Woah, there have been some STRONG reactions after that cliffhanger and... I loved them all :). I'm so thankful for everyone who takes the time to read and review, truly - hats off to you!

Also thankful for my beta and pre-readers! Now let's get going, we've got a lot to unpack.

The words lingered in the air, filling the silence between us. Bella's face was still in my hands, her gaze glued to mine, her bottom lip quivering. There was no backing down now, the first barrier had been taken down. All I had to do was push through the rest and pray that Bella was going to listen.

"What does that mean?" she managed.

I inhaled deeply, preparing myself for what came next. Her fragrance washed over my fears, calming me, but also reminding me that I could lose everything tonight. I was dangling on the edge of a precipice, my fate in her hands.

"It means that I've lied about two extremely important things, Bella. And I am sorry I am only telling you this now."

"Well… I'm listening."

This was not enough.

"Can you promise me you'll listen all the way through?" I asked.

"I promise."

There was a dangerous edge in her voice, that made my insides tremble with fear. But I didn't want to backtrack now. There had already been too much painful delay. Not even the promise of having an eternity ahead could justify another round of postponing.

"Edward, you're worrying me."

Another deep inhale, to calm me down. It didn't exactly work. The stakes were too high. But I forced my way through my own anxiety, mindful of the endgame.

"All this time, I kept insisting you are my best friend," I began. "I shut you down time and time again when you wanted to know if there was something more. Yet I couldn't stop making love to you."

I felt her jaw clenching under my palms, but she didn't say anything.

"And I kept finding excuses, Bella. I kept finding different explanations - such as Grace and my fears - for why we should not be more. And they were true, but the thing is… they didn't matter. None of them did, because they really didn't change what I felt for you. What I feel for you. It's something I've never experienced in my entire existence."

The clenching subsided. And to my surprise, she raised one hesitating hand, placing it on my cheek.

"What are you saying?" she murmured, pronouncing each word with care.

"What I'm saying is… you're not just my best friend, angel." Finally. The truth felt so good. So right. I felt limitless as I was staring in her eyes, the rest of my words flowing without any effort. "You are my mate, the only one I belong to. And I love you. I always will, in fact."

There was no fanfare of seraphs coming down from above once I said the words. The same whirling wind noise was buzzing in the air, covering the faint whispers of the mountain fauna. Under the dome of the Northern lights, time seemed to have stopped in place for us. As she watched me, I realized she had never been more beautiful than she was now: with her hair flowing mindlessly around her face, her lips on the verge of smiling, her eyes wide with surprise.

"I love you," I repeated, because it was true. Relief sheathed me in its embrace, warm and comforting. How I had been longing to tell her this! For a long, perfect moment, I allowed myself to forget about the rest of my confession and simply bask in the serenity of admitting what I felt for her out loud.

Ever so gently, her other hand found its way to my face, and she pulled me lower, closer to her level.

"I'm not dreaming," she whispered.

"You are most definitely not, love."

"It... all makes sense now."

I smiled as a thousand revelations were flashing through her eyes at once.

"What makes sense?" I queried, pulling back a stray strand of hair from her face - I didn't want anything getting in the way of observing her bliss.

"I figured you had guessed it by now, but… I love you, Edward. So much it shouldn't be possible."

If I thought that saying those words myself had felt good, the exuberance of hearing them from her mouth was immeasurably greater. I could no longer reign in my emotions, so I started laughing - a laugh filled with all the solace in the world. Bella followed in my stride soon after, and raised up on her tiptoes, to be as close to me as her height allowed. To make things easier for her, I grabbed her waist and raised her feet from the ground, until we were face to face. And naturally, my lips found hers.

We had done this so many times before, but this felt like the first time it really mattered. It was almost as if all the other times this happened I had been numb and only now I could fully enjoy it.

I took in her every reaction: her little moan of delight when our tongues met, her fingers digging in the nape of my neck, her suddenly irregular breath - all reactions that I was used to, but there was something new - something primal and so pure - about them, now that the curtain had been dropped. In response, I groaned with her, my fingers tangling in her locks, the kiss growing a little more untamed.

