Heyyy! Trigger warning: potential suicidal thoughts and talk of mental illness.

I'm so glad you all enjoyed the last chapter and found the ending funny. Honestly, it was cathartic for me, and I really wanted to capture Alia's sheer rage at the situation she woke up to.

This chapter... is a continuation.

...

Edward lay there in silence as Alia straddled him, her eyes flaming. Even though she knew she didn't need to breathe anymore, her every breath was heavy. Every secret, every private thought, every embarrassing thought… he had known them all. This whole time. Was he keeping silent and staying around her because of some sick sense of humor for all this time? Had he enjoyed making a complete fool out of her? Laughing at her behind her back to whatever stupid thing went through her head?

"No… Alia…" he finally spoke up… in response to her thoughts.

"Shut up!" she punched him again. Edward only grunted at the hit.

"You knew everything the whole time! Why?! Why why why why why?!" she hit him anew at every word. It was the worst betrayal Alia had ever known. It was the angriest she'd ever been.

But the worst thing was that Edward wasn't resisting her fists. He was staring at her with a look like he wanted to be hit. Like he deserved it. It made Alia freeze overtop of him.

"I do deserve your anger." Edward said, voice a whisper. "It's more than warranted."

Alia's fist twitched but she didn't strike him again. The rage dissipated somewhat, being replaced with shame and horror. It was completely unlike her to resort to violence, and all the worse hitting someone who wasn't defending themselves.

"You don't get to feel bad." Edward furrowed his brow. He was getting upset over her not hitting him. Really?

"Really." Edward took her hand and placed it around his neck, his skin smooth as silk. "Kill me if you want. I won't resist." He squeezed her hand to emphasise his point and she gasped. He looked up at her, and his eyes were cold.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Alia asked, voice shaking. She should have been crying but there was no familiar sting in her eyes. "How could you say something like that?" Was he suicidal?

"No, I don't think so." And the smile that bloomed across his face broke her heart. "You're amazing, you know. Feeling bad for me after I betrayed you for all these years. After I broke your heart and ruined your life. I'm not suicidal, but I'd happily die at your hands."

She could only stare at him, horror growing. Before she could do anything else, snap at him, or scream, Alice burst through the trees. Alia and Edward looked up at her, and Carlisle and Rosalie who followed behind. Alia immediately pictured the sight they were greeted with. Her over Edward, legs around his waist and her hand wrapped around his neck.

Alia let herself be pulled from Edward and watched as he swatted away Carlisle's attempts to check on him for any serious wounds. Alia saw an imprint on his pale neck, and felt like laughing hysterically. It was from the ring on her hand that she was unable to take off.

Rosalie and Alice took her away from that stretch of woods, with both keeping hands on her arms as if she would snap and start attacking at any moment. She couldn't blame them. She still felt anger coursing through her. But it wasn't the same as before. She felt more in control.

"Hey…" she finally spoke up as they neared the Cullen house. Rosalie and Alice looked at her and she continued. "Could you tell Edward that he doesn't need to avoid the house because of me. I'll keep out of his way." Before Alice could open her mouth to argue, Alia continued. "I don't want to see him right now. I need to think."

"Okay." Rosalie agreed. "Come on."

It took a while for Carlisle and Edward to return. When they did, Edward shut himself in his room. Alia could hear the others go and talk to him in muffled voices, probably purposely quiet for her new hearing. Whatever the case was, Alia was glad that he wouldn't be running from his own family anymore.

Over the next few days, Alia went through a lot. It was hard to get used to being a vampire (she still flinched at that word). She felt everything so strongly, and was overcome with fits over every distressing realisation. The world had assumed her dead after her disappearance at the hospital. She would never be able to see her family again, or her friends. When she was told that her parents were having a small memorial for her, and that she wasn't allowed to go, Alia had panicked, before coming to and seeing another wall she'd destroyed.

Jasper held true to his word, and didn't influence her emotions. Even though they were painful, they were hers and Alia wanted to feel them completely. She did apologize meekly to Esme for the destruction of the house, and felt even worse when Esme hugged her tightly and told her that it was completely okay.

That was kind of what made everything a bit better. Even though she wasn't talking to a certain someone, the other Cullens kept her sane. She learned a lot about vampires over the next few days. She should have been overwhelmed by the information, but knowledge had always served to ground Alia. The most shocking part was learning about how old the rest of the Cullens were. The youngest was Emmett, who still happened to be as old as her grandparents. With Edward, a lot of the way he was suddenly made sense. He acted like a brooding Victorian hero because he had been born within a few decades of the Victorian era.

