A/N: I am so, so, so excited about this chapter! I had a lot of fun writing it. I must admit that I especially took a little guilty pleasure in writing some of Rosalie's dialogue. I don't want to spoil anything so I will babble a little more at the end. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, New Moon, or any of the characters, plot, or dialogue, contained. I can only guess at what I think could be going on behind the lovely faces of our beloved Cullen's.

Chapter 3

When I pushed the door open about three inches the knob was pulled from my hand. I stood stunned with my hand still grasping empty space; Alice stood in front of me looking troubled. She had obviously seen me coming a few moments before my arrival. "Oh Edward!" She wrapped her tiny arms around my waist with bear trap force, pinning my arms awkwardly to my sides. Grimacing, I slid my hands up out of her grip and awkwardly patted her back. "It's alright Alice, I'm fine really." "Edward you don't have to lie. You have a right to be upset, really." I knew she would see through my pretenses and that her concern was entirely sincere but I tried to avoid her pity just the same.

"I'm ok Alice. You don't need to worry." She released me and put her hands on her hips, staring at me calculatingly. "You don't look ok. In fact you look terrible." I opened my mouth to speak then I closed it and finally looked around. We were being sheepishly watched by eight other vampires. I was distantly amused to notice that the minds of Rosalie, Emmet, Jasper, Carmen, Eleazar, Tanya, Irina, and Kate were practically synchronized. They all recognized the awkwardness of the situation, although with various degrees of understanding for the cause. They all wanted to say something or do something that would fix things. They all knew just as well as I did that that was impossible.

"Hello everyone." Alice was still glaring at me, but I feigned ignorance. Jasper caught my eye. She's just trying to help. We've all been worried. Are you really alright? The tone of his thoughts was clearly disbelieving. I nodded my head very slightly and slid my focus to the left; I didn't want Jasper to have time to read the lie in my eyes. My effort was probably futile; he must have felt the anguish I was going through. Directly to the left side of him was Rosalie. The second our eyes met I moved mine upwards to look at Emmett who was resting his head on the top of hers. I didn't want to deal with Rosalie's scornful eyes or mental "I told you so" right now. Emmett raised an eyebrow at me, Where are Carlisle and Esme? There was a thought I could deal with.

"Carlisle had to run back to the house and tie up a few loose ends at the last minute." I lied easily. "Esme went with him but I wanted to leave right away." That earned me a mental scoff from Rosalie. I glared at her before turning to the far left side of the welcoming committee. It had been almost a year since I had seen the Denali coven, not that they had changed.

Just to the left of Emmett and Rosalie were Irina, Kate and Tanya. The three "sisters" shared identical expressions of perplexed surprise on their beautiful pale faces. Apparently the reaction of the rest of my family to my arrival had caught them a little off guard. I found myself wondering exactly how much the others had left out in their explanation. I noticed that Kate's expression, while as confused as the others was also tinged with pity. Just then I remembered her "gift". Kate had the unfortunate ability to feel the pain of those around her. Over the years she had been able to fine tune it to an extent; she was usually able to tune out any small amount of suffering around her. I assumed that the throbbing in my entire body had caught her off guard and I was sorry that she was feeling what I was feeling, however some sick part of me was glad. Kate could normally only feel physical pains. If she was hurting for me now, it meant that I wasn't going nearly as crazy as I thought; the squeezing sensation in my chest wasn't imaginary.

Moving down the line, Eleazar was standing next to Kate with one arm around Carmen and the other hand in his pocket. His wavy red hair fell just above his ears and his golden eyes focused on mine with a questioning look. It is nice to see you Edward, but what is troubling you? Rather than trying to tactfully answer the singular question I addressed the group. "I hate to invite myself in but…" Tanya looked as if she were coming out of a trance, "Oh forgive me for my rudeness Edward! Why don't we retire to the sitting room" I smiled gratefully, or so I thought. He looks so broken. What could have happened? I heard Tanya's mind wonder. I quickly lowered my gaze and followed as she led the way through a doorway leading right, out of the foyer.

