CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Monster

"You always find me, don't you?" I asked rhetorically from my crouched position at the base of the tree. In any other frame of mind, I would have felt like a fool, barely sheltered by a flimsy nylon umbrella, lifting my face up into the steady downpour as if baptizing myself in crazed honesty. I blinked the water out of my eyes in rapid flutters, but my gaze never left Edward's.

He stood rooted to the ground ten feet away, seemingly in shock at the sight of me, though his appearance had to be deliberate; I seriously doubted he'd just been out for a stroll in the thunderstorm and stumbled across me, the girl he'd put so much effort into avoiding.

I tasted the raindrops as I ran my tongue across my lips. Even in the darkness of the stormy twilight, I could see his eyes move to my mouth, so I did it again, silently willing him to come closer.

"You weren't in school," I ventured carefully, not knowing where to start.

He wasn't moving an inch, so I slowly rose to my feet, scraping my back against the rough, wet bark of the tree trunk. I placed my palms flat against the sycamore and pushed off of them, propelling myself forward, no longer requiring anything but my own two feet for support. Even though I was terrified of what I was about to confront Edward with, I refused to meekly cower at his feet; I couldn't waste another minute of our time together allowing him to hide his true self from me.

I took a step toward him, but we were still yards apart. It was almost completely dark now, the only source of light coming in rapid, sporadic flashes from the lightening overhead and the occasional flicker of headlights from the highway two hundred feet away.

Edward continued to say nothing and stood as still and rigid as a statue, his arms frozen as they hung straight at his sides. We faced each other from afar amidst undeniable, unspoken tension, resembling two gunslingers from the Old West on the brink of a standoff.

Hoping to goad him into saying something, anything, I pressed myself to speak, asking in a hoarse, wounded voice, "Were you hiding from me?"

Finally, Edward raised his eyes to mine. Without apology, he answered, "Yes."

"Yes?" I echoed, the pain inside me causing the word to stretch out over two syllables. I was willing to hunt him down despite his potential lethalness, and he had the nerve to avoid me. I took another step and through gritted teeth snarled, "Don't ever do that to me again. Do you understand me?"

"I think it's you who doesn't understand, Bella."

I was so livid that I had to fight off the urge to spit. "No! Stop patronizing me! I know what I'm doing; it's you—you're the one who just doesn't get it." My nostrils flared, and in one forceful motion, I chucked my umbrella to the side, not wanting anything between us. "I told you that whatever it was that you were keeping from me wouldn't matter, Edward." A chill ran through me, not from the raindrops streaming down my forehead and siphoning through my eyelashes but, rather, from the thrill of saying his name amid the electricity crackling in the air.

He let out a bitter, spiteful laugh. "It will, Bella. It will absolutely matter, so much so that you'll be revolted that you ever sat inches away from me, that you ever breathed the same air as I did." He stepped backward until the distance between us measured a quarter of a football field. He raised his voice either out of pure frustration or so I could hear him over the rainfall. "The thought of me putting my hands on you to pull out from under your truck or off of a slippery dock will make you violently ill. I am exactly the kind of person," he scoffed to himself at the word, "whom you'll never look at again, whom you'll regret spending time with. Do you honestly believe that you know me?" He narrowed his eyes in my direction, an action I barely saw through the relentless monsoon whipping through the gap separating us. "Isabella, if you truly did see me for what I am, you'd run. Fast. Far. And you would never look back."

"You're wrong." My feet sloshed through piles of soggy leaves as I continued to close the space between us.

"I should've never allowed this. I put up an impressive façade, but I don't belong in your world, and you certainly don't belong in mine."

I repeated my mantra. "You're wrong." I kept moving away from my former haven at the base of the sycamore, toward the unknown, toward Edward.

He took two fast paces back and forth and retreated several yards, glaring at me, deceptively strong and confident.

I wanted to tell him to stop pretending, for I knew what he was: a liar, a beautiful, pessimistic liar. I wanted truth from him, so I took another step.

He sneered at me. "I can't continue this—friendship of ours." He spat out the word mockingly, cruel and unlike himself.

Regardless, I wouldn't let him hide. "I can't either."

Edward frowned at me, oblivious to the streams of water running down his forehead, sliding over the perfect slope of his nose. "You're going to heed my warnings?" He was trying to keep up his icy veneer, but I heard doubt creep into his voice and possibly, I prayed, sadness.

