CONFESSIONS
When the light hit his skin, I felt my eyes sting as I winced away from the bright shock. It seemed to erupt into red and gold, glimmering and offcasting a bright reflection from the most angular points in his skin. For a moment, I'd thought he'd burst into flame.
"Edward!"
I shrieked his name, terror for him erupting in my chest, my fight or flight response triggering automatically as I nearly tore my blouse off of my waist and began to run towards him, to cover him from the light I had thought had caused him to combust in front of me. My foot caught a rock but I managed to catch my balance. I saw his eyes flash open when I had cried his name, but he stopped me, his hand coming up in a flash, palm facing me.
My sudden shaky stop didn't stop my heart from pounding, still trying to make sense of the incredible vision in front of me. At first what looked like flame now came more into focus as my eyes adjusted, it was as though he had been coated in a thin layer of...my only comparison was a liquid highlighter I had seen a girl on youtube use once. I could barely understand what was happening, but what he'd said before, about not being able to be seen in the sun, made perfect sense now.
The gleam was mostly soft gold, like champagne bubbles, but now that I could see without the light hurting my eyes it was nowhere near as blinding.
I wanted to get closer, try and understand this foreign and beautiful reaction with the light that cast his auburn hair with matching glistening reds and ginger gold, something I never saw on the cloudy days around campus. I tried to compare who stood before me with anything I had seen, in art history, in history books, online.
Nothing held a candle to this beauty, but I understood now how people had believed in angels, how those angels had introduced themselves with, 'be not afraid.'
I automatically stumbled forward in that quest, still dumbfounded, but I froze when he stepped back.
"Does that...hurt you?" my voice cracked on the last word, eyes still locked on his face, set in a hard, if not confused frown.
"...No." He whispered it, as though trying not to frighten me.
I slowly stepped forward again, letting him hear my movement, still trying to understand the refraction. He stared back at my face, seemingly reading my expressions, I doubted he'd see anything but awe. I began to circle him slowly, watching the position of the light change,keeping the same distance as before, for him, but he dropped his hand, unmoving. Almost as if he'd locked down into a perfect statue. I grew used to this faster than I'd anticipated, slowly beginning to grin in exasperation.
Now I knew where the fire myths came from.
My pulse slowed as I slowly approached his front again, looking up into his eyes to give him a slow, easy smile, still trying to read his features in case I needed to back off for his sake. As I did, I pressed my arm into my chest, curling my fingers into a fist in order to prevent myself from reaching out to...touch him. See if his skin still felt like cool marble even though it refracted like roiling magma. I could see it reflecting its lights onto me and my front.
"...Edward...I…" I could barely speak above a breath.
"Are you frightened now?" He mumbled it, eyebrows twisting just barely together in frustration...or, anxiety? Regardless, the question threw me.
"Wh- no?" I stammered, incredulous. "You're standing in front of me glowing like..." I struggled to find a comparison. "Helios himself, I have to be honest, fear is not the first thing I can think to feel."
He screwed up his expression again, as though he didn't believe me. I tried to put myself in his shoes, tried to understand why he seemed to believe himself so monstrous. I shook my head to myself, meeting his eyes and slowly, without fear, reached out to his still arm. I placed my fingertips against the smooth stone of his forearm, then let them slowly trace down, over the tendons in his wrist and the back of his hand. He watched me with a fierceness, but not anger, not hunger, but something...else. I slipped my fingers over the web of his thumb and grasped his hand gently, moving to try and lift it. He let me, watching me turn his palm up to the sun, tracing my fingers across the veins still raised there in his inner wrist, feeling his bizarre, sluggish pulse there.
"What are you thinking?" He urged quietly, frustration in his voice, but again, no anger.
"I'm...trying to figure out how to convince you that I'm not going to bolt into the woods like the jumpy little rabbit you seem to think I am..." I chuckled gently, looking back up into his eyes now. He seemed shocked, his lips parting in almost an awed gape, it quickly vanished though, as quickly as his hand did from my own, though his fingers had almost curled around mine.
"It is...strange though…" he murmured.
"I mean of course I've never seen anything like it, but if anything...I really do find it...truly beautiful." I mumbled the last word, fighting the blush that ran up and heated my face, "I'm trying to understand how you couldn't.."
"You're not...repulsed by my flagrant lack of humanity?"
I did understand then, he had said he was over a century old, how someone raised as he was could be horrified by the appearance of something like him in the world. But...I knew true monsters, human or not, he had chosen to make himself not a threat to me, even worked at it, it seemed like. Of all the...men I had ever faced, this one, this one who was literally something of a predator to humans,...I had never once, truly believed he was a monster. I was never truly threatened by his presence. I knew he would respect it if I refused his advances. He listened when I spoke, respected my boundaries...most of the time, when he wasn't being a dork. I had felt more threatened by human men than I ever had been..him.