Even more than usual, we seemed to be unable to get enough of each other. The pressure of the days we spent barely talking to each other, let alone touching, coupled with the sheer ecstasy of having our feelings laid out on the table, was too much, too good, and it almost made me forget that this was only half of the battle. There was something much, much worse awaiting - and the knowledge of that was the only thing that made me put an end to our connection, right as Bella's hands started unbuttoning my shirt.

"Wait, wait," I muttered.

"I can't wait any longer, I need you," she wailed.

"And I'm dying to have you, but we can't do this until I tell you everything."

"What?"

Bella pulled back, her face a little vexed.

"There's one more thing I've kept hidden from you," I admitted.

She remained still in my arms, and I tried to savour the feel of her body pressed to me, not knowing how much time I had left.

"Tell me then."

"It's about… your last night as a human. The one you cannot remember."

"I know the story."

"No, you don't. Because that story is a lie."

There was bewilderment on her face, but no trace of anger. Not yet. She liberated herself from my arms, taking a step back, and I felt as if this was the beginning of the end.

"I don't understand," she stated. "What's the lie?"

This was it, all or nothing. If we could ever be something more, the deception had to burn and the truth had to rise from the ashes triumphantly. No compromises.

"I didn't find you bitten on the pier," I began, realizing that as much as I had envisioned this moment in the past, I still felt somewhat unprepared. "I actually met you when you were still human. We both happened to be in the same nightclub that night."

She frowned a little, questions dancing on her face, but she allowed me to continue.

"You were there for your friend's birthday, and I was there to hunt."

She couldn't remember, but I could. All too clearly. That night was forever burned in my brain, with nothing to blur its details.

"A man started harassing you. I had no idea who you were, but I wanted to get him off of you. So I rushed to where you were. And then… well, I caught the scent of your blood for the first time, Bella."

I was willing to bet that she could already piece together the rest of the puzzle; but looking at her, all she was doing right now was shaking her head from left to right, in a gesture that couldn't signify anything other than pure denial.

"I can't exactly explain it, but it was the most exquisite fragrance in the world. It was unlike anything I had ever smelled, it made me crave you so badly. I pushed that scum of a man away from you, but… I knew that I had to have you. No, not you - your blood."

"No," she breathed in disbelief.

"Yes," I countered, completely ashamed, but unable to stop. "So when you told your friends you were going to the train station, I made sure to get there first. And when you arrived there… God, seeing you on that platform made me realize that it wasn't just your blood that I wanted, as fucked up as it was. So I invited you for a late night walk."

"No, it didn't happen like this!"

The bitter despair in her voice crushed me, but I knew I had to go on.

"It did. We walked and we talked and you were the most exciting thing to ever happen to me in a hundred years. When we stopped on the pier, we kissed."

"No…"

"And we snuck inside an abandoned cabin cruiser," I continued, my voice filling with nervousness as I picked up the pace of my speech. "That was where we made love for the first time - not in Chicago. And it was deliriously good, for you and me both. But I lost it, Bella. And I made no effort to hold my monstrous thirst back, because your blood was calling to me and I didn't know how to say 'no'. Hell, I didn't want to say 'no'."

She was no longer shaking her head. Her entire body was shaking now, her arms now wrapped around her torso, as if she was holding herself from crumbling in front of me.

"Tell me this is a joke, Edward, please…"

"I can't, love, I… I still remember your screams. You begged me to stop. And I did stop, but only because a man heard you screaming at the top of your lungs and I wanted to start the boat and get it as far as possible from the shore, to drain the rest of you."

"No," she repeated, her eyes basically begging me to put an end to the story and tell her that none of what I was saying was real. If only.

"When I got back to you, the change had already started. There was nothing I could do. I had never planned for it to happen. It was all an accident. A God-awful, monstrous accident."

"No, you found me on that damned pier, Edward!"

