Chapter 10
The hours that immediately followed his realization of who Bella's attacker was — and where he came from — were a horrific blur of guilt and self-loathing that even Edward's perfect vampiric memory failed to fully process.
He vaguely remembered Alice's shocked face and her quick disappearance.
He remembered Carlisle appearing and sitting down beside him, trying to ask him questions, eventually giving up but returning every few hours in an effort to coax him from the roof.
He remembered refusing to enter the house or even speak, staring straight ahead in what even he recognized must surely be some form of shock.
Somewhere deep, in some still self-aware recess of his being, he knew that he deserved far worse than shock.
He deserved to suffer.
He may have saved one woman from Albert on that fateful night so long ago.
But how many victims had he then been responsible for in the past several decades, he wondered, including the one that mattered most, the one he loved? How many other families had lost a woman they similarly adored — their own Bellas — because Edward Cullen wasn't content just to be a monster himself, but he had to go and create one? Because he took what was already a monster by its own right and made it a million times more powerful, unleashed it on the world?
How many of those women who had died because of him had been so lucky as he was at that moment, to find the blessed temporary reprieve of going into shock while they were in Albert's clutches?
And, of course, the worst part of it all was Bella. The thought of being personally responsible for her attack was like dragging razor blades across his soul.
He hadn't been able to fathom the concept, all those years ago, of loving someone the way he loved her. He'd had no clue that she would ever exist. So how could he have known, when he was rebelling and playing God, that he was also destroying the woman he would love? How could he know that the woman he would die for without blinking would be the one to pay for his crimes?
If that was his punishment, it was too much. He would accept anything the universe wanted to throw at him — but not at Bella. She was innocent. Pure, even. She deserved none of this.
His only other memory of those first hours was absently wondering why Carlisle thought it even a remote possibility that he would dare come down and breathe the same air as Bella, after learning what he had indirectly done to her — what he might yet be responsible for, if Alice's vision came true.
It got even worse afterward, when the hazy fog began to lift slightly, leaving with it only the guilt and the shame.
Despite refusing to enter the house, he paid rapt attention to the slightest detail happening within it.
Carlisle hadn't thought it wise to give Bella anything else to help her sleep, in order to allow her system time to recover. And so sleep was a long time coming for Bella after her overdose wore off. Especially when she spent most of her time avoiding food, questions, and medical care, only truly showing interest in the subject of where he was.
It made his heart ache, for a few reasons.
For one, now that he knew what had happened to her was his fault in the truest sense of the word, it was so much easier to take to heart her slurred words as she came to, to make himself believe she was terrified of him — subconsciously at the very least. To believe that that was the reason she was so preoccupied with his location.
Secondly, what would it do to them both when he inevitably had to tell her that he sired the vampire who had come after her? How could he do that to her? If she had even a shred of faith remaining in him, that would surely destroy it.
Alice stayed with her while he was processing, trying her best to distract Bella from the topic of his whereabouts. And when that endeavor failed, she just lied through her teeth.
He heard it all, of course. His sister painted him as some kind of goddamn hero who was out slaying the monster who hurt her, making the world safe for Bella again, rather than as the coward on the roof who made the world lethal for her to start with. Through Alice's mind, he could see Bella bite her lip and look worried. For him.
It was almost more than he could take. He'd have jumped right in through the window and told her just exactly what a crock of bullshit that was — that he was solely and personally responsible for everything that monster had done to her — if Alice hadn't got a glimpse of him deciding to do exactly that. She immediately appeared on the roof, pointing out that her lies were for Bella's sake, not his, and that what he had been about to do would only hurt Bella.
He snarled savagely but sat his ass back down. He'd hurt Bella enough already.
On the subject of just exactly how badly she had been hurt...she still wasn't ready to talk about that yet, apparently, despite Alice's best efforts. She would completely shut down, picking up one of her books Alice had brought from her room with her clothes, or just stare blankly at the television when Alice pressed, her arms wrapped protectively across her chest. Not even Esme could get anything from her on that topic.
And that concerned him too. Or scared the hell out of him, more accurately.
From the beginning, when Emmett first took her to the hospital, he knew from Carlisle that Bella had adamantly declined any type of medical exam beyond vital signs, insisting that she had no physical injuries but refusing to comment past that. It was clear she was in at least some amount of pain, despite her attempts to hide it.
Even at Carlisle's offer to bring in an OBGYN he implicitly trusted, who was both female and would be discreet, Bella was still terrified that an exam could somehow trigger Charlie finding out what had happened to her — a prospect that seemed to horrify her.
Carlisle didn't like it any more than Edward did that Bella was refusing medical care, but they could hardly force her, nor would either of them have the heart to try. They both knew she wasn't bleeding, at least. There were some advantages to being a vampire — if she was bleeding, they would have both known it.
