BPOV

"You can forgive but you can never forget".

Edward sulked backward until he connected with a large pine tree and there he remained for countless minutes doubled over, hands holding his weight on the tops of his knees much the way a runner would cave when winded. I couldn't see his face, his eyes, as he let the tree carry the weight of his burdens while the remnants of my words traced circles in the air about our heads like vultures sensing imminent death.

I had all the time in the world and felt no sense of urgency or desire to move forward in any way as I watched him lean against that tree. I studied him. The way the light, filtered and barely traceable through the thick canopy of trees still managed to find a direct path to the rust coloured streaks in his hair and light them on fire. His long fingers cupped against his knees. Fingers that I remembered vividly the feel of them as they stroked my cheek or slipped through the length of my ponytail. His back, rounded in an arc parallel to the forest floor, rising and falling rapidly as he sucked in useless, necessary breath. I could practically see the gamut of emotions as clearly as if I were watching a movie with actors portraying their anger, their sadness, their confusion, their pity and regret, a marathon of emotions hurtled in rapid succession over him. And because I hadn't lifted my eyes from him the entire time he rested there, collapsed, because I hadn't so much as blinked or breathed, because I was waiting…I saw the exact moment Edward decided to fight. To release the hurt and to wrap his fist around my words and throw them back at me with a force that only someone desperate to hold onto their entire life while it hung in the balance could muster. That was the Edward before me now.

He used his inner strength to push himself off the pine trunk and drive his body toward mine slowly as he spoke, denouncing my words of pain and betrayal, telling me what I did and did not actually feel. With every word his tone grew sharper, his eyes narrower, and his face colder. He was either going to fight for me or against me and in that moment I honestly did not know which…or which I hoped for.

"Do I get to say anything in response?"

So help me if he was going to be defensive or intentionally abhorrent he was going to know what my fingernails felt like gouging out a half an inch depth of his skin.

"Depends on what you have to say, I suppose." My teeth raked against my lower lip while I stared him down. He wasn't going to intimidate or fluster me. Not this time. We were on even ground now and he was going to have to answer for his sins. His lies.

"You know you're wrong. You say those hateful and hurtful things because there was once a time where you felt them, entertained the darker thoughts, the idea that maybe it was a game to me, that I didn't ever love you…and maybe you genuinely wondered at those things or maybe it was just the pain forcing thoughts into your otherwise logical head, but you don't actually believe anything that you just said to me. Not anymore. Not now. I know you don't."

Time stretched. It felt infinite. It was infinite. It wasn't uncomfortable, the way our eyes remained in an endless deadlock. Both of our thoughts remained securely protected however somehow unrestrained dialogue flowed between us. History has a way of overriding reality. Locking it away so that something more powerful than the confines of possibility could occur. Edward and I had a lot of history.

I noticed that the sun had stopped reflecting off his hair and the forest noises around us had crescendoed into night.

His eyes dropped for a brief moment before steadfastly returning to mine and in that instant I knew that our silence was over. His lips parted.

"I need to explain something."