"Don't be an idiot," I cried, shouting to be heard over the intermittent claps of thunder. "I'm not letting you run away from me."

"You're a naïve child, Bella. Trust me when I say I'm danger—"

"Dangerous?" I chided, abhorring the word. "Yeah, I know. Thing is, I don't think you are. At least, not to me." Ignoring his scoff, my eyes wide and honest, I continued, "For weeks now, my life has revolved around you…sometimes I think it didn't even start until I found you. Did you know that?"

A bolt of lightening illuminated the forest, and I saw the tension release from Edward's fists. He opened his mouth only to say nothing at all.

I pushed forward, starting to approach him again but taking my time as if closing in on a wild animal. "When I didn't see you today, I felt sick. I missed you, like I hadn't been with you in ages. I'm tired of pretending that I'm fine leaving you behind when the bell rings everyday at three o'clock, like we're friends during school hours and strangers as soon as we're given our freedom. I need you. All the time. Every single day. So don't lie to me with this 'I'm dangerous' garbage. You're not. Not even a little bit, at least not when it comes to me."

Something finally jarred him out of speechlessness. "Especially when it comes to you," he barked.

Then, he started to walk, taking calculatingly unhurried steps as he turned his back to me and ignored my pleading; he'd purposefully slowed himself down so he could spew out bitter promises bathed in doubt and self-hatred. "I won't keep involving you in my world, Bella. You won't see me again. I need to leave—for both of our sakes." He stopped walking but refused to face me. "You're…a very special person. You only have to survive high school, and then the loneliness will dissipate. There are better people out there, people who deserve your friendship." He nodded decidedly to himself. The rain had soaked through the back of his white cotton shirt, giving me no choice but to strain my eyes in the darkness so I could run them over the movement of the taut muscles in his back as he exhaled.

"There are no guarantees, Edward. I'll never find another you. Never." I choked out my words without approving them first in my head. When he started walking away, faster this time, I shouted belligerently, "Ask me why I needed to see you!"

He was disappearing into the rain.

"Ask me, god damn it!"

As far as my eyes could see through the sheets of precipitation, he was gone.

But I still felt him, so I started running.

Fast, blindly, out of control.

I knew I had no hope of catching up to him, especially if what the Quileutes said was true, but if he was truly the boy—the man— I thought he was, he wouldn't leave me sobbing alone, unprotected, and lost in the shadowy wilderness.

So I kept sprinting, unable to see more than a few feet in front of me. The tree branches, the furious raindrops, the vague outline of the pine needles—all of it flashed in my peripheral vision as I pursued the only thing that could ever make me whole. It was only a matter of time before—

The ground beneath my feet suddenly sloped downward, a fact my own wild limbs were unprepared for, though my brain had hoped for such a debacle. I knew myself, my body, my luck…as I plummeted face-forward toward the saturated earth, I hoped I knew Edward just as well.

Then, as I'd prayed—knew—would happen, I lost complete contact with the ground and felt the coldness of his body press against the heat of my own.

He held me like he was the reluctant groom to my scheming bride. Edward swore under his breath but kept one arm under the crook of my knees and the other beneath my shoulders supporting my upper body weight.

As always, he searched my face for signs of pain. However, this time, instead of my dumbfounded awe or wounded confusion, he found me smirking up at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" he shouted. He cycled through a dozen emotions before settling on simultaneous shock and ire. "Why are you looking at me like that, and why in the world were you racing like a banshee through the woods without any interest in preserving your own safety? I swear, Bella—"

"Don't be so naïve, Edward," I sneered condescendingly, throwing his own words from moments earlier back in his face. "That was on purpose."

Before I could stop myself, I cupped my palms gently against his face, feeling his cheekbones under the base of my fingers. He snapped his mouth shut, obviously giving up on lecturing me, and his hard expression mellowed for a single, glorious nanosecond. My pretense of cockiness vanished as I realized he was awestruck by my actions and consequently still hadn't released me. Softly, I added, "I knew you'd catch me."

He tore his eyes from me and set me down on the ground before him. "That was a mistake; it would've been better if I'd just let you fall." He bowed his head, tucking his chin against his chest so I couldn't see his face. "Believe me; you'd prefer it that way."

I splayed my hands over my brow, pushing the moisture out of my eyes, and sighed. "You're not really that stupid, are you, Edward?" The desperation in my voice and the matching anxiety written in his expression told me I'd waited too long to stop this nonsense; I needed to curb his self-mutilation and assure him that I craved rather than feared his company.

