Sorry you guys, I have so many projects going on at once that it was hard to find time to type this out. But here it is, sorry for any mistakes.

Anyways, read on, if you dare.

Chapter 16: Tonight I lack the strength to even move

The road ahead is lined with broken dreams,
So walk, walk on by

And I failed to give you everything you need,
For the fears, behind your eyes

When I can't feel you,
I'm not alright, I'm not alright,
When I can't heal you,
I'm not alright, I'm not alright

-Alright by Pilot Speed


EPOV

Once she had fallen asleep in my arms, I really didn't want to let her go. I can't believe that I had hurt her so badly. I was so consumed by my own self loathing of what she did that I never realized how much I was hurting her in the process.

I was such an asshole assuming that I was the only victim in all this.

I sat there on the living room floor for who knows how long, holding her in my arms and rocking ourselves back and forth.

"What happened?!" Emmett and Alice were the first ones to burst through the front door with Rose and Jasper trailing behind.

"Shhh…." I hugged Bella closer to me afraid of them waking her up.

They saw Bella in my arms, fragile like a piece of glass and walked over to me.

"What happened?" Alice asked again as she knelt down beside me.

"James" I all but roared his name.

"We figured as much, because when we left we saw him at the side of the building looking as if he wrestled a bear." Emmett came over as well leavening Rose and Jasper still standing over by the door not sure what to do with themselves.

"But what happened?" Emmett continued.

Flashes of me walking out and hearing that bloodcurdling scream from the one person I would never want to hear that from. Running and seeing James on top of Bella pinning her down and attacking her, James attacking me, him hurting Bella again, and then me beating the living shit out him, all passed through my head giving me a major migraine.

"He… he was attacking her." I gulped and heard everyone gasp.

"If I didn't get there when I did...he would of…" I looked down at the sleeping woman in my arms that had cuts on scared on her face and arms, but was too worried about me to even think about her."

"Jesus, I don't even want to think about what would've happened." I started rocking more and put my chin on top of her head holding her tightly as I felt my eyes start to cloud over with the tears that I was not going to let fall from my eyes.

Everyone sat there, not knowing what to say or do.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I let out in barley even a whisper; I was surprised anyone had heard me.

"Tell you what?" Jasper asked, but I didn't really need to say it out loud for Emmet and Alice to understand what I meant.

"Edward, we didn't want to tell you. We really wanted her to tell you for herself." Alice told me sympathetically.

"That doesn't matter, who knows when she would've told me. She may have never told me if it wasn't for James." I started to raise my voice out of frustration.

"Okay, really Edward." Alice was getting frustrated at my attitude, "I wanted to tell you. I wanted to make you feel like such a god damn fucking asshole for what you did to her. For every little fucking act you pulled on her that caused her to fall into that black hell hole that she was in, but I couldn't because of what you were going through at the time as well." I've never seen Alice this furious before. It really was something I don't think I would've ever wanted to see again after tonight.

"It was the same reason why we didn't tell Bella about your drug problem." Emmett stiffly replied. "We didn't want either of you to throw yourselves deeper into your guy's problems."

"Didn't you think I should've still known? Don't you think that if I knew that everything I was doing to her was sending her to do what she did, that I would of stopped?!" My voice raised even higher. I was surprised that I hadn't woken up Bella yet.

"If you cared about her at all in the first place you wouldn't have done any of that shit. Maybe we wouldn't be in the position we are in now." Emmett couldn't keep his anger in anymore and was starting to shake out of fury. I just shook my head at him.

"You don't think I get that now!" I hissed. "You don't think that I feel horrible for what I did?" and I really did, that was the god's honest truth, but I knew that they wouldn't believe me.

"Then why did you do it?" Alice asked using her soft voice again, but I could tell that she was trying to keep herself from screaming at me.

I knew she really wanted to know, they all did, but I couldn't tell them. It just hurts too much to even think about it.

"I can't." I pleaded with her using my distressing eyes hoping she would at some level understand that this is not something I want to talk about to anyone at the moment.

