Hi everyone! Thanks for reviewing and I'm glad I didn't get any virtual knifes. This is Chap 14, going to add a little distance between B and E. This is going to start off in EPOV. Enjoy, all that jazz!

Edward

I was crushed. Literally, I was depressed, deflated, inactive, agonized, and any other words that describe pain that ends in depression. Bella had snapped on me, and it was not a heat up, cool down statement. It was a statement that burned my dead heart, shriveling it, it was a statement that made me sure that I couldn't do anything right, and a statement that made me sure that Bella was hiding a bad past.

Rosalie was smug, and happy (finally) with Bella for separated herself from me; she loved my pain. I sometimes wonder just how horrible Rosalie took how she was taken into this life. Jasper was as confused as I was—when we had been upstairs, he said, Bella's emotions had screamed pain and self-loath, hatred and anger. Alice was furious with Bella but also curious to see her past, wanting to make everything better for Bella, Esme was sad that Bella had "left" me, Carlisle was a bit angry at Bella for hurting me was more compassionate for Bella, and Emmett was only half smiling, practically a miracle in our book.

"Edward got dumped!" He would laugh, then stop when he saw the murderous glares on some of the faces of our family. His words stung, leaving another mark on the skin that being rejected by Bella had already mangled.

Bella—Bella, who was not speaking to me, or Alice, or anyone, or even looking at me or Alice. She was depressed, I knew from Jasper's recounting and the sobs I heard frequently. I wanted nothing more than to ask her what was wrong, to comfort her, but hadn't I ruined everything that resembled friendship between myself and Bella by doing that? Just think, if I'd never been too persistent, never pushed her about telling me about what was wrong, then maybe she wouldn't be so pained—maybe I wouldn't have hurt her so much.

Bella never came out of her room, or ate, or talked anymore. Sometimes I go inside at night and watch her sleeping, longing for the peaceful angel to open her eyes and see me too, for the desire not to be one sided, for everything to be better. But that would never happen.

Never, because I'd ruined that as soon as I had said those words, asked her what was wrong constantly when she obviously didn't want to talk about it—in my own lovesick ways I had thrown out any perceptiveness for her feelings, and so it was wholly my fault that I was in so much pain.

Alice tried to comfort me frequently. All of our conversations now went something like this:

"Alice, is Bella going to come out of her room soon?" I would ask.

"No, she isn't—I don't see her moving for a while."

"Oh god, what did I do?"

"Edward, you didn't do anything. I told you, Bella has a bad past. She's very shy, very sensitive, very wary and guarded, and sometimes with people like that things that would be perfectly fine and normal for one person makes them snap," she'd say.

"What do you mean 'people like that'?"

"Well, I didn't quite intend it to mean that Bella was alien or at fault or below anyone, I just meant that with people who have a bad past, that happens."

"It happens, Alice, I get it! But what do I do now? Bella made it quite clear that she didn't want to see me, or be friends with me—and I don't think she was just saying that in a fit of rage. Bella is not a person to go back on her decisions, Alice. She's going to stick to it—she's not just going to cool down and say that it was just an accident, that she regrets the words. She won't. I know it."

"You don't. Things will get better—I have the feeling, and my feelings are never wrong."

"Well then, this might be a first," I say, getting up and walking out the room.

No matter how many times anyone said it wasn't my fault, I knew it was. When I looked at Bella sleeping, watched her toss and turn and cry out and scream in her sleep, I knew that she was having a bad dream—a bad dream that I'd triggered. When I heard her crying, I always knew, even if she wasn't thinking of me, that I was the cause, the blame.

I always knew I was a monster. And not just the kind that killed people.

It was so much more than that.

Bella

It's been exactly 5 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes, and 12 seconds since I said the words. It's been exactly 4 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes, and 12 seconds since I last left the room. I don't eat anymore, so I don't need bathroom breaks. It's been 2 days, 10 hours, 30 minutes, and 15 seconds since I last used the bathroom. I've been counting. Sometimes I lose track because I cry and then when I finish I don't know how long it's been (since there was no clock in here) and so I just start where I was when I lost track. I've had to do this several times, more than several, and I'm sure that I might be missing hours, maybe days from the time. I don't care.

5 days, 6 hours, 18 minutes, 5 seconds since I said the words.

