She didn't move, didn't breathe. She just watched. Bella watched Edward's golden eyes move side to side as they scrutinized her own, brown eyes. She had an impulse to reach her hand out and stroke Edward's cold, stone cheek, but she refrained. She didn't want to be hurt again. She didn't want that hole that seemed not to exist now that he was here to start up again the moment he left, but even with all her might, she did not have the strength to close the window. Weak, she thought as she reflected back to the moments when she was grieving over Edward.
The shock of him being here at her window, like so many times before, seemed to vanish. Now she was wondering how he got here. How he managed to escape the Volturri's wrath and anger against him. Once again she was confused.
"Bella." Edward breathed her name out as if she were a fragile, porcelain doll he was afraid of breaking. Bella took a sharp intake of breath at the way he said her name. It was nothing like the way Jacob said it in his strong, deep voice. It was better than that. It was the best- but Bella stopped herself. She couldn't let Edward into her heart again and she knew it, but it couldn't hurt to let him inside, right?
"Edward," she said, nodding her head as if it were a very formal greeting. She hoped her tone came off as guarded and stolid, yet polite, but she wasn't sure she had achieved that. She didn't want to make one wrong move and let him slip out from her fingers. He couldn't leave. Not yet.
She stepped aside so he could duck his way into the room. She shut the window behind him and had a difficult time locking the window back up. That's when she noticed her hands were shaking. "Here, let me help," Edward said quietly. She yanked her hands away from the window as soon as she felt that cold sensation of his fingers touching hers. Blushing, she walked over to the bed and sat.
She could feel the light padding of his feet as they touched the floor when he came to sit next to her. "Bella," he said again. It took all her strength not to melt into him and cry into his chest. "I'm so sorry. For everything I've done. I was stupid, and I should have known that-" He stopped when Bella placed a finger on his steely lips. Realizing what she had done, she quickly pulled her hand away. Don't get attached to him, Bella, she told herself.
"I don't want to hear your excuses, Edward." This time she knew her forced curt tone had worked when she saw him wince at her remark. She expected him to say something. She didn't know what he would say, but she wanted him to say something, anything, but he didn't. He just sat there, an impassive look printed on his face. "How did you get here?" she asked him, a little aggravated that she had to break the silence.
He looked at her and smiled for the first time that night showing his perfect, gleaming white teeth. Bella wondered what animal they had recently bitten into. She shuttered at the thought. "I ran here, Bella," he said in a bright tone that could have been taken as light laughter. This irritated her a little bit. She wondered whether he was trying to be witty, or he was ignorant to what she really wanted to know.
She pursed her lips and looked at him hard. "I meant," she bit at each word, "how did you manage to escape the Volturri?"
His smile faded once he realized what she was asking. A flash of confusion flitted across his face. "D-did you want me to see the Volturri?" he stuttered. Bella could feel her face begin to glow red. He thought that she wanted him dead! How impractical that was!
She hurriedly answered him to get back on the right path. "No! I just assumed that you would have because," Bella's voice became quieter, "Alice told me that you were going to show your self so the Volturri would," she swallowed, her throat now dry, "kill you," she finished. I let him put the pieces together.
He stared down at the ground for a long moment, and Bella wondered whether he was mad at her for asking that question, but she knew she had to ask it. The curiosity was eating at her. Edward looked up into Bella's eyes and just like when she first saw him, fear was settled in his golden irises. He paused for just a moment longer then said, "I was wrong, Bella. I thought I could protect you, but I can't even protect myself."