Chapter 30 Notes: Ch. 29 was not a favorite for me (and many of you). But I like this chapter. Hope you dig it, too.

Thanks to Christina for the beta.

CHAPTER THIRTY: Uninvited

Monday night passed in a sleepless blur of aches from my back and the play of shadows against my bedroom wall. He never showed. Just like I'd hoped he wouldn't, like I told him he shouldn't. I'd warned him to stay away from me, and apparently, despite that flickering moment of uncharacteristic, persistent fascination with me in the parking lot, he had no intention of fighting his way back into my life.

Though I knew better, part of me still considered it possible that Edward Cullen would make some sort of attempt to contact me. I wasn't sure which was more ridiculous: the idea that he would even want to speak to me after months of deliberate silence or that he'd actually have the nerve tfo try. He'd had something to say to me before I sped off that afternoon in the parking lot, parting us for the sake of my own mental stability. None of what he wanted to tell me mattered because I knew his motivation. Suddenly, in Edward's eyes, I'd gone from hum-drum teenage girl to the perfect tool in his vendetta against the Quileutes: the object of a young, crazed werewolf's misplaced affections.

For that reason, I'd meant what I said. Edward needed to stay out of my life. But I couldn't keep him out of my head. While I couldn't bear to see him, that didn't mean I was capable of erasing the day's images of Edward throttling Jacob from my mind. Nor could I escape the sudden resurgence of the sound of his voice or the vivid image of his face, perfectly etched with calculated bewilderment and distress. He'd never left my dreams, but Edward Cullen was now back to haunting my waking life with unrelenting fervor.

I laid on my stomach across my bed that night, obsessing over his words to Jake: I gave up everything. Because you were supposed to be the safe choice.

What the hell that was supposed to mean? Edward sacrificed something? Jake was the "safe choice?"

Or maybe I knew exactly what it meant. The only link between the two of them was...me. And that made no sense whatsoever.

Because Edward didn't want anything to do with me.

Because he had to know that I'd given Jake up long ago and yet he'd made no attempts to re-enter my life until today, when he apparently learned for the first time Jake was a werewolf.

Because if he'd cared about me, even just as a friend, he wouldn't have stood idly by and watched me rot for months.

There was no other explanation: Edward was playing me. But I refused to be his toy.

Logic and experience told me Edward was putting on a show, faking selflessness and sudden devotion so that he could use me, either as a pawn in his bitter game with the Quileutes or for another fleeting piece of entertainment to break up the bottomless monotony of his immortality.

But, in the very back of my head, another theory stirred. It churned my stomach and tore at my tired, pessimistic heart as it fought its way into my conscious thoughts. Something about Edward's behavior today was off. He'd never been cruel, just unabashedly truthful. This was why I didn't hate Edward, though my actions and occasionally my thoughts suggested otherwise. I couldn't fault him for being honest with me. He didn't force me to fall in love with him or lead me on. He just didn't care about me, which wasn't something I could hate him for. Whatever game he was up to now didn't fit the pattern of his past behavior; he'd never cared enough to go to the trouble of lying.

"Damn werewolves," I muttered, the movement of my lips altering the shadow of my profile against the wall. I no longer had hope left in me and was thus faced with only one possible truth: the fursplosion of tribe members was the reason for the sudden renewal of Edward's interest in whether I lived or died. What I'd seen today was born from the longstanding disdain between vampires and werewolves. Not everything was about me.

I spent the rest of the night wavering between the afternoon's events and the stabs of pain stemming from my back. When the sun rose, Charlie wasted no time in checking in on me.

"You're staying home. I never should have let you go back in the first place. You look like hell." My back was covered up, so I knew he was basing his decision on the drained look on my face.

"Thanks, Dad," I said sarcastically. "But I can go to school. I made it through yesterday." Barely.

Charlie was oblivious to a fault, but he was far from stupid. "Nice try. Get some sleep." He turned and walked out of my room without as much as a goodbye.

