Chapter 7: I'll Run Away With You

a/n: Thanks for the reviews, lovelies! I appreciate them!

a/n: Italicized lines are thoughts.

a/n: The title and lyrical quote at the end comes from the overplayed yet very applicable "Just Like Heaven" from the Cure. Its link is on my profile.

xx

quote, p.267: "I was afraid...because, for well, obvious reasons, I can't stay with you. And I'm afriad that I'd like to stay with you, much more than I should. " I looked down at his hands as I spoke. It was difficult for me to say this aloud.

"Yes," he agreed slowly. "That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to be with me. That's really not in your best interest."

xx

chapter 6(last chapter, Edward got caught by Carlisle as he was breathing in a "momento" pillow of Bellas to help desensitize him; however, to Carlisle, the action makes him wonder if Edward is back to his "old" ways):

Bella lifted her head up towards me. "Have we established ties?"

"Yes," I answered truthfully.

"Have we established enough ties?"

Enough ties to be make me safe? Her safe?

"I don't know."

From that night onward, she read a couple more lines from the book. Sometimes I'd read a couple lines from a book I'd brought along from my own collection. And each night, as I settled down into her broken-down lounge chair, on her broken-down balcony, underneath her useless second-hand blanket, I asked myself: How many ties would be enough?

xx

I didn't want to leave that question to chance.

Her bloodscent was just as overpowering as the first time I'd caught it; burning through me, egging me on to do what came naturally. Causing me to relive the first fantasy that replayed in my head again and again like a greatest hits record:

Her body writhing below me as I latched on murderously to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as her blood pulsed in spurts down my throat. My jaw still moving, attempting to get more, even after her eyes were glassy and lifeless and I knew she was sucked dry.

The longer I was away from her, the stronger the fragrance hit me when we reunited. For every tie we established in our late night talk sessions, an image of dying Bella severed two or three. If she only knew what an imposter I was, the whole time I sat in her bedroom with a genteel smile on my face.

But she didn't. And I wanted to fix the situation before she ever found out.

At night, I tried to give more than I was comfortable with giving. I let her tease me more than I was used to, and I teased back as good as she gave. I shared things with her that I normally guarded from others. Like how piano and books had long been my solace, because they were great company for a party of one. And I was rewarded each time I gave a little more. Because every time I shared something with Bella, she shared something back. Sometimes the sharing was heavy-hearted: How so many of her best memories with her mother were underneath covers, way past her bedtime, as they giggled over Mr. Darcy's uptight ways. Or Mr. Knightley's constant school marming of Emma.

It was her mother, I finally learned, who had been the hopeless romantic afterall. Bella's ties to her mother were deeply rooted in books of a certain persuasion. Books that her mother had gifted her throughout the years and now sat in her bookshelf.

Sometimes the sharing was silly: how she thought Darcy owned Rochester, but that Rochester was preferable to Heathcliff.

"Heathcliff's the guy you meet at a club with serial killer eyes, but really great hair, so you makeout with him. But you give him a fake number at the end of the night, as well as a fake name at the beginning."

I grimaced on cue. "You'd make out with a guy who looked like a serial killer, just because he had great hair?"

She sighed, rolling her eyes in response, like I was always a step or two behind her. Which I always felt I was.

"Rochester's more presentable. He's not as hot and mysterious as Heathcliff, but he's more steady and reliable in terms of taking you out on a proper date and going home to meet your dad."

"Yeah, when he's not busy locking up his first wife in the attic," I added. That made her laugh louder than anything I'd ever said.

"Well, when you put it that way, maybe presentable is overrated. Maybe I should just give Heathcliff my real number and call it a day." The lingering smile that accompanied her declaration only made me smile back.

Bella, always speaking in inneundos. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

During the day when I wasn't with her, I tried to keep the ties we were forming intact. The more I sank into the concentrated scent of her pillow, the more desensitized I became. The more desensitized I became, the easier it was to push past those destructive impulses to harm her altogether. I wanted the new memories of our fledgling friendship to take centerstage now.