"You talk about humanity like it's...free of sin, the best possible kind of being…" I frowned at him, slowly stepping back, but held my hand out to him, to show him I wasn't running, just trying to face him more fully, more openly. "I have...known what being afraid of someone...something feels like. Humans are just as capable of anything you could do to me, and I have felt...been...afraid of a man before. You know that. You ask me how I don't fear you when I was nearly raped by a human and had my life saved by a vampire. And while you have been, totally frustrating and vague, and threw me for a massive loop the first day we met with how...angry, you seemed-" I huffed, and softened my face when I saw a flash of pain cross his. "I have never actually...felt threatened by you."
He had simply stared at me in silence as I spoke, seeming as though he was attempting to process this information. I stepped closer to him, knowing there was a risk, but I wanted to read his eyes. I tipped my head up to him, close enough to feel his cool breath, and nearly held my own, watching his reaction as the sun hit my skin.
It was so fast I almost didn't catch it. His eyes had snapped to the side of my neck and then he was gone, 15 feet from me, holding up his hand in warning again. I was shocked, and worried, worried I had overstepped his boundaries now. I stammered an apology, barely audible.
"I-I'm...sorry…"
I watched him close his eyes and square his shoulders, then take a long silent inhale.
"Give me a..moment." His voice was deep, controlled. I wouldn't argue, wanting him to feel safe as I did. Wanting him to see me trust him, trust his judgement now. I didn't want to make this difficult for him, only to get him to understand why I felt the way I did.
I nodded and watched him, holding still. He slowly, deliberately walked to the center of the clearing, then slowly sank into the grass. He locked down once again, from organic to inorganic there in the light, the only motion being his hair in the light breeze and the steady movement of his shoulders as he breathed.
I took a step towards him, then held that distance, looking for any indication I was not to come closer now, but received none. I stepped again hesitantly, then again, finally beginning a slow walk to his side, placing myself in the grass behind him and crossing my legs to wait.
"I-Is this...alright?"
He nodded to me, barely turning his head.
"Just let me...concentrate…"
I settled there in the sun, carefully adjusting one of the straps of my tank top. I couldn't help but look to the back of his neck and shoulders, the backs of his arms. The white V-neck he wore fit him..too well, and I swallowed against the pulse of electricity from my stomach to my core. Broad, strong looking shoulders, I could see the muscles in his tricep, highlighted by the glimmering effect of the sun. I closed my eyes then, taking a deep breath myself and resisting the urge to slap rhythmically on my arm, bouncing my knee gently instead. I focused on the stimming, the soft sound of his breathing, the gentle rustling of the tall grass. If he could control himself, so could I. I wouldn't press him like that again, but I'd gotten my answer.
Eventually the urge to stim passed, my emotions leveling out as I relaxed into the soft warmth of the meadow, I leaned back onto my hands, legs still crossed, keeping my face tipped down to cover my throat. I heard a shifting in the grass and opened my eyes, seeing Edward slowly lean back into the grass and place a hand behind his head, the other on his chest, the light dancing and reflecting onto the blades he displaced. I couldn't help but stare, my chest now warm with something else, seeing...peace in his expression. It was the loveliest expression he'd ever held. My eyes caught a slight movement of his lips, almost like they were trembling, moving so quickly I couldn't catch the words.
"D-Did you say something?"
"Just...singing, to myself."
I couldn't help but smile, another thing we had in common. After a few more minutes, watching his relaxed form, I spoke.
"May I...touch, you?" I spoke barely above a whisper, but all of this, in the silence, the beauty of the meadow, it was all so dreamlike, I wanted to affirm that this was real.
"...yes."
Hesitantly, almost bashfully, I moved onto my knees and gently placed my outstretched fingers to the back of his hand. I ran my fingertips slowly up his wrist, to his forearm, marvelling again at his satin smooth, cool skin. My own freckled, blotchy arm in comparison almost made me giggle. When I looked up again, his eyes were open, watching me. Butterscotch today, lighter, warmer after hunting. His quick smile turned up the corners of his lips.
"I...really don't scare you?" he asked playfully, but I could hear the real curiosity in his soft voice.
"No."
He smiled wider; his teeth flashed in the sun.
As I continued to stroke up his arm and back down to his knuckles, I saw that my fingers trembled, and knew it wouldn't escape his notice.
"Do you mind?" I asked, for he had closed his eyes again.
"No," he said without opening his eyes. "You can't imagine how that feels." He sighed.
I lightly trailed my hand over the muscles of his bicep, down now from his shoulder, followed the faint pattern of bluish veins inside the crease at his elbow. With my other hand, I reached to turn his hand over. Realizing what I wished, he flipped his palm up in one of those blindingly fast, disconcerting movements of his. It startled me; my fingers froze on his arm for a brief second.
