A/N:

For all of you who thought I was gone, I'm very much so alive ! I know I've been hiatus for a while and I'm sorry!

But I want to thank all my readers who have been with me since day one and those who have started to read this story. You don't know how much it means to me. (: I want to thank my very busy beta, Naomi for putting up with my crap, but also, for tying up all the loose strings and helping me make this story a little bit better.

Alright, enough with all that, let's get on with it!

BPOV

Dawn pressed against the undrawn curtains as I stirred out of a dreamless slumber. My eyes felt heavy and I imagined my face, puffy and red from crying myself to sleep last night. The events that happened last night played through my head like a movie, and it seems like my approach on going in there strong failed horribly.

My plan was to go in there, not raise my voice, not to show Edward how much hurt I felt, and to show him how much I didn't care…even if it meant hiding how I truly felt.

He broke through my façade with his carelessness and it was almost like he was disgusted with me. And now that I think of it, what was the point of him coming to see me if all he was going to do was act like he didn't care? He and I both knew he did. He couldn't just stop caring about me like that, could he?

I didn't know, but either way, we needed to sit down and talk seriously. I needed to know why things happened the way they did so I can just go on with my life.

Even if it meant a life without Edward.

I shifted and felt something hard on my foot. Opening my eyes, I was met with the same eyes I saw before I went to sleep last night. Edward's.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" I jumped up quickly, the covers tight in my grasp up to my chest.

He looked away like a child getting caught from stealing cookies from the jar, "I had come to apologize earlier, but you were still sleeping, so I stayed here and watched you sleep."

Wait, what?

"You, watched me sleep?"

He nodded.

Where was he coming from with all this niceness? Was he in denial? Why is he really here?

I had so many questions flooding my mind and I was still shocked that he was still here, admitting that he was creeping on me.

I think he registered the shocked look on my face and took it as a way for him to continue.

"Listen, I know that I'm probably the last person you want to face right now—"

"Damn straight," I muttered under my breath.

He continued, "but, I think you should know what's going on."

"Why did you do it, Edward? What did I do to deserve this? Of all the things I expected, I never thought, never imagined that you would go behind my back and hurt me to this extent."

"I know," he sighed, running his hands through his hair, "but this all happened before I even met you."

"What?" I was confused. It happened before me?

"What I had with Tanya was well before I even met you. It was around 70 years before I had met you," he explained. "Shortly after I was changed, Carlisle sent me to Tanya's family's house. He felt that I might be able to control my thirst for humans and satiate the need for their blood with that of an animal's. He found the scenery ideal for that type of training because at the time, there really weren't as many people in the area.

Everyday, I was out training, at first with Tanya's mother. She gave me the basics: how to use my ears to find an animal and use that sound to determine how big the animal is; how to find the animal and approach it undetected; how to catch the animal; where the best vein with the large blood flow. And eventually, when she felt it was time, she let me go hunt with Tanya and eventually myself. I never liked hunting with myself so I stayed with Tanya. I enjoyed her company. I eventually," he stopped and looked at me worriedly before returning his gaze to the floor below him, "I eventually fell in love with her."

Tanya's mother had trained me for 8 months straight and I thought I had gotten the hang of it and that I had satiate my thirst for human blood. I wouldn't know because I had been isolated from them for as long as I had been there, but there was one day…one day where I would have to test that.

One day-the day after the bears had come out from hibernation—we heard them. We heard the humans, coming in the direction of our house, hunting for bears. They were out for another 5 to 10 miles but we heard them.

Tanya's mother told me that this was going to test out what I had learned over the past couple of months. She expected me to succeed in my newfound ability to have control and to not breathe in their scent when they came close enough to really smell it.

I thought I could handle it, I really thought I could…" he started grabbing at his hair, pulling it at all sides. He took in a sharp breath, almost to sound as if he were crying. Then he started shaking his head, "I thought I could handle it, but when they came around, it was so alluring. The scent was so sweet, so tempting, so …delicious.