She also vehemently refused any type of crisis counseling, as Carlisle and Alice both repeatedly offered, even if it was over the phone. And in truth, Edward wasn't sure how effective it could be, anyway — not when she would be forced to lie about everything from the identity of her attacker to the tiniest detail of what had happened to her, all to protect him and his family's true identities.
Not even the best therapists had experience with women who'd been attacked by shapeshifters posing as the vampire mates who abandoned them and broke their hearts.
If he truly believed it would have helped her, he wouldn't have cared what the consequences of exposure were. He'd have kidnapped her one last time, to drag her there himself, and he'd have told her to tell the full truth and let him worry about the repercussions. But he knew how that would end: with a diagnosis of delusions and Bella being committed to a mental institution.
They were on their own — his family and Bella, to be exact, because he had no current intentions of going anywhere near her, not when he'd clearly heard her asking Jacob for help to keep him away from her.
Alice was trying. She and Carlisle had speed-read everything they could get their hands on about how to help her. He was paying attention when they did.
But Bella, as he well knew, could be very, very stubborn when she wanted to be. It didn't matter what the textbooks said. She wasn't talking until she decided she was ready.
She also seemed to have her mind made up that she wasn't going back to sleep, not without the pills that she politely asked Carlisle for several times before giving up, a panicked look on her face when his 'no' held firm.
In fact, Bella fought sleep so valiantly that Edward soon found himself wishing — near praying — that she could just relax and get some rest.
But Bella sleeping, he eventually learned, was a double-edged sword. It had the tendency to be a hundred times worse than Bella not sleeping.
Because within only a few restless hours of sleep after she finally couldn't fight it anymore, she would wake up every time, fighting...screaming his name.
He stayed put. It was impossible to tell whether she was screaming for him to save her, or screaming for him to stop hurting her.
Did it even really matter? He didn't dare approach her to find out. Not when he truly believed that her words when she came to after the sleeping pills had been a plea to Jacob to keep him away from her.
He didn't come off the roof for the better part of two days, determined that he deserved to hear every second of what she went through inside. He dug his fingers into the shingles and endured it, his teeth grinding and his eyes staring straight ahead.
Even had he been capable of tears, he wouldn't have allowed them to fall. That would be another blessed release he didn't feel he deserved.
Things might have continued in that vein forever if not for the familiar hand that eventually landed on his shoulder.
Esme.
He hadn't even noticed when she arrived home.
And he hated himself for that, too, because what if the presence approaching had been not Esme but him? Albert. The monster of his own making that was after Bella.
When Bella was screaming in terror, he wasn't even effective as a guard, apparently.
Esme sat beside him on the roof for a long time, hours, not saying a word. Just waiting. Her thoughts were nonspecific, but it was clear she was thrilled to have him home, despite his current state. And she was worried about him.
Rosalie was home too, he finally noticed. And she was pissed. That wasn't unusual. What did surprise him was that she was pissed on his behalf...and on Bella's. He hadn't heard Rosalie so murderous since she first woke up as a vampire, hellbent on revenge. She didn't go near Bella or even speak to her. But she had fiercely decided she would help protect her, just the same. He was grateful.
He also now knew what Rosalie and Esme had gone to Seattle to observe.
Newborn vampires. Just a handful of them, five or so. But they were on a rampage, their violence seemingly unchecked, in a way that was chilling because it could eventually bring the Volturi far too close to Forks for comfort — especially if their creator wasn't finished yet. Another threat to Bella was a thing he couldn't handle right then, especially a threat like the Volturi.
Esme and Rosalie had not been able to ascertain who had sired the newborns, not before Carlisle called and suggested they return home to help keep watch over Bella, as well as to help manage him.
Slowly, with that mystery to focus on, the last of his shock started to wear off. He turned to look at Esme beside him, finally truly focusing on her, and she smiled.
"Come with me, son. Your Bella is safe in the house with Carlisle and your sisters, for now, and we won't be going far. I have something I need to show you."
If it was anyone other than Esme, whose thoughts told him exactly what he had done to her, as well, when he took off for Brazil, he'd have refused to budge.
But it wasn't anyone else. It was the woman he had called Mother for nearly a century and whom he had already hurt deeply. Bella was, indeed, safe inside what amounted to a vampire fortress, with one werewolf and three vampires to protect her — Carlisle, Alice, and Rosalie.
And he was certainly no use, not if venturing inside could lead to Bella trying to swallow a handful of sleeping pills to escape his presence again.
So when Esme jumped off the roof and landed lightly on the ground, beckoning him to follow, he went.
She led him to a small cottage in the woods, just off the outskirts of their property. It was ramshackle, run down, in desperate need of maintenance. A lot of maintenance.
They were close enough to the main Cullen house that he could still hear the thoughts of his family and Jacob, if he so chose. He wouldn't have wanted to stray any farther from Bella. But they were still far enough away that he wouldn't be able to hear spoken voices, at least not at normal conversational tone. If someone were to raise their voice, he should still hear it.
