Edward POV

"Because it isn't real." She whispered turning to look at me again, tears making tracks down her cheeks. "Because it's a lie."

I turned my back to my glorious vision then bringing my hands to my hair wanting to rip it from my skull. Not real?…A lie?

"Could the fates be so cruel to bring me a hallucination that engaged all five of my senses? I couldn't just see her and hear her but I could taste, touch and smell her as well." I said out loud in what could only be a tortured voice.

My angel came around to face me then, grasping my arm. I closed my eyes to dispel the illusion that tormented my very soul.

"Edward, Edward, look at me." Her voice pleaded. I opened my eyes and she was still standing before me. "I am real. Not a hallucination." She smiled sadly then with some hidden meaning I did not understand. "It's this that is not real." She sobbed pointing to me and then to herself.

Maybe she was real, I finally was willing to admit but I still did not understand what she was saying.

"I don't understand." I finally said.

She paused, swallowed and paused again. "It's us..kissing like this…that is the lie."

Was she saying that she did not love me? What about the letters she had written?

"But the letters? I am confused. Don't you love me any longer?" If that was the case it would be painful but I would accept and move on happy just knowing she was alive.

"What kind if idiotic question is that?" She demanded. "Of course I love you."

"Then what?"

"It's you Edward" she said sorrowfully. "It's you that doesn't love me. You had said so yourself. But you must listen to me Edward. You can't go and try to have yourself killed because I wanted to die, you can't feel guilty that you couldn't love me as I love you." Her words broke at the end.

Finally, I was comprehending what she was trying to say and it made me very angry that she could think that way. Didn't she realize the depth of what I felt for her?

"Isabella Marie Swan, do you think that I was trying to kill myself because I felt guilty?"

She looked warily at me now. "Well didn't you?"

"Feel guilty? Immensely so. But that wasn't the reason I was going to Italy."

"Now I am confused."

"I was going to the Volturi because I thought you were dead, because I cannot live in a world where you don't exist."

"But you said…" I knew what she was getting at and I had to put a stop to it right there and clear up any misapprehension.

I cut her off. "I know what I said that day. That was the lie. All of it. I had to lie. You wouldn't let me go otherwise and I needed to leave. I was doing it to protect you. Protect you.." I ended muttering mostly to myself "and I nearly ended up killing us both." I laughed humorlessly. "But to have you believe me so completely, that was excrutiating. Why could you believe the lie and not the truth? Why did it take just one word to break your faith in me, in us?"

She looked down but I needed her to see me, to see the truth in my eyes of what I was telling her. I cupped her face again in my hands and made her look at me.

"I always knew I wasn't good enough for you and for a little while I let myself believe the fantasy that was woven before me but when you said it the words out loud, the reality of what I had always knew came crashing down around me." She finally said, her voice pained and it broke my non-existent heart.

"I. Love. You." I said to her. "I am so, so, sorry that I gave you the fuel to doubt that and I will gladly pay the penance for it every day of my existence if you would only spend it by my side."

Her eyes went downcast again but I thought I had seen a tiny spark of hope. I needed to make her believe me fully.

"Please let me attempt to explain what you mean to me." I started trying to find the right words but how can one express in mere words how completely and deeply I loved her, how completely and deeply she changed me. "Bella, before you came into my life, my world existed of only muted colors, shaped and forms. But when I met you, everything changed, everything was clear and bright and vibrantly colorful. When I thought you were…dead" I said stumbling over the word. "There were no more colors, not even muted ones, everything went black. Now that I have you safe in my arms again, knowing you feel the same way, everything is vibrant again."

She looked at me in awe. "That's exactly how I feel."

I nodded. 'Because, we belong together. You are my soul mate Bella. One cannot exist without the other and I am so sorry that I tried to make us do that….I was coming back anyway you know."

"You were?" she asked disbelievingly.

"I couldn't live without you anymore. The pain was just too unbearable. When I received the telephone call from Rosalie, I was already debating on coming to you and begging on my knees if needed, to get you back."

Bella POV

Could what he was saying be true? Oh, I had so wanted to believe that but the overwhelming doubts still plagued my mind. I looked at him trying to read the truth of his words in his eyes. I saw it then, all of it. All of my feelings were mirrored in his eyes. The misery, the anguish, the love and I was once again complete.

"Kiss me" I whispered pleadingly."

His lips bent to hover over mine and he spoke again. "You have my solemn vow that I will never, ever leave you again." His lips were on mine once again, kissing me tenderly. I wrapped my arms around him, never wanting to let him go.

I shivered in his embrace finally feeling the cold and dampness from the weather.

"You're cold" He said rubbing his hands up and down my arms to create friction. "I just got you back, I won't risk you getting sick on me now." He turned around, his back to me. "Hop on spider monkey" He said grinning. "We'll go back to my house."

"Just like old times." I grinned jumping on his back. In the back of my mind I knew there would be a lot of explaining to do about the wolves, Jake, Victoria and Laurent. But I did not want to think about that now. Time for explanations would come later. For this moment, I just wanted to relish in the fact that I was here with Edward as we flew through the trees.