A few seconds later we were seated in the plush den. Alice and Jasper along with Carmen and Eleazar on a dark green couch, Irina, Kate, and Tanya, across from them on a duplicate of the same couch in brown, and Rosalie and Emmet in a huge leather arm chair. I chose a seat in the twin arm chair directly across from them. As soon as we were seated everyone looked at me expectantly. Then something that I couldn't recall happening in a very long time happened. I choked. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I was frozen in my chair.

For the majority of my "life" (and if I was utterly honest throughout most of my human life too) I had been very… confident. When I was alive, I had a good life. I took it for granted. Having things handed to me made me a bit spoiled, but not necessarily cocky, just naïve. The real change came when I had been a vampire for a few years. I knew that this curse I was suffering made me strong and to humans at least physically attractive. I became complacent. I began to see myself as invincible. I knew exactly how to be exactly what everyone around me wanted and I had the ability necessary to meet their standards.

When I met Bella all of that had changed. Suddenly, I had doubts. What did she think of me? Did I scare her? Did I disgust her? Could she possibly feel the same way about me that I was feeling about her? I was no longer self assured; but it was nothing like this. It had been wonderful. I didn't consciously know what to do or say, but somehow instinctually I managed to show her some part of myself that miraculously convinced her to love me back. Now, I realized with horror and despair, I had lost that original confidence as well as the source of the energy allowing me to overcome my newfound insecurities. Now I was left with nothing, empty.

My hands automatically clenched down on the plush arms of the chair. Out of the corner of my mind I heard Irina's mental gasp and wince. She bit her lip not wanting to be rude but also not really wanting me to ruin the new chairs. I didn't waste time being angry, she didn't know that there was a reason for my tenseness. I widened my eyes desperately at Alice; a cry for help. I could feel her mind frantically searching for something, anything, in the future that would help us out of the awkward situation we were presented with. Suddenly, Alice's mind, and mine, was confronted with the distressed face of Charlie Swan. He left you alone in the woods. It wasn't a question but an accusation. I let out a strangled cry, before quickly shutting my mouth around the sound. Alice's hands flew to her mouth in shock, her eyes were wide and apologetic. "Edward I…" I looked once around the room at the shock and confusion surrounding us. Kate was biting down hard on her bottom lip and had her eyes squeezed shut in pain. What's going on?! I didn't let Alice finish before I was running.

As soon as I was out of the house, I took off to my right, back tracking towards the ravine I had been at earlier. Once I was there, without thinking, and with no real purpose, I hurled myself over the edge. The fall took a while, even for my dense and stone like body; on the way down I closed my eyes. What have I done?! How could I have left her there?! Why am I so incredibly stupid?! I felt the impact of my landing then; it wasn't nearly so forceful as I could have hoped, but for a moment I layed still with my eyes closed anyway, in a heap on the ground.

Just as I was about to resume my attempts to drown in my own self loathing, I felt someone standing over me. I was expecting Alice but rather than hearing a sound of gentle remorse, I heard a low growling. I opened my eyes and looked up at my sister. "Rosalie?" I was thrown off balance by her presence. Since when was I so easily surprised? I was obviously losing my grip on reality. "What are you…"

"Stand up." "Rosalie what…" I was still reeling from her sudden unexpected arrival. I felt like the rest of the world was moving at a normal pace but someone had hit my slow motion button; I couldn't keep up with what she was saying. "I said stand up Edward. You look about as ridiculous as you're acting." I got to my feet and stared at her. I couldn't figure out why she was so angry. What was wrong with her? I tried to listen to her mind to get an idea of what was going on but she seemed to be so angry that her thoughts could only stumble out in partially formed clusters. What an idiot! Acting like a child! Why is he doing this? "Rosalie I know!" her expression faltered and her thoughts stopped abruptly forming one question that she also voiced aloud, "What do you mean, 'you know'?"