"Why? Why can't you tell us Edward? Get it all out and over with." I took my hand and started rubbing it aggressively through my hair tugging at the ends of it.

"Because I can't! I yelled a little too loudly causing Bella to stir in my arms. We all sat, frozen to see if she would wake up. She moved around a little bit and snuggled closer to me and I could feel my heart thumping in my chest.

"You wouldn't understand." I said after a moment of silence, my voice back to a whisper.

"Try us." Emmett crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I don't want to talk to you guys about it okay! The only one I really should be talking to about anything is the one in my arms. She's the only person I need to talk to."

"Then why won't you?"

"Because…because I'm afraid." No one said anything, so I went on, "I'm afraid of it all happening again. I'm afraid of losing her again." I let the last part out softly and I felt a traitor tear slide down my cheek, but acted like it was nothing.

After so much progress that we've made, I was really afraid that it was all part of some evil hoax. That everything that happened in the past would just happen again. It would explain why she was hanging out with Felix; then again, I don't think she would've started hanging out with him if I didn't end up sending her to the hospital that while back.

I just don't want it to happen again, I always thought maybe since she wasn't bringing the past up that we could ignore it and move on, but after what has happened, I knew deep down that in order to really move on, the past needed to be brought up again, no matter how terrified it was to relive it.

It wasn't only the past though that I really should talk to her about though. There is something that I really should tell her. But I don't know how she would react to it. I really need to tell her anyway.

"Here, let me take her upstairs to bed." Emmet moved so that he could grab Bella out of my arms, but I clutched her tighter to me.

"No, I'll do it."

"No you won't. You look like shit. I don't think you'll even make it up the stairs." He still tried to extract Bella from my arms.

"Emmett! I'll do it." I stubbornly stood up with pain racing up and down my body, but I wasn't going to give in to it. I didn't want to let her go. I was wincing and flinching in pain as I made my way over and up the stairs into her room trying to keep my groans to myself, not showing anyone how much pain I was really in as they stood there watching me.

I was in so much pain, not just physically but mentally as well. My brain and body were both just begging me to stop, but I wouldn't.

I set her down on her bed sorely and placed a blanket over the top of her. I was about to leave the room when I heard her stir.

"Stay" She murmured delicately that I wasn't sure if she was still asleep or not, but either way I wasn't going to deny her, as much as my brain was telling me to do so, to keep away from her because she was just going to end up hurting me again, I couldn't.

I walked over to the bed and slowly lay down on my side facing her. With her eyes still closed she reached her hand out to me and I hesitantly took it into my own.

"Thank you" she whispered before she fell back into a deep sleep.

I stayed up most of the night watching her sleep.

She moved around a lot and mumbled in her sleep. That has never changed about her, really she still seemed like the same as she was when we were kids, but that was just her personality, physically wise she had changed so much.

She never let go of my hand as she moved around. She held it tightly in her little hand never once loosening her hold on me.

After some more movement I took notice of the cuts on her face and saw that the little bit of blood that had seeped out of her wounds were now all dried up and stuck to her face.

As carefully as I could I got up out of the bed pulling my hand out of hers and made my way towards the bathroom to grab a warm wash cloth to clean off her face. I grabbed a wash cloth out of the drawer and limped back to the bed after I had soaked it with warm water and ringed it out.

I sat on the bed in front of her moving my hand to clean off her cuts as her little body moved up and down with each breath that she took and her lips slightly parted. Despite everything that has happened she still looked beautiful, she always has.

God, no. I cannot be doing this again.

I ran my hand through my hair.

She moved again reminding me of what I still had in my hand and I placed the wash rag softly against the side of her face washing the now dried up blood.

As I moved the rag away I replaced it with the palm of my hands, inspecting the scrapes but soon my hand had a mind of its own and I wasn't really paying attention to the cuts anymore. My hands began to move across her face softly caressing her cheeks, temples, eye lids, anything and everything that had to do with her face. It felt so smooth and silky under my fingers tips, it was hard to stop, but what I really wanted to do was wipe that worry and fear off her face that she was wearing while she slept. I wanted to make everything go away.