Her raised voice echoed into the night and I wanted her to be right more than anything else.

"I didn't," I replied.

"God, this has to be a joke…"

"Why, why would I ever joke about such a thing?"

She finally let her arms fall to her sides, no longer holding herself.

"This has to be a joke, because who the fuck actually does something like this?"

I couldn't bear to see her trembling like this one moment longer. I closed the short distance between us with a few steps, in an attempt to take her in my arms. And for the first time ever, she rejected me. The hands she always used to hold tighter onto me pushed me away, breaking my heart in half easily, as if it was made out of nothing but disgustingly fragile glass.

And I knew then that my expectations were no longer a fear, but a reality. This was truly the beginning of the end. Our chance at happiness had disappeared before we got to have even a minimal taste of it. All that was left was the aching feeling that I had destroyed everything beyond repair. I wanted to rewind, to get back to the perfection of the kiss we shared minutes ago. And at the same time I didn't want to, because Bella deserved to know every facet of who I was, even the hideous ones. Especially the hideous ones.

"You took my life," she exhaled, still not fully in control of her voice.

"I… I did, Bella. And I hate myself for doing this to you. Not that it makes it any better, of course-"

"You fucking took my life!" she interrupted - and if I thought she sounded pissed before, that was nothing compared to the disgust she held beneath her words now. Disgust and pain and hurt. All caused by me. "My life, as if it was yours to take!"

I nodded affirmatively, unable to defend myself, stunned by the sheer force of her rage.

"So... the first thing I remember you telling me is nothing but a lie. And so many after that."

"Yes, but-"

"And you knew how I was feeling about this! You knew all along because I've told you! You… you were aware how much it hurt not to know who changed me, all while hiding the fact that you had been the one to do it. And… God, my head is going to explode, I'm such an idiot!"

She collapsed on the snow, landing on her knees, her fingers digging deeply through the layer of frost. Carefully - and mindful not to touch her again after she had pushed me away earlier - I kneeled beside her. She refused to even look at me.

"Don't say that, I'm the idiot, not you," I grumbled.

"Are you? Because from the looks of it, I'm the one who's been deceived. You've played your cards exactly right, so congratulations."

"Bella, I swear it's not like that. It wasn't something I was doing out of some sick callous pleasure."

"Of course not, you wanted to have your cake and eat it too."

"I was afraid of how you would react," I offered lamely. "It's why I never allowed myself to go further with you. Because you deserved better than a liar, and it was already too late to backtrack."

She started collecting snow in her hands, playing mindlessly with it as she looked ahead.

"Why now, Edward?"

"Hm?"

"You've had all summer to tell me. Why now? Why not before we made love for the first… fuck, no, second time? Why not after?"

I had no satisfying answer to that. Alas, nothing I said until now had been satisfactory in any way. Nothing I would say from this point on could be.

"I wanted to tell you in Charleston, but then Abe and that girl, Laura, showed up," I said. "Then you got mad and I dropped it, because I didn't want you to find out like that…"

"How thoughtful," she mumbled, the sarcasm in her voice icy and brutal. "Still doesn't answer my question."

"All right, I wanted to wait two more days, to tell you after your birthday. Then I saw you with William and… I couldn't wait anymore."

"After my birthday," she huffed. "Aren't you something else, Edward?"

She threw the small snowball she had made over the edge of the crest we were on, standing up immediately after. I followed her in an instant.

"So what was the plan - birthday sex and then the confession?"

"No, I…", I uttered, uncertain of where I was going. And since there was no right path, I went on the one that called to me the loudest. "I'm really sorry, Bella. For everything. I'll regret this until my last breath."

She said nothing, she just looked at me, pure dismay painting her face. She had been disappointed by me before, but never like this. This was hopeless, irreparable. I could never take back what I had done. And I didn't expect her to forgive me easily - or at all. And the more she was staring me down, the more convinced I became that the latter option was the one closest to reality.

