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Err, back to the angst.

Chapter 14

Edward

I am old.

I have done things that I'm sure I would regret if I cared long enough to dwell on them.

I have lived several lifetimes' worth of shitty decisions.

I've hurt people. Literally, figuratively. I think I even broken up a marriage once.

But this. This.

I could feel her heart through my arms, could feel the bradycardia, an ectopic beat, her soft sigh and body shudder as she silently broke in my arms. Closed my eyes to it, set my lips in a thin line as I resolved to make this better, to make her better.

I couldn't be the reason she broke.

And yet all the while, it became increasingly clearer and clearer why I was such a dick, why even if the worst of fairy tale endings happened and I were to suddenly be rendered human, why I didn't deserve the trembling girl I held to me as if my life were at stake.

I could practically taste her. The human skin, the viscous blood. Oxygen-rich and thick with life and salt. Because as she let tears of sad and anger seep down her face, all I could do was think she's mine to keep. And while I was soaring with the victory of winning but sad about her loss because of how it made her droop, I just couldn't bring it upon myself to feel any trace of bitterness that I had broken something beautiful and pure like love.

Because she was mine to keep. And she wanted me and my cool dark more than she wanted the hot-tempered white heat of real love.

I didn't know this girl. Couldn't tell you what music she listened to or where her people were from or what she even did for a living, but I did know that I wouldn't be able to exist all alone anymore, knowing that she was out there.

Didn't really matter, anyway. She was with me, sighing and reconciling and surrendering to this Us.

We would have to leave.

We would have to forget.

Together.

"Make me forget," she whispered, her dry, cracked knuckles flexing as she grabbed at my still-bare skin. And like that, I became focused on her heart; on the blood that now pumped at an ever-increasing rate throughout her gorgeous veins, the arteries barely visible to my keen eyes. Blood sliding through dilated vessels, sleek and wet and pounding out a thrum that I felt in the tips of my thumbs and fingers as I deliberately clasped her arms, letting her capillaries press into my hard flesh, her blood so close and hot and delicious and so close. Closer as I leaned in and very carefully so as not to startle her brush my cool lips on her fevered skin, her Bella smell thick and sweat in my nostrils as I breathed in deep, letting the light scent of her straggled hair fill my head with Bella; Bella's blood and Bella's tears tangling until all I could see or think was Bella, Bella. Beautiful and mine and now.

"Forget," I whispered into her ear, rising slowly and running. Running far and fast and carefully to avoid disturbing her, she was so fragile, so human. So broken and in need of repair. I could fix her, I could fix it so that we could be We.

And I ignored thinking about what anyone would say. Because I had been living a selfish non-life, a limbo existence in which I did things to amuse myself.

No longer. I finally had a reason to act like a fucking person.

My feet pounded across the damp earth as I ran, hunching over to shield her from the whistling wind. I was hoping, praying and pleading for my family to be gone. I didn't want the questions.

And I was not sure which God to thank, because as we got closer to the house, I could feel the lovely stillness of no thoughts buzzing the air. Carlisle was most likely working the late shift, which meant that Esme had probably gone to some meeting to participate in civic events. I didn't give a shit where the others were, as long as they weren't here to judge me or try to stop me.

The ground changed beneath us, crunching to the gravel of the slightly sloping driveway as I slowed my pace.

It was silent. Thank Whoever.

The girl in my arms was shivering; whether it was from the damp air or my cadaver-like grip, I didn't know. I hurried, creating what I assumed to be a blur to her as we rushed up one flight of stairs and then another, up to the top floor- the most isolated, the soundproofed-for-my-music bedroom of mine that had never been the haven it was until this moment.

Before I had time to start thinking, I laid her down on the floor, wishing for the first time that I had given in and let Esme put a bed in my room. I never brought women back here, so I never felt it necessary. Then I let the pathetic and cold truth of that hit me- that I had never brought a woman back here to fuck- and I had to shake the thought from my head before I started feeling sorry for my existence again. I wanted to make Bella forget what I had forced her to do, not try to pinpoint just where I had gone wrong as a person.

