Oh, just ignore me, here's the next chapter anyway. This one is nice and lengthy and I'm calculating that I probably have about two more left, maybe three, until we're out of Edward's head again and onto his reunion with Bella.
I'm warning you, his disposition doesn't get any brighter.
Enjoy!
"Yes, I remember everything." I admitted softly, lowering my eyes to the flowers that trembled in the warm air. "Everything I ever said to you—every moment that I was with you—I remember it all." Slowly I reached in my pocket to reveal that very same bottle cap, faded and worn over the decades from wear, turning it like a coin in between my fingers. I had kept it because it was a reminder of what had once been—a symbol of those early months of our blossoming young love—a talisman then to comfort me in my loneliness in the event that I was condemned to never be worthy of her love…which had been always.
"Which is why I should have tried harder to stay away from you in the beginning—to avoid you all together," I hissed through my teeth. "Because I just couldn't seem to force myself to do the right thing when I was with you—whatever it would take to make you see the truth and make you stay away from me. When I was with you, my resolve never stood a chance—it crumbled every time I looked into your eyes—so the right thing to do would have been to have never returned to Forks in the first place." My voice sounded strangled at the thought of it. "But it was too late by then, because I hadn't been strong enough to stay away." I sighed remembering when I'd run from the small town, after the first time I'd smelled her scent, fleeing to Denali.
"The sky above me had been clear, brilliant with stars, glowing blue in some places, and yellow in others. The stars had created majestic, swirling shapes against the black universe—an awesome sight. Exquisitely beautiful." I described it out loud, garnering some secret pleasure at the thought that perhaps somewhere…I was sharing this with her. "Or rather, it should have been exquisite. Would have been, if I'd been able to really see it." I smiled wryly to myself. "It wasn't getting any better then. Six days had passed, six days I'd hidden there in the empty Denali wilderness, but I had been no closer to freedom than I had been since the first moment that I'd caught your scent." I imagined the sky from back then, saw it over the twilight of the sky here.
"When I had stared up at the jeweled sky, it had been as if there were an obstruction between my eyes and their beauty. The obstruction had been a face, just an unremarkable human face to me at the time, but I hadn't quite been able to banish it from my mind." I remembered the image of that face and sighed. I left the part about Tanya out of my recollection—sure that even my hallucination of Bella wouldn't like the reminder of the one female vampire who had shown a preference towards me once upon a time. "At first I hadn't been decided upon where I would go next because I hadn't been able to think of one place on the entire planet that had held any interest for me. There had been nothing that I had wanted to see or do. Because, no matter where I'd gone, I would not have been going to anywhere—I would have only been running from something—and I hated that—because when had I become such a coward?" My mouth twisted angrily.
"My pride had gotten the better of me." I frowned. "I'd tried to embrace the vision of myself as someone who faced things head on. It had been pleasant to think of myself that way again because I'd never doubted my courage, my ability to face difficulty, at least not before that horrible hour in a high school biology class six days prior." I grimaced at the reminder. "I could see it then, I could see myself leaving. Being strong enough to go back to the one place where I had wanted to be." I closed my eyes in agony. "But it was weakness, not strength that had compelled me home." I whispered opening my eyes to gaze sadly back up at the sky. "When I'd finally made up my mind, I had been suddenly anxious to be on my way, but instead of going immediately I had gazed back up at the stars for one more moment, trying to see past the face in my head."
"Between me and the brilliant lights in the sky, a pair of bewildered chocolate-brown eyes had stared back at me, seeming to ask what this decision would mean for you. Of course, I couldn't have been sure if that had really been the information your curious eyes had sought. Even in my imagination, I couldn't hear your thoughts, just like now." I frowned at that. "Your eyes had continued to question me, and an unobstructed view of the stars had continued to elude me." I sighed just as I had then. "With a heavy sigh, I gave up then, and got to my feet." I shook my head angrily.
"I gave up." I repeated it pitifully. "I hadn't been strong enough even in the beginning to stay away from you, and once I returned it became even more difficult to leave you again—impossible really—even after I had saved you from that van." I sighed. "Even when I knew that it could be dangerous for you and for me if I were to stay. That night, after Alice had seen that I would someday love you, I had resigned myself to ignoring you—all in an attempt to save you from a future that I refused to condemn you to by being in your life."
"Did I love you? I did not think so then. Not yet. Alice's glimpses of that future had stuck with me, though, and I could see how easy it would be to fall into loving you. Could see that it would be exactly like falling—effortless." The memory bewildered me, even now. "Not letting myself love you was the opposite of falling—it was pulling myself up a cliff-face, hand over hand, the task as grueling as if I had no more than mortal strength, but still, I had tried—all the while battling how much I wanted to be with you, and to know you." I sighed remembering my torture.
