1The Twilight Saga and its characters are the property of Stephanie Meyer

15.

I felt my body sink into the marble floor as they entered the room. Before they had delivered their decision I could hear it in their thoughts. They would not help me willingly. I would be forced to make threats, to not only disappoint but jeopardize my family.

Aro's voice did little to penetrate my haze. It was as if all the sound in the room was being drowned by the phantom pounding of my heart, the absent racing of my blood. How dare they! Have I not followed their rules? How could they deny me? Why?

"Edward!" Aro demanded my attention. I forced myself to look him in the eye, and in his thoughts I could see my own hateful glare.

"I know you are disappointed with our decision. Further more, I understand you are determined to force our hand. But you must know, that as an immortal, you are extremely valuable. You would be an asset to any coven ... precious. Your gift should not be wasted." He shook his head and attempted to smile at me as he continued. "Join us. Live as a true vampire should, and you will forget to think of your Bella."

As he prattled on my eyes drifted from him, to Caius, to Marcus. Caius had been the only one to vote in my favor. Although his willingness to kill me came from hatred rather than compassion. Marcus felt no need for them to intervene in my "personal matters" and Aro obviously had his own reasons for wanting me alive. His conceit was overwhelming. To assume that he could persuade me not only to join his army of brainless monsters, but to suggest I might "forget to think" of Bella ...

"Teach me how I should forget to think," I quoted. Although, I delivered the line with much more revulsion than was originally scripted.

"Ah! Romeo? Is that how you see yourself? Romeo was a pitiful fool, as was Shakespeare himself," he snapped at me.

I saw him now. This was the Aro, I had expected. I had been wrong before. I thought because he could see my thoughts, feel my pain, he understood. He understood nothing. He felt nothing. To him all beings, vampire and human, were meant for one purpose ... to serve him. The humans to sustain his miserable existence and the vampires to sustain his power.

I stood silently and turned to leave the repulsive room.

"Edward, how will Carlisle feel about your decision?"

I stopped and turned, one last time, to face the pompous fool. "Carlisle will understand what you do not. Carlisle, who is more compassionate than any other man I've ever known, will know that I had no other choice. Carlisle, unlike you, is capable of sympathy. He will forgive me."

I made my way out the doors, through the hall and back into the lobby. The human woman rose from her chair, but I did not even give her the chance to speak before I was out the door.

It was twilight, the ending of another day. Another day without her.

There was no time to waste. I was ready to die, the only decision left was how I would elicit their attack. I wandered the streets for hours as I continued to over think what would be my final act. I could pick up a car and throw it into a crowd, or jump off a building ... or hunt. It would be the ultimate insult. To feed inside the walls of Volterra. It was an intriguing idea. I went so far as to walk the streets, listening to every mind. Searching for someone who deserved my wrath.

In the end I knew I couldn't go through with it. Carlisle would suffer enough to hear of my death. I would not add to his disappointment. The hours continued to pass, and the faint light of a new day hinted at the horizon. With that I had found my answer. So simple really. Light.

I would expose my bare skin to the sun. On Saint Marcus day there would be crowds of people in the square. At noon when the sun was at its peak, I would do nothing more than walk out into the crowd. They could not risk having to explain why there was a sparkling being amid the worshipers. The very idea of it made me smile.

They would act to stop me, and I would die for merely being what I am. I found a dark alley near the clock tower. There I endured my final hours. I watched silently as the square started to fill with people. I considered calling Alice, to say goodbye. To say I was sorry. But it would be selfish of me, cruel even, to put her through that. So I took the time to respectfully say goodbye, in my own way, to my family.

I watched the hands on the clock move, minute by minute, ever closer to my end ... my salvation.

11:30 ... 11:45 ... 11:59 ...

I stood, motionless, before the approaching sunlight. The darkness of the alley behind me was the extreme contrast to the white light that was slowly engulfing the square. My shirt lay at my feet, and I was ready. With my eyes closed I spent my last moments with Bella. If there was nothing after this, it would be my only chance to see her. I imagined her bathed in sunlight, calling to me, asking me to join her in the meadow. Our meadow. As the clocked tolled she smiled and laughed reaching her arms to me. I stepped forward in response.

I am coming my love, my life. And if there is no reunion for us in death, please ... forgive me.

Then, before I could feel the pain of death, it was over, and she was there. No longer a dream. She was real, substantial in my arms. I stared down at her in awe. She was more beautiful than I had remembered. More exquisite than any hallucination. Her scent caused a familiar ache in my throat, but I welcomed it.

I had never believed in an afterlife for our kind. I always assumed there would be nothingness in my destruction. I had accepted that heaven was not an option for me. But as I looked at the face of my soul staring back at me I was happily proved wrong.

"Amazing," I finally managed to say. "Carlisle was right."