"Sorry," he murmured. I looked up in time to see his golden eyes close again. "It's too easy to be myself with you."
I lifted his hand, turning it this way and that as I watched the sun glitter on his palm. I held it closer to my face, trying to see anything there to explain how this reaction occurred.
"Tell me what you're thinking," he whispered. I looked to see his eyes watching me, suddenly intent.
"It's still so strange for me, not knowing."
"Try being autistic, it took years for me to be able to label just expressions."
"It's a hard life." Did I imagine the hint of regret in his tone? "But you didn't tell me."
"I was wishing I could know what you were thinking…" I hesitated.
"And?"
"I was wishing that I could believe that you were real. And I was wishing that I wasn't...so anxious."
"I don't want you to be afraid." His voice was just a soft murmur. I heard what he couldn't truthfully say, that I didn't need to be afraid, that there was nothing to fear.
"Well, that's not exactly the fear I meant, though that's certainly something to think about."
So quickly that I missed his movement, he was half sitting, propped up on his right arm, his left palm still in my hands. His angel's face was only a few inches from mine. I might have — should have — flinched away from his unexpected closeness, but I was unable to move. His golden eyes held mine firmly, but he seemed to notice my discomfort with the hard eye contact and moved his gaze to my chin...my mouth.
"What are you afraid of, then?" he whispered intently.
His breath fanned my face again, so sweet, so soft, my eyelids fluttered. He was so close now, the tips of our noses nearly touching, our breath mixing in the space between us, my eyes falling to his lips now. Surely, surely he could make a "no" clear to me. I slowly, hesitantly tipped my head, my nose brushing his, leaning further-
And he was gone, his hand ripped from mine. In the time it took my eyes to focus, he was twenty feet away, standing at the edge of the small meadow, in the deep shade of a huge fir tree. He stared at me, his eyes dark in the shadows, his expression unreadable.
I could feel the hurt and surprise on my face. My empty hands stung.I had been wrong. The no was...certainly clear.
"I'm...sorry… Edward," I whispered. I knew he could hear.
"Give me a moment," he called, just loud enough for my less sensitive ears. I sat very still, but couldn't help but grip the pendant of my necklace in guilt.
After ten incredibly long seconds, he walked back, slowly for him. He stopped, still several feet away, and sank gracefully to the ground, crossing his legs. His eyes never left mine. He took two deep breaths, and then smiled in apology.
"I am so very sorry." He hesitated. "Would you understand what I meant if I said I was only human?"
I was a little surprised, and then embarrassed, of course I should have tested that moment before pushing at him, realizing exactly what had just happened.
"N-no, I should have...we were so close..and I just…" I was whispering, but nearly jolted as I heard him scoff and then growl low, smiling ruefully.
"I'm the world's best predator, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in — my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!"
Unexpectedly, he was on his feet, bounding away, instantly out of sight, only to appear beneath the same tree as before, having circled the meadow in half a second.
"As if you could outrun me,"
He reached up with one hand and, with a deafening crack, effortlessly ripped a two-foot-thick branch from the trunk of the spruce, his fingers buried into the wood. He balanced it in that hand for a moment, and then threw it with blinding speed, shattering it against another huge tree, which shook and trembled at the blow.
And he was in front of me again, standing two feet away, still as a stone.
"As if you could fight me off," he said gently.
I had cringed from the sound of the tree's making contact, covering my ears and looking up at him in shock, but realization dawned as I saw the rage, the frustration, the...desperation in his eyes. A lion trying to understand the rabbit, trying to understand how not to harm it when every instinct shouted at him to.
"W-What did that tree ever do to you?" I was terrified of him in that moment, but what happened earlier...I knew better. I knew I wouldn't need to fight him off. He never wanted me to have to fight him off, and that want was...painful. I understood him more in that one look, in that one moment than I had ever understood anyone in my entire life. In his wild, bright eyes, his wind tousled hair, his chest flexed and almost heaving with the excitement of the moment.
However, as the seconds passed, his eyes dimmed.
His expression slowly folded into a mask of ancient sadness.
"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his velvet voice unintentionally seductive. "I promise…" He hesitated.
"I swear not to hurt you." He seemed more concerned with convincing himself than me.
"Don't be afraid," he whispered again as he stepped closer, with exaggerated slowness. He sat sinuously, with deliberately unhurried movements, till our faces were on the same level, just a foot apart.
"Be not afraid." the angel spoke.
He stared at the ground for a moment, and I unfolded my posture, everything quiet now, even the birds gone. But I didn't break my gaze from his face, his lips, the bridge of his nose. My chest ached, but I waited for him.
"Please forgive me," he said formally. "I..can control myself. You caught me off guard. But I'm on my best behavior now."
