Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns everything in the Twiverse. But this plot is mine.

So I had a different Author's Note here earlier...which some of you may have read already...in which I acknowledged the confusion many of you felt in the last chapter but said that I did in fact have a plan and I hoped y'all would stick around and stick with me to see it through.

But I didn't like the way the note looked. It read differently and read harshly (perhaps it was the bold A/N font), and that is NOT what I wanted. So I deleted it and wrote this instead.

Ultimately, though I do have a plan and plan to see it through, I don't like knowing that I've confused, aggravated, or alienated anyone with anything I've written. That's the LAST thing I want to do, and I do hope this chapter makes it up to you :)

Let's continue.

The Last Word – 21

I take a definitive step back, leaving Isabella's empty hands in the air. A frown furrows her brow as her arms fall limply at her side. "What did I say?" she asks.

"It's what you didn't say that vexes me." I am proud of myself for remaining so calm. "So you'll forgive me if I'm not in the humor to be coddled."

"I'm not trying to coddle you."

"You're not trying to answer me either." Her lips part to refute me, and I hold up a hand to stop her. "Lucky for you, I choose to believe the oversight is unintentional."

"How could it be otherwise?"

She sounds hurt, so I measure my reply. "Evasive evangelism, to give it a name, is often deployed as the truth, especially when one has the best of intentions."

"What?"

"Instead of trusting the truth to do its work, it's as if you're trying to craft your story to maximize its emotional effectiveness. And I don't fault you for it, really." Or am trying not to. "But if the truth is as powerful as you claim, then such tactics are unnecessary."

She doesn't answer right way, my words seemingly rolling around her mind as she reflects on our last few moments of conversation. And when the proverbial light bulb goes off, her face falls.

"Oh, Edward." She wraps her arms around herself, blowing out a long slow breath. "I'm sorry. I hear what you're saying, and...you're right."

I am stunned she admits it. "I am?"

She nods, keeping her gaze averted. "I...I don't remember the last time anything mattered to me this much, and I guess I'm...I'm trying so hard to make sure you understand that I'm not really saying anything."

And if this is her way of trying to make me understand, then our conversational future is dire indeed. I have sense enough not to say this, however, and opt instead to steer her back to our supposed destination.

Hoping, this time, for minimal detours.

"I see a lot of myself in you," she says before I can speak. "My former self, I mean. I was so hard, so angry with the world and myself. I thought God was a joke, the whole opium of the masses thing, and blamed Him for everything wrong in my life."

"And you cursed him to his face." I try not to sound bored. "Yes, I remember."

She looks up then, her expression stuck between hesitant and hurt. "I fed on those feelings, made them my bread and butter to the exclusion of everything else. And the day I cursed God? It was much longer than a day—it was 31 days of internal raging and screaming I thought would never end. As many times as I wanted to die before then, I never knew the depths that sort of longing could reach. I didn't want to go to heaven, hell, nirvana, the other side, or anywhere else we believe may await us. I just wanted to not exist anymore, to cease to be as if I had never been at all.

"Because my life hadn't mattered. For as long as I'd lived and as much as I had endured, it hadn't mattered to anyone. Not to my birth parents or the state-approved substitutes, not to Vicki or James or his cronies who helped him conspire to..."

She swallows hard, and I wonder again if whatever she's trying to tell me is worth the pain she is obviously in.

"Anyway...I lay in that place, lost in myself and the world around me, and the last thing I remember saying was, 'I just wanted someone to love me.' I don't even know if I said it aloud, but that was the last conscious thought I had before it happened."

Though grateful to be on the cusp of answers, I stop just short of rolling my eyes. "Before what happened?"

"I heard a voice. Whether inside me or beside me, I couldn't tell you. But I heard this voice, this small, sure voice saying, 'But Isabella, I love you.' And I expected to rail against it, to deny that voice with every bit of proof I'd lived to the contrary, but I...I didn't. I couldn't. As crazy and impossible as it might seem, as insane as I know it sounds, when I heard that voice say He loved me, I knew it was the truth."