Funny, that this was what I was doing when Carlisle walked in and jumped to a different conclusion.

Exactly what makes you friends? Wouldn't she be surprised if she knew her friend was spending hours on end in his bedroom, encasing himself in her scent?

"She wouldn't be surprised, Carlisle. And that's why we're friends. She'd turn it into a punchline." His eyes grew wider with the gravity of my words.

She knows...he's told her...some human girl is walking around town everyday, knowing everything...

"She's not just any human girl, " I interjected. "She's different, looks at everything in ways I can't even fathom half the time. But I trust her, as much as anyone in this family. Even more so, with certain family members." Rose's petulant face fluttered through my head.

"You've bonded with her," he said in a low, foreboding voice.

I couldn't help but laugh at the notion. What we had was at best an awkward friendship.

"You've bonded yourself...to a human."

"If you want to call friendship a bond, so be it. But that's all it is."

He took a deep breath before responding.

"That's not all it is, if you're being honest. You know we bond differently than they do. For us, it is unbinding and unchanging. Humans are much more fleeting with their attachments. Everything about them is fleeting."

My fixed glare gave him pause to continue. The glare was partly due to the patronizing tone he was taking with me, and partly due to the fact "fleeting" was code for "that wool sweater you're wearing will outlive this girl's fancies and life expectancy." The glare softened though as I imagined Bella hearing his words. She'd probably accuse him of likening her to a gerbil or a mosquito or a ---

"Focus, Edward."

I shook my head, trying to get that scent out of my head long enough to end this conversation. Carlisle had other plans though.

"For you to attach yourself to something fleeting is dangerous. You know this. At the very least, it's masochistic. At the very worst, it's suicidal. Especially for you and your situation."

Situation. More codewords. Leave it to Carlisle to politely dance around the reality that everyone else in the family thought regularly: I was a freak among freaks. I was more "special" than all of them, in all the wrong ways.

His inferences were correct, of course. Time was a different creature for our kind. A year felt like a day, a century like a year. Everything changes and flees quickly around us, while we stayed the same. A mate was the one constant in our existence. Take that one constant away, and everything was put into a tailspin.

"Of course I know this. But you don't understand, she calls me her friend. That is what we have, nothing more. Friendship."

"Which is exactly my point," he cut in, and Carlisle never cut in. "What she's calling friendship is something entirely different from what you're feeling."

"You don't know that, Carlisle. You're jumping to conclusions."

Taking in my dismissive tone, he picked his words and thoughts carefully before proceeding. "You've only experienced certain feelings through others' thoughts and actions. Second hand, not directly. Humans use the term "friend" casually. They'll use it equally for the mailman and their dearest confidante. We use the term solemnly. I can tell you right now that she isn't spending hours breathing in your scent and fixating all day long the way you are with her. And if she had any clue that you were, she'd take a restraining order out on you. Your behavior would look less like a friend and more like a stalker, to a human girl. Would she make a punchline out of this too?"

If he intended for a direct hit, he was successful with marksman skill. Shame washed over me; resentment too, at his words. Everything he was saying was true. I didn't have much experience beyond feelings for our family. And our kind didn't bother with casual connections the way humans did. We moved in couplings mostly, or small groups that were bound together for survival's sake. And yet, he made me feel so small in that moment, pathetic and groveling for the attention of a flighty human girl with the lifespan of a gnat.

But Bella wasn't any normal human girl, let alone a gnat.

"You don't know her. You don't know anything about her or what she would do or think. She knows the very worst about me, and still she's kind to me. Welcomes me every evening at her window. Even worries about me when I have nowhere to go at night."

Carlisle's eyes narrowed as his thinking sharpened in its resolve.

"If she's seen the very worst of you, Edward, who's to say her actions aren't motivated by fear, then? What is she suppossed to say to her natural predator if he's coming to her bedroom nightly? Go away?"