I crawled out of bed in search of breakfast. By the time I'd maneuvered my way down the stairs, Charlie was gone and the keys to my truck were missing from the hook next to the front door. It was 7:30. I had an hour before school started, and I could have sucked up the pain, dressed, and called Mike or Angela for a ride, but I recognized that I wasn't exactly Chuck Norris and that rest might do me some good.

I sighed and poured myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes. I was about to shove a spoonful into my mouth when I heard a rapping sound coming from the front door.

I gingerly made my way down the short hallway and peeked out of the narrow panel of glass bordering the doorframe. The sight on the other side caused my muscles to tense. "I'm not in the mood for company. Go away."

Alice's face fell, and I found myself adding "please"in a pained, regretful voice, even though she should have known better than to pop back into my life as if I'd sent her an invitation revoking the words I'd spoken to the contrary months ago. When she didn't move from the stoop, I wanted to withdraw my involuntary politeness.

She smiled a bit too brightly and held up a shopping bag. "Your bandages are in need of some serious attention. I can fix you."

I wanted to laugh; I was anything but fixable. "I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday. I can get them redone then."

"If you don't change them every day, you'll get an infection."

"They're working out just fine," I lied. I could feel the adhesive loose against my skin even as I spoke, but the last thing I wanted was to allow Edward's sister re-entry into my life. I'd liked her once, but now I had no idea where her allegiances or her motives lay.

"So you've been changing them on your own then?" Alice asked, her voice heavy with doubt.

I'd tried to swap out my bandages daily, but I was about as flexible as a plank of wood. Most of the time, I laid the adhesive strips face up on the floor and tried to position myself onto them. It was absurd, but the alternative was having Charlie do it and the idea of lying down on my stomach shirtless in front of my father was too creepy for words.

I did need help, and I had no one else to turn to. I was already taking serious risks with my health, and my skin prickled constantly with varying degrees of soreness. For once, I decided to do my battered back a favor. As an answer to Alice's question, I slowly stepped aside, allowing her entry. "I don't want to talk. Just do it and go."

She was being kind, so I suppose I could've been more polite, but I knew this visit would not be without some sort of emotional tax.

Alice followed me up to my bedroom without saying a word. I peeled off my over-sized t-shirt and carefully positioned myself face-down on the bed.

I heard the plastic bag she'd been carrying crinkle as she pulled something out of it. "I have my own stuff, Alice. You didn't have to--"

"What I've got is better. Carlisle said so." Ever so gently, she removed the two-day-old, sagging dressing that covered the skin around my spine.

Against my better judgment and though the answer was obvious, I inquired, "So your entire family knows, then?"

I heard her laugh a little under her breath. Cold ointment came in contact with my half-open abrasions. I winced as she replied, "Werewolf attacks are kind of a big deal, Bella. Even for us."

"Oh." I didn't want to give anything else away, but I'd given her an opening, so of course she jumped all over it.

"You have no reason to trust us, but you have to know that we don't want to start some war with them. This isn't about those dogs--" she corrected herself as soon as my body tensed "--the Quileutes." Her fingers moved gently against my skin as she patted down fresh bandages. "We won't let them touch you again, I promise."

I scoffed. "Do you honestly want me to believe this is all about protecting me? Get real, Alice."

She was finished caring for my wounds but didn't move from her place at the end of my bed. The spot in which she sat served as a bookend in time; our last real conversation had taken place with us in eerily similar positions. Then, the night I'd confronted Edward and cut ties with Jake, I'd let her comfort me but also wanted her to go, to end the conversation that would most certainly make its way to Edward verbatim; all he had to do was steal it from her mind. But now, though I shouldn't want to discuss anything with her, I suddenly had easy access to answers, so I decided to take my chances and keep talking to Alice rather than telling her to hit the road. I sat up and turned so that we faced each other.

"What do you want from them? Because I can tell you right now, whatever it is, I'm not the way to get it." Bitterness tinged my tone as I added, "They barely care if I live or die." I wasn't sure if it was a lie or the sad, simple truth.

Her eyes were wide, her expression sad in a way I couldn't understand. "This isn't about them, Bella. It's about you."

