I do not own any of the characters, Mrs. Meyer does.

Chapter 12

Forks, Washington, 2096

BPOV

I ran into the forest, heading straight for the planned location. I used an illusion to mislead Edward on a curving path that ultimately led to where I waited. I turned invisible, and waited for him.

After a while, Edward appeared, stopping a few yards away, confused as to how 'my' scent had disappeared. I could hear Jennifer approaching; she was fast, almost as fast as Edward.

"Edward? Where's Alice?" Jennifer arrived before her question did. Oh, so that was the lie that he'd fed her.

Edward was still searching for me, his eyes scanning the trees. "I don't know where she is, she told me to meet her here." Suspicion colored Jennifer's eyes as she heard the obvious lie; there wasn't a trace of Alice's scent here.

Jennifer didn't even bother to search for Alice. "Alice is not here, so why don't we pick up where we left off?" Her voice dropped into a low, alluring whisper. Her hands, fast than lightening, ripped away Edward's shirt and pants.

It was extremely difficult to keep up the illusions with Edward standing right there in front of me, half naked. Involuntarily, like he was a magnet, I took a few steps forward, stopping only till I was almost touching him. I was glad that I was still invisible to them. "Edward, I am quite disappointed in you. You run away from a date, to follow an unknown scent, leaving your poor date behind, and now she is forcing herself on you and you do nothing about it." I exhaled loudly. Edward and Jennifer both stiffened, their eyes sweeping the forest for the source of my voice, though they could both hear that I was within a few yards of them.

"Edward, who is this?" Jennifer snarled at an innocuous tree. I laughed quietly at her; how would Edward know?

I changed my voice so that it sounded annoyingly sweet. "Oh, Jennifer, don't worry. He'll just leave you in a few months," or maybe less, "when he gets tired of you. It's very normal, and you should be glad that I gave you advance notice." Something I didn't get.

"No! He wouldn't! He said that he loves me." Could I categorize her as being naïve?

"Oh, but he said that to me too." Just like he will say it to you, someday. "He told me 'I love you' many times, but that didn't stop him from abandoning me." I closed my eyes, trying to control the growing ache in my heart.

"No, I did not," Edward denied, his voice strong, firm, like it was true.

"Oh yes you did, Edward. Unless, of course, you forgot? But vampires have an infallible memory, remember? You told me that yourself. Or, maybe, you pretend you forgot, just in case you run into one of the girls you had hurt while you were with some other girl. I had never thought of you as a player…You always seemed so…gentlemanly with me, but I guess I was wrong." Very wrong.

"No, I only said 'I love you' to two people: Bella and Jennifer. No one else." When he said those words, there was one part of me that wished that it was true, that I was one of the two people to whom he had said 'I love you'. But still, if it were true, it still hurt me that he had truly loved someone else. Someone that wasn't me.

"And what makes you think that I'm not one of them?" Technically, I wasn't one of them, since I was human when he told me that he loved me, not a vampire.

"Well, because Jennifer is right here with me," he said, gesturing to Jennifer in her tattered dress, "and Bella, well, she's in heaven right now." Heaven? Yeah right. How could this current situation be called heaven? Or maybe he was speaking about things in a parallel dimension.

"What makes you think that she's in heaven right now?" What's your definition of heaven? "How can you be so sure?"

He started to explain, but I cut him off as I 'transformed' into the human Bella. His eyes were wide with dozens of emotions flashing across his face, almost too fast for me to identify them. I thought I saw traces of shock, confusion, incredulity, and wait…was that regret? It disappeared too quickly for me to be sure.

Then he settled on what I assumed was looking haunted as I jabbed a finger at him. "You," I made my voice rougher, more human, "told me that you loved me, that, I was, quote, 'your life'. But you threw your 'life' away, and left me broken, never to be whole again." His eyes widened, and he was shaking his head from side to side, seemingly not aware of the movement. "You left me as a zombie, a corpse." I transformed myself to the state of the human me a month after my calamitous 18th birthday. "Is that what you wanted? For me to be lifeless robot? For me to take up space and food, and people's concern? Do you realize how hurt Charlie was? Was that your goal from the start?"

"No…no…" Edward kept repeating those words, his voice barely audible. "It can't be…no…how…no…"

Then I made Laurent appear a dozen yards away. Edward let out a low, fervent growl, and began advancing towards the illusion. "Edward." He didn't turn around. "Edward," I said, louder. He paused, but kept his eyes on the illusion. "That was what came for me. Actually, he was sent by Victoria," Edward hissed as I said her name, "to locate me, but he decided to spare me Victoria's torture and turn me into a meal for him. But unfortunately, his attack was interrupted, and I was turned. So there, that was what you missed. Really, it wasn't much; just that after you left, I became a zombie, a weak shadow of who I was, I almost got eaten, and then I became a vampire - a disgusting, horrible, abomination. Oh, and should I mention that I had no friends, nobody who I could turn to for help? Nobody to guide me through the first years? Nobody to answer my questions, and be there for me? All thanks to you, Edward."

"No, no," Edward continued mumbling. "It can't be…" His eyes moved to me as the illusion of Laurent disappeared.

"You hurt me! More than you can ever imagine, and that is something I can never forget." I slowly shifted from my human form to my vampire form, with both Edward's and Jennifer's eyes locked on me as I changed.

"Bella? Is that you?" a chorus of muffled voices asked

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