Chapter 9: Impasse
We were alone. Edward stood a few feet away from me, a living marble statue, as flawless as Michelangelo's "David", and even more glorious.
Neither of us spoke for a long time. Only our eyes were eloquent in their anguish. Only our eyes sparkled with the poignant love we felt for each other.
A slight breeze stirred dreamily through the trees closest to us. Their leaves shimmered in iridescent splendor. Colors sparkled all around us, and for a moment, I was lost in the sheer beauty of the scene. The colors played upon Edward's pale skin like caressing jewels. My mouth opened involuntarily.
Edward's golden gaze drifted downward, and he stood helplessly, staring at the ground sadly. That was the only move he made. I felt like I was watching everything from a distance. I vaguely remembered reading something about that, about how there is a part of us that always remains calm, observing everything we do and experience.
How long would it be before his eyes changed color again, and my life was in jeopardy?
Finally, I couldn't stand the silence, the ethereal, multi-colored beauty of it all, anymore.
"Edward...." I whispered. He looked up, but not at me. Instead, his anguished eyes swept the entire scene, and he sighed. Then he started to turn away from me.
"Edward!" I hadn't meant to sound so sharp. I wasn't angry at him. I was simply afraid that he would blame himself for this, and try to push me away.
He hesitated only briefly, then began to walk away. My suspicions were confirmed. I quickly stepped over to him, and laid a hand on his arm. He stopped, but did not look at me.
"Please...." My tone was now pleading. "Please....talk to me. I can't stand this silence!"
He still didn't look at me. "Bella...." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "What do you want me to say? I will end up killing you. Then I wil have to kill myself, somehow. Let me go. Let me put as much distance as I can between the two of us. Maybe I'll be able to allow myself to die of thirst before I touch a single hair on your head."
His words chilled me to the bone, but I couldn't accept them as inevitable. Still, I remembered what Alice had told me about his disappearance.
"This is why you went off to Denali, isn't it? Were you planning to leave me, then?"
He did not reply.
"You were actually planning to leave me?" I whispered unbelievingly, shocked to the core. I dropped my hand from his arm and stared at the ground in despair. Of course he had grown tired of me. I had known that this would happen someday.
Noticing my hurt expression, he finally turned to me, laying a soothing, very cold hand on my cheek. The look in his eyes was totally bleak, as well as bitter.
"Don't you understand, Bella? You've known me for a while now. Do you really doubt that I could kill you, if I were thirsty enough?" His voice was so sad, so gentle, and as full of despair as mine had been just a few seconds ago.
He slowly caressed my cheek, and the pain in his face must surely have matched my own. "Never again doubt my love for you," he said suddenly, fiercely. "Never for a moment allow yourself to think that I don't love you! I can stand nearly anything but the thought that you might actually believe I don't care for you."
Then he brought his intoxicatingly beautiful face closer to mine, and his cold lips touched my own. I inhaled his sweet scent, and thought I would drown in it.
"I love you with my entire self, such as it is," he breathed upon my trembling lips. Then he kissed me.
I don't know when my arms wound around his neck, while I pressed his body as close to mine as possible. I totally lost myself in him, as he deepened the kiss, groaning his desire for me.
Abruptly, he ended everything, pulling away from me with a sigh, untangling my arms from around his neck. Bereft, I stared at him, through misty eyes.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he whispered, his own eyes moist, if that was possible. Or was it my wild imagination? But the sadness in them was genuine. "I keep testing my limits, and leading you on. I don't mean to do that. But it's so difficult for me not to kiss you, not to hold you close....."
I sighed, too. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. But I really don't think you capable of killing me. Not if you love me this much. You don't give yourself enough credit, really."
He looked down, breaking the spell his eyes always cast on me, and shook his head. His face was once again twisted in pain.
"You don't understand, Bella...."
"Edward!" I couldn't help exclaiming. "It sounds like you're resigned to the situation! Isn't there something we can do?"
He shrugged slowly. "Well, we've never been presented with a problem like this before, have we? In the past, I've always been able to hunt, and I would only allow myself to be around you when I was sure the bloodlust wouldn't consume me. But there are no animals here. Don't you see? It's hopeless!"
He tried to pull away, but I restrained him. He allowed me to do so, of course. If he had really wanted to pull away, I could neve have held him.
"It might not come to that," I replied. "What about me? What will I eat? I haven't had anything in days, not since Charlie......" Here I had to stop, as a fresh wave of pain hit me. I started to crumple, tears stinging my eyes.
Edward immediately grabbed me around the waist so I wouldn't fall down.
"I'm so very sorry, sweetheart....so sorry....
"How did you...." I muttered, as the tears started to flow. I allowed myself to sink into his hard, cold arms once again. He allowed me to cry unhindered, stroking my hair.
"Alice gave me the news, just before you arrived here," he explained softly. "I know Charlie was a good man, and a good father to you. I'm so very sorry about this, Bella...."
I couldn't reply, but instead kept sobbing into his shirt, heedless of any danger. He, too, seemed to have put any worries about killing me aside, for the moment.