I bit my lip, hating that I probably looked like a scared, scarred child, and said in a near-whisper, "Please don't say that. Don't use me to get to them."

She moved her hand to cover mine but thought better of making contact and withdrew it. "We're not what they say we are. We don't kill humans; we hunt animals." She sighed and tilted her head so that I had no choice but to watch her as she spoke. "We've had a treaty with the Quileutes for nearly a century. There's no reason for them to attack us unless we feed off of humans. And that's out of the question, so you have nothing to worry about. We're not the bad guys, Bella."

I surprised myself by saying, "I know. I'm not afraid of you."

I should have been, considering my skin had been brutally ravaged by another inhuman creature days earlier, but somehow my head separated the Cullens from what Jake had become. If I was being brutally honest, I could admit that both sides were freaks of sorts, but yet I could still partition the vastness of my pain, the physical from the emotional. The Cullens, or at least one specific Cullen, couldn't hurt me anymore. That part of me was closed forever, and he couldn't do any more damage.

The slow, shy smile that warmed Alice's face interrupted my thoughts. She kept it in place as she asked, "Then what's the problem?"

Any urge I had to return her optimistic expression faded when the answer to her question filled my head and fell from my lips. "You know the answer to that, Alice. Nothing's changed."

In an instant, Alice was nervous. It didn't fit right with her usual vivaciousness. "Yesterday, you said--" She stopped short, chucked caution to the wind, and placed her tiny palm over the back of my hand. "You're not a pawn, Bella," she said, rebutting my argument from the day before. "I told you that this wasn't about them and us. We're not looking for a fight. We're looking out for you."

I tried to jerk my hand away, but Alice wouldn't let me. She held it a little tighter and pleaded with me using her eyes.

I shook my head and struggled to keep my voice steady as I nearly begged, "If you want information out of me, I don't know anything. I didn't know what he--what they were until it...happened. I still don't know the details. I'm not planning on finding out or spending any time there. Ever again." The bags beneath my eyelids grew damp. "Please let me be."

She took her hand off mine, but just as I exhaled in relief, she drew her arms around my neck. They were loose, so as not to disturb the stitches just inches below, but I knew if I moved, my skin would stretch and the inevitable ache would flame up.

"Why are you doing this?"I should have sounded cold, but my tears made me come off as more wounded than I already was. "Why can't you just let this go? We're not friends, Alice. You barely know me."

She pulled away, sensing my discomfort. "I know you. We were supposed to be friends. Best friends. I saw it before my family even came to Forks." She took a deep breath and continued with uncertainty, "No one knows this, but--"

"We're not girlfriends, Alice. I don't like sleepovers. I don't want to do makeovers with you or gab about boys. And I don't want your secrets. It's completely unnecessary to--"

"You're the reason I made them come here."

I could only furrow my brow as she looked at me, her face cloaked in both hope and shame. "What?"

She swallowed and nervously ran her hands through her hair. When she pulled her fingers out, the cropped tendrils were impossibly mussed, and my pulse changed as they reminded me of another time and another person.

She spoke again, this time with deliberate slowness. "When I became...what I am, I never bit anyone. For newborn vampires, that's quite a feat, considering how strong the blood lust is at first. But I never did. Because I could see my future, that my fate would be with the Cullens." She smiled to herself suddenly, her nervousness waning. "With Jasper."

I wasn't interested in her gothic love story or anything that had to do with her family. She hadn't explained what she'd meant; her time was up. "I think you should go. You promised."

"No. I never promised to give up on you, Bella. I need to say this, and you need to hear it." She was determined, and I realized that she wouldn't let me run away. I told myself I'd only pretend to listen, but it was a foolish vow; I wasn't privy to stories about vampire superpowers every day.

Against my will, Alice's words drew me in. "I've always been able to see things ahead of time. Like I told you before, I can't control it perfectly, but I do get glimpses. And sometimes they're really, really...important." Her words started pouring out fast now that she knew she had my attention. "We usually start in a new town pretending to be younger, so we can stick around longer. We were supposed to come here three years earlier, but then, a week before we were set to leave Alaska, I had these two, competing visions. Two fates, dependent on the timing of our arrival. And one of them was really...special. It was about you."

