Because of a great deal of insistence, and the fact that people seemed to have a generally good reaction (other than the crying, which as a strong emotion I would suppose would be a good reaction) to the first chapter, I'm going to have to attempt this again. I don't think this one is as good as the first. Edwards point of view now, because I can't see where else this story would go. I have not read Midnight Sun, so I might not be getting close to his point of view.
The second time I saw Bella, I thought it was a mistake.
She's so average in some ways, basic hair color, basic height. But that scent. That intoxicating ambrosia of a scent. I couldnt' help but notice her when she stepped into the building, let alone the room. All around me were the scents of a late night classroom. The boys in the back smoking weed, the old man who smelled like burnt rubber and coffee, the young woman in the front who wasn't wearing underwear. They were all building on top of each other, scent after scent, until I was almost numb to any new fragrance. Until she stepped inside.
I had to tell her I didn't love her. It was the only way. I thought she'd see past it, that she would insist I was wrong. But leave it to Bella to doubt my love. Leave it to Bella to have such low self esteem that she could not read a blatant lie. I wanted to blame her, I really did, but there are things in this life that you must take your own accountability for. I was trying to save her life, and if not that, then at least her soul. She was in too deep with my family, she was coming closer and closer to the life I was going to lead. I couldn't have her there.
I remembered the forest perfectly, the scent of salt in the air, her broken eyes, my lies. Everthing I said I instantly wanted to retract, but I had to keep her safe. I loved her too much for this.
The plan was simple. I was going to wait until she died. I was going to number my days with hers. I may not let her be part of my fate, but I would share hers. When she died, I would let the Volturi tear me apart for breaking their rules. I didn't care.
I hoped, when I smelled her entering the building that she was going to go to another classroom. Any classroom. The old woman down the hall, the drunk upstairs teaching about particle physics, the young kid barely out of grad school teaching a bunch of jocks about the Renaissance. Any of those classes. Not this math. Not this one.
But I saw her.
In an instant, in a second, I knew she was going to run. My genetics, they sensed her fleeing. They wanted to follow, to take up the hunt after the intoxicating scent that ravaged them once more. She was beautiful, she was perfect, and I was denying myself to say that I didn't immediately recognize her.
She made some excuse I didn't hear to the teacher, who nodded like it made sense, and then bolted like I was after her. I wouldn't. I couldn't. She deserved better than an undead teenage boy. She needed someone she could grow old with, someone who could give her children, someone that could make love to her without rendering her apart. I wanted her so much I was willing to let her go, to let her run.
I took me two seconds to realize that Alice had to have known this would happen.
'
How could she willingly endanger Bella like that?
I fumed for the rest of the class, a luckily brief lesson. The teacher was thinking about internet porn the whole time, a disgusting diversion that managed to interest me in between thinking of ways to punish Alice.
I got home, and the family was already packed, and Jasper had Alice protectively behind him.
"You knew," I shouted, and felt the edges of an unreal calm build on the edge of my mind. It wasn't strong enough to sedate me. I was too furious, "I could've hurt her."
"I would've seen that, Edward. Don't think I would let you kill my best friend just because you're too stubborn to just change her."
"I'm never going to change her Alice. Never."
"You don't know that."
"Edward back off," the voice was strong, sure, and came from Jasper. Though he spent the most of his time in these arguments keeping silent, assured that their leaving Bella was because of him, this time he defended his mate.
"You told me not to look for her anymore Edward. You told me to not watch her future. Thats what I'm doing. You can't get mad at me because you accidentally crossed paths," she was thinking about the National Anthem in Japanese. Backwards. She was hiding something.
"We have to leave. Now. Where's Carlisle?" I ran to the study to find that Carlisle and Esme were finishing packing.
"We know, leaving now. One of these days you might try to just talk to Bella."
"No," I felt like I exploded, and ran into the woods. I couldn't be near Bella. I couldn't be trusted with her life. I wasn't worthy of her. I wasn't going to do it.