The silence was piercing my ears. It felt like a dark omen that could swallow me whole any moment. And as convenient as it would have been for the ground beneath to crack and devour me, I didn't want to disappear. I had been thinking of this exact moment for so many times, it wouldn't have been fair to get an easy way out. Bella never had an easy way out. Why should it be any different for me?

"Say something, please," I tried, reaching hopelessly for her hand, only for her to remain still, refusing my touch.

My eyes stung and I tried to blink the pain away, but banishing the unshed tears turned out to be impossible. I accepted them, welcoming the unsoothable torment they brought. After all, they were the weakest punishment of all.

"Just being near you is killing me right now," she let out, our eyes meeting for the shortest time before she closed them.

Her voice broke at the end, and I broke right along with it.

"Bella…"

Her eyes flung open, revealing all the betrayal residing in them.

"Who even are you?"

"This doesn't change how I feel about you," I hurried to say. "But… I understand if it's not the same for you. Just… tell me."

Bella sighed - a long, dire sigh - and not knowing her thoughts in these moments was torture in its most potent form. I found myself longing deeply for a rewind once again - not just to the moment when I confessed my love and she confessed hers, when everything in the world felt right for a few fragile minutes, but to the moment my teeth broke the barrier of her skin. There was no more lust attached to that memory, only regret.

Thinking back on it, the taste of her on my tongue was no longer the most potent memory. Her screams, however, definitely were. Her anguished cries of having her trust broken, her impossibly delicate attempts of fighting me off, her slow descent into amnesia - these were the memories that burned stronger than anything else now.

"I can't do this," she suspired. "It's too much."

I had barely begun to process her words when a gust of wind hit me in the face, along with a gentle vortex of snow. And just like that, Bella was no longer there, within arm's reach.

Never had I felt a stronger incentive to compete with the speed of light.

It was instinct alone that made me move and follow her. It couldn't possibly end like this. No, it couldn't possibly end at all. Living without her was not an option. It wasn't before, but even more so now, after all was said and done. Because I loved her against reason, beyond hope, and there was no force strong enough in this universe that could change that. And while she was running away from me, the deepest part of my subconscious knew that she loved me too. But that part was losing ground to the one that feared that love might have not been enough for her to stay.

And that was when I started running faster.

But it was not enough. She was still impossibly quick - enough to keep herself just outside of my field of view. I knew she could hear me as I was shouting her name again and again, but she made no attempt at responding or stopping. The paths we were following had been full of so much hope when I climbed up the mountain. Now it felt as if they were mocking me, pointing out the ridiculousness of ever hoping that Bella could have understood the reasons for my lies; whispering, ridiculing my egotistical pipe dream of her forgiving me; leading me down to a world of terror, in which I was completely alone.

The whispers grew louder, making me realize that I was close to the Denali house. Thoughts and chatter and noise - and none of it mattered, because the only sound I needed right now was Bella's voice. The voices merged in my head, until I could no longer tell which was which.

"Shit, what happened there?"

"Go after her, Will!"

"This is not my mess. She'll be fine."

"That poor car did nothing wrong."

"You were there when he showed up, what could have happened?"

"He's an ass, how would I know?"

"Maybe he hurt her."

"No, I'm sure he wouldn't do such a thing to a woman, much less to her. The guy looked like he was ready to worship the ground she was walking on."

"I certainly didn't mean it like that."

"They probably fucked and fought."

"Not everything works like that, William. Don't be that guy."

"Shut up, you're only mad 'cause you didn't get to jump his bones."

"Blue balls make you insufferable."

I needed the voices to stop. Their ludicrous judgements and assumptions were the last thing I wanted. They knew nothing about me and Bella. I resisted the urge to scream from the top of my lungs at them to shut up. Further and further away, I heard Bella's feet hitting the ground rhythmically and her breath turning into gasps.

