I hope you guys enjoy where these chapters are leading to! I'm so excited to finally figure out what I wanted to do with this story. It has definitely taken a huge turn from my original plan… I am not Stephenie Meyer. All rights to the Twilight Saga, including these characters go to her.
Chapter 38: Leaving
Bella had left that morning, along with her father who had left for his fishing trip earlier before her. He had checked on Bella before he left and found her sleeping peacefully. He smiled when he peered at her face as she looked to have a more restful night. He believed it was because she had spoken to Jacob again, and that he was to be thankful for Jacob causing Bella's contentment.
I followed her until I was within a few hundred yards of the treaty line that had led to the reservation. I felt frustration for the fact that I could not watch her when she was there. For I could cross over, and possibly not cause any alarm, but a fight was not something I wanted to deal with, nor did I want to hurt any of the wolves. I decided to run back home and grab the keys to the Mustang. I needed to return it for it was due time. I drove throughout the town, passing the Forks Lounge again. I thought of Olivia, and her kindness towards me that night. I wondered where she had been or ran off to. I knew she did not live here, for I had not recognized her remotely. The man had inspected the car, thinking about my youthful glow and how wreckless us youths can be. He looked for any possible scratches and ran his finger over the paint, only seeing it shine through.
After I had returned to Mustang to the rental, I decided to run back to the Forks home to Alice and Jasper who were in the upstairs bathroom. I walked up the stairs to greet them to find that Alice was playing around with a few makeup ideas. It seemed she wanted to find ways to look completely unrecognizable for the disastrous party she had planned.
"Um, Alice?" I said as she turned her head over towards me. She was holding a makeup brush in her hand as she continued dabbing Jasper's face with it.
"Hello, Edward!" She smiled at me.
"So, what is all this?" I asked.
"Well, you see. To keep you happy and me happy at the same time, I thought maybe I could play around with special effects makeup." She reached her hand over on the counter lifting up a tube of sculpting wax. I raised my eyebrow at her, not understanding what she was referring to. She dug her finger in the tube, lifting a clump of wax underneath her fingernail. "This wax can be used to change the shape of your facial features! Like your nose, chin, cheekbones… I'm using it on Jasper's nose right now actually. And then I'm going to make the dimple on his chin more pronounced."
"Is the party supposed to be tonight?" I asked her.
"No, of course not. This stuff is new to me and I need to perfect it. I'm thinking of next weekend. I'm going to send out an anonymous party invite through email on Wednesday. Does it look good? Do you recognize Jasper?"
"Uh…" It was clear to me that it was Jasper, but possibly under a less trained eye, no one would be the wiser.
"I have a wig for him, too…" she said, frowning. "I'm going to perfect this in just a few days, possibly less. I still want Jasper to look as handsome as he is now, just adding more defined portions on his face." She then pulled out a warm colored concealer from her store bag, opening it up. She squirted a few dots around on Jasper's face, and then began to blend it onto his skin, and down his neck. The darker complexion from the makeup on his skin did help with transforming his appearance. The colder and pale complexions of ours is what causes our presence to stand out, mostly, and the warmer tone that she had applied to him had toned down his suspicious appearance in the room.
"Wow, Alice…" I said. She looked up at me and smiled.
"Thank you, I really am a miracle worker."
"I still do not think this is a good idea. What if Bella shows up to our home and gets suspicious looking for you. She would recognize the both of you."
"Edward, I've already thought things through. Yeah, when we are here, we might show some similarities, but not enough for her to approach us and confront us about it. She'd probably just be reminded of us and compare us to these unrecognizable people."
"And put her through that pain again? Giving her more reminders of us?"
"Bella's a big girl, Edward. She can handle it. I wouldn't put her through pain if I knew she couldn't overcome it. You act like she's fragile. Maybe she's fragile on the outside, but she held her own while you were gone."
"She jumped off a cliff, Alice! A damn cliff!"
"Adrenaline junkie, Edward!"
"No, I do not believe that, and I know you do not either. On top of that, she has Victoria visiting her, and Laurent, as well. Do we really need to put more on her plate?"
"Ah, yes Laurent. Forgot about him."