"I know I'm an Idiot!" I hung my head, defeated. "I know I'm acting like a child." My voice was quiet and sad now, "I need to do this though. I…" she cut me off again with a scream so loud that it echoed off of the sides of the canyon around us, "Shut Up!" My head snapped up, eyes and mouth wide open in shock. "But…" She still wasn't going to let me get a word in. "Shut up Edward! You think that I meant to come here and tell you that you were wrong to leave that girl?! You really are an idiot!" she looked at me expectantly but I was still stunned. "Well then what…" I trailed off even before she could cut me off this time, baffled. But she still wasn't far behind.

"I came here to tell you to stop acting like a child about it!" I started to understand where she was going with this and I didn't like it. "I came here to tell you to grow up and get over it!" I was hurt that my sister couldn't commiserate, but I wasn't surprised. Rosalie and I weren't always like this. We used to be friends, we used to laugh and talk without all this paralyzing tension. The rift between us had started the day that Bella had moved to Forks. Her distance and distain had been a price I was willing to pay temporarily, until she had time to accept the change in my life. I had thought that maybe the one reprieve from this horrible (if self inflicted) situation would be having my entire family behind me once more. It could never heal my wounds but I thought that it may serve to dull the pain a little. I had been wrong.

Despite the hard feeling in the center of my body, the one telling me that there was no way I could change her mind, I tried to explain. "You don't understand Rosalie! How would you feel if this was Emmett?! I can't just move on! My entire reason for existing is gone!" "I do understand Edward. I understand that you left her! This was a choice and you weren't strong enough to make a less painful one so you ran!" I couldn't reply because I, to an extent, agreed with her. I hung my head again, hoping that she would accept my admittance of submission and just leave me alone. Alone was the only thing that I knew how to be now.

She saw my show of surrender, (I might as well have rolled over and showed her my belly like a dog) but she didn't accept it. Oh so he thinks it's that easy? That he can just whimper and act sad and it will fix all the damage he's done to our family? No chance Edward. No chance. I could feel her waiting for something; I still had no reply but I looked up into her darkening eyes anyway. This apparently had been what she wanted; she held my eyes with an iron grip and began the torture.

"Bella breathed air, but that doesn't mean you will stop breathing it." I flinched at the reference and she pushed forward. It was almost as if she was enjoying her attempts at destroying me. This might have hurt had I not already been as thoroughly destroyed as I could be. "Bella's heart pumped blood but that doesn't mean you will stop needing it to survive, Edward." She advanced a step, staring into my eyes with growing fury, "You left her!" she reiterated, "And the world continues to revolve! Around the sun and not some stupid little human girl by the way!" In one more stride she was standing only inches from my face, her vicious whisper far more deadly sounding than any scream, "You want my real opinion Edward? My true honest feeling?" The question was clearly rhetorical; I stared back into her eyes, feeling oddly distant. "I think you did the right thing. I think that leaving that girl was the smartest thing you've done in a long time. I'm glad she's gone and all I want from you…"

Suddenly Rosalie was gone. I looked dazedly to my left to see her pinned to the ground by a small dark headed figure. Alice was growling menacingly, her small white hands wrapped in long locks of Rosalie's golden hair, holding her to the ground by her scalp. Rosalie, although obviously shocked, was not going down without a fight. A snarl ripped from her throat and she opened her mouth as if to yell, but Alice beat her to it. "You shut that pretty little mouth of yours Rosalie, good and tight." Her voice, fast and low held a threat that her sister clearly heard; she closed her mouth and slowly relaxed her body, lowering her eyes to the side. Alice, observing her show of submission, suddenly released her hair and was shortly standing several feet away. She crossed her arms and stared at Rosalie in equal parts disgust and sadness as she spoke. I noticed that she was shaking.

