Bella

I held my arms up as Edward's lips kissed my neck and his hands pulled my shirt up over my head. Once it was on the floor, with the rest of our clothing, I held his face in my hands and carefully led his mouth back to mine.

His hands held my hips and walked me backwards to his bed, following me down onto the mattress one we'd reached it. As he moved above me, pushing pillows out of the way, my hands slid down his neck until they rested against his chest and I was positive I could feel his heart beating against my palm.

I probably should have been terrified that in the course of one day my life had taken a drastic turn in the other direction, but I wasn't. Instead, I was relieved that I'd had Edward to comfort me, to talk to me, when everything had come crashing down. He wasn't in another state, and it wasn't just comforting words over the phone. Instead he had held me in his arms, promised me that everything would be fine and told me that he loved me… And it was perfect. He was perfect.

He promised me that he wouldn't let me go, that he wouldn't let anything happen to me, and I believed him. For the first time, in a long time, I didn't feel like it was just me. I had someone that would hold me up and never let me fall. I had someone that was willing to take the good and the bad and love me, unconditionally. I didn't have to do this by myself anymore. I didn't have to be scared anymore.

"Are you alright?"

I smiled at Edward's question because I was more than just alright. "Yeah," I answered, looking up at him. "But I'll be a lot better when you kiss me again."

It didn't take much convincing before he leaned down over me and pressed his lip against mine. And I didn't hesitate to wrap my legs around his hips. His lips were soft while his tongue moved against mine. And when his hand slipped between my legs, I held on to his shoulders and sighed into his mouth.

"Edward."

His forehead leaned against mine, while his breath fanned out across my lips. He wanted my eyes as I slowly relaxed into his touch and got carried farther and farther away by the feelings coiling in the base of my stomach.

I tried to hold on, to make this moment last forever, but I couldn't. And as I unraveled beneath him, Edward's voice quietly told me that he loved me. I held the back of his neck, brought his mouth to mine, and as he gently moved his hips between mine, filling me completely, I told him I loved him too.

xXxXxXx

"Bella."

I pulled the pillow closer to my face. "Hmm?"

I felt Edward lean over the bed, covering my back with his chest while his hand slipped under my hip and pulled me against him. I moaned before playfully pushing my butt back against him, and smiled when he buried his face in my hair.

"Don't tease me."

I pushed back against him again. "It isn't teasing if you plan on following through with it."

"And if I didn't have to be at school in twenty minutes, I would take you up on that offer." Edward kissed the back of my shoulder, then my neck, and finally my ear. Leaving his lips against it, he whispered, "I love you."

I rolled over onto my back, and held his face between my hands before kissing him. "I love you, too."

What was a perfectly romantic moment was completely interrupted and ruined by the stupid cat jumping on the bed and hissing at me. Edward shooed her away before giving me another kiss.

"How much longer will we be subjected to that?"

"Just till tomorrow." Edward tucked the blankets around me and smiled. "Emmett is picking me up so you can use my car if you need to go anywhere."

I nodded and covered my mouth when a giant yawn crawled up my throat. He just smiled, kissed me again, and then stood up.

"Go back to sleep. I've got tutorials during lunch but I'll be home right after school."

He said home, like I belonged there too, and that made a silly grin spread across my lips. Edward gave me another kiss, another I love you, and then left for the day. I rolled over once I heard the door shut, pulled his pillow closer to me, and fell back asleep with a smile on my face.

xXxXxXx

Standing in Edward's kitchen, wrapped in the sheet from his bed, I waited while the coffee brewed and curiously looked though some of his cabinets. The cat, perched on top of the refrigerator, watched me with judging eyes.

I shut the cabinet door, and shook my head. "Don't look at me like that."

The cat's tail swished in response.

I was seriously contemplating throwing the dish rag at it but stopped when the front door opened. I froze, completely horrified that I was standing there in nothing but a sheet, and then nearly dropped the material covering me when a woman I didn't know came walking into the kitchen. We both screamed when we saw each other and I immediately reached for the closest weapon I could, which happened to be a spatula.

"Oh my-" Her hand flew to her chest and then she took a step backwards. "I'm so… sorry!"

We stood there, staring at each other in complete silence, until the cat meowed happily and jumped from the refrigerator and onto the counter. She then pranced her way towards the woman and leapt into her arms.

She cuddled the animal into her chest before giving me an awkward smile. "I'm… I should have called before I just stopped by. I figured Edward would be at work and… I came back a day early."

"You're the friend he was cat-sitting for?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I'm um…" She fumbled with the cat before sticking her hand out. "I'm Kate."

"K-Kate? You're… the friend?" She was freaking gorgeous! With blonde hair and blue eyes she looked like a damn Barbie doll!

When I didn't shake her hand, she awkwardly dropped it and the blushed from neck to forehead before nodding. "Yeah, I'm the friend." She set a key onto the counter and then took a deep breath. "Um, I'm just going to get Cinnamon's things together and then I'll get out of your way."

I watched as she moved around Edward's apartment, opening closets and cabinets like she knew exactly where everything was, and after shoving the cat in a pet carrier, apologized again for scaring me.

"I really didn't know… I'm sorry."

"No," I shook my head, still flustered. "I… Edward didn't tell me…I'm sorry."