She raises her gaze to mine, and the clarity there shocks me enough to speak. "That was the truth?"

A slow nod. "That was the truth."

"After everything you endured, everything He put you through, you believed He loved you."

"Yes." She comes toward me. "Because, as you just said, I endured. For everything that happened to me, every time I should have died and wished I had, I was still here. My careless parents' apathy didn't kill me. That fall down the stairs didn't kill me. The drugs James gave me—which I learned in court should have killed me—didn't kill me. I was still here, after all of that? Why? Why would I still be here?"

"Because life hadn't finished screwing you yet."

"I know. I thought the same thing, believed it with all my being. At least, I did until I heard that voice. And I asked the voice, 'You love me?' and He said, 'Yes, Isabella. I love you.' He said over and over and over again—never frustrated, never angry, and never asking for anything in return."

A snort escapes me. "I thought he wanted your life."

"Yes." The corner of her mouth lifts. "But not to repay him for loving me. No, it's that He wants to give in a new life in exchange, a life worth living."

"Worth living? Isabella...do I need to point out the obvious?"

"Obvious?" She follows my gaze as it surveys the walls around us. "Oh, that."

"Yes, that! Apparently he loved you so much he left you in prison."

"His love doesn't change the circumstances we're in, Edward. It changes us in the circumstances. It's not as if His love could change the verdict."

I shake my head, scuffing the floor with the front of my shoe. "This is just..."

"Ridiculous? Yeah, it is." She rubs her arms. "It is ridiculous that He could let me curse him to the fiery pits of hell and not hold it against me. Ridiculous that someone could love me enough to take my pain and give me peace. Ridiculous that someone could replace my anger and angst about James and replace it with a love that defies logic and eclipses earthly reason."

"At least that part is true."

"Edward, I know this sounds crazy, and well, maybe I am." She meets my eyes suddenly. "But do you...do you ever wonder what it would be like to live without that weight?"

I look at her. "What weight?"

"Your anger at the world, your guilt about the people you murdered, your shame about your current occupation." She comes toward me. "Your loneliness and sense of futility, your sadness about those you have loved and lost..."

"No." The word stops her in her tracks. "It is useless to wonder about things you cannot change."

"But you can change it, Edward! And that...that weight is what He saved me from." That beatific light shines in her eyes again. "Receiving His love lifted all that weight from my heart and let me breathe again, feel something other than wretched and wrecked again. Because hating James didn't change James; it nearly killed me! He is out in the world right now, living his life as if I were never in it. I nursed that rage day after miserable day, and what happened? James lived unaffected, and I was the one drowning. Don't you see? His love saved me from destroying myself by hating James. It's a beautiful exchange."

"You get death in prison and he gets to live? Wow. That is beautiful."

"I know that sounds unfair."

"That's the least of how it sounds."

"But this...this is what I have come to understand. His love for me, this love I don't deserve and cannot possibly contain, is available to everyone. Even James, even Vicki, even you."

"But I don't want it."

"And that's your choice." She sounds hurt but covers it admirable well. "But after realizing what a precious gift this love is and what a waste it was to spend the rest of my life hating James, I'm...I've learned to trust Him with James and whatever happens to him."

I turn away, unable to bear the sight of her any longer. I am glad she has received whatever emotional buoyance this so-called love provides. But her easy acceptance of James' escape...

It is blasphemous to my ears.

"How can you..." I drag a hand down my face, trying to get myself together. "How can you base so much of your future on someone you can't even see?"

"Because I know what I feel."

"You felt safe with James. And look how that turned out."

"If I'm honest, I never felt safe with James. How could I? He was a con-artist, a liar, and the most selfish man I'd ever met. But he was better than nothing. And without him in my life, there really would have been nothing. Until Charlie, that is.