I took my other free hand and grabbed her hand again squeezing it tight and bringing it up against my bare chest and heart. He hand was so cool against my heated skin. I didn't want to move it. My other hand rested on her cheek still rubbing it softly with my thumb.

I fell asleep that way, never moving or letting ago, scared that if I did so reality would set back in and everything would crumble under me. In the morning I have to tell Bella about her, because if I wait too much longer, I don't know what is going to happen. I just got to tell her.

--

BPOV

I woke up to a sharp pain in my neck that felt like someone had smashed it with a ton of bricks. I started to groan a little bit and lifted my hand up to ease the pain but it was caught in something else.

I fully opened my groggy eyes to see Edward asleep facing me with our hands still entwined near his bare chest. That's when everything came back to me, the dinner, the fight, the confession.

What was I going to do now? I can't believe that he really stayed here. I was so sure that he would be disgusted with me and leave, and yet here he was.

I felt my heart start to dance around in my chest.

He looked so soothing and content after everything that has happened. It was great to know that now I had my friend back, even though there are still things that we hadn't cleared up, I'll take all I can get right now. I know that when he wants to open up to me he will.

Edward started to move and I just sat there watching. He started to stretch his legs then moved his arms above his head taking my hand with him and kept them both over our heads. He had stopped moving and I looked at his abdomen to see the giant purple bruise looking worse than it did last night.

I instinctively reached my hand out and softly touched it cooling down the hot spot under my hand and felt him shiver beneath it.

"Your hands are still cold." I looked up to see him staring at me.

"They can't be that cold can they?" I took my hand away and held it to my face feeling my cool fingers touch my warm skin, but they felt like ice almost. "Okay, maybe your right."

"I usually am." He laughed lightly then got really quiet.

"Bella, there's something I need to tell you." He sounded really uncomfortable.

"Edward, you don't need to say anything right now." I didn't want him to say anything that made him really uncomfortable or even anything that could harm our new found friendship.

"I really think we should talk about something." Edward still wasn't looking at me but did start to play with my hand nervously.

"Really, Edward, we don't need to say anything until you're ready. To be honest, I don't know if I'm ready to talk about it either. I really like where we are right now, and I don't want to ruin it. It has taken so long to get my friend back; I don't really want to lose him again at the moment." I gave him a small smile.

His eyes darted between mine as if he was searching for something.

I felt his breath on my face caressing my skin. He was so close to my face that I never noticed before. He just kept burning into my eyes and I was sure that I was going to melt if he didn't stop.

What was he doing?

"Bella" he breathed across my face and leaned in more my own breathing becoming stuck in my throat.

"Bella?" Emmett's big fist knocked on my door and Edward moved back away from me running his hand through his hair and letting go of my hand as Emmett came through the door.

"Hey you guys," Emmett let out a little awkwardly, "Bella, Rose and Alice want to talk to you, and Edward, your cell phone keeps going off."

"Who was it?" Edward asked trying to sit up as best he could.

"It was Kate."

"Oh shit, I forgot, I was supposed to go see her today." Edward started mumbling, "Emmett I need you to take me over to her place, I forgot about something."

"Sure man." Edward made his way over to Emmett slowly and cautiously, but before he left the room he looked over his shoulder at me and gave me his crooked smile.

"Good luck." I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion not getting what he meant until he nodded his head towards the two girls that were making their way towards me.

"Thanks" I rolled my eyes at him. "Talk to you later?"

"You sure will." With that the boys left the room and the girls came and sat down on my bed asking so many different questions.

It was going to be a long day.

Sorry that I couldn't get this out earlier to you guys, and sorry about the length, but I promise the next chapter will be much longer, and more exciting.

I know all you guys are really dying to know what Bella supposedly did but you will found that out really soon, let's say like after this coming chapter?

Review please! I love waking up to them in the morning.