Risking it all, knowing that if I were wrong, I'd be spending Christmas in a padded cell, I gulped in the moist, late-November air and hunched over, my hands on my knees, my head pointed upward to confront his downturned face with my own hopeful expression, and thrust my fate to his mercy.

"Actually, Edward, as long as you promise not to chomp down on my neck and suck my blood, you can save me every day, for as long as I live." I'd wanted my admission to come out casually, as a light-hearted joke, but instead I'd sounded like I was asking him to marry me, fangs, bloodsucking tendencies, and all.

Edward's eyes shot wide open, his head snapped up, and he stepped back a few paces, distancing himself from my words.

I swallowed as his reaction told me I wasn't mistaken about what he truly was. I walked toward him, my hands raised slightly, palms turned open to the air as if I were a criminal surrendering to the police. "See? I told you I wouldn't care." His eyes were aghast, frightened even. I kept moving closer. "And I don't, Edward," I whispered, knowing he could hear me despite growling thunderclaps and the considerable space between us. "Not in the slightest."

I'd reached him, and we now stood less than three feet apart. "Because you see," I continued, my voice breaking, "I believe in you. I trust you. Edward, I know you. What you are, a human, creature of the night, or whatever…none of that matters because you're just—you're you. And you don't have to run from me." I felt the heat of my own tears mix with the chilled raindrops on my cheeks.

"You don't know what you're saying," he muttered, weary and broken, his head in his hands.

He staggered away from me yet again but at a speed slow enough that I could follow. We trudged in silence back to where my abandoned, open umbrella twisted in the wind near the base of the overgrown sycamore. He picked the umbrella up and fondled the grooves in the handle before tossing it in my direction.

I didn't reach for it, instead allowing it to fall back to the leafy, muddy puddle at my feet. I stared obstinately at him and refused to play the role of the weak, pitiful human.

Suddenly, without warning, Edward ripped a thick, weighty limb from the sycamore and, in a single fluid motion, snapped it into two distinct, jagged pieces. The sound echoed through the forest, causing my shoulders to quiver.

He watched my reaction carefully, likely hoping to find fear, so I clenched my jaw and stared over at him from under a furrowed brow to show him he wasn't scaring me. Daring to speak, I taunted, "You're insulting me. So you can break a tree branch like it was a twig. Is that supposed to send me off screaming into the night?"

My stubbornness seemed to infuriate him; his eyes were ablaze. In a speed my human vision couldn't appreciate, he moved so he stood in front of me, within arm's length.

"I don't frighten you?" he challenged dubiously, his scorn charging the air like an electrical current. "What I am? How I survive?"

His eyes had lost their usual soulfulness to an explosive blackness and were narrowed into slits. The harshness of his body language told me he could haul off and hit me at any second. Or worse.

But I knew he wouldn't. For weeks, he'd been sneaking small, gentle strokes of my skin with his fingertips; in the hallway, sometimes I could have sworn I wasn't the only one forcing the "accidental" brushes of our shoulders. Whenever I fell, he caught me, and each time, he didn't rush to push me out of his arms.

"So you're a vampire," I eked out the word quickly with as much nonchalance as I could muster, "but you're still Edward."

"What I am is a monster," he growled, his lips half a foot from my forehead. I struggled not to flinch at the hostility flashing in his eyes.

"Don't say that," I sobbed, shaking my head as if the movement would somehow silence him into submission. "If you're a monster, then what does that make me? Me, someone who lived her entire life in loneliness until she met this great, sweet boy who stood by her through homesickness, near-death experiences, and some rather intense self-doubt. Someone who tried desperately to love that boy back as much as he loved her. Someone who thought she was doing a pretty damn good job until she met this other boy, who seemed to hate her but who eventually just filled all the voids in her life that she didn't even know existed."

Hypnotized by Edward's proximity, I reached for the umbrella, lifted it over my head, and stepped closer to him, sheltering us both under a canopy of thin, black nylon. I could smell the sweetness of his scent wafting around me in the moist air. I shivered in silence, gathering my strength as he took in my words.

Seeing him hate himself with such unabashed intensity made my heart leap for his peace of mind. More than anything, I wanted to make it better, to make him feel like he'd made me feel, to warm him and love him until we just forgot about our responsibilities and the roles life told us we were supposed to play.