The third time I saw Bella, I was sure Alice had something to do with it.
I had convinced my family to stay as far away from Forks as possible. And upstate New York. I knew that staying north was a requirement for my family, but if I thought for a second that luck would be against us and Bella would continue life in the north, I would've moved myself to the Isle Esme for the next forty years.
Alice was the one who convinced him to stay with the family. After so many years of searching so desperately for the Cullens, she wasn't willing to part with him. Not yet.
They had spent a year with Tanya's coven in Denali, and even though Tanya typically tried to show her affection for him, this time Carlisle had taken her aside beforehand, told her about his son's heartbreak and that now was not the time to try and present herself as a possible mate.
"Give him a couple of decades, Tanya. You've got forever," Carlisles voice was soft, an obvious attempt not to be heard, but I had been on the look out for him to try and get me to create more than a friendship with Tanya. I could've wept with joy at his conversation with the vampiress if I didn't feel close to breaking. I had forever. I had forever alone.
The year passed quickly, and I found myself mostly sequestered in my room, a piano my only companion. I wouldn't dare to play her lullaby. I couldn't. I played everything other than that, tried my hardest not to play a tune that remotly resemebled her lullaby. For a year, I tried to not think, but that was impossible.
We moved around a little, but Jasper nearly lost his mind on a hiker in the woods in Wyoming, so we had to move again. This time to a suburb outside of Portland. We had moved in quickly into a house on the outskirts of town. This time Jasper wasn't going to school. He felt too hurt by what he could've done to even attempt to go to school in a new place. Alice hadn't tried to talk him out of it, just asked that when they checked in, he come with her to calm down the lot of them. New students usually brought a lot of tension, and the heightened tension was usually a trigger for at least one of them to nearly lose it. Interest was just too tantalizing a scent to ignore. Jasper agreed, for Alice. He would do anything for Alice. It made my still heart break. That kind of devotion.
The school was small, perfect for our purposes. We needed small schools so that not as many questions were asked. The smaller the school, the less you're expected to fragment, to join different cliques and groups. Here, we could just be friends with each other. We were stronger together than apart.
With an aching heart, I recognized that this school was very much like Forks. Small. Almost rural but still suburban. A small selection of ethnic groups. Wide eyed students watching as a group of vampires walked among them, preparing to become part of their number.
I should've noticed her scent, so intoxicating, even if it was matured, much like her. But I was too distracted, too enraptured by the scents of so many others that I didn't know, still trying to resist biting just one.
We made it to the counselors office before I froze.
There she was. Still beautiful, if a little curvier than the last time I saw her. It suited hers in ways I was sure she didn't appreciate. Her eyes glanced over Carlisle, before freezing on mine in a look I was quick to recognize as terror. Finally she understood the danger.
Before she could run, I bolted out of the office. We couldn't stay here. I couldn't do this to her. Jasper followed and I accepted the calm he offered, even as it hit me like a bullet, even if it was so sudden it nearly knocked the breath out of me, except I didn't have breath.
He hovered just in the edge of my periphreal vision, like a subtle thought. I felt the rage build up outsid e of the unnatural calm. Alice. Jasper, sensing my mood shift, or perhaps I was so far gone that I didn't notice I had spoken aloud, moved into my line of sight, his whole body tense.
She was looking out for you Edward. She wants you to be happy. I raged uncontrollably.
"I'm doing this for Bella. She needs to be safe," we were outside now, and I took off at breakneck speeds through the woods. Jasper was behind me, but I was faster. I stopped in a clearing and Jasper came to a stop in front of me.
You're killing yourself like this. You're killing your family like this. Every time you deny how you feel for her, a little bit of Alice dies. She just wants you to be happy. WE ALL want you to be happy. The unnatural calm built up again, and I fought against it with all of my will.
