Love Awakens. Part 4. Chapter 4. February 1922.


I found myself frozen, unable to move with one hand over my slightly agape mouth and the other cradled gently between Carlisle's hands. For a moment, I wasn't sure if I was eager for him to move or not. Part of me wanted this to last. I tried to absorb every detail. I wanted to remember everything about it forever. Yet, part of me wanted to be in his arms, with his lips against mine. I just wanted to be his.

But, then, I already was, of course. I knew that in my heart, as well as I knew he was mine.

"Esme, you wonder all the time if what you are feeling is valid, if you are supposed to feel that way," he began. "Sometimes you have questions that I can't answer. I just don't know, Esme, but I do know that I supposed to love you. I do love you."

He stood up slowly then and I tried to pause my reaction; the flood of emotions was overwhelming already. I wished that I could cry just for the sake of release. This was all too much. No matter how natural most of it had been—us falling in love, there was still a staggering lack of expression for it. Even if we had eternity, how could there ever be any words or actions that would accurately convey how I feel? It seemed impossible. But maybe it wasn't just about the big moments. Maybe it was just as much about the in betweens, the pauses, the moments like this when we stood just gazing at each other in silence.

"I love you," I replied softly.

He brought my fingers up to his lips, kissing them gently, his eyes falling shut. When he opened them, he gave me a sad smile as our hands drifted back down again.

"I think back over the centuries and I think about those seemingly endless stretches of darkness," he continued. "I was lonely, but no company ever seemed to satisfy me. I thought I was being selfish at times. I thought maybe I was, and always would be, too different from everyone else. Edward's friendship brought something unparalleled into my life, but there was still something essential missing. I never knew what I missing, what I was searching for until I saw you lying there dying. There is something I need to tell you though. I'm just so sorry. I need you to forgive me."

"Forgive you?" I asked, feeling deeply confused. "For what? You saved me."

It was true that this existence wasn't an uncomplicated one. If I could truly have whatever I wanted, regardless of the impossible obstacles of time and space, it would be for the two of us to have a happy human life together. But I was so thankful that he hadn't let me die, never knowing the feeling of true love, the taste of his lips, or the haven of his arms. I was nearly ecstatic at times when he expressed his love for and happiness with me that I couldn't imagine a world in which he had been minutes too late to save me and we both went separately into very different dark stretches of eternity never knowing what it felt like to be loved this way.

I had brief moments of realizing that we had been so close to one another before I had decided to end my life. I didn't know how long he had been so nearby, but I dared not even wonder what choices we would have faced if I had stumbled upon him then, my mere mortal self running into him again. What would we have done? Could this be something that we chose to stop or would we even have had the chance to recognize it under other circumstances? I wasn't certain. That wasn't how it had happened, and I decided that I didn't want to know.

"I'm sorry, that we have to be this to be together. I'm sorry that you had to lose your family. I'm sorry that you had to lose your son." I felt weak with a sudden lash of emotion when his voice hitched on the last word. "I'm sorry that you wanted to end your life. But you make me so happy that I cannot imagine being without you now."

"I didn't lose my family," I replied when he paused. "I left them. And my son was taken away from me." I reached up and pressed my free palm to his cheek. "You know this was never a choice between you and anyone else. I'm not here because it ever was. I'm here because I can't be anywhere else without feeling there was no point to any of my suffering. I'm here because with you is where I want to be."

Carlisle let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against him. "I'm sorry that you didn't have an option. . ."

"I choose you," I interrupted. The words came out without thought and a sinking guilt overcame me for a second. "Always."

"Stay with me forever," he whispered before kissing me. It began tenderly but quickly grew heated to the point of being desperate.

I felt that strange dichotomy again, of my knees seeming weak on the inside though they held strongly in place. It felt something like a rush of heat—something akin to the feeling of warm blood gushing from a pulsing vein into my mouth, down my throat, the way it seemed that I could feel every aching cell of my body thirsting for it. There was some collective sense of elation, euphoria, this wave of being extremely drunk on it before you finally sank down with a sigh of relief, of being sated finally. That was the way I wanted Carlisle to infiltrate me. I missed him in my thirsting veins and I wondered if he missed me in his.