"I don't want to have to do that again Rose." Her voice was quivering and her fingers were making dents in her arms, "But you need to leave Edward alone. I don't want us to fight, but I can't watch you hurt him, he's been hurt enough." She hung her head and I looked over to see Rosalie's eyes soften. I was only being honest. I just want my brother back. I don't understand you. Why are you doing this to us? She looked at Alice rather than me but it was clear where her thoughts were directed. I stood listening to her mind and knowing that I should be feeling something, however as hard as I tried I couldn't seem to remember what it was. I felt emptiness and a dull throbbing of pain, but no stab of guilt came, for the hurt I was inflicting on my family. No measure of sadness for the sight of my sisters drawn into a fight I couldn't sustain for myself.

It was if there was a glass wall around me and nothing could get in. I could see out, I could hear the people on the other side of the wall, but I couldn't fully interact with anything on the outside. Or perhaps I mused analytically, as Rosalie finally turned to meet my eyes sadly, it was a box not a wall, and it was made of ice instead of glass. It was cold in the box, cold and lonely and slightly blurry. Rosalie shook her head once and spun, disappearing into the forest. I looked to Alice, through my frosty prison. She looked up to meet my eyes. I'm sorry Edward. I'm really really sorry. Don't say it's not my fault. I know it's not. But it is my fault that I can't help. She paused tentatively with her direct thoughts, trying to figure out what to do. "Go." I wasn't sure that I had spoken clearly enough at first. My vocal chords seemed to be freezing solid, probably due to the falling temperature of the box. I chocked out the word again, a little stronger this time, "Go." I tried to put as much evenness in my eyes as I could, meaning to reassure her, "Go back to the house. Be with Jasper. I'll be fine. I need to be alone for a while." I gave her a pitiful attempt at a smile.

She wasn't buying it but I could tell that the thought of Jaspers arms was tempting. I tried desperately to not feel the horrible ache that was going through my body, as the all consuming love my 'siblings' shared soaked her thoughts. "I need you to do something for me anyway." At least her curiosity ended her painfully clear thoughts of unending companionship. The problem was that I couldn't ask her to stop looking out for Bella just yet. I could feel myself backing down; this insecurity thing was definitely going to take some getting used to. Instead I changed tracks and went for a little bit of a smaller request.

Pinching the bridge of my nose I got it over with and asked, "Will you explain things to the others? I don't think I can do it myself." I was disgusted with how weak I sounded, "I don't care what you tell them, just tell them something." I threw in another thought at the last minute, picturing her pained face and remembering her frightened thoughts, I was concerned about Kate. "Kate may want an extra explanation, depending on what you tell the others. Tell her I'll explain it all to her soon. That much I can do." Are you sure you'll be ok alone? Her question was gentle and tentative. "Yes." I practically sighed my response, relieved that someone finally seemed to understand at least a little. She nodded before turning and slowly walking away into the forest.

Finally letting down the meager mask I had been holding up, I let myself sink to the ground. I tucked in my legs and cradled my aching head. I felt a chilled, heavy feeling starting at the bottom of my body, working its way up. It reached my neck and I recognized what was happening. My little icy box was filling with water. I inhaled and felt the liquid fill my lungs. I inhaled again with more than a healthy amount of thankfulness, and let myself drown.

A/N: Thanks for reading!!! Ok so I really had a lot of fun writing that, even if I got a little teary there at the ending. I know your going to get tired of me saying this but: POOR EDWARD! My heart really does go out to him. Also I wanted to say: please don't hate Rosalie too much. She really does have her motives. (at least my interpretation of her motives) If you want to hear more about that put it in your review. I don't want to bore you with it here, but if you want my take, just say so. Also: I know that I was supposed to develop more on the Denali vampires but it didn't work out that way. I will hopefully get to them a little more in the next chapter. I'm still in the market for a really good idea for Eleazar's power, so let me know if you have one. Thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW! I would really really love some constructive criticism this time guys it really helps. Sorry I have rambled on so :D hope to hear from you and to update soon.

Darky