"Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear."
-John Lennon
It was a very strange thing for me in that moment as I sat there drawn up in to an almost fetal like position. Though I was resigned to my own pain and loneliness, I could feel that of Edward's as well. The thing that had confused me the most was why he had broken our engagement and then just left with nothing more than a note. That wasn't like Edward, but perhaps whatever had pushed him to feel he needed to leave again had caused him some kind of pain as well. Perhaps that force had left him emotionally void as it had me. It wasn't so much that I was emotionally void; I was just void; period. Without Edward I felt as if I had nothing left to live for. No other person, not even my parents, had ever touched me on the level that Edward did. It was as if we had developed a symbiotic relationship and each of us needed the other for our own specific reasons just to survive; least that was how it had been for me. Now that things were so dramatically different, I didn't know if I knew Edward any longer and that scared me.
Finally I managed to get a hold of myself and look up at him. Even sitting next to me he was still taller than me by almost a foot, but while I had been falling apart he had moved next to me and was sitting on the ground only inches away from me. My dark eyes locked on to him once more as I stretched my numb limbs. The rain and cold had soaked all my clothes and I was shivering from the dampness but I really didn't care. The only thing that mattered to me now was that Edward was there. The silence between us was deafening. It was almost tangible and I hated it. Where there once had been a natural order of ease between us now there was uncertainty and emptiness. Somehow in Edward's leaving this time he had managed to cause that unbreakable bond to become severely weakened and because of that I imagined that he and I both were feeling like we were drifting a bit aimlessly. I know I hated that feeling, and I could only imagine how it made him feel.
Without a word he used the pads of his thumbs to wipe my tears away very gently as ever, but he offered me that trademark half smile that I so loved about him and finally said. "Bella, I don't really know where to start. Things changed. Things happened. I can't even tell you why they did. I felt stupid for what I did and right now, I feel like I should beg before you, but I don't even feel worthy enough to do that." Reluctantly, almost nervous like, he reached around me and wrapped me in his cold embrace. It made me shiver more but it was comforting. I looked at him in utter confusion and heartbreak and asked, "Ed? Why didn't you just tell me what I was doing wrong?" If vampires could cry I really believe that Edward would have been crying in that moment. His eyes grew dark and he closed them as I watched. He took in an unneeded breath and then opened his eyes and gazed back down at me and he then let out that breath as if he had forgotten that he had been holding it. My eyes settled on to his once more and I did start crying again. My head went to his chest and he just drew me closer. It felt good, even if I knew it was only going to be temporary.
Edward's cold finger from his free hand found itself beneath my chin and carefully he nudged me to look upwards and I did. With that pleading look in his dark eyes he said to me, "Bella, please don't cry." I wanted to stop for no other reason than to give absolve him of the guilt I knew he must be feeling, and yet, I still didn't know what had caused it, but the tears kept coming and between racking sobs I managed to stutter out an almost comprehensible statement, "Ed, I'm … I'm … sorry. I'll try … but … it's hard. I still don't know … don't …. understand what I did wrong." Something in him changed in that instant. We had kissed a few times before, but he had always been gentle with me but not this time. He pulled me up into his lap and drew my face to his and he kissed me with a passion that only soul mates can recognize in one another. That kiss touched me as nothing else ever had. This was my Edward, this was the man I had fallen in love with; this was my everything holding me as he used to before everything had started its long trek into hell.
Dark eyes met chocolate ones and then he finally broke the kiss as he traced my facial features as if I were a porcelain doll and he spoke, "Bella, my one true heart, you never did anything wrong. You couldn't do anything wrong. You did everything right. I was foolish and was mislead by my own thoughtlessness. It's a long story that I will try to explain in time, but just suffice it to say, that I went after something that I thought wanted and learned that it was nothing more than a pipe dream. I don't even know that I can ask you to forgive me. I know what I did was awful, but I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me and know that I will ever regret doing what I did to you." As I gazed up at Edward I listened to his words and knew that he spoke the truth, but I didn't know what I could accept so quickly. As I had said to him once before; his changeability was going to give me whiplash, and that I didn't like.
This time I was different and stronger. Yes, I needed and more so wanted Ed in my life, but I didn't know if I could survive another lapse from him. I know that he loves me, but I still felt like I was perhaps doing something wrong that might be driving him away. My own self-doubts were eating at me and I just needed to understand myself better before I could give him absolution from this recent ordeal between us. Besides he had not even said that he wanted us to get back together, so I knew I had to keep my wits about me and my feet on the ground before I started thinking things that might not be laid out in the cards. If I wasn't careful my heart would be like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon Float ready to take flight. No, this time I had to remain thoughtful and certain of what I really wanted and needed between Edward and myself. My left hand went to his face and caressed the cold hard smoothness of his cheek and I whispered to him, "Edward, you know I love you, or least I hope you do, but this time there was such a hole left that I don't know that I can just plug it back up and then merrily go on my way. I don't even know what you want for us now. Hell, I don't even know that you want there to be an us. I may just be playing here on wishful thinking or daydreams. I think we both have to do some soul searching and determine what it is that we both really want; be it with one another or not."
I sighed and had never really stopped crying, not fully anyway, but I did manage to regain some sense of understanding and equilibrium on the matter. "I have more questions than answers and I would hope that you will eventually open up and tell me what was going on and why you thought you had to leave me. You say that I didn't do anything wrong and yet you still left. Edward, I have to know, please tell me what was going on. Don't you think I at least deserve that?" I couldn't piece it together and it had bugged the shit out of me at the time. I really needed some answered and Edward was the only one that could provide them. So for now I just sat in his lap with his arms curled around me waiting and hoping that I would get some, of any kind.