Honestly, Alia felt like a moron for not noticing the obvious signs that the Cullens were at least some sort of supernatural beings, if not directly vampires. They were never around whenever there was a hint of sunlight. Edward had made excuses for not eating, but Alia realised that she had never seen any of the Cullens eat. They acted far too put together and graceful for teenagers… Yeah, she was an idiot. Maybe the human mind just rejected anything that contradicted what it knew to be real. And yet, Alia was hurt because she had always prided herself on being an imaginative and creative person. At the very least, she should have pieced it together instead of taking Edward at his word.

How could she not, though? He had never given her a reason to doubt him. Until now.

Alia, of course, had a lot of thoughts about Edward and what to do about him. How to react. At first, she was stuck in a mortified rage. He knew how she had felt about him as soon as she had realised she'd loved him. Hell, they all probably knew with Jasper's gift. It wasn't fair.

But, Esme had explained more about Edward's ability, defending him since he was unwilling to do it himself. The mind reading was involuntary. For Edward, it was like constantly being in a room with everyone talking at once. He could tune stuff out, but with someone right in front of him, it was impossible to ignore.

Then Alia's anger shifted. He couldn't control it and he couldn't tell her about it. Fine. Then why was he acting like such a self-flagellating shit? Why run away by making her cry last summer? Why make her assume he hated her? Why would he say such horrible stuff about being okay with her killing him?

She knew why, of course. It was the way he was. He was self centered, but also selfless. He'd rather take the blame and burden for everything himself instead of let anyone in. She could see it in the way his family treated him, in the way they spoke about him. She remembered how Edward had coaxed her into seeing someone for her mental health and wondered how he'd react to her doing the same. Did he even know that he had an unhealthy amount of self loathing? When she asked Carlisle, he only looked at her sadly.

"Edward has always struggled the most with the change." he said in a soft voice that Alia was sure she wouldn't have been able to hear if she were still human. She believed Edward wouldn't be able to hear from his corner of the house either. "He believes he's damned."

Alia resisted the urge to comment on how stupid that was, especially with how serious Carlisle looked. She had never been that affected by religion, with both her parents practically being atheists. She recognised that she couldn't understand how growing up with all that stuff about hell and damnation would affect someone's views on the whole vampire thing.

"You bring up depression." Carlisle said. "I think he was depressed for some time. It took my other children little time to find companions, with Edward always being the odd one out. With his gift, I think it made it harder for him to connect with anyone. He got so much better when he became friends with you."

Emotion clogged Alia's throat. "That's not healthy. He can't just— Was he going to just stay depressed his whole immortal life as soon as I went away?" She couldn't even begin to touch on how messed up it was that Carlisle was implying that the only potential way for someone to be happy was finding a partner.

Carlisle seemed to pick up on it. "You're young, Alia. As the years go on, it gets lonely without a companion. A true companion. I was alone for centuries, and felt it more with every passing day. Edward… found a friend in you. Someone he could be himself around and that helped him. More than you can know."

"It's not my job to fix him." Alia said simply. "He needs to take responsibility for his own happiness, and stop being so— so— ugh. What am I even saying? I know it's not that easy."

"No." Carlisle said. And Alia was surprised to see that he was smiling at her. "But I think he's already begun taking steps towards the right direction. Because of you."

Alia could only nod at him. With that conversation, her mind was swirling with even more confusion regarding Edward. She shifted between anger, and something decidedly sadder. Time was a good thing, however. And... when she felt her anger fade enough to think rationally, she made a decision.

It was time for them to talk.

...

So this was not an angle I was originally planning. But when I wrote that confrontation, Edward's remark popped into my head and I thought, hey isn't it kind of fucked how Edward is clearly depressed and has a really unhealthy view of himself and Meyer expects the power of love to fix that? Like we spend a lot of time talking about how the relationship in Twilight is unhealthy for Bella, without considering how it affects Edward. Like homeboy picks the first girl he has a connection with and decides that she's the reason for his existence. I get that teen girls like that in broody romantic leads, but it just grosses me out. Especially as a person with depression. It is my firm belief that you can't fix your problems with a relationship. Sorry, rant over. This has been my too late Twilight opinion of the week.