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"Bella? Bella, what's wrong?"
His tone is frantic.
My answering one, in contrast, is thick, slow, and confused. It matches the haze of pain clouding my mind. "I thought you… wanted… me?"
He doesn't understand. I pull at my chest, trying to find the words, to see why he doesn't understand what he's doing to me.
"More than anything in the world, why?"
He still doesn't see it. There is a second as he pulls himself to his feet and looks into my eyes. I think he locates the ghost within them. He sees there is othing to see. "Bella? Oh, love, you didn't think… did you think I was going to leave you? Right after you agreed to marry me?"
I am ashamed as I realize the ludicrous misunderstanding that motivated my pain. I should trust him, and I cannot. "Yes. I'm sorry."
His eyes are aflame with fury as they bore into mine. "Sorry. You're sorry. Why the hell are you sorry? You're sorry I left you twice, and scared you? I don't deserve your love. I don't deserve a second look from you! How will I ever… I'm… I'm sorry, Bella. I can't do it."
"No! Edward, I don't care what you think. I love you. You're the only one I'll ever love. Don't, don't, don't leave me. Please. Please!"
"I promise not to, love. Don't worry. I'm just… I want so much to be enough for you, and I can't. Whatever I do is wrong. Both times, leaving you seemed like the right thing, the only right thing… and it's only hurt us both so much."
Finally, I decide the subtle kind approach isn't working. I give up on hinting Edward around to a normal relationship. "Listen to me, and listen good."
His head jerks up at my unfamiliar tone.
"You are going to stop treating me like a child. Right now. I'm not a human anymore. I can take care of myself. If you make a decision about my life ever again, I will hunt you down, and I will… um… something. That's not the point. But it will be dire. So the next time you start totally disrupting every facet of my existence, I get some input, okay? I'm an equal here. I'd like to be respected."
His eyes are ashamed. "I'm sorry, Bella."
"And stop apologizing. It's irritating. You can't change the past."
"But I can change the future." With those words, he slips the ring on my finger, kneeling once again to kiss, delicately, my hand. "We have a deal, my love."
I wrap my arms around him and pull him to his feet. "A deal."
His lips meet mine, again and again. Alice coughs.
"What?"
"Well, could you two get a room? Like, your room? I don't need to see that."
"I didn't need to hear you and Jasper for the last fifty years, either," Edward counters.
"Whoa, wait a second. We're not doing anything that requires a room until after the wedding. Soul? Ringing a bell? I am not endangering that, Edward. You're too important."
He sighs. "You're right."
Alice smiles. "Well, lovebirds, I've got a party to plan!"
The wedding will be held on a Monday morning in three months. By then, I should be somewhat better controlled. Since we're no longer speaking to any vampires beside ourselves, and Alice needs someone to impress, we're waiting until I can be around humans so she can stun the townsfolk with her entertaining skills. After that, we'll have to move. Esme isn't pleased. She really liked this house. Then again, she gets to redecorate all over again, her favorite thing in the world.
Eternity requires ample hobbies.
Alice's plot inconveniences all of us. Also, I'd rather not have total strangers watch my wedding. However, this is the way Alice wants it. Apparently her plan for my matrimony involves lots of spectators.
Anything to make her happy…
I am still trying to regain the joy of feeling accepted by them. I want to make her happy, to prove I can be as good a sister as she has been.
Of course, she reassures me she'll love me even if I betray her utterly by limiting this wedding. Those were her exact words, by the way.
So I don't really have any choice…
And I have to do it for Edward too. He is delighted that we'll finally have our old-fashioned wedding, everything the way his mother would have liked it… if she hadn't been dead for a hundred and twenty years.
I suspect that is actually his motivation in this whole thing. I know his memories of Elizabeth Masen are very vague, but all loving, almost worshipful. She was apparently such a force her son still fears reckoning with her from beyond the grave.
