A.N.: Hello. You are about to read the by-product of sleep drepravation. Huzzah and good luck to you!

Disclaimer: If any one of you think I am Stephenie Meyer you are seriously on crack. She's too cool. : )

She had watched me leave.

I had been alive for almost a century -alive for many horrific calamities, each one somehow worse than the last. I had seen the physical agony soldiers went through in the midst of battle, witnessed a mother's pain as she went through childbirth, and watched countless fall to horrible diseases and deaths. But never, throughout all my long history of living dead, had I seen such pain in another's eyes. Nor had I felt such pain coursing throughout me.

It was late. Midnight, even, when I said goodbye. We were in our special clearing, and had been there since twilight. The new moon shone brightly through the trees of the forest.

I wondered if there would be any other way. Any other outcome. Any other possibility I could consider. But, yet again, I was stuck. Life had once again damned me and there was no other choice. What I did, I did for the good of us both. Or so I had thought.

For months, I had been deliberating what to do. Bella's life with me would be a hard one, one full of constant sorrow. I would always keep her trapped, tied to me and only me for as long as I was with her. She would never marry, never experience becoming a mother. Never experience the joys and comforts of living. And then she would die, having done nothing but loved a beautiful monster.

It sickened me to think that I, as insignificant and evil creature as I am, could stop a woman as wonderful as Bella from growing up and living her life to its fullest. She would never leave me as long as I was with her. I was a burden. A burden she would die with if I didn't let go soon.

I never understood. How could anyone love a beast? It was absurd. But, she did. She saw past the creature, drenched in a history of murder and blood, saw past the alluring physical beauty, and learned to love me for the person –the human I used to be. She loved me. She truly loved me. And how I loved her.

Was that a mistake?

Or was it a miracle –to find someone so loving, so accepting, someone who loved me on the outside and the inside, not afraid of my past, not caring about my endless future, and still able to acknowledge both fully. She cared for me only –all of me. No exceptions. God knows, she was a blessing I did not deserve.

A blessing I could not leave.

That fateful day of departure, however, came much too soon. I was not ready, not even when Carlisle convinced me it was the right choice. It was not my choice. I was being stripped of my Bella too soon. But, alas, I was trapped. In a world of vampires, the strongest always gets the last say. And Carlisle told me I had to be strong.

Strength. It was Bella who had taught me true strength in all ways imaginable. What cruel irony.

She taught me what it was to care for something so breakable, something I could crush so easily, yet strived to maintain. And that required a new strength entirely.

Bella showed me true endurance in a way which perhaps required the most strength of all. Not a day has gone by that Bella has not been a temptation for both the human side of me and the vampire within. Somehow, with her, I persevered.

Still, my favorite strength she taught me was love.

And now I had to let her go.

But how could I let her go? I loved her –really loved her and nothing and nobody else. It still amazes me as to how it happened. I had tried convincing myself she was normal. I had tried convincing myself I didn't love her –that I didn't have to care about her. That I didn't have to talk to her –that I didn't even have to see her. But who was I to defy the undeniable pull of gravity and reject my constant need for her?

The very same need I have now.

Her tears that parting night were like no tears I had seen before. They fell freely, truth lining each droplet. Heart-breaking fragments of sorrow that framed her pretty face.

I could not stand them anymore. I prayed to God they would stop, that I wouldn't have to see her so thoroughly defeated. That I wouldn't have to witness any more tears. That I could somehow comfort her, wipe each one away. That I could somehow stay with her. That we could stop feeling this torture of separation and stay together for all eternity.

But, life never had that in store for us.

Everyday, she would stare, waiting for me at the window for long hours into the night, never succumbing to sleep, and dying slowly while still waiting. Waiting for me to come back to her. Waiting for me to come back as if I was on an extended vacation. As if it was possible for me to come back.

Carlisle said they would kill her, and God knows, they could. I believed him.

The same way I believed I could let her go.

The pain I endured without her was unimaginable. I first went on a rampage –destroying our special clearing in our forest after she had left, only to find that days later she would find it. Gone –completely disintegrated. Just like our days together.

Alice had predicted the scene.

Bella is weak, Edward. She will not last long.

I would not last long.

How? How did I grow to love you so? Why? What reason was there for it? How did you accept me so easily? And so thoroughly –accepting all of me, my bad with my good. Why can't I let you go? Why can't I just let you live and not wonder where you are and what you're thinking every second of every day? Why do I still crave to hear you say my name, just once more, as if it would somehow ease my endless suffering? Why are we condemned to this fate? Why can't I live without you?

That's when I understood. I couldn't live without her. It was an impossibility. Our story could not end this way.

And then I remembered Alice's words.

Bella is weak, Edward. She will not last long.

They shook me to the core of my very being.

I only knew of one place to look. She would be there.

"Bella! Bella," I screamed. God, let me make it to her. Let me see her. Let me see my angel. Let me see my Bella! Please, God. Let it not be too late!

But as in all things in my life, she was already gone.

When I reached her, she looked asleep, face pointed to the heavens as she lay in the grass of our clearing. Peaceful, for the first time in months. So delicate. Like porcelain, dried lines from her tears completing my sleeping beauty.

She's just sleeping……only sleeping………

How I wished those words were true. How I wished I could believe them.

But I could not hear the peaceful thump of her heart. I could not feel the warmth she emitted daily, the warmth I constantly craved. She wasn't there.

I could have cried. I should have cried. But, the tears never came. No matter how loud I screamed. How hard I shook. For vampires could not cry. Not even when faced with such unbearable human agony as I was that night. And still am today.

As my knees hit the floor, I knew. I knew I was totally forsaken by God. He had deserted me and taken my treasure for himself. I would never see my love again. I would never see my Bella alive again. She would never be able to grow and learn. I would never be able to hold her in my arms and feel her quiet breath on my chest. Never see her blush in my presence. Never see her trip over an inanimate object, and feel her fall into my waiting arms. Never again would I experience that pleasure of just knowing she lived –she was alive. She was well. Never again.

God had left me alone. Completely and utterly alone. And I would be always. Trapped in hell on earth. For the rest of eternity.

A.N.: That was mildly depressing. Lol! When I read what I wrote last night, I was like "now, really!" But, oh well. For all it's worth, I hope you enjoyed. Please review -it would make me very happy! Hee hee!

Thanks for reading,

Foxiego : )