Alice shifted so she was sitting closer to me on the mattress. "I can't tell you the details, not yet, but I need you to trust me."

I scooted back, so I was as far away from her as possible without my back meeting my headboard. "Trust you?" My voice broke. "You've got to be kidding me."

She bent her elbows atop her thighs and lowered her face into her open palms. Frustrated and desperate, she nearly cried, "Have I ever done anything to lead you to believe you couldn't trust me?"

"I don't know you,"I shot back, "at all. Six months ago, I thought vampires and werewolves were restricted to horror movies and unoriginal Halloween costumes." My fists clenched without me telling them to, and my face got even wetter as tears stained my skin. "Now, I have a broken heart and a sliced back telling me that they are very real. I can't trust in anything anymore, Alice. And that most definitely includes you."

"But you can, Bella." Her voice was impossibly small, like a little girl who just lost her puppy. "I'd never, ever hurt you. You have to believe that."

I could only stare out the window, watching the clouds moving against each other, crowded in the early morning sky.

A few minutes passed with me saying nothing.

Alice's shoulders hunched, but any heartbreak she may have felt or pretended to feel didn't stop her from continuing her story. "I told my family we couldn't come to Forks. I made up some stupid reason." She shook her head. "It isn't important. What matters is that I lied to them. All but Jasper. I've never lied to any of them before, but I had to. Otherwise, we would have come here too soon. You would've been too young, and things wouldn't have turned out right. So I made them wait, and we came this year instead. Everything was working out just as I'd seen it happen in my head, until Edward screwed it all up." Her voice faded as she muttered, "That I didn't see until it was too late."

At the mention of his name, I stood up abruptly, fighting through my pain so that I could jerk open my bedroom door. "We're done, Alice. Get out."

She didn't budge. Instead, her head shot up. She narrowed her eyes in determination in response to the look of repugnance that I'm certain covered my face. "Things were supposed to work out differently. I swear it, Bella. Sometimes the visions are a little off."

My entire body was shaking, and had I bandaged myself that morning, the adhesive strips would have given out by now. "I don't know what exactly you saw, but I do know this: He doesn't love me. He never did."

"You don't know everything." Alice spoke so softly, as if undecided whether I should hear her words.

"I know enough."

She ignored me entirely, lost in her own cryptic apologies. "I can't see werewolves in my visions. Or you when you're with them. I didn't know that until yesterday. We didn't even know any were in the area. You can't know how sorry I am."

"It's not your place to protect me." The initial phrase was muffled by my irregular intake of breath, but the next word hit Alice with crystal-clear precision. "Go."

She rose reluctantly and crossed the room so that she stood directly in front of me. "It's not too late." Again, her words seemed directed inward rather than at me. "It can still be fixed."

"Permanent," I muttered. "Unfixable." I stared down at her through the moisture lining my eyelids and gestured to my back, where bandages and stitches could only abate the wounds, never rendering the scars left in their wake invisible.

Alice didn't flinch at my blunt pessimism. "You never know," she hedged, her voice lighter but her face lacking any full-blown sign of a smile.

She turned toward the stairs. Just as she descended the first step, she turned. "I'll be back tomorrow. Try not to get those bandages wet. After I take them off, you can take a shower and then I'll redo them."

My jaw unhinged, protest dangling from the tip of my tongue, but before I could get out a single word, she was gone in a blur. I stood motionless at the top of the staircase, juggling too much information for any normal, human brain to process.

X X X

I spent the remainder of Tuesday watching television, channel surfing to the point that I worried I might have worn out the "up" button on the remote. I was willing to watch more than my fair share of reality television, complete with Playboy-bunny wannabes voluntarily swallowing live cock roaches and D-list celebrities belting out overplayed top 40 hits from the late 1990s, but I avoided talk shows at all costs. Once, I'd considered them laughably unrealistic, but now I felt pathetic in comparison as I realized my life was now far more bizarre than a woman who had seven possible fathers for her unborn child.