"More than a month had passed since that day, and every day it had gotten harder. That had made no sense to me—I kept waiting to get over it, to have it get easier." I furrowed my brows recalling my frustration. "That must have been what Alice had meant when she'd predicted that I would not be able to stay away from you. She had seen the escalation of the pain. But I could handle pain." I said firmly. "I would not destroy you future. If I was destined to love you, then wasn't avoiding you the very least I could do? Avoiding you was about the limit of what I could bear, though." I grimaced. "I could pretend to ignore you, and never look your way. I could pretend that you were of no interest to me. But that was the extent, just pretense and not reality." It made me feel twisted inside remembering how it had felt trying to keep myself from her.
"I still hung on every breath you took, every word you said." I sighed. "I lumped my torments into four categories." I admitted bitterly. "The first two were familiar. Your scent and your silence. Or, rather—to take the responsibility on myself where it belongs—my thirst and my curiosity." I corrected. "The thirst had been the most primal of my torments. It was my habit then to simply not breathe at all in Biology. Of course, there were always the exceptions—when I'd had to answer a question or something of the sort, and I would need my breath to speak. Each time I'd tasted the air around you, it had been the same as the first day—fire and need and brutal violence desperate to break free. It had been hard to cling even slightly to reason or restraint in those moments. And, just like that first day, the monster in me would roar, so close to the surface." I shuddered remembering it.
"The curiosity had been the most constant of my torments. The question was never out of my mind, What is she thinking now? When I heard you quietly sigh. When you twisted a lock of hair absently around your finger. When you threw your books down with more force than usual. When you rushed to class late. When you tapped your foot impatiently against the floor. Each movement caught in my peripheral vision had been a maddening mystery. When you spoke to the other human students, I analyzed your every word and tone. Were you speaking your thoughts, or what you thought you should say?" The question was reigniting that old curiosity in me. "It had often sounded to me like you were trying to say what your audience had expected, and this had reminded me of my family and our daily life of illusion—we were better at it than you were. Unless I had been wrong about that, just imagining things. But why would you have had to play a role? You were one of them—a human teenager."
I gritted my teeth as I thought of my next words. "Mike Newton had been the most surprising of my torments then. Who would have ever dreamed that such a generic, boring mortal could have been so infuriating? To be fair, I should have felt some gratitude to the annoying boy; more than the others, because he'd kept you talking." I smiled bitterly at that. "I learned so much about you through those conversations—I had still been compiling my list of your character traits—but, contrarily, Mike's assistance with that project only aggravated me more." I muttered sourly. "I didn't want Mike to be the one that unlocked your secrets. I had wanted to do that."
"It helped that he never noticed your small revelations, your little slips. He knew nothing about you. He'd created a Bella in his head that didn't exist—a girl just as generic as he was. He hadn't observed the unselfishness and bravery that set you apart from other humans, he didn't hear the abnormal maturity of your spoken thoughts. He didn't perceive that when you spoke of your mother, that you sounded like a parent speaking of a child rather than the other way around—loving, indulgent, slightly amused, and fiercely protective." I smiled warmly at that. "He didn't hear the patience in your voice when you feigned interest in his rambling stories, and didn't guess at the kindness behind that patience. Through your conversations with Mike, I was able to add the most important quality to my list, the most revealing of them all, as simple as it was rare." I sighed. "You were good."
"All the other things added up to that whole—kind and self-effacing and unselfish and loving and brave—you were good through and through. Those helpful discoveries did not warm me to the boy, however. The possessive way he viewed you—as if you were an acquisition to be made—provoked me almost as much as his crude fantasies about you. He was becoming more confident of you, too, as the time passed, for you seemed to prefer him over those he considered his rivals—Tyler Crowley, Eric Yorkie, and even, sporadically, myself. He would routinely sit on your side of our table before class began, chattering at you, encouraged by your smiles. Just polite smiles, I told myself." I smiled, but it was a tight smile.
"All the same, I had frequently amused myself by imagining backhanding him across the room and into the far wall… It probably wouldn't have injured him fatally…" I assured her, wherever she was. "Mike didn't often think of me as a rival. After the accident, he'd worried that you and I would bond from the shared experience, but obviously the opposite had resulted. Back then, he had still been bothered that I'd singled you out over your peers for attention. But then I had ignored you just as thoroughly as the others, and he had grown complacent. I wondered what you were thinking then? Did you welcome his attention?"
