He:

Why won't you come back

So we can talk this over

And stay for a while and be my lover

And we might live

Like never before

She:

When tears flood in

I cannot stay

'Cause we will never make it

-Humane "Good Bye"

BELLA'S POV

The ground was shaking. The car was shaking. I was shaking.

The world was shaking.

He was so there.

I stared into his familiar face and sucked in every detail. The curve of his upper lip, the perfect arch of his cheekbone where it met with his jawline, the familiar straight line of his nose; his eyebrows that shadowed his dark eyes like the wings of a bird. I had kissed them all, once upon a time.

And his perfect lips moved, forming my name.

Again.

And there was a strange sound in my throat and my eyes were suddenly blinded by unwelcome tears.

"Bella," he said again, and when my name fell from his lips it sounded like music.

EDWARD'S POV

What did I see in her eyes when she looked at me? Why couldn't I read her?

"Bella," I said, my voice repeating her name like a charm.

Bella, stay, Bella, don't disappear.

I need you.

BELLA'S POV

He couldn't be here. He couldn't.

I had finally fallen over the edge, spiralling into madness. The sleepless night and stress added to a long period of depression had finally stripped me from my sanity.

Why would he be here, in the middle of Phoenix, in the bright morning sun? Looking at me as if he had been looking for me? I felt dizzy. Actually, that was an understatement. I felt awake. And so damn gone, so gone from reality.

My surroundings were moving; I suddenly realized I was about to step in to the car. His gaze was like an electric field that pulled me towards him. I was a magnet and he was the universe pulling me to itself. The black hole that sucked everything else into itself.

What were his eyes saying to me?

I was still, my hand frozen on the door handle of the unknown car he was driving. Why was he looking at me like that?

As if he wanted me?

I remembered precisely the look in his eyes the last time I had seen him. There had not been love there, just coldness. Flatness.

I hesitated. This vision in front of me looked like Edward - why wasn't it painful to think of his name anymore? - and his eyes were like his had been, a very long time ago. When I still would've bet everything I owned that he loved me. But that Edward had never existed. Who was this stranger, a demon come to haunt me, who looked like him, but who couldn't have been him?

There was something I knew for sure: the real Edward would never again look at me with want in his eyes.

Tears clouded my vision again. His shape blurred and darkened in front of my eyes, as if he were about to slip back into the shadowy realms of my imagination, where he had emerged from.

He can't go yet. Please. Let me say to him what I never got to say, I begged an invisible force of nature, a little surprised by my own thoughts. And when the thought had slipped into my consciousness I realized that I thirsted and had always thirsted for it.

Closure.

If I could go back, to that dreadful evening in the woods... to the time that he left... would I do things differently? Would I tell him how I felt? Could I?

"Edward," I said. His name felt strange on my lips after such a long time. Before, in my mind, there had just been a blank space where his name had been. I couldn't see his face over my tears. Was he leaning closer? How long did I have, before he would disappear? Was he real or a ghost risen from my imagination?

He was waiting, but I found no words to say. I couldn't take it. I couldn't lose him again. I couldn't bear him leaving me again. I had to go, I had to go!

And I was running, away, away, away. There were people on the streets now; they looked at me with tired eyes when I sped past them, blinking tears out of my eyes.

There were boxes and chests I had sealed and piled up on top of each other, forever to be kept locked up and bolted to the shady, rarely-visited corners of my head. Now they were opening and crumbling down, and things were falling out into the light that I didn't even remember had existed.

I had to run.

EDWARD'S POV

She was running.

I was a prisoner of sunlight; locked beyond the darkened glass of the rented Mercedes-Benz. Could I let her go? Could I not?

If I were still alive, my heart would be pounding in my chest.

Could I? Could I?

Please, I begged the gods. Please let me kiss her, hold her, even just once before I die.

And I threw the door of the car open and was out in the air, in the sun, running after her faster than I had ever run before, pushing through, slipping past the frightened and bewildered people. A flash, a sparkling movement in the air.

I saw her running across a road two blocks away. I saw a car turn around the corner.

I saw her die.

BELLA'S POV

I was hit by something. Of course I was.

I was crossing a road, running. I needed to get away. There was no time to look.

There was just the sound of tires screeching against the pavement. I knew it was too late when I heard it. Someone screamed. I don't know if it was me or the driver. My head hit against the pavement; something shattered. There was a loud crack and a snap. And pain.

Then something else hit me. It was hard, unyielding, metallic – sending me back down on the ground with a yelp. My head hurt, God it hurt. I screamed in pain and surprise. Had I been hit my another car? Was I dying? Let me be!

But I hadn't stopped moving, even after being knocked down by that something. What had happened? I was somewhere else now; on an alley. It was dark here. Had I died and gone to hell? I didn't understand what was happening to me. A part of me thought I should be afraid; yet I was hurting too much to mind what was happening to me. My head was in flames; it was burning and breaking. I closed my eyes, watching the red and yellow spots dance behind my eyelids.

My head was throbbing. I couldn't open my eyes. Something brushed against me, very lightly. It felt cool. It felt good in the middle of the pain and the numbness in my head. I didn't understand.

"Bella?" I heard a voice – Edward's voice. God. Was he here? I was imagining things, I was sure of it now. It was Heaven: I had died and gone to Heaven. How else could he have followed me through that crowd in broad daylight?

But why was it hurting if I was in Heaven?

I opened my eyes. He was there, leaning over me. An angel. He was beautiful. I realized I was lying on the ground and he was holding my head in his hands. There was pure fear on his face. My head was hurting. A lot. Who cares? Edward was there, his lips only inches from mine, his hands against my head. The coolness of them felt good against the throbbing. But the fear in his eyes – I wanted to take it away. I was fine.

"Bella? Are you all right? Please, please say something!" He was begging me and I melted underneath his gaze. How could I not do what he was asking me? What was that now, that he had asked me? I frowned, not remembering.

"Ouch," I said; there had been a painful slash across my brain when I had frowned. I lifted my hand and pressed it against my forehead; I felt like my head might explode if I didn't put some pressure on it. My arm was hurting too. There was something wet running down my neck. I lifted my hand there, even though I knew already what that sticky something was. I could smell it. And I knew he could smell it.

"Bella," I heard his voice, and it sounded strange, muted, like it was coming from somewhere far away, Everything went black. Everything was disappearing. He was slipping away. I was slipping away.

"Edward," I answered him. My voice sounded like a question. Is it you? I wanted to ask him. Why did you come back?

The thoughts were slipping away from me, like a dream I was trying to hold on to. What was it that I was supposed to say?

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Everything hurt.

A/N: Getting there, getting there. It has taken me a long time to update, sorry about that! I started out in a new job and have been absolutely exhausted lately.

Reviews, please! J