A/N: Well… I decided to just put this chapter up and get it over with. Please just remember- if you kill me, I can't finish the story. Thanks for all the lurvely reviews, and please enjoy!

Eleven. Epiphany

"Bella, Inuyasha's on. Eleazar says you're welcome to watch it- he'll even watch it with you."

I stared blankly at the wall, ignoring Alice's pleas.

"C'mon Bella… I'll take you hunting. I'll even let you have all the Grizzlies we find."

I turned my eyes to Emmett, but when I looked at him, I couldn't see his face. I could only see the mangled body of the young man who's life I had cruelly ripped away. I stared at the apparition with curious horror. Had there really been that much blood? Had I really done that much damage? I couldn't remember that much- I had been too out of control- and Kate had taken me away before I could get a good look at the body.

The body.

The body of the man I had killed.

"I'm a monster," I said in a small voice, turning away from Emmett and cruel apparition to stare once more at the wall. The image was there as well.

I didn't bother trying to look away again.

The image was everywhere.

"Bella, you're not a monster," Jasper told me. "We've all had human blood at one point or other. You're new to this- you didn't mean to do it. It's not your fault."

I ignored him.

"Any luck?" I heard Carlisle ask from the doorway.

"No," replied Alice. "She just says she's a monster."

There was no answer, and I thought that Carlisle must have left. Then he was in front of me, holding my hands in his.

"You made a mistake, Bella. You haven't had any experience in resisting humans, much less their open wounds. Most vampires who have been around centuries can't resist open blood. It was not your fault."

I cringed away from him. How could kind, caring Calisle who would have rather died than feed on humans not see the monster I was?

More likely he did and was too kind to hate me for it.

"I'm a monster," was all I could tell him.

"No you're not," he replied.

"Bella- you have to eat," Alice told me. "You can't beat yourself up like this."

Their kindness was too much, the pity I could see in their eyes opened holes in my heart, and the kindness in their voices was like a knife in my soul.

I tore away from them with an anguished roar, running as fast as my legs could carry me. I didn't care where I went, as long as it was away from the house and the inhabitants who pitied me.

Monsters didn't deserve pity.

I didn't know how long I had run before the pain finally caught up to me and I fell to my knees in anguish, sobbing without shedding any tears- yet another sign that I was a monster.

I stayed there like that, my chest heaving as if I had run a marathon, for God knows how long before I realized I was being watched. I looked up from the grassy floor of the forest into a pair of bloody red eyes.

They were Edward's.

I thought it was another apparition at first, then he began to walk to me and I remembered the two girls that had been with the man I had murdered.

I would have bet that, were I to look at Tanya's eyes, they would be the same shade of burgundy.

"I'm a murderer."

"So am I," Edward replied smoothly, kneeling down so he was at eye level with me.

"Only because I made you one," I replied, averting my eyes from those crimson symbols of my failure.

Edward reached out and tilted my chin so that I had to look him in the eye. Despite the horrific color, the expression in the eyes was soft and so entirely Edward.

"I rebelled," he told me softly. "About a decade after Carlilsle turned me. I fed on humans- I read their minds so that I would only hunt those I considered guilty- but I still hunted them. Bella, what you did, you had no control over. You're new to being a vampire and it was open blood. I had trouble resisting it, and I'm a lot older than you are. You are not a monster. You're the farthest thing from it."

Edward sighed when I averted my eyes from his and didn't answer. He lifted me into his arms bridal style- I didn't try and stop him.

"I'm sorry for doing this to you," he said softly, beginning to walk back towards the house. "For turning you."

And for the first time, I could understand why it was that he had been so guilty all this time. This time, instead of telling him to cheer up, I merely answered, every bit as angst ridden and regretful as he was.

"I'm sorry too."

When I stared at one spot on the wall long enough, the bloody vision of the man would disappear, leaving behind nothing but a blank, white wall. It was for this reason that I didn't move, that I didn't speak. I didn't even breathe, afraid that if I did, the visions would come back to haunt me even more. I heard Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and even Rosalie, try to reason with me, but I didn't move- I was far too afraid to. I just heard their words with a half an ear, never replying, never even reacting. I knew it frightened them- it frightened me- but it was better than seeing that body again.

"Oh for God's sake," I heard Rosalie mutter darkly as she tried to speak to me one day. She must have seen someone pass by the door because I vaguely registered her weight lifting from next to me on the bed, and then heard her speak. "You, come reason with her. You put the poor girl in this situation, now fix it!"

"I can't help Rose. I tried to talk to her already, it didn't work."

Oh. She was talking to Edward. Against my will, my eyes flickered towards the voices, trying to catch a glimpse of the angelic face I knew would be in the hall.

Rosalie's back blocked my view.

"Why do you have a bag?" she demanded, then in a silky-smooth voice more dangerous than any I had ever heard she added: "Edward Cullen- are you leaving?"

"Yes," he replied, his voice stubborn. I could see him in my mind- his eyes glinting with a metallic gleam, the one they got when he was ready to fight, his stance sturdy, ready to move like lightning at the first sign of trouble. It was a position he often adopted when talking to me.