I shook my head reaching up to wash my palm over the marble skin of my face in frustration. "The last of my torments, the most painful: your indifference. As I ignored you, you ignored me. You never tried to speak to me again. For all I knew then, you never thought about me at all." That memory made my chest ache. "This might have driven me mad—or even broken my resolution to change the future—except that you sometimes stared at me like you had before. I didn't see it for myself, as I could not allow myself to look at you, but Alice always warned us when you were about to stare; the others were still wary of your problematic knowledge." I grimaced remembering the fight I'd had with my family the night I'd saved her—the worst fight we'd ever had.
"It eased some of the pain that you gazed at me from across a distance, every now and then. Of course, you could have just been wondering what kind of a freak I was." I muttered wryly. "I paid attention to how often you looked my direction. It pleased me, though it should not have, that the frequency did not decline as the time passed. I didn't know what it meant, but it made me feel better. I wasn't in a very good mood then—tenser than I let any of my family see. Only Jasper had been aware of how tightly wound I was, feeling the stress emanate out of me with his unique ability to both sense and influence the moods of others. He didn't understand the reasons behind the moods, though, and—since I was constantly in a foul mood those days—he had disregarded it."
"Then the day came when I had spoken to you again. That day had been a hard one. Harder than the day before, as was the pattern. Mike Newton, the odious boy whom I could not allow myself to rival, was going to ask you on a date." My teeth clenched. Even now, jealousy pulsed through me. "I remember when he had sat down on our table that day—comfortable with long familiarity—that I had imagined the sound it would have made if his body had hit the opposite wall with enough force to break most of his bones." I frowned. "It had been a childish thought, brought on by my envy and rage." I admitted apologetically. "An unexpected, intense fury made my hands clench into fists as he had asked you, and then in that moment when you hesitated to answer him, I had seen the future more clearly than Alice ever had."
That memory still came to me in stunning clarity. "I had realized that you might say yes to Mike's unspoken question then, and you might not, but either way, someday soon, you would say yes to someone. You were lovely and intriguing, and human males were not oblivious to that fact. Whether you would settle for someone in that lackluster crowd, or wait until you were free from Forks, the day would come that you would say yes." I sighed. "In the end you would say 'yes' to me, but I hadn't known that then." I frowned though part of me wanted to rejoice in that fact. I beat it back. "No, then I saw your life as I had before—college, career…love, marriage. I saw you on your father's arm again, dressed in gauzy white, your face flushed with happiness as you moved to the sound of Wagner's march." My voice was strangled, even now, the thought of her with another tortured me.
"The pain had been more than anything I'd ever felt before. A human would have had to have been on the point of death to feel such pain—a human would not have lived through it. And not just pain, but outright rage. The fury had ached for some kind of physical outlet. Though that insignificant, undeserving boy might not have been the one that you would say yes to, I had still yearned to crush his skull in my hand, to let him stand as a representative for whoever it would be." Fury ripped through me. It would be me, and could I go back and crush myself for what I would someday do to her, I would have. "I hadn't understood that emotion—it had been such a tangle of pain and rage and desire and despair. I had never felt it before—I couldn't put a name to it then." I sighed and tried to calm myself.
"Finally, you rejected him and his hopes had plummeted. I would have enjoyed that under other circumstances, but I had been so lost in the aftershock of the pain—and the remorse for what the pain and rage had done to me. Alice had been right. I hadn't ever been strong enough and that moment had been my undoing." I sighed. "In that moment, Alice probably had been watching the future spin and twist, becoming mangled again, and would that please her?" I frowned. "When Mike had glanced at me after your rejection of him, suspicious for the first time in many weeks, I had realized that I had betrayed my interest—my head had been inclined in your direction. The wild envy in his thoughts—envy for whoever you had preferred to him—had suddenly put a name to my unnamed emotion. I had been jealous, realizing it only just then." I frowned in chagrin.
"Through all the remorse and anger, I had felt relief at your words. Suddenly, I began considering my rivals then." I almost laughed as I recalled my plotting. "I had been quite fickle back then." I admitted. "And slightly unstable, I remember Mike's rude words. It had offended me that he had used a tone like that with you. I'd had to bite back a growl." I suppressed a chuckle. "As I continued listening to your conversation with the idiotic boy, the curiosity had not been as vicious as it would have been before—now that I had been fully intending to find out the answers to everything. I would know the wheres and whys of those new revelations soon enough." I said it almost proudly, but I should not be proud of that awful moment of weakness of mine. "Mike had been so demoralized by your rejection that I had almost felt pity for him. Almost." I smiled slyly. "But then he had dropped his eyes from you, cutting off my view of your face in his thoughts." That made me frown in irritation.