As I was fighting with all I had to catch up to her and ignore the background noise, somewhere along the line I missed William's last-second decision to overthrow me right when the red cedar of the Denali house peeked out from between the snowed fir trees. I felt his weight above me and he only had the upper hand for a nanosecond. He barely had the time to utter a disgruntled 'Why is she running away from you?', because as soon as I realized what was going on, I punched him with all the frustration boiling in me.

The last thing I heard was him cursing my name before pain took over me, making me stop instantly. All that I knew was that his hands were no longer on me. Kate had taken over and just like that, her previous thoughts about voltages made sense. It felt as if every bone in my body was heating up to the point of explosion as she pressed her palms on my shoulders. This was no ordinary ache - it was pure torture. I could swear the hellish strange electricity filling me up was burning me alive, the agony all too similar to what I felt when I got changed.

But through the torment, the real pain was being caught on the damned ground, unable to move, unable to run after Bella anymore. I was losing her. My worst nightmare, coming alive, with nothing to chase it away.

"That's enough," I heard Tanya's voice through a haze.

Kate's palms left their place on my shoulders one second later, but the harrowing currents were lingering in my tissues, withering all too slowly. It proved to be a great effort just to lift myself from the ground, but I did it.

"Maybe I overdid it."

"The pain should go away fully in a minute," Tanya rushed to explain. "What happened up there?"

"I don't have time," I snarled.

"Why did she break your car?"

Still fighting the aftershock of Kate's power, my eyes flew to the side, to the place where I parked the car a few hours ago. And it was right there where I left it, except the window on the passenger side was completely broken. I felt too slow as I made my way to the car. The shattered glass was all over the leather seat, but that was not the thing that got my attention - the open glove compartment was. I immediately reached inside, pulling one wallet - my wallet - out. Bella's was no longer there.

My head started swimming with possibilities and deep down, I feared that the worst one of them all was coming true.

My bones were still tingling, but my time was running out. I could not afford any more delays. I was already late, too fucking late. Ignoring the sting, I fled. Several voices called after me, but none of them followed me. Good. I didn't want to be followed. What I wanted was to find Bella and try again. She was already several minutes ahead of me, but her trail was clear to my senses. The path she had chosen led me further through the woods, avoiding the main road. The night was calm and quiet, barely any cars passing. Meanwhile, an entire storm was wreaking havoc inside me, flooding my veins with the powerful sentiment that as much as I loved Bella, I was the worst thing to ever happen to her.

From the moment we met, she had been damned. If only I could have seen through the bloodlust then, enough to realize that she was never supposed to be my meal, but my mate. Things would have been so different now. She wouldn't be running away from me and I wouldn't be running after her; we would be running together. For the shortest second, I thought of how simple things would have been had I met my rightful end in 1918… as I was meant to. No parents to disappoint then. No hearts to break. No lives to take. No Bella to kill. No Bella to love.

No Bella to love.

Just the idea of never having met her made my heart twinge with horror. I couldn't bear it. My thoughts rearranged themselves, until I could finally see things clearly. Maybe my unlikely escape from a certain death, the damnation of my soul, the decades spent in solitude had all combined to lead me to what I really needed, deep down. And if I had to spend several centuries more just to get in her good graces again, I was ready for them. I was ready to do whatever she wanted me to, just to be by her side.

The invisible string of Bella's fragrance led me to the warmth of human life. A roaring hum made me realize that I was getting closer and closer to the airport. Conveniently surrounded by woods from every side, I could see how the placement of the small airport had made Bella's mission of getting here inconspicuously easy. I circled it from a distance, following her steps, until I reached a wide passage that connected the woods to the driveway. Thanking whatever God was out there for the tame night traffic, I jumped on the empty narrow road and made my way hurriedly to the main entrance. Once inside, I stopped, to get a sense of what I should do next.

Dozens and dozens of hearts were beating in unison, their sounds merging with the mental and verbal chatter. In front of all that noise, all I wanted was Bella's silence. And I knew she was here. The sweet lavender had taken over every molecule of air I was breathing, closer now than it had ever been in the woods. I wanted to follow its trail to the very end, but that would have meant breaking several rules of the human world and getting escorted out of the building before I could get to her.