He would definitely hear screams.
Esme unexpectedly produced a key and walked right up to the front door, turning it in the lock and pushing the door open. It creaked horribly.
"Come inside. I want to show you something."
The inside wasn't in much better condition, but strangely, he found it soothing. There was something calming about the inside of the empty little house. It had great potential. The type of place he might have some day dreamed of sharing with Bella. It was cozy. Small without feeling cramped. Homey.
God, he had wanted something like that with her so badly he could taste it, before everything fell apart.
His suspicious eyes landed on Esme, whose thoughts immediately gave her up. She was nearly without guile, so keeping him out of her head was not a thing she generally attempted. She truly had nothing to hide.
"I bought it," she told him, her eyes smiling. "Nearly a year ago now. I intended it as a wedding gift for you and Bella. Alice told me you were getting ready to ask her, not long before you left. She and I were going to fix it up and surprise you. Or surprise Bella, at any rate, and try to surprise you. But I think now it might serve a different purpose."
His brow furrowed, confused, trying to piece together the disjointed fragments of ideas in her mind. "You think I should stay here. Clean it up."
Esme walked toward him and took his hand. He tensed but didn't pull away this time. "No. I want you to come home. But if you refuse to do that so long as you believe Bella fears you, as Alice has told me you will, then this is the next best option. It's certainly better than staying on the roof forever. You would still be close enough to protect her, and you would have something to occupy your time. We could take turns helping you, if you like, after your brothers return."
He looked around, defeated, and sighed. "What's the point, Esme? If Bella's afraid of me, what does this place even matter?"
Esme reached up and smoothed his hair. "Maybe it doesn't. But then again, maybe it does. Maybe it would help you remember that no matter how bad things look, they can always be fixed if one is willing to put in the work."
He ruthlessly pushed down the surge of hope her words sparked within him. "What if some things can't be fixed?"
He wasn't talking about the house, and Esme knew it.
She smiled at him, giving him one last thing to think about before she turned to walk away, leaving him to his thoughts. "Then again, what if they can?"
She left him there, hoping he would stay, which he humored her by doing so, at least for the moment.
Experimentally, he tested his senses. He could still hear Esme's hopeful thoughts all the way back to the main house, almost as if they faded the farther away she got. He could hear Jacob too, alternately worrying about Bella and grousing about the smell of vampires. At this distance, even Jacob's thoughts were at a tolerable level, rather than being screamed at him.
That much was welcome. He'd had quite enough of Jacob's ruminations on what it felt like to hold Bella in his arms when she broke down in tears after her nightmares, the feel of her chest crushed up against his.
The surge of violence that coursed through him at that thought was sobering. Esme was right. He needed something to occupy his time. Every second he sat on the roof listening to Jacob inside his room with Bella, the possibility of him flying through the window in a jealous rage and making things even worse by attempting to peel Jacob's skin from his body only increased.
That knowledge still wouldn't have been enough to make him stay. He was still going to walk right back out the door, Esme's wishes notwithstanding, and return to his post at the main house.
But her parting words rang in his ears, giving him pause.
He had a tendency toward the pessimistic and dramatic. He knew this about himself. Emmett was quite fond of pointing it out.
But he also knew that he'd never wanted anything as much in his very long life as he wanted a stable future with Bella. He wanted to be optimistic about that. Even now, knowing about Albert — knowing how very much he didn't deserve her — that spark of hope in him refused to die.
Esme's words — the thought of a home belonging to him and Bella — resonated strongly. He couldn't so easily walk back out the door of what should have been his and Bella's home one day. He couldn't bring himself to just give up on it. To do so would feel almost like giving up on her.
He was still weighing optimism against reality when his phone chirped in his pocket. He pulled it out and stilled when he read the screen.
Everything you need to get started is already in the basement — spackle, tools, and primer. You'll be glad you did. Love, Alice
That cryptic assurance tipped the scale. Alice had a hand in this. If she still saw the slightest possibility of his chance for a happy future in this house — translation: one involving Bella — he was going to take it.
It would be a welcome change to fix something, for once, instead of destroying it. And there was one decided advantage to the modern world over the era of his birth: anything he didn't already know how to do himself, he could easily do an internet search and figure it out.
It was past 2 in the morning, hours after Esme left him alone, that his world next turned upside down.
He had already finished patching up the bathroom walls and priming them, and he was just starting to clean and prep the smaller of the bedrooms to repeat that process — at human speed, because he was milking this illusion of normalcy for all it was worth — when he heard a familiar mind approaching from outside.
It had been all quiet from the main house for hours. Bella was surely asleep and had not yet woken screaming. He'd tried to respectfully tune out the rest of his family's thoughts from their own rooms — especially the more amorous ones from Carlisle and Esme, who had recently been reunited after her trip to Seattle. Jacob was out cold, and Alice had found it necessary to go for a quick hunt, after spending so much time with Bella the past 48 hours.
