Disclaimer: Obviously, Twilight is not mine - 1) I wouldn't be writing fanfiction if it were, 2) I couldn't possibly dream of a guy as perfect as Edward Cullen, no matter how hard I tried and I wouldn't want to share him! All honours to Stephenie Meyer, please...
Okay...Well...
First of all...
WOW ! ! ! ! Thankyou to all of you who commented on the first part of my little story. I can't tell you how good all those comments made me feel 'cause I'm very shy about any form of creative writing I do. So thankyou! And because you guys were all so demanding (whoo!) I decided to write the next chapter for you D I wasn't originally going to make it into a story but, my Edward, you guys are just so motivating!!
So here it is, just for you guys:
Part II - Emmett hits the hardest, but Edward runs the fastest...
"You have a good night, Miss Masen."
EPOV
The pain was…surreal…incredible…completely incomprehensible—like someone had put a bolt of electricity as strong as a million volts into a gaping hole that had just been torn through my chest. And my body was absorbing it, as though I were made of human flesh rather than stone. It was tearing through me, starting at my chest and reverberating through every fibre of my being.
I couldn't think straight. I could barely think at all.
My Bella was alive…
…And she had taken my name.
Not Cullen, my adopted name—my name, Masen, the name I had been born with, the name I would have kept if I had remained human…
Like she was a million miles away rather than right next to me, gripping my arm so hard she would've cut off my circulation if I had any, I heard Alice whisper her name.
"Bella."
She was smiling, walking away from the bookshop, away from the elderly shop-owner, away from us. But she paused and looked straight at us…and froze.
The emotions running through me…There are no words to accurately convey the way I felt in that moment. The overwhelming surprise, the resounding joy, the bone-crippling pain, the instant longing, the red-hazed anger, the all-consuming guilt…
Ah, the guilt…Knowing she had heard Alice's soft whisper, knowing she was moving with an unnatural grace she had never possessed in the time I had known her…knowing she was alive, but in a way I had never wanted her to be.
This was why I had left her. To save her from becoming one of the eternally damned, to save her skin from going snow-white and diamond-hard, to save her from the ever present, constant aching need for human blood.
To save her soul.
Pointless, all of it.
We stood on opposite sides of the road, staring. I was numb to everything around me, feeling only what was a chaotic, boiling turmoil of emotions inside of me. I could see her with perfect clarity. Her long brown hair pinned out of her heart-shaped yet angular, angelic face; her slim, toned forearms bared by the three-quarter sleeves of her shirt; the expression of pure shock and blatant disbelief in her ever expressive eyes…her golden eyes.
Our eyes locked…and held.
She was no longer breakable. The thought lanced through my mind like a lightning bolt. She was no longer the soft, vulnerable human she had once been, with the fragile, transparent skin that showed all too clearly every pulse of her heart. She was no longer the clumsy, endearing teenage girl that couldn't walk over a flat, clear surface without finding something to trip over. No. She was a predator now, as dangerous, as volatile…and as beautiful as any vampire.
And I still wanted her as strongly as I had that first day.
Should I be ashamed, for dismissing my guilt so easily? Should I resist temptation, refuse to give in to what I wanted, and instead return myself to my room where I could curl up into a miserable heap and hate myself for letting this happen to her, for ever being stupid enough to think she would be safer without me? I had told her keeping her alive was almost like a full-time job—one I hadn't minded in the slightest, if it weren't for the fact that I was the one constantly putting her in danger.
But isn't that why this had happened to her? I had already drawn away from her once, taken myself away from her, attempting to isolate her from the world that would kill her, to make sure it wasn't one of my own family that did the killing. I had curled up into a miserable heap and I had hated myself for bringing such a world to her doorstep. And now she was the very thing I had tried to protect her from.
The lamb had known what was good for it, but would the lion listen? Of course not. Sick, masochistic lion, indeed.
Well, I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
I stepped toward her, into the gutter.
And she did what I had expected her to do the first time I ever met her.
She bolted.
BPOV
The sun had been shining most of the day and until about ten to five I had thought I would have to wait until tomorrow before I could go out to get the new book I was after. I remember I had always been a fast reader and after I changed, I only seemed to get quicker. I flew through books now and I was constantly wanting something new to read. I still read the Classics but even I had to admit that reading them every day sort of ruined the novelty of them.
The moment the clouds rolled over I was out of my house and down the road. I arrived just as Mr. Collingworth was about to flip the 'OPEN' sign to 'CLOSED'. But when he saw me through the glass, I heard him sigh good-naturedly and he opened the door for me.