I hesitated, unsure what to say.
"I'm not thirsty today, honestly." He winked.
At that I had to laugh, though the sound was shaky and breathless.
"Are you all right?" he asked tenderly, reaching out slowly, carefully, to place his marble hand back in mine.
I looked at his smooth, cold hand, and then at his eyes. They were soft, repentant. I looked back at his hand, and then deliberately swallowed and slowly brought his palm to my cheek, very gently leaning my face into it, keeping my eyes on him. Sometimes, doing, was better than saying.
His answering smile was dazzling.
"So where were we, before I behaved so rudely?" he asked in the gentle cadences of an earlier century.
"I honestly can't remember."
He smiled, but his face was ashamed. "I think we were talking about why you were...anxious, besides the obvious reason."
"Oh, right."
"Well?"
I stroked my thumb against the back of his hand, feeling his thumb lift, pause, and then lightly as a stroke of a feather trace my cheekbone. My teeth went to my lip, attempting to figure out the correct phrasing to avoid another misunderstanding.
"How easily frustrated I am," he sighed.
"I was afraid… because,...I want to stay…" I couldn't look at him now, feeling my eyes water, cursing the faucets behind them. "And if I stay..I'm hurting you. If I want to...be...with you, I couldn't...stay...not like you."
"Yes," he agreed slowly. "That is something to be afraid of, indeed. Wanting to be with me. That's really not in your best interest."
I frowned.
"I should have left long ago," he sighed. "I should leave now. But I don't believe I could."
"For who's good?" I looked up at him. "Regardless of should have or could have,...we're here now. I'm...here now..."
He gave another rueful, but...accepting chuckle.
"...Don't worry. I'm an incredibly selfish creature. I crave your company too much to change my path now."
"I'm glad."
"Don't be!" He withdrew his hand, more gently this time; his voice was harsher than usual.
"Give your hand back, and listen to me. I'm not a child, I may not have the amount of experience you do, but this...this is too strong, too all encompassing for me to feel anything else."
He looked back at me and, after a moment of staring at my stern face, calmed again, slowly slipping his hand into mine, letting me continue to play with his fingers as his shoulders slightly slumped. He eventually sighed and then smiled.
He looked at our hands, watching my thumbs trace his knuckles, trying to see if, though stonelike, I could massage them like I did my own, hoping it felt nice to him. So en pointe that I questioned whether or not he could read my mind again, he spoke.
"That's amazingly pleasant, the warmth." He sighed.
A moment passed as he assembled his thoughts.
"You told me yesterday, that I was your...singer..Does that happen often?" I asked.
He looked across the treetops, thinking through his response.
"I spoke to my brothers about it." He still stared into the distance. "To Jasper, every one of you is much the same. He's the most recent to join our family. It's a struggle for him to abstain at all. He hasn't had time to grow sensitive to the differences in smell, in flavor." He glanced swiftly at me, his expression apologetic.
"Sorry," he said.
"I don't mind. Please don't worry about offending me, or frightening me, or whichever. That's the way you think. I can understand, or I can try to at least. I know the struggle of trying to explain your thought process, but I am following. Just explain however you can."
He took a deep breath and gazed at the sky again.
"So Jasper wasn't sure if he'd ever come across someone who was as" — he hesitated, looking for the right word — "appealing as you are to me. Which makes me think not. Emmett has been on the wagon longer, so to speak, and he understood what I meant. He says twice, for him, once stronger than the other."
"And for you?"
"Never."
The word hung there for a moment in the warm breeze.
"What did Emmett do?" I asked to break the silence.
It was the wrong question to ask. His face grew dark, his hand clenched into a fist inside mine. He looked away. I waited, but he wasn't going to answer.
"I guess I know," I finally said.
He lifted his eyes; his expression was wistful, pleading.
"Even the strongest of us fall off the wagon, don't we?"
I almost slumped, feeling the dull ache pulse through my chest again, trying to understand what this meant for...us.
"I-is...is there, no hope, then?" I sounded more pathetic than I wanted to, the sadness in my voice unmistakable.
"No, no!" He was instantly contrite. "Of course there's hope! I mean, of course I won't…" He left the sentence hanging. His eyes burned into mine. "It's different for us. Emmett… these were strangers he
happened across. It was a long time ago, and he wasn't as… practiced, as careful, as he is now."
He fell silent and watched me intently as I thought it through.
"This...this explains what happened...the day we met...your reaction."
He glanced at me grimly, both of us remembering. "You must have thought I was possessed."
"I couldn't understand why. How you could hate me so quickly…"
"To me, it was like you were some kind of demon, summoned straight from my own personal hell to ruin me. The fragrance coming off your skin… I thought it would make me deranged that first day. In that one hour, I thought of a hundred different ways to lure you from the room with me, to get you alone. And I fought them each back, thinking of my family, what I could do to them. I had to run out, to get away before I could speak the words that would make you follow…"
He looked up then at my staggered expression as I tried to absorb his bitter memories. His golden eyes scorched from under his lashes, hypnotic and deadly, and so resentful, but not to me.