Besides, making a scene was never a good idea for our kind.

Feeling impossibly distressed, I stopped to look at the list of departing flights. There weren't an awful lot, considering the size of this airport. The earliest one was heading to Vancouver at exactly two A.M.. There was one more heading to Anchorage in almost an hour from now, but if she truly wanted to flee fast, she wouldn't have chosen it. And unfortunately for me, what used to be her 'college fund' was more than enough to guarantee her a last minute flight, if she so desired.

I searched for her face in the thoughts around me, but to no avail. Aware that I could not afford to be more thorough with my search process, I rushed to the check-in counters, praying for the best. A redhead in her twenties greeted me with a smile. I couldn't find it in me to return the warming gesture, not when I was so close, yet so far from Bella.

"I know it's last minute, but I need to get on the Vancouver flight," I explained.

"Wow, a five hour flight with no baggage? Not even a backpack?"

"I'm deeply sorry, Sir, but this flight is closed now."

She offered me yet another smile, that looked like pity more than anything else.

"You don't understand, I need to be on that flight. I'll pay however much is needed."

"Jesus Christ, he's intense."

"There's nothing I can do, I'm afraid," the woman explained, her voice still calm and professional, despite her better senses tingling at the sight of my black irises staring her down. "The passengers are already getting ready to board the plane."

Desperate for a way out, I reached for my wallet, taking a few one hundred dollar bills and sliding them quickly to her.

"I'm sure you can make an exception," I said.

Her heart started beating faster, fueled by unease, and blood rushed to her cheeks. I realized I should have felt some type of thirst at this sight, especially considering how I had not hunted in a while, but nothing happened. The tightening feeling in my stomach was not caused by hunger, but by the dreadful possibility of missing Bella.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot do that," she decided, with no trace of doubt in her mind. Damned be her morals. Still, this was my only chance.

"No one will know," I insisted. "I cannot explain how important this is."

"There is really nothing I can do, I'm sorry."

She didn't budge, but I didn't either. Desperate, I added another two hundred bills to the small pile.

"This is getting a little ridiculous," I said, only half joking.

"If you've got any complaints, you can file them at-"

"I have no complaints, I just need a fucking ticket to Vancouver!" I interrupted her, seemingly forgetting my manners.

"All right, he is crazy."

"Sir, I don't want to call security, but I will, if you keep going," she replied loudly enough for several of her colleagues from the other counters to turn their heads in our direction, her voice cracking for the first time and taking a step back, despite the counter separating us.

Growling, I put the bills back in my wallet, admitting my defeat. I thanked her through my teeth, stepping away before she could say anything else that could attract the attention of the people surrounding us. With several pairs of eyes watching me leave, I understood that I had no chance to further plead my cause. It was lost.

I glanced helplessly at the security check lines, knowing that Bella was somewhere on the other side, feeling unable to surrender just like that. So instead of accepting my fate, I walked towards the end of one of those lines, waiting. Maybe the story of a hopeless romantic who just needed to head to the gates to see his love could be enough to make the guards yield.

Several minutes later, two security guards were escorting me outside the airport, suggesting to get back when I had an actual ticket.

Standing in the cool Alaskan night, I watched as the clock on the front wall struck the hour I dreaded the most. I listened to the blusterous motor of the plane coming to life fully from a distance. I watched the blinking lights on the wings lifting further and further up in the sky. I felt Bella's scent growing thinner and my heart weaker.

Out of the tangled web of lies I had weaved, I wasn't where I wanted to be. But I was right where I deserved.

Oh, man, I can't believe we've reached this point in the story! I was just as eager for Edward to come clean as many of you were :).

I'm really curious to know what you've thought of this chapter - and to respond to everyone, as always.

What were your thoughts on the moment of truth?

Did you think it was right for Bella to run away?

How would you have reacted to such horrifying news?

Until next time, stay safe and happy out there!