"No. Jasper. No. I want to feel this," I couldn't really cry, but I could scream. Jasper waited until it was over, until I had howled to put a wolf to shame, so much so that all of the anguish was released from my body, so when it stopped I was empty inside. The calm I felt was my own. I let Jasper take me home.
The fourth time I saw Bella, I thought she was a vision sent to haunt me.
The years had been cruel on me. Still physically unravaged by time, I was watching from a distance as she grew older. I was cursed to watch her take comfort in the arms of men, to try and heal the wounds I had so callously created. I wished, not for the first time, that she had found solace in the arms of that dog because at least then I would have some mandatory distance between us.
Carlisle had moved our coven temporarily to Ireland with Siobhan, but that was only for a few years. He eventually wanted to move back to the states. Seven Americans in Ireland was bound to cause undue attention on Siobhan and her family.
In between moving back to the states, to upstate Michigan where the snow as thick and the winters long, Jasper, Emmett, and I went on a hunting trip to South America. While Emmett preferred bears, all of us could stand to consume the strong animals that lived in the Amazon. They were a welcome break from the animals that lived in the north. There is a difference in taste, slight and subtle. The animals in the south, their blood is more exotic, and in the north they're more earthy. Like home. And I wanted to be as far from home as possible before possibly running to Bella again in the states.
I started following her scent before I even realized what it was. The rain was thick, masking everything with the scent of fresh rain. But I caught the smell anyway, the sweet fragrance that was her. She was beautiful.
Age hadn't affected her the way it did others her age. She was beautiful, simple and smoking a cigarette under the eave of the roof. She hadn't caught sight of me. I could back up, run back to Jasper and Emmett, make a run for the states, hope to never run into her again. But she was so intoxicating. I couldn't help myself.
She froze. She always froze, a deer before the kill. So fragile. So human. I wanted her more than anything I've ever wanted in my life.
"Bella," the word sounded broken on my tongue. I couldn't help it if it broke my heart.
"Edward," her voice was small. She was in a bright orange t-shirt, and it showed her slightly matured figure, the rounding of her hips, the size of her chest. Her lips were pouted out, her eyes caught. She couldn't look away. I stepped onto the deck.
"We keep running into each other," I sighed. I wanted to touch her, to know that she was real in this place, that I hadn't imagined her again. She was all I thought about. Her body thrummed at my closeness. I could hear everything. The way her heartbeat quickened, that her breath came faster. She was against the wall, but her body moved towards mine, her instincts drawing her closer to the ultimate predator.
"What are you doing here?" her voice verged on hard, but I could sense the need there, could feel the want there. She wanted me.
"Hunting," The reason wasn't important. I just wanted her. It was her I yearned for, her I needed. She was air. She was life. She was blood. I reached for her. If I could just convince her that I was sincere, that I needed her as much as she once needed me. My fingers slid across her cheek, warm and inviting. She slapped me away. The beast inside warred with me, the thirst all enveloping. I wanted her. I needed her. I would have her. I pulled myself back a little.
"You don't get to come back. You don't get to say what you want to say, and then expect me to just...cave, like I haven't been through enough. I'm a woman now Edward, not some silly girl to be strung along through your twisted little vampire romance," that hurt. Her going inside hurt. I wished now more than ever that I could hear her thoughts, that I could understand what she needed, what she wanted. But still, her thoughts were dark. Silence from inside the building.
I retreated into the forest, coming back to Emmett and Jasper, who had felled a great cat in the forest, who looked at me and at once knew what was wrong.
It'll be okay, Edward. Emmetts voice was a strength in my mind, Jasper willing me into a peaceful lull. I felt broken. But at least she was okay. Maybe she had moved on. I just wished I could as well.
The fifth time I saw Bella, I knew it was going to happen.
I had kept an eye on her. I didn't mean to. It wasn't an intentional thing. She was just so fragile there, hiding behind this strength I knew she didn't have. That man, the man she was with in Brazil, the man she started to live with, he was okay. I wasn't sure he was good enough for her, but I wasn't sure anyone was good enough for her.