He stayed out of Rosalie's head, as per his usual habit, just on general principle and personal preference.
But he was keeping his ears open to any sound of trouble — he had already tested the theory that he'd hear any voices over normal conversational level. He was also listening for any unfamiliar minds appearing within his range, so he had it covered. If something were to go wrong, there would be no way he could miss it, or so he thought.
So the fact that Rosalie seemed to suddenly pop up out of nowhere, just at the edge of the woods, her brain screaming 'Edward and Alice are going to kill me for this', was not exactly comforting. She was headed his way at top speed.
Fear gripped him by the throat. Something must have happened with Bella — what other reason would he have for wanting to commit murder?
He dropped his paintbrush back into the tray with very little concern for the splatters it left, dashed to the front door, wrenched it open...
And then he froze into place immediately, because Bella was standing on his doorstep.
Her scent hit him like a wrecking ball in the fresh air, no longer obscured by the paint fumes he'd been breathing in the unventilated rooms, a smell strong enough that it had hidden her approach.
She was wearing blue jeans and a soft hoodie Alice had brought from her house, and aside from the split lip and bruising on her face, she looked so much like her normal self that it squeezed his heart like a vise.
And he'd come alarmingly close to running right over her.
Her hand had been raised to knock, but she startled and jumped back a step at his abrupt appearance. Her eyes went wide, and her heartrate accelerated wildly. He couldn't even imagine what she must think. He probably looked like a madman, the way he'd been poised to plow right through her before he thank God registered her presence just in time.
He probably didn't look any better than she did. His jaw was hanging open, and he was more than a little horrified at having scared her again. "Bella! I — my God — I'm so sorry. I was just —"
He was just what? He had no clue.
Make a fool of yourself if that's really you, Edward, he heard his sister's sarcastic thoughts, and was reminded of Rosalie's presence. She hadn't stayed at the door with Bella. She'd hurriedly dropped her off at the door and then wisely retreated to the edge of the woods out of sight, all too aware he was going to be angry with what she had done. But she had at least stuck around long enough to verify he was really Edward and not the impostor.
Just the fact that he glared directly out at a hidden Rosalie over Bella's head, when he heard her thoughts, was proof enough of his identity for Rosalie. If he wasn't so painfully aware of a nervous Bella two feet in front of him, he'd have been fiercely snarling at his sister. Of all the reckless, dangerous stunts she could have pulled, to bring Bella out of the house alone, unprotected... to drag a terrified Bella there and force her to face him...
Chill, Edward, Rosalie thought in his direction. This was her doing. The girl's been about to come out of her skin for over 48 hours now, worrying that you took off again. The others were all stonewalling her, so she came to me. That took some guts. Trust me, it was either this or she was going to come looking for you herself.
It wasn't that he thought Rosalie would lie to him, necessarily, but he knew her well enough to know that she would definitely paint the picture the way that made her look best. So as she was "explaining," he did a deeper dive into her memory of the events than he would normally find palatable.
If she had done this against Bella's will, in any way... he had no idea what he might actually be capable of.
But Rosalie was telling him the truth. This was all Bella's doing, and Rosalie was all too happy to let him see that through her eyes.
Bella had waited until Jacob was asleep and Alice was gone. And then there had been an almost inaudible knock at Rosalie's door. She'd opened it to find a very nervous-looking Bella, fully dressed down to her shoes and hoodie, with a shaking finger over her lips as if begging Rosalie not to say anything that would out her intentions to the rest of the house.
She looked so scared in Rosalie's memory that it twisted his guts up.
She'd handed Rosalie a tiny scrap of paper with a trembling hand, because she was smart enough to know she couldn't whisper quietly enough to evade vampire hearing.
He caught a glimpse of that note in Rose's memory.
I have to see him. Please — will you help me?
Rosalie, he was a little surprised to see, had been deeply impressed. That didn't happen often, and certainly not in relation to Bella.
Impressed enough, in fact, that she had picked up Bella without a word and went straight out the window with her, only a few moments before dropping her at his door.
His anger with Rosalie fled. She had indeed believed that Bella intended to sneak out at her first opportunity to go looking for him herself, and he knew from experience just how frighteningly possible that prospect was if Bella had made up her mind. This was by far the better course.
The very thought of her venturing out by herself to look for him was enough by itself to drive him mad. Did she not understand the danger? Did she not realize what could happen to her without the protection of either him or his family, or even Jacob? Albert was still out there somewhere, and he could likely look like anybody.
But even that paled in comparison to the more important question: after what had happened the last time he saw her, when she had seemingly begged Jacob to keep him away from her, why was Bella willingly within a hundred miles of him — much less alone with him in the dark?
What if she reacted badly to him again? He briefly panicked and considered yelling for Rosalie to come back, but it was a little late for that. Rosalie was already halfway back to the main house, already on the phone with Emmett, whom she hadn't seen in days, and it was far past time to tune that out.
