BPOV
I took a deep breath, preparing, and then he, in all his beauty, stepped into the room.
"Edward?" I asked. It couldn't really be him, could it? And, why would he come back, anyways?
I stood up off the bed and went over to him.
"What are you doing here, Edward?"
Edward seemed incapable of speech. He just stood there, staring at me. His eyes roaming up and down me, still making me shiver, even though I still had no idea why he was here.
Then, he snapped out his reverie and hugged me. A real hug, that I was like the ones that he used to give me before he broke my heart. Ones filled with love and compassion.
It took me a moment to think of what to do. I figured that, as long as he acted like he wanted me, I wouldn't do anything to remind him that he didn't.
I hugged him back. And I felt to complete, so whole. As if he never left me. And I realised that as long as I lived, I would never want anything but him. Even if he didn't want me. I was that stuck to him.
I don't know how long we stood there, hugging each other, but it seemed too short. All too soon he let go of me and I had let go too.
Edward, never leaving my gaze, went to sit in the chair that Alice had only just vacated.
I stood, not moving, staring at his perfect figure.
Then my legs moved of there own accord and I threw myself in his stone lap.
For what seemed like hours, we just sat there, rememorizing each others faces. Edward broke the silence. The silence that, if broken, would make my life perhaps even better than life before he parted in the forest half a year ago.
"Oh, Bella." He was practically crying tearless sobs, "You can't know how happy I am that you're all right. I was so worried when Rosalie called me and told me that you were dead-"
"She did what?" I raised my voice.
His voice was wondering why I was so mad. "Well, when Alice saw the vision of you, she told Rosalie, and Rosalie called me." Something he said clicked in my head. Rosalie called him. Called? She wouldn't of had to call him unless he hadn't been home.
"Why did she call you? Why weren't you home Edward? What have you been doing, anyways, until you came here for only Alice knows why?"
He was wary in an instant. "I was...travelling." He must of been answering my second question.
"That's only a little bit vague, Edward," I said, raising my eyebrows.
"Why are you making that face?"
"Because, what's the point of you being here if you aren't talking."
He sighed. "If I tell you, will you even believe me?"
"Maybe," I said after a second of thought, "If you tell me."
"I was actually...hunting."
I raised my eyebrows and he continued. "I wasn't...hunting for food, I was trying my hand at tracking. I'm not very good at it."
"Tracking what?" I asked, trying to keep him talking.
"Nothing of consequence."
"I don't understand."
He hesitated, "I-" He took an uneeded deep breath. "I owe you an apology. No, of course I owe you much more than that. But you have to know, that I had no idea. I thought it was safe for you here. So safe. I had no idea that Victoria-"-his lips curled back when he said her name-"would come back. I had no idea that she was so tied to James.
"Not that there's any excuse for what I left you to face. When I heard what you told Alice- what she saw herself- when I realized that you had to put your life in the hands of werewolves, immature, volatile, the worst thing ouit there besides Victoria herself. Please know that I had no idea of this. I feel sick, sick to my core, even now, when I can see and feel you safe in my arms. I am the most miserable excuse for-"
"Stop," I interrupted him. I was now going to have to say the words that would most likely make him leave much sooner. Drawing all my monthes of practise of trying to be normal for Charlie, I kept my face smooth.
"Edward," I said. His name burned my throat a little on the way out. "This has to stop. You can't keep taking blame for the things that I do here. You can't let this...guilt...rule your life. Whatever you do, my number will always be up. So, next time, if I trip in front of a bus or something, you can't blame yourself. I know it's your nature that you shoulder the blame for everything but it's irrisponsible. Think of Esme and Carlisle and..."
I was totally losing it. I stopped to take a deep breath.
"Isabella Marie Swan," He whispered, "Do honestly think I came back because I felt guilty?"
I could feel the blank incomprehension on my face. "Didn't you?"
