A/n: I seriously had this chapter half written and then I deleted the entire thing and started over. That's how much it sucked. You should be glad that I care enough to do that. Yeah, be grateful.

this actually took longer to write than i thought it would, but its finished. yay. not the story, silly, the chapter. goodness. i think theres two more chapters left, though, and then this will be over. so yeah, thanks for everything guys. you rock.

"I tried to tell you before I left. But I was screaming under my breath. You are the only thing that makes sense. Just ignore all this present tense…" – It's Beginning to get to Me, Snow Patrol.

I didn't expect Edward to chase after me. But he did. I wasn't even halfway down the hall before he was convincing me that I needed to talk to him in private. I honestly don't remember how he did it, but I do remember looking into his eyes. Maybe that's what it was.

The only empty rooms at the moment were Alice and Jasper's room and Carlisle's office. Carlisle's office was closer, so Edward chose that one and told me go inside. I sighed dramatically, even though I wasn't going to put up a fight, and walked through the door.

"You know it's really rude to just leave your brother and sister in your room alone," I said, making a desperate attempt to keep the subject off of my outburst.

"They'll live," Edward replied. "Now talk. What's up?"

Edward gave me this look that just made me want to say everything that was on my mind, but I couldn't form the words. They were all there; it's just that they were stuck between my head and my vocal chords.

"Bella? I'm waiting."

"I –" this wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Well, actually I never really thought about it before, so I guess it isn't easier or harder in any sense of the words.

Edward raised an eyebrow and waited for me to continue.

I sighed heavily. "It just sucks, you know? I mean, here I am trying for almost two months to get someone to notice me so I can tell you to stop being so depressed all the time, because seriously, the depressed emo kid look does nothing for you. And I try and I try to get Alice or Jasper or someone to acknowledge my presence and no one will. And then I find out that Jasper's known all along. That really sucks. And the fact that Alice believes you now just because Jasper does, that doesn't seem right. She should have believed you in the first place if you trusted her enough to confide in her."

"Bella, I don't care how she came to believe me, I just care that she does."

"It still sucks," I pouted.

"Yeah," he agreed, "it does. But there isn't anything I can do about that now, and there isn't anything you can do either."

"I should probably accept Jasper's apology. Shouldn't I?"

Edward shrugged. "Only if you want to. That's your choice, not mine."

I shrugged and started for the door, to go apologize to Jasper for being such a – dare I say it? – bitch to him, but I stopped and turned to face Edward again.

"Why did you come after me?"

"What do you mean?" he frowned.

"When I left your room. Why did you come after me instead of staying with Alice and Jasper? Why didn't you let me leave?"

Edward averted his eyes to the floor like he was being shy or something. It was cute almost. "I really don't know."

"Sure you do," I said. "Come on, you can tell me. I promise I won't laugh."

He shrugged and kept his eyes focused on his shoes. "I just didn't want to see you leave. I don't know how to explain it, but when you said you were leaving, the first thought that came to my mind was that I was going to lose you forever. And for some reason, I don't want that to happen. I don't want you to leave."

I smiled involuntarily. "So you're saying you actually want to keep me around, then?"

"Bella, I love you, why wouldn't I want you to stay?"

"What?" my eyes widened.

Did he just say what I thought he said? He just said he loved me. Oh god, holy crap. Can dead people sleep? Because maybe I was having an amazingly real dream and I would wake up any minute and I would be in Edward's room or something and none of this would have happened. This was way too good to be true. Someone like Edward would never love me, dead or alive.

But the funny thing was, I loved him too. It was like some sick, twisted, mutilated form of Stockholm Syndrome or something. But it was true nonetheless. I loved Edward. It felt so right too, like I was meant to feel this way about him. Like I was meant to stand here in Edward's father's office and confess my undying – or dying, considering I was dead – love for him.

"Edward?" I asked tentatively. He hadn't said anything for a couple minutes now and I was starting to get a little worried.

"Did I just say that out loud?"

I laughed a little. "Yeah, you did."

"Oh boy," he sighed. "I usually don't blurt stuff out like that. I'm usually more collected than that."

"Yeah, I noticed. But you don't take it back, right? You meant what you said?" There was a slight desperation in my voice, like I was expecting him to say it was just a slip of the tongue and he really didn't love me. And I sort of was expecting it. This was too good to be true.

Edward raised his eyes to meet mine and he didn't have to reply. I saw it there, the love. He really did love me.

If this were a normal situation I would have been embarrassed beyond belief that I was about to say what I was going to say. But I wasn't shy right now. I knew, with such a conviction that I even scared myself that I loved Edward Cullen. It was a strange epiphany to have at this point in time, considering we could never be together in the way I wished we could. But as long as Edward was there, and I could be with him, I knew that I could say, "I love you too," without feeling like a complete imbecile.

I hadn't even realized I'd said it out loud until Edward smiled so wide I thought something would surely break. I wondered idly if I could still blush, and if I could I wondered if I was. I could feel another smile creeping its way onto my lips and I didn't stop it. This was something to smile about. Most definitely, it was.

Jasper kept quiet about what he felt between Edward and me. I was surprised, to say the least. I kind of expected him to tell Alice or something, especially since we didn't even talk to him about it. I guess there's something different about being in love with a dead girl, and a dead girl being in love with a vampire. Of course, considering that vampires are technically dead, Jasper couldn't say anything since he loved Alice. I was just a different form of dead.

Alice had taken to asking Jasper if I was in the room, and if I was she would start talking to me. I thought it was cute, but I felt bad that she could never hear my responses. Edward would talk for me sometimes, if he was with me at the time, but Alice usually only talked when it was me and her. I could tell that if I were alive, we would have been great friends.

It was a little awkward at first, knowing how Edward felt. I don't know how to explain it. It just felt like he told me a secret that I wasn't supposed to know and now I was supposed to keep it secret too. Not that I could tell anyone, but still.

Edward and I hung out with the family a lot now. Like right now. I was sitting in between him and Emmett and Emmett still couldn't figure out why Edward was sitting for far away from him.

"I'll crush her, though," Edward insisted for the millionth time.

"You won't crush me, per say. I'll just dematerialize, or whatever it is I do and then I'll come back together," I said, smiling up at him.

"Shh, you're not helping," he mock glared at me. I shrugged; it wasn't like anyone else could hear me anyway.

"Crush who?" Emmett asked.

"Bella," Edward, Alice and Jasper all said at the same time.

"She's sitting next to you," Jasper clarified.

Emmett looked at what was an empty couch cushion to him and then got a sort of terrified look on his face. I couldn't help it, I started laughing.

"She's laughing at you," Edward informed, trying hard himself not to laugh.

"Tell him not to be scared, it's not like I have the plague or anything," I said.

Edward relayed my statement and Emmett calmed down a bit, but he was a little stiff and clutched the end of the couch for dear life the entire time we watched TV.

"Emmett's scared of me, isn't he?" I asked later when Edward and I were alone.

Edward chuckled a little. "Yeah, he's terrified."

"Aw, that's so cute. You'd never think that someone that big would be afraid of a little ghost like me. I'm harmless."

"I don't think I'll ever fully understand Emmett," Edward shook his head. "He has the most irrational fears. Like spiders. If there's a spider within twenty feet of him, he'll freak out."

"Are you serious?" I asked between gasps of air and laughter.

"Oh yeah," Edward said, deadpan. "It's quite entertaining. How he ever goes into the forest I'll never know."