Hello my lovelies. Sorry for delay. Apparently large projects, graveyard shifts and grad-school do not prompt updates make. Also, the proper Edward voice is a hard one to get a hold of. Let me know how I did, yeah?
The door swung shut, leaving Edward alone in the darkness. He staggered forward and slumped to his knees, resting his forehead on Bella's bloodied railing. He was utterly wretched. Her accusations rang in his ears, coupled with the cacophony of regret in his own mind, deafening him as the image of Bella's retreating back, and the glassy, opaque stare of the man with her burned into his retinas, blinding him to the still night that surrounded him.
Bella's blood perfumed the air around him, clinging to his clothes, clogging, drugging his senses. He could feel its subtle burn as it cooled on his cheek, sliding languidly down his neck, pooling in the hollow of his throat. It set his body on fire, consuming him with desire just as the memories of his past surged through his mind, unbidden, like the apparition of the woman who had blazed before him in the velvet darkness, all liquid promise and lush, sensual delight, forever out of his reach.
He had not known, he could not have known, that she would be there, on this night of all nights.
The oracle that was Alice had remained silent regarding Bella's movements throughout the world since she had so effectively winked out of her vision's existence almost five years ago.
Nor was there any deception in Carlisle's mind when he had asked Edward to accompany him on his latest venture. His request for Edward's presence had been couched only in the simple attempt to distract his son from the obvious misery that consumed him, and not some elaborate and rather embarrassing attempt to throw him and Bella together: Carlisle was too aware of Edward's fragility regarding her, and not so insensitive as to presume that such a scheme would be in either of their best interests. There had been no indication, formal or otherwise, of Bella's involvement with any of the programs presenting at the gathering, and that information was something that would not have easily escaped Carlisle's careful scrutiny.
They had been as blind as Alice - neither had been aware that Bella would be resurrected in front of them tonight, a golden phoenix arising out of the ashes of their past.
Edward had remained outside when the evening started, overwhelmed by the noise of the crowd after months of solitude. Even when he was with his family, they had been so careful of their thoughts around him that their apparent blankness bordered on silence.
Here at the lodge, the crush of thoughts, egos, and duplicity mingled with the underlying current of alcohol fueled lust had steamrolled his senses, stifling him, worse than the warm wet air that pulsed and lingered around the crowd of bodies in the large hall. Bloodlust wasn't even an issue: Edward thought they stank – the air around them reeking of pollution, greed and fear, and unchecked desire. It was oppressive, suffocating, gagging him to the point of vomiting, had that even been possible.
He had not been lying, therefore, when he excused himself before the presentations, pleading a slight indisposition, indicating to Carlisle his intention to return once the dinner had been over and the crowds' thoughts had settled with their satiety. Outside, in the cool dry air of the Alaskan night, he had lingered, feeling the empty longing wash over him, cradled in the indifferent solitude.
It was so much different than the last time he had found himself pondering his future in the chill of the sub-arctic air. Before, his life had been alive with promise. He had finally found love, and what's more, had worked up the courage to run towards it, instead of away from it. The stars had sung to him that night, shining with possibility as he prepared to return to Forks, and to the young human girl who had so captivated his senses.
Now they were dull pinpricks against the flat black sky – gravestones for the empty nights that stretched out in an eternity before him: Bella was gone, and she had made emphatically sure that he knew she wanted nothing to do with him.
She had blazed before him tonight, a gorgeous knife forged from the fires of his guilt and misbegotten pride, wrought of emotion fit to cut him to his very soul. She was nothing like he remembered: gone was the coltishly awkward girl who had bewitched his dead heart, replaced by a goddess, compellingly mysterious in her new strangeness.
Bella had stood before him in the pale evening light, willowy and graceful, her youthful softness replaced with an unyielding ivory veneer, her skin molding tautly over her bones as though she had been polished to a high finish. Her body, glowing in the light cascading out of the doorway behind her, was wrapped in a film of gold that draped revealingly against her high, firm breasts, and clung to her slender hips and thighs.