"You knew?" I asked her.
"Of course, I knew, Bella told me when I visited that Laurent stopped by, wanting to kill her for Victoria."
"For Victoria?" I asked puzzled. "What does that have anything to do…"
"According to Bella's story, Victoria asked Laurent to check if we were still in town watching over Bella. But then he ran into Bella in your little meadow during mid hunt, so he was going to kill her. Basically, told Bella that he would kill her quickly, while Victoria planned something more horrific for Bella." She said, nonchalantly. The pain in my chest quaked, where I then stumbled back against the bedroom wall, holding my hand firmly against myself. "It's okay, Laurent is dead… I mean, not okay I suppose. Irina won't be too happy about it. I think they were mates." She said, looking at me, then turning her head away, shrugging. She sat up from the stool that she was sitting on when working on Jasper's makeup, and then walked back to her room. We both followed her in there as she sat back down at her desk filled with fabrics. She then proceeded to work on the dress she had designed for the party. Jasper started to pick at the sculpting wax that lined his nose to give him a bigger one, along with the wax that protruded on his chin. "It would make sense, too. Why Victoria keeps changing her decision, that is. Our cousins may have mentioned our gifts to Laurent who then passed them along to Victoria."
How could Alice not be more concerned about this. I had a sense that Victoria was after Bella, and possibly an elaborate plan that we could easily diffuse, but it was more than that. She had Laurent come to Forks to check if we still were here watching over Bella. And what would that come to now? Now that Laurent was dead, what would her intentions be, and what was she thinking of this predicament? Clearly not having contact with Laurent had made her known of his demise, but what would she have thought? That we were still here? No, of course not, maybe. She possibly would not have thought we would have been so malicious to our gracious guest that had helped us in the past, unless she did not know us that well, at all.
"Alice, look for Victoria, please. Anything at all, any glimpse," I commanded her with deep heaving. I felt as if I was having a panic attack. Bella is in danger.
"I have been, it's different each time, but like I said… It leads to Seattle mostly. That could be because it's a good hunting ground since the population is dense, and a dead homeless man wouldn't be too alarming there, but that's all I see. Nothing concrete."
"That's not good enough, Alice. I—" I paused, turning around pushing my forehead against the wall. I was frustrated, angry, nervous. I forced my fist through the wall, leaving behind a hole and drywall crumbling to the floor. One of the support beams lined in the wall had bent underneath the force.
"Edward! Stop it. We can handle this situation. We can call Carlisle and see if he can locate any crimes in the area that seem a bit out of the ordinary."
"NO!" I shouted at her. "I will not bring Carlisle or the rest of the family into this. This is my doing. I—" I paused again, choking on my words. "I have to go. I have to go to Seattle."
"I hardly think that's necessary, but I already knew you would do so, for different reasons, but yes." She said thinking of her previous vision she had of me roaming the streets under pretenses that Victoria would possibly be there. Now the vision extorted to me revenging down the buildings with great malice intent. I was grabbing a hold of innocent citizens, pushing them against brick buildings, questioning them notoriously, and leaving them with possible injuries that would need to be looked at. I shook my head at her vision. I knew I needed to calm down, to control my anger the same way that I continuously hoped that Jacob could control his anger, as well. I felt hypocritical when seeing myself with that malicious behavior against the innocent. It was nothing that I wanted to do, but apparently it is what my future held.
As I calmed myself down, the vision then extorted back to me lurking the streets looking for Victoria, calmer, but still in a panic to find her. The odds of this vision were more favorable as I had not put any lives at risk or given no reason for a person to expect any out of the ordinary delusions of what I may be.
"There, that is better," She said to me looking at Jasper hoping he could extort me more with his gift. I shook my head at her. Unbelievable. "You should go, though. It would probably be better for you to distract yourself in Seattle instead of being here drowning yourself," Alice said, rolling her eyes at me.
"Drowning myself? I am not, Alice. I feel more content being here than I have been in the past seven months when I was away from her. How could I leave knowing she is here with that pup?"
"You can leave here knowing that Jasper and I are here. I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her, Edward… We both wouldn't," She said, slowly trying to reassure me.
