Welcome to Chapter 49! I can't believe that this little story, started almost a year ago, has reached nearly fifty chapters! Wow!
And, as always, thank you for reading!
Chapter Forty-Nine: Separation Anxiety
Bella slept in my arms, a tiny smile playing at the corners of her beautiful mouth; I couldn't help smiling, too. She looked so satisfied, so pleased that tonight she had broken through almost every rule we had carefully built.
She looked so...happy.
So why, despite her smiles and mine, was my heart sinking?
I felt my smile fade as a strange sense of anxiety sucked me into its vortex...again.
I knew that I should be ecstatic. I had touched Bella in wonderful, exciting ways this evening, and I had not hurt her; in fact, I had pleased her.
And I couldn't deny that I had been just as pleased and thrilled by the scope of our activities, far beyond what I had believed was possible...what I had believed was safe. The almost uncontrollable passion of this night illustrated more strongly than ever that Bella and I belonged together.
Forever.
But this intractable feeling of anxiety continued to hound me, nagging at the very darkest recesses of my mind. It had come over me a few times over the last week, and I had dismissed it, repressed it.
But there was no dismissing it now.
And I think I figured out the source of this uneasiness: Alice.
For a while now, I've had a sneaking suspicion that my sister is hiding something from me. Alice and I have always been close, but over the last few months, since the end of the school year actually, I have sensed a distancing between us. Although I was incredibly wrapped up in Bella who had become my entire world so completely over the course of this magical summer, I missed my sister's formerly constant presence. But now Alice rarely allowed herself be alone with me so that we could really talk, and whenever I tried to delve into her thoughts, her mind became suddenly preoccupied with Michael Kors' new fall line or a new pair of Jimmy Choos she just had to obtain. And she would flit away from me, always with an excuse about going shopping with Rosalie or hunting with Jasper.
It was getting quite annoying.
And more than a little frightening.
What terrible vision was my sister hiding from me?
And thus the nagging feeling of unease never totally left me, even when I should be deliriously happy. I was in love with the most beautiful, the most engaging, the sweetest girl on the face of the planet. I must not allow this odd anxiety ruin my and Bella's happiness, especially as our wonderful summer drew to a close, our senior year looming ahead of us.
The final year of high school seemed to be a huge deal to most humans. Despite Bella's unimpressed attitude, I wanted to make this school year special for Bella's sake, even though I had experienced more senior years than I would care to count. I wanted to hold her, love her, experience every human milestone with her this year. I wanted to buy myself a class ring for the first time and present it to Bella on a delicate chain, even though the old-fashioned gesture originated in the 1950s. I wanted to take her to the senior prom (despite her objections and certainly without Jacob Black's presence this time), and sign her yearbook with kitchy words of love. I wanted to fill this year with beautiful human memories with her, memories that would sustain her long after she outgrew me and wanted a "real life."
This last thought brought my mind to a screeching halt. My smile faded, my eyes closed, and I convulsively pulled Bella closer to my silent heart, panic-stricken into absolute immobility.
I remained frozen, completely still, for over two hours. I don't remember a single conscious thought passing through my mind during that hellish time; I 'm not sure I even took a breath.
All I knew was sheer panic.
At last my eyes opened, roving over the familiar room until I noted the time in the greenish light of Bella's digital alarm clock: 2:14 AM.
With extreme care, I removed myself from Bella's grasp that held me tight even in her deepest levels of sleep, as she had every night for the past couple of weeks.
After sliding out of her warm bed, I paused, standing over her sleeping form, allowing the thoughts I had been repressing for the past weeks to at last pass through my mind.
Bella's chokehold on me each night seemed to indicate that she also knew a separation was coming, and that she was loathe to let go.
For now, anyway.
I'm sure her mind would change, that she would be more than ready to move on as she slowly and steadily outgrew me.
In only a couple of weeks, Bella will be turning eighteen, and then it would begin: the slow outdistancing of her life, separating day by day from mine with such miniscule changes that we would be able to deny it for the first few years.
Bella was already nervous about her birthday, dreading becoming older than I was. But I dreaded her birthday even more.
Because as she began her nineteenth year, Bella would begin to grow away from me, becoming more mature, more womanly, more adult.
And I am forever stuck at seventeen—legally a child, despite my century of walking this earth. Who would want to be tied to a child as she became the woman she was supposed to be? The woman she was designed to be?
