"At night in an orchard in Oregon.

All that I wanted then

Is forgotten now, but you.

Here in the night

In a garden of the old capital

I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao

I remember your cool body

Naked under a summer cotton dress."

Four Poems for Robin

Gary Snyder

Journal of Edward Masen

March 20, 1955

Havana was abysmally sunny and it took me more than a full day to find an appropriate flight to St. Petersburg, Florida. Once there, the weather was prohibitively bad and I was forced to take a train to New York.

I left Salvador with my address in New York and a promise to make things right with my lost love. I couldn't bear to tell him the sordid circumstances, I allowed him to pretend it was a lover's spat between two dramatic young people and not a potentially fatal encounter between a junkie and a vampire.

I am filled with dread at the thought of seeing her again.

No, that's a lie.

I am terrified by how thrilled I am at the thought of seeing her again. I am ashamed of the eagerness I have to see her. I am furious by how my thoughts turn prurient at the thought of Isabella. I have seen the thoughts of thousands of men and women and have been only repulsed by their fantasies and desires. I have had beautiful, seductive women offer themselves to me; some subtly, some blatantly. I have never felt so fundamentally disarmed, owned, transfixed by a woman.

Bizarrely, after months away from her, I am infuriated by the hours that it takes to get to her now. I pace the train's aisles. I tap my fingers on the window and armrest. I can hear the impression I am making on my fellow passengers. I look possessed, insane, dangerous. And yet I cannot find it in me to be more careful.

I cannot care anymore about anything but getting to her.

March 25, 1955

I am barely able to comprehend what has happened. Isabella has been changed. I have seen her and she, we shared intimacies. She has left me.

I arrived back in New York and made directly for the apartment of my family, the last place I had seen her, the memory of that night taunting me. What if she was dead? What if she despised me? Even if these things weren't true, what would I say to her after three months?

I knew as soon as I entered the apartment that she hadn't been there in months. Almost all traces of her scent were gone. I assumed the worst, that she had gone back to the streets, that something had happened to her. I was in the apartment only seconds before I found Emmett and Rosalie, sitting in the living room. Rosalie was reading a book; Emmett was watching something inane on the television.

"Edward, how was Argentina?" Emmett hardly looks up from the black and white show he's watching.

"How did you…" I start to ask and I realize that Alice must have told them. Clearly she told them when I would return because they are not surprised to see me.

"Where is she?" I ask them. Emmett finally turns to me, smirking.

"Who?" He knows I am asking about Bella. I can see it in his head.

"You know who I mean. Where's Bella?" My voice is getting louder. Emmett is driving me crazy. Rosalie is thinking about how nice it was while I was gone.

Emmett is trying hard to block her location while trying to come up with ways to tease me but I can see a cabin and some woods. I don't recognize it as anywhere I've been before so I have to assume it's a new acquisition.

"Where, Emmett, where is she?" Rosalie gets up with a huff.

"I'll get the address. Just try to control yourselves." She leaves the room and Emmett looks at me with a grin.

"I didn't know you were interested, Edward." Emmett has an image of Bella in his head. She's been changed. Bella is pale-skinned and red-eyed. One of us.

I hope that I wasn't reckless on my way to her. I have no recollection of whether I kept my skin out of the sun or whether I drove safely.

I followed Emmett's directions for two hours, getting to a remote, wooded area in upstate New York. We had used such places before, when Esme, Emmett and Rosalie had been changed. Newborn vampires need to be kept in a remote area away from people if they are to adapt to our diet. I made a turn onto a dirt driveway with a dilapidated sign marking it.

According to Emmett's directions the cabin was another two miles from the main road but I could hear the thoughts of Alice and Jasper coming closer to me as I drove.

I turned a corner and they appeared in front of me, blocking the car in the road. I pulled to a stop and got out.

Jasper's thoughts were curious as he prodded me for my emotional tenor. His eyes grew wide when he felt my anticipation.

Alice's face, on the other hand, gave off nothing. I tried to hear her thoughts but she was mulling over word choice in her head. She was trying to decide what to tell me. She would consider a phrase or sentence and then watch my response.

"She's not for you, Edward."

"You shouldn't…"

"I know how you think you feel, but…"

She tried several different approaches, watching her visions and my face at the same time.

I grew furious. Alice was attempting to put me off seeing Bella. How dare she?

"I can't know what you mean, Alice," I hissed at her. "You were the one who pushed her on us, on me. Isn't this all your doing?" Alice frowned slightly and then she spoke aloud for the first time.