I fought the tears, the guilt, and the knowledge of what I was about to do. Breathing in the heady air between us, I continued, "If you're a monster, Edward, then I'm something much, much worse." The sweet innocence of Jacob's face flashed once through my head before I pushed it aside completely. "Because I have a choice—a choice between being a monster and protecting the person who loves me more than anything in the world. And I choose to be the monster."

Edward shook his head, not understanding what I was trying to tell him. He looked like he was on the verge of bolting, that is if he could bear to remove his stare from my face. I was banking on the magnetic pull between us to keep him still.

I bit my lip and, before I could stop myself, grabbed both sides of his beautiful, confused face. "I choose you, Edward. I can't walk away from this, from you. I told you once that I wasn't looking for anything between us beyond friendship, but I—I'm a liar. This—you and me—was never about friendship. So if you're a monster, then so am I because I'm giving up everything to tell you—" I stood on the very tips of my toes to stare him straight in the eye—"to tell you that I'm in love with you."

My hands still fondled the arctic, alabaster skin covering his cheekbones, and I could practically feel him blink twice, his expression a mixture of horror, awe, and doubt. Before I could assess his reaction further, he placed his palms around my wrists and gripped them for a fraction of a second before his hands were gone and his face disappeared from under my fingertips. I spun around, hoping for some clue as to where he'd gone, but I found none.

The rain weakened to a drizzle, and I dropped the umbrella to my feet without bothering to close it. I stared through the darkness at the mud caking my shoes and balled my hands into fists in a futile attempt to isolate the tension threatening to wrack every cell in my body.

"Edward?" I asked shakily into the vast emptiness surrounding me, drawing on a stockpile of audacity I didn't even know I had. "Edward, I need you to come back. Talk to me, please."

A minute later, there was still no sign of him, so I spoke again, this time in a strained, desperate yell. "Edward, if you don't come back here—" I broke off, knowing I had nothing to threaten him with. Instead, I went with all I did have, my newfound honesty, and wailed, "Don't you dare make me into a fool! I can love a vampire, but I could never love a coward!" The ridiculousness of what I was saying was only compounded by the maniacal, screeching tone of my voice.

I sunk to my knees and felt the cold, wet soil seep through my jeans. I couldn't even cry; I was completely empty. My hands gripped my face, as if I could pull out the pain through my eye sockets.

"One hundred thirty-seven."

His voice, frigid and adamant, rang through the small clearing where I hunched in defeat. I didn't bother to lift my head; his heartless tone told me everything I needed to know, even if the meaning underlying his words was a total mystery to me.

"One hundred four."

My vision was utterly useless, but I knew he was nowhere close to me.

Still, I could feel him.

"Eighty-seven."

I jerked my hands from my face to my thighs, hard and fast so my palms made a loud, slapping sound as they flattened against the sopping denim of my jeans. Into the blackness, I asked emptily, sardonically, "Are we playing some warped, twisted version of Hide and Go Seek?"

Rising to my feet, I turned in a circle, still not seeing him. "I won't find you, Edward. I can't keep up with your spineless mind games."

In the aftermath of the recently abated thunderstorm, a flash of lightening lit up my surroundings.

He was there.

Walking toward me soundlessly, effortlessly dodging tree branches and puddles of rainwater, he was everything but cowardly. His eyes were more intense than I'd ever seen them. His face was detached but still precious to me, his aloofness unable to overshadow the beauty of the soul I knew lurked beneath the surface. He strode toward me with slow, determined steps, his body soaking wet, his expression lacking a single ounce of vulnerability.

"Zero."

I swallowed hard and mercilessly gripped my hands together in front of me. Edward wouldn't kill me, that I knew without question, but I was fairly certain he was about to break my heart.

He stopped three paces in front of me. I could see him without the aid of lightening bolts now.

"Those numbers, Bella…you should memorize them." He was so close; all it would take was one step and an extension of my arm for us to touch again…but the resolute expression shadowing his features told me I was forbidden from crossing the invisible barrier between us.

He bent his head so his words had less distance to travel before they slapped me in the face. "One hundred thirty-seven. That's how many people I've murdered in cold blood, following them into dark alleys, snapping their necks without even looking them in the eye, draining the life out of them within minutes before mutilating their cold, dead corpses so the truth behind their unnatural, inhumane deaths would never come into fruition."