"And see...I tried finding my salvation in another human being. When I survived that fall down the stairs and heard my baby's heartbeat, I thought, 'He will be my reason to live.' And he was. But then he died and took my reason with him."

"But James took him from you." I turn to face her. "If not for that, you would still be happy and in love with your son."

"Loving Charlie is one thing. But using him as my reason to live would have been unhealthy and unfair to him."

"What about living for yourself?"

"Look at me! This is the healthiest I have ever been, emotionally I mean. The girl I used to be...there was nothing there to live for. If James was an improvement, what sort of state do you think I was in?" She shakes her head. "Those options didn't work for me because I was too fallible to be reliable and everyone dies eventually."

I find sudden interest in the hole in the floor between us. "I won't."

"What was that?"

I look up, squaring my shoulders. "I'm immortal."

Isabella stares at me, her eager gaze softening. "Are you?"

"What are you..."My eyes widen as I realize where she's going. "Oh, I see. This is the part of our program where you remind me Carlisle was immortal but no longer walks among us."

She looks down. "I only point that out to refute the idea that living for an immortal is somehow preferable to living for a human being."

"Carlisle, like Charlie, was murdered." I storm to the other side of the room. "And I cannot believe you don't see why that matters."

Isabella doesn't reply as I expect, and when I finally turn around, I see her coming toward me. "Edward..."

"Yes?"

"Charlie was murdered, yes." She tucks her hair behind her ears. "But..."

"But what?"

"Carlisle was not."

"What do you mean, 'Carlisle was not'?" She swallows hard, worrying her top lip for variety's sake, and her silence is maddening. "Well?"

"Edward, how old did you say Carlisle was?"

I blink at the subject change. "What?"

"How old was he?"

I fist my hands together and place them on my hips. "He was born in the 18th Century. You do the math."

"Was he a rational man?"

"Yes."

"Sober in all his ways?"

"Yes."

"Well-traveled?"

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Was he well-traveled?"

"Yes!"

"Okay." Her eyes soften as her cadence slows. "Your rational, sober, well-traveled sire who has lived in the world for more than three centuries rushes into a field where a known sadist is preparing to murder his companion and..."

"And he offers to take me away if she will let me go." Venom pools in my mouth. "We have been over this before!"

"And she agrees..."

"Which shocked us both!" I stare at her with blackened eyes. "What is your point?"

"Was he really shocked?"

"What?!"

"With all that life experience and no reason to believe Crazy Jane would show mercy...do you honestly think Carlisle believed she would let both of you go?"

"Of course he did! I read his thoughts."

"And don't you think he knew you would?" She continues to approach me. "Don't you think Carlisle knew you would read his thoughts, so he had to convince you not to intervene? Convince you of his surprise at Jane's pardon to prevent you from interfering?"

"Interfering with what?!"

"With his plan to set you free. Don't you see?" She comes to a stop in front of me. "Carlisle wasn't murdered. He willingly, knowingly sacrificed his life to save yours. Because he loved you that much and wanted you to..."

"NO!" The word is a roar as I whirl around. "Carlisle is dead because of me! Because I was selfish and reckless and despised the holy ground he walked on. And all you've done here, despite your best efforts to the contrary, is prove that point beyond a shadow of a doubt. So thank you, Isabella Swan, for etching into the stone of my heart the inescapable truth of what a complete and utter waste I am!"

Black spots appear before my eyes, and I realize I am nearing the edge of my fading sanity. I blur to the window and stick my head out once more, engorging on air as if my life depends on it. In through my nose and out through my mouth, over and over again, until my chest ceases its heaving, my vision clears, and the thunder in my ears recedes to a dull hum.

Stepping away from the window, I run my hands down my face and take a long, deep breath. The soothing action clears away the final fog in my mind, and the scents of this darkening, depressing room fill my senses. But at the tail end of the inhale, I smell something else, something completely, disturbingly out of place.

I smell blood.

I hope to see you in about two weeks. XO