He could barely tear his eyes away, let alone speak. The scent that had so tortured and tantalized him was nothing to the perfection that stood before him. For in that moment, as they stared at each other, five years suddenly dust between them, it was not her blood that called to him, but her blatant femininity, and he was paralyzed by wave after wave of lust and grief and longing, his entire body begging for the possession of hers to complete him.
Looking at her, the physical embodiment of what he had so desperately yearned for in all his waking dreams, Edward wanted nothing more than to step across the chasm that separated them, to take her in his arms and tear her silken dress from her pliant human body, bearing her down onto the rough boards beneath them, covering her body with his own, whispering his regret in the softness of her breasts, and spending his woe in the warm haven between her thighs.
But he couldn't. By casting her off, lying, telling her he had not wanted her, telling himself that he knew what was best for her, Edward had, in all his foolish, self-assured pride denied himself the only thing he now knew he had ever been destined for.
Bella.
His heart's desire stood in front of him, but his own words had removed her forever out of his reach. Out of reach because she knew, she saw through it all, and the contempt she felt for him laced her words, and her looks like poison.
He should have known she was lost to him the moment after she burst through the doors leading out onto the balcony. At first, he did not recognize the slim, elegant woman who strode out into the night, splattering blood and tension on the dry wood before screaming her voice out to the stars. And then the soft wind of the swirling warm air of her passage around him, bathing him in the scent that he had tried so hard to forget.
Bella.
She was the same, but different in so many ways. The same brown hair, the same heart shaped face. Her scent still set every molecule of his being on edge, but it was fainter now, diminished, as if he were in greater control of himself, or that she had somehow faded with the passing of time. It was almost impossible to believe as he gazed at the beautiful woman she had become, but looking into her eyes, her eyes that had once been deep and tranquil and shining with love for him, he now only saw the stark, flat emptiness of the night reflected back upon them, and the lines of sadness and exhaustion around them. The Bella he knew was gone, broken and destroyed, every bit of her fate reflected in face that stared back at him.
It was the same face he had seen in Charlie's mind, only amplified before him in blood and flesh as she bit out the accusations that he so richly deserved.
"You lied to me. You DESTROYED me. You poisoned my life."
The brief feeling of hope that surged through his empty veins when Bella told him she knew – that he had lied when he said he didn't want her – gusted out of him, extinguished as he realized how deeply she had misunderstood him, and how horribly his misguided attempt to protect her human life, the essence of her future, had gone wrong.
"I want my goddamn life back."
He had failed. His own fear, his arrogance, his damnable smug self-assuredness had destroyed the innocent girlhood of the woman who had stood before him, robbing her of the life he had hoped his martyred absence would give her.
Something had moved in her eyes, that final moment, when she tore the necklace from around her throat and flung it at his feet and the other man had called her inside. She had stared at him, her eyes dark, empty wells threatening to pull him into their fathomless depths, searching his face as an unreadable expression moved and flickered across her own.
Her eyes had softened for one brief moment, the lines around them smoothing until suddenly she was his Bella again and he broke, and begged her not to go. Instantly she changed, the tension returned to her beautiful face, and she drew herself up, impossibly straight, sparing him one last enigmatic glance before she turned away and stepped out of his life. Was it contempt, hurt, fear, that had filled her eyes when she looked at him? He could not be sure. And now, he would never know.
Edward traced the bloody trinket that lay crumpled next to him on the wooden decking with numbed fingers, a rueful breath catching in his throat as he was finally able to see what the little bit of amber contained.
It was a tiny fly, forever preserved in a web of crystal gold, unchanging, and unchangeable. Just like him.
"This is what I am."
I did this, too.
