Esme was still young and was able to outrun me but she stayed close. When we were almost to our destination I grabbed her hand to stop her. She reeled around into my arms and I cupped my hands over her eyes.
"What's going on?" she laughed.
"I don't want to spoil it for you," I replied. I led her to a bridge that passed over Lake Erie and lead her to the edge still holding my hands over her eyes.
"Now don't look just yet. Keep your eyes closed," I told her. A smile spread across her face and my stomach began to flutter. I reached for her hands and slowly let her down onto a ledge below. After I knew she was safe I jumped down next to her all too excitedly. The sun was rising in the east and I wouldn't let her miss this for the world.
"You can open them now," I whispered in her ear as she slowly raised her eyelids toward the growing light of on the horizon. Her mouth opened in awe and she looked all too beautiful.
"It's... amazing," she gasped. Her eyes turned to look at me. I stared deep into her amber eyes that had been gradually changing to gold.
I felt exposed. Her gaze was all too alluring. I couldn't pull away. "So are you." I paused. "I've never met anyone like you and I don't think I ever will." My words faded as our lips collided.
This was unlike any feeling I had ever experienced. Emotions ran wild and I had trouble containing them all. Passion, desire, excitement, joy, peace... love. Sheer and utter happiness ran through every vessel in my body. I had come alive after 250 years and this girl was the reason. Our lips moved perfectly together, shaping one another's perfectly. We were two pieces of iron being welded together by the fiery passion that invaded our souls. I couldn't ever be separated from her now. She was what I had lived for, who I had been destined to be with. The heavens had blessed me in this condemned state, with an angel who was all but evil. How could vampires be evil when there was such majesty as this to prove me wrong? And I had been wrong.
After first becoming a vampire I had tried to kill myself and had not succeeded. I would have to live with the being that I had become. But something in me knew that I could wield the aggressions that came from my new life and that some good could come of this. And this was her. My salvation had come, the goodness that resulted from my suffering. My reason for eternity. She pulled away all too quickly and I felt as though a part of me had been ripped away. She placed her hands on my chest and she studied the angles and curves of my body. I longed to wrap my arms around her and hold her as tight as my strength could allow.
"Carlisle," she whispered. Her eyes echoed the sweetness she had voiced. "You don't know how long I have waited for this. How much I've wanted to tell you..." It looked as if she could cry. Her forehead wrinkled and she bit her lips. Her head fell to my chest and I wrapped my arms around her and placed my cheek on her hair.
"For as long as you have waited, I have waited much longer." I said.
We stayed like this for an immeasurable moment. Time did not exist in our sphere of much awaited love and passion. It wasn't until the sun began to set that we released each other and began back home.
We held hands the entire way back. The need to feel each other's presence was evident in every movement we made. Every step was a step closer to her, every breath was a breath of her scent, every gaze was a gaze in her direction. No longer were we constrained by the biting curiosity of what we felt toward one another. We had declared our love for each other and there was no way to deny it. In the span of one day, we had been altered invariably.