OK So here is my completion of CH 3 from Edward's POV. I hope you like it. I am not sure if there is anything left to tell about this part of this story. I will have to wait and see what comes to me. If you want to see what happens later in NM from Edward's POV check out The Final Act my other fic. So please read and review. Thank you to everyone who reviewed last time please do so again. Enjoy!!!

I watched Bella take in this last bit of information. She was unraveling quickly. Again her heart rate increased and this time her knees started to shake. I had to leave before I unraveled too. I gave her my best fake smile and lied one last time. "Don't worry. You're human- your memory is no more than a sieve. Time heals all wounds for your kind." I will be nothing but a faded memory to her, a figment of her imagination. I hated to even think about Bella not remembering me but that was a reality I had to face. It was what I had chosen for us. Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

"And your memories?" The pain in her voice was so hard to listen to.

"Well….I won't forget. But my kind……we're very easily distracted." I was such a good liar I almost believed what I had said. There was nothing in the world that could distract me from my true love. I would be haunted by this forever. I stepped away from her preparing for the permanent separation I was about to enforce. "That's everything I suppose. We won't bother you again."

"Alice isn't coming back?" Bella realized what my words had truly meant. I knew this would make everything that much more difficult. Bella and Alice were like sisters, best friends. Alice had protested my decision but she respected it. Plus she was very focused on Jasper and everything he was going through. It had to be this way. She couldn't say goodbye to all of us it wouldn't work. It needed to be quick and as painless as possible.

"No. They're all gone. I stayed behind to tell you goodbye."

"Alice is gone?"

"She wanted to say goodbye, but I convinced her that a clean break would be better for you." It was hard enough for me but having the others say goodbye as well just wouldn't be feasible. Alice voiced her opinion quite clearly to me on how long she thought I would last and I couldn't have her share that with Bella. Alice especially may have said something to give Bella hope and that would not due. All hope was lost.

It was time to say goodbye, but the words were so hard to say. I kept telling myself they were just words. I realized it wasn't the words that bothered as much as the meaning behind them. By saying them it meant that everything was over. The happiness I experienced for the past few months would end and I would go back to the existence I knew before. But then again not the same existence as before, knowing Bella has altered me forever. I would forever be changed because of her. Her love had brought out a side of me that I though had died in 1918. I had felt human in her presence but I was still a monster. I had to do it now; I couldn't stand here any longer. "Goodbye, Bella" I used the most calm, peaceful voice could conjure up. It hid all the anguish I felt. The words sounded so foreign coming from me. I had said them many times before but this time was much more permanent. I wouldn't be sneaking back into her room to lay beside her and watch her sleep. Goodbye meant an everlasting absence from her life.

"Wait!" She could barely speak the word. She reached for me. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her forever. Instead I took hold of her wrists and gently held her arms to her side. I could see the pain of rejection on her face when she realized I wasn't reaching out to hold her. All of it was becoming too much. I would break before I even left her if I didn't go immediately. I leaned forward placing on last fleeting kiss on her forehead. In that moment I memorized everything about her one last time. "Take care of yourself." I noticed Bella's eyes were closed and with those last words I ran as fast as I could away from my only happiness.

In the distance I could hear Bella calling after me. It was so hard to keep moving forward, away from her, when everything in me was drawn to her voice. I pushed myself forward trying to block out the pained cries of "Edward" that followed me. She is better off without me. I am not good enough for her. I am a monster that haunted her once pleasant life.

I had one last thing left to take care of before Bella returned to the house. I knew I should destroy everything that was left of me in her life but I just couldn't. I needed to know that one day she might find a reminder of me, that she would have some sense of my presence still in her room. I took the cd I made her, the plane tickets from Esme and Carlisle, and the pictures she had taken of me and hid them under her floor boards. She would never know that they were there but I wanted to leave something behind. When I was finished it was time to leave for good. I looked around the room that was my only sanctuary and remembered all the happiness I had found here. It would stay here with Bella. There was nothing happy left for me. I was Romeo, exiled to a far off place, separated from his one true love. This self imposed exiled was permanent. I was leaving all the love I had ever known behind for good.

The emptiness I had started to feel earlier in the day had grown to consume me completely. I ran back to my house and got into my car. I drove as fast as I could away from Forks. As I drove Bella's pleas echoed in my ears. I braced myself for an eternity of remembering the pain I had caused her. The pain I had caused myself was nothing in comparison to what I had done to her. I drove in silence toward Chicago. I was meeting my family there and we were going to decide where to go next. I felt we needed to go somewhere Bella wouldn't think to look, just in case. She knew of Denali and I couldn't have her looking for us because if she found me I wouldn't be able to send her away. Saying goodbye once was more than I had ever planned on doing a second would destroy me.

I continued to drive and replay the conversation from earlier. I don't want you, how could she believe such a thing? How could I say such a thing? She didn't want to believe such things, I told myself. I made her believe. This is what I thought was right. But what did it matter, it was done now. There was no going back. Second guessing my decision was not going to help Bella or me. I would forever be altered by the girl whose face sat behind my eyelids calling me back to her. I was barely out of Washington and I already wanted to go back. Every mile that I put between Bella and I made the wounds grow deeper and more painful. I existed in a constant state of pain now and it was all I deserved. I drove faster as the sky grew darker, reflecting my mood.

It was twilight now, the end of the longest day of my existence. The beginning of the darkness, I lived in darkness now without Bella as my radiant light. I was consumed by darkness, no matter how many times the sun rose and fell darkness was all I saw.