"You're cutting it fine, Miss Masen." He wasn't angry though.
I smiled. "I promise I'll be quick," I told him. "I know exactly what I'm after."
He ushered me in and disappeared as I wove my way into aisles of books. Mr. Collingworth was one of the few humans that I had frequent interaction with and one of the even fewer that didn't seem to be bothered by what his subconscious was telling him. He seemed to genuinely enjoy having me in his shop, even if I made his other customers nervous.
I could hear him muttering to himself as he went about his business to close up shop as clearly as though he was talking out loud.
I went to the 'Y's in the Literature section and pulled Briar Rose by Jane Yolen off the shelf. Okay, so it wasn't a new novel, but it would be new to me in the sense that I would own it. I had borrowed it from the library frequently enough that I figured that I might as well own it. After all, the library wasn't open twenty-four hours a day and I didn't need to sleep—who knew when I might want to read it?
At the counter, Mr. Collingworth smiled as I handed him the book to scan.
"Sure do like your Classics, don't you, Miss Masen?"
I smiled and nodded, handing him a twenty-dollar bill. "There's a reason they're called 'the Classics'."
He grunted and counted back my change. "Most young ones your age wouldn't give them a second glance…probably not even a first glance."
I smiled again, hiding the stab of pain that lanced through me. Young one indeed. I was older than he was.
He escorted me to the door and I thanked him again for staying open for me.
Out on the street, I opened the book and started reading as I headed back home. One of the things that I didn't miss at all from my human life was my life-threatening clumsiness. After I changed, it all disappeared…well maybe that's not entirely true. I had a feeling I was still a bit clumsy, even for a vampire, but I didn't have anything to really compare it to, except memories—painful, human memories that refused to fade.
Memories that I didn't want to fade.
That had been one of my worst fears after realising what had happened—thinking that all my memories of him would fade. 'Human memories fade' he had once told me and as much as I tried not to physically think about him, something I had managed to get rather good at in the last eighty-odd years, I didn't want to forget him.
I still loved him.
I was still smiling, happy I had made it in time to get my book, when I heard my name.
"Bella."
It was odd and painful to hear. I was essentially a hermit—no one knew me well enough to call me Bella, not even the people I worked with. People used my full name or Miss Masen. I hadn't been called Bella since I changed.
And the voice that said it. That high soprano voice I had first heard in the cafeteria at Forks High School, a whole other life time ago, while I sat across from him, discussing the implications of our impending relationship. That same voice that had laughed with me and gossiped at me while helping me perform my daily duties around a bulky leg cast and broken ribs. That same voice that had chastised me while forcing me into my junior prom gown picked out specifically for him.
My eyes followed the sound of her voice and I was frozen in shock at seeing her there, at seeing all of them there.
At seeing him.
It was like seeing him for the first time all over again, only without the crazy beating of my heart and the rushing flow of my blood. My eyes drank in every detail—the beautiful messy bronze hair; the sharp, angular planes of his god-like face; the perfect arch of his eyebrows; the perfect sculpture of his torso, hinted at behind his light grey sweater; the honey-butterscotch of his eyes, as dazzling as ever.
I couldn't…He was there. Right there. So close I could hear he wasn't breathing. My mind simply shut down.
I hadn't seen him in over eighty years and then suddenly he was right there. All I could do was stare.
Even as I watched him, I saw the look in his eyes change. His eyes went from shocked, confused and disbelieving to…hungry. There was no other word to describe it…Well I could think of one, but I wouldn't have let myself put it into a coherent sentence even if I had been able to form one. I saw an expression cross his face, one I knew so well from all the time I had spent watching him as he tried to convince himself to leave me—something he eventually managed to do.
Then I saw the expression that meant he had made up his mind—a slight movement of his lips, setting them firmly, his eyes narrowing. He pulled himself out of Alice's grip on his arm and moved to take a step toward me.
I wasn't ready for this; I instantly realised, suddenly panicked. So much had changed, so much…I wasn't ready—I wasn't ready for him.
He stepped into the gutter and I still wasn't ready.
So I ran.
I heard his family call out—to me, to him—and I knew he was following me. I wouldn't be able to outrun him. What had Esme once said, at that fateful baseball match? Emmett hits the hardest but Edward runs the fastest. I wouldn't get far before he caught up. I could already hear him gaining on me. He'd catch me and I would have to talk to him, to talk about things I wasn't ready to talk about.
Unless…
There was a way I could get away from him. All I had to do was close my eyes.
So I did.
