First, I own nothing to do with Twilight, and never will.

I send a big apology out to you guys. I know it inexcusable to leave you all waiting, and I'm so sorry. I've just started a new job, I've had my sisters wedding as bridesmaid, and to top it all off, I couldn't assess my account due to my password. I'm so sorry, I want to thank you all so much for your support, and I love you all to the heavens and feel so humbled by your interest in the story.

I swear to not leave you waiting so long again, as finally I've resolved the issue with my account, life has settled down, and I can start updating more frequently again! I'm so sorry, and I hope you will enjoy this one.

Do you think Bella should try to forgive Edward over everything? Or has he royally taken it too far? Guess that's what happens when vampires are infatuated with someone. No excusing behaviour in any way, whatever happens I don't condone it!

Love you guys, would be interested in hearing your thoughts. :-) xx Hopefully see you all next update (in a weeks time, I sincerely promise!)

Chapter Twenty-two

Edward had been terribly quiet, distracted, and pensive, the next morning. Not that I was complaining.

I got my complimentary breakfast- crispy, golden pancakes with a side of maple syrup and runny eggs- but I could hardly keep it up. I tried to eat it in the bed, because I found I didn't want to move. I didn't seem to have the strength. Halfway through watching me attempting to eat blankly, Edward got up and went outside for a cigarette. When he came back in, he refused to so much as look at me. He went into the bathroom, I heard the faucet running into the basin, and then he came out wearing a clean, button-up black shirt. His face was dripping wet with water, and I assumed then, he had splashed himself with water. He then got himself a bag of blood to drink.

That made trying to eat something all the more worse, because I just knew there was something wrong.

I couldn't eat, and it wasn't just because Edward was drinking thick, sloshing blood in a tall glass right in front of my eyes. In a sense, I guessed I could tell what was up with him. It was what happened last night, that did it. Him trying to keep me awake, so that we could "make love" like two honeymooners on vacation. And me, saying all these things in the heat of the moment, mainly because I was frustrated and tired, and because I just wanted him to let me sleep.

Some of the things, I had truly meant. Others, not quite so much. I just lacked so much as a verbal filter, when I was half-asleep, but clearly, he couldn't understand that. I could tell he was taking it all to heart.

It was in the ways he refused to look at me. In the way he gulped down some blood, and grimaced to himself, blinking heavily, like he was on the verge of some emotional breakdown that was rotting away at him inside, because he couldn't verbalize it or even show it properly. Maybe it was just another one of those vampire things? I couldn't be sure, but it was there. And it made me feel enormously guilty, and wretched inside.

I wanted to apologize over hurting him, but at the same time, I felt an apology to him was undeserved. After all, he was the one holding me here like this. He was the one that had me here. Heaven forbid I should get angry with him over that, and say some terrible things, when he rightly deserved half of them.

After he finished his blood, he sat on the end of the bed, disturbingly quiet.

I went into the bathroom, scrubbed at my skin, and when I came back out, he was still sitting there in the exact same position before, almost like a heavy stone sinking down into that mattress.

With some effort, I sat on the bed next to him. Even then, he hardly moved a bit. Just stared at the wall, emotionless, blinking. It was disturbing and tragic. Several drops of water trickled down his forehead.

"I want you to help me out here," I started hesitantly.

That seemed to get some reaction out of him. He turned to look at me carefully.

"Help you with what?" he asked, tonelessly.

I tried to pretend the situation was in reverse, and that it wasn't happening to me. It helped a whole lot better to cope to see it in that light, where I could step back out of frame and neutrally assess how to get out of it with a clear head. "I have a friend, and she's scared. She has this man, who turned out be a vampire. And he's so in love with her, that he has kidnapped her."

A stiff, strained smile curled his lips. "What a coincidence."

"It is, isn't it?" I inhaled in a deep breath. It was all I could do to keep the fear I felt from spilling out. "Well, she is feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole thing to the point where she doesn't know what she wants. She feels she loves him still, but she's also scared of what he is. Well, she is unsure what he wants with her, and how to help. What do you advise to make it all stop so that she can be released and head home to see her father, who she misses dearly?"

"He just wants her as his wife," he murmured quietly. "He doesn't want to hurt her because of what he is. Asking her to be his wife, is that so much to ask?"