"She needs you now more than ever- you can't leave!" Rosalie snapped.

"She regrets being turned Rose. Once she snaps out of this, and I know she will- Bella's strong, she'll be glad for my absence. I bet she'll never want to see me again."

NO! I wanted to scream. I don't want you to leave- stay, please! Stay with me.

"You're an idiot Edward Anthony Masen Cullen," Rosalie stated. "The only way she'll never want to see you again is if you leave now!"

"Wouldn't you hate me if you were her?" demanded Edward. "Wouldn't you want me gone?"

"But I'm not her!" replied Rose vehemently. "She is nothing like me- which is why you have to stay."

"Good-bye Rose. When she's herself again, tell her… tell her I'm sorry."

I heard Edward's gentle footsteps moving away, and Rosalie shouting curses and insults after him, but they passed over deaf ears.

Edward was leaving. He was abandoning me. I was suddenly faced with a situation a hundred times worse than seeing the apparitions of the bloody body- a situation in which there was no Edward.

The epiphanies I had been so close to reaching suddenly seemed foolish- the answer that had always been just out of my reach seemed so obvious, now that the answer was leaving.

I was in love with Edward Cullen.

It was so painfully obvious now that I was almost embarrassed for not realizing it sooner. But I couldn't be embarrassed- not now. Not when he thought I hated him, not when I was about to lose him.

Eternity without Edward would be unbearable.

I leapt to my feet and flew out of the door past a very startled Rosalie faster than you could blink and eye.

"Bella, what are you doing?" she asked as I rushed past her, but I ignored the question. Every second I wasted was a second closer to losing Edward forever.

"Edward!" I yelled, running towards the exit. I was vaguely aware of a startled Irina and Kate blinking at me in surprise from the living room, but I didn't acknowledge them. I was zeroed in on my destination. I threw the doors open, not bothering to shut them behind me, still yelling. "Edward!!"

The man in question paused in his path to his Volvo and turned his head to look at me.

"Isabella?" he asked, his voice a mixture of shock and curiosity.

"Don't leave!" I gasped. "Please- don't leave. Stay, I need you."

Edward snorted.

"You don't need me Bella. If you were in your right mind, you wouldn't be asking me to stay."

"I've never been saner," I replied. "Stay."

He looked at me. His eyes, still red, were anguished.

"You don't deserve this un-life," he told me softly. "You deserve heaven, yet I've damned you to this hell. I'm sorry Bella…"

Then he turned and continued to walk to the Volvo. I gaped after him, before shaking my head to get my senses back.

The only man I would ever love was about to abandon me unless I kept my head.

I didn't know when it had happened, or why. He had stolen my life, taken away my family, he had made me a monster.

And now he had stolen my heart, as well.

On some mental level, I realized how completely unfair it was. He had turned me into a vampire, he had made me leave behind a mother who needed me and a father I only now realized I would have liked to have gotten to know.

And now he was leaving me as well.

That wasn't acceptable.

"You coward!" I screamed. "You complete and total coward! You feel guilty so you're just going to turn tail and run? You- you… there's not even a word for you!"

He stood there, his back to me. Then he continued to walk.

And that's when I lost it.

Giving an angry roar, I ran at him and tackled him. I collided into him with a thunderous crash that knocked the air out of me and, if his loud oomph was anything to go by, Edward as well. In a lightning fast move, I managed to manoeuvre us so that I was straddling his middle. In any other situation, his look of surprised shock would have been comical.

"Bella-" he began, but I shook my head angrily.

"No Edward, listen to me. You can't leave… you can't, because I need you here."

"Bella, you don't need m-"

"I need you here because, for some reason I don't quite get, I fell head over heels for you in the time since I became a vampire. I know what you're going to say- that you don't deserve to be loved, well I don't care. I do love you, so what are you going to do about it?"

At first I thought Edward had gone into shock. He stared up at me, gaping slightly, and saying nothing. Then his eyes darkened to a black that had nothing to do with being hungry- at least not for blood- and suddenly our positions were switched and he was on top. I didn't even have time to complain when his mouth was on mine and my mind went completely blank. He seemed to put all his pent up longing and anguish into that kiss, making it the most passionate reaction I had seen him give.

If I had to use one word to describe that kiss, it would have been 'heaven'.

If I had to use one word to describe what happened afterwards, it would have been 'hell'.

"I don't deserve you," Edward murmured.

"But you have me anyways."

"You deserve someone who won't hurt you Bella, and that's all I'll ever do," he kissed me again, but this time there was a pained edge. "I'll hate myself for this for the rest of my existence- but it will be worth it, when I see you happy. Good-bye, Isabella."

Then his weight lifted from my body, and he disappeared.

The Volvo was already driving away from the house before I could process what had just happened.

Edward had left.

I was once again seeing a horrific image in my mind, but this time there was no blood involved.

All I saw was the tail lights of a silver Volvo as it carried the man I loved out of my life forever.