I tried to interrupt him, but he continued, determined to have his say.

"Who's to say you're being completely honest with your motivations as well? I don't need to tell you what your behavior resembles. That by the time I found you holding onto a momento like this last time, it was too late. I don't want to be too late again, Edward. I care too much to see you fall like that again."

I groaned out of frustration. All of Carlisle's sentiments were more perceptive than I cared to admit, and completely well-intentioned. But they were also dismissive of the little refuge that I'd found with Bella, that had given me something to look forward to finally.

"You just don't understand what's between us, Carlisle. What we've been through together. That's all I can say."

"I don't understand everything, you're right. But if you were a real friend, you'd put some distance between each other. Your behavior is too compulsive and unpredictable right now, and I can't help but wonder if you're confusing certain instincts with feelings of attachment. A good friend would put her interests first before his desires."

I jumped up from the bed, intent on walking away. But it didn't stop him from talking.

"I know this is new and exciting for you right now. And I know how it can be a struggle to stay in our family at times alone--"

Alice. Alice had said something similar just weeks earlier, and the identical sense of pity that laced each word made me crack up.

"Why is every apology for having me be the odd man out really a disclaimer about how I shouldn't want anything outside of the family? Why can't I have this, even if it is fleeting? What's so bad about me wanting something, just for myself, for once?"

Carlisle's face fell, his mind racing with pained and guilt-ridden thoughts. Even with my mother's blessing, he blamed himself for how things had turned out. But he quickly stiffened, steeling himself up for the following words:

"It's bad for the same reason my father did what he did when he found out I'd named one of the pigs on our farm, and gave it extra food. He served him up for dinner the next evening, so I'd always remember the difference between livestock and pets. So I'd never forget what I should get attached to, and what I shouldn't."

Sorrow flooded through me as his words sunk in. "You think of her as a chicken. Or a mouse," I choked out in bitter laughter, echoing the very words and sentiments Bella used on me that first night.

Without another word, I slipped through my window and out towards the dense forest behind our house. The car would be left behind tonight. I darted through the woods, running parallel with the highway. And I didn't stop until I got to Port Angeles. At that very moment, Bella was with her father at their weekly couseling session. It was yet another boundary that Bella had put up for me:

"No following me to Port Angeles. No eavesdropping either. I need to do this for my dad and I'll feel self-conscious if you listen in."

Bella was under the impression that her father wanted the counseling for both of them. His thoughts told otherwise, as he constantly listed all the things that Bella had been doing that struck him as strange:

Making up for lost time with me.

Spoiling me.

Going from "Charlie" to "Dad" to "Daddy."

Calling me daily, always reminding me of all our sweetest memories together.

Giving away sentimental possessions to friends like Seth.

Even trying to set me with Sue.

She's getting things in order....

His line of work, with past cases to back him up, informed him that something was amiss. That she was tying up loose ends in ways no nineteen year old girl should. He wondered if she was suicidal, but his mind refused to go there for more than a brief moment. He settled on depression, guilt over her mother, and the withdrawal that comes about as a consequence. Her friends seemed to support this argument, he found out, when he questioned them. Almost unanimously, they told him of the growing distance between them and Bella lately. Emily, in particular, mentioned how Bella would retreat to her bedroom nightly, and never come back out. Charlie hoped a counselor could help Bella reclaim the life she had carved out for herself before tragedy struck. But he still worried he wasn't doing enough, as any good father would...

My mind quickly shot forth an image of an equally worried man in my bedroom still. Worried that I was slipping away in ways I couldn't come back from. But I extinguished it as quickly as I conjured it up.

I found Bella's scent concentrating in a business office parking lot, her car sticking out like a red, rusty eye sore. The elevator took me up three floors before her fragrance beckoned me to get off. The soft voices from suite 204 were lingering now in my direction, too inviting to ignore:

"Bella, that's actually a very common occurrence with survivor's guilt. To feel as if what happened to another should have happened to you instead. Everything you're describing is a very natural reaction to the trauma you've been through."