"Yeah, I've heard that before," I replied. Jasper looked down in self-defeat at my words towards Bella's birthday. Alice shook her head at me disappointingly and wrapped her arms around Jasper, holding him against her chest. I did feel bad for my words, but they were not necessarily wrong. That night was not out of the ordinary, though. It was possibly the least of my worries of what could have happened. Jasper's moment could have been much worse.
"Edward, Bella will be fine without you here. You can go. I think it would be best," Alice said, visioning her and Jasper in this big home all to themselves. Her mind took an inappropriate turn imaging the many things they could do without having to worry of being discrete. She imagined bondage, but not on her. She imagined the bondage holding Jasper while Alice seduced him, pleasured him. She was the dominatrix in her fantasy, while Jasper was her mere slave to her fantasy. I squinted my eyes at her, holding my lips tightly together in discomfort at the thought. She laughed at me and then kissed Jasper on his head as he felt out of the know of the exchange that Alice and I were having.
"She will be fine, Edward. I assure you. I will continue to hunt," Jasper said. I contemplated the idea of them watching over her for me. Keeping her out of harm's way. In a way, the best possible person I could ask to keep an eye on Bella, other than myself, was Alice. While she had discredited that hope I felt for her a year ago when she let Bella outsmart her at the airport when we were running from James's tracking abilities, she still helped in the end. She always cared for Bella like a sister, and she believed deep down that Bella would become more than just her human sister. I heaved out a heavy sigh from my chest. Alice looked at me, biting her lip as she then pulled the fabric from the machine. She then was grabbing another sheer fabric from her box that had the sparkles and glitter that were noticeable in the drawing. She laid the green fabric back down under the sewing machine, and added the glitter fabric on top of that, sewing the glitter fabric against the seams of the green fabric, compressing them together. Jasper then flipped over the pages in her design scratch pad, looking for an outfit that she was going to make for him.
"I'm not making yours, Jasper. I bought it. It's casual enough to not be you, but it's formal enough to look good next to me." Alice smiled at him.
"Ah, yes. Would not want to wear an outfit that wouldn't compliment yours, my dear," Jasper teased her with a snort.
"So, this is how you plan to watch over Bella? Have a party?" I could see the vision in her head of people dancing under strobing purple and gold lights. The living room no longer looked like ours as she had rearranged the whole place, moving the couches around to be more inviting, the kitchen counter full of charcuterie boards that held different cheeses and meats with crackers. Empty plastic decorative plates were laid around as people mingled and set them down after finishing their snacks. Alcohol bottles filled the minibar that was laid out in the dining room.
"Well, in case you were too ignorant to realize, you are able to see the party, are you not? Meaning, no wolves will be there." I could see Jessica and Lauren grinding on each other's bodies in front of the two boys while others surrounded them. Then I saw her. Bella. She and Angela were hanging out with Ben while Mike sat on the couch with them, staring at Jessica uncomfortably, but yes. The party was visible in her vision, so no wolves, meaning Bella did not invite Jacob. Strange.
"Alice, I—"
"Shut up, Edward. I can handle this. You know that. Go to Seattle. Please, for Bella's sake." I nodded. I know Alice can protect her, but I did not feel comfortable leaving anyway. It had only been a week since I came to Forks. Only a week since Bella was near me again, or I was near to her. Contemplating the thought of being away from her again pained me, and the thought of a notoriously jealous vampire on the loose with lethal plans against Bella had pained me more. I had to stop Victoria. I had to keep her away from Bella, the best that I can. Alice had seen me in Seattle, so I suppose I had already made the decision to leave Bella behind and go there.
"Do you know when Bella will be back home today? I— I need to go see her."
"She will be home late. Around eight-thirty, and then she's going to take a shower and head to bed."
"Okay, thank you," I replied unsteadily. I sat there in her room while she worked on the dress. I felt impatient waiting for the time to go by as it was still only noon. I wanted to see Bella. I had to tell her goodbye. Of course, I could not have a conversation with her, but I would say goodbye to her, mentally. If I could possibly build the strength to leave and go to Seattle, I would have to say goodbye to her. To watch her as she slept. To breath in her floral aroma one last time before I left. I would come back as soon as I knew that the threat of Victoria was no longer existent.
