I'm not a hundred percent happy with this chapter, but I am trying to put off writing some papers so here you go. Let me know what needs fixed.

Disclaimer: I don't own either of Meyer's amazing books, or Edward, or the italisized parts of my story, as much as I may dream.

Love, live, meaning, lost.

This is what hope does to you. I had thought that I knew better, that I had learned to squash even the first signs of hope as they dared to warm my heart, but that was before her. When she came into my life, I forgot that I was supposed to be damned. I forgot everything, except for what she made me feel when she looked at me that way. She should have been terrified, have been revolted by the monster that I was and run screaming from my life. She knew all of my darkest secrets, she knew of my lust for blood and that I had killed for it. She knew that I was damned, that I was dead. And it hadn't mattered. She had looked at me with trust in her eyes, with love in her eyes. More love that I could ever have imagined that anyone could feel for one such as myself.

And for that, I let myself hope. I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't a damned soul after all. The damned cannot know happiness or joy. They cannot know love. Especially not the love of an angel. The love that I feel for her makes me feel purified and redeemed, like with one kiss from her innocent lips, she could erase the darkness and taint that had engulfed my soul and make me holy once more. When I held her in my arms and watched her sleep, I thought that the overwhelming love that surged inside of me would be enough to save me. The warmth that spread through me when she smiled at me was enough to make me sure that I was glimpsing heaven.

And then it was over. I could feel myself slowly beginning to weaken and knew that before long, that angel would fall. And that was something that I could never allow to happen. To see her cold and lifeless, to see her throw her life away and give up her chance at salvation, for me, to see that look of despair in her eyes as she embraced damnation, eternal damnation for which there was no cure. I would not allow it. And so I left. I ripped the angel's heart out even as I shattered my own. I made her believe that she wasn't meant for me, that she wasn't enough. I felt like a monster in that moment, like a hideous beast spewing lies and malice. Lies that she believed, lies that broke us both. I ran, clinging to the fact that it was for her that I ran. Even if she didn't see it, I loved her too much to put her at risk. I gave her life, not the death that she wanted. I clung to that, the life that she was living without me. It was the only thing that kept me sane, the only lifeline in the storm of pain that threatened to engulf me. Her life, the penance for my many sins.

Now even that much is gone. "At the funeral" repeated like a mantra in my mind of the boy's words. How could she be dead when I gave her life? How could that warmth and beauty and love be gone? Why? The pain was crippling, devastating. So much worse than even that pain of Hell that I had tasted during my transformation. Hell. This was Hell. To be given an angel, a miracle, and then having to watch as it was ripped from your fingers. To know that it was your fault that such perfection was destroyed. Perhaps that was the reason that she had come into my life. Not sent from God as a symbol of hope, as I had wished. But a symbol of what I could never have. I was allowed a brief glimpse of what I could have had, of what I wanted so desperately but did not deserve. That brief glimpse was enough to ensure my complete and total ruin when it was ripped away. To make the flames of Hell that much worse. Sobbing, I knew in my heart that this was the end. If I was doomed to suffer Hell, then I would indeed go and suffer it. It couldn't be worse than the pain that I felt now, the pain that I had inflicted upon myself. They say that the dead forget. I shall go and beg for that release, that lack of sentience to numb my pain. I will go to Hell.