"Well, maybe she doesn't want that, especially not at eighteen. What can she do, in order to be released safely? What can she do... to make it easier on him to let her go?"

He sat for a long moment, still as a statue, in a solemnly contemplative mood.

"She told him she wanted to be with him forever," he said helplessly, after a long moment. His voice grabbed at my heart, twisted me inside. "Perhaps he misinterpreted that, but she still said it regardless." His words turned low and defensive. "She still said it, and she sounded as if she had meant it." He placed his hands on his knees, clenching them tightly together. He still refused to look at me, but I could see so much by the expression on his face, that it was tearing him apart internally.

I reverted back on track with my game. "Yes, but she wants to be home the most. She doesn't like being held here out of her will. Isn't there something else she can do to make him release her easily, so she can be with her father again?" I asked, hopefully. "Anything at all?"

He didn't answer, and maybe he couldn't. He merely sat there, staring vacantly at the wall, his body rigid.

"All right. Let's not play this game anymore and beat around the bush here. The girl in question, is me. I would like to be set free, so what can I do for you in order to be free?"

"You can be with me forever, like you initially said." His voice was chillingly remote, and distant. I had to bite down on my tongue to stop whatever emotions bubbled wildly to the surface over his words. Some, helpless frustration. Others, mind-numbing anger. I just wanted to know what I could possibly do to make this easier on him to let me go.

Despairingly, I reached over and grabbed the hand on his knee that was closest to me. I gripped it tightly as I could muster.

"Please," I breathed weakly. I tried to keep the tears at bay. "I know I'm hurting you, and I hate that. I truly do! But all of this, its honestly scaring me, and I just want to be home." I pulled his hand up, uncurled his stiff fingers, and slipped it on my stomach, holding it there. His eyes closed, and a pained moan tore through the very back of his throat. "Will this help?" I asked, hoping desperately that it would. I shifted a bit closer to him on the bed, rested my shoulder against his hard, rigid one. "Would this help at all, if I let you have me, for one last time? Will that make you take me back home, then? If we have one last, special time together?"

He opened his eyes slowly. "One last, special time together?" he repeated, in a calm and emotionless tone. His face was quite still, blank, but a tendon in his neck was twitching. Maybe he was just nervous?

"Yes," I whispered, and I could feel my breathing begin to pick up when I purposefully guided his hand up to my chest, I could feel my heart beating, with all the panicky feelings I was trying to hard to suppress. "Will this help at all? Will it make it easier on you?"

"You know what I want."

"This?" I yanked his hand down and placed it towards the center of my thighs. I squeezed them together, and glided his hand further. "Is this the answer?"

He didn't answer. He simply sighed heavily through his mouth. He still refused to so much as look at me.

"Well?"

"I want this, yes. Oh, I want it." His soft voice broke in wistful urgency. "But I want other things, also. You already know what I want."

"But I can't give you that! I can only give you this, for one last time. But that's all, all right?"

"Then I don't want it," he hissed stiffly. And he removed his hand away and set it on his knee again.

"Oh, God. Please. Just, yes or no? If I go to bed with you one last, special time, will it make any difference at all?"

"Not while we remain like this."

"Like what?" I asked, aching with confusion. "What are we like? Tell me!" I pleaded desperately.

"It will be fake. Untrue, because you will be leaving me."

I felt my hands contract into fists, and I felt on the dangerous point of breaking down. I took in a deep breath, my eyes fixed on his chin. I could feel my eyes begin to water. "And why would it be fake?" Something flickered across his face, and it occurred to me then. "Right. You think I would be faking it? You think I would only be doing it just so that you'll let me go? Is that it?"

"Yes," he stated miserably. "You didn't want it in the shower." I peered down at his hands. He turned them around, and stared down at his long fingers. They were trembling. "I appal you, due to what I am. I can see that now."

"It isn't due to what you are that makes me feel scared in some way," I said, sounding as earnest as I possibly could. "It's what you're capable of. It's due to what I don't understand about you, with what you are. And also, what you've already... done."

That confused him a bit. He blinked compulsively down at his hands. Red was seeping through his pupils. "And what have I done exactly?"