He wanted me to back away, to run, to never look into his eyes ever again. But that was impossible. So I kept boring my gaze into his lifeless, unfeeling face.

His expression flickered, and he licked his lips, his mouth parting slightly so I could see the abnormal whiteness of his teeth. "One hundred four. That's how old I truly am. Old enough to be your great-great-grandfather, and old enough to have seen every human I've ever met die and fade from my memory to the point where all I can recall of them is fragmented pieces of the lives they once lived. My mother, my father…I can barely see their faces in my own mind. I forgot them…just like I'll forget you."

I choked on the lump rising in my throat. My head was shaking without me telling it to, physical evidence of my disbelief that this was Edward standing in front of me, that somehow a heartless stranger had stolen his face.

He took a single step forward, and I could smell a mixture of the humidity and his scent as it drifted down upon my face. "Eighty-seven. That's how many years ago I ceased being a human being and became the disgusting, soulless monster you see in front of you now. I was seventeen years old, on the brink of death, and I was bitten. Then, suddenly, I stopped craving food and oxygen and sleep. All I could think about was the scent of human blood, the sweetness of its smell, its warmth as it slid down my throat. I gave it up for awhile," he flashed me a sickening, un-Edward-like leer, "but then I met you, Bella. I hadn't tasted human blood for the better part of seventy years when I first saw you, but the minute I got a whiff of you—the most tempting thing I've ever encountered—all I could think about what you'd taste like and how I could steal you away so I could literally suck the life out of you."

"Enough!" I glared at him with unbridled fury. "You are not a monster, and your scary stories don't stop me from loving you." I leaned in, narrowing the space between us to mere inches. "If you want to kill me, then go ahead."

I ripped my jacket from my shoulders and flung it to the ground, causing it to splatter droplets of water onto the hem of my jeans. Never taking my eyes from Edward's, I hooked my index finger into the collar of my turtleneck and pulled the wool fabric as far as it would go, away from my neck. Without a single inkling of trepidation, I leaned in even further, my jugular so close to his face that I could feel the coolness of his breath against my exposed skin. "What are you waiting for?" I whispered.

In a blur, he was gone again.

"You've had so many chances, Edward!" I cried, not knowing where to aim my voice. "I could have been dead a hundred times over, what with all the time we've spent together. But, instead, you've saved my life. Twice officially, but really in so many ways that I can't even keep count. You made me see how I was suffocating in this place, how I deserve more. You showed me that I was missing something in my life—you, Edward, I was missing you. What I feel for you is unlike anything I ever thought possible…I-I think about you. All the time. You and me—we're not safe; this thing between us is dangerous, but only because we'd both have to take an enormous risk to be together. But it's worth it." I gasped for air, searching the blackness for a trace of his presence. Seeing nothing, I kept babbling, praying I could say something that would bring him back to me. "You make me so happy; I never feel lonely when I'm with you, or like I'm losing out on something else, something better. You're just it for me. You—we— we're magic, even if you are a monster, even if I am, too. I choose the magic, Edward. I choose us. Because we're better together than anything I've ever known and anything I will ever find."

"Zero."

Coming from nowhere, he now hovered over me, standing close behind me so that I felt his arm brush against mine when my chest heaved as I took in a deep breath.

He leaned his head in just over my shoulder. In my ear, he repeated the number in a hiss. "Zero. The number of women I've loved in all one hundred four years of my existence. The number of women I've kissed. The number of times I've allowed myself to carry on the illusion of a relationship with anyone." His hands were suddenly gripping my shoulders, and his face was so close my eyelashes could almost flutter against his chin. "Zero. The number of minutes I'll spend feeling anything aside from blood-thirst for you."

"I don't…believe you," I sputtered. My head told me I was lying, that he was telling the truth, but my heart assured me my words were honest. "You go out of your way, to the point of exposing the secret of what you are, to protect me. You watch my every move. You look at me like there's something you want to tell me but just can't. You believe in me so much that, despite my nonexistent self-esteem, even I believe you when you tell me that I'm worth something. You left me a pumpkin on my front porch after I smashed the other one to pieces. You make me into a better person. And you feel something for me, too. I know you do."

His eyes narrowed as I started to weep soundlessly. "I don't, Bella. You have to know that."

"No."

Edward released my shoulders but didn't back off. "Bella," he whispered my name as if it belonged to a sacred deity, "you can't possibly feel that for me. You don't know anything about me."