"I wasn't going to tolerate that. So I had turned to read your face myself, for the first time in more than a month. It had been a sharp relief to allow myself that, like a gasp of air to long-submerged human lungs. Your eyes had been closed, and your hands pressed against the sides of your face. Your shoulders curved inward defensively. You'd shaken your head ever so slightly, as if you'd been trying to push some thought from your mind. It had been frustrating. Fascinating." I felt the awe in my own voice. She had always brought wonderment out in me, my admiration and curiosity. "When your eyes finally, slowly opened, you had looked at me immediately, perhaps sensing my gaze. You had stared up into my eyes with the same bewildered expression that had haunted me for so long. I hadn't felt the remorse or the guilt or the rage in that second. I knew that they would come again, and come soon, but for that one moment I rode a strange, jittery high. As if I had triumphed, rather than lost." I said it bitterly, knowing all too well that that moment had been no triumph at all, but instead an unforgivable failure on my part.
"You hadn't looked away, though I had stared with inappropriate intensity, trying vainly to read your thoughts through your liquid brown eyes. They had been full of questions, rather than answers." That memory made the tension in my body soften. "I had seen the reflection of my own eyes, seen that they were black with thirst. It had been nearly two weeks since my last hunting trip; that had not been the safest day for my will to crumble. But the blackness did not seem to frighten you. You still didn't look away, and a soft, devastatingly appealing pink began to color your skin. I wondered what you were thinking then." I sighed.
"I almost asked the question aloud, but at that moment Mr. Banner had called my name. I picked the correct answer out of his head while I glanced briefly in his direction. Ah, but I had needed air to speak, so I had been forced to suck in a quick breath." I held my breath for a quick moment as I remembered it. "Thirst had scorched down my throat—tightening my muscles and filling my mouth with venom—and I had closed my eyes, trying to concentrate through the desire for your blood that raged inside me." I glared blackly then into the shadows of the surrounding forest, my jaw locked tight in anger.
"The monster in me was stronger than before, then. The monster was rejoicing. He had embraced this dual future that gave him an even, fifty-fifty chance at what he craved so viciously. The third, shaky future I'd tried to construct through willpower alone had crumbled—destroyed by common jealously, of all things—and he was so much closer to his goal." All consuming guilt pierced me as I remembered it. "The remorse and the guilt burned with the thirst, and, if I'd had the ability to produce tears, they would have filled my eyes then. For what had I done?" I hung my head in shame. "Knowing the battle was already lost, there seemed to be no reason to resist what I wanted; so I had turned to stare at you again." I frowned. "You had hidden in your hair, but I could see through a parting in the tresses that your cheek was deep crimson then. The monster in me liked that." I whispered remorsefully.
"You did not meet my gaze again, but instead twisted a strand of her dark hair nervously between your fingers. Your delicate fingers, your fragile wrist—they were so breakable, looking for all the world like just my breath could snap them." I shook my head. "But, no, no, no. I could not do that. You were too breakable, too good, too precious to deserve that fate. I couldn't allow my life to collide with yours, to destroy it. But I couldn't stay away from you either. Alice was right about that." I pressed my lips together tightly, my eyes falling back to the delicate wild flowers.
"The monster inside me hissed with frustration as I wavered, leaning first one way, then the other. My brief hour with you had passed all too quickly, as I vacillated between the rock and the hard place. When the bell had finally rung, you started collecting your things without looking at me. That disappointed me, but I could hardly have expected otherwise. The way I had treated you since the accident had been inexcusable." I sighed dejectedly.
"So I had said your name, to capture your attention, unable to stop myself because my willpower already lay in shreds at your feet." I sighed before turning my head finally, scanning the meadow for her again, wondering what it would take to make her reappear.
I grimaced as I imagined her reaction to hearing all of that. "I know you weren't particularly fond of how I went about things in the beginning, Bella." I sighed. "But in my mind, staying away from you had been the right thing to do, if only I could have kept it up." I frowned. "You have to understand, I was trying to save you from this Bella—from this awful fate that I condemned you to in the end—I didn't want this for you." I shook my head bitterly as my free hand balled into a fist at my side. "I loved you too much."
I waited, staring up into the impending twilight but there was nothing—not a word—not a sound from the emptiness. "It was all too clear then that I couldn't stay away from you, it had become an impossible feat to be without you, but still I had tried to warn you in some small way, even after my will power had succumbed to you." I sighed in disgust remembering the question I'd asked her as I had driven her home after she had fainted that day during blood typing—
"Do you think that Icould be scary?" I'd asked her, trying to smile a little.
She'd thought it through before answering me in a serious voice. "Hmm…I think you couldbe, if you wanted to."
I was serious then, too. "Are you frightened of me now?"