I knew about her miscarriages, about how the first one broke her heart, how Alice told me it was going to happen and I had watched from the window after she came from the hospital, about how she had laid there in the bedroom, wrapped in her own grief. How she had only eaten after a week, when her cheeks had hollowed out and her eyes had sunken in her skull. She looked so close to death. I was there for the others, the grim spectre of death on the horizon.
Other than that, I stayed far away from her. I couldnt' bear it if she saw me, in the corner of her eye, if I brought her more grief. Then one day, that changed.
We had gotten the news. Charlie Swan had died. I didnt' want to go to the funeral. Alice said I should pay my respects, for Bella's sake. I knew she was right. Though she never really talked about it, Charlie was one of the few actual parental figures she had, Renee too much of a child to take care of her own. Charlie had been her strength, her family, and now he was dead, shot by some stupid kid.
Carlisle had taken it upon himself to accept the invitation offered by one of the sheriff's deputies who had heard about the Cullens in both a positive and negative light. Charlie had always liked Carlisle, and he would be remiss to miss the mans funeral.
It had taken a great deal of coercion on the part of Alice to get them back me back in Forks. The town was filled with memories. Watching Bella sleep. Running into James and his coven outside of town. The papercut at the house. Seeing her at school for the first time. Everything. It ran together sharply, the emotions, the tastes, the smells, they filled me as if they were happening all at once.
She was at the front, a strange man, about her age, young but not overly so. From the back of his head, I couldnt' recognize her, but when he turned around to talk to the person behind him, I recognized him as the man she was with now. I hoped he treated her right.
I knew Bella didn't want me here, I wished I hadn't come. How had I let Alice talk me into this. It was obviously the wrong decision. She doesn't want me here.
I saw her move out of the viewing room, her father cold in front of her, and I followed after her. I needed to speak to her. I barely made it out of the room, catching the tail end of a growl from the dogs in the front. I recognized Jacob at the front, apparent leadership of the pack, next to his father. He too was unravaged by time, a gift for his shifting abilities. It must be such a terrible reminder of her own mortality to know so many people who would never change, who would remain teenaged for the rest of their lives.
No one was in the hallway, a small and dark affair with deep wood panelling. I could feel her in the bathrooom, just feet from where I stood. I couldn't resist. She was the drug, I was the addict that couldn't stay away.
She was standing in front of the mirror, eyes red with tears, and when she saw me in the reflection, she gripped the sides of the sink with enough strength to turn her knuckles white. She turned around, wiping snot from her nose, beautiful even now.
"What are you doing here Edward," it was cold. Distant.
"Well Carlisle always considered Charlie a friend..." I lamely started out, knowing probably before she did that she would interupt me.
"I know that. But. What.Are. You. Doing. Here," She was angry, stiff with her own loss. I wanted to move to her, to comfort her, but I knew I wasn't wanted. "Today of all days." I didn't want another one of her run ins with me to be here. She deserved more than that. But fate, it would seem, had other plans.
"I'm sorry Bella, I truly am," she stiffened at the name, and I memorized her features. Slightly older. Wrinkles had started growing at the corners of her eyes and I could make out gray hairs in her normally flat brown hair. She moved a little slower, but she was still beautiful. She was still my Bella.
"I don't need this right now Edward. I'm going back to Dylan now," she started walking towards the door, pushing off from the counter she was on. I stopped her with my hand, the fist physical contact we had had in a couple of years. She stopped, looking at me with empty eyes. Outside, I sensed Jasper trying to calm the mood in the room, but it was having little to no effect, this had been a long time coming.
"Dylan?" I knew who it was, but I needed her confirmation, I needed to know from her own lips that she had moved on.