"You don't understand what's happening here, Edward. It's…I don't want you to get…" Her words trailed off and an image filled her head. She tried to block it but I could see it long enough to identify it.

It was Bella and I; she wore just her undergarments, I had no shirt on. She was sprawled across me on a bed, her mouth on my chest, her hands stroking my bare arms, her hair splayed across me, my head tipped back in abandon, ecstacy. I almost shuddered with the strength of it, I had never been any situation so intimate in my life and it overrode any desire I had to discuss my presence here with Alice. Alice unintentionally showed me the one thing that would make her protests and her efforts to dissuade me useless.

I broke away from Alice and Jasper and ran towards the cabin. She called out to me but didn't follow. It took me only moments to reach the small dwelling.

I slowed down and approached it cautiously. Newborns could be very skittish and I had no desire to frighten Bella away. I recalled, too, that we had parted under less than auspicious circumstances. But now I could explain to her that I had desired her, that I was hypnotized by her, but that her blood had made me dangerous to her.

I let myself into the cabin and immediately saw her, standing across the small living room from me. She was barefoot and wearing a simple cotton dress. Her hair was down around her shoulders. She was paler and more stunning from the change but I found myself missing her deep brown eyes. Her eyes were orange-red now as the animal blood transformed the red of a newborn to the amber of those who followed our diet. She stood as still as only one of our kind could, looking at me warily, a book in her hand.

"Alice said you were coming," she spoke, after what seemed like an eternity.

She was so far away, so composed, so distant. I was unsettled and now that I was here with her I was forced to remember how I had left things between us. It was as if I had been having a conversation with an imaginary version of her and now that she was in front of me I had no way of letting her know what her alter ego and I had decided.

I was out of my depth. I had no idea how to ask her to love me. I had no idea how to get her to embrace my long frozen body that now only burned for hers the way my throat had burned for her blood.

"What do you want, Edward?" Her sibilant voice broke into my thoughts and now when I looked at her face I saw a hint of that teasing, mocking creature that had appeared to me the last time I saw her. That voice, that subtle fix of her mouth was what made me say the words I said next.

"You made me an offer." I said and something dark flashed across those persimmon eyes before she gave me a slow, sexy smile. She set her book down and started to glide towards me. I was frozen in place, still stunned that I spoke to her that way.

She paused in front of me and took the front of my shirt in her hand, dragging me towards her as she turned and pulled me towards what looked like a small bedroom.

"Come on," she said, her voice low and teasing. She pulled me into the room and I saw the bed from Alice's vision, covered with a faded quilt. She stopped in front of the bed and, facing me, began to unbutton my shirt.

"Bella," I said, startled, as my hands flew up to stop her. I had to tell her that she didn't have to do this, that I loved her, that she wasn't just a thing to me. At the same time I didn't want to stop her, I needed her to touch me.

She shushed me, putting her hand to my lips and, pulling open another button, bent down and put her lips on my chest. I gasped and my hands swung back down to clench at my sides, for fear that their interference would make her stop what she was doing.

She unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off me, throwing it aside and returned her magnificent mouth to my chest and abdomen. Her hand strayed downward and brushed against the front of my pants and my hands flew up again, involuntarily, and grabbed her upper arms while I stifled the words that threatened to fly out of my mouth. I had never been touched like this, let alone by the woman for whom I had such desperate desires.

She pulled her mouth away from me and looked at me through narrowed, seductive eyes.

"Let me," she murmured, returning her mouth to my chest, scraping her nails against my arms, licking my abdomen. I shook with desire, unable to control my tremors, afraid to do anything, say anything for fear she would stop.

She pulled me by the arms, spinning me around so the back of my legs were up against the bed and then she gently shoved me until I was sitting down. Holding eye contact with me she reached down and grabbed the edge of her dress and pulled it over her head, revealing her pale, exquisite body clad only in a bra and underwear. I was stunned. I had never seen a woman in such a state of undress except in the minds of others.

She tossed her cotton dress aside and moved back towards where I sat on the bed and pushed me backwards. She crawled across me, straddling me. My hands came up hesitantly to touch her face, I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that I cherished her. I desperately wanted to touch her, to be with her intimately while I was appalled by what was happening between us.

This wasn't the way I was raised to treat women, let alone the woman I loved. In my era you didn't share a bed like this until you were married, until you had at least made a commitment to each other.

But Bella and her motivations were a mystery to me. Did she love me? I didn't dare ask for fear of scaring her off, for fear that she would stop touching me.