Each thought, as it crossed my mind, stabbed my heart as surely as any knife would pierce a human's, the pain searing, double-bladed and deadly.
I swallowed hard, trying to regain control of my wayward thoughts. My eyes remained fixed upon the pale beauty sleeping so soundly before me, and I drank in her presence. Her scent, so lovely yet so tempting, caused my throat to burn with thirst, but I quickly sublimated the desire for her blood, always present yet controlled with the utmost care.
I loved Bella far too much to lose her to a loss of self-control in an unguarded moment.
I reached out my large, cold hand to cup her frail, beautiful face, my fingers trailing across her warm, responsive, softer-than-silk skin. Touching her was one of my greatest joys, one I never took for granted as I again controlled the power behind the monster I was, regulating my inhuman strength so that I could touch her with the utmost gentleness.
Bella sighed in her sleep at my touch, unconsciously tilting her face into my icy palm. A small smile graced her lips again, then parted as she breathed, "Edward."
My name on her lips—what unmerited grace! Even in her sleep, Bella recognized my touch, my presence.
I bent over my sleeping angel and brushed my lips over hers, making the barest of contact with her soft, warm mouth.
Then resolutely I straightened, took one long look at this beautiful, trusting, fragile, human girl who completely owned me, body and mind and heart (and, oh—how I wish I had a soul to offer her as well!), and turned away, disappearing out her open window and into the darkness—
Where I belonged.
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Mere moments later I leapt the river and ghosted across the lawn leading to the back porch of our home. I slipped through the back door, noting the almost complete silence. No thoughts bombarded my mind as was usual when I returned home.
Part of me was relieved. And part was rather frustrated. I wanted to speak to my sister and finally get some real answers, no matter how chilling those answers may be.
I couldn't continue allowing this darkness to steal our light, our joy, any longer. It was best to know what I was dealing with, and then Bella and I could face it head on. Together.
The house was dark, as was usual at night since my family didn't need light in order to see. I flew up the two flights of stairs to my room on the third story, as far away from the rest of the house's occupants as possible, even though distance never really helped me shield myself from the nocturnal romantic activities occurring in the three bedrooms below mine.
Being the only virgin in a household of three perfectly-matched pairs of lovers for the past several decades was a frustrating circumstance in the extreme. Remaining with Bella every night produced an additional benefit in addition to the grace of her presence: the avoidance of the type of relationship that my family members enjoyed that I was not able to have with my own beloved...and most likely will never have with Bella, despite our common and nearly-irresistible desires.
After all, if we tried to be intimate while she was human, I could, and probably would, kill her. Obviously not an option.
So if we wanted to have intimate relations, Bella would have to become immortal; she would have to give up her human life, her family, her friends, and her precious soul, just to be with me. Also not an option.
No matter how badly I wanted her to be mine...forever.
But wanting her to become a vampire, just for my sake—no. I couldn't allow her to sacrifice everything of value, including her very life and soul, in order to remain with me.
I stood in front of the long glass wall of my room, staring across the majestic treetops and looming mountain ranges, not seeing any of it as my thoughts wandered.
After all, I daydreamed of such a thing almost constantly: Bella as an immortal, at my side for all eternity. Together forever.
And with her immortality would of course come her invulnerability which would mean that intimacy would be possible.
More than possible, in fact.
It would be incredible.
As usual, when my thoughts wandered in this direction, as they did more and more often as of late, I found my body reacting...in a very impure way. Like any other seventeen-year-old male, in fact.
I refused to use the too-accurate and rude words of this century to express the...situation I found myself in far too often when I thought the uncontrolled, passionate intimacy that an immortal Bella and I would indulge in, over and over.
Again and again.
As my body continued to harden, I tried to distract myself, to turn my thoughts far from such imaginings of private moments of passion with Bella.
Edward? Are you upstairs?
The thoughts of my sister as she entered the house were especially welcome, not only because they helped me greatly with my not-so-little problem, but also because I had left Bella to see Alice in particular.
"In my room, Alice," I whispered, my mood quite different now than it had been mere seconds ago, thank goodness. Yet I knew that in seeking out my sister and prying into her visions, I may discover that which will change my life forever, bringing sorrow where there has been joy, grief where there has been happiness.