Of course, I would never embarrass him by accusing him of being a mommy's boy, or hurt him by reminding him of the human life he lost… we both lost.
I take a silent moment to grieve. Poor Charlie. He must suspect I'm dead. I know he saw the chance from the beginning. I can still hear the clink of his bullets being locked away at night, from fear I would hurt myself back in the days a gun could harm me.
I sigh. I know he misses me. It must be hard, learning to live all alone for the second time, this time having lost me. Yet, I am very like my father in many ways. I hope he can empathize at least a little. It is quite uncomfortable picturing Charlie and Renee loving each other the way Edward and I do, but I can see the old sorrow in his eyes sometimes… not quite the same, but bad enough.
And I've put him through it again. I should write him a letter, since my voice probably sounds too different for a phone call. I can't invite him to the wedding, not with my appearance drastically changed, but I can tell him I've found Edward.
Maybe it will give us both some measure of piece. I scrounge up pen and paper, and then search for the words.
Charlie, I begin. No, that isn't right. I cross it out, angrily.
Sounds so casual, and this is probably the last time I will ever interact with my father.
Dear Charlie, I write, and then remember I wasn't supposed to call him that… at least not to his face. It was one of the few memories that had faded. I was certain more would happen after time. The details of my insignificant human life were already decreasing in strength and fervor.
Dad…
Again, the pen makes its thick dark stroke. Too abrupt.
Dear Dad,
That's it. I grab the second piece of stationary, in the (probably far too optimistic) hope that I won't have to cross anything else out.
I write it again.
Dear Dad,
I'm sorry.
It's what I want to say, more than anything. Charlie doesn't deserve this, not being left by first my mother and then me. He shouldn't be all alone in that little town, trying to figure out what he's living for.
I shouldn't have left like that, but I had too. I need him more than anything else. I don't expect you to understand or support my decision, but I can't live without him.
I'm sorry.
Painful. Even writing the words hurt. Yet it would be worse to spend the rest of my life- existence- pretending I'd never harmed my father, that I'd left my human life with all the pieces tied up neatly. It just wasn't true.
I know you think he'll only hurt me again, and it won't be anything like a relief to hear this. I found Edward.
He would probably tear the letter into pieces when he found that name.
I know you hate him. You have a good reason. If I could explain why he keeps leaving, you wouldn't. It isn't his fault. I promise you that. There's something about the Cullens I can never tell you. It isn't that I don't trust you, but it isn't safe.
Not for either of us. If you knew, you'd be in danger. So I won't tell you. Believe me when I say, he loves me. And I love him.
It's probably not what you want to hear.
But it's the truth.
Daddy, I love him, and I always will. If he leaves again, he leaves again. I can't keep him here, but it's silly to try living without him. There isn't any point… I can't try any harder than I did, and I still failed.
But I love you too. I miss you.
No, I'm not coming home. You can write me back, though you will never see me again. I'll always be thinking of you, dad. I love you.
I'm so sorry.
Love,
Bella.
I am exceptionally proud as I seal up the envelope, blocking the dark lines of ink from my view forever.
I wrote it without even starting to cry… not that I have tears anymore. I have gotten better at suppressing emotion, I suppose.
I slip it into the mailbox and look away.
Good-bye, Charlie.
The days faded, one as lovely as the next. I spent them all with Edward, and so I was happy.
We did little. Once a week we would hunt. The blood never grew more appealing, but it slaked the pain in my thirst, the pain that grew greater and greater with every passing second. It was no pleasure to kill the harmless animals, but it kept me from agony.
And Edward was always there. At first, we hunted together, all kinds of game. Eventually, we went mountain lion hunting together, unable to find the one I preferred. I found my tastes were the same as Edward's. There was something beyond a flavor, like you could taste the power in the blood- it was why humans were so much better. They were more complex and so much more delicious.
But they were people. I wouldn't kill a person. I had- but I never would again, not now that I had my family to keep us together and safe from doing any harm.