"And I would have been as depraved as any Human man you could think of. If not more so. It's...disgusting to me, thinking about that, remembering thinking of..anyone like that...of you like that."
He had dropped his face in angry shame, then raised it to look at me.
"You would have come," he promised.
"..you didn't." I hoped he could see my point there. That I could see he was trying to protect me. That the choice, the disgust he held in regard to taking someone's autonomy like that...I could see it.
He frowned down at my hands, releasing me from the force of his stare. "And then, as I tried to rearrange my schedule in a pointless attempt to avoid you, you were there — in that close, warm little room, the scent was maddening. I so very nearly took you then. There was only one other frail human there — so easily dealt with."
Hearing this now through his eyes, I felt myself shiver involuntarily. The way he described it was...alarming. And I did have a new...respect for the danger...for the man in front of me. Even then, he'd...
"But I resisted. I don't know how. I forced myself not to wait for you, not to follow you from the school.
It was easier outside, when I couldn't smell you anymore, to think clearly, to make the right decision. I left the others near home — I was too ashamed to tell them how weak I was, they only knew something was very wrong — and then I went straight to Carlisle, at the hospital, to tell him I was leaving."
I stared in surprise.
"I traded cars with him — he had a full tank of gas and I didn't want to stop. I didn't dare to go home, to face Esme. She wouldn't have let me go without a scene. She would have tried to convince me that it
wasn't necessary…
"By the next morning I was in Alaska." He sounded ashamed, as if admitting a great cowardice. "I spent two days there, with some old acquaintances… but I was homesick. I hated knowing I'd upset Esme, and the rest of them, my adopted family. In the pure air of the mountains it was hard to believe you were so irresistible. I convinced myself it was weak to run away. I'd dealt with temptation before, not of this magnitude, not even close, but I was strong. Who were you, an insignificant little girl" — he grinned suddenly — "to chase me from the place I wanted to be? So I came back…" He stared off into space.
I couldn't speak.
"I took precautions, hunting, feeding more than usual before seeing you again. I was sure that I was strong enough to treat you like any other human. I was arrogant about it."
"It was unquestionably a complication that I couldn't simply read your thoughts to know what your reaction was to me. I wasn't used to having to go to such circuitous measures, listening to your words in Jessica's mind… her mind isn't very original, and it was annoying to have to stoop to that. And then I couldn't know if you really meant what you said. It was all extremely irritating." He frowned at the
memory.
"I wanted you to forget my behavior that first day, if possible, so I tried to talk with you like I would with any person. I was eager actually, hoping to decipher some of your thoughts. But you were too interesting, I found myself caught up in your expressions… and every now and then you would stir the air with your hand or your hair, and the scent would stun me again…" he trailed off, but the look in his eyes was changing, something soft, and sad.
"Of course, then you were nearly crushed to death in front of my eyes. Later I thought of a perfectly good excuse for why I acted at that moment — because if I hadn't saved you, if your blood had been
spilled there in front of me, I don't think I could have stopped myself from exposing us for what we are."
But I only thought of that excuse later. At the time, all I could think was, 'Not her.'"
He closed his eyes, lost in his painful confession.
I felt multiple things at once, fear, sadness, compassion...this jumble was a lot, but more than anything I wanted to offer comfort. It was irrational,he had been fighting so hard at first for his family, I was surprised to hear that it was at that point, in an effort to...protect me. I rarely looked at him as a young man, in his early twenties, he'd always seemed older than that. But the arrogance he mentioned, and the struggle between nature and nurture...he really was totally new to any of this. A worse man would have kept this to himself. Would not have admitted to these things to keep me mindlessly trusting. A lamb. But he wanted me to know, he didn't want an advantage over me, over this.
I finally was able to speak, though my voice was faint. "In the hospital?"
His eyes flashed up to mine. "I was appalled. I couldn't believe I had put us in danger after all, put myself in your power — you of all people. As if I needed another motive to kill you." We both flinched as that word slipped out.
"But it had the opposite effect," he continued quickly. "I fought with Rosalie, Emmett, and Jasper when they suggested that now was the time… the worst fight we've ever had. Carlisle sided with me, and Alice." He grimaced when he said her name. I couldn't imagine why. "Esme told me to do whatever I had to in order to stay." He shook his head indulgently.
"All that next day I eavesdropped on the minds of everyone you spoke to, shocked that you kept your word. I didn't understand you at all. But I knew that I couldn't become more involved with you. I did my very best to stay as far from you as possible. And every day the perfume of your skin, your breath, your hair… it hit me as hard as the very first day."