I almost laughed bitterly, because he had done so much. Couldn't he see that himself? "For one thing, you're keeping me here out of my own will. That isn't usually something a girl likes." He turned to look at me; which felt about the first time he was able to. He was squinting at my neck, and disconcertingly, I wondered if the only reason he was doing it, was because he could somehow see throbbing pulses and arteries. "Not to mention, your group of friend's hurt my father."

"They're not my friends," he said quickly, as if that would make any difference.

"But they were with you," I pointed out strongly. "They came with you. That makes you part of it in hurting my dad, because you did it to get me."

"It was the only solution I had. My hands were forced into it. You refused to see me."

"Yes," I agreed sadly, after a while. "And, yes. I know I had gone about it in the wrong way. This probably all could have been... prevented if I hadn't ran. I'm sorry I hurt you in doing that. But I wasn't thinking clearly and, sometimes, when people are afraid, they do things without thinking properly. But I didn't mean for it to come across as if I was appalled with you for some reason, over what you are."

"And don't you see that I was afraid, also?" He arched his dark eyebrows dubiously. "I was afraid, much in the similar way, as you were. I was afraid I was going to lose you, and you shut me out so completely. I had to do what I had to do to preserve what we once had, and while I admit I'm not proud of that, it was for my sanity." He said it so matter-of-factly, so business-like, like he was declaring a mere business proposal to someone that it angered me. This wasn't anything you could casually talk about. This was something serious. This was about intimidating another person, and causing one of their family members harm. How could he be so cold and impersonal over it? "You probably can't possibly comprehend it unless you were born into what I am, but this is the way it is for us. When we... love, we love intensely. Everything is amplified due to what we are." By us, he meant his vampire kind, and he made that perfectly clear. "It is in our natural instinct, to preserve what we have with our significant mate, when the chips are down and there is a threat in the way. These extremely rare feelings you've brought out of me, are permanent for you. They won't ever wane with time or separation, they will merely heighten by the year. They will always be... there. A lasting sensation existing inside of me."

"Right," I whispered, trying to sound as casual as I possibly could, yet I failed. I shivered, yet felt simultaneously affected and moved by that.

Really, who wouldn't, when someone was declaring something like that, so openly? I suppose, to a girl who might have dreamed about finding everlasting love, it would have appealed to her most. Only, not for me. I hadn't put much stock into that; He was my first-ever relationship with someone of the opposite sex. I had only expected it to last however long it would, and then we would inevitably have a falling out, and part ways as amiably as possible. Because, doesn't that usually happen with all teenage relationships? Isn't that the way it was supposed to be? A learning curve?

"Can't you understand how it must feel like for me?" He asked, his voice turning sluggish and drained. "This is how it will always remain. There will be no other, I won't be able to see any other but you, Bella. No one else exists. No one else matters, or reaches into the forefront of my mind, as you do. This is the way it is. You will always be a permanent fixture to me. The cards of fate were already dealt the instance I saw you across the road in the rain that day. Over a hundred years of trying to appear normal in attempting to date..." A wistful smile curled the corners of his lips."Over a hundred years of waiting for the moment it would finally happen. And finally, it happened, and it can never cease, unless I kill myself by suicide. Only then, will it stop."

That terrorized me way more than I believed possible. A pain so crippling, over the possibility of him ever doing something to himself, came on so strong. Without any ounce of control on it, and with such despair, I placed a hand on the side of his cool cheek. I left it there for a long moment, aiming to console him in some sense.

"That is why I react the way I do, sometimes impulsively," he went on, after a moment of still silence, his eyes flitting closed. He leaned his face into my hand, almost as if he was luxuriating in the feeling of having it there on him the way it was. "It is the drive I have, to keep myself from losing you. Even with that boy at your school, it was there. It will never go away. Never."

I slid over on the mattress and hugged him then, before I could make any sense out of what I was doing. I held my cheek against his shoulder, and we sat there for an incredibly long moment, with neither one of us so much as speaking a single word. We just bathed in the silence, and I lost myself in knowing he was content in my comfort.

It helped a lot to understand certain things. But it only made those niggling doubts in the back of my head grow even stronger.

"I will do terrible things, because of you," he whispered after what felt like years. He lifted his head to rest his chin on the top of mine, and he sighed wearily. "I already have committed some inexcusable things. My only crime, is that I love you. Can anybody really fault me for that?"