4 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes, 3 seconds since I last left the room.

2 days, 10 hours, 33 minutes, 6 seconds since I last used the bathroom.

Time ticks by in what seems like a blur, but I know how long it's been because of my counting. Sometimes I wonder what Edward is doing and think of going to see him, then remember that I couldn't anymore because of what I'd said 5 days ago, and that would send me into a crying jag. After that was over, I would think back to the crying jag, remember what I said to Edward, then remember the memories that caused me to say it, and that would send me into another crying jag.

I'm crying again. Shoot. I have to start again . . . 18 minutes, 5 seconds. Right. I think of my father now. I hate him so badly that no words can describe it at all. It's so pure, it's so strong. I want to go back in time and hurt him, the way he hurt me. Call him names, step on him, kill him. Though, if I could do things differently now, go back in time to any moment, I don't think it would be to get revenge on my father. I think it would be to change the words I said to Edward that day. To change them, to instead tell him of my past. Maybe it was selfish, but I would tell him about my past not because I wanted him to know but because I wanted to hear comforting words from his mouth, anyone's mouth as I cried. It would be temporary, only a pity vote. But didn't I deserve one? Didn't I think that I deserved it?

Honestly, no.

There were only yes or no answers to questions pertaining to my twisted life now. No maybes. There is no more time for maybes. When life comes rushing at you, when reality and confusion pounces on your back, what do you do? I lash out in pain and then drown in it later. Great, isn't it? Maybe to someone else right now, I might seem whiny and too stubborn to dwell on the past to move on to the future. But if they saw my past, they might see why—or maybe they might think it all the more reason to get on with the future.

"Bella? Bella!" It's Josie, again. She's been checking on me a lot the past five days, and it's starting to annoy me. She blames Edward for my condition—and that isn't helping me at all, it's only making it worse. Once, she talked about going and talking to Edward for me, but I quickly took time for speaking to say no.

"Bella, you have to do something! You can't just sit in this room all day and night and expect things to get better, Bella! Please, get up—say something, eat something! It's been five days and you haven't eaten anything, haven't touched a morsel of the food I bring for you. Please Bella. He's not worth it. He's just a man, not worth—"

"He is worth it," I whisper half to myself, but she hears it. I hear a sigh, then a door closing. Another person giving up on me—just like my mother, who left me; my father, who beat me into me his own depression and rage; anyone who had ever liked me when they saw the scars that sometimes showed on my back or my feet or my legs in good light, or when they saw how little I talked. And Edward—had he given up on me, too? I knew it wasn't fair to wonder, because I had pushed him away, but still, I hadn't been giving up on him.

No, I hadn't been giving up on him, I had been lashing out, in my own sick frenzy I felt that someone else deserved my pain—and he was that someone. It was all so twisted, so stupid now. And I knew that the only way I could ever look Edward in the face again, ever give him a true smile and receive one in return, was to do something bigger, something much less casual, much deeper. Something that made me completely vulnerable; like a cat laying on it's back or a sitting duck.

To ever get on right grounds with Edward, I had to tell him my past—tell him everything. I had to be honest, and I had to trust that he might take that honesty that I gave him and use it to help me heal.

But the question was, how did I ever get the courage, the trust, to ever do that?

How did I ever gather the strength, the openness to ever make myself completely vulnerable again?

I didn't know. And that was what I hated. Not knowing, knowing that if I wanted to do it then I would have to do it purely on blind instinct, to dive in without wasting time on losing the will to tell him when I finally found the will to.

Running blind was almost the most horrible thing I'd ever experienced, second only to my past, my painful, broken past.

And yet, somehow I enjoyed it, somewhere deep in my almost non-existent faithful soul.

Er . . . alright, I know that was short and rushed into the emotion and it portrayed the story plot quickening much too fast, but like I said this might not be more than 20 chapters, maybe 22 or at the most, 23. And I'm tired of dragging things out! I want to write some real romance and drama and angst, not little filler chapters that I pass off as work! And so, I am going to start portraying more emotion. The chapters might get longer, they might get shorter. I just hope the writing in them gets BETTER.

Sorry for the long authors note, I know everyone hates those things. I do. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter . . . it feels like I haven't worked on this story forever, even though I only took a short weekend break. I feel guilty for it. : ( No one likes to be left in suspense for too long. Review, and such.