He met my eyes again, and they were surprisingly tender.
"And for all that," he continued, "I'd have fared better if I had exposed us all at that first moment, than if now, here — with no witnesses and nothing to stop me — I were to hurt you."
I was confused at his phrasing. "In...what way?"
"Evangeline." He pronounced my full name carefully, then playfully ruffled my hair with his free hand. A shock ran through my body at his casual touch.
"Eva, I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me." He looked down, ashamed again.
"The thought of you, still, white, cold… to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses… it would be unendurable." He lifted his agonized, defenseless eyes to mine. "You are the most important thing to me now. The most important thing to me ever."
My head was spinning at the sudden declaration, my heart seeming to swell and ache in my chest. I looked back at him, making the eye contact firm, fighting the discomfort. I wanted him to hear this.
"Would you understand what I meant if I said...even knowing all of this...I would still choose to eat from the pomegranate?" I felt like Persephone, attempting to convince Hades that she understood, that she would stay.
His posture seemed to fall limp in surprise, staring back into my eyes, searching them so hard for any sign of deception, of fear. I knew he would find none.
"...You are the oddest being I have ever known, little rabbit." He murmured, reaching up so slowly to stroke his fingertips down my cheek. "But also...the most wonderful…"
My own hand raised to cup the back of it, keeping his cool palm on my cheek.
"And you are a very strange lion, falling in love with a rabbit."
My eyes met his, searching the gold. His face seemed to glow, his hand staying now on my cheek on it's own, stroking it achingly slow. I was relieved, what had happened before hadn't been what I'd thought. I looked down, then back up at him.
"What...what can I do? To make any of this easier? B-before, when I...when you needed to run from me…"
He contemplated for a moment. "It was just how close you were. Most humans instinctively shy away from us, are repelled by our alienness… I wasn't expecting you to come so close. And the smell of your throat." He stopped short, looking to see if he'd upset me.
"Okay, then," I said flippantly, trying to alleviate the suddenly tense atmosphere. I tucked my chin again, trying to be goofy. "No throat exposure."
It worked; he laughed. "No, really, it was more the surprise than anything else."
He raised his free hand and placed it featherlight on the side of my neck. I sat very still, the chill of his touch sent a thrill through me, not of fear but something else, it only got worse when he carefully readjusted my tank top strap for me, stroking my bare shoulder.
"You see," he said. "Perfectly fine."
My blood was racing, and I wished I could slow it, sensing that this must make everything so much more difficult — the thudding of my pulse in my veins. Surely he could hear it.
"The blush on your cheeks is lovely," he murmured. He gently freed his other hand. My hands fell limply into my lap. Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands.
"Be very still," he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen.
Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat. I was quite unable to move, even if I'd wanted to. I listened to the sound of his even breathing, watching the sun and wind play in his bronze hair, more human than any other part of him.
With deliberate slowness, his hands slid down the sides of my neck. I shivered, and I heard him catch his breath. But his hands didn't pause as they softly moved to my shoulders, and then stopped.
His face drifted to the side, his nose skimming across my collarbone. He came to rest with the side of his face pressed tenderly against my chest.
Listening to my heart.
"Ah," he sighed.
I don't know how long we sat without moving. It could have been hours. Eventually the throb of my pulse quieted, but he didn't move or speak again as he held me. I knew at any moment it could be too much, and my life could end — so quickly that I might not even notice. And I couldn't make myself be afraid. I couldn't think of anything, except that he was touching me.
And then, too soon, he released me.
His eyes were peaceful.
"It won't be so hard again," he said with satisfaction.
"Was that very hard for you?"
"Not nearly as bad as I imagined it would be. And you?"
I almost laughed, he had to see the flush in my face, smell the change in my body.
"I...don't know if it would be very polite of me to mention how I handled that, out loud."
His eyes widened slightly at my confession, at my breathlessness, and I saw his own breathing increase. I could swear by his expression, if he could blush, he would be, but he reached over to me, placing his hand on the top of my head to ruffle my hair again.
"P-perhaps." He coughed to cover his stutter, and I felt a spark of shock. I hadn't...expected him to react in a similar way. But we let the embarrassed, if not flattered silence fall for a moment, his hand soon falling from my hair.
"Here." He took my hand and placed it against his cheek. "Do you feel how warm it is?"
And it was almost warm, his usually icy skin. But I barely noticed, for I was now touching his face, his lips upturned at the corners as my thumb rested on his high cheekbone.
"Don't move," I whispered.
No one could be still like Edward. He closed his eyes and became as immobile as stone, a carving under my hand.