I grimaced, refusing to let him look anywhere but into my eyes. "You know that's a lie. There are a million things about this world that I can't even begin to understand, but I have absolutely no doubt that I know you."

"I've killed—"

"I don't care. You're a murderer. You even want to murder me, but I still love you. Somehow. Even if I don't want to love you, I just do." I sniffled. "I can't help it. I'd rather die than stay away from you."

Ignoring me completely, he went on with his exercise in self-loathing. "I didn't even know most of their names. I just executed them. In cold blood. Don't tell me—"

"Stop!" I knew myself well enough to know that I could never feel the way I did about Edward if he was as awful as he claimed to be. "You want to talk about them? Your victims? Tell me about them, then. Were they nuns? Small children? Puppies? Please, Edward. Tell me how awful you really are."

"They were human beings, for Christ's sake. How can you not take this seriously?"

He was unraveling. I could feel it. "How old were they, Edward? Why did you kill them? And don't lie to me. Don't make me feel repulsive for falling for a cold-blooded killer; don't make me feel ashamed of myself for caring about you. If you're the monster you say you are, then that makes me pretty terrible, too, doesn't it?"

His face convulsed, revealing a flash of helplessness, and he snapped his eyelids closed. "They were rapists, murderers. I knew because I can read people's thoughts. I knew what they were thinking, each and every disgusting thought. I followed them. Then I slaughtered them. But that doesn't excuse what I did. I'm still a killer. I'm still repulsive."

I wanted to throw my arms around him, but he still looked tortured and unapproachable.

And then the entirety of his message knocked the wind out of me. "You can read people's thoughts?"

He stared out over my head. "Everyone's," he replied flatly. "Except yours."

"Why—"

"I don't know." Keeping his eyes shut, he turned his head away from me.

"Can all vampires do that?" Our conversation was surreal but also easily the bravest moment of my life.

"No. Just me." He still wouldn't look at me..

I'd always maintained that Edward was the most fascinating person, I'd ever met, but clearly that was the understatement of the century. Awed, I murmured, "You're…incredible."

Edward turned back to me, animosity written all over his face. "When you were in the hospital last weekend, all your Jacob could think about was how much he loved you, how he'd never be able to cope with losing you. He watched you sleeping, even after you thought he'd gone. When he finally he left, he only did so because he could no longer hold himself together; he starting crying in the parking lot because he thought you weren't in love with him. He would do anything for you, Bella, and you're throwing him away."

"You're not playing fair," I wept. "He is amazing, and until I met you—"

"He made you happy, didn't he?" Edward's tone was fierce; he was trying to prove a point, to push me away.

Wearing my heart on my sleeve, I sighed, "Not like you do."

Edward closed his eyes again, and a crease formed between his eyebrows. "He can give you the life you were meant to have, Bella." He opened his eyes, and for the first time, he let me see his pain. "I don't age. I don't eat or sleep or do any of the things you do. I could crack your skull with a simple, effortless flick of my finger, let alone what I would be capable of if I touched you when…if I were in a situation where I couldn't control myself."

I blushed, which was not the effect he desired. "You could touch me, Edward. You can touch me." I hung my hands at my sides, hoping he'd reach out and take them. "You do it all the time. At school, you touch my fingers, my shoulders, once or twice you reached out and touched my face—"

"That's different."

"How?"

He pressed his fingers against his forehead. "That was a mistake. A massively stupid mistake."

"Please don't say that," I whispered.

"Jacob can touch you. He can kiss you. He can give you a normal life, a life without monsters. You belong with him. He's safe choice. Bella, Jacob is the right choice for you; he's what your life was meant to be."

"No! You don't get to say his name," I sputtered. "This has nothing to do with him; this is about me and you. I love him, but I am in love with you. Just you. And I don't want a normal life—the thought of promising myself to anyone but you makes me feel claustrophobic. But you, Edward, you make me feel as if I could do anything, go anywhere and have an incredible life, as long as you're with me. With you, I'd be free."

"No, with me, you'd be dead. It would only be a matter of time before I'd destroy you…I'd lose control and eventually crush your skull into dust."

"You'd never let that happen."

"You don't—"

"Yes, I do. I know you'd never hurt me, not accidentally and not purposefully." I moved as close as I could get without pressing my chest against his. My head was directly under his chin. Straining my neck, I looked up at him, not surprised that he hadn't forced himself away from me. "You want me, too, Edward. Maybe just as bad I as I want you." I fluttered my eyelids shut and tipped my face so all he had to do was lean in. "Kiss me. I know you can. I know you want to."