I had never tried to put my own feelings on the backburner, but I found as I rushed around, looking for something to make her more comfortable, that I was able to focus on Bella, only Bella. She sat up and had her arms wrapped around her legs, looking shy and vulnerable as she sucked the corner of her lip into her mouth. She was looking around the room, her eyes falling on the piles of books, the stacks of CDs, the cheap black-and-white composition notebooks lining a shelf. My room was merely a repository for my stuff, and I suddenly felt like it was an accurate portrayal of me- haphazard and cluttered, without form or purpose. It was simply there, taking up space with no order or thought or-

"Stop fidgeting and get over here," she whispered harshly, urgently, interrupting my thoughts and setting my spine on edge in the best of ways as I did as I was told. I felt the overly plush carpet between my fingers as I perched on my knees right in front of her, making her flinch because I had simply appeared in front of her. She smiled, a soft little smile that distracted me from all thoughts, and I leaned forward, brushing her lips with mine and rejoicing in her accelerated heart rate. I noticed that my eyes had closed, and I felt the feather-soft brush of her eyelashes fluttering against my skin. Heaven.

I want to say that I was gentle. I want to say that I revered her, that I treasured the moment I got to make her mine as a sweet instance of what happens when the dreams you didn't think to dream become true.

But as I stared down at the fragile creature splayed out in front of me, her loss and hope being replaced by a grim determination to forget what had transpired, I realized that I was truly the worst of creatures.

Because in the second before he clouded his thoughts with a happy little memory of frolicking with Bella on the beach, I saw grim determination and a dark future flash through Jacob Black's mind.

"Edward, please," she whispered, and that ended the half-second's hesitation she must have seen on my face. I would never, ever be able to refuse her anything. She had deserted something true for me (dipping down to give her an oxygen-depleting kiss) and call me Edward again (recuperate, Bella, I can't stop) and you don't need to beg (perfect cheekbones, perfect jaw in need of my mouth) (the little hairs, that peachy fuzz on the chin are like a perfect pelt, the pilo-erector muscles flexing, leading to the jaw, the edge, the corner)(the jugular getting insistent) but then she gulped and I was momentarily brought out of the odd stupor I had fallen into.

"Please." She licked her lips, not to be suggestive or sensual, but because they were dry. But I found the darting tongue fascinating, like I had never been so focused on a human's need to maintain moistened mucous membranes before. Flicker fast, the wet sound stirring something, that unthinking part of me impatient to be let out. Wait, slow.

Her fingers clasped, prodding and clutching, seeking something and yanking at fabric. I wanted slow, she wanted now. Hot hot heat and my cold breath, lots of goose flesh as my cold, pointed nose poked along her skin, following body lines and lips brushing curves. Long legs, odd for such a short girl but joints connect and my fingers follow, trace and follow to parts I want, fingertips light because the hot and cold is so different for her, different because her breath runs ragged, used to scalding flesh, not this cold, cadaverous ice. Gentle with her, gentle with me because it's our first time even though not but a night of firsts, I can't with this gentle restraint, it's too much-

"Edward." She was sobbing and I can't say it was ecstasy, there was too much sadness in it. No sad, no no. Tongue for places that are soft and wanting, the hot too hot; never been this hot before. Heady and forgetful of what we are and who we were, the cold making her squirm, her legs pressed against my ears, more hot enveloping me, muscles bunching around me, struggling to maintain their grip because I was so cold, so cold. Sobbing turns to gasping, gasping to sobbing with rapture, my skill with my mouth bringing her closer to forgetting, her taste heady and making me forget for a moment what I am, what I was, what I will be. Soft abdominal flesh under my fingertips undulating, my icy prints leaving a whitened mark in her flesh, be careful, she's only human. Never forget that.

"I need… I need you to…" Yes, Bella. I need as well. Her legs relented, letting me up, her voice shaky and lungs wheezing with expiratory breaths, hot fingers grabbing blindly, almost frantically, her hold slipping as she briefly forgot to forget. I rushed, both our clothes removed quickly, not because I wanted to fuck but because I didn't want her to slip out of her brief moment of respite. This one thing I could do. Don't lose it, Bella. Don't.

Her gasp- the cold. I must be so cold to her. Tried not to cover her skin with mine, but her grip was so tight that it couldn't be helped. Body waving against mine, wrapping and grabbing. In and in. Not supposed to be this way. Give what she needs. Wants.

What we need. Maybe not what we want.