"Oh," Kate laughed and pulled the bag higher up on her shoulder. "It isn't like that… I mean… I guess we all know what we're getting into with someone like Edward. Right? Holding everyone at arm's length? Don't feel bad."

I swallowed around a very large knot in my throat and pulled the sheet higher up on my chest. "You mean, you and Edward…" I couldn't even finish the sentence because I had to have this all wrong. I specifically asked him if had slept with her, and he had specifically told me no. Praying I was wrong, I made myself ask her. "You and Edward were… together?"

Kate delicately shrugged her shoulders. "As together as you can be with someone like Edward. Seriously though, please don't feel like you're sleeping with my man or anything like that. He made it plainly clear what this was before we did… anything. No hard feelings. I promise."

She gave me another wave and then left me standing in Edward's kitchen in a fucking sheet. Once the door was shut, the spatula I'd been holding fell to the floor and I soon followed it.

xXxXxXx

I left Edward's car parked in the marina's parking lot, hoping someone would fucking hit it, and ran down the steps that led to the docks below it. I read the name of the boats as I ran and hastily wrapped another scarf around my neck. When I saw The Arroyo rocking with the motion of the waves, I stopped to stare at it.

Granted I didn't know anything about boats but I was expecting a hell of a lot more than what was sitting there. This looked more like a dinghy than an actual boat. It could only hold three people at maximum and looked absolutely tiny next to the boats next to it.

Whitlock was doing something with a line of rope and looked completely surprised to see me standing there when I called his name. "Bella?"

I smiled before waving a gloved hand at him. "I'm ready for my sailing lesson."

That was a lie. In truth, I was on the verge of crying, throwing up, and screaming. But I didn't have time for that, not now. The only option I had left was to go through with the interview, give my version of the article to my boss, and hope like hell that it made Alice look like a lying bitch.

He gave me a curious look before leaning forward to see if anyone was following me. "I thought Alice-"

"Yes, well…" I took a deep breath and lied again. "Alice isn't much for sailing. In fact she hates it. She is terrified of water." Before he had a chance to say something else, I asked him if I was allowed to come aboard.

Whitlock looked a little confused but agreed and helped me climb aboard once I'd taken my shoes off.

xXxXxXx

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" Jasper had to yell at me over the sound of the water.

I nodded at his question, too scared to open my mouth in case I decided to throw up, and held the extra life jacket closer to my chest. It was beyond freezing and I was pretty sure that I would never regain function of my toes, but the bitter cold and rain was nothing compared to the absolute fear that had left me a paralyzed mess.

Since we had ventured out into actual open water, I'd done nothing but sink deeper into my seat, and try not to start crying while Jasper went on and on about why he loved sailing. I didn't care about the interview anymore, or my job, or why the idiot steering the boat had decided to name it after a Spanish word that meant dried up river bed! I wanted out of the water, out of the boat, and back in Arizona where I could go back to living my pathetically normal life!

"Can you hold this for me?"

I looked up from my panicked ranting to see Jasper motioning to the rudder thingy at the butt of the boat. I asked him if he was crazy but Jasper just laughed. "I have to retie that line or we could lose the sail and end up tipping."

That got me moving.

With frozen limbs, I carefully moved to the back of the boat and held the rudder while he stepped over me and walked to the main mast. I watched as he tried to grab a hold of the loose line, growing more and more anxious when it flapped around in the wind. When the sail itself started waving wildly, I screamed for him to hurry the fuck up.

"Almost got it!" He yelled back at me. It didn't make me feel any better.

The wind was cruel and hard, pinching my cheeks and every other inch of exposed skin, while I tried to hold the rudder still. I closed my eyes and prayed that I would make it back to shore. I bargained with God, telling him that I would stop drinking, stop lying, stop doing every horrible habit I had, if he would just get me back to dry land.

But then the boat started rocking and I knew that my bargaining hadn't worked. I was going to die out here in the Pacific Ocean. I knew it. Tears started falling uncontrollably and I abandoned the rudder to put on the extra life jacket I'd been holding.

"Bella! The Rudder!"

My body, my mind… everything had frozen. All I could do was sit there and cry and pray that they would at least be able to find my body, for the sake of my parents. How horrible would it be to know your child had died and never have the closure of burying their body?

Whitlock kept yelling at me but I couldn't hear him, not really. I was too focused on the water that was creeping over the side of the boat and covering my feet. It was so fucking cold, not like the water in the pool. Thinking of Edward made my tears come faster and my chest ache.

He'd said he loved me… but after lying about Kate, just so he could sleep with me, how could I trust anything he'd told me? I guess it didn't matter, not now.

I took a deep breath, gasping around my sobs, and looked down at the water that was now up to my knees.

This was it.

I looked back, hoping Jasper would be there to tell me what to do, but I was alone. So very, very alone.

The water rose and I clawed at the slick body of the boat. I tried to crawl my way to the part that wasn't sinking, thinking that I might have been able to sit on it's belly once it had flipped, but the water kept pulling me back into it's icy grip.

The boat sank deeper, pulling me under with it, and once the water was up to my shoulders I closed my eyes and took a final breath before letting the water win. It pulled me under, stabbing me with its freezing temperatures.

And I let it take me, deeper and deeper, until everything was black.

AN: No, this isn't the end. I'm having surgery soon so I am hoping to crank out as many chapters as I can and get this story finished before I go in. Thanks guys!