I moved even more slowly than he had, careful not to make one unexpected move. I caressed his cheek, delicately stroked his eyelid, the purple shadow in the hollow under his eye. Just as he had done with me the day before, I traced the shape of his perfect nose, and then, so carefully, his flawless lips. His lips parted under my hand, and I could feel his cool breath on my fingertips. I wanted to lean in, to inhale the scent of him. So I dropped my hand and leaned away, not wanting to push him too far.
He opened his eyes, and they were hungry. Not for blood, but rather a hunger I knew well in this moment, a hunger to tighten the muscles in the pit of my stomach and send my pulse hammering through my veins again.
"I wish," he whispered, "I wish you could feel the… complexity… the confusion… I feel. That you could understand."
He raised his hand to my hair, then carefully brushed it across my face.
"Tell me," I breathed.
"I don't think I can. I've told you, on the one hand, the hunger — the thirst — that, deplorable creature that I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though" — he half-smiled — "as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can't empathize completely…"
"But…" His fingers touched my lips lightly, making me shiver again. I couldn't help but let my own eyes flutter closed, that touch once again sending a shockwave to my core, my lips parting as he did.
I could hear a note of...strain, to his voice as he spoke again. "There are other...hungers. Hungers I don't even understand, that are foreign to me."
"I may understand that better than you think." My eyes finally opened, and I carefully took his hand, before he could drive me mad.
"I'm not used to feeling so human. Is it always like this?"
"For me?" I paused. "No, never. Never before this."
He moved to hold my hands between his. They felt so feeble in his iron strength.
"I don't know how to be close to you," he admitted. "I don't know if I can."
I leaned forward very slowly, cautioning him with my eyes. I placed my cheek against his stone chest.
I could hear his breath, and once again that slow, heavy pulse that sounded so foreign.
"This...is enough," I sighed, closing my eyes.
In a very human gesture, he put his arms around me and pressed his face against my hair. Holding me so gently. I carefully adjusted myself into a more comfortable position, my eyelashes brushing against his stone chest.
"You're better at this than you give yourself credit for," I noted.
"I have human instincts — they may be buried deep, but they're there."
We sat like that for another immeasurable moment; I wondered if he could be as unwilling to move as I was. But I could see the light was fading, the shadows of the forest beginning to touch us, and I sighed.
"You have to go."
"I thought you couldn't read my mind."
"It's getting clearer." I could hear a smile in his voice.
He took my shoulders and I looked into his face.
"Can I show you something?" he asked, sudden excitement flaring in his eyes.
"Show me what?"
"I'll show you how I travel in the forest." He saw my expression. "Don't worry, you'll be very safe, and we'll get to your truck much faster." His mouth twitched up into that crooked smile that made my knees turn into jello and my own lips spread into a smile back.
"Will you turn into a bat?" I asked warily.
He laughed, louder than I'd ever heard. "Like I haven't heard that one before!"
"Right, I'm sure you get that all the time."
"Come on, little coward, climb on my back."
I waited to see if he was kidding, but, apparently, he meant it. He smiled as he read my hesitation, and reached for me. My heart reacted; even though he couldn't hear my thoughts, my pulse always gave me away. He then proceeded to sling me onto his back, with very little effort on my part, besides, when in place, clamping my legs and arms so tightly around him that it would choke a normal person. It was like clinging to a stone.
"I'm a bit heavier than your average backpack," I warned.
"Hah!" he snorted. I could almost hear his eyes rolling. I'd never seen him in such high spirits before.
He startled me, suddenly grabbing my hand, pressing my palm to his face, and inhaling deeply.
"Easier all the time," he muttered.
And then he was running.
I couldn't hold back my loud whoop as we took off, tucking my head behind his and snapping my mouth closed. He streaked through the dark, thick underbrush of the forest like a bullet, like a ghost. There was no sound, no evidence that his feet touched the earth. His breathing never changed, never indicated any effort. But the trees flew by at deadly speeds, always missing us by inches.
I was thrilled, I had ridden on the back of my dad's motorcycle so many times, but this, this was something else, and I could feel it in him as well.
Then it was over. We'd hiked hours this morning to reach Edward's meadow, and now, in a matter of
minutes, we were back to the BMW.
"Exhilarating, isn't it?" His voice was high, excited.
He stood motionless, waiting for me to climb down. I tried, but my muscles wouldn't respond. My arms and legs stayed locked around him while I tried to come down from that high, but the sudden stop made my stomach seem to turn inside out.
"Eva?" he asked, anxious now.
"I think I need to lie down," I gasped.
"Oh, sorry." He waited for me, but I still couldn't move.
"I think I need help," I admitted.
He laughed quietly, and gently loosened my stranglehold on his neck. There was no resisting the iron strength of his hands. Then he pulled me around to face him, cradling me in his arms like a small child.
He held me for a moment, then carefully placed me on the springy ferns.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Like I absolutely do not want to vomit on you."
"Put your head between your knees."