"Dylan Walsh. My husband. We've been married for eight years now," I saw red. Married. The one thing I had wanted from her, the one thing I could never have. Married to the man I had seen with her in Brazil and in Chicago. Her husband. She had married him. She wasn't good enough for her. He didn't deserve her. I didn't realize I had pushed a dent into the door until I saw her expression of both fear and rememberance. I pulled my hand back as if there was a shock. I registered Jaspers confusion, his questions. I ignored them.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting that." I heard Jasper from outside the door. You shouldn't have said that. She's angry now.
"Grow up Edward. I'm going to be a mother soon. I have everything a girl like me needs. Leave me alone," she moved out of the bathroom, past Jasper into the funeral parlor. She was beautiful when she was angry, the flush rising to her cheeks. God, how could I want her this much. I slid against the cool tile of the bathroom, cool to my own chill skin. I just wanted all of this to be over. I loved her so much, and I had to watch as she lived her life, as she slept with another man, as she had children. There was so much I couldn't give her, that he could. I supposed it was I that would have to move on.
The sixth time I saw Bella, she was dying.
Alice had a habit, as of late, of disappearing for random stretches of time. When I would question her about the disappearances, when I would try and read her mind, I would be met with a great assortment of blocks, from her intimate encounters with Jasper, to the Complete Works of Shakespeare in Italian and every vision she had had since she had woken. She was deliberately keeping me out, concentrating on all of the things she knew I wanted to get at.
She would disappear, Jasper her perpetual shadow, for days at a time. And then she was gone for a month.
The family was in rural Wisconsin, playing older for the first time in a long time on a patch of farm land. They were joined by two vampires, a couple named Drusilla and William, who could live off animal blood and were, though they were more commonly known for drinking from humans. They were good company, even though Drusilla was odd and slightly mad, like Alice, just crazier, and William seemed to have a blood lust that verged on homicidal. But they had been alive for quite a while and had stories spanning decades. I listened to them to cut back on my fear that Alice was hiding something important from me. She had done that before.
I had kept tabs on Bella, the loose kind you could keep up over the internet. She had adopted a daughter, a beautiful little girl she had named Alice Esme. Her mother had died. My family had sent flowers. Her husband died, I sent flowers. Even if she was too good for him, she loved him, and in my heart I wanted to thank him for taking care of her, for giving him everything I couldn't. Love. Happiness. A family. Comfort. Everything I was too much of a coward to offer.
But I knew something was wrong when Alice was gone for longer than a weekend, for longer than a short jaunt hunting with her significant other. She was gone for weeks on end, and then I realized she was calling for me.
I already knew what she was going to say when I got the call.
"Bella's dying, Edward. There's nothing I can do," she was quiet, broken, a little guardian angel unable to save her charge.
"Should I come Alice? Will she see me?" I wanted her answer to be yes. I wanted to be there for the woman I could only love from a far.
"She doesn't know it yet, but she wants to see you Edward. You're very important to her," Alice was quiet, assured. I wish I felt that way. Bella. My Bellla was dying.
In all of my life I had never been confronted with my own mortality. Not until Bella. But then a little brunette, out of her element, had made me realize how brief life is, how its supposed to be lived. How I wasn't living it. When you have forever to live you don't stop to admire the brick work or to see the sunrise. You live each day with the knowledge that it will be basically the same as the last. The subtleties of life are lost on you. Until I decided to number my days with her, I had never thought of that. I wanted to bask in my own pain, to live in the anguish that I had forced upon myself, but I was forced to admire the world we were both to leave so soon. It was beautiful. I would miss it.
I went to Chicago, caught a red eye and tried not to breath on the flight. I hated flying. There was too many people in one place, all smelling wonderfully. But it didn't matter. Not this time. This time I was flying to Bella, the women I always loved, who may die thinking I didn't love her if I didn't get there in time. I may not be sure about the existence of God, but I believed in Alice, and I didn't believe she would call me too late to see Bella living.
She lived in a decent enough house. A brownstone, humble and unassuming. How could someone so wonderful live in a place so plain?