Bella didn't answer right away, her weeping being her only response. Finally she spoke in soft, firm tones:

"What I'm experiencing, it's not just guilt. Or some mind trick I'm playing on myself. It's more real than that. I know the difference."

Charlie's mind was about to explode, full of silent self-berating:

It was too early to bring this up. Now she's never going to open up to me again...

"I'm NOT suicidal though. I'm not. I need my dad to know that no matter what happens, I would never hurt myself. I'd never put him through what I'm going through right now." She was pleading for the counselor to believe her, so that he could convince Charlie in turn. The responding voice was warm and caring, just like his inner thoughts.

"I know you're not suicidal, Bella. But sometimes survivor's guilt manifests in tricky ways. Thinking that fate is coming after you to settle some score, like you described? That your time was up before, and will be up sooner than later? That can be one way of giving up control in your life, and allowing other forces to decide things for you. Does that make sense?"

Bella answered yes quietly.

"If you think you're doomed, you may put yourself in dangerous situations that you might otherwise not."

Like fraternizing with your almost-killer...

"What we need for you to think about is reconnecting with the active life you had before the accident. Reconnecting with your friends, and family, and the things that made you passionate and happy. The more you reconnect with those things, the more grounded and in control you will feel in your life..."

I turned around and walked out of the building, not listening to another word. Within minutes I was deep inside the woods again, where I would stay until dawn break. There would be no knocking on Bella's window tonight.

Reconnections. Another way of saying establishing ties.

Something I had been working so hard on all these weeks. Trying to strengthen the ones I'd made with Bella. Trying to rethread the ones I'd severed every time I envisioned harming her - with pleasure. Trying to strengthen my resolve around her, so those visions didn't show up in the first place.

All this work to keep what fledgling relationship we had alive, and nurture it. And it had never occurred to me that establishing our ties was coming at an expense of other connections in her life.

I'd justified my nightly visits because I felt useful to her. She was more safe and slept better under my watch. There were less tears and nightmares just in the last week. And I benefitted even more. Her offer of simple friendship, the only offer I'd received outside of my family in almost a century, seemed wrong. Unnatural. Yet it had a power over me that was overwhelming. The more Bella ignored the monster and spoke directly to the seventeen-year-old boy that had long retreated, the more that boy insisted on coming out.

The price for this awakening? The monopoly I had on Bella's life now.

I'd never even asked her if she wanted my company every night; I just assumed she did, the way I wanted hers. But she had other friends, as Carlisle reminded me earlier. Family. Rochesters as well, I imagined. "Steady and reliable" boys who could take her out on proper dates and taken home to meet the Chief.

My head sagged at the reality that lay before me: a portrait of a groveling monster pretending to be a real boy for a real, live girl. Tapping on her window nightly, like an eager, lovestruck teenager - a century too late.

Bella had come face to face with death just months earlier. It gave her new sight, made her see things like monsters and the fleeting nature of mortality. It kept her out on the outskirts of life. It was no stretch to imagine her staying so close to death out of loyalty to her mother. It was how she'd stayed connected to her memory this whole time. But now her father and friends wanted her back. And I was keeping a firm hold on her, making sure she stayed right on the fringes of mortality with me.

Was I just another way Bella was giving up on life?

Carlisle's interrogation about my motivations and the nature of our friendship started to weight heavily on me.

Was "Death" really after her? Or was that a convenient excuse for me to stay close to her? Had I been putting her interests first this whole time, as a true friend would - or only mine?

xx

"Edward!"

She peered through the window from her bed, taking in my dark form, before jumping out of bed. The window lifted seconds later. "Where were you yesterday? I thought something happened to you!"

I couldn't help but smile at her scolding reaction. "Uh, I'm at the top of the food chain. Nothing ever happens to me. And I came by late last night, but you were safe and sound in bed already."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't know where you were though. You could have called or left a note."