I tried that, and it helped a little. I breathed in and out slowly, keeping my head very still. I felt him sitting beside me. The moments passed, and eventually I found that I could raise my head. There was a hollow ringing sound in my ears.
"I guess that wasn't the best idea," he mused.
"It was insane, I've never moved that fast on anything besides a rollercoaster in my life, how on earth do you miss the trees?!" My voice was louder than it should have been, and I attempted to readjust my volume to the moment.
He laughed at me, beaming, his mood still radiant. I gently nudged his shoulder to push him playfully, but it was like trying to shove a boulder, then rolled my eyes and closed them, leaning my head against the tree behind me.
"Show-off," I muttered.
"Open your eyes, Eva," he said quietly.
And he was right there, his face so close to mine. It stunned me for a moment, my breath hitching in my throat.
"I was thinking, while I was running…" He paused.
"About not hitting the trees, I hope."
"Silly," he chuckled. "Running is second nature to me, it's not something I have to think about."
"Show-off," I muttered again.
He smiled.
"No," he continued, "I was thinking there was something I wanted to try." And he took my face in his hands again.
It was like time stood still in that moment.
He hesitated — not in the normal way, the human way.
Not the way a man might hesitate before he kissed a woman, to gauge her reaction, to see how he would be received. Perhaps he would hesitate to prolong the moment, that ideal moment of anticipation, sometimes better than the kiss itself.
Edward hesitated to test himself, to see if this was safe, to make sure he was still in control of his need.
And then his cold, marble lips pressed very softly against mine.
What neither of us was prepared for was my response.
I had been so pent up, so under control all day, so scared to do anything like this. It was like a firecracker went off in my chest. Blood boiled under my skin, burned in my lips. My arms snapped around his back, fingers catching the material of his shirt. My chest pressed to his, hard, his hips met mine as he held his position over me. My head tipped automatically as my lips parted to deepen this kiss. For a fraction of a second, his hand went to the back of my neck, fingers weaving into my hair.
But then I felt him turn to unresponsive stone beneath my lips. His hands gently, but with irresistible force, pushed my face back. I opened my eyes and saw his guarded expression.
"Oops," I breathed.
"That's...an understatement."
His eyes were wild, his jaw clenched in acute restraint, yet he didn't lapse from his perfect articulation.
He held my face just inches from his. The moment hanging like fog over my head, still trying to pull myself back together again.
"Should I… ?" I tried to disengage myself, to give him some room.
His hands refused to let me move so much as an inch.
"No, it's tolerable. Wait for a moment, please." His voice was polite, controlled.
I kept my eyes on his, watched as the excitement in them faded and gentled.
Then he smiled a surprisingly impish grin.
"There," he said, obviously pleased with himself.
"Tolerable?" I asked.
He laughed aloud. "I'm stronger than I thought. It's nice to know."
"I wish I could say the same. I'm sorry."
"You are only human, after all."
"Thanks so much," I said, my voice acerbic.
He was on his feet in one of his lithe, almost invisibly quick movements. He held out his hand to me, an unexpected gesture. I was so used to our standard of careful non-contact. I took his icy hand, needing the support more than I thought. My balance had not yet returned.
"Are you still faint from the run? Or was it my kissing expertise?" How lighthearted, how human he seemed as he laughed now, his seraphic face untroubled. He was a different Edward than the one I had known. And I felt all the more besotted by him. It was something else entirely to see him happy, see him open and...warm.
"I can't be sure, I'm still woozy," I managed to respond. "I think it's some of both, though."
"It's a good thing I'm driving." he laughed, squeezing my hand
"Hey! I'm a very good driver!" I protested.
"I can drive better than you on your best day," he teased. "You have much slower reflexes."
"Rude! I can prove it, you just don't like my truck!"
I started to step around him, heading for the driver's side. He might have let me pass if I hadn't wobbled slightly. Then again, he might not have. His arm created an inescapable snare around my waist.
"Eva, I've already expended a great deal of personal effort at this point to keep you alive. I'm not about to let you behind the wheel of a vehicle when you can't even walk straight. Besides, friends don't let friends drive drunk," he quoted with a chuckle. I could smell the unbearably sweet fragrance coming off his chest.
"Drunk?" I objected.
"You're intoxicated by my very presence." He was grinning that playful smirk again.
"I can't argue with that," I sighed. There was no way around it; I couldn't resist him in anything.
"Very sensible," he approved.
"And are you not affected at all?" I asked, nearly pouting, maybe I had misjudged earlier. "By my presence?"
Again his mobile features transformed, his expression became soft, warm. He didn't answer at first; he simply bent his face to mine, and brushed his lips slowly along my jaw, from my ear to my chin, back and forth. I trembled, unable to stop a soft sigh.
"Regardless," he finally murmured, "I have better reflexes."