Maybe it was because I was intoxicated by his very presence and thus incapable of rational thought, but I was so sure he'd give in and press his lips to mine, certain that he'd let me in.

I was horrifically wrong.

I waited, but he never touched me. Humiliated, I opened my eyes to see he'd backed away, his features had hardened, the gentleness I'd fallen in love with now dead and buried.

"You claim to know me, Bella." He derided my faith with a scoff. "And I haven't the slightest idea how you figured out what I am, but surely I can tell you a bit of information you haven't picked up on when it comes to vampires: we are fickle, easily distracted creatures. I admit, I once found you intriguing, seeing as you're the only person I've ever encountered whose mind I can't understand. In fact, for a human, you are quite exceptional. However," he strolled over to the tree limb he'd broken and appraised his handiwork with a smirk, "my attention is waning. It's not you at all; it's just the way I am. I can't pretend to live as a human at your side—such a task would be tiresome and eventually I would leave you. This is what's best, really."

I sucked in a shallow intake of air and mentally stumbled over his words, trying to decipher their meaning. His eyes, framed by the icy planes of his face, stared down at me with indifferent patience, as if I were a child obstructing his path, not getting out of his way fast enough. Slowly, I began to understand.

"You…don't…want me?" The words didn't sound right on my lips.

"No."

"Oh." I sunk back onto the ground, barely hearing the squishing sound the mud made under my weight.

"I wish this could be easier, Bella. I really do." He seemed sincere, but I really had no idea how to interpret anything he said or did; my assumptions thus far had been abysmally off base.

He had the nerve to crouch down before me. He looked cautious but still, more than anything, he looked like an arrogant, unmitigated asshole. "I know I have no right to ask this, but please do take care of yourself. I'd hate to think all my altruistic efforts to keep you alive were done in vain."

I wanted to cry until I'd expunged every drop of moisture in my body, but I forced myself to hold it together, showing him only anger. "I'll be just fine," I snarled.

"Yes, of course you will." He nodded, back to his earlier trick of not meeting my eyes. "Nonetheless, I want you to know that I will no longer attend classes. You won't have to see me ever again."

My heart rose to my throat. Still, I couldn't believe his audacity. "Oh, because I'm the poor little lovesick human girl who can't handle seeing you in the hallway? Don't flatter yourself. I could look at you every minute of every day, and I will never see you the same way." I forced myself to meet his eyes. "You're not who I thought you were. So don't worry, you don't have to run away for my sake. The person I thought I was in love with doesn't exist. Seeing you every single day won't change that."

My hands were shaking, so I jammed them into my back pockets so he couldn't see just how much he'd broken me.

A flicker of...something flashed across his face before the arrogance returned in full force. "Very well, Bella. I won't alter my plans because of you, and I hope you have some reassurance in knowing that I will no longer bother you with my attention."

Numbly, I blinked out into the night. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stand and back up until the blackness dissolved him from sight.

He didn't want me.

Of course he didn't.

I was a fool.

So I cried, never stopping, even as I forced my legs to support me and carry me through the brush toward the spot where my truck was parked along the highway. I laid down in the seat, curled in the fetal position, soaking the upholstery, raking my fingernails along the coarse fabric until I had no feeling left in my fingertips.

He didn't want me.

Still, despite my empty, cold words to the contrary, I wanted him. Regardless of everything he'd said. And I hated myself for it.

I welcomed the crazed masochism welling up inside me. I prayed it would replace the hole Edward's rejection had left in the very center of my heart.

As it stood, I felt like I wasn't hurting myself enough; I deserved worse, but no matter what thoughts I tortured myself with, nothing could eclipse the intense anguish Edward had just caused me.

Like an unstable teenager in need of razors to slice the skin of her forearms in order to dull the pain inside her, I craved some way to mutilate myself; only, I looked for an emotional release instead of a physical one. I was sick, hating myself to the point that I had to practically force myself to breathe.

But before I could continue beating myself up for what I'd allowed myself to feel for Edward, before I could wallow in self-pity and depression, I knew what I had to do.

Jacob.

I had to let him go.

Through the tears and nervous twitching of my muscles, I started my truck and headed to La Push.

I was a sinking ship of pain and self-loathing…but I refused to let Jake drown alongside me.