I stepped inside. The rest of my family was already there. Alice had called them first? Why? Was I only to have the barest of minutes, the final minute moments before she died? Was I to only have her last breath?
Alice thought it was best, Carlisle thought, his kind topaz eyes turning on his son, Bella wasn't ready until now. She's still angry inside.
Oh god Bella. I didn't know she was so bad. She was so thin, her bones sticking through her skin, her flesh pallid. I wished I could do something for her. If only I could give her half of my undead life, if only I could die for her. She was too good to die.
Jasper's keeping the pain down. He says its getting harder as the day progresses. Alice isn't sure how much longer she's going to last, Carlisle smiled and talked to the young woman next to him in the living wake, a beautiful girl, maybe 20, holding a beautiful baby. Alice Esme. He recognized her from the few times he had driven to Chicago and sat outside of Bella's house, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman he couldn't have. She was beautiful, like her mother.
He moved to her side, holding her frail arm, worried now more than ever that he could break her. She seemed so small. My heart was breaking, but I tried not to show her. I tried to keep my face devoid of emotion, to keep unemotional. Jaspers calming influence seeped through at the edges, creeping like water into my mind. I accepted his help, his offer.
"Edward," I almost lost it there. Almost broke down. Her voice was so small. It cracked and caught in her throat, broken by age and disease. Why hadn't I turned her so many years ago? Then she would be mine? Why hadn't I saved her the illness of old age? Why couldn't I be strong enough for her? I cracked.
"I lied," I needed her to know. She had to know I wasn't serious, that I didn't mean to hurt her all those years ago. That I had lied.
"What?" confusion broke across her face. She didn't understand.
"I lied. I always loved you. You were more than a distraction. I should've never....I was doing it for you. I did it all for you. Everything. I just wanted you to be....happy," it was all I had ever wanted. I wanted her to be safe, to live. Everything. I wished everything for her.
"Why are you telling me this now?"she didn't understand. She was dying, if she didnt' know now, she may never know.
"Because, I needed you to know, because I've screwed this up so much, because, because even now, watchng you leave me forever, I'm still more in love with you than I can put into words. If I could tear out my own still beating heart and give it to you so that you may live, I would," it was true. I had considered it, but it was silly. She couldn't live forever in this body. She'd hate me for that. Her eyes, glassy and old focused on me, and she smiled.
"I don't want it, Edward. I don't want it anymore," she tossed her head "I lived my life Edward. I did all the things I wanted to do. I had children. I loved Dylan. I loved my daughter. And for a short period of time, when we were both young, I loved you. I wouldn't take any of that away. For her," she pointed a wobbly finger at Alice Esme, who lurched forward unsure of herself to take her mothers other hand, "I would've lost you a hundred times. You leaving almost killed me, Edward, but afterwards, I lived."
"Bella..." I needed her so bad. I could feel her slipping away, could feel the life draining from her body more suredly than if I had taken the blood from her myself. In my mind, she was young again, lying on the floor of the ballet studio, broken and bleeding on the floor, the venom from James slowly working its way through her body. She had been writhing, in pain, dying, becoming like me. I could've let her, I could've allowed her to become like me. We could've stayed together. But I had to save her? But what kind of man was I if I couldn't save her from death?
"Edward," her voice was low, even to my vampiric hearing, and my family tried to hear the final words the broke me, "I forgive you."
I could never forgive myself.
I cleaned out my bank accouts within a day, left a trust for when Bella's daughter went to college, for when she started a life. Once upon a time, I had loved a young girl named Bella Swan. I hadn't been able to take care of her the way I should've, hadn't been able to give her what she needed because I was a monster and a coward. I wasn't going to allow the same thing to happen to her family. They would be cared for. And I, I would take what the Volturi gave to me. I would offer myself to them, to kill me and end my pain.
Someday, maybe, I would see Bella again. And then I would know her love.
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(seriously, I think this is the last bit of this.)