Jasper and Alice were enjoying their time together while she then put the finishing touches on the dress. It was alarmingly beautiful, and definitely fitting for a high school party that was going to involve a lot of drinking. I let Alice then try using the sculpting wax on my own face. She placed it in between my eyebrows, pressing it down to fill the creases in between them as I furrowed them. She then took a liner and started drawing fake eyebrow hairs that went further towards the middle of my face. She had also added the wax on my cheekbones, protruding them some more, and along the side of my nose to make it appear wider. After that, she then put the warm toned concealer on my face, filling in all the crevices and then dabbing powder across my face for a more natural and less shiny tone as she described it to me. It was incredible the details she was adding. She was placing dots along my nose and cheeks to create the effects of freckles, and then shadowed my lips to form dimples under them. She made my top lip appear larger, as well. I do not know how this would have looked in bright lighting, but under purple and gold strobes, no one would notice the amount of makeup and wax that was pressed against my face.
I also did not question her when it came to how long this would hold up. Our skin did not have pores for the most part. It was very porcelain and sleek. In an amount of time, I am sure this wax would not hold anymore, as it would slide off. I suppose the hair spray she had sprayed across my face and glue was what held it together. She knew about this art more than I did, for she, Esme, and Rosalie were the ones who did wear makeup. I am also sure she had foreseen the events of the party, seeing how long it would hold, so she was taking the precautions. I had to give Alice credit; she did think of everything.
It was entertaining watching her work and the excitement it was bringing her. She tried on the wig after she did her own face where she also touched up her cheek bones, and gave herself a more rounded nose, like a mouse. She had even put on blue contacts to look like those female blonde leads in the movies. The bangs draped her forehead and eyes nicely, creating that mask effect that you would see superheroes wear to make their acquaintances not recognize them. If I did not have the eyes and vision I was given as a vampire I probably would not recognize her. Jasper on the other hand would need some further treatments to sculpt his face some more for the coiled brunette wig he was wearing did not fully disguise him, or the dimpled chin.
It was comforting to see though that we did not look so "perfect" as Bella had described us. Alice gave our face flaws, and blemishes that teenagers would have from acne scars. She even filled in her eyebrows more to give it a bushier and natural look as if she did not pluck them normally. This might be something Alice would take interest in in the future to change her look up when changing schools. For that may be a lot of work to do for an average school day, it would keep her busy. But that idea was something that would not continue for she had work in Milan to do. She had to keep her appearance, unless she would use this new waxing method to create an older look as the years go by, aging her with wrinkles. It did make me question why she had not thought of this method sooner for Carlisle. Time was our most dangerous enemy where we would have to move to new towns when people began to notice that their doctor was not ageing to the thirty-year old man that he portrayed to be after the years we were settled.
After the hours had passed and I had torn the makeup from my face, I decided it was time to go see Bella, to say good-bye. I knew this decision would be hard for me, to leave her again, but if I wanted to be able to do some good, I needed to protect her. Protect her from Victoria and whatever plan she had for Bella.
"Alice, it's time for me to go…" I said to her as she then put down the makeup brush from her face. I could see a small glimpse of me entering Bella's room in her mind, and then Alice immediately began reciting the Battle Hymn of the Republic into a different language other than Arabic this time. Interesting.
"Oh, Edward!" She sat up from her stool and then immediately had her body wrapped around me. "I'm going to miss you… so much. I promise you—no, Jasper and I promise you, Edward that we will watch over her. We will make sure she is safe… you don't need to worry."
"Do what you have to do, brother," Jasper said, nodding to me from behind Alice.
"I am not worried. I know you will take care of her… thank you, Alice and Jasper. For everything," I replied, squeezing onto Alice's torso.
"I will call you when you arrive in Seattle and guide you into the last direction that I saw her heading in." She said, lifting her head off of my shoulder, looking at me. I nodded at her.
"We love you, Edward," Alice said.
"I love you, both."