There must have been maybe two groups of 20 people and I just went at them. I couldn't contain myself. I drank and drank and drank until all the bodies lied in a disorganized mess across the forest floor. I had killed at least 40 people in my own hands, and it felt…good.

I felt nothing but bliss having the sweet blood travel down my burning throat and it was like, that was my "calling" in a sense. It was in that moment that I decided that I didn't want to be this vampire that feasted on animals. I was supposed to and felt that I had to kill humans. It was programmed in me.

When I ran back into the house, Tanya and her sister Irina were frantic and they shuddered away from me. They avoided all eye contact and it was almost as if they were disgusted by me. Tanya wouldn't come near me, and that hurt me deeply.

Tanya's mother had yelled at me. She threw me around and broke things off my body. She screamed that we were living in isolation for a reason and that with 40 people dead outside the house, we would be found out and she was right.

Almost three days later, another search party stumbled upon the bodies and went back to town and reported it. Police had swarmed the area within a matter of hours and before they arrived, the Denalis and I had evacuated the house. We ran over 100 miles to a safe house that they had just in case anything should happen. We hid out and listened for days and weeks. And when we thought the coast was clear, they came. The Volturi came. Tanya's mother had told me earlier that they were to come she would die. She explained how she had wanted children but because her body didn't allow her to reproduce, so she kidnapped two people from a different state, brought them to the house, and changed them herself. She trained them to not kill humans and even though she did wrong but changing these people, she didn't force them on a killing spree to kill hundreds or thousands of people.

So when she had come to face the Volturi, they proved her story and they killed her instead of her children.

After she died, I had to stay to console Tanya and Irina. Tanya seemed more unforgiving as she felt that her mother's death was her fault. Irina distanced herself and eventually left to live a life on her own. That left me and Tanya. I consoled her, and held her as she wept," I gave him a look; "you know what I mean," he said.

"Eventually, I spent so much time with her that I started to fall in love with her. And we just stayed together and we stayed together until about 15 to 20 years after. I met this girl. Her name was Maria.

I met her at a restaurant in the town next to the woods we stayed in. I was working there and she came in. She had brown hair, just like yours," he ran his hand through my hair carefully, as if fearing that he might scare me away.

"Her eyes were a breath-taking emerald green. Their depths swallowed you as you looked into them. She had soft, feather-like skin and her smile radiated anything it came into contact with, especially, with her adorable dimples. And when she touched me," he stopped, an adoring smile placed on his face, "when she touched me, it felt like time had stopped and I wanted nothing but for her to keep touching me, so I could stay in that moment."

When he told me that, I felt…jealous. He talked about her like she was the only woman for him, like he was still in that moment. I wondered if he ever looked at me that way. If he felt something when I touched him and if he loved me like the way it sounds like he loved her. I felt tears come to my eyes btu I fought them back.

I refused to show weakness.

" After that she became a regular and we would always strike up a conversation. As much as I wanted her, I knew I had to stay away from her, but it was so hard. So hard that I gave up, and I stopped trying. I started hanging out with her outside of work. We got so close where I thought I would leave Tanya for her.

I loved Tanya, don't get me wrong, but I was in love with Maria.

Tanya grew jealous of how smitten I was with her. She told me that she wasn't going to lose me to her after I said I was leaving her for Maria.

I hadn't heard from her for two weeks and I wasn't worried by it. I spent everyday with Maria and when I went to work, I always went to her apartment where I stayed with her until she fell asleep.

Then one day, after work, something felt off. I didn't know what but things didn't feel right. Everything throughout the day seemed unusual. Every morning before work, Maria would come into the restaurant and say good morning before heading off to run a few errands. This particular morning, she didn't come by and I thought it was the most peculiar thing.

I thought maybe she got sick and didn't feel well enough to come out, but then again, I had a gut feeling that something wasn't right.