So he turned his eyes back toward Bella, who had been waiting patiently for him to finish his one-sided "conversation" with Rosalie. She'd seen him do it enough times to know what was happening, he realized, and something about that hit him directly in the heart.
She knew him. Knew what he was and all of his unique eccentricities, and she simply accepted them. She always had. In his 100-plus years, he could say that of very few. None aside from his family.
How had he ever thought he could stay away, no matter how much he didn't deserve her? Something so simple as this, and he was putty in her hands.
Her gaze hit him with a near physical impact. Just the fact that she was there in front of him, actually looking at him steadily, near took his breath away.
She smiled at him, when she realized she had his full attention, but it was a nervous smile. "Hi."
"Hi," he managed to respond, and it was time to pull himself together before he scared her off. His eyes were drinking her in like she was water and he'd just crawled across the desert. Not really the relaxed atmosphere he should probably be going for if he wanted to set her at ease. Which he did, he realized, more than anything — his own earlier promises to himself to stay away from her notwithstanding.
Her eyes glanced past him, past his arm that blocked the doorway like he was afraid she would try to break in, peeking into the rundown cottage. "May I come in?"
The fact that she asked that like she was a little afraid his answer might be no — it damn near broke his heart. He dropped his arm and stepped aside so fast that he was momentarily afraid he might have startled her again. "Of course. I'm sorry. Yes, come in. Please."
It was awkward, and it was tense, and he was way too formal, especially when she carefully made her way through the door. Nervousness radiated off of her in near tangible waves as she stepped past him. He tried not to obsess over why. Even ignoring what had happened to her, they had still barely seen one another in seven months. And of course, what happened to her couldn't be ignored.
He edged even farther to the side as she passed, gave her a little space.
She stopped a few steps inside, standing with her back to him and the door, just looking around the cottage's empty little living room for so long that he felt compelled to break the silence.
"I could leave the door open, if you'd be more comfortable..." he offered, but his voice trailed off uncertainly.
She at least turned to look at him, her brow furrowing. "No. It's okay. I won't stay long."
He wasn't sure what that meant, and it only increased the heavy tension in his frame.
It had been wildly encouraging that Bella was so determined to find him. But with that declaration from her that this would be a brief visit, he was getting worried.
The utterly crushing thought had just occurred to him that her reason for seeking him out could very well be to formally end things between them, once and for all.
If his heart hadn't already splintered into millions of pieces, more times than he could count in the past months, it would have then. Because that possibility made far more sense than any other reason he could think of for her to be there.
His voice wasn't cooperating, so he just nodded noncommittally in reply, before closing the door as gently as he could. He stepped away from in front of it, moving back toward the center of the room, giving her a clear exit route that he could not honestly say he was fully willing to let her use. But he didn't want her to feel trapped, either. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
No...please don't do this, his heart screamed. Don't tell me it's over. Not here, not in what should have been our first home. Please...give me another chance. I won't fail you again, I swear it...
He said none of that. He felt like a condemned man, waiting for the door of the gallows to drop from beneath his feet.
"I smell paint," Bella said, unexpectedly, and it threw him so completely that it loosened his tongue.
"Oh. Um, yeah. I was painting. One of the other rooms, I mean. Not this one."
Well, it had loosened his tongue slightly. Apparently, he still wasn't capable of much more than stating the blatantly obvious. Bella was holding all the cards, and until she decided to show them, he was at an utter loss.
"What is this place, anyway?" she asked curiously.
His hand went to the back of his neck as he looked away. A nervous half-chuckle escaped him. He considered hiding the truth, feeling a little concerned about her reaction. But his on-again/off-again tell-Bella-the-truth policy was apparently on again.
He might still leave out some of the details, like exactly why a honeymoon cottage would have been necessary for them, had he wed her and changed her like he had wanted.
"It's, um... it was originally supposed to be for us."
He finally managed to make eye contact, one nervous hand still rubbing the back of his neck, and counted it a success that she only looked confused. He'd take confused over horrified.
"Us?"
He got it it. He did. But Bella's newfound desire to have everything spelled out in no uncertain terms had a way of making things uncomfortable.
"Yeah. You and me."
She was nodding her head slowly, biting her lip, giving the empty room a closer look as she processed that information. Not for the first time in the last few days, he would have gladly traded one of his limbs to be able to hear her thoughts.
"So you own it?" she asked, after a moment, when she turned back toward him.
He watched her carefully. She seemed merely curious, if a bit guarded, so he indulged her.
"Something like that. Technically, it belongs to Esme. She and Alice originally planned to give it to us as an eventual wedding gift. But I've decided to go ahead and buy it from Esme myself, fix it up."
And that was true. He'd texted Esme an hour after he started working on it and expressed that intention. For him, that was the very height of optimism. And it had thrilled his mother to no end, although she'd have preferred just to give it to him.