When I arrived at her house, Bella was already out of the shower, drying her hair in a towel. She was wearing one of her spaghetti strapped tank tops and baggy sweatpants while she lied in her bed reading a book for a poetry assignment it looked like. She seemed okay, happier even. Not that a smile was appearing across her face or anything displaying emotion, but Bella seemed to look more relaxed overall. I could not help but wonder if it had to do with her day with Jacob.
Bella looked over at the passenger pillow on her bed and lifted it up revealing the picture of her and I together. She pulled it out, looking over it again, giving a half smile to it. She pressed her lips together and ran her thumb over my face, nodding at it. She then moved herself over into a sitting position on the side of the bed. She leaned over towards her CD player, opening it, and taking the CD out. She stood up and walked over to her dresser, pulling out the bottom drawer and lifting the box out of it, opening it. She opened the CD case, placing the CD back into it, and then placing the picture and CD case back into the box. She hesitated when she looked at the opened box with the contents put back inside. Instead she pulled the plane tickets out of the box and set them onto the dresser. She nodded her head at the box again, and then closed it, placing it back in the bottom drawer, and closing the drawer back. She stood there for a minute, heaving out a sigh.
"Happy. I want to be happy…" She said, softly to herself, unwrapping the towel from her hair as light damp waves fell across her cheeks. She walked over to the hanger on her door, and hung the wet towel on it, and opened the door heading to her bathroom. She then came back into her room, where her hair was now straight from combing it. She sat back down on her bed, heaving out a sigh and leaned over to turn the light off on her lamp, and lied down.
It was about an hour before her heart rate had slowed and she had fallen asleep where I then climbed into her window. I felt uneasy being here. It felt wrong, in a way after I had watched her put the box away. I now felt like I was intruding. I always have been intruding, though. I have continued to come into her bedroom without her acknowledgement of it. I could not stay long, not anymore. I needed to say my goodbyes to her unconscious mind before I decided to leave on the hunt again after Victoria. This time, I felt sure that I would find Victoria. It was a decision she continuously made to be here, and I believed this would be the last place I would have to look for her. I would make sure Bella is safe, safe from Victoria, and then I would leave. I would leave Bella's life. She deserved to grow old with a man that she loved of her choosing. She deserved to live a human life, even if it would not be normal with a wolf pack in it, it would still be a human life. A life where she could continue to keep her friends and family a part of; a life where she would never have to say goodbye unless they were natural causes.
I walked over to the side of the bed where she was sleeping peacefully with a smile compressing her cheeks. I kneeled, next to her, looking upon the beauty of her face. I paused, hesitating at the words I wanted to say to her, but I needed to leave. I needed to go to Seattle where I could put an end to her endangerment. I heaved out a sigh and began to speak.
"I —" I paused, taking in a deep breath, looking down at the floor and back up at her. "I owe you an apology… No, of course I owe you much, much more than that… But you have to know that I had no idea. I did not realize the mess I was leaving behind. I thought it was safe for you here. So safe…. I had no idea that Victoria—" My lips curled back, saying her name aloud to Bella. "Would come back... Not that that is any excuse for the words I had said to you… The blasphemy words that left my lips in those woods. What a monster I am, to have left you there… and my dear, Bella… the pain I had caused you… the pain that I caused to shape your mind into thinking the way you do about yourself. You are worth more than anyone could ever give you… What I had left you here to deal with while these delirious thoughts that you had created in your mind through my lies… You were not going to let go," I continued to whisper. "I could see that. I did not want to do it—it felt like it would kill me to do it—but I knew that if I could not convince you that I did not love you anymore, it would just take you that much longer to get on with your life. I hoped that, if you thought I had moved on, so would you…"
I sighed feeling agitated at myself. I glanced away from her face, now looking towards the floorboards. "These words do not depict the way I feel. It does not depict the way I feel sorrowful for doing what I did to you. I feel as if I am creating excuses for myself, trying to justify what I did… but I cannot justify what I had done to you, Bella. It was malicious. And to leave you here… in danger… Bella, if I can promise you anything other than to love you forever, is that I promise to rid your life of danger… You deserve to live a happy, human life, with no fear, no worries. Only happiness." I continued to look down at the floorboards. My eyes began to burn, and so I brushed my forearm across them, trying to rid the burn of the 'vampire tears.'
