This is part one of this chapter, it's a two parter.

Sometime during the course of my melt-down I fell asleep on his shoulder. I didn't wake up again until we reached New York. I was so exhausted. I felt like a year of sleep wouldn't be enough.

Edward gently prodded me awake. It took me a moment to remember where I was, and when I did I wished I hadn't tried. I was in a mess. Everything was a mess.

"Shall I carry you?" Edward whispered as we stood to exit the plane. "You can go back to sleep, you don't have to worry about anything."

I glared at him.

Alice took my arm as we left the plane and I could sense Edward walking behind us, though I never turned to look.

Carlisle got two cabs which took all of us to a near-by hotel. We had a six hour layover, and I guess no one felt like seeing the sights. I didn't.

I didn't pay attention to where we were, I just went wherever Alice led me. We went into an elevator inside a shiny gold and burgundy lobby. Jasper and Edward were in the elevator with us. Carlisle and the others were still at the front desk. We stopped at the top floor. Edward opened the door to the room and Alice nodded for me to go inside. I did, and Edward shut the door behind us, leaving Alice and Jasper in the hallway.

I knew we had to talk, we had to get it over with, but I still wanted to be angry. I stood in the room's entry, not looking around, but just staring at Edward's feet. His shoes were different. He'd usually worn brown ones when we lived in Forks. These were grey and casual looking, like designer tennis shoes. I didn't even know if there were such a thing, but… I could feel his eyes on me, he was leaning against the door. I didn't know why my thoughts were rambling, but it helped me not to focus on the fact that we were alone. Finally, for the first time since that afternoon in the woods behind me house.

"What are you thinking about?" His voice broke the silence, and it was strained.

"Your shoes." I replied flatly, finally looking up at him. He looked terrible, or as terrible as an angel carved from ice can look. The shadows beneath his eyes were darker than I had ever seen them, his lips were pale, nearly colorless.

He gave me a hint of my favorite crooked smile, but it was wrong somehow. "Be serious please."

I looked away again. It was painful to look at him. "I am serious." I told him. "I was being honest, I was really thinking about your shoes. I've never seen you wear shoes like that. You had a pair of black ones, I remember, but usually you wore those brown ones with the really thin laces. I liked them a lot. You were wearing them the last time I saw you, I remember because I was looking at them. I was looking down at your shoes when you disappeared. I wish I hadn't been, because maybe I would've seen which way you went. I tried to follow you. I thought maybe I could catch you at first. Which was stupid. I even looked for footprints. I knew it was pointless… I had to keep moving. It rained and it got dark and I just kept walking. I don't know why I did that."

I turned my back to him and walked over to the giant bed. I sat down on a corner of it and looked out the long window without seeing anything.

"I repeated those words in my head over and over again, the ones you said to me. You didn't want me anymore, you didn't love me. I tried to tell myself that they didn't make any sense, but deep down I knew they did. I knew that I had been expecting something like that all along. It didn't make sense for you to love me. It didn't makes sense if you were never going to change me. You didn't want me forever, and you never had. It made sense, and so I couldn't hate you for it."

He was silent, I didn't know if he had moved. I couldn't stop talking, and he let me go on without interrupting. It was almost like I was alone in the room.

"I don't think I want you to tell me that you regret what you did. That you love me and you always have and that you only left to keep me safe. I'm afraid that if I believe that then I'll hate you for it, and I don't want to hate you."

My voice was getting thick and I could feel the tears threaten to spill over. I went on, I had to get this out before I fell apart.

"I thought you were gone." I swallowed, and continued. "In Italy, when I tripped in the crowd and heard the bell chime, I thought I had failed. I did fail.

"I lived for days thinking that you were gone and wondering how I would be able to live with myself. I thought that the only thing keeping me going when you left me was knowing that you were still out there somewhere… but then, when I was with Lazarro after I thought you were gone. I… I realized I was wrong. I'm a monster for thinking it, but I thought that maybe that knowledge, knowing that you were still out there somewhere… maybe it was the thing that was holding me hostage." That was all I could get out before the lump in my throat choked off my words and the tears got the best of me. I dropped my head into my hands and let the racking, bitter sobs get the best of me. I felt his weight on the bed beside me, but he didn't touch me. I tried to get myself under control so I could keep talking. I had to tell him these things, not to hurt him, but so that he would know what kind of a person I really was. If I told him all of my darkest thoughts, the ones that he could so easily find in other people, maybe he wouldn't want me anymore. He would see that I wasn't special, that I was like anyone else, maybe even worse than most people. I would be honest with him because that's what I expected in return. And if the honest truth was that he didn't love me after all, I would know that it was for the right reasons. It was an agonizing possibility, one that I tried not to dwell on.

I cleared my throat and wiped at my eyes with my hands. "I ---" The next part stick in my throat and I tried not to imagine his expression. Clearing my throat again, I went on. "I don't think it was relief exactly, because I was devastated. I don't think you can possible understand what it was like to try to imagine a world were you no longer existed. I didn't know how I was still living just having that knowledge inside of me. I thought I should have been dead… I wanted to be."

I heard his intake of breath and fought the urge to look at him. I kept my head down so that my hair was a curtain between us… just like the first day.

I knew that if I looked at him I wouldn't be able to say any of the rest of it. I knew I would see myself in his eyes as the monster I was.

"It was guilt that drove me to Volterra. Just like it was guilt that drove you there. You thought I had killed myself because of you, and I thought that you had killed yourself because of me. We can't go on like this. If you don't love me Edward, you don't owe me anything… I'm going to die someday, it's a simple fact. It might be tomorrow, or it might be in a hundred years, but it's going to happen. When I die, I don't want you to do anything irrational. I don't want to carry the responsibility of your existence too. I can't live like that."

There was nothing more. The silence lasted for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few moments.

I felt him rise off of the bed and then his shoes were in my vision again, and then his face as he knelt in front of me.

"You aren't a monster." He told me, searching my face.

Relief swept over me, and I closed my eyes.

"Look at me Bella." I opened my eyes and he continued. "I don't want you to feel responsible for what I do or what I've done. I don't want you to think that I'm telling you I still love you out of guilt, or gratitude for saving me and my family, or any other reason other than that it's the truth. It's the truth Bella. I will exist forever because I have to, but I want you to know that I didn't start living until I found you, and the day I decided to leave you I died. You've changed me Bella, and I can't go back and I don't want to. If you'll have me, I want to come back to Forks, I want to pick up where we left off and I want to prove to you that I was wrong and that I'm sorry."

My breath caught in my throat, his face was only inches away. I was enveloped in his scent and captivated by his eyes. The hole in my chest was healed. Everything I'd hoped for in the darkest time of my life was happening. There was a small part of me that wanted to be careful. A small part that knew there was a lot left to say… but he was there, and I was there. Gravity is a strong force that can't be overcome. I leaned forward, but he was already coming toward me. Our lips met, hesitantly at first, and then recklessly. The past evaporated and nothing else mattered. I was whole again.