She'd answered at once, not thinking that one through. "No."
I'd smiled more easily, stupidly elated by her sincerity. Though I hadn't thought that she had been entirely telling the truth, but nor had she been truly lying. I had realized then that she hadn't been frightened enough to want to leave, at least.
The memory made anger flush though me. "You should have been frightened." I spat bitterly. "But it seemed as if no matter what I said to you—no matter what I did—you were utterly incapable of fearing me." I gritted my teeth in frustration—irritated by the fact that perhaps my hallucination may have been correct. Maybe there wasn't anything that I could have ever done. "What a poor excuse for a vampire I was," I groaned, "unable to frighten one tiny, fragile human girl—the laughing stock of monsters everywhere, I'm sure." I sighed remembering Emmett's teasing—
"Maybe you're not as scary as you think you are," he had chuckled. "I bet I could have frightened her better than that."
"And, maybe, I should have let him—seeing as how I had proved to be utterly incapable of doing so." I muttered sourly. I imagined that somewhere Bella was frowning petulantly at me for saying that—it made a smile tug at the edge of my lips. She never had liked me insisting upon what I'd thought was best for her—even if I'd only been trying to protect her.
As I had stared at her that day, I had begun to feel almost agonized at the thought of saying even a temporary goodbye. She had just been so soft and vulnerable. It had seemed foolhardy to let her out of my sight, where anything could have happened to her. And yet, the worst things that could have happened to her—the worst thing that did happen to her—had resulted from being with me. I'd had no idea then—no comprehension at all—that even the worst things that I'd imagined in that moment hadn't even come close to being even remotely as horrific or as tragic as what would somedaycome to pass.
"Will you do something for me this weekend?" I'd asked her seriously.
She'd nodded, her eyes wide and bewildered by my intensity.
Keep it light, I'd reminded myself.
"Don't be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So…try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?" I'd smiled ruefully at her, hoping that she couldn't see the sadness in my eyes. How much I'd wished that she wasn't so much better off away from me, no matter what might have happen to her there. How much I wished now that it hadn't ended up being true,
Run, Bella, run, I had screamed at her silently, I love you too much, for your good or mine.
She had been offended by my teasing anyway.
She'd glared at me. "I'll see what I can do," she'd snapped, jumping out into the rain and slamming the door as hard as she could behind her.
Just like an angry kitten that believes it's a tiger.
Despite myself, I chuckled at the memory—only Bella, had possessed the power to break me from my sadness over the years since I'd lost her, even if only for a few precious moments. They were rare—those exquisite moments of happiness that broke through my darkness—and very fleeting. This one lasted longer than most, but then only a few short moments later my amusement was swept away—replaced once again by the remorse of my existence. No matter what would have happened to her had we never met—had she not been so unfortunate as to have inspired this first and only tragic love of mine—it would never have been as horrific as what had happened to her. Still, the thought of those things shot terror and nearly unendurable anguish through me—those things happening to her without me in her life to protect her—it made me shudder. I'd told Emmett about my fear of those things once.
We'd been hunting together—he'd made a joke in an attempt to lighten my mood…and had failed.
So serious all the time, he'd sighed in his head, what's bugging you now?
"Thinking about her. Well, worrying, really." I'd admitted.
"What's there to worry about? You are here." He'd laughed loudly in his big booming voice.
I'd ignored his joke again, but answered his question. "Have you ever thought about how fragile they all are? How many bad things there are, that can happen to a mortal?"
"Not really. I guess I see what you mean, though. I wasn't much match for a bear that first time around, was I?" He'd grinned but I hadn't found it even remotely funny. In fact, it had only panicked me further.
"Bears," I'd muttered miserably, adding a new fear to the pile then—although now, that pile had grown exponentially. I'd had time over the past decades to imagine them all, every possibly horrific scenario. "That would be just her luck, wouldn't it? Stray bear in town. Of course it would head straight for Bella."
That had made Emmett chuckle. "You sound like a crazy person, do you know that?"
"Just imagine for one minute that Rosalie was human, Emmett. And she could run into a bear…or get hit by a car…or lightening…or fall down stairs…or get sick—get a disease!" The words had burst from me stormily. It had been a relief to let them out—they'd been festering inside throughout that entire weekend. "Fires and earthquakes and tornados! Ugh! When's the last time you watched the news? Have you seen the kinds of things that happen to them? Burglaries and homicides…" My teeth had clenched together, and I had been abruptly so infuriated by the idea of another human hurting her that I hadn't been able to breathe.