I groaned and shut off the television. With nothing else to do, I passed out on the couch.

When I woke, the sun had set and Charlie had ordered a pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. I ate two slices and then retreated to my bedroom, where I popped two painkillers and slept the remainder of the day away, well into the middle of the night.

A few minutes past midnight, I wakened with a start. My bedroom was noticeably colder, but I didn't want to raise my heavy quilt to the nape of my neck; its weight would cause the fabric of my t-shirt to shift agonizingly against my back. Even through Alice's expertly placed bandages, I could feel anything that brushed against the small, raised pin-pricks of my stitches.

I sat up, dwelling on the fact that something was different. I couldn't put a finger on what had changed, but my room seemed alien somehow. I took a deep breath, and the scent that filtered in through my nostrils was fresher, sweeter even. A blanket from the closet in the hallway was draped across the foot of my bed, keeping my feet warm. Charlie typically stomped through the house like the Jolly Green Giant wearing steel-toed boots, so I was surprised that I hadn't awoke when he'd "crept"in to drop it off. For a second, I considered that Alice might have sneaked in through the window like she'd done months ago, but she'd distinctly said she'd planned on returning the next day and I questioned whether she had the audacity to come back sooner.

I was surprisingly comfortable in my bed, for the first time since the accident, but I pulled myself up and relocated to the floor anyway. I crawled over to the window. The laws of gravity had shifted and now centered around something just beyond my windowpane, pulling me so that I would look out into the forest that bordered the backyard. Everything was dark, and had it not been for the silvery sheet of moonlight cast over the lawn, I wouldn't have been able to see a thing.

The branches on the tree that stood just outside my window were wafting in the air, like fingers caressing the side of the house. I would have thought a breeze was behind their movement, but when my eyes caught on the oak tree further away in the middle of the yard, I saw that its branches remained motionless.

Stranger still, the windowsill was cold. Charlie's house hadn't seen new insulation since Jimmy Carter was president, but that didn't explain why the window was slightly open, a draft sneaking in through a nearly invisible crack less than a quarter-inch wide.

My eyes narrowed. Alice. The last thing I needed was someone spying on me in my sleep. If not for the painkillers, I would have freaked out that I had fallen into my usual pattern of sleep talking, where anyone standing in my bedroom could have overheard my unconscious ramblings. I slammed the window closed and crawled back onto my bed. I popped two more blue pills, just be safe, and drifted back into unconsciousness.

I woke up the next morning to a rhythmic banging sound coming from the first floor. I slowly thumped downstairs and flung the door open. Wordlessly, I headed back to my room with Alice at my heels.

She removed the older bandages and waited while I took a shower. When I returned, she patched me up anew. All of this went down without either of us saying a single syllable.

When she was finished, I broke the silence and mumbled, "Thanks."

Atop the mattress, Alice leaned back on her elbows. "You still don't trust me do you?"

"Absolutely not."

She nodded once without making eye contact. "So, I'll see you tomorrow morning then?"

"Yeah."

Her lip curled up at the idea of this growing into a routine. It gave her misplaced confidence, explaining why she asked, "Can I just say one thing, Bella?"

"No."

Sighing, she stood and let herself out of my room and out of Charlie's house.

I hadn't lied when I'd told her she didn't have my trust. But what I didn't say is that I wanted to trust her. I had no one else to turn to, and I didn't just mean for redressing my gashes. I couldn't talk to Renee about bloodsucking and full moons and all the other "myths" that had overtaken my reality. I couldn't say a word to Charlie about my favorite pizza toppings, let alone my emotional well-being. Angela was kind, but we had little in common outside of the fact that we both loathed high school. Alice was pretty much my only shot, but I'd been through too much to let her in. And she had ties I couldn't ignore.

I threw on my bathrobe and shuffled down to the kitchen, dismal at the idea of spending another day at home alone. Even school and the gossip that awaited me there was better than sitting on the couch and binging on bags of Fritos and old episodes of Fear Factor. But my keys were still missing, so I knew Charlie wasn't convinced I was well enough to go back.