But he liked the symbolism of paying for it himself, doing the work with his own two hands — buying and building a home for the girl that he still hoped to bring there someday and carry over the threshold as his wife. That imagery appealed strongly to his early 1900s human side, the man he would have been had it not been for the Spanish Influenza.
Just as he had been starting to slightly relax into the conversation, Bella's demeanor suddenly became as uncomfortable as he had felt originally. Her hands clenched into fists and disappeared into the hoodie pockets; she shifted her weight, drifted away from him a step.
"You mean, you're buying it just for yourself?" She searched his face expectantly, fidgeted nervously.
The only thing he was certain of was that there was a right answer to that question and a very wrong answer. He just had no clue which was which. Did she want to know if he still intended it for the two of them? Because he most certainly did. Would that knowledge please her or terrify her?
He decided to go with the simple truth again, for lack of clear direction otherwise.
"For now, yes, it's for me. I just thought it might make things easier for you if I stayed down here for a little while."
The pure hurt that filled her face had him taking a step in her direction. He'd been trying to set her at ease. Instead, he'd misstepped somewhere terribly, again, and he wasn't sure where.
"I see." She wasn't looking at him anymore, and she was backing away, in the direction of the door. Were those tears in her eyes?
"Bella?" he tried desperately, but got no response. "Please wait."
He barely managed to keep his feet planted, after that initial step toward her. Grabbing her would probably be one of the worst things he could do right then, but he was equally sure that letting her run out that door without fixing whatever he'd just broken might actually be worse.
"I should go," she half-whispered, her cheeks flaming red. "I'm sorry I bothered you."
And his time to decide what to do was up, because she had turned around and started walking toward the door at a rapid pace.
Her running from him was bad on many levels, not the least of which was that it fired off every predatory instinct he possessed to give chase. He put that side of his nature firmly in check, at least enough that he managed to keep his hands off her. Instead, when he easily beat her to the door, he stood to the side and held his wrist out to block the door handle, not even putting his body between her and the door.
It was the least restrictive he could manage, at the moment, but still not enough.
She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes going wide as she took a step back from the door, staring up at him in undisguised fear.
"Edward?" she sounded terrified, her eyes scanning his face frantically like she was looking for the most minute difference. He knew exactly what she was looking for, what she was afraid of.
He took his hand off the doorknob at once, held his hands out to his sides, forced himself to keep his voice calm when what he really wanted to do was put his fist through the door in unbridled frustration. He'd managed to scare her twice already, just in the brief time since Rosalie dropped her at his door.
"It's me, Bella. You didn't hear it, but Rosalie made sure it was really me before she left, okay? If you want to leave, I'll escort you safely back to the main house myself, or I can call Rose or Esme to come get you, if you prefer. I only want to know what happened. What did I say to upset you?"
His calm tone and his honesty worked, regardless of the fact that he was truly anything but calm. Bella still seemed just as upset, her eyes still teary, but the fear had mercifully disappeared, at least, now that she had been reassured he was really him. She took a deep, calming breath — and then proceeded to knock the breath right out of him with three little sentences.
"You don't have to buy another house, Edward," she told the floor between them, and her refusal to look at him was going to be what drove him over the edge, if her words didn't accomplish it first. Her voice was suffused with such bitter hurt that it made his heart ache in sympathy. "I'll ask Jacob to take me home with him tomorrow morning. You can have your room back."
Just the suggestion of her going home with Jacob, out of both his sight and his reach, was nearly his undoing. The urge to grab her and hold on for dear life grew stronger, redoubled itself, nearly consumed him. He put his hands on his own hips instead.
She had come to him tonight, he reminded himself sternly, and apparently not to end things if she was so hurt about him moving out of the main house. His heart soared with that thought. All hope wasn't lost, at least if he could find it in himself to handle this the right way. Which included neither beating his head against the wall nor yanking her up against him and trying to kiss the absurd insecurities right out of her. Both of which were too tempting.
"You think I'm staying out here because I'm trying to get away from you." It wasn't a question, really. More of a mystified, very confusing statement of fact, because he knew it was true but how could she think that? She answered it anyway.
"Aren't you?" Her face was still flaming. Her chin went up, and a spark of defiant challenge entered her eyes. He was glad to see it, honestly, that fight in her — even if he could practically see the walls going up around her heart, with him on the outside. "I haven't seen you for two days, but you've been this close the whole time? You have your family lie to me about where you are? I mean, I don't understand. If you want to be away from me so badly, why did you even come back? You could have just stayed in Brazil. Or you could have just sent me to Jacob's house in the first place. At least he wants me there."
That did it. Edward's jaw clenched with determination, because this was an issue they were clearing up, and they were doing it right then. He'd made this particular mistake for the last time.
Bella was obviously volatile and unpredictable at the moment, insecure in the extreme, and she had every right to be. She'd been through hell, both by his abandonment of her and then her subsequent attack by a monster with his own face. The chances were high that he would upset her again, at some point, but it sure as hell wasn't going to be because she thought he didn't care. He took a step closer. His voice was firm.