Bella tugged on my body until my entire body was on the bed and she returned her mouth to my clavicle, licking and biting her way up my neck. When I moved my face to meet her lips she pulled away, moving back down my chest as her hands stroked lower on my abdomen. My hands came up again to rest lightly on her arms, it was all the interference she would bear from me. I imagined that she felt better controlling out interaction, I know that I had frightened her badly before.

Her hand slipped down to rest on the waistband of my pants and I sucked in my breath sharply. I wanted to kiss her, hold her but I was afraid of how she'd respond. Her hand stroked over my hardness again and my hips jerked involuntarily against her hand. I could feel her lips smiling against my chest. She unzipped my pants and before I knew what was happening she had me in her hand and then she's taken me in her mouth.

"Bella," I gasped her name, my hands still on her shoulders. I desperately wanted this and didn't want this at the same time. She moved her wet mouth over me, it was agonizing and intensely exciting at the same time. I had no frame of reference for this, I had shied away from experiencing this in the minds of others so as not to violate their privacy. Within what felt like moments the feeling reached a crescendo. I curse my innocence and inexperience as the stimulation became too much and I exploded into her mouth in the most exquisite sensation I had ever felt. I was panting and embarrassed. Bella slipped her mouth from me and looked up at my face. She smiled slowly at me and pulled herself up on her knees, her hands on either side of my hips, my pants still almost completely on. I had no words. All I could do is stare.

"You need to hunt," she said. "You haven't fed in a while, have you?" I couldn't even understand what she was saying for several seconds, they were so incongruous to what had just happened. Then I realized that she was right. I hadn't fed in almost two weeks, an extraordinary amount of time. I'd been…distracted.

"I…you want me to hunt?" I couldn't understand where this was coming from. She nodded.

"You haven't hunted in some time. Even I can tell." She smiled at me but there was a distance in her eyes. I wished I could read her mind.

She got up and pulled her dress back over her head, and, shooting a glance over her shoulder at me, walked back into the living room. This was all so unfamiliar to me, I'd been the frozen monk, the eunuch of my family for so long, watching from the outside. I had no idea what to say or how one behaved with a lover.

I stood up cautiously, watching her as I zipped my pants back up and found my shirt. I walked out to find her picking up her book, her back to me. I reached out and put my hands around her waist to pull her to me. She relaxed into me for a brief, heavenly second and then pulled away. She turned her head to me and smiled that cold smile again.

"Go. Hunt." She made shooing motions with her hands. I nodded and walked out of the cabin, with a look over my shoulder at her. She looked…sad or uncertain. I was afraid that she felt ashamed at what had happened between us and I wanted to reassure her that while it wasn't how I would have begun our romance that it was fine, that I cherished her, that we would find our way.

But I didn't dare not go on the errand she had insisted on and I ran into the forest to find something to feed on so I could get back to her arms.

It couldn't have taken me longer that an hour to find a few deer to kill, I was starving and wanted to make sure I didn't have to go back out right away.

But when I returned she was gone. I followed her scent halfway to the road where I was intercepted by Alice and Jasper.

"She's gone, Edward. I'm sorry." Alice held out a hand to detain me. Jasper was looking at me carefully, he was concerned that I would threaten his wife's safety.

"What do you mean, 'she's gone'?" Alice's head filled with a vision of Bella in what I knew to be the chamber of the Volturi. I had never been there but I had seen it in Carlisle's head many times.

"She isn't coming back," Alice spoke sadly. My mind reeled.

"I don't understand. She just…she and I…" I couldn't form a complete sentence, I couldn't even form a thought. I started for the road again, following her scent, but when I got there her trail was gone.

"She was picked up by a passing car. She will got to New York and catch a flight to Italy. You can try to go after her but she won't come back." Alice came up behind me. "I'm sorry. I tried to warn you. She's not for you." I turned on Alice with a growl and Jasper pulled her behind him and faced me, his face contorted in a frenzy to protect his wife.

"She's my mate, Alice." Alice shook her head.

"She isn't. If she was she couldn't have left you. Do you see what a mate does?" She gestured to Jasper. "She isn't yours, Edward"

I couldn't bear to speak with her any longer. I ran back to the cabin and threw myself on the bed that smelled like her, like us. I stayed there, with Alice and Jasper lurking outside cautiously, until Carlisle came a day later.

She didn't come back.

a/n: Thank you to Liz3615 for pre-reading this. Also, don't tell anyone I wrote about sex; it'll ruin my reputation. Thanks for the reviews! JuJu