I then felt her heart rate shift, galloping faster now. I looked up to see her eyes opened, directly peering onto my face. She was holding her breath until a gasp of air flew over her lips. I did not move; I was frozen in place looking at her while she looked at me.
"Ed—Edward?" She said shakenly. I continued to stare at her, not moving. She then leaned herself up on the bed slowly, not taking her eyes off of me as if she thought I would leave if she had looked away. She was right, of course. If I had my chance to flee the room in a quick moment when she had moved her glance from my face, I would have taken it. She was fully sitting up now, staring into my eyes. She then lifted her hand, inching it close to me, trying to touch my face. I ceased my frozen state and moved away.
"This is a dream… isn't it," she said, speaking softly as her heart rate continued to beat rapidly. "You wouldn't be here if I was awake… or even would have said those things to me. My Edward outside of this nightmare would have never said those things…"
"I could see why you would associate me with a nightmare," I replied to her. I could not possibly take the chance for her to realize the event that had taken place was anything but a dream. I needed her to believe it was a dream for she could not know of my presence. I no longer wanted to affect her life, and here I am, doing it again. She nodded at my words, sighing.
"You know, Edward. This dream does seem more real than the other ones. But, you're in my room, saying lovely things to me, saying that you love me. That's how I know this is a dream. My Edward doesn't love me…" She continued to stare at me, not glancing away.
"I'm sorry you believe that. But I do, I will love you forever, even after you go, and I take my life with you… I will love you for eternity Isabella Marie Swan." She shook her head at me, frowning.
"It's funny how my mind conveys that. How I still try to convince myself that you would love me; that you would love a boring human like myself. At least this dream is nicer… nicer than the ones before…"
"Bella you should lay your head down and close your eyes." I needed to convince her to go back to sleep. She looked at me, stunned at my words. She took in a heavy breath, blinking at me.
"If I lay my head down and close my eyes, then I will wake up and you'll be gone. Why would I want to do that?"
"Because you deserve to be happy. Happy in a world that I do not exist."
"Happy… Happy… Happy…" She said, repeating. "I was happy with you, you know. Or— well you don't know that… Mmm, you would know, considering my mind created you. I guess… I liked what you said to me," She said, choking on her words as a stream of tears filled her bottom eyelids, not yet escaping. "It was nice to hear, even if my mind made it up… it was still nice to hear…"
"Then believe them, please… or do not, that is up to you. I cannot ask you to forgive me, Bella."
"I will always forgive you, Edward. It made sense that you didn't love me. It made sense that I over exaggerated our relationship."
"No, Bella. I love you; I love you more than you could understand, please… You gave me so much more than I deserved from you. You gave me your acceptance, you gave me your bravery, you gave me life." The tears then escaped from her lower eyelids, falling down her cheeks. She started gasping for air and began to coil her legs up against her chest, pushing them tightly as she groaned and whined. She was in pain, why was she in pain? What was happening? Do I need to call the hospital? "Bella, Bella, dear," I said to her, leaning my shoulder closer to her. "What is wrong, please, please tell me. I need to know what you are thinking," I said with panic in my voice. She then leaned over to me, getting closer. I had to move away again. I pressured the heels of my shoes against the floor and slid my body away from her.
"Even I can't control my dreams. Even in my dreams you don't want me touching you… I'm so pathetic…" She whispered quietly.
"Bella, please stop saying words of discouragement. It is not fair for you to think so ill of yourself."
"I can think of myself however I want to." She hissed at me. I sighed at her, looking at the window. I needed to escape, I needed to leave for Seattle. I needed to leave before she would realize this was not a dream. She followed my glance towards the window and then back at me, letting out a sigh. "I guess I'm not surprised you want to leave."
"Bella, I do not want to leave. I wished so much to be able to stay, to stay with you."
"Then stay…"
"I cannot, Bella," I said, sighing. "I have to go… I need to leave so I can end the danger in your life. My world is not for you…"
"My world is not for you…" She repeated. "You said that to me before… when you left me. Why." She asked, sternly. It did not sound like a question at all. More like a demand for an explanation.