"Bella, I do want you here, and I want that a great deal more than Jacob Black is even capable of. The only reason I left you all those months ago was that I thought I was protecting you. I'm only staying out here now because I know you feel safer without me in the house. You said so yourself."
Her confusion was unfeigned. He didn't have to be able to read her mind to see that. "I never said anything like that!"
"You did," he countered, gently. "You asked Jacob to keep me away from you."
She seemed angry, almost livid. "No, I did not! Did he tell you that?"
This was quickly spiraling out of control. Her heart was racing, her body starting to tremble with rage. He held his hands out, palms facing her. He kept his tone soft, non-confrontational.
"He didn't have to. I heard it myself. I'm not trying to argue with you, Bella. I'm sure you don't remember, and you didn't even realize I was there to hear it. But you told him the reason you overdosed on sleeping pills was because of me, because you didn't want me here."
Her eyes slammed shut, a fresh blush spreading up her chest. "Oh my God." She looked legitimately horrified.
He wanted to give her an out, tell her he understood, that he didn't blame her for not wanting him near her — anything to get that guilty, self-loathing look off of her face. But she beat him to the punch, so instantly contrite that he could barely take it.
"I'm so, so sorry, Edward. I don't remember any of that. It was a really stupid thing to do, I know. But I didn't take the extra pills because you were there. I did it because I didn't want you to hear me when...when I slept. The last seven months, with you gone, I — I just haven't slept well. I didn't want you to notice and...and blame yourself."
She didn't come right out and admit to her nighttime terrors — she definitely was still downplaying things for his sake, and they needed to have a serious conversation about that — but the pieces clicked together in his head as he replayed both Jacob's and her exact words over again in his mind.
"Were you trying to kill yourself?"
"No...I had to...he's here...can't let him hear...help me...can't let him hear."
Not "here". Hear. Don't let him hear.
That revelation, combined with the fact that he already knew why she had taken the pills the first time around, after James...
"You were afraid you would have a nightmare in front of me," he breathed, and saw the truth of it when she guiltily looked away, biting her lip. The realization floored him. "That's also why you didn't want to go back to sleep without being sedated. You were...trying to protect me."
She bit her lip, and then shyly offered him the same gift of complete honesty he'd been trying and failing since the beginning of the whole ordeal to give her.
"Yes and no. I mean, I didn't want to hurt you. But mostly, I was afraid you would blame yourself and leave again. That's what scares me most."
He was reeling. Bella had swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills to keep him from hearing something she thought would hurt him. Because she was afraid of him leaving her. Because that was even more frightening to her than the vengeful vampires bent on assaulting and murdering her.
He couldn't have loved her or hated himself more than he did in that moment, wallowing in the realization that when he had been torturing himself by giving her the space he had truly believed she needed, he had inadvertently been torturing her too, making her terrified at every moment that he was about to disappear — which he had then done anyway, and managed to hurt her again in the process.
He nearly groaned with frustration. His guilt was his own and well deserved. But he had let it hurt Bella, too, and that was unforgivable.
Another frightening thought danced fleetingly across his awareness: if she had kept quiet about both her nightmares and the trauma he'd caused by his abandonment, what else was she hiding to protect him?
He intended to find out, but not right then. For now, putting an end to the pain he'd been causing her took top priority.
He took one more step closer, so close he could feel the warmth coming off of her. He didn't touch her, but he held her gaze captive, intentionally drawing her in — he wasn't above trying to dazzle her if it kept her eyes on him. This was too important.
"I want you to listen to me," he told her earnestly. "I'm not going anywhere — not ever again."
A flash of guilt crossed his mind that that might not be completely truthful. Because if he found no other way to stop Albert and Victoria, he had not taken going to the Volturi off the table. His life wasn't too high a price to pay to protect her — not from what Albert Rowe would surely do to her. But that was the only way he'd leave her, now that he knew she wanted him there. And for the first time, he was willing to trust that Alice was right, that he had already changed the future once and he could do it again.
"I'm right here, and I'm staying," he emphasized again, as much for his own benefit as hers. "So you don't have to hide anything from me, Bella. I already knew you would likely have nightmares, and I know they're going to be about me. I'm so sorry that you have to go through that. But all I really want is to be there for you when you do."
Her eyes filled up with tears, her teeth twisting her lower lip. She wanted to believe him. He could see it in her eyes. But she had been hurt deeply by his absence — both of his absences: the one in Brazil and, more recently, since he'd been home. That hurt and disbelief in her eyes twisted his heart into knots.
"Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life," he dropped his tone to barely above a whisper, quiet and intimate. "I know that now. I nearly destroyed us both, and I can never take that back. I'd give absolutely anything to undo it, sweetheart, but I can't. What I can do is swear to you that I will never fail you like that again."
