could ever, and I just sat at the bottom, for a very long time. So this was apparently not the way to go. I swam to the surface, only to realize then that it was morning, and I tad spent the whole night wishing myself to be granted the pleasure of drowning. I knew they kept search parties out for the lost for three to five days after a raid, so I was not sure why exactly I was so surprised to see my father leading a group down the ally that I had just come from.

There was a burning in my throat as I smelt their blood, and wanted it. I was horrified with myself as I sank back down in the water and walked across the bottom to the other side of the harbor where there was a patch of woods, and cliffs. The cliffs, while extremely high, were impractical, it wouldn't be good for the whole village to see me sparkle that high up and there was also the fact that I could not be sure that it would work. I wanted my journal as I reached the shore, realizing I had left it on the dock in the harbor.

I sat in the middle of the woods, hoping that I could starve myself to death. I sat there for what had to be days, my throat was burning and the wildlife had come to thing of me as a part of the forest. A fallow deer had dared to come pretty close to me, and my throat burned. Before I could have even thought about it I was over it, and I had my teeth were sunk into the poor little thing's neck.

When I was done the burning was, manageable, and I had found my way of 'eating'. It got dark and I swam back across the harbor to get my bag, but it was gone. One of the search parties had found it, and due to the fact that Isabella was at my funeral in the village center, no one had read it, or at least no one had mentioned it to Alexander, who was there too, or her father who stood by her side.

I took a cloak from a nearby and brought up the hood so that I could attend, about as morbidly as possible my own funeral. I walked across the square and saw my mother, she had my bag and was standing teary eyed with my father. I would have loved to go and comfort her, but it was better that she thought me dead, and with the dim light no one would recognize me. Along with the fact that the venom had aged me slightly, I still looked like myself, I was just a bit different.

My father gave a beautiful sermon before the procession brought us to the town cemetery, where they had already put my stone in, and as there was no body, there was no hole in the ground. After they were done, the crowd started to disperse and soon it was merely my parents and Isabella with hers. I held my breath, now that everyone was gone, I could smell Isabella's blood as I stood in the shadows of the church. It was so sweet and it called to me, so I held my breath. While I watched, my mother walked over to Bella and handed my bag over to her.

"You ought to have this," She said and Master Swan didn't seemed to pleased, but he allowed it as my mother walked away and Isabella sniffled a little before following her father back to her house, and I followed.

I watched her through the balcony opening as she climbed onto her bed, and her nursemaid brought in hot coals to put at the foot of her bed. As she walked in Isabella started to cry, and it was the most heart breaking sound I had ever heard. I yearned to run to her and take her away from this terrible place, but I couldn't. She had flipped through my journal earlier, and now it was hitting her, hard.

"Miss Isabella," said her nursemaid sternly, "Why didn't you go? You shant not've stayed, Mister Cullen loved you, he would have desired for you to go and live your life."

"I knew that something was a miss when he failed to show up at the harbor," said Isabella through her sobs, "I knew he must have been dead not to show up, and I didn't leave because I do not wish to live without him here with me. I will marry Alexander and wait for the day he comes to kill me with anticipation, only in hopes that he will wait for me at the pearly gates."

"You are a foolish child," said her nursemaid as my still heart tore into two and I realized that I could not produce tears.

That was the second that I swore that I would keep Isabella safe for as long as she lived. I would silently keep Alexander from harming her without allowing her to see me if I could help it. I wasn't in it to cause her anymore heartbreak. I just needed to keep her safe, and protect her from what was to come. I had promised her that I would keep her safe, and that was what I was going to do. I would go to her wedding, and sit in the background, I would be there for her, even if she didn't know it.