When I got to her apartment after work, the door was open and the apartment was black. Glass was crunching beneath my feet. Everything was at disarray. I remember calling out for her and not hearing anything.

But, the smell of her was everywhere.

I followed the scent to her bedroom and when I walked in, there she was, slain. Dismembered and her blood shed everywhere. I had to leave.

And the scary thing was, I knew where I was going before I left. I was there in front of the all too-familiar house within a couple of minutes and face to face with the monster within a matter of seconds."

EPOV

"Why did you do that to her? WHY? I LOVED her !" I screeched

The smirk she held on her face disgusted me.

"Because, you belong to me."

"The fuck I do!" I felt my fists tighten at my sides.

"You do. My mother told me before she died. She told me that because you killed all those people and because you put our family in jeopardy, and because you killed her, you belong to me."

"You're fucking delusional. Your mother is dead! She couldn't have told you that!"

She laughed, "Edward, you can say you don't want to be with me. You can say you have moved on, but just so you know, wherever you go, I will make the rest of your life, for as long as you live, a living hell. And I will show you that you do indeed, belong to me. But until then, I suggest you run. You're on the wanted list for Maria's murder."

"You're a bitch."

"I know baby, I know."

I don't know how much time had went by, but before I knew it, I had told Bella everything. I told her how I fell in love with two other girls after Maria and that both times, Tanya made me take part in their murder; I told her how Tanya was after her; I apologized so many times.

So many times.

And I meant every single time I said it. I would only hope that she believed me. If there is a God, he will give Bella the sense of understanding and help her understand why I did everything I did to her.

God I hope so much.

BPOV

Wow.

That's all I can really say. Edward just told me everything, and I actually wanted to kill Tanya. She's manipulating Edward by making him do things he doesn't want to do to keep her from turning him in (not like that would really matter) and to keep him all to herself.

That may have really pissed me off, but that still didn't give Edward the right to put his hands on me, even if it was to look like he didn't care about me.

But he still didn't answer the one question that's been bothering me, "Was it worth it Edward? Was going through all of this worth destroying our relationship, destroying what we had, and destroying me worth it all?"

He was back to tugging at his hair again, "No."

"Ok."

"Bell, if I could reverse time and just end our relationship before any of this happened, I would've done it so I wouldn't have to see you suffer. I wanted you happy, and this is the farthest thing from it, but I promise you it won't ever happen again. I'm going to strive to make you happy even if it kills me."

I thought for a moment and as sweet as he was being, after everything that happened, this definitely wasn't the kind of life I wanted to live. And if I were to truly live, it would have to be a life that didn't include vampires and werewolves. Just humans.

"Edward, I'm not taking you back," I said it, looking deep into his eyes. I could tell he was hurting.

"Bella, just hear m—"

"Edward, no," I cut him off, "I don't want this life anymore. This isn't for me. I'm not happy. I'm hurting and you can't fix what's already broken, no matter how hard you try. So please, stop trying."

I got up feeling myself ready to cry again, and I couldn't let him see me. No. I have to be strong in order to move forward.

When I walked by him, I felt him grab my hand. I felt my arm fill with heat and the hairs stand up. The sensation ran through my body.

I looked back at him and his sorrowful eyes were enough to know he was silently pleading with me.

But I couldn't.

I took my hand back and held it to my chest, slowly shaking my head as I turned away from him and continued walking out the door.

When I finally made it to the bathroom, I let myself cry. Not because I felt bad for him, or because I felt like I was making the wrong decision, but because despite all that's happened between us in this short amount of time, I still get butterflies when I see him and goose bumps when he touches me.

And that's why, after all that's been said and done and all that has yet to happen:

I will always and forever love Edward Cullen.

Dun dun dun! Didn't expect that did you? Well, I have a couple more tricks up my sleeve ;) This story is beginning to wind down, and I know you have all been waiting long enough, but I kindly ask, please bear with me!

The next chapter should be up soon, just hang in there.

Thanks again. I love you all!