"No," she told him, her face stricken, panicked. "Don't do that! Don't make promises to me. I can't take it."
And that hurt, but he couldn't say he didn't understand. He had broken so many, though not intentionally. But that ended, here and now.
Ever so slowly, giving her time to see his intention and stop him if she wanted, he brought a hand up to gently cup her cheek. It felt like electricity sparking through his entire body when he finally made contact. It was the first time he'd touched her since returning home, at least that she had been coherent and aware of. His thumb softly brushed the bruised skin on her cheek — a sight that still shot murderous violence through him like a drug. He ignored it, keeping his tone gentle.
"I know it's going to take time for you to trust me again, but I need you to believe me on this one point: You are all I care about, my only priority. There's nothing and nowhere in this world for me without you. It doesn't have to be a promise, if you prefer. But I won't leave you again, Bella — not now that I know you want me to stay."
He lost her gaze. She tilted her head down, looking away from him uneasily — a sure sign there was still something bothering her.
"What is it?" he asked, so gently that she actually glanced back up. He drew her a little closer, brought his other hand up so that he framed her face in both his hands with the lightest touch imaginable, tilting her chin back up toward him. "Tell me." He smiled softly in encouragement.
"When you first came home..." she started and then trailed off, shaking her head, like she thought better of whatever she was about to say.
He caressed her soft skin with his thumbs. "Whatever it is, love, you can say it, even if you think it might hurt me. I'm not going anywhere."
She drew a shaky breath, but took him at his word, which he counted a victory. "You said — when I asked you if you were staying, you said you would stay as long as I asked you to. I just don't want — I mean..."
Understanding dawned. "You're afraid that I'm only staying out of some sense of obligation," he murmured, and the full weight of what he had put her through hit him square in the chest.
He knew it was true even before she nodded nervously, trying to peek at him from under her lashes, like she was afraid to look at him when he confirmed her worst fears.
"Or pity," she admitted quietly.
He'd be damned if he wasn't going to get through to her, once and for all.
"Isabella Marie Swan, I'd marry you this moment if I thought you would have me," he told her sincerely and watched her eyes widen.
He'd started this. He was seeing it through.
"I've wanted that for a very long time, and nothing has changed for me. If you don't believe me, you should go through my dresser drawers when you get back to my room tonight. You'll find a small gold giftbox with your name on it, one that I had been planning to give you very soon, before I had to leave. I might have even worked up the courage to give it to you on your birthday that night, if all of this hadn't happened. You're welcome to open it, but I'll tell you what's inside. It's a little black box, holding my mother's wedding ring. And it's yours the very moment you want it."
Pure panic was blooming across her features. "Edward, I — I don't...I can't..."
He leaned in to press a soft kiss to her forehead before releasing her, but he stayed close. "I know you're not ready now," he told her calmly. "I'm not trying to overwhelm you. My point is that I've never stopped loving you, we will get through this together, and I'll still be here when you are ready, no matter how long that takes. So in short, you are welcome here, Bella, in my room or in this cottage or anywhere else I am — very welcome. And you're completely safe with me. You do know that, don't you?"
He was supposed to be the one assuring her, but his own insecurities spilled out with that last pleading question. He needed to hear her say she wasn't afraid of him — needed it with a desperation that consumed him.
The uncertainty that filled her eyes was sobering. But again, she seemed determined to tell him the truth.
"Yes. I know that. I mean, my head knows it." She hesitated, her lip trembling in a way that made his guts clench because he knew something horrible was coming. "But Edward, he..." she stopped, closing her eyes on a shudder.
"He looked exactly like me," he said for her, quietly, not wanting to make her say it. "I know. I know, and I'm so sorry."
Her eyes opened, and the distress in them tore at his heart. The breathless terror in her voice was worse.
"No! I mean, yes, but not just that. He made me...he made me say your name. Over and over. He made me look in his eyes and say your name when he...when he hurt me."
Edward's eyes slammed shut and he inhaled sharply, as he found himself unexpectedly fighting for control over his rage again. He hadn't expected the discussion to turn toward details of her attack in any way — not tonight — much less that particular punch to the gut.
That detail hadn't been part of Jacob's memories, either. That implied that the worst of her attack hadn't begun just moments before Jacob arrived on the scene, as he had fervently hoped. This was new information, and the cruelty of it was horrifying.
"Bella..." he whispered, his voice a plea, not even sure what he was pleading for. For her to tell him more, or to stop.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice shaking. "I shouldn't have told you that."
That was all it took for him to push his own feelings aside. She was his everything, the love of his life, his mate — his to protect and take care of. And right now, she needed him to be strong.
He opened his eyes and focused on her. "No. That's exactly the kind of thing you should tell me," he replied softly, if not altogether steadily. "I'm sorry. You took me by surprise, that's all. Why don't we sit down, Bella? We should talk."
TO BE CONTINUED...