"I'm sorry, Bella."

I stared at her for a moment, committing every last detail surrounding her to long-term memory. Her pj bottoms with the stretched-out elastic waistband and the packets of sand lined up neatly from left to right on the dresser, starting with "Rosarita Beach, Mexico." I even inhaled that horrible coconut-lime air freshener she insisted on using in her room.

"Are you coming in?"

I shook my head.

"How about you come out instead? Bring your shoes and a jacket."

She obeyed me without another word, which delighted and irritated me, all at the same time.

"Do you mind if we take my car for part of the trek? I want to show you something, and you'll be more comfortable driving for part of it."

She nodded, her eyes conveying something I couldn't quite grasp.

I exhaled slowly and concentrated as her fragrance took over my car with her arrival.

Tonight was the night, I reminded myself. Tonight I would get through the whole evening without one fantasy that involved harming her. Tonight had to be done right.

"Where are we going," she asked, yawning while she inquired. It was almost midnight, and she should have been asleep already.

"It's a surprise, sleep while you can and I'll wake you up when we get there."

xx

"Bella?" I nudged her gently until she stirred herself awake. She looked around her surroundings, disoriented.

"Where are we?"

"Oregon." I tried to keep a straight face, but couldn't once she dropped her jaw.

"Oregon? How the hell did you make it to Oregon so fast?"

Did she even have to ask at this point?

I cursed the full moon for shining so brightly everywhere - I was hoping a veil of darkness would make it easier for what we were about to do.

"We need to hike to get to where I want us; but since it's so bright out, you have to promise me you'll close your eyes until I tell you to open them."

A mischievous smile spread across her face. "Of course."

Liar.

I knelt down, my back facing her. "Climb onto my back, and hold on tight."

She began to question why she had to hold on tight when I sped off at full speed. Her words were reduced to squeals as her hands clasped around my neck.

"You closing your eyes?"

"Yesssss...." Her voice was shakey as she bounced side to side on my back like a rag doll.

I sped through long-abandoned trails; upward, past pockets of trees on both sides of me. Until I ground to a halt.

"Can I look now?" Bella's voice was invigorated. I was afraid she'd get nauseous during the ride, but she was perfectly fine.

"NO. Not until I say so."

With that, I tightened my piggyback hold on her, and took one step off the ledge--

"Ohmywhatthehellareyouohgod--STOP!"

But it was too late, my feet were already running down the steep, brush-laden cliff, at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle.

"Close your eyes!"

She was still screaming into my ear, all the evidence I needed to know her eyes were wide-opened. But then the screams quieted into squeals, and her arms and legs wrapped tighter around me in excitement. By the time we reached the sandy ground, she was laughing.

"Do that again," she yelled out, most likely showing off.

"Be careful what you wish for, Bella."

Her response was so soft, I wasn't sure if it was for my ears to hear: "Don't I know it."

Bella's mood changed abruptly, her limbs falling to my sides in defeat. Of what defeat? I had no idea. She was so frustrating at times, how quickly her moods could change.

"Do you want me to put you down now," I asked. "Are you okay?"

She shook her head in response, the ends of her hair flapping against me. I didn't know if she was answering the former or the latter question.

"Just run again. Run up and down this beach as fast you can." She held me closer to her, as orange-tinged moon rays shone down on the glassy ocean and powdered sand before us.

In no time she was laughing once more, especially when I sprinted ankle deep into the receding ocean tides. The wind beat against us hard, but she showed no signs of discomfort. Only elation, her giggles rushing into my ears and her legs kicking around like a child hopped up on too much frosting.

"Again," she yelled out when I slowed down.

"You sound like a three year old tyrant right now, you know that?" Keeping in theme, she spurred her heels into my side.

"Don't talk, Pony. Just gallop." Bella's words were sliced up in jumbles though, due to chattering teeth. I looked down on her exposed legs that rested around my hipbones - they were covered in goosebumps and icy ocean droplets.