There were so many other things that I hadn't mentioned then—electrocution and explosions, and poison. Human bodies were also so fragile—so easily breakable—all it would take to crush them was the right amount of pressure, the right weight of an object and the speed of its momentum—like that van—and then there were the infinite number of illnesses—heart attacks and cancer, brain aneurysms and strokes. They're existence was tied to a thousand delicately balanced chemical processes, all so easily disrupted. The rhythmic expansion of their lungs, the flow of oxygen, was life or death to them.
The fluttering cadence of Bella's fragile heart could have been stopped by so many stupid accidents or illnesses or…by me.
I hadn't know that in that moment—discussing my fears with Emmett that day—that I had named the very thing that would in the end—even though she had no longer been a fragile human but a vampire like myself—take Bella from me …as a direct result from being with me.
Fire.
"Whoa, whoa! Hold up, there, kid." Emmett had tried to calm me. "She lives in Forks, remember? So she gets rained on." He'd shrugged.
"I think she has some serious bad luck, Emmett, I really do. Look at the evidence. Of all the places in the world she could go, she ends up in a town where vampires make up a significant portion of the population."
"Yeah, but we're vegetarians. So isn't that good luck, not bad?"
"With the way she smells? Definitely bad. And then, more bad luck, the way she smells to me." I'd glowered at my hands, hating them then, though not nearly as much as I hated them now.
"Except that you have more self-control than just about anyone but Carlisle. Good luck again."
"The van?" I'd reminded him.
"That was just an accident."
"You should have seen it coming for her, Em, again and again. I swear, it was like she had some kind of magnetic pull."
"But you were there. That was good luck."
"Was it? Isn't this the worst luck any human could ever possibly have—to have a vampire fall in love with them?"
Yes, that had been the worst luck that any human could have ever had—especially true in Bella's case because she'd had the worst luck of anyone I'd ever known—of any creature that had ever existed in the universe—to have a vampire fall in love with her, and not just any vampire, but me in particular. I clenched my eyes shut in misery remembering the night I'd followed her to Port Angeles—another affirmation of her appalling bad luck—when a group of human monsters had cornered her on an empty street.
The fury that had gripped me had been so fierce—for how dare they target her—the girl that I so desperately loved.
I had decided then that I would see how he—the group's vile leader—enjoyed the hunt when he was the prey. I would see what he thought of my style of hunting.
In another compartment of my head, I had already been sorting through the range of tortures I'd born witness to in my vigilante days, searching for the most painful of them. He would suffer for this. He would writhe in agony. The others would merely die for their part, but the monster named Lonnie would beg for death long before I would give him that gift.
Bella had jumped through the open door when I had arrived, without hesitating, pulling the door shut behind her.
And then she had looked up at me with the most trustful expression that I had ever seen on a human face, and all my violent plans had crumbled.
It had taken much, much less than a second then for me to see that I could not leave her in the car in order to deal with the four men in the street.
What would I have told her, not to watch? Ha! When did she ever do what I asked? When did she ever do the safe thing?
I had wondered those things then, but they were just as true now.
Even afterwards—even when she was no longer a fragile human—she'd hardly ever done what I had asked—had even more rarely ever done the safe thing.
Like a magnet, she drew all things dangerous toward herself—including me.
I had realized then that I couldn't let her out of my sight.
Instead I had accelerated, taking her away from her pursuers so quickly that they had gaped after my car with uncomprehending expressions.
I couldn't even hit him with my car I had realized disappointedly, because I had been sure that it would have frightened her.
But I had wanted his death so savagely that the need for it had rung in my ears and had clouded my sight and had been a flavor on my tongue. My muscles had been coiled with the urgency, the craving, the necessity of it. I had wanted to kill him—wanted to peel him slowly apart, piece by piece, skin from muscle, muscle from bone…
Except that the girl—the only girl in the world—had been clinging to her seat with both hands, staring at me, her eyes still wide and utterly trusting.
I'd known in that moment that my vengeance would have to wait.
"Are you okay?" she had asked me a few moments later.
She had wanted to know if I was okay.
I had thought about her question for a fraction of a second. Not long enough for her to notice the hesitation. Was I okay?
"No," I had realized—I was absolutely not okay—and my tone had seethed with rage.
I'd taken her back to the same unused drive where I'd spent that afternoon engaged in the poorest surveillance ever kept. It was black then under the trees.
She'd told me years later that she had seen a car like mine that day and that it had been what had caused her to not pay attention to where she had been going—infuriated as she was by the reminder of me. I had always seemed to be the cause for her need to be rescued, although unintentionally.
I had been so furious in that moment—glaring violently out the windshield—that my body had frozen in place there, utterly motionless. My icelocked hands had ached to crush her attacker, to grind him into pieces so mangled that his body could never be identified….