He was the spider to her human fly in that amber prison, and he had just as assuredly trapped Bella in the silken strands of his ridiculous attempt to preserve what he presumptuously thought to be her appropriate destiny. She had wanted him, and he had cast her aside, leaving her bound in the web of deceit that he had spun in order to pry himself away from her. He had hoped that she would somehow understand, that he was only trying to save her from his own damnation, but instead he had left her caught in a cursed virginal half-life, believing herself to be unloved, and undesirable – as painfully and pathetically chaste as he knew himself to be.
The shame of it, the agony of his idiocy welled up within him, a surging tide of anguish, choking him with heaving, dry, fruitless sobs as he clutched the tiny amulet that still throbbed with the warmth of Bella's body. She was gone – lost to him through his own fear, for that was what had guided him to the fatal mistake of letting Bella go.
He had been afraid: afraid of losing her, afraid of giving himself to her, afraid of her rejecting him. That was the true reason why he had imposed the pathetic barrier of Bella's human fragility on the sexual progression of their physical relationship: fear. The reality was that he could no more hurt her than tear off his own head, but to Edward the idea of surrendering himself and the heart that he had so carefully guarded for almost a century to the overwhelming intimacy of making love to anyone, let alone Bella, was terrifying.
Because he feared that Bella would eventually, and rightly, see him for what he truly was, and cast him out of her bed and out of her life, leaving him naked and exposed, and alone in the perpetual darkness of eternity. And so he had run away in order to save himself from the humiliation of her rejection; lied to her and fled like the worthless, monstrous coward he knew himself to be to save himself from the ultimate pain of inevitability.
Of course he was wrong: the agony he felt, seeing her, seeing Bella again; watching her turn away from him with a look of shame and disgust was excruciating beyond belief. He would rather have been changed a thousand times over than feel the way he did when her eyes traced over him for the last time, as she turned away from him, heedless of his plea, leaving him unexplained, unresolved.
How? Thought Edward. How can anyone be in this much pain and not die?
But he knew he did not deserve the comfort of death. It was finally fitting, this eternal life, leaving him damned for all time with the perfect memory of his folly.
He was lost, unaware, buried in his grief, when he suddenly felt his shoulders being circled by a pair of familiar strong arms, and a cool hand pressed against his temple, guiding his bloody head to rest against the firm chest of his foster father.
Carlisle.
My poor Edward.
He could not breathe. He was drowning in misery, and Carlisle's voice in his mind, and the gentle, soothing pressure of his hand running through his hair as if he were still a young child, coupled with the barely audible hiss of compassion, seemed only to magnify the extent of his sins.
"Why can't I die?" he whispered into Carlisle's jacket. Please kill me. "When will this ever end?"
Carlisle shushed him, rocking his lanky, helpless son like a baby.
Edward, I am sorry, Carlisle's voice whispered to him. I chose this life for you for my own selfish reasons – because I was lonely, and needed companionship I took your natural death from you without your consent. You never asked for a life such as mine, and I cannot help but feel that your pain is my own fault.
Edward shifted in Carlisle's arms, wanting to protest – that his mess was all of his own making - even though he knew it to be true – they had parted ways once before over this very reason – but his outburst had weakened him and Carlisle held him still with ease.
And yet, Carlisle continued, taking a folded square of linen out of his suit pocket and gently wiping the blood from Edward's face with it, from what I saw of Bella tonight I think that there is more to this than you have told us.
He grasped Edward's chin between his thumb and forefinger in a patently fatherly gesture and raised the younger man's head up so he could look directly into his eyes. Two pairs of golden eyes looked into each other, one pair filled with warmth and compassion and paternal command, the other pair looking back in a mixture of sadness and panicked resignation.
You have been lying to us Edward, and it is time for you to stop.
Edward choked out a shaky breath, wishing that the earth would open up and swallow him whole. The moment he had dreaded had finally come to pass, and there would be no running away once he revealed the extent of his shame, his deception. He sighed, and spoke out loud the words that would unravel the pain and confusion that had divided his family for the past five years.
"Bella didn't leave me. I left her."
Thank you all for your support. I promise I will respond to my kind reviewers. I'm just crawling back to life myself.