I'd forgotten to keep her fragile body temperature in mind during the last several minutes.

"Oh, Bella." My arms swung her around to my chest and cradled her securely as I moved away from the water. There was a small cove nearby that offered refuge from the brisk winds. "You're freezing and your pants are soaking. Why didn't you tell me I was getting you wet when I was running..."

"I didn't really feel it at the time," she said with a sheepish grin.

My inner doctor, two med-school degrees over, came into play without a second thought. I silently stripped off her wet pajama bottoms and was about to cover them with my jacket when she grabbed a firm hold of my arm.

I wasn't prepared for the look on her face when my eyes met hers. Those same brown eyes, so full of mischief when housed in the comfort of their bedroom, were now searching mine with an intensity I'd never seen before. She slowly shoved my jacket to the side, leaving her bare legs exposed.

"Do you see me as a mouse?"

It was our long-running gag all these weeks. She as a pet, me as a monster. But this time around, her voice wasn't bathed in sarcasm. She was asking me how I truly saw her.

I put her jacket back on top of her legs carefully. "I don't normally go through all this effort for a mouse."

She didn't acknowledge my first attempt at answering, waiting for a more adequate reply.

"I see a very beautiful girl. Who can wear her hair slick and straightened or like a haystack--"

I ruffled her hair slightly with my hand --

"and she still looks lovely."

I expected my answer to garner a smile, or a quick joke to lighten the mood. But it only made her eyes close while she let out a drawn breath. Panic set into me, as the situation quickly turned in another direction that I wasn't understanding. I tried to get back to my agenda.

"That's why I brought you here, you know. A pretty ocean view for a pretty girl."

In all her Oregon tourist pictures, I'd noticed that this beach was missing. The jagged cliffs and the islets that sprinkled just past the seashore made for an otherworldly oceanic view.

"I know you like beaches, and like to vacation by them. I wanted you to add this one to your collection..." I scooped up some sand, and let it slide down into her open palm. " A collection I hope that grows to be very large for you over the years."

Tonight was about being a good friend. But I allowed myself one selfish gesture. I was intent on making this one night so special, I would always be a part of her beloved sand collection. And maybe even a part of her beloved recollections, alongside giggling with her mother in bed, and standing by giant thermostats with her father.

She shot me a questioning glance, and it was now or never for me to get to the point of the field trip tonight.

"Bella, can I ask something of you?"

"Anything, Edward. Anything at all." Her words came out like a solemn vow, as if she already understood the significance of my favor.

"I don't want you to worry about death coming after you anymore. I promise you, as long as I'm existing, I will never let it near you. Not before it's your right time, many years from now."

Her eyes narrowed. "Why does this sound like a good-bye?"

I ignored her inquiry. "And in return, you have to promise me you'll live your life. For you and your mother's memory. And maybe even a little bit for me, if you ever need any more motivation."

"This is a good-bye. " She jumped up onto her knees, my jacket sliding down her thighs and onto the sand. "You were listening in on the counseling session. I knew it! The minute the counselor started talking about how I needed to get my old life back, I worried for a moment you'd overheard. And when you didn't show up last night, God, I knew you a had..."

"Everything he said was true, though, Bella."

"No, it's not. How can I go back to my old life after everything that's happened? And you even said death was all around me, you agreed with me before. He's saying I'm making it all up in my head."

I tried to word this carefully: "Death is all around you because you are mortal, it's around everything living on this planet. But the counselor was right that you don't need to assist it by being careless and apathetic about living. You act as if you've already lost the fight. And it's just not true, Bella. You need to go back to where you were before all this happened, and not let death take away anymore from you. You need to get back to living your life, with your family and friends..."

"But you're saying good-bye to me," Her voice was uneven now as tears threatened to fall. "You're my friend too."

When I'd imagined this conversation earlier, it had always played out the same. Bella would listen and agree with my reasoning. She would even be a little relieved that I was letting go. But her reaction was throwing me off, making me forget what my reasoning was in the first place.