"My world has only brought danger into yours… with me… my family… James, Laurent, and now Victoria. I have to end the pattern."
"I never asked you to end the pattern, Edward. I want to be in your world."
"It is not safe."
"I don't fucking care if it's not safe! I wanted to be with you! I wanted to be with you forever," she started gasping for air into her lungs as she was then hyperventilating. I shifted closer to her instantly, looking up at her, checking her heart rate as it was rapidly rising.
"Bella, slowly. Breathe slowly, please… you are going to wind yourself."
"No! Stop that! Don't tell me what to do! This is my dream! I can do what— I can do what I want in my dream," She said calming herself down again as her expression froze when looking at me. "I can do… What I want in my dream… I control it." She leaned towards me again as I leaned away. She let out a huff in irritation. "My dream." She said again, sternly. I froze, looking up at her until she then held her hand against my face. She gasped as the heat of her hand boiled warmly against my skin. "You're cold…"
"I have always been cold, Bella."
"You're never cold in my dreams. Why are you cold now?" Her eyebrows raised in confusion. Panic streamed across her face.
"Like you said, this dream seems to be more real than your others. Your mind is adjusting to how my skin used to feel to you," I felt sick to my core at that moment when speaking an untruthful statement to her.
"I suppose…" She lifted her other hand against my cheek as the other had already done, rubbing her thumb across it. "Perfect… you're more perfect in this dream than you are in my other dreams too…" My face expressed disgust, and pain at her statement.
"I am far from perfect, Miss Swan." She shook her head at me.
"You've always been perfect…" She then sat up onto her knees now, trying to pull my face closer to her. I followed her pull until our faces were only inches apart. It felt mesmerizing to be in the embrace of her hands, to be able to breathe in the air that escaped her lips. She then leaned her mouth closer to mine, but I had to lean away. For she believed she was dreaming, and I could not assault her. This was not consensual… To her, perhaps it was, but to me, knowing she believed this was a dream, it was not. "Why do you keep leaning away from me…"
"Because, I cannot hurt you anymore," I replied.
"You aren't hurting me…" She said. Her eyes looked back and forth at mine, as she was trying to focus on which eye of mine to look at. "This is the very most grateful dream of you I've had in a long time. You could never possibly hurt me… not until I wake up again, at least. Lay down with me… please." She then let go of my face, and then put her hand on the back of my upper arm, trying to pull on it. "Lay down with me… until I wake up again."
I followed her command. I lifted myself up from the floorboards and slowly crawled over her, to the other side of the bed. I then hesitated when looking at her again as she then patted the passenger pillow next to hers. I chuckled at her persistence to where I then rested my head against it, looking at her. She then pushed me as I was laying on my side, and I followed her force to where I then laid my back against the mattress. She slid her body against mine, resting her head against my chest and wrapped her arm around my torso and her leg on my waist. I could see the goosebumps forming across her skin.
"I am so sorry, you are freezing…" I said to her, concerned.
"No, I'm not. It's okay…" she replied, quietly as she heaved out a sigh and nuzzled her face closer to my chest.
"I do not want you to freeze to death, love." I said to her. She giggled at my response. Silly, Bella. Never concerned about herself. I wrapped my arms around her, lifting her up into the air and immediately pulled the comforter out from underneath me and over my legs. I rested her back down onto my chest and pulled the comforter over her.
"Can I talk to you?" She looked up at me, as air ceased to escape her throat. I could hear her heartbeat fluttering as she became more nervous.
"You already are, my love," I replied, chuckling at her as her cheeks grew a slight pink. I ran my thumb across them as they then burned crimson. I missed seeing the blood flow through her cheeks as she became nervous. I then took my other hand and began running my fingers through her lightly damp hair. I gently ran my fingers through the tangles, undoing them with my fingertips. Her warm face pressed against my chest felt like heaven. How I have missed being wrapped into her arms.
"I mean… Can I talk to you… about something serious? Something I wanted to talk to you about for a long time… even if you are a creation of my imagination…"
"Yes, Bella… anything…"