But that would have entailed leaving her there alone, unprotected in the dark night, and I just couldn't do that.
"Bella?" I had asked through my teeth.
"Yes?" she'd responded huskily before clearing her throat.
"Are you all right?" That had really been the most important thing, the first priority.
Retribution had been secondary. I had known that, but my body had been so filled with rage that it had been hard to think.
"Yes." Her voice had still been thick—with fear, no doubt.
And so I could not leave her, I had decided.
Even if she hadn't been at constant risk for some infuriating reason—some joke the universe had been playing on me—even if I could have been sure that she would have been perfectly safe in my absence, I could not leave her then, alone in the dark.
I had thought then of how she must have been so frightened.
Yet I had been in no condition to comfort her—even if I had known exactly how that could have been accomplished, which I hadn't. I had been sure that she had to have felt the brutality radiating out of me, sure that that much had been obvious—convinced that I would have frightened her even more if I could not calm the lust for slaughter that had been boiling inside me.
I had needed to think about something else.
"Distract me, please," I had pleaded.
"I'm sorry, what?"
I had barely had enough control to try to explain what I had needed.
"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down," I had instructed her, closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger, my jaw still locked.
Only the fact that she needed me had held me inside the car.
"Um…" She'd hesitated. "I'm going to run over Tyler Crowley tomorrow before school?" She had said it like it was a question. My mouth had twitched.
Yes—that had been what I'd needed. Of course Bella would have come up with something unexpected. Like it had been before, the threat of violence coming through her lips had been hilarious to me—so comical it was jarring. If I had not been burning with the urge to kill in that moment, I would have laughed.
And if the past seventeen years of my existence hadn't been a deep, black void of despair without her then I might have laughed now, too.
"Why?"
"He's telling everyone that he's taking me to prom," she'd said, her voice filled with her tiger-kitten outrage. "Either he's insane or he's still trying to make up for almost killing me last…well you remember it," she'd inserted dryly, "and he thinks prom is somehow the correct way to do this. So I figure if I endanger his life, then we're even, and he can't keep trying to make amends. I don't need enemies and maybe Lauren would back off if he left me alone. I might have to total his Sentra, though," she'd gone on, thoughtful then. "If he doesn't have a ride he can't take anyone to prom…"
It had been encouraging then to see that she had sometimes gotten things wrong. I had known that Tyler's persistence had had nothing to do with the accident. She hadn't seemed to understand the appeal she'd held for the human boys at the high school. I had wondered then if she didn't see the appeal she'd garnered from me, either.
But, ah, it had been working. The baffling processes of her mind had always been engrossing. I had begun to gain control of myself, to see something beyond vengeance and torture…
"I heard about that," I'd told her. She had stopped talking, and I had needed her to continue.
"You did?" she'd asked incredulously. And then her voice had been angrier than before. "If he's paralyzed from the neck down, he can't go to the prom either."
I had wished that there had been some way I could have asked her to continue with the threats of death and bodily harm without sounding insane. She couldn't have picked a better way to calm me. And her words—just sarcasm in her case, hyperbole—had been a reminder I had dearly needed in that moment.
I had sighed, and opened my eyes.
"Better?" she'd asked timidly.
"Not really."
No, I had been calmer, but not better. Because I'd just realized that I could not kill the monster named Lonnie, and I still wanted that more than almost anything else in the world. Almost.
The only thing in that moment that I had wanted more than to commit a highly justifiable murder, had been that girl. And, though I had been sure that I couldn't ever have her, just the dream of having her had made it impossible for me to go on a killing spree that night—no matter how defensible such a thing might be.
Because Bella deserved better than a killer.
I'd spent seven decades before that moment trying to be something other than that—anything other than a killer. I was certain that those years of effort could never make me worthy of that girl sitting beside me. And yet, I had felt that if I had returned to that life—the life of a killer—for even one night, I would have surely put her out of my reach forever. I had been trying to be good enough for her. It had been an impossible goal. I would keep trying.
I was still trying.
Even though she was gone—even though I'd lost her—I was still trying to deserve her.
I was still trying to keep from putting her out of my reach forever.
I was still trying.
That was why she had appeared to me that first night—the night I'd been so determined to end my existence once and for all—and in turn had stopped me from returning to that life.
I was still trying because I couldn't bear the thought of damning myself for all eternity by ending my own life or by once again becoming a killer.
I was still trying because I couldn't bear the thought of never being with her again—wherever she was.
I didn't know if it were even possible—convinced that no matter how good I tried to be that it would never be enough—but I would keep trying anyway, fight my way through the moments like the one that night when I'd wanted to give in.
"What's wrong?" she had whispered when I had leaned my head back against the seat, staring at the ceiling of the car, my face rigid.