I felt a strand of his hair brush across my cheek, the chill of the wind across my lips when our mouths parted. "Just because we don't have to doesn't mean that we can't. It doesn't mean that we can't just be motivated by desire or love. That is my answer to why and how," he said. "Just love. Everything that I do is because I love you."

I nodded, burying my face into his shoulder. "Thank you," I answered, pressing my lips against his neck in the place there should have been a tangible pulse.

"Don't thank me," he said softly. "Marry me."

I looked up at him slowly, brushing my hair away from my eyes.

"When I think about how the past year is nothing but a blink compared to the past two-hundred and eighty years, it seems nonsensical to even think that I feel like I've been waiting so long to ask you this, but I guess I have been waiting all of my life, if you can call it that. And all this time I've had to think about it," he shook his head, "it still doesn't come out right. I love you, Esme. I want to be bound, committed, and tied to you. I want my life and yours, side by side, to make one that we share. Suddenly, the idea of eternity has more sanity than it ever has because I can easily imagine doing just that with you, forever. . ."

I could hear everything that he was saying perfectly; it seemed as if he had ventured into my heart and turned some of what lay there into words with incredible accuracy. I watched his lips move as he spoke. And, for the first time since I had entered this life, I felt as if I must have somehow fallen asleep. I thought I was going to wake up, probably from a coma in a hospital bed, to be told the entire past year had been some drug and trauma induced fantasy. But it was the feeling in my chest that jarred me.

The empty, quiet cavity of my heart felt as if it had welled up suddenly. I thought back over my life, searching for comparisons. I recalled the first time I had felt my son move inside of me. I felt transported back to being a teenager sitting on a cold hospital bed the first time I had seen Carlisle. It wasn't really a physical sensation. This was the magical feeling of falling in love, of feeling for the first time that it isn't just some grand fantasy, some vague notion of an idea—that it was here, beside of you, inside of you.

Will you marry me?

It seemed to repeat in my head. I closed my eyes, mouthing the words silently, letting them sink in. When I opened my eyes again, he was staring at me, very focused, looking at me carefully, desperately trying to read me, I was sure. I could see the anticipation, the anxiety, the hope in the golden depths of his eyes. I felt more alive than I ever had in my human life in that moment.

"Yes," I breathed.

He moved so suddenly that I barely had time to register it. With one arm around my back and the other under my knees, he lifted me up and kissed me. And it was as easy as that.

Carlisle carried me back down to the inn and I lay with my head against his shoulder, looking up at him. We didn't speak until after we were back in our room and he sat me down on the bed, asking me to stay put. He went to his suitcase, returning with a small box and sitting beside me. I choked back a small laugh; I had completely forgotten there was supposed to be a ring.

"I'm sorry I didn't have it with me. I didn't want to lose it out hunting, and I didn't plan to propose to you in a field in the middle of the night."

I just smiled at him as he gently opened the case and held it out to me. I gasped when he took it out, sliding it onto my finger. It fit perfectly—a gorgeous, modern sterling silver, diamond encrusted band with a large, high set diamond in the middle. It was the most exquisite piece of jewelry I had ever seen—something I never would have even dreamed of owning. It was most certainly noticeable, but not too large for my slender finger.

"It's beautiful," I said, staring at it for a long moment. Then, I turned my attention back to Carlisle, my fiancé, looking up him with another smile, one that I felt radiate through my entire being.

I reached up and ran my fingers over one of his eyebrows, down the side of his face, down to his chin and up across his lips. I felt elated and possessive of him suddenly. It was funny how one word, in response to the right question, seemed to change things so much. I felt intertwined with him tighter now. I felt an emotional latch take hold, bearing itself deeply and permanently in the very depths of my being.

Carlisle pulled me into his arms and I sighed, sinking into him. We remained silent, ending up entangled in one another on the bed, his hand wrapped around my left hip, my left knee tucked between his thighs. He ran the fingers of his free hand through my hair and I pressed one hand against his chest, the other gripping his bicep and we just stared at each other.

Not only did I feel that my body and heart had fully reawakened so to speak, but my soul had as well now. I felt whole again. I knew this was me letting go of my fear. It was more than just a romantic reaction. This was me being brave enough to finally strip myself of that protective label of "novice" and fully embrace this new existence. I was no longer wondering or wary. I felt settled. This is where I belong.