As I contemplated Frosted Flakes versus Special K for breakfast, I heard a hesitant knock at the door. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

I knew who stood on the other side without peeking through the glass, so I thrust open the door and said, "Jesus, Alice, I told you I don't want--"

The rest of the sentence regurgitated back down my throat as I realized I had been wrong about the identity of my unexpected guest.

Dead wrong.

Decaying-corpse-splattered-against-the-asphalt wrong.

I moved my shaking arm to slam the door shut, but his hand shot out against the wood and kept it open. It shook on its hinges, but I could only see straight in front of me where he stood only inches away. I scrunched my eyes shut and prayed he'd be gone once I'd opened them.

I squinted out at Edward from under my eyelashes. He'd backed up a few steps, now frozen on the stoop instead of in the doorframe but he hadn't displayed his usual talent for disappearing.

Wrapping my arms tightly around my torso, I searched within myself for the will to eke out a few words. Or a word. Or a single syllable.

I was still searching when he quietly ventured, "I wanted--" He stopped himself and studied my face with both caution and poorly hidden curiosity. "I'm sorry. I wanted to apologize."

I felt my face twist into confused, pained distortion. I could only shake my head back and forth. Part of me refused to believe he was actually standing right before me, in the flesh. I couldn't understand anything he was saying. All I felt was panic. And though the resulting memory would damn me to emotional hell, I couldn't take my eyes off of his face.

He took advantage of my paralyzed shock and stared back. His eyes were light, his face ablaze in an expression of what a more naïve version of myself would have called hope and worry. He was a ghost of the boy I'd fallen so stupidly in love with. If I hadn't known better, I could've sworn he'd come back to me.

But I did know better.

Reality snapped me like a wet towel. "There's nothing to apologize for." I gasped in air, a bit too loudly. An earthquake shook my vocal cords as I gulped out, "Go away."

Edward shook his head at me, his eyes remaining still as they fixated on mine. He looked as ruined as I felt. "I have to say this, Bella. Please--"

"Go. Away."

"I'm sorry about earlier. About Monday. I never wanted you to see me like that. I shouldn't have acted like I did, in front of you. I didn't know what he was. If I had--" He choked back his own words but then blurted, "I never meant to scare you." His arm lifted, as if subconsciously reaching out to touch me, but then it suddenly twitched back to his side.

"You didn't. Now leave."

His eyebrows furrowed, creating a crease just above his nose. "You're not...afraid of me?"

"Not physically." I always blurted out my thoughts with him. Both of us looked at each other in a fresh light now, with my physical and emotional scars tragically altering the dynamic between us. Regardless, I couldn't shut my rambling mouth or, at the very least, lie to him.

He kept watching me with those goddamn honey-glazed eyes of his, and I wanted to run. I couldn't believe he had the balls to show up on my front porch as if the past three months had never happened. As if that night in the forest had never happened. .

Edward saw his chance, and he took it. "If you're not scared of what I am, then why won't you let me--"

He stopped when a humiliating, uncontrollable sob escaped from my mouth. I sunk down to the floor, the scuffed hardwood of the front entryway meeting my knees with a resounding thud. I'd done this before in front of him, but I was tired and hurt. His presence was unraveling me.

From his position over a yard away, Edward crouched down so his face was at eye level with mine. "I won't let him hurt you. Ever again."

A maniacal, unintentional snort left my mouth. I must have looked like some sort of lunatic to him, my hair tangled and wild, my eyes red, my face tear-stained.

Edward's response told me he lived entirely within the confines of his own mind. "I didn't know what he was. If I had, I would've protected you. This would have never happened. I did this."

In many ways, he looked like a guilty child. It was unsettling until I realized this was just a continuance of whatever game it was he was playing.

I laughed. It was inappropriate, much like that night at Angela's when I went insane and giggled fanatically without reprieve. "You feel guilty? That had absolutely nothing to do with you."

"You're wrong."

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"No, Bella. I do."

"No. You don't. Now get the hell away from me."