A few minutes elapsed, until I simply had no more tears to shed. I began to lift my head, and encourntered those mesmerizing eyes.
"We really need to find a way out of here," he finally said, angrily, as he looked at me. "We have to find Alice, Emmett.....these vampires have to be destroyed. Oh, Bella.... I'm so sorry that I wasn't there to prevent Charlie's death!"
I pushed myself away from the comfort of his chest momentarily, and took a deep breath as I continued to look into his eyes. "You shouldn't feel guilty. You can't possibly be there every time somebody in the Swan family needs to be rescued."
I smiled weakly through my tears, my hands placed lovingly on his chest.
"Do you....really....think we can leave this place?" My voice quavered now.
"We have to try...." He lifted his hands to my face, and held it very tenderly, as he smiled at me. Then he groaned.
"Oh, my Bella...." His beautiful lips were suddenly on mine again, and his arms came around me, crushing me against him.
Then his lips left mine, and began tracing an intoxicating journey down my neck. I gasped.
"Edward...." I moaned, lost in him.
Then he was gone. I opened my eyes, totally stunned. He was standing just a few feet away, beneath one of the shimmering trees.
"I'm sorry!" He called out, and I had a moment of deja vu. I remembered that other meadow, how he had pulled away from me just like this, how he had sparkled in the sunlight. He shimmered now, just like everything else in this strange, magical place, that was at once so silent, so full of hidden menace.....
"There is another option, too, you know...." I whispered, as I stared at him.
He shook his head. "You know I'll never agree to that." He glowered at me now, from his place beneath the tree.
"Come on....you know we could survive together that way. You would never be tempted...."
"No. I've told you before -- absolutely....not."
A surge of adrenaline swept through me. I placed my hands on my hips as I yelled across to him. "Why are you being so stubborn? Don't you see that this is the only option we have open to us now? Do you prefer the inevitable alternative?"
He said nothing. Then, taking a deep breath, he started walking back toward me. He stopped a few steps away, still glowering at me.
"Bella....do you realize that, if I were to change you now, we would never be able to have our child? You're supposed to remain human at least long enough for that incredible event to take place."
I crossed my arms, unconvinced.
"And do you realize that, if you don't change me, I won't be alive anyway? So I won't have this baby, then, regardless!"
He smiled. "Always my stubborn, spirited Bella! God, but I love you so much! Look, what we have to do is to find some way out of here. Then all of us Cullens can take care of this situation right away."
"What do you mean, 'all of us Cullens'? Are you forgetting that I'm supposed to become one of you someday?"
He laughed at that. "Bella! Tsk, tsk! Don't say that. Besides, it won't happen, not if I can prevent it."
I clenched my fists. "You're impossible! How do you suggest we get out of here,then, Einstein? You'll get hungry way before we can find an exit door!"
He ignored me, crossing his arms as I had done earlier. He was suddenly considering the problem.
"There has to be some sort of passageway...." he mumbled to himself. "Maybe in one of the trees. Maybe, if i push hard enough into the bark...."
"A hidden door?" I prompted, getting interested in spite of our unpleasant disagreement.
'Exactly," he replied, as he began running his hands up and down the trunk of one of the trees.
"Or maybe there's an underground passage," I suggested.
"Good thought," he replied. "Try feeling the ground around you. If you need to lift a rock, let me know. I'll do that for you."
I bent down and sat on my heels, touching the ground around me, pressing down on it, to see if anything would give way. I did this in a circle all around me, but found nothing promising. The grass and dirt were cool to the touch, and my fingers shimmered, too, as I felt around.
I looked up, toward Edward, but he was nowhere to be seen. I stood up quickly, and nearly fell down -- I was feeling very lightheaded now.
"Up here, Bella!" Edward called out. I craned my neck, and he was up in the branches of the tree that he had started investigating.
I sat down again. "Find anything?" I called up to him.
"No!" he called back down. "But I decided to take a look from up here to see what might lie around."
Before I could blink my eyes twice, he was standing in front of me once again.
"The landscape seems to stretch out for miles," he continued, in a more animated tone of voice. "I wonder if we can walk out of here, although we don't know where 'here' is."
"But Victor said that...."
'I know," he interrupted, "but he might want us to think that there's no other way out."
I sighed, taking another look around me. Everything looked the same -- menacingly still. It was totally unsettling, unnatural.
"You know, if you were to turn me, we'd be able to concentrate on that, without worrying that you might eat me!"
He shook his head, smiling.
"No more my beautiful, enchanting, human Bella," he whispered, as he suddenly pulled me toward him, and ran a hand softly through my hair. I sighed, turning my head to lay my cheek on his shoulder.
He moved his hand sensuously down my shoulder, until he had my hand enclosed in his own. I shivered deliciously at the coldness I would never get used to.
"Come on, let's see what we can find over the horizon," he said, in that ironically warm, melodious voice of his.
We began moving through the trees, heading toward more open country.