And it became more obvious with every day that passed how much I still, how much I always would, love Edward. I had unquestionably made the right choice. I scarcely thought of Jacob, really. Once in a while I'd regret hurting him, but then I'd remember he had something better now.
There was nothing wrong with my choice. Except Charlie and Renee. But I'd given my father the best closure I could. I had to do what I had to do, and I was selfish enough not to try to live without Edward.
I was glad of my weakness now, because it meant I didn't even have to try to be without him. I could be, forever, he said. Maybe I believe him.
Every day passes strengthens my faith just a little, that he might just love me. Every second he doesn't leave, I begin to think he never will.
It is wonderful.
And now he isn't so afraid of hurting me physically. We are still waiting for the wedding, but that doesn't stop him from kissing me in a way we never could before.
It is wonderful.
He is afraid, on the other hand, of breaking my heart again, with reason. He treads with silent tiptoes around the whole subject of his leaving me.
It is hard. I think the healthy thing to do would really be to have a heart-to-heart chat, but that's too painful. It isn't the way we do things. Besides, my life's good enough without that.
I can pretend I am sure in this new life with him. We may be forging a new life on a very uncertain ground, but our love will hold true. I will cling to my end with such strength, he will have very little choice.
I am certain of that.
He will not leave me in that way again.
I won't allow it. If he wants to go, he's going to have to prove he really wants to go. He's not getting away with this again.
"Bella, come on, come on, come on! Don't you care at all about your wedding? It's in a month! One scrawny, sad, lonely little month, just pleading for your attention. Poor little month, all ignored and alone, with no bride to pay any attention to it. Now, red or blue?"
"Red or blue what?" I hadn't been following.
"The ink on the spare programs, of course. In case the others don't work out."
"What? We're having two sets of programs?" Why? Isn't one generally sufficient?
"Of COURSE. What if something happens to the first? I mean, termites. Or they could get wet. Or lost. Or… maybe I should get a third."
"Question. Can't you order two sets of the same?"
She sighs and rolls her eyes. "Of course not. Then it wouldn't be fun, Bella. I mean, there needs to be some element of unpredictability."
"Alice. Honey. You know I don't care, right?"
She stamps her foot, looking the picture of a petulant four-year-old. "But I care. And Edward cares."
Again. She has no shame! There is nowhere at which she will stop. Because if Edward cares, I care too. "It's really unfair to exploit my paranoid fear of abandonment in order to force me to participate in party planning, Alice."
She grumbles. "Well, I have to work with what works, don't I? Anyway, RED or BLUE?"
"You decide."
"I don't want to. It's your wedding, Bella. It's your job."
"Obviously, you care a lot more than I do. I would be perfectly happy to get a certificate, sign it, and be done."
"But that's not what Edward wants."
"That's the third time you've used that ploy on me in three minutes."
"That's also the third time it's worked in three minutes."
She had a point. "Blue. I pick blue. Edward likes when I wear blue, thus, by the logic that he should be as happy as possible with this, the lettering on the invitations should be blue." Actually, I'd chosen randomly, but I was well aware she'd expect some kind of reasoning.
"Great! What about the flowers?"
I stare her straight in the eye. "Alice, do you really need to subject me to this?"
She looks away for a moment, clearly unwilling to answer. Finally, she grudgingly admits, "No, I guess not. I'll have just as much fun without you."
"I'm gone." I stand.
She protests instantly. "It just doesn't seem right. It's your wedding!"
"Which I don't want. Now, if there's going to be a couple hundred humans swarm my home in a sad, scrawny month, I'd better go figure out the whole concept of self-control."
She stares forlornly after me as I escape. Talk about a guilt trip. I almost regret letting her have her way, just because now she'll never be satisfied with it. She's so miserable in getting what she wants… which makes no sense, but okay.
I walk down the hall to my room, and find someone waiting for me… a most unwelcome someone.
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