In the split-second it took Alice to speed up the stairs and enter my room, I recalled my sister's visions from the spring, just before school let out:
I saw myself in the Volvo, driving alone across an autumn landscape, my jaw set in what could only be pain, my eyes emptied of all emotion. I saw us, all of our family—with the exception of Bella—in Denali. I saw my face, iced over in sadness, in grief. I saw myself seated, my head in my hands, on a sofa in Tanya's spacious living room, Esme attempting to comfort me, her arm around my shoulders as I choked out tearless sobs. I saw Alice's face watching Esme's futile attempt to console me, my sister's eyes looking almost liquid with tears she couldn't produce or shed to relieve her pain—the pain we shared. I saw myself running, over and over again, through the autumn-colored forests surrounding Denali, my eyes grief-stricken, as if seeking some relief from great pain. Bella was nowhere in any of these flashes.
And then there were Alice's visions from earlier in the summer; as my memory recalled them in perfect detail, my heart wrenched in a strangely pain-like manner, despite the fact that physical pain was a near-impossibility for me:
Bella, lost in the woods at night, calling my name in breathless sobs, something large and dark trailing her every move...
Bella curled up on her bed in her room, her eyes blank and empty, her face catatonic with grief, as Charlie, sitting on the edge of her bed, tried to talk to her, his hand on her shoulder...
Bella sitting in her truck which was stopped in the middle of a residential street in Forks, sobbing, her arms wrapped around her chest, banging her forehead against the steering wheel, her face paler, thinner than it was now, and twisted in unspeakable pain...
Bella preparing to jump from a cliff into the roiling sea below, her face strangely peaceful, a slight smile curving her lips—then she jumped, screaming until she disappeared beneath the crashing waves...
Myself on a street in a strange place—it looked like Rio—my face crumpled in terrifying agony as I threw a cell phone into a trash can, then walked on, my movements automatic, almost those of a sleepwalker...
Myself, writhing in torturous pain on a stone floor in a castle-like turret, unable to scream...
Bella curled in my lap in Charlie's kitchen, her hands on my face as she leaned upward to kiss me gently...
Myself holding Bella close in this very room while we both admired my mother's diamond engagement ring sparkling on Bella's left hand...
Bella, absolutely breathtaking in a white wedding dress, blushing a beautiful, deep rose color as she walked down the stairs of our home on Charlie's arm, garlands of white flowers dripping from every surface of our home as I waited below, at Carlisle's side, my face aglow with joy and triumph...
Bella and I waist-deep in a warm sea, both of our bodies silver in the moonlight as she placed one hand over my heart and whispered, "We belong together..."
Myself sitting on the floor of a bedroom with a large white bed, my eyes glassy with shock and fear while Bella spoke into my cell phone, the sound of waves crashing on a nearby beach...
Bella, bloody and mangled, on her back atop a brightly-lit operating table in Carlisle's library, her face blue and staring as I did CPR, forcing her heart to beat against its will, my face extremely focused in single-minded determination...
Bella's face, now white, pale, cold, eternal—her eyes a bright crimson as she crouched in a corner of Carlisle's library, defensive yet perfect—her face even more lovely than it is now, if such a thing were possible...
By the time Alice reached my side, I had crumpled to the carpet, weak as any human. Weaker, perhaps.
"Edward! What is it?" Alice knelt beside me, wrapping her tiny arms around my shuddering frame.
I couldn't speak.
I don't know how long we stayed on the floor of my bedroom together, myself shaking uncontrollably, my sister attempting to comfort me, whispering nonsense words in her soothing voice as she held me.
As dawn lightened the sky, the clouds turning gray, then rosebud pink, then a blooming fuchsia as the sun rose, I slowly pulled the shattered forces of my mind and heart together, but Alice's arms refused to let me go. And I didn't possess the strength to struggle against her.
Finally, as the sun peeked over the horizon, dimmed by the flare of cirrus clouds spread across the eastern sky like mare's tails, I turned to my sister.
Her eyes contracted in shock as she noted the depth of suffering in my expression as I choked out whispered words in a voice that I did not recognize as my own.
"I'm going to lose her, Alice. Aren't I?"
We're nearing the end of the story, my friends. Please do drop me a review and let me know what you thought of this chapter, and about the story as a whole. We're definitely on the cusp of entering New Moon, and I'm mulling around ideas of how to approach the material from EPOV without just repeating Stephenie's dialogue.
So please, let me know what you think, okay? Love to you all!
-Cassandra :)