Her breath had filled my nose, and I had been reminded why I could not deserve her then. After all of that, even with as much as I loved her…she had still made my mouth water.
I had given her as much honesty as I could. I had owed her that.
"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella." I had stared out into the black night, wishing both that she would hear the horror inherent in my words and also that she would not. Mostly that she would not.
Run, Bella, run, I had screamed silently.
Stay, Bella, stay, I had begged.
"But it wouldn't be helpful for me to turn around and hunt down those…" Just thinking about it had almost pulled me from the car. I'd taken a deep breath, letting her scent scorch down my throat. "At least, that's what I'm trying to convince myself."
"Oh."
She had said nothing else and I had wondered how much she had heard in my words. I glanced at her furtively, but her face had been unreadable. Blank with shock, perhaps. Well, she hadn't been screaming. Not then, at least.
No, she hadn't been screaming then, of course, I knew why now.
It was quiet for a moment. I had warred with myself, trying to be what I should have been.
What I could never be.
"Jessica and Angela will be worried," she'd said quietly. Her voice was very calm, and I hadn't been able to fathom how that could be. I had wondered if she was in shock—that maybe that nights events hadn't sunk in for her yet. "I was supposed to meet them."
Did she want to be away from me? Or was she just worried about her friends' worry?
I had wondered those things.
I didn't answer her, but I started the car then and took her back. Every inch closer I'd gotten to the town, the harder it had been to hold on to my purpose, because I had just been so close to him…
If it were impossible—if I could never have nor deserve that girl—then where was the sense in letting the man go unpunished? Surely I could allow myself that much…
For one tiny moment I had slipped—for one tiny moment I had wanted to give in.
In the subsequent years since losing her, my mind had often trailed back to that night—one of the many nights that had changed everything—wishing that I could go back and do all of the depraved things that I had wanted to do to him then—to peel him slowly apart, piece by piece, skin from muscle, muscle from bone—to torture that…monster.
And to torture every monster thereafter that had ever threatened to take her from me.
James.
Laurent.
Victoria.
Zachary.
Aro.
I'd wanted to go back and torture each of them.
James's death had been quicker than he'd deserved—I'd been too concerned with Bella's life to waste any time when destroying him.
The wolves had taken care of Laurent, robbing me of that pleasure.
Victoria's death had also been much quicker than she'd deserved, because once again, Bella's safety had been in the forefront of my mind.
Bella had ended Zachary, sacrificing herself in the process.
With Aro, however, I had gotten my wish, because Bella was gone, and then there had been nothing else that I had wanted more—nothing else that had mattered more—than to make him suffer.
I had often yearned repeatedly for another chance to torture him all over again, I still did.
Then, however—just as it always had, even since losing her—my resolve had returned.
No. I wasn't giving up. Not yet, I'd decided then. I'd wanted her too much to surrender so easily.
So I had tried to be good—to somehow deserve her.
I had fought to keep her safe from myself for so long, that being confronted with the very real possibility that something—other than myself—was hazardous to her, had made me erect excuse after excuse for staying. I'd thought of several excuses later that night when we had been alone in Port Angeles, but as usual Bella had already been several steps ahead of me—intuitive as she was—knowing that there had been a very embarrassing reason for why I had been able to find her and save her. Like before, I had become a stalker. An obsessed stalker. An obsessed vampire stalker.
She had never reacted to me in the ways that I thought that she ought to have, of course—she'd already ferreted out my secrets, although I'd been unaware at the time.
"How did you know where…?" Bella's unfinished question had interrupted me when I'd pulled up to the restaurant, and I had realized that I had made yet another gaffe. I'd been too distracted to remember to ask her where she was supposed to be meeting her friends.
But, instead of finishing the inquiry and pressing the point, Bella had just shaken her head and half-smiled.
I rolled my eyes thinking of it. "I suppose you garnered some secret pleasure from that, didn't you?" I sighed, my cool breath mingling with the warm, evening summer air, "Your own little private joke in your head." I frowned at that. "I had puzzled over your strange acceptance of my even stranger knowledge, wondering what that smile had meant." I shook my head in disbelief. "But you'd known that entire time about my little secret—that I could read minds—you'd pretty much figured out by then that I was a monster, hadn't you?" I pressed my lips into a tight line. "Your calmness—your insanely blind trust with being near me—perhaps that's why I seemed to have been unable to leave you that night, because with you already knowing the truth you had turned the tables on me as your savior, and made me the one who had felt safer in your presence—safe from my violent desires to commit murder." My lips twitched, half amused and half furious. Violent desires indeed, some scary vampire I had turned out to be.
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