"He'll find you. The minute he has a chance, he'll try and contact you. I saw it in his head. He will stop at nothing to try and be with you again, Bella." Edward's eyebrows were raised, he looked scared to death. I wanted to slap that expression right off his face.

"That would be my problem. Not yours."

"No, Bella, it is mine. I won't let him hurt you again. I promise."

For the first time since his initial, uninvited arrival on my stoop, I looked Edward in the eye. "You promised you'd leave me alone."

He tightened his jaw. "Things were different then."

"You can't just ignore me when it suits you and then invade my life again because you're bored. Or using me to get to them. Or whatever it is that you're doing. Keep your promise, Edward. Just go."

His expression was frozen into a confused defiance, and he repeated the phrase that tore at my insides. "I won't let him hurt you."

"Believe me, anything Jake can dole out--I've seen worse." I let him see every emotion that was boiling inside of me, every inch of my face evidencing what had been broken and beaten inside of me all those months ago in the forest.

Something inside Edward shifted, and he pushed all his weight back against his forearms. He seemed to understand how much I wanted him far away from me. Rising to his feet, he backed off of the stoop. All I could see of him were his shoes.

"You hate me." He turned the words over as if still trying to understand them.

I stood. "Aren't I supposed to? Isn't that what you wanted?" If he was setting a trap, I was falling right into it. But I didn't care. I was still stunned at his appearance at my door. There was no way I could fight off his tricks.

Edward moved back to the stoop again, but I didn't look up until he responded, "No. It's what had to happen. I needed you to hate me, but it's the last thing I wanted."

I stole a look at his sad, amber eyes and turned my back to him. "Stop it."

"It's the truth, Bella." His voice was insistent, the volume slightly too loud.

"I don't care!" The dam broke, and I said it all, not caring how pitiable I must have sounded. I'd kept the suffering of his rejection bottled up inside me for months. Not wanting me didn't make him evil, but all my pain and emptiness was because of him. So I gave it back to him in spades. "Whether you wanted to or not, you hurt me. It still hurts. Every day. Worse than my stupid back and all of the ridiculous, petty gossip at school. I hate myself for not being happy when you're not around. And now that you finally are here, it feels even worse than when you're not." I wanted to turn around, but I knew if I faced him I would never get out what I needed to say. "Because you can't ever give me what I want from you. So stay away from me."

He didn't say anything in response, but he didn't leave.

I kept waiting for him to reply, but he never did. There was nothing he could say.

I took two steps further into the entryway and reached to shut the door. Just as it was about to close, Edward reached out his arm again, this time in a single slow, deliberate motion. The door came to a gradual stop against his hand, and our eyes met as he spoke sadly, reverently. "I'm sorry."

He moved his hand, and I let the door swing shut between us. On the other side, he turned and disappeared on foot into the woods, his Volvo nowhere in sight.

I ran up the stairs to my room, trying my best to ignore the shooting pain from my skin. I buried my face in my pillow and shut out the rest of the world for as long as I possibly could. Eventually, Charlie came home and told me to eat something.

We dined on canned ravioli and talked about the weather. It was by far the best conversation I'd had all day.

I went to bed feeling like a weight had been lifted from my chest. I'd faced him. And I'd survived. Emotionally, somehow, I was still in one piece. I still trembled at the memory of him standing before me, but I felt hope that I could stay strong and not crumble.

For once, I fell asleep without medicinal help.

Like the night before, I awoke after midnight, my room cold, the blanket I'd put back in the hall closet that morning back, neatly folded over my feet. I yanked off the covers from my legs and crawled over to the window. The sill was chilled again, but this time my unwelcome intruder had managed to slide the pane all the way down. Though the window was closed now, the room temperature made me wonder how long ago it had been ajar.

I jerked it up as far as it would go and leaned my head out into the cold evening air. "I told you to stay away from me," I hissed into the blackness of the moonless night.

I squinted. The trees at the forest's edge wavered slightly, and then, he was there, standing on the lawn just beneath my window.

The wind carried his response up to me in one frigid, painful gust. "I don't think I can."