"Of course, Bella, but that isn't why I came here," His cool finger brushed against my lips, "Don't you remember anything I told you before?"
"I remember everything."
He shook his head, smiling a sad smile. "Bella, I can't live in without you. Not anymore."
"I am..." My head swam as I looked for the appropriate word. "Confused."
Edward stared deep into my eyes with his sincere, earnest gaze. "I'm a good liar Bella, I have to be."
I was nonplussed. "What?" I choked out.
"Let me finish! I'm a good liar, but for you to believe me so quickly." He winced. "That was...excrutiating."
I waited, frozen.
"When we were in the forest, when I was telling you goodbye, you weren't going to let go," He whispered, "I could see that in your eyes. That you really believed that I didn't want you. As if there was anyway that I could exist without needing you!"
"A clean break," I said ever so quietly.
"Exactly. But how could you let one word break your faith in me? After all the thousand times I've told that I loved you, how could you believe me so fast?"
I started to cry. The tears gushed miserably down my face.
"I knew it. I knew I was dreaming." I sobbed.
"You're impossible," he said, and he laughed once- a hard laugh, frutrated. "How can I put this to you so that you'll believe me. You're not asleep, ansd you're not dead. I'm here, and I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I was thinking about you, seeing your face in my mind, every second that I was away. When I told you that I didn't want you, it was the blackest kind of blasphemy."
I jumped off the chair and ran to the door.
"I don't believe you," I yelled, tears still falling down my face. "I can't believe you."
He was in front of me in a flash. He grabbed my arms and held me up, staring into my tear streaked face.
"If you leave again, I'll die! I can't stay here, because, when you leave, I might as well go back to that cliff because of how miserable I'll be!" I yelled again. I had lost it. I just kept screaming at him about how terrible I was the first week after he left. About how I'd might as well be dead if he left again.
I finally stopped screaming, and Edward's expression was so tortured. I had just told him that I was like a zombie when he was gone.
I collapsed into his waiting arms and cried even harder than before. I was letting it all out.
As he held my up he stroked my hair. Once I had calmed down more he spoke into my ear.
"I'm not leaving ever again."
Somehow, at least for the moment, I believed him.
He pulled my chin up for me to kiss him.
"Kiss him, Bella. You know you want to." The voice came from in my head. It was Edward's. Strange. Why would Edward's voice be in my head, if he was with me?
"Wait," I said to Edward, turning my head away from his lips.
Hearing his voice in my head made me think of something. The first time I had heard it, in Port Angeles. I remembered my options about myself that night, I was fulfilling my wish, or I was insane. Then, I hadn't thought of a third option.
Now I did.
Option three: Edward loved me. The voice I heard in my head was basically caused by my subconscious still believing in him. He loves me the way I love him, forever. Our bond could never really be broken. All those monthes, when I was alone, or when I heard his voice, my subconcious still loved him. Good thing I got that figured out.
"Oh!"
"Bella?"
"Oh. Ok. I see"
Edward was confused. It was adorable.
I tried again. "Edward, I just had an epiphany."
"Oh." He was still lost.
"Edward, you love me," I marveled. I was now stating the obvious, but it was nice to hear out loud.
He smiled my favourite crooked smile, though he was still a little confused. "Truly, I do."
I turned back towards him. "Kiss me?" I asked.
"Well," he sighed, and then he smiled hugely, "That I'll do."
Edward kissed me then, and I couldn't not doubt my epiphany. He did love me. I could tell by how his hands encircled my waist. And he could probably tell that I felt the same way toward him by the was my hands grabbed his hair.
It was awesome.
When we broke apart, it was not by Edward's boundries, or by my need to breathe. It was by a quiet cough I somehow heard coming from the door.
Edward looked almost as shocked as I did. Apparently, I could dazzle him.
Standing at the door, looking very surprised, was Charlie.
A/N Sorry so much of the chapter is copied from New Moon. But who could write anything as good as the words in the original? Not me.