"Bella, I'll always be your friend. But I can only be a good friend in certain ways. I can protect you from a safe distance. But I can't be a good friend in more normal ways, in ways your old friends can."

Her lips twisted in anger, as she mauevered herself so that we were face to face. As she rested her hands on my thighs, I gasped involuntarily. She was too close to me, and the wind was blazing a path up my nostrils with her scent.

"How can you say you're not a good friend? How hard it is it for my roommate or a co-worker to be my friend? Not hard at all. But it's hard for you. You don't tell me, but I see you struggle. And still you come back every night, and keep me company, and make sure I'm okay. That's the best kind of friend."

A part of me wanted to agree with her, and head back to the refuge of our bedroom once more. The other part reminded me there was no going back.

"But being the best kind of friend means putting you first. And getting you back to where you are living once again, and doing things girls your age do. That doesn't include what we do together, and you hanging out with a boy who hasn't lived in more years than your grandmother's seen."

Her tears were flowing now, that concentrated fragrance burning through my throat and lungs. I tried to stop breathing, but the smell was already messing with my thoughts. I could feel myself losing control.

"I'm not using you like a crutch, Edward. I recognized something in you way before you ever asked me out. You were handsome of course, but you were marked, just like I was. "

I stared at her in confusion.

"I could tell you've been to death and back, just like me. It's written all over your face. Just like it's written all over mine. And I know you crave me in ways that aren't safe. But what if it was nature's way of nudging you my way? Making you take notice, when you wouldn't have otherwise? What if that was the only way to get you to recognize me back?"

I closed my eyes, trying to regroup. Everything she said made too much sense, and yet it seemed illogical. That my very nature had been some sort of twisted matchmaker for us, when it seemed to be tearing us apart.

"That sounds lovely, Bella. But I don't think it's the case."

Her hands grabbed harder onto my knees now, as she leaned into me closer. I held my breath:

"All I know Edward, is that since you've been coming around, I look both ways when I cross the street. And I use my turn signals. And don't tell Death to fuck off like I used to constantly, trying to provoke him into action. And I don't look just both ways, but up and all around me now. Because I need to make it home in one piece since you promised to read me Shakespeare in the Three Stooges' voices that night. And Wuthering Heights with Fran Drescher as Katherine the next."

Her hands raised up, cautiously cradling my cheeks, warm and soft and maddening in their offering.

"You give me something to fight for, now."

It was almost too much to bear. Rage sprinted through me, realizing that she found the exact words I secretly desired to hear most. That I was wanted, and needed, and maybe even good for her, the way she was good for me.

"So please, Edward," she whispered, "Please don't go."

Her full lips pressed against my forehead, causing her neck to graze my lips.

It was like lighting a fuse. I clenched my teeth and hands as my sight blinded and my hearing deafened while the same vile fantasy that had been dogging me from the beginning took over all my senses:

Her body writhing below me as I latched on to her neck. My eyes rolling back, enraptured, as I opened her legs and pushed into and pulsed inside her....

My eyes flew open in a panic, as the fantasy took on a new, lecherously predatory turn. A turn that shocked me in ways the old fantasy hadn't even.

My hips still moving, attempting to have more, even after her eyes were glassy and I knew she milked me dry.

I pushed her off me instantly, a savage howl tearing through the silence as I leapt to my feet and ran as far and fast away from her as I could. I collapsed onto the sand once the distance was safe enough - both for her and me.

Lies. All her sweet thoughts were beautiful, unknowing lies that only moments earlier felt like truths. My body, shaking and hard and pained, told a different story. I was a danger to her in ways I'd never even imagined.

"Edward," her hoarse voice whispered out into the darkness from down below. "Edward, I'm sorry....."

xxx

"Why are you so far away?" she said
"Why won't you ever know that I'm in love with you?"

-- "Just Like Heaven"